EAST CORK ELECTION. (Hansard, 6 July 1911)

§ Mr. MOORE
I think that the House before it passes this Motion for the issue of a new Writ for East Cork sub silentio, should have some idea of what happened at the election there, as a result of which the judges declared the election void. It throws a very interesting sidelight on the manner in which elections are worked in Ireland by hon. Members below the Gangway, and by societies, some of which, I believe, are to be approved societies in Ireland under the National Insurance Bill. 1348 In December last there was a contest in which Captain Donelan was returned by a majority of 1,300 odd votes. I think I may be allowed to say, on my own behalf, as well as on behalf of my Unionist colleagues, that we very much regret that this fate should have fallen upon one so uniformly courteous, honourable, and straightforward in all his dealings with our party as Captain Donelan proved himself to be. It will not be suggested, therefore, that what I am saying now is directed against him personally. I ought perhaps to apologise to the House for not having asked Mr. Speaker to have the evidence printed in this case. We had it printed in the case of the North Louth petition, and it threw a very instructive light on the methods pursued there. But the Government majority having toed the line in conformity with the Nationalist Whip and having declined to stop the issue of the Writ for North Louth, in spite of the intimidation there disclosed, and the organised and set attack on Protestant voters, it would obviously be useless to expect them to take a stronger course in the case of East Cork.
Personally, I should not be so interested in East Cork were it not for the share-played in that election by the United Irish League. I do not pretend to say that there was any attack, as in North Louth, on Protestant voters. It was a fight be- 1349 tween two phases of Nationalist opinion. It was a fight in which the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. William O'Brien), who sits below the Gangway, put forward a programme, one plank of which was conciliation with Protestants. That of itself was quite sufficient to draw down upon him the acute animosity of the Roman Catholic priesthood and of National League agitators. Captain Donelan allowed himself to be used as a decoy duck for Protestants in the South of Ireland. The rank and file supported him, but it was clear from the wire pullers' action that they wore against the policy of conciliation. The election showed indeed what reception conciliation will meet with from hon. Members below the Gangway, and it bodes very ill for the future if, as they hope, they get things in Ireland entirely in their own hands. But although the evidence has not been printed there are some facts which stand out beyond dispute. In the first place the United Irish League spent £1,000 by its own agents in the Constituency. It appears to have expended the money in loading up special trains to bring physical forces from the city of Cork and in the use of methods known as peaceful persuasion, although sticks and other missiles were the weapons used against the supporters of the hon. Member for Cork. When it is found that agencies of this sort are imported into a Division, that £l,000 is expended by the agent, it surely is only a right and proper thing that the matter should be investigated by election judges. Remember this was the action of an association which identified itself with the candidate and made itself his agent. That was proved beyond dispute.
When an investigation was ordered into the expenditure of the £l,000, the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Devlin) attended on subpœna and was asked for the books of the United Irish League. The answer he gave on oath, which, of course, we accept, was that those books had been burnt the day after the election. Here we have the fact of an organisation coming into the Division, acting as agent for the candidate, and immediately after the election burning its books. Yet the House is asked sub silentio, and without further inquiry, to issue a new writ as if nothing unusual had happened. It was nothing unusual, according to the evidence of the hon. Member for West Belfast, for he told the Court it was the usual custom of the United Irish League to burn their books immediately after an election. 1350 Had that been known beforehand, had the parties been aware that the books would not be produced, bank clerks and various other people might have been summoned and examined as to matters connected with the election. But it was not possible to do that under the circumstances. I say that it is the duty of the House, in view of these facts and as the guardian of purity of elections, to see that a matter like this should be more carefully considered. It would have been considered had we had a Committee of the House sitting, as in former days, and reporting more directly to the House than the election judges can do. Another matter is is that this £1,000 seems to have been spent in an extraordinary way. In addition to these excursion trains and the higher blackguardism of Cork brought in to intimidate the electors, it was spent in providing motor cars, and these motor cars presumably all ran according to law. When a motor-car was hired in Dublin it was at once registered in the name of a local solicitor. He became the owner of it in the county council register, and he remained the owner of it for a week. I think there were half-a-dozen, or perhaps a dozen, of these cars, and at the end of the week, as soon as the election was over, there was another change in the registration, and the motors were re-transferred to their proper owners, which is very slim election tactics, but does not make for the purity of elections as conducted in any part of the United Kingdom, and especially in Ireland. This expenditure by the United Irish League was not disclosed in the candidate's return. The judges—and I quite concur—acquitted Captain Donelan of impropriety in not disclosing this £1,000 in his return. He was advised by counsel that it was not necessary for him to make the return, and he took the responsibility of acting on counsel's advice. It is true his own agent said he ought to disclose it, and another solicitor said the same thing, but, at any rate, he had the protection of acting under counsel's advice and he was personally acquitted of any misconduct. But who was his counsel? It was the same gentleman who gave this advice, which was one of the grounds for his being unseated—the judges said he ought to have disclosed this—and by whose action the election in North Louth was also set aside. Mr. McSweeney, in North Louth, through a libellous pamphlet which he circulated there, procured that election to be set aside. The advice in this division that the accounts should not be dis- 1351 closed—how it was arrived at I do not know—caused that election to be set aside. Mr. McSweeney is, of course, connected with the "Freeman's Journal." The Government have always delighted to honour him, and he was appointed by the Attorney-General Chief Crown Prosecutor for county Cork.

