Sitting of 21 August 1889

QUESTIONS.

  H.M.S. SULTAN.
  MR. TOMLINSON: I wish to know whether the hon. Gentleman the Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Ashmead-Bartlett) can confirm the report in this morning's paper that the Sultan has been raised?
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT,): I believe, Sir, that the report is true.

MOTION.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE (WEDNESDAY SITTING).
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the proceedings of the Committee of Supply be not interrupted this day at half-past Five nor Six o'clock, but when that Order has been disposed of Mr. Speaker do adjourn the House without putting any Question."—(Mr. William Henry Smith.)
  MR. SEXTON: I presume it is perfectly understood that no business is to be taken after half-past 5 except English Votes?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. Smith,): That is so.
  SIR G.CAMPBELL: Will the Scotch Estimates be taken?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: Yes, if they are reached.
  Question put, and agreed to.

SUPERANNUAT ALLOWANCES, &c
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of Superannuation Allowances or Gratuities to certain persons under the provisions of any Act of the present Session, to amend the Acts relating to Pensions, Compensation, Allowances, and Gratuities to persons in respect of having held office in the Public Service."—(Mr. William Henry Smith.)
MR. BRADLAUGH: I have no intention of offering any oppo-

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sition to this Resolution which is to form the substance of a Bill, but I wish to point out to the First Lord of the Treasury that the Bill itself was not distributed this morning, and although as far as I can see it is one which we should all desire to see passed, yet it deals with matters of considerable importance, and it is quite impossible for Members who have no official position to form a judgment as to the important proposition contained in it.
MR. W. H. SMITH: I recognise the fairness of the observations which have fallen from the right hon. Gentleman— that is to say, that the Bill is an absolutely new Bill, presented to the House for the first time, but the hon. Gentleman is aware that the measure simply carries out a portion of the recommendations of the Royal Commission on the Civil Service which have been before the House for a considerable period. The Bill has been introduced in answer to questions which have been put to the Government from both sides of the House. It has been impossible to deal with the recommendations of the Commission completely, because they involve questions of a most important character which would require great consideration at the hands of the House, but we have arrived at the opinion that we might ask the House to go as far as the provisions of this Bill go. If, however, there is any general objection to the measure it will not, of course, be possible to press it in the present Session. It is our desire, as far as possible, to close the door upon some of the evils which have been reported upon by the Commission. I would therefore ask the House to assent to the Bill.
MR. BRADLAUGH: I quite feel the force of what the right hon. Gentleman has said, and I shall be extremely reluctant, either now or at any subsequent stage of the measure, to offer any opposition; but, in the hasty glance I have been able to give at the Bill, I find there is one matter, at any rate, which was not before the Royal Commission at all. I do not suggest that the point to which I refer is dealt with improperly, but I certainly understood the Chancellor of the Exchequer to say on more than one
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occasion the recommendations of the Royal Commissioners were of such a serious nature that they would require the gravest consideration on the part of the Government. Although I have no doubt that the Government have arrived at an impartial decision, still it must not be forgotten that if the House of Commons passes this Bill it adopts that decision.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: I have been very much comforted by the statement of the First Lord of the Treasury that this is only an instalment, and a partial instalment. In that view I hope the Bill will pass this Session, because it will stop a good many leaks from which the public money is oozing away, and, so far, it is a good measure. But I hope there will be a clear understanding that it is only a partial Bill, and that it will be enlarged or amended hereafter.
MR. BLANE: I wish to draw attention to the fact that, in regard to these superannuation allowances, usually when the Estimates are submitted to the House, we constantly see men who are in the receipt of pensions turning up for public employment, to the exclusion of other men who are very well qualified For instance, I am acquainted with the case of a man who was discharged from the service in which he was then engaged and voted a pension, and who has now received a new appointment.
THE CHAIRMAN: I must point out that the remarks of the hon. Gentleman are not relevant to the Resolution.
Question put, and agreed to.
Resolution to be reported to-morrow.

EDUCATION GRANTS [CAITHNESS AND SUTHERLAND.
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Resolved, That is expedient to authorise annual Parliamentary Grants to be made, as from the 30th day of July, 1886, to schools in the Counties of Caithness and Sutherland, upon the same conditions as are applicable to schools in the Counties of Inverness, Argyll, Ross, and Orkney and Shetland.
Resolution to be reported to-morrow.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY-CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)

Class II.
(1.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £26,271, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1890, for the salaries and expenses of the Offices of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Dublin and London, and Subordinate Departments."
MR. A. O'CONNOR: I was interrupted at 12 o'clock last night, when upon this Vote I was endeavouring to bring before the Committee some matters of detail in reference to the fishing industry of Ireland, especially in connection with my own constituents, and also what I conceive to be a failure of duty upon the part of the Government in regard to their assistance towards the development of that industry. Two years ago an Act was passed enabling two-thirds of any body of fishermen in a particular locality to make representations, or present a petition to the Fishery Commissioners with a view of prohibiting trawling. That Act provided that if the Commissioners did not see fit to comply with the prayer of the petitioners, a Report should be forwarded to the Lord Lieutenant, who would have power to accede to such prayer over the heads of the Commissioners. It also provided that the Commissioners should forward to the Lord Lieutenant a detailed statement of the reasons of their refusal. Since the passing of that Act there has been over a large portion of the coast line of Ireland a good deal of friction between the line and net fishermen, especially in Lough Swilly, where the fishing has been dwindling down, and the condition of the fisheries much injured in comparison with former times. There are four trawlers engaged there, and the damage done by them is represented to be very serious. It is admitted on all bands that the fishing industry in the lough has materially diminished, and that great injury has been done to the dines and nets employed by the fisher-
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men. This is a grievance of long standing. In 1844 the prohibition the fishermen now ask for was made, and for a period of 25 years trawling was prohibited. During those 25 years the condition of the fishermen was satisfactory; the number of fishermen increased, and their comforts were far greater than they have been since. In 1869 the prohibition was withdrawn, and from that day the fishing industry has been suffering, and the condition of the fishermen has become seriously embarrassed. Under these circumstances, the fishermen presented a petition to the Fishery Commissioners, but the Commissioners refused to entertain it, and forwarded it to the Lord Lieutenant, together with their reasons. The determination arrived at had nothing to do with the merits of the case, but it was pointed out that it was desirable to carry out a series of experiments in different districts round the coast, such as those which have been carried on in Scotland with great advantage. That is quite true, and the Fishery Board of Scotland has performed inestimable services to the Scotch fisheries. If similar experiments, under similar control, were carried on in Ireland, I have no doubt that the result would be the same; but those experiments show that the take of fish has largely increased since trawling was prohibited. What I want to know is, why Ireland should be treated differently from Scotland? It seems hopeless, however, to induce the officials of Dublin Castle to make the least move where the industry of the country is concerned. Year after year the representations made by the Irish fisheries are disregarded. The entire body of line and net fishermen in Lough Swilly are convinced that trawling does interfere with the fishing—that it frightens the fish away, destroys immature fish, and does damage in other respects. I wish, therefore, to know why the Lord Lieutenant and the Irish Administration are so inert in affording to Ireland the advantages, facilities, and powers which are possessed by the Fishery Board in Scotland. The amount of money involved is very slight. Nobody complains of the expenditure connected with Scotland, and it is scarcely reasonable that the Irish fishermen should be expected to sit quiet and see the development of the fisheries of their Scotch

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neighbours through the assistance of the State, when they find the same advantages refused to themselves. The fishing interests of Ireland are quite as important to the people of that country as those of Scotland are to the Scotch people. I would, therefore, urge upon the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to do for Ireland something like what has been done for his own country during the period in which he was connected with the Scotch Administration.
MR. SEXTON: With such knowledge as I have of the temperament and disposition of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, I am afraid that the real uses of the present Debate are of a very limited character. I will illustrate what I mean by a reference to the question of evictions, but I confess that I do not expect much in this particular matter from a Government which utterly disregards both legal and moral obligations in its dealings with the Irish people. Whoever may forget it, I remember that the present Chief Secretary for Ireland is the author of Section 7 of the recent Land Act. It smoothed the preliminaries to eviction—the eviction-made-easy clause. The battering ram was the natural complement to this clause, and of the battering ram the right hon. Gentleman is certainly the patron, probably the patentee, possibly he paid for it. As the right hon. Gentleman has exerted himself to smooth the way to evictions and make the process more rapid, it is only a man of sanguine temperament who can imagine that he would do anything to mitigate the hardship and serverity of the law. I know that it is in his power to do so. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor, the Member for Bristol (Sir M. H. Beach) used what was described as pressure within the law, and exercised discretion in regard to the times and places of eviction with considerable effect. I do not look to the present Chief Secretary to imitate the example of the right hon. Member for Bristol; on the contrary, I am sorry to say that I look upon him rather to stimulate evictions than to prevent them. I cannot forget that the right hon. Gentleman as a Minister has not been ashamed in his public speeches to describe evictions as "dramatic effects," although every one who knows
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Ireland is impressed with the sad knowledge that, of all the operations of the law next only to capital punishment, the infliction of evictions upon poor Irish peasants is the most painful and distressing. It comes strangely from the apostle of the battering ram to speak of dramatic effects in connection with evictions. At the same time I feel I am unable to add that the right hon. Gentleman who has applied the science of the battering ram to the social question in Ireland is the first distinguished Minister who has produced an effect contrary to that which he intended. I think the right hon. Gentleman ought to have produced the correspondence between himself and certain clerics in the West of Ireland. These gentlemen, occupying public positions, wrote to him upon certain questions of a public character. He has no right to regard that correspondence as being of a private nature. They wrote to him because he was Chief Secretary, and as Chief Secretary he replied to them. They desire the publication of the correspondence, and I maintain that we have a right to call for it so that we should be able to make the scrutiny we are entitled to make in regard to the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman. It is a common boast that the Chief Secretary has singularly succeeded in his administration of law and order in Ireland. If there is any reality in the boast, why should we be discussing this Vote on the 21st August? If he feels the confidence he professes in his administration, he ought to have brought forward this Vote in a full House and in. the vigour of the Session, so that he might have brought confusion into the camp of his adversaries and joy to his friends. He has preferred to defer the Vote until the majority of hon. Members are on the moors, and until the House of Commons is so thinly peopled as to resemble somewhat his Irish Star Chamber. The Debate upon this Vote, which covers matters of the highest Imperial interest and of unexampled public importance, has been left to a discussion between, the Chief Secretary himself and the Irish Members. I cannot refrain from making this reflection, that after 89 years' enjoyment of the Act of Union, and the varying vicissitudes of the Irish representation, the present Chief Secretary has brought the relations between

9
himself, as the chief administrator of the law, and the representatives of Ireland, to a pass unparalleled since that Act of Union was passed. The right hon. Gentleman in his public speeches is in the habit—an acquired habit among Ministers—of casting doubt and throwing discredit upon the veracity of the Irish Members, even when they give testimony upon matters within their own personal knowledge. He is in the habit of imputing to Irish Members the basest of motives for entering public life, and the basest of motives for continuing in it. He does this by habit, although no man can be bettor aware that if they were actuated by such motives he would have an easier way of dealing with them than resorting to violence and persecution. The right hon. Gentleman is supported by 18 Irish Members, and opposed by 85, and I submit that never since the Act of Union has such a state of affairs arisen as that which now exists. His servants in Ireland, by his instructions and with his encouragement, insult and beat the people in the public streets. They baton them and thrust at them with their rifles, they prosecute them upon the most flimsy of charges; they knock them down and strip them in his prisons even to the shirt, and then send them to famish and starve in the prison cells. The number of Irish Members who have been subjected to this arbitrary and tyrannical treatment is larger than the total number of his own Irish supporters in this House. He boasts that to has made the Irish Members look ridiculous by stripping them to their shirts, but I imagine that if the same treatment were applied to the right hon. Gentleman himself it would try him very severely. Upon a recent occasion on the floor of this House he passed from language of indignation to insulting gestures of violence and menace, and it was only owing to the firmness of the Chair that we were saved from a scene unprecedented since the day when the Speaker was held down in the Chair by Members who disapproved of his action. I trust that the memory of what he so nearly provoked upon that occasion will remain with him so long as he retains office. But whether it does or not I say that the right hon. Gentleman by his conduct to Irish Members both inside the House
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and out of it has produced a state of things incompatible with the management of our ordinary Parliamentary Constitution, and the state of things existing between the Chief Secretary and the Irish Members is, in my opinion, sufficient ground for supposing that we are near to a great organic change. But I will pass from the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman in this House to his administration of the government of Ireland, and I say that he administers that government upon the principle of bad law, arbitrary use of physical force, and the suppression of the truth. The latter is the point upon which I propose now principally to dwell. With regard to maladministration and bad law, I will simply say that our charges were abundantly proved on the Vote for the Resident Magistrates. So also with regard to the arbitrary use of physical force; instances have been given ad nauseam. Turning, then, to the question of the suppression of truth, what is our daily experience here? An Irish Member on his responsility brings forward a grave and serious charge of misconduct, of fraud, or of subornation of perjury, but what satisfaction does he get? The Chief Secretary refers for a reply either to the man accused or to one of his official abettors, and the right hon. Gentleman at once accepts the reply he gets. He puts to the defendant the question, "Are you guilty, or not? "and he accepts as conclusive the reply, "Not guilty," without a word of further inquiry. That is very different from an ordinary case of investigating a charge of misconduct. We call for inquiry. We allege that we have facts in our possession which we are ready to prove. But the right hon. Gentleman declares that he is satisfied, and adds that that should be enough for us. Surely it is not the theory of the Government of this country that the Minister of the Crown should satisfy himself as to the conduct of his officials, and that the representatives of the people should be deprived of the means of investigation. Yet this has been the course pursued ever since the right hon. Gentleman held office; but I must lay down before the House and the country the principle that when Irish Members bring forward charges against officials and, when those charges are denied, state that they have proof in their hands and challenge in-

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quiry, it is the duty of the Chief Secretary to institute such inquiry. Yet that is a duty which the right hon. Gentleman since his accession to office has never once discharged. He has not only refused inquiry into certain cases of taking life in which coroners' juries have afterward found the accused guilty, but he has not been ashamed in this House as a Minister of the Crown holding such a responsible position to hold up the most ancient Court of the realm—a coroner's jury empanelled by his own police and containing a majority of Protestants—to contempt as conspirators against law and order. If I were to give instances of this refusal of inquiry, the Debate would be continued for a week. I will only give two or three illustrations. Why has inquiry been denied in the case of Colonel Turner, the principal official of the Crown in West Munster, who, instead of being a guardian of law and order, has applied himself to promoting evictions, preventing settlements between land lord and tenant, and leveling the homes of the tenants after they have been evicted? In one case where a settlement was in progress—where 26 families had been restored to their homes, and 500 others were in negotiation with their landlord, Colonel Turner, of his own motion, took on himself to come forward and visit a farm where a tenant had been replaced by another, and from mere wantonness he induced the woman who was in possession of the farm to hold on and refuse to come to any arrangement. Was that the act of a guardian of the peace, or was it not rather the act of an enemy of public order? We have asked for inquiry. We want to know why Colonel Turner went there. Surely he might have waited until he was asked. Everybody desired that the settlement which was pending should be completed, and why did Colonel Turner come forward and take a line of action which can only be accounted for upon the theory that he was anxious that no settlement should be arrived at? I am willing to meet the right hon. Gentleman at any public meeting in Great Britain. [Ministerial tries of "Oh!"] Well, no doubt, it would be a very lively meeting, and so far as he is concerned he prefers ticket meetings, but I am willing to meet the right hon. Gentleman at any public
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meeting, whether at an election or any other time, and to (argue whether the Government are justified in refusing an inquiry into the conduct of Colonel Turner, who receives £1,000 a year as guardian of the peace and displays his; zeal in producing disorder. I read the other night a letter from Colonel Turner to another official, in the County of Clare, in which he said, "Things will never be right in Clare until the Vicar General of the diocese and his villainous priests are removed." I say that this was an incitement to violence. It was a letter addressed to an official, the substance of which was intended to percolate through all the officials under him; and it advised them that the best way to procure order was to baton the priests. Has a public official, controlling the police and able to use physical force through the agency of the Crown, a right to say that things will not be right in his bailiwick until the Vicar General and his villainous priests, are removed? How did the Chief Secretary reply to the charge made against Colonel Turner? He did not deny it. He said he knew nothing about it. He deemed it to be consistent with his duty four days after the charge was made to say that he knew nothing about it. It was his duty to know all about it. Not only did he not attempt to apologise, but he endeavoured to prop up the position of Colonel Turner by saying that some of the priests of West Clare do little honour to their cloth. I say that they do as much honour to their cloth as any body of clergymen with whom he is acquainted; and I maintain that it was shameful for a Minister of the Crown to make such an accusation without attempting to sustain it. Let me tell him what one priest says of him— that he finds it safe to shoot at priests from behind the hedge of the House of" Commons, but that if he will repeat the same accusation outside the House, it shall be made the subject of investigation by a legal tribunal. The right hon. Gentleman who ran away from a midwife is not likely to face a priest. In the meantime I shall continue to maintain that until the right hon. Gentleman yields to our demand for inquiry into the conduct of Colonel Turner, that official is not fit to remain in the Public Service. Let me take another instance. Are we to have any inquiry into the occurrence

