CLASS III (Hansard, 10 July 1903)

MR. J. P. FAREELL (Longford, N.)
said he put down a Motion to reduce this Vote by £500, for the purpose of calling attention to the inconceivably mean conduct of the Government in respect to the conduct of a prosecution against himself in October last. He regretted the absence of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, because he was certain, from what he knew of his demeanour, as compared with that of the Attorney-General for Ireland, that he would have received more favourable consideration at the hands of the Chief Secretary than he would at the hands of the Attorney General. It was now nearly twelve months since the Irish Government imposed coercion on Ireland. The proclamations issued in the first instance only embraced a few counties, but in the month of September further proclamations were issued which embraced a considerable part of Ireland, including the county and borough of Longford. At this time there was no crime of any description in Longford.
Within one week of the proclamation imposing coercion in that district, he, the representative of Longford in this House, was duly summoned on five counts to take his trial before two removable magistrates. The trial took place, and Dr. Faulkner, the legal gentleman prosecuting, stated that he appeared by the direction of the Attorney-General to prosecute for intimidation and incitement to intimidate certain persons. During the progress of 1220 the trial, which created a vast amount of interest, the spectators who came to see were treated with great rudeness, some of the most respectable people an largest ratepayers of Longford being hustled out of Court. As a matter of course, the magistrates convicted him, and sentenced him to five terms of five months' imprisonment, of which thru months in each term were with hard labour and two months without. Ha not the word concurrent, or whatever the legal term was, been put into the sentence, he would have had to have served two years and one month. As in was, the sentence only amounted to fifteen months altogether. The usual appeal was entered, and came on for trial before Judge Curran in the following October. The cardinal point he desired to make against the Attorney General was this. In the course of than appeal considerable stress was laid upon the fact that, independent of his representing Longford in this House, he held responsible positions in Longford itself being a member of the County Council and a member of the Board of Pool Law Guardians. He, personally, did not care except for the principle involved. It was pointed out to Judge Curran that if the term of hard labour was enforced, under the Local Government Act he would become disqualified from holding these offices and Dr. Faulkner got up and stated than he was instructed to press for the severest penalties, and that if hard labour was not imposed a great portion of the effect that the trial was intended to have would be lost. He considered that that was hitting below the belt in a most un-Irish way. For a great Imperial Government like this with its great majority in this Chamber, to descend to the meanness of instructing its Castle hack to press a Judge to impose this penalty on a man entitled to a seat in this House, was an Act for which the hon. Gentleman and his collegues should justly hang their heads with shame. To take advantage of a mere technicality in an Act of Parliament to inflict vindictive vengeance—for there was no other word for it—on a political opponent, merely because he discharged his duty towards the conntry which gave him birth, and which he was anxious to see placed upon a plane of equality and prosperity with that of 1221 other nations, was unworthy of any Government that ever sat in this House.
He did not ask the Attorney-General to undo the act which had been done in his name and at his request, but he asked hon. and right hon. Gentlemen sitting on both sides of the House whether it was fair that, when the criminal law was put into operation against any Member of this House, its operation should extend, not merely to his punishment for the offence of which he might have been guilty, but that it should operate afterwards in such a way as to deprive him for ever of sitting either on a Board of Guardians or a County Council, while at the same time he was entitled to come and vote in this House, where his vote counted as much as that of the Prime Minister or the Colonial Secretary. The position was untenable, and it was a travesty of government to say that they should be able to treat their political opponents in that fashion. The result of the appeal was that the sentence of five months with hard labour was reduced to three months with hard labour. All the same—the hard labour having been retained—he was disqualified from acting as a County Councillor and Poor Law Guardian, but—the absurdity of it—he was not disqualified from acting and voting as a Member of the Imperial Parliament. Altogether twelve Members of Parliament were prosecuted and sentenced, but only in this case were instructions given by the Crown to have the hard labour retained. He asked the Attorney-General for Ireland to explain why it was that this disgraceful action was taken against him in order to drive him from representative positions in Longford. As a protest he moved to reduce the salary of the right hon. Gentleman by £500.

