IRISH ADMINISTRATION.

HC Deb 20 March 1890 vol 342 cc1297-345

(6.52.) MR. JOHN O'CONNOR

Mr. Courtney, I should like to see the Chief Secretary in his place. Some hon. Member will perhaps go for him, for I know he is ready to answer charges brought against the Irish Government, and that he does not at all shirk discussion. To-day I put a question to the Chief Secretary respecting the treatment of political prisoners in Ireland—political prisoners who are usually called criminals in Ireland. And a few days ago I put a similar question to him, and as I have reason to be very dissatisfied with the answers given to me by the Attorney General for Ireland for the Chief Secretary, and by the Chief Secretary himself, I feel constrained to bring the matter more formally under the notice of the right hon. Gentleman. The first subject I will bring under his notice is the treatment of political prisoners under the Coercion Act. That subject was introduced to the notice of the House by my hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast last year. The Prison Rules were altered last year, under the inspiration, I believe, of the Chief Secretary, because he expressed the opinion that we were able to make some use of the treatment of political prisoners, and that we were able to make some impression on public opinion, which was reflected in the results of the bye-elections. Under the Rules as altered a man might object to have his hair shorn, or to wear prison clothes, unless the doctor considered it necessary for sanitary reasons. He might object to take his exercise in company with persons who were criminal and had been sentenced for disgraceful offences. A man might object to the performance of menial offices. These were the points that were conceded. According to the rules of the prison, it was discovered that prisoners need not perform these menial offices if they paid a certain amount per day. Now, Sir, these alterations in the rules were turned to the disadvantage of the prisoners. They were altered to meet public opinion, but they were used by the Prisons Board, I believe—I hope I am wrong—as inspired by the Chief Secretary. Why do I say that? Some of us were sent to prison last year—I am obliged to make reference to myself, as well as to several of my hon. Friends—and we gained experience of prison treatment. The reason why I say that the Chief Secretary was cognisant of this state of things is because, when we were first in prison, we were exercised in a separate and distinct class. I walked with my hon. Friend every day some seven or eight paces apart, so that we held no conversation, nor had we any desire to break the prison rules in this respect. In this manner we were exercised for a week in Clonmel Gaol, and then we were removed to Tullamore, my hon. friend above being removed to Galway, and for five days at Tullamore we were allowed to take exercise together in the yard, at the same hour. But then came I an order from the Prisons Board, which, I say, the Chief Secretary inspired, and we were put upon that system of confinement which is meted out to the most incorrigible ruffians in English prisons, who are not amenable to the ordinary prison rules and are cast into solitary confinement. This was the response to the expression of English public opinion. The Chief Secretary, by the aid of his Prisons Board, sent down an order that we were to lose the benefit public opinion created in our favour, and the rules, instead of operating in our favour, operated to our disadvantage. That is my grievance. My hon. Friend will bear me out. I charge the Chief Secretary with having, by the exercise of his authority, and by the mal-administration of the new rules, carried out a malignant and petty spite. I say that it was beneath the Prisons Board, and beneath any fair administration of the rules, to endeavour to take from us the benefit that public opinion demanded we should have, reducing us to a worse position than we occupied before. I shall be curious to know what the right hon. Gentleman has to say on this point when he replies to this and some other matters I wish to bring under his notice. At this moment there are in Tullamore Gaol a sufficient number of persons sentenced under the Coercion Act to constitute a class in themselves, who have declined to wear the prison dress and to take exercise with ordinary criminals, and who are, therefore, reduced to this condition of hardship of which I complain. One of these is a man to whom I have referred in a question, to which I got a very unsatisfactory reply. I mean Mr. O'Mahoney, the editor of the Tipperary Nationalist. I asked the Chief Secretary as to the state of this gentleman's health, and the right hon. Gentleman stated that the officials of the gaol and the Police Authorities had no information of the state of Mr. O'Mahoney's health. At the same time I knew that medical certificates from two practitioners in Clonmel were in the hands of the Police Authorities, and that the prison doctor and the prison officials very well knew the state of Mr. O'Mahoney's health. I offered to hand the Chief Secretary copies of these certificates, but he declined them, and I was obliged to say I would take another opportunity of bringing them to his notice. This I now do. Here is a certificate signed Philip O'Flynn, M.D., L.R.C.P.E., M.R.C.S.— I hereby certify that I have attended Mr. J. O'Mahoney during various illnesses and I consider him a man of delicate constitution. His recent attack of influenza has prostrated him much. I saw him on the day of his removal to prison, and, in my opinion, his condition was so weakly as to require very careful treatment and a nourishing regimen. The other certificate is signed by Dr. Thomas J. Cree, of Clonmel, who says— Of Mr. O'Mahoney's ordinary condition of health I am not in a position to speak. The day on which I saw Mr. O'Mahoney, the date of which I now forget, he was certainly very low and suffering from extreme prostration, which generally follows a had attack of influenza. These are the copies of two certificates which I offered to hand the Chief Secretary, and I assert they were in the hands of the police, and that they knew the state of Mr. O'Mahoney's health, and that the Governor of the prison and the doctor must have been aware of it when the right hon. Gentleman answered my question to the effect that ho had no information as to Mr. O'Mahoney's health when he was outside. Yet this gentleman, accustomed, as newspaper editors are, to night work, and to the treatment people engaged as they are require, was put into the prison at Clonmel, put upon a plank bed, and obliged to eat the meagre diet of a convict, although he was prostrated by illness; and although one of the doctors, evidently of eminence, from the letters to his name, stated the condition of the prisoner was weakly, so as to require careful treatment and a nourishing regimen. This is the man to whom you gave a plank bed, a meagre diet, and confinement in a narrow cell, 12 feet by six, for 22 hours out of the 24. And all this upon the word of the doctor of Clonmel prison, whose name has been often mentioned in this House, and whose character for sanity is not very well established.

DR. TANNER

Mad as a March hare.

MR. J. O'CONNOR

This is part and parcel of the manner in which Prison Authorities in Ireland conduct the administration of their prisons, and appl the rules to prisoners under the Coercion Act, an Act which I hope the Chief Secre- tary has found, or that he will soon find, it is not to his advantage to put into operation. The next matter I must bring under his notice is the manner in which his magistrates in Ireland have of late begun to incite the police to commit outrages upon the people, even to the extent of taking life. Now, these are not old matters, old friends, as they have been called, that I am bringing under notice. The name of Mr. Cecil Roche is familiar, and the discussion of his conduct has often enlivened the proceedings in this House, but never in our charges against this gentleman have we yet accused him of inciting to violence and murder. We have shown how this Resident Magistrate has occasionally left the Bench to head a police charge, using his blackthorn on the heads of the people, and then, returning to his judicial position, has sentenced the unfortunate persons his men have assaulted, but this I am referring to is a different matter. Mr. Cecil Roche, on December 17 last, in referring to the shooting of a young man in a district of the County Cork, said that he agreed with the sentence of the Court, and if in any other civilised country in the world these men had attacked the ministers of the law, their lives might have been taken, and the police justified by the Government in taking their lives. This statement is important, when taken in connection with another utterance made a day afterwards by the Crown prosecutor of Tipperary, Mr. Bolton. A young man had been shot by the police, and Mr. Bolton said— Stones were deadly weapons, and it is well to let the public know if the constabulary are driven to it and their lives are in peril they were justified in using their weapons without reading the Riot Act and without the order of a superior officer. This is the way in which the police are incited to baton and even to kill the people. The police have only to state that their lives were in danger in order to obtain justification for anything- they might do. Mr. Bolton has said that stones are deadly weapons, and that if they are thrown at the police the latter may load their rifles and fire without reading the Riot Act and without the command of a superior officer. It is strange language to use, for it justifies the police in firing down a crowded street if only a small boy has thrown a stone in a spirit of mischief. Such language used from the Bench, or by a man in the position of a Crown prosecutor, is, I unhesitatingly say, nothing less than an incitement to crime, violence, and murder. My next reference is to the case of the boy Heffernane, who was shot, and for whose murder a coroner's jury brought in a verdict against a district inspector and his subordinate. Mr. Bolton said that he hid nothing to say against the verdict, and that, in all his experience, he had never known an inquiry conducted with greater ability and impartiality than was shown by the coroner. Other counsel engaged in the case concurred in this opinion. Yet that verdict remains a dead letter, and the men under this serious imputation walk the streets uncharged and unpunished, and, perhaps, even they are marked for reward, as was the case with the Mitchelstown police, who also were engaged in taking the lives of people they ought to have protected. Now, I ask the Chief Secretary, I ask any sensible man among those on the other side of the House, how can it be expected the people will have any respect for the law when they see the misdeeds of officials backed up in this way, when verdicts of wilful murder arrived at after impartial inquiry are ignored? Why does not the Chief Secretary follow the example of Lord Castlereagh in 1798, and pass a Bill of Indemnity? He would then avoid our continual reference to these topics. Next, in reference to decisions of these Resident Magistrates I have to bring under notice the treatment of my Friend and constituent, Mr. John Cullinane. He is a man of great influence in the district where he lives. Time after time he has been before the magistrates and acquitted, and on more than one occasion the magistrates have been obliged to admit that Mr. Cullinane assisted in keeping the peace. Yet this very influence he exercised to a good end was an offence in the eyes of the magistrates, and they sent him to prison at last. A short time ago Mr. Cullinane was engaged in aiding the people to remove their furniture previously to eviction. He had brought carts and horses to carry out his meritorious purpose. For this he was tried by two Resident Magistrates, who said that though the meeting was not unlawful, yet there was an excessive gathering. The Removable, Mr. Irwin, delivered a decision after the trial in "which ho said— The terror resulting from an assemblage of this kind was not sufficiently great to justify them in coming to the conclusion that the meeting was unlawful, consequently they would dismiss the case, but as the gathering was excessive— Note this, first of all the meeting is "not unlawful," and is therefore lawful, but it is excessive. But I ask, how can there be an excess of what is lawful? For bringing together this lawful gathering Mr. Cullinane was ordered to find security, himself in £100 and two sureties in £50 each, or in default to go to prison for six weeks. Of course, Mr. Cullinane chose the latter alternative, as the magistrates well knew he would. In fact, the verdict amounted to this, "You are not guilty, but guilty or not you must go to prison." In Tipperary, again, 15 young men were tried by a Coercion Court for assisting in a riotous cheering of a prisoner. The charge was dismissed against one of the prisoners, but with regard to the 14, Mr. Meldon, R.M., said that he could not convict them of riot, but would order them to find bail for 12 months or go to gaol for two months. In this case, as in the case of John Cullinane, the magistrates were unable to find a conviction against the prisoners, but they bound them over to be of good behaviour, and so, as finding bail for good behaviour is in the opinion of a Tipperary man tantamount to an admission of bad behaviour, like every good Irishman in such circumstances they went to goal, though they were acquitted of the charges brought against them. That is a state of things which is sufficient to make a man's blood boil. What defence has the right hon. Gentleman to make of the conduct of these Resident Magistrates? There is another matter, to which I should like to draw attention and that is a case of obstructing a funeral in Tipperary The obstruction of which I complain took place at Cashel, and was at a funeral of a very respectable man named Minchin, who had died in Dublin, but whose body was removed to Cashel for interment. It was accompanied from the railway station at the latter place by relatives and friends, and the carriages of the local gentry, as well as a large concourse of townsmen, to the cemetery. But when the cortège reached the churchyard the head constable and some policemen rudely pushed back certain people and allowed only those whom they thought fit to enter. No explanation has yet been given of this extraordinary proceeding, nor do we know what principle guided the policemen in their selection of those who were to enter the churchyard. I want to know what justification there is for this continuous and continual interference with the function of burying the dead in Ireland? These are matters which the Irish people hold in a sacred light, and this interference is resented by them in the strongest possible manner. I condemn it as a petty act of tyranny, and as exasperating to a people who are already discontented with your rule. I know also it is disgusting your own friends in Ireland; it is destroying that moral support which you demand. I know very well that the Chief Secretary dispenses with the moral support of the law, and prefers to depend upon Resident Magistrates and upon policemen of the character I have described. I promise him that he will find that his batons and bayonets will not enable him to keep comfortably in power for a much further period of time.

