Br12075.26 94 86.2265

HARVARD COLLEGE LIBRARY

NOV 10 1900

CAMBRIDGE, MASS Harvard Haw Library

Rec. Oct. 27 1892

THE SPECIAL COMMISSION.

ROYAL COURTS OF JUSTICE,

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1889.

(Before the Right Honourable SIR JAMES HANNEN, MR. JUSTICE DAY, and MR. JUSTICE A. L. SMITH, Commissioners.)

The Special Commission held their 125th sitting to-day in No. 1 Probate Court of the Royal Courts of Justice.

The counsel representing The Times are the Attorney. General (Sir R. Webster, Q.C.), Sir H. James, Q.C., Mr. Murphy, Q.C., Mr. W. Graham, and Mr. G. R. Ask with, of the English Bar; and Mr. John Atkinson, Q.C., and Mr. Ronan, Q.C., of the Irish Bar.

The Commissioners took their seats on the bench at half-past 10.

SIR H. JAMES, resuming his speech on behalf of The Times, said,--There are two small subjects, my, Lords, to which I would wish to refer before proceeding with the matter with which I was dealing on Thursday last, in order to add to your Lordships' note. The first reference I would make is to a matter to which the President was good enough to direct my attention-namely, the distress that existed in Castleisland or Tralee district, in the county of Kerry, and the fact that whilst distress existed there in 1880, there was a considerable amount of crime in that district-a fact which was not in accordance with the general argument I have been presenting to your Lordships, that where there was distress there was not

a corresponding increase in crime. I have endea voured to meet the view that may be drawn from the existence of distress and crime in the same locality, by pointing out that in 1880 the crime began to increase during the latter part of the year-i.e., during the last three months. In respect to this particular district in the county of Kerry, we had a return, and that return is in evidence. It commenced in 1878 or 1879, but this particular return bears out the general return very fully. The result of this return, my Lords, is that in the first nine months of 1880 there were ten crimes of all characters. Then you will see that the crimes in January and February are not necessarily agrarian, for we find recorded such crimes as robbery of money, intimidating a gamekeeper, and obstructing a railway line. Some of them, however, are agrarian in their character, I think about six. Then will your Lordships look at the list of crimes commencing in October? There are 20 in the last three months, against ten in the previous nine months, and, moreover, they are all agrarian.

The PRESIDENT.-That would show that in that district the same law which you say is manifested with regard to the increase of crime applies. But are you going to deal with the question of 1878 ?

SIR H. JAMES.-Yes, my Lord, I shall do so at the proper time.

MR. JUSTICE A. L. SMITH.-May I ask you, Sir Henry, one question for my own information? Do you understand that the Land League was founded in County Kerry, when Mr. Biggar made that speech on October 10 ?

SIR H. JAMES.-It is difficult to fix the exact date, my Lord. There was Land Leagueism, but the Land League I should date from October, 1880.

MR. JUSTICE A. L. SMITH.-The Land League, proper?

SIR H. JAMES.-Yes, my Lord. There is one other matter to which I have to call attention. It is in reference to a quotation that appears in the note, as a quotation from the Freeman's Journal, to the following effect:-" All parts of Ford's paper teem with praise of the political agent called dynamite.'"' Your Lordships will recollect we had a discussion on the subject. I have referred to the leading article in which the quotation is founded, and I wish to say, my Lords, that that is a quotation from a leading article which formed a portion of "Parnellism and Crime." The sentence itself is a part of the article, and the quotation is "the political agent called dynamite.” We have taken that as a whole as a quotation from the Freeman's Journal, and I wish to point out that it is not so, and the substance of the matter is original matter in The Times' article.

It will be in your Lordships' recollection that I was dealing on Thursday with the accounts of the Land League, and I have endeavoured to relieve your Lordships of such detail as I possibly can and to deal simply with the main result. The result I wish to arrive at is simply this, that very large sums of money have reached the officers of the Land League, notably by Patrick Egan, and that of the expenditure of those moneys your Lordships have had no account. Upon the exact amount of the sum unaccounted for I do not care to dwell or to discuss it at any great length. Whether it was £50,000 or £58,000, there was an opportunity for evil-doing within the area of either of these amounts, and your Lordships have not the burden cast upon you of ascertaining what the exact amount was. I will therefore take the table as we find it according to Egan's own accounts which appear in the evidence. I strike out all relief accounts, although even there there is apparently more money received than was accounted for; but I will assume that the relief accounts and the trial defence