LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE EVICTED TENANTS' COMMISSION.
[To THE EDITOR OF TEX " SPICTATOR."]
SIE,—With the general tone and tenor of your remarks on• the Evicted Tenants' Commission, I heartily agree. But• having been present at the opening proceedings, I feel con- strained to ask whether you have judged the conduct of Mr. Carson and Mr. Kenny quite fairly. Mr. Carson appeared for Lord Clanricarde, and was called upon to sit and hear- his client denounced and threatened by Sir James Mathew before a syllable of evidence had been given. I hold that he would have failed in his duty had he not protested against the unseemly conduct of the President. He next interfered when Mr. John Roche, M.P., was giving, at some length, the details of an eviction on the Clanricarde estate in 1869. This date was clearly outside the reference. Sir James Mathew was again rude and overbearing. Mr. Carson, however, was firm, and the intervention of one of the lay Commissioners forced the President, not, indeed, to order the removal of the case from the official reporter's notes, but to say, "If it be the desire of any one, this case may be struck out. Let it be so."' Then when the direct examination of the first witness closed, Mr. Carson inquired if he could cross-examine when the Com- missioners resumed after lunch. What was the President's reply P "Yes," said Sir James Mathew, " if you are ready, or, if you prefer it, we can adjourn." The scene after luncheon was, therefore, all the more surprising. Mr. Carson was peremptorily and angrily refused the right he had, half an hour before, been freely promised.
But I also feel that you have hardly realised the actual facts of the situation. Of course, if the Commission had followed the precedents of the Bessborongh and Cowper Com- missions, and sat in private, issuing their report in sections,. nothing could or would have been said. But Sir James Mathew decided upon a different line of conduct. He,. apparently, followed the course adopted by Mr. Justice Day, in the case of the Belfast Riots Commission. Even there,. however, counsel were allowed to cross examine. The right was, no doubt, limited ; but it was conceded.
The thing, however, which differentiates this Commission from any other Commission of which we have had any- experience, is its peculiar composition. Had Mr. Morley asked the landlords to nominate two, or even one, out of the five Commissioners, there would have been some point in your criticism. But there was not a single representative of the- Irish landlords on the Commission. I say this deliberately and with full knowledge of the position and antecedents of every one of the five gentlemen constituting it. This fact, of itself, surely warranted the landlords in claiming the right of cross-examination. Assume that Mr. Tener, Lord Clanri- carde's agent, had gone into the witness-chair. Who was to. examine him? How were the facts to be brought out ? Was. he to put his brief into the hands of the President, who had already prejudged his case ? Wbat guarantee was there that the landlord's case would be put fairly in examination by any one of the Commissioners ? I hold, and I judge from the manner of the Commission as well as by its acts, that no landlord had any such guarantee. And I believe that in, withdrawing from the inquiry, in charging it with partisan- ship, one-sidedness, and unfairness, the landlords have acted rightly, and in a manner that Parliament and the sense of justice in England and Scotland will appreciate.—I am, Sir, &c.,
rWe have spoken as strongly of Sir James Mathew's pre- liminary speech as it deserved. But we hold that Mr. Carson and Mr. Kenny placed themselves in the wrong by not suggesting to the President the questions which they wished to put in cross- examination. There would have been quite time enough to protest if Sir James Mathew had refused to I lit these questions.—En. Spectator.]
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