§ MR. EYKYNsaid, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government, in consequence of the barbarous murder that recently took place in the county of Westmeath, to apply to Parliament for extension of their powers under the Suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act, so as to enable them to adopt against Ribbonism and Agrarian Outrage, the same course that has been so successfully adopted for the suppression of Fenianism in Ireland?
THE EARL OF MAYO, in reply, said, he could sympathize with the motive which induced the hon. Member to ask this 1460 Question, knowing, as he did, that the hon. Member had spent a portion of this year in the district where this frightful outrage had been committed. Everyone must feel that a great stain had been inflicted upon Ireland by the perpetration of this terrible murder; but, at the same time, he must remind the House, that such crimes have latterly greatly diminished. He did not, therefore, think that the general state of the country would justify the Government in proposing to extend the provisions of the Act, to which the hon. Member referred, to any other description of offences than that to which it was now applied — namely, to the suppression of Fenianism.