MR. MACARTNEYasked the honourable Baronet the Member for Walsall, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that Petitions purporting to be signed by over 13,000 "working men and other inhabitants of Naas and adjacent districts, in the county of Kildare," have been presented during the present Session against the Irish Sunday Closing Bill; whether he is aware that these Petitions are signed exclusively by men; that the sheets are simply long lists of names without any addresses; that Naas is a town the total population of which in 1871 was a little over 3,000, and that according to the Census Returns for 1871 an adult male population of 13,000 qualified to petition Parliament does not exist within a radius of twenty miles of the town; and, whether the Committee on Public Petitions intend to take any action in this matter?
§ MR. O'CLERYasked the honourable Baronet the Member for Walsall, as Chairman of the Committee on Public Petitions, Whether it is not the fact that the signatures attached to the anti-Sunday closing Petitions from Dublin, which, out of an adult male population of 70,000, purport to bear the signatures of 90,000 male adults, are very largely in the same handwriting, and that the addresses of the Petitioners are almost entirely absent; and, whether the Committee will be prepared to receive evidence as to the bona, fide character of the Petitions in question?
§ SIR CHARLES FORSTER,in reply to the Question of the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Macartney), said, it was true that the signatures attached to the Petitions were very largely in the same handwriting, and addresses were almost entirely absent; but he must remind hon. Members that the affixing of several names by one person was an informality more or less incident to all large Petitions. With regard to addresses, although, no doubt, it was most desirable that they should be given—and the Committee on Petitions by a mark indicated that they attached an enhanced value to Petitions containing them—addresses were not required to be given by 1486 any Standing Order, nor did the absence of addresses vitiate Petitions. Therefore, if the matter rested there, the Committee would not have recommended the House to take any further action. With regard to the Dublin Petition, he was bound to say that since the Notice of the hon. Member for Wexford County (Mr. O'Clery), the Committee had been led to believe that other irregularities had occurred. The Census Returns had been referred to; and the Committee were now considering whether it would not be their duty at their next meeting to make a special Report on the matter, which was the only further action the Committee could take. With regard to the Question of the hon. Member—whether the Committee would be prepared to receive evidence as to the bonâ fide character of the Petitions in question—the Committee had no power to take any evidence unless on special reference by the House. It remained, there fore, for the House, on the presentation of the Report, to say whether they should take such a course.