§ Resolutions [March 19] reported.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that upon this Motion he was obliged, as a matter of duty, to express the deep dissatisfaction which was felt by the Irish Members at the course pursued by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) since these Sittings began in regard to Irish Bills, and the course pursued by the Government generally. He referred to the neglect on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to introduce a Bill on the subject of National Education in Ireland. The subject of that Bill was one which the Irish Members had since the beginning of last year strenuously and constantly endeavoured to bring under the notice of the House. They had urged it when the Estimates were under consideration, and had brought it forward in the form of a Motion, and, from beginning to end of last year, they had been deluded by the right 179 hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. Trevelyan) by promises to the effect that he had a Bill ready in his pocket, but that the supreme pressure of the Franchise Question prevented him from bringing it forward. To convince the House of the urgency of the matter, it would be sufficient to say that the measure would concern the livelihood of 16,000 hard-worked and poorly-paid men and women in the service of the State in Ireland. In fact, the measure was of great importance to the community at large, as it concerned and had an important bearing upon the settlement of the question of Primary Education and the education of the children of the people of that country. Prom the beginning to the end of the last Session of Parliament the Irish Members had been obliged to remain satisfied with the promises of the right hon. Gentleman; but when the Autumn Session came, the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) succeeded in obtaining a place for a Bill which, in despair of obtaining anything from the Government, the Irish Members had determined to bring in. His hon. Friend had succeeded in obtaining an opportunity for moving the second reading. The hon. Member moved it; but before any one of his Friends could second the Motion, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had taken the unprecedented course of moving the adjournment of the debate. The result had been a prolonged and angry scene, an All-night Sitting, and a very earnest and excited debate on the last day of the Autumn Session. From those circumstances—that was to say, from the urgency of the question, and the number and importance of debates which had taken place upon it, the assurances which the Irish Members had received, and the strange and irritating action taken by the right hon. Gentleman himself—all those circumstances taken together had given him (Mr. Sexton) and his Friends reason to believe that the beginning of this Session would witness the introduction of a Bill. However, the Session proceeded some distance and nothing was done. On the 3rd of the present month, the hon. Member for Longford, who, from day to day, had endeavoured to keep the matter before the public by transferring his Bill from the Orders of 180 the Day of one day to those of another, at last asked the right hon. Gentleman, who had promised to introduce a measure on the subject, when the measure might be expected, and the answer was that it would be presented in the following week—that was in the week ending on Saturday last. But during that week the right hon. Gentleman had not placed any Notice whatever on the subject on the Paper. He had not realized the hope which he had encouraged the hon. Member for Longford to entertain. However, on Monday last, a Motion appeared as No. 1 in the Notices of Motion. On that night, however, a prolonged debate had taken place with reference to the administration of affairs in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman had sat out that debate until the end; and seeing that the discussion had reference to an alleged breach of faith on the part of the Government in regard to another Bill, it might have been supposed and confidently predicted that the right hon. Gentleman would have been particularly attentive to the desirability of laying himself open to no other charge on that score. The right hon. Gentleman had remained in the House until after 5 o'clock. Though it might have been shown that it was then time to go to bed, it would have taken a very slight effort of self-denial, and would have been much more respectful to the House, if the right hon. Gentleman, having sat up so long, had remained another five minutes out of bed and had allowed Mr. Speaker to call on him to move his Motion. However, he had disappeared from the House immediately Mr. Speaker rose to call out the Notices of Motion, and he (Mr. Sexton) had been informed that the Motion was postponed. Since then the right hon. Gentleman had been questioned upon the subject, and had informed the House that he intended to bring forward his proposal on Tuesday next. He (Mr. Sexton) must confess the right hon. Gentleman's remarks had been altogether unintelligible to him. He had said that it appeared to be convenient in the interests of the Public Service that the Bill should be introduced on Tuesday. Well he (Mr. Sexton) was aware of no public convenience which could in any way be served by this postponement; but, on the other hand, the people whose beg- 181 garly incomes were to be affected by this measure were suffering, almost starving, for want of consideration, and every day which was allowed to pass without forwarding the settlement of the question was a day misused. The Bill had not been put down to-day, and the House was left in bewildered speculation as to what might be the cause of the obstinate delay on the