I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has yet received the Report of Major Marindin of his inquiry into the circumstances relating to the death of James Chard, guard on the Midland and South Western Junction Railway, on 16th October last; and, if so, whether he will lay it, together with the Correspondence, on the Table of this House?

I have received the Report, and am in communication with the Railway Company on the subject. The Papers will be laid on the Table.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, how much land has been planted or prepared for planting by the Government in the county of Galway; and, also, how much has been acquired for planting?

About 700 acres have been prepared for planting, of which ninety acres will appear on the Estimates for next year. The total area acquired is 900 acres.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether, in consequence of the Important changes recently made in foreign tariffs, he will, for the information of British merchants and manufacturers, cause a Return of the rates of Import Duties now levied in European countries and the United States upon the produce and manufactures of the United Kingdom to be presented to Parliament, so that it may be published at an early date?

It is proposed to prepare and lay before the House during the present Session a new Return of the rates of Import Duties levied in European countries and the United States of the British produce and manufactures. This will he in continuation of a similar Return issued in October, 1890. As changes in European Tariffs are being made almost day by day it is proposed to delay the publication of this Return until after the middle of the year, in order that it may be substantially correct for some little time after publication, which it would not he if printed at once. Meanwhile, complete statements for separate countries such as France are being prepared, and will shortly be issued.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether his attention has been called to the following statement in the Standard newspaper of the 9th instant:—

It is said that two cases of foot-and-mouth disease were discovered at the Cattle Market, the animals affected being Norfolk cattle, which had no contact with the Danish oxen, and that the symptoms would tend to show that the disease had developed before the arrival of the Danish cattle last Monday week;

whether he is in a position to confirm or to contradict the report in question; and whether it is true that careful inquiry by the Danish Government has failed to discover any trace of foot-and mouth disease amongst cattle in Thisted or Esbjerg, from which places the Danish cattle, alleged to be found diseased, were exported to this country?

Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will, at the same time, answer my question with regard to the fact that an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease took place among cattle at the Metropolitan Meat Market, Caledonian Road, on Thursday, 4th February; whether he is aware that the cattle in question were part of a cargo of animals embarked in Denmark on 28th January, and landed at Harwich on 30th January; and whether still greater precautions will be taken in the future to guard against the danger of importing cattle diseases from those foreign Countries from which live animals are imported?

had notice of the following question:—To ask the President of the Board of Agriculture whether he can give the House further information as to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the metropolitan cattle markets, and especially as to the statements that there is no foot-and-mouth disease in Denmark, and that the animals affected were from Norfolk, and had not been in contact with Danish cattle?

also had notice to ask whether foot-and-mouth disease is very preva- lent in Germany and other parts of Europe; whether the disease has been already carried to England by some imported cattle; and what steps he has taken to prevent the spread of this terrible disease in the United Kingdom?

I will endeavour to reply to all the questions on the Paper on this subject, though I am afraid at more length than is usual in answering a question, by stating all that we know with regard to the recent outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the Metropolitan Cattle Market, and the steps which we have taken with the object, if possible, of arresting the spread of the disease. On Thursday last, February 4, the Inspector of the Metropolitan Cattle Market, Mr. Rayment, discovered that six animals out of a herd of 11 Danish cattle were suffering from foot-and-mouth disease. The discovery was confirmed by the veterinary officers of the Board, who immediately proceeded to the market, and they at once gave orders for the gates to be closed against the exit of all animals from the market. Upon inquiry it was ascertained that the 11 animals referred to formed part of a cargo of 68 cattle and two sheep which sailed on board the Fano, from Esbjerg, in Denmark, on the evening of 27th January. The cargo was landed at Harwich on the 30th, and, after being detained for the usual period, and carefully examined by the Inspector at the port, it reached the Cattle Market on Monday, 1st February. Immediately upon these facts becoming known, orders were issued for the slaughter of all animals then in the market prior to their leaving it. A telegram was sent to all the Local Authorities of the country informing them of what had occured, and warning them to be on their guard. The Inspectors at the ports were instructed to detain all Danish cattle in their charge, or that might be on their way, as soon as they arrived. The further importation of animals from Denmark was prohibited by order; and inquiries were set on foot at once, with the view of tracing 59 animals—i.e., 57 cattle and two sheep—belonging to the Danish cargo, which had left the market prior to the discovery of the disease. These 59 animals, I am happy to say, were all of them traced before the close of the following day to their respective destinations, at Chatham, at Rochester, at Aldershot, at Shorncliffe, at Stratford, and in the Metropolitan District, where the bulk of them had remained; and arrangements were made for the slaughter of all the animals which had not been killed already. On the same day—Friday, the 5th — two English beasts, the animals to which the hon. Member for Leicester refers, were found in the lairs at Islington suffering from the disease. It is correct that they came from Norfolk, but I have caused inquiry to be made at the place from which they came, and that inquiry shows that no trace of disease was found there, and all the stock upon the place in Norfolk were perfectly healthy. So far as we can learn, these animals must have been infected in the lairs. There is no evidence whatever to show that they could have infected the Danish cattle, who were found to be suffering on the previous day, or that the disease had developed in their case before the landing of the Danish cattle in the country. On Saturday, the 6th, information was received that the disease had been discovered in some of the Danish cattle which had been removed to Rochester. These were slaughtered, together with a number of animals with which they had been in contact, which were followed and killed; and on the same day an Order was passed prohibiting the entire movement of animals from the Metropolitan District, and from all the other places to which the Danish cattle had been sent. On Tuesday last I regret to say that further outbreaks of the disease were reported from Clapton, Bromley-by-Bow, and from Welling, near Dartford, in Kent, all of them being places within the Metropolitan District, and to which cattle from the Metropolitan Market had been sent. In all these cases, Inspectors have been immediately sent down, the animals slaughtered, and the places disinfected. Another case was reported to us this morning from Bethnal Green. There were five cattle in the shed, and the disease, as in the other cases, had been introduced from the market on the 1st of February. The same procedure has been adopted with regard to these animals to-day. In addition to these measures, the holding of all markets in the Metropolitan area has been temporarily prohibited. Instructions have been issued to all the local authorities in the Metropolian district as to the steps to be taken on the discovery of the disease. Inspectors have been appointed to visit and watch the Metropolitan dairies; and while I cannot conceal from the House that, in my opinion, the danger of its spreading to the country is extreme, I am not without some hope that the disease may still be prevented from escaping beyond the Metropolitan area. In further reply to the Member for Leicester, I may say that the Danish Minister was good enough to send me a telegram from his Government on the 5th, from which it appeared that, up till then, they had failed to discover the existence of the disease in Denmark. But I have had no further information, official or otherwise, since then. We know, however, that it has quite recently spread from Germany, where it is very prevalent, to Schleswig-Holstein; and I am advised that it is quite possible that the disease may have been conveyed by traders from Hamburg or Altona to the cargo which left Esbjerg on the 27th, before they were embarked. Lastly, in answer to my hon. Friend the Member for East Norfolk—and I apologise to the House for the length of this reply—as to whether still greater precautions will be taken in future, I may add that the importation of animals from the Netherlands has been suspended as well as from Denmark. Tke only European countries from which animals are now admitted are Norway, Sweden, Spain, and Portugal, and I do not know of any greater precautions which it would be possible to take, short of prohibiting all importation from these countries also.

Will the right hon. Gentleman say, were the cattle slaughtered at Rochester part of the Danish cargo?

Yes.

Was the disease traced in any other of the 59 animals?

So far as I know the disease was found in two of the animals traced to Rochester, and which formed part of the Danish cargo.

Will the right hon. Gentleman say, have any precautions been taken by the disinfection of drovers bringing tattle from Ireland, so that they may not introduce the disease into Ireland on their return?

I took the earliest opportunity of informing the Irish Government of what had occurred, and I have no doubt that every precaution is being taken to prevent the importation of the disease from England into Ireland.

Perhaps my right hon. Friend can say, have definite instructions been issued to Her Majesty's Consuls abroad that they shall keep careful watch for any outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease, and report to the Government at home when any case becomes known to them?

Yes; such instructions have been repeatedly given, and, so far as I know, they are carefully carried out.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been called to the statement in a pamphlet just issued, entitled The Poppy Plague in India, that the consumption of opium in the Bombay Presidency has increased 549 per cent. since 1877, and, in the City of Bombay, 2,161 per cent.; whether these figures are correct; whether it is a fact that all shops for the sale of opium are closed,

"on or adjacent to the line of march whilst a regiment or detachment of soldiers is passing, or is encamped in the vicinity;"

and whether the Government of India will be invited to extend the same protection to the natives of the country which they do to British soldiers?

The Secretary of State has seen these figures quoted, but he cannot identify them. At pages 73 and 89 of the Opium Papers just published will be found a detailed account of the consumption of duty-paid opium in Bombay city and Presidency from 1879 to 1889. It will been seen from page 9 of the same Return that the increase in the sale of duty-paid opium is explained by the Government of India as being entirely due to the substitution of duty-paid for contraband opium, and that the retail price of opium has been more than doubled in the last 14 years. In answer to paragraphs 3 and 4 of the Question, I have to say the Secretary of State is not aware that all opium shops are closed when troops are marching or encamped in the neighbourhood.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to the fact that a purchaser under the Land Purchase Act of 1885, having obtained an advance of £725, and having paid four half-yearly instalments of £14 10s. each for interest and principal, was informed that he could not redeem the remaining instalments for less than £726; whether it is a fact that the Schedule to the Act, fixing the prices for redeeming annuities, has been entirely miscalculated, and is in error throughout; and whether he will introduce a Bill amending the Act, and providing that annuities should be redeemed at prices correctly calculated, or in accordance with Tables to be published by the Treasury, as under the Act of 1891?

answered the Question as follows:—My attention has been called to the circumstances mentioned by the hon. Member in his Question, and Her Majesty's Government are considering the question of introducing a clause to meet the objections to the present Table.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whe- ther the Tables providing for the redemption of annuities under "the Purchase of Land and Congested Districts (Ireland) Act, 1891," have yet been published; and, if not, when they will probably be published?

No; these Tables are not published; they are dependent on the rules to be made by the Treasury under the Purchase of Land, &c. (Ireland) Act, 1891, and the Tables will I hope shortly follow when the rules are complete.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury when the Return ordered relating to the Lough Erne Drainage Works will be presented to the House?

The Board of Public Works have prepared the Report in question, and it will be ready for presentation in the course of a few days.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can furnish the House with any information regarding the cause of the stranding of the ironclad Victoria on the 30th January upon a spit of rock called "Snipe Island," near Dragomesti, in the Gulf of Patras; whether the rock in question is marked upon the chart issued by the Admiralty, and if at the time of grounding the captain was using every precaution, with the lead forward or only amidships; whether the Admiral in charge of the Mediterranean Squadron is responsible for the waters in which his ships are exercised, or that officers commanding (whether deep or light draught of water vessels) are, when engaged in torpedo practice, compelled (as stated in the Times of the 8th February) to carry out the manœuvres in 10 fathoms of water, thereby, in rocky waters, endangering the safety of the ships; and can he state whether the damage can be repaired at Malta; if not, is it intended to send the vessel to one of the naval dockyards of France or Italy in place of risking the long voyage home; or, if brought to England, is it intended to re-ship the stores removed to lighten the vessel, or send them by another vessel?

As the circumstances connected with this accident will form the subject of a court-martial, it is not advisable at present for me to do more than give a mere outline of the facts, so far as they have been reported to the Admiralty, and therefore. I must respectfully decline at present to answer any question implying carelessness or conveying censure on those concerned in the accident. The Victoria went aground just off Snipe Point, near Dragomesti. There is a shoal off Snipe Point, which was discovered last year, and the existence of which was made known in the usual way by hydro graphic notice. It is not marked in the chart. No rules as to the precise depth of water in which torpedoes are to be run have been laid down, and therefore ships are not compelled to run unnecessary risks in carrying out the required practice. The Victoria will shortly be docked at Malta, when the damage will be fully ascertained, and the necessary steps taken for her repair. At present the damage is reported not to be serious.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General if his attention has been called to the frequent late arrivals of the mail train at Stranraer, and the consequent delay in the, arrival of mails at Belfast and Londonderry; whether any representations; upon the matter have been made to the London and North-Western Railway Company, and if there is a prospect of a more punctual service; and if the other portion of the new mail service has been worked with regularity?

There has been some irregularity, and, in several cases, apparently from avoidable causes, to which the attention of the railway companies concerned has been invited. It is right to say that the trains on the British side are timed at a rate of speed which affords little margin for contingencies. As regards the oversea and Irish railway services, they have not been al- together free from irregularity, but there has been little cause for complaint.

I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer who have been appointed members of the Committee of Inspection under Section 2 of "The Savings Banks Act, 1891-2?"

The members of the Inspection Committee of Trustee Savings Banks are: Sir Albert K. Rollit, M.P.; Mr. H. G. Bowen, Chief Accountant of the Bank of England; Mr. T. A. Welton, President of the Institute of Chartered Accountants; Mr. W. M. Walters, President of the Incorporated Law Society; Mr. J. M. Ludlow, late Chief Registrar of Friendly Societies; Mr. John Ure, Lord Dean of Guild, Glasgow; Mr. T. H. Newman, of New Broad Street, City.

Will these names be printed and laid before us?

I will consider the suggestion. Great pains have been taken in the selection, and I trust the selection will satisfy the House generally.

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether County Aldermen who retire by rotation at the approaching County Council Elections can be elected as Councillors at the same elections?

In the absence of my right hon. Friend, the hon. Member will allow me to reply. It would appear that a retiring County Alderman is not legally disqualified for election as a County Councillor. In connection with this question, the decision of the Courts in "Regina v. the Mayor of Bangor" with regard to a similar question under the Municipal Corporations Act may be referred to.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Local Government Board if he now proposes to utilize in any way the scientific and financial resources of the State to endeavour to discover the origin and best means of effectually checking the fatal epidemic of influenza, now in its third year of visitation?

The Local Government Board having been of opinion that further investigation ought to be instituted with reference to influenza, with a view to the discovery of its origin and the best means of effectually checking its fatal prevalence, an inquiry has already been commenced and is being conducted by the Medical Department of the Board with the. assistance of pathological and other experts.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Local Government Board whether any decision has been arrived at with reference to holding a special official inquiry as to the repeated outbreaks of influenza; and, if so, under whose direction the inquiry will be held, what will be its scope, and when will it commence; whether the inquiry which was held by the Medical Department of the Board in 1890, or any subsequent investigations, have rendered it practicable for the Board to draw up and issue to the various Sanitary Authorities for publication in newspapers and in conspicuous places in every town and district, concise and simple directions as to precautionary measures to be taken in a practical and shorter form than those recently issued; and whether any notification has been or will be sent to the Sanitary Authorities that the sanction of the Board will upon application be given to providing a temporary supply of medicine, either with a view to prevention or cure, and medical assistance to the poorer inhabitants under "The Public Health Act, 1875" and "The Public Health (London) Act, 1891?"

My reply to the previous question dealswith the first point referred to. As regards the second point, the question has been considered, but it does not appear to the Local Government Board that they can with advantage issue further directions or suggestions as to precautionary measures for general publication by Sanitary Authorities. In no case have the Board received any application by a Sanitary Authority that they should be authorised to provide, in connection with an outbreak of influenza, a temporary supply of medicine and medical assistance for the poorer inhabitants of their district under the Public Health Acts. It may, therefore, be inferred that the Sanitary Authorities have not regarded the circumstances as requiring that any such arrangements should be adopted, and the Board have no information which would lead them to a different conclusion. They would, however, consider any application where, from exceptional circumstances, such a course appeared desirable.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware that some two years ago the President of the Local Government Board gave precisely the same answer in reference to an inquiry as that we have just heard. Have there been no results from that inquiry?

There have been results,.but nothing I think that at present it is desirable to communicate to Local Authorities. If anything result from the present inquiry, and the Board see their way to offer any assistance to Local Authorities, that assistance shall be at once given to the best of their ability.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty what steps have been taken for the disposal of the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteer Corps, and whether any satisfactory compensation has been;granted to them?

We have been in communication with the War Office as to the transfer of corps of Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers, but there is great difficulty in retaining these Volunteers as a separate and distinct organisation in connection with the military defences of the country, and this idea must, therefore, be abandoned. The Committee which was referred to in the Admiralty letter of 13th November last will, accordingly, at once proceed to examine into the financial position of the corps, with the view of ascertaining the amount and mature of compensation that should be granted. I hope, however, that the individual members of the Royal Naval Artillery Volunteers will offer their services to the various corps of Submarine Mining Volunteers, which already exist under the War Office, and will continue in this new sphere to devote the same zeal and energy to the service of their country as they have previously shown when in direct connection with the Navy.

I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he can inform the House what progress has been made in winding up the affairs of the Cardiff Savings Bank; whether the contributories have paid in their several amounts; and, if so, what sums have been so paid; whether any, and if so who, have refused to pay; and what steps are being taken to compel payment; and whether it is the intention of the liquidator to pay any dividend to the depositors; if so, what amount, and when to be paid?

I have obtained the following information from the official liquidator:—Proceedings have been instituted against 33 trustees and managers. One case (against the president) has been argued, and judgment is reserved. A sum of £7,000 in all has, with the sanction of the Court, been accepted from seven of the trustees and managers in settlement of the claims against them. It is anticipated that some further settlements may shortly be approved. Until the proceedings are further advanced, or unless settlements are made, it is impossible to make any statement as to the prospects of a dividend. The Government have no responsibility for, or control over, the management of the liquidation. It is in the hands of the Court, under whose direction the liquidator acts; and I would suggest to the hon. Member that he may obtain any further information which he may desire from the official liquidator.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that these winding-up proceedings have been now going on for five years?

Yes; I am aware of that. It is a most unfortunate affair. I hear proceedings have been continued for many years; I wish it were in the power of the Government to accelerate the proceedings, but they are in the hands of the Court. Of course, proceedings being taken against 33 persons must involve considerable expenditure of time.

I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he can inform the House as to the total cost, legal and otherwise, in connection with the, winding up of the Cardiff Savings Bank, and by whom those costs are being borne; and whether he will consent to lay upon the Table of this House a, Return as to such costs, under each head respectively?

I am informed that the taxed costs and the remuneration to the liquidator up to February 9, 1891, amount to £5,976, the legal costs being £3,476, and the remuneration of the liquidator £2,500. This amount is fixed by the Court; we have no power over it.

Will the costs come out of the money recovered?

Out of the assets of the bank.

I beg to ask the President of the Board or Trade whether he is aware that the Report of the Labour Correspondent to the Board of Trade on Trade Unions for the year 1889 or 1890 has not yet been issued; whether he can inform the House when the Report will appear; and whether it is the intention of the Board of Trade to delay such Report until that for 1891 is completed?

This Report was sent to the printers on Saturday last, and I understand it is to be published next week.

I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether he has caused inquiries to be made as to the number of deaths by drowning in the docks in London during the recent fogs; and whether he has been able to advise the Dock Companies to adopt any system of protection against such accidents in the future; and whether he proposes to order a public inquiry into the question?

had notice of the following Question: To ask the President of the Board of Trade how many cases of death occurred during the late fogs in the various docks of the City of London; and whether he has power to compel the various Dock Companies to place posts and chains some six feet from edge of quays?

I have received 18 returns of coroners' inquests into the deaths of persons drowned in the London docks between October 1, 1890, and the 7th January last. I cannot say, however, whether any further deaths have since taken place. Of course, hon. Members are aware that the Board of Trade have no statutory powers of ordering a public inquiry or of compelling the Dock Companies to take any particular action in regard to this matter; but I have been in communication with the Dock Companies, and at their desire have directed an officer of the Board to confer with representatives of the companies, with a view to seeing what precautions can be taken for the protection of the public in future.

I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, considering the increase in the number and intensity of fogs in the Metropolis and the loss of life, accidents, and difficulties to traffic arising therefrom, it is his intention to cause any inquiry to be made as to means for preventing fogs in London?

No, Sir. I am thankful to say the duties of the Board of Trade do not extend to the prevention of fogs in London.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland when he intends to lay upon the Table of the House the Return on Irish Education promised at the close of last Session?

My hon. Friend will have seen, perhaps, that the Return was laid on the Table yesterday.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland is he aware of the fact that since last October only eight men have been employed daily on that portion of the new Railway for 12 miles from the town of Glenties, and that the men employed on the smaller portion are only receiving 2½d. per hour for the fair hours of the day, while it is well-known to some people that the winter was a severe and wet one; and whether he would consider it advisable to notify the contractors that the men who have been thrown out of employment should be taken on again, and the works proceeded with without delay?

I have no information of the nature mentioned in the Question. Contracts were made under the authority of the Treasury, and the contractors, I believe, are bound under penalty to complete the works within a given time.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the facts in the district, and are the Government prepared to undertake a scheme for the reclamation of the land by which thousands of acres might be made available, giving employment to labour with no liability for heavy unremunerative expenditure?

I am afraid I must have more detailed information before I can answer that question.

I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has received a Report from the Cavan Board of Guardians as to a resolution passed recommending the payment of jurors attending assizes and quarter sessions, and if he has also received a similar one passed by the Derry Guardians; and, if so, is the Government prepared to bring in a Bill to amend the jury system generally?

I am informed that no such resolutions as those referred to have been received by the Irish Government.

I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the Committee, which was appointed in order to assist the authorities of the Mint with their advice both as regards the design and the general character of coins, have yet reported to him as to the various designs which have been submitted to them, and especially whether they have reported in favour of all silver coins having their value inscribed thereon?

Various designs have been submitted to the Committee, and I understand that the final meetings of the Committee are now being held. They have made their choice, though they have still several points of detail to consider. They hope to make their Report in a short time.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he intends to introduce this Session the Bill for the consolidation and amendment of the laws relating to betting and gambling, referred to by him in the debate of last Session?

It is still too soon in the Session for me to make any definite announcement on this subject, or to add another controversial measure to the list of Government Bills. An amending Bill would take-up a good deal of the time of the House.

