§ * MR. BOLAND (Kerry, S.)said it was a very common fallacy in this country to imagine that the laws in England and Scotland were the same as those in Ireland. It was true that a great many people in this country recognised that when coercion was passed for Ireland a distinct statute was applied to that country, but when coercion was not in force the notion prevailed that the laws in both countries were the same. The subject which he now brought up before the House was a standing refutation of that fallacy under which the English people lived. Since the days of the grand jury system followed by the Local Government Act, there was in Ireland a law with regard to malicious injuries which had no parallel in this country, by which compensation could be levied on districts for malicious injuries which had been caused in other districts a considerable distance away. In the days of the grand juries those malicious injury claims were treated in a slightly different way. When the Local Government Act was passed the power formerly vested in the grand juries was transferred to the County Count Judges, but that was not all, for the County Court Judges were given a power which did not previously reside in the grand juries. Under the grand jury system where the presentment for malicious injury was disallowed and the Judge gave leave to traverse, the case had to be tried by a jury, but under the Local Government Act there need not be a jury in any case unless the Judge 1434 thought fit to have one. Formerly, also, compensation could only be given for maliciously setting fire to, or destroying, or injuring a particular kind of property mentioned in the Statute of William the Fourth, but under the Local Government Act compensation might be obtained for setting fire to or injuring any kind of property. The real mischief in the present system, however, lay not so much in the actual power given to the County Court Judges as in the way in which those powers had been applied. The principle, he contended, was absolutely wrong, and even if similar power existed in England he would hold it was wrong, but his case was strengthened by the fact that no such power existed either in England or Scotland.
He was sorry that the right hon. Gentleman Sir, John Colomb was not in his place as one of the cases he intended to lay before the House occurred on his property in county Kerry. It was a claim for malicious burning near Kenmare. The amount of the claim was £200. In the first place the claim was not lodged in time as laid down by the statute, but this the County Court Judge overruled. Now this particular fire, started at six o'clock, was only about 400 yards from the house of the caretaker upon a particular evicted farm. No effort whatever was made to extinguish the flames until one o'clock the next morning. When the matter came before the Court evidence was given that, some days previously to the fire, members of the caretaker's family were seen setting fire to bushes and heather not far from where the fire originated. The compensation granted amounted to £180. It might be imagined that the compensation so granted would have been levied upon the district concerned. The curious thing was that three of the townlands in the immediate vicinity were exempted from the rate levied to raise the amount of the compensation, while the people of a district ten miles away were made to pay for the damage done. What was more remarkable still 1435 was that these three townlands exempted from the rate were practically in the entire occupation of the right hon. Baronet Sir John Colomb. The next case which he desired to bring under the notice of the House was that of a man named De Caen in county Galway. A man who lived in the neighbourhood of De Caen wanted to remove furze from his land by setting fire to it. By some accident the' fire extended to De Caen's land and set fire to some heather and furze. A few days after a man in the employment of De Caen burned some heather upon De Caen's holding. An application was made to the County Court Judge for compensation, and Judge Anderson awarded De Caen £100 compensation. An appeal was lodged and then the judgment was reversed as regards the burning done by De Caen's own man, but £50 was granted for the damage done by the neighbour's fire. This man was not satisfied, because the next year he alleged two of his sheep were stolen. He lodged a claim and was allowed £5. An appeal was again taken, and as one of the missing sheep, which had only strayed away, turned up in the interval the appeal, needless to say, was upheld. As far as he, Mr. Boland, knew there was no instance on record previously, even in grand jury times, of compensation being given in the case of sheep stealing.
There was no law on the Statute-book of England in any way comparable with the law at present existing in Ireland with regard to malicious injuries. In Dublin a man wishes to go into jail. He simply breaks Todd Burns' window; he is sent to prison, and the ratepayers are made to pay for the malicious injury. There need be no riot whatever. The whole country in England some time ago was astounded at the revelations that came from certain districts in the Midlands in which a solicitor named Edalji was sentenced to a long term of imprisonment for maliciously injuring and maiming cattle. That man was tried and sent to prison, but there was no question of compensation being levied in the district. But in Ireland, no matter whether a man was convicted and sent to prison, or not, the district was made to pay for the injuries. There was no such law in 1436 Scotland, and in neither England or Scotland was there any parallel to the state of the law on this matter as it existed in Ireland to-day. Under the Hundred Act of 1827, which was the nearest parallel in England, a state of riot was a necessary condition precedent, and that Act was repealed in 1880. The whole principle of this law was wrong from the very beginning. The laws affecting the landlords' property in Ireland were very much more difficult to be revised or repealed than the laws of a similar character in England. Political reasons were at the bottom of this, because in order to keep up British rule in Ireland against the will of the people, they had to try to keep the landlords there, and of this he was certain, that if peasant proprietary had existed, say, fifty years ago, this law would not be now found on the Statute-book, and what was more he was sure that the utmost pressure would be brought, in the landlords' interest in Ireland, to secure that so long as peasant proprietary was not universal, there should be no change in the law. This really was a coercion Act, and different from anything applying in England or Scotland. Was it not unjust and, in fact, absurd now, when things were so peaceable in Ireland, to continue the fiction that the people there were living in a state of continuous riot? He did not know what the right hon. Gentleman would do to-night, but if he did not see his way to assimilate the law in Ireland on this subject to that of England, let him, for the information of English people, bring in a law somewhat to the effect that, whereas the people of England had ceased, since the year 1827, to live in a state of riot, but the people of Ireland were still in that condition, and would so remain, until the last landlord had sold his property, the Law relating to malicious injuries in Ireland would remain in force as a proof of the equal laws under which the two countries were governed. If the right hon. Gentleman would not give immediate legislation, at all events let the world see that the contention that they were governing Ireland and England by equal laws was a sham and a farce.
§ * MR. HAYDEN (Roscommon, S.)rose to second the Motion. In his opinion, the principle of this Act was applied to 1437 Ireland simply because that country was governed by a people who did not know the country and cared very little about it. Even if the provisions of the law in principle were not objectionable the law was objectionable in its application. Under the grand jury system there were numerous cases in which a rate was struck in a district, and where townlands occupied by known supporters of the ascendency party in Ireland were deliberately omitted from the levy of the rate. It might be said that these persons were omitted because it was pretty well known to the grand jury that the occupiers of those lands did not perpetrate the outrage, but in that case other people ought to have a right to claim that they should be omitted from the levy if they also could prove that they were innocent. This system of levying a rate over a district for malicious injury, under the present law in Ireland, had been handed over to the jurisdiction of the county court, which was no doubt a judicial tribunal, but it was a very curious fact that on the passing of the Local Government Act in 1898, which gave over the powers of the grand juries to the county councils, it should have been discovered that this was a judicial and not an administrative proceeding.
