HC Deb 23 May 1890 vol 344 cc1732-46

Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

(9.2.) MR. SEXTON

I beg leave to explain that there was no intention on the part of Irish Members to prevent the Motion for the Adjournment being decided at the Morning-Sitting; but it was prevented by two circumstances, the length of the speech of the Chief Secretary and the superfluous intervention in the Debate of the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh (Colonel Saunderson). It was simply by inadvertence that my hon. Friend (Mr. Gill) overran the time.

(9.2.) MR. GILL

The fact that I happened to talk out the Debate on the Report of Supply arose from my want of knowledge of the Rule that governs an Afternoon Sitting. I was under the impression that we did not break off Debate until 7 o'clock.

(9.3.) MR. HALLEY STEWART (Lincolnshire, Spalding)

Upon this Motion I am anxious to say a few words, and they shall be very few, in corroboration of the statement of my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary (Mr. J. O'Connor). [Cries of "Agreed."] Well, if you agree with the statement of my hon. Friend, then the question is settled; but the Chief Secretary has made a statement entirely at variance with the statement of my hon. Friend. My hon. Friend has referred to the English Members who accompanied him, and I intend, in a few sentences, to emphasise what he has said. The Chief Secretary states that the arrangements for the public meeting at Tipperary were not made with the cogni- sance of the police. But, Sir, these arrangements were made in the light of day and ought to have been within the cognisance of the police, if the police did their duty. The preparations for the meeting were apparent to every inhabitant, a platform was erected, and, I suppose, 10,000 people must have seen it. Speeches were delivered to an immense concourse of people in the open air at New Tipperary. Personally, I addressed largo crowds at some eight or 10 meetings standing by the side of my hon. Friend (Mr. J. O'Connor). [Interruptions.] I can assure hon. Members that I am as anxious to get away for my holiday as any of them can be, but I consider I have a public duty first. On the day my hon. Friend has referred to there were meetings held in the town and outside, and thousands of people gathered. During the time the Ponson by evictions were proceeding, I. addressed a meeting of the evicted tenantry; and a day or two afterwards at Youghal I spoke to a crowd estimated by Canon Keller, who is a good judge of numbers, at 3,000 or 4,000 people. It is vain for the Chief Secretary to assume that the police were ignorant of these proceedings. Irish Members and English Members spoke at these meetings. When Irish Members speak alone, they are interfered with by the police; but when they are accompanied by English Members, there is no interference on the part of the police. You may explain it as you will, the fact remains, and we desire to record it here, where the statement may be challenged and disproved if it is capable of disproof. You deal out one measure of justice to your Irish fellow subjects and another to Englishmen. [Cries of" No!"] The facts are in evidence. Will you agree with me now? Let hon. Members opposite, with that spirit of honour which has always been supposed to characterise the Tory Party, put them selves in the place of Irish Members; let them imagine, if their imaginations are sufficiently fertile, what would their feelings be if they were governed by an Irish majority, and Irish Members were permitted to visit their constituents unmolested, while they themselves were denied the right to hold public meetings. The only way to appreciate the feelings of Irish Members is to put yourselves in their place. Look at the position from an Irish point of view, and I do not understand how the Tory Party, with all their traditions of Constitutionalism, can support the action of the Chief Secretary. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to keep peace and order in Ireland let him keep the police away from public meetings; they are the origin of the troubles; the source and fountain of the confusion that arises is the action of drunken policemen. [Cries of "Oh, Oh !"] You cry shame, perhaps, on the drunken policemen, but the Chief Secretary does not repudiate their conduct. Irresponsible Members behind the Government Bench may interject denials, but it is a fact that we were followed from Cashel to Tipperary by four drunken policemen on a car. They were armed with loaded revolvers, and we travelled in peril of our lives from Cashel to Tipperary. This is the sort of protection offered to Members of Parliament. I have intervened most reluctantly in this Debate. There will be other opportunities for English Members to make good their case, but, knowing how my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary enjoys the esteem and confidence of tens of thousands of his countrymen, I could not allow his statement to go uncorroborated when it is the fashion to attach more importance to the word of an Englishman than to that of an Irishman.

*(9.10.) MR. SCHWANN (Manchester, N.)

