JURIES (IRELAND). (Hansard, 26 April 1833)

§ The Duke of Wellington

, after apologizing 672 to their Lordships for having been the occasion of postponing the Bill to the present day, proceeded to observe, that the present was not a time when such a measure as that before their Lordships ought to be adopted. They had lately passed a bill—the Coercion Bill—giving to the Lord-lieutenant the power of suspending the Trial by Jury under certain circumstances in every part of Ireland, and there was another Bill in progress through the other House for suspending the ordinary operation of the law with respect to Juries in certain cases, by giving to the Government the power of changing the venue; and this, too, at a time when Trial by Jury was not a safe mode of administering justice in many parts of Ireland. He had recently received a detail of the proceedings at the late Kilkenny Assizes, which, while it showed what they had to expect from a Trial by Jury in certain cases, fully justified the measure which had lately passed the House with respect to Ireland. In the county of Kilkenny there had been during the year, 928 outrages, some of them of an insurrectionary character. There were twenty-eight commitments for the alleged crime of murder; but, in all the latter cases, no legal evidence could be procured, and the men were all discharged; forty were sentenced to transportation, and the remainder were not tried at all, from the difficulty of procuring sufficient evidence. Most of the witnesses brought forward belonged to the police, but before they gave their evidence. Government was obliged to contract with them to provide for them and their families, by sending them abroad, where they would be out of the way of those who might visit on them the usual consequences of having been instrumental to a conviction. At the late Assizes many of the jurors did not attend, though several of them were called on fines of 50l. and 60l. This would show the state of the country, and from these causes a large number of men, amounting to nearly 900, were thrown at large upon the public, without trial, though accused of very serious offences; and by a clause which had been added to the Coercion Bill in the House of Commons, they could not be tried under that Act. Yet this was the time which the Government had selected to new-model the Jury Laws, and they thought that when they had made those changes, they had provided 673 sufficiently for the due administration of the laws of the country. But the time of bringing forward this measure was not his only objection to it—he should have strong objections to it under any circumstances. In the first place, the Judges of Ireland had almost unanimously objected to the measure. He had seen a letter signed by them, in which they stated, that they objected to the lists, and would rather rest on the responsibility of the Sheriffs' returns. Another objection which he had to the Bill was, that it reduced the qualification for Jurors far below that of England, whereas he would show that it ought to be much higher. The qualification in England was 10l. a-year property, or 20l. on a lease; or a man being a householder of a house rated at 30l., or an occupier of a house with fifteen windows. In Ireland, the qualification was being a 10l. freeholder, or having 15l. a-year on lease. Now, he would ask, why was the 15l. leaseholder in Ireland to be considered equal to the 20l. leaseholder in England? Was it not known that persons of the former class were men in the humblest walks of life—generally under the dominion of their priests, and in other respects men on whose loyalty and discretion no great reliance could be placed? Would such men be fitted to discharge impartially the functions of jurors? Why not give the duty to those in a more elevated sphere in life, on whom they could place a much greater reliance? A circumstance which had happened a short time ago in the Queen's County would be an illustration of what he meant. At the Assizes for that county, a sufficient number of the common jurors had not answered to their names. The gentlemen of the county, to whose public spirit on every occasion too much praise could not be given, who were in attendance, and had not been on the Grand Jury, offered themselves as jurors, and they discharged these duties in a manner which was found most just and most serviceable to the due administration of the law. This would abundantly show, that if the qualifications of jurors were raised so as to bring in only men in the higher classes, there would be no complaint against the administration of justice in Ireland. He did not want to aggravate the impression of the distress that prevailed there at the present day; but he would ask what it was, that was the most probable cause of that distress? Was 674 not that distress to be imputed to the insecurity of property in that country, to an inability of administering justice, and to a want of witnesses and jurors, who would fearlessly do their duty. When such was the case, he called upon their Lordships to pause, to consider the state of Ireland, and to give it only such laws as that state warranted. Nothing could be more to the interest of this country than to relieve Ireland from a state of riotous disturbance; and that interest alone ought to be sufficient to prevent their Lordships from taking such steps as it was now proposed to them to take. Let their Lordships look to the natural situation of Ireland—to its extraordinary fertility—to its navigable rivers—to its population—and they would, most assuredly, see that, if proper care were taken of its resources it could be made a means of giving immense relief to this country. When he reflected on the population and on the resources of Ireland, he did not think that he was making an exaggerated calculation when he said that, if proper care was extended towards that country, it would relieve England from at least one-third of its burdens. It was consequently, his opinion that a measure like the present ought not to pass under existing circumstances. He had another motive for opposing the Bill. A Bill on the same subject came last Session from the other House to their Lordships, and it appeared that, at the time, one of his Majesty's Ministers promised his influence to get it passed, provided another bill, desired by Government, was also allowed to pass. 'Their Lordships, notwithstanding, thought that the Bill ought not to pass. The present Bill was not very dissimilar from the one their Lordships had before rejected, and, consequently, he thought that this should share the same fate. Nothing, he maintained, was more fatal to the country at large than that description of political bargains, an instance of which he had just mentioned. He was not disposed to oppose the third reading of the Bill, but he would move an Amendment, to make the 11th clause of the Bill more clear. To that clause there was a proviso, which said, "Provided always, that nothing herein contained shall prevent any returning officer from the exercise of his discretion in making returns the same as he had been accustomed to do under former laws;" but 675 those laws were repealed by the Bill itself. Now, he would propose a proviso to this effect, "Provided always, that the Sheriff or Sub-sheriff, or other returning officer, shall be bound to insert all such names as are not suspected persons or persons procured."

