§ MR. DEASYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether, in view of the great complaints made after last year's election of Poor Law Guardians in Ireland of the action of the returning officers, and of the many cases in which the Local Government Board was obliged to set aside the elections and direct new ones to be held, and also of the many difficult legal points which arise at the elections, the Local Government Board will this year take steps to ensure that the returning officers will not be allowed to conduct the scrutiny of the votes in secrecy, but will conduct the scrutiny in the presence of the candidates and their legal advisers?
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANThe Local Government Board have recently re-issued instructions to Returning Officers in which they state that, in reference to the examination and casting-up of the votes, they are not prepared to deprive the Returning Officer of a discretion in regard to the admission or exclusion of strangers, inasmuch as the exercise of such a discretion may, on some occasions, be necessary to the proper discharge of his duty; but, on the other hand, the Board think that if the Returning Officer excludes from the examination of the voting papers for a particular electoral division either the candidates for that electoral division or those who proposed them, he should be prepared to show some urgent reason for a step which, generally speaking, would seem to be unnecessary or unreasonable. The Local Government Board do not think it advisable or necessary to interfere further with the discretion of the Returning Officers in this respect, or to make an order compelling them to admit the candidates' legal advisers on these occasions.