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at Charleville? If a similar circumstance had happened in England, and an English Member had demanded an inquiry it would at once have been granted. It is not denied that the police did fire upon the people, the foolish argument of an attempted rescue is now given up, and the only contention is that the people fired first. Are we to have any inquiry into the Gartmore evictions on the Ponsonby estate? This is the case where a body of police broke into the chapel grounds against the will of the owner, expelled the owner, and remained there against his will. Is there to be any inquiry into the case of the poor girl who, having been evicted from her mother's home, was insulted by an agent of the Government, and by the Magistrates in charge of the police? I asked for inquiry but inquiry was refused. The right hon. Gentleman upon his usual anonymous information declared that no insult had been offered. I have since communicated with the persons concerned, and I have here the sworn affidavits of the girl and her sister in which they say that the girl was requested by the agent to kiss him, that she indignantly claimed the protection of the police, whereupon the man turned to Colonel Caddell and—" There, Colonel, you see she would not give it to me." Upon this Colonel Caddell replied, "She would prefer to kiss a constable. It is evident from the state of her back (referring to some marks of lime on her dress) that she has had a tussle with a policeman against a wall." The right hon. Gentleman not only denied these insults, but made a gross and unmanly imputation against the girl herself, and not only against her, but generally against the peasant girls of Ireland. Now, I repeat the demand for inquiry. If these girls have sworn falsely, they have subjected themselves to penalties for perjury. If they have sworn truly, this special agent of the Crown and the Resident Magistrate ought to be prosecuted, at any rate, for conduct calculated to lead to a breach of the peace. I would submit that if any man, except the police, had been present when this most base and unmanly insult was offered to a helpless girl in her agony, or if it had come to the knowledge of the people before they dispersed, the consequences would have been very
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serious indeed. And who was the man who committed this gross insult? The right hon. Gentleman says he was a person in the employment of the local agent. He was nothing of the kind; he was a man who can be proved to have attended the Massareene evictions, and he turns out to be no less a person than the Secretary of the Ulster Loyal Anti-Repeal Union, of which Lord Arthur Hill, one of the Whips of the Tory Party, is one of the Executive Council. This is the special agent whom, the right hon. Gentleman selects to accompany a cordon of police to an eviction. I am not one of those who desire to see dramatic effects at evictions, and it is because I do not, that I ask the right hon. Gentleman why he should permit a man of this description to go through the police lines while he rigorously shuts out the parish priest, the Member for the Division, and the public Press? I hold the right hon. Gentleman personally I responsible for the working of the Coercion Act, because I trace the refusal to legislate on rents in 1886 and on arrears in 1887 to the personal influence of the right hon. Gentleman. That refusal led to the Plan of Campaign and ultimately to the Coercion Act. Two years ago the right hon. Gentleman declared that the National League was a dangerous association in certain counties in Ireland, aid when those counties were proclaimed the National League was suppressed. Prosecutions were instituted. Why have those prosecutions ceased? Have the offences ceased? Not at all. The newspapers show that meetings of the suppressed branches take place every week, although every one who takes part in them commits an offence against the law and is punishable by six months' imprisonment. What, then, is to be said of a Minister whose proclamations are so impotent? I charge against the right hon. Gentleman that by his administration and the impotence of his Coercion Act he has brought the law into such contempt that no one cares one halfpenny for it. It is quite clear from the statistics of crime that the existence Or non-existence of the National League has had no conceivable bearing upon the causes of crime except that it formerly exercised a more restraining influence, and was a safeguard against secret

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crime. The right hon. Gentleman claims that there has been an improvement in the condition of Ireland owing to his administration. Then why does lie not do something to show that he really entertains that belief? Why does he continue his proclamations? Why not revert to the ordinary law? I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to issue a Return giving the proclamations which have been issued under the Coercion Act, showing the places in which the Constitutional rights of the people have been diminished, and then the extent to which, owing to the great improvement which has been brought about, the proclamations have been revoked. There has been next to mo revocation, and in spite of the protestations of the right hon. Gentleman he can at any moment set up a Star Chamber to try prisoners, changing the venue to any other county, and empannelling jurymen from a class opposed in sympathy and in interest to the prisoners. If such a Return is produced I will undertake to show that the plea of improvement rests on no solid ground. If there is any improvement it ought to appear upon the face of these Votes. There are four Votes connected with the administration of Ireland which ought to show a reduction if any improvement has been effected— the Votes for the administration of Criminal Law, for the Constabulary, for Law Charges, and for the Prisons. Fortunately we can get the information elsewhere. I find that at a very recent date the right hon. Gentleman had no fewer than 111 police hut stations, the cost of which was charged to the occupiers. And at the end of last year he had 160 protection posts, charged upon the occupiers. How does it happen that these police huts and police posts are studded over the counties which he has termed most orderly and peaceful? There are two points in regard to the administration of the law as to which I fix upon the right hon. Gentleman's personal and special responsibility. The right hon. Gentleman made a solemn promise to the House that there should be an appeal in every prosecution instituted under the Crimes Act. He has broken that promise, but that is not all, He followed up his breach of promise by a public speech, in which
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he incited the Magistrates not to allow appeals, by pointing out the inconvenience of long sentences and the appeals which followed. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to retrace his steps, and to undo the evil he has done, to withdraw his incitement, and make good his original promise in Parliament by directing the Magistrates in the interests of public policy to pass such sentences as will allow appeals to be entered. The Chief Secretary and his distinguished relative the Prime Minister, seize every opportunity of declaring in their public speeches that the public men in Ireland who publish articles and make speeches, in the conscientious discharge of their duty, are worse criminals, baser criminals, and criminals more dangerous than those who murder, rob, or steal.
COLONEL SAUNDERSON: Hear, hear.
MR. SEXTON: I am not astonished that the hon. and gallant Gentleman has a partiality for murder.
THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! That remark of the right hon. Gentleman is beyond the bounds of Parliamentary language, and I must ask him to withdraw it.
MR. SEXTON: The phrase was too brief to convey my meaning clearly. What I meant to say was that the hon. and gallant Gentleman by his incitement to certain disorderly classes in Belfast has produced a condition of things which has led to repeated and numerous murders.
COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I beg to say I have done nothing of the kind.
THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! Does the right hon. Gentleman withdraw?
MR. SEXTON: Certainly, Sir; but I trust the hon. and gallant Gentleman will remember that he is the one Member of this House whose interruptions I cannot tolerate. When one Member has called another a liar, relations between them become strained, and I must beg the hon. and gallant Gentleman if he has any regard for the order of this House, when I am addressing it not to interrupt. These speeches of the Chief Secretary and the Prime Minister put political offenders on a lower ground than the common felon. The Resident Magistrates in Ireland have never been directed that prisoners under the Crimes

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Act should be treated as first-class misdemeanants, though an independent Magistrate of Dublin and the County Court Judge of Sligc have declared that the law is that a prisoner for sedition shall be treated as a first-class misdemeanant. How has it happened that in the past year the Irish official in London has become a sub-official of the Times? I invite the Secretary to explain a cypher telegram which passed between Ireland and London during the time of the cross-examination of my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary (Mr. J. O'Connor), who has come out of prison to-day. He is in his place in the House undaunted by the punishment which has been inflicted on him, and I hope unimpaired in health. While my hon. Friend was under cross-examination before the Special Commission, the cross-examining counsel being the Attorney General acting in his private capacity, a Sub-inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary sent a telegram to the Irish Office. I have the original, which is in cypher. The cypher was unlocked in half-an-hour, in the office of United Ireland. It was sent by Sub-Inspector Jones, from Cork, to Mr. Joyce, Magistrate at the Irish Office in London. This is the telegram:—
"It is fully reported in the Cork Examiner, 30th September 1886, that John O'Connor called for three cheers for Puff and Barret."
This telegram reports a lie. My hon. Friend pledges his oath in the box that he never called for three cheers for Puff and Barrett. Here we have the Irish Office in London made a sort of bureau for the collection of information in the interests of the Times, and for the reception of telegrams making suggestions for cross-examination. I ask the right hon. Gentleman to give such explanation as he can offer. It appears to me that the old friends of the First Lord of the Treasury, the owners and managers of the Times, have had the whole machinery of the Government at their disposal for the last year. The Irish Members are perfectly satisfied with the result of the Commission, and they take it in perfect calmness. I wonder how the Government will feel when their turn comes. There were two conspiracies—one has been investigated, but the other remains. The time of the Irish Members is coming when they will turn on the lime-light. I have no doubt we will
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thus be able to cast a light on some very curious and strange proceedings, and to teach such a lesson to those in power, that no future Government will ever again initiate or abet a conspiracy against the character of hon. Members of this House or the liberties of the Irish people.
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): Sir, though unwilling to prolong the Debate I must necessarily reply to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, which is, I presume, intended to be an elaborate indictment of the Government. Now, Sir, I have been attacked because of the manner in which I have treated Irish Members inside and outside this House. I do not propose to dilate at length upon the rights and wrongs of the matter, but I am bound to say that if any comparison were instituted between what I have said and what has been said against me, I should be greatly surprised if the balance of wrong were found on my side. [An hon. MEMBER: What about the things you did?] I do not complain; I am indifferent to these attacks; but I must express my surprise at such a complaint coming from the right hon. Gentleman. If hon. Gentlemen opposite are so sensitive on the subject of public criticism it would be well if they made a beginning of reform by amending the language in which they are accustomed to attack their political opponents. The right hon. Gentleman next complained that no inquiries had been held into certain occurrences in Ireland, the accounts of which as given in the House he alleges to be inaccurate. But what form does the right hon. Gentleman desire that such inquiries should take? Does he want another Commission of Judges? There are the ordinary tribunals of the country open to hon. Gentleman and their friends, and if their allegations are well founded those ordinary tribunals will afford them a remedy. The right hon. Gentleman gave three instances of matters which require investigation. The first was as to Colonel Turner and the mother of a tenant on the Vandeleur estate. The facts of that case are as follows:—A man named Jackson took a farm on the Vandeleur estate, but went to America, leaving his mother in pos-

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session. A protection post tad to be established for this woman, against whom public feeling was excited as being what hon. Gentlemen denounce as a land-grabber. Colonel Turner visited this protection post, and, hearing the woman's complaint that persons were trespassing on her farm, advised her, if there had been a trespass, to apply to the Magistrates.
MR. MACNEILL: Why did Colonel Turner take Captain Walsh along with him?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: They were inspecting the protection post, as they were bound to do in the course of their ordinary duty. What is there in that which requires investigation? The right hon. Gentleman referred to a letter, alleged to have been written by Colonel Turner to some subordinate, in which he commented severely on the Rev. Father Dynan and the priests of Clare. Last night—I was not in the House at the time—hon. Gentlemen opposite were engaged in a discussion on the wickedness of tampering with private correspondence; but, strange to say, the main case of the right hon. Gentleman to-day is based on a private letter which has been betrayed, and a private telegram which has been stolen.
MR. SEXTON: The letter was not private, and the telegram was marked "On Her Majesty's Service."
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman is wrong in both fact and inference. The letter was private, and it is an amazing doctrine that a telegram passing between two officials is not private because they were officials. The charge against Colonel Turner is that he held a bad opinion of certain priests in Clare. If he thought so, I do not see why he should not say so, and it hardly lies in the mouth of the hon. Gentleman who has described Colonel Turn eras a person who "incited to assassination "to criticise severity of language. Then there is the charge of shooting at the Charleville Station, and the right hon. Gentleman has asked why also no inquiry has been made into that; but I remember that later on the right hon. Gentleman said that if we only admitted the representatives of the Press to these scenes in Ireland there would be ample evidence before us which would prevent disputes across the
20
floor of the House. Well, when I appealed to the evidence furnished by the Nationalist Press in Ireland, I found an account of the transaction at Charleville, which bears out in most important particulars what I have stated in the House on more than one occasion. Therefore, I submit that, even on the principle laid down by the right hon. Gentleman himself, special inquiry is not needed. Then, Sir, I. come to the case of the evictions oil the Ponsonby estate, with respect to which the hon. Gentleman alleges that the police illegally occupied the garden of; the priest. If the police acted illegally in that matter there is a very simple remedy, and I would give the same advice to the right hon. Gentleman which Colonel Turner gave to the widow, that if there has been trespass the Law Courts are open in which protection, and, if need be, redress maybe obtained. Then the right hon. Gentleman referred to another scene which is said to have occurred at these evictions in reference to two girls. I have given the House a version which I believe to be correct of that incident. If it be true that any insult was offered to-these girls, and if they bear the character which the right hon. Gentleman has given them, again I say that there ought not to be the slightest difficulty in having the facts investigated before a Court of Law. He went on to say that if the affidavits were true Colonel Caddell ought to be prosecuted. Well, Sir, let him be prosecuted if a prosecution would lie. Let those who are aggrieved take the ordinary course which is open to every one of Her Majesty's subjects. The right hon. Gentleman attacked me for the alleged action of. Mr. Crockett, and asserted that I was responsible for the behaviour of that person because, forsooth, he is an officer of some association in Belfast. I have nothing to do with any private association in Belfast, and have sufficient, responsibility on my shoulders already without accepting the further responsibility with which the right hon. Gentleman desires to saddle me. Then the right hon. Gentleman said I was directly and personally responsible for the want: of legislation in 1886, which produced the Plan of Campaign. The right hon. Gentleman has forgotten his dates. When the Arrears Bill of the hon.

21
Member for Cork was rejected in 1886, and when the Plan of Campaign was started I was neither Chief Secretary for Ireland nor a member of the Cabinet. I think I am justified, therefore, in saying that the right hon. Gentleman was peculiarly unfortunate in trying to make me specially and personally responsible for what may have followed either from the rejection of the Arrears Bill or the starting of the Plan of Campaign. The right hon. Gentleman then proceeded to criticise the action of the Government with regard to the National League, and said that we have not succeeded in suppressing the League or the reports of the meetings which appear day by day in Nationalist journals. I am perfectly indifferent to the publications of the Nationalist Press when they do not lead to intimidation or outrage.
MR. T. M. HEALY.: What do you prosecute for, then?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: We only prosecute where, in the opinion of those who advise prosecutions, they do lead to intimidation or outrage. The Committee must not suppose for a moment that because proceedings are published therefore proceedings have taken place. I say nothing about the manufacture of bogus reports of League meetings except that no fact in the world is more certain than that the manufacture of bogus reports is in a far more flourishing condition in certain districts of Ireland than the manufacture of anything else. But when the right hon. Gentleman challenges me across the Floor of the House to say whether diminution of crime has in any case accompanied the suppression of the National League, I say most distinctly that it has. You have only got to consider the condition of Clare and Kerry since the National League was suppressed in those districts to see that the contention of the right hon. Gentleman cannot be sustained. Although I do not say that the suppression of the National League and the diminution of crime always stand together in the relation of cause and effect, I cannot doubt that the suppression of the National League has considerable effect in diminishing the curse of boycotting and intimidation. The right hon. Gentleman says I have done nothing by my acts to show my belief in the improvement of the country. I do not admit that. The area of Ire-
22
land which is under the exceptional1 legislation of the principal clause of the Crimes Act of 1887 has considerably, diminished since that Act came into force. The diminution of the area proclaimed under that section is somewhere about 250,000 acres, and I have every hope that it may be found possible to diminish that area still further. But do not let the right hon. Gentleman conclude that the benefits derived from the administration of the law in Ireland are to be measured wholly by the diminution of the area over which the legislation of 1887 has been allowed to extend. Though the diminution of the proclaimed area is undoubtedly one of the tests to which people may appeal in judging of the improved condition of Ireland, it is perhaps the weakest and possibly the most misleading. I do not propose at the present moment to go into the question of the improved condition of Ireland. I have stated my belief before now in this House and out of it that the improvement has been great, but when the right hon. Gentleman, accuses me of going about the country making my boasts on this subject the staple of my speeches, I am afraid he has not done me the honour to read my speeches with any care.
MR. SEXTON: I always read them carefully.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have stated what I believe to be the fact, but I have never boasted of it or made it the staple of my argument. I have never attempetd to conceal either from my friends or my foes that the idea that a permanent amelioration in the condition of Ireland, or in the condition of any country which was in the state in which Ireland was between the years 1879 and 1886, could be effected by two years of any form of Administration whatever was wholly chimerical. I have never gone beyond saying that there is a great improvement, and that the permanence of that improvement depends upon firm and consistent administration of the law—either by this Government or by its successors. I come now to the last part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, which dealt with the alleged interference of the Government in the conduct of the case before the Special Commission. I have been perfectly frank with the House throughout as to the position which, in my opinion, officials in Ireland,

