THE EARL OF LONGFORD, in rising to call attention to the annexed announcement, published in Dublin newspapers of 31st May, 1884—
The Magistracy,—County Westmeath.— On the recommendation of the Most Reverend Dr. Woodlock, Bishop of the Diocese of Ardagh. and Clonmacnoise, tho Lord Chancellor has appointed Edward Gleeson, Esq., M.D., of Banown House, Athlone, to the commission of the peace for the county Westmeath;233 and to inquire whether any change has been introduced by authority in the mode of recommending and appointing magistrates in Ireland, said, the recommendation appeared to be somewhat unusual in point of form. He meant no personal reflection, in putting the Question, upon Dr. Woodlock, nor upon the person appointed, nor upon the Lord Chancellor. What he desired to draw attention to was the ostentatious announcement that the appointment had been made on the recommendation of the Roman Catholic Bishop, without apparently any reference to the Lord Lieutenant of the county. Dr. Wood-lock, though his diocese bore an old ecclesiastical designation, resided at Longford. He had met Dr. Woodlock frequently at public Boards and otherwise, and always on good terms. The person appointed to the Commission of the Peace was a stranger, not in medical practice; but he was welcome in conducting an industrial enterprize in a part of the country where real enterprize was scarce. The question had a much wider meaning. Their Lordships might be aware that lately a section of the Irish Press, and also certain Members of the other House of Parliament, had pressed for the appointment of what were called a more popular class of magistrates; and the Representative of the Irish Government in the House of Commons had, he thought, rather incautiously given some encouragement to those who made that demand, by saying that the Lord Chancellor of Ireland had had his attention. drawn to the matter, and that in cases in which persons were properly recommended for the Commission of the Peace he would exercise his authority. He thought the Chief Secretary for Ireland went a little farther, and stated that the Lord Chancellor of Ireland would exercise his inherent privilege and make appointments himself. The result had been that the popular Party in Ireland had taken the hint thus thrown out, and that recommendations had come to the Lords Lieutenant of counties from quarters whence such recommendations did not usually come—Town Commissioners and Boards of Guardians, for example. However, Ireland was an eccentric country, and Boards of Guardians there appeared to be elected, not to administer the Poor Law, but for the purpose of gaining a platform from which to de- 234 nounce all law, especially because it had been made by the British Parliament. Gentlemen who sought appointments as magistrates for private reasons quite outside statutory duties. He did not believe that Dr. Woodlock would knowingly recommend an unfit candidate for the magistracy; but it ought not to be forgotten that he was the servant of a master who never slept, and that his first duty was to increase the power and influence of his Church beyond other considerations. And there were other Prelates of his Church whose sympathies, if he might judge by their language, were more widely popular, and they might possibly be induced to recommend magistrates of whose impartiality there might be some question. For this general reason he had been unwilling that the announcement which he had quoted should pass without review, as otherwise it might come to be accepted that the independent recommendation of a Roman Catholic Bishop, without reference to the Lord Lieutenant of the county, would be accepted by the Lord Chancellor and favoured by the Government. Probably many of their. Lordships would agree with him that such a course would not be of advantage to the public service. Therefore he had to ask whether any change had been introduced by authority in the mode of recommending and appointing magistrates in Ireland?
§ LORD CARLINGFORD (Lone PRESIDENT of the COUNCIL)My Lords, there is no intention to change the mode of appointing magistrates in Ireland beyond what was stated by the Chief Secretary in "another place" a few weeks ago. The noble Earl, I think, rather underrates the difficulty which I think we all feel in respect of the satisfactory appointment of magistrates in Ireland, and the constitution of the Irish Magisterial Bench. He knows very well there have been many complaints arising out of the fact that the great majority of the Irish magistrates are drawn from the members of one Church. These complaints are for the most part unreasonable, because the fact I have just mentioned is generally inevitable, arising, as we all know, from the composition of Irish society, and from the fact that it is very often extremely difficult to find any gentleman in an Irish county possessed of the necessary 235 qualifications of a magistrate, possessed of sufficient education and leisure and independence, beyond those members who, as it happens, are members of the late Established Church in Ireland. It would, undoubtedly, be very difficult to find anything like a proportional number of persons belonging to either the Roman Catholic Church or the Presbyterian Church who are possessed of the obvious qualifications for appointment to the Commission of the Peace. Nevertheless, the Government do feel, and successive Lord Chancellors of Ireland have felt, that it is most desirable and necessary to take all proper means for the purpose of lessening this inequality, and of not allowing that difficulty—for it is a difficulty—to extend beyond the absolute necessity of the case. The Lord Chancellor of Ireland, as stated by the Chief Secretary for Ireland a month or two ago, has for some time made up his mind to exercise his undoubted right of appointing to the magistracy, in cases where he thinks it fitting and necessary, as far as possible in communication with and in concert with the Lord Lieutenants of counties, but, if necessary, even without that concurrence—in cases either brought before him by Lords Lieutenants of counties, or in cases which, in his own opinion, ought to have been brought before him but were not. That is undoubtedly his right, and if exercised, as I am convinced that such a right would be, and will be, exercised by the Lord Chancellor of Ireland, I cannot conceive that anything but good can come of it. However that may be, I have to tell my noble Friend that the general question, to which I have hitherto confined myself, is absolutely unconnected with the particular case which I am not surprised the noble Earl has brought before the House. I am not surprised he has been convinced by the extreme positiveness of the newspaper report that the facts are as the newspaper—I do not know what newspaper it was—states. But I have a letter from the Lord Chancellor, in which he says that the statement is absolutely and totally without foundation. It is a pure invention of the newspaper in question—whatever that newspaper may be—or of some correspondent. Dr. Gleeson, who has an important manufacturing concern in Athlone, and is, I believe, a most proper person to be placed 236 on the Bench, has been appointed by the Lord Chancellor in the ordinary way upon the recommendation of the Lord Lieutenant of the county.