[BILL 201.] COMMITTEE.

HC Deb 14 May 1888 vol 326 cc207-64

Bill considered in Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clause 1 (Office not to disqualify for seat in Parliament).

MR. HENEAGE (Great Grimsby)

said, he rose to move an Amendment to this clause, which empowered the Treasury and the Lord Lieutenant to provide a salary for the additional Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. He objected altogether to the proposal to establish and endow what he believed to be an useless and unnecessary Office, and he proposed to strike out what he regarded as the essential words of the clause, the words "to be" in order to raise the whole question again, as he considered the vote taken on the second reading was not taken on the merits, or perhaps, he should say, on the demerits of the Bill, but was taken rather for personal reasons on account of the personal and political controversial points which were introduced into the discussion. This was not the first time that a Bill had been dealt with in this way. A Bill of a very similar character was brought in 1884, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers). In that Bill there were proposed annuities to Lord Wolseley and Lord Alcester. The House then allowed the second reading of the Bill to take place, because they thought it would be a disparagement to those officers if the Bill were opposed on the second reading, but immediately the Bill was set down for Committee the hon. Member for Staffordshire put down an Amendment to strike out the word "annuity" and thus raised the whole principle of the Bill. The Government opposed the Amendment for some time, but afterwards finding that the feeling in the House was strongly against the measure, they withdrew it. He did not believe there was ever a stronger feeling on all sides of the House against a Bill than there was against this Bill. He believed that nearly every Member sitting on the Opposition side of the House looked upon it as a most objectionable measure from every possible point of view, and he did not believe there was the slightest support of it on the other side, but that hon. Members opposite would gladly have got rid of it long ago if they could have done so. What was the case for this new Office? Did the Lord Lieutenant require any further assistance in Dublin? What were the duties which the Lord Lieutenant and the Attorney General for Ireland had to do which they could not now perform? These gentlemen were always resident in Dublin, neither of them had any Parliamentary work, they had not to take journeys to and from London, they had no Cabinet meetings to attend, they had the whole of their time at their own disposal to do the work of their respective offices. The present Lord Lieutenant was in a much better position than his Predecessor, because the Lord Chancellor of Ireland was a Cabinet Minister, and he could, with all the responsibility of a Cabinet Minister, not only assist in the Government of Ireland, but he could go over to London and move Bills, or take part in the debates in the House of Lords. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) told them that he required assistance in that House. Now, he (Mr. Heneage) believed that no Irish Secretary was ever in a better position than his right hon. Friend. The right hon. Gentleman had very little to trouble him in Dublin; indeed, he hardly ever went there.

THE CHAIRMAN

The right hon. Gentleman's Amendment upon the Paper does not appear to prevent the creation of the Office, but provides that the salary shall be paid out of moneys already provided by Parliament for the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary. If that is the right hon. Gentleman's Amendment, he must direct his argument to it.

MR. HENEAGE

said, that, of course, he would bow to the Chairman's ruling; but he imagined that the question before them was whether the Under Secretary was worth the salary which was proposed to be given to him. He maintained that the country would derive no benefit whatever from the payment of this salary. He proposed to show that there would be no work for the Under Secretary to do; because those Ministers who were already doing the work, or ought to be doing the work were perfectly competent to perform that work. If that line of argument were out of Order, of course he must depart from it; but he did not see how it was possible for him to prove that the salary was not required unless he proved that the Office itself, to a certain extent, was not required also. He asserted that the Chief Secretary for Ireland was not only in as good a position to perform his duties, but in a better position to do that than any of his Predecessors; because he had very few journeys to Ireland to undertake in comparison, for instance, with the late Mr. Forster; because he had no heavy legislation on hand, and because the hours during which the House sat had been considerably curtailed.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! I must point out to the right hon. Gentleman that he must speak to his own Amendment. He proposes that the salary of the Parliamentary Under Secretary shall be taken out of the salaries of the Lord Lieutenant, and the Chief Secretary. It is not pertinent to that to argue the question of the creation of the Office.

MR. HENEAGE

said, that he was in great difficulty as to how to argue the question; because, if he could not argue that there was no work for the Under Secretary to do, he must admit that every man was worthy of his hire, and so he was bound to admit that the salary ought to be paid. Perhaps the best course he could take under the circumstances was not to move the present Amendment, but to wait until the end of the clause, and move to omit the clause entirely.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

said, that he agreed with the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Heneage), and he felt justified in making a proposal to him, which was that he should stick to his Amendment. As he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) understood the ruling of the Chairman, they were not entitled to discuss the creation of the Office of Under Secretary, but they were entitled to discuss whether the Under Secretary should be paid by means of a new demand upon the Exchequer, or paid out of funds already at the disposal of the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary. He would take up the argument which the right hon. Gentleman had endeavoured to enforce upon the House—namely, that the present Chief Secretary for Ireland was so sparsely employed as compared with his Predecessors that it would only be decorous in him, not to say, generous, if he gave up so much of his salary as would pay for the employment of the new Under Secretary. He had said that the present Chief Secretary was less employed than previous Chief Secretaries, but he did not intend to make any allusion to the tenure of Office of his right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley) who probably would take part in the debate, and would be better able to speak concerning his own period of Office. But he would point to the example of the late Mr. Forster; he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) was a very fierce opponent of the late Mr. Forster, but at the same time he did not think there was ever a public servant more devoted to the discharge of his duties. What did the late Mr. Forster do compared with the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. A. J. Balfour)? He was here at Question time almost invariably, and the Questions then were very different to the Questions now; in those days there were 10 Questions put to every one asked now. The right hon. Gentleman had a much more disturbed Ireland to deal with than the present Chief Secretary, and he was interrogated constantly as to the administration of the Coercion Act then in force; whereas the present Chief Secretary was shocked if even a couple of hours were occupied, as there were to-night, in discussing the merits or demerits of the imprisonment of a Member of Parliament. The late Mr. Forster attended to business in Ireland; but one of the most remarkable things about the present Chief Secretary was the absolute want of attention on his part to the duties of his Office in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman never took an opportunity of going to Ireland in order to remove a certain small proportion of that gigantic ignorance under which he laboured. He did not say that the right hon. Gentleman should go to Ireland while the House was sitting, though he might remark that the late Mr. Forster went no less than 13 times in the course of half a single Session, and in spite of the enormous work he had to do in the House of Commons. But the right hon. Gentleman opposite did not go to Ireland during the Session, neither did he go to Ireland during the vacation. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) saw it announced in the public Press that the right hon. Gentleman was going to spend the forthcoming vacation by the sounding sea. That might be a very pleasant way of spending the vacation to the right hon. Gentleman, but he thought that the right hon. Gentleman would be better discharging his duties if he would go to the country over which he was at the present moment almost as supreme as if he were appointed by the Russian Autocrat as Governor General. The right hon. Gentleman received a very large salary indeed; £5,000 a-year was an extremely good salary, and it was a salary which very few other Ministers of the Government got. Everybody knew that £5,000 a-year was confined to one or two Secretaries, like the Colonial Secretary, the Foreign Secretary, and the Secretary of State for the Home Department. Under these circumstances, he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) thought the right hon. Gentleman might very well afford to cut out of his salary £1,000 or £1,200 a-year for the benefit of the Gentleman who discharged his duties; duties which were discharged by all his Predecessors, but which he was either too lazy or too unwilling to discharge himself. If the right hon. Gentleman were a poor man, he could quite understand his opposing this Amendment, but the right hon. Gentleman was well known to be a man of wealth.—[Mr. A. J. BALFOUR dissented.]—Well, he would regard the right hon. Gentleman's income as establishing the title of wealthy; but, perhaps, his (Mr. T. P. O'Connor's) tastes were humbler and more modest than the right hon. Gentleman's, certainly he would very willingly exchange incomes with the right hon. Gentleman. But his point was that the right hon. Gentleman was what modest people regarded as a man of considerable substance and wealth; he was also, so at least his friends were always saying, a patriot; being a patriot he could afford to do all his work for nothing. But he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) did not make so heroic a proposal as that, but he thought that under all the circumstances, they might confidently look forward to the right hon. Gentleman following into the Lobby the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage).

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 7, after the word "moneys," to leave out the word "to be," and insert the word "now."—(Mr. Heneage.)

Question proposed, "That the words 'to be' stand part of the Clause."

MR. JOHN MORLEY (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

said, he did not propose to follow the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O' Connor) in his strictures upon the excessive salary paid to the Chief Secretary. To do so would perhaps be unbecoming in one who had been Chief Secretary, but he intended to vote for the Amendment of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Heneage). The salary of the Chief Secretary did not appear to be at all in excess when they considered the harassing duties the Chief Secretary had to perform, and when they considered the conditions under which he lived in London or in Dublin. But there was an officer of the Irish Establishment whose salary and allowances were well capable of diminution if the creation of another Office required remuneration. The salary and allowances of the Lord Lieutenant were, no doubt, on a scale entirely out of proportion either to the duties of the Office or to the condition in the matter of wealth of the country over which he governed. It had always seemed to him (Mr. John Morley) to be one of the most extraordinary things connected with the Government of Ireland that the Lord Lieutenant should be remunerated as if he were ruling one of the richest, instead of one of the poorest, parts of the dominions of the Crown. Therefore, he was fully of opinion that if it were necessary to create this Office, and into that question the Chairman would not allow them to enter—if it were necessary to create this Office, the emoluments which the Parliamentary Under Secretary might claim ought to be provided from the resources already at the disposal of the Lord Lieutenant. The expensiveness of the Irish Establishment was one of the scandals of our Administration. In the judicial Establishment, and in nearly every branch of the Irish Establishment the expenditure was enormously in advance of the requirements of the Public Service; and it was, it appeared to him, an aggravation of the existing scandal, which had for many years been recognized on both sides of the House—it was an aggravation of that scandal to create a new Office, and to apportion to it a salary. He would be out of Order in referring to another Bill which they were to discuss, probably at a later period of the evening, but they could not forget that by that other Bill a still further aggravation was to be made of the charges of the Irish Establishment. There were two Bills before them to-night, each of which very largely, very considerably, added to an expenditure which was already admitted to be, as he had said, of the nature of an administrative scandal. As they could not secure the rejection of the proposal for creating this Office, the next best thing they could do was to vote for the proposal which would at least protect the public Treasury from an increased demand upon it for the remuneration of a public officer, whom they regarded as entirely superfluous and unnecessary. That being his view, he should certainly support the Amendment of his right hon. Friend.

THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR) (Manchester, E.)

said, that as he understood the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, he approved of one-half of the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Grimsby (Mr. Heneage) and not of the other half. The Amendment consisted of two parts, one of which proposed to mulct the salary of the Chief Secretary, and the other to mulct the salary of the Lord Lieutenant for the purpose of providing the salary for the new official.

