It was inevitable that Ireland should form the most prominent topic in the Debate on the Address, because the country had scarcely recovered from the tale of horror which had been unfolded by those who were tracking the murderers of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke to their lairs. On the 13th of January seventeen men were arrested in Dublin, and on the 20th they were, with three others, charged with conspiring to murder Government officials. For the most part they were artisans of the inferior order, but one, James Carey, was a builder and contractor, and a member of the Dublin Town Council. Under the pressure of examination two of these men, Farrell and Kavanagh, turned informers. Carey, finding that other members of the gang were going to save their necks, offered to betray the conspiracy of which he had been the guiding organiser. From his evidence, it appeared that after Mr. Forster had put all the popular leaders of the Irish people in gaol, a band of desperadoes, called “the Invincibles,” was formed for the purpose of “making history,” by “removing obnoxious Irish officials.” Though an attempt was made to show that the “Invincibles” were agents of the Land League, the only evidence in favour of this supposition rested on a statement which Carey admitted he had made. Two emissaries from America furnished the “Invincibles” with their funds, and Carey said that he thought they “perhaps” got the money from the Land League. He also said that the knives used for the Phœnix Park murders were delivered in Ireland by a woman, whom he took to be Mrs. Frank Byrne, wife of a Land League official. When, however, he was confronted with Mrs. Byrne he could not identify her. It is only just to add that the diary of Mullett, one of the accused, was full of expressions of scorn for the constitutional Home Rule agitators. We may therefore safely infer that after Mr. Forster had suppressed the Land League and put its chiefs in prison, what happened in Ireland is what has happened in every country. For open agitation were substituted secret societies, and midnight assassins took the place of constitutional leaders. The conspirators appear to have long dogged Mr. Forster’s steps, but failed to get a chance of killing him. They had no desire to attack Lord Frederick Cavendish; indeed, till he was pointed out to them, they did not know him by sight. He perished on the 6th of May because he defended his companion, Mr. Burke, who had been marked for “removal.” Carey was the man who had given the signal for the advance of the murderers, and he was also base enough afterwards, at a meeting of the Home Manufacturers’ Association, to propose that a vote of condolence should be sent to Lady Frederick Cavendish. The end of it all was that five of the conspirators, Brady, Curley, Fagan, Caffrey, and Kelly, were hanged. Delaney, Fitzharris, and Mullett were sent to penal servitude for life, and the others to penal servitude for various terms. True bills were found against three individuals, Walsh, Sheridan, and Tynan, the last said to be the envoy who supplied the “Invincibles” with money, and who was only known to Carey as “Number One.” Carey was shot dead at the Cape of Good Hope by a man called O’Donnell, when on his way to a refuge in a British Colony, an offence for which O’Donnell was tried at the Old Bailey and hanged.
It was whilst the country was thrilled by Carey’s revelations that Mr. Gorst raised the Irish Question in an amendment to the Address, urging that no more concessions be made by the Government to Irish agitation. The House resounded with attacks on Mr. Parnell, who was reminded that Sheridan, against whom a true bill of murder had been found as the result of Carey’s evidence, was the same individual, whose aid in suppressing outrages he had promised to the Government. Mr. Parnell was accordingly charged with conniving at murder, the loudest of his accusers being Mr. Forster, who raked up the old story of the Kilmainham Treaty, when he delivered his indictment of Mr. Parnell on the 22nd of February. Mr. Parnell did not reply till next day. Then he contemptuously told the House that he could hold no commerce with Mr. Forster, whom he considered as an informer in relation to the secrets of his late colleagues, nay, as an informer who had not even the pretext of Carey, “namely, the miserable one of saving his own life.” The hauteur and bitterness of the speech, despite its closely-knit argument, disproving the allegation that the Home Rule leaders were consciously associated with the “Invincibles,” or could be held responsible for what was going on in Ireland after Mr. Forster had locked them up, greatly inflamed public opinion. Mr. Parnell stood charged with being the head of a constitutional agitation, some of the agents of which were now shown to be chiefs of secret societies of assassins. Without assuming that he had anything to do with the hidden lives or proceedings of these men, the public condemned Mr. Parnell because he did not, at a moment when their deeds had horrified the country, denounce their wickedness. In Ireland, however, his conduct excited the warmest admiration. Mr. Forster’s taunts he had met with supercilious disdain, and he had told Parliament that he did not care to justify himself to any one but the Irish people, who did not require him to prove that he was not an accomplice of Carey’s. A movement to present Mr. Parnell with a national testimonial was accordingly started, and the subscriptions to it ultimately reached £40,000. Mr. Forster’s attack on Mr. Parnell, at a moment when the House was excited by Carey’s evidence, may have been ungenerous. But it is to it that Mr.
