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Dáil Éireann - Volume 29 - 08 May, 1929

Juries Protection Bill, 1929—Second Stage.

[1553] Minister for Justice (Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney): It will be within the recollection of this House that two very terrible crimes were committed recently in this city. In one an attempt was made to murder Mr. White, a juryman, who, in a perfectly clear case, had, with his fellow-jurymen, brought in a verdict of “guilty.” Fortunately in this case, though Mr. White received very serious injuries, his assailants did not achieve their full object. Unfortunately in another case, the case of Mr. Armstrong, his assailants were more successful. In cold blood they murdered this unfortunate young man. A more deliberate, more unjustifiable murder could not be committed. It remains and must remain an indelible stain on this country. It shocked and it must shock the feelings of every person in this country who fears God and who believes that the Ten Commandments are still a binding force on the consciences of men. What did Mr. White do? What was his offence? A person was charged with, on two different occasions, shooting at two different Guards, with intent to do them grievous bodily harm. The case was perfectly clear. Mr. White and his fellow-jurymen brought in the only verdict they could in conscience bring in, a verdict of guilty. For this an attempt was made to murder Mr. White, and the names of the other jurors have been circulated far and wide. Certain newspapers— disreputable I style them—have expressed their approval of these acts.

The approbation of those who consider that jurymen, that witnesses, that Civic Guards are outlaws and have no moral right to live in this country has been freely, widely expressed. What had Mr. Armstrong done? He had given evidence—im-material evidence, in fact, because without his evidence a verdict of guilty must equally have been brought in. He had given evidence against four young men charged with [1554] the larceny of a Union Jack. These men were found guilty. They were not sentenced to any term of imprisonment. They were released immediately the verdict was brought in. For this, Mr. Armstrong was murdered. It is perfectly obvious that the criminal association that does these things has its organisers —men almost indifferent as to whom they murder, provided they can get murder done. It seems these organisers have instruments to their hands willing to carry out their mandates, no matter how terrible those mandates may be. Now, these two crimes have led us to make a very close investigation into the working of the jury system in this country. We have examined the workings of that system very narrowly and we have concluded that real improvements in the jury system can be effected and for that purpose we have introduced this Bill, not as a temporary expedient, but as a permanent measure. We are altering the existing system so as to make it meet present-day requirements. In some respects, we are innovating, in other respects we are retracing our steps, but we are striving always to safeguard the lives and liberties of jurymen and witnesses and providing, as far as it is humanly possible for us to provide, that justice will be done between the people in this country and the persons who are charged with crime. We are endeavouring to see that no innocent man shall be convicted and, on the other hand, that no criminal shall escape the punishment due to his crime.

I will now go through the Bill shortly, section by section. The first section is merely interpretative and constructive. The second section gives power to transfer, in certain cases, to the county registrar, duties now imposed upon the under sheriff. No doubt, it is within the knowledge of the House that the office of under sheriff is an office which is being abolished universally in this country, that as soon as the existing under sheriffs resign their office or their office otherwise falls in, the duties now carried out by the under [1555] sheriff will be carried out by the county registrar. Section 2 enables that procedure to be expedited; without the resignation or other falling-in of the office of under sheriff, where it is deemed expedient, the county registrar will have the duty of preparing the jurors' list and summoning the jurors. The object, of course, of that is that there may be more secrecy as to the names of those who are called upon to serve upon juries. That leads me to Section 3 of the Act, which provides that the jury panel shall be a confidential, official document and that the accused person shall not be entitled as of right to a copy of the jury panel.

Here, as I mentioned a few moments ago, we are retracing our steps. We are going back to the old common law. Under the common law, down to the 17th and 18th Victoria, cap. 26, no person indicted for any offence was entitled to a copy of the jury panel. By that particular statute, an English statute passed in the time of Queen Anne was made to extend to this country, and persons tried for the crime of high treason or tried for misprision of treason were entitled to a copy of the jury panel. No other prisoners were entitled to a copy of the jury panel, and that is the existing law in England to this very day. In England, a person charged with any offence, except treason or misprision of treason, is not entitled to a copy of the jury panel. In Ireland, an alteration was made by the Juries Act, 1871, which has been practically, in effect. carried on by our Juries Act of 1927. Under those Acts, any person, whether he was connected with the case or not, was entitled for a trifling sum to obtain a copy of the panel of jurors. Everybody who lives in this country and who keeps his ears and eyes open must know how that right of the public to obtain the jury panel has been abused. Quite recently, not merely here in the City of Dublin, but also in country districts, jurors have been circularised, have been threatened, and every effort has been made to [1556] tamper with the sources of justice. That is a condition of affairs that we cannot allow to continue. Accordingly, we revert to the old principle, that the prisoner shall have his right of challenge as it exists at present, but that nobody shall have a document setting out the names of jurors. By those means, jurors will be protected, when they are summoned, from the threats and intimidation to which they are at present exposed by certain persons.

Section 4 of the Act goes on to explain how the jury shall be called. At present, under Sections 46 and 47 of the principal Act—that is the Juries Act of 1927—the names of the jurymen are called over in Court. They answer to their names in Court. Their names are marked off. They are then recalled for the special case, and are challenged or are not challenged, as the case may be. Finally, if they are not challenged or stood-by, they are sworn. That goes on until the full jury of twelve has been empanelled. Now, under the new procedure, it will be open to a juryman, if he wishes, to go in before the county registrar and have his name mentioned to the county registrar.

The county registrar will then tick off his name upon the list. The panel of those who have not availed themselves of that method will then be called over in court, but while it is being called over in court there will be nobody present except the other jurymen and certain persons whose names are set out in sub-section C. The only other persons in court will be the officers of the court, Guards on duty in the court, and, if he wishes, the presiding Judge. From that time onward, that is when the public are admitted, the jurymen will be called by their numbers and only by their numbers. In that fashion, we trust that we have provided that the names of jurymen who are sworn and empanelled to try the issue between the people of this State and the prisoner at the bar will be unknown to those persons who are actuated by criminal designs against the lives of jurymen. [1557] In Section 5 we introduce a new but, I will submit to the House, a very sound principle. That is the principle that henceforth there shall not be required either for conviction or for acquittal a unanimous verdict of twelve jurymen. Under the provisions of this Bill, a majority of nine jurymen will be sufficient to secure acquittal or conviction, as the case may be. It is not very easy to know precisely when the principle of a unanimous jury came into English law. Juries were originally not persons empanelled to try facts. They were neighbours who were collected together to try the guilt or innocence of a person upon the local knowledge that they themselves possessed. A long time ago the system was changed and the juries became the judges of the guilt or innocence of the person charged before them, not on their inherent knowledge, but on the evidence sworn before them. The principle of a unanimous finding of a jury is a principle which is only to be found in the English law. It exists in no law in the world except in British law, and in those codes of law which are founded on English law. When I said British law, I should have said, of course, English law, because in Scotland, for example, a majority verdict is quite sufficient. In France, Germany and all other countries in which a jury system has been adopted for the trial of prisoners, a majority verdict is sufficient. In old Roman law, as far as they had jurors at all, they were rather professional jurors, and a majority verdict of those was deemed sufficient. Later on, in the glorious days of Roman jurisprudence, the age of Justinian, jurors were swept away altogether.

At the present time, we have to consider what jury system is suited to this country and we have come to the conclusion that a majority verdict is more suited to the needs of this country. A prisoner may be indicted, the case may be clear against him, one juryman or two jurymen may hold out and repeated trials have to take place. On the other hand, a man may be indicted, the evidence against him may be [1558] weak, nine, ten or eleven jurymen may wish for his acquittal and yet one man can stand out. If there is a real doubt in the case in the minds of the jury, then they still can disagree—that is, if they are divided in a proportion different from nine to three, they can still disagree. But it seems to me so clear that, even if there were no historical argument behind it, common sense would demand that a majority would be sufficient to determine the question of guilt or innocence. Section 6 in sub-section (1) abrogates a certain method of trial of a certain issue which used to exist in this country. If a person, on being indicted, did not plead either guilty or not guilty, a jury was empanelled to try whether he was mute of malice or by the act of God. At one time, if a man was found mute of malice by a jury, he was condemned to suffer peine forte jure, that is to say, he was pressed down until his torturers forced him to say “guilty” or “not guilty,” or death came. That system of peine forte et jure has long since been done away with, but when a man is found mute of malice a plea of “not guilty” is entered on his behalf.