Many Members of the House would remember a rather notorious case which occurred in his own constituency. It was an effort made by the Midland Railway Company to make the ratepayers of the county pay the insurance for accidents on the railway. An accident took place on the Roscommon and Mayo Branch of the railway, one life was lost, several passengers were injured, and a good deal of damage was done to the train and the line. There was not the slightest trace of malice having caused that accident, but the Midland Railway Company lodged the claim for some thousands of pounds to cover the damage. The representatives of the unfortunate man killed could not make any application for compensation, nor the people who were injured. The county council was put to an enormous expense for their defence as if they were criminals, but they had to make a defence, as the case was a test one involving a great principle and the character of the district. They 1438 brought eminent counsel to the Quarter Sessions and the Judge, who, in the early proceedings, was rather inclined to favour the views of the railway company, in the end threw out the claim of the railway company, which appealed. The appeal was heard by the Chief Baron, and here, again, the railway company brought forward the best counsel they could get. The county council had to do likewise, and the neighbouring county council of Galway had also to be represented. In the end the application of the railway company was thrown out and the county council got £36 costs against the railway company. But the bill of the solicitors to the county council came in the other day, and it amounted to £500. That took no account of the expenses incurred by the county council, of Galway. This case illustrated what was going on all over Ireland. The ratepayers were put to considerable expense to prove their innocence, or rebut the evidence of persons whose property had been injured. He had not the slightest doubt that the Attorney-General believed that this law was grossly abused by people who set fire to their own property and then came forward and made application for compensation against the county council. If a lawyer whispered in a casual sort of way the word "boycott" at the hearing of the case, or said that the man was not popular in the district, immediately—it did not matter what kind of evidence there was—the application was granted, and compensation was levied on the county.
Now, why should innocent people be put to all this trouble, annoyance, and expense when there was no such law in England? Everybody knew that Ireland was far more crimeless than this country. The Chief Secretary last year quoted statistics to show that Ireland was the most crimeless country in the world. There was more crime in one county in England in a year than in the whole of Ireland, including agrarian offences. But, even if the law was the same in both countries, the principle of it was wrong. He asked the Attorney-General to give the most serious consideration to this matter, and if the right hon. Gentleman did not defend the principle of the law—and he 1439 did not see that the Attorney-General could—and if he could not prove that there was anything exceptional in the amount and character of crime in Ireland over what existed in England, then he should make the law of Ireland similar to what it was in this country. Since the passage of the Local Government Act, whenever a window was broken, the insurance company actually insisted that, before they paid the money, the owner of the house damaged should make application for compensation to the city or county. If the counties were to be treated as insurance companies for the owners of property, the premiums should be paid to the ratepayers. Some provision was made by the Irish law by which, where a magistrate or police officer was injured in the discharge of his duty, he could be compensated at the expense of the rates. There was a case recently in Westmeath where a policeman was struck on the head in trying to arrest a drunken man, and he made application to the county for a sum of £800 as compensation for his injury. He thought it right that a policeman injured in that way should be compensated in some sort, but why should there not be an insurance fund for the purpose amongst the policemen themselves? Or why should he not take the risk of his well-paid position? Why should innocent people have to pay for it? One could understand this law if it applied only in the case of a general riot, where the whole people of the county sympathised with the rioters. For instance, an hon. Member for Wales paid a visit to the city of Birmingham where a general riot took place, considerable damage was done to property, and ninety policemen injured. The general body of the people of Birmingham, sympathised with the rioters, and one could have understood it if the ratepayers had been made to pay compensation; but not a single farthing was levied on the rates for compensation to the policemen or the owners of the damaged property. But in Ireland, if a riot occurred, and the sympathies of the people were altogether against the rioters, the ratepayers were nevertheless mulcted in large figures and a great burden imposed on the rates under this unparalleled law. 1440 He had much pleasure in seconding the Motion.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, in the opinion of this House, the time has come for a revision of the Law which enables compensation for malicious injuries to be levied in Ireland on particular districts, involving an unjust and iniquitous burden on innocent persons."—(Air. Boland.)
§ MR. J. P. FARRELL (Longford, N.)said he wished to support the Motion moved by the hon. Member for Kerry in a speech of great moderation, and, therefore, of all the more force. Strange as it might seem, he preferred the administration of this Malicious Injury Law under the old grand jury system to that under the present Act. Under the old law, when a malicious injury occurred, it was dealt with at the Presentment Sessions, where the magistrate had associated with him a number of cesspayers. These, representing the ratepayers, in many cases stood between them and the imposition of a large amount of compensation. From that point of view it was much more preferable to go before the grand jury than before a County Court Judge to whom it was only necessary to mention the word "boycott" to make him give compensation. It was one of the greatest blots on the Local Government Act that a body to whom was entrusted the 3ollection of £40,000 or £50,000 of the ratepayers' money should be put in the dock by anyone who thought that he had sustained a malicious injury. He believed that many cases of malicious injury were bogus claims, and that the burning of hay and corn was frequently the result of fire bugs. In the county of Longford as much as 6s. 6d. in the £ had been assessed on an unfortunate townland where a malicious case happened to be brought up. Within the last two years there was a case connected with the burning of a shop, which was not a shop at all, but a small counter at the end of a thatched house. A sum of £100 was claimed against the rural council, and the whole house and its contents were not worth £100. There was not a single scintilla of evidence that anybody had been seen near the place. All that was known was that in the middle 1441 of the night a fire broke out. A policeman was put forward to prove malicious injury, and all that he could say was that he "believed" that this was a case of malicious burning. And the result was that a sum of 5s. 6d. in the £ was assessed on the district. Then there was a case where a townland was assessed for the destruction of a horse which had been drowned in a bog through stress of weather. By a stretch of imagination on the part of some of the witnesses it was said that there was ill-feeling against the owner of the horse, and the ratepayers had to pay. One of the worst features of the Act was the facilities it gave to policemen to recover large sums of money from the ratepayers. In Mullingar a madman fired a shot in the direction of a policeman, and a few pellets lodged in the calf of the policeman's leg. The policeman lodged a claim for compensation against the county council. Had there been any imputation of serious results, the people of Longford might have been mulcted in a sum ranging from £300 to £800. There was, he submitted, no justification for continuing this part of the Local Government Act in its present shape. The right hon. Gentleman had been challenged to defend it either in principle or in practice. He could not defend it in principle because there was no similar law in force in England, and it certainly could not be defended in practice seeing how ridiculously it worked. It imposed a cruel fine on people who were not guilty of any offence and it put a premium on blackguardism which the ordinary law of the land ought to be able to deal adequately with. Further than that, when once a claim for malicious injury had been lodged, the police rested on their oars and made no further attempt to bring to justice the perpetrators of the crime. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman wonld show some indication of willingness to meet them in that matter. At least let him concede the right to have a jury to sit with the County Court Judge. Let him take away from the County Court Judge the absolute power to decide these cases distinct from the evidence and on lines dictated by prejudice and political bias. Let the right hon. Gentleman try and remove some of the distrust with which this provision of the Irish Local Government was regarded in Ireland.
