Page images
PDF
EPUB

himself had closely watched the course of the Belfast riots, and he had also come to the conclusion that it was most desirable to use the military alone where firing was necessary. There was a body of military at Mitchelstown, and he would like to know what they were doing all the time? Why was it that Mr. Reed's recommendation was not carried out? In conclusion he, would strongly urge upon the Government: first, that they should institute some kind of inquiry into the Mitchelstown occurrence such as would satisfy the public mind; and, secondly, that under the special circumstances of Ireland, and if occasions of the kind arose again, to send special instructions to the police against any excess in the discharge of their duty, and, also as to the way they should act.

MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton) said, that the hon. Member for East Cork (Mr. O'Brien) had told him, after the interview at Kingstown, that the police Inspector had informed him (Mr. O'Brien) that he would not be arrested until the following Monday if he promised not to go to England, but that if he would not promise he would be arrested at once.

MR. LABOUCHERE said, he must leave the matter in the hands of the House, and he thought the impression on the mind of the House was quite different. However that might be, the hon. Member for East Mayo complained that his hon. Friend (Mr. O'Brien) had been put in prison as an untried prisoner until Friday week. The Chief Secretary had said that he could not be tried before. The Petty Sessions were held last Friday, and were adjourned until Thursday in this week, and surely his hon. Friend could be brought before that Court this week and tried.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR said, he never mentioned the date, and never dwelt on the subject at all.

MR. LABOUCHERE said, he did not think the right hon. Gentleman correctly stated the law when he said the Court could not be called together till Friday in next week. The contention of the hon. Member for East Mayo was, that it was only right that the hon. Member for North-East Cork should be tried on Thursday, and that the trial should not be postponed until next week. When the hon. Member for East Mayo complained of the character of some of the witnesses to be produced in the pending MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Govern- trial at Mitchelstown, the Chief Secrement intended to arrest the hon. Mem-tary took him to task, saying that it was ber (Mr. O'Brien) on Monday, and the reason they put the warrant into execution on Sunday was that they believed he was going to England.

MR. LABOUCHERE: Yet the right hon. Gentleman gave the House to understand that his hon. Friend the Member for East Mayo was perfectly wrong in stating that Mr. O'Brien would not be allowed to go to Parliament.

Mr. A. J. BALFOUR said, he had denied that the hon. Member was asked to promise that he would not attend Parliament.

MR. LABOUCHERE said the right hon. Gentleman was playing with words. MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Excuse me. The accusation made against me by the hon. Member for East Mayo was, that I had taken this course to prevent the hon. Member for North-East Cork making a speech in Parliament. That I denied. I pointed out that the question of Parliament had nothing to do with the matter. The question was whether the hon. Member for North-East Cork should be allowed to go to England or not.

monstrous to prejudice justice in that way. But what did the right hon. Gentleman do himself? He entirely begged the question when he said that one of the witnesses had been severly injured, and was hovering between life and death, owing to the brutal violence of the mob. Was that not prejudicing justice? He (Mr. Labouchere) called it nothing else. The people whom the right hon. Gentleman was pleased to call a mob, holding as they were a legal meeting, had a perfect right to meet force with force. It was laid down by the highest authorities that, if a policeman exceeded his statutory right by law in an attack upon any individual, the individual might resist and even kill him; but he did so at his risk and peril. If an individual was in peril of his life from a policeman by a weapon illegally directed against him, he might also kill that policeman. It had been laid down by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) that the Government had no sort of right to come with a reporter to a meeting and force him there,

