make such changes prematurely; but | pletely in sympathy with the accused that he would ask them to consider them. no intimidation was necessary; and also There were at present 600 or 700 men that many of the acts which were conin gaols in Ireland without trial. If sidered crimes by us, and which were many of those imprisoned were not rightly considered crimes, were not conguilty of murder, they were guilty of sidered crimes at all by the jurors who had inciting to murder; and if a Commis- to try them. As regarded the last, if a sion of Judges were sent down to dis- crime was not regarded as a crime by tricts such as that with which he was jurors, trial by jury became a meanparticularly acquainted to try those ingless farce; while the only practical men who had been taken up by twenties, way in which jurors who were intithirties, and fifties, it would be much midated could be saved from that inmore satisfactory to everyone concerned, timidation was by relieving them from and would soon put an end to the law- their duties; because, whatever alteralessness which was kept up by those tion of the law was made, and however wretched secret societies which existed much they hoped that the state of Irein Ireland. It would be a good thing land would improve, no reasonable man for Ireland, and have a much better could be sanguine enough to expect that effect than imprisonment without trial. intimidation would become impossible in He therefore trusted the Government Ireland in a short time. Even if the would consider whether it was not rating qualification for jurors could be much better to have a ready and prompt made much higher-and the Report trial by a Commission of Judges, or showed that that was impracticable-the even the establishment of martial law, effect would be bad, because it would be than to allow the country to drift into indirectly superseding trial by jury whilst a still more dangerous state than it was retaining the form, and it would tend at present. No one was better pleased very much to increase that bitterness than he was by the success of the Win-between class and class which already ter Assizes; but he was much afraid that its effect would be to prop up the Irish jury system for a while longer. He could not agree with the noble Lord the Lord Privy Seal that the difficulties which they now experienced would be put an end to by a change of venue, and the opinion of all the Judges was to

that effect.

THE EARL OF DUNRAVEN said, he was delighted to hear the noble Duke (the Duke of Argyll), with his usual eloquence, advocate what he (the Earl of Dunraven) had himself long looked upon as the only common-sense view of that matter, and declare that, in view of the valuable evidence and the most able Report of the Committee which had inquired into the Irish Jury system, and taking into consideration what they knew to be the state of Ireland, the only thing that could under the circumstances be done, with any practical effect, would be to substitute some other form of trial, instead of trial by jury, for dealing with cases of an agrarian nature. The Committee said that justice had almost completely failed in Ireland owing to various reasons. They reported that in many cases juries were subject to such intimidation that they dared not convict; that in others they were so com

suspects" in

prevailed too much in Ireland. Various
alterations were suggested by the Com-
mittee, which would no doubt be bene-
ficial. But to suppose that those
alterations could possibly work such
a change in the condition of the coun-
try and in the temper of the people,
and in the view they took of crime
of an agrarian nature, was to ignore
the whole modern history of Ire-
land. The case of the
prison had been commented upon, and
he would wish to add a word or two
on that point. He felt very deeply how
discreditable it was to England, and
especially, as it seemed to him, to the
Liberal Party, that between 600 and
700 men should now be in prison in
Ireland without any trial whatever, and
without either themselves, their friends,
or the public having any opportunity
of knowing the particulars of the crimes
of which they were accused, or the evi-
dence which could be brought against
them. He did not mean to say that
strong powers of the kind taken by the
Government were not necessary; but he
had thought from the first that there
were two alternatives open to the Go-
vernment at that time.
They could
either have asked Parliament to give
them power of trying prisoners for

certain offences by some other mode that the Chief Secretary for Ireland than by jury, or they could have ob- the other day said in a speech which tained strong and exceptionally arbitrary he made in County Clare that the powers. The Government adopted the "suspects" would not be released until latter course and obtained the powers the people of Ireland behaved themthey required, though it was doubtful selves better. That appeared to him to whether Parliament would have granted be quite another matter. He did not them if they had foreseen how they know whether it was that, having rewould be used; but he believed that verted somewhat to medieval ideas in the former course would have been our system of dealing with land tenure, very more efficacious, and it would have it was also thought right to revert to saved this country from that which had medieval notions in other matters, and to happened-namely, that, owing to the take hostages for the good behaviour of way in which they had exercised their people. According, however, to the Chief powers, the Liberal Party had been Secretary for Ireland, those 600 or 700 utterly discredited in Ireland. Trial by men were to be held in prison until jury in Ireland in certain cases had long their countrymen learned to behave ago been shown to be useless. How many themselves more decently. He agreed times had it not been found necessary with the noble Duke that strengthening to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act in the present law would, besides being Ireland; and would it be contended that more Constitutional, be much more effiIreland, under those circumstances, was cacious than that system of arbitrary in the enjoyment of those liberties which arrest. There was a difficulty in dealwere looked to be secured by trial by ing with the " suspects; " but there jury? It would be absurd. Trial by would not have been such a difficulty jury, without the Habeas Corpus Act, if Parliament had boldly grasped the became a mere name and nothing more. question, and endeavoured to come to Men's liberties would be much better a conclusion at first. If England was guarded if there were some kind of to continue to govern Ireland, and if trial instituted whereby justice might remedial measures and measures such be meted out to those offenders who as the Land Act were to have a fair now got off scot free, than when men trial, it was absolutely necessary that could be imprisoned without any form the weak should be protected against of trial whatever, and when the Lord the strong, that those who were guilty Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary for of crime should suffer punishment, and Ireland could incarcerate any man with- that the law-abiding should not be out he himself or his friends knowing afraid to range themselves on the side what was the charge that could be of law and order. From the experience brought against him, or what was the of many years past, that appeared to nature of the evidence to be adduced. be impossible in Ireland under trial by Trial by a Commission of Judges would jury. It was the first duty of any Gobe infinitely preferable to a system under vernment to see that the weak were which men were punished without any protected, that law-abiding citizens did trial at all. At any rate, the whole cir- not suffer for ranging themselves on the cumstances of the case would be known side of law and order, that the innocent to the accused and to the public. He should be unmolested and the guilty thought the question of the suspects" punished; and if that could not be done was a very serious one. To some of by trial by jury, it was the first duty of the "suspects" imprisonment, as now a Government to see that it was done by carried out, was scarcely any punish- some other means. ment at all; while to others, owing to their circumstances in life or the effect it had on their business, the deprivation of personal liberty was a very great punishment indeed. So far as he recollected, the object of the Coercion Act was that persons who were reasonably suspected might be held in gaol in order that they should not incite the people to commit certain crimes; but he saw