The question as to whether a man is mute of malice or mute by the act of God is always a very simple one to determine. There never can be any real doubt about it. Accordingly, we have left it to the judge to decide as to whether a man is mute of malice or mute by the act of God. It might, indeed, be argued, that it is unnecessary to have this provision at all, that if a man is mute in the dock that there and then a verdict of “not guilty” should be entered on his behalf, and the trial proceeded with. But there is a possibility that somebody not mute of malice, but mute by the act of God might be indicted and the court might not know that fact. He may not have the proper interpreter there to explain to him the procedure taking place and the nature of the evidence that was being given against him. In a case like that, somebody who knows the deaf and dumb alphabet or who has been used to conversing with the prisoner is [1559] always sworn as an interpreter. There has been in this country a disposition on the part of certain persons to hold themselves out openly as above the law and to refuse to recognise the courts which have been set up under the authority of the people of the Irish Free State.

There are certain other persons who, when in court, behave themselves in a manner unbecoming to the dignity of the court, and in consequence we have introduced here a provision that if a person at any stage of his trial, by any act or omission, displays gross disrespect of the court, or refuses to recognise the court, or refuses to recognise the authority or jurisdiction of the court, or does any act (other than standing mute or lawfully objecting in due form of law to the jurisdiction of the court to try him on such charge) which in the opinion of the judge is equivalent to a refusal to recognise the court, or the authority or jurisdiction thereof, or in any other way acts disrespectfully or contumaciously towards the court, such person shall be guilty of an offence against the court and the judge shall forthwith sentence him to suffer a term of imprisonment not exceeding six months. Sub-section (4) of that section goes on to say that the trial may either proceed, in the discretion of the judge, or a sentence imposed by the judge of not greater than six months shall take effect there and then.

Section 7 deals with the clearing of the court in certain cases. It might not be much good to have the name of the jurymen concealed if any number of persons could come into court and some of them possibly recognise some of the jurymen and then be in the position to give information to those persons who approve of or carry out the murders of jurymen and witnesses. Accordingly, this provision has been brought in: When “an officer of the Gárda Síochána not below the rank of supérintendent states on oath to the judge presiding at such trial that in the opinion of such officer it is necessary for the protection of the [1560] witnesses and jurors concerned in such trial that the public should be excluded from the court during such trial, the judge shall order the court to be cleared and shall not proceed with such trial until the court has been cleared in accordance with this section.” But though the court is cleared and the general public excluded, yet persons who are bona fide representatives of bona fide newspapers will be allowed admission to the court and can take notes of what happens in the court and keep the public thoroughly informed of the procedure and what has taken place in the court.

Section 8 enables the judge, if he is satisfied that an attempt is being made to interfere with jurors, or an attempt to intimidate jurors, or that a proper and fair trial of a prisoner will not take place, to adjourn the trial of that prisoner, and he can so adjourn it again if circumstances have not changed for the better in the meantime. He may adjourn or not adjourn just as he thinks right. Section 9 prohibits the publication of the names of jurymen, and makes it an offence to disclose or to state, truly or untruly, that a man served upon any particular jury. Section 10 regulates the methods by which jurymen can be served—that is to say, they can be served by ordinary, and not necessarily, by registered post.

Section 11 makes it an offence for any person who prints, publishes, distributes, sells, or offers or exposes for sale, or posts up or otherwise exposes in any public place, or imports into Saorstát Eireann any statement, notice, article, or other matter in writing, or any book, newspaper, magazine, journal, or other document containing any statement, notice, article or other matter urging, encouraging or exhorting or calculated to induce or persuade persons summoned or engaged as jurors for or in the trial of criminal issues or of any particular class of criminal issues or any particular criminal issue to refrain from acting as such jurors or to act as such jurors otherwise than in accordance with their oath and [1561] duty as such jurors. Sub-sections (b) and (c) deal with persons who endeavour to intimidate jurors and provide the appropriate penalty.

Section 12 provides the penalty for any person who, during the course of criminal proceedings, loiters in the vicinity of a courthouse where the proceedings are going on. That again is to provide that this particular association, who are endeavouring by intimidation and murder to prevent jurymen carrying out their duties, will not be able by posting their touts round the courthouse to follow jurymen.

I have gone through the provisions of this Bill. It has been framed to protect jurymen and witnesses and to improve generally the administration of criminal justice in this country. I hope that these ends which we have before our eyes are ends for the achievement of which we shall have the support of all persons in this House. It is my hope that jurors and witnesses will know that the whole State is behind them when they discharge their duties. Before I sit down I want to say this: If this Bill does not prove to be effective, if it does not succeed in safeguarding the lives of our people, and if it does not achieve a fair and impartial administration of the law, then we will adopt other methods of gaining these ends. Trial by jury, as amended by this Bill, is I believe the very best method of obtaining the impartial administration of the criminal law. Trial by jury in normal times, and under normal circumstances, is the best of all systems— of that I am perfectly convinced. But trial by jury is only a means to an end; it is not an end in itself. If, after the passage of this Bill, it fails, reluctantly—regretful that such a situation should arise—but unhesitatingly we shall adopt some other method, while the need lasts, for a certain class of criminal. We are determined that the criminal will not be allowed to dominate this country, and that the efforts of no body of men will be successful in turning existing order into disorder and terminating the reign of law [1562] which, happily, is now established amongst us.

Mr. de Valera: The Minister for Justice, I think, indicated his whole position and the attitude of the Government in the last part of his speech. He threatened that there was another twist of the screw, as one of his colleagues mentioned on a former occasion, available for them. When I was listening to the Minister, I felt that I was reading some of the speeches that were made by Forster or Balfour, or, in later times, by Sir Hamar Greenwood. The whole attitude of the Ministry, and particularly the Ministry of Justice, in recent times has been one that certainly proves a thesis which I remember was maintained by Dr. MacNeill in the old “Volunteer”: “Continuity of British government in this country.” The Minister tells us that this Bill is intended merely to protect jurors and to protect witnesses and that, as a matter of fact, it is not intended at all as an emergency measure, that it is intended as an improvement, if you please, of the law. It is going back, he says. Yes. It goes back behind Magna Charta. It undoes, or attempts to undo, everything practically that men fought for—personal and public liberty—in any of those countries that won freedom. It is trying to destroy all those truths. The Minister then hopes that he will find support from every Deputy in this House. He knew perfectly well that the sort of Bill he brought in here is certainly not the type of Bill that is going to receive any sort of support from this side of the House anyhow. When Forster brought in one of his Coercion Acts, he tried to justify it by telling of the thousands of cases of intimidation, and so on, that had occurred in Ireland in the previous year. And when his statement was examined, it was found that these were simply letters that could have been sent by the Sergeant Sheridans and the rest just as well as by any, body belonging to any Irish organisation.

There have been two crimes committed in this country. Nobody on [1563] these benches has attempted in any way whatever to condone these crimes. Is it because two crimes have been committed that the people as a whole are to be deprived of the safeguards they have in trial by jury? There are two things which have been recognised by everybody who has examined the basis of constitutional freedom, and they are the right to have cause shown why you should be in prison, the right to your liberty unless you can be shown to have been deprived of it by due process of law; and the second is this right of being tried by a number of your peers chosen by lot and chosen impartially. This particular Bill seeks to do away with both.

The citizen ordinarily is at a grave disadvantage as against the State. Take the ordinary case of the disadvantage he is in — the disadvantage which the Minister for Justice never fails to use — the disadvantage that the State will hear the expenses of repeated appeals when one of their officers is charged before a court with an offence. That is a disadvantage. But in a case where the State sets out with all the powers behind it to try to get a conviction against an individual who is suspected, then the only safeguard that that individual has is that twelve ordinary citizens will have to be empanelled to try his case. These disadvantages are enough, but these disadvantages are by this Bill going to be made immensely greater. In fact, the person who is accused and brought up for trial under this Bill has no chance whatever against the State.

