PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY TO THE LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND [SALARY, &c.].

§ MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY (Londonderry)
said, he thought it was very unhandsome, to say the least of it, that this Order should be pressed on the House when a large number of the Irish Members were absent, as was perfectly well known to the Government. It was equally well known to the Government that every Irish Nationalist Member objected most strongly to the present proposal. What was the occasion for now pressing forward the measure, even supposing it were a good one, with this remarkable and this unseemly haste? As they knew, the right hon. and gal- 726 lant Gentleman (Colonel King-Harman) in whose favour the Bill was brought forward, was now absent from the House and from the country—absent, he (Mr. M'Carthy) was sorry to say, owing to ill-health. As they knew also, there was no peculiar pressure of work so far as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland was concerned. In former Sessions the Irish Questions numbered far more than they had numbered at any time during this Session. They could all recollect that during the time when the late Mr. Forster was Chief Secretary for Ireland, it was a very common and frequent thing for Irish Members to move, as then they had a right to move, the Adjournment of the House on some answer to a Question, and thus to start a long debate in which the Chief Secretary had to boar a part. Such things never occurred now, they could not occur under the new regulations of the House, and the number of Questions had greatly diminished. He could not see then why at present the right hon. Gentleman was so anxious to get the subject brought before the House. Being convinced that the Government were pressing forward the Bill to-night in an unfair spirit, he would give the House an opportunity of relieving the Government from the position in which they stood, and he would, therefore, move that the debate be now adjourned.

MR. W. PEDMOND (Fermanagh, N.)
seconded the Motion.

§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)
said, they were having new precedents in that House every day. The Motion for the Adjournment having been moved and seconded, and no Member on the Treasury Bench having thought it worth his while to get up and give any answer to it, he thought that was a form of discourtesy which was unknown in that House until they were blessed with the present Chief Secretary. He must say he never knew a case of shabbier conduct on the part of the Government than had been shown in this instance. Both the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland and the First Lord of the Trea- 727 sury were perfectly well aware that a very large number of Irish Members could not be in their places to-day, for the Chief Secretary took care to give them plenty of work yesterday. He knew very well they would be absent, and even to-night he had told the House that he had not been able to get, even by telegraph, from his subordinates information with regard to the events that took place in Ireland yesterday, and yet he expected Irishmen to be in the House who had taken part in those proceedings yesterday in Ireland. Another reason why it was inopportune and unfair of the Government to put this down as the first Order of the Day was that they must have known that it would interfere very seriously with the Order of the other Business. Everybody knew that to-night they were to discuss one of the most important events of the Session—namely, the Budget proposals of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and it was also then that the debate on those Budget proposals was to be initiated by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), and, therefore, he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) could not help thinking that the Government must have intended in the bringing forward this Bill as the first Order of the Day, not only to take advantage of the absence of Irish Members—which, he thought, was a mean and rather shabby way of doing business—but to throw back the speech of the Leader of the Opposition to an inconvenient hour, when the majority of Members would be absent from the House. He could not understand tactics of that kind, and cordially joined his hon. Friend (Mr. Justin McCarthy) in making a protest against now bringing forward the Bill, and hoped he would go to a Division.

§ THE FIRST LORD or THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)
said, he had not risen to discuss the question of the Adjournment of the Debate because he did not wish to waste the time of the House. ["Oh, oh!"] Within the last 20 years, during which he (Mr. Smith) had had a seat in the House, he did not remember another case in which the merely preliminary stages of a Bill that were rendered necessary by the fact that the Bill was a Money Bill, had been so canvassed and opposed step by 728 step as in the present instance, and Divisions taken upon them. ["Hear, hear!"] He made no complaint of a Division being taken upon the introduction of a Bill, or debate upon it; but Divisions and debates had been frequent upon every stage of this Resolution, which had been rendered necessary by the Forms of the House, and within his recollection no such course had been taken before. Under those circumstances, he did not consider it respectful to the House to discuss the Motion, and he hoped hon. Members would not consider it requisite to go to a Division. Hon. Members had complained that he had taken no Notice of the absence of hon. Members from Ireland; but the fact was that the present was a purely formal stage. He had repeatedly stated that ample Notice would be given of the stage of the second reading of the Bill which would follow, when hon. Gentlemen from Ireland would have full opportunity of debating the Bill, and of taking such a course with regard to it as they thought right. But he did not think he was bound, on a simple formal stage, to postpone it beyond that day, which was the third day after the House had re-assembled.

§ MR. ILLINGWORTH (Bradford, W.)
said, he joined in the appeal of the Irish Members to the Government to postpone this stage of the Resolution. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Smith) had observed that there was no precedent for organized opposition to a Bill at that stage; but, on the other hand, there was no precedent for the Government on an important night like that putting down a Measure which was really a private Bill brought forward in the interests of a single individual as the First Order. As to the course taken by hon. Members from Ireland, that showed the state of feeling in Ireland on the matter, and it demonstrated that the overwhelming majority of the Irish Members objected to the proposal both as regarded the personal side of the measure and its general scope.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
rose to Order, and asked whether the hon. Gentleman was speaking to the question of the adjournment?

§ MR. ILLINGWORTH
said, he was only replying to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman himself, and he hoped he was not transgressing so far as 729 to render it absolutely necessary for the right hon. Gentleman to interfere. If the proposal had been one affecting Scotch interests, he believed that the Members for Scotland would have occupied many more hours than the Irish Members had done in disputing every stage of the proposal. But he ventured on another ground to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman. He was setting a very awkward precedent, and it was one scarcely respectful to the House. There could be no urgency for the Bill, and the right hon. Gentleman would be well advised in postponing for the present the measure.

§ MR. LABOUCHERE (Northampton)
said, he thought, as a matter of public convenience, the right hon. Gentleman would do well to consider that appeal. He (Mr. Labouchere) did not think he would get through one of the Budget Resolutions if he did not accept the proposal for Adjournment. The right hon. Gentleman had brought the matter entirely upon himself. He had said this was simply a formal stage, but hon. Members from Ireland did not consider it as such; and, if he persisted in the course he proposed, he would lose a great deal of time.

§ MR. T. P. O'CONNOR
said, the House had, by a large minority, called upon the Government to postpone the further consideration of this matter, but the Government would not accede to the request of that minority. The Irish Members, however, were going to be more reasonable than the Government. They felt they could not regard any stage of the Bill as formal, and they should consider it their duty to oppose the Bill at every stage. In regard to the breathless and eager interest with which the country was looking forward to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition upon the Budget proposals of the Government, and to the grave importance of that matter, they did not intend to persist in offering a protracted opposition to the further progress of the Resolution. So far as the Government was concerned, the Irish Members had the same disregard for their convenience 730 as the Government themselves seemed to have for the convenience of the Irish Members; but, seeing the position in which the Leader of the Opposition was placed by the conduct of the Government, they should not assist the Government in their little game of throwing his speech back into the dinner hour by continuing the debate, but should satisfy themselves by simply taking a Division at this stage.

PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY TO THE LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND [SALARY, &c.].—REPORT.