part of the Government to proceed with a measure concerning which they professed to have made up their minds last year—a Bill of which the Predecessor of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had stated, more than a year ago, that he had the draft in his pocket. Last night the right hon. Gentleman had had on the Paper three Notices of Motion relating to Irish Bills; but he (Mr. Sexton) had been so shaken in his confidence as to the right hon. Gentleman's intention to proceed with the Notices he placed upon the Paper, owing to his action the other night, that he had asked him yesterday at Question time whether he intended to move the Motions standing in his name. The right hon. Gentleman had replied that he did intend to do so, and he (Mr. Sexton) had expected, with as much confidence as he could muster in regard to a pledge of the right hon. Gentleman, that the Motion to which he was referring would have been moved. Another of those Bills dealt with the extra men of the Royal Irish Constabulary. That was a subject that the right hon. Gentleman must have seen the necessity of promptly proceeding with. The prolonged Sitting of Monday night, the painful scenes that occurred, the conflicts of veracity, should all have warned the right hon. Gentleman that this question of the police was one he was not entitled to toy with any longer. The third Bill affected the registration of voters in Ireland. He (Mr. Sexton) said unhesitatingly that without that Bill a measure on the subject of redistribution was of no use in Ireland, for the reason that the present law repelled the voter from the Registration Court in place of attracting him. What had happened last night? Why, the right hon. Gentleman had sat in his place until the conclusion of the debate, and the Irish Members had been compelled to rise one after the other to continue the discussion, no response being forthcoming to the questions and 182 the statements addressed to the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman had not said a word during the last hour or, perhaps, hour and a-half of the debate, but had sat in sulky silence listening to what went on. Today, however, by an extraordinary obliqueness of vision on the subject, the right hon. Gentleman had declared that the Irish Members had had the debate all to themselves. If the right hon. Gentleman had been in such a hurry to get to bed—
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, that he had been unable to speak a second time—it was against the Rules of the House.
§ MR. SEXTONsaid, that was all the more reason why the right hon. Gentleman should have retired earlier, if he had been so anxious to get to bed. Seeing that the right hon. Gentleman had denied himself that repose which he no doubt had so well earned and had sat out the debate to the end, he (Mr. Sexton) ventured to assert that it would have given rise to less suspicion that the right hon. Gentleman had succumbed to an attack of temper, and was regardless of the feelings of the Irish Members, and would have shown him more attentive to the duties of his Office as Chief Secretary, if he had remained in the House five minutes longer and had responded to the appeals made to him to bring on his Notice of Motion. It was a very strange thing that the Minister for Ireland was the only man who dallied and delayed with Bills having reference to the administration of that country. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had a Bill dealing with the Court of Judicature, a Bill of an elaborate and complicated character; but instead of delaying with it, he proceeded until it was placed in the hands of Members that they might consider it and form their judgment upon it. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury, one of the hardest-worked officials on the Government Bench, had upon his hands five Bills of the greatest importance to Ireland, Bills of considerable importance and detail, but he had found time to introduce them. He having put down a Notice of Motion was ready in his place to move it when the Speaker called upon him. An extraordinary and unpleasing contrast was offered by the delay of the responsible Minister for Ireland in dealing with measures re- 183 lating to that country, when compared with the action of the Financial Secretary and of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. That was not a dignified or proper method of conducting Business. The people were waiting for the Bill, their livelihood and interests were concerned in it, and Irish Representatives were entitled to know what the Government were going to do. They objected to every day's delay. When the Government had made up their minds, when they had said the Bill was drafted, let the right hon. Gentleman move his Motion and introduce the Bill, not stay until the last moment of a Sitting and then, under a plea of going to bed, exhibit considerable disrespect to Irish Members by rushing out of the House. He would find that a frank business-like method of conducting Business would be more conducive to progress.