§ Mr. MOONEY
I wish to ask, on a point of Order, if it is not a fact that when a question was put the other day it was stated by the principal law officer of the Crown in Ireland that Mr. McSweeney was exonerated from dishonourable action. Is it in order for another member of the Irish Bar to attack him?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
That is not a matter for me to settle, it is a question for the authority who controls the Bar in Ireland.

§ Mr. PATRICK O'BRIEN
I wish to ask if in your experience it is the usual practice in this House for a representative of the legal profession to attack another Member who is not in the House, especially when the man who is attacked has a very extensive practice and the attacker has none.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
If there were not attacks by one hon. Member on another there would not be very much said in the House.

§ Mr. MOORE
I made no personal attack on Mr. McSweeney, and I stick to every word I said. I said that on the ground of Mr. McSweeney's action the judges voided the North Louth election, and the report is there. I said that his action voided the Cork election, and the report is there; and further than that I say no more. I did not say the judges exonerated or attacked Mr. McSweeney, but when that man is found by two judges to have been the principal actor in having two elections voided I think the Attorney-General for Ireland ought to consider whether he is a fit man to continue as Crown Prosecutor.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
That point does not seem to me to be relevant.

§ Mr. MOORE
I only referred to it as one of the grounds on which in East Cork, as well as in North Louth, they declared the election void. I think the House would not be fulfilling its duties as guardians of the purity of election if there was not a fuller investigation into the whole circumstances of this election. If the issue of this writ is not delayed, even until the evidence 1352 be printed, I at least feel that my hon. Friend and I will have done our duty in calling attention to this as a typical case of an Irish election carried on under the domination of the United Irish League, under which no subject of His Majesty who does not belong to it has the least chance of fair play or free rights unaffected by intimidation and other practices with which supporters of hon. Members below the Gangway are so familiar in Ireland.

