§ MR. GLYN moved that Mr. Speaker do issue his Warrant to the Clerk of the Crown in Ireland to make out a new Writ for the electing of a Burgess to serve in this present Parliament for the Borough of Drogheda, in the room of Benjamin Whitworth, Esquire, whose election has been determined to be void.
COLONEL TAYLORsaid, that although he had in the earlier part of the evening presented a petition from Drogheda, praying that the Writ might be suspended, and although he believed there were grounds for suspending the Writ, yet he did not think, after what had passed on the previous evening, with reference to Bewdley, that he should serve any useful purpose by opposing the Motion. There did not appear, in the present state of the law, to be any precedent for directing a Commission to issue in cases where the only grounds of rendering an election void were violence and intimidation. It was to be hoped that in any alteration of the law, such as had been suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Mr. Vernon Harcourt), provision would be made to meet the case of elections which had been disgraced by such scenes as those which had characterized the late election at Drogheda.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. SULLIVAN)said, that after a careful perusal of the evidence concerning the late election at Drogheda, he had failed to discover the slightest reason which would warrant the suspension of the Writ. The election had been set aside on the ground that certain outrages, interfering with, the freedom of election, were committed on the day of polling by a mob in a certain quarter of the borough. That, however, was not such a system of intimidation as was likely to interfere with the freedom of election in the future. He regretted, therefore, that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Taylor) should have made the observations which had just fallen from him.
MR. STAVELEY HILLsaid, he found sufficient justification for the remarks of his right hon. and gallant Friend (Colonel Taylor) in the Report of the Judge, who stated that a system of intimidation was organized and carried out in the late election, that such 798 system of intimidation was subversive of the freedom of election, and that outrages were committed which were calculated to deter, and which did deter, some of the electors from recording their votes.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ House adjourned at half after Eleven o'clock till Monday next.