HC Deb 12 April 1892 vol 3 cc1278-87
(5.40.) MR. T. M. HEALY

We are on the point of adjourning for Easter, and it is only fair to take a slight survey of what the Government have done since the Session began. At the beginning of the Session we were told that in conformity with the Unionist pledges a Local Government Bill on the lines of the measures already passed for England and Scotland would be introduced for Ireland; and that Bill, we were told, would be the consummation of Unionist policy, and would finally seal relations of amity between this country and Ireland. Sir, I ask with Hans Breitmann—where is the Local Government Bill now? We are all anxious that Government should go on with that Bill, but we know very well from authoritative statements that have appeared in the Unionist newspapers that the Government have themselves abandoned all hope of passing the measure into law. Thus it is that every pledge made by successive Governments with regard to Local Government in Ireland has been broken, and time after time they have shown themselves absolutely incapable of legislating on this important subject. In 1878 the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Thanet brought in a Bill, which was a better Bill than the measure now before the House. The present Bill is so bad that the Government are ashamed to present it to the House of Commons. It is a Bill which purports to abolish the powers of Grand Jurors in Ireland, and to hand them over to the people of Ireland. The Grand Jurors met last month, and from not one of the 32 counties did there come from those gentlemen, whom it is proposed to disestablish, one single word of protest against the great Local Government Bill of Her Majesty's Government. That is one of the most remarkable testimonies to the Tory character of the Bill. There is another subject I should like to touch upon—namely, the subject of education. So far as I can see, Irish education is as far from being perfected as ever. A very reasonable demand was made by competent and indeed high authorities that the Bill should be split into two parts—that the part which deals with intricate and somewhat difficult matters of procedure should be postponed, so that the part which gives relief to the teachers, which is non-contentious, should be passed, as passed it would be in a few hours. The Government object to that without forcing down the throats of the Irish Members a proposal for dealing with the Pension Fund that is absolutely obnoxious to the people of Ireland. These are the entire performances of the Government, and I like to check off the Act of Union year by year, in order to show the assets. We have an offensive and objectionable Local Government Bill which is brought forward only to be withdrawn, and an Education Bill which is objected to by the Irish Members—a Bill which the Government will not allow the Irish Members to mould in accordance with the wish of the Irish people. But, Sir, the immediate purpose of my intervention was to call attention to the action of the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland (Lord Ashbourne). Lord Ashbourne is at the head of the judicial administration in Ireland; he is a man who had great experience in this House; he has very important functions to discharge in Ireland. In the first place, he has to be satisfied of the legal knowledge of the Removable Magistrates—a subject so profound as almost to engage his exclusive attention. He has, practically, the appointment of all the Judges in the land; he advises the Lord Lieutenant and I believe a practice has sprung up—I believe it dates from the time of Lord Chancellor Sullivan's first appointment—of having an office in Dublin Castle called the Lord Chancellor's Office. Therefore, this Judge in the land takes practically a part in the executive as well as in the legal and judicial administration of the country. Moreover, Lord Ashbourne is a Cabinet Minister. So strongly does he feel that he is to some extent a suspect that he does not sit and adjudicate in certain matters coming before his Court—in revision appeals, for example, with respect to the registration of voters and other cognate matters; and although I do not think it is a very great loss, still there attaches to him the conviction that he is bound to walk warily in the discharge of his important duties. But in addition to being Lord Chancellor, Lord Ashbourne is a Peer of the Realm, and as you, Mr. Speaker, reminded us when the Cambrian Railway Directors were before us the other day there are certain Resolutions passed at the beginning of every Session which, if they leave out the force of law, are still real and absolute powers. One of these Resolutions which was mentioned by you, Mr. Speaker, when admonishing the Cambrian Directors from the Chair, is in these words:— Resolved, That it is a high infringement of the liberties and privileges of the Commons of the United Kingdom for any Lord of Parliament, or other Peer or Prelate, not being a Peer of