23
in common with other citizens, should take up with regard to that case. My opinion is that every man, be his position what it may, is bound to do all he can to aid that Commission in the duty of eliciting the truth. What bearing on this general principle has the particular accusation made against the Government in respect of the stolen telegram to which the right hon. Gentleman referred? I think the right hon. Gentleman said he had the original.
MR. SEXTON: I believe it is the original, but I certainly did not steal it.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No, Sir; I make no accusation against the right hon. Gentleman of that kind I understand he says that telegram referred to the cross-examination then going on by the Attorney General of the Member for Tipperary (Mr. J. O'Connor The right hon. Gentleman has been misinformed. The cross-examination on this particular point was not by the Attorney General but by Mr. Atkinson, and it was over the day before the stolen telegram was sent. It is entirely incorrect to say that it was in answer to a telegram sent from the Irish Office. To suppose that it was a telegram referring to the conduct of the Times case is to ignore the facts, or alleged facts, which had already been brought out before the Commission. What occurred was this. In the Attorney General's opening speech he brought out these facts, or alleged facts, with regard to the Member for Tipperary.
THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! That would be opening up matter not relevant to the vote. The only material point in connection with this Vote was whether the telegram was addressed to Mr. Joyce or not.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand, Sir, you do not propose to allow further accusations to be brought against the Government in connection with this matter. That being so, I am perfectly prepared to drop it.
MR. T. M. HEALY: What about the telegram?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The telegram was addressed, no doubt, to Mr. Joyce, but under the ruling of the Chair I am precluded from going into the case, and I therefore drop the matter.
MR. T. M. HEALY: I understand you, Mr. Courtney, to say that you only pre-
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right hon. Gentleman from, going into the circumstances of the Attorney General's charge. You do not prevent him from making an explanation about the telegram?
THE CHAIRMAN: The only matter which is pertinent to the vote and the one circumstance which may perhaps require explanation is the fact of the telegram being addressed to Mr. Joyce, of the Irish Office.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: With regard to that, I have to say that the fact that the telegram was addressed to the Irish Office is not due to any action on the part of Mr. Joyce. The reason I proposed to go into the other matter, when, you, Sir, interrupted me, was to show that the telegram was not and could not be of any utility whatever to the Times case. I do not know whether I ought, in conclusion, to say anything in answer to the observations, last night, of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. Fowler.) I need not say that neither I nor any of my Colleagues have reason to complain of the tone of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. On the contrary, if he will allow me to say so, I think his speech was effective from a moderation of statement to which, unhappily, we are little accustomed when we are dealing with these Irish controversies. He made three accusations against me, the character of which he made perfectly clear to the House. The first was that under the present Administration there was great dissatisfaction in Ireland connected with the administration of justice; secondly, that there was hostility to the administration of the law; and, thirdly, that we encouraged disrespect to Parliamentary government. I admit that every effort has been made by one political Party to cast discredit upon the administration of the law in Ireland. I go further, and admit that no doubt there may be a genuine hostility to the action of the Courts of Law among certain classes of the population, but I do not believe that any class in Ireland seriously entertain the opinion that men are sentenced for offences they have not committed. Under the influence of the unhappy teaching which is too prevalent in Ireland a large portion of the population have got to think that cer-

25
tain offences against the law of the land are not offences against morality. They have got to think, for instance, that scalding a policeman or violently resisting the officers of the law are actions innocent, if not commendable. But I do not agree with the right hon. Gentleman in thinking that anyone in Ireland supposes that innocent men are condemned for offences which they have not really committed. With regard to the second point, that there is hostility to the administration of the law by the police, he must be aware that the police exercise their duties in Ireland under difficulties to which no other police in the world are subjected. He complains of me because I defend the action of the police in this House, and he says that no Home Secretary would be allowed to defend the English police in the manner in which I defend the Irish police. Have the English police ever been treated as the Irish police are treated? I am not conscious of ever having defended n this House any policeman who was open to attack. I grant that policemen are not infallible, that with 14,000 policemen engaged in carrying out the law in Ireland, under circumstances of exceptional provocation, some errors of judgment and some unnecessary violence may undoubtedly be committed; but if he thinks those evils would be best remedied by my abandoning to their bitterest enemies the character of these men, who are unable to defend themselves, he is very greatly mistaken. The right hon. Gentleman says I have encouraged disrespect to Members of this House. I cherish as much as the right hon. Gentleman, or any man, the honour of this House. Personally, my whole life is and has been for many years bound up with this House, my work is largely carried on in this House, my ambition is indissolubly associated with this House, and certainly no one is more jealous of the honour of this House than I. But I cannot agree with the right hon. Gentleman in thinking that the honour of this House is likely to be exalted by allowing Members of this House with impunity to break the law. I do not think that the honour of Members of Parliament can be sustained by regarding them as an exceptional class of citizens, who are to be allowed exceptional privileges in disobeying the laws
26
of the country. With regard to the special treatment of Members of Parliament who have been in prison, I should be out of order in alluding to that matter at the present time, but there will be ample opportunity later. It will be sufficient for me to say that the honour of this House depends, and must depend, on the conduct of individual Members of this House; and if we desire that nothing be done to attack that honour, nothing be done to lower the Parliamentary institutions of this country, or to bring those institutions into contempt in the eyes of the people, I know no better method of attaining those objects than by enforcing the law even against Members of Parliament.
MR. FLYNN: We can all sympathise with the eloquent passage in the right hon. Gentleman's speech in, which he referred to the honour of this House, but there are better things than eloquent words, and they are deeds. The right hon. Gentleman disclaims all responsibility for the Plan of Campaign. Was he not Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1887, and had he not an important influence upon the Government in 1886, although he was not then in his present position? Did he not speak against the Bill dealing with the Arrears question, brought in by the hon. Member for Cork City in 1887? He cannot divest himself of being the most responsible person in this House for the adoption of the Plan of Campaign and for the numerous evictions that have taken place and the disorder which has unfortunately accompanied those evictions. The right hon. Gentleman has twitted the Irish Members with being sensitive to strong language and criticism. We have not complained of strong language, but strong language accompanied by brutal blows from a baton, or by prods from a bayonet, endangering life, is a very different matter. We have repeatedly demanded public inquiries into the brutal murders at Mitchelstown and Youghal, but the only kind of inquiry which was held was one in which the parties accused were themselves to inquire into the question of their guilt. The right hon. Gentleman frequently recommends Irish Members to try an action at law, but he does all in his power to prevent us acting upon his advice. He has refused the request of Members of this House that the Irish

27
police constables should be numbered, even though the request was backed up by one of his most enthusiastic supporters the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell). But, I repeat, he has done all in his power to prevent aggrieved parties bringing actions at law. On the occasion of the brutal attack upon my hon. Friend the Member for North Monaghan by the police, it was impossible to find the official on whom the responsibility rested. We cannot find out if the responsibility for giving the orders lies with the Head Constable. How futile is it to talk of bringing an action when the officer in charge is not known, and, individual policemen not being numbered, there are no means of identifying a man. It may be premature to say there will be no action brought against the police for their conduct at Charleville. Let the Chief Secretary give us facilities, and indicate who is the official responsible for the firing, and we can promise there shall be a prosecution, and the whole facts shall be laid before the public. The right hon. Gentleman shows how much sincerity there is in his suggestion that actions at law should be taken when he refuses us information when we ask for means of identification. I listened last night with considerable interest to the wise and weighty speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), and with a great part of that speech I cordially agree. But I must dissent emphatically from the concluding observations of the right hon. Gentleman, in which he referred to the chivalrous defence of Irish administration by the Chief Secretary. I can understand the use of the term as applied to the defence of the oppressed against the oppressor, of the poor against the strong and mighty in the land, as applied to the assistance given to those overborne by the calamities and sufferings of their lot, but chivalry used in connection with the defence of the Irish Administration is debasing the term—it is the very negation of those honourable and noble ideas we associate with chivalry. The Chief Secretary did not reply to that portion of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in which he spoke of the distrust of the law existing in Ireland—distrust of the law and of its
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administration. True it is that this distrust was not created by the present Chief Secretary, but it has been intensified by him to a point beyond any it has ever reached since the connection of any Chief Secretary with the Irish people. I say the policy of the Chief Secretary is a policy of defiance of the Irish people, supplemented by a defamation of those whom the people hold most dear; a policy of defiance, in paying not the slightest heed to the most solemn remonstrances of those entitled to speak as representatives of the Irish people—priests, Members of Parliament, and local bodies; and a system of defamation that the right hon. Gentleman himself has initiated. We had a noteworthy instance of this defamation lately in his speech to a Nonconformist body, when he struck the first note of indiscriminate abuse of the priests of Ireland. Is it wise, from his own point of view—if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to win the people to his own peculiar ideas of law and order—to attack, without reason or necessity, in what he himself would call severe language, a body of men who—whatever they may be—are held in peculiar esteem and veneration by the Irish people, and will so remain as long as Irish people live on Irish soil? The right hon. Gentleman commenced this attack in a speech delivered not many months ago; and we had a special instance of the attack a few days ago when he alluded to the priests of County Clare as a body of men who "do no credit to their cloth." He has been challenged to name any particular priest outside this House, but I know he will not take up that challenge. I do not think so unworthily of the right hon. Gentleman's consistency in his dislike and distrust of the Irish people as to believe him capable of a generous thought or sentiment for the friends of the Irish National cause, but I think he exceeds the limit of his own peculiar notions of his duty when he makes this attack upon the representatives of the Church in Ireland, totally unwarranted by anything that has occurred and which has justly aroused the profound resentment of the Irish people. I will not go out of my way to allude to the Irish Representatives. We have used strong language sometimes, we have to do so in regard to acts of administration, but

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we do not use it in a personal sense. Not so the right hon. Gentleman, when to a company of office seekers at a banquet in Dublin he made merry with the indignities and sufferings inflicted upon a respected Member of this House. He passed out of the limits of honest political criticism and descended to a depth I find it difficult to characterise in Parliamentary phrase in order to attack my hon. Friend the Member for North East Cork. The right hon. Gentleman never hesitates whether in replying to questions in this House or in general Debate whenever it suits his purpose, to describe the Irish people as bad characters or as forming a mob. A few days ago my hon. Friend the Member for Clare asked a question as to a system of police espionage of the most irritating character practised on some of the most respectable citizens of the town, and complained of arrests made without the slightest cause, and the right hon. Gentleman's excuse was that these men "associated with bad characters." Now surely this is not language that should be used of others than those guilty of crime before the law? But these were some of the most respected inhabitants of this particular town in Clare—shopkeepers, farmers, and others, as respectable men as are to be found in this House. The right hon. Gentleman says he will not interfere with the administration of the law, and makes this his defence for his peculiar line of action in connection with the disputes on the Clanricarde estate, and on the Ponsonby estate in County Cork. But it is no secret that his predecessor in office did use "pressure within the law;" and undoubtedly it is within the power of the Executive, before using the forces of the Crown for eviction purposes, to institute inquiry, and to delay proceedings and to secure that those forces shall not be lent in such numbers and under such circumstances that evictions can be carried out with that facility and ease that some landlords desire. But in relation to the Ponsonby tenantry and the Clanricarde tenantry, the right hon. Gentleman departed from that negative attitude of his predecessor and took a course of action that seemed to indicate that he entered upon the business con amore, and regarded it more or less in the light of a pastime, and so these unfortunate people, struggling
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with bad seasons and fallen prices, were cast out upon the world for no crime but poverty. From his speeches and his actions the Chief Secretary seems to enter upon this work con amore, and hence it is we have the battering ram and all the facilities to make eviction easy, and the defence in this House founded on the ex parte statements of the landlords. This last is no part of his duty. I could perfectly understand an attitude in which a Chief Secretary, while deploring evictions as a necessity, declares himself powerless to interfere with the administration of the law, or to prevent the presence of the forces of the Crown at these unhappy eviction scenes. I can understand that position, brutal and callous though it may seem, as perfectly logical. But the right hon. Gentleman goes beyond that negative attitude—he defends the landlords; he brings forward statistics in relation to the Ponsonby property; he goes outside his province as representative of the Government, and becomes the landlords' champion in particular controversies. There was an instance of this in connection with the Ponsonby estate. I asked him could nothing be done by his influence to delay eviction there in view of the circumstances brought under his notice, in view of the significant letter of Mr. Horace Townshend, the agent to the syndicate which had taken over the estate; but the right hon. Gentleman "could not interfere with the administration of the law." But he goes beyond that, and seeks to explain away the sinister significance of the letter of the agent; he causes his agent to make inquiry, and in connection with this the agent wrote the letter which caused such a revulsion of feeling through Great Britain. It was no part of his duty to come down to the House and contend, that the Ponsonby rents were fair, in view of the fact that the agent of the syndicate to which the First Lord of the Treasury subscribed had written a letter, which he did not think would come into our hands, admitting that the rents were unfair and unjust and their enforcement a cruelty. It was no part of the duty of the right hon. Gentleman to come here and defend the action of the landlord and to go into the question of rents to show that they were just, thereby showing sympathy with

31
the landlord and hostility to the claims of the tenants. It may be consistent with his duty that the hon. Member for Fulham should attend at evictions, so that, as it were, they are carried out under distinguished patronage; but I contend that the Chief Secretary has conducted his duty of administration in a partisan spirit; that he has shown that his whole sympathy is on one side in the struggle at present going on between the unfortunate tenantry and their hereditary task-masters. I think we have had no explanation from the Chief Secretary of those very ugly, those unmanly incidents in connection with the Ponsonby evictions a few months ago, to which my right hon. Friend the Lord Mayor of Dublin referred, at which an innocent girl, at a time of trouble and misery, cast from her father's home, was subjected to insult by low officials, who seem to gloat over the miseries of the Irish peasantry. Surely this was an occasion for inquiry, in order that Crockett might be made amenable to justice; and, at any rate, the right hon. Gentleman might have taken notice of the conduct of Colonel Caddell, the recent addition to the Irish Magisterial Bench. I think in this case the right hon. Gentleman suggested, "Why not take action at law? "But it took a month to find out who Crockett was. The right hon. Gentleman says he is not responsible for the conduct of Crockett. But how was it that this man was admitted within the line of police, when to priests, Members of Parliament, and the Press admission was denied? At any rate, if not responsible for the brutalities of Crockett, he is responsible for the conduct of Colonel Caddell on the occasion. How can you expect a poor peasant girl to bring an action against Colonel Caddell? Who is to find the money? There is an item in this Vote of £240 set apart for newspapers, and I presume out of that a certain proportion is paid for Irish newspapers, and a subscription to the Times; but does the amount include some of the chief Provincial newspapers? If that is so, how is it that the right hon. Gentleman is always ignorant of circumstances that we bring to his notice from the records of these newspapers? Out of this item of £240 he could supply himself with the information contained in the Cork
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Herald, the Cork Examiner, the Belfast Morning News, the Leinster Leader, and many other papers from which he could obtain the elementary facts which we so of ten have to bring to his notice. Surely when he sees reports of circumstances, such as the assault on my hon. Friend the Member for North Monaghan, or accounts of distressing scenes at evictions, he might make himself acquainted with the facts, and when we ask a question a few days afterwards he might give us an intelligible if not a satisfactory answer. Before I sit down, let me refer to the right hon. Gentleman's observations on the condition of Ireland. My right hon. Friend (Mr. Sexton) has pointed out the significant fact, in connection with the number of police huts over the country, and as evidence of the improved condition the Chief Secretary claims for his administration, that where the National League branch has been suppressed there the police huts are more numerous. In the Kanturk district of East Cork, the League is supposed to be suppressed, and the huts are more numerous than they were two years ago. It is our proposition that the suppression of the League is likely to be accompanied by outbreaks of crime and disorder, fomented by secret societies; and I regret to say there are not wanting proofs of the truth of this, and even in those districts where the suppression of the League has been only partially carried out there has been a recrudescence of outrage, evidently the work of secret societies. When the National League was first suppressed I advised my constituents to resist that suppression by every honourable means in their power, and for taking my advice many of them were sent to prison, and I am perfectly willing to take my share of the responsibility and punishment. Upon the Chief Secretary lies the responsibility if, in the face of these warnings, he persists in his policy of suppression, and in closing this safety valve for popular feeling. Prom the Kanturk police district, I suppose, more men have been sent to prison for the technical offence of attending meetings of the so-called suppressed branch of the National League than from any other district in Ireland. The League is not suppressed there, though, of course, it does not meet with the same frequency or deliberate with the same

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openness as before. But in those districts where the League is suppressed, and where no branch at present exists, there the Police Returns of outrages show an increase; and my own knowledge, gleaned from local newspapers, shows me the increase of the danger month by month, and the right hon. Gentleman will, I fear, have to recall every word he has uttered on this very painful subject. For my part, I hope the suppressed branches of the League will continue to held meetings, for to my mind that is the only means by which crime and outrage can be counteracted. It has more influence in that direction than the whole policy of the Chief Secretary. His whole policy is one of defiance towards the Irish people, and of deception towards the English people; he seeks to hide from the people of Great Britain the real manner in which his administration is carried on in Ireland and the real operation of the Crimes Act. It is part of our business to expose that misrepresentation, and to let the people of Great Britain see the facts as they stand. I can promise the right hon. Gentleman this—that as long as his administration is conducted on its present lines, and in the spirit in which he and his subordinates at present work it, the people of Ireland will offer him a hearty and absolute defiance.
MR. MACARTNEY: I do not rise to enter into the present phase of this discussion, but to call attention, in connection with this Vote, to the statistics that indicate a gradual but steady increase in the number of lunatics in Ireland. Since 1882 that increase has been constant, and within the last two or three years has reached alarming figures. The increase of 1885 over 1884 was 131; of 1886 over 1885 was 283; and in 1867 there was an increase of 561 over the year before. Now I find that this large increase in the total number of lunatics in Ireland is especially noticeable in certain counties in the North—Londonderry and Tyrone, for instance. In a question which I addressed to the Chief Secretary last March, I raised the subject of the growing consumption of ether, and its effects; and the right hon. Gentleman in his reply stated the Constabulary Authorities reported that in certain parts of Ireland it was constantly used
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as an intoxicant, and that according to the opinions of resident physicians insanity was, in many instances, induced by indulgence in thin habit. I am aware that the investigations made by the constabulary as a result of my inquiry were necessarily of a limited character; but the information which has reached me from people on whom I can place complete reliance shows that the traffic in ether is assuming very large proportions. I think the chief centre of it is the district of Portumna. In the town of Cookstown the ether sales of some traders equal 20 gallons per week, and they estimate a profit of £4 on this article alone. One trader imports 120 gallons a week, and over 900 gallons pass every year through Belfast for sale in Derry and Tyrone. Cookstown, Magherafelt, and Maghera take over four tons per annum carried by rail alone. Now, the ether imported into these districts is not used for trade purposes. A half-glass of it is sufficient for an intoxicant, and for a sum of 6d. a man could get drunk on ether three times a day. According to these figures enough is imported into the district I have named to account for 105,000 cases of drunkenness every year. A large proportion of the traffic is, as a matter of fact, conducted by cart from Belfast, and the drug is distributed in small quantities at the country shops, the keepers of which send it out in their parcels of groceries. This increases the difficulty of ascertaining the full extent of the traffic. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that the General Synod of the Church of Ireland has repeatedly petitioned Parliament on this question; so also have the Synod of the Diocese of Armagh and the Young Men's Christian Association. I have here a letter from a gentleman residing in the neighbourhood in which the traffic is mainly earned on, and in it he says—
"When I first became a Magistrate, some 20 years ago, ether was only sold for improper purposes in one house in Maghera: it is now sold in four low lodging-houses, and it is a common practice for people when turned out of the public-houses to finish off their night's debauch. For consumption at home ether is also sold in more respectable houses, not only in Maghera, but in the small houses throughout the neighbourhood; and I regret to say that, in order to bring it within the reach of every one, two old women go through the country to barter it for empty bottles at the farm-houses

