Sitting of 5 March 1889

QUESTIONS.

  THE NORTHERN ROMAN WALL.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL(for Sir JOHN LUBBOCK,): I wish to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether it is true that the North British Railway Company have obtained powers enabling them to destroy some of the small remaining portion of the North Roman Wall or vallum; and whether any steps are being taken to place it under the protection of the Ancient Monuments Act?
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. PLUNKET,): I am informed that the North British Railway Company have acquired some ground in the neighbourhood of

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  Falkirk, on which is situated a portion of the Roman wall, and have run a branch line through a part of the wall, at a spot, however, where the remains are not so well defined as they are more to the east. I am told that the railway company have at present no intention of interfering further with the wall, and they can if they like place it under the protection of the Ancient Monuments Act, but I have not any power to complete that to be done.

  CITY OF EDINBURGH POLICE.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if he has received a petition from George Walker touching his dismissal from the City of Edinburgh Police; if it is a fact that Walker has been permanently injured on duty; and, what was the fault alleged against him?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,): The Secretary for Scotland last November received a petition from George Walker on this subject. It appears that in March, 1886, Walker, while on duty, received permanent injury to his knee-cap. He was, however, retained in the Edinburgh Police Force, and was on duty at the Industrial Museum in May, 1888. In that month he was reprimanded for being about an hour late in his attendance, and on a recurrence of the offence he was dismissed. The matter was fully considered by the Magistrates of Edinburgh. I am not aware that there is any reflection on the general character of the policeman; in fact, a gratuity was voted to him.

  THE BALLOT ACT.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate if complaint has been made to him anent an alleged violation of the Ballot Act in connection with the election of a check-weigher at Knockterra Pit, near Cumnock, where the morning after said election sixteen of the workmen were dismissed, and the remainder taken aside ne by one and asked by two managers they had voted for the checkweigher; and what action he purposes taking in connection therewith?
  MR. ROBERTSON: Complaint was made to me on this subject by Mr. Keir Hardie, and I have had it inquired into.
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  It is clear that no punishable offence is constituted by the proceedings alleged to have taken place. Although the Mines Act contemplates that the election of a checkweigher may be by Ballot, the Ballot Act does not apply to such elections. In the present instance, indeed, the election was not in any propor sense a Ballot election, as the voting papers were openly delivered and openly returned. The case, therefore, is not one in which I can take any action.
  MR. CONYBEARE: Has the Lord Advocate received his information from the employers or the workmen?
  MR. ROBERTSON: I have not made inquiry from either the one or the other.

  POLICE ACTING AS GAMEKEEPERS.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if the police in Renfrewshire, and especially the police at Pollokshaws, are instructed by their superiors, or allowed by their superiors, to act as gamekeepers on the estate of Sir John Stirling Maxwell, baronet, of Pollok, and to apprehend and take the names of persons trespassing in pursuit of game, and to examine witnesses and prepare statements for Sir John's solicitors, for the purpose of prosecuting persons who trespass in pursuit of game on Sir John's estates; and, if so, under what Act of Parliament or other authority the above course is allowed?
  MR. ROBERTSON: This matter was referred to me, and, on making inquiries, I am informed by the Chief Constable that the Renfrewshire Constabulary are not allowed to act as gamekeepers in any part of the county, nor are they instructed or allowed to prepare statements for solicitors. If the hon. Member, in putting this Question, has has any special case in view, I shall be glad, on his furnishing me with particulars, to make further inquiries regarding it.

  SAFETY ARRANGEMENTS ON RAILWAYS.
  MR. CHANNINGasked the President of the Board of Trade when he proposes to bring in a Bill to deal with the several points of safety arrangements on Railways, and Returns of overtime work, on which he

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  undertook on the 8th of May last to legislate?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH,): In the debate on the date referred to by the hon. Member, I said that I would endeavour at the earliest opportunity I could find to ask Parliament to deal with questions of public safety in the working of Railways. But I was not able then to fix any time for doing so—other subjects must have precedence of this. On some points, especially in the matter of couplings, further information is necessary before I could undertake to lay a Bill on the Table of the House. As regards overtime, the Returns called for are in an advanced state of preparation, and I hope will be shortly presented. Until they have been considered, I do not think it is desirable to decide what is to be done as to future Returns, which, it is to be observed, we can call for without further legislation.
  MR. CHANNING: I beg to give notice that I will draw attention to this subject on the Vote for the Board of Trade.

  RAILWAY STATISTICS.
  MR. CHANNINGasked the President of the Board of Trade whether the Board of Trade have as yet made any orders on Railway Companies, under section 32 of "The Railway and Canal Traffic Act, 1888," requiring them to furnish additional statistics in their Returns to the Board of Trade; and, if so, on what subjects such statistics have been ordered?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir M. HICKS-BEACH,): The Railway Companies have been very much occupied in regard to the schedules of classification and maximum rates to be prepared under the Act of last Session, and the Board of Trade have not at present called for any additional Returns under that Act. I undertook, however, in reply to a Question from the hon. Member in December last, to deal with Returns as to couplings early this year. The matter has been under my attention, and I shall be glad to confer with the hon. Member as to the most desirable form to be adopted.

  FAIR RENTS IN TYRONE.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland "whether applications to have fair rents fixed in the division of South Tyrone have been listed since 1887 without being heard; and, if he can say when the Commission will sit at Dungannon and Clogher for the purpose of hearing such cases?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The Land Commissioners inform me that the cases in the Unions of Dungannon and Clogher received up to the 26th and 10th of October, 1887, respectively, have been listed for hearing. A list has just been issued for the Unions of Omagh, Irvinestown, and Enniskillen. The Commissioners are not at present in a position to say what Union will be taken up when that list is finished.

  THE ESTATE OF THE LORD LIEUTENANT.
  MR. M'CARTANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with reference to the eviction of the tenant Barr on the estate of the Lord Lieutenant, near Newtownards, whether he is aware that the eviction was carried out under the superintendence of his agent, Mr. Brownlow, J.P., at seven o'clock at night; whether Barr (nursing an infant) and five children were carried out and left in the snow; whether his sick wife was carried out and left lying on some straw in the snow, and all were afterwards placed in the workhouse cart and removed to the workhouse at Newtownards; whether, on the following day, Mr. Brownlow, J.P., procured some dynamite from a road contractor, and having unroofed Barr's house, then destroyed the walls with dynamite; whether this house had been built by the tenant, and without any contribution from the landlord; whether the tenant had offered to the agent £34 on the day on which the agent had agreed to accept £40 in satisfaction of all rent due, and also promised to pay the balance in a few days; whether a few days subsequently Barr offered the full amount agreed upon, but the agent refused to accept same unless Barr would sell the farm and give up his home;

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  whether the rent due was the old rent and not the judicial rent; and, whether, considering the hardships of this case, and of many similar cases in Ireland, he will not advise the Government to bring in a Bill to deal with arrears of rent?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am informed that the agent with the sheriffs officers arrived at Barr's house at 12, noon, and were about to proceed with the eviction whereupon Barr's wife feigned illness. The agent considered it advisable to have the opinion of a doctor before proceeding with the eviction. This occasioned a delay of some two hours and a half. The doctor having pronounced the woman to have nothing wrong with her the eviction was then proceeded with, the agent receiving final possession at seven o'clock in the evening. It is the case that the man Barr, who is in good health, and is now earning £1 a week in Belfast had to be carried out, as he refused to leave, and likewise his wife, but she was not sick as is alleged. This family was not removed to the workhouse in the workhouse cart. A covered conveyance was provided by the agent, but the family would not use it. On the following day the agent did render the house uninhabitable. The house had not been built by Barr, but was on the farm when he came into possession ten years ago, and had been allowed by him to fall into complete decay. The rent due was the old rent. I have already replied to the remaining portion of the Question, but as the hon. Member seems to desire it, I have no objection to repeat that reply, viz.:—The circumstances under which Mr. Brownlow acted were, I am informed, of the following character. Nearly five years ago (April, 1884) proceedings were taken for two years' rent, but owing to illness in the family the proceedings were stopped, and Lord Londonderry gave the tenant a donation of £5. Two years afterwards an ejectment was taken out for three years' rent, but withdrawn on a promise from the tenant to sell his farm. A year afterwards a second ejectment was issued for four years' rent, but further proceedings were delayed on account of repeated promises by the tenant to sell. The agent then offered to take £40 in full discharge of the arrears of £79 9s. 0d. due, on the ex-
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  press condition that the tenant was to sell the farm. The tenant subsequently offered the £40, but would not fulfil the condition as to sale. A warrant for possession was obtained on 13th December, 1888, but the agent consented to stay execution for a month, but as a matter of fact waited until the warrant was about to expire. It is evident that no Arrears Bill would meet a case of this kind.
  MR. SEXTON: I wish to ask whether the conveyance to which the right hon. Gentleman refers was not the cart which was used for the conveyance of fever and small-pox patients; whether the house the Lord Lieutenant blew up with dynamite was not built by the tenants; and whether when Barr offered the full amount the condition of its acceptance was not that the man should leave the farm?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I know nothing about the cart beyond what I have stated, and I very much doubt whether Barr was entitled to the house. As to the remaining question, I have no knowledge of the circumstances mentioned.
  MR. M'CARTAN: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the rent due was the old rent and not the fair rent?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: So far as I understand it the rent was the old rent.

  LETTERS TO MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT.
  MR. ATKINSONasked the Postmaster General by whose authority letters to Members of the House redirected to addresses out of the London postal district are charged again, while those addressed to other places are delivered free; and whether he will cause such unequal treatment of Members of Parliament to cease?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES,): Redirected letters for Members of Parliament are not differently treated from those for other persons, but are liable on re-direction to additional charge, unless both the original and the second address are within the delivery of the same post office. The London Postal District is considered as being within the delivery of the same post office, and letters redirected from one part of London to another are, therefore, exempt from charge, while letters re-directed from

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  any part of London to the provinces are liable.

  THE CASE OF LUKE HAYDEN.
  DR. COMMINSasked the Chief Secretary whether Luke Hayden, of Castlerea, in the county Roscommon, was taken from his bed under a warrant for an offence under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, at the hour of 11.30 of the night of the 3rd instant; whether the door of his house was broken in by the police for the purpose of effecting his arrest; whether he was not hurried off after such arrest by a night train to Castlebar, in another county; whether the warrant for such arrest was directed to issue three weeks before by the magistrates who had adjudicated upon his case; whether he was openly and publicly to be found in Castlerea during the three weeks intervening between the arrest and the adjudication of the Court by virtue of which he was arrested; and, whether he would give directions to the police to abstain from such a manner of executing warrants?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Constabulary authorities report that the man mentioned was not arrested for an offence under the Criminal Law and Procedure Act, but under 34 Edward III. cap. I. The warrant was executed by the Police on the day on which it was received by them. No unnecessary hardship appears to have been inflicted on the man by the Police in their manner of effecting his arrest and conveying him to prison.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: Does not the right hon. Gentleman remember that in a debate last Session it was pointed out that the Statute of Edward III. was repealed by the Statute of George III.?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I have no recollection of that. I have a recollection of the debate the hon. Gentleman alludes to, and of a conversation between the hon. Member and the Home Secretary as to the political aspects of the case; but I understand that the Act of Edward III. was not repealed by the Statute of George III.
  MR. SEXTON: We find that a number of persons in respectable positions in life are arrested by having their houses broken into at night, and themselves taken out of bed. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he
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  will give instructions to the police to arrest persons charged with these offences at a time when it is not necessary to take them out of bed?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am most anxious that these arrests should be effected at the most convenient time; but the hon. Gentleman is aware that every effort is being made in Ireland to prevent the carrying out of the law.
  MR. CLANCY: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the second paragraph of the Question.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that the police went to the house, knocked, waited a reasonable time, and, admittance being refused, used such force as was necessary to open the door.

  CAVALRY SWORDS.
  MR. HANBURYasked the Secretary of State for War whether the War Office accepted the Report of the Board of Officers assembled at Dublin in December last to report upon the swords of the 5th Dragoon Guards—namely, that "all the swords in charge of the 5th Dragoon Guards are undoubtedly inferior in quality and quite unfit for military service;" whether both the Major General commanding the Dublin District and the Inspector General of Cavalry in Ireland had concurred in that Report; whether both Lord Wolseley and the Chief Inspector of Small Arms condemned the pattern itself as being too light, and still another "new pattern" of cavalry sword is to be introduced; whether the pattern so condemned was first adopted so recently as 1885, and the defective swords were issued to the 5th Dragoon Guards so recently as last year; whether the same Special Committee which recommended that defective pattern also recommended the tests which are now officially stated to have further weakened it; what guarantee yet exists that the new pattern or the new tests are more to be depended upon than the recent pattern and tests which they replaced, especially as according to those new and weaker tests the Inspector reports that only about 14 per cent are defective of the very swords which the Board of officers report as "all" quite unfit for military service; does the appointment of a Committee relieve of his responsibility the military official definitely charged with, and paid for, the duty of

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  selecting proper swords for British troops; and what is the official title of the officer so responsible, and is he the same official who, in addition to the Adjutant General, signed the Report recently presented to Parliament?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,): My military advisers do not accept the Report of the Board of Officers. My answer to the second, third, fourth, and fifth Questions is "Yes." In answer to the sixth Question, the new pattern and the new tests have not yet been decided upon. In answer to the seventh and eighth Questions, the Committee must be regarded as responsible for the pattern and the tests to be applied. But, their recommendation having been approved, the Director of Artillery is responsible that the pattern is adhered to, and that no sword is passed into the service which has failed to pass the tests.
  In further answer to Mr. HANBURY,
  MR. E. STANHOPE said: The contract price of cavalry swords of the 1885 pattern was with Solingen (which made 20,000 swords) 20s., and with Birmingham (where 7,500 were made) 24s. The price of the swords of cavalry officers varies, I am informed, from £2 12s. 6d. to £7. My answer to the fourth Question is in the affirmative.

  CAVALRY SWORDS.

    THE ALLOTMENTS ACT, 1887.
    MR COBBasked the President of the Local Government Board whether, as the period has expired during which sanitary authorities can make application for Provisional Orders to acquire land compulsorily for allotments under "The Allotments Act, 1887," he can state how many of such applications have been made, and the names of the sanitary authorities making them?
    THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE): I have received two such applications, one from the Wayland Rural Sanitary Authority, and the other from the Shipston-on-Stour Rural Sanitary Authority.

    TELEGRAPHIC MONEY ORDERS.
    MR. HENNIKER HEATONasked the Postmaster General if there is likely to be much further delay
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    in introducing into this country the telegraphic money order system which has been adopted on the Continent and in the Australian Colonies?
    MR. RAIKES: In reply to the hon. Member, I am glad to be able to state that I hope very shortly to announce to the House the date on and from which telegraphic money orders will be introduced by way of experiment in this, country.

    POSTAGE TO INDIA OF ENGLISH NEWSPAPERS FROM FRANCE.
    MR. HENNIKER HEATONasked the Postmaster General whether the practice of sending from England newspapers for India and China to be posted in France is legal; and on what figures the calculation that the Revenue does not suffer from the practice is based?
    MR. RAIKES: As the Post Office has no monopoly in the conveyance of newspapers, the practice alluded to by the hon. Member is perfectly legal. To show the hon. Member how it is that the British Revenue does not suffer by the practice, I may state that, for a 4-oz. newspaper posted here for India, the postage prepaid by the sender is 1½d., out of which ½d. goes to France and Italy for the special transit across those countries, and ½d. is credited to India towards the cost of the Inland Service there, so that only ½d. remains towards the expense of collection, sorting, stamping, and conveyance to Dover, not to mention the sea conveyance from Brindisi to Bombay. If the same newspaper were posted in France, it would cost us absolutely nothing, while we should receive from France for the sea conveyance ¾d.

    THE MILITIA.
    VISCOUNT BARINGasked the Secretary of State for War whether it is true that the Militia is at present about 22,000 men under its establishment; and whether any steps are being taken to complete the force to its proper strength?
    MR. E. STANHOPE: It is true that by the latest Returns the Militia was more than 20,000 men below its establishment. The reward for a Militia recruit has, therefore, been raised from 1s. 6d. to 2s. 6d., and I am glad to say the results

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    have so far been satisfactory. The effective strength of the Militia was raised by 1,687 men in January, and the increase continued during February.

    THE SPECIAL COMMISSION.
    MR. COBBasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is a fact that Mr. Robert Anderson, of Scotland Yard, in January last, at his private residence in Linden Gardens, handed to a Times witness calling himself Le Caron (who described himself as a military spy, and whose real name was Beach), a number of confidential documents, forming part of a correspondence which had come into Mr. Anderson's possession in his official capacity; whether it is a fact that Mr. Anderson at the same time, voluntarily and unasked, gave Le Caron a letter of introduction to Houston, who was assisting the Solicitor to the Times in obtaining evidence, and said that Houston was a gentleman upon whom Le Caron could rely implicitly, and that Houston had been selected as representing the interests of the prosecution; whether it is a fact that Mr. Anderson at the time he handed the documents to Le Caron said that he had chosen or culled from the correspondence what he thought Le Caron would need in the case; whether it is a fact that the documents were allowed to remain for a considerable time in the custody of Houston at his rooms in Cork Street; whether he was aware that Le Caron swore before the Special Commission to the truth of the facts named in this Question, and, further, that he had never heard Houston's name until it was mentioned to him by Mr. Anderson, and that, in giving the introduction to Houston, he understood Mr. Anderson to mean that Houston was a gentleman whom the Times could trust; whether he has ascertained from Mr. Anderson if Le Caron's evidence is in these respects true; and, if true, what action he will take in the matter; and whether, if Mr. Anderson stated that the evidence was false, the Government will prosecute Le Caron for perjury?
    MR. JOHN ELLIS, had also given notice—
    "To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether, as he has admitted that the handing over by Mr. Robert Anderson of
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    confidential papers in his possession in his official capacity to a man calling himself Le Caron (a witness for the Times newspaper), to be taken away and used by Le Caron, and Houston, was done without the knowledge or authority of the Secretary of State and not by order of the Special Commission, he proposes to take any action with respect to this conduct of a person holding such a position as that of Assistant Commissioner of Police."
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,): I will answer the Question of the hon. Member for Rugby and that of the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division (Mr. John Ellis) on the same subject at the same time. I have already, in an answer to the right hon. Member for Derby, stated that Mr. Anderson will be called as a witness before the Special Commission, and he can then be cross examined as to his action in regard to Le Caron and as to the character of the documents he handed to Le Caron. I must decline to anticipate Mr. Anderson's evidence by answers in this House, or to express any opinion as to the truth of Le Caron's evidence while the Commission is still sitting. Nor can I, with respect to Mr. Anderson, add anything to what I stated in the House on March 1.
    MR. COBB: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman if he has ascertained from Mr. Anderson whether Le Caron's evidence is true or false?
    MR. MATTHEWS: That is exactly the Question which I must decline to answer.
    MR. JOHN ELLIS: My Question does not relate to anything that Le Caron said. I wish to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman, having admitted in the House that these things were done, does not think it necessary to have a special investigation into the matter?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I shall wait the result of the examination of Mr. Anderson before the Special Commission before I take any action.
    MR. SEXTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman guarantee that Mr. Anderson will be examined before the Commission?
    No answer was given to this Question.
    MR. J. MORLEYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is true that Mr. Andrews, the Governor of Downpatrick Prison, attempted to influence P. W. Nally to give evidence in support

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    of the charges and allegations of the Times; whether an agent of the Times visited Nally in Mill-bank Prison without Nally's invitation and contrary to his wishes; whether the agent of the Times represented himself to the prison authorities as the friend of Nally; and, if not, then on what ground he was admitted; whether the agent of the Times produced a letter, purporting to be written by John W. Nally, the prisoner's brother, recommending the prisoner to accede to the wishes of the agent of the Times; and whether the interview took place in the presence and in the hearing of a warder?
    MR. MATTHEWS: Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to put the first paragraph of this Question to the representative of the Irish Government, whom it concerns? As to the last paragraph, I have to say that Nally was visited in Millbank by Mr. Thompson as the representative of Mr. Soames, who made the application for leave to visit. The visit was not in consequence of any invitation by Nally, who expressed no wish one way or another. Mr. Thompson did not represent himself as a friend of Nally's. He was admitted as a representative of Mr. Soames. No letter was produced of the kind specified, or of any kind. The interview took place in the view but not in the hearing of the warder.
    MR. J. MORLEY: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the alleged letter of Nally's brother was produced to the prisoner with a view of inducing him to give certain evidence?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I have no information on that point.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I should like to know whether it is the practice, under the rule allowing a prisoner to have visitors at stated times, to send in persons under the name of visitors who are the agents of solicitors without a request from the prisoner?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed that it is the practice of the Prison Commissioners to allow solicitors who desire to see prisoners on business to pay a visit independently of the visits paid tinder the ordinary prison rules.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: Does the right hon. Gentleman mean the solicitor to the prisoner or a hostile solicitor?
    MR. MATTHEWS: A solicitor who represents that he desires to see the prisoner on business.
    MR. J. MORLEY: Are we to understand that that rule applies where the prisoner himself expresses an objection to receiving visitors, as in this case?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed that in this case the prisoner did not express objection to receive the visit.
    MR. J. MORLEY: May I ask whether the prisoner did not object to a repetition of the visit?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I must ask for notice of that Question. My information is that Nally expressed no wish either one way or the other.
    MR. J. MORLEY: I will now put to the Chief Secretary the first paragraph of the Question.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I was on my way to the House when my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary asked me to answer it. I am making inquiry, and I shall be glad to answer when I can.
    MR. SEXTON: I desire to ascertain whether Nally had any opportunity of expressing a wish one way or the other? Was he informed of the visit in advance?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I have given the House all the information in my possession. If further information is desired, I will make inquiry.
    MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN: Since this agent of the Times was permitted to visit Nally, may I ask why a friend of Nally's was refused permission to visit him, on the ground that he (Nally) had forfeited his right to visits on account of misconduct, though Nally assured me that he had never been once reported during the whole time of his incarceration?
    MR. MATTHEWS: Perhaps the hon. Member will put that Question on the Paper.
    MR. W. REDMOND: Are we to understand that any solicitor who states that he has got business with a prisoner will be admitted at once by the Governor to see him?
    MR. MATTHEWS: The ordinary practice of the Prison Commissioners is to admit a solicitor, or his representative, who says he has business with a prisoner, to see him.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I think we should understand this clearly. Is it

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    sufficient for any solicitor to present himself at any prison, and state that he desires to see a prisoner on business, to entitle him to admission?
    MR. MATTHEWS: He must have first asked for and obtained the permission of the Prison Commissioners.

    THE SPECIAL COMMISSION.

