§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum not exceeding £32,416, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which, will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 3lst day of March, 1906, for Criminal Prosecutions and other Law Charges in Ireland."
§ MR. JOSEPH DEVLIN (Kilkenny, N.)said that he recognised to the full the limitations under which he laboured in rising to move a reduction of this Vote, because it was merely a continuation of the farce to which his hon. and learned friend referred yesterday. It was a farce to move a reduction of an Estimate and find when the Motion was carried that either the Minister who represented the distinctive Office or the Government itself persisted in deriding the decision of that House. However, he supposed that so long as Irish representatives were in that House and compelled to take part in its deliberations they would have to obey its ordinary rules. This was the first time that a discussion had been taken upon this Vote for three years. No doubt there were good reasons for not discussing the charges for the Irish Law Officers, but whatever those reasons might be the Irish Parliamentary Party had nothing but the most complete and profound contempt for the legal administration of the hon. and learned Gentlemen opposite. No matter how irresistible might be the case which Irishmen put against that administration or how powerful might be their exposition of it, the Ministers opposite, who seemed to have lost all sense of decency, much less dignity, would, if defeated upon it, come to the House and say that its vote counted for 256 nothing in the Constitution of the Empire, and that the Minister, who sat on the Treasury Bench, and who by so doing had been guilty of an outrage against all the canons of decency would continue in office. The Chief Secretary had not yet declared what his intention was with regard to the office he held; he had not stated whether he was prepared to resign his office and give up his seals. Members of the Opposition were naturally irritated and indignant when they found that the Government did not resign when beaten in a division by a majority of the House, and by continuing in office were violating a great constitutional principle. But what was to be said of the individual Minister, the mouthpiece of the Irish Government, whose policy was the one condemned, who still sat on the Treasury Bench and was determined to remain there? The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had justified his retention of power by saying that it was necessary that he should continue in the interests of the Empire, but the Chief Secretary surely would never say that his retention of office was necessary for the government of Ireland.
§ MR. JOSEPH DEVLINsaid he was coming perfectly near to the point, not that he felt that he ought to obey the rules of the House, because he was of an entirely opposite opinion if he were to follow the lead of the Prime Minister, but because of his respect for the Chairman he would endeavour to follow the advice tendered. He thought this was the time when the Committee should have some explanation from the Chief Secretary as to why he clung like a leech to office and declined to submit to the decision of the Committee, which denounced his policy, and resign. They did not expect honour or dignity or anything beyond an ignoble clinging to office by right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench; least of all did they expect it from the hungry gang of lawyers who had fattened and battened on the impoverishment of the people of Ireland, and who were at the end of their wretched existence prepared to pile scandal upon 257 scandal upon their administration of justice, a word which had only to be mentioned in Ireland to be despised.
The Attorney-General for Ireland received a salary of £5,000 a year and the Solicitor-General £2,000, in addition to which each of those Gentlemen last year received £500. What had been their administrative legal functions during that period? The Attorney-General had been guilty of the treason of denouncing his colleague in the Administration. 'There was honour among thieves, but there was no honour among the Gentlemen who guided the fortunes and destinies of Ireland. Sir Antony MacDonnell was brought over to Ireland at the request of the late Chief Secretary, the principles upon which he consented to accept office being stated in documents in the possession of the Chief Secretary, and that legal luminary the Attorney-General for Ireland proceeded to denounce Sir Antony MacDonnell, the permanent Government official in Ireland, the honourable Gentle man's own colleague, a man called in specially to administer the law as well as the affairs of Dublin Castle, until loyalty had become a by-word in the Administration as it hid been derided in the Cabinet from which had been driven the most honourable and loyal colleague the Administration of Ireland possessed. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney-General went down to his own constituency in North Tyrone and de nounced Sir Antony MacDonnell, the man who was responsible for the Land Act which the hon. and learned Gentleman had now to administer. He was not there to defend Sir Antony Mac Donnell or to denounce the hon. And learned Gentleman for his disloyalty to his colleagues, because they could not apply the ordinary moral code to this Government. The spirit of comradeship and honour did not exist among Gentle men on the Treasury Bench. There could be nothing worse than a mean Government except the Irish members of that mean Government.
His main purpose in rising was to bring before the House the recent instances in Galway, in which the Right hon. Gentleman had called into operation once more the operation of the Coercion Act, the suspension of 258 which was to be the forerunner of the great policy of conciliation, the Land Act, which they accepted in that House and which the Irish people accepted in the hope that it would end for ever this seemingly insoluble coercion problem in that country. They believed that the policy of coercion would terminate. Honeyed words and soft phrases were used for the purpose of coaxing them. They believed that until the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover was driven out of office. Then the Chief Secretary was brought into the position he now occupied and he went to Belfast and endeavoured to show that he was no mere weakling like the right hon. Member for Dover. He went to the city of Belfast under the aegis of Lord Londonderry, and preached impartial, fearless, and honest administration of the law. That meant the crushing of the weak in the interests of the strong. It meant the application of special powers to deride the Constitution of Ireland as it had been derided in the House of Commons. It meant placing as criminals in the dock people who had committed no crime. It meant, in other words, that for Ireland there was to be no law but the law of the policeman's baton and the prostitution of justice. He credited the right hon. Member for Dover with having retired like a man, although he was not defeated. But these Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench had been defeated in the House and still they clung to office, and at the very moment when they were carrying out infamous prosecutions of people who were longing to remain on the soil of their native land, so that their children might grow up to be respectable citizens.
What had been the policy pursued in Galway? Certain respectable men had been indicted and impeached. They were brought before a perjured and packed jury, and sentenced by a Judge, about whom the rules of order in the House prevented him speaking freely. When the rules and regulations were before the House the other night, the hon. and learned Member for Waterford asked how intimidation was to be proved. The Chief Secretary did not answer, but he (the hon. Member), had answered the Question. It was to be proved 259 by getting up prosecutions at any price, and making it appear there was intimidation when there was none. That was exactly and precisely what had been done in the case he had mentioned. No doubt there were public meetings, but public meetings were not a crime in Ireland unless they were made a crime for the purposes of the Government policy. The whole thing was a gross and outrageous scandal. They might as well bring cattle before a jury of butchers as bring these honest respectable people of Galway who were contending for the true operation of the Land Act before the jury of graziers who tried them. These men were simply fighting for the proper operation of the Land Act, and simply asking the Government to do that which they had laid down as one of the principles of the Act, namely, that the untenanted grazing lands should be taken over and divided amongst the uneconomic holdings. He himself had never believed that the mere transference of the land from the landlord to the tenant was the crux of the land question. It was no doubt primarily important, but what was wanted in Ireland was not so much cheaper land as more land, that the people living in these wretched cabins and five-acre bog farms should be able to take advantage of the Act of 1903, for the purpose of enlarging their holdings. He was not a Member at the time, but he remembered reading with tears in his eyes of the manner in which the hon. Member for Dover and the Prime Minister pictured the misery of these people, great in virtue and strong in physical power, who could not live unless more land was given to them. Yet in Ireland they saw cattle grazing on vast tracts of untenanted land which were designed by God for the use of the people. These people had by the ordinary methods of agitation tried to get the Land Act properly administered and the old and hateful policy of coercion had once more been resurrected. The reinstatement of the evicted tenants to the holdings from which they had been evicted was part and parcel of the arrangement which had been entered into a few years ago.