35
&c. From the fact that a pennyworth produces drunkenness, the terrible mischief that ensues is plain. For years I have persistently opposed the granting of new licenses, chiefly on the ground that if they were unreasonably multiplied the police would he unable to enforce the laws relating to them. Of late I have greatly moderated this opinion, for I think it would he better far for the country that every house in it should be licensed rather than that the drinking of ether should be substituted for that of whisky. On the latter, at all events, you can only get drunk once in 24 hours: on the former for the same cost you could be drunk and sober two or three times. I have always understood there is great difficulty in legislating on this subject. In my opinion great advantage would ensue if it were enacted that ether could not be sold unless when prescribed by a doctor) in less quantities than 5s. worth at a time "—
THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! I do not see how this is connected with the Vote now under Debate.
MR. MACARTNEY: I desired to point out that the increase of lunacy, especially in the North of Ireland, is attributable to the practice of ether drinking, and I do not know of any other Vote on which I could raise this question. If, however, Sir, you think am travelling wide of the Vote in bringing this subject forward, I will content myself with stating that I shall be pleased to lay what information I have before the Chief Secretary. This is a question which has attracted the attention of the clergy of all denominations, who are exercising all the influence they have to put down the traffic. In some neighbourhoods the practice has almost reached the proportions of an epidemic, and small shopkeepers are known to have actually given ether to children in order to secure their custom. I do trust that the Chief Secretary will give serious attention to this matter, and will see if it is not possible to introduce some measure on the subject next Session.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I shall be very much obliged if the hon. Member will supply me with all the information in his possession bearing upon this question. I will certainly make full inquiries on this important matter.
MR.MURPHY: I am willing to admit that in the remarks which the Chief Secretary has just delivered there was an absence of that aggressiveness to which we, on this side of the House, are accustomed when the right hon. Gentleman is reply-
36
ing to our speeches. I do not intend, in what I am about to say, to deal with, details which have already formed the subject of this Debate. I will not stop to inquire whether the Constabulary or the people are responsible for the deplorable incidents which are frequently discussed in this House; but the broad fact remains that these collisions take place, and that ill-will towards the authorities and distrust for the administration of the law prevails generally amongst the people; but I propose to refer back to the position in which the right hon. Gentleman found the country when he took office, and I desire to point out the considerable economic and social changes which have since occurred. The right hon. Gentleman found a great agrarian struggle proceeding in Ireland, and he determined, immediately he took office, to throw in his lot absolutely and entirely on the side of the landlords, and he has consistently continued that policy down to the present time. His efforts have always been directed to the support of one class of the community, and the result has been that the differences between the landlords on the one hand, and the tenantry on the other, have not been lessened through his attitude. The right hon. Gentleman has also shown that he is determined to support his subordinates in Ireland, whether they are right or wrong, and the action of his subordinates has always been directed to the support of one particular class—the landlords. The discreditable and disgraceful conflicts which have taken place in Ireland between the police and the people have been due to an unnecessary parade of police force. I always understood that the police should only be brought out in force when it was feared there might be a conflict between two sets of people. Of course, in view of such a probability, it would be only right to have a strong display of police. But, as a matter of fact, the policy pursued in Ireland has been to call out the police when there was no danger whatever of any conflict because the people are all of one way of thinking, and, as a consequence, the public feeling has been exasperated, and the presence of the police has produced a worse condition of affairs than prevailed before. In Dublin, where there is a Superintendent of discretion and judgment, conflicts of

37
the kind are practically unknown, although there we have political demonstrations of enormous size given in honour of the Chief Secretary's criminals, accompanied by displays of great enthusiasm among the people. Formerly conflicts between the police and the people were common in Dublin, but they no longer occur, because there is now an absence of aggression on the part of the force, and the authorities very wisely only send out a very few policemen to maintain order on these occasions, instead of making an unnecessarily large display of force; and I would commend this as an example to be followed in the country districts, as it would avert the disgraceful scenes of batoning and of bloodshed which we are constantly hearing of. The right hon. Gentleman claims that the improvement in Ireland of late years is owing to the policy of the Government. No one will deny that an improvement has taken place; but I do contest his assertion that it is attributable to his policy. We have had better harvests, and the prices of agricultural produce have risen, and these are the things which account for the improved state of the country. The system of police and Magisterial rule which the right hon. Gentleman has fostered has retarded the improvement. It would have been better for the country if the police had been kept to their proper work—the prevention and detection of crime, and if the course of persecutions—they do not deserve the name of prosecutions—directed against the popular leaders in Ireland had never been entered on. I do not know whether the result of the right hon. Gentleman's policy has been to develop secret societies in Ireland. His suppression of public meetings and of constitutional agitation is well calculated to produce such a result; but if it has not done so it is because, fortunately, the Irish people now realise that the present reign of terror cannot last much longer, thanks to the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian and of the Liberal Party. Prom a political point of view, nothing could better serve our purpose than that the Chief Secretary should continue his present policy. But were not anxious that this perpetual turmoil shall be kept up, although it would be politically advan-
38
tageous to us, and I will venture to offer the right hon. Gentleman, in all sincerity, some advice, if any advice coming from this quarter of the House can have any influence with him. Of course any Minister dislikes admitting that his policy has failed; but does not the Chief Secretary consider this an opportune moment for retiring from a policy which cannot be claimed to have succeeded? If he does I can assure him we shall be happy to find him a golden bridge by means of which he can retire from it. He can find an excuse in the improved condition of the country for suspending the system of persecutions and suppression of public meetings which have proved so inefficacious, and I would strongly urge the right hon. Gentleman at the same time, having regard to the small dimensions into which this particular question of the Plan of Campaign has resolved itself, that he should make some effort to bring about a settlement of disputes on these few remaining estates. His influence in this respect would be most potent—it would, in fact, be all powerful—for reasons which are easily conceived; and he could readily bring about a termination of the most acute cases of land disputes, if he so willed. I can speak, to a certain extent, as an impartial witness, of the vaunted success of the Chief Secretary in his government of Ireland, because I have not myself taken much part in the political movements that are going on, and I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that never in my recollection did I know anything like the feeling of ill-will and distrust such as now exists in the South and West of Ireland, both against the Executive Authority and the administration of the law. The right hon. Gentleman's policy will not, and cannot, survive a General Election. It cannot even survive the near approach of a General Election, and I warn the right hon. Gentleman that if he continues to pursue the course he is now following he will only find the weapon of coercion has broken in his hands, and he will end his connection with Ireland discredited and a failure, as all of his predecessors who pursued a similar line of policy.
MR. P. J. O'BRIEN: I wish to draw attention to the case of Mr. John Vowell who was charged before

39
the ordinary Court of Petty Sessions and ordered to find bail.
The CHAIRMAN: I do not see how this comes immediately under the Vote for the Chief Secretary. It should be mentioned under the Vote for Prosecutions.
MR. P. J. O'BEIEN: Sir, I bow to your ruling, and will bring it forward under that Vote.
MR. O'HANLON: I cannot sit here and allow the Vote to be passed without making my protest. I do so from the taxpayers' point of view. I say that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland is not worth one penny of the sum put down to him. If the amount were divided by 200 it would more nearly represent the value of the right hon. Gentleman. If we pay a man a salary, we ought to know what he has done for it. Now, I say that the right hon. Gentleman has brought mischief and misery to Ireland; he has raised ill-will among the people and the constabulary; he has destroyed all hope of an amicable settlement of differences; he has imprisoned priests and people, and has done no good to Mr. Olphert, who is now a poor, miserable man, living alone, and not having the property which he formerly enjoyed. Mr. Olphert has been driven by the Party to which the right hon. Gentleman belongs to the forlorn position which he now occupies. I observe in the Vote an item of £1,400 travelling expenses for the Chief Secretary. I know the right hon. Gentleman does not spend 4d. a day. I would give the right hon. Gentleman something like a fair salary— say, £20 a year and 4d. a day for expenses. Then why is not the £350 for incidental expenses explained? The Chief Secretary ought to be paid on commercial principles; that is to say, he ought to be paid for the actual work he does. He has brought trouble on one of the most peaceable countries on God's earth. The Chief Secretary spends very little of his time in Ireland. I think he ought to travel North, East, South, and West. He need not be afraid. There is not one of our people who would touch his clothes, nor yet his body. They are the finest and the bravest people that ever existed, but they hate to be misruled, and they are being misruled now. We are longing for a General Election, and when it comes we
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will soon bring down the Chief Secretary's salary to what it was before— that was, to the condition, I suppose, of living on his neighbours. We want peace in Ireland, and not the turmoil and confusion which for weeks together I have seen prevailing without any reason. I have seen Father M'Fadden and Father Stephens taken by the police along a circuitous route, so that they might be exhibited by the police like wild beasts. The police managed by some means or other to gather a crowd, and then the people, without even lifting their bands or their voices, were driven through the streets, and blood flowed like a rain-shower. I have seen policemen actually walk into private houses and baton the people inside. I have known one constable walk into my own establishment to drive me with his baton. I said to him, "Do you know these are my premises? If you do not leave I will shut the door and make you a prisoner." That is the only way of dealing with them. There is no use in appealing to the Magistrate unless you can take them red-handed. The right hon. Gentleman says the police have a difficult task to perform. But they get large salaries, and are the only body in Ireland which can live on what they get. Unless they receive large bribes the police will not enforce English Law in the country. But not a single Irishman is intimidated, and in another three years, if the Government lasts so long, the Chief Secretary will find that his coercion policy has been of no avail. Do you think you will make the people love coercion laws and tyranny and brute force? The Irish people will be loyal to fair and just laws, but the Chief Secretary has travelled outside the law, and if the right hon. Gentleman were tried and found guilty, he would get 20 years' penal servitude for breaking the law. But the right hon. Gentleman has behind him the Castle and the hon. Member for South Tyrone. Thanks to the hon. Member for South Tyrone, Mr. Olphert has got no rents and no goodwill, and Mr. Olphert never will do better as long as he takes advice from a running jackdaw. The Chief Secretary will never be able to get a situation anywhere outside Ireland. If the right hon. Gentleman were to try to get a situation at £20 a year in Manchester, nobody would have anything to do with him at

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any price. The only thing he is fit for is to be placed side by side with Le Caron and the convicts out of Down-patrick Gaol and the other Times' witnesses.
MR. M. J. KENNY: There were some observations addressed to the Committee by the hon. Member for South Antrim (Mr. Macartney) as to the consumption of ether in some parts of the North of Ireland, and my own constituency was referred to. The hon. Gentleman said that about Omagh the drug was largely consumed——
THE CHAIRMAN: I called the hon. Member for Antrim to order. If the hon. Member wishes to say anything, I hope it will be of a very restricted character.
MR. M. J. KENNY: I only wish to say that the Report of Dr. Nugent this year does not make the slightest allusion to the subject, and although I am in no way opposed to inquiry, I must altogether dissent from the opinion to which the hon. Member invited the Committee to come. Allusion has several times been made to the remarks in which the Chief Secretary, paraphrasing the language used in a letter by Colonel Turner, referred to the County Clare clergy as being no credit to their cloth. I do not think these reverend gentlemen need any defence of their character, and I do not think anything the right hon. Gentleman can say will in the slightest degree lower them in the estimation of the people; indeed, it may possibly be the best means of increasing their esteem. Who are these gentlemen who have been connected with the dispute upon Colonel Vandeleur's property? Dr. Dinan, the parish priest of the district, and three of his curates and a neighbouring parish priest. Dr. Dinan is a venerable and much-respected clergyman between 80 and 90 years of age, a man who a few years ago was selected by the diocese for the episcopacy, and who occupies the very high position of Vicar General. He is one of the most highly respected priests in the whole of Ireland, who is trusted by all, whose character and motives are above suspicion, who is an honour to his cloth, and who deserves the highest credit for the action he took in regard to the dispute on Colonel Vandeleur's property. The tenants were not compelled or cajoled into the
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adoption of the Plan of Campaign; they adopted it of their free choice, and the upshot has been that, in spite of the action of Colonel Turner, a settlement has been brought about by the instrumentality of these gentlemen who were denounced by the Chief Secretary; and these gentlemen whom the right hon. Gentleman holds to be unworthy of their cloth are the gentlemen with whom Colonel Vandeleur entered into negotiation and conducted a personal treaty for the settlement of the unfortunate dispute on his property. I do not think it is necessary to allude to Colonel Turner at all. Anything he says is altogether beneath notice; he is but the servant of the Chief Secretary.
THE CHAIRMAN: The action of Colonel Turner should have been, and was, discussed under the Police Vote.
MR. M.J. KENNY: I was only alluding to him, Sir, as the servant of the Chief Secretary. The Chief Secretary has further made allusions to certain prosecutions in the town of Ennis. Mr. M'Namara was arrested, brought before a Magistrate, and immediately discharged, and the right hon. Gentleman says this was due to the association of that gentleman with bad characters. Now, those whom the right hon. Gentleman so describes are respected men in the town of Ennis. I know them perfectly well, and I will undertake to say that they are as respectable in their position as the right hon. Gentleman himself in his. There is nothing that can be said against their characters. One of them seems to be Mr. Denis M'Namara, and he has been prosecuted and imprisoned for selling copies of United Ireland; but in the contest the Chief Secretary at last owned himself vanquished, and Mr. M'Namara is now allowed to sell the newspaper freely. The position of the Chief Secretary is one in which, no matter what may happen, he will not condemn the action of the police under any circumstances, and the police know that, and are encouraged in their violent conduct. By way of contrast, let me allude to the riot that took place at Cookstown, Tyrone. The police did not on that occasion enter into a conflict with the people; they prevented a violent breach of the peace, and they took the ordinary sensible course of summoning the offenders before a Magistrate, and they were properly convicted Now

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with less excuse in the South of Ireland, the police would have proceeded to break the skulls of the people, and to become themselves the chief rioters in pursuance of a policy to justify coercion. The Chief Secretary seems to think that the forces of the Crown should be an automatic body, moving at the desire of the landlords; but in this respect he appears from the view of his predecessor and of every Chief Secretary since the time of Thomas Drummond. When Drummond was Secretary, he refused the forces of the Crown for the use of the landlords, and on many subsequent occasions they have been refused. It is a well-known fact that 40 or 50 years ago, Sheriffs had to carry out evictions at their own risk and peril. They had to bring their own posse, and it is only by a recent application of the policy of coercion that police are summoned in whatever numbers the landlords requisition, and even military force is brought to their aid. I can understand there are circumstances under which the use of the forces of the Crown might be necessary, but these have not arisen in recent years, and I altogether deny that it is obligatory on the Chief Secretary to sanction in every case where the landlords choose to requisition it the lending of an enormous force to carry out eviction decrees obtained by the landlords. The Chief Secretary is particularly responsible for the scandals on the Olphert estate. Not only did he agree to lend the police and military, but he encouraged the police to practices for the protection of themselves as he says, but really for the destruction of the houses of the people, for the shortening of eviction operations. From the time of the Bodyke evictions downwards, the police have discharged the functions of emergency men and bailiffs.
THE CHAIRMAN: These are matters for discussion under the Police Vote, not under this Vote.
MR. M. J. KENNY: I will allude no further to that, Sir. Allusion has been made to the signs of increasing prosperity in Ireland, and I altogether deny the contention of the Chief Secretary that his administration is responsible for a condition of greater prosperity or that it is justified by facts. Year after year we have references to the cash balances in the banks and the amounts in the
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savings banks. Increased cash balances do not necessarily indicate a state of prosperity; they may equally indicate a slackness of trade, and as to savings banks it is true there are increases year by year, but what does it all amount to? The deposits amount to£3,000,000, which gives a paltry sum of 12s. 6d. per head of the population. If the people are becoming thrifty in their habits, so much the better; but I may point out that the increase in the number of police is enough to account for the-increase in the savings bank deposits. A better index of the condition of things -is the state of investments in the public funds, and from this Return we have before us we find that there has been a decrease of investments in Imperial securities annually, and they are now £8,000,000 less than they were in 1871. These are more instructive figures as indicating a decrease in the wealth of the people of Ireland than cash balances and savings bank deposits. I think the contention of the Chief Secretary is untenable, and I believe the more we inquire into the real state of things the more we shall find that the condition of things is steadily growing worse in many respects—I will not say in every respect but in many respects—and I believe at the present time the people of Ireland have less money at command than in any period for the last 30years, or since foreign importation flooded the markets with cheap corn. I do not believe it is of any use offering advice to the Government; they are determined to stick to their line of policy and their avowed purpose of steady repression, but we shall shortly have the opportunity of carrying our appeal outside this House to the only tribunal competent to decide on a verdict.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The Debate has hitherto been almost entirely confined to hon. Members below the Gangway, and I believe there is a general feeling in the House that the sooner it is over and the Vote passed the better. But it has been said more than once that there are two Irelands, and as yet the Committee have only heard the opinion of one Ireland in this matter. I come from, a part of the country where the police are in the proportion of 10 to every 10,000 of the population. Hon. Members below the Gangway come from a