Ireland at the time elected, and not having declined to serve for any county, city, or borough of Great Britain, to concern himself in the election of Members to serve for the Commons in Parliament, except only any Peer of Ireland at such elections in Great Britain respectively where such Peer shall appear as a candidate, or by himself, or any other, be proposed to be elected; or for any Lord Lieutenant or Governor of any county to avail himself of any authority derived from his commission, to influence the election of any Member to serve for the Commons in Parliament. Lord Ashbourne was as well aware of that Resolution as any other Peer. But I do not wish to press the point too strongly against Lord Ashbourne because the Resolution has not the force of law, and because the Duke of Westminster, the Duke of Norfolk, and other persons higher in the scale, are in the habit of intermeddling in politics, and it would not be fair to reprimand Lord Ashbourne who is only a Baron for doing what Dukes do habitually. My real complaint is that Lord Ashbourne who is a Judge of the land has interfered practically in a hustings matter. The right hon. Gentleman, the Leader of the House, says that has yet to be proved. Well, Sir, I acknowledge that my authority is rather slight—it is only a paragraph in the Times. I am well aware from certain judicial proceedings that any statement the Times makes with regard to a Member of Parliament or a Peer belonging to a certain political Party ought to be taken with a certain amount of reserve. But in this instance the statement in the Times may, I think, be taken as accurate because it was not telegraphed, and might have been supplied by the noble Lord himself. Lord Ashbourne would have done better by attending to his important judicial duties in Ireland instead of traipseing over to Portsmouth to look after the candidature of Mr. Evelyn Ashley, who is an Irish landlord in Sligo. We know the subject of the relations between the Government and the Irish landlords has been sufficiently agitated, and Lord Ashbourne might have refrained from mixing himself up with an Irish landlord, whose conduct in 1881 we remember by his haying a number of suspects put into gaol because they were giving him trouble. I think when Lord Ashbourne goes to support Tory or Unionist candidates for English constituencies, he would do well not to support Irish landlords, or, at all events, such an obnoxious character as Mr. Evelyn Ashley. Then his Lordship, having doffed the ermine and the horsehair, proceeded to lecture the Liberal Party on their vices, and launched out into a great panegyric on the virtues of Members of the present Government. Now, if there is anything indecent I know, it is one Member of a Government getting up and praising another Member. It is a kind of mutual admiration society which is established by that means. It is like the case of a long firm in which the one who is not convicted is put up to give evidence in favour of his "pals" in the dock, ft is quite remarkable that Lord Ashbourne travels 500 miles, and leaves the Court of Appeal in Ireland and the care of wards of Chancery, and goes down to Portsmouth to make a defence of the Unionist Party. The Times says that— His Lordship, on entering the hall in company with the candidate, was received with a loud outburst of cheers. What would be thought in Ireland if Lord Halsbury left his robes in the Royal Courts of Justice and came over to Belfast to the Shankhill Board, for instance, or went to South Antrim accompanied by the distinguished Gentleman who sits for that constituency, or even went to Trinity College which the Attorney General adorns by representing, and delivered an address to the Irish nation? We should be inclined to resent it, and to tell Lord Halsbury that as he received a large salary for his duties in England he would be far better engaged there. Lord Ashbourne does not seem satis- fied with getting all his friends and I relatives made Judges in Ireland and in quietly drawing the proceeds of his office, but he must work for others of his relatives, and play for a second term by getting in Unionist candidates and delivering speeches of this character. He said— There was a time when every public man should absolutely and fearlessly meet the public opinion of his country, and speak upon every topic of their public life. Well, I do not think so. I do not think Judges are appointed to go on the hustings and speak upon every topic of their public life. What we want Lord Chancellors for is to take care of wards in Chancery and to confine themselves strictly thereto, not to go down to the country "primrosing" and delivering violent speeches. The noble Lord might have taken this long journey without being needlessly offensive. I always notice when a man says he does not mean to be offensive that he invariably says something un-Parliamentary. For myself, I never say anything offensive. Look what his Lordship says of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian. He