There is given in other cases power, as I say, of kangaroo closure, where the Chair is allowed to jump over perhaps ten amendments into another amendment, where selected amendments which have behind them particular bodies of opinion in the House, as distinct from amendments which might have a general body, are marked out so that if there were, say, half a dozen Labour amendments there would be an assurance that some of these which were regarded as most significant by the Labour Party would be discussed. There is no such machinery here unless it is intended that the Minister for Justice is to go back and actually read the amendments by Deputy Ruttledge. That is conceivable. It is just conceivable that he may for a moment tremble on to sanity in this matter, go back through the amendments of Deputy Ruttledge and pick out of those the forty or fifty which are of importance, see that they are properly discussed and individually put to the House. But there is no provision whatever for him to go through and pick out any single one of these amendments. If for instance, you could get somebody who was recklessly disregardful of the time of the House, somebody who was really obstructive and skilfully determined to use his powers under the rules and who would make a strictly relevant speech for six hours—I mean any individual member upon any bench who is capable of making a strictly relevant speech for six hours on the first amendment: it has been done, as you know —he could cut out the whole of the rest of the discussion for the whole of the House. There is no provision whatever to deal with that. Pigs in a poke are publicly-exposed and intimately-photographed things compared with the details of this Bill as it will be approved of by this House.
Until the decision has been taken by the House to upset the whole principle of the Bill as introduced, nobody does know which resolutions and amendments are of critical significance. The Bill, as introduced, pretended—it is simply that dishonest sort of pretence which, frankly, we do not get from the Minister for Agriculture; we get a different kind of dishonest attempt at pretence from him—that the Minister for Justice, with far-seeing wisdom, examining into the details of the administration of justice in the Free State, had been dissatisfied with these details in relation to criminal trial, and that he and his associates sat down in careful conclave, getting the whole of the information which could be got and the opinions of everyone whom it did, in fact, concern and that he had evolved this perfect piece of new legislation permanently to deal, as an ordinary condition, with the whole state of the criminal law, in relation to trial by jury in this State. That was to cover every single sort of trial of criminals. He was disturbed by the present state of the criminal law. He calmly and consistently, as part of a scheme that was going to exist permanently, contrived this thing. Because—I think it was alleged in the paper—Deputy Tierney made a speech or for some other reason, he has discovered that it is better frankly to acknowledge that it had none of those origins and none of those purposes, that it was intended to be a temporary device to deal with a temporary condition in relation to a narrowly-specified body of people. Is that the Bill to which it was possible for us to draft amendments before that particular provision had been put into it by the Minister? What is to be the position if the House spends the time in discussing that significant amendment? The condition in respect of the texture of a tennis shirt—something you are going to wear in the hot weather, something you wear for momentary relief—is a very different thing from the house in which you are going to live.
This Bill, now changed from a temporary to a permanent condition, bears as much relation in respect to its previous condition and its future condition as the tennis shirt bears to the house. Yet we are told that we have agreed to buy a tennis shirt when, according to the Minister, we had been taking a lease of land for 999 years on which to build a whole system of criminal law. The one thing might be part of the whole judicial system of the country. It might concern this generation and five generations hence, because when you pass a thing permanently you are supposed, at least, to envisage it as permanent, and not to assume that the thing is merely for the moment. How are we going to pick out, and what machinery is there provided to enable us to pick out, the amendments which will be significant in one case and insignificant in the other? I might be prepared to drink a glass of whiskey. It is quite a different thing to put the tap of the whiskey barrel in my mouth and keep it permanently pouring there. The one may be a tonic; the other produces the condition which we are perfectly familiar with in relation to the administration of justice. Are we to regard this as a tonic, a medicine, a weapon or a food? Are we to regard it as a ribbon to decorate the Minister for Justice or the permanent uniform of the Ministry of Justice? If we are not even told that now, how can we frame or select out our amendments? Of course, I suppose it will all be the same in a thousand years. I believe this Bill is going to be as sterile, as useless, as incapable of operation for any useful purpose in this State as the Public Safety Bill, which the electorate killed in its birth. I believe the position in relation to the Public Safety Bill has been reproduced in relation to this Bill. They knew the Public Safety Bill, after they had passed it, and after the people had seen it, was bad. They knew it was a disgrace; they knew it was a calumny upon this country, but they had not the little miserable courage to destroy their own child.
