We understand that it is in contemplation to raise a number of workmen to the magisterial bench in the Duchy of Lancaster. The first of the appointments is that of Mr. H. R. Slatter to the Commission of the peace for the City of Manchester. He is Secretary to the Provincial Typographical Association, and a member of the Manchester School Board. It is understood that similar offers of appointment to the magistracy have been made to Mr. T. Birtwistle, of Accrington, Secretary to the Operative Weavers' Association of North and North-east Lancashire, and Mr. Fielding, of Bolton, who holds the post of Secretary to the local branch of the Operative Cotton Spinners' Association. TORY OLIVE-BRANCH TO IRELAND (1885). =Source.=--_Hansard_, Third Series, vol. 298, col. 1658. (House of Lords, July 6, 1885.) THE LORD-LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND (THE EARL OF CARNARVON): My Lords, my noble friend [Lord Salisbury] has desired that I should state to your Lordships the general position that Her Majesty's Government are prepared to occupy with regard to Irish affairs, and I hope to do so in comparatively few sentences. I need not tell your Lordships what everyone in this House knows, the nature of the events which have brought us to the present position. It will be perhaps sufficient if, by quoting a few figures, I show what the state of agrarian crime was a few years ago, what it has since been in the interval, and what it is at the present time. In 1878 agrarian crime in Ireland stood at 301 cases. In the following year there were 860, and in the three following years--1880, 1881, and 1882--the cases reached the enormous totals of 2,580, 4,439, and 3,433 respectively. In 1883, after the Crimes Act had passed, agrarian crimes fell to 870, and last year to 762. I ought perhaps to supplement that statement by saying that in 1884 I think that there was no case of the worst form of agrarian crime. I think that there was not one case of actual murder, and the calendars promise to be of a comparatively, if not singularly, light character. The substance therefore of the statement is that, whereas crime rose in those three years to an enormous figure, it has since fallen to what I do not call an absolutely normal level, but to the same level--in fact, below the level of 1879. In these circumstances the question has naturally arisen--what Her Majesty's Government are to do; and it is impossible to conceive a graver or more serious matter on which to deliberate. Within a very short time--indeed, within a time to be numbered by weeks--the Crimes Act expires, and the question is, What course should be taken? Three courses are possible. Either you may re-enact the Crimes Act in the whole, or you may re-enact it in part, or you may allow it to lapse altogether. I think very few persons would be disposed to advocate its re-enactment as a whole. The more serious and practical question is whether it shall be re-enacted in part. The Act having