A man who is accused of murder can be tried under this Bill having hardly a chance of being saved. Even under the law of the British, when unanimity was necessary, we know there were cases, as the Maamtrasna case, where the prisoners were unjustly found guilty, condemned and executed. Are Deputies prepared to take upon themselves the responsibility for saying that we will have not one but several cases, if the Executive are prepared to take the steps that this Bill would seem to [1564] indicate for depriving the ordinary citizen of these safeguards? On a previous occasion, I remarked here that the institutions that have grown up through a long series of years and have been accepted ought not to be put aside and destroyed simply because a particular Executive finds it convenient for the moment to put them aside.

The ordinary method of trial by jury and unanimity of verdict has been accepted. Take, for instance, the case of unanimity of verdict, which has been accepted mainly on the theory that a man is innocent unless he is proved guilty, and that if there is any reasonable doubt he should get the benefit of the doubt. That is all reversed in this Bill. Let us take the provisions and follow the Minister for Defence through them— no, the Minister for Justice——

Mr. Flinn: They change quickly.

Mr. de Valera: Yes, they do change pretty quickly. First of all, we have Section 2. Why is it necessary at all to have this Section 2? Why under-sheriffs could not perform their duties in the future as in the past has not been explained to us. I hope we will get some explanation for it. So far, it has not been made clear. It is not a very important part of the Bill. The important parts of the Bill are those that deal with the secrecy of the jury—the secrecy of the jury not merely from the public, but the secrecy of the names of the jury from the accused. Public trial, trial by jury in open court, is a safeguard for individual liberty as against a tyrannical Executive. What does this Bill do with regard to this particular safeguard? Up to this, when a man was accused, he knew who the jurors were. He was given the right to challenge and the right to object to any juror who, he thought, might have a personal bias or a bias of any kind against him or against a juror whose judgment, because of some act of his in the past or because of some action, could not be regarded as impartial. The accused could object to that man. He knew the man's antecedents. He knew whether or not he was going to get from that man a fair [1565] trial. But he is not going to get that knowledge any more. He is not to know who are the men on whose judgement his life, perhaps, is to depend. He is not going to know whether these men are proved already to be men whose judgment cannot be impartial.

What about the State? Is the Executive going to be in a similar position? The State has unlimited rights as regards telling any juror to stand by. The State, through its officials, can get full knowledge of every juryman who is called to serve on a case.

Every man except such as they think is likely to bring in the verdict they want, is going to be told by them to stand by. The State already, with all the resources at its command, has an undue advantage over the prisoner. What is going to be the position now when the State can practically pack a jury so as to secure a verdict? That is what it amounts to. Formerly, when they packed a jury they did it in the face of the whole community. The whole community saw it; they saw all the O's and the Macs being told to stand aside. Gentlemen with names of another character were put up because it was known that they were the plantation element and could be relied upon to maintain what they choose to call law and order, as the Minister for Justice would call it to-day. In the new position, we have an Executive who can, in secret, find out who the men are whom they want, and who the men are whom they object to, and they can pack their jury without incurring the public odium that attached to it in the past. The public are not to know. The accused are not to know. Any journalist who might be suspected of a love of fair play to such an extent that he was going to reveal the injustice of these secret trials and run certain risks in order that fair play might be given and that the people of the country might be warned of what is taking place, can be excluded in advance. They might as well exclude the public altogether. The whole principle of trial by jury, trial by twelve impartial [1566] citizens, is gone, or is going with this Bill, if you make it an Act.

The next section of the Bill deals with a verdict by nine members of the jury. The principle of a unanimous verdict was upheld and maintained because the underlying principle was that the accused was innocent until he was proved to be guilty, and that if there was any doubt whatsoever he should get the benefit of the doubt. Here we have a verdict by the majority. In other words, if the Executive, in packing its jury, passes over by accident one or two people who would not be prejudiced against the accused and if they stood up and maintained that the facts were not as the Executive would like to have them proved—notwithstanding that, the Executive can secure its verdict. They only want nine. There might be something to be said for a majority verdict if you had an open jury, in open court, impartially selected. But when you take a majority-rule verdict side by side with the secrecy of the jury then undoubtedly what you are giving is an instrument to the Executive of the day to accuse and secure practically the condemnation of anybody that they want to get a condemnation against. We have, of course, “standing mute” and non-recognition of the court. The present Executive in years not so long ago taught or followed because, as it happened they did not begin it—at any rate, they supported the practice of not recognising courts which had not the sanction of the Irish people.

The President: Hear, hear!

Mr. de Valera: We know what these courts were. We know the efforts that were made to destroy their power, and these men know it. They show they have not themselves the confidence that the existing courts are backed by public opinion when they have to bring in measures of this particular kind in order to deal with the same attitude towards the new courts.

Mr. Gorey: The cowardly little gun bullies.

[1567] Mr. de Valera: There are more gun bullies in the service of the Minister for Justice to-day than in any other organisation in the country.

Mr. Gorey: Who are they?

Mr. G. Boland: They will be the jurors who are going to try these people.

Mr. Lemass: We will name them if you like.

An Ceann Comhairle: Stick to the jurors now.

Mr. Smith: Speak afterwards about the gun bullies.

Mr. de Valera: It has been suggested——

Mr. Gorey: Some people know a good deal about them.

Mr. Smith: Shut up.

Mr. de Valera: When the Executive wants to empanel its jury now it can, if it wants to, get some of the agents of the Minister for Justice. The punishment for those who refuse to recognise the authority of these courts is to be six months' imprisonment. There was punishment for that before. Many men who were against the British, even when they were innocent of the particular charges that were preferred against them, were prepared to let the trial go by default and face the punishment, and again there will be men who, if they sincerely believe in their opinions, will face this punishment in the same manner. It is not by measures like this that you are going to deal with the situation that arises or that has arisen. The next section tells us that the courts can be cleared on the word of the Superintendent of the Civic Guard.

Under Section 8 the Executive can get by another method what it has been securing in violation of all law in the past-keeping prisoners for an indefinite period without bringing them to trial. Speedy trial is another of the fundamental rules of justice, but the Executive here have constantly and persistently ignored [1568] that principle in the past. They have kept men for a year without trial. Then they were tried and acquitted.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle took the Chair.

Mr. de Valera: Recently they have, without trial, kept men over the statutory period of 24 hours. Judges have found that they were guilty of that, and now, in order that they may have a weapon at their disposal to keep men, against whom they cannot bring forward any evidence, untried as long as they choose, all they have to do is to get some of their agents to make representations in the court that intimidation had been used on the jury. The right of trial by twelve impartial men is gone under Section 3. Under Section 8 the right to be tried speedily, and the right to be free unless it can be shown that you have been deprived of your liberty by due process of law, have gone. Under Section 8 it becomes an easy matter for the Executive to keep a man waiting for trial for some months. If he is brought up for trial it can be represented to the judge that some of the jury have been intimidated. The judge will accordingly postpone the trial, and the same procedure will go on as often as the Executive of the day requires it. The penalties are really the least important, whether their amount is great or small. The fundamental point is that a person is to be punished because he stands for the rights that have been regarded in the past, by anybody who has studied the question of liberty, as sacred. Why is all this being done? It is done because we are told that one man was wounded, one juror was wounded and another man, a witness, was killed.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney: Murdered.

Mr. de Valera: Murdered. Very good.

Mr. Gorey: Yes, murdered.

Mr. de Valera: All right; I have said that word without any dictation from Deputy Gorey or the Minister [1569] for Justice. Even if there were two members of the community, or more than two—ten, fifteen or twenty—are we all going to be deprived of our rights? Is it going to be made possible for any tyrannical Executive, or any unscrupulous Executive, to use the machinery that is provided in this Bill to deprive men of their liberty and, perhaps, of their lives? They talk about purifying, and instead of that they are polluting the whole thing. The whole institutions of the law are going to be polluted by the process they suggest. The Minister for Justice told us that in the glorious days of Roman law there were no juries. Well, that was decent.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney: What I told the Deputy was that in the time of Justinian, when the Roman law was considered to have reached its highest pinnacle, they had done away with the system of professional jurymen.

Mr. G. Boland: Why not do away with it now?

Mr. de Valera: Exactly. Let us have the jury system or let us not have it.

Mr. Gorey: Hear, hear! Preserve it.

Mr. de Valera: Who is going to preserve it? You are going to preserve the jury system when you have got the backing of the people for your laws and when you can depend upon twelve citizens to feel that they are maintaining order.

Mr. O'Sullivan: And have one only wounded.

