ice force had only increased e did not wish to trouble the that time of night by going ulars of many of the occurch had caused the alarm to ad referred; but he believed Secretary was fully aware that been a considerable amount consternation caused by the of the streets in and about of the Metropolis. He (Colonel vished to tender to the right learned Gentleman the thanks habitants for the way in which had endeavoured to assist those unfortunately suffered from this ; and, no doubt, it was only for attention to be called to n order to have the matter still ooked into. He would simply, , take this opportunity of movResolution of which he had given For the purpose of enabling the n. and learned Gentleman to deal The Resolution was— as the population of West Ham and ent parishes has been and is rapidly , it is desirable that the police force so be increased, so as to maintain its proportion to the population." matter. 1 letters from people of West etailing assaults, alarms to ser-young girls and others-but, as said, at that late hour he would uble the House by going into He would leave the matter, with nce, in the hands of the Home ary; and he would only say that son he had so long delayed bring e question forward was, because, one or two occasions on which he and the opportunity, the right hon. earned Gentleman had not been nt, and he (Colonel Makins) had hought it right or desirable to le the House with the subject in sence of that Member of the Go ment. endment proposed, leave out from the word "That" to the f the Question, in order to add the words the population of West Ham and the ent parishes has been and is rapidly inng, it is desirable that the police force d also be increased, so as to maintain its Everoportion to the population,"-(Colonel hereof. proposed, "That the words SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I am much obliged to the hon. and gallant Member for having called attention to this subject; but these questions on Supply are very uncertain, and frequently come on without our being prepared for them. I have a box containing documents and references in regard to this subject; but as I was not aware that the question was likely to come on tonight, I did not take the precaution to provide myself with it. However, these matters are not controversial, and it is not necessary that I should enter into minute details upon them. Of course, in dealing with such a vast population as that of London, we experience an immense difficulty in apportioning the police-unless we were to increase the numbers to an extent that would be burdensome to the population, we should experience great difficulty in apportionThere are ing the police exactly to meet the requirements of all districts. some districts that require a larger proportion of police than anyone would, at first sight, calculate that the Metropolis needs. There are parts that are com- trict may be more disturbed at one time COLONEL MAKINS said, he was satisfied with the answer of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and would ask leave to withdraw the Motion. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn. Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to. SUPPLY-CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES. (In the Committee.) CLASS II.-SALARIES AND EXPENSES (1.) £353,450, to complete the sum for Stationery and Printing. SIR HENRY HOLLAND said, there had been some Resolutions passed by the Public Accounts Committee this Session, at the instigation of the head of the Stationery Department, which he hoped would be productive of a very beneficial effect. There were also points on which Resolutions had been proposed; but it had been considered advisable to leave the Department to further consider these matters. The main question had been whether it would not be possible very largely to lessen the supply of Blue Books and other Papers. MR. COURTNEY was understood to say that the matter was under the consideration of the Government. MR. R. N. FOWLER said, he thought it might be inconvenient to lessen the supply of Blue Books and Papers to hon. Members. Some hon. Members took an interest in one subject and not in another, and probably all the Blue Books were interesting to one section or another of Members of the House, and he should be sorry to hear that their circulation was to be stopped. SIR HENRY HOLLAND said, he thought great expense would be saved if the Blue Books in print were named in a schedule, so that hon. Members could ask for those they wanted. Vote agreed to. bers to oppose this Vote, and he did not think they should depart from the custom on the present occasion. He was afraid a good deal of Secret Service money had found its way to Ireland during the past six or 12 months. He did not suppose the Secretary to the Treasury the only Representative of the Government on the Front Ministerial Bench-was responsible for the manner in which this money was employed, or was aware that the Government were, at who was known to be an assassin for the present moment, employing a man the purpose of prosecuting men and getting them sent to penal servitude, for if the hon. Member was acquainted with this circumstance he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) thought that even he would hesitate to countenance the voting of this money. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) knew perfectly well, from what had happened on other occasions, that no information would be vouchsafed the Committee as to the precise manner in which this Secret Service money was expended; but he thought the Irish Members had a right to know how much was spent in Ireland, and whether any of it was used How, he should like to know, could for the purpose of suborning perjury. the Secretary to the Treasury or any honourable man take part in voting this money when the questionable purposes to which it was put were so well known? He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) did not say that Secret Service money was not a of it, he supposed, was required in necessary adjunct to Government. Some Government to make out that a foreign Egypt to produce evidence to enable the invader like England was more pleasing to the Egyptian people than a chief of their own country; but what he and his Friends did object to was that part of this money should be spent in Ireland (2.) £15,187, to complete the sum for for the demoralization of the people. the Woods, Forests, &c. Office. (3.) £30,480, to complete the sum for the Works and Public Buildings Office. (4.) Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £13,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1883, for Her Majesty's Foreign and other Secret Services." MR. T. P. O'CONNOR said, it was a time-honoured custom for Irish Mem If the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury could assure him that none of the Secret Service money was spent in Ireland, his opposition would cease. He invited the hon. Member to make some declaration on that point-to say whether or not, since he had been in Office, large sums of this Secret Service money had been spent in Ireland, as it had been in the time of his (Mr. Courtney's) Predecessors. