THE EARL OF MILLTOWN, in rising to ask, Whether the police have succeeded in arresting the murderers of Patrick Tangney; if not, whether they entertain any reasonable hope of being 1253 able to do so; and, whether the Law Officers consider that, in the event of their capture, there is any probability, in the present state of the county of Kerry, of their being prosecuted to conviction before a common jury of that county? The noble Earl commented on the circumstances attending this horrible atrocity, and said the Government seemed to think sufficient had been done by sending police patrols and an Inspector to report upon the matter. As a matter of fact, there was a police patrol within a short distance from the spot where the murder was committed, and it did not appear to have interfered in the slightest degree with the commission of the crime. The fact was that these patrols were carefully watched by the spies of the brigands who committed these murders, and he was told by persons who had the misfortune to live in those parts of Ireland that the police made these patrols on cars. Consequently the sound of the wheels was heard for miles around. The noble Earl yesterday suggested that the state of Kerry had only been unsatisfactory since August last; but, as a matter of fact, the state of certain districts of Kerry had been for years past a scandal to Christendom. He was told by a noble Lord four years ago that the neighbourhood of Castleisland was the worst in all Ireland. Trial before a common jury was a mere farce, and he believed such was the terrorism exercised by the National League that neither the wife nor the daughter of this poor man would dare to give evidence against the perpetrators of the crime. Even if they did so a common jury would not dare to convict. After all, a Government existed in Ireland and was maintained by the taxpayers for the purpose of protecting life and property; but in many parts of Ireland Her Majesty's Government actually neglected both. They took steps to improve the condition of the labouring poor. Was it too much to ask them to protect their lives? To his mind, the piteous cry of these poor women calling upon the Virgin for assistance, and other scenes which had occurred of the same kind, were quite as horrible as those murders in the Phœnix Park, which alone could arouse the Gladstone Government of that day to a sense of their duty.
§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Earl SPENCER)In answer to the noble Earl's Question, I have to say that no arrest has yet been made for the murder of Patrick Tangney. I do not think it advisable in the interests of justice to state the information in the possession of the Government. The last paragraph of the Question of the noble Earl is entirely a contingent Question, and I do not think I am called upon to express an opinion upon it.
§ House adjourned at half past Five o'clock, to Thursday next, a quarter past Four o'clock.