      PUBLIC MEETINGS ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT.
      SIR CHARLES RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether it is true that Mr. H. W. Lees informed Mr. Munro twice by letter of the intention to hold a meeting on Sunday near Cleopatra's Needle on the Embankment, and that Mr. Munro gave no reply, and did not intimate to Mr. Lees his intention to prevent such meeting; whether such meeting was in fact forcibly prevented; and, if so, on what ground and upon whose authority; whether it is true that Mr. Hyndman arranged with a Police Superintendent that the meeting should instead be held near the Achilles Statue in Hyde Park; and, whether such meeting was forcibly suppressed and several assaults committed by the police; and, if so, what is the justification (if any) of such proceedings?
      MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I wish also to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he has now any information to give the House as to the dispersal of the meeting on the Embankment on Sunday?
      MR. MATTHEWS: I will answer both Questions at the same time. The answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. The letters conveyed a notice that certain persons intended to hold a meeting in a public thoroughfare. The Commissioner did not consider it his duty to enter into any correspondence on the subject. The meeting was not forcibly prevented, as the persons assembled did not persist in holding the meeting after they were warned, but proceeded to Hyde Park. The Commissioner is not aware that any arrangement was entered into between Mr. Hyndman and any police superintendent as to meeting near the Achilles statue. A meeting was held at the statue and was not suppressed by the police. The meeting after a time showed a tendency to become disorderly, some stones were thrown at the police, and
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      there was a danger of the crowd getting on to and injuring the statue, the chain round which was broken. Mr. Burns advised the crowd to meet at the Reformers' Tree and the advice was followed. The Commissioner denies that assaults were committed by the police, who acted throughout with forbearance.
      SIR C. RUSSELL: I wish to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman's attention has been called to the fact that in some of the public papers the numbers of the constables who committed the assaults have been given; and whether he has caused inquiry to be made into those facts?
      MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, Sir; I have caused inquiries to be made, and I have given the hon. Gentleman the answer.
      MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: Are the public to understand that they are not to be permitted to meet at Cleopatra's Needle, and whether this neighbourhood is to be looked upon as a prohibited area like Trafalgar Square?
      MR. MATTHEWS: The public must understand that meetings in a public thoroughfare which cause an obstruction in that thoroughfare will not be permitted.
      MR. GRAHAM: Then I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware of the object of this particular meeting; that it had no political bias whatever, but was called simply to consider the condition of the starving poor in London?
      MR. MATTHEWS: The object of the meeting can have no bearing whatever on the question, which is, whether the meeting obstructs the thoroughfare or not.

    POST OFFICE VEHICLES.
    MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCK: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether any steps have been taken to furnish vehicles used for the service of the General Post Office in London with lamps to be lighted when required; and if he will explain why a provision so necessary for the protection of the inhabitants of London has not been hitherto enforced?
    MR. RAIKES: In reply to the hon. Member, I beg to say that I have arranged that all the vehicles employed in the Mail Cart Service in London shall carry lamps after dark.

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    This arrangement is being actively carried out by the contractors, and the greater portion of the vehicles—if not all—have now been fitted. Previous contracts for the Service did not provide for lighting the vehicles, but in the contracts which I have lately entered into I reserved the power which I have now exercised of calling on the contractors to provide lamps.

    DETECTIVES IN THE LOBBY.
    MR. W. A. MACDONALD: I wish to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether it is true, as stated in the Star newspaper on Satarday, that a large number of detectives were stationed in the Outer Lobby of this House on Friday night; if so, by whose authority they were placed there and with what object?
    MR. MATTHEWS: No, Sir. I am informed by the Commissioner of Police that this statement is untrue.
    MR. W. A. MACDONALD: Does the right hon. Gentleman assert that there were no detectives in the Lobby on Friday night?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I submitted the hon. Member's Question—namely, whether a certain statement was true—to the Commissioner of Police, and the answer is that it is untrue.

    WALES AND THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT.
    MR. THOMAS ELLIS: I beg, Sir, to ask the President of the Local Government Board when the Welsh version of the Local Government Act, 1888, will be published; also whether his attention has been directed to the published opinion of the Attorney General that the proceedings of the Welsh County Councils must be carried on and recorded in the English language; whether he is aware that the section of the Statute on which this opinion is based enacts that no person or persons that use the Welsh language shall have or enjoy any manner of office or fees within Wales upon pain of forfeiting the same offices or fees unless he or they exercise the English language; and whether he intends to enforce the provisions of this Statute?
    Mr. Mr. RITCHIE: The whole of the translation of the Local Government
    964
    Act into Welsh has been completed; but there has been some difficulty in the printing. I am unable to say precisely when the translation will be issued, but I will press it on as rapidly as possible. My attention has not been drawn to an opinion of the Attorney General to the effect that the proceedings of the Welsh County Councils must be carried on and recorded in English. But I am aware that there is a section in the 27th Henry VIII., cap. 26, which contains a provision to the effect that no person or persons that use the Welsh language should have or enjoy any manner of office or fees within Wales upon pain of forfeiting the same offices or fees, unless he or they exercised the English language. I am not at present aware of any case in which it would be necessary for me to exercise any power I may possess in this matter. If any case is brought under my notice, I must, of course, consider all the circumstances of it.
    MR. THOMAS ELLIS: Will the Attorney General state whether in his opinion offices under the Local Government Act would be forfeited?
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL: NO difficulty has arisen in Wales on similar matters, but at the same time no legal question has been raised.
    MR. J. CALDWELL: In view of the forthcoming Local Government Bill for Scotland, will the right hon. Gentleman arrange that it shall be translated into Gaelic?
    The Question was not answered.

    MARGARINE.
    MR. BOND: I have to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether a memorial has been forwarded to him from the Court of Quarter Sessions of Dorsetshire, representing that the Margarine Act is being evaded; and what course Her Majesty's Government intend to take in the matter?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I understand that a memorial has been received, but no decision has yet been come to with regard to the matter.

    CAPTAIN WISSMANN.
    MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: I beg to ask the

    965
    Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been called to a telegram, through Reuter's Agency, dated Alexandria, 25th February, which states that "Captain Wissmann has arrived here on his way to Zanzibar. He proceeds to-night to Cairo, where he will probably recruit a force of some hundred blacks;" and whether the consent of the Egyptian Government has been obtained for the enlistment of its subjects?
    SIR J. FERGUSSON: Her Majesty's Government are aware of the project of Captain Wissmann, of the German Army. Sir Evelyn Baring has reported his arrival at Cairo, and has stated that his proceedings have not received any official sanction; but that the Egyptian Government do not propose to put any obstacles in the way of his endeavouring to obtain by purely voluntary enlistment a few blacks for service in a police force. He adds that there are a good many blacks at Cairo, emigrants from the Soudan, and others, who are out of work, and who will be benefited if employment can be obtained for them.

    CAPE COLONY PRISONS.
    MR. BRADLAUGH: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any steps whatever have been taken by the Colonial Authorities since August last to remedy the wretched state shown by the Report on the Penal Establishments in Cape Colony to then exist in the Colonial prisons; whether the evils reported on have been known to the Government for more than two years; whether any representations have been made to the Colonial Authorities by the Secretary of State; and, if he will lay upon the Table the Report on this subject made by the Committee on Convicts and Gaols appointed by the Cape Town Parliament?
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Baron H. DE WORMS,): I informed the House on the 26th ult. that the Cape Government had taken immediate steps by legislation to remedy the condition of the Colonial Prisons. The Secretary of State is not aware how long the evils reported upon have been known of the Colonial Government; they were not known to Her Majesty's Govern-
    966
    ment until the Report disclosed them. No representations by the Colonial Authorities have been made to the Secretary of State. It is not the duty of the Secretary of State to supervize the internal administration of a colony under responsible government. It would not be right to publish the Report here without a statement of what has been in pursuance of it.
    MR. BRADLAUGH: On the Colonial Vote I will call attention to the fact that no steps whatever have been taken to remedy the evils complained of.

    THE SALVATION ARMY.
    MR. COGHILL: I wish to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, whether, when during the last five years officers and members of the Salvation Army have been sentenced in England to terms of imprisonment, they have been subjected to the ordinary prison discipline and to the ordinary prison rules; and, whether, during their imprisonment, they have had to clean out their cells and to wear prison dress in common with other prisoners, and to take exercise with other prisoners.
    MR. MATTHEWS: The answer to both paragraphs of the hon. Member's Question is in the affirmative.
    MR. DILLON: I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he does not consider that a disgraceful fact?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order.

    IRELAND—THOMAS TRACY.
    MR. M'CARTAN: I wish to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, with reference to the treatment of the bail prisoner Tracy, recently removed from Belfast to Mill-bank Prison, whether he can now say if the prison authorities supply dinners of joint, dessert, and beer or porter, to bail prisoners in Ireland; and, if not, whether such dinners were supplied at the expense of the proprietor of the Times to Tracy during his imprisonment at Belfast, or by whom these dinners were supplied to him there; whether he will state by whom the Freeman's Journal, containing reports of the proceedings at the Special Commission, was supplied to Tracy daily at Belfast Gaol; and, whether the Prisons Board, while

    967
    allowing him to be visited by officers of the Royal Irish Constabulary to get up evidence for the Special Commission, without the presence of a warder, refused to grant such visits to the solicitors acting for him, and who at his request made application to be allowed similar visits?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As this is the first Question asked me, and as there are several on the paper relating to this matter, I may explain the action the Government have taken, or are supposed to have taken, in connection with the Special Commission. The Government consider it their duty to aid the parties in this as they would in any other judicial investigation. They will afford that aid to either party, but hitherto only one party has been giving evidence, and the Government have afforded such information as has been asked for. With regard to the Question on the paper, I understand that the prison authorities do not provide bail prisoners with food and drink of the nature indicated in the Question. The dinners supplied to Tracy at Belfast were not at the expense of the proprietor of the Times, nor had they any connection whatever with the Special Commission trial, but were provided by the police authorities in connection with a totally different matter. A newspaper was also supplied to the man under precisely the same circumstances. I am informed that the man was not visited by officers of the Royal Irish Constabulary for the purpose alleged in the last paragraph. I am not aware whether it is the case, as alleged, that the solicitors acting for the prisoner were refused admittance, but have directed inquiry to be made.
    MR. DILLON: As the right hon. Gentleman has stated that the Government feel themselves bound to aid either party in obtaining evidence, will he undertake to produce the informer Cullinane, whom he refused to produce on Friday?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not consider that refusing to give up the name of an informer, whose life might thereby be endangered, is "refusing aid" to either party.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether Le Caron was an informer?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I know nothing about Le Caron.
    MR. SEXTON: Can the right hon. Gentleman explain why it was that when Tracy's solicitors at Belfast applied to see the prisoner on a matter affecting his liberty the right was refused to them?
    MR. A. T. BALFOUR: I have not received any information on that point.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Is not Cullinane the man whom hon. Gentlemen have declared ought not to be believed on his oath?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

    THE CLONMEL DISTURBANCE.
    MR. CONDON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whether his attention has been called to the report in the Freeman's Journal of the 4th instant, of the assault made by the police on the people at and outside the railway station, Clonmel, on the arrival of Dr. Tanner, M. P., thereon Sunday morning last; whether he will give the name of the policeman who told the representative of the Tipperary Nationalist to "go to the devil," on his asking to see the sergeant in charge, with the view to get admission to the station as a pressman; whether he will also give the name of the constable who on that occasion said "that they were determined to make these fellows smell pepper to night;" whether he is aware that this reporter was afterwards, when quietly standing against the wall, attacked by constables, who assaulted him with batons, and caused him to bleed profusely, by inflicting several severe wounds on him; whether it is true, as reported, that the police subsequently set upon the people indiscriminately, using their batons freely on every person within their reach; whether he will give the name of the officer who is alleged to have brandished his naked sword at the prison gate, swinging it about in the face of the people; and, whether, considering the number of innocent persons maltreated and wounded, he will cause an independent inquiry to be made into all the circumstances in connection with the alleged illegal conduct of the police?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As this Question appears in this morning able to receive a detailed reply. I have, however, received the following telegraphic report on the subject:—

    969
    "Report in to-day's Freeman of occurrences at Clonmel on Tanner's arrival on Sunday morning much exaggerated; some stones were thrown at police, who, using their batons, at once dispersed all crowds; no one seriously injured. It is true that a military officer at chapel ordered soldiers to leave; attempts were made outside to roughly handle him, but police at once interfered. Warrant to arrest man who committed assault was issued."

    HOUSING OF THE POOR.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has now made arrangements for the reprint in a cheap and popular form of the Report of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Poor, and of Mr. Burnett's Report on the Condition of the Nail and Chainmakers; whether he is aware of the difficulty Mr. Burnett experiences in obtaining statistics from the various societies to whom he applies for Returns; and, whether he could make any arrangements to facilitate his work in this respect?
    MR. MATTHEWS: Arrangements have been made and the Report of the Royal Commission on the Housing of the Poor will shortly appear in a cheaper form. No arrangements have been made by me as to the re-issue of Mr. Burnett's Report. This is a matter for the Board of Trade. I am informed by the Board of Trade that they are aware of the difficulties experienced by Mr. Burnett, but they hope to make some arrangements by which more extended information will be obtained.

    POLICE PROCLAMATIONS.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I have to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the proclamations issued by the late Commissioner of Police are still being acted upon by the present Chief Commissioner; and, if so, by what authority does he continue to keep in force such proclamations?
    MR. MATTHEWS: The order of the late Commissioner of Police has never been revoked, and is maintained by the same authority as that under which it was issued.
    MR. CONYBEARE: On whose authority were these proclamations issued?
    MR. MATTHEWS: Under the authority of the Commissioner of Police.
    MR. CONYBEARE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Police Act
    970
    gives no authority to issue such proclamations?
    MR. MATTHEWS: No, Sir; I am aware of the exact opposite.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I will call attention to this matter on the Police Vote.

    THE POLICE AT PUBLIC MEETINGS.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I wish to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has made any inquiry, and with what result, as to why and by whose authority one inspector of police and six constables were told off for special duty in Abbey Street, Bethnal Green, on Wednesday evening last, on the occasion of a lecture by the hon. Member for Camborne in the Bethnal Green Radical Club; and whether the orders issued to the police authorize them to go into private houses and demand copies of placards announcing such a lecture when they can read them posted on the walls in the street?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I have made inquiry, and am informed that, in accordance with the usual practice of the police, one police sergeant and four constables were told off to preserve order in case of need in the vicinity of the meeting at the Bethnal Green Radical Club on Wednesday last. No orders on the subject have been issued by the police authorities, but the practice is for the police to obtain copies of bills announcing meetings, when they can do so without offence, in order to ascertain the probable character of the meeting and the police precautions which ought to be taken for the protection of those who attend.
    MR. CONYBEARE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the bills convening this meeting were posted on the walls of a street adjoining the club, and that there was absolutely no necessity for the police to insult private people by demanding them?
    MR. MATTHEWS: I have read the report of the police constable, and there is not a word to show that he insulted anybody.

    IRELAND—THE SPECIAL COMMISSION.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a notice to the following effect is posted

    971
    up in the waiting room at the office of the solicitor of the Times newspaper:—
    "To Members of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Members of the above force will please enter their names in the book kept in the office for that purpose. Signed (by Order),
    F. B. LOPDELL, County Inspector."
    By whose authority was the said inspector permitted to post such a notice in the office of a private firm of solicitors; and, whether he will cause an authenticated copy of such book, containing the names of the Royal Irish Constabulary who have frequented Mr. Soames' chambers, to be placed upon the Table?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am informed that it is the case that County Inspector Lopdell, who is the senior officer in charge of the members of the Constabulary Force in London, posted the notice referred to. He did so with a view to secure an efficient disciplinary supervision over the men, who would, as a matter of course, have to report their presence to the solicitors for the party at whose instance they were subpœnaed.
    MR. CONYBEARE: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the last paragraph in my Question.
    MR. BALFOUR: No, Sir; I will not do as is asked.

    IRELAND—IMPRISONMENT OF MR. CAREW, M.P.
    MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether Mr. Carew, M.P., was yesterday removed from Kilkenny Prison to Kilmainham Prison; whether his clothes, which had been taken from him by violence on his arrival at Kilkenny, ten days before, were restored to him yesterday, before setting out for Kilmainham; and, whether his clothes will be again taken from him?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Orders were given on Saturday to transfer Mr. Carew to Kilmainham Prison, with a view of facilitating his communicating with his solicitor in connection with the libel action pending against him. I understand that, under the orders of the medical officer of the prison, he is at present wearing his own clothes.
    MR. SEXTON: Will his clothes be taken from him again?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That depends on the medical officer.
    MR. CONYBEARE: How long does the Chief Secretary propose to continue these brutalities?
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

    IRELAND—THE SPECIAL COMMISSION.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury how long Captain Plunkett and other Divisional and Resident Magistrates have been in London during the sitting of the Parnell Commission; what was the object of their protracted residence here beyond the time necessary to give their evidence; and, whether any of the Divisional or Resident Magistrates have collected evidence in Ireland, communicated with witnesses in London, or with the agents and counsel for the Times newspaper; and, if so, by what authority they absented themselves from their duties for such a purpose?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman will have gathered from my answer to a previous Question that I cannot give a Return—at least, at the present time—with regard to the officials connected with the Irish Government who have been summoned to London on subpoena by the Court. He will also have gathered that their prolonged absence from Ireland has been a cause of inconvenience to the Irish Government, in respect of which we have strongly protested. They have resided in London for no other purpose than to give their evidence before the Commission. It does not rest with the Government to decide either the date at which they were summoned from Ireland or the date on which they have been or will be required to give their evidence in Court. I have no doubt that all the witnesses summoned by the Times have communicated with the agents and counsel of the Times.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the Question as to how long Captain Plunkett had been in London.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I did not answer that part of the Question because it appeared to me that the particulars required would be exactly of that kind which would be included in the Return asked for, among others, by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Longford, and by the right hon. Gentleman himself. I can, however, find out

    973
    for the right hon. Gentleman how long Captains Plunkett and Slacke have been in London. They were here simply on subpoena, and solely for the purpose of giving evidence; and allow me to say that the length of time these and other persons subpœnaed by the Times have been kept in London has been a cause of great inconvenience to the Government, against which we have seriously protested on more than one occasion.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I will repeat my Question as to how long Captain Plunkett has been in London. I will now ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Royal Irish Constabulary have been employed to collect evidence, pay money to, and take the proofs of witnesses for the Times newspaper before the Parnell Commission; whether there is any precedent for such a course being followed, and the Constabulary being so employed, in proceedings between private persons or when the case was not one of a Crown prosecution; by whose authority the Constabulary have been so employed; and, whether he will give a Return of the number of Irish constables who have been in London since the commencement of the Commission; how long each has been detained from his duties; and what has been the nature of his employment?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not believe that any Divisional or Resident Magistrates have absented themselves from duty for the purposes indicated in the Question; but I have already stated that, in my opinion, it is the duty of the Government to give all the assistance in their power to the Commission. The Royal Irish Constabulary have not, so far as I know, been employed to pay money to, or take the proofs of, witnesses for the Times newspaper. With regard to the Return, I have already said that I do not think it can be laid on the Table of the House, at all events before the Commission ceases to sit.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: Is the right hon. Gentleman not aware that several witnesses for the Times actually swore that their evidence was taken by some of the members of the Royal Irish Constabulary? In proof of that, I may mention the name of the witness Iago.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not aware of that fact. I believe that
    974
    something of the kind was done at the original trial of "O'Donnell v. Walter." I lay down no general proposition on the point; but, as far as my information goes, no such transaction has taken Place.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I will also repeat this Question on Thursday, and meanwhile I will ask the right hon. Gentleman as to the matter of fact to consult the Attorney General, who sits by his side.
    MR. CLANCY: Does the Attorney General deny that the agents of the Government have taken down evidence?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The House will, of course, understand—I do not wish that there should be any misapprehension on this point—that if a witness is called, be he connected with the Irish Government or not, it is his business to review in his own mind such information as he has got, and to confirm it in every possible way.
    MR. CLANCY: I ask the Attorney General to answer that Question.

    WOODS AND FORESTS.
    MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the Government have determined to refer to the same Select Committee the question of the administration of the Woods and Forests Department, and that of the disposal of Crown rights (especially of fishing) in Scotland by that Department, or whether they will adopt the view suggested by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the debate on 8th November, and have a separate Select Committee mainly of Scottish Members to investigate the latter subject?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: The terms of reference to the proposed Committee on the Woods and Forests Department will not exclude the disposal of Crown rights in Scotland from being investigated.
    MR. BUCHANAN: But has not the Government determined to make a special reference to this subject on the ground that the Woods and Forests Department would not be the best tribunal to inquire into the question raised by the Scotch Members?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: It would be difficult to exclude from the consideration of the Committee dealing with the administration of the Woods and Forests Department the question of the adminis-

    975
    tration of any part of the duties intrusted to them; and the Government, while quite willing to consider the question, would be unwilling to multiply Committees and to make a greater demand on the time of Members than appears to be absolutely necessary. But if it should appear that a Special Committee is necessary, the Government will not refuse it.
    MR. MARJORIBANKS: Are we to understand that the Government has decided not to refer the subject of the Scottish salmon fisheries to a Select Committee?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: The right hon. Gentleman will see that the question of salmon fisheries is a question quite distinct from this question.
    MR. BUCHANAN: Would it not be possible to refer the question of fishing rights in Scotland to the same Committee that the Government have expressed their intention of appointing, and will the Government say that until that inquiry is carried out no more sales of Crown rights in fishing will be made?
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,): There has been no undertaking whatever to appoint a Committee. In the course of the debate to which reference has been made an impression was formed in my own mind, and gave expression to that impression; but there was no pledge whatever, and the statement just made by the First Lord of the Treasury ought, it seems to me, to satisfy the hon. Member. If it should be found that the matter cannot be satisfactorily dealt with by one Committee, it will be the duty of the Government to consider the matter; but meantime the hon. Member is aware of the promise given by the Treasury on the subject.

    CIVIL LIST PENSIONS.
    MR. SUMMERS: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention has been called to the following recommendations with respect to Civil List pensions, which are contained in a work undertaken for and published by the Incorporated Society of Authors; that the sum of £1,200 be yearly voted for the purpose of assisting distinguished men and women of letters, art, and science, by granting pensions when they have
    976
    arrived at the age of 55, or are incapacitated from work by ill-health, mental or bodily, and their widows or daughters, if they are in distressed circumstances; that under no circumstances whatever shall any portion of the money be granted to any persons for public services in the Army, Navy, or any Civil Department, to the Sovereign or to the Country, or to widows, children, or relations of such persons; and, whether he will consider the advisability of adopting any or all of these recommendations?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: I am not aware of, nor have I seen, the publication alluded to by the hon. Member; but the recommendation seems to be that a sum of £1,200 should be placed on the Estimates for providing pensions for distinguished men and women of letters, art, and science. I have great doubts as to the expediency of submitting such a proposition to the House. The language of the second recommendation is of a very involved nature, but the answer I have given above will probably be sufficient.