Mr. Lemass: You are much more efficient.

Mr. G. Boland: When the Deputy was nice and snug in the barrackroom his agents did something more than wound them, and well he knows it. (Interruptions.)

[1570] An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Deputy de Valera should be allowed to continue his speech.

Mr. de Valera: As I have said——

Mr. O'Sullivan: I want to be understood. My interruption was not in any way personal to the Deputy. I wanted to draw his attention to the fact that he had stated that a juror was only wounded.

Mr. de Valera: I said I was referring to the facts in the two cases cited by the Minister for Justice. I said that these two cases did not constitute a valid reason why the people as a whole should be deprived of the safeguards that lie in trial by jury. I say that nothing else has been put before the House as a justification for this Bill. The Minister for Justice realised that he has no justification for it, and he wanted to pretend, if you please, that we are only improving the law, that we are going back to Justinian, to the glorious days, the golden age, when such things as juries did not stand in the way of the will of the Executive being all-powerful. I, for one, hope that the House will show that they intend breaking this continuity that started with the Act of Union. Let us just run over them for one moment and see what they were. Immediately after the Union they started in 1801 with 41 George III.— the alleged purpose of which was the suppression of rebellion. In 1802-3 you had another Act, an Act for the suspension of habeas corpus. Portion of that Act was designed for the suppression of rebellion. In 1803-4 you again had the suspension of habeas corpus. In another section of the Act you had again the suppression of rebellion. In the same year you had an Act called the Peace Preservation Act which was intended to restrict the use and possession of arms. In 1807 you had another Peace Preservation Act. In each of the years 1810, 1812 and 1813 you had a similar Act. In 1814 you had an Act called the Peace Preservation Act, and one of its provisions [1571] was intended to prevent unlawful combination. In the same year there was an Act intended to prevent aggravated assaults. In 1814-15 you had a Peace Preservation Act. In 1817 there was a similar Act, and in 1820 you had an Act to restrict the use and possession of arms. In 1821 and in 1829 you had Acts for the same purpose.

Professor Tierney: Perhaps the Deputy would tell us when the Statute of Limitations was passed?

Mr. de Valera: Evidently the resources of civilisation are not exhausted, as the Minister told us. In 1823 there was another Act passed to deal with insurrection. In 1824 there was a similar Act. In 1829 there was an Act to deal with dangerous assembly. In 1830, 1831 and 1832 there were Acts passed to restrict the use of firearms.

Mr. T. Sheehy (Cork): The Treaty wiped out all those Acts.

Mr. Lemass: You only started it properly then.

Mr. de Valera: In 1833 an Act was passed to deal with local disturbances. In 1835 there was another Peace Preservation Act. There was another Act called the Arms and Gunpowder Restriction Act. In 1838 a similar Act was passed. In 1839 there was an Act to deal with unlawful societies. In the same year an Act was passed to deal with aggravated assault. In 1841 there was an Act to prohibit the importation of arms. In 1843 there was an Act to deal with aggravated assault. In 1847-48, 11 & 12 Vic. ch. 2 there was an Act for the prevention of crime. In 1847-8 there was an Act for the suspension of habeas corpus. In the same year an Act was passed to deal with unlawful combination. In 1849 there was an Act dealing with aggravated assault. In 1850 there was an Act called the Crimes Outrage Act. In 1852 there was another Act to deal with crime and outrage. In 1854 a similar Act [1572] was passed. There was a variation of that in 1854-5 when there was a Peace Preservation Act. In each of the years 1856, 1857, 1858, 1860, 1862, and 1865 there was a Peace Preservation Act. In 1866 there was suspension of habeas corpus. In 1867 and in 1869 habeas corpus was again suspended. In 1870 there was a reversion to the Peace Preservation Act and in 1873 and 1875 similar Acts were passed. In 1881 there was suspension of habeas corpus. In 1882 there was a further Act for the prevention of crime. In 1883 there was a Peace Preservation Act and in 1887 there was a consolidation of all these previous Acts, commonly known as the Perpetual Coercion Act. These, however, were not enough. They started it again about 1900 for a while. Then they started with D.O.R.A. during the war and, when this Government came along after the Treaty, we had a succession of Treason Acts, Public Safety Acts, and so on. Recently there was published a Summary of the Statute Law of the Irish Free State and the various laws are put under sections in it. Anybody who is interested in continuing the series of Acts which I have just read can take up that book by Mr. Justice Hanna and will find from page 37 to page 46 the series of Public Safety Acts that have been passed by this Executive since they came into existence. If you compare the space given to these Public Safety Act; you will find that it is greater even than that devoted to the changes in the Constitution. What is the use of all this? Is it going to get the country anywhere? What is prompting this succession of Acts of this particular kind? The Executive will tell us that we must protect the jurors. The ordinary law is sufficient to protect them and there ought to be no need whatever for this extraordinary legislation. Every British Minister, introducing every one of those Acts that I have read out, made a speech exactly similar to that made this evening by the Minister for Justice. The same reasons were given for them. The Unionists of that period —some of them, anyway—felt, I am [1573] sure, that there was the very same justification for them as some members on the Government benches apparently feel now there is for this measure. I got a sample of these speeches in order that the House might realise the tradition that we are continuing. At the first reading of the Criminal Law Amendment Bill, 1887, Mr. A.J. Balfour on the 27th March of that year, having quoted from the charges of the judges of the assize courts continued:—

“... That shows the condition of that part of the West of Ireland —about, as I have said, one-third of all Ireland, and about one-half of that country exclusive of Ulster. Those charges exhibit the condition of public order in these districts. Now, what is the power of the law to meet that state of things? The Hon. Member for East Mayo (John Dillon), the other day—when he was attacking me—said, what was the use of adding battalion of police to battalion, and raising the Estimates for the Constabulary Forces year after year; and I replied to him that it was in vain to raise the Force if the Courts of Law were incapable of fulfilling their elementary official functions. This is the evil which we have specially to meet. It is this existing paralysis of the Courts of Law which we have specially got to meet. Whence this paralysis of the Courts of Law? The first answer I have to give is that evidence to convict is not forthcoming. ... In the counties I have just enumerated the number of offences reported since the previous Assizes amounted to 755. The number of cases for which there was no clue to the offenders was 536.... The number of cases in which the injured person declined to swear any information was 422. So terrified were they by the system of intimidation which prevails in those counties that they dare not come forward to give evidence against those who outraged and ill-treated them.... I have [1574] stated to the House one of the causes of the paralysis of the law. Another cause is that when they did come forward the juries, in the face of the clearest evidence, declined altogether to convict.... Is there any man in the least acquainted with Ireland who is not aware that, if a case involving Party considerations comes before a jury, and if you know before hand the political complexion of the men who compose that jury, you can tell beforehand not only what the jury will do, but how they will be divided in their verdict? ... I heard the other day of jurors in a respectable position who had begged of an officer whose duty it was to order some jurors to stand by, that he would include them in the jurors to be asked to stand by. The officer refused, but said if they did not come up to be balloted for he would not fine them. They said that they did not dare to take advantage of the privilege, because they had been canvassed and they must appear.... They were unwilling to violate their oaths; yet they could not free themselves from the tyranny which oppressed them. Is this to be wondered at when we see the Press of Ireland— at least the organs of the Hon. Member for Cork-publishing the names of jurymen who have given verdicts one way, and holding them up to public reprobation? ...Our Bill is a Bill, not for putting down agitation, but for enforcing the law. The law which we wish to enforce is not the law specially or particularly which regulates the relations between landlord and tenant. The law we seek to enforce is the law which gives in this country and every civilised country security to private individuals. It is the law which prevents your pocket being picked and your head broken; it is the law which enables you to go home with some security that midnight marauders will not invade your house, fire into your dwelling, possibly shoot you, possibly drag your wives and daughters out of [1575] bed.... Many of us who are most devoted in the cause of liberty pay but a cold and frigid respect to the cause of order. I will not ask whether, under some circumstances, these two great principles are or are not ever opposed; but I will say, and say boldly, that in this case they are united, and that if I appeal to one rather than to the other, it is in the cause of liberty that I ask this House to support us in breaking the yoke under which so large a part of Ireland is now groaning.”