MR. HENEAGE

said, that what he proposed was, that the salary should be paid out of monies now provided by Parliament for the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary. Therefore, the salary of the new Office might be taken out of either one or the other, or both.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Heneage) proposed to cut down the salary of both the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary, but he understood the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. J. Morley) to restrict this mulcting process to the salary of the Lord Lieutenant. The Amendment, however, would not carry that out, because the salary of the Lord Lieutenant was not voted by Parliament, but came out of the Consolidated Fund. The Amendment, therefore, would require to be entirely recast, in order to carry out the object which the right hon. Gentleman who moved it had in view. He would, however, leave that point to go to the substance of the Amendment. Now, the salary proposed to be given to the Under Secretary was not an addition, as some Members supposed, of £1,500 a-year to the cost of the Irish Establishment. The new burden thrown on the Irish Establishment would be £300 a-year, because they took power, in a latter clause of the Bill, to abolish an Office which now cost £1,200 a-year. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne went on to say that the cost of the Irish Administration had long been a scandal. Let him (Mr. A. J. Balfour) remind the House that if the cost of the Irish Establishment was at one time excessive, or was even now excessive, it was far less excessive than it used to be. In other words, the amount of work thrown on the Irish Administration was enormously greater now than it was at the time when these salaries were fixed. He apprehended that no one would doubt that. There was a well known story told of Mr. Horsman, who was Chief Secretary about 30 years ago, but never found it necessary to go to the office at all. He declared he had nothing to do in his office, and lounged down to the House, and had, practically, an extremely easy time of it. He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) was not sure that at that time the salary was not even greater than at present; at any rate, it was higher in the earlier part of the century. No one would say that the Chief Secretary was not, at that moment, a tolerably bard worked official. Of course, he could not please the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor). The hon. Gentleman was unhappy when he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) was in London, and he was unhappy when he was in Ireland; when he was here the hon. Gentleman regretted that he was not in Ireland; and when he was in Ireland the hon. Gentleman regretted he was not in England. He was sorry he could not oblige the hon. Gentleman by being in the two places at one time; but he did not think that the hon. Gentleman, even in his higher flights of eloquence, would go the length of saying that the Office of Chief Secretary was not a tolerably hard worked Office. Leaving the question of the salary of the Chief Secretary, and leaving the general question of the cost thrown on the Irish Establishment, which he had shown was extremely small—namely, £300 a-year, he came to the main point urged by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, which was that the new salary should be taken out of the salary of the Lord Lieutenant. The right hon. Gentleman said, was that not an enormous salary, considering the Lord Lieutenant was Governor of a poor country. He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) frankly admitted—he had never concealed it from the House before, and he did not conceal it now—that the whole question of the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland was one which might at the proper time require revision. He was far from considering that that was a closed question; but let not the House make a mistake—it was rather a big question, and they could not at one stroke of the pen abolish the Lord Lieutenant's Office. It was an immemorial Office, around which there had collected an incrustation of duties, social and otherwise, which they could not destroy at a blow without making a great social revolution—well, he would not say a great social revolution, but a social revolution on a scale which made anyone hesitate before he engaged in it. The right hon. Gentleman described the salary of the Lord Lieutenant as an excessive and an enormous salary, but it entirely depended upon what they expected the Lord Lieutenant to do. If they expected the Lord Lieutenant to do that which all Lord Lieutenants had always done up to this time, as Lord Aberdeen and Lord Spencer had done—he would not go through the long list of distinguished men who had filled the Office—then he contended that the salary evidently was not an excessive one, but was an extremely meagre salary. Everyone who knew the facts knew that the Lord Lieutenant was not only out of pocket, but enormously out of pocket always. [An hon. MEMBER: What about Lord Abercorn?] He did not believe there had ever been a Lord Lieutenant, certainly there bad not been one within his experience, who did not lose money by being Lord Lieutenant. Much as the salary of £20,000 might appear to the Committee, and much as the salary, no doubt, was, he was sure there had been many years in which the Lord Lieutenant had spent out of pocket another £20,000. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] Yes, he did not exaggerate in the least when he said that. Therefore, when the right hon Gentleman opposite (Mr. John Morley) said that the Lord Lieutenant had too big a salary, he was pointing to a revolution which would abolish the Lord Lieutenant as they had always known him. This Bill was a much humbler measure, and he asked the House to reject the Amendment, not because they thought that the Lord Lieutenant's Office must necessarily for ever be kept up at its present scale, but because the Bill did not deal with that Office, and the idea of getting £300 a-year out of the salary of the Lord Lieutenant in order to supply the deficiency caused by the salary of the Under Secretary seemed to be tinkering with a question which ought to be dealt with in a very different spirit by the House. He hoped the House would reject the Amendment. He thought he had given reasons, not reasons wholly undeserving of consideration, why they should reject the Amendment and refuse in this Bill to touch the question of the Lord Lieutenant's salary, which was not voted by Parliament and which was a charge on the Consolidated Fund.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had said that this Bill would make an addition of £300 a-year. That would be true but for the latter part of the 2nd clause. The assumption of the right hon. Gentleman was that one of the members of the Local Government Board would disappear, and that the Parliamentary Under Secretary would do his work.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, he ought to have stated that the Bill would make no permanent addition.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

said, that the Government took power to employ an Inspector, from time to time, if it should be necessary, and they said that such an Inspector should be paid an allowance or salary such as the Lord Lieutenant might think fit. Unless he was very uncharitable to Dublin Castle, that Inspector would be very soon found to be wanted, and that allowance or additional salary would be very soon proposed by the Lord Lieutenant, and assented to by the Treasury. He could not assent to the statement that there would only be the difference between £1,500 and £1,200 a-year.

Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being found present,

MR. EDWARD HARRINGTON (Kerry, W.)

thought the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage) had made a very sensible and practical proposal to the Government. He was very glad the right hon. Gentleman had stuck to his guns, though he had been disappointed in the delivery of his speech, with which he intended to support the proposal. The object of the Amendment was to provide that the salary of the Under Secretary should be paid out of the moneys provided by Parliament, or out of the salary fixed for the Lord Lieutenant, which was at the present time a charge on the Consolidated Fund. He should hope to show that, in his and his hon. Friend's opinion, at least, there was ample ground for the Amendment proposed, and ample room enough, both in the salaries and allowances of the Lord Lieutenant and of the Chief Secretary, to take out the little slice wanted for the patronizing job of the Government in creating an Office for their pet, the forthcoming Under Secretary for Ireland. The Lord Lieutenant received a salary of £20,000 a-year. He supposed it would not be very generous to say the Lord Lieutenant did not earn such a salary; but, certainly, to their mind, he did not, even having regard to the ornamental dignity supposed to be attached to the Office of the Lord Lieutenant. They believed that a salary far less than £20,000 a-year would meet the exigencies of the case. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary (Mr. A. J. Balfour) had remarked that Lord Lieutenants spent in entertainments £20,000 a-year in addition to their salary. Granting the truth of that statement, whom did the Lord Lieutenant entertain and feast? Let anyone look at the list of those who partook of the Lord Lieutenant's entertainment and hospitality, and they would find that they were such men as Mr. Hamilton, who had sent the Speaker a letter that evening, and men of that class who were known for their antipathy to the Irish people. Something had been said by the Chief Secretary in regard to the duties of the Lord Lieutenant. In mercy's name they ought to talk common sense when talking of these things. What duty had the Lord Lieutenant to perform? He had merely to register whatever was the policy which the Chief Secretary for Ireland wished to put forward as the mouthpiece of the Cabinet. They never heard of the present Lord Lieutenant of Ireland having an opinion of his own in regard to the government of Ireland. His most onerous duties seemed to be to engage in the game of golf, or to indulge in that manly English game of cricket, or to have his photograph taken in one of the principal streets of the City of Dublin. If the Government thought such duties worth £20,000 a-year, he (Mr. Harrington) and his hon. Friends did not; they believed that out of that £20,000 a slice might be taken for the salary of the Office which it was now wished to create. He could not now enter into the question of the propriety of creating that Office, that had been justly ruled out of Order; but he might say that they were totally against the creation of the Office, and that was the justification of the demand that the salary of the new official should not be made a burden upon the taxpayer. It was said that the Lord Lieutenant lost by the very lavish hospitality he indulged in. He (Mr. Harrington) did not think that the history of the present Lord Lieutenant of Ireland would bear that statement out. But even if the present Lord Lieutenant had dispensed something over his £20,000, he received dignity and status and office in return for it, and could save in his rents. It was a well-known fact in the North of Ireland that the proclamation of the Plan of Campaign in Ireland was issued the very day after the present Lord Lieutenant's tenants had announced their intention of combining for the protection of themselves, and that was a scandalous fact that might claim the serious attention of the Executive Officers of the Irish Government. Now, turning to the Chief Secretary, they found that he had a salary of £4,225 a-year. They considered that the duties of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) were not very serious duties, but that such as they were, they were to be considerably lightened by the Bill. What did the Bill propose to do? It was proposed by the Bill to give power to transfer from the Chief Secretary to the Under Secretary the privilege of signing certain documents, and performing certain functions which would altogether lighten the burdens of the duties of the Chief Secretary. It was very hard to dissociate the two lines of argument, one of which was not in Order, and which applied to the nesessity or non-necessity for the introduction of this measure, and the other which applied to the payment of the salary of the Office being made out of the moneys provided for the Chief Secretary and the Lord Lieutenant, and for the reason, as he had said, that provision was made in the clauses of the Bill for the transference of duties to the Under Secretary which were now discharged by the Chief Secretary himself. He could not discuss the propriety of having those duties discharged by one whom he must describe as an underling, though he said that with all respect. As the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was to retain his salary intact, he ought to continue to perform his duties. Certainly, it was only fair to propose that if any of his duties were transferred or delegated to a new officer, that officer should fairly, in return for the functions he performed, receive a portion of the salary of the Chief Secretary, instead of the payment made to him being made a charge upon the public funds. What was the argument the right hon. Gentleman advanced that night? It was the argument always advanced in respect of Irish appointments. The Chief Secretary had said the Office would only entail a trifling additional expense. That argument had been time out of mind advanced in favour of offices created for those place hunters, who clung on a parasitical way to every Party in power. In the case of the appointment of Resident Magistrates, even of Judges, and of every other kind of official, the same argument had been used. New office after new office had been created. Day after day they had added to the expenditure of the Government of Ireland until the cost of that Government had become a scandal. Many items might be carved out of the Chief Secretary's office, which, put together, would make a very decent salary for the Parliamentary Under Secretary. Besides the Chief Secretary there was an Under Secretary, who was paid £2,500 a-year. There was the Assistant Under Secretary, Clerk of the Council, and Deputy Keeper of the Privy Seal, and he received £1,350 a-year. There were several principal clerks, and they got £1,825 a-year. There were first clerks and second clerks; and there was a washerwoman who was paid £15 a-year. He did not object to attention being paid to the sanitary arrangements of the office, because the office really required a lot of washing and renovating. There were allowances for cost of lighting, &c., and there were special allowances for the cost of the Chief Secretary's alternate residence in England and Ireland. He ventured to say that any man who had in his mind the intention of advancing economic reform in this House would support this Amendment, and he very much regretted that, on an occasion of this kind, when economy was in question, those hon. and right hon. Members, who from time to time asked such stinging Questions here, either about the pay of a sergeant in the Army, or some small matter of that kind, had not thought it worth while to attend to support the arguments of the Irish Members. He regretted very much that those pioneers of reform to whom he had referred were not in their places to support the proposal of that reform which was now under discussion. I was a scandal to the people of Ireland to ask Parliament for this peddling sum, when they paid the Lord Lieutenant £20,000 for indulging in the recreation of cricket, or walking down to the establishment of some particular photographer in Dublin, and getting his picture taken for the purpose of sending it round as that of a landlord who had "protected himself" from the Plan of Campaign, by getting it proclaimed throughout Ireland at the very time that his tenantry had adopted it. It was no wonder to him (Mr. E. Harrington) that the Government from time to time thought it their duty to bring forward such measures as this. Poor as they were in Ireland they might somehow scrape together this £1,200 as a salary for the Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, if only for the purpose of showing the English people how well the English Parliament diverted itself from its legitimate purpose for supporting a man who had a rent roll of £40,000 a-year, at a time when there was no need for the creation of the new Office. It could be easily pointed out to the Government how they could make up the salary of this now official out of the present swollen allowances made for the purpose of carrying on the Irish Government. It could be easily pointed out to them how this salary could be made up out of scraps and odds and ends. The Government would not go in that direction, however, although they would find no difficulty in obtaining what they wanted without saddling the taxpayers with any further burden. He felt that there was a great deal to be said upon this question, but he did not like to occupy the time of the Committee unduly. He believed it would tax the legal ingenuity of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Madden), and when he used the word "ingenuity," he intended it in no disrespectful sense, for he was glad to recognize that the hon. and learned Gentleman always met them very fairly in these matters—to find out a defence for this burden of £300 even, which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary told them was the whole sum to be taken out of the public purse in regard to this new Office. But even this £300 need not be taken out of the National pocket. The whole £1,200 could be saved without derogation to Public Business, simply by not rigging up as a national cock-shy in Ireland this broken down landlord for all Irishmen to be constantly throwing at him as a living example of all that is abominable in the Irish governmental system.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN (Dublin, College Green)

