24 MAY 1873, Page 2

The Irish Juries' Amendment Bill, introduced by Lord Hart- ington

into the House of Commons, will not do what so many The Irish Juries' Amendment Bill, introduced by Lord Hart- ington into the House of Commons, will not do what so many

people appear to wish it to do,—retrench the very wise and just concession made to Ireland by Lord OlIag-an's-Juries' Act of last session. A great deal of nonsense has been talked about the diffi- culties of working that Act, but as far as we have seen the evi- dence given before the Select Committee, some of the ablest Irish Judges acknowledge the enormous improvement it made ; and even the least favourable,—Mr. Justice Lawson, for example, —admit that under the new Act there has been no symptom of party verdicts. It is an arguable proposition that a Jury system is not suited to Ireland at all, though it is not very practicable to govern Ireland and England on different syst, ns ; but it is not arguable that Ireland should have a jury system without any of its benefits, without any of that popular confidence in the administration of justice which juries really chosen from the people give. Chief Justice Monahan has given express evidence that there was partiality under the old system, and that there was a great deal more of popular belief in partiality than of partiality itself, which is natural enough, when we rem.ember that under the old system a panel of 48 jurymen was empanelled to try the O'Keeffe case,—while it was believed that it would come on last year before the new Act came into operation,—andthat in that panel there was only one Catholic. We have little doubt that the Select Com- mittee's Report will show that the Act of last year needs some amendment by raising the rating limit for jurymen, especially in the counties, and wants no other amendment. It was a vast- improvement on the old system, which was utterly destructive of popular confidence.