HC Deb 26 July 1888 vol 329 cc537-8
MR. CLANCY (Dublin Co., N.)

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware that Mr. Brownlow, land agent to the Lord Lieutenant, who presided at the Orange demonstration on His Excellency's demesne at Mountstewart, County Down, on the 12th instant, is a Justice of the Peace for the County of Down, and if he will state the date of his appointment to the Commission of the Peace; whether his attention has been directed to the speech of Mr. Brownlow on that occasion, as reported in The Newtownards Chronicle of the 14th instant, where Mr. Brownlow, referring to Home Rule, threatened that— Whoever may submit, the Orangemen of Ulster will stand together, and as our ancestors did of old we will if necessary do now; whether, as reported in that paper, he also, in introducing to the meeting Mr. Adolphus Vane-Tempest, a cousin of His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, made use of the following words:— They (the Orangemen) had His Excellency's best wishes. He could not be here himself, but he had done the next best thing and sent his cousin; whether this is the same Mr. Brownlow who was reported in The Belfast Evening Telegraph of April 12, 1887, to have said, at the laying of the foundation stone of an Orange Hall at Barnamaghery, County Down— That the time was rapidly approaching when the Irish Question would be transferred from the House of Commons to arbitrament in the field, and that the Orangemen should have their forces properly constituted; whether he will call the attention of the Lord Chancellor to the words spoken by this magistrate at these public meetings; and, whether any Government reporter was present at either of these meetings?

THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

I am sorry to say that this is one of a series of Questions which have been put down without sufficient Notice; and if the hon. Gentlemen who put them down will wait until a later day I will endeavour to obtain the necessary information. On this ground I cannot answer Questions 35, 37, 38, 41, 50, 52, 53, nor 54.

MR. CLANCY

I beg to say that I gave Notice of my Question on Tuesday; and I may add that this is not the first occasion on which I have called attention to this subject.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The Question may have been put down on Tuesday; but it is impossible to say that on Thursday I can have got the information.

MR. CLANCY

Perhaps I may be allowed to add——

MR. SPEAKER

Order, order!

MR. W. ABRAHAM (Limerick, W.)

The second and third paragraphs of my Question (38) have not been answered.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

It relates to those paragraphs that I am obliged to say that I have got no information.

MR. CHANCE (Kilkenny, S.)

I wish to ask you, Mr. Speaker, on a point of Order, whether it is in Order to answer a series of other Questions when a reply to one only was asked for?

MR. SPEAKER

The Question is too trivial for me to answer.