§ Mr. DEVLIN
The hon. and learned Gentleman has discharged the functions for which he rose. It is certainly an experience to a layman like myself to find Members who are supposed to be guided by a judicial spirit deliver a tirade of the character to which we have just listened. There has not been a single accurate statement from beginning to end of the hon. and learned Member's speech. It is not a judicial statement, but a statement made by an orator who is not judicial. The hon. and learned Gentleman would have treated the House fairly if he had read the judgment. I lake it that when he objects to this writ being issued on the ground of the judgment of the judges, it would have been only fair to the judges, as well as to this House, apart altogether from other considerations, that he should have read the written Judgment. As he has not' done so, I shall:— No corrupt practice was proved to have been committed by or with the knowledge and consent of the said respondent, Anthony Donelan. … Whereas charges were made in the said petition of corrupt and illegal practices having been committed at the said election we in further pursuance of the said Act report first that no corrupt practice was proved to have been committed by or with the knowledge and consent of the said respondent, Captain Donelan; second, that an illegal practice was proved to have been committed by and with the knowledge and consent of Captain Donelan, that is to say a breach of Section 28 of the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Prevention Act, … Save as aforesaid no illegal practice was proved to have been committed by or with the knowledge or consent of Captain Donelan. It is therefore clearly shown that there was no corrupt practice and no intimidation and that the judges practically exonerated Captain Donelan from all the charges made against him. We report that corrupt or illegal practices did not prevail extensively in the constituency, and that there is no reason to believe that such corrupt or illegal practices so prevailed. It would have been only fair for the hon. and learned Gentleman to have read that paragraph in the report. The other day a writ was moved for an election in Hull. There was no objection taken to the issue of that writ, but the decision of the judges was that— 1353 The corrupt practice of bribery was proved to have been committed by the said Sir Henry Seymour King, who was the candidate at the said election. With the exception of the corrupt practice of bribery committed by the said Sir Henry Seymour King as aforesaid, no corrupt or illegal practice was committed. The object of the hon. and learned Gentleman is not the purity of elections. It is not for the purpose of seeing that fair play is carried out in East Cork but rather that he may have an opportunity of attacking my colleague and myself, who, I am glad to say, are here to-day to defend ourselves. In the first place he has stated that this was a manifestation of intolerance on the part of the Catholics of East Cork in relation to a certain candidate, whereas the fact is that our candidate was a Protestant, and that he was supported by the Catholic priests of the Constituency. I may recall the words used by the hon. and learned Gentleman on one occasion when he attacked the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Wyndham) as being the "apostle of the rotten policy of conciliation." As a matter of fact. Captain Donelan did not receive £l,000 from the United Irish League. That was another inaccurate statement.

§ Mr. MOORE
I did not say he did. I said it was spent on him.

§ Mr. DEVLIN
There was not £l,000 spent on him and he did not receive very much more than £500 from the United Irish League, but in that constituency Captain Donelan was face to face with a propaganda which was paid for out of the inexhaustible funds of the Tariff Reform League in this country. I am told that over £5,000 was spent on that election by the Tariff Reform League.

§ Mr. GOULDING
That statement is absolutely false. [An HON. MEMBER: "How do you know?"] As an official of the Tariff Reform League.

§ Mr. DEVLIN
I allow for the irritation of the hon. Gentleman.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The hon. Member for West Belfast should be allowed to conclude his sentence.

§ Mr. DEVLIN
I am about to prove what I say. Is it true or is it not, and I challenge the hon. Gentleman who has replied to me so violently, that Lord Dunraven, who was the president of the Tariff Reform League of Ireland, subscribed £500 to the propaganda against the Irish party?

§ Mr. GOULDING
The hon. Gentleman made the statement that £5,000 was spent by the Tariff Reform League for the campaign in Ireland. I say that is absolutely false. Not a penny was granted from that League. I am the chairman of that organisation. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is no wonder it failed then."]

§ Mr. DEVLIN
I am quite certain the hon. Member is angry because he got so bad a bargain for his money. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."]

§ Mr. SPEAKER
I would suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he should now leave the Tariff Reform League alone. It has not anything to do with the matter before the House. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."]

§ Mr. DEVLIN
I am not going to be intimidated. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."]

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The hon. Member for Worcester (Mr. Goulding), who is a member of the Tariff Reform League, has made the statement that it is not a fact that £5,000 was subscribed by the Tariff Reform League for this particular election. The hon. Member for West Belfast, I have no doubt, will accept that statement, and that, I venture to suggest, should conclude the incident.