EARL FORTESCUE said, that he agreed with almost every word uttered by the noble Earl (the Earl of Dunraven), and in none more emphatically than that it was the first duty of a Government to use all its power for the preservation of law and order, for the protection of the innocent and the punishment of the guilty. He did not, however, believe that the obviously desirable mea

at Dublin, and he believed that safe measures could be carried if his views on the subject were fully considered. If any sudden outbreak should prevail, martial law might be proclaimed; but no hasty declaration of intentions could do any good.

ENGLAND AND FRANCE - THE
CHANNEL TUNNEL SCHEME.

OBSERVATIONS.

scattered through the country; and it was all the more dangerous now that their numbers were increased. In case of difficulty or invasion the Irish Militia could not remain in Ireland. All this evinced the deep-rooted disaffection of the Irish masses, and the intensity of their hostility to English government, law, and connection, which proved that it would be a misprision of common sense and every principle of the art of war and strategy to give to a foreign enemy the means of a successful invasion of England by the Tunnel-afforded him by traitors in the camp, such as Fenian soldiers. To show the bad spirit which prevailed amongst Irish soldiers at times, he would state that during his period of command in Ireland, which began in 1865-the commencement of the Fenian period-it was his painful duty to bring

LORD STRATHNAIRN, in rising to call attention to the danger of establishing railway communication with the Continent, in connection with the widespread disaffection now and constantly prevailing in Ireland, and the uncertain reliance to be placed on the immature soldiers of our army as lately exemplified in South Africa, said, it was impossible to comprehend the great dan-to courts martial no less than 80 soldiers ger of England's changing her insular position, which had always protected her freedom and her independence, and made her the greatest naval and commercial nation in the world, for a railway communication-that was, a land communication with France and the Continent-unless they contemplated the question by the light of past and present times. That contemplation was most discouraging as regarded Ireland, which he had mentioned in his Notice, and was the perpetual cause of England's weakness and anxiety. Ireland's proverbial and treasonable watchword was"England's difficulty is Ireland's opportunity." Then foreign affairs indicated, he feared, a change of that national policy which for centuries had upheld their possessions in India, and their commercial and maritime rights in the Mediterranean and the East. The disaffected masses in Ireland had never been able to take the field against our organized troops; but they had been able to organize Riband Societies and carry on agrarian campaigns. They had asked for and obtained no fewer than 11 times foreign aid, for war against England, in men, arms, and munitions of war. They had also instilled into Irish soldiers treasonable disaffection. Our distrust of the Irish Militia prevented their being called out for training. It was dangerous to allow the first-class Army Reserve in Ireland -all Irish trained soldiers-to remain without officers or military organization,

for different degrees of treason. In all the foreign quartermaster-generals' departments, Ireland was noted, on account of her disaffected population, as the point of descent, either for diversion in favour of a descent on some part of the English coast, or as the base of an actual invasion; and he had no doubt if a foreign enemy attacked us on the shores of Ireland, we should have to contend against an enemy from within as well as one from without. Under such circumstances, what was to be done with the Irish regiments? He would not go into all the details of how these numerous regiments, with sympathetic masses in the towns and districts, might operate. Favoured by night, the Tunnel might fall into the hands of an enemy, who would lose no time in entrenching the heights above it as a defence for the first invaders, reinforcing them to any extent with concentrations carried through the Tunnel. All this would be accompanied, as a matter of course, by continued feints along the coast, which, as frequently happened, might divert from the Tunnel attention and troops. The strategy would be facilitated by the probable collapse of the moral courage of our under-aged soldiers enrolled under the short-service system, which gave us immature and inefficient men, whose numbers were increased by fraudulent enlistment. But, besides the under-age of the troops, which might cause Tunnel disaster, there were other causes which would operate unfavourably in

a