They know now that this thing is bad. They know that it is purely and simply a conspiracy against the public peace. They know that it will be used, if it is used at all, for the lowest possible exploitation of party authority over party opponents in the name, or misname, of justice. They have already thrown away a thousand years' possession. They already know it is a thing that cannot, with any respect to the State, permanently exist in the State. But they have not got the miserable little courage to get rid of the other eighteen months—or is it a year? In that time they shall have to clear the Augean stable. The Minister for Justice will be the only man in a position to treat the law with contempt. I think that long before this Bill disappears—and I believe it will disappear before even its limited term—this Government will be satisfied that the name of this Bill also will be written upon the political tombstone under which they will lie in the contempt of every decent and honourable man. I think it was the Minister for Defence, in relation to a Bill as important as a Constitution (Amendment) Bill, asked that we should pause, that we should examine, that we should consider, that we should use the weapon of delay for the purpose of allowing misunderstanding, misrepresentation, heats and other things of that kind to disappear; that in relation to matters which struck, not at the machinery, but at the basic foundation of the State, delay was immensely valuable perse; that the knowledge that a thing was done pausefully, the knowledge that a thing was done with consideration, that every possible implication of an act had been considered and weighed before that act took place was valuable. Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings there sometimes cometh wisdom. Why not apply that principle to this Bill before we upset a system of trial which has some hundreds of years of sanction behind it, a system of trial which has been grossly and grievously mistreated, as we know, in this country in the past, but which, if not mistreated, but treated decently and kindly and with respect, has a great deal to be said for it? Why upset it in six hours?
Of course, there will be unlimited time for discussion elsewhere. In the really responsible hours, it may be some consolation to the House to know that when it passes from the survey of people who have merely gone through the electoral fire and goes into the hands of those who have been made pure and holy by a caucus, it will be properly considered and that possibly just as the amendments of the "Irish Times" are acceptable, because the independents might become independent, those amendments that come from that august body may be accepted even though they may not be allowed to be discussed in this House. If that be so, if the experience of the House was that they could hand on, without any sense of responsibility or security, to our friends up above the duties which they themselves ought to perform, there would be a lot to be said for dividing out the work. But has it been our experience that Bills of fundamental importance that call for all this assuagement of delay were delayed, that they were considered there in detail, that they were examined, that they were, for instance, changed from the permanency of the Public Safety Act in its first stage to its impermanency after a General Election—has that been our experience, or has our experience been that these gentlemen up above do what they have been told to do, that they take the precautions of passing around envelopes to see that nothing goes wrong in the procedure, that exactly as it comes from this House without the change of a word, a sentence or a comma, we can rely upon those good people to pass and send down to this House, with the maximum of celerity, any Bill which would have been passed by Arthur James Balfour, Greenwood, Spencer or a few others. What guarantee have we, when we have let it pass out of our hands that hands more responsible, more loving of the public peace of this country, will fondle and nurse it? Any?
When this nursling passes from the keeping of the House it passes into the possession of a majority at least as reckless, at least as disregardful of individual right, at least as disregardful of public policy as the majority who tell us that the rights of the minority, and the rights they are to expect are the minimum rights. Personally, I have no guarantee that the House could go against its own responsibility to carry out its own duties. If the only legislation which the Deputies opposite are prepared to pass, if the only consideration which the Deputies opposite are prepared to give to these amendments is the legislation with their feet, well at any rate their heads will be counted during the process, and that will be to the good. I have only dealt for a moment very rigorously and very strictly with the amendment itself. Afterwards it will be necessary for us to consider on somewhat broader lines the motion and its rejection. But nothing that has been said in the House, up to the present, nothing that a fairly fertile imagination on my part has been able to provide, has shown any reason whatever why this House should consent to have put in the main provisos which are put in here.
Nothing has been put forward to suggest that this new machinery for sterilising the responsibility of legislators in relation to legislation should be allowed to be introduced. Nothing has been shown which enables me, at any rate, to find a means afterwards of preventing the successors of this Government misusing the like machinery for the same purpose. I do hope there will come into the possession of it, in possession of the Government of this House, those who believe that the minority have something more than the barest allowance which the majority is unable to take from them. If that is the principle, and as long as those gentlemen opposite legislate in the country it is the principle, this proviso as added to this Bill is a great danger to security in the State, great danger to responsibility in legislation, and a radical blow to the use and value of this House as a legislative assembly.