Referring to the case of the ten men who had just been prosecuted at Galway 260 Assizes for unlawful assembly, the hon. Member said it might have been expected that even the discredited instruments of a discredited Administration would have proceeded on the indictment placed before the Court. But they did not proceed on the question of unlawful assembly. What did the minions of the law do in that Coercion Court in the West of Ireland, where the land policy had impoverished the people and rendered them desolate? The prosecution proceeded to bring forward a threatening letter which. the Judge allowed to be read in Court, although he stated that it would not be accepted as evidence. That threatening letter was not written by any member of the United Irish League. All this was in regard to an alleged attempt to intimidate a man called Richard Power Eyrecourt. That man was the occupier of grazing land on the eleven months system, and the people asked him to give up the land so that it might be divided among the persons on the estate He stated that there was no intimidation, and in the whole course of the evidence there was nothing to show that he had been intimidated in any way. Notwithstanding that, the jury found a number of the accused guilty, and they received sentences ranging from nine months imprisonment with hard labour down to one month's imprisonment. That case had created a memory of wrong of which that House would hear, and of which the people of Ireland and America would hear, so long as the Irish representatives were able to protest against the system of packing juries and convicting men of crimes of which they had not been guilty. Why did not the Government move in the matter of obtaining the grazing lands for distribution among the people as was intended by the Land Act? The Government were not in favour of that policy. What they were in favour of was the bonus of £12,000,000, and if their friends could collar that money from rich estates in Ireland, the Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench did not care a snap of one's fingers for the poor people who had uneconomic holdings in the West of Ireland. He was told that the law must be upheld if the heavens should fall.
261 While all this maladministration of the Land Act had been going on, and while the peasants of Galway were being prosecuted for what were called breaches of the law by the Attorney-General, his colleague, the Solicitor-General, was preaching boycotting and intimidation in the Courts of Justice in the North of Ireland. He would recite to the House the circumstances of the case of Rose Sweeney, a school teacher in the county of Tyrone. In March last year she was appointed instructress in a school in that county. The appointment was made by the Rev. William Baillie, the Presbyterian manager of the school, and it created great hostility in the district—the kind of hostility for which he would be imprisoned if he were to practice it in Galway. The school had been closed up on account of the terrorism of three men, one of whom was William Coote, justice of the peace. The salary of Rose Sweeney was the munificent sum of £14 a year. She was not appointed to teach the catechism or theology; she was appointed to teach sewing and knitting. Not a word could be said against her character. After the appointment was made, Mr., Coote started a propaganda against this young girl which, he thought, was unparalleled in the history of personal persecution. On the following day four crosses were painted—two on the church and two on the school. He wanted to know what had been done to find out the perpetrators of that outrage. He knew that the Attorney-General knew nothing about it because, this being an Orange outrage, it was not to his interest to inquire into it, but the Solicitor-General would be able to tell the Committee all about it, and what had been his own part in the transaction. When the Rev. Mr. Baillie asked Mr. Coote what was meant by the crosses, the answer was, "You will soon know all about it. All Ulster is up in arms."
He did not propose to trouble the House with the threatening letters written by Mr. Coote. He wrote letters in which he called upon fathers and mothers not to send their children to the school. Twenty-three children were withdrawn from the school, and finally the girl lost her position altogether. The 262 hon. Member reminded the House of the action taken in connection with the case of Miss Cass, who was the victim of wrongful arrest in London some years ago. On that occasion, he believed the policeman who arrested her for something or other had something to say for himself. But here was a case of an organised conspiracy against a young I girl headed by a justice of the peace in the North of Ireland, and when this humble woman took action against him for this outrage he was defended by the Solicitor-General—the eminent upholder of law and order whose salary they were discussing that night. He could not in the time at his disposal get a file of the paper containing a report of the Solicitor-General's speech, but if he remembered aright the hon. and learned Gentleman distinctly declared that the people were perfectly justified in what they had done. He was not a lawyer. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: Thank God for that.] He did not know what was the moral code that guided lawyers, but he was not aware that the etiquette of the Bar enabled a lawyer to preach intimidation in one Court and to denounca it in another. It might be all right to say that the hon. and learned Gentleman spoke according to his brief, but what were they to think in that House, and what were the people of Ireland to think, of the conduct of the Solicitor-General? He was not a hungry lawyer. He was not a lawyer accepting briefs in order to get a livelihood. He was comfortably squatted on the Treasury Beach with £2,500 a year. A grosser; outrage could not be committed before the people of Ireland to whom the: Government wished to teach lessons I in law. They found that the Solicitor General was engaged preaching boycotting and intimidation in Tyrone, while the Attorney-General was prosecuting peasants in Galway. The Solicitor General had no right to take advantage of his great position and to go into a Court in the North of Ireland to defend a ruffian and then come to England and stand on platforms as the representative of law and order. The sooner this farce was ended the better. Thank God the time was coming when, after fifteen years of "resolute government" in Ireland, a brighter era would open for 263 the people, and when it would be recognised that all men were equal before the law.
The House of Commons and the people of Ireland were waiting for an explanation of the legal scandal to which he had called attention. He wished to know why Mr. Coote was retained as a justice of the peace. This man was the legal adviser of Mr. Coote. Let the Chief Secretary tell them why it was stated in this House that the matter was to be taken to the Court of Appeal. This was not a matter for the Attorney-General, but for the Chief Secretary, and now that the right hon. Gentleman intended to cling to office they would cling to him until he gave an honest and straightforward Answer to the Question—What was to be done to this man? He did not believe in the application of coercion laws, but he wanted to know whether this man was still on the Bench, and whether the right hon. Gentleman intended to retain him there. If there was to be equal administration of the law in Ireland this man should be prosecuted, in the same way as Mr. Ball had been at Belfast, when that gentleman went up to preach and the windows of the Catholic church were broken. He begged to move the reduction of the Vote by £1,000.
Motion made and Question proposed, "That a sum. not exceeding £31,416, be granted for the said Service."—(Mr. Joseph Devlin.)
§ MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)said he thought that the House would readily recognise that something more than a mere stereotyped reply was demanded from the Law Officers of the Crown in answer to the impeachment of his hon. friend the Member for Kilkenny. He trusted that that reply would not be clogged with figures as to jury-packing as in former years, and that the Attorney-General and the Solicitor-General would defend their conduct in regard to. the Galway prosecutions. His hon. friend had referred to the fact that it was three years since this Vote had been discussed on Irish Supply. That had never been from want of material, for time after time, and session 264 after session, they had brought forward the sad tale of jury-packing, and always the same Answer had been given—that someone else did it years ago, and that the end justified the means. The rule Ireland was the converse of on old legal phrase expressed by a great Judge: "Acquit if you can, convict if you must." The motto of the right hon. Gentleman was, "Convict if you can, acquit the-prisoner only if you must." That had been going on all over the country. It had always been said that it was better that a guilty man should escape rather than an innocent man should be punished but the opposite was the case in most parts of Ireland. There were fifty odd Connaught peasants imprisoned with hard labour for from one to nine months, who would never have been convicted but for the artifices of the Crown Law Officers in selecting the juries. That would not be done in any county in England, or in any shire in Scotland In Ireland the Government had loaded the dice and revived the Coercion Act; in order to pack the juries.
