THE MAAMTRASNA ENQUIRY.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 27, 24 October 1884, Page 21

THE MAAMTRASNA ENQUIRY.

(The Nation, August 30.)

Earl Spevcer and his adrißers nv*y flatter themselves, aud their admirers in the Press may pretend to they hearts' content, that the official reply to the lecter of the Archbishop of Tv iin on the grim Maamtrasna business is conclusive of the question raised by hit Grace's communication ; but his Excellency will do well not to take for granted that the Castle view of the matter is that which finds general acceptance in the country. His memorandum may, in his opinion and in that of his friends, be enough to clear himself and Crown Solicitor Bolt on of the charges made against them ; but we have no hesitation in saying that that document, iv the opinion of nine out of every ten persons in Ireland who have read it, solves no difficulty whatever, and suggests nothing but that the Castle Ring are afraid to face the open, pnblic inquiry which has b^en demanded by the voice of the Irish public, and which, it has been understood, was promised by the Marquis of Hartington in the House of Commons before the prorogation. In fact, in one respect, as we shall presently show, it marks with a more decided brand of condemnation the refusal of Lord Spencer to give a favourable answer to the many appeals made to him t»orauutrf the sentence pished upon Myles Joyce aud executed under the horrible circumstance* that are still so frebh in general recollection. > Lord Spencer apparently fails to see, if he does not deliberately ignore, what really he has been calle I upon to do in this case, ile think?, or pretends to think, that if he s itisfies himself and the other leading authorities in the Castle that Myled Joyce was rightly hung, an<i that the incomparable Bolton did nothing in hi* dealings with the Maamtrasna iv formers that w.is not perfectly proper, nothing now remains to be accomplishe i. Acting on this comfortable theory, he proceeds to hold a s»*cr«t inquiry in the Castle, calling to his aid Bolton a id other Crown officials ; and then, after due deliberation, he emphatically acquits himself and Bolton of a-1 blame, giving ac the snme time a lengcheacd and plausible resume of his raasous ! But this is n»t what was wanted. Lord Spencer h*d to satisfy not himself at all so much ks the public, and this achievement could not possibly have bjen accomplished by a secret inquiry in the Castle preside*! over by the mau who siguei the warrauc for Joycs's execution, an I attendei by none but his own official witue. sea. As wdl .set. s et a gansr of men charge i with murder to investigate the question of their guilt or innocence, and expect that their verdict of acquittal would win general respect. One story is good till another is toll. The Castle memorandum is a cogent argument, but the ten-) of thousand* who regard Earl Spencer aud George Bolton as being, virtually in the <lock would be more likely to be con vine 3d by it if the value of the statements it contains bad been sifted by a searching crossexamination conduct 3d in public and presided over by an independent tribunal.

Tbe point on which it seems to us Lord Spencer has made matters worse for himself by his memoraudum now comes into notice. Since My les Joyce was executed the report thit the two men who were hanged with, him declared, just before they p;is-»e I into eternity, that he was inuocent has been generally current, but the fact of that declaration having been made id now tor the first time officially acknowledged. That i* to say, the Lord Lieutenant; now at last admits that he refused to commute the sentence on My les Joyce iti face of what would have induced most persons to have at least some doubt aa to the correctness of the verdict in his case. A U'V ibly serious admission ; and it is njt rendered lest serious by th<3 defence which Lord Speucer in his memorandum sets ud for hi< " firmness." He seems to reconcile the dying statemeuti of Joyce and his fellows with the verdict by assuming that what those statemeuts meant was that Joyce was not one <>f th>ee who actually took pait iD the horrfl butchery of Maaintrasna ; and on this point he observes that all who went O'i the mission of murder, and uot merely those who actually struck the fatal blows or fired th-j fatal shots, are raomWy and legally guilty. But was it or is it even yet certain that, if Myles Joyce was one of the Maamtrasoa murder party, and was not one of the actual murderers, he wa9 consciuu 3 of the nature of the mission on which h-s associates were bent 1 It is impossible to außWur this quebtion in the affirmative in the face of the informers' story that thj majority of the party did not know for what t-iey were led along by their two l«ad» ra ; and thus it is clear that, though the legal liability of Mylea Joyce under the circumstances supposed was undoubted, bis moral liability did uot exist, and to c*rry out, therefore, ii his caw an irrevocable se iteuce was an act from which most men of conscieuce and of ordinary powers of discrimination would hare shrunk in horror.

It remains to notice the grand excuse offered directly in the Castle Presß and indirectly in Lord Spencer's letter to the Archbishop of Tuam for not holding a public inquiry into this horrible subject. It would, it appears, be an intolerable proceeding, and one calculated to interfere gravely with the administration of justice, to recpen a question decided after a solemn investigation by a duly constituted jury. The proposition is one which, in the abstract, may be affirmed with perfect safety. In a constitutionally governed country, where juries are fairly empanelled, where judges exhibit no partizanship, and_ where no attempt U made for any reason to strain tbe law against those accused of crime, to uphold the verdicts of juries is, except under the most unusual circumstances, a duty of the executive authority which cannot be abandoned without tho eravest risk to the interests of the community. But it is a different matter in a country wliere constitutional government is merely a memory, where jurypacking is the order of the day, where non-partisan judges are the exception, and where, in a not infrequent condition of things the policy of the executive is to punish whether the particular persons punished are guilty or not of the crimas laid to their account. In such a country the course of jnstice is contaminated throughout ; injustice is constantly possible ; and, consequently, it is not only not surprising thpt the administrators of the law should be often called on to justify their acts before tbe public, but for them to refuse to comply with such a demand may well be in some cases to pronounce themselves guilty of foul play, and in many other cases to throw deep and dark suspicion on their conduct. Such a result is the penalty of carrying on an indefensible system of government, and i : is a just penalty if con"scienc2le3s tyrants are not, unchecked, to pursue their wicked courses to the misery and ruin of their victims.