§ MR. MOLLOY (for Mr. O'BRIEN)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, in connection with the recent Salvation Army riots at Portadown, thirty Catholics and sixteen of the opposite faction were prosecuted; whether the prosecutions were so managed by the clerk of the Town Commissioners that the Catholics were tried first in batches, so that all the persons charged on the Salvation Army side could be examined against them, while the Salvationists charged with riot were enabled to be examined in each other's defence, with the result that several of the Salvationists identified by the police as rioters escaped punishment; whether the riot of the 12th of July was caused by the Salvationist faction being 16 permitted to traverse the Catholic quarter with bands and party cries, notwithstanding an arrangement come to by Mr. Hamilton, R.M., forbidding the Orange bands to parade in that neighbourhood; whether, in spite of the warning conveyed by the riot of the 12th July, Orange bands accompanied by a crowd of the lowest roughs were again, on 6th August, permitted under escorts of police to march through the Catholic quarter playing Party tunes and cursing the Pope, and otherwise insulting the Catholic inhabitants; and, whether, in view of the repeated complaints of the defenceless condition of the Catholic inhabitants of Portadown, the resident magistrate and police officers will be specially instructed to enforce the Law?
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Sir WILLIAM HART DYKE)In a telegram which I have had from the Inspector General of Constabulary to-day he states that he has not had time to make such full inquiries as would enable him to express an opinion as to the manner in which these prosecutions at Portadown were brought, or as to how far the police were responsible. Without going into particulars, then, I will confine myself to saying that the case is one for full inquiry, and the County Inspector has been directed to investigate it himself. The prosecutions appear to have been conducted, and the summonses issued, by the Clerk of the Town Commissioners.