(7.35.) DR. TANNER

Those who examine the items of this Vote cannot fail to be surprised that the two first which refer to Ireland show a very considerable increase. The people of Ireland have made up their mind upon one thing, and that is, that although they get a good deal of coercion, although they are put upon short commons in the Chief Secretary's, gaols and supplied with plenty of baton and bayonet outside, to say nothing of buckshot and bullets, although they obtain from his Removable Magistrates the injustice which those officials are encouraged by the Chief Secretary to administer to the people, yet they cannot consent that the Chief Secretary himself should be better paid than he already is, while the item for charitable donations is reduced. I admit that everybody should be paid for work done; but I do suggest that the right hon. Gentleman might spend a little more of his time in Ireland. He should go about the country and make himself perfectly acquainted with matters which he has to administer, because then he might adopt a different policy. It is truly lamentable that on the few occasions which the right hon. Gentleman has chosen to visit the Irish provinces he has invariably followed the example of Nicodemus, and has gone by night. Of course, under such circumstances, we can expect nothing from the right hon. Gentleman but a benighted policy. Should the right hon. Gentleman hold Office much longer I hope he will visit the South and the South-West of Ireland, and I assure him that he need not be afraid. Now I wish to deal with the question of prison treatment. My hon. Friend who last spoke put it clearly before the Committee that in the matter of clothing and the exercise of prisoners, and the barbarous hair-cutting and beard and moustache clipping, in which the right hon. Gentleman once rejoiced, those things have been put to an end; and anyone who has any information at all as to the state of public opinion will know at once that that alteration of policy is due to nothing else than to the strong feeling which was created all over the country by the exposure of the practice. Now I have had some experience both of Clonmel Gaol and in Galway Gaol, in which bail prisoners and untried prisoners are allowed to retain their clothes. But a great deal of difficulty was experienced in connection with the prison administration there, because it was found impossible to give certain prisoners their full time of exercise as allowed by the Rules. During my sojourn in Clonmel Gaol I again and again asked the prison doctor for an extension of the two hours allowed for exercise, and at last I spoke to the Governor of the Gaol, who said it was practically impossible to grant the application in consequence of the creation of a new class of prisoners—men who were imprisoned under the Coercion Act, and who required a portion of the ground to exercise in, because they could not be exercised at the same time as prisoners convicted under the ordinary law. The right hon. Gentleman occasionally gets up and tells us that no new class of prisoners has been created. I say distinctly and deliberately that there has been a new class created, and I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he can refute that assertion after the statements which I have made? Now, Sir, the hair-cutting business is done away with; but I believe that that change has not been due merely to the outcry which was raised by the treatment of the hon. Gentleman the Member for North-East Cork, and also of my hon. Friend the Member for one of the Divisions of Kildare. The reason why the hair-cutting and the system of enforcing the use of prison clothing was changed was because certain men, who had been proved guilty of gross insurance forgeries in Belfast, had been committed to Derry Gaol, and it was thought that, as they had been Liberal Unionists and organisers of political movements friendly to the Government, it was well to reward them by relaxing the Prison Rules—allowing them to wear their clothes, and relieving them of the necessity of performing menial offices in the prison. The right hon. Gentleman once made a statement in this House that bail prisoners were better treated than first-class misdemeanants. I should like to ask him has any change been made in the Prison Rules with regard to bail prisoners since he made that statement? The right hon. Gentleman is always rash, and occasionally he speaks at haphazard; but I wish that before he made these statements he would take the trouble to verify the facts. While I was in prison I tried to get hold of the Rules bearing upon the treatment of first-class misdemeants, in order that I might compare them with those affecting bail prisoners. I was refused thorn again and again, but in spite of all that I was able to secure a, copy, and I found a very considerable difference in the method of treatment; first-class misdemeanants being undoubtedly the better off. For instance, they are not required when they are visited by friends to go into the "cage," but they are allowed to see their visitors in a room. They can also get an extension of the hours of visiting. I must say I am indebted to the right hon. Gentleman for the rash statements he occasionally makes; because when I had at intervals an altercation with the Governor of the prison, I was able to quote the right hon. Gentleman's words, and as a result I invariably succeeded in gaining my point. There is another question relating to the sanitary condition of Clonmel Gaol to which I feel bound to refer, and that is in reference to the baths. The right hon. Gentleman, in answer to a question recently, said that there were four baths there; but I am positive that during my detention there was only one bath in use, although there was another antediluvian apparatus which might have served for washing a racoon or any other dirty animal, but which could not well be used for cleansing human creatures even of the worst class. One day when I was taking exercise I saw two of the warders painting up an old bath in a scullery in the disused female hospital, and when I asked for information as to what they were doing, I was told that I was too inquisitive in matters of prison discipline. I venture to think that what was then being done was only being done in order to give some colour to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that there were four baths in the prison. The arrangements in that gaol are certainly conducive to the spread of loathsome skin diseases, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for Camborne found, to his cost. But I am glad to hear that four new baths are now being erected. I know that the right hon. Gentleman smiles when we refer to these subjects, and that he meets our complaints with gibes; but I can venture to tell him that the statements which I have to-day made on this subject are statements which I am enabled to make from facts which came within my knowledge during my inc ulceration in the gaol. I would ask another question as to the treatment of certain unfortunates. Is it or is it not the case that a class of people known as epileptics suffering frem epileptic fits have been confined in ordinary cells; and, if so, why has such cruelty, injustice, and barbarity boon practiced? I remember one night when the chief warder was going the round of the gaol in which I was confined, about 10 o'clock, I heard a frightful row a few cells off. I got up and heard the warders outside making remarks in an undertone, one of them saying, "He is dead; certainly dead." I asked what was the matter, and discovered that a man had been found in an epileptic fit in one of the opposite cells. I told them if they would allow me I would give every assistance in my power. The answer was, "Oh, no, that cannot be done, we shall have to send for the doctor." Whether they sent for the doctor I cannot say; but I will say this—that the prisoner in question had been interned in that gaol on more occasions than one; it was well-known both by the doctor and the Governor of the gaol that that man was an epileptic; and we all know—at least I do, speaking as a medical man—that one of the dangers of epilepsy is that if a man in a fit turns on his face in bed he may easily be smothered. Hard-hearted and callous as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary may be in other matters I certainly hope that in the interests of an afflicted class—afflicted not by man but by the Almighty—he would endeavour to do all that within him lies to prevent any untoward occurrence in connection with these afflicted creatures. I think he would be taking a step in the right direction if he would prevent epileptics from being confined in any cell without a companion. I know there are Prison Rules dealing with the matter; but I am pointing to a case which came under my own notice. These men, I say, are not shut up in cells with others, as they should be, and I sincerely hope some change will be made in this arrangement. At an inquest held within the last few days in connection with an occurrence in a Cork gaol, it was proved that the bells were not worked on the ordinary system. The prisoner has to pull a handle and let it go, and the thing is easily put out of order. Many of the poor prisoners coming from the country do not easily learn the way of ringing the bell in order to call the warder, and frequently have to remain in a state of torture through not being able to communicate with him. At an inquest held in the County Gaol yesterday on the death of John Conolly, of Skibbereen, it appeared that that man, when the police went to arrest him, could not be removed for three days, and the doctor attributed his death in the gaol to syncope, the chaplain stating that he and several of the prisoners confined in the gaol were unacquainted with the USJ of the bell. It is possible that had he been able to use the bell he might not have died. This is a type of the cases which the right hon. Gentleman would do well to investigate. With regard to the question of ventilation of cells in Galway and Clonmel Gaols, I have again and again when in gaol taken the opportunities afforded me of calling attention to the frightfully bad ventilation of all the cells on the ground floor. The right hon. Gentleman has said the ventilation was in perfect condition; but we have heard this evening that he is going to accept a few tips which I thought it my duty to offer in connection with this subject, and that a considerable sum of money is to be spent in improving the ventilation. I have had the opportunity of comparing the Clonmel Gaol with that of Galway, and the comparison is greatly to the advantage of Galway. Most of the cells are nearly twice as large, and in case I have to go to gaol again I would call the attention of the right hon. Gentleman to the fact that the system of ventilation in Galway Gaol is a great deal better than it is in Clonmel. In fact, the general sanitary arrangements in Clonmel are simply discredit able and disgusting. I never saw anything worse, not even in that badly-managed establishment, the Cork Union. I spoke to Dr. Hewitson about it again and again; he is an ardent supporter of the right hon. Gentleman, and, of course, he said the system was magnificent, and the poor gentleman, who has suffered from the hand of Providence the deprivation of his senses on several occasions—having been confined in the District Union Asylum at Clonmel not very long ago—saw nothing that appeared to him to be wrong. He asserted that there was nothing that anybody could be fed on that was better than "skilly;" and when I spoke to him of the plank bed he said nothing could be more wholesome, and remarked how often it happens that a medical man who was out late at night was glad to get a stretch on a kitchen table. In fact he made apologies for all these things in a manner that would commend itself strongly to the intelligence of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, so that I should not wonder to hear of his advancement to a, better position than he at present holds. I have considered it my duty to offer these remarks as to Clonmel Prison, not so much for my own sake as for that of all the prisoners interned there from time to time. I look at it merely from a humanitarian point of view, and I sincerely hope that the disgusting sanitary arrangements at that gaol will speedily be remedied. I had intended to have offered remarks in regard to the conduct of certain magistrates in Ireland, but perhaps some of my hon. Friends will address themselves to that point. I hope, however, the right hon. Gentleman will look into the conduct of one of the Resident Magistrates, namely, Mr. Butler, who was recently turned out of a lodging house in Cork, in consequence of his having—he, being one of the magistrates appointed by the right hon. Gentleman, an unmarried man—brought home disreputable people during the night. That a young man recently appointed to his important position in my own constituency should have been allowed to do what he has been doing, and doing it with impunity, because he is a Resident Magistrate, is disgraceful in the extreme. As to the young man Gardner, I take exception to his non-attendance to his duties in the City of Cork. I took exception to that the year before last, when in my place, after another arrangement of the right hon. Gentleman. These magistrates may well be termed irremovable. It was my pleasure, some years ago, to know many of those resident gentlemen who were Stipendiary Magistrates in the City of Cork, and I found that those gentlemen always attended assiduously to the duties of their office; but with regard to this irremovable magistrate, I find that again and again they have to send constables all over the City to try and find some other magistrate upon the roster to attend and perform the magisterial duty in consequence of the absence of Mr. Gardner. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will inquire into the condition of these gaols, and that he will try and prevent the action of this man Butler, and that he will restrain, as far as possible, the action of the police in Ireland. I recollect the time when the Irish Constabulary were not known as the Royal Irish Constabulary, and when they were a respectable body of men. All that has been changed. As a medical man in Cork, I have had opportunity of becoming acquainted with all classes, and I have learnt that the constabulary have become debased beyond comprehension. Promotion is granted for illegal action, and you have District Inspector Milling promoted for breaking the head of an hon. Member of this House. Then you have the crime of murder passed over by Mr. Carter, whom I certainly rather liked, and about whom I do not wish to speak too strongly. It is possible that the crime was not murder, and was capable of being reduced. The right hon. Gentleman approves the action of all his subordinates, from the sub-constable to the head county inspector of the force, which is against the people. By such a policy the Royal Irish Constabulary, in having to inflict injustices and cruelties upon the people, are degraded and debased. I sincerely hope that this state of affairs will very soon come to an end. It has been my fortune to see the system initiated and completed, but even the police themselves, many of them, would be glad to throw down their uniforms and guns if they could rely, which they cannot, on getting employment in other ways. Those who have left have been compelled to emigrate, as many driven from their native land have done before them. Such is the extraordinary state into which Ireland has been plunged by the mal-administration of the right hon. Gentleman. I hope the time may be soon reached when we will have no more of these cruelties inflicted upon the Irish people, and when the Chief Secretary will be sorry for all the trouble he has caused in Ireland.

