HC Deb 30 July 1888 vol 329 cc749-50
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.)

The Secretary to the Lord Chancellor of Ireland informs me that the gentleman named was appointed to the magistracy of the County Down in July, 1887. He states that he has not seen the newspaper reports referred to; but that from the extracts given in the Question the speeches, if made, would appear to have been platform utterances, some of them more than a year old; that the effect of such speeches depends greatly on the surrounding circumstances, and that the case in question does not call for further notice. So far as I am aware, the reply to the last paragraph of the Question is in the negative.

THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON) (Belfast, W.)

Does the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that the Government sanctions the appointment to the Commission of the Peace of a gentleman, an agent to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, two months after he made a speech inciting to civil war?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I have given the reply of the Secretary to the Lord Chancellor, and I cannot go any further.