§ Mr. DEVLIN
I have made a statement that has been pretty universally accepted in Ireland.—[HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."]—Is the hon. Member for Worcester president of the Secret Department that scatters these funds about at elections?

§ Mr. GOULDING
You said the Tariff Reform League.

§ Mr. DEVLIN
The Tariff Reform League through some channel. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."]

§ Mr. SPEAKER
Hon. Members need not go on crying "Withdraw." There is nothing to withdraw. No unparliamentary expression has been used. The hon. Member for West Belfast made a statement, and the hon. Member for Worcester, who is in a position to know the facts, got up and said that the statement was incorrect. The usual custom among hon. Members is that when a Member makes a statement of that kind it is at once accepted. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will follow the usual practice.

§ Mr. DEVLIN
You have asked me to leave the Tariff Reform League alone, but I must ask the Tariff Reform League not to interfere in our elections in Ireland.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
The hon. Member for North Armagh is unnecessarily excited. I hope he will allow the hon. Member for West Belfast to proceed.

§ Mr. BONAR LAW
On a point of Order. The hon. Member for West Belfast has made a definite statement which the hon. Member for Worcester and I also know to be absolutely untrue. He refuses to withdraw his statement. Under these circumstances are we not entitled to ask that he should withdraw it?

§ Mr. SPEAKER
It is not necessary for him to withdraw it. The hon. Member for Worcester has made a statement and the hon. Member for West Belfast will no doubt accept that statement. He has accepted it. [HON. MEMBERS: "No."]

§ Mr. DEVLIN
Yes, Sir, I definitely accept the statement, and I change the word "league" to the word "reformers." It is not that these vast sums which are used to fight us at elections come from the coffers of the league as such, but my charge is that out of the inexhaustible resources of the Tariff Reform party tariff reformers send over there large sums of money to enable them to split up our party and to break up our movement. I have given one name—the name of Lord Dunraven, President of the Tariff Reform League, who subscribed for this propaganda which the Irish party have to fight. One of the most striking of the electoral conflicts was this election in East Cork. The hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Moore) tried to turn this election in East Cork into an election where on one side Catholics were trying to persecute Protestants. What is the fact? Our candidate was a Protestant.

§ Mr. MOORE
I ought not to be misrepresented.

§ Mr. SPEAKER
Do allow the hon. Member to proceed. The hon. Member for North Armagh was not interrupted a single time.

§ Mr. MOORE
I am certainly sorry that I have been guilty of any discourtesy, but I cannot sit by and have put into my mouth words which I did not use. What 1356 I said was that Protestants had very little to say in this election. I said it was a fight between two sections of Nationalists.