That is Mr. Balfour's speech. He was speaking for men who were at least as much cut off from the conditions which he was asking this law to be made to deal with as some members on the opposite benches are from the conditions and the people they are asking us to pass this law to deal with.

Mr. G. O'Sullivan: Where was he speaking?

Mr. de Valera: He was speaking in the British House of Commons.

Mr. O'Sullivan: Aye.

Mr. de Valera: Aye. And the gentlemen to whom he was speaking would say at that time as some of their lineal descendants are saying to-day: “Oh! Ireland is not merely a partner in the British Empire, but Ireland is with Great Britain at the head of the British Empire. They get all the liberties of the British Empire.”

Professor Tierney: Would the Deputy believe they were right in saying that. Are we to accept it that he is in favour of their right to say that?

Mr. de Valera: No. My speech was to show that there are in Ireland men who still deny the right of England to pretend, even though agents——

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Surely that is irrelevant?

Professor Tierney: The Deputy is talking in mathematics.

[1576] Mr. de Valera: It is not irrelevant.

Professor Tierney: When the Deputy says the Government of this country is the British Government ——

Mr. de Valera: I am saying that there is an evil continuity in this which I hope, if this is an Irish House, it will end. That is the purpose for which I am reading this. I want the members on the opposite benches, who are the majority, clearly to realise that there were men on a former occasion who invoked the name of law and order in order to crush the manifestations of national spirit in a national Ireland.

Professor Tierney: Does the Deputy realise that the men on the opposite benches represent a majority of the people and does he realise what that means?

Mr. de Valera: I do realise it and perfectly realise it.

Professor Tierney: Will he acquiesce in it?

Mr. Gerald Boland: I think North Dublin nearly gave you your answer.

Professor Tierney: They are behind a wall of glass.

Mr. de Valera: A wall of glass. Other people have a wall of prejudice which at present is blinding them to the most obvious facts. They are turning their backs on what they were doing, and what they did a few years ago.

Mr. G. O'Sullivan: No, but on what you are reading from—the British House of Commons.

Mr. de Valera: And because they turned their backs on what they stood for a few years ago they will not allow their prejudice to let them know that there are a few men who did not turn their backs on these principles, and who are struggling, rightly or wrongly, either supported by the majority of the people of Ireland or not supported, to secure this objective.

[1577] Mr. G. O'Sullivan: Have the majority no rights?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: The Deputy ought to allow Deputy de Valera to continue his speech.

Mr. G. Boland: Give him an opportunity of making a speech himself. He rarely speaks.

Mr. de Valera: As I said, I am reading these speeches mainly in the hope that the wall of prejudice with regard to it will be broken down, that the people on the opposite benches will seriously consider the situation from the national viewpoint and not from the narrow, party viewpoint, which is the viewpoint that has obtained up to the present. I am reading these speeches because at that time those who stood for law and order, as it was called, and, in fact, all those powers of law and order against the Irish people, claimed that Ireland was represented in the British House of Commons, that any Irish representatives could go over there, that they were full partners, not merely partners in the sense of being dominions, but that they were at the head of the British Empire and controlled it. The Irish people did not believe that. That was not their view. They were forced into that partnership in 1800. To keep them in that partnership a series of Coercion Acts were passed.

Professor Tierney: Are they forced into anything now?

Mr. de Valera: They have been.

Professor Tierney: How?

Mr. de Valera: They were forced into it when Mr. Lloyd George made use of the threat of immediate and terrible war.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That has nothing to do with the Bill.

Mr. de Valera: It is a definite answer to a question that was put to me.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I want to make it clear that Deputy de Valera should have an opportunity [1578] of making his speech without further interruptions.

Mr. G. Boland: If he is asked a question is he not entitled to answer it?

Professor Tierney: I only want the Deputy to get “back to his muttons.”

Mr. de Valera: Apparently there are a few members of the House whose consciences are beginning to be pricked just a little. I am glad to note that such men have consciences left. As I said, I read that long list of Coercion Acts because I wanted to point out what caused them, and I wanted to point out that they succeeded very badly in their purpose. I have not appealed to the members on our benches, and I believe I have not to appeal to a number of members on the Labour Benches, but I am appealing to the members on the benches opposite to try to realise for a moment the road on which they are travelling and to ask themselves whether there is any better way for dealing with the present situation than by a succession of Coercion Acts. We cannot see that position properly unless we see it in its surroundings, and if I am asked whether the Irish people are being forced now, I point very relevantly to the speeches that were made in the Dáil when the Dáil was asked to accept the Treaty. I ask any member who doubts it to go back to the Republican Dáil Reports of 1921 and read them. See the reasons that were given by those who urged that the Treaty should be accepted and show me more than one or two which do not clearly point out that the Treaty was being accepted because the alternative was war, because Mr. Lloyd George threatened immediate and terrible war.

Mr. G. O'Sullivan: On a point of order, are we going to discuss the Treaty? If we are I am prepared to discuss it, but are we discussing this Bill?

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: That has nothing whatever to do with this Bill?

[1579] Mr. de Valera: This is the Second Reading of this Bill. We have a right to examine the principles of the Bill, and where those principles are leading us. I have said these principles are going to deprive us of the ordinary safeguards of liberty which are in the jury system and the right that nobody should be deprived of his liberty unless for cause shown and in due process of law. This particular device, this Bill, is not new. Particularly I have shown it to have been used in the last century, and why? Why was it necessary? Why were these devices necessary? They were necessary because the law was out of sympathy with the people, because the laws did not correspond with the aspirations of the people, because the Act of Union was forced upon the Irish people, and because the Government that was governing Ireland was governing it against the will of the people of Ireland.

Professor Tierney: Is that happening now?

Mr. MacEntee: Would you keep the nursery in order?

Mr. de Valera: If the Deputy wants me to deal at length with that situation, I am prepared to do it if the Leas-Cheann Comhairle is prepared to let it go.

To come down to a later period, there are only a few members, probably, who had immediate acquaintance with Mr. Balfour's régime. There are a few of them in the House, but I will go on to later times.

Mr. T. Sheehy: I fought him in his day.

Mr. de Valera: Now let me come down from 1887 to 1920. On August 5th, 1920, speaking on the Second Reading of the Restoration of Order in Ireland Bill, Sir Hamar Greenwood said:

“May I say that this Bill was in draft in June last, but at my request the Cabinet held it back, because I wished to see how the Assize Courts would function in the month of July.... Unfortunately [1580] these courts were unable to function in many cases because of the failure—this is one of the prime reasons for the introduction of the Bill—of the jurors, both for grand juries and common juries, to answer their summonses and to appear in the Court before the judge to do their duty. Therefore trial by jury in those parts of Ireland to which I refer has broken down. ... Many prisoners and accused persons were in custody to be tried, but the jurors, owing to intimidation, failed to appear.... It is a new position—one that no one deplores more than I do”— like the Minister for Justice-“in the British Empire, where, I believe, never before have jurors failed to answer their summonses and do their duty to their fellow-countrymen. ... On the point of those already awaiting trial, may I say that under the head of ‘political crime and outrage’— the word ‘political’ here has a curious Irish significance. ... Political crime in Ireland is wrongly, but commonly, called crime in the pursuit of some political end. It involves murder and a number of other offences. Under the head of this alleged political crime, at the end of July last there were in prison 47 convicted prisoners and 76 prisoners awaiting trial. Many of these 76 prisoners are now awaiting trial because of the break-down of the jury system. ...The reason for this Bill is that a state of disorder prevails over the greater part of Ireland, paralysing the machinery for the administration of justice, the punishment of crime and the enforcement of public duties. Criminals are protected from arrest, witnesses and jurors are terrorised, local authorities and their officers are encouraged or coerced to repudiate their statutory obligations and duties, all being done in the furtherance of a deliberate plan to bring about a new system of government in Ireland by revolutionary means. As a result, as I have tried to show by illustration, the ordinary law of the [1581] land is in abeyance in a certain part of Ireland. I submit that it is now the paramount duty of the Government to devise and to put into execution effective measures for the protection of life and property and the primary rights of citizenship.... I must repeat that it is a profound regret to me to have to introduce a Bill of this kind, but I consider it a paramount duty of the Government to meet the reign of terror that now afflicts Ireland. The Irish question is a question for Ireland, for the United Kingdom, for the Empire— if you like, for the English-speaking world. But murders, assassinations, intimidations, are questions which involve the whole fabric of civilisation. In this matter I submit that this House is the custodian of civilisation, and that this Bill will help us to break the Terror and to bring to justice the Terrorists.”