§ MR. JOYCE (Limerick)said this afforded another illustration of the mischief worked by laws passed by this Parliament presumably for the benefit of the Irish people. He would like to tell the House how the city of Limerick suffered from these claims for malicious injury. In two years alone it had had to pay compensation to the extent of £624 16s. Some time ago there was a riot in Limerick originating in a strike, in connection with which some blacklegs had been imported to take the places of the men on strike. The blacklegs were assaulted and the police went to their assistance. In the disturbance Sergeant Mullens, R.I.C., was struck by a stone believed to have been thrown by a woman. The missile hit him over the eye. He went into the hospital and claimed compensation for the injury he had received. Evidence was given to the effect that the eye was irretrievably ruined and that he was in danger of losing the sight of the other eye. The learned County Court Judge who sat in Limerick, and than whom there was no fairer Judge in all Ireland, awarded the sergeant £500 as against the city of Limerick. The man got his money and retired from the force on a good pension and promptly married a buxom widow and thriving public house. Twelve months afterwards some strangers came into the city to attend an athletic gathering. In the evening there was a row—in which none of the citizens were concerned—and another police sergeant was injured. He, too, put in a large claim against the city, but the learned County Court Judge having learned that Sergeant Mullens had duly recovered his eyesight only awarded the second sergeant £75. But he thought that in each case injustice was done to the citizens of Limerick. Now for some reasons soldiers stationed at Limerick were anxious to get out of the Army, so they indulged in plate-glass window smashing at some of the large establishments in the city. For that they were sent to gaol and no doubt subsequently attained their object of being drummed out of the Army, but the ratepayers were mulcted time and again for the mischief they had done, in one case a claim being made for £34. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, in his light and airy fashion, had accused him of having been misinformed, as the 1443 claim was only £24. But as a matter of fact the right hon. Gentleman was himself misinformed, and he could only say that if he were the Chief Secretary—and he might be some day in a Home Rule Parliament—he would, if his officials gave him wrong information, hang half a dozen of them. What he wanted to urge was that this provision of the Irish Local Government Act was inflicting an intolerable burden on the ratepayers, and he earnestly trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would that day give them some practical proof of his sympathy by undertaking to repeal this obnoxious provision.
§ * MR. O'DOWD (Sligo, S.)also supported the Motion. As chairman of an Irish county council he naturally felt deeply interested in this question—a question of such vital importance to the ratepayers of Ireland and their representatives on the various councils created by the Local Government Act. The retention of the clause in his opinion could not be defended or even justified. He would much prefer that system which obtained under the old grand jury laws to the present state of affairs. The former practice was that when a claim for malicious injuries was made it was first lodged before the Presentment Sessions—a body composed jointly of the magistrates and cesspayers of the barony in which the outrage was alleged to have occurred. After consideration by that tribunal the claim went before the grand jury, which adjudicated upon it. The aggrieved party had a right of appeal from the decision of the grand jury to the Judge of Assize, and, if he wished. the assistance of a petty jury could be invoked. The Act of 1898 had altered all that and put the power of deciding claims for malicious injury in the hands of the County Court Judge. There was of course an appeal to the judge of Assize, but for the petty jury a special jury had been substituted and it was composed usually of the understrappers and hirelings of the landlords of the locality instead of poor ratepayers of the county. Hence he averred that the old order of things was preferable to the new, and he considered that the provision, as it stood, constituted a serious blot on the Irish 1444 Local Government Act of 1898. The county councils of Ireland had taken over more duties than were ever performed by their predecessors, and yet this one function of investigating claims for malicious injuries was not entrusted to them. The clause dealing with this matter was a blot and a stain on the Act which should be removed as soon as possible. As an instance of how the system worked he cited a case in which a police officer endeavoured to persuade a man to fall into the river in order that he might rescue him and thereby gain promotion from his superiors. The man refused, but shortly afterwards the policeman in some mysterious fashion had the top of his thumb shot off, and was awarded £500 compensation, although everybody in the district, including the resident magistrate, believed that the policeman shot it off himself. The duty of investigating these cases was now placed on the County Court Judges. But who were these gentleman? So far as Sligo was concerned, the County Court Judge was a gentleman who had more than once publicly expressed his contempt for the public bodies created by the Act, had ridiculed every Land Act since 1881, had no trust in the people, and, in the Nineteenth Century for May, 1903, had described the Land Act of last year as "an elaborate scheme of ingenious but pernicious agrarian quackery, pregnant with many and far-reaching evils." Was that a proper tribunal before which such cases could be taken? Was it to be wondered at that the Sligo County Council had a standing resolution that every claim for malicious injuries, no matter what it was, should be defended, as they had no confidence whatever in this tribunal? Very good results had accrued from that policy, but it was one involving much expense and loss to the ratepayers. In 1901 there were 175 appeals against the decisions of County Court Judges in regard to claims for malicious injuries; the decrees were confirmed in sixty-three cases, twenty-seven judgments were varied (which in this case meant reduced), thirty-four were reversed, thirty-five dismissals were confirmed, and sixty-eight reversed. The total amount of the claims was £59,982, out of which £14,129 was finally granted. 1445 leaving a balance of £45,853 which could only be considered as being fraudulently claimed. His own county had paid £1,842 out of a total claimed of £3,180, of which £1,000 was paid in respect of a few acres of heather and briars, a fire probably caused by the carelessness of a passing smoker. Ulster had paid £3,974 out a total claimed of £11,536. According to the Parliamentary Return, Sligo was crimeless, not one single case has been reported from the county, and yet the county council was engaged year after year in defending these claims for malicious injuries which could only be described as fraudulent and frivolous. It was too bad; the money could be much better employed. The retention of the clause in the Act implied a want of confidence in the local authorities which was hardly justified by the flattering reports periodically furnished by the Government auditors and inspectors. In the interests of the rate-payers of Ireland and in the interest of the good name of the country he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would remove this blot from the Act and give the county councils the right to investigate these claims. No loss would be suffered, as there would remain the right of appeal, but it would show that the local authorities were at least trusted, and he hoped for the sake of the fair fame of Ireland the Chief Secretary would give his consideration to the matter.