§ Mr. DEVLIN
The hon. Member distinctly introduced the name "priests." He said that they were active for the purpose of putting in Captain Donelan, and that the other candidate represented toleration. My answer to him is this: Our candidate represented toleration, and these priests and laymen who stood at the back of Captain Donelan and Mr. William Abraham were actuated by the desire that men who were honest Protestants should obtain positions of a representative character. The two who went down to county Cork in the interest of Tariff Reformers and so-called Conciliation were maintained there by those who charge us with bigotry in this House. I come now to one of the allegations which the hon. and learned Gentleman made against myself. He said that when I was examined on subpœna I stated that the books of the United Irish League were burned, and he further said that the reason why they were burned was because if they had been produced some sinister aspect would have been put on the whole situation there. I would like to ask the hon. and learned Member if he would be prepared after an election is over to produce all the books of the Orange Organisation? With regard to elections which are long since passed, all books are destroyed. When Mr. Healy threatened to petition in regard to the contest in North Louth the first instruction given was that all books which could give any information to the judges were to be retained and brought into court when the hearing of the petition took place. There was no word about a petition in East Cork until three weeks after the election took place, and until the books were destroyed in the ordinary way. I think that shows that there was no desire to keep any information whatever from the judges. These books were destroyed, as are the books of every political organisation when they have performed the work they had to perform. There was neither corruption nor intimidation, and practically only one case of treating in the whole election. There were 127 charges made against Captain Donelan, and only two or three of these charges were sustained. I venture to say that there is not an election in the whole of Great Britain which could have been made the subject of inquiry before any tribunal where the respondent and the petitioner could have come out with such spotless reputations, 1357 or where the constituency could have emerged with such electoral dignity as in this case of East Cork. It was also stated that the purpose for which the books were burned was to prevent the amount spent during the election being known. As a matter of fact the accounts were produced. The cheque books were produced, and there was no information as to the financial conduct of the election which the judges had not before them. There is not a charge which the hon. Gentleman made which has been sustained. It is the old policy of coming here and endeavouring to use all those things which do not count in England at all. There would not have been a petition if this had been an English constituency instead of an Irish constituency. There is more corruption in one English election than in twenty Irish elections. I think that has been proven in the various petitions which have been tried before the judges. In Nottingham and in Hull, where the candidate himself has been adjudged guilty of bribery by the judges—[HON. MEMBERS: "No."]

§ Captain MORRISON
The hon. Member accused me of bribery.

§ Mr. DEVLIN
I meant Hull, and I repeat Hull. I say that there were charges made of a character far worse in Nottingham than in this constituency. [Interruption.] It is pretty difficult to pursue an argument of this sort when a number of Tariff Reformers are yelling and screeching on the benches around me. I repeat again that this election petition was really made for the purpose of enabling the hon. and learned Gentleman to come here and make another attack upon his own country. He himself should be the last to talk about intimidation in any election. At his own election some months ago the voice of his opponent was never heard throughout the election from its commencement until the finish. [An HON. MEMBER: "There was no opponent."] At the election in December last year he had an opponent.

§ Mr. DEVLIN
His conduct at that election was of such a character that no opponent would ever come into the field again against him. He threatened his opponents with a blackthorn stick, and when the blackthorn stick ceased to have any efficacy he took off his coat and faced 1358 his opponents in his shirt-sleeves. It is a good method of dealing with the arguments of your opponents. We do not conduct elections in Ireland with blackthorn sticks, and our candidates do not take off their coats and fight their battles in their shirt-sleeves.

§ Mr. MOORE
They have no shirts.

§ Mr. DEVLIN
At all events, if they have no shirts they are decent. It takes a shirt to cover the indecency of the hon. Gentleman. I leave that aspect of it to a gentleman who nearly wrecked the Tory Government because he was not made a Law Officer of the Crown. This is the Gentleman of whom I was told the other day by a Liberal, "You have only to keep quiet in the House of Commons, and the Member for North Armagh will carry Home Rule for you by his speeches in Ulster." I trust whether he makes his speeches in his shirt sleeves or with blackthorn sticks in his hands that he will long retain his seat in this House. He is the best asset that Home Rule has, and I venture to say that when every Nationalist Member in Ireland remains dumb we have only to send the hon. and learned Gentleman to make anti-Home Rule speeches and the cause will ultimately become triumphant. That is the feeling we have in regard to him. We are not afraid to hear him in this House or elsewhere. He has come here again to slander his own country and to denounce his own countrymen, but we, at all events, are willing to leave him to the judgment of this House.