§ MR. JOSEPH DEVLIN (Kilkenny, N.)
said in rising to support the Motion of the hon. Member for Longford he did not approach this matter as a personal grievance. He supported the Motion because, in his judgment, the act of the hon. and learned Gentleman 1222 was one which vitally affected the local government of Ireland. Eulogistic tributes were passed from time to time on the various local Councils of Ireland; the administrators of those Councils in the West were his colleagues in this House, leaders of the United Irish League in Connaught, Waterford and Mayo. It was simply because these men, as public representatives, chose to raise their voices in favour of Irish land for the Irish people, a principle which had since been incorporated in the measure of the Chief Secretary, that they had been compelled to suffer, not only imprisonment, but to mix with common fellows, eat prison food, and undergo prison fatigue. No member of the Irish Party demanded special treatment for himself, and his colleague who had suffered under the Coercion Act had been content to suffer, but there could be nothing more despicable on the part of the Government than to try and rob the people of the poorer districts of Ireland of the services of those who had proved themselves such splendid administrators of the County Council Act by imposing hard labour upon them. He did not know the intention of the House in putting this clause into the Local Government Act. He was not in the House when it was passed, but of this he was certain, that the House never intended it should be used as a weapon by the Government against their political opponents. The clause was intended to cover ordinary offences against the law of the land, but as a matter of fact Members of Parliament, County Councillors, District and Urban Councillors, were being prosecuted under it and prevented thereby from serving on those bodies on which, by the application of their ability and capacity, they might be able to build up the fortunes of the little communities in which they lived. It was a mean and dastardly policy, and he awaited with some interest the justification by the Attorney-General of the attitude taken up by the law officers on his instructions. Was it not a most peculiar position of affairs that a man who was a Member of the Imperial Senate was denied the right of sitting on the Longford County Council? Would the right hon. Gentleman be decent enough to endeavour to do something 1223 to change that anomalous and disgraceful condition of affairs? The Coercion Act had been withdrawn; the Government had taken the United Irish League to its bosom, and yet many members of the Party had been sent to gaol for preaching the doctrines of land reform, which constituted the very essence of the Bill which the Chief Secretary had been passing through that Mouse. If the peace of which so much had been heard was to be permanent some means must be fund to remove this disqualifications from his hon. friend.
There was one other point he desired to discuss. He wished to know why the police in Belfast had instituted a system of espionage and petty prosecution against members of the local branch of the league. The Nationalist Members of Parliament, who represented the United Irish League in that House, were largely responsible for keeping the present Government in power. Gratitude was defined sometimes as a lively sense of favours to come; he preferred to treat it as a recognition of past benefits, and, seeing that the United Iris League was responsible for having League kept the Government in power, was it not rather too bad that the humble, members of that body in the great city of Belfast should be prevented by the police from exercising their right to keep up a political movement in Ireland that enabled the Government to retain office. He protested against the action of the police in going round to the houses of these men and entering their names in note books for the sole purpose of intimidating them. He protested also against the issue by the police of summonses against the members of a band because they threatened to bring a certain matter before Parliament. He did not say that the Chief Secretary or Attorney-General was responsible for that.

*THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
Unless the hon. Member can show that the Attorney-General is responsible he will be out of order in discussing the matter.

§ MR. DILLON
I maintain on the point of order that the Attorney-General is responsible for all prosecutions under the present system of Irish law.

*THE DEPUTY-CHAIRMAN
said he interrupted because the hon. Member himself said he could not attribute this action to the Attorney-General.

§ MR. DILLON
Still the right hon. Gentleman is responsible.

§ THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,) Londonderry, N.
The Government are not responsible for these prosecutions.

§ MR. JOSEPH DEVLIN
Who is then?

§ MR. ATKINSON
The police. I am not.

§ MR. JOSEPH DEVLIN
said that surely the Minister responsible for the conduct of all prosecutions in Ireland was the Attorney-General. He was at any rate responsible to the House and must settle the matter with the local authorities. He ought not to allow the police authorities to carry on such a highhanded policy. Let the Chief Secretary open his eyes to what was going on in Ireland, and see that humble working men were not persecuted in a most contemptible fashion by the police, as they were now terrorised in the city of Belfast.

§ *MR. P. J. O'BRIEN (Tipperary, N.)
desired to know on what ground three men in his constituency had been returned for trial at Cork Assizes instead of being sent for trial in the usual course at Nenagh. Could the right hon. Gentleman say why a fairer trial could be held at Cork than at Nenagh. He understood the case had been disposed of that day by the men being allowed to return to their homes on their own recognisances, but why had they been put to the expense and inconvenience of going to Cork. The Chief Secretary had given them to understand in answer to Questions that if necessary the Irish Government would exercise the powers vested in them in in order to secure a fair and impartial trial, meaning to pack the jury for their conviction. Under these circumstances he (Mr. O'Brien) had given notice of his intention to move the reduction of the right hon. the Attorney-General's salary by £500 in order to open up this whole case, but now that the Government had very properly reconsidered their position and 1225 allowed these men their liberty he would merely content himself by again requesting to know on what grounds it was considered a fair trial could not be had at Nenagh.

