FROM THE ARCHIVES:Less than a year after the Easter Rising the change of heart about the rebellion amongst members of the Irish Party was evident in this speech in the House of Commons by John Dillon, the MP for Mayo East. – JOE JOYCE
Mr. DILLON moved to reduce the salary of the Prime Minister by £100 as a protest against the refusal to publish the proceedings of the rebellion courts martial in Dublin. He said that, apart from the breach of faith of which the Government had been guilty, he thought it was a perfectly monstrous thing that the proceedings of these courts martial should, after the lapse of a year, remain secret.
There was no case on record in the history of the country where men had been tried by secret tribunals for the crime of rebellion after the rebellion was over and order had been restored. It was the method of savages to try men by secret courts-martial, and deny the public the satisfaction of knowing on what evidence the men were convicted.
He asked under what authority in law these trials were carried out at all. Martial law was still in full force in Ireland, in spite of all the twistings and turnings of the Chief Secretary to-day. What made the matter infinitely worse was the fact that these trials were secret, and in his opinion nothing could possibly be more odious than secret trials.
He told the House that when an address was proposed congratulating the Duma, they would hear something from the Nationalist benches as to the duty of following the example which Russia had set in throwing open the doors and releasing the political prisoners. He maintained that these executions were murders, so far as the common law of England was concerned, and that there was not a shadow of justification for them, except under the Defence of the Realm Act. But that measure provided that where it was proved that an offence was committed with the intention of assisting the enemy the person convicted of such an offence by court martial should be liable to suffer death.
Was he not entitled to suspect that the reason why the Government refused to publish the evidence was that they had looked over it, and that they dare not publish it? (Nationalist cheers.)
They were afraid that if the evidence was published it might be manifest to the world that they had exceeded the law, and had not complied with the provisions of the Statute. But to add to the horrors of this unparalleled procedure, for a whole year these whole proceedings had been kept secret, while seventy men had been sent to penal servitude.
It was this kind of thing which was responsible for the present condition of the country and for the tremendous problems they had got to face in Ireland. If the Government persisted in the refusal to publish the evidence there would be a broad, deep-seated, and widespread suspicion that the reason why they refused was that they dared not do so – (Nationalist cheers) – as it would be manifest to the world that they had acted illegally.
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