Report of Special Commission (Vol. iv. pp. 544, 545).

Conclusions of the Report of the Judges.

We have now pursued our inquiry over a sufficiently extended period to enable us to report upon the several charges and allegations which have been made against the respondents, and we have indicated in the course of this statement our findings upon these charges and allegations, but it will be convenient to repeat seriatim the conclusions we have arrived at upon the issues which have been raised for our consideration.

I. We find that the respondent members of Parliament collectively were not members of a conspiracy having for its object to establish the absolute independence of Ireland, but we find that some of them, together with Mr. Davitt, established and joined in the Land League organisation with the intention by its means to bring about the absolute independence of Ireland as a separate nation. The names of these respondents are set out on a previous page.

II. We find that the respondents did enter into a conspiracy by a system of coercion and intimidation to promote an agrarian agitation against the payment of agricultural rents, for the purpose of impoverishing and expelling from the country the Irish landlords who were styled the ‘English Garrison.’

III. We find that the charge that ‘when on certain occasions they thought it politic to denounce, and did denounce, certain crimes in public they afterwards led their supporters to believe such denunciations were not sincere’ is not established. We entirely acquit Mr. Parnell and the other respondents of the charge of insincerity in their denunciation of the Phoenix Park murders, and find that the ‘facsimile’ letters on which this charge was chiefly based as against Mr. Parnell is a forgery.

IV. We find that the respondents did disseminate the Irish World and other newspapers tending to incite to sedition and the commission of other crime.

V. We find that the respondents did not directly incite persons to the commission of crime other than intimidation, but that they did incite to intimidation, and that the consequence of that incitement was that crime and outrage were committed by the persons incited. We find that it has not been proved that the respondents made payments for the purpose of inciting persons to commit crime.

VI. We find as to the allegation that the respondents did nothing to prevent crime and expressed no bon fide disapproval, that some of the respondents, and in particular Mr. Davitt, did express bon fide disapproval of crime and outrage, but that the respondents did not denounce the system of intimidation which led to crime and outrage, but persisted in it with knowledge of its effect.VII. We find that the respondents did defend persons charged with agrarian crime, and supported their families, but that it has not been proved that they subscribed to testimonials for, or were intimately associated with, notorious criminals, or that they made payments to procure the escape of criminals from justice.

VIII. We find, as to the allegation that the respondents made payments to compensate persons who had been injured in the commission of crime, that they did make such payments.

IX. As to the allegation that the respondents invited the assistance and co-operation of and accepted subscriptions of money from known advocates of crime and the use of dynamite, we find that the respondents did invite the assistance and co-operation of and accepted subscriptions of money from Patrick Ford, a known advocate of crime and the use of dynamite, but that it has not been proved that the respondents, or any of them, knew that the Clan-na-Gael controlled the League or was collecting money for the Parliamentary Fund. It has been proved that the respondents invited and obtained the assistance and co-operation of the Physical Force Party in America, including the Clan-na-Gael, and in order to obtain that assistance, abstained from repudiating or condemning the action of that party.