4 BELFAST INQUIRY COMMISSION, 1864.
evidence is concerned, regard being had to the nature of our inquiry, none could have been produced before us on which we would more implicitly rely, as a basis for out recommendations.
If, therefore, we offer them with something of diffidence, it certainly is not owing to any doubt respecting the value of the evidence addressed to us, but because of the many practical difficulties which we fear are inseparable from any plan for thoroughly rectifying the evils to which this important town is and for so long a time has been exposed.
We now proceed to lay before your Excellency the results of our inquiry, taking each subject in the order prescribed by the warrant, save where needless prolixity or repetition would be the consequence of too rigid adherence to it.
In order to avoid such prolixity and repetition, we propose to bring together under your Excellency's notice, as hardly capable of entirely distinct consideration, '• the existing local arrangements for the pre¬ servation of the peace of the borough, the magisterial jurisdiction exercised within it, and the amount, and constitution, and efficiency of the police force usually available there."
Vide Map.
Belfast is divided into two very unequal parts by the river Lagan, which at this point
forms the boundary between the counties of Antrim and Down.
Belfast proper, indeed, may be said to lie on the Antrim side of the Lagan; the portion on the Down side con-Right Rev.
Bi.
sisting only of a poor suburb, called Ballymacarrett.
The population of Ballymacarrett Dorrian, 1946.
i3 about 14,000 persons, about one-tenth of the total estimated population of the town.
Your Excellency will thus observe that the magisterial and police arrangements are not the same for the entire town of Belfast.
Although a Parliamentary and municipal borough (the corporate management of which is provided for by several local Acts), it is not a county of a city or county of a town, and consequently has no body of Magistrates exclusively charged with the guardianship of its }:)eace, and exercising magisterial autho¬ rity at every point within its limits, as is the case in Cork, Limerick, and other places in Ireland.
Magistrates holding the commission of the peace for the counties of Antrim and Down respectively have authority to act in whatever part of the borough happens to be within the jurisdiction of each.
The Mayor, however, virtute officii, is empowered to act as a Magistrate in every part of Belfast, and several residents in the town or its neighbour¬ hood being in the commission of the peace for both Down and Antrim can at an emergency exercise magisterial authority, too, throughout the borough.
Mr.
Oime, r m.,
Besides the Mayor and the gentlemen of the locality so holding the commission of the 13> 14
peace for Antrim and Down, there is always at Belfast a Resident Magistrate, invested with the usual authority, and exercising the usual functions of such officials.
He sits daily in the Petty Sessions Court, in the Antrim division of the town, and is assisted in the discharge of his ordinary duties by such of the other Magistrates as choose to attend; but the number who do so seems to be small.
Since the riots of August last a second Resident Magistrate has been located at Belfast; but at present we confine ourselves to pointing out to your Excellency the general arrangements for the borough as they existed previously to those distressing and much to be lamented events.
At ordinary times about fifty members of the Constabulary are stationed in the Antrim division of Belfast, and about fifteen in Ballymacarrett; these bodies forming portions respectively of the force allocated to the two counties.
Belfast not being a county of a city or county of a town does not, like Limerick or Cork, receive any quota of the force independently of the counties.
Mr.
jjaffigan.^
^
Besides the Constabulary thus stationed in the borough, Belfast maintains outof theborough """"' ^"^ rates; under the provisions of its local Acts, a local police of one hundred and sixty men.
Their duties are confined to the Antrim division of the borough, Ballymacarrett (as well as other localities within the municipal boundary) not being within the police district (which is varied from time to time by the Council), and not rated for their maintenance.
A great body of evidence was presented to us respecting this force.
Various charges were made against its members of partiality and inefficiency; its consti¬ tution was arraigned as intentionally partisan, and it was alleged to be wholly without the confidence of an important section of the inhabitants of Belfast.
Evidence was given, on the other hand, by those who are intrusted with the control and management of the force, by its officers, and some of the men, to refute the charges so made.
In these circumstances, and as its "amount, and constitution, and efficiency" not only form a special branch of what we had been directed to inquire into, but obviously are of para¬ mount importance, we shall ha^e to ask your Excellency's attention to a detailed statement of the conclusions which we have drawn from the whole evidence presented to us on these points.
We may here observe that throughout the Report, in using the terms Protestant and Roman Catholic, Conservative and Liberal, we merely adopt the language and meaning of the witnesses ; the term " Conscivative" being applied to those Protestants regarded
11405 to 11415.
