§ MR. CALLANasked the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether his attention had been drawn to this case tried before Mr. Justice Fitzgerald at the late Assizes for Down, and to the fact that four persons had been excluded from the jury because they were Roman Catholics?
§ SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHI have received a telegram from the Crown Solicitor of the County Down (Mr. Murland), which is as follows:—
I did not exclude any person from the jury because of his religion. I directed four jurors to stand aside, two of whom were from the 1413 locality where the occurrence took place and the remaining two were publicans. The accused was acquitted.
§ MR. CALLANthen proceeded, pursuant to Notice, to call attention to the exclusion by the Crown of Catholics from the Jury in the case of Mr. Arthur Donnelly at the late Assizes for the county of Down; and to move—
That, in the opinion of this House, the ordering to 'stand by' of Catholic jurors by the Crown Solicitor, more especially in the North of Ireland, and in eases of a party character, is a course of proceeding not calculated to enhance confidence in the impartial administration of the Law, and demands the serious attention of the Irish Executive.He wished to point out that more than one person who lived nearer the locality than the Roman Catholics who had been set aside had been allowed to sit on the jury. He would not press his Motion to a Division; but he hoped the Attorney General for Ireland would state to the House that a full inquiry would be made into all the circumstances of the case.
§ [The Motion not being seconded, was not put.]