§ MR. SEXTONHaving regard to a recent speech of the Prime Minister, and certain other proceedings of which the House is aware, I should like to ask the Attorney General for Ireland, as a matter of urgency, a question of which I have given him private notice, whether the Government have received any information or have made any inquiry as to the substance of a paragraph which appeared in the Evening Standard on Saturday to the effect that news came from Belfast that women and boys of the Queen's Island works had commenced an attack with sticks on two fellow-workmen, accompanying 1533 this attack with yells of "Down with the Fenians"? One of the men assaulted was struck with an iron bar, and the other man had his head split open, and it was only flight that saved their lives.
§ MR. MADDENThe hon. Member for Monaghan gave private notice of this question, so that I have been able to obtain a report on the subject. I am informed that the report in the newspaper to which the hon. Member refers is wholly unfounded. There does not appear to have been any incident to suggest it beyond the fact of a trifling quarrel between two young boys of about fourteen years of age, such as might occur in any place and at any time, and the incident of a boy having been accidentally injured at the works. I am happy to add that there are hundreds of Roman Catholics quietly engaged on the Queen's Island Works without being in any way interfered with.