said, before a Division was taken, he should like to say a few words in support of the Amendment before the House. The new Office had been created, and now a new salary was about to be created for the Office. The Government of Ireland in proportion to the population of the country was one of the most costly in the whole world, and in spite of that fact it was now proposed—as he contended—to put a new and totally unnecessary burden upon it. If this new salary was to be attached to the new Office, in his opinion it ought to be paid out of the sums already allocated by Parliament for the Government of Ireland. He thought the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary might very fairly be expected to take out of their own large salaries the amount required to pay the Under Secretary if they considered it absolutely essential that this appointment should be made, and that a salary should be attached to it. He thought the people of Ireland would be somewhat surprised, and perhaps edified, at all this stickling on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite for salaries. Hon. Gentlemen opposite were wealthy men, and affected to be great patriots, and yet they were to be found on the Floor of this House of Commons night after night fighting this stiff, tough, protracted battle in the matter of salaries. He should not have been so much surprised at that if they had not from time to time treated with scorn and contempt the idea of getting any money whatever for the performance of public duties. It was not so long since these self-same Gentlemen who were so anxious about this salary question, and more particularly the Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, spoke with contempt of the secretaries of the National League branches who, he alleged, received salaries for their services. So far as he (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) was aware, no salaries were attached to those positions. It might be the case that in some par- ticular districts the branches of the National League had determined for a while to allocate some remuneration to their secretary, but he was not aware of any specific instance in which that had been done. Even if such were the case, it was not for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant (Colonel King-Harman) to speak in a tone of contempt and scorn of the men who received those small salaries. He certainly thought it was a public scandal that such a Gentleman as this should be endeavouring to extort this salary from the House of Commons and the British people. He said the British people, but, of course, the Irish people had to pay their share of the expense, and it was a wonder to him that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet was not ashamed of that fact. He (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) knew perfectly well that no secretary of the National League would take any petty remuneration if it was only to be obtained after such a continuous struggle as had been made on behalf of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. As a matter of fact, the whole system of government in Ireland was over-paid and over-manned. It was a system of corruption. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had lately told the public that his chief worry was in trying to deal with the numerous applicants for place and pay under the Government of Ireland. But now they saw him creating a new Office, and endeavouring to attach a new salary thereto without any necessity for the appointment. But even if the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant did require assistance in getting through the work of his Office, it was only reasonable and fair, taking all the circumstances of the case into consideration, that he and the Lord Lieutenant should pay this drudge. The Lord Lieutenant had a magnificent salary appropriated to him by the Parliament of England, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was also in the enjoyment of a splendid salary for the duties he performed, and it was no excessive burden upon these Gentlemen to require them to subscribe between them the salary of their new assistant. The whole discussion did not redound to the credit either of the Government who sought to promote this job, or to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who sought to profit by it.

MR. J. O'CONNOR (Tipperary, S.)

said, he had little to add to the arguments of his Colleagues in support of the Amendment; but he wished to refer to one of the reasons adduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary in support of the passing of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had pointed out that in adopting the Bill and appointing a new Under Secretary one member of the Irish Local Government Board would be suppressed, and that the Government would be saved nearly the whole of the extraordinary sum about to be allocated to the payment of the new Under Secretary. Well, it was once stated that Ireland was the most be-boarded country in the world; and if that were so, he would say, at any rate, let them have efficient Beards. He could not see how, by the creation of an Assistant Parliamentary Secretary to the Chief Secretary and the consequent suppression of a member of the Local Government Board, they were increasing the efficiency of the Boards in Ireland. In that country the people suffered severely from inattention to their duties on the part of members of public Boards. They suffered severely from the slipshod manner in which these Government officials performed their duties; and he certainly failed to see how the Local Government Board of Ireland would be improved by the suppression of an active member and the creation of a new official who would be unable to pay any attention whatever to the duties of the post. The Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Chief Secretary for Ireland would spend most of his time in that House—that was to say, most of that time which he did not spend on holidays on the Continent or in the Isle of Thanet. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman came to the House to answer Questions in his own jaunty and insulting fashion; and he (Mr. J. O'Connor) asked the Committee how they could reasonably believe that the man upon whose shoulders were placed so many onerous duties as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet would be able to give the necessary amount of attention to the duties imposed upon him in con- nection with the Irish Local Government Board? The reason the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary gave for this arrangement was one that, to his mind, ought to induce the Committee to vote by a large majority the acceptance of the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage). He (Mr. J. O'Connor) thought the House was very much indebted to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby for having brought this matter forward, because the House was the guardian of the public purse, and his Amendment afforded the Committee of the House an opportunity of passing its opinion upon an attempt that was being made to fritter away the public resources, He (Mr. J. O'Connor) quite admitted that if there had been any necessity shown for the proposal contained in the Bill the Committee and the House would have been justified in rejecting the Amendment. But no necessity had been shown for the creation of this Office; on the contrary, during all the discussions which had taken place upon this matter it had been pointed out most energetically, and to his mind most conclusively, that there was no necessity whatever for the Office, and therefore it was that he thought the Committee of the House, and the House itself, ought to be grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for having afforded it an opportunity of passing a judgment upon the proposition. As he had said, there had been no reason shown for the adoption of the proposal of the Government; but there was every reason why hon. Members from Ireland ought to offer most strenuous opposition not only to the creation of the new Office, but also to the payment of it. It was hoped that at no distant day, no matter what had been said to the contrary, there would be extended to the Irish people a system, if not of National, at least of local self-government; and one of the first duties that would be imposed upon the Local Bodies which would be set up in Ireland would be to establish an economic system of government, in which spirit it would be necessary to decrease every establishment in Ireland. It would be necessary to decrease the establishment of the Lord Lieutenant, and the various other establishments which were paid out of the public funds. Well, it was in the spirit of the times to compensate vested interests, and here, in view of this ultimate state of things which be pointed out, the Government were about to create a vested interest valued at £1,200 a-year. It came to this—that at some future day the Irish people might be called upon to pay compensation for the abolition of vested interests of which the emoluments of this Office would form no inconsiderable item. That was the reason why he maintained that the Irish Members should offer the most strenuous opposition to this proposal. If the Government took the salary of the new Under Secretary from the salary of the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary they would take away from the Irish Members this argument. On the other hand, whilst they persisted in the proposal to pay this out of the public funds they gave the Irish Members the best reason for opposing the Bill. A short time ago the House seemed to have entered on a season of economy. From the number of Committees sitting upstairs day after day investigating public Departments, it would seem as though they had entered upon a season of great economy. They were investigating the administration of the Army; they were investigating the affairs of the Navy; and they were investigating Civil Service affairs; but he would ask the Committee, and he would also ask the people of this country, where were the economists from the Benches opposite—what were they doing? These Gentlemen, by speeches in that House, and by their action in Committee, were endeavouring to cut down the expenses of the administration of the country; but where were they to-night when an important matter affecting the economic administration of Ireland was under discussion? Why were they not in their places? For the reasons he had given he felt it his duty to give the most determined opposition to the manner in which it was sought to pay this new Office of Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, and to render his support, by speech and vote, to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby.

