A SAMPLE OF COERCION.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVII, Issue 21, 13 September 1889, Page 7

A SAMPLE OF COERCION.

(United Ireland^ July 13.)

The acquittal of Messrs. Gill, M.P., and Cox, M.P , by the Coercion Court in Drogheda is the surprise of the season. Messrs. Gill, M.P., andCjx, M. P., owed their miraculous escape to tbe conjunction of two courses. First, the plain, unmistakable, and undeaiable exposure of the perjury of the police reporter, Robinson. Second, the presence of a number of distinguished JSnglish visitors — Messrs. G. P. Fuller, M.P. ; Mr. C. E. Schwann, M.P. ; Mr. A.J.Williams, M.P. and tbe Honour able Ashley Ponsonby — who satin a conspicuous place in court and witnessed tbe exposure.

To begin at the beginning— for it is a chapter in Coercion proceedings worth recording— Messrs. Gill M.P. , and Cox, M.P., received, accompanying the summonses, an insulting note from the Crown Soiicitor to the effect that if they did not forthwith forward him an undertaking that they would appear, he would have them arrested in London and brought over in custody. This, insulting notification, it is needless to say, they treated with absolute contempt ; but tbe authorities, on second thoughts, deemed it more prudent not to carry the threat into execution. As usual, the Castle blundered over the business, and assumed the defendants bad been brought across as prisoners. Of course they marched tbe inevitable little army of horse and foot into the peaceful town of Drogheda. I confess I was a bit amused at the amazement of the English visitors who accompanied Mr. Gill, as they stepped quietly out of the station from the nine o'clock train oa Monday morning and realised the magnificent reception that awaited them. The large space in front of the station was filled with a full troop of the Scots Greys on their prancing chargers, flanked by long lines of infantry, whose red coats and white summer helmets heightened the splendour of the military parade. A few sharp words of command rang through the still air, and then the sunshine was filled with the flashing of steel as sabres were suddenly bared and bayonets brought to rest. As soon as the visitors had sufficiently recovered from their surprise they got on brakes, which the Mayor and Corporation had hospitably provided for them, with the defendants and drove to the court, with the splendid cavalcade clattering in the rear. Wflile the trial lasted the military were stationed outside the court, mnch to the amazement of the English visitors — all of them, I believe, magistrates in their own country. Inside the court tbe Removables were Removable Hamilton, a promoted gauger, and Colonel Bowlby, a retire! militia officer, with whose joint legal knowledge the easily-satisfied Lord Lieutenant is satisfied, Colonel Bowlby is a little, insignificant, black man, with bushy whiskers and a face like a tom-cat, who never seems to have the faintest notion of what is proceeding in court. Removable Hamilton is a man of a different type. He is the best paid and perhaps the least scrupulous of the Removables. He has the very face for a drumhead courtmartial, a long twisted grey moustache, heavy, bushy eyebrows, and yellow, stealthy, filmy eyes, that rove fiercely about the court. It was he who came whining to William O'Brien, M.P., and promising good behaviour for tbe future when the Home Rule Bill was in the air, aod it was he that behaved with such unparalleled insolence to John Dillon when he was on trial before him. The charges were the usual common form of Coercion— '• conspiring to induce certain persons unknown not to pay rents which were, or might become, due," and with tbe awful words the " Plan of Campaign "sprinkled here and there through the meaningless verbiage. The first policeman swore that he had attended two other meetings in urtherance of the Plan of Campaign. Cross-examination revealed he curious facts that he had seen nothing done, and heard nothing said at the meetings, and had come to the conclusion that they were intended to promote tbe Plan from what he had afterwards seen in the n3wspapere. The next witness was the perjured police reporter, Robinson. He gave his evidence glibly enough. He produced a notebook containing what he swore was the long-hand report of the speeches delivered by Messrs. Gill, M.P., and Cox, M.P., at the meetings for which they were prosecuted. The report was a very neat and creditable production. The sentences, which were long and complicated, were completely finished, and the whole artistically punctuated with applaus? and laughter. Mr. Bodkin, who appeared for the accused, then took the witness in hand. At the first question Removable Hamilton interposed, and declared he would not allow any imputation on the veracity of tbe witness, but Mr. Bodkin, who treated the court throughout with quiet scorn, persisted and succeeded. He elicited from the reluctant witness the fact that he had an opportunity of reading over the papers before he furnished his report. He swore he derived no assistance from the pacers. He could give no account for the fact that some leaves were torn from the front of his note-book beyond stating that he received it in that condition from a comrade. Mr. Bodkin then proposed to test the ability of the witness to perform the feat he swore to by reading to him slowly in Court and requiring him to transcribe as much as he was able. Removable Hamilton declared he considered the test a most unfair one. The witness himself entered a most vehement protest. He was comforted by the assurance that he wouid be treated by tbe Court with every consideration. " You may be sure constable," said counsel with emphasis, " that the Court will treat you with every consideration," and the Removable hastily interposed " With every fair consideration." The test eventuated in a fiasco on the pait of witness that would have been ludicrous if it was not so disgraceful. The first trial was his own report read over slowly. The witness could only reproduce a few disjointed words, over which he Btambled amid the laughter of the Court. Passage after passage was read for him from the papers with the same result. At length counsel read about a third of a column from the Freeman report of Mr. Gladstone with the utmost deliberation, so slowly that witness himself was obliged to confess it was as slow as Mr. Gill had spoken, but his effort at reporting was a few disjointed words and phraseß without any sense or sequence whatever. He declined any further trial, and was permitted to depart.