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part of Ireland where the proportion of police to population is as 38 or 40 to 10,000. This is a great difference; and I, as a Representative of North-East Ulster—that portion of the country where the police are 10 in 10,00 of the population, desire to examine the evidence of the witnesses from the other parts of the country. If the Chief Secretary's policy has not produced good results, then this Vote ought not to be passed. I go the length of saying that; but I am going to contend, and I am going to quote Parliamentary Returns to show that the policy of the Chief Secretary is bearing good fruit, and that although the end has not been entirely achieved, yet we have gone a good way towards securing it. For this purpose I take the two most disturbed counties, Kerry and Clare, and what are the facts? In 1887, before the passing of the Land Act and the Crimes Act, for both of which the Chief Secretary was responsible, there were in these counties 261 agrarian offences reported to the police; in 1888 there were 203, and in the first six months of the present year 69. Now, I hold, explain it as you like, these figures show the actual condition in these two counties in regard to agrarian crime, and if you look back to the years previous to 1887 you find the difference greater. Then I take the boycotting Returns. In October, 1887, the number of persons boycotted was—in Clare 506; and in Kerry 477; and on the 1st of July this year there were seven persons in Clare and 13 in Kerry, wholly or partially boycotted. Now if that does not indicate an improved condition of things, I do not know what would be called an improvement. Hon. Members may challenge the figures, but I take them from Parliamentary Returns. I have no other means of finding out the truth, and in the absence of contradiction, I take them as correct. Now if I take the whole country, apart from these two counties, I find the facts showing an equal improvement. In the whole country in 1888 there were 660 agrarian offences, compared with over 2,000 in 1880. As to evictions—which many will take as a crucial test—there were in 1880 over 2,600, some of the evicted being replaced as tenants and others as caretakers. In 1888 only 773 families were turned out of their homes.
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Apart from the question of agrarian crime, let us take the general state of the country. The Judges have just returned from the Assizes, and we get a glimpse of the state of the country from their Charges. Doubts have been thrown on official statements, but I do not think the Judges get their information entirely from the police.
An hon. MEMBER: They do from the County Inspectors.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Well, if you cannot trust the County Inspectors, the Magistrates, and the Judges, whom are you to trust? Are we to trust the hon. Members below the Gangway? I respectfully decline to do that. The Judges practically say, with the exception of three counties, Ireland is in a state of profound quiet and peace. They admit that three counties are disturbed, but even there the improvement is very marked. Then as to the state of trade. I will not dispute the inference of the last speaker as to cash balances in the banks; but the increase in the deposits in the savings banks happens to be largest in the five counties where the police are fewest in proportion to the population. The hon. Member will have to find some other means of explaining the Returns. The hon. Member is right in his reference to Indian and Government Stock; but I am a little surprised to find hon. Members talking about fundholders in whom they have never professed any interest hitherto; their interest has been in the depositors in savings banks and post office banks. When you take the Railway Returns and the Banking Returns you have a distinct improvement within the past two years. You find there is less agrarian crime, that ordinary crime is at a minimum, and that evictions are fewer, and if these are the signs of a ruined country governed by a despotic Minister I should like to know what are the signs of a prosperous country governed Constitutionally. I would ask hon. Members below the Gangway to face this-fact. The five counties in the North of Ireland, where hon. Members have least influence, but which are equally with the rest of Ireland under the Chief Secretary's administration, are profoundly peaceable and fairly prosperous, while the counties which the hon.

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Members below the Gangway represent are neither peaceful nor prosperous.
MR. O'HANLON: I want to give the hon. Member an answer. In the North of Ireland——
The CHAIRMAN: Order, order! That is not a point of order.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I want to know why Belfast and Londonderry at the present moment have employment for every one, while Cork and Limerick and Waterford have not? Surely there must be some answer to that. It is because the people in the North mind their own business. I would remind the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton that there is no hostility to the law or to the administration of the law in the five counties to which I have referred. They are inhabited by the same classes of people as the Southern counties—by farmers, labourers, artizans, mechanics, merchants, shopkeepers—and no doubt the Southern counties would be equally quiet and prosperous if hon. Members would but let them. The trouble arises from the necessity which hon. Members below the Gangway find of keeping the pot boiling for themselves.
MR. T. D. SULLIVAN: The speech we have just heard has been heard and answered many times before. It appears that there are five prosperous counties in Ireland represented by gentlemen like himself, whilst all the other counties in the country are unprosperous.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I did not say that. I said hon. Members declared them to be unprosperous.
MR. T. D. SULLIVAN: He said they were unprosperous, and he contrasted the condition of the prosperous counties with the condition of all the remainder of the country. He challenges us to enter into an explanation of this matter. But I own it would take too long, and probably be out of order, to enter into a full explanation of the comparative prosperity of the northern and southern counties; but even in the peaceable and prosperous northern counties it is not so very long ago that the police were catching it very hot and hard indeed, and were stigmatised as "uniformed assassins" and "cowardly murderers." An hon. Member of the House, and a Representative of one of the northern constituencies, was brought to
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task in the House for having applied such language to the police, and he refused to apologise or to withdraw. And I hold in my hand a proof of the statement I have just made. I find in the leading organ of the so-called loyal minority in Ireland such language as the following:—
"The first duty of the Government is to reduce the passionate assassins who potted the women and children."
And a little further on its says—
"Are the uniformed criminals to escape; are the miscreants who fired on a solitary little boy in a deserted street, who potted a girl looking out of a window, and the mother of a young family as she stood in her own doorway—are these and the men who performed similar acts of murder to go free? "
These things occurred in the loyal part of Ireland—in the great City of Belfast. The writer relates in this article how the Royal Irish Constabulary shot down an innocent and unoffending crowd of people, and how, when the military came on the scene, these "uniformed cowards slunk away." How the Royal Irish Constabulary must have cursed these English and Scottish troops for depriving them of their congenial work! This article I have quoted shows how the loyal minority in Ireland can speak of the Royal Irish Constabulary when it comes to their turn to get a little of the rough usage that has hitherto been given to the South. Let them take care. I believe that the Irish Constabulary would be just as ready to break the heads of Orangemen as of Nationalists. I wish that there might be an end of the trouble between the people and the police; but of this there is little chance so long as the right hon. Gentleman opposite is the master and director of the police. They take their cue from him, knowing that he will sustain and defend them and excuse them in the House of Commons. The right hon. Gentleman has his bitter and clever tongue to use against Irish Members; but the Irish Constabulary have another weapon. They are not allowed to abuse, traduce, and calumniate these Members, but they have their bat>ns, and with these they translate into action the spirit of the discourse of their master. The whole of this contention about the prosperity of the North of Ireland, as I have just said, has been discussed and answered many and many a time before.

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There is, indeed, less distress, less hardship and suffering in Ireland to-day than at a former time. Irish Members are proud to acknowledge the fact, but they deny that the credit of the improvement is due to the present rulers of the country. Badly as they have misruled the country, and cruelly as they have used the leaders of the Irish people, they cannot prevent some share of the general prosperity from coming into the land. England has herself had a revival of trade and commerce, and Ireland has come in for a little share of it. But I deny that credit for it is in any way due to the Chief Secretary. We Irish Members take credit for a considerable part of this increased prosperity; for it has been by our long struggle and sacrifices that we have won for the Irish people some important concessions. We have extorted these concessions from the British Parliament, and thousands and thousands of tenant farmers have now some protection and security for their earnings, where before they had none. We won it for them by many a hard battle on the floor of this House, and by labour and struggle, night and day, in sunshine and storm, on the hills and plains of Ireland. We have won important concessions for the Irish tenant farmers, and these things are operating for their benefit to-day; and to them may largely be traced the improved condition of this class of people. I rise to oppose this Vote for many reasons, but -chiefly because in doing so I am protecting the interest of the British taxpayer. The salary of the Chief Secretary is given him to support the British Constitution in Ireland; but the policy pursued by the right hon. Gentleman in that country tends to produce hatred, strife, and ill-will, and to keep the people of Ireland at enmity with the law and the administrators of the law. I wish to corroborate the words spoken by my hon. Colleague the Member for the St. Patrick's Division of Dublin. He, as everyone knows, is a man of moderate opinions and of a quiet un-aggressive manner. He takes little part in what is called agitation in Ireland; but he claims to know—and he does know—a great deal about the feelings of the Irish people. He declares that never in his recollection has the strain between the authorities and the people been so severe and bitter
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as it is at the present time. I believe that to be true, and, moreover, I say it could not be otherwise under the circumstances. There are other things telling in favour of peace, patience, and good temper in Ireland. The Irish Representatives tell the Irish people, and ask and implore of them, to be patient and long-suffering under the inflictions, injustices, and insults which are poured upon them by the right hon. Gentleman and his obedient servants in Ireland. The Irish people know that for whatever hardships and injustice they are suffering at the present time the English people are no longer responsible, and that only the Tory Government and the right hon. Gentleman are to blame. They well know also that the term of the power of that Government to harass and torture the Irish people cannot last for ever, and must soon come to an end. These are some of the reasons why the Irish people are as patient as they are under present circumstances. But the Irish police, as I have said, translate into action the feelings and the spirit displayed towards the Irish people by the Chief Secretary in his speeches in and out of Parliament. They know, and have reason to know, that they can do nothing, no matter how brutal, cruel, unjust and illegal, which he on the floor of this House will not excuse. I stand by the side of one of my Colleagues (Mr. P. O'Brien), who has been most cruelly ill-used, and that for no offence. He was not assailing the police, nevertheless he was batoned and wounded by many savage strokes. He was struck from behind, and I myself have been treated in a similar manner by the police. These things will rankle in the minds of the Irish people, and I firmly believe that if there were not some pacifying influence at work, if there were nothing between the Chief Secretary, his police, and his removable Magistrates, the condition of Ireland would be bad indeed. As I say, there are other influences working in favour of peace, happiness, and good temper, and I trust those influences will continue. I trust that whatever insults may be offered us, and whatever sufferings may be inflicted on us, we shall be able to live through these few additional years of Tory Government. The Irish people have lived through

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harder times and have met with sterner men than the Chief Secretary. They are people who can recover from their sufferings. They are a forgiving and a generous people. I do not know what amount of forgiveness they may be inclined to extend to the doings of the present Government and the Chief Secretary; but I believe that in a while they will think very little about them, and give themselves very little concern indeed about them. I daresay the Chief Secretary imagines he is doing wonderful work and making a great name in history, and all that sort of thing; but my idea is that if in Irish history the right hon. Gentleman finds himself mentioned in a foot-note it is about as much notice as he will receive. He defends the Royal Irish Constabulary, and is greatly offended when it is suggested that they have taken to drinking very considerably. But I believe that to be a fact. The invariable accompaniment of their eviction excursions is a barrel, or several barrels, of porter, and now and then a little of something stronger, and they indulge in this refreshment pretty freely. Whether it is an insult to them or not to mention the circumstances, I think it is a charitable view to take of their conduct to say that they are not always responsible for their actions. No doubt there are decent and noble-hearted men amongst the constabulary, but they do not count for much. We do not come into collision with these well-meaning men. They do no harm and inflict no wounds; but we have to deal with men of the force who are the exact converse of these. In conclusion, I will only say that I think the money spent in Ireland for the encouragement and sustainment of this policy of insult and aggression and injustice is money badly spent. Again and again the Chief Secretary has assailed the Irish Representatives and the Irish race, declaring them to be unfit for self-government. He forgets how many leading men Ireland has given to every Department of the Government of this country. He has especially selected for defamation the hon. Member for North-East Cork, but that hon. Member's replies to his attacks he has invariably found himself unable to meet. I hope we are now near the end of all this trouble. I trust the
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people of England are beginning to see-that the policy of coercion in Ireland is an absolute failure. The Chief Secretary knows it is; but he sees that in order to hold any sort of a place in public esteem it is necessary—although he does it without warrant—to take to himself credit for whatever little return to prosperity there may now be in Ireland. That is his only defence to plead for his tyrannical and unjust rule in Ireland. He says that crime has-diminished, that boycotting has gone down almost to zero, and that there are fewer campaign estates. The campaign has fulfilled its purpose on many estates. Landlords outside the campaign have come to terms with their tenants, and no sooner has this taken place than boycotting has ceased, and there is at once a diminution in crime and outrage. In. conclusion, I would only say that the increased prosperity of the country, such as it is, is due to causes with which the right hen. Gentleman has nothing to do, although he has been trying to cover the failure of his coercion policy by taking credit for the improved condition, of things which has no connection either with his action or that of the Irish Executive.
MR. P. J. O'BRIEN: I desire, Sir, to review the conduct of the police at the Bandon Railway Station, in the City of Cork, on the occasion of the arrest of the hon. Gentleman the Member for North-East Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien), on the 30th of June last. Of that occurrence I have a reminder which, I suppose, will stick to me during the remainder of my life. It is not, however, because of the consequences to myself that I desire to testify to what then took place—everyone of the 28 citizens of Cork who were maimed and carried to hospital on that occasion were of as much or more importance-than I—but for the purpose of affording the right hon. Gentleman the-Chief Secretary the opportunity of justifying the statement he made upon the subject in this House at a time when I was in such a condition that I could not even be made aware of what he and others were saying, or, indeed, of anything that was happening in the world outside. I desire to give my account of what I saw up to the point when I was rendered unconscious——
THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! I am sorry to interrupt the hon. Gentleman; but I must point out that a discussion as to what took place on the occasion referred to would be appropriate to the Police Vote, and not to the present Vote. I have no doubt, however, that the Committee will extend its indulgence to the hon. Member, if he will confine himself to a personal statement.
MR. P. J. O'BRIEN: I should be sorry to trespass against the Rules of the House; but the fact is, that I was in such a condition that I was not able to be here when the Police Vote was taken, and if I had acted on the advice of my medical adviser I should not have been here to-day; but I was anxious to meet the right hon. Gentleman face to face, and ask him to justify the attacks and insinuations he has made against me behind my back. Perhaps, Sir, I shall best be able to carry out your suggestion by stating what it was that really did occur. I was in the City of Cork on the 29th and 30th of June, to address one of the many meetings caused by the suppression of a public meeting in the city. On returning from that meeting to the city I learnt that the hon. Member for North-East Cork would probably arrive at Cork by the 9.30 train. I proceeded to the railway station, accompanied by three lady friends. About half-past 9 o'clock, just outside the station, I noticed a body of police, probably about 50, lounging against a wall, and close to them stood Pasha Plunket and Inspector Concannon engaged in conversation; there were not three other persons on the platform when I and my lady friends arrived. The train was late, and in a few minutes 50 police, headed by Inspector Concannon, marched on to the platform. The officer asked me to move away and I declined to do so. Inspector Concannon said he knew whom he was speaking to and also the ladies who were with me on the platform, and that he did not wish to be uncivil. I replied that I was not complaining of incivility on his part, but that he was interfering with my right to be where I pleased on a public railway platform, and that I would not move until compelled to do so by force. The body of police, seeing that I had refused to move away at the bidding of their officer, began to dis-
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cuss my identity and passed my name from mouth to mouth. When the train came in I advanced to the carriage from which Mr. W. O'Brien was stepping out to shake hands, and was speaking to him about the conveyance which we had provided to take him to the Royal Victoria Hotel, when Inspector Concannon touched the hon. Member for North East Cork on the shoulder and told him that he must arrest him on a warrant for misdemeanour. Instantly the police seized me and pulled me away from Mr. W. O'Brien, and I received two baton blows on the back and shoulder. I then went to take the ladies out of danger, and on reaching the gate of the station I saw a policeman strike a man on the back of the head with a clubbed rifle, felling him, and leaving him apparently dead. I lifted the man into a sitting position and called a priest, who, with others, was running out of the station to escape the police charge, to attend to the man. I then walked with the body of police who were conducting the hon. Member for North-East Cork to the police-station. I thought they were twisting my hon. Friend's arms, and I wished to watch what was done. I intended to procure bail for my hon. Friend when we reached the police-station. At no time were there 30 people, apart from the police, at the railway station, there was not a single stone thrown, and only one cheer was raised for Mr. W. O'Brien. There was no cause for any attack by the police. I was proceeding in the direction of the police barrack, and had not gone 50 yards from the Railway Station gates when I received a blow in the back from a rifle, followed by another on the head, which rendered me insensible. When I came to myself another policeman approached and struck me on the temple, knocking me insensible again. I do not know by whom I was taken away to the Royal Victoria Hotel. During the whole time no provocation whatever was given to the police. The Chief Secretary has said, in justification of the treatment which I and many others received, that a crowd had assembled for the purpose of rescuing the hon. Member for North-East Cork. If the citizens of Cork had had that purpose they would have acted very differently in giving effect to it. There were not enough police in the city to hold Mr. William O'Brien if

