ADDRESS FOR PAPERS. (Hansard, 28 July 1871)

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE
, in rising to call the attention of the House to the case of Mr. George Mackie, now a prisoner in Winchester Gaol; also, to the prosecution by the Solicitor of the Treasury of Mr. R. Steele; and to the assault on Mr. Murphy at Whitehaven; and to move for Copies of any Correspondence that has taken place on these subjects between Her Majesty's Government and the different local authorities, said, he wished to protest against religious intolerance being brought in to act on the administration of justice in this country. Before entering on the subject, he wished to say he was not in any way connected with the Protestant Electoral Union, and only desired equal justice for all religious organizations. The case of Mr. Mackie was simply this—Mr. Mackie was prosecuted for distributing a certain book called The Confessional Unmasked, which had been previously published, and which had been found by the Court of Queen's Bench to be an obscene publication, and the Chairman of the Hants Quarter Sessions submitted the case to the jury on the strength of that decision of the Court of Queen's Bench, saying that the book had been found to be an obscene book, and that that was all they had to consider. There was also this point in the case—that it was very doubtful whether the jury had been legally sworn; but Mr. Mackie was condemned to three months' imprisonment, and to give security for his good behaviour for twelve months. There was one curious fact with regard to The Confessional Unmasked. He had looked through that book, and he had no hesitation in saying that it 377 contained matter of an extremely objectionable character; but it was still more objectionable that the matter which it contained should be published and taught in all Roman Catholic schools, as there was no doubt it was, and distributed by Roman Catholic clergymen, than that it should be distributed for the purpose of confutation. All the persons whose names he had included in the Notice of Motion which he had given were members of the society called the Electoral Protestant Union. The case of Mr. Steele was heard before a London magistrate, who was a lawyer, and that magistrate granted an appeal to the higher Courts; but it was refused in Mr. Mackie's case by the Chairman of the Hants Quarter Sessions, although that Chairman was not a lawyer. Mr. Mackie had been tried on a previous occasion for circulating The Confessional Unmasked, but the jury were unable to agree, though it was understood that all but one of them wished to acquit him. What he (Lord Oranmore and Browne) complained of was that while Her Majesty's Government felt themselves justified in liberating, in the case of the Fenians, criminals who had been convicted of some of the gravest crimes, they did not feel themselves justified in liberating that unfortunate man, even after he had completed his sentence, merely because from conscientious scruples he refused to give his own bail for his good conduct. The case of Mr. Murphy differed from the others in that it involved the right of freedom of discussion, and so demanded the serious attention of Parliament. Mr. Murphy was a gentleman of, no doubt, extreme opinions, and who put forward those views in an extreme manner; but he always did so in a room hired for the purpose, and not in a public thoroughfare or public place, where he might give offence to passers by; and in which case, if attacked while so occupied, no one would be surprised at his being ill-treated, but his lectures being delivered in a room where no one was obliged to hear them, and where those who did hear them went for that purpose by their own free will, he had a right to the protection of the Executive; if, under those circumstances, a man was not justified in stating his opinions, however disagreeable those opinions might be to other parties, freedom of discussion 378 had altogether ceased. What he (Lord Oranmore and Browne) complained of was that, although Chief Baron Kelly laid it down on the recent trial that Mr. Murphy was only liable to punishment in case his lectures were proved to be seditious or immoral, yet the Executive Government, instead of using the force of the country to protect Mr. Murphy in his own private lecture room, interfered on more than occasion to prevent his lecturing at all, and at Whitehaven, though they had full warning of what might be expected, they waited until Mr. Murphy had been attacked, and handled very severely indeed before they interfered to protect him. Their Lordships had now seen what was the course pursued by the Government with regard to these unprotected Protestant lecturers; but what course did they take with regard to great Roman Catholic bodies? One such body assembled in the spring at St. James's Hall, under the presidency of Archbishop Manning, and expressed the opinion that their loyalty to the Government of the country was wholly dependent on that Government adopting a certain foreign policy. He (Lord Oranmore and Browne) had recently spent an evening in travelling to Scotland with a very distinguished member of the Church of Rome, Monsignore Capel, a very able and agreeable gentleman, who had taken a leading part in carrying people out of the Protestant communion, though he had not converted him. If such measures were resorted to against Monsignore Capel as had been used against Mr. Murphy, what would be said of such a case, and what would be the feeling of that House? Because Mr. Murphy was a poor unpolished man he was altogether unworthy of notice; but if he had been a man in Monsignore Capel's position, the greatest disapproval and disgust would have been shown against the treatment to which he was subjected. Mr. Murphy had as good a right to advocate Protestant views as Monsignore Capel and Archbishop Manning had to advocate the extension of the Roman Catholic religion, but he (Lord Oranmore and Browne) believed that the Government, in dealing with these matters, considered their political ends, rather than the ends of justice. The conduct of the Roman Catholics was carried on under an organized system. Cardinal 379 Wiseman, laid down a policy by which he wished to bring the Roman Catholic minority of the country so to act upon elections as to have a weight far beyond their real claims, and he (Lord Oranmore and Browne) had been told by many Members of the other House that they dare not express their real feelings openly, because there was a small united body of Roman Catholics in their constituency which was sufficient to carry the balance one way or the other. He did not say that that was not a perfectly legitimate use of the power which these people possessed, but it was one which ought to be carefully guarded against. Day by day the Legislature was giving to the Roman Catholic priesthood powers which were refused to them in every other country in the world, and were repealing statutes made long before the Reformation as checks on the Roman Catholic system. They had a system of education paid for, but uncontrolled, by Government, such as was not allowed in any Roman Catholic country of Europe. To remhove wat as swtyled a sentimental grievance in their favour, the Established Church of Ireland had been disestablished, and only this year there was a Bill before Parliament, called the Glebe Loans Bill, which was for the purpose of enabling what used to be the Church funds of Ireland to be lent for the purpose of building convents, and paying off loans upon them. Great privileges and power had thus been intrusted to a minority consisting of no more than a fifteenth part of the people, and the least that could be done on the other side of the question was that political influence should be so guarded as to secure for the poor Protestant lecturer the same protection and consideration as for the Roman Catholic Archbishop or priest. He would conclude by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.