(8.20.) MR. W. REDMOND (Fermanagh, N.)

The other night, Mr. Courtney, in the absense of the right hon. Gentleman, I called attention to certain questions with regard to the Government of Ireland. The Attorney General for Ireland at that time represented the Irish Government. On that occasion the First Lord of the Treasury, speaking of the debate, said some time had been wasted. I have no doubt an inclination may be felt to make the same remark to-night, but it must be remembered that these are the only opportunities of bringing our complaints under the notice of those who are responsible for the Government of Ireland. I do not know how it used to be in years gone by, but I know that now the representatives of Ireland are the last persons to be taken into the confidence of Ministers when they are dealing with Ireland. I do not know whether Irish Conservative Members have opportunities of bringing their grievances under the notice of the Chief Secretary, and getting them redressed, but I know that, as far as we are concerned, we have absolutely no opportunities of bringing complaints forward except such as we can secure in this House from time to time. It must be remembered that during the past few years some very extraordinary things have occurred with regard to Irish prisons. My hon. Friend the Member for Cork cited the case of a prisoner who was found dead in his cell when the warder unlocked the door. A very short time ago two men, who were confined for a considerable period in Galway Prison, died shortly after their release. One man died within 24 hours—certainly 48 hours—of his release from prison. The right hon. Gentleman cannot forget that another case occurred in Kilkenny Prison, where an unfortunate man who came from the county Galway, and who went into prison as a strong and healthy peasant, was found dead in his prison cell in the morning when the warder went to call him to come to exercise. At the present time an inquest is being held in the County Cork into the death of a man who had been in prison for two months, in Clonmel, and who died within a very short time of his release. Then we had the case of Mr. Mandeville, who undoubtedly died from the effects of the treatment he received in prison. However you may deny the facts, the Irish representatives are justified in occupying not only hours, but days of the time of this House in demanding inquiry into these matters. I will say no more about the sanitary condition of these prisons, but will simply point to the fact of the two deaths in prison, and several deaths of prisoners soon after their release, and say that you are bound to make some inquiry, and pay every possible attention to the representations of Irish Members in this House in regard to the matters complained of. The Chief Secretary was not present the other night when I called attention to the unwarrantable and mean interference of the Government with the public Press of Ireland. The Attorney General for Ireland was present, but he could not very well reply on matters which related to the Chief Secretary himself. I cited cases in which newspaper editors, to the number of 15 or 18, were sent to prison for publishing in their papers matters which have always been regarded as items of public intelligence. The Chief Secretary considered the matter of sufficient importance to write a letter of some length to a daily newspaper in this City. The right hon. Gentleman in that letter denied my statement that editors were sent to prison for publishing in their newspapers items of intelligence. He said— I will take the case of one newspaper editor in Ireland who was sent to prison; and, by dealing with this one case, I will be able to illustrate the action of the Government in all the other newspaper prosecutions of which Mr. Redmond complained. The right hon. Gentleman cannot deny that the case to which he called attention does not illustrate the case of the other newspaper editors. This particular editor had published two articles, in which two men were particularly named and hold up to public reprobation. These men so mentioned were not visited with outrage of any kind. No result whatever followed the mention of their names in these articles. What I find fault with is this, that the right hon. Gentleman led the public of this country to believe as distinctly as he could that this case which he quoted was representative of the other newspaper cases. I gave in my reply the date of the charges and the sentences imposed, and out of those 14 cases there were only three, including that mentioned by the right hon. Gentleman, which could be said to be even remotely like that case. In every other instance these newspaper editors were sent to prison for publishing items of public news. The right hon. Gentleman did not reply to my second letter, and I think I am entitled, and the public are entitled, to get from him some explanation of the fact. I selected one case as representative of the others, and was able to prove it—whereas the right hon. Gentleman has not been able to prove his case. I have no doubt that to-morrow it will be charged against me that I am obstructive in making these observations—indeed, I expect that before long some one will get up on the Government Bench and complain of waste of time. But I would remind right hon. Gentlemen that I am speaking of the cases of from 15 to 18 proprietors and editors of Irish news- papers who have been sent to prison, and who in prison have been treated like the commonest criminals of the land—who have been in many cases put on bread and water because they refused to walk side by side with the worst ruffians in our gaols. I would ask the House to form some idea of what public opinion in England would be if the editors of 18 influential British papers were put in gaol. Why, if such a thing happened here, instead of a few hours' debate you would have an agitation from one end of the country to the other, which would compel the Government in a very short space of time to reconsider their policy of attacking the Press in a wholesale manner. There can be no doubt that the majority of these Irish editors were imprisoned for publishing resolutions of branches of the National League—resolutions that were said to be of an intimidatory character. As to that I completely deny that the resolutions were of an intimidatory character. I challenge investigation. I assert that no crime followed in the track of the publication of the resolutions, the counties in which the newspapers containing them were circulated being amongst the most peaceful in Ireland. In counties like Wexford and Waterford—where the Judge of Assize has been presented with white gloves because there was absolutely not a single criminal to try—newspaper editors have been arrested and imprisoned by two Resident Magistrates without such an appeal to a jury as was allowed an English editor a short time ago for a libel upon a nobleman. I maintain that if the Government regarded the resolutions published of these Irish editors as of an intimidatory character, their business was not to attack the journalists who only discharged a public duty, but to prosecute the proposers and seconders of the resolutions, the chairmen of the meetings at which they were passed, and the people on the platforms. The Government, however, prefer to attack the newspapers, and I maintain that if the Government attempted to do such a thing in England, their action would not be tolerated by public opinion for a moment. And are Irish Members to be accused of obstruction because they refer to cases like this? Such accusations are enough to disgust Irish Members with coming to this place. As to the case of Mr. Walsh, who happens to have been appointed Mayor of Wexford for the second or third time, I would point out that that gentleman, who represents nine-tenths of the people of the whole county, was imprisoned for publishing, without a word of comment, a resolution passed by a branch of the National League. In prison this gentleman was treated like the commonest criminal in the country—and I should like to ask the Chief Secretary how he expects to conciliate the people of Ireland and make them satisfied with the present system of Government, when he treats in this way a man like the Mayor of Wexford? What did the Lord Lieutenant do after Mr. Walsh was discharged from prison? [Mr. A. J. BALFOUR at this period—9.15—left the House.] I see the Chief Secretary going away. I will not make complaint of that, further than to say that the matters I am dealing with relate to the personal action of the right hon. Gentleman, and that I deem it necessary to say what I have to say in his presence. The Irish Attorney General gave me an answer on these matters the other day—a very straightforward answer from his point of view—but I was not satisfied with it, and I desire to have a reply from the Chief Secretary. I will take an opportunity of continuing my observations when the right hon. Gentleman comes back—and I hope the Committee will acquit me of blame in having to make a second speech. If I speak again, it will simply be because the Chief Secretary did not do me the courtesy of remaining in his place to hear what I had to say in regard to him.

