§ MR. MACVEAGH (Down, S.)To ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord-Lieutenant
† Including a sum of £1,030, being a proportionate amount of a total of £1,625 expended on the Engineering staff out of this Fund216 of Ireland if he is aware that at the hearing of the case brought at the suit of the Coleraine Urban Council v. Patrick Clarke, Prolisk at Coleraine Petty Sessions. held on the 12th March, 1904, Mr. Gribbon, J.P., chairman of the urban council, and Mr. Baxter, J.P., member of the council, adjudicated as magistrates, both being present at the meeting of the urban council when the prosecution was directed; that Clarke was convicted and the conviction quashed in the superior Courts; and that Messrs. Gribbon and Baxter on several occasions have adjudicated on cases at petty sessions instituted at the suit of the council of which they are members, although objected to by solicitors for the defence; and, if so, will the attention of the Lord Chancellor be directed to this matter.(Answered by Mr. Wyndham.) The conviction in this case was quashed on several grounds, one of which was that Messrs. Gribbon and Baxter had been members of a body which directed the prosecution, in the hearing and adjudication of which they took part. These justices appear to have presided in ignorance of the technical rules of law applicable to such matters and not from any improper motives. That this was the opinion of the superior Court was evident from the fact that Clarke was directed to pay their costs to the extent of £3 3s. They have not acted on several occasions in similar cases at petty sessions, although objected to. The matter is not one for reference to the Lord Chancellor.