DR. TANNER (Cork Co., Mid)

said, he certainly regretted that on an occasion like the present, after the great opposition the Bill had met with at that stage, that hon. Gentlemen who were always preaching about economy, did not endeavour to practise what they preached. The hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tipperary (Mr. John O'Connor) had mentioned a point known to all of them—namely, that a number of Committees dealing with all manner of economical conundrums were sitting upstairs. While these efforts at economy were apparently being made, what were the Government trying to do at the present moment? Were they anxious to see the expenditure on the Army and the Navy curtailed, and various extravagances put an end to, in order that they might be able to establish sinecures such as that involved in the present Bill? It was not often that he had to praise a Liberal Secessionist; but he recognized that it was with that House as it had been with the Cities of the Plain—if only one good man had been found in them the cities might have been saved. At any rate, he hailed as an omen that there were a few such good men above the Gangway on that (the Opposition) side of the House, who seemed anxious to follow in the right way. Hon. Gentlemen who had hitherto opposed the Representatives of the Irish nation in trying to obtain for their country, as it was their duty to do, justice and fair play, were beginning to see that, after all, there was something to be said for the efforts of those Members. There was some hope for the situation at the present time, when some of those hon. Members above the Gangway were beginning to show that they were not so impervious to argument and reason as would seem from what happened in the past. The Amendment moved by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage) was, practically speaking, an attack upon a job. As the House was entrusted with the care of the public money, and it certainly was its business to try in every case and on every possible occasion to discourage a job, and especially to discourage a job when that job was perpetrated by the Representatives of a class against the wishes of a majority of the people. That was practically the case in the present instance. Ordinarily the House had to vote away immense sums of money at a late hour of the night. He had seen from those Benches enormous sums of money voted away without a single protest being made, and notably without a single protest being made by any hon. or right hon. Gentleman opposite. Of course, he knew very well that in the past, when money had been voted, it was mostly by a Liberal Government; and that at those times hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite, who paid very little attention to the voting away of public money to-day, sat on the Opposition side of the House, and had a great deal to say against such payments. In the days of which he spoke, the right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) was, he might say, a champion obstructionist. At any rate, if hon. Members opposite had forgotten the interest they took in economy, it was not for the Irish Members to do so, especially in the present case, when there were many other reasons for resisting the Government proposal. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary declared that it was necessary that he should have assistance in carrying on the government of Ireland under the Lord Lieutenant. Well, but it was very little they saw of the right hon. Gentleman in Ireland. When he did go to that country he disappeared amongst the ranks of the policemen. He was very brave, very plucky, no doubt; but he was lost amongst the police, and disappeared into Dublin Castle directly he got amongst the Irish people. They wished him joy of his associations. The right hon. Gentleman was anxious to increase the number of his associations; and by all means let him do it, if he did it at his own expense. If he wished for a satellite to revolve around him, by all means let him have it, but do not let him perpetrate a job in order to effect his object. Let him pay the Gentleman who was to act as his shield and buckler himself. The Gentleman was for his own protection and convenience and glorification; therefore, let him pay him himself. When a servant was necessary, he (Dr. Tanner) did not begrudge that servant a salary. Every public servant, even the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary himself, had money coming to him in a legitimate manner. The right hon. Gentleman, of course, had to be paid just like a housemaid or a cook. He did not grudge the money to the right hon. Gentleman, but he did grudge the money which it was proposed to pay under this Bill. He did protest against the right hon. Gentleman being generous before he was just. He objected to the right hon. Gentleman putting his hand into the public purse in order to subsidize his private satellite. The proposal in the Bill was absolutely unfair, and would not commend itself, he felt sure, even to a number of hon. Gentlemen opposite. Many hon. Gentlemen would say that, even as a matter of common sense, it was desirable that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary should pay the occupant of the new Office out of his own pocket, or, at any rate, that he should be paid by the Dad Lieutenant. If the right hon. Gentleman did not feel himself called upon to pay this £1,200 a-year, then let the amount be given out of the salary of the Lord Lieutenant. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had stated to-night that the Lord Lieutenant always spent double the salary he received—which was £20,000 a-year—during his term of Office. Well, as far as he (Dr. Tanner) was aware of the facts in connection with the expenditure of most of the Tory Lord Lieutenants of Ireland, he could assure the Committee that they always tried to do things in the cheapest possible way. In the case of the present Lord Lieutenant, every penny he could spend out of Ireland he spent in that way, and that had been the case with all Lord Lieutenants in recent times, with the exception, perhaps, of Lord Spencer. Instead of spending their money, and £20,000 a-year in addition, they tried to save all they could. Why did the Lord Lieutenant spend £20,000 a-year in addition to his income?

An hon. MEMBER

What does he spend it on?

DR. TANNER

Yes; what did he spend it on? If the present Lord Lieutenant spent that amount, it was on bookmakers and on promoting the game of cricket. It was all very well to try to cram those innuendoes, those chimerical ideas of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, down the throats of the English public and of Gentlemen who sat in that House; but anyone who was at all acquainted with the facts as they existed in the City of Dublin was perfectly aware that those ideas existed only and totally in the brain of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. Again, he must regret that hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House, who went in for preaching economy, were not in the House at that moment. He very much regretted that the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill), who had tried to keep down expenditure in connection with the great spending Departments of the State, was not in his place. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had said that the amount in dispute was only a small amount—was only a little affair; and that reminded him (Dr. Tanner) of the story in Midshipman Easy, where the baby was stated to be only a little one, and being a little one it had to be accepted as it was given. As was the case with the baby in Midshipman Easy, this Vote was illegitimate, and the fact of its being a little one did not render it any the more acceptable. The moneys which were at present provided by Parliament ought to be amply sufficient for the government of Ireland. If the charge proposed in the present Bill were admitted, they would simply be creating a precedent for the establishment of further posts, and a precedent for converting unpaid posts, into which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary placed his personal friends, into paid offices. He regarded this proposal not only as the creation of a sinecure for the enjoyment of a Member on the opposite side of the House, but an attempt, by patronage and bribery, to corrupt a nation which had always defied the insidious attempts made upon them by Gentlemen in the position of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. [Laughter.] The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary laughed that dulcet laugh which was peculiar to him. It was always refreshing to hear that laugh; but he would remind the right hon. Gentleman that this was no laughing matter. It would be no laughing matter to the right hon. Gentleman if he had to put his hand into his own pocket in order to pay his subordinate out of it. The right hon. Gentleman himself was paid practically for laughing at the country which he had, to a very large extent, to administer. But the subject under discussion was no laughing matter. If the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Colonel King-Harman) was to be paid by private individuals, or was to be paid in any shape except out of the public purse, there would be no objection raised either to the creation of the post or to the payment of the individual; but what was objected to was the method by which it was proposed that the Under Secretary should be paid. With brute force, the Government could do anything, no doubt. The right hon. Gentleman might laugh, and might be able to gain his point, no doubt; but still, if the Government insisted upon doing this insensate thing, it was the duty of the Irish Members to point out that they were doing what was wrong and unjust, though the act would be thoroughly characteristic of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary.

MR. ILLINGWORTH (Bradford, W.)

said, that having listened to the debate so far as it had gone, he could not help thinking that this was a most gross job that was being attempted by the Government, and he was extremely glad to think that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage) had found a limit beyond which he would not go in sanctioning the perpetration of a job. It looked to him (Mr. Illingworth) like a case where a post had been made for a man—not a man found for a post. Although they were precluded, by the stage they had arrived at on the Bill, from saying whether the payment was necessary or not, if it were necessary they might ask who was to be relieved of the duties that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet was going to discharge? It could not be contended that the Lord Lieutenant would be relieved from any of the onerous duties which pressed upon him, and he hardly thought that when the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet returned they would find him doing much work as a Local Government Commissioner in Ireland; and he looked upon the suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary as hardly credible—that was, that after the passing of this Bill there would, in the course of time, be a Commissioner the less in Ireland, and that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet, the Assistant Under Secretary, would be expected to do some work in that direction. They had been reminded by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley) that provision was made that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet should not be over-burdened with duties in that direction. Provision was made in the Bill that when one of the Commissioners of the Local Government Board retired a successor would not be appointed, and there were words in italics in the Bill which showed that it would be open to fill the place rather than make some extraordinary proposal for the discharge of the duties by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet in the future. He (Mr. Illingworth) should like to ask this question—whether the duties of the Office of Chief Secretary were at this moment heavier than they had been under such Chief Secretaries as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne and his late lamented Friend and Colleague, Mr. Forster? The right hon. Gentleman man the present Chief Secretary would hardly say that the duties of his Office were more onerous than they were at the time those Gentlemen held the Office. The right hon. Gentleman did not deny that Ireland saw very little of his presence in discharge of the peculiar duties that belonged to the Chief Secretaryship. It might be that for personal reasons the right hon. Gentleman was entitled to some consideration. It might be that being a Scotchman, and knowing very little of Ireland, and not liking Ireland or the Irish, it was desirable to relieve himself as much as possible from the disagreeable duties inseparable from his Office; but, if that were so, a case was clearly made out by that admission for the right hon Gentleman sharing his salary with the person who was going to share his duties and to relieve him from a great deal of that which was so disagreeable. Certainly, no case had been made out for casting such a charge as this on the whole country. There was a cry for economy in fashion in the country at this moment, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary himself had been obliged to admit that the present method of governing Ireland could not go on for very long—that there must be a change before long, even involving the reconstitution of the Lord Lieutenancy of that country, and the right hon. Gentleman had hinted that that change would bring about with it a social revolution, if the right hon. Gentleman's words could be so qualified. Well, if that were the case, he (Mr. Illingworth) thought they had a right to expect that during the short time the present state of things existed—the present doomed order of things—the right hon. Gentleman might himself have been content to continue in discharge of the whole of the duties of his Office. It was one of those things which they were ordinarily called upon in the House of Commons to resent—that there should be a new prominent appointment made at the time when it was admitted that the whole system of which that appointment was a part was about to undergo a thorough reconstruction. On this principle it was clearly their duty to resist the present proposal, when it was admitted that the system of government in Ireland was in a state of transition. It seemed to him (Mr. Illingworth), as he had already said, that the Office had been made for the man, and that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet had received this appointment as a sop, because, in the course of certain relationships, certain misfortunes had happened to him in connection with Ireland. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman had been banished from Ireland as a Representative, and forced to take refuge in another country; and, forsooth, for that reason, they had the right hon. Gentleman who held the principal Office under the Lord Lieutenant as a Scotchman proposing that he should be assisted by another Gentleman who had been banished by his countrymen, and was about the most unpopular man in the whole of Ireland. All this, no doubt, would be as a cap thrown against the wind; but there was certainly evidence in the House on that (the Opposition) side to a spirit of fair play in dealing with Irish questions. He congratulated the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby upon the manly stand he had taken against the proposal made by the Government, and he trusted that the country would recognize that this proposal of the Government was a job from first to last, looked at in any aspect—either regarded as a personal matter so far as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet was concerned, or as an attempt to give relief to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. There was no justification whatever for this attempt to burden the country with increased expenditure, and he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby would not be singular amongst his political Friends in voting against the Bill.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

said, there was one thing he had expected in the course of this debate, and that was that they should be told by the right hon. Gentleman the chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant (Mr. A. J. Balfour) how he would define the difference between his own Office and that of the new Parliamentary Under Secretary. He (Mr. T. M. Healy) thought the Committee had a right to be told, in view of the fact that the right hon. Gentleman's own salary was £4,500 a-year, with residence, and that it was proposed to give the new Under Secretary £1,200 a-year, what the work of each Department would be respectively As to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Colonel King Harman) being a member of the Local Government Board in Ireland, he (Mr. T. M. Healy) submitted that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would be unable to attend to the duties, owing to the necessities of his Parliamentary functions. As matter of fact, it would appear as if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman tin Member for the Isle of Thanet was simply intended to stand at the whipping post for his right hon. Colleague. At any rate, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary should give them soup statement as to his opinion of the work the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thane would have to do in connection with the Irish Local Government Board Supposing that in the future a question should arise, and the Irish Member might wish to lay their finger upon certain blot in the Irish Administration how would they be able to make the Irish Parliamentary Under Secretary responsible for certain alleged evils, connection with the Local Government Board of Ireland, and then how would they be able to discriminate between the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant and the Parliamentary Under Secretary, and to say the Chief Secretary was responsible for this and the Under Secretary was responsible for that?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he desired to point out that the subject under discussion was not the necessity for the Office, but whether the money should be paid out of funds already provided by Parliament, or whether a fresh sum should be voted.