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

(9.18.) MR. BLANE

The details of this Vote ought to be publicly stated for the instruction of the people. It seems that £300,000 are now required for the police in Ireland as a Supplementary Estimate, plus £20,000 for the Dublin police. The Irish Constabulary is an armed force maintained in defiance of the Mutiny Act. In England you will not allow any armed force to exist unless it comes under the provisions of that Act; but in Ireland this enormous armed force does exist, and does not come tinder the Mutiny Act. The taxpayers of this kingdom are compelled to pay actually 32 times the amount for the Irish police that they pay as a Supplementary Vote for the English police, £10,000 being sufficient for the English Supplementary Estimate. The large constabulary army in Ireland is not a police force, and never has been, for it is impossible to say that men armed with breechloaders and bayonets are police. I find also that whilst £320,000 is required for the policing of the people, only £250,000 is required as a Supplementary Vote for the education of the people. To turn to another item, whilst prisons in Scotland cost £15,000, the Irish prisons cost just double that amount, although there is less crime in Ireland than in Scotland. What crime there is in Ireland arises out of the riots which the constabulary get up themselves. Another significant item in the Vote is that relating to law charges for criminal prosecutions. These charges, together with miscellaneous expenses, in England amount to only £20,000, whilst in Ireland they reach £35,000. These charges would not be half as large but for the fact that the police force is wielded by a class which absolutely refuses to pay one penny towards its maintainance. In every pipe of tobacco, in every cup of coffee, tea, or cocoa, the working classes pay for the maintainance of that force, whilst the ground landlords completely escape their share of the charge.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order.

MR. BLANE

I will not pursue that subject further because I am sure I am treading on delicate ground.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is out of order altogether. The only question to be considered is the amount of pay.

MR. BLANE

If any value were obtained for the money I would not raise any objection to this Vote, but we get no value for the money. There is a class in Ireland which does not care how much is spent upon the constabulary, because having their sons in the constabulary they have an interest in drawing largely upon this Vote. I suppose there was no greater scandal than occurred the other evening in the House of Commons, when I saw a lot of wooden-headed barristers rushing into the House because they heard a judge was dead, and they wanted either to supplant him or to get subordinate places. I met one of them who was hurrying so fast in St. Stephen's Hall that he struck me in the stomach. Let me draw attention to the use to which the constabulary is put in criminal prosecutions. I have drawn attention two or three times to the case in which two or three police fired upon a number of men upon Lough Neagh, and put a bullet through their boat. When the men remonstrated with them one of them raised his rifle and said he would shoot him to hell if he gave him any insult. The police robbed the poor fishermen of their fish, and, when the aggrieved persons went before the magistrates, they were invited to make affidavits, and the police were arrested by being simply touched on the shoulder by a superior officer, and were then allowed to have a day's holiday. That is not how the Irish Members are arrested. I myself was dragged out of bed in the middle of the night when I was arrested. Well, the Attorney General did not direct Mr. Munro to prosecute the police who had been guilty of the outrage on Lough Neagh, and the case fell through. The Attorney General, however, directed these poor men to be prosecuted for perjury. When the men were fired at the Crown Solicitor was absent, but when they were to be prosecuted for perjury he was not absent. The men were dragged about from one place to another by the police, but notwithstanding the way they were treated they were unable to get any redress whatever. The only thing I can attribute this to is that I happened to put a question here on the subject, and immediately a prosecution was proceeded with. Now, I happened to go down to that prosecution. One witness for the police was a civilian and he was in charge of the constabulary, and this very man I saw the police bring out of a public-house drunk. The police made him drunk so that the magistrates would not examine him, and I say this was intentional so that at the Assizes he should not be cross-examined upon his depositions. It must have been so, for he had no means of getting drunk but by the connivance of the police. We can get no redress for these things; we raise our voices here, and we are met with the charge of obstruction to business. It is a charge that does not annoy me very much, but far graver is the charge of obstruction we make against the Government in Ireland, that they use all the forces at their command to obstruct the course of justice. Hero we vote large sums for the pay of Crown prosecutors, but no assistance do the poor people get against the tyranny to which they are subjected; on the contrary, the power of administration is used against them. Conceive how different would have been the proceedings had these poor men been in a boat on the Thames. I may say this is no question of Party feeling; I did not even know, when I interested myself in the case, if these men were Nationalists or not. Whatever they were they should not have been fired at. Unfortunately we cannot prevent these things in Ireland; all we can do is to protest in this feeble sort of way against such misconduct on the part of officials.

*(9.35.) MR. WEBB (Waterford, West)

Though I had no intention of speaking, after what has been said by my hon. Friends, I feel I ought not to let the Motion pass without a few words. Familiar as we may be with these occurrences in Ireland, they acquire a greater importance when urged as they have been by my hon. Friends in this House. We are often twitted in Ireland with a desire to go back upon the past; but bad and sad as the past has been, I find enough to concern myself with in the condition of Ireland in my own time. Certainly in the mode in which we are governed and the exasperating things that are said by those who govern us and in the action of the police, there is enough to account for any wild and exaggerated talk that may prevail. One illustration I may give as a sample of what is done to embitter national feeling, and that was the reference to Father M'Fadden having occupied a prison cell as a suggestion to account for the state in which the next prisoner soon found himself. Such utterances inflame passion, and I certainly think when the Chief Secretary permits himself to make such observations in reference to a man loved and respected by the many who knew him it shows how little the right hon. Gentleman is sensible of the responsibility of his position. Really he, perhaps, has little responsibility, for when the change of Government comes he has but to take his hat and leave the country, clear of the effects of his eon-duct: but for us who have to stand by our country, it is a grave prospect to contemplate when we shall have administration put into our hands. As a Nationalist I often feel the future to be serious when I see the terrible difficulties being created under the present system. When I was younger I looked forward with joy and hope to that change that must come sooner or later, but now I look forward with a feeling of the deepest responsibility and something of dread to the task laid upon us of bringing back things to a normal condition. Meanwhile, we can only talk here; that is our only means of influence. When I look round this beautiful chamber and think of the perfect arrangements of this stately building, I feel it was never built for the discussion of the subjects Irish Members are often obliged to bring for. ward; and I trust the time will come before very long when such minor matters will be relegated to another Assembly, leaving this House free to discuss the Imperial affairs of this great Empire. The position and the conduct of the police in Ireland inevitably come before us on this Vote. I must say I pity more than I blame the police because of the terrible position in which they have been placed. Nothing strikes an Irishman more than the difference in the position of the police here and at home. Though in Ireland I endeavour to do my duty as a citizen, I am regarded as a suspected person; here the police are the friends of the people, and together they assist in keeping good order. In Ireland the police are exposed to temptations such as no men should be subjected to. I mean the temptation of having promotion dependent upon the success with which they carry out certain prosecutions. This was forcibly brought before me in relation to a case I had occasion to take up some years ago—the Crossma-glen case, in which a number of persons were condemned to long terms of imprisonment on utterly insufficient evidence before packed juries. The evidence was almost entirely police evidence, and the police were pro moted after the conviction of the prisoners. In this connection there are two matters I wish to refer to: and, first, to the character of the men who are opposing the policy of the Chief Secretary in Tipperary. I was there a few days ago, and I brought away a strong impression of these men. They are not light-hearted, ardent young men; they are grave, responsible men, who, in a proper state of society, would be at the head of local government and in command of the police rather than in opposition to them. The Chief Secretary is in a most unfortunate position. In Ireland the official classes are so numerous and extensive that they completely shut out the Viceroy and the Chief Secretary from ascertaining the just wishes of the Irish people. Their interest being to sustain the present state of things, they imbue the Chief Secretary with false notions of government. I was particularly struck by this fact while recently looking over the Memoirs of the Earl of Carlisle. He was a man influenced by the best desires, his name honourably connected with many a good work; but as I read the book I see how he was surrounded by, and entirely surrendered himself to, the official classes. Then, as now, there were great leaders of public opinion in the country; but the Earl of Carlisle was completely shut off from these as the Chief Secretary is now. It is with great diffidence I make these remarks. We are blamed for taking up time; but we must do it, out of the fulness of our hearts we speak. It is impressed into our very being, and sure I am that were an attempt made to govern England as Ireland is governed no other business would be done here until a change were effected.