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, one of the advantages of occupying the post he had the honour to hold was that one found oneself guilty of a series of flagrant offences while quite unconscious of having given any occasion for attack. He had been sitting as usual in amazed admiration of the power the hon. Member for Sligo displayed in spinning out a tremendous story from the scantiest material. He would take the Education Bill first. The hon. Member went back to past Sessions; he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) could only go back to the Autumn Sitting. In that Session—he was sorry to have to go over the old story—the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) introduced a Bill which he put down night after night; it was not postponed for an interval, it was put down day by day, but it was never printed. At last it was printed, and the same day the hon. Member moved the second reading. The Government had only seen the Bill a few hours before, and it obviously had to be referred to Dublin, and it had to be carefully considered. It was a Bill—he would not discuss it—involving an enormous additional charge upon the taxation of the country, and the Government were expected without any consideration at all to say "Aye" or "No" to it! He had to consult the Irish Government, he had to consult the Treasury, and a great deal of consideration had to be given to it, and he thought it the most courteous, the most straight- 184 forward thing—not supposing that it was seriously expected they should then and there go on with the Bill—to move the adjournment of the debate, to avoid doing what he thought would have been extremely discourteous, to allow Members to get up one after another to discuss the Bill, and then for him to say—"You have wasted all your eloquence. I can really give no opinion upon the Bill." He thought it the most courteous, most straightforward method to move the adjournment of the debate. That was his crime on that occasion; but he was of opinion that the bulk of the House, instead of considering it an offence, thought it the most courteous and convenient course to take. Then it was announced the Government would have a Bill on the subject of Education, and that it was to be brought in in the course of that Session. But everyone knew the peculiar position of Business in the House; how every night, with the exception of those occupied with the Vote of Censure, was taken up with Committee of Supply or the Parliamentary Elections (Redistribution) Bill; and, therefore, any statement he he could make in explanation of that very considerable scheme affecting the educational system of Ireland would have had to have been made at a very late hour. He thought it would be the desire of hon. Members, and a good deal more to their convenience, that he should not introduce a Bill on a day when it would have to be deferred to a very late hour; that was his sole object. He announced it for Monday; but in the course of the previous week there was a debate in the House upon educational topics, and he being asked about the Bill said he would put it down for Monday, but with no intention of going on with it, as the Navy Estimates were to be discussed on that day, and it was obvious the Bill could not be reached until very late at night, but that he would bring it on on Tuesday, or some other night advantageous for the purpose. On Monday the House sat until 5 o'clock the next morning, a much later hour than he anticipated when he said he would put down the Bill pro formâ, and he would leave the House to judge whether 5 o'clock in the morning, after an exhaustive and acrimonious debate, was the time to make a somewhat important statement 185 on the great question the Bill would deal with. That disposed of Monday, and he would go on with the history of the following night. He communicated with his noble Friend (Lord Richard Grosvenor) as to the most probable night when the House might expect an early deliverance from other subjects to allow of the Bill being brought on, and acting on his noble Friend's advice he put it down for Thursday, but only tentatively. Again, he was anxious to let hon. Members know what he was doing, and therefore on Wednesday he took the Notice off from Thursday, and announced it for the following Tuesday, as the most likely day for bringing it on. He hoped to bring it on on Tuesday, and he was ready to do so any night. He was not in the habit of speaking for the newspapers, and did not care whether he was reported or not; but he thought the dignity of the subject required that it should not be brought on at the fag-end of an evening spent in a somewhat wrangling discussion. So much for the Education Bill. Then there were other Bills—three that were put down for Thursday (last night). One of them, as he had already told hon. Members, he discovered was, as a measure affecting the payment of pensions to Civil servants, in the category of Money Bills that required Committee to be set up, and a Resolution to be passed, before the Bill could be brought in. So that Bill could not be brought in last night. Then there was the Distribution of Police Bill and the Registration Bill. Well, they all knew what happened last night. A debate was raised on the Report of the Vote on Account, and certain cases were brought forward, the Solicitor General for Ireland and himself making answers they thought were required. Then hon. Members went on—he made no complaint of it—bringing on fresh cases, introducing fresh subjects upon which his hon. and learned Friend and himself were, by the Rules of Debate, precluded from making reply. Hon. Members who made it a reproach that he sat silent for an hour and a-half or two hours, should remember that it would have been in contravention of rule if he had attempted to reply. Now, unfortunately, one of the Bills had not been put down for tonight; but that was simply through a clerical error, it would be down for Monday; the other he intended pre- 186 sently to bring in. That was the sum and substance of what had happened—the recital of the whole of his misconduct. If he had been guilty of any discourtesy, any want of consideration, he was extremely sorry for it. If there had been any error committed in the way in which he had put off the Education Bill, it was out of consideration for the convenience of Members, and to get an opportunity in proportion to the importance of the subject; with no other motive whatever.
MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman thought it was not paying due regard to the dignity of the cause of the National School teachers to bring forward his Bill at the end of a long Sitting; but he (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) was strongly of opinion that the National School teachers would rather have the justice of their claim satisfied than the dignity of the subject consulted — would rather have the Bill pressed forward even at the close of a long Sitting than have the dignity of the subject associated with delay. He would not refer to the question at length, but the speech of the right hon. Gentleman made a few words necessary. The right hon. Gentleman said when the Bill was brought on last Session the Government knew nothing of it, that he had no idea of its provisions, could not therefore discuss it, and was compelled to move the adjournment of the debate. The House might have been led to suppose that Irish Members had sprung a mine on the Government, and had brought in a Bill the Government had never heard of. But the Bill only embodied the demands Irish Members had made Session after Session. Every Member who cared in the least about the subject must have known perfectly, from discussions year after year, what were the grounds of complaint, and the precise remedies suggested. By Resolution after Resolution Irish Members made the facts known, and one Resolution they very nearly carried; and in the Bill they only embodied the remedies for a grievance that must have been familiar for many a year to every Member who cared a straw about the subject. Under such circumstances, it was strange that the right hon. Gentleman should have thought it necessary to take the unusual course of moving the adjournment. He said it was meant as 187 an act of courtesy, and he (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) did not doubt it when the right hon. Gentleman said so; but he could only say that at the time this new-fashioned courtesy looked very like old-fashioned discourtesy. The Bill was put off, and in a little time was down again for second reading on the renewed debate, and by a strange chance was not blocked. The discussion would have proceeded as a matter of course; the right hon. Gentleman, however, told him he was going to introduce a Government measure, and appealed to him not to press the Bill that night. On the assurance that the right hon. Gentleman intended to bring in the Government Bill in the first days of the present Session he accepted the suggestion, and did not make use of the rare chance of proceeding with his own Bill. Since then, from day to day, the Bill of the Government had been dangled before their eyes, but had never come within reach. The right hon. Gentleman asked the House to say whether, at the end of a long and weary Sitting, he could be expected to make a speech on an important Bill. But was it necessary he should make a speech on the introduction? What Irish Members wanted was to see the Bill. Let the right hon. Gentleman introduce the Bill with no speech at all, though, as he said he did not make speeches for newspapers, he might as well speak at one time as another. Let him, however, move the first reading in a formal way, without a speech to newspaper readers or anybody else; let that stage be carried, and there would be some prospect of the Bill going forward. The right hon. Gentleman accused the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) of having complained that he (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) sat silent through last night's debate, interposing with no words of his own. But his hon. Friend made no such complaint; what he did say was, that the Chief Secretary sat through two or three hours of the debate, and, the debate being over, he would not stay another minute to formally move the first reading of his Bill. In that there was fair reason for complaint. After the right hon. Gentleman's disclaimer, he was quite sure he did not mean to be unfair or discourteous. Still, his action did delay a measure of great importance, affecting the condition and 188 interests of a large body of overworked and underpaid public servants, who had been promised for years that their grievances should be redressed.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he joined in the view of his hon. Friend the Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy). The tone of the Chief Secretary's reply left nothing whatever to be desired, and he felt quite sure the right hon. Gentleman had no idea of being discourteous or unfair; but really, in the hard commerce of political life, results must be regarded rather than good intentions, and it must be confessed the right hon. Gentleman's action was most unfortunate in regard to the measure to which that action was applied. The right hon. Gentleman glanced with something like complaint at the proceedings of last night—that Irish Members continued debate among themselves. Now, he was really astonished that the right hon. Gentleman made that a cause of complaint against them.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, he did not do so.