HL Deb 17 July 1893 vol 14 cc1662-81
THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY

called attention to the Administration of Justice in Ireland, and particularly to the proceedings during the present Assizes in Clare and other counties. He said it would be in their Lordships' recollection that some 10 days ago the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) moved the Adjournment of the House of Commons in order to discuss the Charge of the learned Judge of Assize at the recent Assizes for the County of Clare. He himself considered that the Adjournment was most important and necessary; but the Debate that ensued was by no means of a satisfactory character. He must confess that he viewed with no surprise the action of Her Majesty's Government. On that occasion they pursued that policy for which they had been remarkable during the year they had been responsible for the government of Ireland. They pursued a policy of evasion and concealment. He ventured to think that the Chief Secretary must have known that when a Charge of such importance as that delivered by the learned Judge at the Clare Assizes was published the Unionist Members in the House of Commons and the Unionist Members of their Lordships' House would lose no time whatever in raising a discussion on a Charge of so important and serious a character. But when the hon. Member for South Tyrone raised the discussion on this Charge the Chief Secretary declared that, having had no notice, he was not in a position to discuss the question fully, and, if the expression might be used, he virtually de- clared that a mine had been sprung upon him. For one moment he would diverge, and would point to the contrast between the conduct of Mr. Morley and that of his predecessor, the present Leader of the Opposition. Time after time the Adjournment of the House was moved at a moment's notice in order to attack Her Majesty's then Government; but Mr. Balfour never failed to repel the attack made upon him, and to repel it in a manner that gave satisfaction to his friends and dire and litter discomfort to his opponents. But Mr. Balfour had one advantage which Mr. Morley had not: he was able to quote as his motto, "Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just;" and he ventured to say that not even Mr. Morley would dare to say that, with regard to his administration, he could erect such a motto. He knew that during the administration of the late Unionist Government there were many incidents that occurred of a regrettable character; but there was not one single action of the Government or of the Irish Executive 6f which they were ashamed, or the discussion of which they tried to evade as Mr. Morley had done. As to concealment, they carried that even further. The other day the late Solicitor General attempted to carry on the Debate on the County of Clare; but with the sanction, he presumed, of Mr. Morley, who wished to throw dust in the eyes of the English people, the discussion raised by Mr. Carson was closured. Under these circumstances, he thought he owed no apology to their Lordships for bringing before them the condition of the County of Clare and the prostitution of the law there as shown by the Judge of Assize. The recent Charge of Mr. Justice Gibson was of a most extraordinary and peculiar character, because it bore out almost to the letter the Charge of his predecessor at the Assizes in March last. He had the honour and privilege of knowing Mr. Justice Gibson, and he could say from his own knowledge—and he defied contradiction from any of the many Members of the House of Commons who knew Mr. Justice Gibson when he was a Law Officer, Solicitor General and afterwards Attorney General—that it would be impossible to find a Judge of more moderate and temperate sentiments than that Judge. In his opening address to the Grand Jury of the County of Clare Mr. Justice Gibson said— It was impossible to escape the conclusion from reading the Returns that there was a widespread system of intimidation and of crime which led up to terror. His Lordship was afraid that intimidation was not only the intimidation of prosecutors and witnesses, but it might be found to infect and invade the jury-boxes; but, whether this was so or not, it reached a very formidable situation where prosecutions would be rendered abortive, because of the hardihood of criminals. It tended to relax—his Lordship did not say it did relax—the efforts of the police, and in those few cases in which prosecutors would be willing to come forward prosecution would be made impossible, for who would prosecute where he knew that instead of bringing his oppressor or attempted assassin to justice he would only infuriate the passion of the parties, and that his prosecution of them would make it certain that he would be attacked again? They were sometimes told that nothing' could be done where prosecutors would not prosecute; but when he knew that the prosecution could not succeed, it was a sad and scandalous state of society where the law could not be enforced. It might be better that there should be no law than a semblance of law. The forecast of the learned Judge was singularly accurate. The Assizes showed that there was no want of conviction in cases of an ordinary character, but that there was a want of conviction in cases of agrarian crime. There were two of such cases; the first was a case of resisting the