said— Let any fad be started and Mr. Gladstone's lieutenants will speak upon it, and in such a way that the poor people behind the fad are left to the delusion that it might be a great benefit to them, and that something might be done for them. I do not see why the cold shade of silence should pervade the Ministerial Benches at the present moment on hearing this deliverance of a Tory Judge. If this is the tone of speech we are to have when Lord Chancellors leave the Bench, the more they remain on the Bench the better. Then I find his Lordship went on to praise different Members of the Tory Party, but somehow or other he left out the Home Secretary. I do not know why he left out the Home Secretary, but I may be inclined to make a few remarks here-after about that. He says in regard to financial administration— The Government had had great luck in securing the vast aid of the genius of Mr. Goschen. And nobody remarked sugar bounties, or publicans' licences, or anything of that kind. But the First Lord of the Treasury was not passed over. But before he came to the First Lord he had a few remarks to make about another gentleman. The noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty was also referred to, and in reference to him Lord Ashbourne said— In their naval administration the present Government and Lord George Hamilton had manifested an earnest desire to put the Navy into a vigorous and efficient state. Quite so. He is simply praising his own friends. In regard to the Government of Ireland he says, "The peace and quietness which had been restored they owed in a great measure to the genius of Mr. Balfour." I certainly think if Lord Ashbourne went to deliver a speech in regard to a gentleman whose highest service is that of having passed a beneficent Coercion Act he might, in a more fitting way, have acknowledged the great work which he says the First Lord of the Treasury did on behalf of Ireland when he was Chief Secretary. And this is the class of Judges with whom the Government think it reasonable we should be satisfied to have at the head of the judicial system in Ireland. But he had not one word to say in favour of Mr. Ashmead Bartlett. I most solemnly pledge myself that I have read out every word his Lordship said in praise of the Cabinet or Members of the Government. When the noble Lord thinks it worth his while to leave the quiet of the Four Courts in Dublin to deliver speeches of that kind in favour of the Tory Party, it shows the pass which Castle administration in Ireland has reached. So far as my experience goes, we should have been appalled if any Judge, when Lord Spencer was governing Ireland, had dropped across to deliver a speech in favour of Mr. Foster or the coercion policy of that day. Or what would have been thought if we had sent John Nash to stand in front of the Home Rule van and beat the drum in favour of the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian? What would the Orange Party have said—what would the hon. Members for North Armagh and South Tyrone have said—if any other Judge had stood at cross roads and addressed a meeting or done anything of that kind? Supposing there had been a riot at the Portsmouth meeting, would it not have been a pretty spectacle for the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, whom the Irish people were called on to respect, to have been seen "rotten egged" while taking part in the hurly-burly of an election demonstration? I do think such a thing would be calculated to lower the dignity of the Judicial Bench. The House has already pronounced against conduct of the character that has been pursued by the noble Lord and against the Judges of the land taking part in political meetings. And, in addition to the responsibilities of a Judge, there is this further grave position held by his Lordship: that he has practically the appointment of Removable Magistrates and County Court Judges, and has also great influence in the appointment of other Judges in Ireland. He is likewise the right-hand man of the Lord Lieutenant. And we are fairly entitled to expect that a gentleman with the long experience in regard to this House that Lord Ashbourne has should observe the same decorum that he displays in the conduct of his judicial functions with regard to matters of a strong Party character, and should not leave his own country to come over to England and set a bad example to the Judges here by conduct which would not be tolerated on the part of one in their own sphere. Suppose it had been a Removable Magistrate instead of the highest Judge in the land, say, Mr. Cecil Roche; suppose this gentleman, fired by the example of the Lord Chancellor, had come over to help you at the pending election; would that be tolerated? Are Civil servants to be allowed to attend political meetings? In my opinion a most infectious and detrimental example has been set and it will be well if the noble Lord will get up in another place and make some apology for the bad example he has set.