(9.48.) MR. W. REDMOND

I really do not know what to say, for we Irish Members are in an extremely difficult position owing to the action of the Chief Secretary. He certainly rose to reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary, and I asked him to allow me to speak first in order that he might be saved the trouble of making two speeches, and that he might reply to me at the same time. I pointed out that I wished to refer to matters personal to himself, and I am certain he does not wish to evade giving me a reply.

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

Hear, hear.

MR. W. REDMOND

I have no doubt he will offer some explanation, but it is an. aggravating thing that when we are making a statement to which we have a right to expect a reply, you should get up and walk out.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order!

MR. W. REDMOND

I ask the right hon. Gentleman to remember that I commenced my speech by saying that I wished to refer to matters personal to himself. The Attorney General, it is true, remained here, but he could not reply for the action of the Chief Secretary in reference to the matter of Press prosecutions. I do not wish to go over what I said while the Chief Secretary had left the House, but I must remind him that the first point to which I should like an answer is with regard to the Press prosecutions in Ireland. The cases given by the Chief Secretary in illustration do not represent the ordinary ones that occurred, because there was editorial matter in the one case and not in the others. The second point has reference to the condition of prisons, and I pointed out that the number of deaths were sufficient to justify me—

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I beg the hon. Member's pardon, but I had the honour of listening to ail this part of his statement.

MR. W. REDMOND

The right hon. Gentleman should not have gone out in the middle of my speech. The right hon. Gentleman may laugh, and I will proceed no further, leaving the Committee to say whether in this matter the right hon. Gentleman treated me with the consideration a Minister ought to show towards a Member trying to do his duty. The portion of my speech to which the right hon. Gentleman did not do me the honour to listen had reference to what I must unquestionably call the murder of the boy Heffernan in Tipperary brought under notice by my hon. Friend (Mr. J. O'Connor), whose personal concern it was as Member for the division. My hon. Friend pointed out that a verdict of wilful murder was returned by a Coroner's jury against two police officers, but that they have not been brought to trial. This is not a singular case, for time after verdicts of wilful murder have been given against the police, and they have been allowed to go free. In Heffernan's case not a single policeman received the slightest injury, and there was no excuse for men who were in no danger or peril of their lives wildly firing into a crowd. I am not here to say whether stones were thrown or not; but this I say, without fear of contradiction, that no policeman received the slightest injury, and there was no justification for firing rifle shots down the street with the result that a poor boy was brought dying to his mother, saying with his dying breath forgive these men. While policemen are allowed to shoot people in the streets and are not rebuked and brought to trial, the Irish people will ever be in a condition of discontent. Then there was the occasion when the hon. Member for North-East Cork went to Tipperary for the purpose of attending the funeral of the brave young man who had taken a good part in public affairs. The funeral was also attended out of respect for the deceased by large numbers of people, but the Resident Magistrate professed to believe that the hon. Member for North-Fast Cork was going to hold a meeting and cause a disturbance. A large force of police was sent to attend the funeral. Now, the people of Tipperary are a hot-blooded people, easily roused and excited by acts of injustice; and if there is one thing more sacred than another in Ireland, and especially in that county, it is the last rites paid by relatives and friends to the dead whom they have respected and loved in life. In the professed belief that the hon. Member for North-East Cork was about to hold a political meeting, a strong force of armed police attended and hustled the funeral procession oven to the brink of the grave. My hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cork is not the man to shrink from the responsibility of saying what he has to say, but the authorities believed, or pretended to believe, that he was going to deliver a political harangue over the coffin and by the open grave of his friend. He boasts that there is peace and tranquillity in Ireland; but if he refers to the fact that men are not being set upon by the police in thousands and killed, then let me tell him that the peace is not in anyway due to his policy, for he does not hesitate to exasperate and insult the people even at the very grave side. The avoidance of disturbance at that funeral in Tipperary, to which reference has been made, was due not to the policy of the right hon. Gentleman or of the police, but to the action of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cork, who begged and implored the people to remain calm. No explanation has been given of the conduct of the police on that occasion. The Chief Secretary might, at least, express his disapproval of the desecration of the grave by those men; but he prefers to get up here and say it was necessary the police should be at the grave side in order to watch the hon. Member for North-East Cork, for fear he was about to make furious attacks on the Government and on the landlords. But that explanation will not satisfy hon. Members on these Benches or the people of Ireland, for they know only too well that the policy of the right hon. Gentleman is a policy of exasperation. And now I have to refer to another case on which we desire to have explanations. It is that of Mr. O'Connor, a young man on the staff of the Leinster Leader, who, for publishing resolutions passed at a public meeting in the County of Kildare, was sentenced to two months' imprisonment as an ordinary felon by two Resident Magistrates, who refused to state a case for a superior Court. O'Connor was at once sent to prison, and because he refused to conform to those indignities which are heaped on the lowest class of criminals, he was put for 24 hours on bread and water. The hon. and learned Member for Longford at once went to Dublin and obtained a mandamus in the Court of Queen's Bench, and that Superior Court held that Mr. O'Connor had been wrongfully convicted, and directed that he should at once be set at liberty. But the Government will not rebuke the magistrates nor afford any redress to Mr. O'Connor. Mr. Redmond, of the Waterford News, has been sentenced to seven months' hard labour, and the County Court Judge has decided that the Magistrates were wrong; but the same Magistrates at the same time, and for another alleged offence, sentenced Mr. Redmond to imprisonment for a fortnight, and against that sentence there was no appeal. If the Chief Secretary disapproves of the publication of these resolutions, why docs he not prosecute the proposers and seconders of them and the people on the platform at the meeting at which they are passed? These are the people who are really responsible; but the Chief Secretary cannot prosecute all these people to conviction, because if he did there would not be room for them in the prisons. The truth is, in spite of the declarations of the Chief Secretary to the contrary, there are not in prison more than one in 5,000 of those who daily break the Coercion Law in the face of the police. And now I come to the case of the Mayor of Wexford, who has been deprived of an office held by right by Mayors of Wexford. The excuse made by the Government for not allowing Mr. Walsh, as Mayor of Wexford, to serve on the Governing Body of the lunatic asylum was that he was disqualified by having been imprisoned; but surely it is monstrous to say that the Mayor of Wexford is disqualified in that way for such an office, while Members of Parliament who have been similarly imprisoned are not disqualified from sitting-in the House of Commons. The Corporation of Wexford is justly offended at the conduct of the Government, and has asked me to bring it before the House. If the Chief Secretary had not walked out of the House whilst I was stating my case the discussion might have been over earlier, and if there has been waste of time the First Lord of the Treasury must attribute it to the Chief Secretary's leaving the House. We are here for the purpose of stating the views of our constituents on these matters. Of course, it must be very stupid and almost intolerable to English Members to have to listen to so much about the affairs of Ireland; but if it is intolerable to them it is only one proof of the necessity for allowing the Irish people to manage their local affairs at hoMR.

*(10.12.) MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I observe that the hon. Member who has just sat down is deeply incensed with me for having departed towards the end of his speech, in order to obtain that necessary sustenance which even a Minister of the Crown begins to require towards a quarter to 9 o'clock in the evening. The hon. Member accuses me of having ignored his first speech—[Mr. W. REDMOND: No]—and I therefore listened with attention to the second speech of the hon. Member; but to my intense surprise about three-fourths of that speech was a repetition of the one to which I had already had the pleasure of listening, and the other quarter was peroration. The hon. Member has also told us tint these discussions are naturally wearying to English Members. They would, no doubt, be wearying to English Members, if English Members stayed to listen to them; but during the whole of the discussion which has been going on since a quarter-past 7 I have noticed that the whole space above the Gangway opposite has boon almost absolutely unoccupied. There has been, indeed, a small sprinkling on the Ministerial side of the House; but among the hon. Gentleman's own friends the number of admirers his oratory could find has been limited to four or five. I have three speeches to which to reply. The first speech is that of one of the Members for Cork, which has been specially devoted to prison treatment in Ireland. The hon. Member has given us to understand that special instructions were sent by the Chief Secretary to the Prisons Board in Ireland in order that what the hon. Member called political prisoners might he subjected to a specially severe administration of the Rules.

DR TANNER

I was the only Member for Cork who spoke, and I said nothing of the kind.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I was wrong-[Dr. TANNER: As usual.] I meant the hon. Member for Tipperary. [Sir W. HAECOUBT here made an observation across the Table.] I doubt whether the right hon. Gentleman himself knows the constituencies of all the Irish Members.

SIR W. HARCOURT

I am not Chief Secretary for Ireland.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The right hon. Gentleman might know his chief supporters. The hon. Member for Tipperary has given us to understand that such instructions were issued. For my own part, I assure hon. Members that while I take an interest in general prison administration in Ireland, I take no interest whatever in the lot of individual prisoners.

MR. J. O'CONNOR

I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but I am sure he would not wilfully misrepresent what I said. What I did say was that, considering the fact that we had been treated as a separate and distinct class of prisoners and allowed to exercise in each other's company, after the lapse of a week some instructions must have been sent, perhaps by the Chief Secretary, and possibly by the Prisons Board. I did not state it positively, and I expressed a hope that the Chief Secretary would be able to deny it.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I know nothing about express instructions, nor have they been sent; but I repeat that the idea of constituting a special separate class of prisoners, convicted under one particular Act, has never entered into my head. I absolutely repudiate it, and I would never consent, directly or indirectly, to a policy of treating those convicted under the Act of 1887 differently from those convicted under any other Act.

MR. J. O'CONNOR

Are you not a member of the Prisons Board and responsible for their action?

