§ MR. SEXTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If the attention of the Lord Chancellor of Ireland has been drawn to the fact that, in reply to a resolution of the Tullamore Board of Guardians, recommending Mr. Matthias M'Manus, a member of the Board, for appointment to the Commission of the Peace, Sir Benjamin Chapman, Lieutenant of Westmeath, has written to the Board, informing them that he had forwarded to Mr. M'Manus a "set of queries" to be answered, one of those queries being whether Mr. M'Manus is a member of the National League, and another, whether he has been a member of the Land League; if the Lord Chancellor of Ireland approves of the putting of these queries; if the Lord Chancellor of Ireland regards ex-membership of the Land League, or membership of the National League, as constituting any bar or impediment to appointment to the Commission of the Peace; and, if it has been, or is, the practice of the Lord Chancellors of Ireland, or the Lieutenants of Irish counties, to inquire, before appointing persons to the Commission of the Peace, whether they were, or had been, members of the Freemason or of the Orange Society?
MR. TREYELYANThe Lord Chancellor has no authority to control the Lieutenants of Counties in respect of any inquiries they may think it right or proper to make in respect of gentlemen whose names are recommended to them for the Commissoin of the Peace, nor does his Lordship think it desirable that any rules in respect of such inquiries 169 should be laid down. It is essential that both the Lieutenants of Counties and the Lord Chancellor should be entirely free in each case to make any inquiry whatever which they or he may deem right.