Sub-Sheriff, in which six men were charged. There was no evidence for the defence. The jury found a verdict of "Not Guilty," upon which the learned Judge said— I am afraid that verdict is a great scandal in the administration of justice. If that case had been tried in another county before a jury who had not been intimidated and terrorised there could be no doubt that these men would have been convicted and brought to justice. In the other case five men were prosecuted for alleged unlawful assembly. Again, Mr. Justice Gibson, in his Charge, said there was a conclusive case against the defendants in respect of unlawful assembly. The jury retired, and another case was taken. They returned into Court with a verdict of "Not Guilty." Mr. Justice Gibson asked— Is the present case the same as the last?" Mr. Adams (the clerk).—"Yes, my Lord." Mr. Justice Gibson thereupon said—"What is the use of going on with it? There is no use, as far as I can see, in continuing this. We are engaged in a solemn comedy at present. What is the use of wasting time with them if they are all the same? Mr. Murphy said—"Perhaps this is a better jury"; but Mr. Justice Gibson said—"Such a travesty of justice is perfectly melancholy. I will take a full note of this case. I will only say that a great responsibility rests on someone for this. The responsibility rested with Her Majesty's Government, and with no one else. They had been warned time after time, and they had at last found out that the law was absolutely prostituted in the County of Clare; but they had gone out of their way to disregard those warnings. He himself had, at the opening of the Session, drawn attention to the fact that the Lord Lieutenant, supported by a vast majority of Magistrates, had passed a resolution calling upon the Government to revive the clauses of the Crimes Act which they had relaxed without consulting anybody, and especially the people living in the County of Clare, although they had consulted their present allies who were keeping them in Office. The learned Judge, at the last March Assizes, said that he was constrained to arrive at the conclusion that a certain system of intimidation was degenerating the whole framework of society in the County of Clare. It had reached the jury-box and it had reached the witness-box, and he concluded— In mercy to the jurymen themselves, in mercy to those men who, as I have seen in this Court, stand between terrorism and their own consciences, and for the sake of security to life and property in this county, some means must be found, and I trust will be found, to remove the administration of the Criminal Law altogether out of the county. A more solemn warning was never given to any Government. But Her Majesty's Government had had more recent warnings than that. On June 13 last, at Quarter Sessions, Judge Kelly said he did not think such a state of things existed in any other country in the world. It was the fault of someone; but who was to blame he did not know. Trial by jury was a farce. Mr. Morley in the House of Commons treated the remarks of the Judges in a manner almost insulting. Judge Kelly was thought very highly of in the South of Ireland, and, knowing the condition of County Clare, was stating his experience when he spoke, and if Mr. Morley continued to denounce and insult the Judges in Ireland, then he would be doing everything in his power to render assistance to criminals. He would go further, and say that if Her Majesty's Ministers had half the courage of Her Majesty's Judges in Ireland there would not be this disgraceful state of things in that country. He did not think anyone, after these statements of the Judges, and after this prostituting of the law, could have any doubt that it was the duty of Her Majesty's Government to revive the clauses which they suspended at the dictation of their Irish allies, and certainly that clause which enabled them to change the venue of a trial. How much longer were the Government going to carry on this farce, for farce it was? They had set the most pernicious example; they allowed jurymen to utterly to ignore their oaths in open Court; they allowed crime proved and detected to go unpunished, and through their action criminals of the worst class might rely upon committing crime with impunity. It would be far better that the Government should cease to prosecute than allow the present state of things to continue, for they were only stultifying the law and incurring an absolutely useless, expenditure. It was no answer to say that crime was no worse in County Clare now than it was when they took Office. If the Government knew the county to be in an unsatisfactory condition when they undertook the government of the country they should not have relaxed any of the powers that would have enabled them to bring criminals to justice. He admitted that the county was never in a perfectly satisfactory condition, but it never was in such a bad condition as it was at the present time. He gathered from Mr. Justice Gibson's Charge at the last Assizes that very serious moonlighting outrages had been classed under the head of intimidation; and that was confirmed by a resolution of the Grand Jury entering a most emphatic protest against the way in which crimes were entered and classified. In that resolution the Grand Jury said— We are of opinion that many crimes of a serious character have been minimised by being