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) begged to move the reduction of the Vote by £5,000, which, to hazard a conjecture, he should say was about the sum which MR. SEXTON said, he wished, in a few words, to support the Motion made by the hon. Member for the City of Galway. The hon. Member had necessarily been under a difficulty in moving the reduction of this Vote, for the reason that no such information was afforded the Committee as would enable the hon. Member to gauge the amount by an accurate knowledge of the facts. If the Committee had been placed in a position to know for what purpose the money had been spent in Ireland, they would have been able to form some idea as to how much of the amount of the Vote had been spent legitimately, and how much had been spent for purposes of demoralization; and they would have been able to say with greater certainty by how much the Vote should be reduced. There was no Vote ever presented in such a vague, shadowy, and unsatisfactory form as this. They were told it was for Secret Service, and though they were informed that it was required for "Her Majesty's Foreign and other Secret Services," the Government did not give them such information as enabled them to see how much was given for Foreign Secret Service, and how much was given for Secret Service at home. There were circumstances connected with politics in Ireland which rendered it desirable that they should understand this Vote a little, and which increased the obligation on the part of the Irish Members to make inquiries into the subject, with a view of ascertaining, as far as possible, how the money was spent. When the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) was Chief Secretary for Ireland a Circular was sent round to the Constabulary, offering money rewards for information of sums ranging from £10 to £100. It had been said that this had led to a system of spying, and to taking people into public-houses and making them drunk for the sake of getting information from them. He was not aware of any valuable results to the Public Service which had sprung from these vile and discreditable practices; but he knew that, in two instances at least, shameful perjury had been caused. He should like to know how the Government defended this system, and he should like the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury to tell them whether or not, in his opinion, such expenditure of public money had been attended with useful or beneficial results? He (Mr. Sexton) was inclined to think that such had not been the case-that it had resulted in demoralization of the individual character, but not in any useful consequences to the Public Service. It was a serious thing for the Government of a country like England to embark in an expenditure of public money which induced the baser characters in a political conflict to depart from the ordinary sources and fields of information, and to debauch people and make them drunk in order to obtain information. Such expenditure, even if it did nothing more than demoralize individuals, must be put a stop to. He (Mr. Sexton) would ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether any of this money now to be voted was used for shameful purposes of that kind? They had heard of the departure of Colonel Brackenbury from Dublin, and had heard that it was because, when he had been appointed to his office, he had used the public money for purposes of which the Lord Lieutenant did not approve-in the employment of Belgian and French detectives, for instance, in the use of lady spies, and in the adoption of all the features of the Continental police system. It was a source of gratification to him (Mr. Sexton) to see that Lord Spencer had declined to agree to such a scheme, and that Colonel Brackenbury had found himself under the necessity of precipitately abandoning his post. It would be useful if the Secretary to the Treasury would inform them what were the arrangements Colonel Brackenbury proposed, and whether, under the present system of Secret Service in Ireland, any such arrangements were adopted? Such things had been held to be abhorrent to British opinion and sentiment. The question at the present moment was one of special and significant importance in face of the rumours they had heard of late; therefore, he thought the hon. Member for Galway had raised a timely opposition to the Vote. MR. ANDERSON said, he had always been opposed to this Secret Service Vote, holding that it was one with which no the Vote by £5,000. The adoption of Liberal Government should have any- this Motion would not prevent the Gothing to do; but here they were asked vernment from making use of this inito vote for an arbitrary reduction of the quitous fund in Ireland, because it was Vote by £5,000, which sum hon. Mem- well known that the sum voted was bers thought might probably be spent more than was needed, and was not in Ireland. Hon. Members, without always expended. Besides the £23,000 attacking the principle of Secret Ser- voted in the Estimates, there was a vice, simply wished to offer opposition fixed sum of £10,000, which the Goto that which they considered about the vernment obtained for Secret Service amount expended on Secret Service in from the Consolidated Fund. That sum Ireland. It did not appear to him (Mr. they always used; but the amount Anderson) that that was at all the proper claimed from the Estimates was not thing to do; therefore, he was obliged to always expended, and in the year 1881 decline to follow those hon. Members there was a balance of between £7,000 in their opposition. If they had adopted and £8,000 left, which was returned to the other course, and had gone against the Exchequer. Unless the plan of proSecret Service altogether, he should ceeding of the Government was getting have supported them. worse from year to year, it was reasonable to suppose that there was a sum of at least £7,000 by which this Vote might be reduced, without in the least curtailing the power of the Government to manufacture witnesses, or do anything else they wished to turn their resources to. There was one point connected with the fund upon which he would ask the Secretary to the Treasury to give him some information; and he was sorry the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Halifax (Mr. Stansfeld) was not in his place to put the question instead of him. The right hon. Member concerned himself with the question of public morality in a very remarkable manner, and that not only in regard to the people of this country, but in regard to people living in such a place as Hong Kong. A charge had been made-supported, he (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) believed, by official Correspondence which no one seemed to be entitled to make public-that some of this Secret Service money was used for most infamous purposes in Hong Kong-for purposes that had seriously to do with the question of morality. He would like to ask the Secretary to the Treasury to give the Committee an assurance that no money from this fund was being employed in the dissemination of immorality in Hong Kong, and also whether he could give an official disclaimer that the Secret Service money was then being employed in Ireland by the police for the manufacture of evidence. At a trial which had taken place recently in Ireland, a person, whose evidence was not shaken in crossexamination, testified that a constable named Dalton told him that a constable was authorized to offer £1,000 for evi MR. COURTNEY said, he was sorry to say he was not in a position to give any very satisfactory answer to hon. Members on the subject of this Vote. As had been before stated, when questions of this kind had arisen, this sum for Secret Service was distributed amongst the heads of Departments, who gave no vouchers for the amounts they received, the money being left to be spent at their discretion. It was perfectly impossible for him to say how any amount given to the head of a Department had been expended by that Gentleman; and as to what had been said about Earl Spencer and Colonel Brackenbury, the fact was, as had been stated by the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, Colonel Brackenbury had left his post for a personal reason having no connection whatever with the Public Service. That, he (Mr. Courtney) thought, was a sufficient answer to the scandal the hon. Member had referred to. MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR said, he hardly thought the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Courtney) could be right when he said that no vouchers were rendered by the Secretary of State as to the manner in which they expended the moneys received under this Vote. As a matter of fact, last year there was an item of £110 first of all granted under this head, and then returned to the Exchequer. This sum came before the notice of the Controller and Auditor General, and was certified by him as having been refunded; therefore, there must have been a voucher as to the expenditure of the money. He agreed with the course taken by his hon. Friend (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) in moving the reduction of Mr. Anderson dence to convict persons falsely accused. He hoped the hon. Gentleman would give a denial to the statement that the police were authorized to offer Secret Service money to Crown witnesses in Ireland. MR. COURTNEY said, although he rose to reply, as far as he could, to the questions of the hon. Member who had just sat down, he was really in a position to add little, or nothing, to the answer he had given to the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton). He had already explained that he had no control over, or any knowledge of, the way in which the Secret Service money was disbursed by the heads of the various Departments of State. From his knowledge, however, of the Departmental accounts, he was perfectly confident that no such sum as that of £1,000 had been paid by any Department for the purpose indicated by the hon. Member. The manner in which the Secret Service money was disbursed was known to the responsible officer at the head of each Department alone, and at the end of the year that officer made a declaration, which was sent to the Office of the Controller and Auditor General, in this form "I hereby certify that the actual amount expended by myself or under my direction in the year ending on the 31st day of March, was £-." The hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) had also referred to supposed transactions with the Secret Service money in Hong Kong. With regard to that, he believed the hon. Member was under a misapprehension, because it had been proved that the money spent in Hong Kong had reference to the Revenue only, and could not have been applied to purposes which he need not further particularize. MR. SEXTON wished to draw attention to the case of the two brothers Flanagan, tried for firing into a dwelling-house. The chief witness against them was a young farm servant named Malony, 17 years of age, who swore that he saw them firing into the house. The Judge who presided at the trial told the jury that the case rested on the evidence of Malony alone; but the jury found the prisoners guilty. One of them was released; but, upon the evidence of this wretch Malony, the other was still suffering penal servitude. He asked whether it was by the use of the Secret Service money that the Government had been able to get the evidence of this man, and whether it was also out of that fund that he had been maintained in England, and finally sent to America? MR. T. P. O'CONNOR said, as he had always a desire to meet the wishes of hon. Members, he would, after having brought the objectionable nature of the Vote before the Committee, ask permission to withdraw his Motion. Motion, by leave, withdrawn. The Committee divided:-Ayes 77; Noes 12: Majority 65. — (Div. List, No. 304.) (5.) Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a sum, not exceeding £4,171, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1883, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Department of the Queen's and Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer in Exchequer, Scotland, of certain Officers in Scotland, and other Charges formerly on the Hereditary Revenue." MR. BIGGAR said, that this Vote had been the subject of much discussion in former years, on account of the objectionable character of some of the items included in it. In the first place, it was most objectionable that the large sum of £500 a-year should be paid as salary to the Lyon King-of-Arms. This money was really thrown away, for it was perfectly well known that the office was a sinecure, and that whatever was done in connection with it was of no public utility. He hoped, therefore, the Government would give an assurance that when the present occupant of the office died, they would not fill up the vacancy. Then there was the items of Queen's Plates, which included the plate to be run for at Edinburgh, the plate for the Caledonian Hunt, and the plate for the Royal Company of Archers as the Queen's Body Guard. Now, the money asked for under this head was practically for no other purpose than the encouragement of gambling, and he had always objected to this portion of the Vote, because he entertained the belief that the encouragement of gambling by any Government was in itself thoroughly immoral. They were quite aware of the general argument put forward in support of this practice of offering plates to be run for in different parts of the country |