GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND. 



361 



powers of the House are paralyzed. A new 

 and exceptional course is imperatively de- 

 manded, and I am satisfied I shall best carry 

 out the wish of the House if I decline to call 

 upon any more members to speak, and at once 

 proceed to put the question to the House." 



The following day Mr. Parnell questioned 

 the Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, 

 with respect to the arrest of Michael Davitt, 

 on the ground that his action, as a member of 

 the Land League, was incompatible with a 

 convict's ticket-of-leave. Before he had re- 

 ceived what was deemed a satisfactory answer, 

 Mr. Gladstone arose to bring in a resolution 

 giving the Speaker dictatorial powers when 

 urgency was declared. Mr. Dillon (Land 

 Leaguer) interrupted him on a question of 

 privilege, which the Speaker refused to hear. 

 On his persisting in demanding his privilege, 

 he was "named" by the Speaker, and on 

 Gladstone's motion suspended. He refused to 

 withdraw until he was removed by the ser- 

 geant-at-arms with a show of force. When 

 the Speaker called upon the Prime Minister to 



S'oceed, the latter was again interrupted by 

 r. Parnell, who moved that he be no longer 

 heard. Mr. Paruell was named by the Chair, 

 suspended, and removed with a show of force, 

 and after him Mr. Finegan was suspended on 

 the same provocation. Twenty-eight other 

 Irish members, for refusing to vote in these 

 proceedings, were suspended in a body, and 

 excluded by the sergeant-at-arms. These were 

 Messrs. Barry, Biggar, Byrne, Oorbett, Daly, 

 Dawson, Gill, E. Gray, Healy, Lalor, Leamy, 

 Leahy, McCarthy, McCoan, Marum, Metge, 

 Nelson, A. O'Connor, T. P. O'Connor, the 

 O'Donohue, the O'Gorman Mahon, O'Sullivan, 

 O'Connor Power, Redmond, Sexton, Smith- 

 wick, A. M. Sullivan, and T. D. Sullivan. Five 

 others, Molloy, O'Kelly, O'Donnell, P. Power, 

 and O'Shaughnessy, were afterward suspend- 

 ed separately for not taking part in the divis- 

 ions, or for moving that the Prime Minister bo 

 no longer heard.* 



The regulations proposed by the Govern- 

 ment, with amendments suggested by Sir Staf- 

 ford Northcote, the leader of the Opposition in 

 the House, were adopted. They provide that 

 when " the state of public business " is voted 

 " urgent " by a three-fourths majority in a 

 House of 300 members or more, the Speaker 

 shall be endued with dictatorial authority 

 over the proceedings of the House until he 

 declares that the state of affairs is no longer 

 urgent. The Speaker framed a set of roles 

 governing the exercise of this extraordinary 

 power. The principal one was that he should 

 close a debate when obstructive opposition was 

 suspected. Regarding motions of adjournment, 



* In the previous session, during a speech by P. H. O'Don- 

 nell, the same Speaker being in the chair, Mr. Gladstone 

 moved "that the honorable member be no longer heard." 

 The Speaker, in putting It to vote, remarked that no motion 

 of the kind had been made for two hundred years, adding 

 that it was very doubtful whether such a proceeding as that 

 which prompted it had occurred during that time. 



he laid down the rules that no such motion can 

 be entertained during the hour for asking 

 questions and giving notices without a vote of 

 permission; that during debate speeches on 

 motions for adjournment must be confined 

 strictly to the point, and the Speaker may re- 

 fuse to put such motions, or may put them 

 without discussion, if he deems that they are 

 made for obstructive purposes; that members 

 who have spoken on a motion for adjournment 

 will not be permitted to speak on another dur- 

 ing the same debate. The Speaker is empow- 

 ered to stop a member in the middle of his 

 speech if guilty of "continuous irrelevance or 

 tedious repetition." Motions to go into com- 

 mittee or pass a bill as amended are not debat- 

 able. Finally, when a division is demanded, 

 the Speaker may call upon the members chal- 

 lenging it to rise, and, if they do not exceed 

 twenty in number, the vote is not taken. 



The Irish members who had been suspended 

 issued, February 4th, a manifesto to the Irish 

 people, urging them to maintain their orderly 

 self-restraint and their unshaken organization, 

 and not to be terrorized by a brief reign of 

 despotism, nor driven from the positions of 

 constitutional action, in spite of acts of the 

 Irish Executive abrogating law, such as the 

 return to penal servitude of a man well known 

 as a counselor of restraint and prudence,* and 

 notwithstanding the fact that the reign offeree 

 had been inaugurated against them on the floor 

 of the House of Commons, and the voice of the 

 Irish representation arbitrarily silenced in order 

 that a coercion act for Ireland might be forced 

 through the Legislature. 

 The protection bill was immediately declared 

 " urgent " ; yet, in spite of the new rules, the 

 Irish party contested its passage obstinately 

 and protracted the discussion till the 21st of 

 February, when it was carried by a resort to 

 the rules of urgency and the closure of the de- 

 bate. 



The protection bill provided for the arrest 

 and confinement, within such districts as should 

 be proclaimed under the act, of any persons 

 suspected of high treason, treason-felony, or 

 treasonable practices; and also of any crime 

 punishable by law of the nature of an act of 

 violence or intimidation, or the inciting to such 

 acts, and tending to interfere with or disturb 

 the maintenance of law and order. Persons 

 arrested on such warrants should be detained 

 and treated as persons accused of crime, and 

 not as convicted prisoners. The suspension of 

 the act of habeas corpim, and the extension of 

 the powers of the Executive, continue in force 

 until September 30, 1882. 



The second of the coercive measures asked 



* Davitt. Michael Davitt was born in the county of Mayo 

 In 1846. He lost an arm at the age of ten when working in a 

 Lancashire cotton-factory, his father having left Ireland after 

 being evicted from his farm in KM. Davitt became a letter- 

 carrier, and in 1863 a traveling salesman. Ho took part in 

 the Fenian movement, and in 1870 was tried for treason- 

 felony, and sentenced to fifteen years' penal servitude. In 

 1877 "ho was released on ticket-of-leave. From that time he 

 devoted himself to organizing the Land League. 