The circumstances of the disorder at Wormwood Scrubs were duly investigated by the Prison Commissioners and reported to me. In the formation of a new staff, consequent on the conversion of Wormwood Scrubs into a local prison, a certain proportion of new officers were appointed, but I am informed that the disorder, which was quickly checked, was not due to this cause. There has been no repetition of the occurrences of the 19th December The ventilators at Wormwood Scrubs are of the same construction as at other prisons, and are not imperfectly devised. The prisoners cannot communicate with one another through the ventilators except by shouting, and this is at once heard by the officials and repressed.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether Government has renewed, or is about to renew, a contract with Messrs. Waterlow; and, if so, what is the nature, and what is the duration, of the contract; and what steps have been, or will be, taken to secure (in compliance with the engagement given by the Government last Session)

"the payment of the rate of wages generally accepted as current for a competent workman in his trade."

Messrs. Waterlow and Sons hold two contracts with the Stationery Office for vellum binding. These contracts were, on the 31st of October last, provisionally extended for two years from the 31st March, 1892. The proviso attached to the extension was that the contracts might be terminated on or after the 31st of March, 1893, on six months' notice given by either side. The Controller of the Stationery Office has been instructed to send to all contractors a circular similar to that now being issued by the Admiralty, War Office, and other Departments of Government.

I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether Mr. Ruggles Brise has been appointed to the Prison Commissionership vacated by Admiral Hornby; and, whether Colonel Garsia has been appointed Secretary to the Prison Commissioners?

Both these appointments have been made.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether the postmaster at Aberdeen has been retired with full pension; whether the Town Council of Aberdeen, the Chamber of Commerce, and other public bodies interested, have made representations to the Treasury that the postmaster is able and willing to discharge with efficiency all the duties of the office; whether, at the time the postmaster at Aberdeen and other public servants were appointed, there was no Minute of the Treasury requiring retirement so long as such servants were fit to perform their duties; whether the retirement referred to will involve an additional cost to the Treasury of £433 6s. 8d.; and, in all the circumstances, whether, in terms of the Treasury Minute, he may consent to an extension in this case of a further period of five years?

An Order in Council, founded on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, prescribes retirement at the age of 65, unless, in a particular case such retirement would be detrimental to the public interest. The postmaster at Aberdeen has accordingly been retired on the pension earned by his long and good service. Representations have, I believe, been received from Aberdeen in favour of this officer's continued employment, but the Government are bound to carry out the policy laid down in the Order in Council—an instrument ranking next in authority to an Act of Parliament, and I cannot say that this officer's retirement is detrimental to the public interest, although he was in all respects an efficient public servant. It has always been the rule that officers could elect to retire or could be retired on pension after 60 years of age. I cannot admit that, in order to save the amount of the pension, there is economy in retaining civil servants beyond the age deliberately fixed by a Royal Commission as that at which, in the interest of the efficiency of the public service, they ought to retire.

I beg to ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer when Her Majesty's Government intend to state to the House their proposals with reference to the money payable to Scotland under the head of the so-called "Equivalent Grant," and whether those proposals are intended to be made in the form of a Bill; or, if not, in what other form?

My right hon. Friend has requested me to reply to this question. The Government are decidedly of opinion that the best way to proceed in this matter is by Bills and not by Resolutions, and they propose at the very earliest day to lay their provisions before the House. If the exigences of public business or otherwise should render it impossible to carry through the Bills, they might reluctantly proceed by Resolution, but they would do so with great regret.

Am I to understand from the right hon. Gentleman that he means by the expression "the very earliest day" within the next fortnight?

The Bills will be printed and circulated immediately after the Queen's Speech has been disposed of.

I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether his attention has been called to the serious loss which is occasioned to the Board and Voluntary Schools at Sheerness and other dockyard towns owing to the recent decision of the Education Department that no fee grant is to be paid in respect of any child who has passed the seventh standard; whether he is aware that it is necessary in dock- yard towns to retain the elder children at school for the purpose of fitting them for apprenticeship to the various trades, these children being those of working men who can ill-afford to keep them so long at school after passing the exemption standard; and whether it was the intention of the Committee in Council at the passing of the Act that such children should be excluded from its provisions, seeing that section 1 only refers to an age and not to a proficiency limit?

If my hon. Friend will refer to the report of the discussion in Committee upon this section of the Act on June 30th, 1891, he will be able to satisfy himself that the case only of children in average attendance at Elementary Schools was under consideration. The Department must therefore, I fear, be bound by the strict terms of the Act, which restrict the payment of the fee grant to children in average attendance at Elementary Schools.

I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland if it is his intention this Session to introduce a Bill to amend the Law relating to pawnbrokers in Ireland; whether the extension of the English system to Ireland is contemplated; and whether there is a clause in the English Act preventing pawnbrokers taking pledges from drunkards?

The matter referred to in the Question of the hon. Member is one which is very difficult to deal with, and one upon which nothing like unanimity prevails amongst the several interests concerned, and the Government are not prepared to deal with the matter at present.

May I ask the right. hon. Gentleman if he would be willing to receive a deputation of traders and residents in Belfast and the North of Ireland, who desire to have an opportunity of laying their views before the Government?

I have given considerable attention to this question for the last two years. I have recently been made aware of the views entertained by the traders of Belfast and the North of Ireland; but, so far as I am personally concerned, I shall be exceedingly obliged to any persons who bring their views before me.

I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether Her Majesty's Government has come to any decision as to the abolition of the Paddy Tax in Ceylon; if so, have instructions been sent to the Government of that Colony to introduce legislation to carry that resolution into effect; and by what taxation is the revenue supplied by the Paddy Tax to be replaced?

If the hon. Member will postpone his Question for a short time I trust I may then be in a position to make a definite statement on the subject.

I beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland whether the provisions of "The Deeds of Arrangement Amendment Act, 1890," so far as relates to private arrangements, and especially Sub-section 5 of Section 2, have been disregarded; and what steps the Government proposes to take to compel the observance of the Act?

I have no official information before me at present on this subject. If the hon. Member will kindly repeat his Question, I shall endeavour to obtain the information he desires.

I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is in a position to state the result of the Mission of Mr. Forman to the Continent; whether this officer was successful in getting a reduction in the transit rates charged by France and Italy for the conveyance of the Indian and Australian mails between Calais and Brindisi; and whether he is in a position to inform the House of the result of his inquiries regarding the feasibility of sending our Eastern mails viâ Salonica?

I have been in communication with the French and Italian Post Offices on the subject of the hon. Member's Question. There will be in future a reduction of about £7,300 a year upon the charge for the conveyance of the Eastern mails by special accelerated trains. Books and newspapers will be carried at the territorial transit rates of the Postal Union. As regards the Salonica route, it is undoubtedly feasible, and it might afford a certain acceleration, but it is not proposed at present to resort to it.

Has the right hon. Gentleman any objection to lay the Papers on the Table of the House?

I will consider that.

I beg to ask Mr. Attorney General for Ireland whether the Government intend to take any steps to secure the efficient administration of the law by County Courts in Ireland, in accordance with the views put forward by the Associated Chambers of Commerce?

The subject is under the consideration of the Government, and I hope to be able to embody the views put forward by the Associated Chambers of Commerce in a, Bill which I intend to introduce on an early day.

What day?

As soon as possible.

I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if, having regard to the statements laid before the country of the extent of old age pauperism among the industrial classes, the Government will assent to the early appointment of a Select Committee to ascertain the facts, and the best means of remedying the evil, and enabling the thrifty to secure State guaranteed pensions in old age upon easy terms, through Friendly Societies or otherwise.

This matter has excited, and I think rightly excited, very great interest in the country; but since I saw the hon. Member's question on the Notice Paper this morning I have had very little time to consider it myself, and have had no time to consult my colleagues on the matter. The hon. Member, however, will bear in mind that a large part, if not the whole, of this question, has already been very thoroughly examined into by a Committee who sat during the three years from 1885 to 1888. They took a large batch of evidence on this subject, and laid a very important Report before the House. Whether there is anything that can be usefully added to that Report I have some doubt.

I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he is aware of the fact that the usual monthly Returns of the proceedings of the Irish Land Commission have not been put in the hands of hon. Members since July last year, a month preceding the passage of the Land Purchase Act; so that we are entirely in the dark upon the proceedings that have taken place under the Land Purchase Act. I wish to ask if he can state to the House the number of applications that have been made under the Act, the number of the tenants concerned, and the number of applications that have been sanctioned, say, up to the end of the year?

I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman when the annual Report of the Land Commission will be issued?

I am not able to answer the question of the hon. Member for West Belfast. If he will furnish me with the particulars he wishes to have specified, I shall endeavour to have an answer. In reply to the hon. Member for South Tyrone, I will inquire about the annual Report of the Land Commission.

I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty if he will explain why the caulkers employed in Her Majesty's Dockyards, who perform the same duties and have hitherto been on an equality and received the same wages as shipwrights, under the recent new scheme of wages receive one shilling per week less than shipwrights?

In determining the rates of pay, the claims of the caulkers were carefully considered. Their trade, however, is more limited in scope and of less importance than formerly, compared with that of the shipwrights; and when advancing the scale of pay for each of these classes, it was considered desirable to mark by a slight variation the difference in the character of their respective work.

I rise to make the Motion which stands in my name, and in doing so I do not think it necessary for me to inform the House that on the 14th of July last a Resolution was adopted requiring Mr. De Cobain to attend in his place in the House in the succeeding week, that during the course of that week he sent a letter to you, Sir, explaining fully to the House his inability to come over to the House, and in consideration of this the order was withdrawn and the matter was allowed, for the moment, to rest. I think the House will probably feel that I have no alternative now but to renew the Resolution and ask the House—

"To require Mr. Edward S. W. DeCobain to attend this House in his place upon Tuesday the 23rd of February."

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That Mr. Edward Samuel Wesley De Cobain do attend this House in his place upon Tuesday the 23rd of February."—(Mr. Arthur Balfour).

I should like to ask a question of the First Lord in relation to this Motion. I think it is a Motion which he was bound to make, and therefore for my part I do not intend to quarrel with it; I think this House acted very indulgently towards the hon. Gentleman in its proceedings of last Session, and I think the House at that time was under an obligation to you, Mr. Speaker, for the way in which you prevented it from taking any precipitate action in the matter. But it appears to me that the Motion is extremely curious in its character, because when it says that Mr. De Cobain is required to attend in his place on Tuesday the 23rd of February, everybody knows that the moment Mr. De Cobain landed on this shore in pursuance of the order of this House, he would be at once met by a detective at Dover and forthwith arrested. And what appears to me is that an appendage should be added to the motion, to the following effect:—

"And that this House will treat the attempt of any person, whomsoever, to prevent the said Member from complying with its orders as a contempt of this House."

I think that this is the inevitable logic of the situation. It seems to me that the true course for the Government to take is this, either to withdraw the present motion and treat the past action of Mr. De Cobain in not presenting himself for trial as a contempt of this House, or else, if the Government are going to invite him here, that at least you should make it clear that his path should not be barred by the police in the interval. This House has no business to pass blind orders that cannot be obeyed, but orders that can be given effect to, and until the right hon. Gentleman has made up his mind, I move that, in addition to the resolution, the following words should be added:— "And that this House will treat the attempt of any person whomsoever to prevent the said Member from complying with its order as a contempt of this House." Let me say that the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Belfast circulated amongst the Members of this House a document which I suppose none of us have had time, even if we had the wish, to study, but no doubt there is a strong impression among representatives of the democratic Orange Party in Ulster that a considerable pressure has been applied to him, because he represented more or less the working-class interest.

I beg to contradict that.

That may be contrary to the fact. I give no opinion on it whatever, and I assure the hon. Gentleman, the Member for South Belfast, that I am not dealing with the subject as one settled in my mind. I only state that an impression prevails that while other gentlemen, including a noble lord, were assisted, as we know from a declaration of the hon. Member for Northampton, and enabler to quit the country, Mr. De Cobain has been singled out because he represents the democratic Orange party, and they are opposed in that impression by gentlemen from Ulster who represent the more aristocratic Orange party. Personally I myself think Mr. De Cobain placed himself entirely in the wrong by not coming over and standing his trial, and this House, so far as my judgment is concerned, and no Member of this House, is now called upon to seek further for any special treatment in regard to him. Amendment proposed,

At the end of the Question, to add the words "and that this House will treat the attempt of any person whomsoever to prevent the said Member from complying with its order as a contempt of this House."—(Mr. T. M. Healy.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there added."

I think the course which the Government has taken is the only course they could have pursued, and that it is the right course to pursue. I cannot agree with what my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Longford has just said. The truth is that the proceedings of this House are against a Member who is a notorious fugitive from justice, and continuously a fugitive from justice. Last year reasons were alleged why he should have time, and that he was involuntarily a fugitive from justice. Nobody can believe that now. The pertinacious and determined absence of the hon. Member from this House shows that he is determined not to meet a Court of Justice. For months he has been capable of proving his innocence of all the allegations made against him there if he came to England. Now it concerns the honour of this House that he should not be a member of it who is continually a fugitive from justice. It is therefore right to order Mr. De Cobain to return here. We say to him here: "either come and clear your character or cease to be a Member of this House." That is the plain meaning of these proceedings. We have nothing to do with a Court of Justice or the arrest of Mr. De Cobain. I venture to think that my hon. and learned Friend's Amendment is not Constitutional. The House cannot order a warrant not to be executed. Such an assumption on the part of the House would be a breach of the principle on which a free Constitution rests. The execution of justice is independent of the Crown, or either House of Parliament. For one House of Parliament by Resolution to order the course of justice to be intercepted, is a thing we could not countenance at all—therefore it seems to me our proceedings are perfectly clear. We say now that there can be no doubt whatever that Mr. De Cobain is a fugutive from justice, and he must either return and meet the accusations against him in a court of law, or cease to be a Member of this House. If he come back and, before a court of law, prove to be innocent, we shall receive him with gladness and satisfaction. If he persist, under the grave accusations against him, in absenting himself from a fair trial and the means of vindicating his character, then this House must declare that he ceases to be a Member of it, in consideration of its own dignity and honour. Therefore I cannot support the amendment of my hon. and learned Friend.

I think the Amendment of my hon. and learned Friend the Member for North Longford may, perhaps, be technically open to the objection pointed out by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby. No doubt, however, it is the intention of the House and the Government that Mr. De Cobain should return to this country and have an opportunity of obeying the Order of the House, and I think the difficulty might be met by an undertaking on the part of the Government that when Mr. De Cobain returned to the country he should be allowed to obey the Order of the House without any action—["No, no"]. Why not? Surely if an Order of the House is issued it is intended to be obeyed. The ends of justice would not be thwarted, because after he had obeyed the Order he could as easily be arrested as before; and therefore I think the Government should give an undertaking that Mr. De Cobain should be allowed to obey the Order of the House before being arrested.

I think the hon. Gentleman will feel that his argument has been answered by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby. If we were to give any engagement about the arrest of Mr. De Cobain we should, in the first place, be doing that which we have no power to do; and if we did a Court of Law would disregard it. Even if we could, we should, by such proceedings, obviously be interfering with the Courts of Justice. The case could not, I think, be more lucidly or concisely put than as it has been put by the right hon. Gentleman. Mr. De Cobain is still a Member of Parliament, though a Member of Parliament with a warrant out against him. He refuses to come home and clear himself, and let the matter be decided according to the evidence on the trial, on one side or the other. It would not be consistent with honour for the House to allow one of its Members to remain in this position. We require him to come back, and no doubt if he did come back he would be obliged to do that which he ought to have done long ago—namely, to submit himself to the proper tribunal of the country. If the House were to attempt to do what the hon. Gentleman has suggested, it would be an attempt to do that which is in itself unconstitutional, and which I believe there is no legal power to do.

The necessity for the Amendment of the hon. Member for North Longford does not arise. If Mr. De Cobain return and surrender himself to justice, he can apply to the Magistrate for bail on the ground that he wished to obey the order of the House, and no Magistrate in the country would refuse bail under the circumstances.

I beg to withdraw the Amendment, and I think the best course for the right hon. Gentleman to adopt would be to put down a Motion for expelling the hon. Gentleman from the House a fortnight hence. Amendment by leave withdrawn. Main Question put, and agreed to. Ordered, That Mr. Edward Samuel Wesley De Cobain do attend this House in his place upon Tuesday the 23rd of February.

Mr. Speaker, at the commencement of the observations which I shall ask the permission of the House to make, I hope I may be permitted, on behalf of my hon. Friends and myself, to associate ourselves entirely with all that has fallen from the Leader of the House, and from my right hon. Friend who is acting as the Leader of the Opposition, with regard to the lamented death of the Duke of Clarence. In the fierce light which beats upon a Throne, the whole nation participates in the joys and sorrows of the Royal Family, and in the present case the pathetic circumstances which attended the death of the Duke, who had been cut off in the flower of his age, at a time when he was hopefully entering upon a new responsibility with the brightest prospects of domestic happiness, has appealed, I think, to our feelings of common humanity, so that the House of Commons in expressing its sympathy and its grief is only expressing the universal sentiment of the whole of the people. Sir, in such times we all feel that any condolence must be unavailing to assuage so bitter an affliction. But we know, on the authority of Her Majesty herself, that she and those members of the Royal Family who have suffered more severely have found some comfort in the knowledge that the whole of their people have sorrowed with them. Mr. Speaker, I should like also to say one word with regard to the loss which the House has sustained in the death of its late Leader. Full justice has been already done to the eminent qualities of Mr. Smith, to his genial kindliness, to his unswerving devotion to duty, to his unselfishness, and to his strong common sense—all the qualities which appear to me to be the very best characteristics of the English people. He had no claim to possess those showy gifts which in others have commanded popular admiration, but he had one exceptional quality to which reference has not been made. Mr. Smith was essentially a man of good counsel, and I think those who went to him for advice, whether in the position of personal friends or political colleagues, or political allies, always found him quick to seize the bearing of a question, able to appreciate the circumstances and to give trustworthy and sagacious advice. Sir, I think that the loss which the country and his party have sustained by his death in this respect has not, even yet, been fully realized. Mr. Speaker, I now turn to the more general topics suggested by the Queen's Speech, and the discussion that has hitherto taken place on that document. In the first place I am bound to express my surprise, I may even say my astonishment, at the course which the Debate has hitherto taken. I believe it is understood that the Debate on the Address at the beginning of the Session is not only an opportunity for a declaration of the policy of the Government, but an occasion eagerly seized by the Opposition to bring to the test the opinions which they have expressed in public during the Recess and to give a clear indication of their present attitude and intention. Sir, the Recess has been an exceedingly active one. We have been warned that this was to be a "fighting Session" and that the Opposition at least meant business. We have been told that the present is the worst and weakest Government which ever sat on these benches, that they are tottering to their fall, and that if they did not at the commencement of the Session perform the happy dispatch, the representatives of an indignant nation would combine to turn them out of their places and would force them to make room for abler and for better men. We have even heard threats that on the first day of the Session a dissolution would be demanded, and that if a dissolution were refused, supplies would be stopped. [Opposition cheers.] I gather from the cheers behind me that I have only fairly stated the case—[No, no!]—well, I have given a short and incomplete summary of the oratory of the Recess, and what I want to point out is that in the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby, delivered on Tuesday night, there was not from beginning to end one hint that these truculent intentions were going to be carried out. I paid to that speech the attention which its ability deserved, and from first to last there was not in it even a stray allusion to the Septennial Act, which we have been taught to look upon as, next to the Act of Union, the most iniquitous piece of legislation ever enacted. But yet there is no proposal from these Benches to repeal the Septennial Act. Even with the blushing honours of Rossendale thick upon him my right hon. Friend does not express any anxiety—he conceals the anxiety he feels—for a general appeal to the constituencies. What is his explanation? I thought that I had found it yesterday in a statement which appeared in the newspapers that my friend Mr. Schnadhorst had warned the right hon. Gentleman and his colleagues that he could not, even with his machinery, produce a majority of more than 30 at the next election. But to-day Mr. Schnadhorst says he never promised them any majority at all. I think Mr. Schnadhorst was very wise. He has given proof of all the shrewdness with which I have been accustomed to credit him, and he is quite right not to prophesy unless he knows. But again I say that is not an explanation. How comes it then that this Session which was to come in like a roaring lion has come in like a bleating lamb. My right hon. Friend the Member for Derby occupied the great part of his very interesting speech in a somewhat discursive attack on a certain portion of one of several speeches made by the Prime Minister during the recess. I did not think that attack very relevant to the business in hand, and I have only one word to say upon it, that I think it very hard that we should be accused of exciting to religious bigotry and intolerance, and insulting our Roman Catholic fellow subjects, when we are only pointing out the dangers of ecclesiastical domination. Where did we learn our lessons? We sat at the feet of two Gamaliels—the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-on-Tyne. What is it the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian says, not in a speech in the excitement of party politics on a platform in the provinces, but in writing in a careful essay on the subject:—

"To secure rights has been, and is, the aim of Christian civilisation—to destroy them, and to establish the resistless domineering action of a purely central power, is the aim of Roman policy.—'Vaticanism,' 1875."

Is that an insult to the Roman Catholics? Is it true? If it be true, why do you blame us for saying the same thing? Then, Sir, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle, a long way after, and with rather feeble voice, said—

"The Church, it has been truly said, has broken with knowledge, has taken her stand upon ignorance, and is striving with might and main, even in countries where she has no chance to use the machinery of popular Government, to keep back education. The worst enemy of Science is also the bitterest enemy of Democracy—c'est le clericalisme."— Fortnightly Review, Feb., 1886.