    SUGAR BOUNTIES.
    MR. PICTON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies (Baron H. de Worms) when he proposes to bring in the Bill made necessary by the Sugar Bounties Convention?
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Baron H. DE WORMS): That is a Question for my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House.
    MR. PICTON: Then perhaps the First Lord of the Treasury will tell us when the Bill will be brought forward?
    MR. W. H. SMITH: I am not in a position to say when that Bill will be introduced, but full notice will be given of it.

    CONVERSION OF STOCK.
    MR. MOLLOY: I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer if it be a fact that he has cancelled a considerable portion of the outstanding Three Per Cent Consolidated Debt, by exchanging it for Local Loans Stock at a price below the quotation current in the market, and how much below the current quotation;

    977
    by what means he obtains command of the Local Loans Stock for this purpose; and, whether he proposes to increase the Floating Debt to the extent of the un-cancelled portion of the Three Per Cents by an issue of Exchequer bonds, and so burden the market with that form of security?
    MR. GOSCHEN: It is a fact that the National Debt Commissioners have bought a considerable amount of the outstanding Three per Cents, though not so large an amount as I have seen stated in the Press, and have also sold Local Loans Stock to some of the parties from whom they bought those Three per Cents. In fixing the price at which to sell the Local Loans Stock, the Commissioners have been able to arrive at, and to act upon, the closest possible estimate of its market value in large amounts, from the fact that tenders amounting to £7,000,000 were lately received for the two and a-half millions of Local Loans Stock offered to the public. The terms of such tenders afford something like an infallible test of the present market value of the Stock. The Local Loans Stock thus sold by the National Debt Commissioners was obtained by them at par in exchange for Consols and for the bonds of the Public Works Loan Board, both at par. As the amount of Local Loans Stock held by the Commissioners on behalf of savings banks was very large, and as the Stock for some time was not as current as was desirable, it has been a great incidental advantage to interest large banks and other leading institutions in this Stock, the future of which, as the means of raising money for various local purposes claiming the aid of public credit, is of such immense importance to the community. In reply to the third paragraph of the Question, I do not propose to create Floating Debt to the extent of the still uncancelled portion of the Three per Cents by an issue of Exchequer bonds; but when I introduce the Bill for completing the conversion I shall ask Parliament to allow me a very free hand in dealing with the responsible task of paying off so large a sum.
    MR. MOLLOY: Is it then the fact that Local Loan Stocks were sold at prices below the quotation current in the market at the time?
    MR. GOSCHEN: I have explained to the hon. Member that the prices at which they were sold were fixed in accordance with tenders which were made for Stock in large amounts, and which afforded a much better estimate of the real value of the Stock than a single transaction in a single day on the Stock Exchange. I must ask to be relieved from answering Questions as to the exact prices which are obtained by the National Debt Commissioners. I am dealing with very shrewd men of business, and if, by means of answers in this House, they obtain the opportunity of looking over my hand, while I cannot look over theirs, the public interest will be placed at a very great disadvantage.
    MR. MOLLOY: I will not press the right hon. Gentleman for any more information now, but I beg to give notice that I will call attention to the matter on a future day.

  MOTIONS.

    NEW WRIT.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. A. AKERS-DOUGLAS) (): I beg to move, "That Mr. Speaker issue a Writ for Lambeth (Kennington Division), in the room of Mr. Robert Gent-Davis, on his acceptance of the Chiltern Hundreds."
    MR. E. ROBERTSON: I do not propose to resist the Motion. I do not call in question the right of the Chancellor of the Exchequer to grant the Chiltern Hundreds to Mr. Gent-Davis, nor do I intend to say a word against Mr. Gent-Davis, now no longer a Member of this House. But I desire to call attention to the singular circumstances under which this Motion is made. So long ago as November last a communication was made to the Speaker by Mr. Justice North to the effect that Mr. Gent-Davis had been committed to prison for contempt of Court in appropriating to his own use and neglecting to pay into Court, in obedience to the order of the Court, a large sum of money received by him in a fiduciary manner. There can be no doubt, in the face of the communication of the Judge, that Mr. Gent-Davis was convicted of having committed a breach of trust in a money transaction. There is equally no doubt

    979
    that the established practice of this House in cases of this kind is to vindicate its honour by the expulsion of the Member guilty of such a transaction. I will only refer to one authority. A Predecessor of yours, Sir, in the Chair, Lord Colchester, in the case of Benjamin Walsh, explained that a breach of trust in a money transaction justified expulsion from the House, and added that the principle extended not only to public but to private property, and that it was commonly the practice of Parliament first to vindicate its own honour, and then to consign the individual offender to legal prosecution. Now, after the communication from Mr. Justice North had been received by the Speaker, the First Lord of the Treasury, the guardian of the honour of this House, was asked what steps he proposed to take, and the right hon. Gentleman said—
    "I do not think it will be my duty to ask the House to take any action in the matter. I am not in possession of information which would justify me in taking that course. I should take upon myself a serious responsibility if I were to proceed, even upon the report of the learned Judge, to ask the House to pronounce judgment upon the financial transactions of the hon. Member."
    I thought that answer so astounding, that I asked the right hon. Gentleman whether he had been advised in the matter, and I received no reply. I can only say that whatever advice the right hon. Gentleman might have received upon the subject was bad advice. Apparently to prevent any misconception as to the nature of the offence of which Mr. Gent-Davis was guilty, Mr. Justice North again, in January, in open Court, put on record the nature of this financial transaction. He said that if proceedings in a Criminal Court had been taken against Mr. Gent-Davis, and if he had been convicted, the period of his imprisonment would have been longer than the imprisonment which he had endured. After all that, the First Lord of the Treasury has taken no steps. Even now he has not taken any, but permitted Mr. Gent-Davis to purge the House, to vindicate the honour of the House, by applying for the Chiltern Hundreds. There is only one other point which I wish to bring to the notice of the House. Her Majesty's Government have sinned with their eyes open and with full knowledge.
    980
    Last year one of the projects of legislation of the Government was known as the "Black Sheep Bill," the main object of which, as stated by the Prime Minister, was to confer upon the House of Lords the same power of dealing with unworthy Members which, he said, the House of Commons already possessed; and one of the main clauses of the Bill was that the report of a Judge that one of the Members of the House of Lords had been guilty of unworthy conduct should be sufficient to justify the House in taking action against that Member. I propose to leave the matter here. As I have said, I did not rise to oppose the Motion. I simply with to put on record my own emphatic protest against the action, or rather the inaction, of the Government in this matter. I do not know whether the First Lord of the Treasury will think it necessary to give any explanation; but, in my opinion, no explanation will relieve the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues from the charge which I now make, that throughout the whole of this painful affair they have been indifferent to the honour of the House, and that by such indifference they have violated one of the best and worthiest traditions of the House of Commons.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): The hon. and learned Gentleman, without giving me any notice, has thought it right to charge me with being indifferent to the honour of the House. I emphatically deny that charge, and I shall be content to leave myself to the judgment of the House when I have made my explanation. I wish to recall the attention of the House to the circumstances of the case. The hon. and learned Member for Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy)gave notice that he would move the expulsion of the hon. Member for Kennington. That Gentleman was not in his place and could not be in his place in the House, and the hon. and learned Member for Longford withdrew that notice, in order that he might bring the question forward at a time when the hon. Gentleman could be in his place in the House and give an answer to the charge which the hon. and learned Member said he would make against him. I am charged with indifference to the honour of this House. It is one of the gravest charges

    981
    which could be made against a man holding the position which I have the honour to fill. I stated, when the matter was previously before the House, that at least one of the duties of the Leader of the House is to be exceedingly careful how he proceeds to deal with a question affecting the personal honour of Members of this House. I have always stated that that is as responsible a duty as any other duty imposed upon me. Complaint has been made that when a charge of apparent irregularity and breach of trust was brought against Mr. Gent-Davis I did not instantly take steps for his expulsion. We indicated that if it were the desire of any hon. Member to bring the conduct of the late Member for Kennington under the notice of the House, the Government would not issue the Chiltern Hundreds to him, so that he might still remain within the jurisdiction of the House. I should have been the first to agree to any inquiry into the conduct of Mr. Gent-Davis. But, as reference has been made to my conduct and the duties imposed upon me, I must remind the hon. and learned Member that there are cases within the knowledge of this House of breaches of trust of the most serious character, which have been committed, and which, as far as this House is concerned, have been condoned, not by the action of Her Majesty's Government, not at the request of Her Majesty's Government, by the issue of the Chiltern Hundreds. But I do not wish to enter upon an explanation of those cases. The honour and character of individual Members of this House is the cherished possession of the House itself; and I say again that I should have been unworthy of the position I occupy if I had made use of the power which is placed in my hands to put an hon. Member in a position of extreme personal difficulty, unless charges were brought before this House which could be investigated, and which could properly form a subject of investigation. I am content with the explanation I have given. I believe that at the time I answered the Question I answered it to the satisfaction of the House itself; and I am not conscious that I have departed from the terms of it.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: Like my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. E.
    982
    Robertson), I certainly do not rise for the purpose of opposing in any way the issue of this Writ, or for the purpose of condemning the Government for issuing under these circumstances the Chiltern Hundreds. I admit that at first the grant in a case of this kind raised considerable doubts in my mind. But on examining the matter, and on the authority of the book to which we always refer in these matters, I found that in recent years all words have been omitted from the grant of the Chiltern Hundreds which formerly attached to those offices. In old days there was a record that the Chiltern Hundreds had been granted in consequence of the honourable services of Members.
    MR. GLADSTONE: And shining virtues.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: The honourable services and shining virtues of the Member who took the post. My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lothian, who probably had some experience himself of the difficulties in these cases, ordered those words to be removed from the grant of the Chiltern Hundreds. Therefore there is no objection to be raised on that score. It is a very inconvenient method—probably belonging to those numerous anomalies which we cherish in the English Constitution—that there should be no other form for a Member resigning his seat in Parliament; and I think it would be well worthy the consideration of the House to inquire whether a simpler method of resignation should not be established by the House. I have no word of criticism or condemnation to make on the grant of the Chiltern Hundreds by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. But my hon. and learned Friend (Mr. E. Robertson) has raised a different question, and that is whether the Government ought not earlier, of their own accord, to have taken this matter in hand. In this regard I do not desire to press the thing too hardly against the Government or the Leader of the House; but I was glad to take notice of his admission of the fact that the honour of Members of this House is the first duty of the First Lord of the Treasury. Later on, perhaps, we may have cause to ask him to discharge that primary duty. But the right hon. Gentleman has said—and the plea was certainly good and valid—that in the first in-

    983
    stance he objected to acting because the hon. Member whose conduct was in question was not able to be present. But when the Member was able to answer for himself—when he was at large—I confess that I should have thought that the persons to take the first action in this matter, by compelling the retirement of the Member in one form or another, would have been Her Majesty's Government, and the First Lord of the Treasury as principally responsible to the House. We know very well that, in the case of persons who ought not to be allowed to fulfil offices of public trust, sometimes their retirement is obtained by the process of enforced resignation, or by public dismissal; and in one form or another I should have thought that it was the duty of the Leader of the House to see that one of these courses was taken. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to cases where breaches of trust have been condoned by the grant of the Chiltern Hundreds. But he must allow me to draw a broad and clear distinction between cases where there has been an open and public Judgment, and cases where the facts are only known by general rumour. The cases are very different, especially with regard to the action of Her Majesty's Government. It is very difficult and almost impossible for a responsible Minister to act on a rumour, however credible it may be; but it is a totally different thing when there is a legal Judgment, as was the case in the matter before the House; because the Judgments of the Court of Chancery are just as much legal Judgments as the Judgments in the Common Law or Criminal Courts. Without desiring to press the matter too hardly, I think it ought to be recognized that, where there is a legal pronouncement in Court on the misconduct of a Member of the House of Commons, the persons who ought to take the earliest and first initiative in the matter are Her Majesty's Government. It ought not to be left to anyone else. I only make these remarks because the right hon. Gentleman said that anyone else might have taken action. That is quite true; but it is primarily the duty of the Leader of this House to take notice of these Judgments in the Courts of Law. That is all I desire to say in the matter, and I hope that I have not said it in any manner offensive
    984
    to Gentlemen on the opposite bench, because I know the delicacy and difficulty of performing a duty of this character, and I hope that, without further comment, the Writ will be allowed to be issued.
    MR. CHAPLIN: I rise to point out that between the manner of the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down and the manner of the hon. and learned Member who opened this discussion there is a very marked and agreeable contrast. It may be a question of judgment as to whether or not action ought to have been taken in the matter before; but the hon. Member for Dundee has gone further. He has said that the First Lord of the Treasury has violated the best traditions of the House; and that in his position as Leader of the House he has shown himself in a marked degree insensible of the dignity of the House. I venture to repudiate every word of that charge. I believe that the vast majority of Gentlemen on the other side of the House do not approve of such allegations against the right hon. Gentleman. When the hon. Member for Dundee brings a charge of this kind against the Leader of the House of Commons he places himself in a remarkably inconsistent position when he follows it up by saying that he intends to take no further action. If it is true that the Leader of the House has shown himself absolutely insensible of the honour of this Assembly, it is perfectly clear that he has no right to occupy such an exalted position. I do not say this as a Member of the Conservative Party, but as a Member of the House of Commons. I say that such charges against the Leader of the House ought not to be made unless further action is intended. The hon. Member for Dundee ought to withdraw these charges, or ought not to be allowed to let them rest as they at present stand.
    MR. E. ROBERTSON: I should like to make a personal explanation. My statement was really in the nature of a syllogism. I stated that it is not denied that the First Lord and his colleagues are the guardians of the honour of the House, and that it is not denied that it is the practice of the House to vindicate its honour by taking immediate notice of charges such as those which have been made against Mr. Gent-Davis. I inferred that in not taking immediate

    985
    action the First Lord of the Treasury and his colleagues have been indifferent to their duty to the House.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,): The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt) said that his mind had been exercised as to whether the Chiltern Hundreds ought to have been granted in this case; and he stated that he had come to the conclusion that there was little discretion left to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that my mind was equally exercised; and I thought, like the right hon. Gentleman, that it was right to look very thoroughly into the matter. Looking, however, to the precedents and to what has been laid down on the subject, I thought it was my duty to grant the Chiltern Hundreds. And in this course the right hon. Gentleman concurs. It was stated by the First Lord that, there being some delay while I was looking into this matter, a communication was made by my right hon. Friend who sits behind me to the Member for Nottingham (Mr. A. Morley), so that the opportunity might be given to any hon. Member of the House to bring the matter forward. The Government had not the slightest intention of withdrawing the matter from the cognizance of the House. Then the right hon. Gentleman, in language of which no one can complain, spoke of the delicacy of the question as to what action should be taken by the Executive Government in a matter of this kind. I think that the right hon. Gentleman rather indicated than declared that it was the duty of the Government at once to act, but he said that he would not pass any censure on the Government with regard to the matter. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that it is a matter of extreme delicacy to determine in what instances the Executive Government is to act. The right hon. Gentleman has said that the Executive should act in cases where the Court has laid down that an hon. Member of this House has been guilty of misconduct.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I should rather have said a fraud of a monetary character.
    MR. GOSCHEN: That narrows the doctrine extremely. I thought it right
    986
    to call the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the very wide doctrine he had laid down. I am sure the House will feel that it is extremely difficult for the Government to discriminate what kind of fraud, what kind of misconduct, ought to lead to the expulsion of a Member of this House. There might be many cases where a question would arise with regard to the action of political opponents, and I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will see that it would be an extremely delicate matter for the Government to determine whether in consequence of certain actions, certain declarations made by a Court, a Government ought at once to proceed. I am glad that attention has been called to the Question, because it is a matter equally interesting to all sections of the House. The doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman would carry us very far, and its application would be attended with considerable difficulties; but I accept the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman that he does not think this a matter in which the Executive Government is deserving of censure.
    MR. GLADSTONE: A case of this kind is so important in its bearing as to the proceedings and character of the House that it is very likely to be made a subject of reference hereafter, and therefore it is desirable that we should understand with perfect clearness what is the ground upon which we take up our position. The First Lord of the Treasury made a reference to certain cases which were quite distinct from the case now immediately in question—certain other cases where it appeared that there was misconduct not less gross than that which appears to exist in the present instance. I believe that it was my own ill-fortune many years ago to grant the Chiltern Hundreds without any question in the House—without any possibility, I think, of refusing to grant it—to one gentleman, at least, who was afterwards the subject of a criminal sentence. But then there was no knowledge—though there may have been suspicion and misgiving—upon which it could have been possible to have alleged any ground for withholding the grant of the Chiltern Hundreds; and that appears to me to be the fundamental and the exclusive distinction we have to draw. Neither the First Lord of the

    987
    Treasury, nor the Government, nor the House, can act in these cases except on facts which are patent, solid, and indisputable. It is not a case, as I understand it, where the Court has laid down that a Member of the House has been guilty of certain conduct. As I understand, it is a case where the Court, after a full investigation, has arrived at a solemn judgment upon it, and, moreover, it is a case where the Court has arrived at that judgment with the party possessing the unquestioned right of appeal against the judgment, but which he has not thought fit to use. I express my entire concurrence in what has been said by my right hon. Friend. I think with him that the First Lord of the Treasury would have been better advised if he had taken steps in the matter, in the discharge of the onerous and delicate duties which appertain to him in his high position; but I will not push that opinion to the length of saying that it is a proper subject for any formal censure. I hope we shall agree that no resistance is to be offered to the Motion, and I also hope that two practical results, both of which will be beneficial, may follow from the notice that has been properly taken of the question by my hon. and learned Friend. I am not going to censure the Chancellor of the Exchequer for not having altered the mode which our Constitution provides for the dismissal or withdrawal of Members from this House, because he would have the very powerful retort against me of asking why I had not done it myself. I am far from saying that the question is not a difficult one. I am far from saying that it is a question so urgent as to merit a primary claim on the attention of the Government; but it is, in my opinion, a question well deserving the attention of the House on every suitable opportunity. The whole method of providing for the withdrawal of Members of this House is at present wrong. It ought not to depend on the discretion of a Minister of the Crown, although I am bound to say I know of no case in which a Chancellor of the Exchequer of either Party has committed any gross error in the dispensing of that discretion. It ought to depend on some machinery and judgment devised by this House, and expressive of the mind, the authority, and the conviction of the House itself. On the general question of the with-
    988
    drawal of Members of the House in thi connection, I will go one step further, and express this hope—that if, unhappily—God forbid it should occur—a similar case, or similar conduct similarly attested, were to recur, it might be thought by the Government of the day to be a matter in which it would be desirable to invoke the assistance of the House to bring it under the full and definite consideration of the House, not necessarily by assuming the responsibility at once of a formal Motion, but by examining carefully, and with the authority of the House, into the precedents, and then putting it fully into the position of determining what course ought to be taken. It ought not to be dealt with as a matter of routine and as a matter of course. The affair is too serious to be practically decided within the single mind of the Leader of the House, and I trust that in the event of an unhappy recurrence of such a case as this there will be a determination to submit the facts to the entire consideration and judgment of the House, with the view of laying down a rule applicable to such circumstances.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I do not think that the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have succeeded in exculpating themselves from the charges which have been brought against them. It has to be borne in mind that the letter of the Judge, which was read in this House on November 28th, was dated November 27th, and that, although he did not use the word "fraud" in the letter, still in the Judgment he used the word "fraud," and convicted the hon. Member on the charge. The First Lord of the Treasury endeavoured to establish a parallel between the case of Mr. Gent-Davis and another most painful case with which we have been made acquainted by the newspapers. But, Sir, there is no analogy whatever between the two cases. There is a great deal of difference in the moral guilt of a man who falls a victim, after a long and laborious life, to over speculation, and that of a man brought down by personal extravagance. But that is not the distinction which I wish to establish. The case referred to by the First Lord of the Treasury was not adjudicated upon until the hon. Member implicated had ceased to be a Member of the House; but in this

    989
    case the adjudication was made while the hon. Member for Kennington was still a Member of the House, and it was not until months afterwards that the Government took action in the matter. They allowed the hon. Gentleman to remain a Member of this House some months after a decision given against him by a properly constituted tribunal. The Government say they gave us plenty of opportunity to initiate a discussion antagonistic to Mr. Gent-Davis, but it is not the duty of the Opposition to move in matters of this kind. It is for the Government to deal with a Gentleman whose presence here is descreditable to the dignity and honour of the House. We know pretty well the secret history of this transaction. The First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer put off moving this Writ as long as they could, and now they have only moved it in obedience to pressure and owing to necessity. The Government know that they are going to be beaten in the election which this Writ involves. The First Lord of the Treasury said that there ought to be the greatest delicacy in making attacks on the honour of a Member of the House. That observation would have been moat becoming if it had proceeded from any Member except the chief vendor of "Parnellism and Crime."
    SIR C. LEWIS: I wish to point out that the whole of the facts have not even now been laid before the House. The whole case has been altered since the communication made by the Judge to the Speaker by the fact that the whole of the money for the non-payment of which the hon. Member was attached for contempt was paid after his going to prison. The tone of the speeches on this subject made from the front Opposition bench contrast strongly with that of the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool, which contained an inconsiderate and cruel attack on a man who has already suffered severely. Such an attack is perfectly unworthy of a Member of this House, especially considering that it is directed against a man who has not only been punished for the offence he has committed, but has wiped out that offence by the payment of every farthing of the money involved in the case.
    Mr. CONYBEARE: I had not intended to intervene
    990
    in this debate, and should not have done so if the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir C. Lewis), of all people in the world, had not come forward as an upholder of the dignity of this House. I think I may remind the hon. Baronet that I have had occasion in this House to charge him with grave breaches of trust—
    MR. SPEAKER: I must call the attention of the hon. and learned Gentleman to the fact that it is out of order to introduce into this discussion matters which are distinctly foreign to it.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I will not remind the hon. Baronet further of transactions which he knows but too well, and of which he has no reason to be proud—
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
    MR. CONYBEARE: Well, with reference to an argument the hon. Baronet used at the end of his speech, and to which, I believe, I am permitted to reply—where he said that the whole money was repaid by this unfortunate gentleman whose case we are discussing, I wish to observe that that is not the case, that it is absolutely untrue, and that the hon. Baronet must know, as everyone else, that although Mr. Gent-Davis was helped by hon. Members on his own side of the House, he had never himself paid a farthing back.
    MR. W. REDMOND: Is it not an extremely strange thing that Mr. Gent-Davis should have been defended from the benches opposite by an hon. Baronet who was himself unseated for bribery and corruption?
    Motion agreed to.

    ASH WEDNES DAY.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): I beg to move that the House at its rising do adjourn until to-morrow at two o'clock.
    Motion made, and Question put.
    DR. CAMERON: As there is every probability of the time of the House being devoted to Scotch business to-morrow, and as the Scotch Members pay no attention to Ash Wednesday, I would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury that he should not insist upon this Motion. The great majority of Scotch Members are Presbyterian, and do not observe Ash Wednesday,

    991
    and they would much rather go on with the business of the House at 12 o'clock, than have the meeting put off till two. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not press the Motion, as otherwise it will be my duty to divide the House against it.
    Motion made, and Question put, "That this House will meet to-morrow at Two of the Clock."—(Mr. W. H. Smith.)
    The House divided:—Ayes, 193; Noes, 112.

    BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): In rising to move, "That the Order for resuming the Adjourned Debate on the Queen's Speech, Motion for an Address, have precedence this day of Notices of Motion and other Orders of the Day," I wish to make an appeal to hon. Gentlemen who have given notice of Amendments to the Address. The House is aware that we have already reached the tenth day of discussion of the Address, and also that very serious and important business must be disposed of before the 18th or 19th of March, financial business of the current year, the matter being of such urgent importance to the House and the country that we ought to proceed to it as speedily as possible, and I would earnestly appeal to hon. Members to allow the debate on the Address to conclude this evening. I am aware there are suggestions of considerable importance in Motions which stand in the name of hon. Members, but I may remind them that during the course of the Session there will be, I fully hope, an opportunity for urging their views before the House and the country. The House is aware that the prolongation of the Debate on the Address has had the practical effect of depriving some hon. Members of their ordinary opportunities for bringing forward Motions and Bills in which they are interested. Under these circumstances I trust that hon. Members will themselves concur in the view I have heard expressed more than once that the debate on the Address should be limited, and that we should then proceed as rapidly as we can with the important business we have to dispose of. I trust
    992
    I may have the support of right hon. Gentlemen opposite in enforcing that view.
    Motion made, and Question put.
    MR. GLADSTONE: I find great satisfaction in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, for he conveyed to Members, as I understand, as an inducement to assent to his proposal, that they would have fitter opportunities to bring under the notice of the House those matters they desire to raise. I trust I am justified in inferring from that general intimation that the Government do not contemplate during the present Session any great invasion of the time appropriated to private Members. I certainly am one of those who are of opinion that the great length to which debates on the Address have been prolonged of late years is a serious impediment to the important business awaiting disposal. Of course, I do not speak of the Amendment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle, because that was a Motion of a very serious character, raising distinctly the question of the existence of the Government, such a question as it has always been usual to raise upon the Address. I refer to a custom which is growing up, that of making the Address the occasion for discussing subjects—of public importance undoubtedly—I do not say frivolous matters, but matters that might be more appropriately discussed under the ancient course of allowing Members a fair proportion of the time of the House. But I do not propose to enter into that now. At present we have before us the fact that, independent of the debate upon the Irish Amendment, we have had three nights of general debate, and are about to have a fourth without any interruption. Under these circumstances, and in view of the nature of the business that is to come on—Government and possibly other business of an urgent character—I certainly think the right hon. Gentleman has made a reasonable appeal, and one that we so far as we can, compatibly with what we deem to be our specific duty, will respond to, and bring about the close of the debate tonight. I have a few words to say on one of the subjects standing for discussion, but I will give a pledge that undoubtedly in what I then say I shall have

    993
    a lively recollection of what I am now saying, for I am quite in sympathy with the wish of the right hon. Gentleman.
    Motion agreed to.

    BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.

      BURIALS BILL.
      On the Motion of Mr. Osborne Morgan, Bill to further to amend the Burial Laws, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Osborne Morgan, Mr. Channing, Mr. Handel Cossham, Mr. John Ellis, and Mr. Illingworth.
      Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 146.]

      LIFE AND PROPERTY PROTECTION BILL.
      On Motion of Mr. Mattinson, Bill for the better protection by night of Life and Property, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Mattinson, Sir William Houldsworth, Mr. Whitley, Mr. Seager Hunt, Mr. James William Lowther, and Mr. Forrest Fulton.
      Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 147.]

    ORDERS OF THE DAY.

      ADDRESS IN ANSWER TO HER MAJESTY'S MOST GRACIOUS SPEECH.
      [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]
      Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [21st February.]—[See page 41.]
      Question again proposed.
      Debate resumed.
      MR. PICKERSGILL: I rise to move as an Amendment to the Address an expression of our regret that the Royal Speech contains no proposal for legislation to safeguard the long accustomed right of public meeting in Trafalgar Square. Notwithstanding the appeal which has been addressed to the House, I think, considering in the first place that in the Royal Speech London questions are totally ignored, and in the second place having regard to the extreme gravity of the question my Amendment raises, I am justified in the course I am now taking. The House will probably remember that shortly after the opening of the Session of 1888 the hon. and learned Member for Hackney brought forward a Resolution proposing the appointment of a Committee to consider the provisions under which public meetings are held in London, and the limits of the right of interference with such meetings by the Executive. That Motion was opposed by the Government, and after a
      994
      long discussion it was defeated. Now, the attitude of the Government towards this Motion, coupled with the brutal violence which the Government have been responsible for, employed on November 13 against non-offending citizens, left—and I think not unnaturally left—arankling resentment in the minds of a very considerable portion of the people of London. There were some men, as there are some men now—and I regret it—who desired to fight the Government with their own weapons. They desired to retake the right which the Government had defrauded them of by force and violence, but there were others who were extremely anxious to try this question upon its merits in a Court of Law. Well now, what was the attitude of the Government in regard to the latter class of persons? There was only one case arising out of the Trafalgar Square incident which raised the right fairly on its merits, and that was the case of Mr. Saunders. The Government commenced a prosecution against that gentleman, but almost immediately dropped it. Then a civil action was commenced in the name of Mr. Saunders for assault, in order to obtain a decision on the merits of the question. Unfortunately, the formal notice, which by statute is required, was not given in time, and the authorities sheltered themselves under this legal technicality, and so, for the second time, the law-abiding portion of the people who desired to raise the question were defeated in their object. The second case arose on a summons heard at Bow Street, and the police obtained a conviction. Mr. Vaughan, the Magistrate, was requested to state a case for the decision of a Superior Court, and agreed to do so. After long delay the case was stated, but then it was found that the case, as stated, was utterly absurd with reference to the point we desired to raise. The case, as stated by Mr. Vaughan, amounted to this—that the Queen's Bench Division were asked, in fact, whether an illegal meeting held in Trafalgar Square was an illegal meeting? Well, we do not want to go to the Queen's Bench Division to decide that; we know that an illegal meeting in Trafalgar Square or anywhere else is illegal. There was on the part of the Government the strongest reluctance to come into Court on the merits of the case, a

      995
      reluctance which generally, I think we may say, accompanies the consciousness of having a very bad case. But I do not desire to treat this question within the limits of a bare strict legal argument. It always seems to me that the House of Commons is not the place for a purely legal argument, but it must be obvious to the House that there are many rights which possibly one could not vindicate in a Court of Law, and yet rights, properly so-called, which a Government ought not to take away, which no wise Government would ever dream of taking away. How does the case stand in regard to Trafalgar Square? In the first place, I shall carefully avoid, as much as possible, the arguments which were gone over last year. But, at all events, we have this fact—that for nearly 40 years prior to November 13th, 1887, there had been the user of Trafalgar Square for the purpose of public meeting; nay, more, on one occasion, about 20 years ago, when there was a desire to hold a large public demonstration in Hyde Park, the organizers of the demonstration were told by the Government of the day that Trafalgar Square was the proper place in which to hold such a meeting. Last year the Home Secretary drew attention to the fact, and insisted upon it, that before November 13th there had been a series of daily meetings in the Square, with regard to which meetings I Just want to say that if it is said that it would be unreasonable that mass meetings should be held every day in Trafalgar Square, and at any hour of any day, I quite agree with that. I think that it would be an unreasonable exercise of an undoubted right—an intolerant exercise of that right—because it would ignore the co-ordinate right of other persons, who dislike public meetings, and wish to use the Square for other purposes which are equally legitimate. But, whatever view you may take of the meetings that preceded that of November 13th, on what ground of law or reason can the Home Secretary defend the proclamation of the meeting of November 13th? The meetings before that day were called by one body of persons, and the meeting of November 13th was called by a totally different body of persons; and, although I said I should be anxious to avoid any strictly legal argument, I cannot refuse to allude to the Salvation Army decision,
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      Beattie v. Gilbanks; and I respectfully submit to the House that the principle of that decision is distinctly against the proclamation of the meeting of November 13th. Besides, no connection has been proved between the organizers of that meeting and the organizers of the preceding meetings. That is the very essence of the case, because if any body of men are to be affected by the meetings of another body of men, then, I say, every liberty we possess is in danger. Just see how that would operate in practice. It only requires a small body of men to get up a disturbance at a public meeting in a public place on one day in order to justify the Government in proclaiming a meeting for a totally different purpose in the same place on a following day. Of course, those who organized the meeting would be responsible, but they cannot be affected by the incident of a meeting with which they had nothing whatever to do. Let me refer to the objections which have been urged to the holding of meetings in Trafalgar Square. It is said, in the first place, there is danger to property. Well, we all know it is an unfortunate fact that there is a large criminal class in London which always finds its harvest on every occasion when large masses of people are collected. The Home Secretary assents to that. Yes; but on the occasion of public illuminations, or on any occasion of a Royal procession, or when you want to pay a compliment to a Royal visitor, then you do everything in your power to collect the people in large masses, and the argument of danger to property, whatever it is worth, applies as much to such occasions as to those when citizens meet to discuss public questions. Then it is said the site is an inconvenient one for public meetings. Well, on that issue it is sufficient to point out that for 40 years it has been used for public meetings, which shows most clearly that it is a convenient site in the opinion of those who organize the meetings and attend them. I think the argument about convenience hardly lies in the mouths of those who are subject to the very grave suspicion of disliking public meetings altogether. Then it is said it is in the very heart of a great city, and an unsuitable place for public meetings. Now, I venture to submit that the heart of a great city is the proper place, and for this reason: when men have a griev-

      997
      ance and desire to come together, they assemble not merely to encourage one another, but also to make their grievance known to the powers that are able to relieve them. Therefore, it follows that publicity is the very essence of a political demonstration. To make that publicity as great as possible is one of the most legitimate purposes of all public demonstrations, and there is no place more fitting for that purpose than the centre of a large population. Now, there was one incident of which great use was made in the debate last year by the Government and the supporters of the Government. They relied on the riot which occurred in the neighbourhood of Trafalgar Square in February, 1886; but is it to be said that because there has occurred a solitary isolated act of violence and crime that, therefore, the Government are justified in taking away a long-accustomed popular right? I venture to think, if that argument is to hold good, that every liberty we and our fathers ever enjoyed is scarcely worth 24 hours' purchase. What, then, is our claim? I have indicated that I do not think it is reasonable that meetings should day by day be held in Trafalgar Square, but what I do ask the Government to do is this: to recognize the right of meeting in the Square, and to submit proposals for the regulation of that right. It seems sensible that this right should be regulated in order that it may be preserved. I would impress on the Government that the present position cannot be maintained. It is intolerable that a long-accustomed right should be taken away or withheld by the mere edict of a Commissioner of Police. Apart from the importance of the immediate occasion, I say it constitutes a most mischievous and dangerous precedent. I ask that the Government shall, at least, put the matter on a legal basis. There are three courses open to the Government to put this matter on a legal basis. In the first place they might withdraw the Chief Commissioner's edict; they might bring in a Bill to prohibit all meetings in Trafalgar Square—I should give it, I need hardly say, all the opposition in my power, but at all events it would be strictly and technically a legal proceeding—or they might bring in a Bill recognizing the right of meeting in the Square, and providing suitable regulations under which that right should be exercised.
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      This last course I ask the Government to take. It is impossible, I think, to dissociate altogether this action from the changed attitude of the authorities in London towards public meetings in general. That there has been such a change is absolutely indisputable. No one who has any acquaintance with London, and takes an interest in public life, and who compares the attitude of the police to wards public meetings to-day with the attitude of the police towards public meetings before the advent of the present Government, can doubt the evidence of a mischievous and alarming change. The Home Secretary says there has been no change in the general direction, given to the Metropolitan Police. I must, of course, and I do, accept the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. But I might perhaps, be permitted to point out to him that, when you are dealing with so delicate a question as the right of public meeting, even admitting that the general regulations in their letter remain the same, still the spirit in which they are administered and carried out may make the difference between a reasonable freedom and an intolerable tyranny. It was only the other day that I had occasion to call attention to a case which occurred in my own constituency. A member of the County Council for London, a gentleman for whom the esteem of his locality was sufficiently testified by the overwhelming majority of votes which he obtained in the recent election—Mr. Branch—is waited upon by a constable. It is said that the constable discharged his duty in a courteous manner. I dare say he did; I do not blame him; but I censure the system for which the right hon. Gentleman is responsible, and which compels a constable of the Metropolitan Police to do something which gives grave offence to a man occupying a high position in London. The right hon. Gentleman told me that the police were sent to the meeting for the purposes of protection. Protection! Why, the meeting was a small meeting in a club, to which, indeed, the public were invited. It was not even an open-air meeting, which would have given some colour to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. It is a pubic meeting held on private premises addressed by a gentleman of high Position, who is waited upon by a constable in the first place; and, in the

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      second place, half-a-dozen policemen are sent to crowd around the door, or In the neighbourhood of the meeting place. I say that indicates a marked change in the relations which once existed between the people of London and the Metropolitan Police. I desire to make an earnest appeal to the Government. I do not think that the present position is at all a tolerable position. We have had violence, and we have had bloodshed, mainly—I will not say entirely—on the part of the police. Now that sort of thing will inevitably cause rebellion. I have shown you what a rankling sense of resentment exists in the mind of a very considerable number of the people of London, and I am afraid that there will be trouble. I do, therefore, earnestly ask the Government to at least put the matter on a legal basis, and free us, at all events, from the disgrace of being deprived of what many of us believe to be a right by the edict of the Police Commissioner. If there should be violence and bloodshed, to which we have not been accustomed in the streets of London, then I must say that a terrible responsibility will rest upon the Government, in the first place because they have by every kind of artful contrivance succeeded in eluding a decision upon the merits of the case in a Court of Law, and in the second place because they have obstinately refused a settlement which would have given reasonable satisfaction to all parties. I beg, Sir, to move the Amendment of which I have given notice.
      MR. STUARTseconded the Amendment.
      Amendment proposed,
      At the end of Paragraph 11 to insert the words, "But we humbly express our regret that no proposals are made in Tour Majesty's Gracious Speech to safeguard the long accustomed right of public meeting in Trafalgar Square."
      Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
      MR. MURDOCH: The hon. Member has brought forward this Amendment to the Address, and I cannot help thinking that in doing so he has shown by his speech that there is no necessity for it. On a previous occasion when this subject was discussed, the House had the
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      advantage of hearing the opinions of some of the most eminent lawyers of the day as to the legal point of the question. Other speakers attempted to show that the meetings in Trafalgar Square were not only a cause of much interruption of business, but were also a source of trouble and danger. I cannot say that those points have been touched upon by the hon. Member so as to in any way reverse the decision at which the House arrived on the occasion to which I have referred. I would point out that Trafalgar Square is very much altered in character from what it was a few years ago. In the petition which was laid before this House, signed by persons of all grades and positions, it was pointed out that during the last few years Trafalgar Square had become one of the main arteries of the Metropolis, a point at which traffic converged from north, south, east, and west, and that any interruption of that traffic would cause most serious inconvenience. It has also been pointed out, although the point has been made very light of by the hon. Member, that the riot which took place on a certain date opened the eyes of a good many people to the danger which arose from those meetings. I am not going to blame those who convened the meetings. I am perfectly certain that those gentlemen, when they convened the meeting in Trafalgar Square, had no idea that any danger would result from it; but events proved most clearly that those who gathered the people together had no control whatever over them, and that in itself shows that these meetings are a source of considerable danger to life and property in the neighbourhood of Trafalgar Square. It is a very different thing from holding a meeting in a place or passing through a place with permission to hold a meeting in Trafalgar Square, and occasionally having language used which is calculated to inflame those who hear it, and which, perhaps, the promoters are very sorry for afterwards. The case of the Lord Mayor's Show is a very different thing; it occupies only a certain time in passing; the police have the conduct of it, and they take care that no interruption shall take place except what cannot be avoided. If I recollect aright, there is no necessity for the introduction of a Bill, because it has been clearly shown

      1001
      that the regulation of Trafalgar Square rests with the Home Secretary, and, under his direction, with the Metropolitan Police. The mere fact of the hon. Member mentioning such a Bill—although he says he would oppose it by every means in his power—shows that there is lurking in his mind the possibility that Trafalgar Square may not have attached to it the right of public meeting for which he contends. He says that Trafalgar Square, being in the heart of a great city, is a suitable place of meeting. Well, within a mile is Hyde Park, where any number of meetings may be held without danger to life, limb, or property. Another point to which I want to draw attention is that the petition presented to the House was numerously signed by working men living in the neighbourhood. They were perfectly well aware how they were damaged by the meetings; and I am perfectly convinced that if the hon. Member polled his constituency he would find that the respectable and steady portion of the working classes are against any such meetings, while "professional" men, who attend all such meetings and processions, are in favour of them, not caring much what injury results to their fellow-men.
      SIR C. RUSSELL: I have the honour to represent a community largely composed of the working classes, and I have discussed this matter with them at more than one meeting. There was a strong feeling on the subject, though I admit there were degrees and shades of opinion on it. There is a section who desire to have the right of holding any meeting with or without notice upon any subject, at any time of the day, and on every day in the week. I do not think that is a very large class; but there is a largely preponderating class in my constituency who seriously complain that the accustomed right of public meeting in Trafalgar Square exercised for 40 years has been unconstitutionally invaded, not by the action of Parliament, but by the will of a police officer in high authority. The tendency of the argument I have addressed to more than one meeting was this—believing as I do that the interference of the Commissioner of Police was not authorized by any statute, I had urged upon the Government either to withdraw the interference, or that they should deal with the subject, as I have
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      pressed upon the Home Secretary before, by legislative enactment. What are the facts of the case? It is truly said that for 40 years there has been this accustomed right of public meeting. I do not wish to be misunderstood. I do not assert that it is a legal right in itself in the same sense as a private legal right which is enforceable by action at law, but I do say it is a Constitutional right on the part of the community in the midst of which this vacant space exists, and which cannot be properly described as a thoroughfare at all, but is distinctly an open space as the Act describes it, capable of being appropriately used for some meetings—certainly for meetings of moderate dimensions. The test of a Constitutional right of this kind is whether it is a crime to hold orderly and peaceable meetings in Trafalgar Square. I ask this question with a view to obtaining an answer. If it be an offence, what is the Statute creating the offence, and what is the penalty annexed to the offence? If the allegation is that it is an offence, and if that is the advice the Home Secretary has given will the Home Secretary assist in raising in a Court of Law purely and simply that question? Is it a legal offence to hold an orderly and peaceable meeting in Trafalgar Square. With one exception nothing that could be called a serious disturbance has ever taken place as far as I am aware in connection with meetings in Trafalgar Square. I do not doubt that these meetings, or some of them, have been a Cause of considerable inconvenience to some or many of the people living in the neighbourhood, but I want to know what great congregation of the people in public meeting could take place anywhere, or what great function in which a multitude of the people take part can be performed without causing inconvenience to some section of the community, but inconveniences which that section of the community must bear as they are caused by the exercise of a great Constitutional and important public right? The hon. Member for Reading has said fairly enough that the disturbance which took place was not one which could in anyway be in contemplation of those who convened the meeting in February, 1886. A disorderly fringe became attached to the meeting itself, and it was a disorderly sec-

      1003
      tion which became mischievous. Why? For the simple reason that the police, whose proper function was to be in attendance upon and to safeguard such meetings instead of being in Pall Mall in the rear of the gathering, where they were directed to take their position, were in the Mall. And then came the meeting in November which was convened after notice to the Home Secretary, and after a discussion with him on the part of a different set of persons who were responsible for having called and peaceably conducted many prior meetings in the same place. It was then that those extraordinary communications took place with the Home Secretary, showing that he was not then viewing the question in the same way as now, when, in answer this evening to the hon. Member for Camborne (Mr. Conybeare), he said there was clear statutory authority for what the police did in this matter. It is a noticeable fact that when the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, taking, as I believe, a serious and also a right view of the view of the matter, declared that it was no part of the intention of the Government to interfere with what he called a bona fide public meeting.
      THE HOME SECRETARY: I have contradicted that statement two or three times in the House.
      SIR C. RUSSELL: I did not recollect that the right hon. Gentleman had contradicted it, and I am sorry he has done so, because I thought the sentiment was one for which he might take credit; but now, on the contrary, I understand that the Home Secretary meant to say that the Government do claim the right to interfere with a bonâ fide political meeting, peaceable and orderly, if held in Trafalgar Square. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will presently explain what it was he did mean. Well, then came the prosecution at the Old Bailey, and, but for the verdict of the jury which determined that the meeting proposed to be held in November, and which was held, was an illegal meeting, I submit that the Government would be without a rag of justification for their conduct in the matter. I have not the materials before me on which to express an opinion on the right or wrong of that verdict. One is accustomed to accept the verdicts of juries as
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      being founded on facts, unless there is some reason to suppose that something has prejudiced and distorted their judgment. But what does it amount to? It amounts to this only, that in the case of a particular meeting the Executive were justified in interfering to prevent it, on the ground that the circumstances under which it was proposed to be held it would be a source of alarm or terror to certain persons. Now, this would equally apply whatever meeting was held—it would equally apply to a meeting proposed to be held on enclosed private ground or in any other place whatever. Therefore I say it is apart from the question of customary user by the public of Trafalgar Square as a place of meeting, and what we complain of is this: that instead of limiting the interference which the verdict justified to the particular meeting, or to an illegal meeting the Government maintained and adopted the action of the Chief Commissioner of Police, who has issued a peremptory and perpetual mandate forbidding all meetings, of all kinds, irrespective of object or numbers, or whether they are orderly or not, in Trafalgar Square; and until he chooses to withdraw that mandate, he intends to prevent any meetings being held there. Now, I say that that is not law. The Proclamation of the Chief Commissioner is a notice and nothing more. It is authorized by no Statute, and cannot affect the character of any meeting. I speak with all deference to the opinions of those who differ from me honestly; and if there be on the Bench opposite learned Friends of mine who differ from this view, I think they will do me the justice of admitting—as I would do them the like justice—that I am stating here to-day what I stated in November last; and I say that what I state I believe is the law, and that if there is this difference it constitutes the greater reason and makes the argument all the stronger that the Government ought to lend themselves to the effort at raising and deciding this question directly, straightly, and simply. I ask the Government to recall the points I made in relation to the case of Saunders and the subsequent case before Mr. Vaughan. In the case of Saunders, who was formerly a Member of this House whilst that Gentleman was proceeding to address a