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I am not a member of the Prisons Board; but in so far as I am responsible for the action of the Board, there shall be no difference made between a prisoner convicted under one Act of Parliament and a prisoner convicted under another Act of Parliament. That is an explicit statement of policy which I trust will satisfy the hon. Gentleman. [Mr. J. O'CONNOR: It is shirking the question.] The hon. Member has stated that the alteration which has been made in the Prison Rules has been entirely due to what he called the strong case which he and his friends made out to the country with regard to the treatment of the hon. Member for North-East Cork and other Members of Parliament who have been imprisoned, and about whom a great agitation has been made. Among the other demerits of this statement, it is entirely inconsistent with the account of the same transaction given in the speech of the Member for Cork, who immediately followed. The hon. Member for Cork told us that the whole of the alteration that had been made was in order to give some relief to the Belfast forgers who had been convicted about that period, and who, of course, had the same privileges as those given to other prisoners.

DR. TANNER

I regret exceedingly at having to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but I wish to explain he has misconstrued my meaning. What I stated was that it was really to give relief to the right hon. Gentleman's political friends, these men in Belfast, who had grossly behaved in swindling there, and that this notion had been conceived by the Prisons Board, but that effect was given to it by the way en which this country regarded the villainous behaviour towards the hon. Member for North-East Cork. It was both.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

If I had the slightest conception of what the interruption of the hon. Member means I would gladly withdraw any misrepresentation that I have made; but I think that the Committee will agree with me that the apparent meaning of the hon. Member's speech was that the intention of the Government had been to give some kind of relief to the Belfast forgers. The account given by the hon. Member who has just interrupted me and that given by the hon. Member for Tipperary are obviously inconsistent, and I will leave the Committee to decide which is the least improbable of the two. I have not gathered from the speech of the hon. Member for Tipperary what the special grievance was of those persons of whom he has spoken. They were given under the relaxation of the Prison Rules made last year some kind if privilege, subject to the discretion of the prison officials. They had the privilege of wearing their own clothes, and it the result of that was that they had to take their exercise with greater solitude than they would otherwise have done it was obvious that the fault lay with them. If they desire company let them take exercise with the ordinary prisoners. I draw no distinction between prisoners convicted under fine Act and prisoners convicted under another. The officials have a certain discretion, and have used it, to give these persons a certain privilege; if the prisoners do not wish the privilege let them renounce it themselves. Then the hon. Member referred to the case of Mr. O'Mahoney, whose health he said required special treatment in prison, and this he has based upon the certificates of two doctors. For my own part, I have not the least doubt that Mr. O'Mahoney will receive what every prisoner in Ireland and in this country receives, namely, competent medical attention from the medical officer on the spot. The health of prisoners in Ireland compares favourably not only with the health of the similar classes of the community not in prison, but also with the health of prisoners in English prisons.

MR. W. REDMOND

Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to say whether recently two prisoners have been found dead in their cells in England?

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I have not inquired whether two prisoners in England have been found dead in their cells or not; but the hon. Member is perfectly aware that the best medical attendance is not sufficient to guard a prisoner against the result of heart disease, and' among a number of prisoners a certain proportion of them must necessarily suffer from that disease and other diseases ending in sudden death. But the conclusion gathered from the statistics is perfectly clear and explicit that the health of Irish prisoners compares favourably with the health of English prisoners, and with that of persons drawn from the same class in Ireland who are not in prison, but who are carrying on the ordinary avocations of life. The hon. Member who opened the debate went on to speak of Mr. Roche and other magistrates, who, he said, had incited to violence on the part of the police. I have listened to the proofs which the hon. Member endeavoured to give, but I have wholly failed to see that the hon. Member has made out the slightest case. No doubt it might have been true that Mr. Roche or other magistrates stated that the police were justified, under certain circumstances, in using their weapons without the Riot Act being read and without the command of their superior officer. Does the hon. Gentle-man doubt the accuracy of the statement made by Mr. Roche on that occasion? Is it not obvious to every man of common sense that if the police are attacked with murderous intent they have the right and even the duty to use their weapons in self defence? Of course, I admit I have, indeed frequently, stated in this House that the use of weapons by the police should be only resorted to in extreme cases; but, unfortunately, under the teaching of hon. Gentlemen opposite extreme cases will occur. Then the police, in my opinion, are only doing their duty in using the weapons intrusted to them for the purpose of defending their lives.

MR. J. O'CONNOR

Sir, I rise to a point of order. I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman is in order in attributing to me and my hon. Friends such teaching as results in occasion for violent proceedings by the police, and as end possibly in murder?

THE CHAIRMAN

I did not catch anything which was an infringement of order.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

In discussing the case of Tipperary the Committee must recollect that, also under the teaching of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, Tipperary has been the scene of most disgraceful riots in connection with the Plan of Campaign, which has prevailed in' that town for the last six months.

MR. W. REDMOND

That is absolutely untrue.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

In one of these riots a boy was killed. ["No"] I simply state that the boy was killed. Does the hon. Gentleman deny that?

MR. J. O'CONNOR

The magistrate stated that there was no riot.

THE CHAIRMAN

These interruptions are most irregular. If hon. Members desire to make any reply they will have other opportunities for doing so.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

In one of these riots a boy was killed. There was a coroner's inquest, and a verdict of wilful murder was returned against one officer and one sergeant, or one officer and constable, I forget which. I do not understand in that, transaction what accusation there can be against the Government. Hon. Members ask what has happened to these constables, and the answer was—"Just what would naturally happen." They have given bail to appear at the Spring Assizes to meet the charges.

MR. W. REDMOND

Is it usual to give bail in charges of murder?

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Bail was given after application to a superior Court, and that is usual, much as it may surprise the hon. Member, This is the substance of the solemn accusation brought against the Government by the hon. Member for Tipperary. The next point brought forward was the case of a man named Cullinane, Who, it is said, was a sort of peacemaker between landlord and tenant. Cullinane was a paid organiser of the Plan of Campaign, and in that capacity he traversed Ireland doing his best to stir up illegal conspiracies here and there, and in doing so he did his very best, not to make peace between landlord and tenant, but to make the war between the two classes irreconcilable. This man was brought before the police magistrates for having taken part in an illegal assembly. The magistrates carefully considered the case, and decided that there was not sufficient evidence to prove illegal assembly, but they said that there had been a disorderly crowd menacing to the public peace. Having so decided, it appears to me that they only did their duty in binding the man over to keep the peace. If the man chose to go to prison instead of finding- bail he has only himself to blame. The last point of the hon. Member for Tipperary was the case of interference with a funeral in Tipperary by the police. On that subject the hon. Member thought fit to make an eloquent address to the Committee upon the peculiar sensitiveness of the Irish people to any interference with funerals, or to anything in the nature of hard or rough treatment of those concerned in burying their relatives. I should have thought that it would have occurred to the hon. Gentleman that some of the most flagrant cases of boycotting in Ireland, some of the cases which have most deeply stirred the minds of the English people, have been those in which burial has been refused to persons who happened to disobey the mandates of the Irish League.

MR. W. REDMOND

There has been no such case. It is purely imagination.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Case after case has occurred, and the hon. Member will find some even in the Report of the Special Commission. There are cases in which burial has been refused, in which the coffin has been refused, and in which it has been found impossible for the unhappy relatives to take the remains of the deceased person to the grave with the ordinary decencies which accompany burials in civilised society. Even in Tipperary itself, the town in which took place these alleged interferences by the police with a political funeral, and by that I mean a funeral which is made the occasion for a, political demonstration—even in that town there were two cases of recent occurrence in which policemen quartered in the town lost relatives. In one of these cases the wife of the constable died; and as the constable was walking up the street, it being universally known what was the nature of his bereavement, a stone was thrown at him; and when he went to the coffin-maker he was told that the coffin could not be provided unless permission were first obtained. In another case in the same town a policeman lost a child, and when he was burying the child, and he and his wife were near the grave, the funeral party was pelted by a mob of the supporters of the policy of hon. Gentlemen opposite.

MR. W. REDMOND

I rise to order. I ask the right hon. Gentleman when he makes these statements to be good enough to give us the names, and dates.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member has been long enough in the House to know that that is no question of order at all.

MR. W. REDMOND

I gave him the names. Why does not he give the names to us? ["Order!"]

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The name of the constable whose wife died was Connors, I believe; and if the hon. Member will ask a question, I shall have the name of the other constable, as there is no difficulty in obtaining it.

MR. J. O'CONNOR

Were they, the constables, engaged in desecrating Hurley's grave?

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I will deaf with the speech of the hon. Member for Cork summarily. The hon. Member has raised a variety of minute points of detail in regard to Irish prison accommodation. Of course, I cannot answer such questions on the spot; but if the hon. Member will give notice of a question he shall receive his answer. But on the general question of prison accommodation in Ireland, I can only say that since the prisons have been handed over to the Prisons Board in 1878 there has been an enormous improvement in Irish prisons, an improvement which has steadily gone on, and which I am doing, my best to promote. Indeed, I shall have soon to ask the House for assistance in carrying out the work to a completion. The sanitary condition of prisons in Ireland when they were handed over to the Government left much to be desired, as was, under similar conditions, the case with the English prisons. Everything cannot be done at once; but a gradual process has been going on by which I hope that Irish prisons will be brought to the highest state demanded by modern requirements, and by which they will be made to compare not unfavourably with the prisons in England, or on the Continent. A. larger question was raised by the hon. Member for North Fermanagh. The hon. Gentleman thought it necessary to make twice during the evening the same speech that he made on Friday last; and. now the case having been rehearsed no less than three times in the course of four days, the Committee may be regarded as being in a position to perfectly understand the contention of the hon. Gentleman.