Is it not a strange thing that a Gladstonian may steal a horse, whilst we may not look over the hedge? When did Lord Salisbury, or any of those who have been criticised by the Opposition, including myself, say anything worse than that? It is perfectly absurd to say that we have learned our lesson too well, when we have only repeated it verbatim. But the course taken by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby was only intended to take us off the scent. He had not anything really to say about the policy or proposals of Her Majesty's Government. What he said was most friendly to us. In his most conciliatory manner, he was inclined to welcome those proposals and give them favourable consideration, and the only complaint he made—and this is the most amusing part of the whole thing, taken in conjunction with what he and others said in the Recess—was that the Government have not provided enough work for this Parliament to do. He seems to think that all the principal Bills of the Government will, with his assistance, be cleared off by the end of July. Is he waiting for the dissolution? No, certainly not! He is prepared to go on, but does not think all the excellent material of this Parliament is to be wasted! and he wants us to proceed with District Councils and Registration and other items in the Government Programme. It is a most excellent frame of mind. I do not like to accuse my right hon. Friend of inconsistency, but there is a difference between the policy in the speech of my right hon. Friend and that of the Recess. Why, Sir, we were told in the Recess that every item of the policy of Her Majesty's Government, foreign and domestic, past, present and future, was to be arraigned as soon as Parliament met. My right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lothian denounced the continued occupation of Egypt. My right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle had his suspicions; he was distrustful of the Triple Alliance, and he gave us to understand he was prepared to reverse the whole Foreign Policy of the Government at a moment's notice. My right hon. Friend the Member for Derby was disconcerted about extensions in South Africa, and especially did it pain him to think that the Government were going to propose some addition to the expenditure in order to secure the abolition of the Slave Trade and to promote civilisation in that part of the world. On this, right hon. Gentlemen and all their followers were agreed, that as regards Local Government it was perfectly ridiculous to consider the question of Local Government for Ireland as long as the Crimes Act were in existence That is a policy if you like. But what trace or hint of it is there in the speech of of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby. Everybody recollects the celebrated trial of "Bardell v. Pickwick," and how, after the case for the Plaintiff was opened by Mr. Skimpin, it appeared to the Court and the jury there was nothing in it. That is very like the indictment preferred against Her Majesty's Govern- ment. But Mr. Skimpin was a junior counsel, whereas my right hon. Friend, in the absence of the Member for Midlothian, speaks with an authoritative voice. Well, Sir, let us take one question as a test. I say that by this extreme reticence on the part of my right hon. Friend we are left in doubt as to the intention of the Opposition. What are they going to do about Local Government in Ireland? My right hon. Friend and other speakers on the same side of the House gave us to understand during the Recess that, in their opinion, Local Government in Ireland was exclusively an Irish question, and, therefore, that it ought to be left to an Irish Parliament. Well, if that is their view, I should expect them to come down here and scout the idea of taking up the time of the House with a discussion on Local Government which, according to them, is perfectly futile and inept. Not a bit of it. My right hon. Friend says he is only eager that this question of Local Government should be brought to a second reading before Easter, and he goes on to promise that if the Bill is conceived in a liberal spirit, he and his friends will give it their support.

I have always said so.

My right hon. Friend has always said that Local Government in Ireland was for the Local Parliament, and is inconsistent now in being so ready to welcome the introduction of Local Government by the Imperial Authority. I wish to be perfectly fair to my right hon. Friend. He says they are willing to discuss the Local Government Measure, but that he does not consider it a final settlement of the question of self-government in Ireland. He appeals to me to say the same, and he appeals to a speech of mine delivered five years ago, and he quotes it as usual without the context; and I must say I take it as a very great compliment that my right hon. Friend is so continually quoting my speeches. He must have somewhere a cabinet choke full of my speeches.

They are all on the "Round Table." (Laughter.)

I am delighted to hear that my right hon. Friend still preserves the "Round Table." My right hon. Friend, however, keeps those speeches to make them, on occasions, the subject of his rather boisterous merriment. In the present instance, what is the state of the facts? In 1887, after the "Round Table" to which my right hon. Friend has just referred, I was making a speech in Birmingham, and I said what was perfectly true, both of Lord Hartington and myself, that after Mr. Gladstone's revolutionary proposals in 1886 we thought at the time the circumstances had altered, and that it would be impossible to look upon a mere scheme of Municipal Government as finally concluding the question of the government of Ireland, and that something more might have to be done; and I said that I was prepared to accept the principle of some kind of legislative authority in Dublin, provided that the conditions which Mr. Gladstone himself had attached to that concession, namely, the undoubted and unquestioned supremacy of the Imperial Parliament and the protection of minorities, could be guaranteed. My right hon. Friend challenges me, indiscreetly as I think under the circumstances, to produce any plan of my own by which this legislative authority in Dublin with the necessary securities may be created. That is a very fair challenge. I think my right hon. Friend was quite within his rights. We have no right to talk of a great subject involving sudden changes without being prepared to bring it to the test of public discussion. I think my right hon. Friend is justified in calling on me for details; only my right hon. Friend has forgotten somewhere or another on the "Table" my published plan, published at the time of which he speaks in all its details; a plan by which this might be secured. I have complied with his request; I have published my plan, and I must say it met with universal disapproval. It was ridiculed by the right hon. Gentleman, it was scornfully repudiated by the Irish Gentlemen below the Gangway. It was not accepted by hon. Gentlemen opposite, and I confess I was discouraged with what attended my honest attempt to deal with the matter. I relinquish my plan; I am prepared to hand it over to my right hon. Friend. I do not refer to this with a view to disinterring a plan which fell still-born; but I do so in order to appeal to my right hon. Friend for a little reciprocity. He knows my plan now. Will he not tell me something about his? I do not ask for all the details; general lines will be quite sufficient for my purpose. Well, Sir, I have asked for this before, and I have been refused; but I am much more sanguine now than ever before. I have two reasons for thinking that at last the mask will fall, and this carefully guarded secret will be disclosed. I will put them before my right hon. Friend, who has an open mind on all questions, except, of course, questions of principle; and I will ask him to re-consider my application. My first reason for thinking he should change his policy is this that this is the last Session of the present Parliament (Opposition cheers). Yes; we are all going (renewed Opposition cheers) to an election; some of us are going to come back (Ministerial cheers). I see many, many Members present, even in the ranks of the Opposition, who might well say morituri te salutamus; but surely the fact that we are going to our constituencies is a reason why we should let our constituencies know something of the policy upon which we are going to seek their approval or disapproval. We ought to know, it is not too early to ask for, the policy of the Opposition, which is to be their principal object if they go into power. It is not too early to ask that they should put that forward for general discussion, so that the country may pronounce upon it with full knowledge. But I have another reason even more strong, and that is that during the last 12 months a great deal of light has been thrown upon the subject which we did not get before—light as to the intentions and motives of hon. Gentlemen representing Irish constituencies; and I want to know whether my right hon. Friend and those who follow him have in any way modified their views in consequence of this light? This matter is really of extreme importance, and I shall have to trouble the House with a few quotations, and I hope the House will appreciate them. What was the state of the case in 1886? The House and the country were asked to accept the Home Rule Bill, on the ground that it had been frankly, entirely, and completely accepted by the great majority of Representatives of Ireland as a full, final, and complete solution of the Irish question. This is what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle said immediately after the speech made by Mr. Parnell on the Second Reading of that Bill:—

"Now, Mr. Parnell said, in the most emphatic, clear, unmistakable, and for ever undeniable words, that the Irish nation in every section of it, both in Ireland and in the United States—and wherever Irishmen are found—that every section of the Irish people has accepted our plan. Gentlemen, this was a very serious announcement. It commits Mr. Parnell and his friends. They applauded his statement. It commits them to an endeavour—which I am thoroughly certain they have no intention of shirking or avoiding—to an endeavour to make our plan work, and to make this settlement what they say, a real, sincere and a final settlement."

That was the conviction under which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle invited us to pass the Second Reading of the Home Rule Bill. Can he pretend he has any longer a similar conviction? I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman correctly represents, by giving verbatim, the speech of the late Mr. Parnell; but, at all events, I know this: that within the last twelve months Mr. Parnell declared, and his colleagues have declared, that he and they only accepted the proposals in the Home Rule Bill pro tanto, and as an instalment of their just rights. Mr. Parnell called it a trumpery Bill; and it is perfectly certain that if the Home Rule Bill had been carried on the assurances of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle, he himself and the country would have been bitterly deceived. Now, I want to know what reason has he for saying now, that for his new plan, whatever it may be, he will be able to get assurances from any section of the Irish Representatives which are one whit more trustworthy than those on which he relied in 1886? Now I will carry this a little further. What is the principle declared by my right hon. Friend the Member for Derby to be the principal feature of this new plan? He has refused to give us any details. I will quote his exact words. On the 17th April, 1891, he said:—

"The principle for which the Liberal Party had contended had been the right of the Irish people to manage their own affairs, subject always to the control of the Imperial Parliament. That was the principle they had always proclaimed and depended upon, and that was the principle on which they would always stand."

I must say that when my right hon. Friend speaks of a principle on which he is prepared to stand, I begin to think that our foundations are extremely insecure. He went on to say:—

"Mr. Parnell, up to the last moment, professed to accept that principle cordially and thoroughly, but he had now repudiated it, for reasons which he need not here explain. The system for which Mr. Parnell now contended was one which the Liberal Party had never countenanced, and which they would never support."

There are two statements there to which I would call the attention of the House. First, here is a principle on which the Liberal Party, the Party represented by my right hon. Friend, will always stand—the principle of the control of the Imperial Parliament and here is the second statement, that the system for which Mr. Parnell contends is one which they will never, never, never support. That is the most definite thing we have got yet. What is the system for which Mr. Parnell was then contending? Mr. Parnell expressed his intention at Waterford in January of 1891, and again he repeated it in the same words at the Leinster Hall in July. He said—

"It is now known to all men that when our Parliament has been restored to us it shall have power to make laws for Ireland, and that there shall be no English veto upon those laws except the Constitutional veto of the Crown exercised in the same way as the Imperial Parliament."

That is to say, Mr. Parnell says distinctly he will not have the control of the Imperial Parliament. He says the only control he will look at is what he calls the Constitutional veto of the Crown, which we all know to be a Constitutional figment, which has never been exercised during the present generation, and which could not be exercised without the most serious difficulties and complications. Here is, at all events, a broad distinction of principle between my right hon. Friend and the Party he represents, and Mr. Parnell and the Party which is now led by the hon, Member for Waterford. I assume the hon. Member for Waterford is pledged to the principles laid down by Mr. Parnell. Then what is the position at which we have arrived? Remember, these right hon. Gentlemen have said again and again that they would think it a most stupid act of folly to bring forward any Home Rule Bill which had not the support of the majority, the great majority, of the representatives of Ireland. Very well, then at all events they are cut off altogether from all hope of any support from those representatives of Ireland for whom the Member for Waterford speaks. They cannot make it up with him without giving up the principle on which they are always, always going to stand. Of course it may be that in their opinion the hon. Member for Waterford and his friends are like the Dissentient Liberals; they are doomed to extinction. Well, we shall see. That is a matter I shall leave to the hon. Member for Waterford to settle with my right hon. Friend. But I now come to a more important, numerically at any rate, section of the Irish Party—that section, the Anti-Parnellite, the National Party, I believe they call it. What is their position? The Freeman's Journal in December last (laughter from the Irish benches)—I wonder why hon. Members laugh. I will read what the Freeman's Journal says, and then I will ask the House to consider whether it fairly represents the Party of which it professes to be the organ. The Freeman's Journal in December 1891—I have not the exact date—says:—

"A deliberate attempt is being made to represent that the National Party would be willing to accept an abortion of Home Rule. We, therefore, state once again for the benefit of Mr. Redmond and those friend of his through the country who imagine that the late Mr. Parnell and his followers are the sole repositories of national independence that the definition of national self-government laid down by Mr. Parnell himself on 31st July, 1891, in which he referred to the essential provisions of the next Home Rule Bill, is entirely satisfactory to us as a fair definition so tar as it goes of the only Home Rule which would be either safe or honourable for our people to accept."

(Ministerial cheers). Has my right hon. Friend got that on the Round Table? I do not know that I understood the laughter just now when I quoted the Freeman's Journal. Does the passage in the Freeman's Journal correctly represent the views of the National Party? Do they, or do they not, adhere to the declaration of Mr. Parnell on 31st July, 1891? If they do not I leave them to the hon. Member for Waterford. If they say they do, how are they going to reconcile themselves to the right hon. Member for Derby? (Ministerial cheers.) Now, I appeal to the House. I appeal to the hon. Members who support the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby. I say, "Is not it wise in your own interest to clear up this doubt? Are you going to the election not certain that when you come back a great part of your supporters will not turn their backs upon you?" That is the risk on one side or the other. Will the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby say now whether he still sticks to his declaration that there shall be the control of the Imperial Parliament, or does he mean to surrender that, as he has surrendered so much else? If he does not say that, will the hon. Member for Derry (Mr. Justin M'Carthy), who leads the National Party, say whether he is willing to make the concession, whether he is willing to take an abortion of a Home Rule Bill? Will he say whether he is willing to accept a subordinate Parliament? I do not know what the hon. Gentleman would say, but I do find that the attitude of the National Party, of those who are specially the friends of my right hon. Friend, is one which I should describe as a state of suspended suspicion. The National Party held a meeting at Mitchelstown on Sunday the 22nd November, which was addressed by the hon. Member for Mayo and the hon. Member for North-East Cork, who were both present, and must therefore be assumed to approve of the admirable Resolution which was passed at that meeting, namely:—

"Whilst we indignantly repudiate the allegation that the Irish Cause is to be made subservient to the exigencies of English Liberals we consider it prudent and patriotic to trust for the time being—(Laughter)—to the pledge of the Grand Old Man, reserving

to ourselves the right to refuse any Home Rule Bill derogatory to the power of Ireland."

Was there ever such a prospect before a benighted Party as that which awaits my right hon. Friend? No sooner does he read a first time his Bill, which is to contain provisions to make the Parliament in Ireland subordinate to the control of the Parliament of Great Britain, than the friends upon whom he rests entirely for his majority will withdraw, will consider it prudent and patriotic to withdraw from provisional trust in the pledge of the Grand Old Man, and will exercise their privilege of refusing a Home Rule Bill derogatory to the power of Ireland. I say, I think I have made out my case. I am not exacting. I ask for a little information. I ask my right hon. Friend, or anyone who speaks on his behalf, to say whether they adhere to that declaration which was made in April, 1891, that a Parliament in Dublin was to be under the control of the Imperial Parliament. I ask only for a single piece of information, but there are friends and supporters of the right hon. Gentleman who have asked for a great deal more. There is the Pall Mall Gazette for instance. In the Press they have used arguments much more cogent than mine to show the unwisdom of proceeding to a General Election without knowing really what the issue is for which we are contesting. There is the Evening News, which I believe is the great Gladstonian organ of Edinburgh, and the Evening News used very nearly the same language, except that I blush to say that they have spoken disrespectfully of my right hon. Friend, for they have even called him an "artful dodger." Then there is my hon. Friend the Member for East Fife (Mr. Asquith). He has put forward in the clearest language, the most conclusive language, his reason for desiring to have information on this subject, and he has said that if the information is not afforded it is very probable that even when they get the majority—which Mr. Schnadhorst will not promise them—the party will break to pieces as soon as the Home Rule Bill is introduced. What is really to be the position of the supporters of the Opposition if this information continue to be refused?

Really I think the sympathy of the House ought to be extended to them. (Laughter.) They will be in the position of those persons described in the well-known lines of Churchill:—

"Those sheep who never heard their shepherd's voice;

Who did not know, yet would not learn their way;

Who strayed themselves, yet grieved that I should stray."

Before I sit down there is one other point upon which I think the House is entitled to a little information, and that is with regard to the question of Egypt. I was perfectly amazed to find the extremely light way in which, after the speeches during the Recess, this important subject was passed over by my right hon. Friend the other night. In the course of the Recess the right hon. Members for Mid Lothian and Newcastle-on-Tyne were understood not only in this country, but in foreign countries, which is more important, to have advocated the immediate evacuation of Egypt, and if they doubt it I appeal to the foreign Press, and, above all, to the Press of France, which asserts it again and again. They did not hesitate in their speeches to embarrass the Government, to make its difficult task more difficult, and now when they have an opportunity to bring this question to discussion and to the test of a vote in the House of Commons, the speech which opens our proceedings by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition does not contain a single word about it. I could quite understand a patriotic silence which was governed by a desire not to embarrass the action of the Executive. But they have not been silent. They have done all the mischief possible by their platform speeches. Having spoken so loudly on the platform, when they come to this House they are as silent as mice. What was it that the right hon. Member for Midlothian said? He said—

"I shall indeed rejoice if before the day comes for the present Administration to give up the ghost, it be possible for Lord Salisbury to make an effort to relieve us from that burdensome and embarrassing occupation of Egypt, which so long as it lasts, rely upon it, must be a cause of weakness and a source of embarrassment."

There has been an attempt made to minimise these words. (Ministerial cheers.) The right hon. Gentleman says "No." It was made in the organ of his Party, the Daily News, two days after the speech was delivered. I say the plain meaning of the speech, if words are intended to have any meaning, is that within six months, which is the longest time which the member for Midlothian has ever given to this Government to endure in recent days—that within six months Lord Salisbury is to take steps to arrange for the immediate evacuation of Egypt. If he thinks so, why does he not come here and say so? (Cheers.) Why does he only say it on a platform? I commented upon the language of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, and I said it was due to an inability to meet pressure, to an unwillingness to face national obligations; and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle took me to task, and he said according to my speech inability to meet pressure meant inability to violate pledges, and unwillingness to face responsibility meant a breach of public faith. Yes, but now I want to know, is that platform declamation, or is it serious opinion? (Ministerial cheers.) If it is platform declamation, I say it is unworthy and unpatriotic to attempt to discredit a Government without any real intention behind it. If it is serious opinion, I say that the right hon. Gentleman is bound at the earliest possible moment to bring this matter before the House, and to adhere to the statements which he made, and to endeavour, to the best of his ability, to relieve his country from the stigma of dishonesty which he seeks to impose upon it. What are the facts of the case? There have been only two pledges given by any Government with regard to Egypt—by the preceding Government, and by this Government—and those pledges were that we would leave the country as soon as the country was relieved from any fear of foreign invasion or domestic anarchy, and the other pledge was that we would not leave until that work has been fully and completely accomplished. We gave an estimate of six months.

That estimate was given by Lord Hartington.

Does the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby wish to separate Lord Hartington from the responsibility of the Cabinet? Now, we see the sincerity of the attacks which were made upon me during the recess, because it was said that I sought to put myself, as an individual, outside the Cabinet, for which I was jointly responsible. Sir, Lord Hartington spoke the language which he was instructed to speak by the Cabinet. We made the estimate of six months at that time. Later on Lord Salisbury appears to have made an estimate of three years as the probable time during which this work would be accomplished. It was not only Governments who made mistakes in this matter. Even the able officials who carried out the government of the country were mistaken, and believed that we could get to the end of the business much earlier than it has been possible to do. Both the estimate of Lord Hartington and of the Wolff Convention were mistaken. But our pledges remain absolutely intact. They have not been violated either in spirit or in any other way. It would have been cowardly and unworthy of this nation to allow that wonderful work which has been carried on in Egypt to be interrupted, to throw back the country to anarchy, or to allow it to be rescued from anarchy by the intervention of any Foreign Power. I say, therefore, if the language of right hon. Gentlemen during the recess has been misunderstood, they should take the earliest opportunity to correct themselves. But if they do mean what they appeared to mean, what it was said by the French and other foreign papers that they did mean—the immediate evacuation of Egypt—then we ought to know that these and other blessings are in store from the foreign as well as the domestic policy of a Government of which my right hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian should be the leader. In the course of his peroration, the Member for Derby made an eloquent appeal to the Whigs—the descendants of Fox, Burke, Russell, and Grey. Where are the Whigs? He turned round as if he expected to find, somewhere cowering on the back benches, degenerate descendants of these great men. Why, Sir, it was only four or five years ago that my right hon. Friend used publicly to boast that he, himself, was the only living descendant of the Whigs—that he was the only man who had preserved intact and in their pristine purity the traditions of the principles of the Whigs for future ages. If that be true, why he himself then is the only person who can answer his question, "Where are the Whigs?" I am afraid the last of the Whigs is still stewing in Parnellite juice, and the shades of the great men he evoked, if they care at all for the condition of their sole representative, must shudder at the pitiful plight to which he has reduced himself. However, one thing I am confident of, and that is that the great Whigs to whom he appeals would never have consented to palm off upon their followers or upon the people of this country a policy which they could not define, or which they were unwilling to describe.

Mr. Speaker, one of the many satisfactory circumstances attendant upon the tolerably speedy approach of the dissolution of the Parliament is that when that event happens we shall get rid of the unseemly comedy from which we have suffered so much during the last six years, of a gentleman sitting upon these benches denouncing and assailing from that position Liberal principles and Liberal measures and his old Liberal colleagues. The right hon. Gentleman asked, where are the Whigs? Where is the Radical? Sir, the right hon. Gentleman complains that we are afraid of bringing to the test of discussion in the House the assertions we made during the recess. ("Hear, hear!") The right hon. Gentleman entirely misquotes. He did not quote in full. He says the declarations of my right hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian and myself pointed to instant evacuation. The right hon. Gentleman says that I desire a complete reversal of the foreign policy of the country. On the contrary, in all that I said upon Egypt I asked not for a reversal of foreign policy, but for a continuance of it. I said:—

"This remark will remain true until you have somebody at the Foreign Office with the courage to explain to his countrymen the effect of our occupation of Egypt upon our diplomatic relations, upon our military position Somebody who will have the courage to describe the cost—I do not mean the money cost—but the whole cost in weakness of our position, military, diplomatic, and marine; somebody who will have the courage to point out that England in the present system of indefinite occupation in Egypt is a vulnerable England—England in constant risk of being drawn into the vortex of Continental war."