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      meeting at Trafalgar Square, a policeman came to Mm and committed a technical assault by putting his hand on his collar, and then required him to follow him to the Bow Street Police Station, where a charge was entered against Mr. Saunders. On this, Mr. Saunders was bailed out, and afterwards, when he appeared to answer the charge, the Government were represented by one of the most able criminal lawyers of the day (my friend Mr. Poland). What did Mr. Poland do? He could not formulate a charge against Mr. Saunders—he did not attempt to formulate a charge against him; but he begged to withdraw the charge, and, in point of fact, his statement was that this Proclamation was s Proclamation of the Chief Commissioner of Police in error. I hear someone say it was not a summary case: then why did they not indict Mr. Saunders? Here was a grave question which affected the minds of a considerable number of the community, and the Government had the opportunity of raising the question, and what mattered it whether it was a summary offence or not? Mr. Saunders begged that the Government would indict him, but instead of doing that Mr. Poland practically asked that the charge might be struck out, and that Mr. Saunders might take his departure for the purpose of bringing an action against the policeman and the Chief Commissioner, under whose authority the policeman acted, for trespass. And what was the course that the Government took? I do not understand it, for I do not understand what the justification for it was. Mr. Saunders brought his action and claimed damages merely for the purpose of raising the question. The Government pleaded, among other defences, that the action was not brought timeously, and that the notice of action which the Statute required had not been given. I ask why the Government did not meet the case fairly? It would have been the means, in a legitimate and peaceful way, of helping to solve the question. But that is not all. A subsequent case arose, and Mr. Vaughan was required to state a case for the opinion of the Superior Court. I desire to speak of Mr. Vaughan, as I do of all Judges whose conduct I may have occasion to criticize, with all respect; but the case as stated
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      by Mr. Vaughan, so far as raising the question was concerned, was an utter and absolute farce. The question which he propounded for the opinion of the Superior Court was whether a meeting, consisting of a large number of persons, assembled together in Trafalgar Square under such circumstances as to inspire terror, but in an alleged exercise of a legal right, was a legal meeting. It is enough to say that the form in which the case was stated amounted to a compendious statement of what constitutes an illegal meeting. The Home Secretary has said, in answer to my hon. Friend the member for Camborne (Mr. Conybeare), that the proclamation of the Commissioner still stood, and that there was express statutory authority for it. I would press the right hon. Gentleman to state before the debate closes what that statutory authority is. I am not aware of any statutory authority unless it be contained in the 2 and 3 Vict., c. 47, and particularly sections 52, 53, and 54. I want to know whether the Home Secretary was advised that under those or any other sections there was power given to the Chief Commissioner to forbid access to Trafalgar Square, and the presence of numbers of persons in Trafalgar Square; and I want to know whether the right hon. Gentleman claims the same powers in the Chief Commissioner as regards any other thoroughfare or any other open space in the Metropolis? If the right hon. Gentleman does not, on what distinction does he base the authority in the one case over the other? The right hon. Gentleman said something about obstructing or disturbing the thoroughfare. Let me test that. Was it not notorious to all who know the conformation of Trafalgar Square, that although there is to a certain extent a thoroughfare which is in no real sense a thoroughfare in the sense of leading conveniently or directly to or from certain definite points, yet within the crossing lines in Trafalgar Square there is an open space. Does the Home Secretary urge that, even assuming there was an obstruction of a thoroughfare, that that constituted an illegal meeting, or authorized the Chief Commissioner and the police to put it down by force on the ground that the persons attending the meeting were at the moment obstructing the thoroughfare? I do not desire to em-

      1007
      barrass the Government on this question. I urge this consideration because of two things—first, that there has been, as I contend, an unjustifiable interference in an unjustifiable fashion with an accustomed right; and, secondly, that the continued interference with that right by the Chief Commissioner, who claims authority to interfere, not with particular meetings which may be illegal assemblies, but with all assemblies of persons, however peaceable, is, I believe, undoubtedly creating a bad feeling between the people and the police, and no good subject would desire to see that feeling continue.
      THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,): I concur with the hon. and learned Gentleman who has just sat down in deploring very much any interference with the working classes which may tend to produce a feeling of dissatisfaction with regard to the action of the Executive. I agree with the hon. and learned Gentleman that that is a matter very much to be deplored and, if possible, to be avoided; but it is not to be avoided by allowing what is wrong and unlawful. I am bound to say that those people are responsible for causing that feeling, as far as it deserves any attention at all, who, like the hon. Mover of the Amendment, din into the ears of the working classes that they have a right of meeting in these places. The hon. and learned Gentleman, with his great legal reputation as an accurate lawyer, has lent weight to that idea not by saying that this is a right which could be enforced in an action, but by talking about the accustomed right of meeting in Trafalgar Square or in any other place. I protest against the use of loose language such as that, seeing that the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman will be read with avidity by the working classes of the Metropolis to-morrow. The hon. and learned Gentleman knows very well that there is no such right as a right of public meeting in Trafalgar Square—not a right that can be enforced in a Court of Law, or by any machinery known to the law. What is the use of raising quibbling complaints about the case of Mr. Saunders. There might have been 20 opportunities of bringing an action if it were at all true to say that the public had a right, in any strict and proper
      1008
      sense, of meeting in the Square. If that they were so, anyone who obstructed a person in the exercise of that right would be liable to an action at the suit of the person obstructed, and nothing would be simpler than to bring an action in which the question of right could be raised. No lawyer can assert that there exists a right of meeting on the part of any of Her Majesty's subjects either in Trafalgar Square or in any other public thoroughfare. It is a right totally unknown to the law, and cannot be established by custom, however prolonged. The fact is that the spirit of forbearance, which, happily, always characterizes the action of the authorities in this country, has winked at the use of Trafalgar Square for public meetings so long as it was not dangerous. If those meetings had continued peaceable and orderly, the present Government, like those which preceded it, would not have thought of interfering. In all probability the same acquiescence would have gone on. I ask hon. Gentlemen opposite to believe that, so far as the Government are concerned, they have every sympathy with public meetings. [An hon. MEMBER: Then why not allow the meetings?] Do hon. Members opposite for a moment suggest that any Executive Government could ignore the results of the experience of 1886? The acquiescence of which I have spoken has been twice most grossly abused. Will anyone stand up and say that it is tolerable that such scenes as those of February 1886 should be allowed to recur in London,—the richest, the most orderly, and the most law-abiding city in the world? Who was responsible for those scenes? Do not let it be supposed for a moment that I charge the originators of the meetings in 1886 with direct and personal responsibility for what happened; but indirectly they were responsible, because they gave a plausible excuse and a decent occasion for the roughs of London to gather together, and then, when the meetings had taken place, to proceed in different directions from Trafalgar Square to plunder shops and commit other outrages. The organizers of the meetings, however good their intentions might have been, and however much they may have sincerely desired to avoid confusion and disorder, could not control large masses of people, and when once they were got together in a thoroughfare which was not a manœuvr-

      1009
      ing ground the task of following them up and preventing disorder was very difficult. The lesson taught by the events of November, 1887, was equally fruitful, and must have been laid to heart by anybody who was responsible for the order of London. I do not want to go over the melancholy story again. The blame I have always taken to myself was that I waited too long. So reluctant was I to do anything which would seem to be an interference with the liberty of meeting that I believe I waited longer than I ought before taking action. The warnings, certainly, were very frequent. At last it became irresistibly clear that these meetings were dangerous to the public peace. It was only by enormous exertion that the police, from day to day were able to preserve the property—I was going to say the lives—but certainly the property, of the orderly inhabitants of this city. The strain upon the police force was something prodigious; and thousands of men had to watch day after day. The strain upon their temper was great; and this state of things also meant increased expense for the ratepayers. It was a state of things which was intolerable, and we should have neglected our first duty if we had not taken steps to prevent it from continuing. It is a fact that a number of people unacquainted with the law have been taught by those in authority to suppose that their rights were being infringed; and it was this which caused so much irritation and anger. Such anger would be justifiable if it were true that the people had rights which were being infringed. I think, therefore, that words such as I have referred to should be cautiously used by men of great authority, because they mislead the people. The hon. and learned Gentleman has asked me where is the statutable authority for the action of the Police Commissioner with regard to the proclamation of November 18. The statutable authority is that referred to in the notice itself—namely, the Metropolitan Police Acts, 2 and 3 Vic, c. 47 and 71.
      SIR C. RUSSELL: Read the section.
      MR. MATTHEWS: I read the section scores of times before the notice was issued; and I can only repeat that I still rely upon the advice given me, which I believe to be well founded, that the section does give the Chief Commissioner of Police ample power in
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      order to prevent obstruction and tumult in Trafalgar Square. The objection constantly made on the other side is, "Why not give us the opportunity of raising this point in a Court of Law?" I repeat that it is in the power of anybody who chooses to assert this right of meeting, if he is obstructed to bring the matter before a Court of Law. If he is right, and is obstructed, there is nothing in the world to prevent him from bringing an action.
      SIR C. RUSSELL: Will the right hon. Gentleman state any place where the legal right to hold public meetings could be raised in the way he suggests?
      MR. BRADLAUGH: Is the right hon. Gentleman inviting the people to hold further meetings?
      MR. MATTHEWS: What I say is this. Those who assert that there exists a legal right to meet can test the truth and validity of the matter by bringing an action. If they rely upon their right, and have confidence in it, they ought to prove it by bringing an action against anybody who obstructs them in the assertion of their right. I confess that I am quite content with the decisions already obtained. The law on the subject has been laid down by Mr. Justice Charles in the case of "The Queen against Cuninghame Graham," and by Mr. Justice Wills and Mr. Justice Grantham in the case "Ex parts Lewis." In these cases the Judges distinctly laid it down that there was no right of public meeting in Trafalgar Square.
      SIR C. RUSSELL: Is there any right anywhere in that sense?
      MR. MATTHEWS: Yes.
      SIR C. RUSSELL: Where?
      MR. MATTHEWS: There is a right of public meeting on any ground the consent of the owner of which can be obtained for the holding of the meeting. There is a right of public meeting in London in the parks. The inhabitants of London are in a position of singular advantage in this respect. They are the only community in England who have four places—one in the north, one in the south, one in the east, and one in the west—expressly provided for them by Parliament where they can meet with a legal right to hold a meeting. No other communities have such a right, and if they do hold meetings they have to rely upon that sort of acqui-

      1011
      escence on the part of their fellow-citizens and of the authorities which existed for a long time in London before the disturbances of 1886 and 1837 rendered it impossible to remain neutral any longer. I believe that hon. Members below the Gangway opposite who represent Ireland will bear me out when I say that public meetings in that country are usually held on private land.
      MR. W. REDMOND: I rise to reply to the right hon. Gentleman.
      MR. MATTHEWS: It is scarcely worth while to pursue the subject.
      MR. W. REDMOND: The right hon. Gentleman asked a question. [Cries of "Order!"]
      MR. MATTHEWS: I would press upon the attention of the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite what the consequences of the converse proposition might be. The hon. and learned Gentleman did not assert, but he suggested by the language he used, that there might be such a thing as the right to hold a public meeting in a thoroughfare; and he spoke of the accustomed right of meeting. No doubt in Dod Street it has been the custom to hold public meetings on Sundays; and in certain streets in the Seven Dials small meetings have been held for years both on week days and Sundays. But can anybody with a grave face tell the House of Commons, let alone a Court of Law, that these meetings are held by any right? The truth is that this suggested right is a thing contradictory of and absolutely inconsistent with the purposes for which the thoroughfares were created. If they are to be monopolized by people standing about in crowds, the subjects of the Queen will not be able to pass through them; therefore I assert with some confidence that nowhere is there such a right of meeting in the thoroughfares as has been suggested, although London is singularly fortunate in having, through the care of Parliament, been provided with four places in which meetings can be held. I do—I must venture to appeal to hon. Gentlemen opposite not to goad their followers, who naturally do not know what the law is, into the idea that some wrong has been done to them in connection with the supposed right of meeting in Trafalgar Square. Is it rea-
      1012
      sonable, or is it good citizenship—I will put it even as high as that—to goad your followers into the idea that some right of theirs has been arbitrarily interfered with by the police or by the Government? On the contrary, I say that it is most unreasonable to so act in the face of the legal authorities which exist. The hon. and learned Member for Camborne asks what are those legal authorities? I should have thought that even his mind would by this time be penetrated with the knowledge of the decisions given on this subject by learned Judges. There is the summing up of Mr. Justice Charles in the case of Graham and Burns; there is also a decision in the case of "Ex parte Dillon Lewis," and surely before an hon. Member takes it upon himself to tell ignorant people that the Judges are wrong, it behoves him to get a decision from some other and better authority, and until he has done that it is his duty as a reasonable man to accept the law as it has been interpreted by the Judges. Complaint has been made because a perfectly legal course taken with Mr. Saunders' case prevented a decision being come to on the point. That was not my fault, for I expressed my desire that this very point as to the right of meeting in Trafalgar Square should be expressly raised in this case. I agree that the case stated by Mr. Vaughan does not, as it stands, raise the right of public meeting in the way which alone will satisfy hon. Members opposite; but, nevertheless, Mr. Vaughan expressly declared that
      "He was of opinion that there was and is no right on the part of the public to occupy Trafalgar Square for the purpose of holding meetings there."
      I should have thought that so broad an expression of opinion on the part of Mr. Vaughan would, at any rate, have opened the door to getting of the Court to express some view on that subject had hon. Members opposite thought fit. I most distinctly claim on behalf of the police that under the Metropolitan Police Acts they have the right, whenever public disorder and obstruction in the streets are likely to be the consequence of a meeting, to prevent such meeting. If the Metropolitan Police Acts do not authorize the exercise of such power, they ought instantly to be amended so as to give the power. It

      1013
      would be intolerable, in a city containing fire millions of inhabitants, if that were not the law and the legal authority of the Chief of the Police. But hon. Members Bay, "Our meetings are to be perfectly orderly and peaceable." Well, those are fair words and fair promises constantly made, and no doubt in good faith; but the experience of 1887 shows that those intentions and hopes were disappointed, and the results were such as, no doubt, the hon. Member did not contemplate but deplored.
      MR. GRAHAM: The meeting would have been orderly, only you broke it up.
      MR. MATTHEWS: It does not do always to rely on good intentions, and I must claim on behalf of the police that the deplorable result was due to persons who took advantage of what the hon. Member was doing to create disorder. They may not have been his followers, or possibly his followers may have become too enthusiastic and warm to care about the consequences of their act. Experience has shown those responsible for public order in large towns that it is a dangerous thing to congregate large masses of people where, in consequence of the many streets around, they cannot easily be followed by the police, because, if not followed, they may do irreparable mischief, such as was committed in February, 1886. It is clear that if once it became known that a space in the vicinity of crowded and business parts of London is becoming a regular place of meeting, the vultures—the birds of prey of society—will flock there too. I apologize to the House for having occupied its time so long, but I wish to impress on hon. Gentlemen opposite that there have been no steps of hostility taken towards the promoters and organizers of public meetings; on the contrary, whenever a public meeting has been held in the parks, the authorities have done their utmost to protect those going to the meeting, even to the extent of seriously inconveniencing the street traffic. Orders have always been issued to the police ever since I have been at the Home Office—perhaps I have even carried it to excess—that they should do everything they can to facilitate the progress of a procession and open a way as easily as possible to the park, where the law allows meetings to be held. I appeal to those who have really the
      1014
      interests at heart, not merely of any section holding strong political opinions, but of the whole London public, not to encourage the idea that the streets of London ever can be a proper place for public meetings.
      MR. W. R. CREMER: I have listened with the utmost interest, and no little surprise, to the speech just delivered by the right hon. Gentleman. So far from being guilty, as the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary accuses us, of hounding on the people of the Metropolis to break the law, and of seeking to bring them into collision with the Government, we Radical Members who represent Metropolitan constituencies have in no small degree risked our own popularity by setting ourselves determinedly against action. But I accuse the right hon. Gentleman of having himself been the chief cause of the breaking of the peace in the Metropolis, while those for whom I speak have been the real champions of law and order in this matter, and the right hon. Gentleman ought to thank us, on behalf of the Government, for being its most valuable auxiliaries in the preservation of the peace. I and those who act with me are anxious that the question should be settled in a pacific manner. The Home Secretary seems by his language to be inviting us to enter the arena; but we are not going to fall into a trap by bringing ourselves into collision with the Government. Twenty-two or 23 years ago I happened to be one of the active participators in the efforts then being made to establish for the people the right of public meeting. I know the risks which at that time some of us ran, not merely of losing our liberty, but even our lives, because the Government of the day sent thousands of troops into the park who were prepared if occasion required it—and they even sought to establish the occasion—to fire upon the people. Well, if the same necessity existed to-day, some of us would be prepared to run the same risks. But we are anxious that the question should be settled in a peaceable manner. However, as I said before, we are not going to fall into the cunning and skilfully baited trap which some have prepared in order to bring us into collision with the police. No doubt the Government would be exceedingly obliged to us if we would do

      1015
      something to divert the attention of our countrymen just now from their conduct in Ireland; they would be glad, in fact, to pose as the champions of law and order in London, because it would afford them an opportunity of rehabilitating their somewhat tarnished reputation. But we are not going to do it. We will wait, if necessary, for a change of Government, for I presume the Members of the present Government do not imagine that they will eternally occupy their comfortable places on the Treasury Bench. Up to the time when the Home Secretary issued his ukase the right of public meeting in Trafalgar Square had been enjoyed uninterruptedly for 40 years; and 22 years ago, at the time when the right of meetings in Hyde Park was in dispute, the Government of the day insisted that Trafalgar Square was the proper place for public meetings, and that the parks were most improper places. Well, under the impression that we still enjoyed the rights which the Government of that day admitted we possessed, the people eighteen months ago announced a meeting in the Square, and it was rather strange that the first meeting which the Government prohibited was one convened by working men to protest against the Irish policy of Her Majesty's Government. It is singular they should have selected a meeting of that character as an occasion for striking a deadly blow against the right of public meeting in the Metropolis. The right hon. Gentleman seeks now to justify his action on the ground that 12 months previously there had been a meeting in Trafalgar Square at which serious disturbances had taken place, when shops were pillaged and property destroyed. Because that meeting produced such terrible results, he seeks to justify his action in prohibiting meetings in Trafalgar Square for all time. Now, Sir, it would be interesting to know the history of that meeting at which the disturbances took place. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh was Home Secretary some of us asserted—and I repeat the charge here to-day—that that meeting was promoted for the purpose of bringing discredit upon the Government of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian. The money in connection with
      1016
      the meeting came from a mysterious source. We asked for a Commission of Inquiry, so as to ascertain who were the instigators of the mischief, but it was refused. I say that if the police had not neglected their duties on that occasion no trouble would have arisen; for the same dangerous element that caused those riots is always present at every Lord Mayor's Show or Royal procession. The Home Secretary has declared that the meetings in Trafalgar Square were prohibited because of the disturbance to the traffic which they caused; and that the Government are most anxious to safeguard the right of public meeting. In order to test the good faith of this statement, I suggested to the Home Secretary that the Horse Guards Parade, where there is no traffic at all, should be granted as an alternative site for meetings. After three months' deliberation the suggestion has been rejected. I admit that I made the suggestion merely with the idea of putting the Home Secretary in a corner, and of testing whether the Government are really anxious about disturbance to the traffic, or whether they wish to put down the free expression of opinion on the part of the masses of the people, for I had a suspicion that he was not as sincere in his determination to preserve inviolate the right of public meeting as we are. He refuses to grant us the use of the Horse Guards Parade, because it is surrounded by the residences of wealthy people and because it is in the centre of Government Offices which must be safeguarded. But the grounds for that refusal are an unwarrantable reflection upon the working men of London, who would, if necessary, help to safeguard the residences and offices, and we are quite as desirous as they are that they shall be properly protected. Now, therefore, we know exactly where we are; it is not the use of Trafalgar Square, but it is the right of public meeting that the right hon. Gentleman objects to. The Government have a large mechanical majority in the House. They will defeat us to-night, but, as sure as we are here, the time will come when we shall succeed in establishing the right of the people to meet in our open spaces, subject—as we have always asked the meetings should be subject—to proper regulations by the responsible authorities of the day. Thirty years

      1017
      ago there sat on the Throne of France a Monarch who considered he was equally entitled to do what the right hon. Gentleman has done in respect to public meeting on the part of the people over whom for the time he ruled. He prohibited a few public meetings, but it was in pursuance of his intention and desire that he lost his Throne. Let Her Majesty's Government see to it that the same disastrous result does not follow the policy they are now pursuing.
      MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: Mr. Speaker, I had not intended to interfere in this debate, as I thought that outside this House was the better place to move in this matter; but I rise for two reasons—firstly, to justify myself from a cowardly and insinuating attack levelled against me by a paper purporting to be a Liberal paper—the Daily News—this afternoon; and, secondly, in order to state that I differ in some respects from the Mover of this Amendment. I do not quite deplore the absence from Her Majesty's gracious Speech of any reference to proposals of legislation with regard to Trafalgar Square. I do not assert that it would be possible at all times and in every circumstance to hold meetings in Trafalgar Square. No sane man would propose to summon a meeting in the small hours of the morning or a meeting by torchlight without asking police protection, and giving the greatest pledges for the safety of the surrounding property. But I particularly wish to point out that great and undue importance has been attached to the mere legal side of the question, and that the popular side has been altogether forgotten. It cannot be supposed than those who now tramp the streets of London in search of employment understand the niceties of debate in Parliament, conducted solely on the legal aspect of such an important question as this. If you polled the working men's clubs in London tonight, you would find, irrespective of all that has been said on both sides of the House, that there is a feeling in the majority of those men's hearts that a hardship has been inflicted on them with regard to meeting in Trafalgar Square. I assert that in this matter I have the poor people of London at my back; otherwise it would have been impossible for me, almost single-handed, to have conducted this agitation to the point at which it
      1018
      has now arrived, and to have been able to stand to-day in a vastly changed position from that which I occupied 13 months ago. There sit on the Ministerial side of the House many representatives of the nobility and aristocracy of the nation. There is an ancient and obsolete phrase that noblesse oblige. But how was it that, when speaking on this question 13 months ago, hon. Members so far forgot that antiquated adage as to treat in the way they did a man whom they knew had been severely injured in the Trafalgar Square meeting, and who had had the opportunity of recuperating his strength by the salutary and palatable diet extended to prisoners in Her Majesty's prisons? I venture to say that from the most violent working men hon. Gentlemen opposite would not, under the circumstances in which I stood—without ten men on my own side to back me up, and without the command of my voice—have received the unworthy treatment I received from those who should remember that noblesse oblige. Let me recur to the treatment I received from hon. Members on this side of the House, because in matters of popular rights I do not place one atom more confidence in the front Opposition bench than I do in the Conservative front bench. Was there one hon. Member, still less one right hon. Gentleman, who spoke one word in defence of popular rights before my trial? Was there one Liberal newspaper that gave one word of help on that occasion? There was a knot of earnest Liberals, a knot of Irish Members, sitting beside me when I addressed the House who did extend to me their support; but had you not yourself, Sir, with that fairness which has ever characterized you when popular rights are being discussed, obtained a hearing for me, I fancy that the House of Commons, the Representatives of the British nation, the House which exists for the benefit of the poor of this country, would have refused me the opportunity of justifying my action in standing up for popular rights when they were attacked. Now, too much importance has been attached to the fact that two meetings convened in Trafalgar Square resulted in unfortunate occurrences. I deny that such a thing as a monster meeting in proportion to the population has been held in London

