far as I can recollect, that he condescended to quote any precedent less than 80 or 100 years old.

MR. SEXTON: Ten years.

Redvers Buller. The right hon. Gen- | right hon. Gentleman went back chiefly tleman, it appears, saw in the morning to the year 1795, and also to other prenewspapers a statement to the effect that cedents before that. I do not think, as Sir Redvers Buller was about to give up his appointment, and with characteristic charity he jumped to the conclusion that Sir Redvers Buller was leaving his appointment because he differed from the policy of Her Majesty's Government. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT dissented.] The right hon. Gentleman, at least, suggested that. Now, I think it is extremely inexpedient to drag into debates in this House the opinions of permanent officials; and I am not going further to discuss Sir Redvers Buller's opinions more than to say this-that I know no man who would hesitate less to leave the service of any Government of whose policy he disapproved. Sir, I have acted during the whole time I have been in Office in absolute and entire harmony with Sir Redvers Buller on every single point of administration that has come up for dis

cussion.

MR. SEXTON: Has he resigned? MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! MR. A. J. BALFOUR: He has not resigned; but, as the House has long known, his appointment was a temporary one; and I regret to say that he desires to return to his duties in another office under the Crown-[Ironical laughter]but, as I have said so much, let me add this-that_if_hon. Gentlemen suppose that Sir Redvers Buller's retirement from the office of Permanent Under Secretary in Ireland is due, in the slightest measure or degree, to any difference of opinion between himself and me, the supposition is entirely and absolutely baseless; and I give it the most unqualified contradiction. I now proceed to the main substance--if I may call it substance-at all events to the main part of the speech which the right hon. Gentleman has just delivered. He told us that we had had the impudence to describe the doctrines of Common Law as justifying the action of the Government. I will pledge myself, in the course of a few minutes, to convince the House as to which quarter of the House and to which individual in the House the term impudence is most properly to be applied. The right hon. Gentleman has given us a very long and learned dissertation on the principles of law. [An Irish MEMBER: You need it.] The

MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not know at what period of the right hon. Gentleman's career he learnt his law. I believe that is a subject on which biographers of the right hon. Gentleman have had many searchings of heart. At all events, about one fact there can be no doubt, I presume. It is not since 1881 that the right hon. Gentleman learnt his law. It was in the earlier stages of his distinguished career that the right hon. Gentleman devoted himself to those legal studies the fruits of which he has given to the House this evening. I confess that I was surprised while the right hon. Gentleman was dealing with all these precedents, and showering upon us quotations from Fox and Eldon, that he did not go to more recent experience and deal with precedents which are in the recollection of many hon. Gentlemen opposite. Will it be believed that under the Common Law powers which we have used in this case, Mr. Forster, the right hon. Gentleman himself, and the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, so far as my researches go, proclaimed no fewer than 130 meetings? The right hon. Gentleman says that we have based our action

that was his phrase-on the example of the worst of men in the worst of times. The times from which we have drawn our precedents are the last 10 years; those, I suppose, are the worst of times. When I look for the worst of men, where am I to find them, except on that Bench where still sit the relics of that Ministry? Sir, the right hon. Gentleman said that our ancestors before they proclaimed meetings waited until overt acts were committed.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: No; I did not.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course, I do not wish to press the right hon. Gentleman on any point which he disputes, and as to any phrase which he says he did not use; but I certainly caught in the course of the right hon. Gentleman's speech the words "overt act" recurring. Unless they had some relation to the

MR. A. J. BALFOUR: All. They were not proclaimed under the Statute of 1882. I will take up that interruption. The right hon. Gentleman has drawn, or has attempted to draw, a wide distinction between the action of the Government subsequent to 1882, when they had Statutory powers, and their "Public meetings," said the right hon. Gen-action before 1882, when, as I have tleman, "might no doubt be considered as a source of light; but they ought to have some regard to the atmosphere into which the light was carried and it would be the height of

future as to how he scatters epithets | in our action, but whether we have been about. If the right hon. Gentleman politic-whether, in other words, the thinks that quotation insufficient I will powers which we undoubtedly possess give him another. This quotation is from a speech of the right hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow, who said

"It (the clause) did not create a power, but gave a statutory power, which, under the clause, in certain cases, would replace the power that existed, and which, under present conditions, might lead to a collision that all would deplore."