§ MR. T. W. RUSSELL (Tyrone, S.)asked whether the attention of the Attorney-General had been directed to the fact that since the passage of the Act of 1898 there had been a regular epidemic of window-breaking in Dublin, and to the language of the Recorder of Dublin on the subject. The rates of Dublin were high enough in all conscience; they had reached breaking point; things could not go much further without serious consequences. If the police could not control these people who broke windows to get into gaol, the shopkeepers ought to be compelled to insure their windows and the insurance companies to pay for the damage. The ratepayers could not bear the strain, and it was an imposition which ought not to be cast upon them. He hoped his right hon. friend would be able to hold out some prospect of relief in that direction.
§ MR. CULLINAN (Tipperary, S.)referred to the breaking of windows and the perpetration of robberies by soldiers in the town of Bray. Although the soldiers ware arrested and sent to prison, the ratepayers had had to pay for their blackguardism. There was no justification for such a system, and he thought the people of Ireland were entitled to demand the removal of this intolerable burden on the ratepayers. It was a most remarkable fact hat since the passage of the Local Government Act there had been, throughout Ireland, most frequent burnrngs of heather and gorse. In his own locality a landlord had his heather burnt, and obtained £400 compensation. The local authority were rather doubtful whether it was done maliciously, but they took no action. The next year the landlord had another fire, and obtained further damages. When in the third year another claim was made suspicions were aroused; strong action was taken, the claim was thrown out, and from that day to this there had been no further burnings. In several cases it had become the regular practice to set fire to useless heather in order to secure damages from the ratepayers. In some instants where they believed the people to have been badly treated, they had come to (he conclusion that the police were not doing their duty. Outrage after outrage occurred in one particular district; the police were changed; fresh men were brought in; and no further outrages had occurred. He did not say that the police committed the outrages themselves, but they were certainly in touch with the guilty parties. It was a gross injustice that this Clause should be allowed to remain on the Statute-book. The County Court Judge or the Judge of Assize knew nothing about the local circumstances of the case, whereas the local authority had all the local knowledge necessary to do justice in such matters.
§ THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. ATKINSON,) Londonderry, N.quite admitted that there was a gross abuse of the law involved in the circumstances referred to by the hen. Member for South Tyrone, but as long as it was the law that the infliction of malicious injuries entitled the owner of the injured property to compensation, it was impossible to draw distinctions as to individuals or the 1447 motives of individuals. If one man wantonly broke a window out of ill-will to the owner, and another man broke a window in order to get sent to prison, it was hard to say upon what principle compensation should be given in the first case and not in the second. He quite admitted that it constituted a gross abuse of the law that the ratepayers should be obliged to pay damages for such injuries as the breaking of windows by people whose only motive was to go to gaol instead of the workhouse. If those people were destitute then the workhouse was the place for them, but if the condition of things was such that they prefered the gaol to the workhouse the obvious remedy was to make the gaol less agreeable than the workhouse.
§ MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid these poor people looked upon the gaol as a kind of hydropathic establishment, and the longer term they were sentenced for the better they were pleased.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid he thought it was a gross abuse when persons committed a crime simply for the purpose of being committed to prison. The Recorder of Dublin had it very much in his own hands; he could inflict a severer punishment. Another grievance which he had keenly felt, was that if a man paid insurance premiums which covered, not only accidental loss, but loss from malicious injury, the insurance companies would not pay for such loss until the sufferer had first tried his luck before the grand jury. A similar section was contained in the Riot and Damage Act of 1886 in England, which provided that if any person had sustained a loss, anything he received by way of insurance should be deducted from the amount he recovered from the community. It was quite obvious that it was very easy to evade that provision, and the only way to guard against that was to allow an insurance only to cover accidental loss and not malicious loss. He thought the law ought to be changed so as to provide that where an individual insured his property and the premiums bound the company to compensate him for loss of any kind, ho should get the value for which he had paid. Passing from those cases to 1448 the general matters referred to, he understood that the hon. Gentleman who had made this Motion objected first of all to the law and next to its mode of administration. The hon. Member had stated that this law was peculiar to Ireland. In a sense he was right. He observed in the discussion of Irish matters that when hon. Members opposite were opposing any liability on Ireland it was always asserted that it was identical with this country, but when it came to anything that Ireland needed the ground was put forward that it was entirely dissimilar.
§ MR. FLAVIN (Kerry, N.)You are not talking to children.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid that during the last few years there had been a good deal of special legislation for Ireland. In England and in Ireland, for many years, any injury inflicted upon property by any unlawful, riotous, or tumultuous assembly entitled the owner of the property injured to compensation from the community, and the mode in which he got it was by a suit in which the person who had to pay was sued. In England a person whose property was injured owing to unlawful riots sought compensation from the police authorities and could sue and recover from them the amount of compensation to which he was entitled. In Ireland, if they placed the county councils in the position of the grand juries, then the county councils would be at once judges and defendants. But each party in Ireland had the right of appeal to a Judge from the County Courts, and if they desired, the case could be tried by a special jury.
§ MR. J. P. FARRELLasked if the right hon. Gentleman could give one case in which a special jury had been applied for.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid if this law had never been used he failed to see the harm of it. Upon what principle was compensation awarded?