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he did not do so just now, but he did earlier in the Sitting; he laid stress on the fact that Irish Members followed each other on different questions. But was it their fault; was it not their serious complaint that they were continually compelled to follow each other, without the courtesy or decency of a reply from the Treasury Bench? True, the right hon. Gentleman had exhausted his right of speech, and so had the Solicitor General for Ireland. The Secretary to the Treasury had spoken on another subject, but the Chancellor of the Exchequer was present, and one or two Members of the Government, who could have been told by the Chief Secretary what answer should be made to the charges brought forward. But Irish Members proceeded without any reply being made, and it was one of their gravest complaints that they were thus treated in regard to questions they raised. The Irish Administration, as conducted in the House, was composed of water-tight compartments; the Chief Secretary and the Solicitor General seemed to retain in themselves all knowledge of Irish subjects; other Members of the Government debarred themselves, or were debarred, from all information. They knew nothing, and they cared less; and the result was that, though 189 10 Members might rise, each calling attention to a different subject, only two of them could get a reply, because the speaking power on the Treasury Bench was limited to the two Gentlemen directly associated with the Irish Administration. That was a most inconvenient and, he might say, a most unconstitutional state of affairs. However they might acquit the Chief Secretary of unfairness, the unfortunate effect was that this measure had been neglected. The right hon. Gentleman stuck obstinately to the idea that the first stage of the Bill required a speech. Nothing of the kind. It was a great deal more important to Irish Members and to the people concerned, and it would be a great deal better for the Chief Secretary, that they should have the text of the Bill before them. That was what they wanted, without a word of explanation. Dull though their intelligencies might be, they would endeavour to gather the meaning of the proposals of the Government. In order to get the Bill printed, nothing more was required from the Chief Secretary than less than five minutes of his time and the raising of his hat. Was it credible—was it credible that when the right hon. Gentleman found himself in the House, though at 5 o'clock in the morning, he should grudge the Irish Members—grudge the National teachers of Ireland — a few more minutes? That was the whole question. It was not a question of a speech at all. But when the time came for the Motion, the right hon. Gentleman had run away. [Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No.] No; he disappeared; he walked home; he glided home. Irish Members waited last night in full expectation of the Bill; and he might mention a matter that had been the subject of conversation—they might have counted out the House. There were not more than 33 Members in all parts of the House at the time when the final stage of the Vote of Credit was about to be taken. The discussion had gone on through a considerable part of the night, and the Government were extremely anxious to pass it. Under the statutory conditions, it was a matter of supreme importance that the last stage should be taken; yet they might have deranged the whole Business of the Government. The Government were at their mercy, but they did not count the House; and he could assure 190 the right hon. Gentleman that the main reason that weighed against their doing so, apart from consideration of the serious inconvenience it would have caused the Government, was that it would have interfered with the expectation of getting the first stage of a Bill for the introduction of which Irish Members and all Ireland were eagerly looking. It was a most disagreeable surprise, a most venomous disappointment, when, having spared the Government, and allowed them to get their Vote, having remained up till half-past 3, to find, when the time came, that the Chief Secretary had gone and the Bill not introduced. Again he acknowledged that the Chief Secretary must be acquitted of any intended discourtesy; but it was to be hoped that now, having caused disappointment so often, he would not delay a single day, and that, above all, he would not make the absence of a speech the reason for delay.
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, if, with indulgence, he might be allowed to say a word, it might save further time being spent upon the matter. No one could dislike making a speech more than he did on any occasion; but in regard to this great subject of Education, he imagined, and from his experience he believed, it was the practice on a question of first-class importance always to make a statement upon its introduction. He had no desire to make such a statement for his own satisfaction; and he could say that if on Tuesday the Bill came on so late that it would be unreasonable to detain the House with a speech, he would be glad to introduce the Bill without a speech at all, and to leave the Bill to the acumen of hon. Members opposite when they saw it. With regard to the other Bills, there was really nothing to be said about them.