MR. T. M. HEALY

said, he bowed to the Chairman's ruling; but he submitted that on the question of the description of work for which the salary had to be paid would, to some extent, depend the view they took as to the manner in which the payment should be made. If they did not consider how the work was to be done in settling the payment, the salary might just as well be paid to the occupant of the new position out of consideration for his personal beauty, or for some other reason apart from his ability to do the work.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the Question was whether Parliament should vote this money for the salary, or take it out of sums already voted.

MR. T. M. HEALY

said, that was so, and what he was trying to point out was this—that supposing it was endeavoured to subtract the salary from that of the Chief Secretary, was that endeavour to be resisted on the ground of the amount of work the Chief Secretary had to do, and in the performance of which it was necessary for him to have an assistant? Would the right hon. Gentleman give the House a guarantee that his own personal attention would be directed to Irish affairs, and that the simple duty of reading answers would be entrusted to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet? The right hon. Gentleman would, of course, be anxious that a scandal should not be perpetrated in Ireland. If the right hon. Gentleman was to decide everything, then they might be disposed to agree to the extra salary; but he was bound to submit that if they were to be left solely at the mercy of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet—if to him was to be entrusted the real work of the government of Ireland—then the Government were not entitled to ask for payment of the additional salary out of the public purse, and it was only fair to assert that one salary for the Office was adequate. He would ask the Government to tell the House exactly in what manner the work of the Office would be allotted, and then they would be in possession of the means of judging the reasonableness of the proposal.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. T. M. Healy) had asked how it was proposed to apportion the duties. The only possible answer was the one that was given in all similar cases. It was impossible to lay down beforehand exactly what duties should be done by the Chief and what should fall to the share of the subordinates of the Department. But the responsibility rested solely on the Chief, and no responsibility would fall on the shoulders of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet, any more than it fell on the shoulders of any other Under Secretary. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, the First Lord of the Admiralty, the Home Secretary, and the Secretary of State for War, were alike responsible for the administration of their respective Departments; but it was impossible to convey to the House exactly what work was to be done by the Head of a Department, and what was to be done by his subordinates. The matter would be arranged between the right hon. and gallant Gentleman and himself; but he could assure his hon. and learned Friend that the responsibility would rest solely with him as the Head of the Department.

MR. T. M. HEALY

said, he would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman a personal question. Let them take, for instance, the question of the appointment of Land Commissioners and of Resident Magistrates. Was the House to understand that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet was to have the power to make these appointments? That was a matter on which the Irish Representatives were very sensitive. For his (Mr. T. M. Healy's) own part, he did not care very much about the right hon. and gallant Gentleman giving the answers to certain Questions. Of course, there were Questions of a purely administrative character, such, for instance, as that of National Education, which did not concern Irish policy. He could very well understand such minor questions of detail being dealt with by an Under Secretary; but it was with regard to higher questions affecting the administrative policy—the appointments of Resident Magistrates and of Sub-Commissioners—that anxiety was felt. Was the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to continue to sit on the Privy Council, as he had done within the last six months with regard to a Bill rejected by that House which he supported, but which the Chief Justice of Ireland very properly scouted out of Court? Was he to be able to attend and act in that manner, and to speak with the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government? Surely the House was entitled to some fuller explanation?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

asked, what case was the hon. and learned Gentleman alluding to?

MR. T. M. HEALY

The Claremorris Tramway case?

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was the spokesman of the Government on that occasion. His right hon. and gallant Friend would not occupy a position different from that held by any other Under Secretary. It was a position perfectly well understood in that House. The responsibility would rest with him (Mr. A. J. Balfour) entirely.

MR. MAURICE HEALY (Cork)

said, he thought the House was pretty much in the same position now as prior to the right hon. Gentleman having volunteered his explanation, for they were still in the dark as to what duties would be performed by the Under Secretary. The principle of the Amendment before the House, as he understood it, was that the right hon. Gentleman, who had the privilege of calling the tune, should have the obligation of paying the piper; and the object of the Amendment was to provide that, instead of the salary of the Under Secretary coming out of the pockets of the ratepayers, it should be paid by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary himself, or, at any rate, by the officials who were to be relieved by the new appointment. The question had been raised whether the salary should be paid by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary or by the Lord Lieutenant. He (Mr. Maurice Healy) confessed that to him it was a matter of absolute indifference, and the decision was one which he was prepared, with the utmost confidence, to leave in the hands of Her Majesty's Government. No doubt, the salary of the Lord Lieutenant was of such a nature as, perhaps, to allow of such a paring down; but, perhaps, on the other hand, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would experience such relief that it would only be fair that he should pay for the assistance he was to receive. But, as he (Mr. Maurice Healy) had said before, that was a matter as to which they were absolutely indifferent. All they asked was that the salary should not come out of the pocket of the general taxpayer. Up to the present, no answer had been given to the arguments on which the Amendment was founded; nothing had been advanced to show that the business falling to the lot of the right hon. Gentleman opposite had so increased in amount as to render necessary the appointment of an assistant, and he could only urge that, when proposals of that kind were made, they should be made with full information as to the effect. It would, he thought, be very interesting if they could have a Return showing the amount of work now falling to the lot of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary as compared with what was done by his Predecessors. It would be interesting to have a Return, showing how many times the right hon. Gentleman had crossed the Irish Channel as compared with his Predecessors; but there did not seem to be any disposition on the part of the Government to supply hon. Members with information on which they might safely make up their minds on this question. It had pleased the Government on this, as on many other occasions, to throw the Bill on the Table of the House, and endeavour to pass it by the brute force of their majority. They did not condescend to give to the House anything which could reasonably be considered a justification for the course they had taken. The only sort of defence which had been made for this job—for such it might very properly be called—was that it would add very slightly to the burdens of the taxpayer. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had tried to make out that it would only add £300 a-year to the burdens of the taxpayer. But the device resorted to in order to bring about such a result made the Bill ten times more offensive than it otherwise would be. It was ridiculous to suggest that the new official who was to be appointed specially to do Parliamentary work in the House of Commons, who was, in the words of the Bill, "Parliamentary Under Secretary," would be in a position to do anything in the nature of serious work at the Irish Local Government Board. The right hon. Gentleman told them the other day, in a moment of frankness, that the Irish Local Government Board never met. If that was so, it would be very easy for the Parliamentary Under Secretary to do the work of supervising the Local Government Board. If all the work of the Board was done by the Secretary and under officials the Parliamentary Under Secretary would, no doubt, be able to discharge the duties of a member of the Board in an admirable manner. But if there were any serious duties to perform, it was idle to suggest that they could be efficiently performed by any person appointed for the purpose of doing Parliamentary work. For all these reasons, he contended that the Amendment before the Committee was a most proper Amendment. It was most cheering to find there was a point beyond which Liberal Unionism would not stretch. He trusted the Committee would find that the Member of the Liberal Unionist Party who had ventured to differ, to some extent, from the policy of Her Majesty's Government would not be left in the Division Lobby severely alone by his Colleagues.

MR. STAVELEY HILL (Staffordshire, Kingswinford)

said, that the Bill was one for the regulation of the Office of Parliamentary Under Secretary. The Under Secretary was to be paid a salary, and the question which was raised by the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage) was whether the salary should be an additional burden upon the resources of the country. The first question which always arose when they were creating an additional office was whether the additional office was required. Therefore, they ought to have it made out most clearly by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) that there was a necessity for this Office. Had any such necessity been proved? It had not been proved by anything that had arisen in the House. It had not been proved by anything that had arisen out-of-doors. He had been very glad, indeed, to find the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Colonel King-Harman) standing up with that courage and pluck that so distinguished him to answer Questions which it might have been troublesome for the Chief Secretary to answer. He had been glad to find the somewhat irrelevant Questions put by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite for the purpose of troubling the Chief Secretary answered in a blunt, able way by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet; and to that extent he had recognized the advantage of having a butt, so to speak, between the Chief Secretary and hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite. To that extent the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had been useful, and to that extent he was deserving of the thanks of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. To that extent hon. Members sitting upon the Government side of the House ought to be thankful to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. Most sorry they were that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was absent now, and that, in consequence of illness, he was unable to defend himself against any aspersions which might be made upon him. But that was no reason why they, the Members of the House of Commons, should vote him the salary proposed. He wanted to hear from his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland a much better reason than had as yet been given why they should vote the salary proposed. He certainly should not vote that this salary should be paid to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, unless they heard from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary some better reason than had been given up to now for the creation of the Office—some better reason than had been given why some of the work which the country paid him for doing should be thrown upon the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, for which he should be paid a salary of £1,500 a-year.

MR. WADDY (Lincolnshire, Brigg)

said, it seemed to him a somewhat invidious thing to appoint a ser- vant, and then to refuse to pay him. If that were really the state of things, he should have no difficulty whatever in voting against the Amendment of his right hon. Friend (Mr. Heneage). But he thought they did not pay quite sufficient attention to the fact that this thing had been put upon them by slow—he was almost going to say crafty—degrees. In the first instance the appointment of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Colonel King-Harman) to the post which he now held was one that was very seriously questioned on the Opposition side of the House in April of last year. The Government were asked whether the appointment was not one which in the natural order of things would cause the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to seek re-election at the hands of his constituents, and it was said—"Oh, no: certainly not." Why not? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would remember that he explained that the fact that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would not need to seek re-election arose from the circumstance that he was not to receive any salary. What did they find? They found that as the result of this nice little arrangement the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was to continue Under Secretary with a salary, and escape the test of merit—re-election by his constituents. He did not think that was an ordinary case of the House appointing a man to a post, and then being called upon to pay him; and it was because it did not appear to him that that matter had been conducted quite in accordance with precedent, and—if he might say good-humouredly—quite upon candid lines, that he thought they were justified in voting for the Amendment.