I wish to add my protest to that of the hon. Member against interference with the meeting appointed to be held on Sunday next. Every English man mustre-volt at the suppression of rights always considered to be the possession of Irishmen and Englishmen. Hon. Members on that side, as well as hon. Members here, in their addresses and speeches at the General Election, declared they would insure equality of rights to Irishmen and Englishmen. I do not apologise for intervening in this Debate. The interference of the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh was totally unwarranted. He occupies no official position—to his disappointment, perhaps—but he has adopted the position of judicious bottle-holder to the hon. Member for South Hants (Mr. Smith-Barry). I can add my experience to what has been said by the hon. Member who has just spoken in reference to the meetings in Tipperary. The Chief Secretary does not seem to be well informed upon what is taking place in Ireland. His predecessors in office, the right hon. Gentleman who is now President of the Board of Trade and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle, were continually going backwards and forwards between London and Dublin sifting evidence, and endeavouring to learn facts for themselves; they were not satisfied with Reports from Dublin Castle; but the right hon. Gentleman is chiefly employed in following his favourite pastime on the breezy downs. I regret this interference with the meeting on Sunday. The open-air meetings in April were attended by English Members and English ladies, and we all felt the greatest admiration for the pluck, the energy, and sympathy with their fellows shown by the men of New Tipperary. It shows the solidarity of the Irish tenantry that, when they found a body of their fellow tenantry treated as they were treated on the Ponsonby Estate, they determined to carry the war into the enemy's country, and I am glad they have done so. I have no reason to doubt that the hon. Member for South Hunts will bitterly regret that ever he entered on this internecine struggle. I have no wish to detain the House beyond expressing my admiration for the conduct of the gallant men of Tipperary, and my abhorrence of the policy of the Chief Secretary.

(9.14.) MR. P. J. O'BRIEN (Tipperary, N.)

As one of the Members against whom this attempt at muzzling is directed, I do not think it necessary to make any apology, but I do make my most earnest protest. The Chief Secretary will find, later on, that never in his political career has he made a more egregious mistake if he supposes he will he successful in his attempt to intimidate the people of Tipperary. I can tell him, as one of the Representatives of the county, that we are not to be intimidated. I shall exercise my right to meet my Constituents in Tipperary on Sunday, and I challenge the right hon. Gentleman or any of those whom he may send there at their peril to interfere with the just rights of the people. 1s this not the time in this brief Parliamentary Recess when Members should meet their constituents? Where are the equal rights to all if we are denied the right to meet our constituents in peaceful assembly? I assert for my constituents that they are peaceful, well-disposed, intelligent, respectable men, and our meetings, if not interfered with by the police, will be orderly as they hitherto have been, honourable alike to the constituents and the Members who address them. I tell the Chief Secretary again that ho will find he never made a more fatal mistake than to attempt to intimidate the Members and people of Tipperary.

(9.15.) MR. CRILLY (Mayo, N.)