§ *MR. DELANY (Queen's Co., Ossory)
asked who was responsible for the custom of making the bogus police returns or, which the Judges of Assize founded their political addresses. Such speeches were not allowed to be made by English Judges in charging Grand Juries, and why should it be permitted in Ireland? There was more crime in England than in Ireland, and why should the administration of the law in Ireland be thus degraded. Under that Vote they were being called upon to pay the expenses of the coercion régime in Ireland; they had in fact to pay the piper for the insults and indignities heaped upon hon. Members. There was the case of the hon. Member for South Kildare, who was found guilty by a packed jury. He maintained that a special course had been pursued with regard to him simply because he was a political opponent, and that the Crown Solicitor, who had since resigned his position in disgust, was compelled by his instructors to select a jury from a list of forty-six marked names on a panel of 220 jurors. At that same Assize two prisoners were tried for murder under the ordinary law by ordinary jurors, and convictions obtained in both cases. Why was a different policy pursued in regard to the hon. Member for South Kildare? The people of Ireland complained more of the corrupt and partisan administration of justice than of the law itself. He had no sympathy with packed juries. It happened on one occasion that he was on a packed jury himself, but he saved the situation. He was half sworn before the Crown Solicitor realised the fact, and then it was too late to challenge him. The right hon. and learned Member for North Tyrone was in the case—for the defence—while the present Solicitor-General prosecuted. It was the first time he served on a jury, and he was never in such a warm corner before or since. There were signs on this side and signs on that side of him, and soon his fellow-jurors spotted that he was not in the know—they saw he was the wrong man. But he saved the situation. How could they expect the people to respect the law when it was thus administered? 1226 Such conduct simply brought it into contempt. The result of the treatment meted out to the hon. Member for South Kildare was that the people sent him to Parliament. Had the Attorney-General dared oppose his return he would soon have got his answer from the electors of South Kildare.

§ MR. DILLON
said that when the Local Government Act was under consideration he saw the danger of the particular clause to which reference had been made, and he moved an Amendment to eliminate this disqualification from the Order in Council, which, he then declared, if it were allowed to remain would probably be used by the Government for the purpose of disqualifying and punishing their political opponents. The idea was laughed to scorn, and the suggestion that the Government could be guilty of such base and contemptible motives was declared to be an outrage on the House of Commons. His words, however, had been absolutely verified. Hard labour had been imposed for the specific purpose of disqualifying local leaders from serving on the councils, and he contended that no Government, even in Ireland, had ever been guilty of meaner or more contemptible conduct. To show the futility of such a policy, he instanced the case of a member of a local council who was sentenced to hard labour, and in addition had to listen to an atrocious tirade from the County Court Judge. What was the result? That man was about to be elected to a lucrative post under the council, which he could not have held had he been a member of the body. He hoped the Attorney-General would announce the intention of the Government to abandon this policy. If it were necessary to pass a one-clause Bill for the purpose, he thought nobody would object to it going through after midnight.
It had been announced in the newspapers in London, and generally believed, that in connection with the visit of His Majesty to Ireland, the Coercion Act had been completely suspended. That was not the case. The most odious provisions of the Act were still in force in many districts. Clauses 3 and 4 were still yet in operation, and it was ridiculous to talk about the Act being suspended 1227 while that was the case. He could not understand why the Government always seemed to do things by halves. During the last few months they had done much to promote good feeling in Ireland, and to remove many things against which the agitation of the United Irish League had been directed. But why did they not do the thing handsomely? If they desired to inaugurate an era of good feeling and peace in Ireland they must show the people that they meant to trust them; it could never be done by retaining, over a large portion of the country, the most objectionable clauses of the Crimes Act. A case in point was that referred to by the hon. Member for North Tipperary. Anything more preposterous than the action of the Government in that case could not be imagined. The charge was that of resisting the police—one of which no Tipperary man was much ashamed. The men were returning home peaceably after a meeting, when they found the road by which they had come barred by the police. They were asked to give an undertaking not to play bands while passing a certain house. They gave the undertaking, but the police continued to bar the road, and a little hustling took place. Thereupon the police drew their batons, and began smashing into the men. The Tipperary men, not understanding that method of argument, had recourse to their blackthorns, and an encounter ensued, in which the blackthorns got the better of the batons. The police were distinctly the aggressors. However, it was not necessary to pursue the subject further, as he understood the Government had practically dropped the charge. It ought to be realised by the Government that as long as Clauses 3 and 4 of the Crimes Act remained in force, and as long as County and District Councillors were subject to the disqualification to which reference had been made, the reign of peace which the Government were supposed to be anxious to promote would never be established.

§ MR. CULLINAN (Tipperary, S.)
said the inclusion of the penal clauses in the Local Government Act for Ireland had been justified on the ground that it was also in the English Act, but there was really no analogy between the two 1228 cases. The law was never applied in England as in Ireland, and the statement of the hon. Member for East Mayo conclusively proved that this power was never intended to be used in the manner which had been described. Many instances, similar to that of the hon. Member for Longford, could be given. One was that of a colleague of his on the County Council in South Tipperary. This man, one of the most respected, intelligent, and useful members of the council, was prosecuted, and sentenced to six months' imprisonment with hard labour. He appealed, and the County Court Judge being ill a K.C. was sent down as a substitute to hear the appeal. An application was made that the hard labour should be remitted from the sentence, but the K.C. absolutely refused, the impression left on the mind of everybody being that he was qualifying for a judgeship later on. But the man was released before the term had expired. Surely if the Government remitted that portion of the sentence, they ought also to consider the further punishment inflicted by this disqualification.
Another case was that of Mr. Flannagan, who was sentenced to hard labour, and thus came under this disqualification. He was re-elected to the chairmanship of the District Council, but the Local Government Board wrote declaring that they could not, under any condition, allow him to act as chairman. It was really time for this penal clause to be removed from the Act. In one case the solicitor defending the defendants asked the resident magistrates not to disqualify the men from serving on the council by sentencing them to hard labour, and the magistrates actually declared that they were not aware that hard labour carried with it that disqualification. It was all very well to say that resident magistrates administered the law without bias or influence. It was an extraordinary fact that when the Act of 1887 was passed, a month's imprisonment was given in every case, but immediately after the Prime Minister at Manchester had scoffed at the idea of such short sentences they were increased to three months, and when Lord Salisbury shortly afterward condemned the 1229 magistrates forgiving inadequate punishment, the term was immediately lengthened to six months. It was a disgrace that any Government could be guilty of such base and cowardly conduct.