MR. T. P. GILL (Louth, S.)

said, he would like to hear from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary (Mr. A. J. Balfour) whether any limitation was to be put upon the tenure of Office by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, because there was nothing in the Bill, so far as he could make out, to prevent the appointment being a permanent one. The present Government might go out of Office the day after the right hon. and gallant Gentleman commenced to receive his salary: was there to be anything inserted in the Bill to provide that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman should quit Office at the same time? Further-more, he would like to know whether it was necessary that the holder of the Office of Parliamentary Under Secretary should be a Member of the House of Commons? Suppose Parties changed sides, was it to be possible for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to sit upon the Opposition side of the House and hold his Office? He (Mr. T. P. Gill) did not think there could be two opinions in the House, especially after the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Kingswinford Division of Staffordshire (Mr. Staveley Hill), upon the question whether the salary of the Under Secretary could or ought to be provided out of moneys already granted for the Chief Secretary and the Lord Lieutenant. The whole House seemed to be agreed that, whatever might be said as to the necessity for this Office, the question of increasing the burdens of the taxpayer in order to pay a salary to the incumbent of the Office was one which could not willingly be entertained. Nothing could be said in defence of such a proposition. £24,500 was now paid in the shape of salaries to two Members of the Irish Government, and many of the duties discharged by those officials were to be discharged by the holder of the new Office. The very least which might be expected was that the salary of £500 for the Under Secretary should be paid out of the £24,500 now paid to the Chief Secretary and the Lord Lieutenant. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary could not deny that the impression—speaking broadly—which was originally left on the minds of hon. Members was that no burden would be placed on the taxpayer by the creation of this Office. He could very well understand the right hon. Gentleman setting up as a defence an explanation of his original statement that, although the new Office was to be a salaried one, it was not to be a salaried one in the sense that the taxpayer was to pay the burden. But the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary did nothing of the kind. Before they proceeded further, they ought, at least, to be satisfied as to the permanency or otherwise of the Office which the Bill created.

THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH) (Strand, Westminster)

said, he hoped that the Committee would now think it right to come to a decision. The Amendment had been discussed for two hours and a half, and he was sure the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage) would agree with him that sufficient time had been occupied upon a question which was, at all events, limited in its scope. He, therefore, claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."

Question put accordingly, "That the Question be now put."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 190; Noes 145: Majority 45.—(Div. List, No. 107.)

Question put, "That the words 'to be' stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 191; Noes 183: Majority 8.—(Div. List, No. 108.)

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR (Donegal, E.)

said, he wished to move an Amendment which was not on the Paper, and of which he would give a few words of explanation. The Amendment in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Heneage) had reference to the salaries of the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary; but those salaries were provided from two sources. The salary of the Lord Lieutenant was taken from the Consolidated Fund, and that of the Chief Secretary only was voted in the Estimates. What he proposed to do was to insert before the word "provided" the word "annually," in order to secure that the question of this payment to the Parliamentary Under Secretary should annually come under the review of the House of Commons. This would secure that the money to be paid to the Under Secretary should come in the Estimates for the Chief Secretary's Office every year. Obviously this was a reasonable and necessary proposal in view of the fact that though the Bill was one regulating the Office of Parliamentary Under Secretary they had, as had been pointed out by the hon. Member for South Louth (Mr. T. P. Gill), had no guarantee that the holder of the salary would even for the most part of his time be a Member of the House at all. The Bill as drafted contemplated the Parliamentary Under Secretary as being a person who was not a Member of the House, for in the 1st section the words were— The Office of Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant shall not render the person holding the same incapable of being elected. So that holding the Office was considered as antecedent to his election. The official might, therefore, be a person not a Member of the House. What guarantee had they that not being a Member of the House he would not continue to hold this nominally Parliamentary appointment? As the hon. Member for South Louth had gone on to point out, there was no guarantee furnished in this Bill that although appointed nominally as Parliamentary Under Secretary the official appointed might not continue to hold the post, whether in that House or out of it, for the remainder of his natural life. Under those circumstances, it was reasonable that they should ask that the Vote for the Office should be annually submitted for revision at the hands of the House. He was afraid that if this provision were made according to the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby, and the money provided by Parliament or to be provided hereafter from the Estimates was to be taken as sufficient for the purpose, they had no guarantee at all that the sum needed would be drawn from the salary of the Chief Secretary or anyone higher in Office. Everyone acquainted with the Civil Service was aware of this fact—that if it was desired to give any extra allowance or extra salary it was always possible to obtain the needful funds for the purpose, net by reducing the salary of any high-placed official, but by squeezing the lower ranks in the Office. They might very easily in this way get out of the Vote for the Chief Secretary's Office £1,000 or £2,000 a-year without in any way trenching on the salaries of the higher officials. Unfortunately they had no guarantee that if they provided £1,500 a-year out of the Vote for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the member for the Isle of Thanet (Colonel King-Harman) they would in any way diminish the inflated salaries of any of the higher officials of the Department, because he was sure that those who had the management of the Office would be able to scrape out of the salaries of writers and Lower Division clerks as much as would pay this demand. There was always ample margin amongst those small officials for the payment of such a salary as this. Therefore, it was absolutely necessary that this Bill should not only create the Office and provide for the payment of the occupant, but that the holder of the post and the conditions under which he held his Office should be brought from time to time under the consideration of the House, and the only way of doing that was by including the Vote in the annual Estimate. He proposed, therefore, to meet the need he had indicated by inserting before the word "provided," at the beginning of line 8, the word "annually."

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 8, after the word "provided," insert the word "annually."—(Mr. Arthur O' Connor.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'annually' be there inserted."

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, he entirely agreed in the view of the hon. Gentleman that this salary should be subject to annual revision by Parliament, and there was nothing in the Bill, as at present framed, which precluded such a course being taken. At present the salary of every Minister, every Secretary, and every Under Secretary was in the Votes, and he agreed that the salary of the Under Secretary in this case should be no exception to the rule; but the Amendment of the hon. Member opposite was entirely unnecessary. The hon. Member's object was already amply carried out.

MR. T. M. HEALY

said, he might, perhaps, point out that by refusing to accept the Amendment the Government were letting the cat out of the bag, because if they would turn to the next page of the Bill, they would find that, although the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Colonel King-Harman) might not be in the House, he might still be a member of the Irish Local Government Board, and that the Bill practically gave him a life appointment whether he was in the House or not. The Parliamentary Under Secretary for the time would, by virtue of his Office, be a member of the Local Government Board of Ireland, and then they had it that when a vacancy occurred in the Local Government Board no other person was to be put in it. In other words, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet would become the holder of a life appointment on the Irish Local Government Board. [Cries of "No, no!"] Well, if that was not so, why did not the Government make it clear? Supposing the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet did not care to become President of the Irish Local Government Board, the House conferred the position upon him whether he liked it or not, and what was there to compel the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to resign the Office when he had obtained it? Nothing whatever. He might say—"I hold my Office during good be-haviour as other Members of the Board hold theirs." A new Lord Lieutenant might discharge—as he might do—Mr. George Morris or Sir Henry Robinson, both of whom held office during pleasure. It would be a monstrous thing if Mr. George Morris were to be turned out by an incoming Lord Lieutenant, and no doubt the case of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet would be looked upon in the same light. What was to prevent the Government, when the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet was put into this post, saying—"We have given him a life appointment in this Bill." What was the proof of that? Why, that Parliament with its eyes open, and knowing that there were three distinct members of the Local Government Board for Ireland appointed for life—or during pleasure—had replaced one of them by the Irish Under Secretary; and, as nothing at present compelled Sir William Kaye to go out of office with the Government, what would compel the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member of the Isle of Thanet to do so? Supposing the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet, on a change of Government taking place, were to put his foot down and say—"I will not go out." If, then, an incoming Government were to turn him out, the Tory Party would come down to the House and make a great noise, declaring that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had been turned out at the instance of the Nationalist Party because he was a landlord and had resisted their claims to Home Rule, and notwithstanding the fact that he had been appointed for life. He (Mr. T. M. Healy) submitted that, at any rate so long as the right hon. and gallant Gentleman remained a Member of the House of Commons, he could continue to hold this office under the Local Government Board of Ireland; and, that being so, the inclusion of this word "annual," as proposed by his hon. Friend, became a very important matter. The salary might be put upon the Consolidated Fund, and the House might have no opportunity of debating the arrangements of the office. The proposal of his hon. Friend the Member for East Donegal (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) had a backing of reasons to it; and, that being so, why did not the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary agree to the proposal? What harm could it do? The right hon. Gentleman could have no objection to it, unless there was something lurking under his refusal. It was admitted that the word could do no harm; then why not accept it? Looking at the fact that the Government had only carried the salary of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet by eight votes, and even then only under pressure of the clôture, it was not unreasonable that the Government should give at least this guarantee. The Government should bear in mind that they had only just, by the skin of their Liberal Unionist teeth, been able to carry the proposal for this salary.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, he had thoroughly explained to the House that a Vote must be taken by Parliament for this salary, and that, therefore, this Amendment was unnecessary. If, under these circumstances, the Irish Members persisted in their demand, Heaven forbid that he should oppose their wishes. If they desired to put in a word wholly superfluous, and which was not put in other Acts of this kind creating offices of this description, he should offer no further objection. Of course, it had always been his desire to treat Ireland in the same way as England had been treated.

Question put, and agreed to; word inserted.

MR. J. E. ELLIS (Nottingham, Rushcliffe)