In Galway six men were charged with, unlawful assembly, that was, with attending a political meeting at which speeches-were made which the Attorney-General did not like. Twenty-two jurors were asked. to stand by and ordered to attend the Court again on Monday. When a protest was made, the Judge said they must, all come back on the Monday, and that if any remained away it would be on their own responsibility, and they would be liable to a fine. It followed, as night followed the day, that under such a system conviction followed prosecution. At the Cork Summer Assizes, at which Judge Kenny sat, the cases were not-very important, but when a man named Calvert was charged with a slight offence, thirty-nine jurors were asked to stand side, and of these thirty-six were Roman Catholics. The Attorney-General said he knew nothing about the men's religion, but everyone acquainted with the facts knew that the Crown Solicitor was informed by a Government agent that all these men were Roman Catholics At the same assizes on another charge thirty-three jurors were ordered to stand aside. When a protest was made the Attorney-General ordered a report from 265 the Crown Solicitor and afterwards declared that he entirely agreed with that report, and took the responsibility on himself The Crown Solicitor said that he was unable to give any information as to the religion of the jurors, and that he had made no inquiry in that regard. If it were within the rules of order he would characterise the statement of the Crown Solicitor as a lie. Every man in the Court knew that the Crown Solicitor received information from his underlings as to the religion of the jurors. What were the grounds on which the Crown Solicitor said he acted? They were that in his belief, and in the belief of the other representatives of the Crown, these jurors would not abide by their oaths, and that they would not give a fair verdict. That was to brand in advance the greater part of the population of Ireland as perjurers If the dice were loaded against the people in this manner, how could they expect law and order to be maintained?
He would connect this jury-packing with the abominable crime committed by Sergeant Sheridan. Dan McGowan was charged with the mutilating of cattle. Sixty Catholic jurors were ordered to stand aside. He was tried by a packed jury, and sentenced on the perjured evidence of Sergeant Sheridan to two years penal servitude. As the Attorney General knew, McGowan was an absolutely guiltless man. When other things came cut about Sergeant Sheridan the Crown compensated McGowan with £100, but Sheridan was allowed to escape, just as a policeman was kindly allowed to get away the other day by his district inspector. There was another case of a man who was tried for setting fire to hay, and was tried by a packed jury and sentenced to three years penal servitude. That man was also innocent, and died in prison, and his mother had since been compensated with 10s. per week. He had in his locker sheets and sheets of cases, but he would not delay the Committee by reciting them. He contended that it would be far more decent for the Attorney-General to get up at that Table and propose to abolish jury trial altogether, than to try the Irish people accused of offences having the slightest tinge of politics or agrarianism 266 by this abominable system of jury-packing, which was a prostitution of justice and a disgrace to the country.
§ MR. KILBRIDE (Kildare, S,)said that at the late Galway Assizes there were several cases of unlawful assembly, none of which were tried by the Crown by an ordinary jury. For the purpose of securing convictions the Crown put into operation certain sections of the Coercion Act by which they could summon for the trial of these poor Galway peasants a special jury. On this particular occasion a panel of 293 special jurors was summoned, mainly consisting of men differing in politics and religion from the accused, and most of whom were in occupation of lands which the right hon. Member for Dover had said it was the intention of the Land Act to divide up. In the first case, fourteen men were accused of interfering with a process-server in the discharge of his duty. Eight special jurors were ordered to stand by, the accused were found guilty, two were let out on their own recognisances, while the others were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment with hard labour. There was one law for the unlettered peasant of the West, and another for the well-do-do, fat grand master of an Orange lodge in county Tyrone. [Laughter.] The right hon. Gentleman opposite laughed, but he could not deny the fact that every statement made in connection with Mr. Coote's cass was strictly accurate.
There was another case at the Galway Assizes when ten men were accused of unlawful assembly. Thirty-eight special jurors were ordered to stand by, these men were known to be either Nationalists or Liberals in politics, not one was a supporter of the Government; and it was because they were known to be out of sympathy with His Majesty's Government that they were ordered to stand by. The ten accused men were found guilty and sentenced to three months hard labour. A third case was where ten men were accused of unlawful and tumultuous assembly, and they were found guilty and sentenced to three months hard labour. That took him back to something which had occurred in this country four or five years ago 267 when the hon. Member for Carnarvon went to Birmingham. On that occasion the hon. Member, in the exercise of his rights, made a speech on the Boer War, when the Birmingham mob created a riot, and not only were the police attacked but many were injured. If ever there was a case of unlawful assembly it was on that occasion. One men lost his life, and ninety policemen were injured. Was there any prosecution, or was any special Act of Parliament or special law put into operation to try the rioters? Did the right hon. Gentleman opposite move to have the rioters tried by special jury? Nothing of the kind; and the reason was that the mob was acting in the supposed interest of the Government. Coming back to Galway, it was because these poor peasants were acting in their own interests that they were tried and condemned. It was because there was one law for the opponents of the Government, and another law for those who were acting in the interest of the Prime Minister and his Government.
There was a fourth case at the Galway Assizes, where four men were accused of conspiracy and twenty-eight jurors were ordered to stand aside, but the jury disagreed. He wished to direct attention to what was said by a juror when he was ordered to stand aside. This juror was a particular friend of his own, was known to every hon. Member for Connaught, was vice-chairman of the Galway County Council, and a member of several public boards in his own county and different parts of his province. His name was John C. McDonnell. When he was ordered to stand by he protested that it was not only ridiculous and absurd, but an outrage to himself to have him summoned to attend for eight days during the continuance of the assizes when he knew, and everybody knew, that he would be ordered to stand by. The learned Judge said he had no power to relieve him. Why did the Crown order him to stand by? He was vice-chairman of the Galway County Council, a member of almost every public board in the province of Connaught. Was there any man in the House, in Connaught, or in any part of Ireland who knew John C. McDonnell by 268 character, who would get up and allege that he was a man who would refuse on the evidence to bring in an honest and true verdict against the accused? Not a man would attempt to do so. He was ordered to stand by because of the well-known fact that he was a Nationalist and opposed in politics to His Majesty's Government.
There were six cases of unlawful assembly, and forty-six jurors were ordered to stand by. Apparently as the Crown got on, reliable man became fewer, and, as the panel of 293 became exhausted, they were obliged to order a larger number to stand by. There was another reason why the number was increased. The evidence was not strong; and the Crown was doubtful of their case. Therefore, they required a jury of more than an ordinary tint. Curious to relate, the jury disagreed. The charge was intimidation. They had often said in that House that the road to the Bench was not merit; it depended whether one was a Crown Prosecutor or not. He hoped the Attorney-General would tell them how many Judges were never Party or political hacks, how many were never politicians, and how many got on the Bench from sheer merit and ability. Of course, they all knew he could not mention a single man who had not got on the Bench for other than political service. There was the notorious case of the late Mr. McDermott, the acknowledged leader of the Irish Bar. No man got the same sum endorsed on his brief as he did, and yet he died, as he lived, a loyal member of the Bar. He had no more chance of getting on the Bench than any man who knew no law at all. Leahy and his wife both swore that they were not intimidated. His grass land had been bought by the Estates Commissioners for distribution among the smaller tenants in the neighbourhood. That was a notorious fact, well known to the local branch of the United Irish League. It would, therefore, have been ridiculous for that League to have tried to intimidate Leahy to do what he had already done. When Leahy and his wife were giving evidence, they were cross-examined by the Judge more severely than by the Crown Prosecutor. That showed how the Judge stood impartially between 269 the Crown and the accused, and ho, v the law was impartially carried out.