§ MR. O'DOWD (Sligo, S.)
supported the Motion of the hon. Member for Longford, who, he thought, had been treated in a scandalous manner and one which reflected little credit on the administration of the law. He was not speaking of an individual, but of a county, which had been penalised. He referred to the county of Sligo. What was the position of affairs there at present? The Lord Chief Baron upon a recent occasion congratulated the Grand Jury and the people of the county of Sligo upon the peaceful state of the county. He said— Not alone have I the privilege of congratulating you now, but on every occasion I come here on circuit I have the same story to tell. Notwithstanding this statement the Government had claimed from the county of Sligo through the County Council £1,508 13s. for extra police used during the coercion règime of the last sixteen months. He did not deny that the county of Sligo was one of the foremost counties in pressing forward the agitation which had made the present Land Bill possible, and Sligo was the first county which sent hostages to prison. But while maintaining that fight in a fearless fashion the county of Sligo had always advanced their case by constitutional methods, notwithstanding the fact that the law officers might state that they had stepped across the line. It was absolutely scandalous and ridiculous to penalise a whole county to the tune of £1,500 or £1,600 for police, which would mean a rate of 10½d. in the £. If that penalty was not either withdrawn or the money allocated from some other fund, the boon of the Land Bill would not be well received by the people of Sigo. How had this police tax come about? Two or three gentlemen who held estates in several counties in Ireland took it into their heads to take and grab accommodation grazing farms situated in the centre of congested districts, in order to add to their incomes, thereby depriving the unfortunate people of the 1230 chances they had of allowing their cattle to graze on those lands for six months. For the sake of buttressing up this system of land jobbery of two individuals who held between 1,600 and 1,700 acres of land in grazing farms, this police tax had been incurred. For the sake of these two obnoxious individuals the poor people of the county of Sligo were to be mulcted to the extent of £1,500. It was absolutely scandalous. Many districts of the county of Sligo had not a single extra policeman during the coercion règime, and although they had nothing to do with the agitation, they would be mulcted to the tune of a 10½d. rate. As the Chairman of the Sligo County Council he would inform the Committee that the County Council would refuse to act as bailiffs of the Government for the collection of this tax, and they would probably have to subtract it from the local taxation grant.

§ MR. O'KELLY (Mayo, N.)
said he was quite in accord with the sentiments of his hon. friend who had just spoken. The object of this imposition was to penalise counties for taking part in a political propaganda in which the leaders were put in prison in order that the county might be deprived of the services of those men. It was perfectly plain that Dublin Castle could penalise representative men by giving removable magistrates instructions as to the decisions the Government desired to be given. He might say that he had spent some of the happiest months of his life in prison, and there were few places so inviting to him as one of His Majesty's prisons in Ireland In these prosecutions the resident magistrates took their cue from Dublin Castle, which was given to them by the Crown Prosecutor He thought it was intolerable that the power of inflicting hard labour on men should be given to magistrates who were dependent for their existence upon the favour of Dublin Castle. If those magistrates refused to carry out the dictates of Dublin Castle they had to go, and so they played the game, and were willing to act upon any instructions which were given to them. In regard to the matter mentioned by the hon. Member for South Sligo, it was 1231 perfectly monstrous that the county of Sligo, which was one of the most peaceful places in Ireland, should be mulcted in this large tax. He would like to know what number of police the people of Sligo were entitled to in ordinary times. These police seemed to be drafted in for the purpose of penalising the ratepayers. He thought the County Council of Sligo was quite justified in refusing to collect this rate. The result would be that the money would be filched from the agricultural grant. If the Government desired peace in Ireland those penal institutions must go. The peace must be genuine on both sides. There was now in Ireland a disposition to forget and forgive, but there could be no real forgetfulness or forgiveness until penal clauses of this kind were repealed.

