§ COLONEL MAKINSasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the Schedule to the Compensation for Disturbance (Ireland) Bill does not comprise all those districts where the anti-rent agitation has been most vigorous, where outrages against life and property have been most frequent, and where the conviction of the perpetrators of outrages has been found quite unattainable?
§ MR. A. M. SULLIVANMight I also ask, Whether the districts referred to in the Question are not those in which the distress is reported to be most keen and severe?
MR. W.E.FORSTERI am not aware, Sir, of any districts where the conviction of the perpetrators of outrages has been found quite unattainable. I find that at the last Assizes, both in Mayo and Galway, several convictions for attacks on process servers—I suppose those are the outrages to which the hon. Gentleman alludes—were obtained. It is quite true that the scheduled districts, in which there is exceptional distress, are also the districts in which there have been the most agrarian outrages. I am not sure whether they are the districts in which outrages against life and property are more frequent than those of any other kind; but I have little doubt it is so. I believe they are the districts in which the anti-rent agitation has been the most prevalent.