under the Common Law are powers which we ought legitimately to have exercised in this particular case. The right hon. Gentleman appears to suppose that the Government is not justified in concluding, until there is absolute proof, that a meeting will turn out to be illegal. But there never can be proof of that. If you required proof of it you would have to obtain an So that the sole ground on which the Executive endowed with absolute foreGovernment of that day justified them- knowledge. There must be an element of selves in asking for those powers was conjecture in these things; and, more. not that the powers themselves did not over, you cannot judge, and never have exist, but that it was expedient to supply been able to judge, solely by the avowed the Executive with an easier and more objects of a meeting. I admitted the merciful method of exercising those other day, and I repeat it now, that the powers. Therefore every single prece- avowed objects of this particular meeting dent set by Lord Spencer under the Act were innocent. They were innocent so of 1882 is a precedent applicable to this far as the placard calling it is any indi case, so far as policy is concerned. I do cation. But if we are to assume that not know that I need labour that point; merely by issuing an innocent placard but, if necessary, I can multiply quota- the Common Law is rendered impotent, tions. But there can be no doubt what- it is clear that the powers of the Common ever that the account I have given of Law on which the right hon. Gentleman the Act of 1882 is right; and in order relied when he was in Office would be that I may have support in that view perfectly useless; and the fact that the from all quarters of the House, I should avowed objects were innocent, and that like to ask the right hon. Gentleman to you cannot tell to a certainty what the refer to a speech made by the hon. action of the speakers would be, is not Member for West Belfast. The hon. a sufficient ground why the Executive Member for West Belfast, in the debates should abstain from using the powers upon the Bill of 1882, made a violent confided to them. Then on what ought attack against the powers taken under the policy in the matter of proclamation the clause I have alluded to, and the to rest? Sir, in my opinion, one of the sole ground for that attack was that the most important elements to take into powers in the hands of the Executive for account in deciding this question of prohibiting public meetings needed no policy is the condition of the district in strengthening, and that therefore the which the meeting is to be held. Government were asking for superfluous in saying that I am only repeating texand unnecessary powers when they asked tually what has been held over and over for the powers given them by this clause. again by Lord Spencer and Mr. Forster, What the hon. Gentleman then said was and what has been brought forward that the powers already by Common Law over and over again as a justifica. in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant tion of the policy of both those Gentlewere ample for the preservation of men. Now, what is the state of Clare? law and order. Now, I take it I have Has the right hon. Gentleman who de shown clearly first, that the Com-nounces us to-day for interfering with mon Law powers that we claim were freedom of speech looked into the consupposed to exist by the right hon. Gen-dition of crime in Clare? I will not tleman himself six years ago, and that they were largely, I might say almost extravagantly, used in Mr. Forster's time under the direction of the right hon. Gentleman; and, therefore, the only possible question that can now arise is, not whether we have been legal

weary the House by a narration of the recent statistics of agrarian crime under which the county has suffered, ending by the shocking crime of which I gave telegraphic information this afternoon; but I may inform the House, without trying to prejudice their minds by harrowing

MR. PARNELL: Who wanted to shoot them.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR: And it can only have been to stimulate the inhabitants of the district to similar acts of atrocity that mottoes of that description were distributed. There was another placard, which I believe was torn down by the police, and consisted of a design showing a British soldier impaled on the pike of an Irish peasant, with the words " Assemble in your thousands at Ballycoree, our Fontenoy." As the House knows, in the readings of English history popular in Ireland Fontenoy is looked upon as an Irish victory over English soldiers. Can anything be conceived more calculated to inflame the mind of an excited peasantry, more indicative of the tone and the temper in which the meeting was called, than placards of the kind I have just read. And what was the character of the actual speeches made? I maintain that the speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo is alone sufficient to show that we were justified in the course we took. What did the hon. Member for East Mayo say? He said

details, and relying on the bare figures, | powers-at the time when he had Statuthat while Clare has only one-thirtieth of tory powers, but did not use them—was the rural population of Ireland, one-sixth a meeting convened to celebrate the of the agrarian crime has been committed memory of those criminals. Another within its borders. Its population is one of those mottoes was, "Hurrah for the thirtieth of the population of Ireland; women of Bodyke, who made such a its crime is one-sixth of the crime of glorious fight." Now, Sir, what was Ireland, and its hateful pre-eminence in the glorious fight made by the women crime is not confined simply to agrarian of Bodyke? What happened at Bodyke crimes, for I find that one-sixteenth of was that the men, with admirable disthe total non-agrarian crime of Ireland cretion, in certain cases put forward the has been committed in that county. women to throw boiling water and vitriol Now, that alone, in my opinion, leaving on the officers of the lawout of account the details of the outrages recently committed, is enough to show that the Government ought to regard with the gravest misgivings the calling together of any large meeting of an excited peasantry at a time when they know exciting speeches are likely to be delivered. Was there any ground for supposing that exciting speeches would be delivered? Who were the speakers? I do not, of course, allude to the hon. Member for Wednesbury (Mr. P. Stanhope), whose presence there we may assume to have been principally ornamental; but the operative speakers, the important speakers, were the hon. Member for East Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien), and the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon). Have the Government any ground for supposing that the speeches of those two Gentlemen would not be likely to lead to a breach of the public peace? Unfortunately, they had the most perfect ground for believing the contrary, and they conjectured, as it turned out truly, what were the kind of speeches they were likely to deliver on this occasion. But the kind of speaker was not the only thing. Did the meeting, so far as it may be said to have come off, bear out the conjectures which the Government had formed? There are two principal methods of judging of a meeting. One is the kind of preparation by which a meeting is ushered in, the other is the actual speeches delivered. Now, there cannot be a doubt that placards and mottoes of an inflammatory kind were used. For instance, I find that one of the mottoes was this "Remember Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien." They are, as hon. Gentlemen know, the criminals whom it is the fashion in Ireland to describe as the Manchester martyrs; and it is a curious fact that the only meeting which Lord Spencer proclaimed under Common Law