Mr. Asquith: “...As I listened to him (Sir H. Greenwood) my memory was carried back some thirty years. In the first Session in which I sat in this House I heard from that bench and box opposite a very similar speech from the then Chief Secretary for Ireland. Jurors in these days could not be got....”

That was the atmosphere in these days. All these Coercion Acts did not effect very much. They failed, because, as I have said already, the law did not correspond with the aspirations of the people, and the jurors felt that they were the guardians of the rights of the people. They felt that they had a duty above, and supremely above, being mere instruments in carrying out British law. If the British statesmen of these days cared to see, they could have seen that their law and the aspirations of the people were not in accord, and if jurors to-day will not bring in verdicts to suit the Executive the lesson the Executive ought to learn from it is not that citizenship in Ireland is at a low ebb but that there is grave need for bringing the law and the aspirations of the people as a whole [1582] into accord. What I am asking the House to do is to reject this Bill, because there is a way—coercion will never succeed in doing more than that particular way—and that is to give the people of this country an opportunity of accepting an Irish Assembly as a legitimate assembly for making the laws of this country.

Professor Tierney: Have they not that opportunity?

Mr. de Valera: They have not. The people you are devising this law against particularly are people who have been excluded from representation.

Professor Tierney: How many of them?

Mr. de Valera: You do not know? You are afraid to give them an opportunity of showing what their numbers are. Before 1918 you had a law which prevented anybody going up for election unless he was prepared to go into the British House of Commons. If they got them in there then the British would boast that they had all the representatives of the people.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I am afraid the Deputy is wandering from the Bill.

Mr. de Valera: I am only wandering to the extent that I am asked to wander.

Mr. O'Sullivan: Does the Deputy accept the House?

Mr. de Valera: I have explained many a time what my attitude towards the House is, but it does not matter what my attitude towards the House is. This Bill is not directly intended to deal with those of us who are here or the section of the people who are represented here. This section in this particular Bill is designed to give unfair treatment to citizens who are not represented here. You have not given them an opportunity of being represented. You compel them to take an oath which they regard as one which they could not in conscience take.

Dr. Hennessy: An empty formula.

[1583] Mr. de Valera: I say get rid of these tests.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Surely the Deputy is wandering.

Mr. de Valera: I submit the Deputy is not wandering. I am speaking against the principle of this Bill.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I have given the Deputy great liberty on the Bill. I have given the Deputy as much liberty as he was entitled to get. I suggest that the question of a test oath surely does not arise.

Mr. G. Boland: Surely it does.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: In the opinion of the Chair it does not.

Mr. de Valera: May I submit that in being given the liberty I am entitled to, I got no favour. I am not asking any favour of the Chair or the House—I am simply standing on my rights in objecting to this Bill on the principle of trying to do the thing in the wrong way. I have shown the wrong way that has been persisted in by those who were blinded by prejudice, as some members opposite have now blinded themselves by prejudice, and who will not see that there are people in this country who are going to work until they are dead in order to secure the liberty of the country, and who are not going to take any oaths or make any submissions which would seem to deprive them of their right of working for these ends. There is a difficulty in this particular matter. That difficulty arose immediately the Treaty was accepted by a majority. The method that has been tried up to the present has been force. Force succeeded to a certain extent with the British. Each particular year they said: “Ireland at last is pacified,” and each succeeding year, after having said that, they had to bring in some Coercion Act.

The President recently gave an interview and told us how well everything is going with the Free State. If everything is going well with the Free State, why then do we need this abrogation of the ordinary law?—for that is what it amounts to? If the [1584] State is so secure, and everything is so well with us, why do we want this abrogation of the ordinary law? The President, when it suited him, at the time of the election, used these two particular cases that are made the basis of this Bill, for political purposes, in a manner that was most disgraceful.

Mr. G. Boland: He got his answer.

Mr. de Valera: Like Sir Hamar Greenwood, he kept them back for a time. He then made the speech, which of course, gave their chance to all those who are ready at all times to defame this people. We had a gentleman here as a reporter—Mr. C.J. Ketchem—who wrote an article for the “Daily Express” which was published far and wide. These are the headlines: “New Campaign of Terrorism in Southern Ireland”; “Gunmen's War on Citizens”; “Grey-haired Widow as Chief of the Gang”; “Jurymen Shot”; “Secret Meetings in a Dublin Garret.” That resulted from the speech of the President when he wanted to make a speech for political purposes. Then when that was cabled over to America and he found that this particular slander on our people as a whole was being used in a way that might inconvenience himself and the Executive Council, he cabled out hastily a denial. What is this Bill for? If there is not a situation like this, why is it necessary at present to abrogate the ordinary law? The ordinary law does provide for such matters as intimidation and the rest.

If the ordinary law is not sufficient, and if there are symptoms which indicate there is something wrong, why will the Executive not go and look for the seat of the disease and not be trying surface cures for the symptoms. That is what the British did. That is why I read this Act as indicating how the British tried to deal with the same kind of thing. If the present Executive have the support of the people, then they ought to be able to possess their souls in patience for a little, and wait until such time as that will expresses itself in support of the law which they made. If [1585] they have not support for the law which they have made, then it is because the law is somehow out of accord with the aspirations of the people and their duty ought to be to set it right. Deputies on the top benches have protested and said: “This is an Irish House; this is not Great Britain.” Very good; make it a completely Irish House by not compelling representatives of Irishmen who do not want to swear an oath of allegiance to a British king to do so. Make it an Irish House by removing the oath; make it possible for Irishmen who do not want to appear to compromise themselves or their national opinions to be represented here. Then the law that will be made here will not be looked upon as partisan law. Then you will not have any of these Coercion Acts.

Dr. Hennessy: Will the oath of allegiance in Document No. 2 do?

Mr. de Valera: There never was an oath of allegiance in Document No. 2. If Deputy Hennessy would talk about something he knows about, he would be better off. I am not talking to Deputies like Deputy Hennessy, but to men who were in these particular things and know what they are talking about. I am not talking to the fifteen who are against Irish, I am talking to those who showed they were national, and appealing to them to be fair to themselves, to let their national feelings give them some sort of direction, and to let their hearts speak.

Mr. G. O'Sullivan made a remark.

Mr. MacEntee: Will you send Deputy O'Sullivan back to the Spring Show as an exhibit?

Mr. de Valera: This is the first Coercion Act that we have definitely had an opportunity of speaking upon in this House. As far as we are concerned, any step that is outside the ordinary law is going to be opposed by us. We are going to give no assistance whatever to the Executive to use measures that are outside the ordinary law.

[1586] Mr. T. Sheehy (Cork): I rise to a point of order. Deputy de Valera is after stating that he has no sympathy whatever with murderers. This Bill is to put them down. Now he stands up and says that it is not going to be law at all.

Mr. de Valera: I would point out to Deputy Sheehy that if he goes back in memory he will find that every Irish representative who stood for Ireland's rights when they were being threatened in the British House of Commons was told by British Ministers that it was only to put down murder these Acts were passed. That is no answer. Deputy Sheehy has only to go back and think of the time when these answers were flung across the British House of Commons by English Ministers at men like the late John Dillon and others who were fighting for Ireland's cause then.

Mr. Sheehy: How are we going to battle with the position unless we have a Bill like this? You say, “We do not acknowledge this House.” We do acknowledge this House, and the overwhelming majority of the Irish people do. It is in this House that we will have to protect the lives of the people and not by looking across the other side. We have no more to say now to John Bull or England. You have been carrying us across the Irish Sea all the day.

Mr. de Valera: I knew there was a chord in some of these old warriors' hearts that could be stirred. I am perfectly certain that if Deputy Sheehy will get a volume in the library containing some of the Debates at that time he will find the very self-same thing that he is talking about here as a justification for this Bill given by British Tories, and by British Liberals too, as a justification for their Bill.

Mr. Sheehy: Will the Deputy realise that we have no more to say to England, that we are here in our own country administering our own laws, that we are a thoroughly independent nation under the Treaty and that we accept it?

[1587] Mr. de Valera: If that were only so, then it should not be too difficult to get every section of the people to understand it.