I do not think any apology is needed for our intervention in this Debate. It is not my habit to intervene very often in debate; but here is an occasion when a great public issue is at stake in Ireland, and though we subject hon. Members to the inconvenience of sitting here for an hour this evening, we are impelled by duty to our constituents and the assertion of public rights. You, the English Members, can go away on your Whitsuntide holidays without fear or danger of having your free right of public meeting in your constituencies being interfered with, but we can indulge in no such expectations. I have been present here during the day, and I listened to the previous discussion this afternoon, and I can say that it is due to the tone and temper of the speech of the Chief Secretary that we are here now. Had the duty of replying to my hon. Friend the Member West Belfast, who raised this discussion, been left to the Attorney General for Ireland, I venture to say the House would not be now sitting, and we might have been on our way to the enjoyment of our brief holiday. But the Chief Secretary, after having been absent from the House during the greater part of the day, and being sent for when my hon. Friend raised this subject, has made a speech, the effect of which has been to exasperate every Irish Member and every English Liberal Member who heard it. The right hon. Gentleman, in the course of that speech, followed as it was by the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh, based his interference with the meeting on Sunday on the assumption that the meeting would lead to intimidation and boycotting. The right hon. Gentleman asserted that the tenants of the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Smith-Barry) were engaged in a policy of intimidation. Now, it was pointed out by my hon. Friend (Mr. Gill) that the tenants upon the estate of the hon. Member for South Hunts had gone out of their holdings without any protest whatever. It is a fact known to the Chief Secretary himself that these tenants are engaged in a lawful and peaceful combination against a combination of landlords. Let me quote words used by the right hon. Gentleman himself on this very subject, speaking in this House on July 1, 1889. On that occasion the Chief Secretary said— He had been told that he had interfered with combinations of tenants, and that he ought, therefore, to interfere with combinations of landlords. He did not care how much the tenants combined or how much the landlords combined. If he were a tenant in Ireland and he found the landlords were combining against him, he would combine against them. Will the right hon. Gentleman truthfully answer—I do not use the expression in any offensive sense—my question how he explains the combination of tenants which exists in Tipperary today if it is not a combination against a landlord conspiracy, against which he has said he in like circumstances would enter into combination? The tenants have combined peacefully and legally to carry out their policy of protection; and if the tenants in Tipperary fail to carry out that policy, including as it may do boycotting to a certain extent, the man who will be mainly responsible for driving the tenants of Tipperary to that very policy he has indicated to-day will be the Chief Secretary. He wants to put down conspiracy. So do we. We want to give utterance to our feelings and to express our indignation in open meeting; but when we want to come together for the purpose, when Members for Tipperary want to address their constituents, then the right hon. Gentleman tries to prevent open discussion, tries to do that which Lord Cowper once boasted of having done when he said he had "driven disaffection beneath the surface." The right hon. Gentleman is attempting the same thing. He is trying to drive the Members for Tipperary from the public platform, to suppress the public discussion of grievances, and to induce a return to the vices of that evil time when an exasperated tenant was driven to find vengeance for his wrongs with a musket from behind a hedge. For a recurrence of these evil times, this infatuated policy of yours will be responsible. I ask Tory Gentlemen on the other side, are they afraid to listen to the Irish people? You listen readily enough to Irish Representatives hero in the House of Commons; are you afraid to hear the same opinions expressed in Ireland? And yet you have declared your willingness that the people of Ireland shall enjoy equal rights with the people of England! You are anxious to get away for your holiday; you will not recognise the condition of affairs in Ireland; you will not realise that deep down in the heart of the Irish people is the intense desire for some sort of self rule. You are impatient because your holiday is delayed for a few hours; but whatever may be said of our motives, if it were possible and necessary, we would keep your Parliament sitting until doomsday to make these facts known. No answer has been given to the facts put forward by my hon. Friends. You permitted meetings to be held on April 12, and at those meetings English Members and English ladies were present, but other meetings are prohibited. Why do you behave in this fashion? You laugh now; but we shall win in the end, and those laugh loudest who laugh last. The Irish National cause is winning against all your efforts. The Chief Secretary has admitted that he had an interview with Mr. Townshend and the hon. Member for South Hunts. The policy of his Party in Ireland is shaped by the landlords. According to the supporters of the Government, the government by repression and tyranny is to continue until the youngest among us has a grandson buried. But I tell you that to persist in this policy will leave you no cause for laughter. The Attorney General for Ireland may laugh now, and Attorneys General and Chief Secretaries have laughed before, but the attachment of the Irish people to the old and sacred cause of self-government will survive all the laughter from the Ministerial Bench. We are determined, and the determination has been expressed to-night by my Colleagues to support our people. You have not passed the threshold of the Irish difficulty, and you will have to face it until you adopt a higher, nobler policy than yon have indicated to-day. I tell yon that you but intensify your difficulties by such exasperating speeches as that we have heard from the Chief Secretary to-day, and some day you will have to admit there is no way to govern Ireland but by-applying the policy advocated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian.

*(9.30.) MR. T. H. BOLTON (St. Pancras, N.)