The next constable who stepped into the box fnrther exposed—in a most dramatic manner— the perjury of his comrade. He, too, had attempted a longhand report, but had no opportunity, being all day " on duty "in pursuit of Mr. Gill, M. P., througa hia constituency, of seeing the newspapers before be banded in hia report, Hia report was read , and proved a jumblej umble of disconnected phrases. To emphasise the distinction, on being tested by reading in court, he proved far more adroit than his prejureJ comrade. The Castle and the Removables were placed in an awkward dilemma, and I hare no doubt the wires were in requisition between them during the two days the case lasted. A dozen times in the conduct of the case counsel for the accused had ingeniously suggested that the trial was an empty form, and the conviction a foregone conclusion. A dozen times Removable Hamilton had fretfully resented the suggestion. He could not for very shame sake, in the presence of the English visitors, who watched tbe proceedings judicially, note-book in hand, confirm the charge by convicting on evidence so plainly perjured. Turning to those English gentlemen, counsel, in the course of his address for the defence, expressed his conviction that each one of them occupying a magisterial position in hia own country was of opinion, after the crossexamination of Constable Robinson, that the next step in the proceeding, should be a warrant against him for perjury. Removable Hamilton's stealthy yellow eyes ranging tbe court caught Bight of thig jury of English opinion in a row before him, each man noddin? his vigorous assent. After this a conviction was impossible. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the Coercion court was coerced by English public opinion into an acquittal. The acquittal seems to me of unique importance. It can scarcely fail to be followed by the trial of Constable Robinson for perjury. The Removables based their decision on the assumption that his evidence was fade. What a vista it opens out to us of the ntter demoralisation of the police force which 'the brave Balfour baa succeeded in accomplishing when we find a policeman deliberately concocting a false report and swearing to it, with no possible motive except th« promotion that follows a successful prosecution. Who can Bay how many hundred innocent man have gone to gaol in Ireland on th« perjured evidence of police ? Yet on the strength of the mere reports of those same police oa matters in which they are themselves deeply incriminated the truthful Balfour flaunts his falsehoods in the face of the House of Commons. The Removables had their revenge for their enforced acquittal of the members of Parliament by inflicting savage sentences on some evicted tenants and shopkeepers, whose crime was that they refused to deal with one of the new " plans "on tha Maesareene estate. The prosecution was remarkable for bringing for the first time one of the Dudgeon and Emerson " sturdy Protestant yeomen " into the light of day. He turned out to be a disreputable corner-boy — literally a boy, for he confessed he was under age. He had tried his hand, he said, helping game-keeping before he "joined farming on the Maasereene estate," as he might join the militia. He nad seen the advertisement, " none but Protestants need apply," and he applied. He had no capital and had paiu no rent, and had been asked for none. His brother-in-law, Pepper, had got another farm, and hia sister, Mrs. Pepper, blushingly confessed to counsel that there were nu young Peppers as yet, but she hoped they would be planted in holdings on the estate as they arrived. So ends the terrible tale of the Protestant plantation. The charge agaiDst the accused was, they refmeJ their goods to these bogus land-grabbers, as Lord Massereene had refused his farms to Catholics. When the court rose to go through the farce of considering their judgment, the English visitors were quite confident of an acquittal, and laugbed at the suggestion of those more experienced in the ways of Coercion Courts that a conviction was absolutely certain. Mr. Fuller, M.P., was especially incredulous. He remarked to bis friends that on the law, as it was laid down by the counsel for tne defence, and not disputed by counsel for the Grown, he could not conceive how a convictioa was possible. He said he would certainly be in court for the decision, as he wa9 curious to know by what reasons the court could justify their conviction. But the Removables baffled his curiosity by convicting and inflicting savage sentences without any reasons at all. The English visitors were treated to just one further sample of Coercion before they left the town. At the lailway station congratulatory addresses were presented to them rrom the Corporation, tbe Harbour Board, the PoorLaw Board, and the National League. Suddenly Removable Kilkelly came clattering to the scene with an immense force of police boiling for a row. " Have these men your leave to be here ?" he demanded, threateningly, of the stationmaster. " Certainly," responded the stationmaster. quietly. "In that case," muttered the baffled Removable, "I am afraid I cannot interfere." He saw his chance, however, later on. As the train moved off, Mr. Gill, M.P., put his head out of the window to address a few parting words to his constituents. Removable Kilkelly at once rushed to the spot with a large body of police. "We cannot allow this sort of thing," he shouted, angrily. Mr. Gill refused to be interrupted. "You had best Etop if you don't want these people to be hurt," was the brutal and cowardly threat with which the County-Inspector, reinforcing the Removable, attempted to silence him, pointing significantly to the crowd of the most respectful inhabitants of Drogheda, whom he had hemmed between his batonmen and th? wall. These were the last words the English members heard as the train steamed out of the Btation.

Such is a plain unvarnished record of two days' coercion in court and out of it in Drogheda. For confirmation, down to the smallest detail, I confidently appeal to tbe distinguished English visitors whose names I have mentioned as present through the entire proceedings.