as a crime to be dealt with by this scheme; and, more especially, the vigorous and resolute attempt which had been made to exclude from the purview of this clause those who might wish to be sufficiently loyal at home to escape the penalties of treason, but who would come within the range of this clause by their doings abroad. Hon. Members, speaking on that clause, adduced some instances of what might happen in America, and scenes had been described which might possibly take place at public meetings in that country. It was said, if a speaker attended a meeting, and some person there made use of treasonable expressions, any Irish subject of the Queen who took part in that meeting would be held responsible for what was thus said. But if those charges were unfounded, and if the gentlemen who took part in those meetings were supposed to be loyal subjects of the Queen, if those charges and imputations were false, there would be ample opportunity of disproving them. But he asked, if gentlemen did go or did attend these meetings and took the part described, if they stood by and heard those expressions used, and counsels given sometimes falling little short of incitements to immediate invasion of the country, and the upsetting of the Government established here, what position would they place themselves in? They fell into one of three classes. Either they did agree with or approve the tendency of those expressions and the feeling which they worked up, or they did not. If they agreed in them, and in the working up of that feeling, and the gathering in of the dollars which resulted from it, on what principle did they claim to exempt themselves from the penalties of treason when they came back to this country? On the other hand, it was possible they did not share those treasonable opinions. Then, he said, they were working up those feelings, and gathering in those dollars on false pretences-that was to say, supposing they never intended to bring it to actual and open treason against this country. But there was a third class into which they might fall. Perhaps they thought that open treason just now in Ireland and in the Three Kingdoms would not be safe; but that, nevertheless, it was a good thing to go out to America and keep up the enthusiasm existing there and to continue to gather in the money. Then he put it in this way. Could there be anything more insane than that the Government should tolerate that policy, and allow an impression to be produced upon the Irish people that it was the view of the Government that as long as Members of Parliament were cautious and reticent at home, they might go to America and do what they pleased without bringing themselves within the purview of the Law of Treason? He wished to know how, with these things, loyalty could continue to exist in Ireland? Of course, a Government which allowed such things to go on could not expect that the people would long continue to believe in their own policy at all. He thought the argument against the alteration of the clause could be put in a nut-shell. Either the Government must effect a radical alteration in the Law of Treason as it existed in this country for the purpose of facilitating such operations abroad as he had described, or else the only alternative was that treason should be altogether excluded from the purview of this clause, and from the operation of the Bill. He would not go further with any of the other arguments in favour of the clause; but he was bound to confess that he had heard nothing in the discussions which had taken place to remove from his mind the painful conviction that, without such exceptional powers as were demanded in this Bill, it was impossible to cope with the tremendous difficulties which the Government were now encountering in Ireland. MR. PARNELL said, it was a remarkable fact that whenever there was any dirt or abuse to be cast upon Irishmen, an Irishman was always found ready to do it with greater zest and greater zeal than any other man. He could recollect the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket) heaping abuse in the House upon a distinguished and honourable Irishman. He remembered when he justified his right to vote against the admission of the late Mr. John Mitchel as Member for the county of Tipperary, on the ground that he was a dishonourable felon. No Englishman or Scotchman made such an allegation as that in the course of the debate; but it was reserved for an Irishman, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin, to attempt to heap dishonour upon a man as honourable as himself. The right hon. and learned Gentleman looked forward with the highest expectation to the passing of this Bill into law, and supposed that when it was passed he and his class would have everything in Ireland under their thumb; that they would be able to take up an attitude of hostility to the just claims of the Irish tenant farmers. That was what was really