§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL (Kirkcaldy, &c.)asked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether, considering the obscurity which still 1395 hangs over the Edlingham burglary case, in consequence of the absence of a public trial, on evidence of the persons now convicted on their own plea, and the proposal to give a large sum of public money to the persons who are understood to have been wrongly convicted at the former trial, he will make public the proceedings of the inquiry instituted by him, and lay them before the House with a view to their being printed?
§ THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS) (Birmingham, E.)The inquiry conducted by my directions was intended to satisfy my own mind, and the information obtained was confidential. I cannot, therefore, lay it on the table of the House. The two men recently convicted of the Edlingham burlary were publicly tried and pleaded "Guilty" under legal advice. Their previous admissions of guilt are, no doubt, recorded on the depositions taken before the magistrates, and those admissions are full and complete.
§ SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked, Whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that an acute correspondence on the subject was proceeding in the local papers, and that the vicar had stated he believed that the first men were guilty. ["Order!"] He was in Order. When would the Vote for compensation to the men be laid before the House?
§ MR. MATTHEWSsaid, he was quite aware that there had been considerable correspondence in the local papers upon the subject; but so far as he had seen that correspondence it appeared to him to be conducted for the most part by people who had not taken the trouble to inquire into the facts.