THE EARL OF MORLEY
said, the noble Lord (Lord Oranmore and Browne) had travelled over very wide ground, through the whole question of religious 380 toleration, and had brought forward several charges against the Government of a partial administration of the law. He (the Earl of Morley) must beg to decline following the noble Lord over that very wide ground, and need scarcely detain their Lordships by examining many of those charges, inasmuch as they were founded on misconception and inaccuracy in regard to the facts. He must at once say that he was unable to accede to the noble Lord's request that Papers should be laid before the House, for it was an unusual course to lay such Papers upon the Table, and in none of the three cases mentioned in the noble Lord's Notice was there anything which would justify a departure from the usual line of procedure. Mackie was tried at Winchester for publishing and selling a book called The Confessional Unmasked, an obscene book condemned by the Court of Queen's Bench.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE
It was not the same.

THE EARL OF MORLEY
The alteration was a very slight one, and substantially the book was the same. The noble Lord said the Chairman of Quarter Sessions took out of the hands of the jury the question whether the book was obscene. On the contrary, the Chairman of Quarter Sessions directed the jury to consider whether the book was obscene, quoting the precise words used by the Lord Chief Justice in the Queen's Bench in pointing out various passages for their consideration. Nothing could be fairer than the way in which the question was left to the jury. Nor was there any informality as alleged in the swearing in of the jury, for they were sworn in the usual way, and, though the prisoner's counsel was present, no objection was made till some days afterwards. Mackie was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and to find sureties for his good behaviour during 12 months, and he was now in gaol merely because he refused to find these sureties. If the prisoner found the sureties, he would be at once released, and under such circumstances there was no reason why the Executive should interfere. As to the case of Murphy, the noble Lord complained that no attempt whatever had been made to prevent him from being severely handled at Whitehaven. The statement was entirely inaccurate, for Murphy was rescued 381 from the rioters by a large body of police about 10 minutes after the commencement of the attack, and no less than 15 men, Roman Catholic miners, had been arrested, and seven were committed for trial at the Assizes, of whom five had been sentenced to 12, and two to eight months' imprisonment. He did not know how the Executive could have acted otherwise. As to the case of Mr. Steele, it had been investigated at Bow Street, and all that need be said of it was that the magistrate had granted a case which would come in due time before the Court of Queen's Bench.

THE EARL OF CARNARVON
said, he thought the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department had exercised a wise discretion in the matter of Mackie. He was indicted for circulating a book undoubtedly of a very obscene character, though nominally used for theological purposes. In prosecuting the case, two distinct trials had taken place, in one of which the jury were unable to agree; while in the other the jury were unanimous, and the prisoner was sentenced as already mentioned. Now, there was no difficulty in finding the necessary sureties; but the prisoner, wishing to appear a martyr, had declined to accept the sureties which were ready for him. Under such circumstances, it was unreasonable to expect a Secretary of State to exercise the Royal Prerogative in his favour. The noble Lord (Lord Oranmore and Browne) had been not quite fair towards the Chairman of Quarter Sessions. Though not a lawyer, no man paid greater attention to the cases brought before him, and no man was more competent to decide them. His summing up, too, followed that of the Lord Chief Justice in a similar case. Having some connection with Winchester, he (the Earl of Carnarvon) was quite as desirous of getting rid of Mackie as the noble Lord was of setting him free, for, besides the expense to the county, Mackie had been during the last two or three months a very insubordinate prisoner, and had been punished two or three times for breach of the prison regulations. He was a perfectly voluntary martyr, free to accept the sureties at any moment, when he could be released, and the case was not one in which the Royal Prerogative should be used in his favour.