§ MR. FIELD
said he hoped when the Attorny-General replied he would tell them the real reason why Dublin City was proclaimed. A more scandalous outrage than the proclamation of that city he never heard of. He trusted they would have a satisfactory reply as to why the citizens of Dublin were put under the Coercion Act when crime was almost unknown in Dublin. He thought he was entitled to a fair and square answer to that question.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said there seemed to be an opinion that no person should suffer who happened to be a Member of Parliament or a member of a County Council. He held that crime might be committed, and often was committed, in furtherance of an agitation. He thought intimidation was a crime, and it was in the endeavour to grapple with that crime, so widely spread in Ireland, that the Crimes Act was applied. The answer why Dublin had been proclaimed had been most effectively given before by the Chief Secretary, and he could only repeat the same answer. He did not wish to go into matters such as the extra police, which were entirely foreign to this Vote. Several hon. Members had asked questions with regard to the number of extra police sent here and there, but those were matters which would arise upon the Vote for the Police and not upon the Vote for Law Charges. The hon. Member for Kilkenny asked some questions in regard to alleged espionage by the police, 1232 but that question would arise on the Police Vote. He was not aware of the cases mentioned, and, as far as he knew, they were ordinary prosecutions for offences in the street taken by the police upon their own responsibility and did not come at all before the legal authorities.

§ MR. DILLON
Who would answer for them?

§ MR. ATKINSON
said the Chief Secretary would answer for them if they never went further than ordinary police prosecutions. Ordinary cases before the magistrates were dealt with on the spot without being taken up by the Attorney-General. If he had received notice of this Question he would have taken care to have informed himself as to the facts. It had been stated again and again that magistrates had come to such and such decisions at the behests of the Government.

§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILL (Donegal, S.)
Hear, hear.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said the hon. Member cried "Hear, hear." but as far as he knew that was a monstrous misstatement. He himself would scorn to do anything of the kind; he never did such a thing; he never knew it to be done, directly or indirectly. He had heard many accusations of this kind, and never heard one particle of proof to sustain them. He thought those persons who made such allegations ought to be called upon to produce some evidence in support of such charges before, they made them. Such charges made without proof might be more derogatory to the persons making them than to those against whom they were made. Resident magistrates had never been summoned to Dublin Castle to receive instructions.

§ MR. KILBRIDE (Kildare, S.)
asked whether they were not invited to luncheon at Dublin Castle when the proclamations were issued, and what was the object?

§ MR. ATKINSON
was not aware whether they were asked to Dublin Castle to luncheon, but if they were, it was certainly not to receive instructions as to how they were to decide on accept that offer any pending cases.

§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILL
They went there to get instructions.

§ MR. ATKINSON
It was not to get instructions on any case that might come before them.

§ MR. KILBRIDE
What did they go for?

§ MR. ATKINSON
said it was not to get instructions, either secretly or by suggestion, that they should sentence persons who came before them to hard labour in order to disqualify them from acting as county councillors. With regard to the cases in which punishment had involved disqualification from service on Councils, it was trifling with justice to say that a man was to be let off from due and adequate punishment because he was a county councillor.[A NATIONALIST MEMBER: "Nobody asks that."] He should have thought the fact that a man occupied the position of county councillor, and was looked up to by his constituency and those around him, was nil the more reason for his being more severely dealt with than an ordinary man, because his example was more vicious. He had never heard it suggested that because a man occupied a position of trust or public importance that he was not to be as severely punished as a man in a more humble position, provided always that the punishment was not undue or improper. With regard to the case of the hon. Member for North Longford, he did not propose to argue out the law affecting it, or to say whether the language complained of came within the statute, for the House of Commons was the very worst place for such a discussion. The hon. Member was tried by the magistrates and convicted. He appealed to the County Court Judge, who 1234 upheld the decision of the magistrates. But he would have been let off on appeal altogether if he had promised not to repeat the crime. The hon. Member did not accept that offer.

§ MR. J. P. FARRELL
If you had been in my place, would you, under the circumstances, have accepted?

§ MR. ATKINSON
No, but I would not have been in your situation.

§ MR. DILLON
You will not be too hard on the United Irish League now.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said the hon. Member for North Longford had implied that the sentence of hard labour was passed at his suggestion, because he was a county councillor.

§ MR. J. P. FARRELL
said he quoted what the Attorney-General's own representative stated.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said it wag not his business to tell the Court what sentence should be passed. His business was to advise upon the evidence, and to see that it was presented in Court in the most fair way. He had never directly or indirectly sought to Interfere with the Court or endeavoure secretly to obtain a conviction. He did not know that his representative had pressed for severe punishment, but that was a perfectly legitimate course to take.