and if they did so, they did so at their | matter. He and his Friends made their own risk and peril, and the persons at assertions on prima facie evidence which the meeting had a perfect right to resist. might be rebutted; and all they said If the police used their batons, the was that a prima facie case had been people had a right in self-defence to made out for an independent and public strike back. Having been at the meet- investigation. That independent and ing at Mitchelstown, he (Mr. Labou- public investigation they claimed at the chere) rejoiced that the police were hands of the Government as a right. driven back by the people, and he The Government might refuse it. They maintained that whenever the Executive had a majority in that House which should attempt to violate the law in an enabled them to do what they pleased. equally outrageous manner, either in But those with him would appeal to a England or Ireland, the same resistance very different Court. They would appeal would be offered. The Government to the people of England. [Laughter.] would not dare to do in England what Hon. Gentlemen might laugh. They they had done in Ireland. They were flattered themselves that five years would told they were not to have any sort of elapse before the people of England had free and independent public investiga- a chance of treating them as they detion into the matter. The right hon. served. But it might come sooner than Gentleman admitted yesterday that he they supposed, and they might depend received the information he had read to upon this, that when the English people the House from the police, which was a understood these attacks upon public tainted source, from the persons who meetings in Ireland, and that this was were incriminated, and yet he refused to done under the Common Law of England allow any independent inquiry. Of and of Ireland, and not by any special course, the right hon. Gentleman him- enactment in regard to Ireland, they self did not invent these stories; but would look very seriously upon this he (Mr. Labouchere) did assert that a question. They would ask themselves more gross and impudent tissue of lies whether a Government was to be mainnever was submitted to a Government tained in power, or a law to exist, which before. The right hon. Gentleman re- gave them such powers that peaceful ceived that report either from Resi- people who went to meetings might dent Magistrate Seagrave or Constabu- find themselves killed by the police, or lary Inspector Brownrigg. They lied batoned and bludgeoned by the police. grossly, and lied deliberately. There was good reason for mitigating the severity of the prison treatment of political prisoners, although the right hon. Gentleman could not see any difference between the action of the hon. Member for North-East Cork as a political criminal and that of any ordinary criminal. There was this difference-that if the right hon. Gentleman happened to meet that hon. Gentleman abroad he would not refuse to associate with him. He would not think he had acted in a manner so dishonourable and mean that he was not fit for the society of honourable men. Yet he said he did not think the hon. Member for North-East Cork ought to be treated in a different way from anyone who had been sent on his trial for & bond fide criminal offence. Our conduct in regard to the treatment of political prisoners was a disgrace to the country. In no other country were they so treated. Take France, Austria, Russia, if they liked, and they would not find political criminals treated in the manuer we treated them, for a distinction was

He

asserted last night that these men were murderers, and if they supplied the information to the Chief Secretary, they were liars as well as murderers. He did hope that there would be a fair and proper inquiry into this matter, and if there was an inquiry, he undertook that every fact he had stated should be proved. The Government might despise the Radicals; but he was sure the hon. Members for Northwich (Mr. Brunner) and Merionethshire (Mr. T. E. Ellis), who were present, were not to be supposed to come lightly to that House and state what was untrue; and he said that when three Members of that House deliberately stated that, to the best of their opinion, the deaths were caused by the action of the police, and the wrongful action of the police - when they asserted that the statements made by the police were egregious and infamous fabrications then he maintained the proper course would be to have a fair and independent investigation into the

drawn between ordinary and political | hon. Member for North-East Cork than prisoners. Laughter.] [Lord RAN- to those who were put in prison for doing DOLPH CHURCHILL: Worse.] He had what he suggested; but that was begging not followed the erratic course of the the whole question that what that hon. noble Lord. Perhaps he had been a Gentleman recommended them to do was political prisoner in some foreign coun- in itself a crime. They denied that it try himself. Even in Russia, political was crime; they contended that when prisoners were treated more leniently liberty was outraged it was the right than here. ["Oh!"] He had recently and the duty of citizens to defend it. been reading the life of a prisoner ar- He did hope, in conclusion, that there rested for participation in the quasi- would be some sort of inquiry, and that revolution that occurred when the Em- he and his hon. Friends were not to be peror Nicholas came to the throne. From stigmatised as three notorious liars. that it appeared that the prisoners were kept in close confinement; but they were given plenty to eat and books to read, and they were not put upon plank beds. Further confirmation of his general statement was supplied in the experiences of Silvio Pellico. If the noble Lord, as a boy, read the adventures of Silvio Pellico, he would find political prisoners were not treated as ordinary criminals. The strong point of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian in calling attention to political prisoners under King Bomba was that they were treated as ordinary criminals. Surely, the Chief Secretary might order that political prisoners in Ireland should be given books to read, and if they were to have hard labour, it might be lighter labour than that of those who were able to bear it better than themselves. They might also have sufficient to eat. During the first month prisoners were given hardly anything to eat, but they were given more in the second month than in the first; and he would suggest that the hardship would be less if the plan were reversed, and if the supply of food were reduced in the second month rather than in the first. He did not ask for any species of luxury or comfort, but only that no degradation should be put upon political prisoners-that they should not be called upon to wear the prison dress, that they should not lie upon plank beds, and that they should be allowed to have books to read. What he asked had been conceded by most of the despotic Governments on the Continent, and therefore it could not be very much to ask of the Constitutional Government of Great Britain. It was said that if this concession were made, those who incited to crime would be treated in one way and their miserable victims would be treated in another way-that more consideration would be shown to the