entered under the head of intimidation. He wanted to know why these White-boy offences should be described in a misleading manner as intimidation? Answering a question as to that, the Chief Secretary said— I wish, once for all, to state that the classification of offences in Ireland is performed by the same persons who have performed the duty for many years past, and precisely on the same principle. But in a letter he had received from Colonel Turner, late Divisional Magistrate, it was said— In spite of what Mr. Morley stated, there has been a grave departure from the practice which prevailed under the late Government as to the designation of serious crimes, firing at the person, and into houses. Those were never put under the head of intimidation. It was the duty of the noble Earl opposite either to deny the statement of the Judge and the Grand Jury, or to defend the action of the Government in concealing serious crime under the head of intimidation. Dealing with the state of Kerry, he maintained that when the Government took Office they found that county in a peaceful and law-abiding condition, and in support of that statement he would quote the Charge of Mr. Justice O'Brien at the Summer Assizes of 1892. Therefore, upon the Government must rest the responsibility for the moonlighting which now existed in Kerry. The same might be said of Limerick. Absolutely peaceful when the Government entered on the administration of Irish affairs, that county had degenerated into a lawless and disgraceful condition. The Charge of the learned Judge showed that while the cases returned for trial were only 4 as against 10 in the last corresponding period, the number of cases specially reported had increased from 36 to 53; and he went on to say he was much struck by the fact that in a very large proportion of those cases, some of them of a most serious character, no persons had been made amenable, and he concluded by saying "whatever be the cause the result is lamentable." He had shown that the law was prostituted in these three counties, because juries would not dare to convict. What steps did the Government propose to take? Were they going to permit this scandalous state of affairs to continue, with the result that crime inevitably must increase, because every criminal knew that he could commit crime with impunity? The Chief Secretary had stated the other day in the House of Commons that if he were persuaded of the necessity, no matter what the mortification might be to himself, he would not hesitate to revive the clause with regard to change of venue. What further persuasion did the right hon. Gentleman want? The country was crying out to the Government to take steps to bring about a change in the lawless condition of these three counties. The Government had the power, and he would give them credit for having the will, but they had not the courage to put an end to the present state of things. They knew that if they offended in the slightest degree that body of men who kept them in power their termination of Office would speedily arrive. Ministers were now truckling to the men whom they once imprisoned without trial, and who had denounced them more violently than they did the Members of the late Government. He declared honestly, solemnly, and conscientiously that he would rather beg his bread in the streets of London from that moment to his dying day than hold Office under conditions so contemptible, so hateful, and so degrading. But the day was not far distant when the Government would have to appeal to a tribunal far higher than Parliament—that of public opinion, when they would find that the cause of those wretched people who had always stood by them would appeal to the English electorate, and he believed the English electorate would show that they regarded the victims of the boycotters and the moonlighters as the victims of the Government, who would not raise a finger to save them. He had been accused of using violent language in their Lordships' House; but he declared he had never done so in a Debate of a political and controversial character, for he was not so narrow-minded as not to give every one of his fellow-men credit for the principles he held; but this was not a political or controversial matter. It was the prostitution of law and the encouragement of crime in Ireland. There was no man with a spark of manliness or human kindness in his breast, no matter to what Party he belonged, who did not look with horror at the outrages perpetrated in the County of Clare, with disgust at the prostitution of the law, and with contempt on the Government for not endeavouring to stop such a state of things by reviving those clauses which, in a moment of temporary aberration he would call it, they had determined to drop. On behalf of his noble Friends from Ireland, and of himself, he endorsed every word said by the Leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons in his appeal to the Government on this subject. He promised, if the Government revived the power of change of venue, that he would never taunt them with being tardy or inconsistent. On the contrary, he would recognise the fact that they were attempting to shed light on those black spots that existed in Ireland, and doing their utmost to restore law and order in a part of the country which had been described only recently by the Chief Secretary as a disgrace to civilisation.

