AGRARIAN RETURNS (IRELAND). (Hansard, 25 March 1890)

§ (7.48.) MR. CLANCY

I wish to call attention to the character of the Returns presented to this House regarding Agrarian Crime and Boycotting in Ireland; and to move— That the Returns presented to this House regarding Agrarian Crime and Boycotting in Ireland are misleading, unreliable as has is of comparison, and in some instances false and fraudulent; and that this House is of opinion that, if those Returns should be further continued, the compilation of them by the police ought to be checked by one or more independent authorities, and that they ought to be accompanied by such details as would enable the people of the localities concerned to test their reliability. The subject, Sir, which I desire to bring under the notice of the House is to my mind of great importance. The Ministerial claim is not that the result of their policy has been to conciliate the Irish people. Recent events prevent such a claim being made. It is a remarkable fact that although several elections have taken place in various parts of Ireland since the introduction of the Coercion Act, yet at every one of these elections Nationalists have been returned without opposition. Similar results have attended Municipal elections, whether in Dublin or any other part of the country. These results show that the Government have not conciliated the Nationalist sentiment, and have not succeeded in any degree in winning 1864 over the Irish people to a belief in Unionist principles. The claim of the Government, however, is that they have won over a considerable proportion of the people of Ireland to their policy, and that they have sensibly diminished crime and especially boycotting—in fact, they claim that crime is diminishing to a vanishing point, and that boycotting has ceased almost altogether. If you deny that Ministerial claim, there is absolutely nothing left that the Government can claim as the result of their policy. It would not be much of a claim if it were admitted. It does not follow, because you have suppressed or prevented, that you have extirpated crime. Lord Cowper used the famous phrase that he had "driven crime beneath the surface." True, he did; but it was only to rise again in due season in rank and luxuriant growth. At the preliminary investigation into the Phoenix Park murders, the evidence of James Carey was that when crime had been driven beneath the surface by the arbitrary arrests of innocent persons all over the country, the Invincibles arose to right the wrongs of Ireland in their own way. The claim of the Government is founded on Returns presented to this House for the past 20 years. Now, those who have inquired into the forgeries question recently will remember that the main count in the indictment against the Land League was founded upon the supposed prevalence of crime as the result of agitation. There are various columns of figures in the Return which, if genuine, show a remarkable increase of crime at certain periods, and a decrease equally remarkable at other periods. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury made a great point of this a few nights ago, and he referred to the increase of crime after the establishment of the Land League and before the Coercion Act of 1882 was passed, and the decrease after the passing of the Coercion Act. Considering all these circumstances, I think no one will dispute the importance of the subject. With a brief interval, the administration of Irish affairs has been anti-national, anti-Irish, and Tory in character. No matter whether a Liberal or a Tory Government has occupied those Benches. The only int3rvals in which 1865 there has been a departure from that method of administration was during the administration of the Earl of Aberdeen and the right Hon. Gentleman (Mr. John Morley), who introduced a grateful and welcome change. But almost from the time of Lord Fitzwilliam's recall, or the time of Thomas Drummond, the administration of Ireland has been such as to suppress the national aspirations. I propose to go back very briefly over the last 20 years, and, ask in the first place, what happened in the year 1869? I base my remarks not on the ipse dixit of Liberal statesmen, but upon the unimpeachable authority of the right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Secretary for Ireland —an authority which will not be disputed, at least on the other side of the House. The right hon. Gentleman in his Memorandum of the 9th May, 1887, said that after what had happened in 1869, special and new methods of enumerating certain offences were adopted, which greatly multiplied their number. I have to observe that when the Unionist speakers go through the country comparing the present time with '20 years ago, they do not experience the difficulties here mentioned. It comes to this, that what would be now described as two or three offences were then described as 60 offences. Accordingly, the House will he prepared for the information that the agrarian crimes of Ireland rose from a monthly average of 29 to one of 305 in five months of 1869–70. I call that a false and frudaulent statement of the agrarian crimes of Ireland. The explanation is perfectly simple. The noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Harrington) was