§ MR. NAPIERbegged to ask the right hon. Secretary for the Home Department whether the Executive Government has directed any proceedings to be taken in reference to the coroner of the county of Armagh, in consequence of the publication of the letter in the Times of the 30th of May, to which his name is attached as the writer thereof? [The hon. and learned Member read an extract from the letter, in which the writer referred to the conduct or neglect of the landowners and their agents as extenuating, perhaps, the guilt of assassination.] The district in which the murder of Mr. Mauleverer occurred was peculiarly circumstanced, and stood quite marked out by itself amidst the rest of the barony in which it was situate, and which was generally peaceful and prosperous. In that district, however, ten murders had occurred within the last ten years. The last before that just mentioned was of a Mr. Powell, whose murderers had been tried three times before they could be convicted. The person who had managed the property had done so under the combined character of receiver of the Court of Chancery, and also agent for the proprietor. And (although the coroner's letter ascribed the late murder to the absence of improvements, school-houses, &c.) the late proprietor had attempted to make various improvements, but had always been thwarted by the peasantry; and after erecting school-houses it had been found necessary to occupy them with county constabulary.
§ SIR G. GREYsaid, the Government had not taken any steps, in consequence 676 of the letter, against the coroner. The effect of the hon. Member making such a statement as he had sought to do, would, of course, be to provoke counter-statements.
§ MR. NAPIERThen he should take an early opportunity of bringing the matter forward.
§ SIR G. GREYsaid, that what he had meant to convey was, that the coroner not being a Government officer—although that did not altogether exempt him from proceedings against him—yet he could not be proceeded against in that character.
§ MR. NAPIERBut he can be proceeded against for public misconduct.
§ MR. P. SCROPEwished to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he had yet taken the opinion of the law officers of the Crown as to the alleged illegality and criminal character, at common law, of wholesale clearances, or depopulation, as now largely carried on in Ireland; I and, if not, whether the Government intend to recommend to Parliament any measure for the purpose of checking such practices, which inflict the most fearful sufferings on numbers of Her Majesty's subjects, and appear to provoke the retaliatory perpetration of agrarian crime. Accounts continued to reach this country daily of these dreadful evictions still going on. He wished to ask whether the noble Lord had seen the publication of Mr. Mackay, a barrister of some eminence, proving the illegality and criminality of this system of depopulation?
§ LORD J. RUSSELLsaid, he had not perused the pamphlet in question. No case had been laid before the Government on which they could ask the opinion of the law officers of the Crown as to whether these practices had an illegal and criminal character; and without such a case, detailing all the circumstances, it was impossible to place the matter before the law officers. The hon. Gentleman's last question was of so large a character, that he feared it would be impossible to give a satisfactory answer. He conceived that any measure which tended to improve the condition of the people in Ireland would have the effect of checking these evictions; and into the details of such measures be, of course, could not then enter. It was matter of regret that the hon. Gentleman, in placing the notice of his question on the paper, should have added to it the expression of an opinion that these evictions "appear to provoke the retaliatory perpetration of agrarian crime." He very 677 much regretted that there should have been put upon the notices of the House, in the shape of a question, what appeared to be an indirect justification, or at least palliation, of these retaliatory crimes.
§ MR. P. SCROPEI hag to disclaim that imputation; but, if the noble Lord will give me the opportunity, I will prove the fact.