In the sixth case, Costello, secretary of a local branch of the league, was charged with inditing a letter to a person who had land on the eleven months system urging him to give it up. There were twenty-two ordered to stand by. He was found guilty and sentenced to one month's hard labour. Every man, no matter whether he was the chairman or a member of the county council, whether he was the chairman or member of a district council, got hard labour, because, under a special provision of the Local Government Act, he was thus disqualified from acting in any public body in the county for, he thought, five years. It was because Michael Hobbs, one of the accused, was the chairman of a district council that the Judge gave him hard labour. He would not say he was prompted to do that by the two right hon. Gentlemen opposite; but there were ways of intimating to learned Judges what the opinion of His Majesty's Government was. In the case of Michael Keane, the local secretary of the United Irish League, the accused was indicted for writing a letter requesting a person to give up land. About thirty-four were ordered to stand by, and he was found guilty and sentenced to one month's imprisonment. He wished to draw attention to the Banbridge stabbing case. A body of Orangemen, having got into some row with a number of Catholics, stabbed a Catholic. The man was very nearly losing his life. His lion, friend the Member for South Down asked a Question in connection with the matter. He asked if, when the Orangemen were brought before the assizes, any of the jurors would be ordered to stand by. The answer of the Chief Secretary was "Certainly not."
§ MR. WALTER LONGsaid he did not recognise a word of what was attributed to him. If the hon. Gentleman were giving the Answer he made to a Question, he should be glad if he would quote his words.
§ MR. KILBRIDEsaid his hon. friend informed him that the Answer he received was "Certainly not."
§ MR. WALTER LONGsaid that he had not got the Question and Answer by him, but he reeollested being asked a Question with reference to this particular case, and he imagined, speaking from memory, his Answer would be in the negative. It was ridiculous to suppose that he would say no jurors would be challenged because he had no control in the matter. Therefore, to the best of his recollection no such Question was asked, and no such Answer given.
§ MR. KILBRIDEsaid he did not want to put an Answer into the mouth of the right hon. Gentleman which he did not give. He was asked whether the same procedure would be adopted as in other parts of Ireland.
§ MR. WALTER LONGsaid he could not possibly have answered what the hon. Gentlemen said. As far as he remembered, the Question had absolutely no regard to special jurors. The hon. Gentleman himself knew it would have been quite impossible for him to have said that the jurors would not be challenged.
§ MR. KILBRIDEsaid he accepted the Answer of the right hon. Gentleman, but would the House believe that the man was tried by an exclusively Protestant jury?
§ MR. KILBRIDEsaid he could have understood the hon. Member intervening on any date previous to the appointment of Mr. T. O'Shaughnessy as Recorder of the city of Dublin, and whose shoes he got, but now that he had got all that he was likely to get, he did not see what object he had in intervening If any of the right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Treasury Bench would deny that that Orangeman was not tried by an exclusively Protestant jury, he would not only apologise to him but to the House for having made a false statement. Until they did so, he was not going to give way to the Crown Prosecutor of Belfast or to an inquisitive Englishman who kuew nothing of Irish affairs.
271 What did the three right hon. Gentlemen hope to accomplish by these proceedings in Galway? How did they arise, and who was responsible for all the trouble in the West of Ireland? "Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick." The statements made by the Member or Dover two years ago were responsible for it. Over and over again he stated that the Land Act would get rid of the wretched and rotten condition of affairs in Connaught and that the people would be raided out of their slough of despond, and the peasants believed him. They believed they had a right to the grass lands and that legislation had conferred that right upon them. They believed they were acting within their rights and in conformity with the Land Act of 1903 in trying to bring pressure to bear upon land speculators who were in no sense farmers, but who were often either successful publicans or pawnbrokers. It had become a speculation, and amongst the graziers of the West of Ireland there was not one genuine resident farmer in any sense of the word. He had never believed that the residential farmer should be interfered with; God knew that there was enough land in the West of Ireland where there was no residential occupier, and if it were thought that by putting the Coercion Act into force the peasants of the West and those who believed in their moral right would be prevented from insisting upon the speculators being made to stand aside to allow the peasants to live on the land, the Government was mistaken.
§ MR. DUFFY (Galway, S.)said it was impossible to imagine that the grave and serious scandals recently committed in the name of British law in the city of Galway, would be allowed to pass over without strong and bitter comment. The Chief Secretary might, and he had no doubt would, say that the Irish Government was administering the existing laws according to the usual practice. Even so, it was a proceeding so base and discreditable as to render it almost impossible to conceive that a scandal of such magnitude was possible at this time of the day in any part of the King's realms. Fair and impartial administration of the laws in Ireland won respect and even confidence amongst those who most distrusted it, 272 but the mean. contemptible, and degrading, spectacle of jury-packing which Thomas A. Loeky and the paid hirelings of Dublin Castle practised in Galway, excited no feeling other than that of contempt and derision and a desire to make ribbons of; the law. In view of what took place in Galway last week, how could they expect anyone to have the slightest respect for the law? They saw that most respectable and honourable men from all parts of the county, district and urban councillors, county councillors, and even magistrates of the county, who had been summoned from. all parts to serve on the long panel, told to "stand aside"—that they were unfit to-take the oath and deliver a true verdict according to the evidence submitted to them. The Crown exercised the arbitrary and unlimited right of challenge, in some-cases humiliating from thirty to forty jurors by directing them to "stand aside, and it only ceased this almost incredible and disgraceful practice when twelve bigoted, prejudiced, and hostile jurors had been placed in the box to try the prisoners. What cant and hypocrisy it was for some hon. Gentlemen in that House, and well-paid hirelings out of it, to accuse them of having no respect for the law. Such law and the way it was administered stank in their nostrils, and anything and everything they could do both in that House, as well as at home in Ireland, to bring it into contempt and loathing would be done.
As to the "crimes" or offences with which those young men were charged, let the House just listen for a moment to the henious criminal offences which some of them were alleged to have committed. All the cases were practically the same, the object aimed at was identical, namely, to bring into possession of the Irish Government blocks of grazing or untenanted lands for the purpose of dividing them among people anxious to stay at home and devote their undoubted physical and intellectual energies to building up the shattered and torn fortunes of their country. Surely an object so laudable and praiseworthy was not going to be stigmatised in that House as a criminal offence And yet it was for that purpose that the Crown at Galway exercised its. unlimited power of challenge, and packed 273 jury after jury into the box for the purpose, not of trying the issues fairly and justly or of holding the scales of justice evenly and impartially as between the traversers and the Crown; out for the deliberate purpose of finding the prisoners guilty and thereby consigning them to gaol for varying terms of imprisonment. The Crown by this disgraceful strategy, by playing the game with loaded dice, had succeeded in sending large numbers of young men to break stones, to pick oakum, to stitch sacks, and live upon the frugal and appetizing "skilly" and "shadow soup" of prison fare for comparatively long terms of imprisonment. He did not complain. The poor prisoners would be the first to resent his interference if he uttered one word which implied that they were sorry, or regretted, or would withdraw by one hair's-breadth from the position which they had taken up. He spoke from practical experience when he said that they felt far happier and more at home in prison than the officials, the graziers, and the landowners who were instrumental in sending them there.