said, in rising to move the next Amendment which stood in his name—that was to say, in line 13 of Clause 1, to leave out all after "voting" to the end of the clause, he was raising what he conceived to be an important Constitutional question, and he should consider it his duty to take the opinion of the Committee upon the proposal. The object of the words the omission of which he proposed was, of course, to relieve the person appointed to this Office from the necessity of presenting himself before his constituents for their verdict on his conduct since his election to the House. This question was first raised, he believed, by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton (Mr. Henry H. Fowler) on the 15th of April last year. On that occasion the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley) asked a Question, with regard to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who was appointed to this Office (Colonel King-Harman), and he received a reply from the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) to which he (Mr. J. E. Ellis) would not further allude. After the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury had sat down, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wolverhampton also asked the hon. and learned Attorney General for England (Sir Richard Webster) whether his attention had been called to the Act of 41 Geo. III., which dealt with this point. He (Mr. J. E. Ellis) mentioned this because he was well aware that on this question of vacating seats on the acceptance of Office there was in some quarters a disposition to think that it was unnecessary, and he believed that the second reading of a Bill rendering it no longer necessary was moved in that House quite recently. Well, he (Mr. J. E. Ellis) was one of those, he confessed, whom it would take stronger arguments than he had yet heard in that House or elsewhere to induce to support a Bill taking away from any constituency the right of passing a verdict on a Member of the House on accepting Office. But the hon. and learned Attorney General, on the occasion to which he had referred, used some language to which he ventured to recall the attention of the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for East Wol- verhampton, alluding to this particular Act of Parliament, that it expressly recognized the possibility of appointments being made by the Lord Lieutenant, but only vacated seats or rendered gentlemen ineligible to sit in the House if they held Office of profit under the Lord Lieutenant. Now, that was precisely the point which arose under the present Bill. Here was a Bill creating an Office of profit under the Lord Lieutenant, and he ventured to ask why they should pass an Act of Parliament taking away from the constituency represented by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet the right which they possessed under the Act of George III. of passing their verdict upon his conduct in accepting Office? The Government were always talking to the House about the Act of Union. Well, he would remind those who so freely mentioned the Act of Union that this very Act of 41 Geo. III. was passed, as the Preamble stated, in order to carry out the Act of Union. Now, with regard to the reply of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, his right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne had used a very strong expression the other day. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury had told them on the 15th of April what was equal to saying that no salary was attached to the Office of Parliamentary Under Secretary; but they had been told by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant that, at the very moment the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury was using these words, the Government were intending to bring in a Bill to give a salary to the recipient of the Office. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne had used the expression that the conduct of the Government on that occasion and on the introduction of this Bill, and the whole circumstances attending it, were neither more nor less than an equivocal manœuvre. In that term he (Mr. J. E. Ellis) ventured to include the assertion which was made at that time as to the non-vacation of the seat. Unless it was not in the mind of the Government at that time to introduce an exception in the case of the Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland from the operation of the Statute of 41 Geo. III., he could not look upon their conduct at that time as other than an unworthy manœuvre, and wanting in strict frankness. He would leave the precise interpretation of the Act of Parliament in the hands of those who were sometimes called learned Gentlemen. His ground of objection to the Bill divided itself into three heads. He ventured to assert, without fear of contradiction, that the authority of that House of Commons depended upon the fidelity of its Members to the pledges they gave to those whom they asked to vote for them. He remembered perfectly well that an hon. Member—when the Liberal Party was sitting on the other side of the House in 1886—(Mr. Edward Leatham), who then represented the borough of Huddersfield, got up and said he did not represent his constituents, and did not say what they wished him to say, but that he was speaking exactly contrary to their desires, and that, therefore, he was speaking in a most disinterested manner, because he knew he was going to lose his seat—[Cries of "Order!"] Some hon. Members called him to Order, but he maintained that the subject of an hon. Member going against the wishes of his constituents was clearly germane to the point at issue, as he desired that the Parliamentary Under Secretary should be compelled to go before his constituents in order to receive their approval of his conduct on his accepting Office. Possibly his words were rather an unpleasant reminder to some hon. Members opposite who probably contemplated the loss of their seats through the loss of confidence of their constituents. The clover and versatile politician who sat on the Front Opposition Bench—he referred to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain)—had used a very curious expression the other night, which he (Mr. J. E. Ellis) had taken down at the time, and which he thought would be remembered. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of those who "had to submit to the annoyance of public election." He (Mr. J. E. Ellis) could quite understand that in the General Election coming there might be some annoyance to those who—like the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, the noble Lord the Member for the Rossen- dale Division of Lancashire (the Marquess of Hartington) and others—sat on that (the Opposition) side of the House. He could quite understand the term as applied to those hon. Gentleman; but, speaking generally, he did not believe there would be much difference from him in his view of the subject. The occupants of the Benches opposite would not differ from him when he said that hon. Members came to that House to represent the views of their constituents, and that their fidelity to their election pledges was the best way in which they could carry into effect the representative principle of government. Apart from the general question, surely the moment chosen for attempting to deprive the electors of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet of the right they would otherwise have to pass judgment upon their Representative was a most unfortunate one. In spite of every effort of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to make things appear the contrary, they knew that the great controversy before the country just now was the Irish Question. They knew the pledges which had been given by the supporters of the Government—and he trusted he might not be interrupted by cries of Order when he mentioned one striking illustration. They knew how one noble Lord, a Member of that House, had placarded his constituency with "Vote for Weymouth and no Coercion." He was justified in asking if that pledge had been kept. [Cries of "Question!"] He understood that interruption. Hon. Members opposite did not like the allusion, and he would, therefore, pass to the third point. If they searched the House of Commons through, they would not be able to find a person who had departed more from his election pledges—he would defy them to find a better illustration of that political virtue than the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet. What had the right hon. and gallant Gentleman said to his constituents on the 30th of June, 1886? He used this language. He said— If I am returned to Parliament I shall use my best endeavours to insure that equal law and equal justice shall be administered in Ireland and England. That was what the right hon. and gallant Gentleman had told the electors, and he (Mr. J. E. Ellis) asked the House not to deprive the electors of the Isle of Thanet of their power of passing judgment as to whether his pledges had been kept or not. Equal law and equal justice in Ireland and England! Why, the debate which took place earlier in the evening gave the lie to that assertion——

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order!

MR. J. E. ELLIS

I beg pardon if I have used an un-Parliamentary expression—I would say a contradiction.

THE CHAIRMAN

That cannot be relevant to the subject under discussion.

MR. J. E. ELLIS

said, he stood corrected, and begged to apologize for having strayed. He said again that the promise contained in these words that equal justice should be done to Ireland and England had not been fulfilled by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. He (Mr. J. E. Ellis) would, as he had said, be no party to depriving the electors of the Isle of Thanet of this opportunity of passing judgment upon their Member. He did not suppose for a single moment that the constituents of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would endorse the view that the Opposition took as against the Government on these matters; but the responsibility, if they had to reelect the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, would be with them. He contended that they should not be deprived of the opportunity they would have under the Act of Parliament which he had mentioned—not under the Act of Queen Anne, but under that to which he had referred—of expressing their opinion of their Representative; and he, therefore, begged to move the Amendment that stood in his name.

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 13, to leave out all the words after the word "voting" to the end of the Clause.—(Mr. J. E. Ellis.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, he did not catch the full relevance of the whole of the observations of the hon. Member; but he thought he could give him an answer which he would see deserved the consideration of the Committee. He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) did not propose to discuss the merits of the existing rule, which required that Ministers should be re-elected on being selected to Office, which some hon. Members considered a very wise provision, but which he himself thought rather belonged to the by-gone traditions of Parliament. The whole of the Bill was in absolute conformity with all recent legislation in the House with all regard to subordinate positions. Every Under Secretary, he believed, took Office without his being required to seek re-election, and there was no reason that he could see why the Parliamentary Under Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland should be placed in a different category from every other Under Secretary. The hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division of Nottingham (Mr. J. E. Ellis) had argued against the Bill as if it had reference solely to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet. ["Hear, hear."]Well he had never heard a Bill avowedly argued on the ground of the character of the person who it was proposed should be the first occupant of the position it was designed to create. He was the more surprised to hear hon. Gentlemen opposite taking up the position they did with regard to the Bill when they were so fond of telling the Government that their tenure of Office was to be so short. Surely, if they were right, the matter was hardly worth much consideration. Parliament not long ago constituted the Office of Secretary to the Board of Trade—it was in 1867. That Act provided, exactly as the present Bill provided, that the Member appointed to the Office should not vacate his seat on the acceptance of that Office, and should be eligible, if not a Member, for election. The First Commissioner of Works did vacate his seat upon his being appointed; but when the Act was passed it especially exempted the first holder of the Office, so that they had an unbroken precedent in regard to recent appointments.

MR. ANDERSON (Elgin and Nairn),

interrupting, said, he wished to ask whether in any other cases Under Secretaries had been appointed first without salaries?

THE CHAIRMAN

These interruptions are extremely irregular.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, the Government were acting in this matter in strict accordance with Parliamentary precedent in excepting the first Parliamentary Under Secretary from the necessity of re-election, putting him into the same position as the Surveyor General of the Ordnance, the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, the Financial Secretary to the War Office, the Secretary to the Board of Trade, the Secretary to the Admiralty, and the four Under Secretaries. Under these circumstances, he hoped the House would see the absurdity of making a special exemption in the case of his right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Isle of Thanet.

MR. JOHN MORLEY (Newcastle-upon-Tyne)

said, he quite agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland in his statement of what he (Mr. John Morley) had gathered to be the right hon. Gentleman's own view of the prevailing policy in recent times, and, no doubt, the tendency in the House during recent years had been to limit and not to increase the number of Offices the acceptance of which necessitated an appeal to the constituency; but they must remember that the whole circumstances connected with the Bill were exceptional and peculiar. The right hon. Gentleman had complained that so much criticism on the clauses of the Bill, and on the second reading, had turned upon the qualification and position of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet. But what was the reason for that? There was a perfectly good reason for it, and it was this—that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was put into some sort of position—he did not know whether to call it an office or what to call it—which was only now being regularized; and it was on that account, if he might say so, that such strong objection was taken to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet being appointed to the position without being required to seek re-election at the hands of his constituents. The Parliamentary Under Secretary was created first, and the Office was now being created, and that was the reason why there was so much criticism bearing upon the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet, and why his hon. Friend the Member for the Rushcliffe Division of Nottingham (Mr. J. E. Ellis) was perfectly justified, in bringing forward his Amendment, in referring to the Election pledges of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. He (Mr. John Morley), however, did not wish to dwell upon that aspect of the question. All he had to say was that, though he agreed with the right hon. Gentle man the Chief Secretary in his general view as to re-election not being necessary on the acceptance of those subordinate offices, yet the conditions under which the particular subordinate office in question was first introduced last year—and he did not wish to repeat any of the harsh words he used—were such, and there was so much that was peculiar in the creation of the Office, that while, he agreed in the view of the Government as to the general policy in the matter on this occasion, he felt bound to support the Amendment of his hon. Friend.

MR. ANDERSON

said, he had been very sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary just now; but he had desired to ask—as the right hon. Gentleman had stated certain case or precedents in the creation of these Offices which this Bill was said to follow—the right hon. Gentleman to point out to the Committee one case which could be fairly taken as a precedent Could the right hon. Gentleman find a precedent in the whole legislation of this country where an Under Secretary; had been appointed with a salary, and, where it had been stated that he was not to have a salary, but where, subsequently, when it was found convenient to avoid an election, came forward and legalized their appointment with a Bill of this kind? There was no such precedent, and therefore it was that he ventured to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman whilst he was speaking. He had asked him if he could point out any thing of the kind? It had been positively asserted on both sides of the House that hon. Members opposite, as well as hon. Members on the Opposition Benches, had come to the conclusion that this appointment from beginning to end was not to be defended, and that the more they looked into it, and attempted to justify it, the worse it became. As the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had said, they were bound to bring forward precedents in a case of this kind; but when the right hon. Gentleman referred to the precedents they entirely failed him. What he (Mr. Anderson) said was this, and he said it advisedly, that the House had been entirely taken in as to this appointment from the beginning. They were asked to sanction the appointment, in the first place, on the ground that it did not come within the Act of Parliament, and was not an Office of profit. The matter was then passed over; but now it seems that it was an Office of profit, and that there were provisions in the Bill the object of which was to avoid the necessity for a re-election. He hoped the Amendment would be pressed to a Division, as it would emphasize the strong feeling which he believed to exist on both sides of the House, and which he was sure existed in the country, against this appointment.