MR. PARNELL (Cork): Mr. Speaker the last word-and scarcely the first word-the House may rest assured, has not been heard upon this question of the treatment of political opponents in Ireland. I think nothing reflects more discredit upon the government of Ireland by this House than the treatment of political prisoners. From time to time, while there had been political prisoners in large numbers, we have invariably heard exactly the same accounts, the same stereotyped excuses by the Government officers as those which have been made to-night, and upon other evenings during this Session when the matter was brought forward. We are told that these men, if not criminal themselves, that they incite to acts of criminality, that they are convicted under a law which has been passed by Parliament, that Parliament thought proper to make no difference in their treatment, and consequently that it was not now for the Government to interfere. All I can say is, if it is not for the Government to interfere, it is so very much the worse for the Government, and for the right hon. Gentleman who is primarily responsible, if they cannot now interfere, because they closed the mouth of those who would have shown the necessity for interference when the Crimes Act was being passed by Parliament. This law was passed by Parliament under circumstances which compelled silence on the part of the Opposition. We were not permitted to plead the cause of the future political prisoners under this Act, and now we are to be told to-day, in view of this fact, that it is a sufficient excuse for the Government that Parliament has done what it has done, and that the Government can now do nothing more. Nothing, I think, excites more indignation in Ireland and I

the House of Commons-the large majority of which then consisted of Conservative Members-attended to them, and did do something to prevent the fair name of England being sullied in reference to this question of the treatment of political prisoners Well, then came the Coercion Act of 1881, and under that Act, as everybody knows, persons could be arrested in Ireland, and during the duration of the Act, without trial. The then Chief Secretary

think you will be bound to admit it when your more sober moments comenothing excites more feeling in the House of Commons than the recital of the treatment of the Fenian prisoners in 1867 and subsequent years. These men were convicted under the ordinary law of the land by an Irish jury, selected under the ordinary system-not specially packed, not specially selected for the purpose of convictions, but under the Act which had previously existed before these offences were thought of or com--the late Mr. Forster-to his honour mitted. Those prisoners were tried, and they were sentenced by a jury of their own countrymen, some to penal servitude for life, and some to penal servitude for a long term. What was the result? Owing to their barbarous treatment in prison, the Devonshire Commission was instituted. That Devonshire Commission recommended certain reforms in prison treatment, and those reforms were, I believe, subsequently carried out. It was admitted that such men as O'Donovan Rossa, whom you have turned into a dynamiter by the cruel treatment he received in Chatham Prison, and that such men as Luby, who was also imprisoned in Chatham, and other prisoners, should not be treated as you treat ordinary thieves, your murderers, your wife beaters, and those who commit other crimes. Some modification in their treatment was recommended by the Devonshire Commission, and it was carried out. Well, following upon that, when the Prisons Act of 1877 came under discussion, we brought before the attention of the Conservative Government of the day the necessity for treating untried political prisoners in a different manner, and with more consideration than had hitherto been accorded them; and in consequence a considerable modification was inserted in the Act.

There was also a modification regarding the treatment of persons convicted of sedition and of seditious libel. The Legislature then decided that persons convicted of precisely the same offence as that of which the hon. Mem ber for North-East Cork (Mr. William O'Brien) was now to be tried before a Court of Summary Jurisdiction under another name were entitled, when convicted of sedition or seditious libel, to the treatment of first-class misdemeanants. We obtained other modifications, and I am bound to say that