What was the crime with which these men were charged? The Leitrim prisoners were charged with trying to bring about the sale of some farms belonging to Sir Henry Burke to the Estates Commissioners. A number of people living in the district had very small holdings, and the people pressed, on the landlord and the Government the advisability of purchasing these lands in theinterests of the smaller tenants around. For doing this the prisoners were charged with having committed a crime. The strangest part of the business was that whilst the Crown sought to establish a case against the prisoners for trying to bring this land into the market, another Government Department—the Estates Commissioners—should have been placed in the dock also. If it was Criminal for these young men to make certain representations to the landlord and the Government to buy up these untenanted lands for the people, under what head would they place the offence committed by the Estates Commissioners, who, yielding to the wishes of the people, actually purchased those lands, and now had them in their possession to carry out later on the beneficent intentions of the 274 Act of 1903. Yet such was the law, and the administration of the law, in Ireland, that these young Leitrim peasants were sought to be branded as criminals for daring to ask for that which the Government subsequently were obliged to give effect to? If the whole thing was not: so serious for the prisoners it might be considered fit matter for a comic opera. The action of the Government in acquiring the lands and then prosecuting the men who helped to make the deal possible was ludicrous and absurd in the extreme. What the Government expected to get out of the proceedings he failed to see. Were they foolish enough to think that the imprisonment of fifty or sixtv men in Galway would frighten and terrify the rest of the population into an acquiescence in the existing order of things? That would certainly not be the result. He would tell the right hon. Gentleman what would take place. Every man in Galway outside of some graziers, and storeen shopkeepers, and creatures who liked to hang on to the coat-tails of officialdom, would stand up manfully beside the prisoners, would take up the struggle for the land where they had left it, and, in spite of everything the Government could do to the contrary, with coercion, jury-packing, and imprisonment, would carry it on till success crowned their efforts.
§ THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON, Londonderry, N.)said that the greater part of the speech of the hon. Gentleman who moved the Motion was an offensive and scurrilous tirade. [NATIONALIST cries of "Withdraw."]
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLcalled the attention of the Chairman to the fact that it had been ruled on previous occasions that the word "scurrilous" was not a Parliamentary expression.
§ MR. ATKINSONIf it is against the rules of the House I withdraw.
§ MR. CHURCHILL (Oldham)What does the right hon. Gentleman mean by saying 275 that he withdraws if it is against the rules of the House? Is that a proper withdrawal?
THE CHAIRMANThe right hon. Gentleman withdraws it because it is against the rules of the House, as I pointed out.
§ MR. CHURCHILLDo I understand that the Attorney-General explicitly and specifically withdraws?
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid he had withdrawn the expression. He did not know what was the proper adjective by which to describe the language used. The hon. Gentleman called the Judge a perjured Judge and the jury a perjured jury.
§ MR. JOSEPH DEVLINsaid he did not call the jury perjured; he said they were packed.
§ MR. CHURCHILLsubmitted as a point of order that, inasmuch as all reflections on a Judge were out of order in that House, if the hon. Gentleman had made reflections of an improper or un-parliamentary character on a Judge he would have been called to order by the Chair. Therefore the Attorney-General has no right to cite such expressions as an excuse for grosslyoffensive and un-Parliamentary language.
THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Member did use such an expression, but I did not know he was referring to a Judge of the High Court. It was my mistake. I am perfectly certain that if I had then stopped him the hon. Member would have withdrawn the expression.
§ MR. CHURCHILLBut I do not understand that you rule the expression "scurrilous" as used by the Attorney-General to be a Parliamentary expression?
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid that such charges, when made without proof and repeated without proof were less disreditable to the men against whom they were made 276 than to the men who made them. He would therefore pass by language of that character, as further referenee would only dignify it.
The hon. Member had referred to two matters of a personal character with which perhaps he ought to deal. The first was as to his fees. It was true the Estimate was for £500, but they did not amount to that.
§ MR. JOSEPH DEVLINsaid he had not mentioned £500, nor did he know what it was for.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid that the other matter was with reference to a speech which he delivered to his constituents. At that time he did not know that Sir Antony MacDonnell had had anything whatever to do with the Dunraven scheme. He criticised that scheme as severely as he was able, as he considered it was futile and absurd in itself, and a base betrayal of the Unionist cause. To that view he adhered, and he was glad to have had the opportunity of so describing the scheme.
Passing to the other questions which had been raised, he understood the accusations to be that they had had prosecutions in Galway that ought not to have been held, and that the methods adopted were improper and unjust. He would not refer to the Sheridan case further than to say that he thought the hon. Member who opened the discussion had really taken some of the wardrobe of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, who, he thought, had a special property in that incident and had already trotted it out before the House three or four times.
§ MR. T. P, O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)It is not my special incident; it is the special guilt of the right hon. Gentleman, and he will hear of it again.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid that he had dealt with the matter before, and that would be his reason for not dealing with it again. The hon. Member for Kildare and the hon. Member who had last spoken each let drop a significant remark. They said that the people of the country thought this land belonged to them, and that they ought to get it. He did not 277 know who had put that idea into the minds of the people. It was the policy of the Government to give facilities for acquiring untenanted land and dividing it among the people to enlarge uneconomic holdings, but no Government could permit the acquisition of this land even for a good purpose by criminal methods. They could no more justify the exercise of intimidation to procure that land for laudable objects than the murder of a miser to divide his property for the relief of distress. Those who had urged the people to that action had much to answer for. Everybody knew there was the most anxious desire on the part of the Government to work the Land Act. [NATIONALIST cries of "Not at all."]
§ MR. DILLONIt is absolutely untrue.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid he would not stop to argue whether crimes had been committed, though he thought he could prove that many of the cases came within the criminal law. But the cases had been tried by a Judge and a jury, and that House was not a suitable tribunal for retrying those cases. Two of the cases were still pending, and it would be unbecoming in him to discuss the merits or demerits of those cases. The Government were accused in the first place of getting a special jury. Why should it be iniquitous to get a special jury?
§ MR. DILLONUnder the Crimes Act.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid a litigant in a civil action could get a special jury if he desired it, and even in a case of misdemeanour the defendant could get a special jury under the old practice. Did the fact that it was asked for under the Crimes Act make it iniquitous?
§ MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)Certainly, because you get it as a right under the Crimes Act.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid a litigant could get it as a right in a civil case.
§ MR. JOHN REDMONDWe are speaking of criminal cases.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid it was open to-either party, and not merely to the Attorney-General, to come in under Section 3 of the Crimes Act and get a special jury. He understood, however, that the process of trying by special jury was vitiated and contaminated by the fact that it was asked for under the Crimes Act. He did not think that was a rational argument.
§ MR. SWIFT MACNEILLThe Judge cannot refuse to give it to you.
§ MR. ATKINSONAnd the getting of a special jury did not seem to be a very tyrannical or unjust thing.