MR. W. E. GLADSTONE (Edinburgh, Mid Lothian)

said, he wished to state the grounds upon which he should support the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for the Rushcliffe Division of Nottingham (Mr. T. E. Ellis), and he also wished to refer to the arguments made use of by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. The right hon. Gentleman said, and said truly, that there had been a good deal of legislation of late years in this direction. Various Offices had been constituted, in each of which the holders had not been made subject to the condition of re-election. That was perfectly true, and the right hon. Gentleman had taken the opportunity of expressing an opinion which he entertained, that it was a very doubtful policy which made the vacation of a seat a necessary condition of the acceptance of Office. He (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) knew that that opinion had obtained great currency in the House; but he must say that he did not share it, as he thought it was an important item of popular control that persons taking Office under the Crown should in general be subject to re-election. There had undoubtedly been, in his time, a great relaxation of the rule which was originally too rigid. When he first entered Parliament the rule was not only that a person should be subject to re-election on taking Office, but that he should be also subject to re-election on any change of Office. He remembered perfectly well himself being the Vice President of the Board of Trade half-a-century ago, and that on his becoming President of the Board of Trade, a question was sub- mitted to the Law Officers of the Crown to ascertain whether the fact of a Member becoming a President of the Board of Trade instead of a Vice President of the Board of Trade did not constitute the taking of a new Office in such a sense as to render re-election necessary. But what he wished to call the attention of the House to was this, that when the right hon. Gentleman said that precedents were in favour of releasing this new Office from the condition of re-election that might happen to be true; but there was another question to be considered—namely, whether it was wise to go on increasing indefinitely the number of those Offices not subject to re-election? There had been a considerable increase in those Offices. He could not be quite certain, but his belief was, that 40 years ago there had been no more than six or seven of these Offices in the House, and now they numbered about 10, and the right hon. Gentleman proposed to add another. He must say he was very much disinclined to add to the number of those Offices which could be taken without re-election. He had no desire to restrain or narrow the influence enjoyed by the Government in this House which was exerted through its official Members, but he thought it was quite a fit subject for careful consideration whether they should increase the number of Offices which could be accepted without re-election. He was much disinclined to agree with the proposition on this ground; but he was bound to say that he should vote with the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment, on a ground altogether apart from the mere question of the creation of this Office, and that was the ground that the appointment so completely and pre-eminently realized the highest idea of what might be called a Parliamentary job. This was an Office which was absolutely unnecessary. No Department less required its hands strengthening by the multiplication of Offices than the Irish Department; and the old and sound principle of every right-minded Government always was that when at any particular time there was particular pressure upon a certain Department, it should be provided for by calling in the aid of some less occupied Member of the Government. That was a sound and good principle, and ought always to be adhered to. The creation of the Office was most unnecessary; and, having regard to that and to the unfortunate and deplorable choice of the man who was to fill it, he must decline to be a party to asking the House to afford any facility either for the taking or the holding of the Office.

MR. T. M. HEALY

rose to Order. He asked whether the right hon. Gentleman who was about to move the Closure could make a speech in advance, or whether he should not confine himself to that Motion?

THE CHAIRMAN

having called upon the First Lord of the Treasury,

MR. W. H. SMITH

Mr. Courtney, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) has thought it right to express his opinion that the Office sought to be created by this Bill is totally unnecessary. I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman's knowledge of Irish Administration would have led him to take precisely the opposite view. With the greatest courtesy, I wish to remark that a want of knowledge of the actual details of Irish Administration, and the necessity which exists for intelligent supervision in that Department, is not such as might be expected from a right hon. Gentleman of such distinguished position in public life. But, Sir, apart from that altogether, I may say that the Government would not have proposed the Office if they had not felt it necessary for the good administration of Irish affairs. We felt it to be necessary for that purpose, and it is with that conviction that we press it upon the House. I entirely agree with what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman as to the creation of Offices held by Members of this House which are to have immunity from re-election, and the Government has shown how desirous they are of lessening, rather than increasing, the number of Members of the Government holding Offices subject to re-election by having this year suppressed two paid Offices—namely, that of Judge Advocate General and that of the Surveyor General of Ordnance, which have ceased to be Offices of profit under the Crown. I mention that fact, to show that the Government are as anxious as the right hon. Gentleman himself has been, not to provide salaries for Officers who are not really necessary to the service of the country, and not to provide immunity from re-election unless such immunity is also necessary. I trust the Committee will now come to a decision on a question which, I venture to think, has been sufficiently discussed.

SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN (Glasgow, Bridgeton)

The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury has started the whole question as to whether this Office is or is not necessary. He appears to forget, however, that the present Chief Secretary for Ireland has two assistants whom I never had, and whom no Gentleman who preceded the Chief Secretary ever had—namely, the Closure and the 12 o'clock Rule.

An hon. MEMBER rose to Order. He asked whether the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman were not more appropriate to the Motion for the second reading?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman were, no doubt, somewhat divergent at the moment; but he would probably apply them to the question before the Committee.

SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN

I could not allow the right hon. Gentleman, having such enormous weight in the discussion as the First Lord of the Treasury, to close this very important debate with the expression that this Office is called for by the extra work on the shoulders of the Chief Secretary for Ireland; and I can only say, once for all, that the work of the Irish Chief Secretary in the old days would not have been too much for one man to do before 12 o'clock. I should have been ashamed to ask for assistance in that work, although, from my own experience, I know that the work which came on after 12 o'clock was the hardest, and might have fairly required the attention of two men. If ever there was a post to which we should apply the old rule of appealing to the country as to whether a Gentleman, not at present in the service of the Crown, should take that service, it is this post of the Assistant Irish Secretary. It is absolutely impossible to separate this appointment from the right hon. and gallant Gentleman who is going to take it, and I maintain the appointment of that right hon. and gallant Gentleman is a most serious step, out of the many serious steps which the Government have taken with regard to Ireland. I certainly would not refrain from voting for the Amendment, which means that one of the constituencies of the country shall be able to say whether, at this crisis of affairs in Ireland, the Irish people should have any share in their own administration, or whether they should have none. [Cries of "Question!"] That is the question. It is whether a constituency is to be debarred from being able to say whether or not it wishes to have a right hon. and gallant Gentleman second in command in Ireland, who is not neutral or impartial, but in sympathy with the governing minority of the people.

MR. T. M. HEALY

said, he had to congratulate the First Lord of the Treasury on having made a speech without moving the Closure.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 230; Noes 191: Majority 39.—(Div. List, No. 109.)

MR. CONYBEARE (Cornwall, Camborne)

said, he had some confidence in rising to move the Amendment which stood in his name by reason of the remarkably diminished Government majority which they had witnessed that evening, and the fact that the first Division resulting in so small a majority had induced the Chief Secretary for Ireland to give way upon another Amendment. Those circumstances induced him to hope that the Government might see the reasonableness of the proposal which he was about to lay before them. It would be observed that the Amendment referred to two points. He proposed, first of all, that the salary to be given to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet Division of Kent (Colonel King-Harman) should, in no case, exceed £500 a-year; and, in the second place, he proposed that this salary should not commence until the end of the present Session. Those two proposals appeared to him to be justified by all that had gone before in the history of the Bill. He did not propose to detain the Committee with a detailed reference to the circumstances; but he thought that they showed the undesirability, in the first instance, of providing a salary for the right hon. and gallant Gentleman; and, in the second place, the importance of seeing that he was not paid for his services during the past year. The remarks which had just passed between the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Sir George Trevelyan) had shown very clearly what had been proved over and over again—namely, that there was no absolute necessity for the post which the Government were seeking to create. He thought, under the circumstances, that he would be justified in proposing that the salary of the person to be provided with this post should, at any rate, be proportioned to the work he was likely to have to do, which was nil. But it might be held to be somewhat severe, if it would not be trifling with the Committee, if one were to make a proposal of that sort. He believed, however, that it would be possible to say that, in proposing that the salary should be £500 a-year, they were dealing very liberally with the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. He considered that they were dealing with him far too liberally; but hon. Gentlemen on those Benches were inclined to take a somewhat generous view of the matter, because they knew that the Gentleman to be provided by the House with a salary was a broken-down rack-renter. [Cries of "Name!"] Had the Government not sent him to South Africa because he was broken down? [Cries of "Name!"] It might, perhaps, be that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was sent out there because he had tried to break down the Government. It appeared to him distinctly, if he might judge from what he knew, that in the County of Roscommon, at Boyle, there was a deliberate attempt on the part of the Government to set up Humpty Dumpty on the wall again, and if only for that reason he should be inclined to protest, as far as possible, against voting any salary to the right hon. and gallant Gentleman. But what were the services for which the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was to be paid? He was not aware that the right hon. and gallant Gentleman was good as a shorthand clerk, and as a very skilful shorthand clerk could be obtained for the payment of 20s. or 40s. a-week, if he were skilful in that respect £100 would be ample for him as clerk to the Chief Secretary for Ireland. But if they could not discover that his qualifications lay in that direc- tion, were they to pay him £1,500 a-year for answering Questions in that House which the Chief Secretary for Ireland was too indolent to reply to? [Cries of "Order!"] If it was not on that account, he wanted to know on what ground they were asked to pay this money? When he considered the possibilities pointed out by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, which made the appointment almost the most mischievous which could be conceived, he felt that they ought not to assume that the services of the right hon. and gallant Gentleman were worth £500 a year, but rather that they should be willing to pay £5,000 to get rid of him altogether. There had been no reason stated for the appointment, except that he was in need of the salary proposed to be provided to help him out of his difficulties; and that he believed was the sole object with which this provision was being made.

It being Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to report Progress.

Committee to sit again To-morrow.

MR. W. H. SMITH

said, he would fix 2 o'clock to-morrow for the consideration of the Bill to be resumed.

MR. T. M. HEALY

said, he must submit that the proposal of the First Lord of the Treasury to continue the discussion at 2 o'clock to-morrow was Opposed Business which, under the Standing Order, could not now be taken. The Standing Order of the 24th February, 1888, provided that, unless the House should otherwise order, the House should meet on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays, at 3 o'clock. The Order of the House would be required to meet at 2 o'clock, and as that was in the nature of Opposed Business it was manifestly impossible that the House could meet at that hour.

MR. W. H. SMITH

said, he ventured to submit that the preponderance of voices would give the House this power to fix the hour.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT (Derby)

said, that this was an extraordinary proposition on the part of the right hon. Gentleman. It seemed to him that all the laws and practice of the House of Commons were to be set aside by the right hon. Gentleman's ipse dixit. He had heard over and over again questions of Morning Sittings discussed, and Divi- sions had been taken upon them, and he asked by what right was that Rule to be abrogated? What was the history of this question, and how had it arisen? By the Government wasting the time of the House.

MR. DEPUTY SPEAKER

said, that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. H. Smith), in referring to the question of a preponderance of voices, alluded to the New Rule, which provided for the fixing of Business at the time of Business being suspended. That Rule provided— That the Business then under consideration and any Business subsequently appointed shall be appointed for the next day on which the House shall sit, unless the Speaker ascertains by a preponderance of voices that a majority of the House desires that such Business shall be deferred until a later day. He must, therefore, point out, that the preponderance of voices could only prevail to defer business to a later day, not to take it at an earlier hour.