Is that a reversal of the foreign policy of this country? The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Wolff Convention, but he does not seem to have acquainted himself with the full scope of that Instrument. Nothing can be more important than that this country should present, if possible, an unbroken front to foreign nations. I am as strong as he is in that view. Well, now I want to ask: Does Lord Salisbury contemplate the permanent and indefinite occupation of Egypt? If he does not, in what does he differ from me? If he were in favour of a definite occupation it would be discreditable to him, both to his statesmanship and his good faith. There is no foundation for such a charge, the action of Lord Salisbury completely establishes that. Let us see what happened. Lord Salisbury had not been in office many months before he despatched a special plenipotentiary, Sir Drummond Wolff, formerly a well-known Member of this House, to Turkey, and the first step he took was a Convention specially stipulating for a future arrangement regarding the withdrawal of British troops at a convenient period. That was the first step, and accordingly there came a second Convention, and in the month of May, 1887, Sir Drummond Wolff was instructed by Lord Salisbury to negotiate a Treaty with Turkey for the evacuation of Egypt by Great Britain, and the neutralisation of Egypt. It was stipulated, what? That at the end of three years from the date of that Convention the British Government should withdraw from Egypt, subject, I admit, to conditions of delay or return in certain specified cases of danger. Since May, 1887, the occasions specified as constituting special need for delay or return have never come about, therefore, if the Turkish Government had ratified that Convention—as unfortunately, owing to some misunderstanding either on the part of Turkey, Russia or France, she did not do—if Turkey had ratified that Convention, this country would have been out of Egypt, which the right hon. Gentleman regards as so cowardly a betrayal of duty, in June, 1890. This Convention was deliberately tendered by Lord Salisbury to Turkey, and the right hon. Gentleman should be the very last person, I think, to use the language he has used to-night upon the subject because we cannot forget his own speech upon the subject in 1884. I would like first to complete the record of 1887. It is well that we should regard the language of the British Government towards Europe through the mouth of her plenipotentiary in a despatch approved by Lord Salisbury in May, 1887. They are important words, and should be in the minds of right hon. Gentlemen whether they are discussing this—which concerns the strength as well as the honour of England—in this House or on platforms—

"Her Majesty's Government had disclaimed all desire of annexing Egypt or establishing a protectorate over it. It has more than once been suggested that England should take permanent possession of Egypt, which would be a violation of the traditional policy of England, of her good faith to the Sultan, and of the public law. In time of peace it would have exposed England to continued jealousy and danger, and in time of war it would have been a weak point entailing a continual drain on hor resources."

What is the difference between the language used by Her Majesty's plenipotentiary and my own, that England in the persistent and indefinite occupation of Egypt is a vulnerable England, constantly in danger of being drawn into the vortex of European war? It was added that England was ready to promote the neutralisation of Egypt, not as master or mistress of Egypt, but as the mandatory of the other Powers; but the duty was regarded, and justly regarded, as a burden rather than a privilege. The House will observe this was put on two grounds—the violation of public law involved in an indefinite occupation; and the ground of danger and mischief to this country. What more did my right hon. Friend the Member for Midlothian say than was said by the plenipotentiary and approved by Lord Salisbury? The right hon. Gentleman is the last person to use language of this kind. What did he say in 1884—and, mark you, he was in the Cabinet then?—

"The fulfilment of the pledges we have given has been delayed by circumstances which could not well have been foreseen, and now there is growing up in certain quarters a demand that our policy should be changed, and that we should make ourselves permanently responsible for the government and protectorate of Egypt. I should be inclined to pay some attention to the advice if it had not come from a very suspicious quarter. It comes from those who have always been in favour of annexation. There is a great party in this country which seems to have learned nothing by experience, which is always eager for an extension of an Empire already, I should think, vast enough to please the most inordinate ambition, and which taxes our resources to the utmost in the attempt to govern it well and wisely."

That is annexation.

I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon, but he was protesting the position of those who—

Recommended annexation.

"Make ourselves permanently responsible." What else is the position taken up by the right hon. Gentleman now?

I have not said a single word here or anywhere else in favour of the permanent occupation of Egypt. What I have spoken of is remaining there till our work is accomplished, and I only complained of the language of the right hon. Gentleman because I believe it will tend directly to immediate evacuation.

I think the language of which the right hon. Gentleman complains is exactly the language he used:—

"If we were to accept the advice so freely tendered to as I predict the temporary difficulties we have to face would become permanent dangers."

That was in 1884. What change has taken place in the condition of things since that which enables us to distinguish between permanent annexation and the position the right hon. Gentleman now takes up? Will any hon. Gentleman opposite get up and define to us—the right hon. Gentleman himself cannot speak again—what are the conditions, what are the terms under which he conceives our work will be satisfactorily done?

I stated them distinctly; I said we had pledged ourselves not to leave Egypt until she was relieved from any fear of foreign invasion or domestic anarchy.

If the right hon. Gentleman took the position described in his own passage, how can he take up his present position when, according to constant asseverations, the position of Egypt is stronger than it has ever been? The right hon. Gentleman forgets that he was a member of the Cabinet when he used that language, and he is the last man who, in order to find favour with his new allies, should use such language to endeavour to steer the country into a policy which he himself was most energetic in repudiating at the time, and for the repudiation of which he was, as much as any member of the Government, responsible, and he cannot divest himself of the responsibility by having left his colleagues of that day. He regretted that the hon. Member for Midlothian was not here; it was well for him that the right hon. Gentleman was not here. Perhaps I have said enough to explain our language, which has never been misunderstood by the foreign press; they have not understood it as pointing to an immediate evacuation. The right hon. Gentleman did me the honour to refer to a passage in my writings as to clerical domination. I have written a great deal about these very serious subjects, and I have nothing to retract or to withdraw; but the right hon. Gentleman has completely misunderstood, and may I say, without offence, misrepresented the charge that was made the other night by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby against the Prime Minister. We have never complained against him for speaking against clerical domination. He was speaking of the Catholic religion; of the majority of Ireland. The point of his excessively pungent speech was as to giving the power of the majority of the State, and therefore the power of the State, "to those who through long ages had been enemies of England." That is not the Catholic clergy. He went on to say "they fought against us when we fought against Spain": that was not the clergy; "when we fought, against America and against France": and that was not the clergy; "and this majority you are going to support and so place under their heels the rich and enlightened minority who are in sympathy with yourselves." So all that part of the right hon. Gentleman's argument, quoting from myself, was entirely wide of the mark. The assertion of the Prime Minister was certainly the most extraordinary I have ever heard from any man so accomplished as he is in matters of history. I am not going to, weary the House with many extracts, but I should like to read one. First of all "they were against us in the American war"; the majority of Ireland was against us. What does Mr. Lecky, your own able and powerful Unionist historian, say:—

"The Republican religion of the Northern Presbyterians gave them some bias towards Republican Government, and their sympathy with the New England Puritans in their contest against England had been passionate and avowed."

So much for the American War. But before that Mr. Lecky says—I beg the House to notice this, because we shall hear of this again and again for several months—

"The Catholics of Ireland had maintained an absolute, unbroken tranquillity during the Scotch Rebellion of 1715; during the expedition organised against the House of Hanover by Alberoni in 1719; during the great Rebellion of 1745; during the long and desperate war with France that terminated in 1763, and amid all the complications that had since arisen."

In the American War it was not the Catholics who were against us, who moved a finger against us, it was the Republican Presbyterians of the North who were the passionate and avowed enemies of England. Then we come to the French War:—

"On the very eve of the rebellion of 1790," Mr. Lecky says, "the object of the Government was to separate as much as possible the Catholics from the Dissenters, and the Catholic question from the question of Reform. This was for some considerable time the keynote of the Irish Policy of the Duke of Portland, who was much struck with the fact that Protestant Ulster was the most disaffected of the four provinces, that at least five-sixths of the leaders of the United Irishmen were Protestants; that Munster, though

now disturbed, had shown itself perfectly loyal during the French expedition of 1796; that Connaught, the most purely Catholic province in Ireland, was the one province that was still almost untainted."

What are the names of the leaders of the so-called Rebels? Wolfe Tone, Napper Tandy, the Emmets, Hamilton Rowan, the Sheerses, Neilson, Lord Edward Fitzgerald, and Arthur O'Connor, and every one of them not Catholics, but Protestants. There never was a more unfortunate declaration historically, or a more mischivous and provocative one politically. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say a great deal about the Local Government of Ireland, and he declares that we are guilty of inconsistency in opposing the project of the Government for Local Government in Ireland. But why should we oppose it? First of all you have got, thanks to the right hon. Gentleman and his friends, a majority in this House. Why should we embark on a dogged opposition to a measure which, if you are bent upon it, you can, undoubtedly, with your confederated majority, carry through. We have never said, and I do not think my right hon. Friend has ever said, or that the hon. Member for Midlothian has ever said, that we should resist the project of the Government for Local Government in Ireland. You bring in a Bill for extending local self-government in Ireland, and we know as well as possible that it can only be, fetter it and safeguard it as you can, a steppingstone to the larger and safer policy. Why should we oppose it? I do not grasp the right hon. Gentleman's point. But when he says we are eager for it, he certainly misrepresents our position. I wonder what the feeling in the breasts of the Government supporters themselves is? I think they are as little eager and ready for this as the right hon. Gentleman accuses us of being. There is not one single section in Ireland, or any serious portion, to whom this proposal is not either odious, or contemptible. It is odious to the section represented by hon. Gentlemen sitting there, and contemptible to hon. Gentlemen sitting here. The First Lord of the Treasury himself, in the language he used at Plymouth, and afterwards at Huddersfield, seemed in a very doubtful and apologetic state of mind about bringing it forward; and rather implied that he was doing so to carry out the undertaking given by his predecessor in that office and by the Government, before he himself was a Member of the Cabinet. He did distinctly imply that it was in consequence of that policy that he initiated it. He has never said one word in favour of it, except that it was taken up by his predecessor.

I have not my speech here, but I cannot accept that version of my speech.

I read the right hon. Gentleman's speech and took it in that sense, but perhaps when we come to the words of the Bill and it is under discussion he will make the contradiction good. The Prime Minister at Newport, in 1885, said—

"That a large central authority was better than these multiplied local authorities, inasmuch as the wisdom of the central authority would neutralise the narrowness and passions of the local authorities."

At the memorable gathering, at Birmingham, in October, which consecrated the Alliance, the rank and file of the Tory Party passed a resolution throwing over their leaders, repudiating their Irish policy altogether. The hon. Member for South Tyrone, is he zealous for it? He says—

"If I were asked to provide for Ireland, it is not County Councils I should first of all supply, it would be something entirely different, but I recognise facts."

What facts, except that the Liberal Unionists have demanded it?

"I am not advocating what I think is theoretically the best for Ireland; on the contrary, we in Ireland may have to go through much tribulation, through these new Boards. In time to come, when calmer counsels prevail, they may even work for good. We may even now be shooting Niagara, but the venture must be made."

That is not a very enthusiastic way of approaching a reform which is to be the keystone of the Irish policy of the present Government. When that Bill is brought before the House I do not say we shall give it an entirely dispassionate and unprejudiced examination, because I think we have a deep conviction that the policy of the Bill is mistaken; that you are beginning at the wrong end; that you are preparing for yourselves or for your successors great tribulation, and that the safeguards that you propose to guarantee the minority against the concessions you make to the majority will he absolutely inoperative for good, and can only operate for increased friction between the new bodies and the central authority at Dublin Castle. I want to know—we shall know no doubt when the time comes—whether that is what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham promised three or four years ago. He said—

"The Conservative Party are not averse to large and drastic changes in the Government of Ireland; they are prepared to consider and review the whole of the irritating system of administration which is known as Dublin Castle; but if they come to this they will be compelled, if they have not done so already, to accept the main principles of Mr. Gladstone's Bill."

That is a passage standing absolutely by itself, and the right hon. Gentleman will forgive me if I do not read all the context. He goes on—

"They (the Conservative Party) will have to substitute for the administration of Dublin Castle some kind of legislative authority, subject to the guarantees Mr. Gladstone has laid down, and this will be the case, though they have rejected Mr. Gladstone's plan as dangerous and his guarantees as inadequate."

We shall be curious to see, when the proposals for the improvement of local self - government in Ireland come before the House, if this promise of the right hon. Gentleman is fulfilled by his allies. Upon this point I do not admit that the representation of his views on Home Rule by the right hon. Member for Derby was in any sense a misconception or misrepresentation. The right hon. Gentleman talked about his plan. Which plan? I believe the right hon. Gentleman's pigeon holes are bulging with plans. Is it the plan of giving to Ireland the Canadian system of internal Government? Is it the plan which he told to his distinguished friend of that day, Mr. Hurlbert? Is it the plan which distinguished his views from the policy of the right hon. Member for Midlothian; that is to say, that the Government in Ireland was to be identical with that of the United States? All we know is that when he asks us what we mean by Home Rule, I should be at a loss to find a better definition of it than his own, that if there is to be a substitute for the administration of Dublin Castle, it must be subject to the guarantees which Mr. Gladstone has laid down. He said—

"You must allow them to organise some form of Government. What the exact form of Government is to be concerns them much more than it does us. I should think if they were anxious to be economical and businesslike, they would have as little red tape and form as possible; and they would be satisfied with a Standing Committee, with a Council of permanent officers of some kind or another. But if they thought they would be better served by imitating the cumbrous form of our Parliamentary Government, if they desired to have a Ministry—a Prime Minister, a Minister of Agriculture, a Minister of Public Works, a Minister of Education, and a Cabinet—all that I can say again is that it seems to me to be a matter entirely for their discretion, with which, at all events, I have no desire to interfere."

Therefore, in 1887, which was long after all disputes as to the retention of Irish Members, the right hon. Gentleman himself was in favour of an Irish Parliament and an Irish Cabinet. The right hon. Gentleman asks for details, and in connection with that demand there is a very curious fact. He says that they want full knowledge. Who wants full knowledge? Rossendale does not want full knowledge. (Cheers.) Rossendale got such knowledge as justified us in claiming that election—whatever else you say about it, as must be evident to anybody who read the speeches of my hon. Friend the new Member for Rossendale—(cheers)—it justifies us in claiming that election as a triumph for Home Rule. (Cheers.) Was it not fought upon Home Rule? (Cries of "Yes!" and cheers.)

But all the details were not given.

You say that all the details were not given. How can it be expected—which of you would expect—that all the provisions of a Bill are to be produced, to be examined, to be discussed and perfected upon a platform? It is without precedent. There are two places for the production, for the discussion, for the perfection of details of any such plan; there is first of all the Cabinet, and there is secondly Parliament. (Cheers.) And the country expects this; the country understands this; and your charge as to the knowledge of Rossendale not being minute and in detail is beside the question. (Cheers.) What that election means, and the other elections fought upon the same lines, is this. It means that the electors say, "We accept the principle that Ireland is to have a legislative authority for affairs declared by Parliament to be Irish affairs; we understand you," they say to the Leaders of the Liberal Party, "to be prepared to provide for Irish representation at Westminster; we know that the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament is to be guarded, and we trust to you to devise a plan to carry out these views, and for shaping the fabric to be raised." I do not think any gentleman opposite can contradict the position. It is the position in which other matters have been discussed in the country and accepted by the country, and eventually produced in Parliament. If the constituencies have confidence in the intention, and in the ability of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian, and in his colleagues to perfect a plan upon the lines that our Party accept, and which they desire to see carried out, why should we listen to the bland and benevolent demands of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. If the Liberal Party is satisfied, why should we depart from the Constitutional usage to please the little handful who have quitted that Party. (Cheers.) I know as well as the right hon. Gentleman how many difficulties there may be in carrying out the policy of Home Rule. This is not the time to examine that matter, because I rather think the First Lord of the Treasury the other night complained of a right hon. Gentleman for introducing Home Rule into this discussion at all; this is not the time for going into all the difficulties that may confront us in regard to Home Rule. We know these difficulties. We do not quail before them—and when the General Election comes we shall then be face to face with you, and you only, who oppose Home Rule upon Conservative principles. We shall not be attacked by enemies in the flank—except by speeches—for the Liberal Unionists will have disappeared. The right hon. Gentleman himself knows, and nobody better, what sort of a figure the Liberal Unionists will cut when the issue is placed before the country of carrying this measure of justice to Ireland, or of falling back upon the old position, which has made the Irish vote a dominant factor in politics. (Cheers.) It is said that you are going to give to the Irish priesthood the power of governing Ireland. That was implied by the Duke of Argyll, who said, "You are going to give to the Irish priesthood the power of returning the Irish Members." But supposing we are swept from Parliament at the next General Election, you will still have the Irish Members to deal with. The country now understands the issue. If the right hon. Gentleman and his friends believe that we are making promises which we shall not be able to fulfil, if they believe that we shall be brought face to face with difficulties that we cannot overcome, then the sooner they set us face to face with the constituencies the better. (Cheers.) And that is a question which the Government has not thought fit—and I do not think we have much right to blame them—to disclose their intentions upon; but this is worth remembering: that Lord Salisbury himself declared, in 1884, that the Prime Minister "might interpose his own will between the wishes of the country and a dissolution, yet such a course was not a Constitutional course;" and that is what we say to you, if there is a prolongation of this Parliament beyond the present Session, that you will be guilty of the same breach of Constitutional law which Lord Salisbury laid down in 1884. (Cheers.) I am willing to believe you have no intention of making such a breach. But the right hon. Gentleman says that we have not referred to dissolution. I have thought it proper to make that remark, and to say that we shall expect from the right hon. Gentleman opposite some assurance that the Constitutional point raised and affirmed by Lord Salisbury in 1884 will not be evaded in their own case. I thank the House for their attention, and I believe I have met all the points that are relevant to the discussion.

I have not risen for the purpose of replying to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham; nor do I intend to refer to the topics discussed by the right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. I recognise the grave importance of those topics, and when the proper time comes, as probably it will come very soon, Irish Members will be called upon to express their opinion as to the necessity of the Liberal Party dealing more in detail with proposals for Home Rule. I do not rise now for the purpose of discussing these topics to-night, for I recognise that they must furnish material for many debates during the Session upon which we have just entered. I propose, with the permission of the House, to divert the discussion into another channel, and to move an Amendment of which I have already given notice. It is to add at the end of the Address—

"And we humbly represent to your Majesty that the time has come when the cases of all prisoners convicted under the 'Treason Felony Act,' who are, and have been, for many years undergoing punishment for offences arising out of insurrectionary movements connected with Ireland, may be advantageously re-considered, with a view to the speedy release of these prisoners."

I do not think that it will be necessary to make any apology for introducing, at this early stage of the Session, a Motion for dealing with the amnesty of the prisoners convicted under the "Treason Felony Act." The prisoners to whom the Motion refers number 16, and they were convicted under circumstances that justify us in asking for their release; they are prisoners convicted of political offences, and I ask the House to agree with me that it is inexpedient that they should be further punished; and that, seeing that the liberty, and, perhaps, the lives of these 16 men are at stake; that the feeling of large masses of the Irish people are aroused upon this matter; that serious doubt exists as to the guilt of these prisoners, whether I am not justified in appealing to the House of Commons for the principle of fair play being extended to them. Last year I directed the attention of the House to the case of John Daly and of Egan, and I went into some detail in regard to their cases. To-night I propose to deal entirely, and by way of illustration, with the cases of those two men. And let me first say upon what grounds I base my claims for reconsideration. I base my claims for amnesty upon three grounds, and I submit that if I establish any one of the three grounds it will be sufficient for proving the necessity of reconsideration. I say, first, that these are political offenders, and that political offenders it is expedient to amnesty them. Secondly, I say that the convictions were wrong, and that in all the cases the convictions were obtained under circumstances which render it desirable that the punishment should be curtailed. Thirdly, I base my claim upon the fact that the prison treatment meted out to these men has been excessive, and has intensified the tortures of penal servitude because of the political offence of which they were convicted. I will only trespass for a short time upon the indulgence of the House in endeavouring to establish my case as based upon those three grounds. First, are they political offenders? The House will note that in the Amendment I submit to the House and speak of these prisoners as prisoners convicted under the Treason Felony Act, and who are, and have been for many years, undergoing imprisonment for participation in insurrectionary movements in Ireland. Last year there was a Return presented to Parliament of the names and sentences of all these men. I find that there are 16 of these prisoners, and that the whole 16 were convicted under the Treason Felony Act—that is, of having taken part in a conspiracy "to levy war against the Queen and to subvert the Empire." I know it is said of these men that they are dynamitards, and I know that prejudice has been raised against them by their being so-called. Now, it is unnecessary for us to say that we have no desire to palliate offences known as dynamite outrages. Those offences were not only stupid, but they were intensely criminal. The point I wish to make is that not a single one of these prisoners was convicted of any dynamite outrage whatever. In 1863, at the instance of they Member for Derby, the Explosives Act was passed for the purpose of dealing with dynamite outrages. Now, that Act was not put into force with reference to any one of these men; it was not put into force, because the evidence which had aroused a certain amount of suspicion in reference to their cases, was not strong enough to obtain a conviction under it. The course of procedure of the Crown was that, having got sufficient evidence for suspicion against these men, they hounded back into the lives of each and all of them, for the purpose of ascertaining whether they in their youth, and so far back as in 1867, had not been members of the Fenian Brotherhood; and this was when some of the leaders of the Fenian movement had been amnestied, and when some of them were actually sitting upon the Benches of this House. They were in fact convicted and sentenced simply because they had been suspected of dynamite outrages. Take the case of Daly. The indictment against Daly was not an indictment for a dynamite outrage; it was not an indictment under the Explosives Act; he was convicted for having been a Fenian from the year 1867, and for a number of years afterwards. In order to make that point plain to the House it is only necessary to go to the account of the trial. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury explained the charge, as what is known in legal language as Treason Felony; and of levying war and raising a conspiracy against the Queen in these realms. But Sir Henry James said—

"They had to go back to 1868; and certainly at that time an association had been formed called the Irish Republican Brotherhood, the object of which was to levy war and to establish an Irish Republic."

And then he goes on to say, in a long passage to explain the accountability of the prisoner, and as to certain documents in his possession as proof of his having taken part in the conspiracy. The learned Judge, in delivering sentence, said—

"The prisoner has been convicted of having conspired to sever Ireland from these dominions, and nobody who perused the documents could come to any other conclusion than that a wide-spread conspiracy existed for that purpose."