the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He wanted a Coercion Act, and he wanted a case for a Coercion Act, and he got his case and he got his Act. With this Memorandum before me I say he got the Act by false pretences, put into his mouth by his subordinates in Dublin Castle. What happened then? It was necessary at first to make a ease for a Coercion Act, but when the Act was passed it was necessary to show that the Coercion Act had worked successfully and put down crime, and then every device that ingenuity could contrive was resorted to to decrease the number of crimes of violence. A device adopted was this— 1866 In 1871, after the Coercion Act had been passed, the previous system was again brought into operation, namely, to regard similar cases as only one of that kind when the outrages were perpetrated by the same party on the one occasion. I call that another fraud on the public. First, when you want to make a case for a Coercion Act, yon introduce a new system by which three offences are changed to 60, and then, when you want to make a case for the success of the Coercion Act, you revert to the system you condemned and reduce the 60 down to three. By this fraudulent way of enumerating the offences, agrarian crime sinks down to its former level, as if by magic. The next notable operation of the police and the Castle statistician was in 1880–81–82. In 1881–82 another Coercion Act was wanted, and again the police in Ireland were equal to the task of making out a case for one. The average of 29 outrages per month in 1869, rose in 1880 to 306, and in 1881 the total in that year reached 1,439. This w is brought about by another series of frauds practised upon the British public and Parliament. I will try and set forth, as briefly as I can, the nature of these fraudulent transactions. The hon. Gentleman the senior Member for Northampton (Mr. Labou-chere), in 1881 delivered a very able speech criticising the Returns Mr. Forster presented to the House of Commons in that year. He pointed out that the pettiest offences, such as damaging a barrel of tar, and taking a gate oft' its hinges, were put down as separate crimes, just as whistling the air "Harvey Duff" was regarded as an offence against the public peace; and it is remarkable that one result of the criticism of the hon. Member for Northampton on that occasion, was that no more descriptive details were furnished to the House of Commons. It was found that one such Return, descriptive of details, and giving some means of testing the reliability of the statistics, was too much for the Government of Ireland. It has since been impossible to derive from Returns such facts as were gathered from the Returns of 1881. However, there are not wanting means to attain the same object This is the way the Government statistician and the police went to work. On the 28th June, 1880, one man, named Lynch, was charged with five different simul- 1867 taneous crimes. He was charged with an assault on John Hogan and Edmund Hogan, and with a robbery of arms from Edmund Hogan, with the administration of oaths to Edmund Hogan, and firing into the houses of Edmund Hogan and Thomas Hogau. The offence was committed on the same persons and on the same occasion, and out of this the police manufactured five different crimes. But that is not all. In connection with this case charges were brought against 12 men in all; they were all tried, and all were acquitted, but the five "crimes" remain on the list, and thus we have a double fraud practised on the British Legislature and the British people. We have, first of all, one offence multiplied into five, and then we find that the whole five were fictitious. On the 26th August, 1880, Michael Ryan was charged with an assault on two brothers, John and Amos. It has always been the custom to calculate several assaults perpetrated at the same time as one crime, but the police discriminated with a remarkable power of discrimination in this case, for they made two crimes of one offence. They first charged the man with an aggravated assault on John, and then charged him with intent to commit an indecent assault on. his brother Amos. And not only was one crime manufactured into two, but the man charged was acquitted. It was found that the offence was practically never committed at all; nevertheless we have two crimes recorded just as if there had been two convictions. There is another piece of evidence which I do not consider unimportant in this connection. The best possible test of the existence of crime is the proportion of convictions. Police reports, after all, are only mere assertions, but judicial convictions are proofs. I find that in 1881, for 11,915 crimes there are only 2,600 convictions, or 22 per cent. Out of 4,439 agrarian crimes in the following year there were only 204 convictions, or 4 per cent. If these tables are examined it will be found that such a percentage as this was never heard of previously, and it cannot be pretended that juries were loss hostile to British justice in such a year as 1867 or in 1870, or in 1874, when the Fenians were being tried in Ireland, than they were in 1880 and 1881. In those years 1868 the convictions reached 50 per emit., even though Lord O'Hagan's Act