§ MR. FLYNN (Cork, N.)I rise, Mr. Speaker, to put a question to you on a point of Order, with your permission. It is this: Whether an hon. Member is justified in putting on the Notice Paper of this House a question which involves and consists of a very serious stigma on certain people in a certain constituency, and when that question has been on the Paper three or four days, and has been circulated with the other Notices of Motion and Orders of the Day, and has been published in the newspapers, is it competent for such an hon. Member to take it off the Paper?
§ MR. SPEAKERHas the question been taken off the Notice Paper for to-day? There are so many questions that I cannot call it to mind. But the hon. Gentleman is quite right; I do not think any question that reflects upon any individual or of set of individuals should remain long on the Notice Paper without being asked. It is in the power of the hon. Member to put the question on behalf of the hon. Gentleman in whose name it stands. I have no knowledge of the particular question, but, of course, if it comes before me, and it is not in Order, I will have it revised.
§ MR. FLYNNWould I be in Order in putting the question on behalf of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Arnold-Forster), his question being four days on the Paper?
§ MR. SPEAKERThe hon. Member for West Belfast is here.
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER (Belfast, W.)said, he was perfectly ready to put the question. The reason he had not done so was that on inquiry at the Irish Office he had found that there was no legal power on their part to compel the withdrawal of the photograph to which the question referred. He then, in order to achieve the object of the question, told this man that if he would hand over the photographs and the plate to the police, he would withdraw the question. He had received a telegram to say that he had given up the photograph and plate to the police, and he was therefore precluded from asking any question. But he had no objection whatever to the hon. Member referring to it if he desired to do so.
§ MR. FLYNNsaid, in order that the House might appreciate the position, he would read the question—
Mr. Arnold-Forster.—To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the mutilated body of Donovan, the caretaker recently murdered at Glenara, was photographed, and that copies of the photograph are now being sold by a man named Wolfe, of Newmarket; whether he is aware that these photographs are being circulated in the neighbourhood as a warning to all persons of the consequences of breaking the Rules of the Irish National Federation; whether he has seen the photograph in question, and whether he can take any steps to stop the sale and circulation of this picture.The hon. Member wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that the man Wolfe referred to was clerk to the Magistrates, a leading local Unionist, and that the people had no connection with him?
MR. J. MORLEYIt is a fact that the body of the murdered man Donovan was photographed, owing, I am sorry to say, to some oversight on the part of the police; but there is no foundation for the statement that the photograph was circulated as a warning of the nature indicated in the question. The police inform me that the person who executed the photograph is Petty Sessions' clerk, and a Protestant, and of the same political faith as the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Belfast.
§ MR. ARNOLD-FORSTERsaid, that, with reference to the answer of the right hon. Gentleman, he was quite aware of the facts with regard to this man, and he wished to ask whether it was not a positive fact that these photographs were 814 being circulated in this locality; and further, as showing the danger of this proceeding, the right hon. Gentleman was aware that only a few weeks ago two time-expired convicts were received with a demonstration and torch-light procession in this very town of Newmarket, these men having been convicted and sentenced to four years' penal servitude for battering nearly to death an old man for precisely the same thing as that for which Donovan was murdered?
MR. J. MORLEYreplied that he objected to this photograph just as much as the hon. Member, who was good enough to let him see it, but he failed to see any connection between the circulation of this photograph and the proceedings to which the hon. Member now referred.