Mr. Sheehy: I hope you will come along and shake hands.

Mr. de Valera: All sections of the people would readily understand it, and it would not be necessary to have a process of packing juries in order to try to get fair trial, such as the Executive pretends is necessary, or, at least, to get trial that will bring conviction against people.

Mr. Sheehy: It is not—(interruptions and cries of order)—anything personal I am alluding to. It is on public grounds I am talking here.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Deputy Sheehy will have to restrain himself and let Deputy de Valera proceed with his speech.

Mr. de Valera: If you pass Bills of this kind, you will get the sort of publicity for this country that you get from these gentlemen I have mentioned. It was the very self-same publicity which we got from them in the “Weekly Summary” which Sir Hamar Greenwood broadcasted throughout the world. Just listen to it for a moment. This is a despatch dated “Dublin, Friday,” and appeared in the “Daily Express” of Saturday, April 6th.

Mr. G. O'Sullivan: Whose despatch?

Mr. de Valera: By a gentleman named Ketchem—

“Not since those bleak, grey days in 1922, when I stood in the Bedford Tower of Dublin Castle and gazed on the burning ruins of the Four Courts, laid waste by the fleeing Republicans, have I known the public mind of Southern Ireland to be stirred to such a pitch of nervous tension. There is a grim anxiety in the air, an atmosphere of hush, of dark, mysterious forebodings, strangly reminiscent in a relative way of the rainy nights of those long winter months when, as I so well remember, the [1588] curfew sent the populace scurrying to their homes at five o'clock, and when every man in the streets after that hour carried a loaded revolver in his pocket. The only difference to-day in the feeling of the people is that their fears are not based on any apprehension of danger of a national character. There is, of course, no reason for that. But there is the gravest concern—and indeed every cause for it—for the safety of hundreds of individual citizens, who, on one account or another, have incurred the disfavour of a dangerous band of political desperadoes which has recently sprung into existence.”

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: Would the Deputy explain what the writings of that gentleman have to do with this Bill?

Mr. G. O'Sullivan: On a point of order——

Mr. G. Boland: Let the Deputy go back to the Show.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I want to hear Deputy de Valera.

Mr. G. O'Sullivan: On a point of order, I desire to say that the opinion of that gentleman who wrote what the Deputy has read out in some paper or another has got absolutely nothing to do with the Bill entitled “An Act to Make Further and Better Provision for the Protection of Jurors and Witnesses concerned in the trial of criminal issues.”

Mr. de Valera: I think An Leas-Cheann Comhairle was asking me a question.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I was asking what relation there is between this gentleman's article and this Bill.

Mr. de Valera: The relation is this: one of the reasons for introducing this Bill is that two crimes were committed. These crimes were known to the Executive for a number of weeks. They did not take any special action; they did not make any public pronouncement [1589] upon them until it suited their purpose at election time. Then the statement was made by the President of the Executive Council—I hold for election purposes. I shall read it if the Leas-Cheann Comhairle is doubtful whether it is or is not relevant to this Bill.

An Leas-Cheann Comhairle: I shall allow the Deputy to quote what the President said, but I do not think I can allow him to quote comments by every newspaper on the state of the country.

Mr. de Valera: The reason I want to read this is to show how the country is being misrepresented by people who take advantage of irresponsible statements made absolutely for political purposes at the time. These irresponsible statements are now going to be backed up by a Bill that will give another opportunity to Mr. Ketchem to write other articles of this kind. The President's statement was this—lest anybody would accuse me of not giving the context I shall give it in full:—

“Some of the speakers have told you of the difficulties which confronted the Government in its early stages. One of the problems was: by what means we should have prisoners tried in the courts; whether a judge would decide a man's guilt or innocence. Laws were never popular; from the earliest time laws were broken. Nowadays they have people complaining that the laws were onerous, difficult, and so on. We established in this country the right of trial by jury; that is a precious right; it is not the prerogative of any Party in this country.”

Deputies: Hear, hear!

Mr. de Valera: I hope Deputies who say “Hear hear!” will see that this right is preserved and not polluted.

Mr. Carey: Let you do the same thing.

[1590] Mr. de Valera: Juries can be protected by the ordinary law.

Mr. Rice: Are you going to help to do that?

Mr. de Valera: It is no protection to the juries to take away all reason for helping them.

Professor Tierney made a remark.

Mr. de Valera: That is one of the ways of protecting them. It is one of the very best ways to protect them, because the day that you will have a House where all the people of the country are represented, where there will be no barriers to any representative of the people coming in. from that day there will be some hope that the laws made in that assembly will be regarded as the laws of Ireland and obeyed by the people of Ireland as such.

Mr. Anthony: On a point of order, I do not agree with Deputy de Valera as a rule, but I ask the Leas-Cheann Comhairle to rule that Deputy de Valera should be allowed to make his speech without any further interruption.

Mr. de Valera: The speech made by the President in this particular matter is, of course, not relevant. When these things hurt, some of the Deputies try to prevent anybody from speaking. “ We established,” the President says, “in this country the right of trial by jury; that is a precious right; it is not the prerogative of any Party in this country; it should be the proudest possession of all parties and every party in the State.” And that got applause, as it is getting “Hear, hear!” from some of the Deputies. Very well, if that is the principle that you accept, will you see it is kept pure and right and not destroy it, as the Minister for Justice proposes to destroy it in this Bill. If there is anything to boast about in establishing the right of juries then preserve the right.

Mr. Rice: We will preserve them all right.

[1591] Mr. Gorey: That is what we are doing.

Mr. de Valera: The meaning of this Bill, and it has no other meaning, is completely to destroy the value of trial by jury. “We have established the independence of the judiciary”; that used to be the boast of the British too. “Every person is tried in open court.” Every person is tried in open court. Why do not the Deputies opposite shout “Hear, hear” to that? This is the President's statement too.

Mr. Gorey: Read it again.

Mr. de Valera: “We have established the independence of the judiciary.”

Mr. Gorey: Hear, hear!

Mr. de Valera: “Every person is tried in open court.”

Mr. Gorey: Hear, hear!

Mr. de Valera: And will be tried, I hope, in open court. I hope Deputy Gorey will, at any rate, be against this Bill. “On the security of the jury rests the liberty of the people. On the impartiality of the jury rests the security of the citizens.”

Mr. Gorey: Hear, hear!

Mr. de Valera: Very well, then will Deputy Gorey see that the accused will always have an opportunity of an impartial jury, not one packed by his political opponents, by the Executive. “A matter of very serious import has arisen within the last two months. A deliberate and organised attack has been launched against the foundations of ordered society in the City.” Now, Mr. Ketchem, get ready. “In January a murderous attack was made on a respectable citizen, and that it had not fatal results was due to the dispensation of Providence. The attempt to murder this citizen was made for one reason only, because he had served on a jury which convicted a criminal against whom there was the most complete and convincing [1592] evidence of guilt. Less than a fortnight ago, a young man was brutally done to death in this City because he gave evidence for the prosecution in a recent case. Mark for the moment what the situation is. Are you to have proper government; are you to have government at all? If you are to have government, then you must have law, and if you are to have law you must have the instruments of law. First you must have the means of finding whether the person charged with an offence is guilty or not. You must have free ingress and egress from the courts of persons about to give or who have given evidence. These two incidents are not isolated incidents. They are part of a deliberate conspiracy to defeat the interests of justice.” The Minister for Justice has not given us any indication of this widespread conspiracy. He has not shown it to us. “Some time ago, a series of pamphlets threatened jurors that if they did their duty to the State or to the public they would be shot. These failed in their object. The decent citizens of Dublin were not terrorised. Embracery was not successful.”

