Lords Sitting of 14 February 1888

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILL—First Reading— Railway and Canal Traffic (12).
THE DEATH OF MR. M'NEILL AT BOULOGNE.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN: My Lords, I wish to ask the noble Marquess at the head of the Government a Question of which I have given him private Notice, in connection with the lamentable death, under very suspicious circumstances, of Mr. M'Neill at Boulogne in December last. Your Lordships know the circumstances of the case, and I need not therefore further allude to them; but I saw it mentioned in the papers yesterday that practically speaking the further investigation into the cause of death has ceased, and I wish to ask the Prime Minister, Whether there has been any communication between the two Governments of France and England upon the subject, and whether there is any truth in that statement; and also, in view of the fact that there is a very grave suspicion that a murder was committed, whether Her Majesty's Government will be able to make any further representations to the French Government upon the subject?
  THE PRIME MINISTER AND SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (The Marquess of SALISBURY): My Lords, I have reason to doubt that it is true, as my noble Friend has stated, that investigation in this case has been given up. Our latest information is that the French Government has assured the British Ambassador that the inquiry is actively proceeding at Boulogne, under the direction of the Commissaire Centrale, and that a special Commissaire has been despatched by the Minister of the Interior. Of course I do not know the particulars of the investigation; nobody probably but the magistrate actually concerned can know them. No doubt it is within the knowledge of the noble Earl that investigations of this kind in France are conducted not in public, as with us, but, on the contrary, quite privately, and therefore it would be out of the
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  power of anyone to say whether the investigation was actively proceeding or not. We have expressed to the French Government our great anxiety that every measure should be taken to discover the murderer, if murder there was, and I have not the smallest ground for believing that there will be the slightest lukewarmness on the part of the French Government in carrying out the investigation.

LAW AND JUSTICE—APPOINTMENT OF A PUBLIC PROSECUTOR.

  QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS.
  LORD ELLENBOROUGHrose to ask Her Majesty's Government, What prospect there was of the appointment of a Public Prosecutor? A general opinion prevailed that such a public officer was necessary to prevent inequality in respect to the trial of persons under the Criminal Law, and he was prompted to ask the Question by what had occurred in reference to one case in London and another in Birmingham. In London a man was tried for murder said to be brought about by arson, when the jury brought in a verdict of not guilty. The prisoner was subsequently tried for arson, found guilty, and received an adequate punishment. The case at Birmingham was that of a man and a woman tried for the murder of Colonel Fendall. The Grand Jury brought in a true bill for murder. A robbery clearly was committed with violence. The clothes of the murdered man were found with the parents of the man who was tried for murder. He was found guilty of manslaughter, and received a trifling punishment only, not being subsequently tried for robbery with violence, although it resulted in death. He submitted that in the two cases quoted there was a great inequality before the law. There was additional cause for believing afoul murder was committed on the person of Colonel Fendall from the circumstance that the cabman who gave evidence stated that he had been requested to state by the man and woman found guilty of manslaughter that he had found the body in the street, although he had assisted in removing it from the house where the crimes of manslaughter and robbery with violence were committed. There was a great deal of evidence in support of the crime of

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  murder or manslaughter together with robbery with violence; and why in the one case a man should be tried for arson, having been acquitted of the crime of murder, and in the other the man and woman found guilty of manslaughter were not tried for robbery with violence he was at a loss to imagine, unless it was due to the absence of a public officer charged with the investigation of such cases.
  THE LORD CHANCELLOR (Lord HALSBURY)said, he was not quite sure that he distinctly understood the Question of the noble Lord; it was not certain what he intended to convey by asking the Question whether the Government were about to recommend the appointment of a Public Prosecutor. If the noble Lord meant by a Public Prosecutor a person charged with the duty of looking after any prosecution in which his intervention was required, such an officer was already in existence. By the Act of 1879 a Public Prosecutor was appointed, and by the amending Act of 1884 the Office was vested in the Solicitor to the Treasury, who was charged to take up cases in which no private prosecutor was to be found, and who in fact often took cases out of the hands of private prosecutors. Therefore, the answer to the Question was that there was a Public Prosecutor already existing. He believed the duties of the Office were performed by Sir Augustus Stephenson with great skill and diligence, and he had not heard of any failure of justice by reason of the supposed absence of such on officer. Not knowing what cases would be cited by the noble Lord, he had not acquainted himself with the details of the two that had been mentioned. But from the circumstances that had been stated he did not see how the action of a Public Prosecutor could have averted the failures of justice which had been suggested. As to the case in which persons were tried for murder and convicted of manslaughter, the sentence was the sentence of the Judge. Did the noble Lord desire that a Public Prosecutor should be appointed to control the discretion of Judges in the infliction of punishment?
  LORD ELLENBOROUGH: No.
  LORD HALSBURY: Then he did not see what was the object of the noble Lord in putting the case forward. The
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  offence of manslaughter was one in respect of which, for obvious reasons, there was left to Judges a very large discretion between sentencing to penal servitude and inflicting a fine. As to the non-trial of the accused for the robbery which was involved in the original charge of murder, if in the case of a robbery a person was killed it could not be manslaughter, and it must be murder. He could not say more without knowing exactly the facts of the case, and the answer to the Question would be that the Government had no intention of appointing such an officer as the noble Lord seemed to contemplate.

RAILWAY AND CANAL TRAFFIC BILL.

  BILL PRESENTED. FIRST READING.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Lord STANLEY of PRESTON),in presenting this Bill, said, it was a Bill to provide for the better regulation of railway and canal traffic, and was essentially the same as the Bill which passed through their Lordships' House last year.
  A Bill for the better regulation of railway and canal traffic; and for other purposes—Presented (The Lord STANLEY of PRESTON); read 1a. (No. 12.)
  House adjourned at a quarter before Five o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Ten o'clock.