LORD INCHIQUIN

entirely endorsed every word the noble Marquess had said. As a landlord resident in Clare he was familiar with what was going on, and he declared that serious outrages were rapidly increasing. The official Return for the month of June contained 28 cases, half of which were serious outrages, although they were placed under the head of "intimidation." In one case one of his own tenants was fired at in the road when driving with a relative to a fair. It was broad daylight at the time, and there were 30 or 40 people on the road. Yet not a single person had been arrested, and when the men fired at got to the fair, they denied that any shots had been fired at them, because they were afraid of what might happen if they told the truth. This case was described in the Return as "intimidation by firing." Some of the most serious cases which were occurring were outrages upon dumb animals. Last month there were three cases where hair was cut off the tails of cattle. Mr. J. Morley appeared to think that a very small matter so long as the tails were not cut off altogether; but, as farmers knew, to cut hair off the tail meant a serious loss to the small farmer. In several cases the cattle had been actually mutilated. He also complained of the inactivity of the police, which he thought might be due to the uncertainty existing as to their future position. An eviction took place on his own estate, where a tenant owed over six years' rent. The police knew that threatening notices would be posted in the district, but took no means to watch, and by 6 o'clock the next morning hundreds of such notices as he held in his hand had been posted all over the neighbourhood. The police tore them down, but within half-an-hour they were re-posted, the police knowing nothing about them. If the present system of official classification of crime was to go on, it would be a charge of attempted murder if a man behind a hedge fired at another and hit him, while if he fired at and unfortunately missed him it would simply be a case of "intimidation." He spoke feelingly on this subject, because he and others had to travel about the County Clare at all times, and they never knew when they might be fired at. He appealed, therefore, to noble Lords opposite, on behalf of those who had to go about the county, and ask them to give consideration to the request of the noble Marquess.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Earl SPENCER)

My Lords, this is by no means the first Debate we have had on this subject. I have had the task of answering the noble Marquess on more than one occasion upon the condition of Clare, Limerick, and Kerry, and I shall endeavour to do so now precisely and clearly. He says that the action of my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary, when the recent Motion was made for the Adjournment of the House of Commons in order to discuss Mr. Justice Gibson's Charge, was merely a continuation of the policy of evasion and concealment on the part of Her Majesty's Government. I must entirely repudiate that charge, and tell him that we have no desire to evade or conceal anything. Our sole desire is to get at the truth, and if we have to admit, as we do, that there is a serious state of affairs existing, we hope by the measures which we are taking that that serious state of things may be put an end to. My right hon. Friend had no notice of the Motion for Adjournment, and I think he was justified in refusing to go at length into the subject. Not only had he not received all the Reports connected with the Assizes, but some of the Assizes had not even taken place; and, therefore, it was not a policy of evasion and concealment—it was the policy of getting the fullest possible information—which induced him to refuse to go at length into the subject. The noble Marquess has alluded to various Judges in Ireland, many of whom, like him, I know; and he has referred to an old acquaintance of mine, Mr. Charles Kelly, the County Court Judge for the County of Clare. I am ignorant of what my right hon. Friend said which made the noble Marquess state that the Chief Secretary had insulted the Judges. I am sure my right hon. Friend had no intention to insult the Judges, and I should be extremely surprised if anyone can prove that he has insulted them. When, however, Judges' Charges to Grand Juries are taken up and made the subject of political attacks in this place or in the other, it is very difficult in all cases to avoid criticising those Charges. That may be the reason which has given a foundation to the very serious charge made by the noble Marquess; but I maintain that whatever may have been done has not been done with a view to insult Her Majesty's Judges in Ireland, but to elicit the exact facts of the case, and to combat some statements made in those Charges, all of which have not been accurately reported. The noble Marquess, towards the end of his speech, drew what I should call a fancy picture of the position of Her Majesty's Government. He said that in all these cases the Government were at the beck and call of a certain class of Irishmen who have been guilty of crime, and were truckling to them. I entirely repudiate anything of that sort; we do not truckle to anybody. We are as anxious as the noble Marquess himself to restore peace and order in these counties of Ireland. My noble Friend, Her Majesty's Lieutenant in the County of Clare, for whose position I have the greatest respect, and with whom I sympathise in his relations to that county, has made to-night some statements to which I will briefly refer; but not having the actual cases before me as to those statements, I cannot at present deal with them very fully. He referred to outrages on dumb animals, and he attacks my right hon. Friend for, as he seems to think, disregarding them. But anyone who is acquainted with my right hon. Friend as I am will know and will understand that he dislikes and loathes these outrages, and holds them in as great condemnation as any noble Lord opposite.

