MOTION FOR RETURNS. (Hansard, 16 May 1873)

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE
said, he had given Notice of a Motion for certain Returns, because he thought they were necessary in order to supplement others that had already been ordered. He must, however, remark that there was such a delay in the production of Papers after they were ordered that when they were laid before Parliament it was too late in the Session to take any action on them. In this way the House had been excluded from considering the Alabama Treaty till too late and had been prevented altogether from considering the case of the Galway Election Petition. With regard to the Police Returns, he thought the Government would not object to them, for they had been referred to in the other House as already existing; and the failure of justice had of late been greatly exaggerated by the operation of the unfortunate Jury Act, which had introduced a class of jurors whose impression was that they were exposing themselves to opprobrium if they were to convict men tried for capital offences. The remarks of the Judges at the last Spring Assizes would not be very voluminous, but they were extremely important, and would carry far more weight than the evidence adduced before the Select Committee of the other House.

§ THE MARQUESS OF LANSDOWNE
said, that though Her Majesty's Government had no desire to refuse information on so important a subject, still ho would submit that their Lordships would not do well to agree to a Motion couched in language of so ambiguous a character. The noble Lord moved for "Returns of all Crime committed in 8 Ireland." Did this expression include summary convictions, or also indictable offences? Or did it mean only the more serious offences specially reported by the constabulary. The noble Lord further asked for Police Returns "showing where perpetrators have not been discovered." Here again the language was ill chosen. What he conceived the noble Lord did intend to move for was the number of felonies and misdemeanours committed since January, 1872, distinguishing between the cases of persons summarily convicted or committed for trial, and those in which no conviction load taken place. He believed that the whole of the information which the noble Lord sought to obtain would be contained in the Judicial Statistics annually presented to Parliament. It was possible that those Returns would not be presented to Parliament until late in the Session; and if so, there would be no objection to supplying this particular information, so far as it at present existed. With regard to "Any remarks of Judges at the last Spring Assizes and of Assistant Barristers at Quarter Sessions since the new Jury Bill came into force as to the competency of Jurors," what machinery had Her Majesty's Government by which they could obtain any trustworthy records of such remarks? It was not likely that the Judges and Assistant Barristers would keep a record; nor was it reasonable that Her Majesty's Government should depend on newspaper reports. He hoped that his Lordship would if he still considered it necessary to obtain information on the points referred to, re-consider the terms of his Motion.

LORD ORANMORE AND BROWNE
said, he would withdraw his Motion; but stated that the Returns referred to by the noble Marquess were now on the Table of the House till the end of the Session.