The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-05-21 00:00:00

THE IRISH CRIMES BILL.

The House resumed, in committee, the consideration
of the first clause of the Criminal Law Amendment
(Ireland) Bill.
'Sir W. Harcourt moved a proviso that no examination
nude: the section should be held in respect of any
matters relating to public meetings, or transaction
relating to the letting, hiring, or occupation of land, or
the dealing with, working for, or hiring of any persons
in the ordinary course of trade, business, or occupation.
He challenged the Government to explain whether they
meant their bill to apply to cases of boycotting not
connected with intimidation, and whether they would
grant to combinations of tenants in Ireland the same
protection which Parliament had given to combinations
of labourers in England. In regard to these and other
points, he insisted, the committee had a right to know
to what purposes the Government meant to apply the
powers given by the bill, and he promised that if they
would expressly restrict the measure to crime it would
pass without difficulty.
Mr. A. Balfour characterised the amendment as so
vague, so wide, and so obscure that it was impossible
to define what would be its effect. As to the right
11011. gentleman's inquiry, ha pointed out that the
Government had sufficiently defined either in the body
of the bill or in the amendments which they had put on
the paper, the conspiracies which they meant to inquire
into and to punish. They intended to confine the
operation of the bill strictly to conspiracies
which by the existing law were criminal
and indictable conspiracies. With regard to the
doubt expressed as to the competency of resident
magistrates to deal with cases of conspiracy, he
intimated that it was intended to allow an appeal in
every case from the resident magistrate to the county-
c,,urt judge. The bill was exprertsly aimed against
boycotting, and be considered that it would not be
worth going on with if boycotting were excluded from
its uperation. As to the inducement which had been
offered to the Government to make concessions, they
were distinctly of opinion that they could not yield to
obs'ruction that which they refused to argument.
The amendment having been supported by Mr.
Dillon and opposed by Mr. Baumsnn, Mr. Gladstone
observed that it would now be clearly understood by
the country that the Government declined to extend
to trades unionism in regard to land in Ireland the pro-
tection given to trades unionism of labour in England.
He insisted that the Committee had a right to know
what the Government meant by the boycotting which
they declared to be the vital point of their measure,
and whether its provisions were intended to be applied
to boycotting unattended with intimidati n. It was
not, he contended, obstraetion to press for informa-
tion on these points, and the Opposition had a right to
retort upon the Chief Secretary for Ireland that they
would not yield to tyranny what they would not yield
to argument.
The Attorney-General repeated that the bill was
directed against crime, and would not affect innocent
combinations, but only criminal conspiracies. He
denied that there was any parallel between trades
unirns in England and criminal conspiracies in Ireland.

Mr. Bradlaugh having spoken in favour of the
arm ndmeot, and Captain Oolomb against it, the dig.
mission was continued for nearly three hours by Irish
members the amendment eventually being negatived
by 242 to 180