LORD INCHIQUIN

I was referring to instances of cutting off the hair from animals' tails, not to the outrages.

EARL SPENCER

I certainly understood my noble Friend's statement to go further than that, and to impute carelessness in this matter to my right hon. Friend. My noble Friend goes on to make a very serious charge. He says that the police are not doing their duty in County Clare. From what I have seen of the Reports from that county my belief is that they are doing their duty as faithfully and loyally now as they ever did before. They are not, as it has been suggested, under the delusion that Her Majesty's Government wish to tolerate crime, and they are doing their utmost to put down crime now, just as much as hitherto. One of the characteristics of the Royal Irish Constabulary is that they have always done their duty under the most difficult circumstances. My noble Friend illustrates his point by pointing to notices which have unfortunately been posted up, I imagine, upon his estate, and he asks, Where were the police at the time those notices were put up? Any one who has had to do with the administration of justice in Ireland will know that there is the greatest possible difficulty in dealing with these cases. The ruffians who are engaged in this class of offence know probably more of the movements of the police than the police know about the movements of those persons. They watch till the police have got to a safe distance and then put up the notices complained of. It is much to be regretted that the police cannot be omnipresent; but I think they have been doing their duty with great vigour in the county. I now come to the general question and, for a moment, I should like to refer to the terms of the noble Marquess's notice, which are, indeed, considerably wider than the speech which he has made— To call attention to the administration of justice in Ireland, and particularly to the proceedings during the present Assizes in Clare and other counties. I am not blaming the noble Marquess, because I think he wished to spare your Lordships' time. I will follow that notice more faithfully than the noble Marquess. It was well said by the Lord J President upon a former occasion that it is necessary in judging of a policy not to confine your view to small districts but to look at what is going on in different parts of the country. Taking the Charges of the Judges in other parts of Ireland they are by no means unsatisfactory. In Queen's County and Roscommon, for instance, there were no cases of importance; in Cavan the learned Judge congratulated the Grand Jury on the satisfactory state of the district; and in King's County, Longford, Leitrim, and other parts very much the same expressions were used by the Judges in charging the Grand Juries. Now, if I go farther South, I admit that in Tipperary the Reports are not so satisfactory; but, at the same time, there is nothing extremely alarming in the Charges of the Judges at those Assizes. When we come to Limerick there are, I frankly admit, more serious cases; but even there it does not appear that the Judges found fault with the juries, though there are, no doubt, a certain number of cases there which have not been made amenable. We hope, however, that these are in the category of those spasmodic outbursts of crime to which reference was made upon the last occasion, inasmuch as there have been no agrarian moonlighting outrages in those parts since April 23. I think that is very satisfactory. Coming to County Kerry, I find that the greater part of that county is in a satisfactory condition, as the learned Judge of Assize himself stated. No doubt there are some districts in the county—more particularly those adjoining Limerick—where the state of affairs is not so satisfactory. The Assizes have now concluded, and in one very important case of moonlighting with firing, near Castleisland, the jury convicted two of the most noted men in that part of the country. That is a satisfactory sign, and we may hope that the wave of crime which has of late years passed over Kerry has now subsided, and that we may once more see that county in a state of peace and order. That conviction is all the more important, because the part where it was obtained was, at the time when I had the honour to represent Her Majesty in Ireland, and always has been, one of the most disturbed districts in the whole of Ireland. With regard to Clare, I merely repeat what I have said more than once in this House, that Her Majesty's Government are not satisfied with the state of that county. Its condition is not satisfactory, and the Government wish a great change to be made in that county, and the way in which justice is carried out there. I quite admit that Mr. Justice Gibson, at the late Assizes, condemned very severely the action of some of the juries. I would, however, venture to point out that there were three cases of special significance. They were of an agrarian nature. One of them was a very bad case, in which the jury acquitted the prisoner apparently upon the very plainest evidence. I admit that, and I consider it points to a serious condition of things. Of the other two cases, one was in connection with a very notorious estate as to which, unfortunately, a strong feeling prevailed in various parts of the country; and those who are responsible for the administration of justice in Ireland are of opinion that in almost any part of Ireland—even if the venue had been changed—there would have been a difficulty in obtaining a conviction in a case about which so much popular feeling prevailed throughout the country. The third case was tried before at the Winter Assizes at Cork, where the jury had disagreed. I admit it is worse now, because the jury acquitted; but I learn on the authority of the Crown Solicitor that the identification