§ MR. YERBURGH (Chester)I desire to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland if it is true, as reported in the daily Press on Saturday last, that Messrs. William Field and Luke Hayden, Members of the House, were on Friday, the 10th of November, returned for trial at French Park, County Roscommon, at the instance of the Crown, on the charge of unlawful assembly and alleged attempt to retake forcible possession of certain evicted farms on the De Freyne Estate: and, if so, whether he will supply the House with the details as to the circumstances under which the prosecution was instituted, and the Act, or Acts, relied upon in support thereof?
MR. J. MORLEYIn answer to the hon. Member, I have to say that these two gentlemen, Members of this House, were on Friday last returned for trial at French Park at the instance of the Crown on the charge of unlawful assembly. It is impossible for me to comply with the hon. Member's request that I should supply the House with the details as to the circumstances under which the prosecution was instituted, because any statement of that kind would obviously be more or less of an ex parte character. As proceedings are pending, I must respectfully beg him to excuse me from making any such statement. The law under which these proceedings were taken was the Common Law and not the Act of 1887.