MR. W. REDMOND

It is quite true that I brought the matter dealt with in my speech of this evening before the House last Friday. My reason for bringing the case forward again is, that the right hon. Gentleman was not in his place on Friday, while he is in his place this evening.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I am sorry to give any reason which would deprive the Committee or the House of any of the eloquence which the hon. Member is always ready to bestow upon it. At the same time, I am bound to say that I do not think the reason which he has given is a sufficient excuse for three times repeating the same speech to a too patient Committee. The hon. Gentleman desires to carry on a controversy, began in either a speech or a letter which he made early in the year or at the end of last year, with regard to the Press prosecutions in Ireland. That speech was the occasion of a reply written by my direction, but entirely by the hon. Member for Dover. That letter I absolutely endorse from start to finish. Now, what was the original contention of the hon. Member for North Fermanagh? He told the public that in every one of these Press prosecutions the man prosecuted had done nothing but supply the public with simple ordinary news. Replying to that statement, my hon. Friend the Member for Dover pointed out in a letter, which I fully concur in, that in M'Enery's case a leading article of a most flagrant nature had been written by an editor, intimidating an individual. If the case had rested there it would have been quite sufficient to have shown the fallacy of the original position of the hon. Member for North Fermanagh, that all these persons were prosecuted for nothing more than inserting in their newspapers ordinary news. Well, how does the hon. Member for North Fermanagh attempt to reply to this? He says that M'Enery's case was exceptional, and that contention was taken up by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork, the Leader of the Nationalist Party, who made a speech in the debate on the Address, in which he seated that there was only one case in which the prosecution was not for the publication of ordinary news, and he was replied to by the hon. Member for Dover, who conclusively showed that M'Enery's case was by no means exceptional. In 1889 there were 13 cases of Press prosecutions. Five of these were prosecutions for the publication of imaginary meetings of suppressed branches of the League, seven were for leading articles and one for a leaderette, making eight cases in which an editor had used intimidatory language in his own newspaper.

MR. W. REDMOND

Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to convey that the editors invented the resolutions of the suppressed branches of the League?

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I have said that of 13 cases of Press prosecutions in 1889 five were for the publication of imaginary meetings of suppressed branches of the League, and eight were cases in which the editor appeared in his own person as publishing leaders or leaderettes of an intimidatory character. And yet in face of these facts, all of which had been stated in the debate on the Address, the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Fermanagh thought fit to make a speech of an hour's duration on Friday, in which he absolutely ignored all that has been publicly stated in the House, and now he has made another speech also of an hour's duration containing the same stale and exploded allegations. Now, Sir, what is the use of debates in this House? A complete answer has been given to the hon. Member already, but that does not prevent him from repeating his speech; and he has now been answered again, and that, doubtless, will not prevent him from repeating his speech next week. The Committee are threatened with the indefinite repetition of these stale calumnies, which no amount of repetition of fact from this side of the House is adequate to dislodge from the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite. Every case but one of the 13 Press cases to which I have referred was a case of personal intimidation, and in every case but one an individual was actually named. In one case an individual was not named, and that was the case which was made a stalking-horse by the hon. Member for Cork City in the debate on the Address, and which has now again been brought forward by the persevering Member for North Fermanagh. That was the case of a man named Walsh.

MR. W. REDMOND

That is not the way to speak1 of a man who is Mayor of the town in which he resides.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

What appeared in his newspaper was this— That we look on the form in question as an evicted farm, and therefore as a derelict, and that the man who takes it is a grabber and shall be treated as such. It is quite true that no individual was named in that article; but will any man say that this was not gross intimidation against any individual who might be desirous of taking that farm? We all know, and we all know better since the Report of the Royal Commission, what may be the fate of a man who is named in a newspaper as a grabber, and who is to be "treated as such." This is the favourite instance of hon. Members opposite when they discuss the abuse of Press prosecutions. Are the Government to be blamed for not tolerating the publication of a notice like that in a newspaper circulating in the district in which was situated the farm of which the future tenant was thus denounced? The right hon. Member for Derby loudly cheered when Walsh's case was mentioned by the hon. Member for North Fermanagh. It' may be interesting to the right hon. Gentleman to know that this man was, on November 25, 1882, imprisoned by the right hon. Gentleman himself. And for what? For publishing in his newspaper this notice—"That we are sorry to say that John Murphy still holds the grabbed farm from which M'Enery was. evicted eight years ago." Thus, in 1882 the right hon. Gentleman put this man, this respectable gentleman, in prison for precisely the same offence for which he was put in prison in 1889 by the present Government. I have now gone through, seriatim, all the more important counts of the indictment brought by hon. Gentlemen opposite against the Government; and I will conclude by again entering my protest against this eternal repetition indulged in by hon. Members opposite, which can have no other result but to waste the time of the House, and which excites no interest whatever even upon the other side of the House, I think we may well be spared further criticism on the conduct of the Irish Government until some new question shall arise which may afford some solid foundation for the attacks of hon. Members below the Gangway opposite.

(10.57.) MR. W. REDMOND

The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has stated that the charges I have made are stale and exploded charges, and has referred to the speech made by the hon. Member for Dover, who, no doubt is a distinguished authority upon many things, but whose authority on Irish affairs I refuse to accept. The right hon. Gentleman has said that eight out of the 13 Press prosecutions were instituted in regard to editorial matter, and to that statement, whether it comes from the right hon. Gentleman or from the equally distinguished Member for Dover, I must give a most emphatic denial. The right hon. Gentleman will find an explanation of my repeating these charges in the fact that we refuse to accept the statement of the right hon. Gentleman, because we know that in this matter he has been misled. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of the Mayor of Wexford as I should be sorry to speak of any person in this country. He has; referred to him as "that man Walsh." I utterly repudiate that mode of expression, and I say it is hopeless to expect the Irish people to rest contented and satisfied as long as representative men whom they respect are spoken of in that manner. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the case I brought forward of his police interfering with my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary, and has said that the funeral was boycotted, and I must say that in the case where a funeral was boycotted I utterly and completely disapprove of such action and always shall. The right hon. Gentleman, instead of defending the conduct of the police, attempts to defend them by referring to some other cases which he implies are equally bad. But two wrongs do not make one right, and if the people have behaved with brutality in the casa of a funeral, I condemn that conduct, just as I condemn the action of the police. The right hon. Gentleman has spoken of a political funeral. It is monstrous to use such language. If the people respect the memory of one who has died, and attend his funeral in large numbers, the right hon. Gentleman says that is a political funeral. I say that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman is most unsatisfactory. The right hon. Gentleman has twitted me with being "patient" in bringing forward these cases two or three times. For his advantage, I say I shall continue to be patient, and to bring up the eases as long as I get no better reply than that which the right hon. Gentleman has made to-night.

(11.0.) SIR W. HABCOURT (Derby)

The Chief Secretary was good enough to invite me to intervene in this debate. [Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: No, I did not.] I do not know then why the right hon. Gentleman introduced my name and challenged an explanation. Whether or not the right hon. Gentleman did this from an exemplary desire to protract the debate, I, of course, do not know. But as the right hon. Gentleman wishes mo to speak, I will endeavour to gratify him. I have listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman with interest. The right hon. Gentleman talks of repetition of the same speeches by Irish Members in this House as an impertinence. But what did the right hon. Gentleman begin by saying? He said nobody cares about Ireland, and these Irish questions are constantly being raised. [Mr. A. J. BALFOUR here rose as if to make an explanation.] I hope the right hon. Gentleman, who objects so much to being interrupted himself, will not interrupt MR. [Mr. BALFOUR again rose.] I am in possession of the House. It is well to read to the right hon. Gentleman a lesson in courtesy. When the right hon. Gentleman shows courtesy to his opponents he will receive it himself. It is strange that the Minister responsible for Ireland should hold such language as that of the right hon. Gentleman about the discussion of Irish affairs. It is quite true that the discussion of Irish affairs takes up a great deal of the time of the House, and it is extremely burdensome to Members on all sides of the House. I will not allude to means whereby that burden might be removed. But it cannot be remedied by the Minister of the Crown saying that no attention ought to be paid to Irish questions. The right hon. Gentleman: says that time so occupied constitutes an obstruction to business. I am astonished to hear those complaints of obstruction from a Government which has obtained a greater amount of Supply more easily and at an earlier period than I ever recollect to have been the case before. Certain questions have been brought-before the House by Members who have a right to be interested in them. How does the right hon. Gentleman deal with these questions? Why, with an air of lofty indignation that he should be called in question with respect to these matters at all. The right hon. Gentleman talks of having a complete answer to these stale calumnies, as he called them. Well, his complete answer seems to be the letters which his private secretary writes to the newspapers. According to the right hon. Gentleman, Irish Members are bound to take whatever the hon. Member for Dover (Mr. Wynd ham) may write to the newspapers. [Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: That was not my answer.] It is the tone and manner of the right hon. Gentleman in dealing with Irish affairs which are the ground for the exasperation felt in Ireland, an exasperation which was never greater than under the administration of the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman takes every opportunity of convincing the Irish people of the contempt in which he holds their complaints. If they are not content with what his private secretary writes, the Irish Members are guilty of impertinence and obstruction. The right hon. Gentleman was asked about Irish prisons. His reply was, "What do I know or care about prisons? If you ask me a question about it, perhaps I will answer." But the right hon. Gentleman did not happen to be accurate. He is not very accurate, I have observed. It is not the right hon. Gentleman's forte. It is not so very long since the right hon. Gentleman told us that he knew nothing about the classes of prisoners; that he never interfered. But the right hon. Gentleman has a short memory. A short memory is an evil, even in a Chief Secretary. This is the very Minister who told us he interfered to save priests from being put in prison dress. How, then, can he say that he never interferes, and has no power to interfere? He can interfere when he chooses. Thus the right hon. Gentleman's statement is absolutely inconsistent with what he stated on former occasions. I will give another illustration of the right hon. Gentleman's inaccuracy—the alteration of the prison rules. A year or two ago we were told that the rules were perfect; that they were better than the prison rules of England. We challenged that statement, and were told it was impertinent to challenge it; that it was presumption to challenge it. But we shamed the Government; we even shamed the right hon. Gentleman, and we got the prison rules of Ireland altered, but it was only done by constant and prolonged discussion in this House. There is a great deal besides prison rules in prison management, and I have no hesitation in saying there has been a harshness in the spirit of administration of Irish prisons which does not exist in the administration of the prisons in England. That is due, I am bound to say, not to any default on the part of the prison officials in Ireland, but I do believe it is mainly due to the spirit with which they are inspired by the language which is held by the right hon. Gentleman in tins House, and elsewhere, and in which it is left perfectly apparent to the officials of Ireland that the more harsh and the more severe they are in their treatment the better the Government will be pleased with their conduct. I should say exactly the same thing with reference to the use by the police of their weapons. No one denies in self-defence it is right and justifiable that the police should use force. But there are two ways of handling the police. One way is to encourage them to take every opportunity of using extreme force, and there is another spirit which warns them not to use it unless there is an absolute necessity. Now, I am bound to say that the language of the right hon. Gentleman to-night may be taken as an indication to the police that they should find opportunities of exercising violence. That is the spirit of the administration in which the right hon. Gentleman indulges. Some observations have been made by the Member for Wexford as to the needless and improper interference of the police with funerals, and I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman. What defence has the Chief Secretary offered for that tonight? None whatever. He has not explained the circumstances nor endeavoured to justify the police. He has not condemned the police as he ought to do, unless he justifies them. The right hon. gentleman falls back upon his usual instrument of tu quoque, and gives a list of offences by the Nationalists in reference to boycotting funerals. But what justification is that for police interference? The right hon. Gentleman describes the outrageous conduct of the Nationalists with all the vigour of his rhetoric, but he has not a word of condemnation for the police, who, according to him, did exactly the same thing. This is the right hon. Gentleman's answer to what he calls a "stale calumny." As to the Press prosecutions, the right hon. Gentleman thought they had been disposed of by the Member for Dover in his letters to the Times. Although the Government may identify themselves completely with the Times newspaper we cannot recognise the Times as the sole organ of the Irish administration. Why the letters of the hon. Member for Dover are to be regarded as complete answers of the Government to charges of a serious character I cannot understand, and yet the foundation of the reply of the Chief Secretary is that complaints of the people of Ireland have been answered by the letters of his private secretary in the Times.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I have not said so.

