§ Whereupon Mr. SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of 19th October, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."
§ Mr. DEVLINI am very glad that there is still left in the procedure of the business of this House of Commons an opportunity, even though it is a very limited opportunity, of raising matters of what I regard as of most vital importance to the character and honour and the prestige of this nation, because in the observations I propose to make there is only one thing involved. The honour of Ireland is not involved, because, notwithstanding the persecution, the outrages, and the infamies which are being carried on in Ireland to-day in the name of constitutional Government, we have this satisfaction, that the spirit of our people lives and that their cause is just and irresistible, and will ultimately succeed. Therefore, in raising this important matter on the Adjournment, I am not concerned so much with the interests of my own country as with the honour of England and its fair fame—for its fair fame is involved. I deeply resent the manner and the method by which the Chief Secretary for Ireland has dealt with these horrible events that are occurring in Ireland to-day. He seems to have made up his mind to become the defender of the indefensible, and to take advantage of his majority of 350, composed, I have no doubt, of well-intentioned but ignorant Englishmen. He believes that so long as he stands at that Bench, with his serried ranks behind him, to follow him into the Lobby, no matter what he says or what he does, or however unjustifiable the things are that he defends, that that is all that counts in the grave issues that are now being 1892 fought out between him and the lovers of liberty and humanity in Ireland. I do not care what is thought of Ireland by the hard-faced men who made money out of the War. My function in this House, and it is the only one, is to endeavour to direct public opinion to the appalling condition of Ireland to-day, and the responsibility that must be borne by the right hon. Gentleman for these horrible outrages that are commited against innocent people in Ireland. What is my first indictment against the right hon. Gentleman? No matter what allegations are made against the forces of the Crown, who are the instruments of its administration in Ireland, he denies them every one. We ask for a searching inquiry by an impartial tribunal, and he tells us that the malefactors are to be their own judges in Ireland. When the military, who are let loose, burn towns and shoot innocent people, set fire to business premises and create hell and havoc all over the land, and we ask for an inquiry, what happens? These incendiaries and murderers are men who loot the premises of business people and drive innocent women and little children in the dead of night into the fields and on to the country roadsides, and he tells us that a tribunal has been set up. The tribunal is made up of the criminals, and when the criminals have found themselves not guilty, he comes here and defends them, because he declares that that is the only tribunal whose judgment ought to be acceptable to the good sense and the spirit of humanity of the Members of this House.
Then he goes on to tell us that if an Irish newspaper casts the slightest light of public opinion upon these infamies they will be prosecuted. He has issued prosecutions against the "Freeman's Journal" in Dublin, one of the leading organs of the country, because of one or two paragraphs of no importance that appeared in the paper. He says he is prosecuting them because they are publishing false statements. I propose to read statements made, not by the "Freeman's Journal," an Irish paper, who are liars, but by other newspapers. The 1893 Statements which I am about to read are either true or false. If they are true the right bon. Gentleman ought not to sit there for five minutes; he ought to resign his position as Chief Secretary. If they are false, he ought to prosecute these English newspapers for publishing false news. Which is his policy? Is it to prosecute Irish newspapers for paragraphs about simple incidents which he declares are false and to allow allegations in English papers of the most appalling character to be made against the Government of Ireland and its military machine in that country and leave them unprosecuted? We want no bluff. A nation that was not crushed by Cromwell will not be crushed by a Canadian who thumps that table. We want no bombast. We want clear and plain language, and I put it to him now. Are these things true or false? If they are true and if there is one iota of decency in English life and English democracy it will be ashamed to approve of them. If they are false, I call on him, notwithstanding the unintelligible interruptions of men who never come to the House unless at a time of all-night sittings, who think that the English Parliament is not the greatest constitutional assembly in the world, but a merry night club, to say, what is he going to do to these papers? I take the "Westminster Gazette." [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] It is an English newspaper. Everything that is English ought to be sacrosanct to hon. Members opposite. I believe that it is owned by a Member of the Government. I think that the Government own all the newspapers. I know that they own nearly all the newspapers in England, and the most appalling possibility of the future is that they are going to own the Scotch newspapers,
§ Mr. DEVLINThey can get your newspapers without buying them. They are not worth buying. I have always noticed that the Coalition Government have very sound business instructions and therefore they will not buy the "Northern Whig." But the "Westminster Gazette" says:
The people of Bandon, co. Cork, continue in a state of terror, due to military reprisals following the Ballinhassig ambush Further extensive damage was done last night, when people were just beginning to 1894 feel that the terror of Friday night had passed away.Shortly after eight o'clock a number of soldiers proceeded to a hosiery factory at Hill Street, burst in the front door, threw petrol freely about the place, and set fire to the building. As the contents easily caught fire, the building was fully ablaze in a short time. At the rear of the premises some hosiery was saved from burning, and a good deal of it was also looted. This morning the entire factory promises were seen to be completely demolished. The entire damage is estimated at about £50,000.Mr. Joseph Brennan's private residence, Kilbrogan House, was then attacked by soldiers, who first broke some windows and glass sidelights at the door. They entered the bedroom of Shaun Brennan, who was an officer and fought in the late European War, and smashed some furniture.—[Laughter.] I rejoice that, coming back to this dull House of Commons, I am able to make merry the sad-faced gentlemen who have made money out of the War. The report goes on:Mr. Joseph Brennan, the son of the owner of Kilbrogan House, is private secretary to Sir John Anderson, one of the Irish Under-Secretaries.Sir John Anderson is an Englishman, [HON. MEMBERS: "A Scotsman' "] That is better still, and I claim the sympathy of the Leader of the House. The Under-Secretaries in Ireland are the permanent governors of that country. The article goes on:Hundreds of people left the town, as on the previous nights, and many slept by fences through the country all the night. A great state of fear still exists amongst the people, and early this morning many were again pre-paring to leave the town.County Clare also figures luridly in the terrible picture. In the neighbourhood of Miltown Malbay the terror-stricken inhabitants flock nightly into the adjoining fields and country houses to seek refuge. A most respectable and inoffensive old man of seventy-five years, Mr. Charles Lynch, was shot dead in the yard of his own house, and a young man named Grady received a bullet wound in the log, and is in a bad condition. Hay stacks were then set on fire, including Pat Talty's thirty tons; Jas. Boland's, thirty tons; John Moroney's, thirty-five tons. Armed and uniformed men broke into the house of Mr. Thomas Blake, grocer and spirit merchant, and took away some clothes and drink. They next broke into the house of Mrs. O'Flynn, and took away several bundles of socks, shirts, bicycle tyres, etc. Finally they attacked James Burke's, cycle agent, and took away bicycle accessories.There was considerable excitement in Cork last evening about seven o'clock, when several shots rang out. The streets were thronged, as is usual at that time of evening. The shots were fired by the occupants of a light military lorry which, accompanied by an armoured-car, passed quickly through 1895 the principal thoroughfares in the flat of the city. A mild panic, lasting for ten or fifteen minutes, was created.We are always told about soldiers being killed and policemen being killed. I have already stated, not here, but in Ireland, what I think of the murders of these men, but when I read the speech of the Chief Secretary here the other day, when I read the speech of the Prime Minister about reprisals and about human nature, I put it to the House, what is to be thought of the human nature that can stand armed bodies of military in armoured cars shooting recklessly, looting towns, driving the people into the fields in the dead of night and making little children terrorised with all this horror that you have created in the country. So much for the "Westminster Gazette." Let me come to the "Evening News." Hon. Members may laugh at that too. What do these newspapers say? They do not get this information from an Irish correspondent; from some inflated, rhetorical Irish pressman. They get it from a stolid English pressman sent over there coolly to examine facts and to recite them for the advantage of the British public. This is what the "Evening News" says:Almost at the same time as Sir Hamar Greenwood was denying in the House of Commons that there was any flogging in Ireland another case was in progress in Co. Kerry. A motor lorry of uniformed men with blackened faces arrived in Lixnaw from Ballybunion direction. Before entering the village they pulled up at the house of a farmer. His two sons were pulled outside the door in their night clothes in a downpour of rain and beaten with the butt ends of rifles and kicked.Before leaving the raiders made them stand in a pool of water almost up to their waists and left them there for some time. The lorry then proceeded to the house of a young man named Stephen Grady. Grady escaped in his night clothes, though searchlights were turned on him. His assistant, named Nolan, was knocked unconscious on the floor with a blow and subsequently brought outside the door almost nude. A tub of water was poured over him. The party then broke into a room where Miss Grady and her mother were sleeping and pulled Miss Grady out on the road, put her on her knees, and cut her hair.On their return from the creamery, which they burned, the party entered the house of a man named Lovett, knocked his son on the floor with a blow, went next door and cut his sister's hair.Are you ashamed of yourselves? [HON. MEMBERS: "No!"] IS there a man with 1896 a single decent instinct in this House or in this country who ought not to be ashamed of it? You are able to protect your soldiers with all the machinery of your Empire. You have Sir Henry Wilson, the master mind and master hand who directs all these things, able to bring into the country hundreds of thousands of soldiers to protect the military and the policemen. What protection have the innocent villagers, men and women, against these horrible outrages? What protection have we? Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman this: If any relative of mine were flogged, if any sister of mine were treated as these poor and unprotected girls have been treated, and if any little children who had my blood in their veins were treated in that way, by Heavens '. I would not stand it, and I am not a Sinn Feiner and never was a Sinn Feiner. I have human instincts. This appalling recital of events is one that horrifies humanity, and has already made your name a by-word throughout the world. These appalling incidents are enough to make the blood boil in any man who has a single human instinct left. I want to give the right hon. Gentleman time to reply, and he can reply. He is not like the hilarious inarticulates who are laughing now. He can pound the Table and he can roar. He is sowing seeds of bitterness and anger which centuries will not eradicate.The crop that will grow out of all these infamies will be a crop that you will pay dear for, dearer than Ireland. I say that the honour of the Government is involved and the honour of the right hon. Gentleman who is the Governor of Ireland is involved. There is only one thing for the Chief Secretary to do, and that is to get up and say that as he has spoken so boldly in his determination to put down the murder of policemen he will be equally bold in his determination to end this horrible condition of affairs; and if he is going to punish pressmen for publishing what they believe is true, and which he says is false, then let him also bring to the bar, not of a military tribunal, but of a free tribunal, these distinguished journalists who have told their readers the story I have told; a story that must create indignation and shame in the souls of all decent men.