THE ROUND TOWER, WINDSOR CASTLE.
Parnell owes the release of his family estate from the encumbrances that he inherited. Parliament soon grew sick of the Irish Question in 1883.
Mr. Bradlaugh, however, furnished the House of Commons once more with a personal diversion. Lord Hartington’s pledge that the Attorney-General would bring in an Affirmation Bill was followed by an undertaking from Mr. Bradlaugh, that he would not press his claim to be sworn till the fate of this measure had been determined. Though the arguments for and against such a project had already been thrashed out, it was debated for a fortnight, the Tories straining every effort to waste time over its discussion. Finally it was defeated by a vote of 292 to 289; and when Mr. Bradlaugh wrote to the Speaker claiming his right to take the oath, Sir Stafford Northcote carried a resolution prohibiting him from doing so. On the 9th of July, in reply to Mr. Bradlaugh’s threat to treat this decision as invalid, Sir Stafford revived the resolution excluding him from the precincts of the House. Mr. Bradlaugh then brought an action against the Serjeant-at-Arms for enforcing this order, which the Attorney-General was instructed to defend.
The only real progress made by the Government with business before Easter was with the Bankruptcy Bill, the main object of which was to provide for an independent examination into all circumstances of insolvency, to be conducted by officials of the Board of Trade. It was read a second time and referred to the Grand Committee on Trade, who sent it back to the House of Commons on the 25th of June. The House of Lords passed it without cavil, and Mr. Chamberlain, who had charge of the measure, was congratulated on the ability and tact which he had displayed in conducting it. The Patents Bill, which reduced inventors’ fees, had the same happy history as the Bankruptcy Bill, in whose wake it followed. The Law Bills of the Ministry were less fortunate. The Bill establishing a Court of Appeal in criminal cases was fiercely opposed by the Tories, under the leadership of Sir Richard Cross, Sir Hardinge Giffard, and Mr. Gibson. It was before the Grand Committee on Law from the 2nd of April till the 26th of June, when it was reported to the House and dropped by the Government. The Criminal Code Bill was read a second time on the 12th of April, in spite of the hostility of the Irish Party, who resisted one of the provisions enabling magistrates to examine suspected persons. In the Standing Committee, however, the Bill was so pertinaciously obstructed by Lord Randolph Churchill, Mr. Gorst, and Sir H. D. Wolff, that Sir Henry James abandoned it in despair. When Sir Henry James mentioned this fact in the House of Commons on the 21st of June, Sir H. D. Wolff asked Mr. Gladstone derisively “whether, having regard to the signal success of the principle of delegation and devolution,” he intended to refer any other Bills to Grand Committees. This question was accentuated by loud outbursts of mocking laughter from Lord Randolph Churchill, which, Mr. Gladstone declared, rendered it impossible for him even to hear the terms of the interpellation.
The Budget was introduced on the 5th of April by Mr. Childers, who stated that his estimated revenue and expenditure for the coming year would be £88,480,000 and £85,789,000. This showed a comfortable surplus which he exhausted by taking 1-1/2d. off the Income Tax, by making provisions to meet an expected loss on the introduction of sixpenny telegrams, by reductions on railway passenger duty, and by slight changes in the gun licence and in tax-collection. He also carried, in spite of strenuous opposition, a Bill to reduce the National Debt. By this Bill Mr. Childers created £40,000,000 of Chancery Stock into terminable annuities for twenty years, to follow those expiring in 1885. Then he created £30,000,000 of Savings Bank Stock into shorter annuities. As each fell in, it was to be followed by a longer one, so as to absorb the margin between the actual interest on the Debt and the sum set aside for its permanent service, thus hypothecating the taxes of the future. Mr. Childers promised, by his system, to wipe out £172,000,000 of debt in twenty years.