had not been amended. Since Lord O'Hagan's Act has been improved—that is to say, improved from the point of view of Dublin Castle—it has been as much in the power of the Castle to pack a jury as it ever was, and yet the percentage of convictions has become smaller and smaller. It seems to me that the police are on the horns of a dilemma in this matter. If they have been so unsuccessful in bringing about an improvement in crimes in 1880 and 1882 as to be 100 per cent, worse than previously, the conclusion we must arrive at is either that 100 per cent, of the crimes were imaginary or fabricated, or else they are on this other horn of the dilemma, that the police cannot detect crime and are useless as guardians of the peace. For my own part I incline to the former theory, especially when I find that 100 per cent., or a large percentage of crimes reported at Dublin Castle and transmitted to this House never took place at all; and I am all the more inclined to believe this when I know that in previous and subsequent periods crimes were undoubtedly fabricated for the purpose of passing Coercion Acts through this House. I have dealt in this matter not with information I have discovered for myself, but with information given by the right hon. Gentleman, which bears me out in what I say. The memorandum from which I have already quoted is most exquisite on this point. It says, amongst other things, that it would be an error to suppose that all outrages not returned as agrarian ought properly to be classified as agrarian, and that the Authorities in Ireland have been more and more strict in their requirements before they permitted any crime to be classified as agrarian. This is a, confession that the statistics given previously have been misleading, and I therefore, think I can claim from the Irish Attorney General approbation for at least one of the adjectives in my Amendment, namely, the word "misleading." The memorandum says that agrarian crime must be directly traceable to some specific motive connected with the land, and that cattle maiming, moonlighting, and such-like offences are not to be placed in the category. It says 1869 that the process of narrowing the meshes through which crime is admitted into the Agrarian Returns has been going on for sis years. This means that the principles on which crime is admitted into the Agrarian Returns varies from year to year. In face of an admission like that from a Gentleman mi the Treasury Bench no one can pretend to regard these agrarian statistics as in any degree a basis of comparison. I find that in the years 1880 to 1882 there were 102 homicides perpetrated, that in 1883–5 there were 56 and in 1886–8 there were 99. From these murders the Police Authorities have selected, on principles which vary from year to year, a certain number which they declare are agrarian. When they want to make a case for coercion they increase the number. Under these circumstances it is absolutely useless to talk of the Returns as furnishing any basis for comparison. But there is also absolute falsehood attaching to the comparisons. In 1883–5, although there were 56 homicides altogether, the police could only discover one agrarian murder. I am not in the habit of paying much attention to such publications as those of the Loyal and Patriotic Union, edited as they are by Mr. Houston, and copied regularly into England, but I want to show what absolute falsehood attaches to this process of enumerating crimes. The very year in which the police, desiring to show the success of the Coercion Act, could only find one agrarian crime the Loyal and Patriotic Union gave, with the names and dates, a list of no less than six agrarian murders which were perpetrated in Ireland. Again, I say that this is a fradulent return. A fraud has been perpetrated, in the first place, by increasing the number of crimes, in order to make a case for the Coercion Bill, and, in the second place, by decreasing crime, in order to show that the Coercion Act was necessary and had succeeded. There was a slight increase of crime in the year 1886. That is now put down to the National League, but the increase was so slight that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary (Mr. A. J. Balfour) in bringing in the Coercion Bill of 1887, did not lay any stress at all on it, but based his contention mainly on the return of boycotting and intimidation. If I am asked to give an explanation of the alleged increase of crime in 1888, I 1870 would unhesitatingly set it down to the desire of Dublin Castle to furnish a case for the coming Home Rule Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone). In 1887, as I have said, the last Coercion Bill was introduced, and the Chief Secretary based his case on the increase of boycotting and intimidation. But I say that from that time to the present the process of "narrowing the meshes" has continued to go on. Cases are still kept out of the Agrarian Returns which would in other years be included in them, the purpose being to make out that the Coercion Act has succeeded in putting down crime. If I am rightly informed the crimes of 1888 are put down at 660. But that number is arrived at by ex-eluding every single one of the offences tried in the Coercion Courts. As far as lean make