HC Deb 21 June 1869 vol 197 cc359-60
SIR JOHN GRAY

said, he wished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, If the attention of the Government has been called to a Letter which has been published in the Irish Conservative Journals, purporting to be written by an hon. Member of this House, addressed to "Commelin Iwin, Esq., Newgrove, Lisburn," and dated "House of Commons, June 14, 1869," calling on the Orangemen of Ireland to ''turn out everywhere" on "the coming twelfth of July," "to assemble in their tens of thousands," and "emphatically" "to commemorate" "the glorious triumphs of the past;" and, if so, whether the Government is taking or will take effec- tive measures to preserve the peace of the country?

MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE

Sir, I beg, in answer to the Question of my hon. Friend the Member for Kilkenny, to state that I have received from the hon. Member for Belfast (Mr. W. Johnston) a letter enclosing a copy of the letter to which the Question relates, and informing me, at the same time, that he would not be in his place in the House for some days. I think it but fair to the hon. Member for Belfast that I should say that, in this letter, while calling on the Orangemen of Ulster to turn out everywhere, he adds, ''but with no hostile menace towards our Roman Catholic fellow-subjects, and with no boastful exultation over the glorious triumph of the past." I must, at the same time, observe that such qualifying words are of very little avail; and I must express my regret that any gentleman of influence in the North of Ireland should use that influence for the purpose of encouraging celebrations which in times past have led to civil war, and which may lead to something like civil war at the present day. It has been always the duty—the unhappy duty—of the Government to send a strong force of military and constabulary to the North of Ireland at this period, and I am sorry to be obliged to add that the Government have never felt it to be more incumbent on them to do so than this year. The duty is one, I can assure the House, which the Government will perform to the utmost.

SIR JOHN GRAY

said, he wished to explain that before he had placed the Notice of his Question on the Paper, he had written a letter to the hon. Member for Belfast to inform him that he was about to do so.