§ MR. SEXTONasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether it is true that John Canny, one of the evicted tenants at Tulla, county Clare, who were prevented by Mr. Clifford Lloyd from availing themselves of the shelter of the huts erected by the Ladies' League, died on Saturday last; whether John Canny and his family, together with another evicted family, have been staying at night since their eviction in a cabin containing three families, numbering twenty persons, and were obliged by day to live and cook their meals in the ditches, and whether the exposure and hardship endured by John Canny produced the disease which has resulted in his death; 96 whether it is true that the Ladies' League, within the past year, have erected about three hundred huts in the counties of Galway, Kilkenny, Carlow, Mayo, Leitrim, Limerick, Meath, Roscommon, Tyrone, Longford, King's County, Clare, Wicklow, Fermanagh, Kerry, Cavan, Derry, Queen's County, Waterford, Wexford, Westmeath, Monaghan, Tipperary, Louth, Cork, and Armagh; and that, although the Coercion Act was in force throughout the entire period, and numbers of persons were arrested under it on suspicion of intimidation, no person occupying any of these three hundred huts was ever arrested on such a charge; whether it is true that the only magistrate who has hindered the erection of huts to shelter evicted tenants is Mr. Clifford Lloyd; and, whether the Government will now agree to allow the erection of huts to shelter evicted tenants, and the occupation of such huts by families in need of them, to proceed without impediment?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, that with reference to the two first paragraphs of the Question, John Canny was an old man of, he believed, 74; he had been in one of those huts and had died. The Cannys were not prevented from occupying any of those huts, and before they took possession of them they and several other persons, 20 in all, lived in a farm house containing a kitchen and two rooms, and cooked their meals, not in the ditches, but in the kitchen of the farm-house. No doctor, so far as he could ascertain, had visited Canny, nor was he able to learn the disease of which Canny had died. With reference to the third paragraph, he was not able to say whether it was a fact that no person occupying any of those huts was chargeable with intimidation. With reference to the fourth paragraph, the answer was "No." As to the last paragraph, he did not know what the intention of the Government might be; but speaking for himself alone, he might repeat what he stated in the House before, and what his right hon. Friend the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster) stated—that where these erections were bonâ fide to shelter the homeless, they ought not to be interfered with; but he (the Attorney General for Ireland) feared in many cases they had been erected for a different purpose.