of the prisoner in this case was by no means clear. Those are the three principal cases, and, while we admit that the state of the county is not satisfactory, we maintain that the Irish Government would have gained nothing in two out of these three cases by a change of venue. Unfortunately, in that county, and in a small portion of the County of Limerick, there has been a great reluctance on the part of many persons to give evidence. That affects the inquiry before the Magistrates, which, in every case, whether you change the venue or not, must be held in the particular county; and the unwillingness to give evidence prevents the case being brought to trial. Change of venue would have no effect whatever upon this. Now, my Lords, I will state the position in which the Government stand in regard to this question of change of venue. The noble Marquess quoted some words from memory, with respect to what my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary said in another place, but what my right hon. Friend told the House of Commons was that the Government were watching the crime in this black area, including parts of Limerick, Kerry, and Clare, with the most vigilant and solicitous eye, and that if he were persuaded that the power of change of venue and for securing special juries would put an end to this state of things, which he, in common with all, deplored, he declared that no amount of things which he had said in the past, and no sense of mortification at having to unsay them, would prevent him from taking the steps which certain opponents of the Government were pressing upon him to adopt. Now, my Lords, on behalf of Her Majesty's Government, I repeat that, and I say that in all cases where Her Majesty's Government consider that by changing the venue they will succeed in restoring law and order in any particular district they will take the necessary steps to enforce that exceptional process of law. We, however, have not been encouraged in enforcing special provisions in this direction by past experience from the results that followed the action of the late Government. I have been twitted before by the noble Marquess for raising questions of tu quoque. I am saying this not for the purpose of attacking the late Government, but in order to show that with all their experience, with all their power, and their desire to avail themselves of the exceptional powers which the law gave them, the late Government were not able to restore peace and order in the County of Clare, and that, in fact, the condition of that county was worse under the administration of the noble Marquess's Government than it has been since the present Government came into Office. I desire to say that we think exceptional powers of law should only be resorted to when the absolute necessity for putting them into force has been shown upon the clearest and most precise evidence. What we desire to do is to restore the confidence of the people of Ireland in the law and to obtain support for the law from all classes of the community, because it is only by that means that we can hope to secure the good government of the country, and until that is done we consider that good government is not established in any part of the Queen's dominions. We admit—I do clearly and distinctly—that there are cases which can only be met by exceptional laws, but, at the same time, we maintain that the necessity for those exceptional laws must be clearly established before they are resorted to. If you adopt exceptional laws you only increase the opposition and irritation which, unfortunately, exist in many parts of Ireland against the laws of the country. That is our deliberate opinion, and we do not desire to change from the attitude which we have taken with regard to the adoption of exceptional laws, unless it is shown to be absolutely necessary, and unless, by doing so, we are sure of success. Now, I should like to refer for a moment to the condition of Ireland generally, because I submit that in discussions of this sort relating to particular districts we ought not to shut our eyes to what is going on in the country generally. If we take all Ireland from the 23rd January to the 30th June, 1893, the total number of agrarian outrages was 316, or 153 excluding 163 cases of threatening letters; but from August, 1891, for the last year of the noble Marquess's administration, there were 368. That is to say, there were more agrarian outrages then in all Ireland than there are at the present time, the cases of threatening letters being 192. That shows that the position of Her Majesty's Government with regard to law and order in the whole of Ireland is by no means unsatisfactory. Coming to Clare from the 23rd April, 1892, to 30th June, 1893, the agrarian outrages were 68, excluding threatening letters and notices, 33; non-agrarian outrages 117, excluding threatening letters 77. From the 23rd August, 1891, to 30th August, 1832, the total agrarian outrages, including threatening letters, were 78, excluding them 39. Therefore the number of agrarian outrages in Clare during the last year of the noble Marquess's administration was larger than those in the first year of our administration. I do not wish to lay great stress upon it, but that was the case. I only wish to say, in conclusion, in reference to the statement that has been made that this subject has not been brought under the notice of the House for the purpose of making a political attack upon Her Majesty's Government, that this question with regard to the condition of County Clare has been brought forward over and over again since Her Majesty's present Government have been in Office by those who had not a word to say with regard to the still worse condition of the county when the late Government were answerable for the administration of Ireland.

