§ MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he has read the charge delivered to the Grand Jury at Wicklow by the County Court Judge, at the Quarter Sessions just concluded, as reported in the local journal of the 22nd April, as follows:—
Gentlemen, as there is no case to go before you, you will be discharged.…I have just come from Baltinglass, where also there was no case for the jury. This shows very satisfactorily for your county. I am exceedingly glad to be able to discharge you from your duties;whether the Judges at Assizes and Quarter Sessions have frequently borne testimony, in their charges to Grand Juries of the county, to the peace and quietness 1407 prevailing in Wicklow; whether the returns of crime and outrage, and of malicious injury, indicate the same; and, whether he can inform the House upon what grounds he refuses to advise the Lord Lieutenant, in the face of these facts, to revoke the Orders in Council under which the county has been proclaimed?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, he regretted that, notwithstanding the testimony borne by the Judges of Assize and the Chairman of Quarter Sessions as to the peace and quietness prevailing in the county Wicklow, the Government did not feel justified in revoking the Orders under which the county was proclaimed. It was quite possible there might be an absence of outrages, and yet that the county might not be free from intimidation.