I think I have a recollection that when the Minister for Home Affairs sprung this bombshell on the Dáil, on the occasion of the First Reading of the Bill, he gave us to understand that on the Second Reading he would produce sufficient evidence to convince us of the necessity for the introduction of this measure. I think there is hardly anybody in the Dáil will hold that he has produced that evidence. He has acted, in his own words, in the role of intelligent anticipator, and told us what is likely, in his opinion, to occur. One would have thought that before he would ask this Dáil to commit itself to pass these proposals into law that he would give us some evidence on which, as ordinary individuals, we could found an opinion that there was at this moment an abnormal condition of affairs existing in the country. He has not done that. In every country after a period of war, or after a period of revolution such as this country has passed through, it is the normal condition that ordinary crime should be, generally speaking, much more rampant than it was in more peaceable times. That was the position in England after the Great War. It was the position in France and in other countries. But the English Government, in order to cope with that position, did not introduce or ask its parliament to give them the extraordinary powers that are asked for of this Irish parliament. These English are no fools. They have fought for the liberty which they have through the centuries, and one of the dearest liberties in their possession is this right which is known as habeas corpus. The Minister for Home Affairs and the other Ministers from time to time quote or use as an argument the fact that we have, under the Treaty, as much right to form our own Government as the Englishman has in his own country. But they have been careful not to say that we have as much liberty as the Englishman has in his own country. The English Government did not resort to these extraordinary laws for the preservation of order. Before the Dáil was asked to give its sanction to these emergency powers, even though temporary, the case should be absolutely plain and clear to the Deputies and to the country that the ordinary law that exists has failed to maintain and to restore order. What are the facts? Take this country for the last month or two—and I will mention that period specially—and compare its record so far as ordinary crime is concerned with any other country, and I think, if you take all the circumstances into account, particularly the fact that we have been just emerging from four or five years of very great disturbance, you will find the records in that respect will compare favourably indeed with those of any other country. But the Minister for Home Affairs, by way of intelligent anticipation, puts this view before us. Perhaps he knows some things which he has not told to us in this Dáil. He tells us that the crime of arson and robbery under arms, and these things for which special powers are being applied in this Bill, will be common. Now, I think it would be very much better in the interests of this country if until there is some more evidence and some greater evidence than exists at the present time, that his anticipation would be correct, this measure were not introduced.
There is one particular phase of this question to which no speaker has so far drawn attention, and which is worthy of attention. In defending his measure, and in telling us why it is important that his hideous provision with regard to flogging should be disinterred and reintroduced, great stress was laid on the necessity for meeting robbery under arms by this proposed flogging. Usually, when this is referred to through the country or in this Dáil, people take it that under this Bill robbery means robbery with a gun, with a revolver, by force of arms as arms are generally understood. That is the only meaning that is attached to it by the ordinary individual; but when we come to the Bill, and see how robbery under arms is defined, we see it has quite a different complexion altogether. In Section 5 of the Bill it sets out, "Every person convicted by a Court of Summary Jurisdiction of any of the offences mentioned in Part 2 of the Schedule to this Act shall be sentenced to suffer imprisonment with hard labour for a term of twelve months," and so on. In Section 5, Sub-section 4, it says, "Every male person who shall be convicted by a Court of Summary Jurisdiction or found guilty on indictment of the offence of robbery under arms as defined at No. 6 in Part 2 of the Schedule to this Act"; and we turn to Part 2 of the Schedule of this Act, and we find that robbery under arms is here defined as "robbery or attempting to rob while armed with any offensive weapon or instrument." Now, what is an offensive weapon or instrument in this sense? It is not necessarily a loaded revolver, a rifle, a shotgun, or a bomb. It may be a blackthorn stick. A man's fist might be considered an offensive weapon or instrument in this particular direction, or a man's boots, as I am reminded. Through the country the impression is that this is a special measure to deal with a certain heinous offence which nobody wishes for a moment to palliate—robbery through fear excited by a gun. It is not that. We may be told, as it has been the habit to tell us lately, that that is not intended, and that something different is intended. We are told that nothing is intended except the flogging of a man who uses a gun; but there is no option left to the Judges. The measure is absolutely definite. To test how it may be worked an extreme case may be taken. As far as I can gather from Section 5, suppose a young lad of 15 or 16 years is convicted in a Court of Summary Jurisdiction of robbing sixpence or a shilling from another youngster, and using during the course of the robbery an offensive weapon or instrument—to wit, a lump of stick—if he is convicted, the Judge has no choice whatsoever but to order that the young lad should be whipped once privately, and the number of strokes at such whipping, according to the section, shall not exceed 25. He shall be whipped, and the Judge has no option. You may tell me that is an extreme case. I grant it, but it is possible under this measure. The position will then arise, as far as I can judge, that either the Judge, seeing what is going to happen, will refuse to convict, or he will simply have to carry out the law as put down before him.
The Government have declared very definitely and candidly that the powers which they are seeking to hold and intern prisoners represent their desire to get around habeas corpus. That is their declared and definite intention. The suspension of habeas corpus was asked for because there was armed rebellion existing in the country. It is necessary during the course of armed rebellion, and the Judges will not grant habeas corpus while armed rebellion exists. We may sympathise with that point of view. Now, the Judges may, one of these days, hold that armed rebellion no longer exists, and therefore those people held as prisoners will have the right to demand and get their freedom. I cannot see why we should alter the regulations that exist in every modern country. It is only during the existence of a state of affairs under which the Civil Courts could not function, and would not be allowed to function, that this special provision of habeas corpus is suspended. The Judges are the persons who are, or will be, in a position to say when Civil Courts will be able to function. When they do so, and when the Civil Courts are in a position to function, armed rebellion will have ceased, and what is the necessity for those powers with which the Government are attempting in this first Parliament of the Saorstát to blacken our Statute Book? There is also in the Bill a provision dealing with the seizure of cattle. That comes into Section 6. It is a kind of attempt, I daresay, to legislate retrospectively, and justify some of the things that have been and are being done by the Government as a military necessity. Again, we are told that this, of course, will only occur where there is “wholesale and flagrant defiance of the law.” We were told these things when the “Sheriffs Bill” was going through. Some of us were led to give a vote in favour of that Bill, because there was an impression that it would be used only in a special direction. Those who voted under that impression found their mistake afterwards. They found that the Government had no right whatsoever to interfere with the administration of the law once the law was made. It may be the very same in this case; the same thing will probably happen; and once this Bill becomes law, there will be very little to prevent wholesale seizure of cattle in cases where there is nothing but ordinary trespass. This whole measure is one that, in my opinion, is calculated to do the Government itself infinite harm. It shows, as it were, a want of belief in the people. The people want, and are anxious for, peace; but no repressive measures of this kind can bring peace of the type we all want, unless the people are anxious to co-operate in every possible way with those responsible for public order. This measure will be looked upon by the people as a want of faith—and not only want of faith in the people, but want of faith in the Judges. It does not trust the Judge to carry out and administer the law, using his discretion as to severity or leniency as occasion may require, but it says that in certain circumstances he must do certain things. That is why I think the Government, even in the interest of the ideal which they themselves have at heart, are making a mistake in asking the Dáil to give them the powers sought in this Bill.