Now, neither in the indictment nor in the speeches of counsel for the Crown, nor in the declaration of the Judge was the case treated as other than as a political offence—for having taking part in a conspiracy to raise insurrection in Ireland. In the case of Daly, and of Egan who was tried at the same time, they were not convicted of a dynamite offence. Daly was suspected of connection with dynamite, but convicted of a political offence, and I submit that he ought to have got the benefit that might arise from the fact that he was held to be a political offender. The evidence that he was a political offender goes back to 1868. This was an old, it was a stale, charge for there are thousands and thousands walking about in the light of day in Ireland and there are, I believe, Members in this House, against whom an offence of twenty years ago might be adduced such as that which led to the conviction of John Daly. No doubt the conviction is technically right, but what I urge is that you should give him the benefit of the fact of his having been convicted of a political offence. He was convicted upon evidence of an informer brought from Sligo. There was evidence given of his connection with the Fenian Movement in 1868 and 1883, and, having been convicted, he was sentenced to penal servitude for life; and the facts show that in his case, as in all the others, they were convicted of having been guilty of political offences. I submit that the cases of these men, every one of whom, with one exception, was sentenced to penal servitude for life, therefore demands re-consideration at the hands of the House. I know that the answer will be that the sentences were large because they were dynamitards. They were arrested and tried for treason felony, for a political offence, and having been convicted of a political offence they were sentenced as dynamitards; and I say that establishes a strong case why these sentences should be re-considered by the Government. The cases I have quoted of Daly and Egan are only sample cases. The same is true of all the 16 men, and I claim without going elaborately into the cases that I have shown that these men were convicted of political offences, and that it is only fair and just that the question of their continued incarceration should be judged as the consideration of the cases of men who were so convicted and not of the case of the men who were convicted of the dynamite outrages; and I would seriously ask the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, and I would seriously ask the House of Commons whether they think that anything is to be gained for the Empire, for the internal peace of these countries, for the cause of the Union, if you like, of Great Britain and Ireland by prolonging the punishment which has already existed in the case of these men so convicted of nine years in some cases and of eight in others, in view of the fact that for years and years ago amnesty has been granted for every political offender imprisoned in these cases, and in view of the fact that the dynamite conspiracy for suspicion of which these men were imprisoned is absolutely as everybody knows dead and gone. I would further ask the Government to consider what has been the effect of every act of amnesty that this country has extended towards political offenders. If the right hon. Gentleman were in a position to show that amnesties to similar offenders in the past had been attended with bad results he might have some reason for opposition to the Motion I make; but I think he will admit that the amnesty which was granted in past days so far from leading to renewed conspiracies has, in the cases of all the individuals who were amnestied, led to a better state of feeling towards this country and this Empire. Now, the second ground upon which I rest my claim for the amnesty of these men is that in some of the cases the convictions are tainted with the very gravest suspicion. First of all, I desire to point out that these convictions were obtained at a time of passion and prejudice in this country. Everybody will remember the excited state, the naturally excited state if you like, of public opinion when criminal efforts were made to injure public buildings and others by the use of explosives in the streets of this Metropolis, and everyone must remember the denunciations in the Press towards everything Irish and everybody who happened to be in Ireland; and I assert without bringing any accusation against the fairness of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury, and the other eminent Counsel who conducted these cases for the Crown, and without making any accusation against the fairness of the Judges—I think I may fairly say that any man who was accused of dynamite offences and who had been tried for treason felony was called a dynamitard in England: men who had suspicion raised against them could not expect, and did not receive from English jurors, that fair play which, under ordinary circumstances, they would receive from the hands of jurors in this country. Take again the case of Daly and Egan. What is the story of Daly? He was a man with whom very many men who sit around me in this House were very intimately acquainted for many years. He was a man who played an important part in the public life of Ireland. He was a man who held extreme opinions. He was a man with whom many of us here may have disagreed on many points; but I appeal to every man who is listening to me, who knew Daly personally, or who knew him through others, to bear me out when I say that through all the troublous times of the past he bore the character of, and remained, an honourable man. He was a comparatively young man and a man of great intelligence. He belonged to the Fenian organisation, but it is notorious that at all times he protested vehemently against anything in the shape of outrage, of assassination, or of murder. In 1883 John Daly went to America, and this dynamitard who was to eke out the rest of his days in Portland Gaol was hunted out of America by a section who were advocating dynamite in America—by O'Donovon Rossa and others who denounced him in their newspapers and hunted him out of America. He came back to England and took up his quarters in Birmingham in the house of an old schoolfellow and friend, and he remained there from the 11th of October till the 9th of April following; and at the trial the inspector of police, who gave evidence against Daly, said that during all that time he was followed day and night, and never lost sight of by the police, and the police never saw him do anything suspicious; but suddenly he was arrested in Liverpool on the 11th of April—arrested under circumstances so extraordinary that I say, if they stood alone, they would constitute a justification for my claim that his case should be re-considered. On the 9th of April he received a telegram from a man in Liverpool who had been an old friend and confidant of his. The right hon. Gentleman knows his name, He asked him to go to Liverpool. He went on the 9th of April from Birmingham to Wolverhampton, and from thence to Liverpool; and the evidence of the police examined in the case is that when he arrived in Liverpool on the 9th of April the detectives lost sight of him. They did not know where he went; for two days he was absolutely out of their sight, and for all they knew he might have left the city. But suddenly, at eight o'clock on the morning of the 11th of April, he went to the railway station at Birkenhead to get a ticket, and when he walked into the booking office carrying with him a brown paper parcel, which had been handed to him half an hour before by this very man, whose name the right hon. Gentleman knows, who was never arrested, who left the country and was never heard of since—when he went into that station at 8 o'clock that morning he found the police to the number of 25 in that place surrounding the booking office, one with a black bag ready to carry away the parcel, and another with hand-cuffs and so on, and he was arrested on the spot. And Constable Humphries, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who effected the arrest, was asked at the trial by Daly, who defended himself, why he arrested him, as Inspector Stroud had sworn that during the seven months he followed him night and day he never saw him doing anything suspicious; and the answer Humphries gave was—"Oh, we saw your pockets bulky and we arrested you in consequence." Now, at the trial all the attempts made by Daly, and necessarily they were clumsy attempts, to trace up this matter of the man who gave him the package were peremptorily stopped by the Judge, on the objection taken by the right hon. Gentlemen the Member for Bury. Under these circumstances I claim that if the case of Daly stood there alone a sufficient case would have been made for the gravest suspicions as to whether his connection with this parcel was not part of a deliberate plot on the part of the Irish police who were at that time in London and other parts of England, for the purpose of hunting out this dynamite conspiracy. But the case does not stop there. The case developed two or three years after his conviction in a manner which fairly startled anybody who took any interest in it, because a charge of the most horrible character was made against the Irish police, and an accusation was made by an English gentleman of high official position, occupying the position of chief of the police in the important town of Birmingham, Mr. Farndale; by a man who had been in control of the detectives during these seven months, who had been watching Daly. It was the statement of a man who knew what he was talking about, and knew of the efforts to take Daly, in this conspiracy net, and a gentle man who having made this accusation stood by it, and, as far as I have information, stands by it. He is still a trusted official of the Government, and entrusted with the highly important duties which belong to the office he holds. What was his statement? He made the statement first to an Alderman of the City of Birmingham, called Manton, and then he made the statement to the Watch Committee in the City of Birmingham, and his statement in a sentence was this, that he was determined to rest no longer with this load upon his conscience and mind of the knowledge which he possessed of the way in which this parcel of explosives had been planted on Daly's person, and he solemnly made the accusation that that parcel had been planted on Daly by an agent in the pay of the Irish police, that that agent had been receiving the pay of the Government for a considerable time before this transaction, that these explosives were actually bought and supplied by the Government through the agency of the Irish police, and that agent of the Government the right hon. Gentleman knows, and he has left the country, and he handed the parcel to Daly half-an-hour before he was arrested. The man who handed the parcel to Daly told the police to bring their men to Birkenhead and wait for Daly, and then the man disappeared. Here is the statement. The words of Alderman Manton in a letter addressed on the 6th October, 1887, to the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary —

"Mr. Farndale swore on oath—Mr. Manton, you will be surprised when I tell you that the explosives found on Daly were planted on him by the police . . . Mr. Farndale replied, 'really so!' I said to him 'are you absolutely sure?' Mr. Farndale said 'I am, and I promise you that I will never engage in another such a business as long as I live.

That statement was brought under the attention of the Government and the Home Secretary, and I would seriously ask the House of Commons to consider for one moment what a grave accusation that was to bring, and what a terrible position it was which it placed all those who were responsible for the administration of justice in these matters. What did the right hon. Gentleman do? He told us in the last debate he sent for Mr. Farndale, and though he had a private investigation he refused to tell us anything about the investigation, he refused to tell us what evidence was adduced there and whether it was evidence taken upon oath. In fact, we know absolutely nothing about the private investigation except this, that the right hon. Gentleman says he, the Home Secretary, convinced himself that Mr. Farndale was wrong. I asked him did the investigation convince Mr. Farndale that he was wrong. He said—"No," and there the matter rests. An investigation is held into this terrible charge, the investigation ends by the Home Secretary convincing himself that the accusation was untrue, and Mr. Farndale remaining in the same position, and Daly is left these years to rot in gaol under this accusation. I submit that this investigation of the Home Secretary leaves this matter in a most unsatisfactory position. The right hon. Gentleman says he thinks that the horrible accusation against the police was all wrong but he still continues in a responsible position the man who made such a horrible accusation and who will still persists that the accusation is true. I venture to submit that the question is an extraordinary one at the very least, and all I ask from the right hon. Gentleman is that he may institute something like a real and bonâ fide investigation into this matter. Chief Constable Farndale was the only police official in a responsible position who was not called at the trial. If Chief Constable Farndale had been called and like a truthful and honest man had stated in the box what he stated afterwards, do you believe that any jury of Englishmen would have convicted Daly? No. Under these circumstances, is it too much for us to ask if you would institute a fresh investigation into this case? My friend reminds me there might have been a verdict of treason felony, notwithstanding Chief Constable Farndale's evidence. I do not believe that there would. I believe that if Chief Constable Farndale had given that evidence, the jury would have been so disgusted that they would have refused to find any verdict whatever for the Crown. Does the right hon. Gentleman not think for the sake of satisfying the minds of large masses of the Irish people who know Daly, and from their knowledge of him know him to be incapable of being a dynamitard, does he not think that, after what has taken place, for the sake of satisfying their minds and for the sake of the purity of the administration of justice in England he ought to grant a new investigation? We believe that no matter how bitter an enemy of your rule in Ireland Daly may have been that he was not an assassin, and was not implicated in this plot; and strong in that belief we urge upon you in the name of justice to grant this man another investigation. Now, what I said of Daly I can say of all the others in the list. Yet a still harder case than of Daly is the case of James Egan. Egan was convicted solely, just as in the case of Daly, so far as proof goes, of being a Fenian. But there was this difference between the two cases, that whereas it was shown that Daly had been in communication within recent years with men supposed to have been connected with the Fenian Conspiracy, it was shown conclusively that since the year 1875 Egan had no connection with the Fenian Organisation what- ever. He was tried in 1884. It was shown that he had been a Fenian before 1875—nine years before. During that period of nine years there was not one tittle of evidence to show that Egan had ever been a Fenian, or connected with the Fenian Organisation. So far as evidence raising suspicion is concerned, there is only one piece of evidence against Egan—namely, that there was found in the corner of a large garden at the back of his house a little bottle, I believe only about an inch long, containing a small quantity of nitro-glycerine, and Daly declared in the most solemn way that it was he who buried the bottle in Egan's garden. No doubt was expressed during the trial as to the truth of that statement, and the Judge in sentencing Egan said that while it was clear upon the evidence that he ought to be convicted as a Fenian, there was a shadow of a doubt as to his guilt as a dynamiter. Well, if there was a shadow of a doubt in Egan's case as to the suspicion of dynamite, surely the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary might fairly re-consider Egan's case, seeing that he has now served eight years of torture in Portland and in Chatham. Egan's case is the hardest of all the prisoners convicted of treason-felony. The mere fact that the convict Daly lodged in Egan's house is no proof of Egan's complicity in Daly's crime. I have seen him, owing to the spirit of courtesy of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, who has given me most ample opportunity for seeing the prisoners. I desire to thank him publicly for his courtesy. I have seen Egan and I have seen something of his life. He was a man of absolutely blameless life, a man who by years of industry had raised himself to a position of trust in Birmingham. There was absolutely nothing against him except this misfortune. Daly, whom the Irish police had determined to drag, by fair or by foul means, into their net, unfortunately went to lodge in the house of his old friend Egan. From that moment suspicion was raised against Egan. The police went down to the garden and found there the bottle containing the nitroglycerine and they knew that Egan, like Daly, had been a Fenian. Egan is a delicate man, and the life that he and the others are leading is killing, them. It is impossible to see them month after month without seeing that they are dying almost before one's face. In the case of Daly I appeal to the right hon. Gentleman for a re-investigation. In the case of Egan I appeal for a re-consideration of the sentence—as to whether nine years of torture in Portland is not enough for having given shelter to his friend Daly for seven months in one year. There are, in all, sixteen cases; there was suspicion of dynamite in all; there was a conviction for treason in all. I cannot possibly deal with the whole of the sixteen cases, and I have mentioned these two as samples. Sir, I think I have shown, firstly, that these men are entitled to be treated as political offenders; and, secondly, that with reference to some of the cases there are circumstances of suspicion which ought to give rise to a consideration of their cases. I come to the last ground on which I base my appeal. The prison treatment to which these men have been subjected is cruel in the extreme. I do not make any accusation against the prison officials, but what I complain of is that within the rules—without breaking one of them—these men have been subjected to a course of treatment which makes penal servitude a far greater torture than it is to convicts in ordinary establishments. Daly, moreover, was poisoned accidentally on three occasions in gaol. He was told he was dying, and he believed he was dying. On one of those occasions he made a very touching declaration, which is recorded in the Blue Book, declaring the absolute innocence of Egan of any knowledge of the bottle in the garden, or of his (Daly's) political opinions. No authority is given to endanger a man's life when he is sent to penal servitude and, therefore, the fact that he has been poisoned on three occasions should be taken into account. Now, though I would be sorry to outstep the limits of the courtesy of the right hon. Gentleman, or to abuse the privileges he has extended to me, I should like to say something as to the system of treatment to which these prisoners are subjected. One thing that renders convict life more easy after a while is that if the convict behaves himself well he is taught some kind of trade, and by degrees will get skilful in that trade and take an interest in it, and it is manifest that working in association, the men find a new interest in life, which enables them to pass their days better than they otherwise would. In the case of these Irish prisoners there has been an exception. They have never been allowed to learn a trade. They have been kept apart from all other prisoners. In Portland they are kept in what are called penal cells, originally built for refractory prisoners, the windows of which are covered with perforated iron, so that they cannot get so much as glimpse of the sky. They are kept for sixteen and a half hours in these cells, and for six and a half hours they are put to work, not in a room or in the open air, but in a dark corridor leading from one part of the prison to another. There they are employed chopping sticks, pumping water, and mending old flannel shirts. Only one hour per day is allowed them for exercise—for fresh air. On the whole case, I submit that these men were convicted as political offenders; that as such their cases ought to be reconsidered; that as to some cases there is doubt as to their conviction, and that these should be specially considered; and finally with reference to all the cases, the punishment meted out has been of a peculiarly savage and terrible character. There is in Ireland a widespread feeling in favour of the men, and I sincerely trust that in the claim I make for the reconsideration of their cases I will have the support of all sections of this House. I hope the Nationalist representatives will speak to-night with a united voice. Finally, Sir, I would ask, What is to be gained by keeping these men in prison? Absolutely nothing. This dynamite scare is dead. Its folly, its wickedness, its absolute uselessness has been proved before the whole world. Any further detention of these men will amount to vindictiveness and cruelty. On the other hand what is to be gained by releasing them? It always adds to the strength of the strong to be merciful. An exhibition of clemency never endangered authority in this or any other country in the world. The act of clemency for which I now ask will for ever redound to the honour of this country, and I appeal to the House, to rise above the prejudices and the passions which surround this question and to send a message of peace and forgiveness which I believe will find a responsive echo in the hearts of the Irish people throughout the world, and which will do more to strengthen your Empire and to prevent the recurrence of such conspiracies than any exhibition of vindictiveness and cruelty.

Mr. Speaker, I think no one can complain of the tone and spirit in which the hon. Gentleman has presented his case to the House. I must, however, decline to follow the hon. Member into his narrative of prison treatment. I am sure he must see and feel it is quite impossible that details of prison discipline can be usefully, and indeed, truthfully, discussed between a prisoner and his private friend, and if I decline to deal with any complaint not made through the constituted authority, I do not in the least complain of what the hon. Gentleman said. He said he did not charge the prison authorities with harshness or injustice. In a recent inquiry it was shown that the treatment of the Irish prisoners differed in no respect from that of any other convict having received a similar sentence, and undergoing it in the same prison. If the House is of opinion that the treatment of convict prisoners is too severe and requires to be overhauled, that is a matter upon which I am perfectly ready to enter; but to discuss the system of convict treatment and convict discipline as a bye-question in a debate of this sort would be highly undesirable. The other two points raised by the hon. Member fully deserve an answer. The hon. Member in an extremely ingenious argument contended that the whole of the sixteen prisoners, whose names were mentioned in the Return laid on the Table of the House last year, are political prisoners because their conviction was for treason-felony. I must absolutely take exception to that. I allege that every one of these sixteen prisoners is a dynamite prisoner having been found guilty of dynamite offences, upon which their conviction proceeded. The hon. Gentleman was entitled to urge that technically and,in legal parlance their offence was treason-felony, but he overlooked the fact that the dynamite might be used against a private person to cause injury to that person, and then the offence would not be treason-felony; but it might also be used for a public object—to bring about a change of Government, to alter the advisers of the Crown. Then the offence becomes treason-felony and is technically called levying war against the Crown. Am I, however, to be told that because the purpose for which dynamite is used is not merely injury to a private person, but to a whole class, or party, or Government, that therefore its use becomes less infamous, less disgraceful, less deserving of the severest punishment? Hon. Members might turn to the pages of the weightiest authority on the point I can mention, namely, the Report of the Commissioners on Extradition, comprising the most eminent lawyers. There were the late Lord Chief Justice, Baron Bramwell, the present Master of the Rolls, Sir James Stephen, who as a criminal lawyer stands second to none, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, a constitutional lawyer who could give lessons to many. Well, then, the Extradition Commissioners stated—

"The principle hitherto adopted in the matter of extradition, of excluding offences of a political character should therefore be maintained.

"But it becomes a very different thing when, in furtherance of some political or pretended political purpose, some foul crime, such as assassination or incendiarism, is committed. Thus, attempts by conspirators to assassinate a reigning Sovereign, regardless, perhaps, that in doing so other lives may be sacrificed; or the setting fire to a prison, at the risk of burning all those within it; or the murder of the police for the purpose of reselling prisoners in custody for political offences, are crimes in respect of which, though the motive was a political one, we cannot think that any immunity should be afforded. Civil war and insurrection take place openly, in the face of day, and may or may not be justified or excused by circumstances; but assassination or other forms of revolting crime lose none of their

atrocity from their connection with political motive.

"Generally speaking, we would therefore decline to recognise the suggestion of a political motive as a ground on which a magistrate or judge should refuse a demand for the surrender of a person accused of what (in the absence of such motive) would be an ordinary crime, unless the act to which a political character was sought to be ascribed occurred during a time of civil war or open insurrection."

That is about as sound and tenable a distinction as could be made in a matter that presents some difficulty. It was also pointed out by the Commissioners that if you have a state of civil war and insurrection, the violence inflicted upon one party by another took place openly and in the face of day; that each man had warning of the attack and knew what to expect. But those dynamite outrages have none of those features. There was no warning to the enemy to stand upon their guard, but there were all the elements of secret contrivance that constituted an odious and a dangerous crime. I regret that the hon. Gentleman indulged in that argument about political offences without stating what the character of the offence committed by these 16 persons was. Daly and Egan were charged with a dynamite offence; this was proved in the evidence, and was treated in the summing up of the Judge to the jury as a dynamite offence. There were two counts in the indictment, in which they were charged with having aided a treasonable object; and, with design to overthrow the power and authority of our Sovereign Lady the Queen, in that part of the United Kingdom called Ireland, having in their possession at Birmingham 15 ounces of nitro-glycerine with intent to employ the same in furtherance of that object; and that in furtherance of their treasonable object they had also dynamite and dynamite bombs, four dynamite shells, and one pound of dynamite in their possession.

Did the conviction cover all the counts in the indictment?

Yes, the conviction was general, and covered all the counts. It was not proved for what purpose the bombs were to be used. These bombs were such as were capable of being thrown from the gallery of this House. ("Oh, oh!" from Irish Members.) I do not know from whom these sounds are uttered.

This is a very unfair suggestion. There is not one tittle of proof behind it.

I do not say it has been proved. I say these bombs were capable of being used in that way. It would be difficult for ingenuity to suggest for what innocent purpose the bombs were intended. I have yet to learn that is not a purpose for which the bombs found on Daly could be used. That was the case of Daly and Egan. Nitro-glycerine buried in Egan's garden: bombs found on the person of Daly. Then there is a large group in which McCullagh, Devany, Callaghan, and others figure. They were charged in connection with explosions at the Glasgow Gas Works, at Possil Bridge, and Buchanan Street Railway Station. Each of these explosions took place on the same night, and these men were all members of the Irish Brotherhood. The explosives found were in certain tubes brought from Cork to Liverpool. Is that to be treated as a political offence when railway bridges, and gas works in a town in Scotland are made the object of a dynamite explosion? I must leave it to the common sense of the House to deal with such a case as that. Then there is the case of Whitehead, Gallagher, Wilson, and Curtin. That was a case in which dynamite was found in india-rubber bags, sent by Gallagher to Whitehead's house, in order to bring to London nitro-glycerine, of which Whitehead manufactured large quantities. Gallagher said this explosive was to blow up the House of Commons and other large buildings in London. Can that be honoured with the name of a mere political offence? It is an outrage of the most wanton kind which anyone can imagine. Two other of the prisoners are Featherstone and Dalton. They were men in the possession of an ingeniously constructed infernal machine such as those used at the Glasgow and at the Local Government Board explosions. These explosives were also brought from Cork to Liverpool.

Has the right hon. Gentleman ever heard of Macdermott?