The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has, in effect, admitted that he determined to prohibit next Sunday's meeting at Tipperary on insufficient information as to what its character would be. He has said that until speeches in the House and, in particular, until the speech of the hon. Member for West Belfast, the information which reached him had not led him to believe it would be of a large or dangerous character, and, therefore, he must have taken action on insufficient grounds. To prohibit the right of public meeting in any place is a most serious step which ought only to be taken after the most careful consideration. If bloodshed should ensue from the action of the Government in regard to this Tipperary meeting the country would hold the Chief Secretary-responsible, and the House would call him to very severe account. I rise for the purpose of appealing to the right hon. Gentleman to re-consider the situation. If, after the assurance given that the meeting will be held in a peaceable manner, and that its main object is to give hon. Members an opportunity of taking counsel with their constituents, the right hon. Gentleman can see his way to permit the meeting, I trust ho will do so. The right of public meeting is a very sacred thing in this country. It ought not to be lightly interfered with, and as the right hon. Gentleman has been assured that the Tipperary meeting will be a peaceful one, he ought to see that there is no justification for prohibiting it. I have not sympathised with extreme measures in the Irish agitation. I have never at any time said a word in favour either of the Plan of Campaign or boycotting; I have never justified any violent resistance to authority in Ireland; and I trust my appeal will be met by the right hon. Gentleman in the spirit in which it is made, and that he will not adopt a course which may lead to serious occurrences in Ireland. I do not wish to make a long speech, or to stand in the way of the adjournment; but I feel it my duty as an English Member to advocate the proper and just treatment of the Irish people in relation to this matter of holding public meetings.

(9.36.) MR. W. P. SINCLAIR (Falkirk, &c.)

We have been told by the hon. Member for Tipperary that he desires to take advantage of this Whitsuntide recess to address his constituents; but we have had no such assurance from other hon. Members who are expected to attend this meeting that the gathering will be a peaceful one, and I would ask—Is it not possible to give the Government some such assurances; can they not give an undertaking that the addresses delivered at the meeting shall be only those which are ordinarily delivered when an hon. Member meets his constituents and that there will be no appeal to the people to break the law.

DR. TANNER

There never is.

MR. W. P. SINCLAIR

Hon. Gentlemen have said that from shore to shore of the island the law of the League is the law of the land, and we cannot forget that that assertion has been made. I say that if hon. Gentlemen who are to speak at the meeting will promise that their speeches shall be of the character I have indicated then I think an appeal may fairly be made to the Government not to proclaim the meeting.

MR. J. O'CONNOR

I promise to deliver any speech I may make next Sunday to the Falkirk Burghs when I return.

(9.37.) MR. E. HARRINGTON

Does the hon. Member (Mr. Sinclair) submit the speeches he is about to deliver for the opinion of the Lord Advocate? A more indecent proposal, in the Parliamentary sense, has never been made in the House of Commons than that which the House has just listened to. My hon. Friends have not proclaimed their intentions to break the law, but merely to assert their Constitutional right to address their constituents; and yet here we are having it laid down as a Constitutional doctrine that Members about to address their constituents in Ireland are to give an undertaking to the Government of the day as to the language they will use. If the right hon. Gentleman adopted a wise and statesmanlike policy he would judge this meeting by those which have previously been held at that place. He has prosecuted no one who spoke and attended at the meeting at Tipperary on the 12th April, and he has no right to assume that the meeting of Sunday next will in any way differ from that meeting. The hon. Member for St. Pancras has tried to throw oil on troubled waters. I quite recognise the force of what he says: that every allowance must be made for the Government when they have avowed a settled and determined policy. But then, also, some allowance ought to be made for hon. Members who believe that they are within their right and are pledged to meet their constituents. They have not proclaimed that they will break the law, they are only claiming to exercise a Constitutional right which the Government are seeking to abrogate. This policy of repressing public meetings in Ireland, which hon. Gentlemen opposite treat so lightly, is, to our mind, a very serious grievance; and I say, with the force of my 11 years' experience, that by pursuing this policy you are fostering and encouraging secret societies, and that you will thereby bring about a crop of far more dreadful crimes than anything in the shape of intimidation. Why cannot the Chief Secretary rise to the greatness of a statesman? I thank those of our English friends who have come down to support us to-night. We should have been glad, if we could, to release hon. Gentlemen at an earlier hour, but we were forced into the course we have taken by the temper and tone of the reply of the Chief Secretary, backed up by the very ungallant references of the hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for North Armagh to a man who is head and shoulders—morally and physically—above him. I recognise that for anyone to run the risk of bringing the people into close proximity with the forces of the Crown is a serious thing, but I consider that the right of public meeting is so sacred that men are bound to run some risk; and the answer of the Chief Secretary has left nothing open to us but to run that risk.