involved in this question; that was what was really involved in all these demands for coercion, which first of all commenced upon the Opposition Bench, and then were taken up by the Metropolitan Press and forced on the Liberal Ministry. The Conservatives knew that upon this extraordinary power, these unfair advantages, these unjust laws, depended their power to claim unjust and exorbitant rents from the Irish tenantry. During the last winter, the Land Act had been helped, in many cases, by the landlords, who made settlements out of Court; and he believed the number of those settlements out of Court was about equal to the number of decrees, or the number of judicial rents fixed by the Court; and, admittedly, upon those settlements out of Court, which were arrived at by mutual arrangement between landlord and tenant, must depend the future success of the Land Act. If those settlements were put a stop to-the prospect of which the Prime Minister spoke the other day, that 50,000 or 60,000 judicial rents would have been fixed by the end of this year-if those mutual arrangements were stopped, the landlords would be thrown back on what they believed to be their distinct rights, and which, according to their view, had been unjustly assailed by the Land Act; and so would be put an end to this process of mutual arrangement, which had been going on for the last six months, to the extent of 60,000 settlements out of Court. It would also stop the arrangements which had been largely made for temporary abatements pending decisions by the Land Commissioners; and there was not the slightest doubt that the great joy with which the class represented by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin hailed this measure Mr. Parnell of coercion was due to the fact that they believed they would be able to exact, during the coming autumn and winter, their full pound of flesh, without reduction or abatement. He (Mr. Parnell) could not help sympathizing with the Chief Secretary upon the speech he had delivered that evening; for the right hon. Gentleman seemed to him to wish that he could have had some other task as one of his duties, in taking up the high and important and responsible Office which he had to fill, than the impossible task of defending coercion; and as the right hon. Gentleman trotted out all the wellworn and stale arguments which so many of his Predecessors had produced, only to find them utterly falsified by the results, he could not help sympathizing with the Chief Secretary in the really disagreeable and odious task, which he was sure the right hon. Gentleman felt his present task to be. The right hon. Gentleman gave some examples of evidence, extracted from Blue Books, to justify the claims of the Government for the suspension of trial by jury; but when he asked for dates, the right hon. Gentleman was unable to give them. MR. TREVELYAN: I do not wish to interrupt the hon. Member, but the real fact is that I have discovered the dates. The first case I gave was in 1880, and the three other instances were at the Summer Assizes in 1881. MR. PARNELL said, he was willing to give the right hon. Gentleman all the credit which his argument might gain from the discovery of the dates, but that did not amount to much, because his heart could not have been much in his work, since he had not thought it necessary to take the trouble to obtain the full information with regard to these offences which he had brought before the Committee. This was a curious and instructive circumstance. The right hon. Gentleman was heir to the mistakes of his Predecessors, and he was obliged to take up the task of governing Ireland where he found it. He (Mr. Parnell) could not see how the Chief Secretary could hope for any greater success than his Predecessors had achieved. He had now to try a still worse and still more severe Coercion Bill than the one which would expire next September. He was about to try a measure which would make the enforcement of law and order still more-he did not wish to say-re MR. DILLON: I said that, doubtless, there existed some sympathy with crime in Ireland. pugnant to Irishmen ; but, depend upon the more serious classes of agrarian outit, the more the Government introduced rages showed a very remarkable dimimeasures of this kind, the more in-nution. He believed it would be seen different the people would feel as to the that in the last month, although that detection of crime. The hon. Member diminution had been increased, it had for the county of Tipperary had said, the yet been maintained, and that there was other evening, that the Irish people sym- still an absence of the more serious forms pathized with crime. of crime. Had it not been for the introduction of this Coercion Bill, and the feeling of exasperation which it had aroused in Ireland, there would have MR. PARNELL accepted the correc- been a still more marked diminution of tion; but he thought that was