I am speaking of the character of the offences. The hon. Member is referring to some individual whose acquaintance I have not the honour to possess, and who he says was really the culprit. I pray that hon. Members may keep their minds to the point. I say these are all dynamite offences, and the appeal for clemency made by the hon. Member for Waterford in his very temperate speech seems to me inappropriate. I know of no reason why offences certainly most dangerous should be treated with exceptional leniency except it could be suggested that the class of offence was not likely to he committed again; and that the deterrent object of severe punishment was no longer called for in the public interest. That is a kind of argument which a person in my position might be inclined to listen to. But that cannot be said. Within the last month or two we have had explosions in Ireland, which show that the use of explosives has not yet been abandoned, and there have been indications in more than one quarter in England as well. No one can suggest that these are political offences, dealing in these extremely dangerous explosives. Quite apart from any sympathies or antipathies, this is a class of offence which is the least deserving of sympathy. Considering the advance in chemical knowledge at the present day, and the terrible increase in the power of explosives put within the reach of any mischievous or malicious person, it seems to me that public safety demands, that when explosives of this kind have been prepared in order to commit outrages, the most stringent and deterrent punishment should follow conviction. The appeals for mercy might be appropriate if you were dealing with a political party fighting in a fair way, but they are altogether inappropriate when you are dealing with secret and malicious offenders. Then the hon. Member says the conviction of Daly for treason felony was wrong. No doubt that would be so if the object had been to inflict a wrong upon a private person, but it was not wrong where the guilty party sought to injure the Government of the Queen, and change Her councils by the use of dynamite bombs, and by having nitroglycerine concealed in a garden. The use of dynamite may be for private mischief or for public mischief. When for public mischief it is called treason felony. The hon. Gentleman has referred to Mr. Farndale's opinion, I am not Mr. Farndale's superior, and I have no right to call him to account, and I desire to say nothing of him which is not respectful. But after the most careful inquiry I am convinced that the inferences which Mr. Farndale drew from what little he knew of Daly's capture were inferences which were entirely mistaken. The inference he drew was that the bombs had been planted upon Daly by the police. I instituted an inquiry into the matter and I say what I think will probably not surprise the hon. Member if Daly has been candid with him, that I am satisfied from inquiries I made, that Daly applied to Breslin of New York for money and these bombs, and that he received from New York both the money and the bombs. I have no doubt that this is the fact.

Was that proved at the trial?

No it was not proved at the trial, but that is what I assert to the House.

Breslin is dead.

I say the result of my inquiry is that bombs were applied for by Daly in New York and were received by him from Breslin in New York, together with money.

Will you lay that information on the Table of the House.

Certainly not. I am here, in my capacity as Minister, asked to extend mercy to Daly, and I tell the House of Commons what steps I have taken to ascertain whether the charge made against officials of the Government is well founded or not. These things were laid before the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby from day to day as the case proceeded, and the greatest care was taken to sift every piece of information which came before the Home Office. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby is my political opponent, but I trust I am not so unfair as not to pronounce him, in my opinion, right in the inquiry into the material before him at the time of Daly's conviction. I came to the conclusion that that these matters were fully and satisfactorily established. The hon. Member says that the bombs were bought by and the money given by the police. I say that is untrue. The police never purchased bombs nor gave money, either directly or indirectly. The bombs came from New York. They came from a person about, whom I need not give any information ("Oh, oh!" from the Irish benches). Do you suggest that John Breslin was the agent of the Government? (Cries of "No!") Then that is the person from whom they came. He sent them over under the description of "love apples" for purposes which were not proved, but which could only be of one kind. To talk about a plant is a dream and altogether an inaccurate suggestion of Mr. Farndale. Why was he not called at the trial? Because he knew nothing about all these facts. He knew nothing about the bombs or how they came into Daly's possession. He conjectured and drew inferences from facts of which he had no personal knowledge of his own. The hon. Member says, Will you investigate further? No further investigation would throw any light upon the subject. I have been reminded that one agent in the transaction, a gentleman in New York, is dead. Every day makes it more difficult to arrive at any fresh information. All the materials were before the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, and have been reviewed by me, and I am perfectly satisfied of their genuineness. I am persuaded that no fresh inquiry is necessary, and that this suggestion of a plant by the police is an absolutely unfounded suggestion. For these reasons, therefore, I must decline to make any further inquiry and to go into this matter over again. I must decline to extend any mercy to Daly upon the suggestion that his conviction was not only wrong, but obtained by infamous means. If there were the slightest foundation for supposing that the agents of the Government, whether the police of England or Ireland had bought these bombs and foisted them off upon Daly, that would be conduct so disgraceful, that not only should Daly not be detained a day longer, but the most ample compensation and apology should be made to him. There is no middle course. There was either absolutely infamous conduct on the part of the police, which I do not believe, or Daly was justly convicted. With regard to Egan it would be extremely injudicious and unwise to give any pledge or to say what may happen across the floor of this House. I have stated that the case against Egan was a different one from that against Daly. But looking to the character of the letters and looking to all the circumstances, I have never been able to doubt that Egan knew that nitro-glycerine was buried in his garden, and therefore he was assisting the preparations for these awful explosions. Egan was therefore an accomplice and participator with Daly in the possession of these explosives, and in the knowledge that they were being accumulated for an unlawful purpose. But I do not think there is against Egan any proof that he participated in the active use of this explosive material, though I cannot doubt that he was cognisant of the kind of use that they were intended for. That is an offence, no doubt, of a lighter kind, and the time may possibly come when it will be possible to reconsider the case of Egan, but that time is not yet. With regard to the other prisoners, the hon. Member has entered into no details—I shall follow his example. It has been my duty, at one time or another, to examine the evidence against all the prisoners, and I have examined it with a mind perfectly unbiassed, and I hope as open as possible to any flaw which I could detect in the evidence against the prisoners. But I am bound to tell the hon. Member that I have not found anything unsatisfactory in any one of the six or seven cases, which has induced me to doubt that the men were properly convicted of dynamite offences, and that they were convicted of offences of a very dangerous character, towards which leniency or clemency is in no respect the right policy. I quite disregard the political flavour attempted to be given to the case of Daly. I admit that Daly is not a man of the same character as those who caused the explosions in London or in Glasgow. I can only think of Daly as a fanatic, a dangerous fanatic, who was ready to risk his life for purposes which he appeared to consider important. That is not a man of the same class or character as those who caused the explosion in the railway station in London or the gasworks at Glasgow or Possil Bridge. The one man is far more cultured, far more intelligent, and I dare say, in many departments of private life, is a far superior person. But that the social danger is fully as great as with the commonest and coarsest criminal is so obvious that it is hardly necessary to enforce it by any argument. These dynamite offences work the most widespread and terrible damage to innocent persons in the twinkling of an eye, and the difficulty of detection is always very great. The House must know that many dynamite explosions have completely escaped the efforts of the police to bring the perpetrators of then to justice. It is a class of offence very dangerous in its character and very destructive in its effects, and it would be the very worst policy in these days when the use of explosives is better understood than formerly by evil-disposed persons, to show leniency as if they were not offences of the grossest, kind. On these grounds I regret that I cannot give a more favourable answer to the right hon. Gentleman's request. The hon. Gentleman says there is sympathy in Ireland with these men. I deplore the fact that there is considerable sympathy for many of these men—I hope not for all—in Ireland. I regret it. It think it is most misplaced sympathy. If the Irish people knew the facts of this case as fully as I do they would not sympathise. I can only deplore that a certain halo of romance is thrown round some of those offenders, and in the circumstances, perhaps, one cannot wonder at the chivalrous way in which the hon. Member has pleaded their case in this House. While, on the one hand, I can understand that Irishmen are sorry to see any of their countrymen in prison for such offences, it would be wiser and more dignified on their part to acknow- ledge that offences of this sort can in a civilised State only be dealt with in one way, by very severe punishment which ought not to be excessive, but which must be proportioned to the gravity of the offence. The whole administration of justice would be interfered with if, on the grounds of nationality, we were to interfere with the punishment awarded for such offences.

The right hon. Gentleman, as he concluded his speech, spoke, as he said, as a Minister of the Crown. It needed some assurance upon his part that he was a Minister of the Crown, or otherwise I should have thought, and many Members of the House would have thought, that the right hon. Gentleman was addressing a packed Irish jury in a Government prosecution in Ireland. (Cheers.) The right hon. Gentleman also made revelations that would become a Crown Prosecutor rather than a Minister of the Crown defending the administration of his Department in this House. I can conceive nothing more mean than the suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman that the bombs found upon John Daly, and which it has been clearly proved were planted upon him without his knowledge, were intended to be thrown into the midst of hon. Members. Daly and his associates were tried in passion, convicted in passion, and they are to be retained in passion by an appeal to the passions of the people of this country, and to the passions of some hon. Members of this House. He made a still further suggestion, which I say is unworthy a gentleman in his position; he made a revelation which should not have been made in this House, or out of it, affecting the guilt—if he be guilty—of one of the prisoners; a matter which we have heard to-night for the first time, and which was not produced upon the trial—it was a kind of special pleading of the right hon. Gentleman. And what is the nature of that revelation? It is that one of the prisoners for whom we pleaded addressed a letter to a man in America asking for bombs and money, and that these bombs and money were sent to him in like manner. Now, the man to whom the application is said to have been made is dead, and the prisoner against whom the accusation is made is politically and civilly dead. The prisoner, therefore, has no opportunity of rebutting the charge, and it is unworthy of a Minister of the Crown to make an accusation of that kind when all possibility of proving, or disproving it is absent. Such conduct was mean; it was contemptible. He got rid of the case made by my hon. Friend the Member for Waterford without replying to it. He did not reply to my hon. Friend with regard to his assertion that the bombs that were found upon John Daly were planted upon him by Government spies and by Government agents, of whom these poor men were the victims. He made no reply to that. The right hon. Gentleman was accused of knowing the man who gave Daly this bomb, and again that part of the statement of my hon. Friend received no reply whatever. It is true the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the enormity of the crime; it is true that he expressed his horror of assassination; it is true that he read out a statement of the Judges. With regard to the enormity of the crime of outrage by the use of dynamite, we all agree with the opinion of that gentleman; but the right hon. Gentleman made no reply to the charge made against the Government by my hon. Friend. The right hon. Gentleman introduced the name of a man named Featherstone, upon whom was found some infernal machine, and he also said that Featherstone was associated in Cork with dynamite. The Government was doing the very same thing as had been done in the case of Daly. It is notorious that James McDermot, when he came from America and visited Ireland, was really in the pay of Dublin Castle; that he came down to Cork, and that he established the conspiracy with which Featherstone was proved to have had some connection; that that conspiracy was founded by some Government agent; so that most of these men are simply victims of Government agents. The right hon. Gentleman also endeavoured to rouse the feeling of this House by alluding to assassination. We will not allow the right hon. Gentleman to excel us in our abhorrence of assassination. We, in common with him, condemn—we have condemned it publicly, we have condemned it upon public platforms in the country, even in our own country—this policy of dynamite, which involves the innocent and the guilty alike in common slaughter. I would point out, with regard to the dynamite demonstrations in London, and with regard to those deeds for which some of them have been found guilty, that there was no assassination, and that there was no life lost. I may be told that these men were assassins at heart; I may be told that these men, handling a dangerous compound such as dynamite, had the intention of carrying out assassination. I say they must, having regard to the character of the explosive, have taken special precautions not to take life. I believe that the men who were engaged in the explosions must have used the dynamite in such a manner that it was more dangerous to themselves than to those amongst whom the explosions took place. The right hon. Gentleman concluded his speech with the entirely unnecessary task of showing the great enormity of the crime of causing such explosions; his whole speech was entirely unnecessary. There is not one of us who has not fixed ideas with regard to the enormity of the crime; but I hold that his speech is no reply to the hon. Member for Waterford. My hon. Friend put his case upon three grounds—first, that the offence was a political one, if they were guilty; secondly, that their convictions were wrongfully procured; and, thirdly, that their treatment was of a very exceptional character. With regard to the first, the right hon. Gentleman has admitted that the charge was of a political character; he has admitted it for the first time to-night. I have for years drawn attention to the manner of treatment of these prisoners, and of the especial severity that the officers, for some reason or other—I will not call it a pretext—exercise towards them; but never, during the whole course of the discussion, could I get the right hon. Gentleman to admit that the crime was in any way of a political character. He maintained at all times that it was a crime, but the right hon. Gentle- man has now stated what he never before admitted, that it was a political offence. I think the right hon. Gentleman said that "it is a political offence, but it is none the less a crime." I reply, it may be a crime, but it is none the less a political offence, and being political offenders they would receive special treatment, and be more leniently dealt with in every other country in the world except this country when dealing with Irish offenders. I may point out that in France, after the war of 1870, the Communists of Paris, who, all but burned their city to the ground, had a malicious purpose, but they also had a political purpose; these men and women were transported across the sea for their offences; but after a few years, when political passions had subsided, these men, women, and children were every one emancipated, and allowed to return to their homes and kindred, and many of them have, since that time, become law-abiding citizens of their country, some of them filling positions no less honourable than those filled by right hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Front Bench. Political offenders have been treated all the world over in a different manner to other offenders. Offences prompted by self-interest and self-aggrandisement have always been treated in a different manner to offences of a political character. I think I would be-right in saying that if the Emperor of Russia could be sure that if he emancipated every Nihilist confined in Siberia, the agitation, of which these men and women formed a part, would cease, he would be glad to empty the prisons of Siberia; if he thought there would be an end to the agitation he would not hold these men and women in prison for the mere vindictive purpose of punishing them for their political offences. Every country to which I turn my eyes over Europe treats its political offenders in a different manner to other offenders; England alone has been slow to emancipate those who offend against her politically. Yet, even though England has been slow to extend pardon to her political offenders, she has from time to time allowed the feeling against her political offenders to drop. I doubt whether at the present moment there is a worse feeling entertained towards the men in Chatham and Portland prisons than a former generation entertained towards the men of 1848 and 1867. The men of 1848 were some of them sentenced to be hanged; others were sent away into penal servitude, as also were the men of 1867; yet in the course of time, when the political events with which these men were connected had ceased to have any force, then England slowly relented, and gave the pardon to these political offenders which every civilized country in the world gave to men in the same position. The right hon. Gentleman for the first time in the course of this discussion admitted that the men for whom we are pleading here to-night committed offences that were tinged with a political character. I shall not dwell upon the wrongful manner in which their convictions were procured. My hon. Friend the Member for Waterford has dwelt upon the subject in a manner that I could not hope to emulate; he has described the position of the case with an ability and a forensic eloquence which I could not hope to arrive at. But he also made an appeal that the men whose cases we bring before the House tonight are entitled to have their cases investigated, and I will go further, and say that they are entitled to a release, by reason of the special treatment to which they have been subjected for the past eight or nine years. My hon. Friend spoke only of the manner in which they had been treated in Portland prison; but they were in other prisons before arriving at Portland. John Daly and others had been in Chatham, where they were specially sent in order that they might be specially punished, and they were specially punished because they were political offenders. There is scarcely any need to dwell upon the political character of their offences, except to show that it is not we alone who regarded them as political offenders, but the very men who were employed to inflict punishment upon them. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Report of the Visiting Committee, which was put into the hands of hon Members of this House, and for which I applied, and also the hon. Member for West Limerick, whose efforts on behalf of these men have been of a very patriotic character. This investigation into the treatment of these men was conducted by persons who were connected with the prison service itself. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but it is a fact that these men were connected with the prison service, and the evidence taken by the Committee of visiting gentlemen was the evidence of those who were accused of having maltreated these men (hear, hear); and some of the evidence goes to show that they were especially badly treated. Henry J. Wilson says that the bitter hatred of the average Chatham officer towards political prisoners makes itself apparent in a thousand ways; in fact, the men were hounded down as Fenians, and as Fenians treated in an exceptional manner. Another of the prisoners is Egan, whose case has been singled out for exceptional treatment on an early occasion—Egan, who by the statement of the right hon. Gentleman to-night, is admitted to be suffering wrongfully, the man who is innocent of the charge. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but he should recollect it had been stated that if Egan's case was investigated he might be released at an early day. The unfortunate position of these men is that right hon. Gentlemen upon both sides of the House are responsible for the injustice done. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby was in office when they were convicted; was cognisant of everything, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury was their prosecutor, and we all know that right hon. Gentleman on the other side of the House carried out their hereditary policy when dealing with political offenders in Ireland. They are all alike, and they conceive it to be a duty to themselves, instead of honestly admitting their error, to back up their error rather than release these men. What does Egan say, whose case has been specially singled out? He says that the officers employed would give him pieces of newspaper so as to get him punished. They have been specially singled out for specially bad treatment by the prison officials, and it is on that account, and I hold it is the strongest claim, that the hon. Member for Waterford asked for an investigation into their cases — an investigation not like the last, by a Committee composed of prison officials. Some of those gentlemen had investigated the case before, and when another investigation was started, the very men we accused were put upon the Committee to sit in judgment upon themselves, so that nothing could have been more unfair. It is not that kind of an inquiry that we want, for if there is to be an inquiry into the charge we hope that neither the prosecutor nor the Home Secretary will form portions of that Committee. I have visited these men. I have seen them year after year and month after month fading away before my eyes, the strong and hearty young men that I knew at home becoming blanched with a premature old age. I have seen the strong, hearty This demand for details has a very men becoming decrepit and weak before my eyes, week after week and month after month, by these petty and shameful persecutions of petty officials who are engaged in carrying out the law in their regard. Will the House believe that these men, when they take their exercise in a hot sun in the summer time, are compelled to walk fast, while in the winter season, when it is cold, when they want to walk to circulate the blood, they are compelled to walk slowly. These statements have been proved, and can be found in the pages of this Report. In my experience of prisons, and my observation of the prisoners, I have seen men with the convict jackets on them allowed to stand at ease. Mr. Clayton, the Governor of Chatham prison, reprimanded the warders of Chatham prison for allowing these men to stand at ease. Let me give another instance of cruelty. Wilson complained to the doctor when he saw him, of being ill, and he was not allowed to see him (the doctor), when he requested to see him. Wilson requested to see the doctor. He was not allowed out on that and other occasions; but he became so ill that at last, in order to save his life, they allowed him to see the doctor, and then he complained to the doctor that he was not allowed to see him when he required, and of course he was re- ported for having made such a statement; and, will the House believe it? Wilson got three days' bread and water for having complained to the doctor that he was not allowed to see him when he required. And when he then complained to the director of this he said—"The less complaints you make the better." The unfortunate prisoners who are thus persecuted by the warders have no friend but one, and that one the Protestant Chaplain of Chatham. The one kind word we find within the pages of that book that was spoken about these men was uttered by the Protestant Chaplain, and he said to the Visiting Committee—"They are well-conducted men, and were treated with unnecessary violence." It is not unnecessary rigour, it is not unnecessary treatment, but this Christian Minister says they were treated with unnecessary violence. And the other Christian Minister, of a Christian Government, stands up here and has nothing to do but to make accusations against men who are naturally and civilly dead, and make suggestions which are more worthy of a public prosecutor than of a respectable Minister of the Crown. It was stated by my hon. Friend, the Member for Waterford, that Daly was known to Members of this House. I say I am not ashamed to affirm in this House that Daly was an acquaintance of mine, and a friend of mine for many years. We grew up boys together, and a more honourable young man I would never wish to meet than the man whose case we are investigating here to-night; and I assert, from my knowledge of him, that he would be incapable of committing the crime for which he was charged and convicted. On the contrary, I know of my own knowledge that he was as strongly opposed to that policy as I was myself, and that is saying enough, because without having been called upon to do so, I have publicly denounced the policy of dynamite, and I never denounced it more strongly than John Daly would have done himself. It is true that John Daly was an extreme Nationalist, but if he was, he was an honourable man. He sought to separate the country by force of arms, but he would not stoop to any dishonourable act, even to win the inde- pendence of his country—a cause which was most dear to his heart. From a close acquaintance with these men for years, I have made myself acquainted with the special treatment to which they have been subjected, and I hold that these being men of intelligence, of education, and of some culture, have suffered more for the past eight or ten years than common criminals could suffer in three lifetimes; that if you want vengeance you have had it in abundance; that your duty is to give these men their liberty, by reason of the fact that they have been excessively and exceptionally badly treated. Might I appeal to the Government? We have been told in the course of this discussion upon the reply to the most gracious Speech from the Throne, that this Session of Parliament is to be the last Session of the Parliament. The Government are about to appeal, sooner or later this year, to the country, and they will most likely appeal upon the success of their Irish policy. They have brought into this House, and passed into law, remedial measures for Ireland of such a character as will enable them to boast of their good intentions towards the people of Ireland; whether their measures have been sufficient or inadequate for the purpose it is not my purpose, nor am I called upon now to say. It is enough for me to admit that they will go with what they consider a strong hand to the country, and they will point to the remedial measures for Ireland. Would it be too much to ask them to make their Irish policy more perfect—to make it more complete by the release of these men for whom we plead to-night, rather than keep them in prison; not because justice demands it, but merely for the purpose of indulging in the vindictive spirit which is unworthy of an enlightened nation.