§ MR. DILLONIt is both.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid he did not agree and the reason why he did not agree was that it was precisely the same procedure that might obtain in any civil action. The hon. Gentlemen who cried out most about the iniquity of asking twenty-three or thirty-three jurors to stand aside were the very people, or the representatives of the very people, who, right and left, at meeting after meeting, denounced this procedure and made strictures upon the jurors who were about to serve, and the endeavour to counteract that procedure and to get out of the way the jurors who were intimidated and terrorised by these methods in order to prejudice the tribunal before which the accused were about to be tried, was described as an. iniquity. This was what the hon. Member for East Galway said at a meeting called for the purpose of arranging for the defence of these men—
He would read over the list of special jurors who had been selected to try them, and he hoped the men of each parish would take note of how these men acted in the coming; assizes, so that they might know them in the future.That was a fine preparation and discipline for the impartial and honest discharge of their duty in the jury-box
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid it was because these methods were resorted to that it was necessary to resort to the setting aside of jurors in order to counteract them. He had often been asked in that House—Why were jurors not ordered to stand aside in this country? The power to set jurors aside existed in this country, bat, happily, it was not necessary to exercise it. It would be difficult to find in this country an hon. Member going down to his constituency and making an address of the kind he had quoted in reference to jurors who were about to be called to serve on a trial, and then coming to this House and glorying in it afterwards. But that was an illustration of the kind of dissipline to which these jurors were subjected by league meeting after league meeting, reported in the public Press all over the county, and the Government were denounced because they endeavoured to take out of the jury-box the men who were intimidated by such a method as that. When a man who had openly taken part in the agitation in favour of the very men who were going to be tried was asked to stand aside Members opposite considered that that was an insult to the Catholic Church and to the Catholic religion. He could multiply instances, because he had a bundle of reports before him showing the existence all over Galway of a system of intimidation and terrorism. The very moment that the order was obtained that these men should be tried by a special jury intimidation commenced and resolutions of the kind he had quoted were passed at meetings of the United Irish League. He submitted that it would be perfectly ludicrous if the Crown Solicitor did not endeavour to the best of his ability to order to stand aside men who had been taking part in this system of intimidation in order that other jurors might be obtained to try an issue upon which those who were asked to stand aside had pronounced an opinion beforehand. As a well-known canon said in the year 1902, coercion was the weapon of the United Irish League, and unsparingly and ruthlessly did the branches use it in 280 defiance and violation of all the laws of charity, of justice, of and truth.
The real cause of the quarrel between the Crown and hon. Gentlemen was that their methods of intimidation had not succeeded and that they had been checked and defeated. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: We will try again.] It was said that the order to stand aside was an insult to the faith of the man so ordered to stand aside. He did not know why. The accusation was made against every Government. Every Government had been obliged to resort to this weapon, and every Government had been assailed for so doing and the vilest motives attributed to them. The right hon. Member for Montrose had been assailed as savagely as he or his right hon. friend had even been; but why should any Government have a desire for any such purpose? Almost every Crown Solicitor who was serving now served under the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Montrose and his friends. The Crown Solicitor of Galway was a most worthy and excellent gentleman of long experience, and a Roman Catholic of the Roman Catholics. He had never given any command to that gentleman to set any man aside. On the contrary, he had never given any direction to any Crown Solicitor serving under him except loyally to carry out the rules laid down, which expressly directed the Crown Solicitor not to order to stand aside any man on the ground of his religion or politics or for any reason but that he had a reasonable belief that the man would not give an impartial verdict. Why should the Crown Solicitor make himself objectionable to the community when he would not serve his office by so doing? [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: To please Dublin Castle.] He was a permanent official; and no Crown Solicitor had been discharged for fifty years. He pledged himself that there was not a shadow of foundation for the accusations of hon. Members. Why should it be an insult to jurors to be set aside? The law in Ireland enabled six jurors to be challenged in a civil case, though there was no such right in England. Why? Not because the men were deliberate perjurers, but because, from fear or favour, they were not likely to give impartial consideration 281 to the case. [Cries of "Tell us something of Coote."] That was a matter with which he was not personally concerned. [Cries of "Oh," and interruption.] It was a civil action brought in the Court of Chancery. There was no criminal action.
§ MR. JOSEPH DEVLINWhy did you not take criminal action?
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid that only in the course of the civil trial did it appear that there had been any intimidation. No complaint or communication had been made to the police.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid that what had actually happened in the case which had been so much referred to was that a number of peasants in the county of Galway combined together for the purpose of getting the Land Act to work and of endeavouring to realise the promises, hopes, and desires of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Dover. Their sole object was that the uneconomic holdings should be made into economic holdings. Could any men have a worthier object in view? What was the Coote case? It was the case of a poor girl who was employed to teach sewing and embroidery in a school controlled by a Presbyterian clergyman in the county of Tyrone. She happened to be a Catholic, and Mr. Coote, who was a magistrate, got up an agitation of a violent character, held public meetings, organised processions with hands, boycotted the school, and caused twenty-three children to be removed, and all this in order to prevent a poor Catholic girl being "employed to teach sewing and embroidery; and the man who came forward to defend this
§ case of disgusting bigotry and persecution was the Attorney-General for reland, who put the law into operation against these poor peasants. That was what was called equal justice between Ireland and England. He had not been left time to go into the merits of the case of these poor men who had been sent to gaol, but could any comparison be made between the object of these poor peasants and the object of this religious bigot. The Government sent to gaol the peasants who wanted to make Ireland habitable by Irishmen, and allowed to go free the miserable bigot who wanted to make starvation the lot of every Catholic employed by Protestants, and who desired to starve this poor Catholic girl by persecution and boycotting? He maintained that it was quite proper to raise the Sheridan case. The question was one of methods. Sheridan was able to get men wrongly convicted; but how was it he was able to do so? Was it Sheridan who was able to do all this? Was it this miserable perjured villain? No! The villain sat on the Front bench opposite. That was whv Sheridan was able to get these men convicted. One of these poor innocent men was actually advised by his counsel to plead guilty because the Attorney-General had packed the jury. And yet the right hon. and learned Gentleman with this crime upon his conscience had thought fit to attack them for venturing to denounce a system of government which made such things possible in Ireland.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes, 200; Noes, 260. (Division List No. 304.)
287| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.) | Boland, John | Chance, Frederick William |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Brigg, John | Channing, Francis Allston |
| Allen, Charles P. | Broadhurst, Henry | Cheetham, John Frederick |
| Ambrose, Robert | Brown, George M. (Edinburgh) | Churchill, Winston Spencer |
| Ashton, Thomas Gair | Buchanan, Thomas Ryburn | Clancy, John Joseph |
| Asquith, Rt.Hn.HerbertHenry | Burke, E. Haviland | Cogan, Denis J. |
| Baker, Joseph Allen | Burt, Thomas | Condon, Thomas Joseph |
| Barlow, John Emmott | Buxton, N.E(York, NR, Whitby | Crean, Eugene |
| Barran, Rowland Hirst | Buxton, SydneyCharles(Poplar | Cremer, William Randal |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Caldwell, James | Crombie, John William |
| Beaumont, Wentworth C. B. | Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Cullinan, J. |
| Bell, Richard | Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H. | Davies, M. Vaughan-(Cardigan |
| Benn, John Williams | Causton, Richard Knight | Delany, William |
| Black, Alexander William | Cawley, Frederick | Devlin, CharlesRamsay(Galway |
| Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.) | Lamont, Norman | Redmond, John E. (Waterford |
| Dewar, John A (Inverness-sh.) | Langley, Batty | Richards, Thomas |
| Diike, Rt. Hon. Sir Charles | Law, Hugh Alex. (Donegal, W.) | Riokett, J. Compton |
| Dillon, John | Lawson, Sir Wilfrid (Cornwall) | Roberts, John H. (Denbigh |
| Doogan, P. C. | Layland-Barratt, Francis | Robson, William Snowdon |
| Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark). | Leese, Sir JosephF(Accrington) | Roche, John (Galway, East) |
| Duffy, William J. | Leigh, Sir Joseph | Roe, Sir Thomas |
| Duncan, J. Hastings | Levy, Maurice | Rose, Charles Day |
| Edwards, Frank | Lough, Thomas | Russell, T. W. |
| Elibank, Master of | Lundon, W. | Samuel, Herbert L (Cleveland) |
| Ellice, CaptEC(S.Andrw'sBghs | Lyell Charles Henry | Samuel, S. M. (Whitechapel) |
| Ellis, John Edward (Notts.) | Macnamara, Dr. Thomas J. | Schwann, Charles E. |
| Evans, Samuel T. (Glamorgan) | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift | Seely, Maj. J. E. B(Isle ofWigh |
| Eve, Harry Trelawney | MacVeagh, Jeremiah | Shackleton, David James |
| Farrell, James Patrick | M'Arthur, William (Cornwall) | Shaw, Charles Edw. (Stafford) |
| Fenwick, Charles | M'Fadden, Edward | Shaw, Thomas (Hawick B.) |
| Ferguson, R. C. Munro (Leith) | M'Hugh, Patrick A. | Sheehy, David |
| Ffrench, Peter | M'Kean, John | Shipman, Dr. John G. |
| Field, William | M'Kenna, Reginald | Sinclair, John (Forfarshire)] |
| Findlay, Alexander(Lanark, NE | M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North) | Slack, Jolm Bamford |
| Fitzmaurice, Lord Edmond | Mansfield, Horace Rendall | Soames, Arthur Wellesley |
| Flavin, Michael Joseph | Markham, Arthur Basil | Soares, Ernest J. |
| Flynn, James Christopher | Mitchell, Edw. (Fermanagh, N. | Spencer, Rt. Hn. C. R(Northants |
| Foster, Sir Walter (Derby Co.) | Mooney, John J. | Stanhope, Hon. Philip James |
| Fowler, Rt. Hon. Sir Henry | Moss, Samuel | Strachey, Sir Edward |
| Fuller, J. M. F. | Muldoon, John | Sullivan, Donal |
| Furness, Sir Christopher | Murnaghan, George | Tennant, Harold John |
| Gilhooly, James | Murphy, John | Thomas, Sir A (Glamorgan. E |
| Gladstone, Rt. Hn. HerbertJohn | Nannetti, Joseph P. | Thomas, DavidAlfred(Merthyr |
| Goddard, Daniel Ford | Nolan, Col. JohnP. (Galway, N.) | Thomas, JA(Glamorgan Gowe |
| Griffith, Ellis J. | Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) | Tomkinson, James |
| Hammond, John | Norman, Henry | Toulmin, George |
| Harcourt, Lewis | Nussey, Thomas Willans | Trevelyan, Charles Philips |
| Hardie, J. Keir(MerthyrTydvil | O'Brien, Kendal(TipperaryMid | Ure, Alexander |
| Harrington, Timothy | O'Brien, Patrick, (Kilkenny) | Villiers, Ernest Amherst |
| Hayden, John Patrick | O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) | Wallace, Robert |
| Hayter, Rt, Hon. Sir Arthur D. | O'Connor, James(Wicklow, W.) | Warner, Thomas Courtenay T |
| Helme, Norval Watson | O'Connor, John (Kildare, N.) | Wason, JohnCathcart(Orkney |
| Hemphill, Rt, Hon. Charles H. | O'Connor, T. P. (Liverpool) | Weir, James Galloway |
| Henderson, Arthur (Durham) | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) | White, George (Norfolk) |
| Higham, John Sharp | O'Donnell, T. (Kerry, W.) | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Holland, Sir William Henry | O'Dowd, John | White, Patrick (Meath, North |
| Hutchinson, Dr. Charles Fredk. | O'Kelly, Conor (Mayo, N.) | Whiteley, George(York, W. R.) |
| Hutton, Alfred E. (Morley) | O'Kelly, James (Roscommon, N | Whittaker, Thomas Palmer |
| Isaacs, Rufus Daniel | O'Malley, William | Williams, Osmond (Merioneth |
| Joicey, Sir James | O'Mara, James | Wilson, Henry J. (York, W. R. |
| Jones, DavidBrynmor (Swansea | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Wilson, John (Durham, Mid. |
| Jones, Leif (Appleby) | O'SLee, James John | Wood, James |
| Jones, William(Carnarvonshire) | Partington, Oswald | Woodhouse. Sir JT(Huddersf'd |
| Jordan, Jeremiah | Pease, J. A. (Saffron Walden) | Young, Samuel |
| Kearley, Hudson E. | Power, Patrick Joseph | |
| Kennedy, VincentP.(Cavan, W.) | Priestley, Arthur | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Thomas Esmonde and Captain Dcnelan. |
| Kilbride, Denis | Rea, Russell | |
| Lambert, George | Reddy, M. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Balcarres, Lord | Blundell, Colonel Henry |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Balfour, Rt. Hon. A. J. (Manch'r | Bond, Edward |
| Allhusen, AugustusHenryEden | Balfour, Capt. C. B. (Hornsey) | Brassey, Albert |
| Anson, Sir William Reynell | Balfour, RtHnGeraldW. (Leeds) | Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John |
| Arkwright, Jolm Stanhope | Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch.) | Brotherton, Edward Allen |
| Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. HughO. | Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Brown, Sir Alex. H. (Shrophs |
| Arrol, Sir William | Banner, John S. Harmood- | Brymer, William Ernest |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Beach, Rt. Hn. SirMichaelHicko | Burdett-Coutts, W. |
| Aubrey-Fletcher, Rt. Hon. SirH | Bentinck, Lord Henry C. | Butcher, John George |
| Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Bhownaggree, Sir M. M. | Campbell, J. H. M. (DublinUniv |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Bignold, Sir Arthur | Carlile, William Walter |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Bigwood, James | Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. |
| Laird, John George Alexander | Bingham, Lord | Cautley, Henry Strother |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire | Hardy, Laurence(Kent, Ashford | Nicholson, William Graham |