      1019
      since the meeting convened by Ernest Jones on Kennington Common. The population of the Metropolis is 5,000,000, but the largest public meetings have seldom or ever attained 80,000 or 100,000 men. If the people of London met on the same scale as the citizens of Dublin the numbers would be 200,000 or 250,000; and if such a gathering took place I submit to Her Majesty's Government that it would be impossible to dragoon the people of London out of what they consider to be a popular right. It is not the deprivation of the right which rankled in the hearts of the people; it is the broken heads, the curses, the bad usage to which men, their wives, and even their children have been subjected, not only at the meeting to which special reference has been made, but in the long course of meetings held during the past 15 months. It is absolutely idle to deny that public meeting in the abstract has not been interfered with. I challenge the Home Secretary to justify himself and his police for the action they took on Sunday in violently dispersing a meeting on the Thames Embankment, and afterwards in Hyde Park. If that does not constitute an attack on the right of public meeting, I should like to know what does. There is an aspect of the question on which I should like to touch before I conclude. The hon. Gentleman who immediately preceded me (Mr. Cremer) took great credit to himself in having acted, together with his colleagues, in restraining the people of London during the last 18 months. He certainly did restrain; he acted as a drag upon the people; and a proposition that fell from him exceedingly amused me. He advanced the somewhat astonishing theory that the men who assembled on the Horse Guards Parade in no wise envied the wealth of their richer fellow-citizens. I suppose that, speaking as a working man, he considered that the wealth that he and his colleagues create should be for ever absolutely at the disposal of those classes to which he referred. But to return to the subject more directly before us, let me ask if hon. Members think that the action of the hon. and learned Member for Hackney (Sir C. Russell) was dictated out of pure goodness of heart and from a wish to uphold the right of public meeting
      1020
      that he has not hitherto shown much alacrity in defending? I rather think that certain meetings that have been recently held in the Metropolis, and especially a certain passage of arms between the hon. and learned Gentleman and myself, in which I have been able to rout the hon. and learned Gentleman, horse, foot, and artillery, is the cause which has brought him upon his legs in the House this afternoon. I remember the time when the hon. and learned Gentleman brought all the heavy artillery of his legal logic to bear against Mr. Hyndman, Mr. Champion, and others, who defended themselves, and when, by every artifice of the law, and with all the power of the Government of the day at his back, he sought to obtain a conviction against those men. Because a few panes of glass were broken and a few geese and turkeys were stolen by starving men on one occasion in 1886, when London, through the negligence of the Government, was undoubtedly in the possession of the mob for several hours, that afforded no just ground for suppressing the meeting in Trafalgar Square in which I had the honour to take part. I remember a certain speech made by the noble Lord the Member for West Birmingham. [Laughter.] I am reminded that my description "noble Lord" is a little premature; but the right Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain), after his return from his negotiation of an unsuccessful Fisheries Treaty, said that if such a meeting as that in Trafalgar Square had been held in America, it would have been dispersed vi et armis. No doubt that might be so, for in America the plutocrats are powerful. I had intended to address a most earnest appeal to the right hon. Gentleman for Mid Lothian had he remained in his place. I had intended to invite the right hon. Gentleman to stand up in the House and say a word for us on this London question. In a speech which that right hon. Gentleman made in Nottingham only six weeks before the meeting in Trafalgar Square, he said that if the English democracy did not take matters in regard to Ireland in hand the same state of affairs would arise here in London. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the same state of things did not arise in London November 13, and why it was that his

      1021
      Michelstown gun was, so to speak, spiked? Why was all the eloquence which the right hon. Gentleman bestowed on the democracy nullified? Because the people of this country saw that he was not acting on principle, but from political bias. I do not wish to say one discourteous word of the right hon. Gentleman; but I think that the great popular cause which is at stake is far more important than the feelings of one man, however eminent he may be. Now, I have to justify myself against an attack which I characterize as cowardly. The Daily News to-day, in a leading article directed to certain meetings that have recently been held in in the Metropolis, advised the people of London to confide themselves to the careful and caatious counsels given to them by their own Members rather than to follow the rash advice given them by such men as Messrs. Graham and Conybeare. [Laughter.] That may seem a legitimate subject of laughter, but I ask any hon. Member where he has heard of me giving advice that was either inflammatory or in the least intended to provoke a breach of the peace? I have, on the contrary, in season and out of season, stood forward to restrain them; and I will be no party to push unarmed men forward to be decimated, perhaps, by grape shot. Whatever Government are in power, if a collision occurs with the police, and people are again killed by the police, the plutocrats and aristocrats, who alone hold the power in this country, will bear them out in any acts of barbarity they may commit, and those who like myself stand up in the House of Commons and ask for vengeance for the blood that has been shed will be howled down by the one Party in the House and deserted by the other.
      MR. J. ROWLANDS: I am not going to arrogate to myself the enormous power over the working classes of the Metropolis which the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cuninghame Graham) does although I must say, that for a number of years I have received some exhibitions of their confidence. I think that if the hon. Member for Northwest Lanarkshire wanted to be fair, he should have mentioned that one of the ablest speeches in defence of the right
      1022
      of public meeting in Trafalgar Square was made by the hon. and learned Member for South Hackney, over twelve months ago, when he brought forward a Motion on the subject. And personally I am glad to recognize the sincerity of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, although the last speaker has thought himself entitled to call it in question. But let me bring the discussion back to the Amendment before the House. I think the speech of the Home Secretary was one of the most unhappy that we could possibly have had delivered on this question. We have had learned Gentlemen differing this afternoon as to what is the proper construction of the Police Regulation Act, but, after all, we have to advance this question a stage beyond that point. The proposition laid down by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green requires to be answered by the representative of the Ministry who next speaks; you should declare by Statute that meetings in Trafalgar Square are either distinctly illegal or perfectly legal. We should then know where we are. If it should be decided that such meetings are not legal, the people of London could agitate to obtain a statutory right to meet in Trafalgar Square similar to that which they now enjoy in regard to Hyde Park. Now let me say that we cannot properly compare the meetings of 1886 with that of November, 1887, because there is a fundamental difference between them. The unfortunate circumstances which arose out of the meetings in 1886 arose after the speakers had begun to separate, in fact, after the meeting was supposed to be over. Then came that exodus from the Square, which would not have had the unfortunate consequences which attended it if the police had done their duty. But the conditions of 1887 were quite different; the people were not allowed to approach the Square for the purpose of holding their meeting, their processions were met a distance from the Square, at Bloomsbury on one side, at Westminster Bridge on the other. It was at a distance from the announced place of meeting that the police set upon the people,

      1023
      and an unfortunate collision, for which the police are responsible, took place. So you have no right to say that any riot was the outcome of the meeting called for November 13, 1887. You never allowed the people to assemble; you met the people's processions at considerable distance from the Square with a considerable force of police, and with undoubted military strategy, for which Sir Charles Warren can have all the credit he deserves; you dispersed bodies of unarmed citizens while proceeding to the exercise of their accustomed right, under leaders accustomed to address such meetings in the place proposed. I will not accuse the Home Secretary of equivocation; but there is something very much like equivocation in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman. He seems to think that after a considerable period of user of the Square for meetings you can satisfy the people that the user is gone because the Chief Commissioner issued a proclamation or notice denying that right. But that will not satisfy the people. Suppose the whole of your argument is good, that Trafalgar Square is not a good place for meetings; for the sake of argument I yield all you demand upon that point; you must not suppose that the people are going to allow this privilege which they have used for a number of years to be taken away, simply on the ipse dixit of the Chief Commissioner of Police for the time being. If you want to take the privilege away, if your argument is good that the place is the most unsuitable in London for the purpose, then by all means follow out your opinion, but at the same time do have some little respect for something approaching Constitutionalism as we understand it in this country; take some other course than merely placarding the walls with the word of the Chief Commissioner for the time being. That mere action is enough to irritate any population, even supposing you are right in your opinion. I desire, in common with the other Liberal Metropolitan Members, to use whatever influence we have to induce the people to wait and fight out this question on Constitutional lines, but we have received no assistance in that endeavour from Her Majesty's Government. It is all very well for the Home Secretary to quibble over the case of Mr. Saunders. It was the best case we had, because the ques-
      1024
      tion of riot was in no way mixed up with it. In other and previous cases before he police courts, there were forcible attempts made to hold a meeting, but these arose entirely out of the case of Mr. Saunders, and therefore we thought it a good case upon which to raise the right of public meeting, Mr. Saunders entered the Square, began to speak, was arrested immediately, and went to the police station, and so arose a case favourable for a decision as to the legitimate right we claim of open-air public speaking in the Square. The Home Secretary says—"You can go to the Square, any of you who think we are wrong, and thereupon bring an action if you are interfered with." But how are we to raise such a case? I hope the Attorney General will address himself to this point. How are we who want the question settled peaceably, who wish to prevent anything like a collision between the authorities and the people—how are we to get a case upon which to challenge a judicial decision in the Courts? Suppose we call a meeting there tomorrow, immediately you take precautions to stop it, and if we have people around us whom we could not control, there would be a collision between them and the police; and then, again, the old question of riot and resisting the police comes forward. I do not profess to be a lawyer, and am looking at this as a layman merely. The Attorney General will admit, I think, that if you have the question of riot introduced, the point at once becomes complicated, and you cannot get that clear decision on the right of meeting which we desire to raise. I know of a case identically the same, in another part of the United Kingdom, when a friend of mine sought to raise the point we desire to raise, but I saw at once he had complicated his position by resisting the police in the execution of their duty; and, I suppose, the reason I escaped, was because I did not resist the police. I hope the Attorney General clearly understands we want this question settled in a peaceable manner; we are prepared to receive a judicial decision, but we are not prepared to take the people to Trafalgar Square, and allow you to use physical force against them, and then say that we had a lot of roughs and created disorder, when we induced a body of respectable persons to demonstrate their

      1025
      position. It is a disgrace to London to see the way in which such large bodies of police are marched to public meetings. I presided the other day at a meeting on Clerkenwell Green, and somebody present counted the number of police on the ground. I have spoken often on Clerkenwell Green, and so have many of my friends near me—it is not, perhaps, the sort of thing Members opposite are in the habit of doing—still, acting within our right, we have done it. It was a cold night, about a fortnight ago, and there were enough police present to make in themselves a large meeting. Since 1887 this practice of drafting off bodies of police to attend public meetings has been going on. I first noticed it at a meeting I attended at Wood Green, one of the first of a series of meetings held to make public protest against the Coercion Act, and there quite an army of police were present, surrounding the doors of the assembly room where the meeting was held. Since then we have become used to the practice in London, and I suppose it will continue until we get rid of the present Government, "a consummation devoutly to be wished." That is the task we shall set ourselves, and the challenge taken up this evening will help us towards that desired end. Just a word in reference to the speech of the hon. Member for Beading. He spoke of a big petition signed largely by a number of workmen living in the neighbourhood of Trafalgar Square, and it would be instructive to hear where this large number of workmen live in the vicinity of Trafalgar Square. I will allow there are two blocks of model dwellings—though they are a considerable distance away—but elsewhere I do not know where you will find these working-class residents. I am not speaking of traders and persons of leisure. It seems to me very strange that to present this London petition recourse should be had to the hon. Member for the distant constituency of Reading, when hon. Members opposite are proud of reminding us that their Metropolitan representation is five times the strength of ours. Were there no colleagues of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury to present this Petition against holding meetings in Trafalgar Square signed by working men of that neighbourhood?
      1026
      Possibly, if one of these hon. Members had done so, it would have provoked the expression of a strong counter feeling among his constituents. We have seen the defence of the Government action comes not from Metropolitan Conservative Members, but from the hon. Member for Beading. Is that because hon. Members knew there is a strong and determined feeling on the part of the superior minded working classes in the Metropolis to obtain back again for themselves the right of user of Trafalgar Square for public meetings? They know that large members of working men, while they are not prepared to place themselves in collision with the authorities, wish, by Constitutional means, to effect this purpose, and there is evidence that they will carry out their desire. The whole debate, so far as it has proceeded upon the other side, has been most discouraging to us; but if you think you will get rid of this question by simply telling us that certain clauses of the Police Regulation Act give the power of absorbing this use of the Square which has been enjoyed by the people for a long series of years, let me tell you, you entirely fail to satisfy us and a very large number of persons outside. We want to see, we hope to see, that question settled in a way satisfactory to everyone, and I am sure the only way of a reasonable compromise is that which we have offered again and again, that the right of meeting in the Square should be recognized, duly regulated, and under proper control, so that all who desire to legitimately use the Square for a meeting should have the opportunity of doing so. Even now, before this debate closes, it is not too late for Her Majesty's Government to say something of a conciliatory character on this question. I am sure it would be worth their while, even if they cannot agree with our offer. They might offer something which would be considered a little more conciliatory than anything we have had from them up to the present. The allusions to meetings in "Dod Street" and in "Seven Dials" have no relation to the case. Those are thoroughfares, and no one can for a moment say that "Seven Dials," where Temperance speakers and street preachers have set up their little stands, comes within the category of open

      1027
      spaces, and is the sort of place to hold a big meeting. In Trafalgar Square you have quite different circumstances: it is an open space. Technically, it is a thoroughfare, but practically it is not so, and it is fully suited for the object for which it has been used in times gone by, and for which it will have to be used again. Her Majesty's Government must be prepared to hear of this Trafalgar Square question over and over again, so long as they keep their present position. We are determined, even if we lose the right of meeting there, that that right shall not be taken away from the people on a warrant or notice issued by the Chief Commissioner of Police for the time being. We are determined not to lose the right; and I ask the Government if they are disposed to offer us the opportunity of a settlement by the discussion of a Bill, or in a Constitutional manner? We shall continue to admonish the people to be patient, we shall educate the people—though they scarcely require that—to wait patiently for the time when the Government will have to give the opportunity for the expression of that displeasure at the Government's action in regard to Trafalgar Square, which the people will not hesitate to express.
      MR. HOWELLrose to continue the debate.
      An hon. MEMBER called attention to the fact that there were not 40 Members present. The House was counted, and 40 Members were found to be present.
      MR. HOWELL: It was not my intention to take part in this debate, and I do not think I should have done so, but for the amazing speeches of the Home Secretary and the hon. Member for Lanarkshire (Mr. C. Graham). I feel that my position in regard to this question is a somewhat peculiar one, and I am, therefore, compelled to trespass for a few moments upon the time of the House. In the first place, I defy any Member of the Government or any hon. Member on the Ministerial side of the House to point to anything in my past political career which can justify the assertion that I have ever promoted meetings in the open air which have led to disturbance or have been likely to cause disorder. But I have been concerned in some of the largest open
      1028
      air meetings which ever took place in this country, and they have been altogether free from anything like annoyance, riot, or disturbance. So far as the meetings in Trafalgar Square are concerned, I may inform hon. Members opposite that they have been witnessed with approval by most of the residents from the balconies and windows of their houses. I am by no means anxious that there should be any disturbance in Trafalgar Square at this moment—not that I am anxious that there ever should be, but I am specially anxious that under existing circumstances no disturbance should take place there. The speeches of the Home Secretary and the hon. Member for Lanarkshire seemed to me distinctly to invite a meeting in Trafalgar Square, in order that it may be put down.
      MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I do not think that the hon. Member is fairly construing my remarks. I think my remarks were calculated to invite people not to assemble in Trafalgar Square.
      MR. HOWELL: I was obliged to put my own construction upon the words of the hon. Gentleman, and I considered that the whole tone of the speech invited a meeting, especially when it is taken in connection with that of the Home Secretary. I must say that the Home Secretary has taken up a peculiar position for a lawyer to take—namely, that the citizens of this country have no rights except those which are given to them by Statute. I do not profess to be a Constitutional lawyer, nor do I profess to be a lawyer at all; but I have dipped into some law books in my time, and I have endeavoured to find out what the rights and duties of a citizen are. It is a somewhat complicated subject; but, as far as I have been able to find out, I believe that a citizen is entitled to do whatever he is not prohibited from doing, either by Common Law or by Statute. The majority of the rights we enjoy as citizens are not rights which are laid down either by Statute Law or by Common Law, but are—although the phrase is often sneered at—the natural rights of every citizen. I shall be very much astonished if the Attorney General supports the statement of the Home Secretary that user does not give a right of meeting in a particular place. The right

      1029
      of meeting in Trafalgar Square goes back certainly 40 years. A meeting there was proclaimed by a Conservative Government in 1866, but that proclamation was not enforced, and was practically withdrawn, as the proclamation was abandoned and the meeting was held. Under those circumstances, the working men were justified in believing they had a right to meet in Trafalgar Square; and, that being so, they ought to have been dealt with tenderly. Both the Home Office and Scotland Yard ought to have been careful how they disturbed such meetings. The position of the working men is strengthened by the fact mentioned by the hon. Member for Haggerston, that the meetings which preceded the one which was interfered with by the police were got up with money supplied by liberal-minded Members of the Conservative Party, who seem to have supplied both of the sections with money on that occasion. The natural consequence was disturbance and riot, and then came proclamations forbidding the holding of what had hitherto been regarded as perfectly legal, lawful, and peaceable meetings. Perhaps I may say that, although my name has been connected with the meeting which took place, in which Trafalgar Square was referred to the other night, and although I have been identified with meetings of the working classes in the Metropolis for more than 30 years, yet I never, under any circumstances, sanctioned by my presence or by my voice a meeting on a Sunday. Therefore I did not approve of the meeting which took place on that fatal Sunday; but I maintain that those men who went there, believing that they were acting legally, ought not to have been treated with violence by the right hon. Gentleman opposite who says he is as anxious as we are to protect the right of public meeting in the Metropolis. As regards the present position of the question, it is a difficult and complicated one. We have endeavoured to advise the peaceable working men of London not to attempt under the existing circumstances to hold a meeting in Trafalgar Square, lest there should be a conflict with the police. Yet we have been classed by the right hon. Gentleman with those who have hounded the people on to such meetings.
      MR. MATTHEWS: No.
      MR. HOWELL: That was certainly the impression left on my mind. The Metropolitan Members have all prayed their friends to keep quiet under existing circumstances. We know that there are persons who hound the people to go into Trafalgar Square and hold meetings, and the only reason why a great demonstration is not called there is that they have not the pluck to go by themselves, but wait until some Metropolitan Liberal Member will head them. As far as we are concerned, however, we do not intend to place ourselves in the position of leading a mob to Trafalgar Square; we say, let those who want such an assemblage, or a conflict with the police, head such a procession; for my own part I wash my hands of it. But I must say that, if the Home Secretary's words meant anything at all, they were an invitation to the people to go to Trafalgar Square.
      THE HOME SECRETARY: The hon. Member must have misunderstood me. What my words were intended to convey was, that it is open to anyone who wishes to bring an action to do so.
      MR. HOWELL: I suppose I must be somewhat obtuse, for I am unable to see the difference between the position the right hon. Gentleman now takes up and that which he assumed a short time ago. I would ask how is it possible, under the circumstances, to bring an action? The only course we can conceive has been taken. The police block the Square, and will not allow anyone to go through; so that the only way in which persons can get into the Square to hold a meeting is by hustling the police, in which case they would be accused of attacking them; so that, instead of the question being one as to the right of public meeting, it becomes a mere charge of assaulting the police. I know the matter is a somewhat difficult one, and am anxious that by something said, either in or out of this House, some course may be taken that will enable us to try the right of public meeting, without coming into unnecessary collision with the police or the military authorities. It seems to me that some easy solution of the question might be found. The right hon. Gentleman paid a compliment to the working men in saying they were not anxious, to promote disorder, and anyone knowing the history of the move-

      1031
      ment in London will thoroughly endorse that statement. I think that the Government might put this question at Test, either by framing regulations to be observed in regard to meetings in Trafalgar Square, or by bringing in a Bill on the subject. It seems to me that the Police Acts that have been referred to have been looked up after the occasion, as we never knew them to be relied upon before; and certainly they were not the Acts cited by the Home Secretary in the first instance. The first contention put forward was that Trafalgar Square was the private property of the Crown; but I suppose the Home Secretary could not well reconcile that with the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman sitting on the same Bench with him. When the question of the semi-disorderly meetings which preceded the suppressed meeting arose, and there was some fear of a conflict, the First Commissioner of Works was asked a Question in this House, and in reply to that question, he said he had not the power to interfere, and then added that if he had the power he had not the will. This was practically giving to the working classes of London, and to the "fringe" spoken of by the Home Secretary, an invitation to make Trafalgar Square a kind of home. That invitation did not come from the Liberal Members: on the contrary, it was deprecated by them, just as they would deprecate any thing tending to bring the people and the police into collision. But since the Government will not accept the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Haggerston (Mr. Cremer), and will do nothing to facilitate a settlement of this question in a Court of Law, they are, I maintain, in duty bound, as the upholders of law and order, to bring in a measure dealing with the subject. I would, before concluding, accentuate the remarks of my hon. Friend as to the attitude taken in 1886, believing that it deserves to be accentuated, because it arose in this way. We were told we had a right of meeting in Hyde Park and some of the other parks of the Metropolis, and we certainly now possess the right; but we had to fight for it continuously until the concession was obtained. Prior to this, however, we were told by the then Conservative Government that we had no right of meeting in the parks, though we had
      1032
      the right of meeting in Trafalgar Square. Under all these circumstances, and in view of all these contradictory statements by Members of Conservative Governments, we say it is the bounden duty of the present Government, before some great catastrophe takes place, to endeavour, and that promptly, to settle this important question.
      MR. CONYBEARE: I must say that I do not share the opinions of some of my hon. Friends on this side of the House as to the attitude the Government have taken on this question. I am not disappointed at being met by a simple non possumus on the part of the Government; it is exactly what I expected; and, had they taken any other line, there would have been grounds on my part for surprise. I congratulate the Radicals of the Metropolis on the success of their recent action in having procured a whole evening for the discussion of this important subject. It is less than a week since a convention or conference of the Radical Clubs of the Metropolis met to consider their future action on this matter. We had there the Metropolitan Members represented by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green (Mr. Pickersgill), the hon. Member for Battersea (Mr. O. V. Morgan), and the hon. and learned Member for Hackney (Sir C. Russell), who has spoken with such force to-night, and has put to the Home Secretary questions which he cannot answer; and the result has been that we have brought this question into the front rank, and at the same time have stimulated into a more active frame of mind the representatives of Liberalism and Radicalism in the Metropolis. The question is not whether Trafalgar Square is the most convenient place of meeting; it is as to what are the Constitutional rights of the citizens of London; and the Government may rest assured that, as previous Tory Home Secretaries have been signally defeated on this question, so, likewise, will they be, whether in a Court of Law or elsewhere. The last time this question was brought prominently forward was when Hyde Park was won for the right of public meeting on the part of the people. It is not quite accurate to say, as some have said, that it was won by the passing of the Parks Act. If I recollect aright, the Parks Act Was