scarcely agrarian crime, and especially in that of the correct way to describe the situation a more serious character. The Chief in Ireland. It was rather that the law Secretary had told the Committee of the had been so unfairly used, that it had great increase in the number of outrages been so obviously twisted and diverted, during the first four months of this year, that the Irish people were indifferent as as compared with the first four months regarded the detection of crime and the of last year. He had stated that they enforcement of the law. It was because had nearly doubled in number, but he all the exertions of Parliament had been did not state that the evictions had been directed to devising some further method quadrupled. There was a remarkable of enforcing the agrarian rights of the relation between the proportion of outlandlords-some more stringent law-rages and of evictions. It was said by something entirely different from the laws that ought to bind Great Britain and Ireland together, that the people of Ireland had taken up this attitude-not of sympathy with crime, but of saying, when an outrage was committed"Well, the law has never helped us, and we will now leave the law to help itself." Just immediately after the horrible murder in Phoenix Park there seemed a change in the feeling; there was a change in the feeling all over the world; and the people of Ireland undoubtedly ranged themselves on the side of law and order, and desired to detect the Phoenix Park murderers. That feeling spread to America, and money was subscribed in that country-thousands of dollars were subscribed in a few days for the purpose of offering rewards for the detection of the murderers. But immediately after the Government introduced this Coercion Bill that feeling at once stopped. That was one of the first results of coercion. What was one of the next results? In the month during which there was a hope that the Government were about to change their policy| agrarian outrages diminished by some 70 or 80. In the fortnight following the introduction of this Bill that diminution ceased, according to the Chief Secretary's statement. He did not know whether that diminution had been maintained, or was still checked; but it was the simple fact that in the month of April some hon. Member the other day in the House that the agrarian crime had not been largest where there had been the greatest number of evictions, and that was undoubtedly true; but agrarian crime did not necessarily follow eviction. On the contrary, crime more often preceded eviction. Agrarian crime in Ireland was not apparently undertaken by evicted people, because they had no means of undertaking it. They were thrown on to the roadside and into the workhouses, and were starved. Agrarian crime seemed to be undertaken by people in order to prevent evictions and to deter landlords from evicting. Evictions might and had come all the same; but, undoubtedly, in some of the districts where agrarian crime had been most excessive evictions had been least numerous; and what sort of a lesson was it that the Government wished to teach Irish people? That to avoid eviction they must commit outrage. That was the lesson taught by making this Coercion Bill precede the Arrears Bill. If the Government had proceeded with the Arrears Bill, and given the tenant farmers some hope that they would be able to maintain the roofs over their heads until they could get the value of the beneficial Act of last Session, they would have done more to stop agrarian crime and to help the large majority of people. who desired the restoration of law and order than all the Coercion Bills could do. The right hon. Gentleman said that | as Judges, in ordinary cases; but he did general challenges had been made in not believe there were many thousands that House by some of the Irish Mem- who had confidence in the Irish Judges bers for a statement as to in what re- as jurors, and it would be rather hard spect juries had failed in their verdicts. to expect any large number of persons They gave no general challenge, but to have confidence in the Irish Judges only in regard to cases of treason and as jurors, when the Irish Judges had treason-felony. They admitted that in no confidence in themselves as jurors. some cases juries had failed to return They had held a meeting at which they verdicts in accordance with the weight unanimously agreed in objecting to the of evidence; but in regard to the more work to be now thrown upon them. serious crimes, they challenged the Go- They had expressed in decided terms vernment to produce specific cases of their belief in their unsuitability to adfailure, and their challenge remained minister this Act and to be turned into unanswered to that day. The At-jurors. Therefore, how could the peotorney General had not been able ple have confidence in the Judges as to give a single instance. He men- jurors? The Committee was about to