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the citizens of Cork desired to rescue him; and there was not a gaol in Ireland which would have held my hon. Friend if the Irish people had thought proper to take him out. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to justify the statement he has made. Then the right hon. Gentleman declared that the police had not known who I was. But, as I have already said, Inspector Coneannon indicated on the railway platform that he knew me, and the police had in my hearing discussed any identity. I am quite satisfied that the officers knew who I was; I had been accompanied by police from Killarney to Mallow, and thence to Cork, on the Friday previous, and on stepping out of the carriage at Cork, at 2 o'clock in the morning, I had been followed by two detectives on a car to my hotel, and was shadowed everywhere I went, even while visiting the house of my hon. Friend the junior Member for Cork City, on the Saturday. Again, on the Sunday I was in like manner dogged by police to mass, and I saw my shadowers point me out to the police on duty in the streets, and these men were, I believe, among the police who batoned me afterwards. These men had shadowed me wherever I went, even from my hotel to the Bandon Railway Station, half an hour before I was bludgeoned, with the exception of the meeting to which I have referred, on which occasion I had got rid of them, and in these circumstances I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to say that the officers did not know me. Then, I believe, the right hon. Gentleman has stated that I was not seriously injured. I only wish that that had been true. It is a fact that I had paid a visit to the seaside about the middle of my illness, by direction of my doctors, but by venturing too much I had got knocked up again. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he is prepared to cause any inquiry to be made into this matter? I understand that the right hon. Gentleman has glibly told the House that anyone who has a complaint to make against officials of the Crown in Ireland has his remedy at law. I have no great love of the law, but I will accept the Chief Secretary's challenge if the right hon. Gentleman will carry out one condition. I was struck from behind four times,
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twice with clubbed rifles, as I was told, and as my doctors believe, and it is manifestly impossible for me to identify the men who struck me with clubbed rifles from behind. Will the right hon. Gentleman assist me to identify publicly the men? Again, if the officer did not give the order to baton the people, who did? Will the right hon. Gentleman make an investigation into that also? The right hon. Gentleman may say that that is a very unusual thing, but it is not so; for where the right hon. Gentleman has found that the officials do not carry out the "Do not hesitate to shoot" policy, the right hon. Gentleman has instituted an inquiry and has punished the officials.
THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is now trespassing beyond the limits of a personal statement.
MR. P. J. O'BRIEN: Then I will not go further with the matter; but I was going to refer to what took place at Gweedore, and I now challenge the right hon. Gentleman to make not a Departmental inquiry, but a thorough public inquiry into the matter of the attack made upon me. If the right hon. Gentleman does that, and thus enable me, as he, and he only, can, to identify my would-be murderers, for my own part I will go into a Court of Law, and if there is any justice to be got in Ireland against the so-called officers of the law, I will give these ruffians the benefit of it, though I know that the whole forces of the Government and the Treasury will be arrayed against me, as they have been in another place where the Government has propped up the slanderers of the Irish Members in the Times case. I challenge the right hon. Gentleman and the Government to justify the charge that I or anyone else attempted a rescue on this occasion.
MR. SEXTON: The expressive speech of my hon. Friend has been followed by a moment of still more expressive silence. The Committee has just obtained a vivid glimpse of the methods pursued by the Government in Ireland, and, unless I am very much mistaken, the demeanour of my hon. Friend and the suggestive significance of his remarks have gone home to every man in this House. My hon. Friend who has been batoned by the servants of the Chief Secretary, and, in his absence,

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defamed by the right hon. Gentleman himself, has now risen in his place, and having recited the facts by the permission of the Chair, he challenges the Chief Secretary to justify what he has stated. But the right hon. Gentleman finds it more convenient to defame Irish Members beyond their backs than to meet them face to face. After the speech which we have just heard and the silence of the right hon. Gentleman, I wonder what the English people will think of their brave Minister. The main principles of the Government of Ireland seem to be, first, insult and violence directed against the Representatives of the people; secondly, a wanton use of physical force; and, thirdly, a dull and obstinate silence when any claim is made for explanation of an outrage or any appeal for an inquiry. The right hon. Gentleman has evaded the substance of the case brought against him, and has merely directed his reply to some small points; his answer has not been frank, direct, nor sufficient. On the case at large he has been silent. The Irish Members deny the right of the right hon. Gentleman to be silent; he is an official of this House and bound to defend himself. The conduct of the right hon. Gentleman is utterly unworthy of any man in the position of a Constitutional Minister and disgraceful to a Government professing to derive its power from the votes of a free people. I beg to move to reduce the Vote by the sum of £4,425, being the amount of the salary of the Chief Secretary.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Item A, Salaries, be reduced by £4,425, the Salary of the Chief Secretary."—(Mr. Sexton.)
MR. PARNELL: I think, Sir, we are entitled to an answer from the Chief Secretary to the speech of my hon. Friend, who has been so brutally assaulted by the right hon. Gentleman's police in the city which I myself have the honour to represent. The policy of the right hon. Gentleman appears to me to be a policy of incitement to his instruments in Ireland to exceed the law; to use violence, in the first place, to unfortunate tenants when they are being evicted from their homes—violence by the police, who rush in and baton these unfortunate creatures with the utmost brutality. This violence is defended by
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the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary when the matter is brought forward, and the victims of the violence are told that they have their ordinary remedy in an action at law. The same thing has been said to-day in this case. I maintain that the right hon. Gentleman knows well that there is no such remedy here—that those policemen who have committed these illegal acts did so with the knowledge, in the first place, that they would be cloaked by the right hon. Gentleman; with the knowledge, in the second place, that it is utterly impossible to identify them; and with the knowledge, in the third place, that owing to the state of feeling in Ireland it is always possible to get one red-hot Orangeman on a jury who will refuse to give a verdict against the police in any question of a political complexion. Does the right hon. Gentleman know that it is utterly impossible to identify a policeman? They are in many cases brought from a distance; they have no numbers. If an English policeman misconducts himself, the first thing is to take his number; but there is no number to be taken in the case of the Irish Constabulary, because they wear none; one might as well seek to take the number of a soldier in the ranks. Men are drafted from one station to another with the incitements of the Chief Secretary for Ireland ringing in their ears, and with the knowledge that every act of theirs will be cloaked up and lied down in the House of Commons. It is utterly impossible to identify constables with a view to bring them before the tribunals of the country, in consequence of the absence of the ordinary means of identification. Now, I will put this question to the right hon. Gentleman. Will he consent to number his men, so that the next time an Irish Member is brutally batoned from behind it may be possible to identify his assailant? Will the right hon. Gentleman, who prates about his desire to conduct his administration of Ireland upon the same lines as those on which an administration of the same sort would be conducted in England—will he give to the citizens of Ireland the same opportunities of identifying constables who exceed their duty as are given to the citizens of London? Will he put numbers on the Irish Constabulary in the future, or will he continue

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the system of sending these men, who carry deadly arms, from one station to another, so as to preclude all possibility of identifying them in case they exceed their duty? The absence of a number on the constable's uniform renders it impossible for my hon. Friend to identify the man who struck him. To the questions which I have put to the Chief Secretary for Ireland I think we are entitled to have a plain answer.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: In a somewhat thinner House than the present one I made earlier in the day a long speech giving a detailed answer to the attacks which had been made against me and the Irish Government, and I had hoped to be able to spare the Committee the trouble of listening to any more remarks from me on the present occasion. I fear that I cannot satisfy hon. Members opposite either by speech or by silence; but, after the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Mayor of Dublin and of the hon. Member for Cork, I suppose that I must say a word or two more. The hon. Member for North Monaghan has accused me of having declared in this House, in the hon. Member's absence, that when he was assaulted he was engaged in an attempt to rescue the hon. Member for North-East Cork. He also, in what he was pleased to call a personal statement, described my conduct as unmanly. As he has told us he was unable to read the newspapers I attribute to that inability the fact that he appears to be imperfectly acquainted with the Debates that have occurred upon the points under discussion. What I said was that the mob in Bandon Station surged forward, and that the constable in charge of the police, thinking that a rescue might be effected, gave the order to prepare to charge, and that the police did charge I have never said, and never thought, that the hon. Member for North Monaghan appeared upon the scene with a desire to carry out an organised rescue; such an idea never crossed my mind. Then, according to the hon. Member, I said that the police did not know who the hon. Member was. That is an error. What I said was that I did not believe that the policeman who actually struck the hon. Member knew who he was. The hon. Member has distinctly told the Committee that
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the serious wound dealt him was not inflicted in the station, but by a man whom he did not see. For all we know, therefore, the blow might not have been dealt by a policeman.
MR. P. J. O'BEIEN: I did not state that what I said was that I walked by the side of a body of police whom I heard using my name, and while so walking I was struck on the head. If my name was known to any one of the police in the ranks it must have been known to those who struck me, at least four in number. I must have been struck by at least four policemen—by two on the platform and by two on the road, not one minute's walk from the platform.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understood the hon. Member to intimate that the Inspector of Police on the platform and some of the men knew who he was. I also understood the hon. Member to say that he was on the road when the serious blow was dealt, from which I regret that the hon. Member has since suffered. The hon. Member does not know who struck him, and that being the case the Committee of course cannot tell whether he was struck by a policeman who knew the hon. Member, or whether he was struck by a policeman at all. To the hon. Member for Cork I would point cut that even if the policeman who struck the hon. Member—assuming that it was a policeman—had worn a number upon his coat, it would not have assisted identification in this particular case. The hon. Member for North Monaghan has attacked me on another matter, and has imputed unmanly conduct to me because I criticised the hon. Member's behaviour in his absence. But I do not remember criticising the hon. Member's behaviour. I only stated the facts relating to the hon. Member's appearance at the station, as I knew them at the time. I never did attack him. But how was I to avoid dealing with the subject; when it was brought forward as a matter of charge against me on the Police Vote? If the hon. Member did not wish the subject to be mentioned in his absence, he should have requested his friends not to bring the matter forward and not to insist upon an answer being given. There is evidently some inconsistency here. The hon. Member appears to be greatly aggrieved because I stated that I

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had reason to hope that the hon. Member's injuries were not of a very serious character. Now, I had already expressed regret for his sufferings, but seeing in the public newspapers that he had been able to make two or three trips to the country, was I wrong to draw that inference and to express that hope? I gathered from the hon. Member's statement that the policemen who struck him at the station were the men who had been shadowing him all day. If that is the case the hon. Member can, without difficulty, bring an action against them in a Court of Law. With respect to the request of the hon. Member for Cork that the police should be numbered, the hon. Member is no doubt aware that that question has been brought before successive Governments. It has always been felt that there are strong administrative reasons against it; it has always been acknowledged that it would not be a convenient practice to put numbers on a police force who, unlike the police force in England, are constantly moving about from town to town and district to district. In those parts of Ireland where the force is stationary, as in Dublin and, I believe, Belfast, the men are numbered.
MR. H. H. FOWLEE: I venture to think that the right hon. Gentleman has failed to appreciate the real point at issue. What he had to deal with was not the question as to what was said in the absence of the hon. Member for Monaghan and whether or not he had acted in a manly way. That is simply a question between himself and the hon. Member. What the House expected him to deal with was this: We are asking that there shall be an inquiry into the truth of the charges made by the hon. Member for North Monaghan on his responsibility as a Member of this House. We ask upon the statement of a Member of this House—and I take it we have not yet derogated from the rule that we believe a Member of this House when he makes a statement here with the full responsibility of his position—for a full inquiry into this matter. The hon. Member has charged the Irish Constabulary with an unprovoked, brutal, and disgraceful assault. We ask for an inquiry into the truth or falsehood of that charge, and we want to know on what ground the right hon.
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Gentleman refuses it. It is not a question of an action at law. The right hon. Gentleman has complained that I want a different mode of administering justice in cases where Members of Parliament are concerned, as against cases concerning private individuals. I want nothing of the sort. Members of Parliament, if they break the law, ought to be treated precisely as any other subject of Her Majesty would be; but in this case there is no allegation against the hon. Member of having broken the law. Had he done so he would have been summoned by the police to answer for it. It must be taken as admitted that the hon. Member acted legally and within his rights under the Constitution, and that he has done nothing wrong. No charge has been brought against the hon. Member that he was acting illegally or improperly, and the House of Commons has, therefore, a right to demand that there shall be an inquiry. A Constitutional inquiry either by the superior officers of the police or by independent Commissioners, such as were appointed by the right hon. Member for Newcastle in the case of the Belfast riots, would soon bring out the truth. It is not proper for the right hon. Gentleman to say that the hon. Member might bring au action against the policeman. That would be no remedy, because the hon. Member cannot know which man struck him, and cannot bring an action against the whole body of police. If an inquiry were held, and if Inspector Concannon were strictly examined before a Commission, the culprit would soon be discovered. Assuming that the state-meat of the hon. Member is correct—and in this House we are certainly bound to believe it—that an unprovoked assault has been made on him, the House of Commons is entitled, nay bound, to insist on an impartial inquiry by a competent authority in whom both sides can have confidence. If the right hon. Gentleman refuses that inquiry, all that was said last night of his conduct, with reference to his being determined to uphold the Irish Constabulary whether they are right or wrong, will be fully justified.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understood from the hon. Member for Monaghan that there were two occasions on which he was attacked by the police; one at the station, and the other in the street

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on an occasion of which I have just heard for the first time. I now gather that the hon. Member received a serious blow at a subsequent period. [Mr. P. O'BRIEN: One minute after.] I have no ground for believing, and do not believe, that the hon. Member went to the station with an illegal or criminal intent. The hon. Member was in a crowd of people which was pressing on the police in a manner which led them to anticipate a serious accident. I greatly regretted that any injury should have been done to the hon. Member. Such things, however, cannot always be avoided. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton has asked me to institute an inquiry like the Belfast inquiry. That is, he asks me to pass an Act of Parliament, and to send three Judges to investigate what was no doubt a regrettable incident, but one of no great magnitude or importance. I will certainly make such inquiry as I can into any new facts which may be brought forward. But the larger inquiry which the right hon. Gentleman appears to suggest, the right hon. Gentleman will himself see is absolutely impracticable.
MR. H. H. POWLEE: The right hon. Gentleman is wrong. I only mentioned the Belfast inquiry as an illustration of an independent inquiry into a serious matter. There is no parallel between the two cases. But I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman could appoint a Queen's Counsel in Dublin, and a layman in whom both parties could repose confidence. These gentlemen might go down to Bandon and hear evidence, and soon get at the truth. It is a Departmental inquiry which I propose, constituted by the right hon. Gentleman, and responsible to him.
MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I do not think we can allow this matter to drop until we get something like a satisfactory answer from the Chief Secretary. We plainly see that what the right hon. Gentleman wants is to shuffle out of inquiry altogether. He gives reasons for objecting to an inquiry which we all know to be bogus and sham reasons. He says if there was to be an inquiry such as that suggested, an Act of Parliament would have to be passed—an Act of Parliament to inquire into a small incident like this in which one individual
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charges a small body of police with committing a grievous and unprovoked assault upon him. The right hon. Gentleman is trifling with the House when he says so. As the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton has said, the Chief Secretary has it in his power to select two or three Queen's Counsel in Dublin, or two or three other independent individuals, who in the course of three days could find out all the facts, and who in the course of a week could report either as to the falsehood or the truth of the statements made by my hon. Friend. It is a scandalous thing after the House has been deeply moved by the narrative of my hon. Friend, I think anybody, every impartial man, who heard the hon. Member must own that his narrative bore upon its face the intrinsic marks of truth, fidelity, and accuracy. It is scandalous after such a grave charge has been made that the right hon. Gentleman refuses on one pretext or another to make any form of inquiry. The only conclusion we can draw from the Chief Secretary's refusal is that he approves of such outrages as that committed on my hon. Friend. Does it not fully bear out the charge made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton when he said the right hon. Gentleman was determined to stand by the police whether they were right or wrong? And when you have a large force like the Irish Constabulary armed to the teeth in favour of the Government, is it not likely they will be incited to commit assaults such as that upon the hon. Member for Monaghan, when they find that the chief Irish Official in the House of Commons is ready to stand by them no matter whether they act rightly or wrongly? Let me cite another fact in proof of the contention of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton that the Chief Secretary encourages and approves of violence. I have in my hand a list of the promotions and transfers in the Police Force, and I find that a County Inspector has been—
THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! That is not relevant to this question.
MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I was speaking of the action of the Chief Secretary in regard to police outrages, and I was about to illustrate my point by giving some examples of the promotion of the

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men who have committed some of the most violent outrages, but I will not pursue the subject. I will make an appeal to the First Lord of the Treasury, He having heard the speech of the hon. Member for Monaghan, I ask him, as the head of the Government in this House, whether or not he is going to back up the Chief Secretary in refusing any inquiry whatever of an independent character into the charges brought against the police of Ireland and the Chief Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman has refused every form of inquiry [Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: I have not.] The right hon. Gentleman contradicts my statement. What form of inquiry has he promised? He has promised that he, the Chief Secretary whom we are charging in this matter, will be the judge and the jury in the case of charges made against himself. We know well what such an inquiry means. From whom will the right hon. Gentleman make his inquiry? On whose evidence will he rely? The very police officials whom my hon. Friend charges with assaulting him, and then we must take the evidence of the police charged, tested by the judgment of the Chief Secretary charged as a conclusive inquiry. In face of that the right hon. Gentleman is merely playing with words when he contradicts my statement that he refuses every form of inquiry. I appeal to the First Lord of the Treasury to intervene in this matter, and not to allow the administration of law in Ireland to be further discredited than it is already, if that is possible, by this refusal in the face of the House of Commons, to inquire into as gross, as brutal, and as unprovoked an assault on one of its Members as ever was detailed.
MR. HUNTER: I am not going to speak on the conduct generally of the Chief Secretary for Ireland; I could not trust myself to express the feeling of disgust and indignation which his conduct has produced, not only in my mind, but I believe in the mind of every honest man in the country. But what has been presented to the Committee? Clear evidence of about as cruel as unprovoked and as brutal a crime, coming almost to the verge of murder, by officers employed by the right hon.
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Gentleman. Here is an opportunity for a Star Chamber. What is the use of a Star Chamber if the right hon. Gentleman cannot find out who are the guilty constables? If he desires to find out the truth he can do so, but we know very well he does not desire to get at the truth.
The Committee divided:—Ayes 83;: Noes 112.—(Div. List, No. 337.)
Original Question put, and agreed to.