THE MARQUESS OF LONDONDERRY

We always have raised the question, but you would not.

EARL SPENCER

Certainly I would not raise them, because I did not wish to embarrass Her Majesty's Government with regard to the administration of the law; but there might have been other Peers and right hon. Gentlemen elsewhere who had no feeling of that sort, and why should not they have raised the question as to the state of Clare then just as much as the noble Marquess is raising it now?

LORD ASHBOURNE

We were doing our best to improve the condition of the country.

EARL SPENCER

I say, therefore, that the object of continually raising this question at the present time is, undoubtedly, to a great extent a political one. I am, moreover, afraid that these constant Debates upon the state of County Clare will most seriously affect the administration of the law in Ireland. These Debates will certainly not encourage Irish juries to do their duty and to find verdicts according to their consciences or Irish witnesses to speak the truth, when they are told that their lives will be endangered or threatened and their property destroyed. Your Lordships must remember that the reports of the Debates in this House are not confined to English or Dublin newspapers, but that they find their way into the most distant parts of Ireland, and that they become well known to all those who are, unfortunately, connected with agrarian crime in Ireland, or with the administration of justice in that country. They excite those who take unlawful means to prevent justice being properly administered, and they deter honest men from doing their duty. I cannot help lamenting that the effect of these discussions is to weaken the arm of the law in Ireland. Before I sit down I should wish to point out that the classification of crime in Ireland has undergone no change since the present Government came into Office, and therefore that, if the present classification is defective, it was equally defective under the noble Marquess's administration. In classifying offences the police have followed the rules and principles laid down for many years past; and, notwithstanding the authoritative dictum of my old friend Colonel Turner, I assort that no change in reference to classifying cases of intimidation has taken place in this system. I do not mean to say that in some of these cases you might not argue that crimes should be classified in a different way; but it is a very serious thing to alter the form of Returns unless you find some grievous error in them. Unless that is the case you destroy the value of all statistical calculations if you alter the form of Returns. That crimes have been classified as intimidation when the offence was intent to murder or to do bodily harm I do not believe for a moment. I can only repeat what Her Majesty's Government's intentions are with regard to crimes in Ireland. They are of opinion that up to the present time they could not with any advantage change the venue in any particular county. They are doing all they can to keep down crime in these unfortunate black spots, and the latest reports, even from Clare, express some hopes that the worst is over and that already there are signs of improvement.

THE MARQUESS OF WATERFORD

said, the noble Earl had promised to answer fully the statements and facts brought forward by the noble Marquess, but he would ask their Lordships to decide whether the noble Earl had given the full, clear, and satisfactory answer he had promised. The noble Earl had hardly referred to the Judge's Charge at the late Assizes, though that had been strongly put forward by his noble Friend who raised the question. The noble Earl asked why Members of the present Opposition did not raise these questions when the late Government was in power. It was very clear why they did not. Because there was no necessity. The country was at that time improving every day.

THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY

No, it was not—not in the least.

