§ MR. PINKERTON (Galway)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is a fact that the President, Members of Council, and Office-bearers of Queen's College, Galway, are, without a single exception, Protestant; whether appointments in the Royal University, with which the College is connected, are regulated by the principle of securing a Catholic element to the extent of at least one-half in all offices and Examinerships; and, if the Government is prepared to make such appointments and changes in the College Statutes as will insure the presence of Catholics on the Governing Body and Staff of a College intended for the higher education of a Province containing 783,000 Catholics and 35,000 Protestants of all denominations?
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)I have no 1331 official information on the subject of the first paragraph of the Question. The hon. Member is, I think, under a misapprehension as to the connection which he suggests between the Royal University and the Queen's Colleges, although, no doubt, the officers of the former are, to some extent, selected from among the College Professors. The Government are not prepared to make such a change in the College statutes as is proposed; such a change would be contrary to the spirit of the Act under which the Colleges were founded.