(3) Law and Order
The maintenance of law and order is the first duty of a Government, and if it could be proved that the proposed measure of Home Rule for Ireland would lead to crime and disorder, the cause would lose many of its more prominent adherents. To those, however, who are interested in the administration of the law—and particularly the criminal law—it is obvious that Home Rule will have the effect of still further diminishing crime, and will also enable considerable saving to be effected in the sums now spent on law charges and criminal prosecutions. At the present time, and indeed for many years past, Ireland has been practically crimeless. The Judges at the Spring Assizes, 1912, were unanimous in describing all the counties in Ireland, except two, [pg 161] as peaceable and orderly, and free from serious crime. In two counties—Fermanagh and Carlow—there were no cases whatever for trial, and it was only in Galway and Clare that dissatisfaction was expressed with the present state of affairs, and even in those counties the affected districts comprised a very limited area. The following table taken from the report of the General Prisons Board for Ireland for 1910, shows how the Government have been able to close prisons in consequence of the diminution of crime and reduction in the number of prisoners:
“The number of prisons and bridewells,” says the report, “under the control of the General Prisons Board on the 1st April, 1878—the date when the local prisons and bridewells were transferred to the Board—and now is as follows:—
| 1878. | 1910. |
| 4 Convict Prisons. | 1 Convict Prison. |
| 38 Local Prisons. | 1 Joint Convict and Local Prison. |
| 95 Bridewells. | 15 Local Prisons. |
| 6 Bridewells.” |
The Unionist Associations of Ireland have recently published a handbook called “The Home Rule ‘Nutshell’ Examined by an Irish Unionist” in which it is stated (p. 69) “The only crime that is complained of in Ireland is the organized crime due to the inspired agitation of the United Irish League. Without that Ireland would be comparatively crimeless.” No proof has ever been given that the United Irish League has taken any part in the organization of crime, and beyond all doubt in many instances it has been instrumental in preventing it. It cannot, of course, be denied that in certain parts of the country instances of boycotting and cattle driving occur, but such occurrences will certainly not increase, and are more likely to cease altogether when Ireland is governed by an Irish [pg 162] Executive chosen by the people, and responsible to the people for the good government of the country. The Unionist complaint is, not so much that an Irish Executive will not be able to enforce the law, but that it will be unwilling to do so in certain cases, and will exercise a dispensing power as to whether the decrees of the Courts shall or shall not, in particular cases, be enforced.[113] If it were within the power of the Executive to prevent the police or military from being called upon to protect the civil officers of the law in the discharge of their duties, it would, no doubt, be possible to paralyze the administration of justice, but it is well settled that a sheriff, or anybody charged with the execution of a writ of a competent Court, has the right to require the assistance of constables, and indeed of any of the liege subjects of the Crown, and that the Executive has no power to prevent such assistance being given. This was laid down by the Common Law Judges in England in the well-known case of “Miller v. Knox”[114] and still more emphatically by the Lord Chief Baron (Palles) of the Exchequer in Ireland in the case of the Woodford prisoners at the Connaught Winter Assizes of 1886.[115] The Lord Chief Baron said:
“I desire it to be thoroughly understood that the execution of the decrees of the judiciary in this country does not depend—as it does not, I believe, in any civilised country—upon the will of the Executive who, for the moment, may happen to be in office. Into the execution of our writ we cannot allow any question of party politics to enter. If the law be wrong, let the law be altered by the Legislature, and the judges will, at the moment, carry out the law as altered. They cannot look beyond the law. They [pg 163] cannot, in the administration of that law, contemplate alterations at a future time. Their sworn duty is to give to him who asks it that which he is entitled to by law. It is not competent to them, or to any other person, to go behind the law and to ask whether, in his own opinion, or in the opinion of others, the law is just or unjust. With them the only consideration must be that is the law. They are bound to pronounce the law. From that pronouncement there is an appeal to the highest court in the realm. But when judgment is once given—the judgment of a court of law, acting within the scope of its jurisdiction—it is not competent to anyone in this kingdom, I care not how high he may be, to say that a writ regularly issued on foot of that judgment shall not be executed, or to prevent those who by law are bound to aid in its execution from giving that aid and assistance which the Constitution requires.”
In 1893 the County Inspector of the Royal Irish Constabulary in County Kerry, by the direction of the Executive, refused the assistance of the Constabulary to the Sheriff of the County, when he desired to execute certain writs of the superior Courts in the night time. The Sheriff thereupon applied to the Queen's Bench Division for an attachment against the County Inspector, and the Court unanimously made the order.[116] The Lord Chief Justice (Lord O'Brien) in giving judgment said (p. 238):
“I wish to point out that, according to the opinion of all the judges who were called in to advise the House of Lords in the case of Miller v. Knox,[117] refusal, unjustified by the occasion, as, in my opinion, the refusal in the present case was, to protect the sheriff in the execution of his duty, when protection is sought by him, in the honest exercise of his discretion, to enable him to discharge his duty in the execution of civil process, is punishable, by indictment, by criminal information, and, as was established in Miller v. Knox by the summary process of this court. The official, be he Under Secretary or Chief Secretary (I do not, of course, refer to his Excellency the Lord-Lieutenant), who directed Mr. Waters not to comply with the sheriff's demand for protection, has rendered himself [pg 164] amenable to the criminal law, is liable to be tried by indictment, to have a criminal information exhibited in this court against him, or to be attached by the summary process of this court.”
There can be no doubt, therefore, that the Irish Executive will be bound to give assistance and protection to sheriffs or other lawful officers executing any legal process of a competent Court, and if such assistance is not given the Courts will be able to assert their supremacy in the various ways pointed out by the Lord Chief Justice.
A great deal of capital has recently been made in the Unionist Press on account of the promulgation of the Motu Proprio “Quantavis Diligentia.” It has been asserted that this decree applies to Ireland and will necessarily embarrass catholic officials in the discharge of their public duty. The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin has, however, fully explained the meaning of the decree, and has shown that it does not apply to any country where there has prevailed against it, as there has long prevailed against it in Ireland, a custom invested with the conditions required by the Canon Law.[118] He further says (p. 36):