This is a subject on which there is no difference of opinion among Irish Nationalists. I appeal to the men on all sides of the House to pay some attention—to pay, I should say, respectful attention—to the unanimous and deeply-rooted feeling on this question among the whole people of Ireland. But really it is not a matter of contentious debate about this or that; it is a question of humanity and of the broad national policy. The facts in the Daly and Egan case stand further apart from the rest, and I do not propose to weary the House by going again over the ground traversed by hon. Members, but I would respectfully submit to any dispassionate man that it is almost impossible to examine the evidence and the statement of the Chief Constable, Mr. Farndale, without to say the very least, a feeling of uneasiness as to the conviction of John Daly, and without a feeling that everything has not been done to clear up the story—that shocking statement which is made deliberately by one of the chief officers of the police. If that story of these bombs having been planted on John Daly by an agent of the police was invented by Mr. Farndale, he ought long ago to have been dismissed and punished. On the other hand, if that story is well founded—I go further, and say if there is a colour of suspicion that would account for the impression which was, and which remains, upon Mr. Farndale's mind—then I say better ten thousand times that John Daly, even if guilty, should go free than that the public mind should rest under the horrible suspicion that his conviction was brought about by such means as this. The moral of this question is—and I must say the case has not been yet dealt with—the question is, who was the person who gave these bombs to Daly, and brought him to Liverpool for the purpose of receiving them? Was he a police agent? The Government know who he was. I venture to say that until we have the whole story out, who this man was, as to how he slipped through the fingers of the police, and as to where he is now, and as to how it happened that the police came to be at that particular spot in readiness at the very moment when Daly had the parcel in his possession—I venture to say you will never satisfy the public mind that Mr. Farndale was under a mere delusion when he solemnly made this shocking statement, that the whole thing was a contrivance of the police for the purpose of getting into their toils a man whom, no doubt, they had reason to suspect had been engaged in treasonable practices of another sort. It seems to me that the weakness of the Home Secretary's investigation, which no doubt was a bonâ fide one, was this: Did his investigation extend to the Irish police? because it is the Irish police, not the English police, that are implicated by Mr. Farndale's statement. I agree at once, and I am sure that no Home Secretary would be capable of employing an agent provocateur of this character; but it is notorious that subordinates of his in Ireland are capable of doing such things. I should be very sorry indeed to rake up needlessly a state of things that I hope has passed away for ever; but I am sorry to say that I have only too many materials for remembering this subject. I shall only mention one fact. It is notorious that the man who was at the head of the Irish Constabulary Detective Department at that time was a man of the most infamous character. It is notorious that this man, the head of the Detective Department in Ireland in these very years, organised at least more than one of those "plants," so to say, of precisely the same character as Mr. Farndale has mentioned in the case of Daly. He employed one man—Noonan, I believe, was his name—as an agent of the police, and from that man's lips I took down the confession that the head of the detective force in Ireland employed him to get up a bogus plot against the life of one of the Irish Judges, in which he was to endeavour to implicate, if possible, a Member of this House, the hon. Member for South Tipperary, who is after speaking this moment. That is not a single case. We all unhappily remember the case of James Macdermott. We know beyond all question that this man Macdermott was visiting Mr. Jenkinson in Dublin Castle at the very time that he was organising a dynamite conspiracy in Cork. We know that Macdermott escaped, as this man escaped from Liverpool, and his unfortunate victims found their way to penal servitude. I remember well the case of Mr. P. L. Fitzgerald, of Cork, who was acquitted by a Crimes Act jury, and the jury were so shocked by the methods employed in that case that they actually added a rider to their verdict condemning the methods that had been taken to implicate Mr. Fitzgerald in a murder conspiracy. These things it is most painful to us to recall, but they are matters that are notorious in Ireland, unhappily. And when we know that Mr. Farndale's statement, the statement of an influential police officer in England, corresponds exactly with our own experience of what happened in similar cases in Ireland; and when we know, as I must say, like the hon. Member who has just spoken, as I do know from my own knowledge, that John Daly was a man of integrity, a man of singular ability, a man who was an honest and consistent opponent of Parliamentary agitation, but who had undoubtedly an honest abhorrence of crime on his character, and who had, I may say, the most chivalrous ideas of fighting England in the open — when the Irish people have all these facts before them, what can they conclude in this case, except that this unfortunate fellow, who was no doubt a Fenian, who was proud to be a Fenian, was not convicted as a dynamitard, but for all we know, and certainly until we have heard much more about it, he was the victim of some nefarious proceeding on the part of some police officer. I do hope the hour has at last arrived for reconsidering Egan's case after eight years of frightful torture in an English prison. He was convicted of a crime of which he is as innocent as any man in this House. At one time he was a believer in physical force as the only method for the redress of Irish grievances. Thousands and tens of thousands of men are walking free in Ireland to-day who were participators in a crime for which I am not ashamed to confess myself on a very humble scale a participator. Sir, there is here a much broader question than whether there has been a possible miscarriage of justice in two or three cases. I do not deny that in a number of those cases the prisoners were rightly convicted, and of a dreadful crime; and I think there can be no doubt either that if there was any substantial danger of the renewal of this system of dynamite conspiracies, it would be unreasonable and unjust to extend mistaken leniency to men capable of making war with such weapons. But all the world knows the circumstances under which these dynamite conspiracies originated—the desperation and hopelessness of other remedies. All the world knows that they are passed away and gone as utterly as the wrongs of the terrible penal laws. We have been reminded by the Home Secretary to-night of sonic circumstances to the contrary. We have found in some countries a lunatic who will resort to dynamite or something of that sort for the purpose of public or of private vengeance. But that is a wholly different thing. The police may be thoroughly trusted to deal with lunacy of that sort, and there is not the slightest hope of any section of the Irish people sympathising with them. It is inevitable and natural that the Irish people should remember that the motives of these men were not selfish. Their offences were committed at a time of desparation and bitterness, and although the explosions they organised were most reckless and criminal, they manifestly were not planned with any intention of destroying human life, but, on the contrary, were intended to create as much alarm as possible without destroying human life. Compared with the frightful bloodshed and blowing up of public buildings under the Commune in Paris, what are the offences of these men? And yet the men convicted under the Commune have been amnestied, and the effect has been to extinguish all danger of anything like revolutionary feeling. I do not mean to exteunate the offences that were committed, they were horrible offences, but I do say the public danger is completely passed, and these men have expiated their offences by many long years of penal servitude. A feeling of trust is growing up between the two countries, and its continuance depends upon the readiness to grant frank amnesty for all things past, without measuring too nicely the feeling whether enough has been done to satisfy public justice. The Irish people do not want to make political capital out of this matter, they desire to see these unfortunate men restored to liberty while life remains in them at all, and would respectfully impress upon the Home Secretary, and upon men on both sides of the House, that in yielding to the earnest desire of the Irish people, they will be doing more than anything else to remove unpleasant memories, and to knit the two nations together, and to make these wretched crimes impossible for the future.

The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary said he acknowledged the sympathy existing in Ireland with Daly and with his fellow prisoners, and he said he deplored that feeling. If, during the short time the right hon. Gentleman represented an Irish constituency, he had learned anything at all he would be prepared to know that the speech he has delivered to-night has intensified the feeling of sympathy with this man. The right hon. Gentleman seems to think that if the Irish people knew as much as he does about these men they would not have the same feelings they now have. Some of the Irish people respected and honoured them. It is not so long ago since public feeling became sympathetically aroused in England on behalf of a woman convicted of husband-poisoning. She had a perfectly fair trial and was sentenced to death. Why was she not executed? If properly tried and convicted the Home Secretary had no right to yield to public clamour and mitigate that sentence merely to meet the public demands and the sympathy of the man in the street. The Irish prisoners were arrested in a time of panic and of fear, hostile to anything done by Irishmen against England. No doubt, though the jury that tried them were desirous of doing justice, they must have gone into the box with strong feeling against the dynamitards, so that the prisoners. had to face a tribunal that was insensibly prejudiced against them. The next point is that the Chief Constable at Birmingham, and some of his subordinates declared that these bombs were put upon John Daly by some of the agents of the Irish police. Does the right hon. Gentleman believe that the Chief Constable at Birmingham, Mr. Farndale, made that statement believing it to be untrue; does he know that Mr. Farndale is still the Chief Constable in Birmingham, enjoying the confidence of the people there? Sir, that circumstance goes far to explain the feelings of the Irish people. The right hon. Gentleman says there is good ground for re-considering the case of Egan, but how long is it to be before the case is re-considered? The right hon. Gentleman refused to go into the prison treatment of these men, but it is admitted that they were put in special cells where they were confined 16 hours per day deprived even of the light coming from heaven—shut out from the light of the sun—and I would ask whether it is right in this 19th century that men should be confined in a cell from which God's light is excluded. Then there is another matter. My hon. Friend the Member for Waterford invited the right hon. Gentleman's attention to the fact that Daly on three occasions was poisoned and actually brought to the door of death. I want to ask any hon. Gentleman whether he does not think that some consideration should be shown to Daly on that account. This is torture, and some compensation should be made; we suggest that his sentence of penal servitude should be shortened. It has been over and over again declared by Ministers from these Benches that it was only by outrage that the Irish people obtained any recognition of their rights, and if Irishmen join in these outrages they have a fine defence in the speeches of many Ministers in this House and elsewhere. We are told to bury the hatchet, to abandon old memories, but I should like to see some reciprocity; I should like to see you begin. You may sneer at the sympathy of the Irish people for these men. You do not understand the Irish people. We are a race distinct and apart from you. Though you have robbed us of the outward show of our nationhood, we are a distinct nation; and I tell you that if you sneer at the sympaties of our people, or stand up in your lofty superior way, as the right hon. Gentleman has done to-night, to despise the sympathy they extend to their countrymen, who have risked and suffered for them, who have laid down their lives, even though the project in which they have been engaged may have been mad and insensate projects, to better their country, I tell you you are going a bad way to secure that peace and harmony between this country and Ireland which you profess to desire.

Mr. Speaker, Sir, if it were possible to use an argument utterly maladroit and unfit to gain the sympathy of this House, I should say that it would be the use of such an argument as that which has been used by the hon. Member who has just sat down. To say that because the Irish are a separate race, with different views of treason, with different views of felony, with different views of right and wrong—[Cries of "No!"]—Yes—to say that when they commit a crime they should not be punished for it, when if it were committed by an Englishman he would be punished for it, is to use an argument which the English people do not understand. But there was another argument—the argument that we are bound to release people who have been guilty of outrage, of the making of bombs, of the firing of bombs, because years ago in England there were men who sympathised with Orsini; and that there were, or are still, in London, men who carry on the manufacture of bombs. I cannot understand or sympathise with that argument for a moment. That people sympathised with Orsini or others who they thought were oppressed. I can understand, and they got as much sympathy as they deserved. There were people in England who thought that the Emperor of the French, who certainly had not treated them badly, ought to have done something more for them; and those people, when they found an attack made by an Italian on the Emperor of the French, may have sympathised and gone on sympathising with men like Orsini. I do not know who they were. It certainly was not me, because I have no personal recollections of the doings of Orsini. I have only read of them. But if there were people who sympathised with him and his attempt, can it be assumed that because they did so we should sympathise with people who have done as bad as and worse than Orsini did. Now I should imagine that if there were anything at all in this appeal which is made by hon. Members from Ireland, or by the hon. Member who had just sat down and who sug- gested that this was the best way to unite the people of England and Ireland, then there should have been more than one member of the Front Opposition Bench present to hear it. Where are those who, if this Government left office to-morrow, would come in and seek the release of these men. They are not here. (Cheers.) They take apparently the same view as Her Majesty's ministers, but they do not quite so boldly express it on this occasion. Yet they have done so. It has been said to-night that some of these men have undoubtedly been guilty; yet these men are to be released equally with the others—men who have been admittedly guilty of the worst of outrages—the use of dynamite in the prosecution of treasonable practices. It was said that they had been careful not to hurt any people—only buildings. I do not know that they were so careful; but whether they were or not, they have been convicted under a somewhat weak - minded Act of treasonable practices instead of treason. If they had been convicted of treason we should not have been subjected to the Debate to-night and that one of last year—

Much more merciful.

Well then I regret that course has not been adopted, if it would have been more merciful. It is said these men have been in prison for nine years. Well, many men in England, and Ireland too, have been imprisoned for nine, and for nine and twenty, years. Are they to be released? You cannot commit a worse offence I should imagine than treason.

Yes.

Well, not a worse offence than treason aided by dynamite. Some hon. Members seem to think that treason is a somewhat venial offence. To my mind it is the worst of offences, and the person who is guilty of it deserves the severest punishment. These people have been convicted of acts which amount to treason, and treason carried into effect by the most brutal and the most inhuman of methods. These people have been in gaol eight or nine years, and we are told that for them eight or nine years is sufficient, and more than sufficient. Now, if we are to agree to that we must at the same time agree that eight or nine years is sufficient, or more than sufficient, for every conceivable offence. We ought, therefore, not only to let out these prisoners, but everybody who has served eight or nine years' penal servitude, because no one can be in prison at this moment for a worse offence than that of which those men were convicted, that is presuming them to be guilty. I cannot see, therefore, that there is any logical reason for letting those people out more than for letting out any other malefactors. I am told, however, that these men had no sordid motive or object; that they had a political object. It may be so; but it has long been conceded that treason is the highest crime known to the law. It was also said that we should let them out because it would be personally gratifying to certain persons. All I can say is that we should not let them out upon that score. I can well understand the solicitude of hon. Members of both the Irish Parties opposite. I can well imagine that a number of votes depend on the due and warm advocacy of the case of these prisoners, and full justice has been done to it. Everybody knows that they will not be released; but the speeches have been made, and their friends will be grateful and will show it in the proper way. The hon. Member said—suppose Egan, Larrigan, and O'Brien had escaped to America—happily they had not the chance of doing so—and we had asked the Americans to hand them back as guilty of murder, would the Americans have done it? Who knows? Perhaps they would. The hon. Member said they would not. Well, it might have depended on the weight of the Irish vote in the Presidential elections. It would not have depended on the abstract question of whether those men were guilty of murder. It would have been decided with a view to electioneering prospects and nothing else. At all events, I think it would. The hon. Member, who knows America better perhaps than I do, perhaps thinks the same thing, but does not like to say it. There is a distinction drawn between the case of some of the prisoners and that of others. It is said that Whitehead, Gallagher, and others were not so guilty as the rest, and should be released, and that Daly and Egan were improperly convicted and should be released. But this House has already considered the question. Those who have taken the trouble to read the evidence in the case of Daly have been good enough to give us on former occasions their opinions as to the guilt or innocence of this man Daly, who, we are now assured, is an innocent man. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt) was present when this question was raised last year, and he then gave it as his opinion that Daly was guilty. He had looked through all the evidenee. He gave the House the benefit of his opinion upon it, and he pointed out that all this story on which we are asked to believe that Daly was convicted by error was never alleged by Daly himself, but apparently was invented for him by someone of more inventive imagination than himself. About that story of an agent provocateur the right hon. Member for Derby used these words—

"But that is not all. Ever since that time, although he has had every opportunity of making that statement, he has never done so. The statement referred, not to an agent provocateur, but to an informer. It showed that he suspected there was an informer who had told the Government what sort of transactions ho was engaged in."

Next comes the commonest of old excuses. Long before I had the honour of a seat in this House I was familiar with the excuses of prisoners at the bar who were found in possession of compromising articles. They invariably said that they had been given to them by a friend, who asked them to take care of them for a short time. I have on their behalf alleged that reason, sometimes with success and sometimes without it, but I never could hope to allege it with success to an audience half so intelligent as hon. Gentlemen on the Benches opposite. But besides the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, the hon. and learned Member for Haddingtonshire (Mr. Haldane) spoke last year in this debate. He spoke as a friend. He said he hoped that Government would release some of these prisoners, and the reason he hoped they would release more than one of these prisoners was that they were men highly regarded in Fenian circles who longed for their return. The hon. and learned Member for Haddingtonshire said—

"I think it is much to be regretted that much of the debate has been wide of the amendment which simply recommends a policy of clemency. Reasons have been urged which have gone for the most part to the righteousness of the conviction. On that part of the case I do not entertain much doubt. I listened carefully to the arguments advanced with a view to impugn the finding of the jury in the case of Daly and Egan, and it seemed to me that the answer of the Home Secretary was conclusive."

Now we have the same arguments again. The Home Secretary has satisfied the hon. and learned Member for Haddingtonshire that Daly is guilty. We are asked again to believe that Daly is the victim of some nefarious plot on the part of the police. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby does not believe it. The hon. and learned Member for Haddingtonshire does not believe it. I do not know who does believe it. Daly does not believe it. Daly has never said it. Never. He has been interviewed more than once. But is it ground for releasing him that he is what he has never said he is? At the best these men are traitors and deserve a traitor's fate. It is said that they have had enough, too much, when, after having been engaged in a plot to blow up and ruin not only the buildings, but perhaps also the people of this country, they have been in prison for nine years. There are persons who have been convicted of perjury, or some assault, or embezzlement, and sent to penal servitude, and all these people are to remain in the same gaol from which these men are to be liberated because in addition to being dynamitards, and liable to be prosecuted for having dynamite in their possession and dealing with it, they are traitors, and because they are entitled to claim a peculiar clemency from the nation. Has a case been made out? I do not think so any more than the Front Opposition Bench think so. At all events, a claim is advanced on grounds which make it impossible to grant it. It is advanced with regard to the worst of them. Those who have most carefully in- vestigated the case including the present and the last Home Secretaries, and the hon. and learned Member opposite (Mr. Haldane) have come to the conclusion that there was no miscarriage of justice, and that the verdicts of the jury were right. By those verdicts we must, I imagine, stand. This House cannot reverse them. It cannot reverse them in deference to the opinion that they were wrong, nor I imagine can it reverse them simply on the ground of clemency, nor because the hon. Member for Cork said there was no danger, as dynamite outrages have ceased. I see in that an additional reason for keeping them in. If you are wise, detain them where they are while dynamite outrages do not go on.

The hon. and learned Member for Deptford has stated that this Motion has been brought forward on this side in order to catch votes. If so, I wonder for what purpose his speech was made He says we brought forward this Motion knowing it was hopeless, and that it was certain to be refused. If our Motion was brought forward with the object of gaining votes, at any rate, in its essence, our attitude is more respectable in suing for mercy and clemency for those men than is his speech, which was an unnecessary speech, refusal having already been given, and a speech only made for the purpose of attracting the votes of certain Conservatives in his own Constituency. The speech to which we have just listened almost makes a man understand a dynamitard. If there were anything calculated to drive a man into rebellion it is the notion that he was being ruled by 670 gentlemen like the hon. Member for Deptford. And when I reflect that it is by votes and recommendations and decisions of a number of gentlemen like the Member for Deptford that our country is ruled, and that speeches like his will be telegraphed to America, insulting, as they do, our nation in that country, and, not only our nation, but the President and Senate and Congress of the United States and its Ambassadors, I really wonder that you have not further crops of incendiaries in that Republic. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Deptford, fortunately for himself, was never Member for Dungarvan. He has no past to apologise for. I think I do remember a speech made for amnesty by the Member for Dungarvan. When we are asked here to explain how it is that there are masses of men in Ireland who sympathise with some of these men who are in prison, we can remember the great defence which was made for poor O'Donovan Rossa on the hustings of the old fishing village when it was declared that O'Donovan Rossa and Thomas Clarkson embodied the passion for liberty of the Irish race. I attribute the courtesy exhibited by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary to an unconscious cerebration or some political transfusion which enabled him while still Home Secretary of this great Empire to remember the days when he addressed the humble fishermen at Dungarvan. The Home Secretary has made a speech which in its tone and temper differed widely from the speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down. But I am bound to say that I think it was lacking in two or three points. Of course we draw a wide distinction so far as our own view is concerned between the cases which have been brought forward and the cases of men as to whose trial no question has been raised; and it must necessarily be admitted that their position stands on a different footing from that of others. But the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary has stated that as regards Daly he had himself seen the Chief Constable of Birmingham. But he did not say anything on a point as to which I think we are entitled to an answer. If he expects to convince us, I ask him if he convinced the Chief Constable of Birmingham, and if he did not succeed, and he did not pretend that he did, in driving out of the mind of Mr. Farndale the haunting suspicion which lurked therein, what hope have you of driving out of our minds the notion that there was some unfair play? I imagine the right hon. Gentleman having his conference with the Chief Constable and saying to him: "I will now lay before you all the documents in my possession in the Home Office, and having them before you I will ask you to withdraw and retract this unfortunate document you have sent." But the right hon. Gentleman with all the information at his disposal did not succeed in vacating Mr. Farndale's mind of the remarkable impressions which existed there, and so far as the Irish people are concerned, and I say so far as the English people are concerned, all we know is that the chief officer of the Birmingham police, charged with the duty of tracking down offenders has stated that the whole of this business so far as Daly was concerned was, and never could be anything but a plant and a trick. But the Home Secretary did one thing to-night which I conceive to be unfair. We know the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir H. James) conducted these prosecutions. We know further more his high character in this House and the fairness with which he has always addressed himself to this question. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bury did not state to the jury anything in connection with Daly and Breslin about dynamite shells being thrown from the gallery of this House. After there has been eight years' expiation of their offences, the Home Secretary draws out of his pocket a document, saying, "I have here a letter from Daly to Breslin with these terrible suggestions." If the right hon. Gentleman was in possession of that document, why did not the right hon. Member for Bury present it to the jury at the trial? Where did this letter come from? We have heard of the letters of a gentleman named Pigott, and when eight years afterwards a document of this kind is relied upon in this House, I say it must be tainted at the source, and the mere fact that it was not used by a gentleman like the right hon. Member for Bury in his grave duties as prosecutor in a grave case like this damns that document in the judgment of every honest man. We are entitled to say that the case against Daly is an extremely weak one, if the right hon. Gentleman is driven to fall back on a document not produced at the trial, and containing allegations so crushing as are now suggested. If it is in the handwriting of Daly, surely it would have been easy to have proved it. I think it was unfair and regrettable, rather, I think, due to a slip, that the Home Secretary trotted out the document before us to-night, for he has used it in regard to a man whose mouth is closed and his hands bound; and, under these circumstances, some Member of the Government should take the opportunity of clearing the letter away, or explaining why it was not used before. I read a letter in the Times the other day, in which an eminent English lawyer, after complimenting the right hon. Member for Bury on the conduct of the trials, said that whatever question existed in his mind with regard to Daly, there would be none with regard to Egan. John Daly must be a man of more than common mould, who, after all the tortures he underwent, the horrible dress, and the cheerless and inhospitable character of the place in which they were, when believing himself dying from doses of poison, had no thought but of his fellow-prisoner; all he wanted was to secure the liberation and redress of his fellow-prisoner. Two or three years ago the Report of the Prison Visitors was placed before the House, and in that were Daly's statements, reading which any man must have some feeling of doubt in regard to the case. Believing he was dying, he asked to be allowed to see Egan to ask his forgiveness for the great wrong he had done him; to say that he had no more share in his confidence than a child unborn, and never knew his political opinions. And then he gave further reasons to show the innocence of Egan. I think that even British justice might take facts of that kind into its ken; and that when a large body of Irish opinion comes to the House of Commons with a plea for these men, it should be met in a better spirit than was shown by the hon. Gentleman to-night. The right hon. Gentleman says he sees some chance of perhaps at some future time doing something in regard to the case. I ask the right hon. Member for Bury whether he, from his great forensic position, and as one of the most confidential supporters of the Government, does not think that now, after eight years of terrible slavery, something might not be done, at any rate, as regards Egan's case. With regard to him, the one you call the principal offender says, that he had no share or part in his offences. After these eight years it would not be unbecoming to the right hon. Member for Bury if he could see his way to intervene—aye, even to intercede, and do something to open still more the mind of the Home Secretary. I fully sympathise with the hon. Member for Waterford in regard to bringing forward anything in respect to prison treatment. We were to a certain extent enjoying the hospitality of the Home Secretary when we saw these men in their cells, and it would not be becoming in the hon. Member for Waterford or myself to say anything as to what we heard or saw of the prison treatment, but I may say that I think the entire treatment of prisoners of this class is not worthy of a great country. What advantage have you in treating your worst enemies, politically speaking, in the same way as you treat burglars and thieves? John Mitchell was convicted of treason felony and sentenced to the same term as Egan, in 1848, and it Will be remembered that complaint was made that when he was going out to Bermuda on a man-of-war he messed with the officers, but a minute was sent out by the Government approving of his treatment. Is not the year 1892 more advanced in charity and civilization, even British civilization, than the year 1848? Yet in 1848, when this Act was brand new, passed in a panic, you allowed the Mitchels, the Martins, and others to be treated as gentlemen, and to sit side by side with officers holding Her Majesty's commission. When the First Lord of the Treasury was Chief Secretary for Ireland he had to give way on the question of prison treatment, and allow prisoners of a certain class to retain their own dress. Many of these men are being driven insane. This Blue Book deals with the case of the man Flanagan, and the report must make it obvious to every man that he was at that moment almost a lunatic. What have you done since that to relieve his distress? You have kept him quarrying and picking oakum. It is the duty of the officials to prevent malingering, but in such a case as this there should be presented year after year doctors' reports on the condition of the men. The report was made in March, 1890, and evidently the investi- gation took place in 1889; the kind of incoherent replies he gave to the, visitors will be found on page 7. Several times he says:

"I have power to show great signs and wonders in the earth by shutting up the organs of my body."