| Cayzer, Sir Charles William | Hare, Thomas Leigh | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens |
| Cecil, Evelyn (Aston Manor) | Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th | Palmer, Sir Walter (Salisbury) |
| Cecil, Lord Hugh (Greenwich) | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Parker, Ebenezer |
| Chamberlain, RtHnJ. A. (Worc. | Heath, ArthurHoward(Hanley | Percy, Earl |
| Chamberlayne, T. (S'thampton | Heath, SirJames(StaffordsNW. | Pilkington, Colonel Richard |
| Chapman, Edward | Helder, Sir Augustus | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Clare, Octavius Leigh | Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W. | Plummet Sir Walter R. |
| Clive, Captain Percy A. | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Coates, Edward Feetham | Hickman, Sir Alfred | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thomas | Hill, Henry Staveley | Pryce-Jones, Lt. -Col. Edward |
| Coghill, Douglas Harry | Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside | Purvis, Robert |
| Collings, Rt. Hon. Jesse | Hornby, Sir William Henry | Rankin, Sir James |
| Colston, Chas. Edw. H. Athole | Horner, FrederickWilliam | Rasch, Sir Frederic Carne |
| Compt n, Lord Alwyne | Hoult, Joseph | Ratcliff R. F. |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Howard, John(KentFaversham | Reid, James (Greenock) |
| Corbett, T. L. (Down, North) | Hozier, Hon. JamesHenryCecil | Remnant, James Farquharson |
| Cripps, Charles Alfred | Hudson, George Bickersteth | Ridley, S. Forde |
| Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile | Hunt, Rowland | Ritchie, Rt. Hon. Chas. Thomson |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Jameson, Major J. Eustace | Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) |
| Dalrymple, Sir Charles | Jeffreys, Rt. Hon. Arthur Fred | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Davenport, William Bromley | Jessel, Captain Herbert Merton | Robinson, Brooke |
| Davies, SirHoratioD. (Chatham | Kenyon, Hon. Geo. T. (Denbigh | Rolleston, Sir John F. L. |
| Denny, Colonel | Kerr, John | Round, Rt. Hon. James |
| Dickinson, Robert Edmond | Keswick, William | Royds, Clement Molyneux |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | Kimber, Sir Henry | Rutherford, John (Lancashire) |
| Dimsdale, Rt. Hon. SirJosephC. | King, Sir Henry Seymour | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford- |
| Disraeli, Coningsby Ralph | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. | Sadler, Col. Sir Samuel Alex. |
| Dixon-Hartland, SirFred. Dixon | Law, Andrew Bonar (Glasgow) | Samuel, SirHarryS. (Limehouse |
| Dorington, Rt. Hon. SirJohn E. | Lawson, Hn. H. L. W. (Mile End | Sassoon, Sir Edward Albert |
| Doughty, Sir George | Lee, ArthurH. (Hants. Fareham | Saunderson, Rt. Hn. Col. Edw. J. |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Leveson-Gower, FrederickN. S. | Seely, Charles Hilton(Lincoln) |
| Duke, Henry Edward | Llewellyn, Evan Henry | Sharpe, William Edward T. |
| Dyke, Rt. Hon. SirWilliamHart | Long, Col. CharlesW.(Evesham | Sinclair, Louis (Romford) |
| Egerton, Hon. A. de Tatton | Long, Rt. Hn. Water(Bristol, S.) | Skewes-Cox, Sir Thomas |
| Faber, Edmund B. (Hants., W. | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Smith, Abel H. (Hertford, East) |
| Fellowes, RtHnAilwynEdward | Lowe, Francis William | Smith, HC. (North'mb. Tyneside |
| Fergusson, Rt. Hn. SirJ. (Manc'r | Loyd, Archie Kirkman | Smith, RtHnJParker(Lanarks) |
| Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Lucas, Col. Francis (Lowestoft | Smith, Hon. W. F. D. (Strand) |
| Finlay, Rt HnSirRB. (Inv'rn'ss) | Lucas, ReginaldJ. (Portsmouth | Shear, John Ward |
| Fisher, William Hayes | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Stanley, Hn. Arthur (Ormskirk) |
| FitzGerald, SirRobertPenrose- | Macdona, John, dimming | Stanley, EdwardJas. (Somerset) |
| Fitzroy, Hon. EdwardAlgernon | Maclver, David (Liverpool) | Stanley, Rt, Hon Lord (Lancs.) |
| Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Maconochie, A. W. | Stewart, Sir Mark J. M'Taggart |
| Flower, Sir Ernest | M'Arthur, Charles (Liverpool) | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. |
| Forster, Henry William | M'lver, Sir ewis(EdinburghW) | Stone, Sir Benjamin |
| Foster, Philip S. (Warwick, S. W | M'Kiliop, James (Stirlingshire) | Strutt, Hon. Charles Hedley |
| Galloway, William Johnson | Majendie, James A. H. | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Gardner, Ernest | Malcolm, Ian | Talbot, [Rt. Hn. JG. (Oxf'dUniv) |
| Garfit, William | Manners, Lord Cecil | Thorburn, Sir Walter |
| Gibbs, Hon. A. G. H- | Marks, Harry Hananel | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Godson, Sir AugustusFrederick | Martin, Richard Biddulph | Tollemache, Henry James |
| Gordon, J. (Londonderry, S.) | Massey-Mainwaring, Hn. W. F. | Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M. |
| Gordon, Maj. Evans-(T'rH'mlts | Maxwell, Rt HnSirHE. (Wigt'n | Tritton, Sir Charles Ernest |
| Gore, Hon. S. F. Ormsby- | Melville, Beresford Valentine | Tuff, Charles |
| Gorst, Rt. Hon. Sir John Eldon | Middlemore, JohnThrogmorten | Tuke, Sir John Batty |
| Goschen, Hon. George Joachim | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Turnour, Viscount |
| Goulding, Edward Alfred | Milvain, Thomas | Vincent, Sir Edgar (Exeter) |
| Graham, Henry Robert | Molesworth, Sir Lewis | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Gray, Ernest (West Ham) | Montagu, Hon. J. Scott(Hants.) | Walrond, Rt. Hn. SirWilliamH. |
| Green, WalfordD. (Wednesbury | Mcon, Edward Robert Pacy | Warde, Colonel C. E. |
| Greene, HenryD. (Shrewsbury) | Morgan, DavidJ. (Walthamstow | Welby, Lt. -Col. A. C. E. (Taunton |
| Greene, W- Raymond-(Cambs. | Morpeth, Viscount | Whiteley, H (Ashtonund Lynn |
| Grenfell, William Henry | Morrell, George Herbert | Whitmore, Charles Algernon |
| Gretton, John | Morrison, James Archibald | Williams, Colonel R. (Dorset) |
| Groves, James Grimble | Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer | Willoughby de Eresby, Lord |
| Guthrie, Walter Murray | Mount, William Arthur | Wilson, A. Stanley(York, E. R.) |
| Halsey, Rt. Hon. Thomas F. | Mowbrav, Sir Robert Gray C. | Wilson, A Stanley(York E. R.) |
| Hambro, Charles Eric | Murray, Charles J. (Coventry) | Wilson, John (Glasgow) |
| Hamilton, RtHnLordG(Midd'x | Murray, Col. Wyndham (Batn) | Wilson. Todd- SirW. H. (Yorks.) |
| Hamilton, Marq. of (L'nd'derry | Myers, William Henry | Wodehouse, Rt. Hn. E. R. (Bath |
| Wolff, Gustar Wilhelm | Wrightson, Sir Thomas | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Viscount Valentia |
| Worsley-Taylor, Henry Wilson | Wyndham-Quin, Col. W. H. |
§ Original Question again proposed.
§ And, it being after Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow.