Commons Sitting of 5 April 1870

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Report—Committee of Selection [No. 81].
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Water Supply on Sunday (Metropolis) [94].
Committee—Irish Land [29]—R.P.
Considered as amended—Third Reading—County Courts (Buildings)* [91], and passed.
Third Reading—Survey of Great Britain, &c.*[90], and passed.
The House met at Two of the clock.

BANK OF IRELAND—PAYMENT OF DIVIDENDS.—QUESTION.
MR. SHERLOCKsaid, he would on Thursday next ask Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he intends to extend to the proprietors of Government Funds, the dividends on which are payable at the Bank of Ireland, the same facilities with respect to cheques which are given by the Bank of England?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I may as well state now that I believe there will be no objection to give similar facilities.

ARMY—ROYAL ACADEMY, WOOLWICH.

  QUESTION.
  COLONEL BERESFORDsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether the number of trials at the Chelsea examinations for admission to the Royal Academy, Woolwich, limited by the new Regulations to three, will commence from July next or from July 1871, when other new Regulations will come into operation?
  MR. CARDWELL: Sir, the new regulations come into force in July, 1871, and this clause, being part of them, will come into operation at the same time.

LOTTERIES FOR POOR SCHOOLS.

  QUESTION.
  MR. CHARLEYsaid, he would beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he is aware that the illegal Lottery for the Homer Row Poor Schools, which by a Letter, dated the 14th February last, he informed the Secretary of the Scottish Reformation Society that "the Solicitor to the Treasury had been instructed to take steps to prevent," is now publicly announced to take place on Thursday next, the 7th instant; and whether he is prepared to put the Law, thus openly defied, in force against the promoters of the Lottery?
  MR. BRUCE,in reply, said, it had been the practice of the Home Office, for a long time past, whenever notice was given of any illegal lottery, whether its object was innocent or demoralizing, to give notice to the parties that such lottery was illegal, and that they were liable to prosecution. With respect to
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  those lotteries for religious purposes, which were very like the raffles that took place at every bazaar for religious purposes, no prosecution had taken place; and it would be his duty, on receiving notice as to what had taken place, to consider whether that was a case for the institution of a prosecution at the expense of the Government, He was hardly inclined to think it would be.

ARMY—WOOLWICH AND SANDHURST.

  QUESTION.
  COLONEL BERESFORDsaid, he would beg to ask he Secretary of State for War, If Clause 7, page 2, of the Regulations of February 15, 1870, for the Woolwich Academy ("The number of trials allowed will not exceed three,") will come into operation from July 1871, or when; and, as to Clause 9, page 3, (No. 2), limiting the examinations in English literature to specified authors, and (No. 2A) in English History to certain fixed periods, who is to fix the authors and the periods? The candidates or the examiners? And how long beforehand is the notification to take place? Will two years be allowed in order to prevent a system of "cram" being adopted consequent upon a shorter notice; and, when will candidates be again allowed to compete for Sandhurst College?
  MR. CARDWELL: Sir, the authors and periods of history have been fixed, in communication with the Civil Service Commissioners, for July, 1871. Notice will be given at once for the examination in July, 1871. In consequence of the reduction of commissions without purchase, the ground on which the recommendations of the Royal Commission respecting Sandhurst were founded has failed, and the subject has, in consequence, been referred back to them.

  IRISH LAND BILL— [BILL 29.]
  (Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, Mr. John Bright.)

  COMMITTEE.
  [Progress 4th April.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 3 (Compensation in absence of custom).
  MR. GLADSTONE,in moving the Amendment which came first, and which

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  stood in the name of his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who was absent from his seat for a moment, said, he proposed to alter the words of the Amendment not in a manner different from the intentions with which the Bill was framed, but so as to clear up the doubts expressed by his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) and other Members in the course of the discussion last night. The Amendment as it stood on the Paper ran thus—after "compensation," in line 4, to insert "for the loss sustained by him in quitting his holding." It was objected by his hon. and learned Friend, and was perhaps felt by others, in connection with language of his own, much too concise for its purpose, that under this Amendment the loss was to be assumed, and nothing was to remain but to allow the landlord to come in and make objection. It would be perfectly satisfactory to the Government to amend the words proposed to be inserted in this manner—"for the loss which the Court shall find to have been sustained by him in quitting his holding." This would show that the matter was to be the subject of judicial cognizance. If Gentlemen would have the kindness to refer to Clause 12, they would find it was required that the tenant must state the particulars with respect to which compensation was claimed. That, taken in connection with the words now proposed, would show that amount of loss must be made out, and not taken for granted. He now begged to move the insertion of the words.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 3, line 4, after the word "compensation," to insert the words "for the loss which the Court shall find to have been sustained by him in quitting his holding."—(Mr. Gladstone.)
  MR. CHAPLINsaid, although he was not in any way connected with Ireland, he trusted he might be permitted to say a few words on the subject, and he desired, in the first place, to assure the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government that he was not one of those owners of property to whom he had alluded last night in a manner that was, he must say, scarcely called for, and of whom he said that they had not made the least endeavour to ascertain the views which were held upon that question in other parts of the kingdom. It was not
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  given to many men to possess those transcendent qualities for which the right hon. Gentleman was so justly remarkable, and he might say, without hesitation, that the attention, trouble, and skill which the right hon. Gentleman had brought to bear on the question entitled him to the thanks both of Parliament and the country. At the same time, however, he must beg to remind the right hon. Gentleman that even amongst Gentlemen who sat on the Opposition side of the House there were some who had endeavoured, with what success it was not for him to say, to arrive at what they believed to be correct and right views on the subject.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was not aware of having used the words attributed to him by the hon. Gentleman. He said "No adequate endeavour."
  MR. CHAPLINsaid, he thought the exact words used were—
  "Men of property who make not the least endeavour to learn and appreciate the point of view from which these subjects are regarded by the rest of the kingdom."
  If he was incorrect in attributing those words to the right hon. Gentleman he should gladly withdraw what he had said.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he did not think he used those precise words. His impression was that he said "no adequate endeavour;" but undoubtedly if he used that expression he was very sorry for it.
  MR. CHAPLINfrankly accepted that explanation. They had endeavoured, whether their views were erroneous or not, to arrive at what they believed to be correct conclusions. He observed with regret, if not in that House, certainly out of its doors, that a fashion had rather sprung up of putting aside at once all English expressions of opinion with reference to this Irish question as English, and therefore necessarily and naturally wrong. He protested altogether against a dictum of that sort, and he must say that, having regard to the application of Irish views and customs in Ireland, and the state of that country, the conclusion was forced irresistibly on his mind that, if English views and customs had been adopted there a little more, Ireland would probably have found itself in a more fortunate state than that in which it now was. He did not wish it to be supposed

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  that in making those remarks he was actuated by any want of sympathy whatever for the. Irish people. No man in the House felt a warmer or more sincere sympathy with the people of Ireland than he did, and he looked at the present state of the country with sorrow and pain; with sorrow, because he foresaw, as far at least as it was permitted him to judge, that no real or permanent amendment could be made in the condition of the people without going to the root of many of their prejudices; with pain, because he knew that in Ireland the prejudices of the Irish people were dear to them indeed. Having said thus much he wished to add a few words on the subject immediately before the House. He was scarcely prepared at first for the change in the Amendment of which the right hon. Gentleman had just given notice. He did not think the Amendment was satisfactory; and on a point of such importance as that they had a right to an answer and a more explicit answer than as yet had been given to those who asked what the loss for which compensation was to be given really was. Compensation for improvements was an intelligible proposition, and was also just and fair. As to compensation for improvements, interruption to the due course of husbandry, or inconvenience to the tenant from a change of farms, no one would be disposed to go further than he should. But what was the "loss" to be here estimated? Not the loss of capital, skill, or labour expended on the farm, or the fruits of that which the tenant had sown but had been prevented from reaping. Every man on both sides of the House was anxious that the tenant should receive large and liberal payment on this score. But on what ground were they asked to go further? It was true that he lost the privilege and enjoyment of the benefits arising from holding the farm. The privilege was one which, in Ireland, was very much sought after; but was that what they proposed to give compensation for? He could conceive no more monstrous proposition than this—that for the future in Ireland the landlords were to be compelled to compensate the tenant for the loss, or rather the non-continuance of a privilege which he might have been enjoying for years, and which emanated, in the first place, from the landlords
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  themselves. You might just as well be called upon to compensate a man who applied for a farm in the first instance and was refused, and with this additional reason—while the actual occupier had benefited by his holding and by the profits he had drawn from the farm during a number of years, the applicant who never got the farm had had no opportunity of deriving any benefit whatever. He would suppose a case in which A was in possession of a farm, and B and C wished to have it; A naturally desired to retain the enjoyment of the profits he derived from his holding, and B and C were anxious to step into them with as little loss of time as possible. If B got the holding, A and C were both disappointed, and A, who had enjoyed the occupation for a number of years, was recouped to the amount of seven years' rent; while unfortunate C, who never had it, got nothing at all. Independently of all considerations of justice, this appeared to him to be a most extraordinary proposition, especially considered as one by which it was proposed to regenerate Ireland.
  MR. WALTERsaid, he wished, at this interesting stage of the Bill, to state to the Committee the reasons why he should feel himself unable to assent to the proposed alteration of this clause without some qualification, which hitherto had not been offered. He would frankly admit that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had improved his proposed Amendment; but, although the new phraseology made the meaning of the Amendment more clear, it did not obviate the objection he entertained to the Amendment as originally proposed. It would be admitted on all hands that the course which the Government was now taking with reference to the 3rd clause was an advance on its original demand; and that was the reason he objected to it. He wished it to be clearly understood he did not object to this Amendment because it recognized, more distinctly than the clause as originally worded did, the right of the evicted tenant to compensation for loss sustained in consequence of eviction. Last night he voted against the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli), because it appeared to him that the right hon. Gentleman wished to exclude from the Compensation Clause

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  all considerations of the loss sustained by eviction as a separate item of calculation. Without implying any recognition of what was called right of occupancy—the existence of which he entirely denied, he would fully admit that a tenant on being evicted without just cause was entitled to compensation for the loss he sustained; but he wished to explain what he meant when he denied the right to any compensation founded on what was called right of occupancy. The right of occupation must mean one of two things—it must mean either a permanent, or a temporary right to occupy a certain property. A permanent right of occupation could exist only under an arrangement entitling the holder or his successors to a tenancy for ever; and any other kind of occupation must necessarily be limited by the term assigned to it. Such a thing as a right of occupation coupled with a tenancy from year to year was a contradiction in terms, and no Act of Parliament could make it otherwise; for no Act of Parliament could make the English language mean the contrary of that which was its natural meaning. Therefore, he could not for a moment admit that this clause, either as it originally stood, or as it was now amended, conferred on tenants any such abstract right as the right of occupation; but he would admit that even a yearly tenant, who sustained loss by being evicted without just cause, was entitled to have that loss taken into consideration. He objected to the proposed alteration, because he did not think it was competent to the Government, when it brought in a Bill containing a clause for assessing damages, to make an advance upon the scale which it first proposed. It appeared to him that on this occasion Government was somewhat in the position of a plaintiff in an action for compensation for damages sustained by a railway accident; the plaintiff came into court with a claim which he thought was just and sufficient, and, although it was competent for the defendant to endeavour to reduce the amount of the damages, it was not competent for the plaintiff, after he had stated to the court what damages he thought sufficient to meet the justice of the case, to make an advance on that amonnt. Therefore, he must consider that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had set a rather bad example, because
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  after having put them in possession of his Bill, as his tenants, he had, in fact, raised the rent and thereby created a disturbance; and it was to that he objected. It was true that the right hon. Gentleman by a subsequent Amendment, which, of course, must be taken in connection with the clause, had altered his sliding scale; and it was curious to observe what the alteration really amounted to. The right hon. Gentleman had increased the number of gradations in the sliding scale from four to seven, and he had graduated the damages in what he thought was a more just and equitable manner. A sliding scale was a pretty tiling to look at, but in the case of the Corn Laws it did not bear the test of practical experience. The amended sliding scale ranged from £70 to £200. Taking the maximum amounts—as one must do in order to test the principle, the amount proposed to be given for a tenancy above £20 and not exceeding £30 in annual value was not to exceed five years' rent or £150. In the next grade, the tenant whose rent was between £30 and £40 was to receive a sum not exceeding four years' rent or £160. Then the tenant whose rent was above £40 and did not exceed £50 was to receive a sum not exceeding three years' rent or £150. Therefore the tenants in the first and third grades he had named would receive £150, and a tenant in the intermediate grade would receive £160. He could not understand the object or reason of that arrangement, and he so far agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire as to think there was some awkwardness in attempting to define too strictly this right to compensation. Although they had been told that the tenant had no alternative but the workhouse or America—which reminded him of a proverb in vogue at the time of the Commonwealth, when a man was told to go to Connaught, or another place that need not be named—he did not admit that this was the case entirely, and he could conceive the case of a tenant evicted, who might the very next month get a better farm than that which he had left. In such a case how could any court measure the amount of damage to be received by the tenant? What length of time was to be allowed in order to ascertain whether the tenant had bettered himself or not? You could not keep

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  the matter hanging over the head of the landlord for seven years before he could know the amount to be paid; and this showed the awkwardness of attempting to define these things too strictly. If it had been frankly stated that the Government proposed to insert a clause which should have the effect of giving an equivalent been to the landlord in consideration of the alteration and of the separation of the terms to be paid in compensation, he should have no objection to the Amendment; but as this was not stated he must take the Amendment to be an encroachment, and therefore he objected to it. For these substantial reasons, and in the absence of any declaration on the part of the Government that they meant to reduce the amount of the compensation from, say, seven years to five years, or something of that kind, it was impossible for him to vote for the Amendment the Government proposed, He must take this opportunity of expressing the great satisfaction with which he heard the declaration made by the Prime Minister last evening, which afforded a ray of hope for an improvement in the relations of landlord and tenant in Ireland. The prospect held out was that of a better state of things in twenty years, and that was something for which, they could not feel sufficiently grateful. If hon. Members spoke their minds more freely on this subject it would be better for them all; and he wished to take this opportunity of saying that, unless the effect of this Bill was to provide what the French called a pont d'or between Ireland and America it would do little good indeed. One subject had been shirked on both sides of the House, and even the Prime Minister had abstained from giving any opinion upon it, and that was that the very root of the evil was the excess of the agricultural population of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition had carefully guarded himself against being supposed to look favourably upon the emigration now going on from Ireland? What was really at the bottom of this whole question? Was it not, as we had been told by Irish Members, the frightful competition for the land? An hon. Member from that country described the poor tenants as "miserable creatures." What was the meaning of such terms—"frightful competition for land," and "miserable creatures," as applied to
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  the unfortunate Irish tenants? Was it not that there was a greater number of poor people of that class in Ireland than the country could properly support? He did not mean to say that if we were to cut up the pasture into cabbage gardens, and reproduce the miserable system of living upon potatoes, which was really the curse of Ireland, the country would not maintain a population of 8,000,000 or 10,000,000; possibly, if the people lived on cabbages, the country might support 20,000,000; but was that argument to be advanced in the House of Commons? Were we to treat the country as if it were in an uncivilized state, and as if the great mass of the population were content to live on vegetables which they could raise by means of a few weeks' labour in the year? This would be contrary to the decrees of Providence and the order of nature. It was clear that no large population should attempt to live on so precarious and uncertain a crop. Surely, there had been warning enough in the terrible famine to teach the people better things? Until we could convince the Irish of the folly, of the worse than folly of clinging to the land merely with the view of getting a miserable subsistence out of it, we should do no good whatever by Land Bills. He hoped that one effect of the passing of this Bill would be that it would throw upon the landlords the responsibility of not using the rights they now possess to evict tenants without providing them with means sufficient to secure for themselves a better home in a more prosperous country. This was the chief good he hoped for from the operation of this Bill.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was desirous to make an observation, not so much upon, the speech of the hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter) as on the general tone of the debate. He did not mean to complain of the course that was taken; but he had no doubt that many votes were given last night in the minority, and many were forborne to be given in the majority, by Gentlemen, not because they approved of the Amendment then before the Committee, but because of their predisposition against other parts of the Bill. Now he wished to observe that the same latitude which was given to the attack ought to be allowed to the defence. If the Government, on every Amendment which af-

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  firmed the principle of compensation for disturbance, were to enter upon a long discussion as to the scale of that compensation which appeared to them proper, progress in the Bill would be impossible. Consequently it would be better that, like men of business, they should discuss each point as it arose. The present had really nothing to do with the sliding scale. The House voted last night substantially that the loss for eviction was to be taken into account, and the degree in which it should be taken into account would remain to be considered when they came to the scale, and then the Government would state clearly and distinctly the principles on which they meant to proceed. At present the Government could only endeavour to meet the objections honestly entertained and ably stated last night.
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had taken the unusual course of criticizing the motives of those who last night voted in the minority. ["No, no!"] He said that he believed many hon. Gentlemen voted in the minority last night, not on the merits of the question then before them, but because they looked upon it as a portion of something else that was afterwards to be brought forward. He ventured to protest against anyone—be he Prime Minister or private Member—coming down to this House, after a long discussion and an important Division, and finding fault with Members of Parliament for the votes they had given. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I found no fault.] The right hon. Gentleman pointed his observations especially towards the hon. Member for Berkshire. Now, he would venture to say, in spite of the right hon. Gentleman, that the hon. Member for Berkshire's obervations were perfectly germane to the matter; for the Government, by their Amendments to the different clauses of the Bill, had so complicated matters that it was perfectly impossible for anybody to discuss any one of the Government Amendments without having in mind the consequential Amendments bearing on the point. He, therefore, held that the hon. Member for Berkshire was perfectly justified in the observations he made in reference to the proposed sliding scale. While the hon. Member for Berkshire was proceeding in the course of his speech some hon. Members appeared to take exception to his line of
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  argument, as though the hon. Gentleman was not confining himself to the Amendment before the House. He would, therefore, be obliged if the Chairman would state what was the particular Amendment before the Committee.
  THE CHAIRMANstated that the Amendment was to insert in line 4 of the clause, after "compensation," the words "for the loss which the Court shall find to have been sustained by him in quitting his holding."
  LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he thought that hon. Members had some right to complain that the Amendment printed in the Business Paper was not the Amendment to be put from the Chair; because it was impossible properly to consider the Amendments of the Government, if alterations in the Amendments proposed were made without due notice, and without Members being aware of what they were. He agreed with the hon. Member for Berkshire that the Amendment now proposed to be introduced into the Amendment given notice of by the Chief Secretary for Ireland was a slight improvement; but he maintained that they must consider not one Amendment alone, but the whole scope and tendency of all the Amendments. He agreed with his hon. Friend the Member for Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) that, as the Bill proceeded, they found Amendments introduced by the Government having but one object, and that was of perpetuating and stereotyping the worst and most mischievous evils of Ireland in regard to the existing relations between landlord and tenant, and, still more, between the tenantry and the peasantry. He objected to the particular Amendment under discussion, because he looked upon it as the first of a class of Amendments to the Bill, which, as proposed to be amended by the Government, would not prove as permanent, efficient, and remedial a measure as on the second reading they all hoped it would be, and because he believed, on the contrary, that it would have the effect of keeping the agricultural condition of Ireland and the relations between the various agricultural classes in their present unsatisfactory state.
  MR. OSBORNEsaid, he was not going to trespass long on the wonderful patience of the Chairman of the Committee, who had sat undisturbed listen-

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  ing to a perpetual discussion on the second reading of this Bill, but would confine himself, if possible, to the precise clause before the Committee. However, before adverting to that subject, he must point out to the noble Lord opposite (Lord John Manners), who in private life was most amiable and devoid of all party spirit, but who never got up, even at ten minutes past three o'clock in the afternoon, without proving himself to be a most decided party man, that if, according to the noble Lord's admirable way of conducting business, the Chairman was at the call of any hon. Member to read every five minutes the particular words of an altered Amendment, they would not be able to get through a Turnpike Bill in the course of the Session. His noble Friend must feel on calmer reflection, that such a course of proceeding would be not only undignified and un-Parliamentary, but, if he might use the word, simply ridiculous. What was the Amendment which had created so much warmth? It was simply an Amendment, which at first proposed to insert in the clause the words, "for the loss sustained by him in quitting his holding," and it was now suggested to alter it by making it read, "for the loss which the Court shall find to have been sustained by him in quitting his holding." Two matters were involved in that Amendment. He admitted that "the loss sustained by the tenant in quitting his holding," were most important words, and they were discussed a great deal last night; but the principle had been long before the House. They had heard Gentlemen speak of the marrow of these Irish Land Bills; but the way in which Parliament had been playing at shuttlecock with the matter had made the demands of the peasantry become greater year by year. In twenty years they had had thirty Land Bills, only three of which had passed. Could they, then, be surprised, after all parties in the House, as one after another they came into power, had been alarmed by the fear of disturbance of occupancy in connection with a Land Bill, and after all the hopes which had been excited in Ireland, that now the Irish people were calling for something more than mere compensation for improvements, and that the marrow of the Bill was now looked on in Ireland to be, first, security for tenure, and next, restriction of arbitrary
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  eviction. Why did he support the second reading of this measure? To him there was no ambiguity in the words of the Bill, and he defied anyone who voted for the second reading to say that he did not feel in his conscience that he was voting for the new principle of giving the tenant a right to a certain occupancy. He did not believe that his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dublin University (Dr. Ball)—the acutest lawyer that Ireland had, and the man everyone would be the first to retain if he had an equity suit—could come down here and say that he had voted for the Bill in ignorance that it contained this principle. Not satisfied with that, his right hon. and learned Friend wanted them to believe that his respected Leader, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire—that that poor innocent voted for the second reading of the Bill quite ignorant that it contained a clause giving compensation for disturbance. This might be very Parliamentary—it might be good for the amusement of a night—but he wanted to know what the people on the other side of the water must think of it. What was described as a novel principle, the Member for the University of Dublin and all Members connected with Ireland knew was a very old principle. It was universal in the South of Ireland. The right of occupation was so far recognized that no man ever thought of getting rid of a small tenant without paying his passage, perhaps to America. He would not now discuss the scale; but, however it might be regarded from the English or Scotch point of view, however it might be regarded by some as unsound in theory or, possibly, perilous in its provisions, he still maintained, from accurate knowledge of Ireland, and from his experience in farming largely, that this Bill, or something like this Bill in this particular clause—and the measure would be worthless without it—was not only a necessity for Ireland, but was unavoidable. No Land Bill would give any satisfaction or hold out any hope to the Irish people without such a clause; and yet hon. Gentlemen got up, and thought by talking out this question, they would be able to crush it. There was some danger involved in this question. They had been putting it off for twenty years —holding out hopes in regard to it,

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  especially when out of Office.["Hear, hear!"] Yes; they had seen wonderful changes in the views of right hon. Gentlemen when in and out of Office, and, not the least wonderful, they had seen all the elements of political economy flung overboard by the right hon. Member for the University of London (Mr. Lowe), and he doing penance for his former sentiments. It was quite extraordinary what effects the disturbance of occupation had produced on right hon. Gentlemen. He rejoiced to hear the speech of his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer last night, for it showed that he had not only been attending to the finances but to the peace of the country, and he said that this Bill, so far from being what it was represented, contained elements of being a Peace Preservation Bill. They heard of new principles; but he had heard those new principles from every Minister on coming into Office. Why, the famous Bill of 1852, the joint production of three great Conservative statesmen—Sir Joseph Napier, Mr. Whiteside, and Lord Mayo—contained a clause giving the tenant the right to compensation for twenty-five years retrospectively. [An hon. MEMBER: That was the blot of the Bill.] The hon. Member for the county of Wicklow (Mr. Fitzwilliam Dick) was one of those Gentleman who at that time sat with his knees in the back of the Prime Minister, and he remembered his sonorous cheer even at this time of day; and it was rather stealing a leaf out of the book of the Liberal party. And what was the fate of that Bill? The noble Lord (Lord John Manners) was a party to that Bill, and at that time he (Mr. Osborne) was very near coming over himself, and joining the hon. Member for Wicklow. The principle of that Bill was sanctioned not only by that Government but by three successive Ministries, and by great majorities of the House of Commons; but it was put to rest in the House of Lords. For eighteen years they had been sleeping upon it, and then they seemed surprised if the people of Ireland, like Oliver Twist, asked for more. He was only surprised, considering the indifference with which the subject had been treated, that there had been so little agitation in regard to it. The hon. Member for Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin)—and he congratulated the county Members of England that they
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  had got one of their number who spoke so well and thought so profoundly—talked of looking at this question from an English point of view, and wanted that English institutions should be introduced into Ireland. He did not agree with his hon. Friend. The Irish institutions were excellent for their purpose, though no doubt they would be all the better for a little more English money. On this point he would quote to the House an extract from a speech delivered many years ago on this importation of English customs into Ireland. The speaker said he believed it was the greatest fallacy to talk of Ireland having an identity of institutions with England. Surely they had given Ireland enough of those institutions, and more than enough. Hon. Members asked for identity of institutions, while the primary and most important of all these institutions differed from England. The greatest curse to Ireland was the identity of these institutions with England, and the sooner they got rid of them the better. That was a speech made many years ago; but it showed a more intimate knowledge of Ireland, expressed in more eloquent language, than he had ever heard. It was the speech of the right hon. Member for Buckinghamshire. Freedom of contract was a myth in Ireland. It was as little applicable to Ireland as the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer now found political economy to be. The small holder had no freedom. The poor tenant was ready to offer everything, and they must protect that man. It might be contrary to the principles of political economy or other economies; but such was the state of Ireland that they must legislate for the protection of the small tenant. Ireland, he said, was a country for small not large tenancies, and he never wished to see the consolidation of farms; but he wished to see Ireland on the road to prosperity, and he would support this or any other Ministry that brought in a Bill framed in this spirit, and would support them all the more that it was to be opposed in a spirit which he thought was not likely to give satisfaction to the people of Ireland.
  DR. BALLsaid, he was rather glad of some allusions made to a former debate by the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Osborne), because it would enable him to do justice to the right

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  hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, to whom he was afraid, speaking hastily, on a former occasion, he had done some injustice, and in reference to whom he might have been understood to suggest that his original speech did not apprise the House that the Bill contained the principle of damages for eviction. He had since read over the speeches both of the right hon. Gentleman and of the Prime Minister, and he would tell the House how the case stood. On the second reading his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland in his speech used, in reference to this clause, the phrase "compensation for the loss of occupation," and undoubtedly described capricious eviction as intended to be followed by pecuniary consequences and pecuniary results. He (Dr. Ball) happened, in the order of speaking, to follow, and ventured to express the opinion, which he still retained, that, though that might have been the intention of the framers of the Bill, it was not carried out in the words of the 3rd clause. The language he originally used was, that when the clause directed to have regard to compensation for improvements, other than permanent, and loss sustained by a tenant in quitting his holding, the clause pointed to every conceivable circumstance of inconvenience except the mere fact of eviction. No contradiction to that interpretation was given; but when the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government came to reply he evidently felt that there was some ambiguity existing, for he then stated that he would consider how he could sever compensation for improvements from damages for eviction. He admitted that the right hon. Gentleman, when thus intimating his intention to bring forward an Amendment, had used the words "damages for eviction." If, therefore, his (Dr. Ball's) words conveyed the suggestion that the Secretary for Ireland in his speech had put forward one view, and another in his Amendment, that was an incorrect suggestion, and not in accordance with what had occurred. The objection, however, which he (Dr. Ball) entertained to the principle put forth, whether propounded in the speech or contained, in the Amendment, remained the same. The alteration made by the Prime Minister no doubt met one serious objection made to the Amendment as it
  1300
  originally stood; but it did not meet the objection founded on principle. The words as they now stood would indicate to the mind of the Judge that there was no necessary connection between the numerical standard of value and the fact for which compensation was being given, so as to make these always indissolubly connected. He conceded that to the Government, and admitted that the Amendment in its present shape was a decided improvement. But his main objection to the proposal remained; and if he had erred in his original interpretation, and in the course which he was now taking, he must say that he was fortified by the speech last night of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer; for, while the Prime Minister had plainly used the words "damages for eviction," and the Secretary for Ireland, not being a lawyer, had not used the precise phrase, but had used other words having precisely the same meaning, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who had practised at the Bar and was thoroughly acquainted with legal terms, stated in the plainest way that the Government did not give damages for eviction, and proceeded to state what it was that the Government proposed to give compensation for. [Mr. GLADSTONE: He said they were the same thing.] He (Dr. Ball) did not admit that they were the same thing, and consequently claimed the Chancellor of the Exchequer as agreeing with the views which he himself entertained. The words of the right hon. Gentleman were—
  "We have not, however, treated eviction as a wrong, nor have we given damages for eviction. We have given compensation—which is of course the same thing as damages, one being the Latin and the other the English form of the word—to any person for any loss he shall sustain in quitting his holding. But we have not imposed an arbitrary fine."
  Surely that statement was not consistent with other declarations of the Government, to the effect that what they were giving was not so much compensation for loss sustained, as a sort of fine to prevent capricious evictions—a penalty founded on the very fact of the termination of the tenure? It might be said that this was a subtle distinction; but the views of the Chancellor of the Exchequer all proceeded in the same subtle direction, and in his reasoning, from first to last,

  1301
  he particularly guarded against its being supposed that an act of eviction per se demanded a pecuniary fine. He contended that the words now used, making the loss sustained by quitting a subject of compensation, applied, as a matter of fact, to mere termination of occupancy. To that principle he could never give his assent. But his position was strengthened by what he had heard, namely—that a provision was to be introduced in connection with the 3rd clause, suggesting twenty years as primâ facie the period of their duration. That was an additional objection to bringing forward the Amendment now before the Committee. If the restraint on contract was to be temporary, what was required was to produce an immediate pecuniary result—to allow the tenants to remain for a period, to assist them to emigrate, or in some way or other to benefit their condition. If that was the motive, why not leave the words as they originally stood in the clause—namely, having regard to other than permanent improvements or the loss sustained by the tenant in quitting his holding. Leaving the words in that form the Government would not thus have been ostentatiously putting forward a new principle governing the relations of landlord and tenant. Even if the principle had been there all the time it would have been concealed, and its deleterious character neutralized by other ingredients. To borrow a classical allusion, the right hon. Gentleman might originally have had a sword in his hand against the landlords, but it was sheathed in myrtle. The barrister or Judge acting under the section, as it originally stood in regard to improvements and the ambiguous phraseology as to loss for evictions, would have given a pecuniary amount corresponding to the aggregate values of all these considerations, and the mind of the recipient of the money would not detect lurking in it the principle that was now brought forward so ostentatiously. It was not to be supposed that the Judge would have given less on the old words than on the new words. Whatever maximum the standard might be, it was shown that it was not intended to be inflexible even as connected with eviction or disturbance. This showed that the Judge would still have the opportunity of bringing all the considerations together to produce the result of pecu-
  1302
  niary benefit to the tenant. The same object of pecuniary benefit would have been attained without bringing forward in this manner the dangerous principle expressed as damages for eviction; and all this was done, not to assert a great political or economical principle, but for a temporary purpose, which another mode of producing the same pecuniary compensation would have equally effected. What useful object was attained in bringing forward this principle so ostentatiously, and stripped of every disguise? He maintained that it endangered the safety of the measure, and would excite feelings against it in "another place." By way of illustration, let him refer to what had occurred last year, when an abstract principle was put forward without any disguise. The Irish Church Bill was introduced with the Preamble containing this abstract proposition, that the surplus of the property should not be applied to the maintenance of religious worship or of ministers of religion. That declaration on the face of the Bill was utterly unnecessary for every purpose of legislative enactment; and what was its ultimate fate? That single abstract proposition occasioned conflict, even among Members of the right hon. Gentleman's own party in the House of Lords; and in the Preface to his Book lately published by Earl Russell, he selects that very passage for comment, and says of the majority of 78 who expunged that passage from the Bill, that by them and by their expunging this restriction on the application of the surplus a great treasure had been saved out of a shipwreck. What might be the effect again? The right hon. Gentleman persisted in forcing on the House this abstract Resolution, without qualification or mitigation, openly avowing a principle which was directly opposed to the Report of the Committee presided over by the Marquess of Clanricarde, on which Earl Grey, two Cabinet Ministers, and two ex-Chancellors sat. Yes, it would be found that the principle now put forward was neither more nor less than a declaration of hostility to a Report drawn up by Lord Kimberley, and unanimously signed by these great men. Its assertion in the Bill, undisguised and unqualified, was calculated to challenge a collision with the authors of that Report. He urged the Prime Minister to reconsider his determination to insist

  1303
  upon this Amendment, standing in this plain form, unsurrounded and unqualified by anything else, and to restore the words of the clause as they stood originally.
  MR. W. H. GREGORYsaid, they had often seen men employed in throwing dust into other people's eyes; but the right hon. and learned. Gentleman (Dr. Ball) had been engaged during the whole of his speech in throwing dust into his own eyes—a curious reversal of the ordinary process. On the occasion of the second reading of the present Bill the right hon. and learned Gentleman said he would support this particular clause under discussion if its intention was described as a scheme for the "payment for disturbance in an agricultural plan," but that he would have nothing to do with it if it was called "compensation for eviction." There was no difference between the two things except the difference in phrase; and, for his part, he maintained that if the clause was omitted they might as well throw Bill and Amendments into the fire. Now, what was the real objection to the clause? Did anyone think that the tenant ought not to have some compensation for his expatriation or the workhouse? The real meaning of the opposition to this clause, no matter how it might be disguised, or attempted to be disguised, was that hon. Members were afraid of anything like this principle being acknowledged, lest it might be quoted against them with regard to England, Scotland, and Wales. It was not tenderness for the Irish landlord, but tenderness for themselves. He had no fear of the kind, but would be one of the first to advocate such an application if the circumstances of England, Scotland, or Wales demanded it as imperatively as he conceived the circumstances of Ireland to do. It was asked what benefit this clause would confer upon the tenants, to which he would reply that not only would the tenants, when actually evicted, benefit by the clause, but its operation would have a tendency to put an end to the numerous forms of tyranny which bad landlords were enabled to practise under cover of a "notice to quit." He knew instances in which, under a threat of a notice to quit, tenants were obliged to make their purchases in the shops of their landlord, to cut his corn, to dig his turf
  1304
  and potatoes. The clause would put a stop to that kind of tyranny. That, in the first instance, the right hon. and learned Gentleman knew the meaning of the clause perfectly well was clear from what he said as to his accepting the principle of compensation for the "disturbance of an agricultural plan." Surely no one could imagine that any agricultural plan of any duration could be carried out on a small plot from which a peasant managed to raise a few potatoes. The larger farmer might have a plan. To be logical, therefore, the right hon. Gentleman would on eviction give compensation to the large farmer who might not require it, because he might have a plan; but he would deny it to the poor man of a few acres, to whom it would be a matter of life and death, because he could have no plan. Surely such an argument was too subtle in the first place, and too absurd in its consequences to be accepted by the House. He (Mr. Gregory) regarded this clause as the cardinal and pivot-point of the Bill, and hoped the Committee would pass it in its integrity.
  MR. CORRANCEsaid, the alteration which the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury had proposed in the clause would render it unnecessary for him to move an Amendment of which he had given notice. He must say, however, that he should have preferred to have seen the word "any" in the Amendment, before the word "loss," in preference to the word "the," as that would have given the Court a more extended power in calculating the amount of compensation to be awarded. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would be able to accept and act upon this suggestion.
  MR. DELAHUNTYbelieved that the question of compensation for disturbance of occupying tenants-at-will to be the vital part of the measure. Without that the Bill would be worthless, and if it did not embrace that clause it ought to be withdrawn. As representing a very important constituency, and as a practical man, he begged to say that, unless hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House combined to make the Bill worthy of a concession to Ireland, they would only aggravate the evils under which that country was now suffering. No man had had more experience with respect to the tenantry of Ireland than