§ MR. J. P. FARRELL
said he could send the Attorney-General a report of the case, showing that Dr. Faulkner stated that he was instructed to press for a severe punishment.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said that was an entirely different thing from secretly or openly telling the Judge that he ought to decide in a particular way

§ MR. J. P. FARRELL
said the right hon. Gentleman should not misconstrue what he said. What he said was that his counsel pointed out to the County Court Judge that if hard labour was retained in the sentence he would be disqualified from acting as a county councillor or a Poor Law guardian. Dr. Faulkner stated that his instructions were that hard labour was necessary, and that the consequent disqualification was necessary to prevent him from committing the same offence.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said the hon. Member seemed to imply that hard labour was inflicted upon him because he was a county councillor. That was not the case. The Judge did not take into consideration the question of disqualification, but merely passed a sentence adequate to the crime. He was not in a position to make the declaration asked for by the hon. Member for East Mayo; and he passed from this case with the remark that he utterly and absolutely repudiated the idea that either resident magistrates or County Court Judges, in obedience to any suggestion from the Crown, or in pursuance of any policy indicated by the Crown, ever resort to inflict hard labour for the improper purpose of indirectly subjecting the convicted person to disqualification. He had never known a single particle of evidence in support of that. With reference to the Tipperary case, he changed the venue to Cork because he thought a fairer trial would be secured. Every sixpence of the additional cost would be paid by the Crown. It was the ordinary right of a civilian to have a change of venue.

§ MR. DILLON
He could not pack the jury.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said the men pleaded guilty.

§ MR. DILLON
reminded the right hon. Gentleman that innocent men might be convicted in Ireland on the sort of evidence Sheridan gave.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said the Judge allowed them out on £5, with a warn- 1236 ing to behave better in future. He hoped they would take this to heart, but if they acted in a similar way again, and were convicted, they would probably not get off so lightly. With regard to Mr. Kilbride's case, he must say that the hon. Member had borne his punishment like a man, and that he had displayed a commendable good temper and courtesy since he had returned to the House.

§ MR. KILBRIDE
said he would inform the Attorney-General that, if the necessity arose, Mr. Kilbride was prepared to do the same thing again.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said he did not intend to go into the particulars of the case, or to argue one way or another whether the verdict was right or wrong, but only to deal with the suggestion of unfairness. It was a case arising out of certain dealings by General Meres with a tenant of his, and the hon. Member went to the estate and made a speech, for which he was tried and convicted.

§ *MR. DELANY
If I were accused before the same jury they would hang me.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said he was thankful to the hon. Member for having referred to the jury. This was a way in which the Crown Solicitor packed the jury! Dr. Todd, the Crown Solicitor, got a panel and marked it, but when he went down he heard that there were planters in the district, and he came to the conclusion that planters would be unfair to the accused. He then went to the solicitor of the accused, and asked him if there were any jurors on the panel who, in his opinion, would be hostile to his client, because, if he would point them out, he would challenge them on behalf of the Crown. The defendant's solicitor stated that there was a strong feeling among the planters, and Dr. Todd decided to set aside every planter. Accordingly, twelve men were set aside by the Crown as 1237 likely to be hostile to the accused. The defendant's solicitor also objected to three others as prejudiced. Dr. Todd inquired, and he found that, in his opinion, there was no evidence of that. This was on the day before the trial. Dr. Todd thought that these three men were fair. However, while the jury was being empanelled the defendant's solicitor challenged one, which was allowed, so that out of a panel of forty, thirteen were set aside at the direct suggestion of the solicitor of the accused.

§ MR. DILLON
How many Catholics were on that jury?

§ MR. ATKINSON
said he did not know, but he knew that thirteen Protestants were set aside. That was a fair specimen of how things were done. He did not think it was humanly possible for a prosecution to be conducted with more absolute fairness to the accused. As to the change of venue, it was quite competent to the hon. Member to have objected to that, but he did not do so.

§ MR. DILLON
said that what he had stated was that, in Catholic Queen's County, there was a jury of eleven Protestants and one Catholic, and yet the Attorney-General said that it was not a packed jury.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said that at all events he had only stated what was reported to him by the Crown Solicitor; and he thought that it was a striking instance of an absolute desire on the part of the Crown Solicitor to do what was right.

§ MR. DILLON
said that the Attorney-General had not stated whether the Proclamation would be removed.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said that he had no information, and could not make any announcement on that point.

§ MR. KILBRIDE
said he could not accept the statement which the Attorney-General had made on the information of the Crown Solicitor of what took place at his trial. He supposed that no prisoner ever accused by an Irish Government for a criminal offence had had the same experience as he had. While he 1238 was in prison at Maryborough, he himself had actually seen the special jury panel of 240 names of men in the Queen's County. He had it before him, and it was marked in blue and red pencil by Dublin. Castle.

§ MR. ATKINSON
Marked by the Crown Solicitor.