be it said, undertook to see that the persons so treated were treated under rules expressly framed for the purpose. His treatment of those persons was characterized by distinguished humanity. They were persons who were not to be tried-they were not accused of any offence; they were arrested under what was practically suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, and it was felt that they could not be treated in the same way as ordinary prisoners. Now, I believe that that is one of the reasons why the Government of the day have chosen the summary jurisdiction method of dealing with their political opponents, rather than the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act; because under the summary jurisdiction method you can inflict upon political opponents imprisonment with hard labour, plank bed, semistarvation, and the torture of solitary confinement, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was afraid that the comparatively lenient treatment which he would be compelled to give untried prisoners under the Habeas Corpus Act would not have struck sufficient terror into the hearts of political opponents, and that that would not bring about the results which he hopes to see brought about, but in which, I venture to say, he will be disappointed. We are in this position-persons will be arrested for the same class of offences as under Mr. Forster's Act, and will not be treated as he treated them, but will be put on plank beds, will have 16 ounces of bread a-day, with water, and a few ounces of gruel; and if they fail in their allotted task to pick so much oakum, or raise a certain number of pounds so many feet high in a given number of hours, or fail at the treadmill, then they will be put in dark cells and kept on bread and water for long periods. That, I maintain, is barbarous treatment.

It is treatment that, if it be long con- are not criminals. You cannot make tinued, will result in the death of some such persons criminals by the mere passof the victims. It is monstrous to ex- ing of an Act of Parliament. Public pect that a man like the hon. Member opinion will not sanction the treatment for North-East Cork, a scholar and a of the hon. Member as a criminal. You man of letters, could pick oakum, lift can go no surer way to disgust the public weights, or do hard physical work; he opinion of the country, and I know of could not do it, he knew he could not do it, nothing that will be more unpopular in and therefore, rather than attempt a task the constituencies than to treat a poliin which he knew he must break down, tical antagonist as if he were a common he would decline beforehand to begin it, criminal. I believe that the hon. Memso that he would be punished at once for ber for North-East Cork, in the spirit of refusing, and his imprisonment would a martyr, will welcome the sufferings be one long punishment in a dark cell and the tortures that are to be inflicted upon bread and water. That is a very upon his weak and enfeebled frame, beserious situation. It is all very well to cause he knows that he is doing a service suppose that these things may not ob- to his country and his cause, because he tain publicity for a while, and that the knows, and the people of this country Government may escape the lash of will see, that the ordinary criminal law public opinion while their victims are of this country is not directed against pining away. But sooner or later pri- oriminals, but against political offences soners must come out, or, if they die, and political offenders. Ironical Cheers.] inquests must be held. Will the posi- Well, I know I am speaking to callous ears tion of the Government be any better -[An hon. MEMBER-NO!]-so far as then? Will they in this way obtain the the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Sesympathy and respect of the Irish people cretary for Ireland is concerned. He is and range them on the side of law and determined to be unique. He is going order? Will Irishmen be brought by to cut out a model for himself, and if he those means into sympathetic union with is not going down to posterity in any Englishmen? Is that the way to restore other shape, he is determined to go down law and order? They have tried that in an original shape. He is going to sort thing for a great many centuries. trample on all the principles which have The result has been a failure. They guided his Predecessors in Office. Mr. found Ireland, by the admission of the Forster treated his political opponents Government themselves and by their in a very different fashion; but the right own statistics, free from crime. Will hon. Gentleman is going to treat them they leave it so? Will the recital of as they treat garroters. The right hon. their brutal and cowardly punishment Gentleman thinks he will perhaps be of men whom Ireland justly regards disgraced if he cannot intimidate the as its leaders-self-sacrificing leaders- defenders of Irish freedom-the Irish will the recital of slow tortures on those champions. But he will find, if he canmen make the Irish people tolerate them not intimidate these men, that he has more than they do now? Do the Go-face to face with him men who are vernment suppose that by what they are doing they are not sowing strife and encouraging secret societies, perhaps to take the life of Government officials and to the revival of the horrors of the Invincible period? I say deliberately that if they proceed on in that course, the results will be on their own heads. They talk of inciting to crime. They say that the hon. Member for North-East Cork incites to crime, and that, therefore, he is to be treated as the person who commits crime is treated. And it comes to this, that persons who incite to any of the offences mentioned in the Act are to be treated as criminals. I say that such persons are political offenders, and

maintaining their position not for the purpose of maintaining their Office and their salary, or keeping their Party in Office, but for the purpose of freeing their country-men who have, I hope, as much fibre as the right hon. Gentieman has, and as much courage at least, and who have some respect for the rights of human beings-men as entitled to live and breathe as himself. They have this short cut to the Government of Ireland. "Put your political opponents into gaol. Give them plank beds and little food until they die, or are broken, and can give no further trouble." That is the special receipt of the right hon. Gentleman. "Send the police to public

« PreviousContinue »