*(9.48.) MR. HUNTER (Aberdeen, N.)

When the hon. Member for Falkirk finds it necessary to address a caution to the Government, we may judge pretty well what the feeling of the country is. I listened to the speech of the Chief Secretary with amazement. A speech more atrocious, a speech more utterly devoid of argument, a speech more deliberately intended to wound, annoy, and insult than the Chief Secretary's it would be impossible for a man to make. That speech has convinced me that there is not a shadow of justification for interfering with this meeting. I have no hesitation in saying that the country will not hold him guiltless if one drop of blood is shed on Sunday. I advise my hon. Friends not to take the right hon. Gentleman seriously; be is dressed in very brief authority, and the day is coming with rapid steps when the right hon. Gentleman will be hurled from power and visited with the punishment he so richly deserves.

(9.52.) MR. CAUSTON (Southwark, W.)

When I came down to the House to-night I had not the slightest intention of interfering in this Debate; but I cannot help supporting the appeal so well made by the hon. Member for North St. Pancras—an appeal which was really an attempt to throw oil on the troubled waters. The speeches delivered by hon. Members from Ireland have all been in a like direction; that of the Member for South Kerry was most conciliatory. We are told that this meeting is to be suppressed. Well, I can only say that when hon. Members declare that they desire to address their constituents in a peaceable, orderly, and Constitutional way, very considerable responsibility will be cast on the Government if any disaster occurs from the attempt to hold this meeting on Sunday next. I cannot conceive any wisdom in the policy of the Government. Since 7 o'clock Ministers have had an opportunity of conferring together, and now there seems to be a conspiracy to allow the Debate to close without any one of them saying a word. I am sorry we have no Members present on the Front Bench on this side of the House. But the Government must not construe their absence into a sign that they approve the policy adopted in regard to this meeting. I believe that it is due to the belief that the House would be adjourned at 7 o'clock. I hope Her Majesty's Ministers will not take advantage of the fact to remain silent, and in that way to support the Chief Secretary and Attorney General for Ireland in carrying out their policy of suppressing this meeting. I do make a most earnest appeal to the Chief Secretary to re-consider his decision. I think the speeches which have been delivered from below the Gangway must satisfy him that this is intended to be an orderly political meeting. I hope that some independent Members of the Tory Party will support this appeal. I am sorry that anyone should have been put to the inconvenience of returning to the House, but now that we are here I trust we shall turn the time to profitable account.

*(9.58.) MR. BYRON REED (Bradford, E.)

I feel that there is a point at which silence becomes almost criminal. I am not prepared to play the part of a political criminal or a mis-representative of my constituency in face of the addresses we have hoard from the opposite side of the House to-night. I am here to say, as the Representative of a not unimportant English constituency, that none among the many actions of the Chief Secretary for Ireland will be more applauded in England on Monday morning than the announcement of his having prevented a disloyal and criminal meeting in Ireland. I am prepared to stand any odium which may be cast on me by hon. Gentlemen opposite, in consequence of my having pronounced this opinion. I am bound to say, in answer to the pleas of hon. Gentlemen opposite for the right of public meeting, that we on this side of the House are not usually deprived of that right except by the low Irish element resident in Great Britain. I have never received insult or contumely or disrespect from any body of my constituents whom I have addressed, save in one instance from a number of Irish voters whose votes I had declined. I then expressed myself in very plain terms, and said I should consider myself insulted by the votes of the disloyal Irish Party.

MR. J. O'CONNOR

There was not one of them but was better than you.

* MR. BYRON REED

I am very sorry that hon. Gentlemen opposite should be at all affronted.

MR. J. O'CONNOR

Withdraw your insults, then.

* MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! I must ask hon. Gentlemen to restrain themselves on both sides.

MR. J. O'CONNOR

There is no need to introduce any irritation or any thing disgraceful and to the scandal of this House.