§ MR. KILBRIDE
Was the Crown Solicitor not part and parcel of Dublin Castle? Neither the Crown Solicitor for West Meath, nor the Crown Solicitor for Queen's County marked that panel; but a certain gentleman who was the most prominent Unionist in Queen's County Everybody knew that that was the case, and that he did it with the aid of his own clerk from information received from the police. The right hon. Gentleman stated that his solicitor had got thirteen Protestant gentlemen put off the jury; but every one of them, although a Protestant, was a Home Ruler as well as a sympathiser with the tenants. Why was William Davidson, a Scotch gentleman, who had lived the better part of his life in Ireland, retired? It was because he had been constantly giving evidence in the Land Courts on behalf of the tenants as a land valuer. Would the Attorney-General give the name of one man who was ordered to stand by who was not a Liberal and a Home Ruler, and the name of one man who was kept on who was not a Unionist and possibly an Orangeman. He wished to state that his solicitor informed him that the conversation between him and Dr. Todd took place on the day of the trial, and not before it as the Attorney-General had alleged. The right hon. Gentleman stated that the Crown never interfered with the resident magistrates in their decision, and never suggested what sentences were to be given. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman how it was that the resident magistrates happened to be down at Dublin Castle when the Proclamation of the Crimes Act was made? He meant the principal resident magistrates—those whom the authorities in Dublin Castle knew they had most confidence in. Were they asked to lunch? And what was the ménu? Was there anything about hard labour in it? Was it on the soup, or on the dessert? Ménu cards could be got up which would suggest 1239 certain things in just as good a way as by giving direct instructions They knew the right hon. Gentleman was a man of more than mediocre ability; and surely with his great ability, and the light of his Irish wit, he would be able to devise means of conveying to resident magistrates what Dublin Castle wanted without doing it in a clumsy fashion. That it was done he was as certain as that the right hon. Gentleman was at that moment sitting on the Treasury Bench. If a resident magistrate were not a reliable too of Dublin Castle he was sent back with God speed. If he was a reliable tool, he was brought to some place where he was likely to be useful.
Certain hon. Members had suggested to the Government the desirability of a man of his own name being brought in, in connection with the Crimes Act; but, notwithstanding the friendly suggestion, that was not done. The resident magistrate who did not carry out the behests, or what he believed to be the behests, of Dublin Castle, would be sent to the most remote parts of Ireland. Then the right hon. Gentleman said that the County Court Judge who sent his hon. friend the Member for North Longford to hard labour did not take into consideration whether he was a county councillor or district councillor—that he only took into his consideration the offence. Why did not the same County Court Judge send his hon. friend the Member for the Birr Division of King's County to hard labour? Why did he remove the hard labour part of the sentence? The difference was entirely due to the fact that, during the time that had elapsed between the sentence of his hon. friend the Member for North Longford and his hon. friend the Member for the Birr Division of King's County, certain comments had appeared in the Press, and public opinion was at work. Because of that public opinion Judge Curran removed the hard labour part of the sentence on his hon. friend the Member for the Birr Division, because he said he did not think the county should be deprived of his valuable services on the County Boards. What was the difference in criminality between his two hon. friends? Both got hard labour from the resident magistrate; in 1240 one case, Judge Curran confirmed the hard labour, in the other case he removed it. Would the right hon. Gentleman say whether that was due to the effect of public opinion or to any difference in the offences of his two hon. friends. Perhaps it was because his hon. friend the Member for the Birr Division was not a newspaper proprietor, and that he was thought to be more harmless. Reverting to the Mary borough case, he would ask how it was that the Government found it necessary to summon 240 special jurors to try one case under the Crimes Act.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said that under the Act the whole panel should be summoned.

§ MR. KILBRIDE
said it looked curious to the uninitiated. He thought that the 118 common jurors who had been summoned to try eighteen cases, two being capital offences, for which a man and a woman were hanged, would have been sufficient to try one Crimes Act case. That was the kind of thing that brought the law into contempt in Ireland. They all knew that Westmeath was proclaimed for this one case; and that Queen's County was proclaimed also in order that the case might be tried there. The charge against him was not of having taken part in a conspiracy in some hole and corner fashion, not of having run away from the light of day, or of having done anything in the dark. The charge against him was that in the middle of the day, with armed policemen around, and with a police notetaker, surrounded by six policemen, in the centre of the crowd he made use of certain words. What convicted him was that having told a good teetotal story the police notetaker was unable to report it properly. The story he related referred to a clergyman, a friend of his, who was a strong advocate of temperance. Sunday after Sunday he extorted his congregation in the direction of temperance and against excessive drink. He was in the habit of saying:— Why are you not able to pay your rent? Drink, the cursed drink! Why is it that you are evicted and thrown on the road by your landlord? Drink, the cursed drink! Why when you are evicted do you form criminal 1241 conspiracies? Drink, the cursed drink! Why do you fire at your landlord? Drink, the cursed drink! Why do you miss him? Drink, the cursed drink! It was because of that story, told in the interests of temperance, that he was convicted. He should have said that the meeting was proclaimed; there was a great deal of excitement; and they drew up at the first cross-roads they arrived at, knowing there was a police cordon half a mile further on. They all knew how difficult it was for even a practised shorthand writer to accurately report a speech, even when sitting at a table. How much more difficult it must have been for the police notetaker, standing in the middle of a crowd, surrounded by police and with the crowd taking every favourable opportunity of giving him a push. The right hon. Gentleman had no experience of that. No doubt £5,000 a year of Government salary would not give him any practical experience in such matters. The police shorthand writer was fairly capable; but he jumbled up his own statements with certain interruptions in the crowd. The story came out very badly, and did not appear as if it was spoken in the interest of temperance, although it was. At any rate, he claimed he had a right to be tried by a jury which was composed of neither Orangemen nor Freemasons. He did not object to be tried by a Protestant jury. He was prepared on any charge to go before any impartial Protestant jury in Queen's County; but he was not in favour of going before a Protestant jury from which every man known to be a Liberal in politics, or a sympathiser with the United Irish League, or with the tenants, was religiously excluded by the right hon. Gentleman and his representatives. It was a great thing for Irish nationality that in Queen's County the Government were unable to pack a jury without objecting to every man who had any respect for the views and sentiments of Tone and Fitzgerald. All he had to tell the right hon. Gentleman was that whatever the future might have in store for Irish Nationalists—and he hoped they had passed all trouble and difficulty—he was with his hon. friend the Member for East Mayo when he said that whoever else had changed they had not changed. Six months imprisonment in Mountjoy Prison had not changed his 1242 views; and it only confirmed the view he had held for twenty-five years that nothing had ever been got, or would ever be got, from the British Government except by opposition. Every concession Ireland had received from the Imperial Parliament had been wrung from it; and further concessions would be wrung from it.