§ The ATTORNEY-GENERAL (Sir Rufus Isaacs)
Following the practice in this House, I desire to call to the attention of the House the way this matter stands. The Petition which was presented, and which led to the voidance of this election has resulted in the Member for North Armagh opposing the motion for the issue of a writ by his speech, which I must say gave absolutely no ground whatever for suggesting that this writ should not issue. It is contrary to the practice of this House to discuss what has taken place on the report of a judge in any case in which there is no foundation for asking this House to disfranchise the constituency. What the hon. Member for North Armagh is asking this House to do by opposing the Writ is to disfranchise this constituency of East Cork because the judges have found that the election was to be voided on the ground of illegal practices and not on the ground of corrupt practices, and in 1359 the face of the distinct and definite report by the judges that corrupt or illegal practices did not prevail extensively in the constituencies, and that there was no reason to believe that either corrupt or illegal practices so prevailed. I am within the knowledge certainly of most of the Members of this House when I say that there is no case on record in which this House has refused the issue of a writ where there has been a report that corrupt or illegal practices have not prevailed extensively in the constituency. The reason for it is not far to seek. The attack which the hon. and learned Member is making is clearly an attack on the constituency. It is not a question of attacking the Member who then sat. in opposing the issue of the writ he is attacking the constituency, and in order to succeed it must be established that practices so corrupt and so illegal prevailed that this House ought not to allow another Member to be returned for this constituency. I look in vain for some shadow of evidence to justify such a charge as the hon. and learned Member is seeking to make. I would remind the House that when the judges do report that corrupt practices do prevail, then means are afforded to this House by a joint address of both Houses to the Sovereign to appoint a commission to inquire into the charges, so that the constituency has an opportunity of being heard in its defence. But this House never resorts to the course which is suggested by the hon. and learned Member without at least, first of all, asking that such a Commission should be appointed.

§ Lord HUGH CECIL
What about Worcester?

§ Sir RUFUS ISAACS
In Worcester there was such a report by a commission of three lawyers who were sent down there to prosecute inquiries. They were there for some weeks—I forget exactly for how long. They thereupon made their report to this House; but that proves the very point I am seeking to establish. In the Worcester case that commission had to be appointed, and it was only pending the appointment of that commission and their report to this House that this House did not proceed with the issue of the writ in order that they might know whether or not on the report of the commission the constituency ought to be disfranchised. I might point out further to the Noble Lord in corroboration of what I am just saying that in that case the judges did report that there were 1360 corrupt practices prevailing in the constituency, and it was in consequence of that that the commission issued. It is, therefore, the very opposite to the present case. I agree entirely with the Noble Lord that if you had facts of the kind there would be ground for the opposition of the hon. and learned Member for North Armagh. But the House will remember that not so very long ago we discussed here the North Louth petition where the facts certainly were very much stronger in favour of refusing the Writ than in the present case, and I then quoted to the House the views of every law officer from the present Lord Chancellor downwards, to the effect that there ought never to be a refusal of the issue of the Writ unless you have a clear report by the judges that in the constituency corrupt practices had extensively prevailed, and then there must be the commission, and the House will see to the matter. In this particular case I have been looking into the precedents very carefully to find some possible ground on which the Member for North Armagh could ask the House to refuse leave to issue the Writ. But I confess I have been unable to find even a shadow of justification for this opposition. We are not concerned in any way with disputes which may arise between the hon. and learned Member and hon. Members who sit below the Gangway. But the House is really concerned with this, that it shall never refuse to issue the Writ and thus disfranchise the constituency unless it is satisfied that corrupt practices extensively prevailed. When you have the report of the judges that no such corrupt practices prevailed, when the hon. and learned Member himself cannot suggest that they prevailed upon the evidence, I do submit that this House ought not for one moment to consider the opposition and that the Writ should be issued.

Captain CRAIG
I hope that after what has occurred my hon. and learned Friend will not trouble the House to take a Division on this matter, because I think that undoubtedly the object that he had in view has been fully attained in drawing a statement from the hon. Member for West Belfast as to the action of the United Irish League in the East Cork election, and if there is a moral which the House may draw from it, I hope they will bear it carefully in mind, that later on when they come to closer quarters with it they will understand the antipathy which we have to-Nationalist methods, and they will under- 1361 stand why we say in the north of Ireland, we are not going to have Home Rule, we are not going to sit under Members like the hon. Member for West Belfast.