§ The CHIEF SECRETARY for IRELAND (Lieut.-Colonel Sir Hamar Greenwood)I am not going to 1897 pound this box, and I hope I never do. [HON. MEMBERS: "You do!"] That is a matter of opinion. The condition of Ireland is so grievous, and no one knows it better than I do, that it is not to be treated with bombast. There is only one thing I resent in the hon. Gentleman's speech, and that is the reflection cast upon me because I am a Canadian. The record of Canada in the history of this Empire is one of which no Canadian is ashamed. There is no part of this Empire, for the last two generations, which has more loyally supported the Imperial propaganda than the Canadian people. I am bound to say, and I hope that every Canadian newspaper will repeat it, that I resent, when for the first time a Canadian has had the honour to stand at this box as Irish Secretary, that fault should be found with him because he has had the honour, as I have had, of being born in the Dominion of Canada.
§ Mr. DEVLINI made no reflection.
§ Sir H. GREENWOODThe hon. Member talked about the cause as just and irresistible and said it must succeed in Ireland. What cause? The Republican cause?
§ Mr. DEVLINThe cause of freedom.
§ Sir H. GREENWOODLet us be precise. The Republican cause? The cause of murder? The only two causes I am opposing in Ireland are the cause of murder, which is the principal instrument in furthering the Republican cause in Ireland.
I am not opposing Sinn Fein as a movement; I am not opposing anybody's political opinions, but I am opposing, and will continue to oppose, with the support of this House, any movement that is for the setting up of an independent Ireland and the continuance of this campaign of murder which I consider the only bar to the settlement of the Irish question. I am sorry if my method and manner offend the hon. Member. I do my best, and I hope, in spite of the difficulties that I have to face, that my method and manner will not offend any other hon. Member. The hon. Member talks about the tribunals composed of the criminals. The tribunals in Ireland are composed of British officers.
§ Major O'NEILLWill the man who said that stand up?
§ Sir H. GREENWOODThese tribunals in Ireland are composed of selected British officers. Nobody who knows anything about them can accuse them of having any desire except to administer justice in that country. I therefore must protest against the suggestion that the tribunals in Ireland are composed of criminals, or other than the fine flower of the British race. In reference to the newspapers, I have no control over English newspapers. I have never suppressed an Irish newspaper, and it is with the greatest reluctance that I bring an action against an Irish newspaper, but this is the ground of the first action, namely, that two policemen were shot by Black and Tans, by fellow members of the same force. I consider that a statement liable to cause disaffection in the forces of the Crown, and I cannot possibly allow a thing like that to happen without giving the newspaper owners and those responsible an opportunity of being heard before a tribunal of British officers.
§ Mr. DEVLINThese outrages are worse.
§ Sir H. GREENWOODIn reference to the charges I have for the moment, every charge the hon. Member or anybody else brings to me I have investigated at once. But he has read charges which have appeared in this evening's papers. It is impossible for me to reply to these, because I cannot get the information in time. I can assure him—and the proof of what I say is this—in the past week we have dismissed over ten constables from that splendid force—
§ Mr. DEVLINWhat for?
§ Sir H. GREENWOODFor various offences. We dismiss everybody who deviates a hair's breadth from the strictest discipline of the famous Royal Irish Constabulary. I am the last person to wish any slackening of discipline in that force, but I cannot, and I will not, accept these accusations hurled against the constabulary and soldiers on the strength of reports in any newspapers, though I am only too happy to investigate them. Just a word about Bandon. 1899 Bandon is now being inquired into through General Macready and by General Macready. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh!"] He is the best man to inquire into any allegation against his own troops.
§ Mr. DEVLINWill it be an impartial inquiry?
§ Sir H. GREENWOODCertainly. No one is more interested in the troops than the General in command of them. I am profoundly sorry I have not more oppor- 1900 tunity to reply to these statements that are made.
§ Mr. DEVLINIt will go on again tomorrow night.
§ Sir H. GREENWOODI am always willing—
§ It being half-past Eleven of the clock, MR. SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Order of the House of 19th October.
§ Adjourned at Half after Eleven o'clock.