THE MARQUESS OF CLANRICARDE, in moving for certain Returns with regard to the Irish Militia and Constabulary, said it was a question deserving consideration whether a large armed force, such as the police of Ireland, ought not to be brought under the operation of the Mutiny Act, 845 and enlisted for a certain length of time. At present they might quit the service, he believed, at the shortest notice. He was anxious to know on what system the embodiment and disembodiment of the Militia was conducted. He defied any one to discover any uniform principle which regulated the proceedings of the War Office in this respect. It was impossible to make a regiment of Militia effective in twenty-eight days' training, and it was therefore unadvisable to leave any regiment too long in a disembodied state. If 20,000 or 25,000 men were always kept embodied in rotation, and the Staff of the other regiments were kept up, it was clear that within a certain number of years there would be a force of 100,000 upon which reliance could be placed on an emergency, and which would be kept up at a cost of only 25,000 or 30,000 men. The noble Marquess then moved for—
Return of the Number of Men assembled for the last Training of each of the disembodied Regiments of Irish Militia, stating also the full Amount of Establishment of each Regiment; Also,Return of the Periods at and during which each of the Regiments of Irish Militia have been respectively embodied since the Month of October 1854: And also,Return of the Number of Policemen of the Irish Constabulary Force who have resigned their Employment since the Commencement of the present Year.
§ Motion agreed to.
§ House adjourned at a Quarter past Seven o'clock, to Monday next, Eleven o'clock.