The case of ‘Parnellism and Crime’ is essentially a political and Parliamentary difficulty of a minor kind. A newspaper has made against a group of members of the House of Commons accusations of complicity in assassination, crime and outrage. In the commencement the parties accused do not feel themselves specially aggrieved. They take no action; the Government responsible for the guidance of the House of Commons does not feel called upon to act in the matter. A member of Parliament, acting on his own responsibility, brings the matter before the House of Commons as a matter of privilege and a Select Committee is moved for to inquire into the allegations.
The Government take up an unexceptionable and perfectly constitutional position. They refuse the Select Committee on the ground marked out by Sir Erskine May, that matters which may or ought to come within the cognisance of the Courts of Law are not fit for inquiry by Select Committee.
The Government press upon the accused parties their duty, should they feel themselves aggrieved, to proceed against the newspaper legally and, with a generosity hardly open to condemnation, offer to make the prosecution of the newspaper, so far as expense is concerned, a Government prosecution. The offer is not accepted, the view of duty is disagreed from by the accused persons, the motion for a Select Committee is negatived and the matter drops, the balance of disadvantage remaining with the accused persons.
Owing to an abortive and obscurely originated action for libel, the whole matter revives. The original charges are reiterated in a court of law by the Attorney-General, but owing to the course of the suit no evidence is called to sustain the allegations. A fresh demand is made by the accused persons for a Select Committee and is refused by the Government on the same grounds as before and, as before, with a preponderating assent of public opinion. So far all is satisfactory, except to the accused parties and their sympathisers.
For reasons not known, the Government take a new departure of a most serious kind. They offer to constitute by statute a tribunal with exceptional powers, to be composed mainly of judges of the Supreme Court, to inquire into the truth of the allegations. To this course the following objections are obvious and unanswerable:
1. The offer, to a large extent, recognises the wisdom and justice of the conduct of the accused persons in avoiding recurrence to the ordinary tribunals.
2. It is absolutely without precedent. The Sheffield case, the Metropolitan Board of Works case, are by no means analogous. Into those two cases not a spark of political feeling entered. The case of ‘Parnellism and Crime’ in so far as it is not criminal is entirely political. In any event the political character of the case would predominate over the criminal.
3. It is submitted that it is in the highest degree unwise and, indeed, unlawful to take the judges of the land out of their proper sphere of duty, and to mix them up in political conflict. In this ease, whichever way they decide, they will be the object of political criticism and animadversion. Whatever their decision, speaking roughly, half the country will applaud, the other half condemn, their action; their conduct during the trial in its minutest particulars, every ruling as to evidence, every chance expression, every question put by them, will be keenly watched, canvassed, criticised, censured or praised. Were judges in England ever placed in such a position before? Will any judge emerge from this inquiry the same for all judicial purposes, moral weight and influence as he went into it? Have you a right to expose your judges, and in all probability your best judges, to such an ordeal?
4. The tribunal will conduct its proceedings by methods different to a court of law. The examination will mainly be conducted by the tribunal itself; a witness cannot refuse to reply on the ground that the answer would criminate himself. Evidence in this way will be extracted which might be made the basis of a criminal prosecution against other persons. Indemnities might be given to persons actually guilty of very grave crime, and persons much less guilty of direct participation in grave crime might, under such protected evidence, be made liable to a prosecution.
The whole course of proceeding, if the character of the allegations is remembered, will, when carefully considered, be found to be utterly repugnant to our English ideas of legal justice, and wholly unconstitutional. It is hardly exaggerating to describe the Commission contemplated as ‘a revolutionary tribunal’ for the trial of political offenders, If there is any truth in the above or colour for such a statement, can a Tory Government safely or honourably suggest and carry through such a proposal?