HC Deb 09 March 1888 vol 323 cc697-8
MR. MAC NEILL (Donegal, S.)

asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been directed to a letter of Mr. W. T. Dennehy, which appeared in The Dublin Evening Telegraph of 3rd March, 1888, entitled "Mr. Balfour and the Resident Magistrates," and to which the writer appends four extracts from The Irish Times, dated respectively 16th September, 1887, 17th September, 1887, 19th October, 1887, and 22nd October, 1887, each giving accounts of interviews and consultations between the Chief Secretary and Irish Magistrates, and the last-mentioned extract stating that Colonel Turner, Captain Walsh, Resident Magistrate, and Mr. Cecil Roche, Resident Magistrate, who have been in attendance on the Chief Secretary for the past two days at the Castle, have returned to their districts; whether any Minutes of these attendances of the Irish magistrates on the Chief Secretary have been preserved; and, if so, whether he would have any objection to lay them upon the Table of the House; and, whether he adheres to his statement, that the Irish magistrates receive no orders from Dublin Castle, and act independently between the subject and the Crown?

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

I must adhere to what I have before said in answer to the hon. Gentleman—namely, that I do not feel called upon to give any account to the hon. Member of the interviews which in Dublin or elsewhere I may think it necessary to hold in the discharge of my duties as Chief Secretary. But I may inform him that I am always glad, so far as possible, to see any persons, magistrates or others, who are qualified to give me an accurate account of the state of the district in which they reside. If by his last paragraph he desires to imply that magistrates receive from me, directly or indirectly, communications respecting matters in which they have to act in a judicial capacity, I can only regret that he should have permitted himself to make such an imputation upon an honourable and upright body of men.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

As a matter of fact and history, will the right hon. Gentleman say whether these interviews took place or not?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I decline to add anything to what I have already said.