If they were not successful, why is it that we have to go to the extent of completely undermining the whole jury system in order to meet the situation. “So far the perpetrators of these crimes have succeeded in evading capture. The position, therefore, is that there exists in this city at the present moment a body of criminals who are endeavouring to secure immunity from conviction by murdering unarmed witnesses and jurors who are merely doing their duty as citizens. It this conspiracy is not crushed—” notice what the President was anxious about. It was good for the election. It was not for the protection of the jurors but to crush a conspiracy. That is to give colour for all the raids and all the imprisonments without any charge. It was to give colour to the taking of men and to enable men to be taken out into the fields at midnight and to be threatened with guns and to have all that done in secret. The Executive seem to be very anxious [1593] that their acts should not see the light of day and be subject to the ordinary criticism of informed public opinion. They want to do all their raiding and so on in the dark so that nobody will hear about it. “If this conspiracy is not crushed and crushed quickly we shall be faced with a very serious problem. Those who value human life so lightly cannot be expected to respect property or the rules of ordered society. The whole social fabric is threatened by their existence. You will remember that seven years ago there was a very determined attack made on the social order of this country; murder, armed robbery and arson were rife, private houses, banks and business houses were robbed, looted and burned. It appeared an almost impossible task to put an end to this state of affairs. There were so many opportunities for the criminals and the forces at the disposal of the Government were new and inexperienced. But notwithstanding all these difficulties the attempt was made and the Government put it down”—the present Government put it down. “The standard bearer of the Government in this election is Dr. O'Higgins. The present conspiracy must be put down in the interests of society, in the interests of civilisation, in the interests of the safeguarding of human life and the protection of property.” As I said you can get parallels for all these in the statements of the British Tories and Liberals when they were bringing in their Coercion Acts.

Mr. G. Boland: The postal voters saved the situation.

Mr. Gorey: Read something from Chicago.

Mr. de Valera: “The present conspiracy must be put down in the interests of society, in the interests of civilisation, in the interest of safeguarding human life and the protection of property. This is not a remote issue for the electors of North Dublin. Wild women and hysterical men,”—now we have Ketchem—“are preaching murder in the city, men and women are supplying arms to [1594] boys to kill at an age when they should be still at school. We know that is going on and an end must be put to it and that quickly.” It is some time since that was delivered. The Government has not done anything extraordinary since and yet Dublin still stands, and Dublin would have stood if these speeches had not been made. The whole purpose of the speeches was, of course, to make the electors nervous and let them feel that there was a dangerous situation and of course the strong men on the opposite benches were the only possible safeguards of society. “Wild women and hysterical men are preaching murder in the city. Men and women are supplying arms to boys to kill at an age when they should be still at school. We know that that is going on and an end must be put to it and that quickly. This type of crime receives encouragement from every form of disrespect for authority, whether under a constitutional cloak or expressed in open defiance of State institutions. It is the fundamental duty of the State to protect the citizen's life and property”—aye, and to protect the citizens' liberty——

Mr. Gorey: Hear, hear!

Mr. de Valera:—— and thereby give him an opportunity of a fair trial when he is accused. “It is the fundamental duty of the State to take the steps necessary and adequate for that, and the Government intends to take whatever steps are necessary.” Strong men, of course, once more. “If from every platform they had speakers standing for the safeguarding of jurors for the security of life of every man who acted on a jury, they would not have those incidents that happened recently.”

And if they had a Government and an Executive that would see the signs of the times and ask themselves the question that Irish representatives used to warn the British, to ask themselves whether the law is in consonance with the aspirations of the people, whether the people feel a natural respect for it as law made by their representatives. they would [1595] have done very much better. This was the statement that began this campaign, and the next step to Mr. Ketchem was not very far. I think I could easily, if I wished, press the point, but you can see there was relevance in that particular document. However, the point that I wish to make upon that is, that this is a very serious matter. This is a question of destroying what used to be called the palladium of liberty. The Minister for Justice is trying to steal that away from the citizens as a whole. Each Deputy here has a duty to see that that right of fair, impartial trial in open court is not denied to the people and that it will not be in the power of the Executive by Section 8 of this Bill to keep without trial a man whom they wish to detain in prison. Coercion and coercive Acts of this kind have always failed in the past. They will fail in the future. They are as hopeless to deal with the real situation as were the methods of a doctor who would be dealing with surface symptoms instead of dealing with the seat of the disease. If juries do not ordinarily find judgment in accordance with what people would regard as facts—they do not do that out of perversity. They do it because they feel that they are acting fundamentally more justly than if they did. Most of us know that there was a time in Britain when the law was so severe—I see the Minister for Justice taking notes. He can print them if he wants to.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney: I like the Deputy's eulogy of perjury.

Mr. de Valera: The Deputy did not eulogise perjury.

Mr. Fitzgerald-Kenney: The Deputy is doing it now.

Mr. de Valera: I am doing nothing of the kind. I say that a man has in conscience a fundamental duty not to be an instrument of a corrupt and tyrannical power; juries in England, when the law was so severe and so unjust as to deprive men of their lives for what to-day would be regarded [1596] as petty theft, set themselves against it and did not bring in convictions; and it was by the juries setting themselves against this law and not bringing in convictions that the right remedy was got. The law was changed.

Mr. Shaw: They never shot them in the backs in England.

Mr. de Valera: I do not know what was done in England. When British Ministers were making a case against Ireland and crime in Ireland, it could be shown there was far greater crime in their own country. I do not know what was done in England, but I know that in any country there are people who will say they will not become instruments, through forms of legality, for a corrupt power—an instrument of tyranny. The proper attitude for such jurors would be to refuse and to face the penalties for refusing to go on these juries. In any case, it was the resistance of the juries to an unjust law that brought about the change of law in England, and the people were wise enough to see that juries did not bring in verdicts in accordance with what appeared to be the facts, because they knew it meant a punishment altogether out of proportion to the nature of the crime. It was because men saw the import of that, that the law was changed. It would be well if you had men on the Executive here who would ask themselves: What is the import of all this? What does it mean and why does it happen? Is it there is some perversity in us as a people, as our opponents in the past used to try to have us believe? Is there something in that, or is it the natural explanation that when juries do not find in accordance with what others regard to be the facts, they shrink from having punishment imposed by a law which they think unjust?

If the Minister wants to make sure there will be no such thing as perjury, then the way to do it is to make it appear to the conscience of every individual going to serve on a jury that he has a duty to the community by giving his verdict in accordance [1597] with the facts. It should be made clear to him that he has a duty to the community and to the individual. You will not do it by a Bill of this kind. Quite the contrary. Everybody knows the experience of juries. When there was an impartial judge the juries found in accordance with the facts as a rule, but when there was a judge known to be bigoted and who was known by his actions not to be impartial, the experience was that the juries did not find in accordance with the facts.

As to the question of unanimity of the jury, in Scotland, when they were bringing back the jury system to civil cases, it was predicted that unanimity was impossible and that it was a wrong system. What was the result? Twenty years of practice have convinced those who were opposed to it at the time that it has been satisfactory. Those who originally opposed it are now convinced that it was a good system. One of its principal opponents, one of the judges at the time, said afterwards that in twenty years' experience of it he knew only one case where there was disagreement. If there is not unanimity of agreement in the first case, the Executive has a remedy. If there is disagreement they send the prisoner back for trial. That is a remedy in favour of the Executive. It is suggested it would be fairer to the accused if unanimity were not demanded. I think the accused will feel that they have a better safeguard in unanimity than in the system proposed by the Minister for Justice. The State has a safeguard by putting them up for trial again. The innocent person has a safeguard in the fact that he believes the subsequent jury may possibly find in accordance with the facts.

This system of empanelling in secret—let us be straight about it— this mean method of packing a jury which can be used by any unscrupulous Executive—and we ought not to give any Executive, scrupulous or unscrupulous, the opportunity of packing the jury—will not be popular. We are opposed to this Bill because it gives power to the Executive [1598] to pack the jury. It does not give the accused any opportunity of effectively challenging members of the jury who may be biased against him. He does not know who they are or their antecedents. He does not know whether they are likely to give a partial verdict against him. He has no redress whatever. Then you have this other way—keeping accused persons for months without bringing them for trial properly. All the Executive have to do is to get their agents to suggest that there has been intimidation. We know in the past that agents of the Government have been found who will give false testimony. It is not new to hear of Sergeant Sheridans, and so on. They have been there, and we know it. Are we to put it in the power of policemen, if they are so minded, to swear falsely that there has been intimidation and get the judge to put off the trial for another period? When the case comes along again this procedure will be repeated. There have been mean Coercion Acts in the past, and brutal Coercion Acts in the past. They have been put forward mainly, except for the last four or five years, by men who did not understand this country or the aspirations of the people.

Now they are proposed to be done by an Executive that calls itself Irish and by a House that pretends to call itself Irish and which is composed of Irish representatives who in the past have been fighting for liberty but who are now going to give away those