SIR W. HARCOURT

Then my ears must have deceived me. I was mistaken It appears that the Chief Secretary never referred to the Member for Dover and his letters to the Times. Now that I have been assured by the right hon. Gentleman that he did not refer to those letters, I beg to apologise to the right hon. Gentleman fir having supposed that he had referred to them. The House will, however, judge with me as to the accuracy of that denial. Now, with reference to the Press prosecutions, I may remind the right hon. Gentleman that I was not Lord Lieutenant nor Secretary for Ireland in 1882, and that I imprisoned nobody at that time. I forgive the right hon. Gentleman for not being aware of that circumstance, and perhaps he will accept that as an explanation of his not being familiar with this particular imprisonment which he said was my work. The reason I cheered the hon. Member who called attention to this matter was that the hon. Member said he thought that when a gentleman had been imprisoned under a Press prosecution, that ought to be regarded as no disability after his sentence had expired for his fulfilling' public offices. The particular gentleman alluded to was the Mayor of Wexford, and the hon. Member contended that the penalty for the offence having been paid, the imprisonment ought not to be treated by the Government as a disqualification for ever hereafter. That is a principle which has always been observed in this country. There arc many Gentlemen below the Gangway who have been imprisoned. Are you going to apply to them the same rule? Dare you apply it to them? Dare you refuse to put them on Committees of this House? You know you dare not. You know that if you did public opinion would rise against you. There are questions which the Members from Ireland have a right to ask. They have a right to ask why you apply to their constituents principles you dare not apply to themselves, and to that the right hon. Gentleman has given no answer at all. I have listened attentively to the speech of the Chief Secretary, and upon the main point on which explanation has been asked it seems to me that the right hon. Gentleman has given no answer at all. If what the right hon. Gentleman says is the sort of answer which a responsible Government has to give in reference to Irish matters, I am not surprised that Irishmen should wish that their affairs should be managed in a different manner from that in which they are managed now.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I have no wish to prolong this debate unnecessarily, but the right hon. Gentleman declined to give me the ordinary courtesy of interrupting him when he misrepresented me, I hope not deliberately, and therefore I am obliged to make a. reply which otherwise I should have spared the House. No man in the House is more habitually interrupted by hon. Members opposite than myself, and I appeal to them if, when an interruption is upon a question of misrepresentation of what they have said, I have not only always given way, but given way gladly. [Dr. TANNER: No, no.] Though he knew I rose to correct a misrepresentation, the right hon. Gentleman used his privilege of being in possession of the House to the utmost, and not only refused to give way but continued to repeat the misrepresentation. The right hon. Gentleman has been pleased to say that my tone and manner are unfortunate, and tends to the prolongation of debates. I regret if that is the case, and I will endeavour to catch the tone and manner of the right hon. Gentleman. If I can only succeed, if only a small corner of the mantle of the right hon. Gentleman will but fall upon me, upon my shoulders, who can doubt lint that I shall succeed in conciliating every section in the House, and in making every one believe I have only one object in view, which is to interpret in the most charitable manner the opinions, sentiments, and arguments of my political opponents. The right hon. Gentleman has told me that I have omitted to discuss with seriousness the question of the alleged ill-treatment of prisoners; but I must remind the right hon. Gentleman that it is only since I have been in office, and not whilst the right hon. Gentleman was in office, that there has been any relaxation of the prison rules in Ireland, and that it was the right hon. Gentleman and his Colleagues, and not I, who have been accused on every plat-form of Ireland by Mr. Davitt and his friends of torturing Mr. Davitt while he was a political prisoner. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that I have not dealt with the action of the police in Tipperary on the occasion of the funeral that has been referred to. It is perfectly true that I omitted to state that which is the fact—namely, that the police who did not interfere with the funeral they were nevertheless bound to be present because they had been informed that the funeral would probably be made the occasion of an inflamnatory demonstration. What parallel is there between the conduct of the police on that occasion and the conduct of those who, in that very town, stoned a policeman when he was burying his child, and refused a man a coffin in which to bury his wife?

MR. J. O'CONNOR

The statements of the right hon. Gentleman have been categorically denied in the public Press.

* MR. A. J. BALFOUR

With regard to Press prosecutions, the right hon. Gentleman told the House that the contention I made was that my hon. Friend (Mr. Wyndham) had written a letter—not to the Times but to the Press generally— which fully answered the complaints. I never said anything of the kind, and if the right hon. Gentleman had given me the slighest attention, he would have known that what I did say was that the controversy was begun in the public Press by the hon. Member for Fermanagh (Mr. W. Redmond)—the right hon. Gentleman called him the Member for Wexford—and continued by my hon. Friend. It was then carried on in this House by the hon. Member for Cork, whose arguments were replied to without the slightest allusion to the reply given to the hon. Member for Fermanagh. The matter, I said, was introduced a third time by the hon. Member for Fermanagh, again without reference to previous refutations. I said, and I still think, this is an expenditure of public time against which I have a perfect right to protest. I could go on to deal in detail with the right hon. Gentleman's speech, but I will forbear. I will follow the conciliatory example which the right hon. Gentleman has set. I will throw oil on these troubled waters, and will deprive myself of the pleasure of dealing with the other innumerable misrepresentations and fallacies in which the right hon. Gentleman has thought fit to indulge.

*(11.30.) SIR WALTER FOSTER (Derby, Ilkeston)

The right hon. Gentleman spoke of two deaths in prison cells as deaths that occurred from heart disease, I want to know whether the prisoners were known to have heart disease, and whether, in spite of that knowledge, they were kept in their prison cells. If so, the treatment was barbarous. If the right hon. Gentleman's officials in Ireland did not know the men were suffering from heart disease, they were inefficient in the performance of their duty, and I want to know which horn of this dilemma the right hon. Gentleman chooses to avail himself of. We hold him, as Chief Secretary, responsible for the health of every person whom he sends to a prison cell, and unless he gives us a proper account of these deaths I must regard him as not having exercised a. proper supervision over the prisons.

(11.31.) DR. TANNER (Cork Co., Mid.)

I wish to refer again to the death which has occurred in connection with the treatment of prisoners in Clonmel Gaol. The right hon. Gentleman thought fit to pass over the remarks I made earlier in the evening about the sanitation of the gaol. I did not at that time try to bring under his notice a case which at the present time commands public attention in Ireland. It is a case in which Mr. Morrison opened an inquest at Tipperary yesterday upon the death of Mr. Cleary. This poor young man has met with his death in prison. The right hon. Gentleman talks about heart disease, and he talks about the medical gentleman upon whom he relies —as he relied upon Dr. Barr. I have here an account of what Dr. Connelly said about this man. He states that no competent man could have examined him without discovering that there was a chest affection which required treatment. He examined him previous to his death and found him suffering from that chest affection, and after the poor young man's death he had an opportunity, by means of a post mortem examination, of verifying his diagnosis. I must say I pity Mr. Morrison, but I ask whether a man who was previously the inmate of a lunatic asylum is a fit person to act as medical officer of a gaol and to carry out the right hon. Gentleman's commands? Dr. Connelly says there were three large cavities discovered in the upper lobe of the left lung of the deceased, as well as a large abscess; that there were morbid adhesions on the lobes of both lungs; and that there were also pleuritic adhesions. Well, this poor man, with a disease which was evidently of longstanding, was treated to the inhumanity of being confined in a prison cell by the medical man whom the right hon. Gentleman has stood up again and again in this House to defend in connection with the treatment of my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien). That medical man has condemned this poor fellow to death. I should like to have some explanation of this case, and I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not turn his back upon us again, but will try as a gentleman to answer our complaints, although we happen to be mere Irish Members.