I have called attention to this case for two or three years, but, as far as I can make out Flanagan is undergoing exactly the same treatment as he was then. We are entitled to say that the offences most of these men have committed have been due to a desire to carry out political changes by misconceived means; and you cannot be expected to look at their offences in the same way that we do; but we are entitled to say that, if they have been sentenced to penal servitude, they are not sentenced to be poisoned, or to insanity. We are entitled to ask that. doctors' reports shall be made annually with regard to these men, who are more liable to harsh treatment than any others in Her Majesty's prisons. You may say this is an exceptional course. Exactly; these are exceptional cases. We are entitled to have reports during the time they are in custody, be that time long or short, and the House may expect to hear of them again and again. It was only the other day I received a statutory declaration from a man who was in constant political association with Daly up to the year of his arrest, and that states that Daly was constantly protesting his horror of the dynamite and similar movements, Where there is conflicting testimony I prefer to believe my own countrymen, the testimony of Daly's friends to that of his enemies, and we shall, in and out of season, support any movement to alleviate his lot, and to secure his speedy release from prison.

We are all familiar, with the defences usually set up by the Home Secretary for the time being, when an allegation of a miscarriage of justice is made in this House. I shall refer to one case only. When that of Kilmartin, who was subsequently liberated, was originally raised in the time of a predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman, I ventured to give my firm opinion that he was innocent of the crime with which he was charged, and of which he had been found guilty. The case was nearly on all fours with that of Egan. It was shortly this: a man, who was dying in the United States, told the priest who attended him on the occasion that there was a man in prison named Kilmartin convicted of the attempt to murder a man in the West of Ireland, but that it was he, and not Kilmartin, who made the attempt, and that Kilmartin was innocent. The only difference in the two cases was that Daly, when he exonerated Egan, only believed himself to be dying; whilst in Kilmartin's case the man who confessed did actually die. The priest to whom the statement was made by the dying man, not under the seal of the confessional, communicated with the friends of Kilmartin, and the matter was brought to the notice of the Home Secretary; but it was not until the debate became personal that further inquiry was granted into the matter. It then reached the right hon. Gentleman's sensorium that it was a real miscarriage of justice. With regard to Daly, I know a great deal; I also know a great deal of the opinions of the late Isaac Butt about him. They were great friends, but Butt was incensed in a certain way against Daly, whom, however, he believed to be as high-minded a man as he ever knew. Mr. Butt, no doubt, further said that Daly would, in one sense, be a curse if he joined the party, and he was glad that he had not joined us. This question involved in the cases of Daly and Egan should be treated in a different spirit to that shown by the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. We know that special cases have to be treated in a special manner; if the whole country is agitated, as we know it is, over the cases of these men, I think the best policy that the Government could now adopt would be to say that these men have been subjected to a large amount of punishment already, and that, having regard to all the circumstances, their cases would be taken into consideration with a view to the liberation of as many as they possibly could. The people of Ireland are susceptible of gratitude, and that, I should say, would be the best policy to pursue. I believe Daly to be quite innocent of the crime with which he was charged; at all events, so far as the use of dynamite was concerned. I believe, also, there has been no answer given to the case made out by Mr. Farndale; and unless the Government are prepared to answer it, they must rest under a degree of suspicion that they are holding back something that ought to be known.

I think it is very clear that a miscarriage of justice has occurred in various cases, and mainly in the case of Egan; but hon. Gentlemen upon both sides of the House need not be surprised that a charge of miscarriage of justice has been made, for hon. Gentlemen should recollect that this is not the first time that justice has miscarried in England. I will mention one case, and I think it ought to be a warning to both sides of the House—I mean the case in Manchester, when O'Brien and Larkin were sentenced to death. Four men were sentenced to death, the Judge seeing no difference between the case of the fourth man and that of the other three. The reporters who had heard the evidence came to the conclusion that the fourth man was not guilty, and they addressed a strong remonstrance in reference to it, with the result that the case of the fourth man was re-considered, and he was reprieved. The fourth man was convicted not upon evidence, but from prejudice, and in the height of political passion, and I believe the same may be said of Daly, who undoubtedly was prejudiced from his former connection with Fenianism. Having regard to the circumstances under which Daly was convicted, I think a very strong case has been made out in his behalf, for it cannot be doubted that great pre judice existed against him at the time of his conviction. Having regard to the fact that a period of eight years has elapsed, and recollecting that the theory of the law is that punishment is only imposed as a preventative, I do not see why clemency should not be exercised towards these men. Hon. Gentlemen have spoken of the Fenian movement, but the Fenians were men who were capable of making great sacrifices, and even the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary him self at one time was not ashamed to avail himself of the influence of Fenianism. Does the right hon. Gentleman recollect Dungarvan? (Cheers.) He does; well, and this is how the Times, in a leader, on the 21st November, 1868, speaks of his return—

"Mr. Henry Matthews is returned for Dungarvan, and is ranked as a Liberal, but as his Liberalism is apparently the result of a cross between Toryism and Fenianism, and is not inconsistent with a general denunciation of all Liberal statesmen, his vote is not altogether certain. His opponent, Mr. Serjeant Barry, a Liberal, had, it appears, in the course of his duty as a barrister, committed the crime of holding a brief against a Fenian prisoner; and Mr. Matthews, who is, we believe, an Englishman, availed himself of the discontent of the disaffected portion of the constituency with this act to turn Mr. Serjeant Barry out of his seat." (Cheers.)

That appeared in a Times leader upon 21st November, 1868. I think, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman, having regard to old associations—(laughter)—might liberate these men; he might very well liberate Daly now. Recollect that Daly could very easily have escaped further punishment if he liked. He was visited in prison by Pigott and by Mr. Soames; and if he had yielded to the temptation to join with them in blackening the character of Irish Members, he might have been free and in as good a position as some of his prosecutors. He was tempted to commit perjury and to purchase his liberty at the expense of the characters of the Irish Members, for on the 28th March, 1888, the Secretary of State for the Home Department said—

"Richard Pigott got permission to visit John Daly at Chatham Prison on the 12th November, 1888; he paid the visit on the 3rd December, 1888, in the presence of Major Capel, the Deputy Governor. Daly had been previously visited on the 21st October by Mr. Soames."

I may say that Soames got permission to see Daly for the purposes of the Parnell Commission, and that Pigott got permission for the same purpose. The interview took place in secret, and the man who resisted such temptation and accepted in preference to go to penal servitude is not likely to be guilty of the foul offence of outrage. Revolutionists of that kind are men filled with great enthusiasm and are not likely to condescend to petty artifices. The House has heard with astonishment a statement made by the hon. Member for North-East Cork in reference to the organised perjury and conspiracy by which Daly was convicted. A letter was read from Mr. John Ellis Trench to the effect that the Government had a very narrow escape; the phrase used, I believe, was "We sail very close to the wind," and I should like to know if that was in reference to the bombs that had been placed in Egan's garden by some other person?

Daly admitted that he put them there himself.

Daly's statement was that he put them there to conceal them, and that they had been put by some trick into his possession.

No, no; nothing of the sort. Daly simply said that he put them there himself.

Well, I make the statement upon what information I have before me, and I understand that Daly distinctly told the jury so. Now, the head of the detective department at Birmingham, who could have no personal or political purpose to serve, has come to the conclusion that Daly was innocent, and when such a man comes to that conclusion, I ask how can a prisoner be kept in any longer? It is not likely that he who refuses to commit perjury would condescend to any subterfuge in reference to dynamite. The Times, and the Government which connected itself with the Times, thought that Daly was a terrible witness to produce at the Commission. I do not think that there is any reason whatever for keeping this man, who has already expiated any offence he may have committed, in prison any longer, and I hope that the clemency of the Crown will be exercised in regard to him. I hope and trust that the Government will see their way to meet the unanimous desire of the Irish people in this matter, a desire which is generally entertained. I do not know whether the right hon. Gentleman has had any experience of penal servitude, but everyone who has gone through a prison must know that penal servitude is worse than death, and I believe if hon. Members below the Gangway would put more pressure upon the Home Secretary this very reasonable appeal would be yielded to at once.

Being a new Member, it is not my intention to occupy the time of the House until I acquire some experience, but, having listened carefully to the hon. Members who have preceded me, and to the Home Secretary, I feel bound, in the interests of humanity, if for no other reason, to support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Waterford. I should like to reply to one observation of the hon. Member for Deptford, who, I believe, is not now in the House. (An hon. MEMBER: Yes.) He has said that this action is taken for the purpose of obtaining votes. I, as a new Member, repudiate that. My action in this matter, and I hope the action of my brother Members, is actuated by higher motives than to gain votes. I have no sympathy whatever with dynamitards. I have no sympathy with crime of any kind; but I have considerable sympathy, from what I have heard to-night, with the unfortunate men who have suffered so much in prison. The hon. and learned Member for Deptford spoke as if trial by jury were infallible. It is well-known that in many political cases in Ireland, chiefly in times of panic, innocent persons have been punished. It was only the other day I accidentally came across a newspaper account of a conviction of two men, which has been already referred to in this House—an account of a conviction in 1879 on a charge of burglary and attempt to murder. These men were released in 1888, when it was proved to demonstration that they were innocent. That being so, I hold that trial by jury is not, at all events, infallible. I referred to the fact that in times of political excitement, juries may be carried away by their feelings. The hon. and learned Member for Deptford, and I think the hon. Member for Donegal, referred to the case of Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien, and the hon. Member for Donegal said that there were four men found guilty of murder. The hon. Member for Deptford said that three were tried for murder. With all respect to the hon. Members, I believe I am correct in saying that I am as conversant with these events as they are. There were five men put upon their trial: three were convicted and executed; the two others were liberated immediately after conviction. In that trial two were liberated and three were executed. I knew one of the three—O'Brien; and if I believed him to be a murderer, I would not, as a Member of this House, refer to the fact that I was acquainted with him; but I do so, not with shame, but with pride, for a finer specimen of an Irishman I never knew; and although I may not be able to convince the House that that man was innocent of the crime for which he was executed, I am myself convinced of the fact. I myself regretted at the time that life was taken, but I do firmly believe that that life was taken not designedly, but through misadventure. Under these circumstances, I think it not at all unreasonable that this House should consent to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Waterford, which is not for the release of these men, but that their case should be reconsidered, and if found desirable that they should be leniently treated. I have to thank the House for the kindness with which they have heard me.

It has been said more than once in this Debate that a considerable feeling had been raised throughout the length and breadth of Ireland at the continued imprisonment of these men, Mr. Daly, Egan, and the other persons convicted. One hon. Member, the hon. Member for Deptford, said that if these men were Englishmen their cases would not be reconsidered. If they were Englishmen a very considerable amount of consideration would be given to their case. If there were 16 Englishmen in prison in this country whose case had by great demonstration been brought to the notice of the public, I am quite certain a great amount of consideration would be paid to the matter. Some of the largest and most influential gatherings that have taken place in Ireland during recent years have occurred during the last 12 months with the object of calling the attention of the House and of the Government to this important matter. This is not a question that has attracted the attention of one or two Members of Parliament; it is a question which is forced upon the attention of the House by the people of Ireland, and it is a question which will continue to be agitated, listened to or not. Reference has been made to good feeling between the people of this country and those of Ireland. All I can say is that it is the opinion of hundreds of thousands of the people of Ireland the sooner that feeling is established the better; but it cannot be established as long as we have Members—such as the hon. Member for Deptford—sneering at men whom he knows are regarded with feelings of veneration by thousands of people, who are the hon. Member's fellow-subjects. He told us that Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien were murderers; he told us that we, the Irish people, were a peculiar people; that the Government of America, in the matter of extradition, was not influenced by right, by justice, or by law, but by the meanest possible object, that of catching the votes of the Irish people, and that for that reason, and that reason alone, they exercised their powers. A speech of more studied insult was never uttered in this House, and I say it is painful to think that when a speech of that kind is delivered, not a Gentleman upon these Benches, or upon the Front Opposition Benches, rises to protest against the insults that have been directed against their countrymen and us. This Government have but a few months of power remaining to them, and recent elections point pretty clearly to the fact that when next this question is brought before the House it will not be the Home Secretary of ex-Fenian sympathies who will have to reply on behalf of the Home Office. It is quite clear that from the right hon. Gentleman and his friends we have little to expect, but we may expect a good deal from his successor in office. It would allay agitation in Ireland and satisfy a strong demand made there, if some right hon. Gentleman from the Front Opposition Bench would give an assurance that when the present Opposition have the power the cases of these men shall be re-considered. I am not asking any man to guarantee a release, but that these cases shall be re-considered in view of the fact that most extraordinary facts have come to light bearing on some of these cases in the closest possible way. The present Government refuse to go so far as that, but I doubt if even the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir W. Harcourt) would refuse inquiry. I think we may call on him for some expression of his opinion. Yet I do not know why we should expect any special sympathy from him. These men are kept in prison because at one time they were members of the Fenian Organisation. It has not been proved that they committed any dynamite offence, and they were not tried for such an offence. The evidence given against them went back for almost 20 years, when they were members of the Fenian Brotherhood, and this excited a prejudice against them. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for. Derby takes every opportunity to sneer at a considerable section of the people of Ireland who have much respect and sympathy for the efforts made years ago by members of that Association to gain the ear of the world for the wrongs of Ireland before any attempt was made in this House to bring those wrongs forward. We do not desire Fenian Home Rule. Our request is that these cases may be re-considered and brought to proof; our desire is that this quarrel may be settled once for all, and that fairly. Let me tell the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby that he is not preparing the way for a mutual agreement by sneering at mention of the Fenian movement in Ireland, which made the Parliamentary movement here possible. Who paved the way for the movement of Mr. Parnell but the men of 20 years ago? But for the work of those men the Home Rule movement would not be now sufficiently advanced to enable the right hon. Gentleman to declare himself a Home Ruler. I say this in most perfect good faith, because I have but recently come across from our country, where I have attended public meetings and where I have spoken of these men. I tell the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle (Mr. Morley), who is looked upon with greater respect in Ireland than is the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby—I tell him that some of those men have been most active, have done most to promote the cause of goodwill between the two countries upon the lines laid down by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Midlothian (Mr. Gladstone). Some of these men are most eager to reach out their hands and help to bridge over the quarrel of centuries between kindred peoples. Yet some of these men have been insulted because they have not been able to carry elections, though they poll thousands. The mention of such men has raised a sneer from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby as being mere Fenians. Let us have no more talk of that kind. If we are going to come to terms, as I hope we may—if we are going to have a genuine treaty of real and lasting peace between England and Ireland, let it be with the whole of Ireland—not excluding a considerable section of the Irish people from that treaty with a sneer at them because they belonged to the movement of years ago, which now, apparently, is strongly condemned on both sides. Why should you be afraid of any inquiry? The Home Secretary seems to have any amount of information which has never seen the light of day. What objection is there to have this information subjected to impartial inquiry? If the truth is on his side, it will become manifest. All we ask is that the Government will at least inquire into the cases of these men now in prison. So moderate a request is it that I cannot understand why it is refused. We ask for inquiry at which evidence, not given, at the trial may be produced; for instance, the evidence of the Head Constable of Birmingham. His evidence was of the most startling character, but he had no opportunity of giving it at the trial of these men. Why not now take his sworn testimony? As the truth appears let the men be released or remain in prison, but do not irritate the people of Ireland by refusing the inquiry they so passionately demand.

I do not propose to import into the few words I desire to say any controversial arguments. It seems to me the late Home Secretary and the present Home Secretary are in an equally difficult position. They are the representatives of justice in this House; their business is to administer the law; and if any appeal is to come before the Govern- ment on this matter, it seems to me it comes best from a private Member; and it is for this reason and feeling that it is well that something should be said in this Debate from this part of the House that I intervene for a few moments. I have always thought that a tribunal such as is a jury acting under the direction of a Judge and after full investigation on the spot is more competent to judge of a question of this kind than we are. It is not easy for us to review in heated debate in this House the verdict arrived at, and I shall assume, rightly or wrongly, that the verdict of the jury is treated—by some of us at least—as conclusive. But it seems to me the matter does not end there. These men have been in penal servitude for eight years, and some of us know what that means. (Laughter.) Some hon. Members seem to think it is a light matter to serve eight years in such torture, but it seems to me an adequate punishment for most offences. These men have served for a long period, and it does seem to me that, even on the admitted facts, there is a distinction in the positions as between Daly and Egan and the others. I am sure I do not wish to exaggerate, and I observe a response from the Home Secretary himself. I do think that the time has come when it may be well for the Government to consider whether the clemency of the Crown might be extended to some of these cases drawing some distinction. I should say it is not desirable, or in the interests of justice, that verdicts and sentences should be debated by such a tribunal as this. But there is an element which seems to distinguish these offences, even putting them at their worst, from ordinary criminal offences. We must remember this, that what Egan did — or for the matter of that, what Daly did — would be done by hundreds of men throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, men with whom most of us in other respects would be proud to associate. Reference has been made to a speech of mine. I adhere to it. I repeat it—every word. However wrong, however wicked, it is for men to commit these offences, these heinous crimes, yet still we must look at the circumstances, the motives; aye, and the passions, actuating the men at the time. They were, after all, at the time but the vehicles of a mass of political feeling, the intensity of which is best measured by the intensity and duration of the struggle maintained for Irish liberty. I do not argue that this justifies challenging the verdict of the jury or treating these as political crimes, but I argue there is a reason for extending the clemency of the Crown to the less guilty among these men. It may be well in these days when the Chief Secretary has entered upon a constructive policy towards Ireland, and is trying to inspire the Irish people with the belief that he, too, is earnest in the intention that at last justice shall be extended to that country—it might be worth while for the Government to consider whether clemency might not be extended to others beside Egan, but in any case to him. It does seem to me the time has come to consider, not necessarily the question of guilt or innocence, but whether eight long years of torture in penal servitude—and no more degrading punishment can be inflicted—is not a sufficient punishment to expiate a crime into which they were led in the tumult of political passion, and in which they had the support of many of their countrymen.

These men were made Fenians by your English laws; and when there are so many professions made as to the interest this House takes in Irish affairs, I can only say that a stranger entering the Gallery of this House would be surprised to find that neither on the Front Government Bench, or on the Opposition Front Bench, is there a single friend of this oppressed and enslaved people. On the Front Opposition Bench are the men who committed these men to prison, and they are faced by the Government who keep them there. With all the professions of friendship for Ireland these Members of the House are too cowardly to raise a voice on behalf of these prisoners. Where is the Opposition who promise us all good things in the future? Where is the great, slashing voice of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby? Where is the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle? Where are the leaders of the Opposition? The benches behind are packed with men who will not open their mouths. One exception there has been, and we thank the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken. Would not capital punishment be better than this prolonged torture in prison? We have had all sorts of weapons used in the past against the life-blood of Ireland, and we have now a Home Secretary who, in the past, claimed our support with promises to be honest to our cause; but the Home Secretary is an English lawyer, with all the greed of office in his heart. He refuses an inquiry. He has the machinery in his hand, but he will not use it. Is he afraid of the evidence that might be forthcoming? (Interruption.) This is an Irish question, and it suits the persecutors of our race, from Deptford and elsewhere, to jeer at it, and others laugh. But we, with the sympathetic natures of our countrymen, with honest and cultivated good nature, cannot understand this refusal of a request for reconsideration by means of your own machinery. For their own purposes lawyers on either side unite to retain these men in prison. I have no faith in lawyers who, retaining the nourishing morsel, hand the shells to parties in a suit. On either side we have too many lawyers in this House. We are promised Home Rule by the Opposition, but why have we not sympathy and support on this occasion? You split up our Party, and you live on our blood. But I know that others of my friends desire to speak, and I will not stand in their way.

I beg to move the adjournment of the Debate. Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."

I am sorry that the hon. Member should take that course on this Amendment. The Debate on the Address has already occupied three days, and there remain at least two other Amendments which cannot be disposed of in a few hours. I should have thought that this discussion, which has continued since half-past 6, might now be brought to a termination, to the satisfaction of the House generally. The facts have been fully brought out and discussed, and my right hon. Friend has certainly adequately represented the view of the Government.

I think the Leader of the House is mistaken. It is true a great many facts have been brought out, but it is equally true that nearly all the benches on the Government side have been empty during the night. There are further facts to be brought out, and I think, under the circumstances, the Debate should be allowed to continue to-morrow. Debate adjourned till to-morrow.