§ EARL FORTESCUEsaid, he rose to ask Her Majesty's Government, Whether Mr. Parnell, M.P. for Cork, has not ceased to be on the Commission of the Peace; and, if so, when he ceased to be so, and whether it was by his own resignation or by removal from the Magistracy? The noble Earl said that two years ago he put a corresponding Question to the Government. After the passing of the Coercion Act, during which Members of the Government so strongly denounced the proceedings of the Land League, of which Mr. Parnell was President, he was told, to his surprise, that Mr. Parnell was still a Justice of the Peace. He then lost no time in putting a Question to the Government on the subject, and the Lord President answered him with much complacency that Mr. Parnell had been 10 years a magistrate for the County of Wicklow and was so still. He thought nothing more of the matter until the recent remarkable removal of Lord Rossmore from the Commission of the Peace. Then, looking to the list of magistrates in Thom's well known Directory, he found that Mr. Parnell's name had disappeared therefrom. He therefore begged to ask how this removal had occurred?
§ LORD CARLINGFORD (LORD PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL)said, that he had obtained the necessary information from the Lord Chancellor's Office in Dublin. It appeared that Mr. Parnell was removed from the magistracy. The warrant for the writ superseding him as Justice of the Peace for the County of Wicklow was signed by the Lord Chancellor on the 14th of October, 1881; the writ of supersedeas had been forwarded to the Clerk of the Peace in Dublin on the 15th of October, and it was handed to Mr. Parnell while under arrest in Kilmainham on the 18th of October.
§ House adjourned at Five o'clock, till To-morrow, a quarter past Four o'clock.