  1305
  himself, because he had been intrusted with the management of 700 or 800 holdings in the counties of Tipperary, Waterford, Kilkenny, Queen's County, Cork, and Wexford. In all his experience of the management of property he had always had this feeling—that whenever he could get a fair rent for the land he had to let, he would be perfectly satisfied to give a tenant the longest term of holding he could, because the securing of such a tenant was an inducement to improvement. That was the way in which every landlord should act. Ireland, to be prosperous, must be governed with equal laws as compared with England in other respects than as far as the land only was concerned. As matters now stood the Irish people had only the land to depend upon, and the question which the Committee were discussing was not whether they should try to bring back trade and manufactures to that country, but to regulate the laws under which there was a scramble for the land. Unless, however, England should make up her mind to deal with Ireland in a different spirit, the day would come when Ireland would be separated from this country altogether. [Ironical cheers.] He told them that would be so, and he gave them fair warning. He wanted a lasting and real Union, instead of a false and hollow one. The population of Ireland at the time of the Union was, according to its area, almost as much as the population of England; for the area of England, as compared with Ireland, was as twenty to twelve, while the population of Ireland, compared with that of England, was as eleven to twenty. Now, however, the population of Ireland, under the same comparison, was only as five to twenty-two, in consequence of the persistent misgovernment to which she had been subjected, and to the attempts which had been made to destroy her manufactures and her prosperity, leaving her only her miserable land; and surely it could not be a blessed Union which had brought about such a result. The farmers of Ireland did not exceed in number the shoemakers and bootmakers of that country, and they were only about twice as many as the washerwomen. Depend upon it, England must find out some other way of governing Ireland than furnishing her continually with Coercion Bills. In making these remarks,
  1306
  it must not be supposed that he did not give every hon. Member in that House credit for being anxious to serve Ireland. No one, he knew, was more anxious to serve her than the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman had taken the right course for displacing the grievances of which Ireland complained; but if he disposed of the land this year, he would have to deal with the manufacturing question next Session, and there ought, therefore, to be no impediment thrown in the way of his carrying this measure through Parliament. He (Mr. Delahunty) should be glad to see the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli) imitating the example of the Prime Minister in endeavouring to promote the prosperity of Ireland; if he did so, the right hon. Gentleman might depend that he would have his knees at his back as well as those of the hon. Member for Wicklow (Mr. Fitzwilliam Dick). He was sorry, however, to find that the right hon. Gentleman, in a speech which he made at Aylesbury, in 1868, had spoken of the famine as having been a great blessing to Ireland. ["No, no!"] At all events, the right hon. Gentleman was reported to have said so. And as the right hon. Gentleman was present, he could contradict the statement if he chose. In the course of that speech, which was addressed to the right hon. Gentleman's constituents at Aylesbury, he declared that "Ireland contained more inhabitants per square mile than any other country in Europe," which was not true, for England contained more in proportion. The right hon. Gentleman went on to say that the Irish had been reduced to a condition in which they were without shelter, almost without food, and almost without clothing; but that since the famine they had had better shelter, more food, and better raiment. Some one in the crowd then called out—"Three cheers for the famine!" to which the right hon. Gentleman replied—"You have given three cheers before, this for things that have not done so much good as the famine." If that was not saying that the famine was the best thing for Ireland—why, nabocklish !He wished to impress upon the House that they could rule Ireland with a silken thread if they chose; but no effort of coercion or injustice would

  1307
  prevent that country from breaking her bonds whenever she could, and the day would not be far distant when she would do so if she was not treated as an integral portion of this country, like Yorkshire. If the people of Ireland had lost their platforms for labour, and if the population of that country had been brought down to 8,000,000 less than it should be, it was the fault of this country, and this country ought to see what it could do to give employment, and peace, and prosperity to the Irish people.
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE: Having listened with great pleasure to the speech of my hon. Friend the junior Member for the city of Waterford (Mr. Osborne), I should have been sorry to have stood in the way of the hon. Gentleman the senior Member for that city (Mr. Delahunty), who has expressed to the House many sound and excellent sentiments, especially in reference to this Bill. But I rise now for the purpose of noticing what has fallen from my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball), and I should be sorry not to express my sense of the extremely fair and candid way with which he has dealt with former expressions on the subject of this Bill which have fallen from my right hon. Friend at the head of the Government and myself. What he has said has been marked with great candour, and I think it very much clears the issue between us today, because it gets rid of the imputation of inconsistency, or change of tactics on the part of the Government, which, as has been now fully admitted, is entirely without foundation. My right hon. and learned Friend admits that the Government have from the first, in framing this clause, attempted to provide compensation for loss of occupation on the part of the Irish tenant, independent of the question of improvements; whether my right hon. and learned Friend chooses to call it payment for the loss of occupation, or damages for eviction, or any other equivalent phrase, is to me an entirely indifferent matter. If my right hon. and learned Friend can agree with the Chancellor of the Exchequer on that subject I shall be quite content. The Chancellor of the Exchequer's criticisms were nothing but verbal, and he entirely agrees with his Colleagues, as, indeed, he showed last
  1308
  night in the proposals made by the Cabinet to the House. My right hon. and learned Friend noticed a phrase which fell from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, as though it were inconsistent with our interpetation of this clause, when he said that the clause imposed no arbitrary fine on an evicting landlord. But, surely, that means that there is no one absolute sum laid down by this clause which under all circumstances would impose a fine upon the landlord and represent the payment to the tenant. The Chancellor of the Exchequer meant that that amount would be left to the discretion of the Court, which would judge according to all the circumstances of the case under this clause and under the Equities Clause, which will be found in another portion of the Bill. The question, however, between my right hon. and learned Friend and ourselves is this—whether or not this Bill should contain, over and above the compensation for improvements, any compensation for the loss of occupation or damages upon eviction; and my only quarrel with my right hon. and learned Friend would be that he did not from the first take that decided line against the principle of compensation for the loss of occupation that he has now taken up. But our position is now, by universal consent, clear and distinct. We contend now, as in reality we have always done, that under the circumstances—the exceptional and dangerous circumstances—of Ireland, a mere system of compensation for improvements would not meet the necessities of the case; that when we have to deal with a bad and false system, which has to a great degree checked and prevented the improvements of the tenantry of Ireland, such a mere provision of compensation for improvements would be insufficient, and that the best and fairest mode of getting that security for the Irish tenant, which is the great object of the Government, is the proposal contained in the Bill. But my right hon. and learned Friend finds fault—and I think upon very strange grounds—with the Amendment upon the clause now offered on the part of the Government. He objects to the proposed form of the clause because, somehow or other, it makes the principle of compensation for the loss of occupation more distinct and apparent than it was before. But we are not ashamed of that principle;

