§ On the Motion for adjournment,
§ MR. SEXTONI desire at this the earliest possible opportunity to bring to the notice of the Attorney General for Ireland a fact which has just come to my knowledge. Very recently, in Ireland, Henry O'Connor, the sub-editor of the Leinster Leader, was tried before two removable magistrates upon a charge of having published in a newspaper a report of the proceedings of a branch of the National League. He was convicted and sentenced to a month's imprisonment. The magistrates refused to state a case, but the matter was brought before the Court of Queen's Bench on mandamus, and the conviction was squashed, while the Court, to mark their sense of the conduct of the magistrates who had been guilty of the illegal imprisonment and conviction, ordered process against them. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the Irish Government will consider the desirability of granting compensation to O'Connor, who was kept in prison five days. And as one of the magistrates, Mr. Vesey Fitzgerald, was the person who, at Clongorey, within the last few days, convicted Father Kinsella and 17 artisans and sent them to prison on a charge of disobedience to a precept which it now appears was not legally served, I wish to know if the Government will give a particular scrutiny to these proceedings with a view to ordering the release of Father Kinsella and the 17 artisans from prison?
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN, Dublin University)I think the hon. Member will see that the questions he has asked are of such a nature that I could not answer them now. I would ask him to give notice of them.
§ House adjourned at five minutes before Six o'clock.