Class III.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £50,709, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1890, for Salaries of the Law Officers; and Salaries and Expenses of the Department of the Solicitor for the Affairs of Her Majesty's Treasury, Queen's Proctor, and Director of Public Prosecutions; the Costs of Prosecutions and of other Legal Proceedings conducted by that Department; and various other Legal Expenses, including Parliamentary Agency."
MR. T. M. HEALY: I think it is regrettable that a Vote like this should be proposed immediately after the Vote just taken. This is a Vote which contains the salary of the learned Attorney General for England, an officer whom we all respect and admire very greatly, but under all the circumstances I did anticipate the Vote would not be brought on at this hour (6.10). I thought that non-contentious Votes, or Votes as little contentious as possible would be put forward after half-past five. Naturally we might all have been disposed to go away after half-past 5, as the subsequent proceedings interested us no more. But the moment one important Irish Vote has been disposed of we have proposed another Vote, Irish in everything but name. In view of the Pigott frauds it is impossible we can allow the Attorney General's salary to pass without discussion.
MR. W. H. SMITH: If there is any objection to proceeding with the Vote I will not hesitate in withdrawing it.
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
2. £29,850 (including a Supplementary sum of £18,000), to complete the sum for Criminal Prosecutions and Miscellaneous Legal Expenses.
MR. A. O'CONNOR: Last year I brought the fact under the notice of the Attorney General that the clerks to the Crown cannot, under the law, have any direct or indirect interest in prosecutions, whereas clerks to Magistrates, in country places especially, have an indirect pecuniary interest in prosecutions. The hon. and learned Gentleman admitted that blot upon the administration of the law and, if I remember Tightly, he promised to inquire into the matter and see what could be done. I desire to ask him what has been the result of his inquiries.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir R. WEBSTER,): The matter has by no means escaped the attention of the Government. I caused a Bill to be drafted in the early part of the Session, and was in hope it would be passed. But a difficulty has arisen which makes it impossible to deal with the matter in a short measure. Representations were made to me, I think, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, that difficulties would arise in places where there was a small population in making the prohibition absolute. My original intention was to absolutely prohibit the clerk to the Magistrates having any pecuniary interest in cases coming before the Bench, and I will not say I do not think now that that is perhaps the best solution, but the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton suggested that that would not work well in some small districts. The sole reason why the Bill was not brought forward was that I saw no reasonable probability of passing it this Session.
MR. A. O'CONNOR: The very spots where the difficulties the hon. and learned Gentleman has referred to are the very spots where the most scandals occur.
Vote agreed to.
3. £262,812, to complete the sum for the Supreme Court of Judicature.
MR. L. J. JENNINGS: It may be in the recollection of the Committee that when this Vote was
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last submitted, it encountered considerable opposition. The discussion was closed on that occasion by a specific assurance from the First Lord of the Treasury that the Vote should be thoroughly examined before it was brought forward again; and that such changes should be made in it as were found practicable. A comparison of the present Estimate with last year's will prove that this promise has been most fully and most honourably kept. Not only is there an immediate saving of £15,628, but a still greater saving must be effected by the reforms which are indicated on almost every page. The "Secretary of Presentations," with his £400 a year, is to disappear on the occurrence of a vacancy; two out of the three "principal clerks" to the Judges, receiving£600 a year each, are also to go, and the remaining clerk is to receive £400 a year; three junior clerks will be abolished, effecting another saving of £600 a year. One official referee at £ 1,600 a year is to be sent the same road; the salary of the Official Solicitor to the Supreme Court, now £1,100 a year, will be reduced on a vacancy; the first-class clerks in the Central Office of the Supreme Court will be reduced from 14 to 10, and the second-class clerks from 35 to 28. Similar changes are to be made as opportunity occurs throughout the Vote, and the total saving to the country will not fall short of £30,000 per annum. This is a most satisfactory sequel to the discussion last year, and due credit should be given for it to the Lord Chancellor, who was attacked rather severely in connection with this Vote, though not by me. It is quite evident that as soon as his attention was called to the existence of abuses in this Department, he made a very vigorous and earnest effort to reform them, and he is thoroughly well entitled to the gratitude of the public for his work. But these reforms also afford an ample reply to the charge which is so constantly made against us, that these discussions in Supply never do any good. I maintain that when they are carried on in a proper spirit, they not only serve to check the increase of expenditure, but very often result in a direct saving to the country, although that saving is not always show n at the

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time. The reduction cannot be effected on the instant, but it is carried out in subsequent years, and thus the statement that no saving is effected here is a complete fallacy, although it has received the sanction of the respectable authority of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton. I now call attention briefly to several matters in the Vote which require explanation. First, with regard to the Masters of the Supreme Court, a reduction of four is shown in the Vote, but I have seen notices in the newspapers of the appointment of two others since the Estimates were issued—Mr. George Macdonnell (Times, February 12, 1889), and Mr. E. Wilberforce (Times, March 11). On what terms were the Masters retired? Some of them did scarcely any duties. They were remarkable only for their skill in hiring themselves out as directors of companies. They made use of an important official position in order that they might acquire posts of emolu outside. There was Mr. Hailburt Campbell, Director if the Law Life Assurance Society, of the Law Fire Assurance Rail ny, Bahia and San Francisco Railway Company, Trust and Agency Company of Australasia, Trust and Loan Company of Canada. The fact of his being a Master of the Supreme Court no doubt enabled him to obtain these appointments, which we must assume he did not fill without some adequate recompense. In calculating his pension, the fact ought to have been taken into consideration that he had by no means given the public the whole of his time, and, therefore, he ought not to have been put on the same level as an official who had endeavoured to make an adequate return for his salary. Lower down on the same page (220) we come to those prize specimens of a system—which I hope is now on its death-bed—the five redundant clerks. I proved last year that they had never been near their offices since 1881. I should now like to know on what terms their retirement has been arranged? Having received an average of £600 a year each since 1881 for doing nothing, are they now to be paid that sum, under the disguise of pensions, for going on doing it all the rest of their lives? If so, how can that be reconciled with the sound principle laid
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down by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary of the Treasury in an answer given on the 8th of April last:—
"I need only say that, except in special cases, such as injury, no retired allowance is granted unless, in the opinion of Her Majesty's Government, the holder of the office has given his whole time to the public service."
It is no encouragement to men who do their duty faithfully to know that others who never do anything receive precisely the same treatment. In the interests of the public service, the good and the bad should not receive the same reward. On page 221 the Registrar's Office of the Chancery Division is dealt with. There are 42 persons in this office, among whom £29,712 is distributed. It will be observed that the senior Registrar gets £2,000 a year, three other Registrars get £1,800, four £1,500, and four £1,200 each—very high salaries all of them. Their lines have fallen in pleasant places, for they have little to do, and it may be doubted whether that little is well done. The office was originally established by Lord Eldon, and its present condition is worthy of that enlightened patri. There is no doubt that £10,000 a year would be a liberal sum to pay for the Work while is done in it. I call attention to the clerks to the Registrars at £600 each, and five at £400 each (page 221). By an Order of the Treasury made under the Officers (Chancery) Act of 1869, the salary of clerks to Registrars was fixed at £300 per annum. I cannot find that this Order has been rescinded. Consequently the salaries of these nine clerks should amount to £2,700 a year, instead of to £4,400, as now charged. On page 222 we find the allowances for the Principal Probate Registry. The senior Registrar is down for £1,600 a year, a very high salary, and a foot note states that he receives in addition two annual payments of £1,863 9s. 4d. and £8 16s. 9d. by way of compensation for loss of his office as Proctor. I presume he fulfils duties very similar to those he discharged before. One good salary was given to him in exchange for another. Why should not that have been enough? He is asked to leave one office and to take another. He does so, but the whole of the salary of the first office is given in addition to that of the second, so that if he

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could get his offices abolished on the same terms every five minutes, he would be the happiest man alive. He now draws £3,472 a year from the nation. Let us compare this amount with the salaries paid to some of the most distinguished men in the Civil Service of the country. Sir Algernon West gets only £2,000 a year, Sir Reginald Welby £2,000, Mr. Knox, the Accountant General of the Army, £1,500. Each of these gentlemen has most heavy and responsible duties to perform. The Registrar of this comparatively obscure office actually gets within a few pounds as much as Sir Reginald Welby and Mr. Knox put together. When his office was abolished, and be was put into a similiar office, that should have been deemed quite sufficient in the way of compensation. I invite the Committee to look at the salaries of these officials. The Registrar gets £1,500 a year, his Assistant £1,200, the Chief Clerk £700, three first-class clerks £600 each, and three second-class clerks nearly £400 each. They talk of the golden age, but there is nothing on record in connection with the golden age equal to this. Even the Admiralty itself, though a most htful place, has nothing better to other. I would, however, respectfully suggest that it is high time the occupants of this comfortable little nest were shaken up a little. The Registrar here is one of the luckiest men in the public service. He is down in this Estimate for £1,500 a year, and in the "Finance Accounts" (page 53), his name appears for another £608 12s., as compensation for abolition of office, so that altogether he pockets £2,108 12s. a year, and so far as I am able to understand, he would be abundantly .recompensed for all the work he does if he received one quarter the money. I venture to express the hope that in the further changes which the Lord Chancellor proposes to make in this Vote, he will not go upon the old plans of reorganisation which have been so grossly abused in connection with the Law Courts. In May, last year, a gentleman aged 36, in the Central Office of the Supreme Court, received a pension of £185 a year for life, another got £266 13s. 4d. at the age of 46, and another £61 6s. 8d. at the age of 33. Innumerable cases of this kind
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might easily be cited, but we may perhaps take it for granted that no further additions will be made to the list. I now call the attention of the Committee to a curious and interesting circumstance in connection with this Department. In many, or most, of the offices, the office hours are from 11 to 4, and at this period of the year they dwindle away to a mere nothing. The dwellers in this happy land luxuriate in a long and glorious holiday from August 10th to October 24th, that is to say, throughout the Long Vacation. This is enough to make an unfortunate Member of Parliament turn green with envy. Some of the officials—such as the Masters and others—do absolutely nothing throughout the whole of this period. But even this is not all, for attendance on Saturdays throughout the-year is purely nominal, even when the offices are opened at all. At Christmas there are ten days holiday, at Easter three, at Whitsuntide three, on the Queen's Birthday one. We find, the that in August there are 20 days' holiday, in September 30 other October 24 days, and during the seasons 17 days, to which must be added Saturdays for, say, half the year—or, altogether, nearly 16 weeks' holiday in the course of the 12 months. All these things must serve to impress upon the mind the great advantage of establishing any kind of connection with the noble profession of the law. If a man cannot be a barrister, he should become a solicitor; and if he cannot be even a solicitor he should endeavour to capture one of these berths in the Law Courts. From that time forth an affectionate country will make a liberal provision for him, and he will at once come into possession of all those advantages which, in other callings, flow from a long course of industrious and honest work. It is evident, however, that an era of reform has begun even in the Law Courts, and that the days of jobbery there are numbered. It is perfectly clear that the Lord Chancellor at least is determined that no more scandals shall arise in connection with this Vote, and I think the Committee have every reason to be satisfied with the pledges given that no future opportunities for reform shall be lost sight of; and I, for my part, beg to express my sense of the most thorough and conscientious way in

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which the First Lord of the Treasury, the Lord Chancellor, and the authorities have carried out the promises they gave to the Committee last year.
MR. GEDGE: My hon. Friend and Colleague is usually very correct, but he will excuse me if I point out that he fell into slight error in one particular. The Registrar did not hold office at a salary before his appointment to his present position; he was one of a small body of proctors who had the monopoly of practice in the old Ecclesiastical and Divorce Court; and when the Court was abolished under the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, all the proctors were allowed retiring pensions according to the incomes they made from their practice as proctors. They were not given fresh employment; they retired, and were allowed to practice as solicitors or to do what they pleased One of them, an exceedingly able man, was selected to be Registrar of the new Court to tide over the difficulties of the change of system, and remarkably well he did his work. It is, therefore, incorrect to speak of the transaction as if he were allowed to keep the salary of an office which was abolished, and to accept another office and salary. There was no salary under the old position, but simply the income from practice as proctor, and an allowance of half this was made when that source of income was abolished.
THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON,): I am sure the Committee will agree with me that the Government have no reason to complain of the tone of the remarks of the hon. Member for Stockport. I should have been glad, under other circumstances than those in which we find ourselves to-day, to have gone at length into this Vote to have shown that the reforms have effected considerable saving in expenditure. I think I may say, speaking generally, that the recommendations of the Committee over
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which Lord Justice Bowen presided, have all been given effect to. I may take the opportunity of saying how much we are indebted to the labours of Lord Justice Bowen and the Committee. My hon. Friend has asked me about the Masters. He has correctly stated that six have retired, and there have been two appointments to vacancies arising from retirement without abolition terms at a salary of £1,200, and although in three cases small additions of years have been allowed, I thoroughly endorse the remark that easy berths ought not to be paid more highly than those which are laborious and responsible. At the same time the Treasury are governed not only by rules, but bylaw; and, on the whole, I am distinctly of opinion that in this matter the Government have succeeded in making an exceedingly good bargain for the State. With regard to the redundant clerks, they have all retired, and, therefore, so far as their salaries are concerned, they will not again appear on the Estimates. The result is that four of them have been pensioned on ordinary terms, and one has been given four additional years on abolition terms. With regard to the particular officer alluded to, there were circumstances in his case which certainly entitled him to consideration. A good many years ago he held a position which entitled him to promotion, and at that time the Treasury made a distinct bargain with him that in consideration of his giving up his right to promotion he should continue to fill the office he then filled, and should not be called upon to discharge any other duties than those he was then discharging. It was a bargain which, whether good or bad, was made years ago, and, however desirous we may be to effect reductions, it is equally desirable to keep faith with public servants. I think, under the circumstances, it will be generally admitted that the arrangements with regard to the London clerks are, on the whole, satisfactory, and it is particularly so to see them wiped off the salary list.
SIR R. WEBSTER: I join with my hon. Friend in acknowledging the manner in which the hon. Member for

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Stockport has offered his criticisms. As to the Registrars, I do not think their salaries are too high for the duties they have to perform; and in speaking of the scale allowance has not been made for the annual rise. The compensation received by the Probate and Admiralty Court Registrars was paid under an Act of Parliament in respect of the abolition of the monopoly which they had enjoyed as proctors, the compensation being fixed at half the incomes they had made by their practice; and if they had not been made Registrars others would have been appointed at the present salaries. The offices are not entirely closed during the vacation, and a good deal of work is done; but it may be worth while considering whether the vacation could not be somewhat curtailed. I do not think the Registrars have more leisure than others whose duties depend upon the sittings of the Courts.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: I recognise the success that has attended the efforts of the hon. Member for Stockport. The reductions made indicate what an amount of jobbery has long been going on, and how the abolition ought to have been made long ago. We are not, however, informed how far the saving has been counterbalanced by additions to the pension list and by compensation for abolition of office. I hope, before the Vote is passed another year, we shall have full information on this point. It appears that six Masters have been retired and two new ones have been appointed. Is it possible that two new appointments were made at the time we were making retirements on abolition terms?
MR. JACKSON: No; that is not so.
SIR R. WEBSTER: Six retired in the ordinary course. Two vacancies had to be filled up.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: But we were told the number of years upon which one Master retired on abolition terms. Surely I am not mistaken?
MR. JACKSON: I said one of them had been so retired.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: One is enough for my argument. It is a most extraordinary thing to retire a Master on abolition terms while you are making two new' appointments.
MR. JACKSON: I endeavoured to point out that we did not appoint anyone to fill the place of this particular Master. The two appointments made were to fill vacancies; they were not the result of retirement or abolition terms.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: But I do not see how you can distinguish between the Masters, and it seems to me a mere evasion of the term, and that the country is saddled with unnecessary expense for compensation. As to the Registrars being taken from the Proctors, I believe that is a gross abuse, and I do not think it ought to be continued.
MR. MOLLOT: I am afraid we are not just now in a sufficiently judicial frame of mind to do our duty, that is to take up this Vote and examine it item by item. But I admit much has been done in redemption of the promise made by the First Lord of the Treasury last year; and I hope the hon. Member, who is mainly to be thanked for a saving of nearly £15,000 a year, will continue his examination, in the hope that the House may have more time to attend to the subject next year. It is a curious fact that whenever we attack those institutions that are exclusively legal, we find more fraud in their administration than in that of any other Department.
Vote agreed to.
4. £3,990, to complete the sum for the Railway and Canal Commission.
5. £6,880, to complete the sum for the Wreck Commission.
6. £388,401, to complete the sum for the County Courts.
MR. H. H. FOWLER: I quite agree that the Committee is not in a judicial frame of mind, and I will not go at length into this Vote. But I might suggest to the hon. Member for Stockport that here is a promising field for

