§ MR. TUITE (Westmeath, N.)asked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, with reference to the prosecutions for insurance frauds in Belfast, Whether he is aware that it has been proven and admitted weeks ago that Mr. H. K. Mathews, Town Councillor, Belfast, and a Mr. Presse, are holders of £13,000 worth of policies, effected through the Equitable Assurance Company on the lives, and without the consent, of persons in whom they had no insurable interest; whether he can state if these policies have been surrendered to the Company; whether he is aware of the intense feeling of uneasiness existing in Belfast, owing to the wholesale gambling by some men on the lives of others, in whose deaths alone they have a pecuniary interest; and, whether the Government will at once take charge of the prosecutions, and have a searching inquiry made into the whole matter?
§ THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN) (Dublin University)It would be obviously impossible for me to give an answer as to the matters of fact referred to in the Question of the hon. Member, inasmuch as the Question appears on the Paper this morning for the first time. But for another and a more serious reason, I must deprecate being called on to enter into the facts of this case at present, inasmuch as the case is still under investigation. As regards the substantial portion of the hon. Member's Question, I have to state that it is not the practice to interfere in the first instance with prosecutions conducted by Public Com- 753 panies. When the depositions have been taken before the magistrates, they are laid before the Attorney General, who, in the exercise of his discretion, either leaves the case in the hands of the private prosecutor, or assumes the conduct of the prosecution himself, and directs such inquiries and proceedings as he may think necessary. This course will be followed in the present case.
§ MR. CAREW (Kildare, N.)asked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, with reference to the insurance frauds at Belfast, Whether he can now state on what date instructions were sent to the local Sessional Crown Solicitor to watch the prosecutions on behalf of the Crown; whether he is aware that a confession of his conduct was published by Mr. Robert Dunlop, a Town Commissioner and a Poor Law Guardian, in The Belfast Insurance Gazette; whether Mr. Dunlop was arrested under a warrant grounded on the oath of a member of the detective force at Belfast, and by special directions from Dublin Castle; whether he was charged therein with forgery and conspiracy to defraud, and was kept in gaol for two nights, during which time he was visited by the Mayor of Belfast; whether he was then admitted to bail, and whether any further steps were taken by the Executive Government in the matter; whether the prosecution is still left in the hands of the Equitable Insurance Company, which had accepted surrender of the fraudulently-obtained policies, and refunded Mr. Dunlop the premiums paid, and which Company has been charged by Mr. Young, solicitor for one of the Company's accused servants now in prison, with having condoned or compromised the offence, and with having dealt largely in issuing such policies; and, whether there is any precedent for the Crown having first caused the arrest of a person so charged, and of afterwards having handed the conduct of the prosecution over to a private party against whom such serious charges were made?
§ MR. MADDENIn reply to the first paragraph of the Question, I have to state that in consequence of a Question put in this House, and suggesting possible remissness on the part of the private prosecutors, the Attorney-General, on the 24th of this month, communicated with the Sessional Crown Solicitor with reference to the case, and 754 that he has been since then in communication with him on the subject.
§ MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)asked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, with reference to the prosecution now going on at Belfast in connection with the alleged frauds committed on the Equitable Assurance Company, Whether he is aware that Mr. Finlay M'Cance, J.P., Belfast, swore at the Belfast Police Court that the policy of insurance effected on his life in the Equitable Assurance Company by and in favour of Mr. James Henderson, proprietor of The Belfast News Letter, was not obtained with his consent; that Mr. Henderson had no insurable interest in his life; that the signature purporting to be Mr. M'Cance's was neither written by him nor with his authority, and that the policy was obtained by means of forgery; whether he is aware that Mr. M'Cance is one of the Belfast or Ulster Board of Reference or of Directors of the said Equitable Assurance Company; and, whether under these circumstances, the Government will take action in the matter?
§ MR. MADDENI must refer the hon. Member to the answer which I have just given. It is impossible, for the reasons I have stated, to go into the facts of the case. I have already stated the course that will be adopted.
§ MR. M'CARTAN (Down, S.)asked, whether a conspiracy to defraud was not the same as a combination to protect tenants?
§ MR. MADDENA conspiracy of this nature is, of course, a criminal conspiracy; but in cases of such conspiracy, where the complainant is a bank or a Public Company such as in the present case, it has never been the practice, as I stated, to interfere with the conduct of the proceedings in the first instance; but after a magisterial investigation has been held, and the depositions laid before the Attorney General, he will then exercise his discretion in the matter.
§ In reply to a further Question by Mr. M'CARTAN,
§ MR. MADDENsaid, he was not in a position to state whether the suggestion made in the Question as to Mr. Dunlop was or was not well founded. The Question had only appeared on the Paper that day.