      1033
      not passed until some years later, 1872. The fight was really won when our forefathers tore down the railings of Hyde Park. [Mr. J. ROWLANDS: Tour forefathers are now in the House.] Yes. I am glad to think so, and I hope they will stand by us now when we try to assert the right of free speech, though we cannot by any possibility do it in the same fashion, because Trafalgar Square could easily, being a comparatively small space, be occupied by police and soldiery, and rendered impregnable against unarmed men. I, for one—and I think I have a right to protest against the slanders which have been showered upon me—have never; counselled the people of the Metropolis to rush upon the batons of the police in Trafalgar Square. I have taken an active part certainly, but not a violently active part in certain meetings held on Saturday afternoons, last summer, and in connection with one of which a case came before the magistrates. And I have deemed it my duty to come forward in assertion of the right of free speech and free public meeting, both in this House and elsewhere; and I defy the Daily News, or any other paper, or any other person or politician, to charge me with having incited the crowd in London to violent attacks upon the police, or to throw themselves upon the bludgeons of the police in Trafalgar Square. I took part in the Conference to which I have already referred; but, far from sharing the views which some were prepared to advocate in that Convention, I gave advice of an opposite character, and it was upon my suggestion that the hon. Members for the Metropolis brought the matter forward this evening in the way in which they have done. [A laugh.] Hon. Members may sneer, but I decline to be bound by a merely geographical interpretation of my Parliamentary duties. Now, the Home Secretary has made a series of comments which are not warranted by the facts as they exist. He has, with a degree of assurance which would be surprising in anyone else, charged us with being afraid to try the issue involved in this case. It is a little too bad that the right hon. Gentleman, having commenced his speech with a criticism of that kind, should wind up by comparing honest artizans and mechanics of the Metropolis to vultures
      1034
      and birds of prey, and that he should use other insulting language with respect to them. With regard to the legal aspect of the question, the right hon. Gentleman says there have been some 20 opportunities when we might have tried the question. There have not been 20, but there have been a certain number, of every one of which we have availed ourselves, and that in spite of repeated obstacles, which I charge the Government with having deliberately thrown in our way, and through which we have not yet succeeded in getting this question tried upon its merits. We have been thwarted, so to speak, by the most miserable and pettifogging quibbles which could possibly be suggested by a third or fifth rate lawyer. I ventured to ask the Home Secretary his authority for still continuing the illegal proclamation of Sir Charles Warren, and he replied it consisted of the decisions of Justices Charles, Wills, and Grantham. But those judgments were directed, not to the legality of the proclamation, nor even to the question whether there is any right of meeting in Trafalgar Square; and what we desire is that the case should be tried upon its merits, and not upon any bye issue. Let us see what those cases were. In the first, the decision of Mr. Justice Charles was given in the case of the Queen against Mr. Cuninghame Graham, arising out of the fatal meeting on the 13th November, and which will cause the day to be known in history as "Bloody Sunday." I contend that if the police had not been there, and there had been no illegal attempt to disperse a perfectly orderly and peaceable meeting, there would have been no disturbance. And the disturbance thus illegally occasioned by the Government prejudiced the whole issue, for the charge against my hon. Friend (Mr. Graham) on that occasion was that he had participated in an unlawful assembly, and on that charge he was sentenced, being acquitted on the charge of riot. But even were our right to meet in the Square admitted by all, that same charge might have-arisen in the event of a disturbance, from whatever cause, taking place; and, therefore, supposing Mr. Justice Charles, in summing up on the question whether, owing to the disturbance, my hon. Fiend had taken part in an unlawful

      1035
      assembly, had said anything about the question of the right of public meeting in Trafalgar Square, it would have been a mere obiter dictum, and would not have had the slightest weight as a judicial decision, and the Home Secretary must know that quite as well as myself. I maintain that there is no more right to interfere with a meeting of working men in Trafalgar Square than there is to interfere with a meeting at any club, unless a dangerous disturbance arises, and then in both cases it might become the duty of the police to interfere. I come now to the Judgment of Mr. Justice Wills and Mr. Justice Grantham. In that case my friend Mr. Dillon Lewis had the courage to come forward in defence of the public rights. And I think every citizen owes him a debt of gratitude for the unselfish devotion with which he has fought this question. The Home Secretary has told us that in that case the Judges decided that there was no right to hold a meeting in Trafalgar Square. That is not so. That question was not raised and argued on its merits—at any rate, no binding decision was given upon it, for in their Judgment the Judges distinctly state, "We abstain from pronouncing a Judgment on the right of public meeting, which we think it is not for us to decide." Therefore, whatever opinion they may have expressed in that case, it was, as in the case of Mr. Cuninghame Graham, a mere obiter dictum, which is not entitled to be considered as a judicial decision. The charge preferred by Mr. Lewis was a charge of conspiracy against the police and the Home Secretary to prevent the people from exercising their just and acknowledged rights. The precise charge was that of conspiring by unlawful violence and unlawful means to prevent Her Majesty's subjects from exercising their lawful rights; to injure and annoy the people, and to deprive them of their just rights, thereby endangering the public peace. And I think the following facts upon which Mr. Dillon Lewis framed his charge will, in the opinion of most people, amply justify his action. I am reading from the sworn information of James Parker, of 51, Southampton Street, Camberwell, who states that
      "A body of police—some 12 or 15 of the N Division stationed at the Obelisk, marched for-
      1036
      ward and placed themselves in front of us, and several others marched by the side of the processions, and attempted to push members of the processions out of position and to get into the processions.… It was about four o'clock, and the several processions which I and the other four officers hereinbefore mentioned were leading, were at the foot of the Surrey side of Westminster Bridge, when one of the police constables who had followed at the side of the processionists and had made himself conspicuous by pushing against them and trying to force himself into their ranks, said to the Police Constables near him, 'Now the b—'s will be sent back quicker than what they came.' When we arrived at the centre of the bridge a mounted patrol rode up from the Middlesex side and gave some orders to a policeman, who seemed to be in command of the police who were accompanying our processions, and the man who received the orders said to him in reply, 'Good God, are we to do that?' The Patrol replied, 'That's your orders.' The processions continued on until we arrived at the rests in Bridge Street, when the processions wheeled round between the two rests, and the head of the procession so faced the police, mounted and foot, that were drawn up, to the number of some 300 to 400, at the corner of, and stretching across, Parliament Street from one side to the other, with the obvious purpose of preventing any of the public passing up and through Parliament Street. I put my hand gently on the head of one of the horses for the purpose merely of asserting my legal right not to have the passage over a public highway barred to me, and asked to be allowed to pass through Parliament Street, whereupon I was immediately struck with their fists by two police constables, and thereupon immediately the whole of the police constables on foot drew their staves and commenced a violent and indiscriminate attack upon the members of the procession, beating them over their heads and bodies without provocation of the slightest kind. In particular, I saw one police constable strike a man named John Simpson over the shoulders with his truncheon, and kick him in the back as he was going away from him after being struck. Simpson had done nothing, and was walking quietly immediately in the next rank to me. Simultaneously with the assault on the people by the foot police, the mounted constables charged the processionists, knocking down and riding over them, and I saw one mounted policeman ride a woman down deliberately and ride over her. I and others assisted to pick her up, and she stated she had just been to St Thomas' Hospital to visit her husband, who was an in-patient there. The police also knocked down an old man, who told me he had been a soldier and had fought under Sir Charles Warren. I appealed to Superintendent Dunlop, who was in command there, to call his men off, and I would take the procession another way, and the head of the procession by my instructions moved towards Storey's Gate."
      The circumstances are of so extraordinary a nature that one would scarcely imagine they could occur in a civilized country. One would imagine one was reading

      1037
      a description of the Peterloo massacre or some of the outrages which hare disgraced the Government of Ireland at the present day. But the fact is, that I have been reading the sworn testimony of one of those who was present on this particular occasion in Parliament Street within a few hundred yards of this building. And I would ask the House particularly to notice that this was not a meeting that was being held in a disorderly fashion, or even in disobedience to an illegal police proclamation. It was a peaceable and perfectly legitimate procession, as to the regulation, but not the suppression, of which the Police Act contains specific provisions. Mr. Lewis applied for a warrant against Sir Charles Warren, the Home Secretary, and the Chief Commissioner of Works. The magistrate refused to grant the summons, and Mr. Lewis was compelled to go to a Superior Court and ask for a mandamus to compel the magistrate to grant the summons. The decision of Justices Wills and Grantham was not that there was no right of public meeting in Trafalgar Square. They declared that that question was not before them, and the only question they did decide was that the magistrate having exercised his jurisdiction, it was not competent for them to review it, however wrongly it might have been exercised. My contention, however, is that the decision of the Superior Court was wrong, and that the Judges had the right to interfere. For in refusing to grant a summons, the magistrate did not exercise his jurisdiction in such a manner as to oust the right of appeal. I hope that after this explanation we shall hear no more from the Home Secretary or from the Front Bench that the question at issue in that case was the question of the public right of meeting in Trafalgar Square, and that it was decided against us by the Judges. I may add to what I have said in this connection that if the magistrate—Mr. Vaughan—had granted the summons Mr. Lewis would have insisted, under the Vexatious Indictments Act, on being bound over to prosecute. In the case of Mr. Saunders, that gentleman went deliberately to Trafalgar Square, by a sort of arrangement with the police, and allowed himself to be technically assaulted in order that he might bring a specific case to
      1038
      trial. I hold in my hand a report of the proceedings before Sir James Ingham, the magistrate, who dismissed it, because, forsooth, Mr. Saunders, who used to be a Member of this House, did not use violence enough. Mr. Corrie Grant, the able advocate of Mr. Saunders, asked that the case might be dealt with in such a manner as to allow of an appeal, but Sir J. Ingham refused, on the ground that he had neither assaulted nor resisted the police. And this leads me to remark upon the ridiculous position to which the Government have brought the question, in their efforts to shirk a fair decision. Mr. Saunders was put out of Court, because he would not resist the police. In Borgia's case, we are ruled out of Court because he did. In Mr. Saunders' case the question of Sir C. Warren's authority for the issue of a Proclamation was argued. Now the Home Secretary in a reply which he gave to a Question which I put to him to-day, stated that the Chief Commissioner acted under the Police Act. It is to be regretted that the right hon. Gentleman does not make his official answers square with the views of the legal advisers of the Government, for I find that in the case of Mr. Saunders, Mr. Poland distinctly stated that these Proclamations do not come under the Police Act, but that they are notices under the Common Law. It is very strange if they are notices under the Common Law that the right hon. Gentleman should come down here and say that they are authorized by the Police Act. I would recommend the right hon. Gentleman to make himself better acquainted with the contents of the Police Act. I am not surprised that he refused to read the section of the Statute when he was challenged to do so by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Hackney (Sir C. Russell). That section 52 (of 2 and 3 Vic. c. 47), merely provides that the Police may "make regulations for the route to be observed by all carts, carriages, horses, and persons, and for preventing obstruction of the streets and thoroughfares in all times of public processions," not a word about public meetings in open spaces, much less about proclaiming during the sweet will and pleasure of the Police Commissioner all meetings whatever. Now I come to the Borgia case, where

      1039
      the unfortunate young man Borgia had his coat torn off his back and was nearly throttled by the police for merely standing by the balustrade in the Square and remonstrating against the brutal violence with which one of these moral miracles in blue threw down a poor woman. It is, by the way, a fair comment upon the equitable administration of the law, that this poor fellow was treated by the police with ferocious violence, while Mr. Saunders and myself, though we were speaking and putting resolutions, were never touched by them. In this case, as is well known, the Government promised that a case should be stated so as fairly to raise the questions at issue. On the strength of their pledge, we undertook to hold no more meetings. We have honourably fulfilled our undertaking. The Government have, as usual, basely and dishonourably gone back upon their word; and, through the Treasury Solicitor and Mr. Poland, have got a case stated, which simply prejudges the whole issue, and, as the Home Secretary has himself admitted, is simply useless for the purpose we have in view. In all these cases the Government, so far from assisting in bringing the question to an issue, have confronted us with every difficulty and obstacle that could be put in our way. We have done everything in our power to get the question tested by a competent legal tribunal, and we have been met by nothing but quibbling and pettifogging objections. And now the Home Secretary has the audacity to come and sneer at us for not having tried the case in a Court of law, because we knew we should fail. Such is the can-dour of the present Government. The Government may protest that they are in favour of public meetings in open spaces; but at the bottom of their hearts they are nothing of the kind, unless, indeed, the dames of the Primrose League choose to hold a meeting in Trafalgar Square to bolster up Coercion in Ireland, when, no doubt, the Government would do all in their power to protect them from contact with the people. The Home Secretary spun a long yarn, and went into elaborate arguments as to the right of meeting in a public thoroughfare. Now, none of us ever claimed an indisputable right of meeting in a public thoroughfare, or that we should block up Parliament Street and
      1040
      interfere with the ordinary course of business. What we claim is the right of meeting in open spaces, and it is that Constitutional right which the Government, in a despotic manner, are trying to deprive us of. We contend that our right to meet in open spaces in inalienable, inherent, and constitutional. Let me point out how we have been deprived of it. It is not that the Government have refused to allow a particular meeting to be held; we know perfectly well that the law permits magistrates to prevent a particular meeting, when it is believed it will cause danger to and alarm peaceable citizens. "But even then it has been expressly laid down by Chief Baron Pallis in O'Kelly v. Harvey," that
      "A magistrate is not justified in forcibly dispersing a meeting on the ground merely that he believes or has reasonable and probable grounds for believing that the meeting was held with an unlawful intent, unless the meeting be in itself unlawful; and a plea justifying an assault on the ground that it was committed by a magistrate in the dispersing of a meeting must either allege as a fact that the meeting was unlawful, or must state facts from which its unlawfulness can be inferred."
      That was not however sufficient for the Government. They would not limit themselves to doing that, for they knew they could not always depend on a jury justifying their lawless attacks upon unoffending citizens. So they issued a general proclamation prohibiting all meetings that had been called, or might be called in the future. I challenge the Home Secretary and the Attorney General to point out anything in the Common Law which justifies the issue of a general proclamation of this kind. I say they have no right to deprive us of the right of public meeting, as such a proclamation enables them to do, from one end of the country to the other, for if it be lawful in Trafalgar Square, then they have equal authority to issue similar general proclamations in respect of any other open space. Then if the Common Law does not authorize this action, we are entitled to know if it is done under Statute Law. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary has not cited any Statute Law. He quoted 2 and 3 Vic, chap. 47, see. 52, as his authority, but that only authorises the Chief Commissioner to prevent the obstruction of thoroughfares on the occasion of public processions,

      1041
      public rejoicings and illuminations. Now I wish to point out we are not contending that there is a legal right which you can point to in any particular Statute, although I believe if you refer to the Bill of Rights in the reign of William III., you will find the right of public meeting included. We however do not assert a mere right under Statute Law; we take our stand on a far higher principle, we say that we have a Constitutional right which has been sanctioned and emphasized not only by outside authority but by this House itself; indeed we say that the right is anterior to the existence of this House. For this House itself is but the product by evolution of the ancient Teutonic custom of meeting together in the open to discuss the public affairs of the Commune. I find in the Journals of the House, for November and December, 1641, a reference to this particular right, and it appears that the House itself supported the claim of the people to assemble in the open space outside the House, and discharged the constables from the duty imposed on them by the Government to disperse the people. What answer will the Attorney General be able to give on this point? There are many other authorities I could quote in support of my contention—among them the eminent jurist Storey and Lord Erskine. But I do not wish to trouble the House further. I submit that I have laid contentions before it against which the Home Secretary has not advanced and cannot advance a single argument. Now, we are anxious to have this matter settled, and I will, therefore, make this fair offer to the Government. Will you authorize me at the next meeting of the Radical Clubs to state that if we raise this question in a peaceable form by means of a technical assault you will engage that we shall have it fairly tried before a competent authority, and not be met by all manner of technical and pettifogging quibbles? I can only say that if you decline this offer we can only believe that the Government wish to shirk a fair and square decision by the Courts of the country upon the merits of the case, and if that be the case, though I should be sorry to appeal in any way to use a threat, I know enough of the public feeling out-
      1042
      side to be able to say without fear of proving a false prophet, that many hon. Members on the Ministerial side of the House who represent Metropolitan constituencies will have at the next Election cause to regret that the Government have taken up this attitude.
      MR. BRADLAUGH: I should not have taken part in the debate, but for the provocation given by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, who, in answer to the hon. and learned Member for Hackney, did not condescend to state on what particular Statute he relied as a warrant for the proclamation issued by the Chief Commissioner. Had he done so there would have been no necessity for continuing the debate. All we have heard from him is that the proclamation was issued under 2 and 8 Vic., cap. 47, and when he was challenged as to the particular section, he made no answer whatever.
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL: He said section 52.
      MR. BRADLAUGH: I am obliged to the Attorney General for giving us this information, but I wish to point out that that section does not contain one word which could authorize the proclamation which has been issued. I am endeavouring to put my point as clearly and as distinctly as possible. I have not the advantage which the right hon. Gentleman has of being a lawyer as well as a Member of this House, but I have the advantage of being guided by Statute Law. And I may point out that the proclamation which has been issued is not a proclamation forbidding some particular meeting, because it was likely to be attended by a breach of the peace; but it was a general proclamation forbidding all persons to go in upon the Square, a proclamation applying to all meetings for all time—meetings which had been called, as well as meetings which had not been called. The Section does not authorize the prohibition of any meeting under any

      1043
      circumstances whatever. These are the words—
      "The Chief Commissioner may, from time to time, and as occasion shall require, make regulations for the route to be observed by all carts, carriage-horses and persons, and for the preventing of obstruction in the streets and thoroughfares within the Metropolis in all times of public proccessions, public rejoicing and illumination; also he shall give directions to the constables for keeping order and for preventing any obstruction of the thoroughfares."
      Now, this really means preventing obstruction of the thoroughfare in the immediate neighbourhood of Her Majesty's Palaces, public offices, high courts, parliament, courts of law and equity, police-courts, theatres, and other places of public resort, and I suggest that the only meaning is to give the Chief Commissioner of Police such power as he ought to have for reasonable purposes. He has no power to prevent public meetings at all. There is only a power to regulate traffic, so as to prevent obstruction so far as is consistent with permitting a thing lawful to happen. Now, in answer to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hackney, the Home Secretary said the question of the right to issue this proclamation had been already decided. I venture to reply that it has never been decided; it has never been technically raised for decision; there has never been an opportunity of raising it, and the decision in the case of the Queen v. Graham was a decision solely on the question of unlawful assembly. There was another charge presented to the jury, but the jury found against that charge: which was one of riot, and I need not point out that there may be an unlawful assembly for a perfectly lawful purpose. The purpose of going into Trafalgar Square may have been, and indeed was, perfectly lawful, but the means taken to obtain the end desired amounted in the opinion of the jury to an unlawful assembly. Therefore, the decision that there had been an unlawful assembly in no way alters or affects the right of meeting in Trafalgar Square. The case of ex-parte Dillon Lewis is still farther from any decision as to the right to issue any such proclamation. It is abundantly clear that there is no power to prevent theatres being opened, although large crowds might assemble. All that is cast upon the police in con-

      1044
      nection with these crowds is the duty to regulate the traffic and the routes of carriages, and the direction in which pedestrians shall walk; and it never entered into human imagination until Chief Commissioner Warren issued his proclamation that anyone could do anything of this kind under this particular section. The Home Secretary, in answer to the challenge whether the Government had not permitted this question of right being tried out, said, it was perfectly open to anyone to bring an action for being obstructed in his rights—if such a right exist. I venture to say that no more ridiculous proposition was ever made. It is perfectly clear that I have a right to walk along any thoroughfare; but if it happen that I come into collision—not intentionally or in a criminal sense—with some other person exercising the same right, I have no right to bring an action against him because I have been obstructed in my right of passing along the thoroughfare. It is a most monstrous doctrine which the right hon. Gentleman has suggested. It is true that, in one sense, Trafalgar Square is a thoroughfare, because there are parts of it by which persons passing along might, somewhat inconveniently perhaps, go from one street to another. But it is not entirely a thoroughfare, because the position of the Nelson monument and its pedestal is such as to prevent thoroughfare and to form a space exceedingly convenient for large numbers of persons to assemble without causing any sort of obstruction. Indeed, the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary goes the length of saying that there is no right of public meeting in this country at all. He says you have a right of public meeting in any place hired for the purpose; but let me point out that the general public have no such right, even if they pay for admission to it. The right hon. Gentleman's proposition goes to the length of preventing public meetings entirely in this country. When we wanted peaceably to try this right we were not allowed to do it, and now the right hon. Gentleman taunts us with resorting to force. It is unfortunately true that, in connection with these meetings, some men have used very rash language, which has been utilized by the Home Secretary for the purpose of preventing public

      1045
      meetings in Trafalgar Square altogether. If Trafalgar Square is not a proper place for holding meetings, then let the Government say so properly by statutory enactment, and let it be declared clearly. The right hon. Gentleman told us that the right of public meeting in the parks—and he especially mentioned Hyde Park—had been given us by Statute. I take leave to say I can find no such thing in any Statute. But the right hon. Gentleman will find—and I had an opportunity of arguing this point before Judges sitting on the Bench—and I had occasion to consider the point carefully when Mr. Odger and others were prosecuted—the right hon. Gentleman will, I say, find that the right of public meeting already exercised was admitted by Parliament to need some restriction, and as a consequence the right of public meeting was limited to certain parts of the parks; the right was regulated by statute law, but it was not created by it. I do not know what the Government's contention is as to the future of the right of meeting in Trafalgar Square. The inconvenience to trade about there, and to the inhabitants of the neighbourhood, may be fair ground for enacting something about the right of meeting there; but it is no ground for arbitrary proclamation; it is no ground for so using the police as to aggravate the people. The people of this Metropolis have been law-abiding. The meetings which have been held in Trafalgar Square have been, with a few exceptions, orderly meetings. Huge meetings have been held there, with only such inconvenience as will always arise from the assembly of large bodies of people. If you say Trafalgar Square is a place where, under no circumstances, large bodies of people ought to assemble, that is a fair proposition to put to Parliament for consideration; but that is very different to claiming the right of the Chief Commissioner to prohibit a meeting altogether at his mere whim and fancy.
      MR. PICTON: Reference has been made to the 52nd section of the Metropolitan Police Amendment Act; but I venture to say that at the time that Act was passed no one concerned ever dreamt that the 52nd section could
      1046
      be put to the purposes to which it has been applied. I will show that, while many points in the Bill were objected to, no one ever supposed that the 52nd section could be applied as a means of interference with the liberties of the people. When the Bill was introduced, it was felt to be a very liberal measure. Captain Wood, we read in Hansard,
      "was strongly opposed to the Bill, as it tended greatly to interfere with the powers of the police, and was in some respects of a Republican tendency."
      Upon the Report stage, Mr. Hume, who was then very active in Parliamentary life, objected to pay the expenses of the police out of the Consolidated Fund, and suggested that it should be an annual Vote like the Army and Navy. In that case Mr. Hume said that all discussions as to the conduct of the police could take place at the same time. This I mention to show the jealousy that was felt at the time as to the possibility of interference with popular liberty by the police. In the same month, July, 1839, while the Bill was in the Report stage, a terrible riot occurred in Birmingham, and during one of the discussions on the Bill Mr. T. Duncombe called attention to the riot, and read an extract from the morning papers as follows:—
      "Men, women, and children were thrown down and trampled on while the police belaboured them right and left. Broken heads and arms, with other severe wounds, were the result. One man, who was returning from his work, had his teeth knocked out. The poor fellow exclaimed, 'Am I in England!' Several special constables came up at the time and expressed their horror at such proceedings."
      On account of what took place, several hon. Members urged strongly the necessity of the House being on its guard against the possibility of an abuse of the law. Mr. Hume saw in this occurrence an additional reason for an annual Vote, instead of a charge on the Consolidated Fund, and said that the House should have a Constitutional check over the police. Mr. William Williams said—
      "The disturbance in Birmingham was created by the police. Now, under this Bill a person raising his arm merely to defend himself from a blow would be liable to imprisonment; and could it be supposed that the magistrates