* MR. SPEAKER

Order, order! I rose for the purpose of allaying any feeling there might be

MR. J. O'CONNOR

Allow me to explain. I should be very sorry to introduce into the Debates of this House a scandal—

* MR. SPEAKER

Order, order!

* MR. BYRON REED

I made no reflection on hon. Gentlemen opposite, who, I am bound to say, while ready to rain down charges of the most odious, atrocious, and untruthful character upon the head of the Chief Secretary, show themselves singularly thin-skinned when the mildest criticisms are addressed to themselves. Now, I would address myself for a brief moment to the proclaimed meeting at Tipperary. I can understand an hon. Member addressing his own constituents; but it is a different thing when Members from other places flock together for the purpose of flouting authority, setting the law at defiance, and causing disorder. What use would be made of it if this meeting were permitted to be held? It would be used in the columns of United Ireland as another instance of the weakness of the "base, brutal, and bloody Balfour." I am prepared to measure swords upon this point with hon. Gentlemen in my constituency, and to tell my constituents, what the House and English Members know, of the feeling and the views that prevail among Englishmen as to the disloyal action of the Irish Party in the past and the plans of the disloyal Party in Ireland for the future, and the obstruction of public business that takes place in this House. I believe that each English Member who goes to his constituents, as I will go to mine, to tell them of the action of the disloyal Irish Party, who obstruct our business by the "dreary drip of dilatory declamation," and to toil them of the more than veiled insurrection which takes place night after night on the floor of this House. I say any English Member who goes to his constituents and tolls them that will receive rich approval and hearty endorsement of his action at the next General Election.

*(10.5.) MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY (Londonderry)

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the hon. Member who spoke last has added very much to either the interest or the dignity of this discussion. He complained of being driven from his platform. [do not wonder at a certain impatience being manifested at any speaker making such a speech to his constituents as that which the hon. Member has just delivered. I am very sorry that any speaker should be driven from any platform; but if the hon. Member speaks habitually to his own constituents as he addressed this House to-night, I cannot wonder that some demonstration should have been made. Although I do not approve of violent measures, one must make allowance for human nature, which after all, is weak and passionate, and could not stand many hours of declamation such as that with which the hon. Gentleman has just favoured us. In my position I cannot regret the course which has been taken by the Government, because we wish to accentuate and emphasise our protest against the system of ignoble personal rule which is now going on in Ireland. I think it an anomaly in a country like this, and in a Parliament like this, to have a system of Government like that which the Chief Secretary proclaimed and defended to-night. It reminded me of some of the chapters in Charles Lever's novels, when the Chief Secretary is interviewed by some "Con Heffernan," of importance and significance in his own district, in some room in this House, where is arranged a system of governing Ireland under which right of public meeting is not allowed, and all because this Con Heffernan had an interview with the Chief Secretary, and told him what ought to be done. The real anomaly is that this system should be allowed to go on by a country like England, where people may hold a meeting without oaring throe straws whether the Government like it or not. But in Ireland, when a Member is going to address his constituents, the meeting is announced three weeks before, and no word is said against it until Con Heffernan interviews the Chief Secretary, who tells the Member that he cannot address his constituents unless in some room or small hole and corner place. I do not know whether there is any distinction in the Constitution of this country between a meeting held in a room and an open air meeting. I should like to know what you would think in this country if a Member were told that he may address his constituents under a roof and within walls, but that if he attempts to address the same men on the same subjects in the open air, the force and strength of the State would be employed to stop the meeting, even if bloodshed should be the result.

COLONEL SAUNDERSON

There is no National League in England.

* MR. J. M'CARTHY

The hon. and gallant Member only shows his ignorance by making that statement, because there is a National League in England, on the Council of which I have the honour to sit. Let me remind the hon. and gallant Gentleman of what happened in the old days of the second French Empire, where the sort of system he advocates was carried into execution. In those days the people had to apply to the police for permission to hold their meetings, and the conditions were that they wore not to exceed a certain number of persons, and that the meetings must be held under a roof and within four walls. We all know what a brilliant success was achieved under that system, and I am perfectly sure that a similar fate will await any English Government which attempts to enforce in one part of the Empire that French Imperial regulation which they dare not attempt to enforce elsewhere.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

SUPPLY—Committee upon Monday, 2nd June.

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