§ MR. DILLONI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been drawn to the fact that when Dr. Jameson and his associates were sentenced to terms of imprisonment a petition to the Home Secretary was extensively signed in the House of Commons, asking him to arrange that Dr. Jameson and his friends should be treated as first-class misdemeanants; whether, seeing that the Home Secretary, immediately on receipt of the petition, ordered Major Jameson and the other prisoners to be treated as first-class misdemeanants, the Irish Government will now take similar action in reference to Irish Members of Parliament and other Irish citizens convicted under the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act.
§ MR. WYNDHAMDr. Jameson and his associates were granted conditional pardons, the condition being that they should undergo their sentences, but as first-class misdemeanants. This was effected by Royal Warrant. The reply to the latter part of the Question is in the negative.
§ MR. DILLONIs it not the fact that immediately after the sentences were pronounced a petition was extensively 1259 hawked round this House and signed by Members to the Home Secretary, and, as a consequence, Dr. Jameson and his friends were at once made first-class misdemeanants?
§ MR. WYNDHAMI have no official knowledge of that, but no doubt a petition was signed and presented, and it may have had great influence. But what was done then was done by exceptional procedure by Royal Warrant. There is no power enabling the Lord Lieutenant to act in the manner suggested.
§ MR. DILLONIs it not in the power of the Lord Lieutenant to order that the prisoners shall be treated as first-class misdemeanants?
§ MR. WYNDHAMNo, Sir, not as far as I know.