§ MR. BOLANDsaid his argument was that this Act was wrong in principle, and even if it were administered in England in the same way he should still hold that it was wrong in principle.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid he understood the hon. Member to mean that the whole 1449 system of compensation for malicious injury was wrong in principle. The principle was not peculiar to Ireland for it was also adopted in England, in fact it was the same principle that underlay the law which, in this country, gave compensation for damages through riot and unlawful assembly. What was the principle of that Act? The principle on which a man was compensated by the community for injuries caused by riots or unlawful assembly was that members of the community were parties to the crime. That was the principle of the English law, and of the Irish law, which went further. That was the principle in England. Upon what principle did they compensate a man whose house was injured through a riot unless on the principle that when a riot took place the community should be mulcted with the object of preventing such things or of bringing the perpetrators to justice. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: This is not a riot.] The Irish law he quite admitted went beyond the English law because it was not necessary that the injury should be done either by an unlawful assembly or by a riot, although that law existed in Ireland just as in England. In Ireland, however, in addition, there were a number of Statutes which gave compensation when the injury was done by individuals. He wished to deal with the two branches of the subject referred to by the hon. Member. He did not intend to go into detail in regard to the cases referred to, five of which had been mentioned. The Judge who tried the cases held a different opinion to the hon. Member, and he preferred the opinion of the Judge who had heard both sides. Two of the cases failed and two of them were dismissed upon appeal, which showed how effective the appeal was. The hon. Member stated that it was very iniquitous that the county council should have to pay the costs, but they were not the only people who had to pay costs, and the same thing might happen to any member of the community who was called upon to defend himself. He could not charge his memory with any objection of this kind being made in 1898, when all these matters were threshed out. No suggestion was then made that a tribunal should be established in which it was suggested that the county 1450 council should be the judge and the defendant at the same time. Therefore, the only available tribunal was the County Court, and no hon. Members who had taken part in the debate had been able to suggest any other tribunal unless they put it into the hands of the county council. If a fraction of what hon. Members said was true, Ireland must contain the greatest collection of knaves in Christendom, for, according to the account of hon. Gentlemen, men were to be found, in all directions, in Ireland ready to burn their own ricks and hough their own cattle. [NATIONALIST cheers and cries of "Sheridan."] The knaves of course got the swag. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: "What about Sheridan?"] They might quote Sheridan if they liked as an accomplice.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMOND (Clare, E.)He was not an accomplice, for he did it.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid there were men who were burning their own ricks and houghing their own cattle and making fraudulent claims. He did not call that a fair representation of the conditions in Ireland. He believed that exaggerated and dishonest claims were sent in, but the proceedings of the Courts showed what the results of the investigations had been. He would call attention to the variation of these claims according to the condition of the country. He thought that anybody who had any aquaintance with Ireland must be ready to admit that in a time of public excitement when there was anything like organised crime and malicious injury [NATIONALIST cries of "Oh"] to property which invariably accompanied it—[An HON. MEMBER: "Government spies" and Nationalist cheers.]
§ * MR. SPEAKERI hope hon. Members will allow the right hon. Gentleman to answer their arguments without these continual interruptions.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid that the Return for 1900, which covered the year 1899, showed that the claims in respect of persons were thirty-seven, and in respect of property 1,072. The amount of compensation claimed in respect of persons 1451 was £13,320, and in respect of property £14,927- The County Courts granted £3,393 in respect of persons and in respect of property £14,000. The amount of claims dismissed was £10,826. Out of a total of £42,000 the sum allowed was only a little over £17,000. These figures tended rather to show that the claims were carefully sifted by the County Courts [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: How many of the persons were policemen?] He did not propose to go into the question whether all the police in Ireland were perjurers and conspirators. In the next year 1901, which covered 1900, the statistics showed that the claims in respect of persons fell to twenty-one, and the claims in respect of property to 896. The amount claimed in respect of persons was £6,001, and the amount claimed in respect of property was £39,922. The sum awarded to persons was £1,128, and the sum awarded in respect of property was £13,000. The amount of claims dismissed was £30,000. In 1902, things were becoming more peaceable. The Returns for that year covered 1901 the claims were eight in respect of persons, and 666 in respect of property. The personal claims amounted to £2,350 and the claims in respect of property £30,000. The amount of compensation granted was only £280 in respect of persons, and £7,997 in respect of property.
§ MR. T. W. RUSSELLOut of the 666 cases to which the right hon. Gentleman refers how many were dismissed altogether?
§ ME. ATKINSONI cannot tell you.
§ MR. JOHN REDMOND (Waterford)Can the right hon. Gentleman say how 1452 many of these cases arose out of riots or tumultuous assembly?
§ MR. ATKINSONI have not the particulars here.
MR. ROCHE (Galway, E.)The right hon. Gentleman stated that in 1902 things were becoming more peaceable in Ireland. If that is so, may I ask why the Coercion Act was reintroduced?
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid it was quite clear that in 1900 things had come to a climax, and that in 1901 and 1902 the claims decreased. The appeals to the Assize Court in 1900 were 122; in 1901, 175; and in 1902, 111. In some instances the Judges of Assize confirmed the awards of the County Courts, in other cases the awards were decreased, and in a number of cases the claims were withdrawn. It was interesting to look at the counties in which these things took place. In 1901, in Ulster, the gross amount was £3,974, and in the next year it was only £1,816. In Munster the gross amount awarded in 1901 was £4,829, and in the next year it was £3,758. With regard to cities and counties, it was most instructive to look at the figures. In 1901 the amount in the city of Dublin altogether was only £168, while in Clare it was £380. If they went through the figures it would be apparent that it was in the counties that most of the compensation was given.
§ MR. WILLIAM REDMONDPerhaps the right hon. Gentleman will allow me to say, as he has referred to county Clare, that some of the outrages committed there, and supposed to be malicious, were afterwards found to have been committed by Police-Sergeant Sheridan, who has now fled the country.
§ MR. ATKINSONsaid he did not at all? agree with the hon. Member. Sergeant Sheridan could never have done the whole of the injuries. He only referred to the figures for the purpose of showing the serious injury that was inflicted upon individuals. Nineteen-twentieth a of the compensation was in respect of property and not of persons. The figures showed that the principal injuries were inflicted in the rural districts, and they all knew what they were. [A NATIONALIST MEMBER: Sheridan's work.] They were face to face with the question whether they would give no compensation to these people and allow them to be pauperised, as they would be in a great many cases, and therefore to fall upon the rates, or whether, as they had undoubtedly suffered injury, that injury would be thrown on the community. He did not want tonight to endeavour to trace these injuries to their origin or to find out what class was guilty. Ho simply wanted to put this point. If they had in Ireland damage to the extent of £14,000 per annum inflicted mainly on farmers the question was, "Will you allow them to go without any compensation at all, and throw that loss entirely on their own resources, or will you adopt the expedient of compensating them by the community which must contain the individual who committed the damage?" He did not think that any reasonable person could say that things in Ireland at the present time were as satisfactory as could be wished. There might be good times in store for Ireland, but as things were at present every impartial man must admit that the law of compensation for malicious injuries could not safely be abolished. He made every allowance for the exaggeration of claims, but he did not think it was fair to make widespread charges that fraudu- 1454 lent claims were presented. He admitted that if a man lost a cow which was only worth £10 he might claim £20, but he must say he did not think that instances of men putting forward claims for property which they had themselves burnt or inflicted damages upon, existed to the degree which hon. Members had suggested, Exaggeration there unquestionably was, but he did not believe such cases of deliberate fraud as had been suggested existed at all.
