![]() ![]() A short time afterwards he came to London. Anderson then became connected with Dublin Castle, where has was put in charge of what was called the Intelligence Department there. Anderson boasts he was the man who wrung from Massey the confession that ultimately landed him as an informer in the witness box. ![]() The result was that after the breakdown of the insurrection in 1867 Massey became an informer. You find plenty of such characters in the stories by Turguenieff-one of those unfortunate revolutionaries who enter into a dangerous revolutionary movement without having sufficiently gauged his own strength of character for meeting the trials which such movements involve. He was one of those unfortunate creatures so often found in revolutionary movements both in Ireland and elsewhere. Anderson, then I think a junior barrister, was asked to take some share in the preparation of these cases for the courts, and one of his first acts was to go into the prison cell of a man named Massey. His father was Crown Solicitor, engaged in making up these cases. #Hon tp or post haste seriesIn that year, or a year or two afterwards, there was going on in Dublin a series of State trials, which continued for many years, and some of which I personally saw. He began his official or semi-official career in 1865. He is the son of a Crown Solicitor in Ireland. But when one reads his history described by himself, one is not surprised at that. These prejudices are so strong, and I am sure so honest, that they blind him very often to all the difference between what is right and what is wrong in the conduct of his fellow-creatures, and often to his own attitude towards those who have the misfortune to differ from him. He has the most violent political prejudices. I regard him, as many of the other tragic and painful figures with whom I shall have to deal, as one of the most striking and eloquent examples of the kind of being and the kind of man that the history and conditions of Ireland produce. He has written his confessions, which are as voluminous as those of Jean Jaques, and the descriptions I may have to give of his character, modes, and actions I derive mainly from himself. I have the advantage, indeed we all have the advantage, of having had much material placed at our disposal by Sir R. Let me first say a few words about Sir R. Anderson we have to discuss, not his personality or his acts, but two different methods and two dif- ferent policies for dealing with the relations between England and Ireland. Indeed, my object will be to impress upon the Committee that in discussing Sir R. I attack his pension because I think he has violated the traditions of the high position he held and of the service to which he belonged because he has been guilty of gross acts of official indiscretion because he has made many statements which are inaccurate and misleading, and calculated to interfere with the course of justice but, above all, I ask for the destruction of his pension because I regard him as the symbol and outcome, and as the standard-bearer of a bad and false and rotten system. Anderson, with all due respect to him be it said, is small game. Anderson were the only person concerned in this question I would not regard myself as justified in making any demand upon the time of this House. I think the issues are too serious to be clouded by any such action upon my part and in the next place I do not make it mainly, or, indeed, at all, through a feeling of personal, and still less of malignant hostility to Sir R. In the first place, I do not make it, and I will not justify it by any language of a purely partisan, still less of a provocative character. May I explain to the Committee the exact idea and purpose with which I make this Motion. The Motion I make is that the Vote on Account shall be diminished by so much money as belongs to the pension of Sir Robert Anderson. Gentleman has been kind enough to surrender his claim, and I am extremely thankful to him for his courtesy, and I hope the House will agree with me that his action must not be taken as a precedent, binding upon him or any of his successors. The Rule of the House is that the first day in Committee on Votes of Supply should belong to what is known as the regular Opposition, and the Report stage to any other groups in the House. Austen Chamberlain) for permitting me to have the opportunity of raising the question which stands in my name to-day. Gentleman the Member for East Worcester (Mr. ![]() Emmott, is to offer my most sincere thanks to the right hon. ![]()
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