§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, What course the Government propose to take with respect to the Queen's University in Ireland, and whether they intend to bring in a Bill to remove doubts as to the validity of the acceptance by the Senate of the Supplemental Charter of last year, and to place the graduates to be admitted to degrees under that Charter upon an equal footing 4 as members of the corporate body of the University with the other graduates?
LORD NAASSir, in answer to my right hon. Friend I have to say that a case was tried in the Rolls' Court in Dublin some months ago, when the whole question of the right of the Crown to grant this Supplemental Charter was raised, and the further question was also raised as to whether the Senate of the Queen's University could accept the Charter without the consent of the whole corporate body of the University. On the 16th of April the Master of the Rolls decided that the parties who had instituted that suit were not the proper parties to institute it; they had no locus standi, and on that ground the Master of the Rolls dismissed the case. But he also stated that the Court had, in his opinion, jurisdiction to decide the question as to the construction of the Charter of 1864, provided that the question was raised in a proper and technical form. He further said, though he was not called on to decide the point judicially, that, in his opinion, the Charter of 1864 does not vest the power of accepting or rejecting the new Charter in the Senate exclusively. So the matter stands; but I have been informed that an information is now in the hands of the Attorney General which will probably give rise to a new suit in this matter, in which case the whole question will be raised again. Under these circumstances, I do not think it would be wise for the House to interfere by legislation in a question of great doubt and difficulty. The question, I believe, can only be satisfactorily settled by the ordinary tribunals of the country.
§ MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEAm I to understand that the Attorney General, on the part of the Government, has given his sanction to the renewed proceedings? I understand that they cannot be taken without his assent.
LORD NAASI speak with great diffidence on this matter, being a purely legal question; but I understand that the action of the Attorney General is purely Ministerial, and that if an application be made to him in the proper form, to become a party, he has no option in the matter.