cut there are 1,500 crimes of that sort. I think the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary is in this matter on the horns of a dilemma. Either the 1,500 offences are not crimes of any kind—in which case he is using the Coercion Act not to put down crime lint to suppress political action and tenants' combinations or they are crimes—in which ease the Return he has presented is false, in not having included them. I come now to the List Return which? indict as false and fraudulent, and that is the Return of Boycotting. It has for some time past been the habit of Unionist orators on every platform in the country to declare that whilst 4,000 persons were boycotted in 1887, there are only 150 boycotted now. I myself in 1887 challenged the accuracy of the Boycotting Returns, and indicted them as false. At that time we pointed out that boycotting was either not accompanied and enforced by outrage and intimidation, or it was so accompanied and enforced. We pointed out that in the former case it was simply exclusive dealing, and, consequently, no cases of the kind ought to have been returned as crimes. In the latter case we pointed out that the Returns were proved to be a mass of fraud by another Return which had been presented to the House. That Return showed, for instance, that in the July quarter of 1887 there were 1,700 people boycotted, and yet there were only 17 cases of intimidation all over Ireland 1871 whereas the cases of intimidation ought to have been numbered by thousands if 1,700 persons had been subjected to hourly and daily acts of intimidation. But what am I to say of the figures last presented to the House with regard to intimidation? Marvellous to relate, they have dropped down to 150. I declare that to be a most audacious fabrication. It is a fabrication within our own knowledge. Any of the hon. Members for the County of Cork will bear me out in saying that in that county alone there are 150 persons boycotted. In face of a fact like that I think the Government are called upon to afford us some means of testing the reliability of the Return. Neither in 1887 nor since have any names of persons or places been mentioned, and the reason given for withholding these means of testing the Return is, to my mind, conclusive proof of the fraudulent character of the figures. We are told that if the names of the boycotted persons were given they would be injured. I want to know how a person can be boycotted without its being known. The thing is absolutely ridiculous. The reason given is a miserable pretence and the merest humbug. I know it will be said that it is impossible to believe that the officials of the Government would engage in this work of fabrication, or that Ministers of the Crown could be found to sanction it. I myself find it difficult to believe that English gentlemen of either Party could be base enough to sanction acts of deliberate falsification and fraud. My explanation is this: Chief Secretaries go from time to time to Dublin Castle; they find the people on one side and the officials on the other, and, as they cannot or will not govern with the aid of the people, they are obliged to govern with the aid of the officials. Consequently, they throw themselves into the arms of the officials. They believe everything they tell them. They listen to the whispers of corrupt officials, and accept the statements of landlord magistrates. I believe the angels themselves would become tainted with the corruption which exists in Dublin Castle if the angels did not keep clear of the Castle. The Castle officials are bred in an atmosphere of corruption. I do not hesitate to say that some of the vilest blackguards that ever lived have found a resting place under the shadow of Dublin Castle. 1872 I doubt whether there is in the whole world an institution of as significant a character as what is known as "the Informer's Home" in Dublin. It is an established institution, kept up for the purpose of swearing away, if necessary,' the lives of innocent men. Promotion is offered for such things. We have heard in recent years of the famous motto invented by the late Captain Plunket— "Don't hesitate to shoot." This has lately been supplemented by another motto—"Don't hesitate to swear." During the last six months, I forget exactly— but I shall be able to inform the House if I am challenged on the point -how many policemen have been convicted in the Coercion Courts of the country of deliberate perjury. These creatures are no doubt all, or nearly all, Irishmen, but I think the disgrace rests not so much on Ireland as on England. It is one of the results of misgovernment, and the same tendency has been apparent in every country governed, as Ireland has been, against the will of the people. It may be said these creatures are loyal. I answer in the words of Grattan: "Loyalty without liberty is not loyalty, but corruption." These men are the creatures of corruption, and they are base enough to do any act which they think may prolong their own power or satisfy the dreams and expectations of their paymasters. I think it is high time to denounce their misdeeds, and it is as much in the interest of common morality as of justice to my unfortunate country that I now move the Motion which stands in my name.