assemble here to-day was this-we wanted to "One of the reasons why we asked you to point out to you that men who like O'Callaghan's tenants at Bodyke faced the enemy and suffered in the cause were fighting the battle, not only of themselves, but of every tenant in Clare."

Now I say, and I am sure the House will agree, that that sentence by itself was sufficient to excite every tenant in Clare to defy the law, and to commit outrages after the manner of the unhappy tenantry at Bodyke. The hon. Gentleman went on to say-"We will hold meetings in Clare, and we will put down land-grabbing in Clare." No method of putting down land-grabbing in Clare or elsewhere has yet been sug

land.

gested other than intimidation and out- | ing was a meeting against the law of the rage, and the man who gets up in Clare and says "While I live there shall be no land-grabbing in Clare," says, in effect-and who doubts that he says in effect?" So long as I live I will take care, by intimidation or by outrage, that land-grabbing shall not exist."

MR. DILLON: Mr. Speaker, I say that that is absolutely false.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Does the hon. Gentleman mean to say that the words themselves or my interpretation is false? MR. DILLON: Your interpretation. MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Very well; that is a matter which I entirely leave to the House. If the hon. Gentleman can show to the satisfaction of the House that any other efficient means of stopping land-grabbing exists than the two means I have mentioned I will, of course, not press that point upon the attention of the House. I may quote some observations which the hon. Member made, not on the day of the meeting, but on the day before. What did the hon. Member say? Speaking of the Government, he said—

"I will tell you the fear that is in the heart of these men; they fear, and I hope, that the Coercion Act has no terrors for the men of Clare, and when the proclamation of the League goes forth in Clare the League will continue to live

in spite of the proclamation."

That, no doubt, accurately represents the wishes of the hon. Gentleman, but I say that such a speech made at Clare on the day before the meeting is a perfectly sufficient proof that one of the objects that the hon. Gentleman had in view in holding that meeting was to defeat the law of the land. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT here made some remark which was inaudible in the gallery.] The right hon. Gentleman really appears to suppose that there is some analogy between a Corn Law meeting and a meeting which is by law an illegal meeting.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I did not do anything of the kind.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Well, perhaps I misheard communications going on between the right hon. Gentleman and his right hon. Friend-—

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: If the right hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will tell him what passed. The right hon. Gentleman said that it was a meeting against the law of the land, and I said that in old days a Corn Law meet

MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Surely the right hon. Gentleman, with his legal acumen, can see a distinction between a meeting which is called together to produce legislation for altering the law of the land and a meeting which is called together to defeat the operation of the law actually in existence. The hon. Member for East Mayo has constantly denounced what he describes as outrage-and, I believe, sincerely. We do not agree as to what outrage means, because the hon. Gentleman never includes what I regard as the very worst form of outrage-namely, intimidation. But when the hou. Member speaks at a meeting like the meeting at Ennis, and says that while he lives land-grabbing shall be put down, does he not know that he is doing all that in him lies, unconsciously, no doubt, and unwittingly, to promote the monstrous crime of the kind of which I gave an account to the House to-day, in which there was a conspiracy to murder a man for no other reason whatever than that he took an evicted farm, and as a consequence of which three policemen, who were doing their duty in protecting the victim of the intended outrage, were injured, and one of them was killed? Is

not that a comment on the freedom of speech of which the right hon. Gentleman has lauded?

MR. DILLON: I rise to Order. I think the right hon. Gentleman is pressing his argument beyond what is just in seeming to intimate that this crime is the comment upon what he calls freedom of speech, when he ought to re member that he denied freedom of speech to me at Clare.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Member says that I denied him freedom of speech at Clare. I will not argue that point now, but the contention of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. P. Stanhope) was that the hon. Gentleman made all the speeches that he intended to make, and that in effect nothing was done whatever to destroy that freedom of speech so dear to the heart of the right hon. Gentleman. Is it not absurd to describe meetings of this kind as meetings in favour of free discussion? It is a cardinal principle of English policy that you should submit to the propagation of