§ MR. DEASYasked the Secretary to the Treasury, If it is a fact that the Budget of 1882 made provision for the sum of £100,000 to recoup English Counties for moneys paid by them for the conveyance of prisoners after committal, from the passing of "The Prisons Act, 1877," to the decision of the House of Lords in the case of Mullins v. Treasurer of the County of Surrey; and, whether the Government will adopt a similar course in regard to Irish Grand Juries, and make good the sums paid by them under the same Act, from 1877 to the passing of the Amendment Act of the present year?
§ MR. COURTNEY, in reply, said, he was afraid that the hon. Member had been imperfectly informed as to the facts of the case. The decision of the House of Lords on the English Act imposed a retrospective liability on the Exchequer which it was necessary for the Government to meet out of taxation. The Irish Act was differently worded, and the decision in question did not apply to it. Moreover, it expressed correctly the intention of the Legislature in passing that Act which had failed in the English case owing to an error in the wording. There was no obligation to make the provisions of the amended Act retrospective, and he saw no reason in justice for so doing.