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him to extend his inquiries. From a Return which has been laid before the House I find that, while the Supreme Courts sat 226 days a year, there are two County Court Judges who sat under 100 days each, 10 who sat under 126 days, 25 who sat 125 and under, 19 who sat under 200, and only one who sat 222 days. But I do not wish to embark upon a discussion. I am sure the matter will receive the attention of the Government, now that we have brought it under their notice. I wish only to ask for an assurance that this waste of judicial power will be carefully considered.
MR. A. O'CONNOE: If the districts are to be re-cast, and additional work is to be thrown on the Judges, there will inevitably, and not unreasonably, be a claim for increased salary on the part of these Judges, who are by no means overpaid. I cannot agree with the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton that the County Court Judges are overpaid, having regard to the amount and the varied character of the work they have to perform.
MR. H. H. FOWLEE: I do not suggest that the County Court Judges are overpaid, or that their salary of £1,500 a year ought to be reduced by one farthing.
MR. PICKERSGILL: In regard to what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, I would point out that though the Judges in some districts may not sit very many days in the year, still others have even more work than they can get through. This is especially the case in the Metropolitan County Courts, where the work has been very greatly increased, owing to the increasing number of actions which are remitted by the High Court for trial in the County Courts. At least twice as many cases have been remitted during a certain period of the present year to the number remitted in a corresponding period of last year. I am told that the County
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Courts have tried no less than one-third of the actions that were initiated in the Queen's Bench Division. During the past few weeks complaints have been made of some of the County Court Judges; but while the High Court Judges are too often inclined to speak with little consideration of the County Court Judges, there is a growing tendency among the High Court Judges to send cases to the County Courts for trial. With regard to the increased jurisdiction which was given by the Act of last year to the Registrar, it should be borne in mind that the County Court is the poor man's Court, and that it is rather hard that he should not have the right to have his case, however small, tried by the Judge. At present, although the poor man has quite as much right as the rich man to have his case tried by the Judge, there is a tendency to put him off with the services of a judicial officer who is, presumably, of inferior calibre. With regard to an Amendment which appears on the Paper in my name, I had intended to move the reduction of the Vote for the purpose of calling attention to the increasing number of persons annually committed to prison by the County Court Judges for non-payment of debts. In 1887 the number of persons actually committed was 5,293, and in 1888 the number rose to 6,429—that is to say, during last year there were 20 per cont more poor debtors committed to prison by the County Courts than there were in the previous year. That I regard as a serious fact which calls for the attention, and the serious attention, of Her Majesty's Government. When we remember that the persons who are most anxious to press for payment of debts are, as a rule, money lenders, who have, in the first place, urged the debtors to borrow, it seems to me that imprisonment for debt is an anachronism. I do not propose to move a reduction of the Vote now; but, certainly, if the same cause of complaint exists in a future year I shall bring the matter more formally under the notice of the House.
SIR E. WEBSTEE: No doubt in some districts the County Court Judges do not sit very constantly, but it ought to be borne in mind that in the rural districts they have a great deal of travelling from Court to Court, and in the figures quoted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton that fact has not been allowed for. Still, I admit that some re-arrangement of the districts is desirable. The Lord Chancellor is quite alive to this, and the matter will not be overlooked. I do not think that the County Court Judges are at all overpaid. It is, indeed, likely that in the future, when the districts have been re-arranged, and they are required to sit more frequently, it may be necessary to increase their salaries. The working of the new Act with regard to the jurisdiction given to Registrars is being considered by the Lord Chancellor. With respect to remitted actions, I think these ought not to be allowed to interfere with the ordinary business of the Court, and to that end I believe certain of the County Court Judges set apart special days for such cases. The hon. Member for Bethnal Green has referred to the number of committals; but it ought to be borne in mind that no person is committed until the Judge is satisfied that lie has had the means to pay, and has not done so. I can assure hon. Members that the Government are not likely to lose sight of the necessity for making such arrangements as to give the country the best value for its expenditure.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: The subject of the abolition of imprisonment for debt is one of those large questions which cannot be dealt with at this period of the year. I would point this out, however, that it is becoming more and mo re apparent that imprisonment for debt is abolished in the case of big speculators who fail in business, but is more and more put in force in the case of small debtors. It is a manifest injustice that a big speculator who may be ever so
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fraudulent, and who may have made over large sums to his wife, should escape punishment for debt, whilst the poor man is imprisoned for it.
Vote agreed to.
7. £2,000, to complete the sum for Land Registry.
MR. TOMLINSON: It is satisfactory to know that this office is largely improving from a financial point of view. Whilst the receipts last year were only about £800, that amount this year has been received in one quarter. It seems reasonable to expect that in the near future this office, which has been a charge upon the public for so many years, will be able to pay its own expenses.
MR. MOLLOY: If the hon. Member desires these Votes to pass quickly he had better abandon the policy of congratulating the Government on the worst offices in the Estimates. As I wish to keep an eye on this office, I would ask whether there has not been a dead loss on the Vote during the past 12 months?
MR. JACKSON: I certainly cannot say that there has not been a loss up to the present time; but certain changes have been made, and I think that next year I shall be able to announce that there has been no loss during the 12 months.
MR. MOLLOY: As a matter of fact, up to now there has been a loss?
MR. JACKSON: Oh, yes.
MR. MOLLOY: I am perfectly well aware of the fact myself, but I wished it to go forth to the public on the authority of the Government.
MR. A. O'CONNOE: In regard to this office which is receiving new fees it is to be remembered that you have in connection with it a new clerk and two or three new surveyors. These gentlemen's salaries have to be provided out of the fees, and a very practical question arises on that point. We know that for years this office has been practically a sinecure, that the work brought into it is merely nominal, and that the staff which

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existed before these new appointments were made had little or nothing to do. Could not the work now done by this new clerk and surveyors be done by one of the old clerks whose hands are comparatively, speaking empty? What is the justification for these new appointments?
MR. JACKSON: My estimate of the expenditure for the present year is £3,400, and in that is included the salaries of these new officials. From all accounts I have received, the office is not now overmanned, although I am not prepared to say that, in the event of certain vacancies occurring in the future, further reforms may not have to be made.
Vote agreed to.
8. £25,662, for Revising Barristers, England.
MR. J. ROWLANDS: I see that last year we had a Supplementary Estimate of £5,236. Is that now a permanent annual increase?
SIR R. WEBSTER: I do not think so. After the repayments by the Local Authorities in respect of the extra work in connection with the Local Government Bills there will not be any extra charge on this Vote beyond, perhaps, a sum of £100.
Vote agreed to.
9. £12,242, to complete the sum for Police Courts, Loudon and Sheerness.
MR. A. O'CONNOR: Is it contemplated to make a substantial alteration in regard to the Metropolitan Police Courts, especially as to that at Hammersmith?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. STUART WORTLEY,): A year and a half ago Hammersmith Police Court was converted from a half-day Court into a whole day Court, and that has been followed by a complete re-construction of the building, in order to make it suitable to the altered conditions. The new arrangements have been greatly to the convenience of the public. The
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School Board summonses which formerly had to be taken from Hammersmith to Westminster can now be heard at Hammersmith.
MR. A. O'CONNOR: Is it not now the West London Court, with a new district?
MR. STUART WORTLEY: No new district has been created; but the old Hammersmith Court has been re-named the West London Court, on the ground that the Vestry of Hammersmith objected to labelling the Court with the name of their parish, which did not include the Court. There has been a re-arrangement of the duties of the Magistrates, which will make available the services of 22 Magistrates in all the 12 Courts throughout London.
Vote agreed to.
10. £46,586, to complete the sum for Police (England and Wales).
SIR W. BARTTELOT: I wish to ask one question of my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary with regard to pensions and retiring allowances. I would ask if he is prepared to make any statement which would lead us to believe that he has a scheme in preparation for the pensions of the Police Force throughout the country? Since the County Councils have been formed, and we have had the Joint Committee of Magistrates and County Councillors, this question has been raised and discussed.
THE CHAIRMAN: The subject the hon. Baronet is now dealing with has nothing whatever to do with the Vote under consideration.
SIR W. BARTTELOT: At the same time, this is the only opportunity we shall have of dealing with the question of the pensions and retiring allowances of th9 police force. I would ask my right hon. friend, the Home Secretary, if he is prepared to bring in a Bill which will guide the Local Authorities in the future with regard to the pensions of the police?
MR. PICKERSGILL: Metropolitan Members, I think, have reason to com-

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plain that this Vote, in which they are so vitally interested, has been postponed to this late period of the Session. It is clear we cannot, under the circumstances, discuss the Vote as it ought to be discussed. Very naturally inconvenience and friction arise on this question of the police owing to the Legislature having set up a Municipal body in London, whilst it continues to give the control of the police, not to a municipal body, but to the Home Secretary. If the present administration of the police is to be judged by its results, it would appear to be a most signal failure. Crime is increasing in the Metropolis. During the past year it has increased to an alarming degree. In 1887 the total number of felonies committed in the Metropolitan District was just over 20,000, whereas the number in 1888 rose to 25,590. The question with many of the ratepayers in the Metropolis is whether this increase of crime is not due to the fact that the police are being to a large extent diverted from their proper functions of preventing crime and arresting criminals to other purposes. I wish to ask the Home Secretary whether he has considered the desirability of providing police matrons at every station where women are taken during the night. We are much behind the people of the United States in this matter. In 1884 the State of New York passed a law which requires that in every town of 25,000 inhabitants and upwards, there shall be one or more station houses for the detention and confinement of all women who may be under arrest, and that in every station house to which women are taken those women shall be under the charge of a police matron. In Chicago I find that there are as many as 10 of these matrons, each of whom is in receipt of a salary of £130 a year. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will lose no time in following the example of the United States in this respect.
MR. J. EOWLANDS: Although I shall follow the example of my hon. Friend and refrain from going into
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this question at length, I think I have a right to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury and to urge upon him the desirability of his affording us an opportunity of discussing this question fully next year. I find, on referring to the Report of the Chief Commissioner of Police for this year, that there is a change in the construction of that Report, and that it does not contain, as in former years, the separate reports of the Superintendents and Chief Constables. Is there any reason for this? The fact is that these reports were always of great interest to hon. Members, who thereby ascertained the impressions of each Superintendent as to the condition of the neighbourhood over which he had control, and the way in which his men performed their duty. I also wish to ask whether there is any serious possibility next year of an increase of the rate of 9d. in the £1, which is allocated to the Metropolitan Police? It has been indicated by the Home Secretary that next year he may have to ask the House for some alteration of the law. I also wish to draw attention to the fact that in the Report of the Chief Commissioner we find a very peculiar bracketing of public events, for we are there told that "the agitation which centred in Trafalgar Square and the murders in Whitechapel necessitated concentration in particular localities." I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he cannot now see his way to come to some armistice with the people of London so that the men engaged at Trafalgar Square may be utilised for the prevention and detection of crime instead of preventing people from holding peaceful meetings on public matters. I should also like to know whether the duty of £2 charged on the owner of a single hackney carriage for police supervision cannot be* reduced. It is a much larger sum than is charged in provincial towns.
MR. H. J. WILSON: I hope the right hon. Gentleman who has, upon the whole, met us in a conciliatory spirit will give us all the information he can in. regard to the increase of the number of police stations at which women are appointed to look after female prisoners—

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a question in which so many hon. Members feel so deep an interest.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: I desire to call attention to the danger arising to foot passengers in crossing crowded thoroughfares, owing to the reckless manner in which cabs and other vehicles are driven round the corners of streets. In putting the question to the Home Secretary I may emphasise it by a reference to the case in which the aged Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone) was knocked down by a cab under circumstances such as I have alluded to. This, at least, ought to entitle me to the sympathy of the Home Secretary. It is a fortunate thing not only that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian was not killed, but that he escaped any serious injury; and was even able to get up and pursue the cabman. I think that some attention might be paid by the Home Secretary to the state of things of which I com plain. In every other country in Europe there are most stringent regulations to prevent the drivers of cabs and carriages going quickly round the corners, and, looking at the number of accidents that annually occur in London from the want of proper rules on this subject, I say it is a pressing and a serious matter. One cannot walk across a street without keeping an anxious eye on every passing vehicle, and I trust the Home Secretary will endeavour to establish some sort of regulation that will afford security to the lives of Her Majesty's subjects.
MR. MATTHEWS: The matter referred to by my hon. and gallant Friend behind me has engaged the attention of the Government for a long time, but there is some difficulty in dealing with the subject. With regard to the increase of crime which has been mentioned, it is not at all startling when the increase in the population is taken into account. No doubt London would be better off with more police, and policemen stationed at corners to prevent the danger to foot passengers referred to by the hon. Member are especially needed. The Statute with regard to the police
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rate limits the charge to 9d., and there is no intention to increase that sum, except perhaps in connection with a general scheme dealing with Police Courts. There are now matrons in all Police Courts, but it has not been found possible to have them at all Police Stations. The Department meets the need, as far as it can, by sending matrons to search female prisoners; but to provide resident matrons is not either financially or physically practicable under the existing system. Referring to the remarks of the hon. Member for Finsbury, I would point out that the present Chief Commissioner has represented with great force that the Reports of Superintendents are only part of the material on which the Chief Commissioner bases his Report; and it is clearly on the Chief Commissioner's own responsibility that a Report ought to be made. The grievance with respect to Hackney Carriage Duties is a matter that rests with the Inland Revenue Department. I am sorry the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy hangs so much about the street corners, but the police have already ample power to check anything like dangerous driving, whether around corners or straight along the street. I have omitted to say with regard to female matrons that in all new stations I have required that arrangements should be made for the accommodation of matrons.
MR. G. BEUCE: I beg to ask the Home Secretary whether he will grant an inquiry into the circumstances connected with the dismissal of eight police constables from the E Division? Full particulars have been forwarded by me to the Home Office.
MR. MATTHEWS: The Papers in the case have been forwarded to the Chief Commissioner for his observations, and they have not yet returned to my hands. When they do, they shall receive my best attention.
Vote agreed to.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
"That a sum, not exceeding £488,305, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1890, for the Expenses of the Prisons .in England, Wales, and the Colonies."
Whereupon Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Pickersgill.)
Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
Original Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
11. £122,088, to complete the sum for Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Great Britain.
MR. CHANNING: I desire to call attention very briefly to complaints made in certain parts of the country as to the want of variety in industrial training in reformatories. It is stated that the boys are not trained in such a way as is likely to produce any really useful result in their after life. I wish to ask whether a greater variety of training can be introduced? The other question I wish to put is with regard to the industrial schools. A Bill has been before the other House of Parliament which proposes very important changes in the position of the industrial schools. I wish to ask what are the intentions of the Government in regard to this Bill in the coming Session, and whether it is proposed to proceed on the lines already laid down? When it comes down to this House there will be considerable opposition to the proposal to withdraw the industrial schools from their relationship to the School Boards? It is important that the School Boards should retain their position in regard to these schools, so that they may carry out their work with respect to a class of children whose education and training present the greatest difficulties and with whom they have specially to deal. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give some intimation as to the intention of the Government with regard to legislation on this subject.
MR. MATTHEWS: I must point out to the hon. Member that the Home Office has no direct control over the management of reformatory and industrial schools. The only control I can exercise is by the withdrawal of the certificates of the schools. In regard to other questions to which reference has been made I hope it may be possible to introduce some legislation next year, and I am sure the Government will be desirous to consult the
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opinion of School Boards and other bodies whose advice would have great weight.
MR. A. O'CONNOE: Might not the right hon. Gentleman be a little more stringent with regard to granting certificates upon which grants are made to Industrial Schools? I remember visiting a certain school, and found one section of the boys engaged in wood chopping, and another lot in tailoring. The manager of the school, with a most innocent expression on his face, told me it was an extraordinary thing that when once the boys left the school they could never be induced to work as tailors. I asked what hours the boys were worked. He told me several in the morning (I forget the exact number), and then again after dinner for 4½ hours without a break. With such arrangements as these, who could expect the boys to do anything else than take a strong dislike to tailoring? Surely they ought to have some little variety in their day's proceedings. Their work ought not to be made as irksome as possible. I did not say anything to the manager, as he was so stupid, and it was not worth while arguing with him; but I do wish the right hon. Gentleman would instruct his Inspectors to look more closely into these details of industrial training.
MR. MATTHEWS: If the hon. and learned Member will communicate with the Home Office with regard to any particular instance steps will be taken to inquire into the matter. I think his suggestion is a very valuable one.
Vote agreed to.
12. £19,609, to complete the sum for Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum.
Resolutions to be reported to-morrow.
Committee to sit again to-morrow.
MR. W. H. SMITH: I wish to give notice that it is the intention of the Government to-morrow to move the suspension of the 12 o'clock Rule with respect to Supply, not being Irish Estimates, and to the consideration of the Lords' Amendments to two Bills.
Whereupon Mr. Speaker, in pursuance of the Order of the House, adjourned the House without Question put.
House adjourned at five minutes after Eight o'clock.