MR. JUSTIN HUNTLY M'CARTHYsaid, this little debate would be useful, if only as a proof to the country that they were represented in the House by a not very slumberous Party, who kept a sharp look out on the Irish Administration. But for that, this particular Bill might never be introduced. From all parts of the country, almost from every town, he received letters incessantly and earnestly imploring him to send the particulars of the Bill of the Chief Secretary, and he had been compelled to 191 reply that the Bill had not appeared; that, in spite of all efforts to extort the measure from the Government, they still remained in the same condition of obscurity in which they had been since the beginning of the Session. The Bill, he anticipated, would not be a very remarkable measure; but he and his Friends hoped that, before it passed, it would be knocked into something like a serviceable shape, so that it might stand as a temporary stop-gap until they had the opportunity of extorting from the present, or some other Government, a more complete and more useful measure. He hoped the result of the discussion would be to banish from the mind of official Members an unwonted passion for slumber. His Party were not, as a rule, anxious to close debates; but when they were so desirous, as in the case of Coercion Bills, the Government had always displayed a sleeplessness which he hoped they would extend to this Bill.
MR. O'BRIENsaid, he thought the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had some reason to congratulate himself upon the very marked change of tone he had produced in the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman as compared with those made that afternoon amidst the cheers of hon. Gentlemen opposite. When the Chief Secretary reminded them of the dèsagrément connected with his Office, he thought the Irish Members might very fairly remind him—
§ MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANI did not say anything about dé ément. I said it was rather an advantage.
MR. O'BRIENsaid, the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think that he was making some patriotic sacrifice in filling his present post. He (Mr. O'Brien) would like to remind him that it was not, at all events, the Irish Members who had invited him to accept the Office he held; and, further, he would like to remind him that there was a not inconsiderable salary attached to it. That was the second night in one week on which the Irish Members had had the unpleasant duty imposed upon them of complaining of a breach of faith on the part of the Government towards themselves in regard to important Irish Business. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had reminded them of what had passed last night, and he (Mr. O'Brien) confessed that he, for one, could not forget it. 192 Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt) would urge that the Irish Members could not produce the "traces," the ipsissima verba, of the agreement that these three Bills were to be introduced last night in consideration of their allowing the Vote under discussion to pass; but there was an unwritten understanding to that effect, and they fore bore opposing the Vote. The moment, however, the Government had got what they wanted out of the Irish Members, by some accident the whole of their supporters had trooped out of the House in a most demonstrative manner—had made a regular demonstration and triumph of it. The right hon. Gentleman's argument was that although he had remained in the House until past 3 o'clock in the morning to get the Government this Vote, he could not remain the three minutes longer which would have been necessary in order to introduce the three Irish Bills, and to dispose of the only Business on the Paper connected with his Office of Chief Secretary. The only other thing he (Mr. O'Brien) would like to say was that when the right hon. Gentleman rebuked the Irish Members for doing their duty to their constituents at such unpleasant times and under such unpleasant circumstances as they were obliged to in the House, he would answer that if anyone had reason to complain of the unearthly hours to which the House was kept up, it was the Irish Members. That night, last night, and every other night, they had had to wait until English Business was over, and until most English Members were in their beds, to discuss matters which were of infinitely more importance to Ireland than all the preparations being made against the unfortunate people of the Soudan, to slaughter whom so much money asked for had been voted.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, he wished to ask the Financial Secretary to the Treasury a question as to accounts in connection with this Vote. Certain Votes were taken in Supply, and now they had to be taken in Committee of Ways and Means to enable the Vote in Supply to be met. What he wished to know was how the Consolidated Fund to enable Her Majesty to meet the Services would affect the object in view? Was the money in the Consolidated Fund — had the Government got the 193 money? Because a mere Vote in that House would not give it to them. It was necessary to raise the money before they could use it. Could the Financial Secretary say that the Government were in a position, out of the Ways and Means of the present financial year, to meet the amount it was now proposed to vote?
§ MR. HIBBERTsaid, that, of course, the money would be forthcoming when required. The Chancellor of the Exchequer had stated that day that it was not intended to impose fresh taxation during the present financial year, but that the money which was being voted would be forthcoming at the proper time.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORIs it to be borrowed?
§ [No reply.]
§ Resolutions agreed to.
§ Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir ARTHUR OTWAY, Mr. CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER, and Mr. HIBBERT.
§ Bill presented, and read the first time.