§ Viscount Melbourne

said, he did not see that the present time, or the circumstances of the country, had anything whatever to do with this Bill. It was perfectly true, that riots and outrages in Ireland had rendered it necessary to empower the Lord-lieutenant of Ireland to suspend the Trial by Jury in some parts of Ireland; but he could not see why that should prevent the Government from endeavouring to give those improvements to the Jury system in other parts of the country of which it was capable. This was a proof, if any were required, that it was not the intention of his Majesty's Ministers to prolong the duration of the Coercion Bill beyond the time when it might be absolutely necessary—that they were thus endeavouring to improve the Jury system generally. The circumstances which had taken place in the county of Kilkenny had, in his opinion, nothing to do with the question before the House. There was nothing new in the existence of such events from the very earliest period in which she had been subjected to English laws. As to the objection made to the Bill by the Judges in Ireland, the noble Duke had greatly overstated the fact. The Judges had objected to the lists, but they approved of the qualification. They thought the amount of property was sufficient. He had, it was true, read some charges delivered by some of the Irish Judges, of great talent and eminence, to Grand Juries, and in these they stated objections to the measure which were, to say the least of them, not at all consistent with their previous signatures in approbation of the measure. They approved of the responsibility of the Sheriff, but that responsibility would be left untouched, except that he was bound to take his list of Jurors from the Jurors' book. The noble Duke had appealed to the outrages 676 which took place in Ireland, and to the natural advantages which that country possessed, which, if well applied, would make her an aid instead of being a burthen to this country; but the noble Duke must know that, in the history of nations, more than one instance could be found of countries possessing great local advantages, but at the same time sunk to the lowest depths of misery and disgrace. He would not then enter into the question of the causes of the present distressed condition of Ireland; but he thought, that many of them might be traced to the violence with which the laws and religion of England had been attempted to be forced on that country without any previous preparation of the minds of the people. But that was a subject which belonged rather to history than to political debate. The only way to reconcile the minds of a people to a new policy was to call them to participate in its benefits. He maintained, with all submission to the noble Duke, that this Bill raised the qualification of Jurors in Ireland. He was anxious for the adoption of that Bill, not only for the advantage of which it Would be productive towards Ireland, but on account likewise of the beneficial effects which it would accomplish in England also. He trusted also, that the circumstance of its having been recommended by the Commissioners of Judicial Inquiry would prove with their Lordships no trifling argument in its favour. Besides that, the Bill was one which had been promised to Ireland by several successive governments, and he was himself able to testify, that when he took office in Ireland some years ago, he found that a bill of that nature had been prepared, and that a draft of it was in his office. Perhaps it was this to which the noble Duke alluded when he spoke of a bargain, as he (Lord Melbourne) had no knowledge of any other bargain than that the Irish Government had long been pledged to the measure. The Bill was one, certainly, which, on that account, was expected by the people—of course he did not go the length of saying that every thing the people expected should, on that account alone, be conceded to their wishes, but amongst other considerations, the circumstance of its being desired and confidently expected, ought to have its weight with the House. On all those grounds, then, he did think that the House would do wisely in reading the Bill as it 677 then stood, a third time; with respect to the Amendment of the noble Duke, it appeared to him that it would be inconsistent with the English Bill.