§ SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it will be possible in conformity with the law and comity of nations to apply the provisions of the Protection to Person and Property Bill (Ireland), when passed into law, to subjects or citizens of foreign States, that is to say, to arrest or detain them without trial when "reasonably suspected;" and whether, to avoid cases such as that of Bergen and Ryan in 1848, Her Majesty's Government are prepared to introduce clauses in Committee legalizing the expulsion of aliens suspected of contravening the law in the manner laid down in the Act 11 and 12 Vic. cap. 20?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERSir, as far as I can ascertain, it will be consistent with the law and comity of nations to apply the Protection to Persons and Property (Ireland) Bill, if, unfortunately, it should be necessary, to subjects or citizens of foreign States. This view is confirmed by what happened in 1866, when aliens were arrested without any of the difficulties which the hon. Member seems to foresee. The case alluded to of Bergen and Ryan in 1848 does not now apply. The matter was put on a different footing by the Naturalization Act of 1870, and it had no bearing whatever on the present Bill.