§ MR. CLYNES (Manchester, N.E.)To ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether the ladies who were liberated from Holloway Goal on Saturday were liberated because their sentences were excessive; and, if not, whether he will explain why the period of imprisonment was terminated by an order before their term expired.
(Answered by Mr. Secretary Gladstone.) The prisoners were liberated, when they had served half their sentences, by an exercise of the royal prerogative of 34 mercy. It would not be in accordance with constitutional practice to state the grounds of the advice which I tendered to His Majesty.