§ MR. MACDONALDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been drawn to a paragraph in the "Sheffield Telegraph" of the 23rd instant, relating to the manner in which witnesses were examined before the magistrates; if he has any reason to consider those statements well founded; and, if there is any cause for his interference? Also, Whether the statement in the "Sheffield Telegraph" of the 23rd instant is well founded, that of four magistrates trying cases arising out of disputes between employers and employed, two were cotton manufacturers, and that the two other magistrates were old and infirm; and, if so, whether the court might not be otherwise constituted?
MR. ASSHETON CROSSSir, if I had received the smallest complaint from the district where this is supposed to have occurred, or a request that an inquiry should be made into it, I should have made one at once; but I do not feel called upon, upon complaints made in any article written in any country newspaper, to make inquiries into the conduct of magistrates. However, before coming down to the House I made inquiry at the Home Office, and I find that no complaints whatever had reached me from the district referred to.