      1047
      at Birmingham, under the present circumstances of excitement, would not non-suit in such a case?"
      It will thus be seen that Members of the House of that time were on the watch against an abuse of police power, and yet, though a very large number of the clauses were keenly discussed, no one ever referred to Clause 52. Of course, they might expect that it would be made use of to prevent public meetings in time of excitement and danger. No one objected to that; but if they had thought that under the clause a proclamation could be put out indefinitely, or possibly for ever, preventing public meetings in well-known public places, I am sure someone would have criticized the clause. I heartily agree with the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) that the interpretation which finds such power in the clause is exceedingly forced, and is such a one as it requires a legal training to appreciate. I quite understand the desirability of coming to a Division as soon as possible, but at the same time the matter under discussion is one of such supreme importance to the peace and order of London in the future, that I must press on the Government the necessity of coming to some more reasonable conclusion in regard to it than they have yet done. Never in recent times, where any such question has been raised between the Government and the people, have the people come worst off in the end. I believe that the Government and the public owe a great deal to the Liberal Members for Metropolitan constituencies for the persistent and patient efforts which they have made at some sacrifice to themselves to prevent any conflict between the people and the police on this subject; but I doubt whether even those hon. Members have the power of preventing such a conflict, unless the people who believe that they have a right to meet in Trafalgar Square see some way of having it peaceably established.
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir R. WEBSTER,): Sir, I should not have attempted to infuse a little life into the very dry bones of this debate, if I had not been directly appealed to by hon. Gentlemen below
      1048
      the Gangway opposite. I cannot help feeling that that debate has been, to a great extent, but a re-echo of the much more animated debate which took place on the same subject last Session; and I confess myself unable to understand on what ground the question should have been raised in its present shape, or the previous discussion revived. I conceive that the position in regard to the matter has not changed, and that there is no good reason why we should reopen the question on which the House has expressed a decided opinion. I have been somewhat challenged by the hon. and learned Member for South Hackney (Sir C. Russell). I must say, however, there has been throughout this debate, and even in the able speech of the hon. and learned Member, a confusion between the right of public meeting and the right of free discussion. The House will remember the animated debate which we had on a previous occasion, as to whether Trafalgar Square is Crown property or open to the public. The whole discussion tonight has proceeded on the basis that, either by Act of Parliament, by custom, or in some other way, Trafalgar Square has become dedicated to the public. Now, I assert that if Trafalgar Square has become dedicated to the public for the purpose of the general public passing through and enjoying it, there is no legal right to occupy the Square for the purpose of public meetings. I stated in March last, in terms about which there can be no doubt, that there is no judgment or dictum to support the idea that there is a right to occupy any public thoroughfare for the purpose of a public meeting. There is no judgment which directly or incidentally recognizes any such right. This is not a question of the right of public meeting or of public discussion; it is simply a question of the place in which you are entitled to have discussion. The hon. and learned Member for Hackney has been obliged to admit that it is not a legal right that is claimed, but something that rests upon custom. Free right of access for passage negatives the

      1049
      right to occupy the whole space for a public meeting. The hon. and learned Member for Camborne (Mr. Conybeare) said that in the case of Mr. Saunders, Mr. Poland, who appeared for the police constables, did not rely upon the proclamation of the Commissioner, but relied upon the Common Law. But the hon. Member forgot that the notice was not that of the 18th of November, under the Metropolitan Police Act, but it was that of the 8th of November, issued with the sanction of the First Commissioner of Works, to which Mr. Poland's observations were directed. With all respect for the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh), who, I must say, always argues legal points as if he had been brought up to the law, in my opinion the power given to the police to prevent obstruction will apply when the cause of obstruction is a public meeting. I expressed this opinion last year, and I believe the majority of Members who heard the discussion on that occasion were of opinion that the Commissioner of Police did not exceed his authority in taking precautions that an obstruction was prevented. If the claim made is good in the case of Trafalgar Square, it will be equally good for Waterloo Place, the Thames Embankment, the front of Buckingham Palace, Belgrave Square, Regent Street, or Covent Garden Market. This so-called right is not a right known to the law at all. But, as the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary expressed it, acquiescence in an unlicensed user by a certain number of the public, in contravention of the public rights, may be permitted as long as no evil consequences are likely to follow; but when the Executive find that the result is to involve any section of the public in danger, or to tend to the public inconvenience, it is the duty of the Executive to step in and put an end to that which has been previously acquiesced in. Now, may I say that the only thing that has infused life into the debate has been the want of harmony among Members of the Opposition? I cannot join in attributing to the hon. and learned Member for Hackney the unworthy motive of desiring to reinstate himself in public favour. But still it is a little strange that the debate should
      1050
      have occurred just after some unfortunate discussion. Now, I think all will agree that we ought not to bring political discussion into the streets. As a practical question, regulation is futile; for we could not limit the numbers attending a meeting—indeed, the hon. Member for Lanark has spoken of the population of London warranting the gathering together of 200,000 or 250,000 persons. There must always be danger of a large mob getting out of hand, and where there is risk of danger prevention is ten thousand times better than cure. If there is any foundation for the suggestion that the riot of 1886 was promoted with the object of damaging the then Government, surely that Government might have instituted inquiry, if it was deemed necessary. Her Majesty's Government have endeavoured to do their duty, as previous Governments have done; and I believe that no substantial ground has been shown for raising the question again on this Amendment.
      MR. J. STUART: The Attorney General says that Trafalgar Square stands on all-fours with Covent Garden Market and the other places he mentioned. We do not think so. We conceive there is enough in the peculiarities of Trafalgar Square to mark it off for particular treatment in this matter. The Attorney General speaks of passing and re-passing, but it is ridiculous for anyone to imagine that meetings cannot be held in certain portions of Trafalgar Square without in any way materially hindering the passing and re-passing of the public. The Attorney General also uses the old argument of how many grains go to a heap, and says it is impossible to regulate the crowds who might assemble in the Square. If the hon. and learned Gentleman will read the Bill which I had the honour of bringing in last year, he will see that it is left to those guarding the public peace to remove persons who are endeavouring to attend a meeting beyond a certain prescribed space. Now, the Home Secretary made a

      1051
      very unwise statement considering the present state of public feeling. If the Home Secretary means that he is willing we or any person shall have the opportunity, by some means of collusion, if I may use the word, with the police, of raising the legal aspects of the question, well and good; we are ready to do that. But if he merely means that people, without any such arrangement or collusion, are to endeavour to hold such a meeting in the Square, then that means simply an invitation to create a riot. In the present state of public feeling, for any person to call a mass of people together to endeavour to carry out such a suggestion, to take up what seemed to be the challenge of the right hon. Gentleman, would be to bring the people into conflict with the police, and this is a course neither I or any other of the Liberal Members of London can advise. On the contrary, we have stood in the way of such a thing, because we do not see what good is to be gained by endeavouring to raise again the question of legality in such a manner in the present state of feeling among the people and at the Home Office because a test case, free from the complications of an unlawful meeting, could not be obtained. Our demand is a very simple one. In the name of a great number of very respectable men, we want, first, to have, if possible, some opportunity of a peaceable kind of obtaining a legal decision on the matter; in the second place, we want not so much that the right of meeting in Trafalgar Square shall be declared as that the right of the Commissioner of Police to prevent such meetings by perpetual decree shall be declared not to exist. That is the real question in the matter, but you go off into the right of public meeting, and that is not the real point. We deny that the Commissioner has this right, and declare he has acted illegally. I challenge the Government to face that point. You say, "Why do you not go to Trafalgar Square?" and some of the more energetic and less thoughtful among us would do so. We reply, "Simply because we do not desire to hurry the people of the Metropolis into violence and possible bloodshed." The Government and the Home Office have much
      1052
      to answer for in disturbing the peace, and not allowing this matter to be concluded. We do not wish to have our meetings interfered with by order of the police. Let them be prohibited by order of the House, or let them be permitted under proper regulations—we have nothing to reproach ourselves in making that proposition. The Attorney General says there is no ground for re-opening this question; and I say—and I speak, I believe, for the whole of the Metropolitan Members on this side—that we shall re-open it on every possible occasion, and shall continue to re-open it until we get the decision we are asking for. I am rather surprised—and I am sure it will be remarked—that no London Tory Member has spoken in this debate. We had the action of the Government supported by the hon. Member for Reading, but no Metropolitan Member has given them support. But I did not rise to prolong this discussion further, but to state distinctly what our position is. I can speak with the authority of all the London Liberal Members, and desire to point out that our action is taken upon the principle that has animated us all through—the desire that the people should not lose any cherished right we and they believe they have; and that no false rights—illegitimate rights if I may use the expression—shall be claimed or exercised by the Chief Commissioner of Police in the Metropolis; but that this matter shall be put by the Government, or, if they like it, by the initiation of a private Member of the House on some footing, so that the prohibition of these meetings by the Commissioner, by means of an universally applicable order, shall not be permitted henceforth; but that the right of meeting shall be recognized under proper regulations. We shall go to a Division on this matter, and we shall raise it again whenever we shall get an opportunity, and urge with all the force we can the same argument we have urged to night, and with, I hope, some endeavour on the part of the other side to meet those arguments a little better than they have to-night.
      MR. CAUSTON: My hon. Friend has clearly stated my views, but I, in common with other Metropolitan Members, must express my deep regret at the attitude Her

      1053
      Majesty's Government have taken up on this matter. The Government does not seem to appreciate the fact that it is a most serious question to be dealt with immediately in a serious, practical way. The Home Secretary has taunted Liberal Members for London with having headed processions, and with having done many things that they really have not done; the fact being that it is due to those Members that further disaster has not arisen with regard to this matter. The Home Secretary refuses every proposal in the direction of peace, and all the comfort we get from him is practically a challenge to hold another meeting in order to obtain a legal decision. It is clear from to-night's discussion that lawyers disagree, and I, as a layman, say, considering the serious nature of the question to be dealt with, the Government should afford facilities for obtaining a judicial decision. In times past a former Tory Government told the people that Trafalgar Square was the proper place for them to hold public meetings, and I believe I am correct in saying that, in days gone by, the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury has himself addressed a meeting in Trafalgar Square. To-night we find legal opinion in conflict, and Her Majesty's Government refuse to advance one step towards arriving at an authoritative decision. I fear what may result from this indiscretion; but I hope the Government, on reflection, will see their way to some action which will allay the bad feeling that has been excited. I must express my regret that no London Tory Member has spoken. Surely they are as much interested as the Liberal Members are in the peace and order of the Metropolis. The Home Secretary has said the citizens of London are a law-abiding people, and so we wish them to remain. I am sorry our Conservative colleagues do not see their way to assist us by joining in the debate.
      Question put, "That the proposed words be inserted."
      The House divided:—Ayes 109; Noes 188: Majority 79.—(Div. List, No. 4.)
      Main Question again proposed.
      MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I could have wished that I had not been tied to time on the important subject with which I am about to deal. I should also have liked, had it been possible, to have moved my Amendment in its original form. As however, it was not allowed to stand, I wish to express my gratitude to you, Sir, for allowing me to raise, however imperfectly, a subject of such deep importance to many of our fellow-countrymen. I feel that at half-past 11 o'clock at night, with only half-an-hour before me, it is little use to expect to be able to lay my case before the House in the way I should have liked. To many, no doubt, the question of the condition of the working classes will appear a matter hardly worthy of discussion in the House of Commons, or hardly within the province of the House of Commons to discuss; but I am bound to express my strong disagreement with any such view. No one will deny that in the midst of the great wealth of this country there exists concurrently the deepest and most intense misery. It does not need any statement from me to prove to the House the existence of great distress amongst the working classes, distress rendered all the keener by the spectacle of the riches of many of our more favoured countrymen. The measures promised in the Queen's Speech have been referred to. Well, I have read the Queen's Speech, but I fail to find in it any promise of legislation on the subject of the condition of the working classes. If we are not to have legislation from the Government on this subject, how are we to have an opportunity of discussing these matters? Private Members have no chance in obtaining a place in the ballot for it. In the past private Members have always been able to raise questions of this sort, and I do not think

      1055
      anyone wishes the functions of private Members to be reduced to those fulfilled by an automatic cigarette machine at a railway station. There are functions other than that of trotting into the Lobby to vote at the command of a Whip or Party Leader. Under the circumstances I think I am justified in endeavouring, even at this late hour of the evening, to bring the question of the social condition of the working classes before the attention of the House. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby has said, in a speech which has become historic, that we are all now Socialists, but as a Member of the House of Commons I do not wish that all the discussions on these questions should be left entirely to Socialist lecturers at street corners. It seems to me that the House has a duty to perform in discussing these interior affairs of the kingdom, affairs relating to poor men by whose labour we are all sustained. In this matter the House has a function to perform as important as the discussion of the recent questions of Imperial policy, and of those questions which, though perhaps more glittering and more alluring, are not so near to the people's heart as that I am now dealing with. I see from the Queen's Speech that we are to spend this year a large sum of money upon national defences. I will merely express a wish with regard to that, that after we have defended the nation in an adequate manner, and built ironclads in order to pull them to pieces again and build others in the course of a very few years, some of these huge sums of money to be expended may wander in the direction of the poor. No doubt this question of national defences is one of supreme importance to the rich. It is also of importance to those who have a stake in the country—to your landed estate holders of £50,000 or £60,000 a year, and to your great monopolists, comer-
      1056
      cial and otherwise; but to those whose case I am anxious to bring before the House, I am at a loss to see what interest can attach to any national defence whatever. I wish to ask hon. Gentlemen who disagree with me in this matter whether the lot of the chain-maker of Cradley Heath or of the sweated toiler in the east of London, or of the Scottish Crofter, or of the iron-worker in some of our iron factories, could possibly be more miserable under the rule of the Prussians, or under the rule of the French, than it is now? I do not think that they require any National defences. It is because there are so many men and women in this country who have nothing at all to defend that I think we should have a discussion on their condition. I suppose it is useless to expect that anything practical will result from this debate, but still we might have an expression of sympathy from this House, to which these unfortunate people look in their despair—because it is a condition of despair that is arising amongst them. According to Karl Marx, the working classes are in a desperate condition all over Europe. Railway communication, the telegraph, and other modern developments have so drawn together the working classes of every country, that for the purposes of argument, they may be considered as one vast miserable suffering family. Although considerable advances have been made in some respects, notably on the political side of the question, life has of late become more intolerable to the working classes than it has been heretofore. Mines are worked at greater depths, furnaces have become hotter, and altogether more work is exacted or extorted from the labouring classes—they have, so to speak, to bear more pressure to the square inch than was expected of them fifty years ago. I am not greatly concerned to prove that

      1057
      there has not been an advance in the social condition of the working classes during the past fifty years. What I am more immediately concerned with is their condition to-day; and the first reason that I shall adduce in support of my case is this, the constant presence of large bodies of unemployed workmen in every industrial centre throughout Europe. Not only in Liverpool, Birmingham, Leeds, Glasgow, Manchester, Dundee, but in Rome and in Paris, and even in such towns as Tunbridge Wells. I hold such a phenomenon, arising at the same time in so many different countries, may fairly be regarded as an indication that the commercial system under which we now live is seriously threatened, and shows symptoms of collapse It has been my unfortunate lot many times to speak of the unemployed in this House, and it has been my misfortune, moreover, never to have interested the House in their cause. No doubt the fault lay with myself; I do not accuse the House. I feel like one of the Governors of Mexico who, when Charles the Fifth asked him what he most felt when he undertook the office he held replied, "The sense of my own unworthiness." It is no light task for any young Member of this House, standing almost alone as I stand, to come before this House and ask hon. Members to consider a question so vast in its importance and so far-reaching as this of the social condition of the working classes; but I claim to be as good a patriot as any of my colleagues, and I maintain that Great Britain has always been a pioneer on all these questions. I claim that we have made greater strides towards fairly grappling with this question than any other country in the world, not even excepting the United States of America. I am not so blinded by party feeling, or so embittered by opposition, as in any way to wish that the credit of solving or of grappling with these
      1058
      matters should rest with any one party. I want everyone who feels the distress existing around us to add his quota to this discussion. I fear I am too sanguine, but I must express the hope that we shall have some expression of opinion from those who have grown grey in the service of the House, and know what it is to watch the economic development of the working-classes and our social system during the last 30 or 40 years. I trust hon. Members who disagree with me will approach the question with no personal bias against myself, and, approaching the question in a fair spirit of inquiry, will lend me that assistance which I should be willing to lend them if our positions were reversed. Neither the Liberal nor the Conservative Party, so far as I have been able to see, have a policy upon this question, and, so far as I have been able to perceive, the future clearly belongs to those who have a policy. Well, it must be evident to everyone that we cannot look for trade to revive in the same proportion as it has existed for the past 25 or 30 years, and it is evident that in the near future we shall be confronted with this question of the unemployed. Though we are now passing through a slightly improved period of trade, that improved period has been unable to absorb all the workmen in our industrial centres who are out of work, and, reasoning from analogy, it does not seem to me that any improvement in trade will ever be able to absorb these people. It is, therefore, evident, that we shall be perpetually confronted with this question of the unemployed. This is not a factitious question; it is not the result of a conspiracy to represent a state of facts which does not exist. Any hon. Member can satisfy himself on this point by going to the Dock Gates in the East of London, and seeing the crowd of unem-

      1059
      ployed struggling to get work. Take another instance—the answers received to the most paltry advertisements. We cannot insert an advertisement for the most menial employment for man or woman in a daily newspaper without receiving replies from hundreds of applicants, each ready to undersell the others, each ready to undertake work on almost any terms so that they might get work, and might know that for one night at least they had a place to lay their heads. I have said that I should wish this country and the House to endeavour to find a remedy for this state of things; but, before touching upon the remedies, it is incumbent upon me to endeavour to show that distress does exist in many trades. Distress, I maintain, exists, first, from the severe competition amongst not only the men, but the masters; and, secondly, from the uncertainty of employment. Take the case of house painters employed in London. Their work is uncertain, and for a large part of the year they are bound to remain idle. They are employed by fits and starts, and frequently have to work so hurriedly as to break down their constitutions. The Amalgamated Society of Engineers have the same complaint to make with regard to their members. There are seven or eight millions of adult male workers in this country, and of these there are out of work more or less throughout the United Kingdom some five hundred thousand. In London alone there are some forty-five or fifty thousand men out of work; and these men, it must be remembered, are a constant danger to those who are in employment, as they may at any time come to their employers and endeavour to undersell them, and take the bread out of their mouths. It has been estimated that each workman in the country produces five times as much wealth for the nation as he receives, and if that is the case it is obvious that the hours of labour can be shortened so as to give employment to larger numbers of men, without depriving any individual of the full amount of his present earnings. It passes the ingenuity
      1060
      of man to produce any scheme which will make the poor richer without at the same time making the rich poorer, but it is quite clear that if a workman produces five times as much as he receives, his employer receives more than he is justly entitled to. I think we may claim, therefore, that the source to which we may look to relieve the necessities of the working classes and of the unemployed is the profit of the capitalists. It has been said, and many hon. Members have accepted the proposition on both sides of the House, that rent is that which remains after the cultivator has been paid, and if that proposition is accepted with regard to rent, I think it might fairly be said that profit is that which remains to the employer after the workman has obtained a fair subsistence. I know that no side can claim a monopoly on these questions; but hitherto they have not been fairly debated at all from either side, and too many people have rashly assumed that, by attacking them with a wish to solve them, we may not only solve them, but land the working classes in a far worse position than they occupy to-day. Well, I would wish to go into the question of the hours of labour. There are many figures which I propose to refer to when I have time, by which I hope to be enabled to prove my case. All these questions, if not discussed in this House, transfer themselves to the forum of the streets, where I, in common with the Attorney General and other hon. Gentlemen, entertain the strongest wish they should not be decided. It may personally occur to some hon. Gentlemen that, if my proposition be allowed, you cannot make the poor richer without at the same time making the rich poorer, you attack vested interests and aim a blow at the root of that commercial prosperity which has always been so dear to this country.
      It being now Twelve of the clock, the debate, by the Rules of the House, stood adjourned.
      House adjourned at five minutes after Twelve o'clock.

Preamble
The Lord Carew, Took the Oath.
MARRIAGE WITH A DECEASED WIFE'S SISTER BILL.
A Bill to alter and amend the Law as to Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister—Was presented by the Duke of Saint Albans; read 1a. (No. 16.)

PRIVATE BILLS.
All Petitions relating to Standing Orders which shall be presented during the present Session referred to the Standing Orders Committee unless otherwise ordered.
Ordered, That no Private Bill brought from the House of Commons shall be read a second time after Friday the 21st day of June next:
That no Bill originating in this House authorizing any inclosure of lands under Special Report of the Land Commissioners for England, or confirming any scheme of the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales, shall be read a first time after Friday the 10th day of May next;
That no Bill originating in this House confirming any Provisional Order or Provisional Certificate shall be read a first time after Friday the 10th day of May next;
That no Bill brought from the House of Commons authorizing any inclosure of lands under Special Report of the Land Commissioners for England, or confirming any scheme of the Charity Commissioners for England and Wales, shall be read a second time after Friday the 28th day of June next;
That no Bill brought from the House of Commons confirming any Provisional Order Certificate shall be read a second time after Friday the 28th day of June next:
That when a Bill shall have passed this House with Amendments, these Provisional Orders shall not apply to any new Bill sent up from the House of Commons which the Chairman of Committees shall report to the House is substantially the same as the Bill so amended; That this House will not receive any petition
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for a Private Bill after Thursday the 9th day of May next, unless such Private Bill shall have been approved by the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice, nor any petition for a Private Bill approved by the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice after Friday the 17th day of May next;
That this House will not receive any report from the Judges upon petitions presented to this House for Private Bills after Friday the 17th day of May next;
Ordered, That the said orders be printed and published, and affixed on the doors of this House and Westminster Hall. (No. 17.)
House adjourned at a quarter before Five o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Ten o'clock.