It had been contended that the fact that compensation was given did not act as a deterrent to crime. He did not think any person could suppose that the fact that a particular community was aware that there was a possibility of being mulcted for compensation for malicious injury, did not act as a serious preventive of crime. He quite admitted that it might not succeed in bringing the criminal to justice, but it did act in the way of preventing the commission of crime, and it prevented the pauperising of individuals who were injured when crime was committed. He had known many cases where the injuries inflicted on farmers were so serious that they could not afford to bear the loss. As the Government thought that this law prevented crime and saved the persons injured from severe loss they could not promise, in the present state of Ireland, that the law would be repealed. And, so long as the law remained in force, he could not conceive a more satisfactory tribunal than that which at present existed for adjudicating on claims. With regard to damage caused by soldiers he would say, that whatever else might be the defects of this law, it seemed to raise the market for widows in Limerick. He had not particulars here, but there was a 1455 Limerick case which was still sub judice, and he did not like to go into that at present. During the past five years there were eleven cases of injury committed by soldiers in Limerick, and th9 amount decreed for compensation was £7 10s. The soldiers contributed £5 12s. 6d. themselves, for the purpose of recouping the county, so that very little loss fell on the community so far as injury done by these soldiers was concerned.
§ ME. JOHN REDMONDsaid he had never known the right hon. and learned Gentleman take part in an Irish debate without bringing bitterness of feeling and exasperation into the discussion. What had he done to-night? His hon. friend the Member for South Kerry brought this question before the House in a speech of studied moderation. It was a case where the law was different in England and Ireland, and he made out a reasonable case for an amendment of the law. The right hon. and learned Gentleman got up and, apparently with deliberate intention, proceeded to inflame feeling on this side of the House by talking of organised crime and outrages committed on cattle, although he well knew that Ireland was, and had been for a considerable time, in a state of profound peace. The right hon. Gentleman knew that Ireland was in a state of profound peace. He knew that was a matter beyond dispute, for it was to be found in the statistics of the Blue-books, that so far as ordinary crime was concerned, Ireland to-day was more crimeless than England, Scotland, and Wales. And yet he came down to this House and met this reasonable case by an appeal to organised crime and cattle maiming, quite forgetful of the fact that the last case proved in 1456 Ireland was the case of a policeman in the employ of the Government, who, having obtained the conviction of an innocent man on a horrible charge of mutilating cattle, had his crime subsequently found out, and instead of being put on his trial was allowed to escape from the country scot free, while his accomplices actually received large sums of money in the shape of what were called "compassionate allowances." He did not want to be unreasonable, and perhaps it would be unreasonable to complain of the Chief Secretary leaving this matter in the hands of the Attorney-General. He knew that a man in the position of the Chief Secretary for Ireland had heavy labours thrown upon him, and he could not always be expected to be present, but he would appeal to his common sense not to allow the Attorney-General to conduct Irish debates in this House. The Attorney-General might be a most valuable member of His Majesty's Government, but he would suggest that he should be set apart to devote his brilliant talents to the discussion of fiscal questions and matters of Imperial concern, but where mere Irish matters were concerned he thought that the Chief Secretary should attend to them himself, or at any rate not leave them to a man who never made a speech in which there was one particle of sympathy for the country from which he sprung.
He wished to recall the House to what the real case made out by his hon. friend, was. The House was almost empty when the case was put and hon. Members had come in recently and did not know the facts. The case was that there was a different law with regard to compensation for malicious injuries in England and in Ireland. The Attorney-General said that in all cases of such injury arising from riot 1457 or tumultuous assembly compensation could be obtained in England as in Ireland. Of all the cases read out by the Attorney-General he was not able to state one single case of this kind arising out of riotous or tumultuous assembly. It was notorious that there had been no riotous or tumultuous assemblies in Ireland and no injuries had been inflicted in that way. It was not with reference to injuries arising from tumultuous assemblies that the law was different in England to what it was in Ireland. In England if a tramp came from London to the Midlands and in passing through the country set fire to a rick of hay maliciously, or to a house, there was no power to put the compensation for that act upon the people of that locality. It would be a monstrously unjust law which would mulct a number of innocent people living in a peaceful hamlet in England, for the offences committed by a tramp from London. In Ireland the law was different. In Ireland those injuries to properties which had been mentioned, were the acts of individuals, and in some cases those individuals had been caught, put upon their trial, and punished, and it had often been shown during the trial that the offender had no connection with the locality. Nevertheless, in all those cases compensation for the injury done had to be paid, in Ireland, by the ratepayers of the particular district. What answer to that had been made by the Attorney-General? He had not faced that question at all. He had told them about tumultuous assemblies, but the case put by his hon. friend had not been met at all by the right hon. Gentleman except by the reading of a considerable number of offences of this kind and by asking whether 1458 they were going to allow the poor man whose property was injured in this way, to be ruined by not getting any compensation. His point was that the law should be the same in England as in Ireland. These offences were not common in Ireland or England, and therefore the law should be the same. He heard with some amusement the answer which was given to his hon. friend the Member for South Tyrone. He called attention to the fact that there had, under this law, sprung up in Dublin a system of breaking windows, on the part of idle tramps or criminals, for the purpose of getting sent to prison, and in all those cases the unfortunate ratepayers of Dublin had to pay the damage. The right hon. Gentleman replied that so long as the law was that the community was liable they could not go into the motives of the men who committed the crime. That was the whole case they put before the House, and he thought a conclusive case had been made out for an alteration in the law. The remedy, however, of the right hon. Gentleman was not an alteration of the law, but an alteration in prison treatment. His remedy was not to make the law the same in England as in Ireland, but to make prison treatment so much more severe in Ireland that the men would not break windows in order to get sent to prison. The right hon. Gentleman had said something about flogging. If that was his remedy he confessed it was quite worthy of him. That was a remedy which was in keeping with every speech he made upon an Irish question. The right hon. Gentleman sneered at them by saying that sometimes they asked for identical treatment with England and sometimes for different treatment. He noticed that whenever they got different treatment it was always different in the direction 1459 of coercion or hardship of some kind. They had pointed out in this case a difference in the law between England and Ireland, which hit the ratepayers of every district in the country very hard, and they had been met by this kind of speech from the Treasury Bench. He hoped that in Irish debates, if the Chief Secretary could not attend he would get someone else, either the Civil Lord of the Admiralty or the Secretary of State for War, or anybody else, to represent the view of the Irish Governm3nt rather than the Attorney-General, who never interfered in an Irish debate without causing bitterness and bad feeling.
§ THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. WYNDHAM,) Doversaid he wished to repudiate the interpretation which the hon. and learned Member opposite had placed upon the speech of his right hon. friend the Attorney-General. The hon. and learned Member opposite had issued to him a challenge to take part in the debate, and there was a suggestion that he would have been able to deal with this subject with greater confidence than his right hon. friend. [Nationalist cries of "Hear, hear!"] That was an absurd suggestion, because the law of malicious injury filled some five or six Statutes, and upon them his right hon. friend was quite competent to speak. His right hon. friend had given a very interesting analysis of the Acts dealing with this question which stood upon the Statute-book, and he had also gone into the philosophical aspects of the theory of retribution, which stood behind all sanctions imposed by law. No word in that speech could be held to cast any reflection upon Ireland or hon. Members from Ireland. He said himself, as his right hon. friend had said, that crime was at a 1460 lower level in Ireland than it had been for many years, so low that he did not. propose to continue the quarterly returns of agrarian outrages. That did not alter one jot of the force which underlay every one of the arguments of the Attorney-General. Who were the people whose property was damaged? In the main they were tradesmen in town, but we also knew perfectly well that the property of the agricultural community was damaged. If a man's property was damaged everybody would hold that, if possible, he ought to be compensated, but from what source? There were three sources. In the first place he could be compensated by the person who inflicted the damage, if he could catch him, and if that person had sufficient worldly wealth to pay the compensation. He might, under a system which did not exist in England, Ireland, or anywhere else, becompens ted by the community at large, or in the third place he might be compensated by the people who lived around. The law in Ireland was that he should be compensated and, if he could not secure compensation from the persons who inflicted the damage, there was a great deal to be said for the method which existed in Ireland, namely, that compensation for injury to property should be paid by the community in which the person injured lived. That was an incentive to the detection of crime and germane to the whole tenor of Irish life.
There was a great deal of force in the argument used by his right hon. friend that hon. Members from Ireland sometimes pleaded for absolute uniformity and at other times insisted upon discrimination. They had been asked that evening to revert to the judicial process under the grand jury, and it had been stated that Ireland preferred that tribunal 1461 to a County Court Judge. In all good local government a sharp division was made between the administrative and judicial functions, and the same division had been made in Ireland, where all questions of a judical or quasi-judicial character were reserved for magistrates. It had been argued that the district or county council affected ought to assess these damages instead of a legal tribunal. He had listened to the speeches and that was what he understood from them. He should not have intervened in the debate at all but for the tenor of the speech of his hon. and learned friend opposite, and he wished to repudiate as strongly as he could the interpretation which had been put upon the very interesting and cogent speech of his right hon. friend. He thought it would be a great mistake to allow proceedings of a judicial character to be undertaken by an elected body. From the point of view of the ratepayers he was prepared to admit that hardship was sometimes inflicted. He did not take a very grave view of some of these reprehensible acts on the part of young men who broke windows, and he admitted a money penalty ought not to be inflicted on the rates if it could be avoided. He agreed that the Government might consider whether by some method that
§ might be avoided. But looking forward to the remainder of this session, he saw no great prospect of ample time for dealing with what, after all, were minor defects in the Statute-book, and he thought that such time as might be at their disposal could be devoted with greater advantage to Ireland to other matters.
§ MR. POWER (Waterford, E.)said that perhaps he might be allowed to say that he had never heard a more pointless, illogical, and impudent reply than that which had been delivered by the Attorney-General. Not long ago a series of outrages, including the maiming of cattle, prevailed in the county of Staffordshire and a gentleman belonging to the legal profession was now undergoing imprisonment for those outrages. The question he wished to ask was whether the ratepayers of that particular district in Staffordshire where these outrages were committed, were penalised for the act of this miscreant. He thought this was a parallel case which would show clearly the difference in the law of the two countries.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes, 90; Noes, 153. (Division List No. 34.)
1463| AYES. | ||
| Abraham, William (Cork, N. E.) | Condon, Thomas Joseph | Hayden, John Patrick |
| Ainsworth, John Stirling | Crean, Eugene | Helme, Norval Watson |
| Ambrose, Robert | Cremer, William Randal | Hemphill, Rt. Hon. Charles H. |
| Barry, E. (Cork, S.) | Cullinan, J. | Henderson, Arthur (Durham) |
| Bayley, Thomas (Derbyshire | Delany, William | Hope, John Deans (Fife, West) |
| Bell, Richard | Devlin, Chas. Ramsay (Galway | Johnson, John (Gateshead) |
| Black, Alexander William | Devlin, Joseph (Kilkenny, N.) | Joyce, Michael |
| Blake, Edward | Dobbie, Joseph | Kearley, Hudson E. |
| Boland, John | Doogan, P. C. | Kilbride, Denis |
| Brigg, John | Douglas, Charles M. (Lanark) | Leigh, Sir Joseph |