tioned one instance of murder, which, however, he did not believe was of an agrarian character, although he was asked to give agrarian cases. He was so utterly unable to give an instance of murder in which a jury had failed to return a verdict in accordance with the weight of evidence that he was obliged to seek another case of murder which was not agrarian, and which was not of the kind it was proposed to try under this Act. The Irish Members did not consider that the evidence given before the House of Lords' Committee could be relied upon. That Committee was appointed with the object of discrediting the Irish jury system; but it failed to do Witnesses were called for that purpose, and the loose statements which had been put together by prejudiced witnesses, with the object of discrediting the Irish jury system, were not entitled to receive weight. The inquiry was undertaken in "another place," and without any Representative on the Committee for the other side of the question. There was no public Representative whatever upon that Committee; and if the Government wanted to take away the jury system in Ireland, they might, at least, have appointed a Select Committee of the House of Commons this Sesssion which might have contained Representatives of the different sections of the House. Upon the Report of that Committee they might have founded their claim for the abolition of trial by jury. It was said that hundreds or thousands of people in Ireland had confidence in the Irish Judges. [Mr. PLUNKET: I said hundreds of thousands.] There might be hundreds of thousands who had confidence in the Irish Judges Mr. Parnell So. divide upon a very important clause; but he did not suppose that if such a proposition as this had been brought forward for England, it would have been allowed to be decided until it had been debated for many days and nights. A Ministry which had ventured to bring such a proposal forward for England or Scotland would not have remained long without impeachment. The Government were now going to subject the lives and liberties of everybody in Ireland to servants of the Crown; but they must not forget that the very foundations of the English Constitution were involved in this proposal. They might think little of suspending every Constitutional liberty in Ireland; but as they went on they would find they had made a mistake in each succeeding Coercion Act, and that in this Bill they had made the greatest mistake of all. Since they had entered upon this downward path he feared they would soon be coming again to Parliament, in the course of another year, for yet more stringent powers-perhaps Martial Law-and the same old story would be repeated, that agrarian outrages had increased, and the maintenance of law and order in Ireland was still more difficult. But, at least, the Irish Members would have the satisfaction of knowing that they had done their duty. They would remember that they had told the Government on the passage of this Bill, as they told them upon the Bill last year, that the result would be that outrages would increase; that the disregard and want of sympathy among the Irish people for the maintenance of law and order would increase; and that the possibility of bringing the two countries together, and Sir J. C. D. Pease, A. having Irelaud as well governed as it | Hay, rt. hon. Admiral Question put. Hayter, Sir A. D. Holland, Sir H. T. Repton, G. W. Holms, J. Roberts, J. The Committee divided:-Ayes 227; Howard, E. S. Noes 39: Majority 188. Dalrymple, C. Acland, Sir T. D. Alexander, Colonel Allen, H. G. Armitage, B. Armitstead, G. Asher, A. Ashley, hon. E. M. Aylmer, J. E. F. Davenport, H. T. Dawnay, Col. hon. L. P. Dodson, rt. hon. J. G. Dundas, hon. J. C. Fitzwilliam, hon.H.W. Fitzwilliam, hon. W.J. Fletcher, Sir H. Flower, C. Howard, G. J. Illingworth, A. Inderwick, F. A. James, Sir H. Jardine, R. Jenkins, D. J. Jenkins, Sir J. J. Johnson, rt. hon. W. M. Jones-Parry, L. Kennard, Col. E. H. Kingscote, Col. R. N. F. Lambton, hon. F. W. Lawrance, J. C. Lawrence, Sir J. C. Lawrence, W. Leatham, E. A. Leatham, W. H. Lechmere, Sir E. A. H. Lennox, Lord H. G. Macartney, J. W. E. Maskelyne,M.H.Story an, rt. hn. G. O. Brown, A. H. Bruce, rt. hon. Lord C. Fitzmaurice, Lord E. Bruce, Sir H. H. Monk, C. J. Moreton, Lord Morley, A. Morley, S. Fowler, R. N. Moss, R. Fry, L. Campbell- Bannerman, H. Carington, hon. R. Carington, hon. Col. W. H. P. Foljambe, C. G. S. Forster, Sir C. Giffard, Sir H. S. Gladstone, rt. hon. W. E. Gladstone, W. H. Goschen, rt. hon. G. J. Gourley, E. T. Gower, hon. E. F. L. Grafton, F. W. Grant, A. Grant, Sir G. M. Compton, F. Grantham, W. Corry, J. P. Gregory, G. B. Cotes, C. C. Grenfell, W. H. Courtney, L. H. Gurdon, R. T. Creyke, R. Hamilton, J. G. C. Harcourt, rt. hon. Sir Richardson, T. Round, J. Russell, Lord A. St. Aubyn, W. M. Smith, rt. hon. W. H. Tavistock, Marquess of Tollemache, H. J. Mundella, rt. hon. A. J. Wilmot, Sir H. |