§ MR. T. W. RUSSELL
asked if the gentleman referred to was still Crown Solicitor.

§ MR. ATKINSON
was understood to reply in the affirmative.

§ MR. WILLIAM REDMOND
said he wished to call attention to what he considered the very hard case of two of his constituents. The hon. Member for Tipperary had been good enough to refer to the matter in his absence; but he did not gather from the Attorney-General's speech that he made any reply at all. As the Attorney-General well knew, the cases to which he wished to refer were those of the chairman of the rural district council and the chairman of the board of guardians at Corofin, in his constituency, who were imprisoned under the Crimes Act; and because they were sentenced to hard labour they were now deprived of all right to exercise their duties on the local councils to which they were elected. As far as these two men—Mr. Flannagan and Mr. Griffin—were concerned they did not object to hard labour; but they considered it a great hardship to be deprived, by that hard labour, of the right of sitting on the local boards on their release. It might seem quite right to hon. Members representing English constituencies that where a man was convicted of an offence sufficiently serious to deserve hard labour he should be deprived of the right of sitting on a local council. But a local councillor in England who was sentenced to hard labour must have committed some serious offence which everyone would condemn; but the so-called offences in Ireland did not exist in England at all. It was a totally different matter in Ireland, because a man was convicted for an offence which had no existence in 1243 England. These offences were political and certainly agrarian; and it was a monstrous injustice that such men should not only have to suffer imprisonment but should also be deprived of their rights to represent their fellow-countrymen in elected positions. Mr. Flannagan, as a result of his imprisonment, became for a considerable period insane, and had to be sent to a lunatic asylum from the prison. Altogether it has been an extremely painful case, and was the subject of a long inquiry. Mr. Flannagan finally recovered, and the people, who had the greatest confidence in him, re-elected him to the position of chairman of the district council. He was, however, told by the Dublin Castle authorities that if he continued to act he would be subjected to severe penalties. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman as to whether such acts were not calculated to create disorder more than anything else in the district. The Crimes Act had now been removed, the whole thing was past and over, and he seriously asked the Attorney-General if he intended to pursue the matter further and prevent these two gentlemen from acting in their representative capacity.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said Mr. Flannagan was disqualified by statute, and it was impossible for the Government to waive that disqualification. The request of the hon. Member for East Mayo that the Government should bring in a Bill to repeal the disqualifying provision was a different matter.

§ MR. WILLIAM REDMOND
asked what penalties would be imposed on Mr. Flannagan if he continued to act.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said that very expensive proceedings might be taken to set aside an order made by him, and he might be very heavily mulcted in costs.

§ MR. WILLIAM REDMOND
said that then they were led to understand that in order to pursue Mr. Flannagan the whole district was to be kept in a state of turmoil and disturbance. The King would land in Ireland in a few hours; 1244 and it was an extraordinary thing to him that in one small district like that the Government should announce through the Attorney-General their intention of continuing that action. It would undoubtedly keep the district in a state of disorder. The people of the district were not to be trifled with, and while they were quite ready for peace if they were pursued further there would be unpleasant consequences.

§ MR. ATKINSON
said that the hon. Gentleman asked him a legal question as to whether the Government would reinstate these gentlemen, and his reply was that the Government had no such power.

§ MR. WILLIAM REDMOND
said the Government need not proceed unless they liked. Certainly Mr. Flannagan would pursue the course he thought right, and he would be supported by the people of the district. If the Government desired turmoil and disorder, they would proceed against Mr. Flannagan; if not, they would allow the matter to lapse. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not challenge the people of this district to further action in the matter.