| Burke, E. Haviland | Earrell, James Patrick | Levy, Maurice |
| Burns, John | Fenwick, Charles | Lundon, W. |
| Caldwell, James | Ffrench, Peter | |
| Campbell, John (Armagh, S.) | Flavin, Michael Joseph | MacDonnell, Dr. Mark A. |
| Causton, Richard Knight | Flynn, James Christopher | MacNeill, John Gordon Swift |
| Cawley, Frederick | Gladstone, Rt. Hn. Herb. John | MacVeagh, Jeremiah |
| M'Arthur, William (Cornwall) | O'Donnell, John (Mayo, S.) | Shackleton, David James |
| M'Hugh, Patrick A. | O'Dowd, John | Sheehan, Daniel Daniel |
| M'Kean, John | O'Kelly, Jas. (Roscommon N.) | Sheehy, David |
| M'Killop, W. (Sligo, North) | O'Malley, William | Slack, John Bamford |
| Mansfield, Horace Rendall | O'Mara, James | Sullivan, Donal |
| Markham, Arthur Basil | O'Shaughnessy, P. J. | Taylor, Theodore C. (Radcliffe) |
| Mooney, John J. | Pirie, Duncan V. | Tomkinson, James |
| Murnaghan, George | Power, Patrick Joseph | Wason, Jn. Cathcart (Orkney) |
| Murphy, John | Priestley, Arthur | White, Luke (York, E. R.) |
| Nannetti, Joseph P. | Reckitt, Harold James | Whitley, J. H. (Haliax) |
| Nolan, Col. J. P. (Galway, N.) | Reddy, M. | Young, Samuel |
| Nolan, Joseph (Louth, South) | Redmond, John E. (Waterford) | |
| O'Brien, K. (Tipperary, Mid.) | Redmond, William (Clare) | TELLERS FOR THE AYES—Sir Thomas Esmonde and Captain Donelan. |
| O'Brien, Patrick (Kilkenny) | Roberts, John Bryn (Eifion) | |
| O'Brien, P. J. (Tipperary, N.) | Roche, John | |
| O'Connor, James (Wicklow, W. | Schwann, Charles E. | |
| NOES. | ||
| Agg-Gardner, James Tynte | Galloway, William Johnson | Morpeth, Viscount |
| Agnew, Sir Andrew Noel | Gardner, Ernest | Morrison, James Archibald |
| Anson, Sir Wliam Reynell | Godson, Sir Augustus Fredk. | Morton, Arthur H. Aylmer |
| Arnold-Forster, Rt. Hn. Hugh O | Gordon, Hn. J. E. (Elgin & Nairn) | Mount, William Arthur |
| Arrol, Sir William | Gordon, Maj. E. (T'r Hamlets) | Mowbray, Sir Robert Gray C. |
| Atkinson, Rt. Hon. John | Gore, Hn. S. F. Ormsby-(Linc) | Murray, Rt. Hon. A. G. (Bute) |
| Bagot, Capt. Josceline FitzRoy | Gray, Ernest (West Ham) | O'Neill, Hon. Robert Torrens |
| Bailey, James (Walworth) | Greene, Henry D.(Shrewsbury) | Peel, Hn. Wm. Robert Wellesley |
| Bain, Colonel James Robert | Greville, Hon. Ronald | Percy, Earl |
| Balcarres, Lord | Groves, James Grimble | Platt-Higgins, Frederick |
| Balfour, Rt. Hon. G. W. (Leeds | Hamilton, Marq of (L'nd'nderry | Plummer, Walter R. |
| Balfour, Kenneth R. (Christch. | Hardy, L. (Kent, Ashford) | Powell, Sir Francis Sharp |
| Banbury, Sir Frederick George | Hare, Thomas Leigh | Pretyman, Ernest George |
| Beach, Rt. Hn. Sir Mich. Hicks | Harris, F. Leverton (Tynem'th | Purvis, Robert |
| Bignold, Arthur | Hay, Hon. Claude George | Randles, John S. |
| Bigwood, James | Heath, James (Staffords., N.W. | Rankin, Sir James |
| Bond, Edward | Henderson, Sir A. (Stafford, W. | Richards, Henry Charles |
| Boscawen, Arthur Griffith | Hermon-Hodge, Sir Robert T. | Roberts, Samuel (Sheffield) |
| Brassey, Albert | Hogg, Lindsay | Robertson, Herbert (Hackney) |
| Brodrick, Rt. Hon. St. John | Hope, J. F. (Sheffield, Brightside | Ropner, Colonel Sir Robert |
| Bull, William James | Howard, Jn. (Kent, Faversham | Round, Rt. Hon. James |
| Burdett-Coutts, W. | Hudson, George Bickersteth | Royds, Clement Molyneux |
| Butcher, John George | Hunt, Rowland | Rutherford, John (Lancashire) |
| Carson, Rt. Hon. Sir Edw. H. | Kenyon-Slaney, Col. W. (Salop. | Rutherford, W. W. (Liverpool) |
| Cavendish, V. C. W. (Derbyshire | Keswick, William | Sackville, Col. S. G. Stopford |
| Chamberlain, Rt. Hn. J. A (Worc | Knowles, Sir Lees | Sadler, Col. Samuel Alexander |
| Chapman, Edward | Lambton, Hon. Frederick Wm. | Sandys, Lt.-Col. Thos. Myles |
| Clive, Captain Percy A. | Lawson, Jn. G. (Yorks., N. R.) | Scott, Sir S. (Marylebone, W.) |
| Cochrane, Hon. Thos. H. A. E. | Lee, A. H. (Hants., Fareham) | Sloan, Thomas Henry |
| Cook, Sir Frederick Lucas | Lees, Sir Elliott (Birkenhead) | Spear, John Ward |
| Corbett, A. Cameron (Glasgow) | Legge, Col. Hon. Heneage | Stanley, Rt. Hon. Lord (Lancs.) |
| Crossley, Rt. Hon. Sir Savile | Llewellyn, Evan Henry | Stirling-Maxwell, Sir John M. |
| Cust, Henry John C. | Lockwood, Lieut.-Col. A. R. | Talbot, Lord E. (Chichester) |
| Dalkeith, Earl of | Long, Rt. Hon. W. (Bristol, S.) | Talbot, Rt. Hn. J. G (Oxf'd Univ. |
| Dalrymple, Sir Charles | Lonsdale, John Brownlee | Thornton, Percy M. |
| Davenport, William Bromley | Lowe, Francis William | Tomlinson, Sir Wm. Edw. M. |
| Davies, Sir H. D. (Chatham) | Lucas, Reginald J. (Portsmouth | Tuff, Charles |
| Denny, Colonel | Lyttelton, Rt. Hon. Alfred | Valentia, Viscount |
| Dickinson, Robert Edmond | Macdona, John Gumming | Walker, Col. William Hall |
| Dickson, Charles Scott | M'Calmont, Colonel James | Walrond, Rt. Hn. Sir William H |
| Douglas, Rt. Hon. A. Akers- | M'Killop, James (Stirlingshire) | Warde, Colonel C. E. |
| Doxford, Sir William Theodore | Majendie, James A. H. | Welby, Sir Chas. G. E. (Notts.) |
| Durning-Lawrence, Sir Edwin | Manners, Lord Cecil | Whiteley, H. (Ashton und. Lyne |
| Dyke, Rt. Hn. Sir William Hart | Martin, Richard Biddulph | Willox, Sir John Archibald |
| Fielden, Edward Brocklehurst | Maxwell, W. J. H. (Dumfriessh.) | Wortley, Rt. Hon. C. B. Stuart |
| Finch, Rt. Hon. George H. | Mildmay, Francis Bingham | Wrightson, Sir Thomas |
| Finlay, Sir Robert Bannatyne | Milner, Rt. Hn. Sir Frederick G. | Wylie, Alexander |
| Fitzroy, Hn. Edward Algernon | Milvain, Thomas | Wyndbam, Rt. Hon. George |
| Flannery, Sir Fortescue | Montagu, G. (Huntingdon) | |
| Forster, Henry William | Montagu, Hn. J. Scott (Hants.) | TELLERS FOR THE NOES—Sir Alexander Acland-Hood and Mr. Ailwyn Fellowes. |
| Foster, P. S. (Warwick, S. W.) | Moore, William | |
| Fyler, John Arthur | Morgan, D. J. (Walthamstow) | |
| Adjourned at ten minutes after Twelve o'clock. |