THE MARQUESS OF WATERFORD

said, that if Clare was in an unsatisfactory condition then, which they denied, the Government of Lord Salisbury did everything in their power to alter that state of things. That was the reason why no member of the present Opposition rose to ask such a question as this. The noble Earl said that these discussions discouraged juries. It discouraged them a great deal more to get no sort of protection from the Government. But this discussion was raised after the fact. The juries had already given their decisions, and had therefore shown that they had been intimidated. The noble Earl said that the Government was prepared to take measures, and to change the venue if it became necessary, and that all they wanted to do was to get at the truth. What steps were they taking to that end? They were simply letting things slide in the hope that they would improve; and they did not improve. He maintained that it was necessary to change the venue. At the recent Assizes at Clare the Judge made the most serious Charge to the Grand Jury. He said that the proceedings were a perfect farce because the juries were so intimidated. That being so, was it not time that some steps should be taken by Her Majesty's Government? The Chief Secretary said in another place that Clare was at present a disgrace to civilisation. If that were so, surely some steps should be taken to enforce the law. The real fact was that" the Government were tied and bound at the heels of Mr. Sexton's Party, and dare not use the powers in their hands. No one knew better than the noble Earl how beneficial a change of venue would be in Clare. The Government talked a great deal about their sympathy with the law-abiding classes, but they did nothing to show that sympathy in a satisfactory manner. Though the Chief Secretary had declared that Clare—a county for the government of which he was responsible—was a disgrace to civilisation, he made no single proposition for remedying that state of things; and, as a member of the Cabinet, the noble Earl was as much responsible for it as the Chief Secretary. What form of crime or terrorism, what kind of Charge from a Judge, would make the noble Earl think that it was necessary to do something for the law-abiding people of the country? As at present administered in Clare, the law was distinctly against the law-abiding. If they took the law into their own hands and administered lynch law, as was sometimes done in the wild Western States, they would certainly be tried and convicted, while the criminals enjoyed immunity. Even if men were caught red-handed, the juries would return them not guilty. Why did the Government throw away the powers which they found ready to their hands? Though the noble Earl expressed great doubt of the value of the change of venue, two of his Colleagues—Mr. Campbell-Bannerman and Sir G. Trevelyan—had in times past expressed a very contrary opinion. If the noble Earl thought there would be any use in changing the venue so that these criminals might be brought to justice, why did he not do so? The noble Earl had indignantly repudiated the idea of truckling to anybody, and had said that the Government were taking measures. He should like to know what those measures were, for they had not heard of any. It appeared to him that the reason why the Government were not prepared to take measures to change the venue and to enforce the Crimes Act in Clare was that such a course was objectionable to the Irish Party who supported them in the House of Commons, and at whose dictation they were prepared only last week to destroy the splendid Constitution of this Empire. It was not to be wondered at that they would not take measures to change the venue or enforce the Crimes Act in Clare when they knew that Mr. Sexton and his Party would object to their doing so. He believed that Party would spare Her Majesty's Government no degradation to which they could possibly subject them to in the present, and that in the future, if they took such measures, the so-called union of hearts would be turned into deadly antagonism against the present Treasury Bench, which, if any Home Rule Bill were to pass—which God forbid—would be made more dangerous, because power would be given to Ireland to assist any attacks that might be made upon the shores of England, and to inflict the most vital injury in the very heart of her Parliament itself.

LORD SHAND

assured the noble Earl that nothing in the way of political interests was in his mind in the few observations he would make. Having been long connected with the administration of justice in Scotland, he would point out that the power of changing the venue was constantly used there, and had for at least a century been part of the Common Law of that country. The change of venue operated not only to procure convictions, but it was also very often favourable to the accused. He sympathised very much with a learned Judge entering a circuit with the knowledge that he was merely playing a part. It could easily be imagined what his feelings would be. He could not understand why the power of changing the venue should not be exercised in Ireland, for as it was constantly exercised in Scotland it could not be considered to cast any stigma upon Ireland. The Government were bound to respect the views of the learned Judge who went on circuit in the County of Clare, and ought to take into their serious consideration his opinion as to the necessity of the change of venue in that county. As to the statistics showing that crime in the rest of Ireland was decreasing, he thought that was not an answer to people living in Clare, Kerry, and Limerick. The simple question the Government had to consider was what was necessary to be done in those particular counties. It ought to be sufficient for Her Majesty's Government that a large number of the community considered that the adoption of this course would alter the discreditable fact that juries were acquitting prisoners when their guilt had been made absolutely clear.