(6.11.) MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I apprehend that the attack we have just listened to from the hon. and learned Gentleman on the Lord Chancellor of Ireland is not, even from his own point of view, intended to be taken seriously. I gather that from the substance of the remarks of the hon. and learned Gentleman and from the manner in which he treated certain parts of the subject. In regard to the substance of his criticisms he attacks Lord Ashbourne on two grounds—first, that he has interfered in the controversial part of politics while Lord Chancellor of Ireland; and, secondly, that he has interfered in an election over here, although a Peer. With regard to the first ground. The hon. and learned Gentleman must know perfectly well that to go down to meetings either at Portsmouth or elsewhere, under the circumstances in which Lord Ashbourne attended those meetings, is a matter of every day occurrence on the part of Peers and has never been objected to by this House. The exact limits to which Peers should keep in dealing with election contests I do not propose to lay down; I do not profess to be a lawyer and it is not my duty to interpret these matters. But there can be no doubt, draw the line where you will, that Lord Ashbourne is on the safe side of that line, and in what he did was only following the habitual practice of Peers—sometimes Liberal Peers, sometimes Conservative Peers, and certainly not more Conservative than Liberal Peers. I come to the second substantial contention of the hon. and learned Gentleman. He appears to think that the fact that Lord Ashbourne is a Judge in very high place in Ireland is a reason why he should not himself take any part in politics in this country, or express any opinion in England on matters of Party policy. The hon. and learned Gentleman must remember that from time immemorial the British practice has been otherwise. From time immemorial the Chancellor of Ireland, as well as of England, has been a Party politician. The Lord Chancellor of England has invariably been a Member of the Cabinet, and the second most important Member of the Cabinet—and so long as you conduct the business of Government by Party you cannot well put any man in a position more obviously involving Party considerations than if you put him in the Cabinet, and if you once swallow that camel there is no need to strain at the gnat of a Peer taking part in politics outside the House of Lords. It is, of course, true that the habit of speaking on platforms at all is comparatively a novel practice so far as politicians in high office are concerned. I should think the number of times Sir Robert Peel spoke on a public platform to any other audience than his own constituents might probably be counted on the fingers of one hand, and probably the same is true of Lord Palmerston. The habit of conducting our Parliamentary Debates at greater length, not only in this House and the other House but on public platforms, is one which, for good or evil, has been increasing with prodigious rapidity in the last 20 or 30 years, and it is evident that this must be so in the case of a Lord Chancellor as in the case of every other politician of note, whether in or out of office. But the duty of Lord Chancellors is not to take a greater part in the political controversies of their day, not to show more than formerly that they are members of one political Party; but occasionally to do, what all other leaders of political Parties have to do, to state the opinions they hold, which everybody knows they hold, before popular audiences on public platforms. Nor has it ever been suggested, either in this House or elsewhere, that the fact that the Lord Chancellor of the day, whether in Ireland or England, was a Party politician, has ever warped his absolute impartiality when on the Bench, or has ever suggested to any suitor who came before him that he was not secure of absolute justice at the hands of his Judge. I do not know that I need say more on the substance of the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman. It did, indeed, strike me during some of his remarks, that what he objected to on the part of Lord Ashbourne was not so much that Lord Ashbourne had made a Party speech, but that that Party speech was one not at all to the taste of the hon. and learned Gentleman himself. It struck me that he was not so much anxious to vindicate the position of the Judicial Bench, as anxious to deliver a thrust at a political antagonist—not with a poisoned weapon—but still a thrust at a political antagonist. In referring to the speech of my noble Friend, the hon. and learned Gentleman paid what my noble Friend will, no doubt, regard as a compliment, but one which is not likely to be returned by any Member of the other House with regard to the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman. The chief criticism of the hon. and learned Gentleman upon the speech of my noble Friend at Portsmouth was that it was of too eulogistic a character. He seemed to think my noble Friend indulged in too much agreeable speaking about his friends. If, against my expectations, any speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman is the subject of discussion in another place, the particular point of attack will not be undue indulgence in eulogistic utterances on the part of the hon. and learned Gentleman. It is no doubt true my noble Friend praised the administration of some of his colleagues; he may have taken too favourable a view of their performances. The hon. and learned Gentleman has often had to take notice of the behaviour of his colleagues, past and present, and I have not noticed in his utterances that he ever indulged in what might be described as grovelling flattery. That is not the sort of language in which the hon. and learned Gentleman indulges; that is not the kind of speech in which he excels. But that is no reason why he should envy the gifts of others more charitably endowed than himself, or why he should subject to these scathing criticisms, a speech, the ability of which cannot be contested, and which even he will not assert went out of the ordinary and proper line of Party controversy.