  1309
  we have never concealed it, and we do not wish to conceal it. We did include under the scale, along with the question of damages for eviction, the consideration of certain improvements, not the most important and prominent, which were always outside the scale, but minor improvements which were intended to be within it. Further consideration has shown us that the clause, as originally drawn, was in this particular a mistake; we have come to a very distinct conviction that a scale with a maximum was totally unfit to be applied to the question of the value of improvements, and we have preferred to treat that separately, and to leave the court to its discretion under the scale with respect to damages for loss of occupation, dealing with each case according to its own circumstances. My right hon. and learned Friend regrets that that principle is not now to be wrapped up, as he says it was, in the original clause. He says we have now an undisguised compensation for the loss of occupation. Well, we did not know that it was disguised before—at all events, it was disguised to very few eyes indeed; but if it be now more clear and open, I can only congratulate ourselves the Committee upon the fact, because that was our intention at starting. Availing himself of a graceful classical allusion, my right hon. and learned Friend said that at first the sword was shrouded with myrtle, whereas now it was bare. I will only say that, if this clause is a sword, I prefer that it should be bare and open to the eyes of the world. But, for my own part, I do not call it a sword; I regard it rather as a shield on the part of the tenant—a defensive weapon, which cannot be used for attack; and viewing it, therefore, as the best protection for the tenant-farmer of Ireland which, under the circumstances of the country, can be safely placed in his hands, I confidently recommend the clause in its present form to the Committee, and I trust the Committee will now come to a division upon it. There is no principle involved in the question we now have to decide, which was not discussed and decided last night; and, under those circumstances, I think the Committee will agree with me that it will be far better, for the progress of business, to come at once to a decision upon it.
  MR. HENLEY: I cannot enter into
  1310
  the wish which has just been expressed by the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Chichester Fortescue), that this discussion should now close. I must be allowed to say that I think we all of us have great reason to complain of the difficulty which the Government have placed us in. The right hon. Gentleman himself last night told us that this was a novel principle; the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer), who sat behind him, said it was something more than novel so far as the retrospective part of it went. But let that pass. It was argued that this Bill was to be a means of applying a penalty for arbitrary or capricious eviction. The Government, in the first instance, brought up a clause with this principle, whatever it may be, mixed up with improvements. I can see the difficulty, and. I can well understand why that was so brought up. They will not admit a right of occupancy—they shrink from that; they have not the courage and the manfulness to do that openly, and they therefore endeavour to do it by a sidewind. They attempted, in the first instance, to cover it by the word "improvements;" and now, when they find that it is necessary to conciliate certain parties who will not be satisfied with that, they strike out improvements, and we are left to arrive as we can, or, what is much nearer to the truth, to leave it to litigant parties in Ireland to find out by expensive litigation what it is that they are to be compensated for. That is the position in which we are about to leave the people of Ireland. No two persons who have spoken in this debate are at all agreed as to what the "loss" will consist of. The hon. and learned Gentleman who spoke last night said it was altogether illusory, while the Secretary for Ireland seems now to find fault because a right hon. and learned Gentleman on this side (Dr. Ball) has not been able to define it. I should like to know what the loss is if it is not the right of occupation, unless, indeed, it is loss on account of improvements or some such matter. The Government say it is to be a penalty for capricious and wrongful eviction; but I think they are bound to lay down some guide for the courts of law in Ireland as to what is to be called caprice and what is to be called wrongful eviction. It is very easy to use tall talk, and to speak of capricious and

  1311
  wrongful eviction; but when you come into a court of law, and have a money value put upon it, it is not so easy then to arrive at exactly what it means, and the courts of law in Ireland have had no help from any debates in this House. But is this the only difficulty in which we have been placed? We first had a clause with this novel principle, as it has been called, excluding greater improvements, but including everything short of building and reclamation, and a certain money value was attached to that by the Government. A great deal has been said about the loss sustained by Irish tenants and the wonderful improvements they have made. I should very much like to know, Sir, how it is that after the improvements have been cut out of the clause the compensation to be given to the tenant is very much higher. How is it that he is to receive more for not having effected improvements than for having effected them? That, Sir, I humbly confess, appears to me to be a very strange procedure. It is introducing a very novel principle, and I say that, before making such a proposal, the Government ought thoroughly to have made up its mind what it really intended to do. Instead of doing that, however, it has been patching up the clause bit by bit, until we do not exactly know where we are standing in the matter. There is no hon. Member who can give a definite opinion as to the meaning of it. We are told that the compensation is to be for capricious evictions. But what, let me ask, is capricious evictions? If such a scheme is carried out, I can foresee nothing but endless litigation and confusion among tenants. One speaker, who has recently addressed us, has told us that Government is only getting into the path of Irish improvements, and has hinted that this Bill is but the forerunner of many other so-called improvements. I wish the Bill had been more definite, so that it could have been understood; but I cannot foresee, and no one whom I have asked can tell me, what will be the effect of any one of these clauses.
  SIR GEORGE COLTHURST,differing from several landlords on his own (the Liberal) side of the House, desired to express his opinions before the Committee divided. He supported the second reading of the Bill because, after perusing it and hearing the statement of
  1312
  the Prime Minister, he felt satisfied that, if it were not carried through the House in all its integrity, it would yet be passed in the spirit in which it had been conceived and introduced. But after agreeing to the second reading he was surprised to find on the Paper two Government Amendments, which altered the whole complexion of the Bill. One of these gave compensation for occupancy separately from compensation for improvement; and the other proposed the omission of the 16th clause, which was more or less a been to landlords, for it empowered them to give a thirty-one years' lease, subject to the approval of a court, giving the tenant subsequent power to make a claim for permanent building and improvement of the land. The latter was a vague term, and was not altogether a boon; but still he should have been glad if the clause had been left, and he should have, by all means, to contract himself under the provisions of the Bill. By striking out the 16th clause, the Government had taken away almost every privilege which a landlord possessed under the Bill, and by the alteration of the 3rd clause it was sought to impose pains and penalties upon him for doing what he liked with his own. It was a very strange fact; but before the Amendments of the Chief Secretary for Ireland were upon the Paper, he saw in the Dublin Freeman's Journal a statement from a correspondent in London that the Amendment now before the Committee was to be moved by the hon. Member for Kilkenny (Sir John Gray), and that the Government Amendment to the 16th clause was to be moved by the hon. Member for the King's County. That appeared rather suspicious. His (Sir George Colthurst's) opinion was that Government would have adopted the better course had they allowed the Amendments to be moved by those who first put them upon the Paper. He could not support the clause even as amended by the Government. He believed the Government were attempting a grievous wrong upon the Irish landlords. He trusted that while the Bill was in Committee the Government would not adopt any other Amendments which might be placed upon the Paper by those who called themselves "the Eleven of Ireland." He trusted that the innings of those gentlemen would be a short one. If the Government pursued the

  1313
  course they had embarked upon—if they adopted Amendments which interfered with the rights of property, their Bill, instead of giving stability to the Empire, would only bring ruin and disaster.
  COLONEL BARTTELOTsaid, that as the provision now under discussion was the most important in the Bill, he thought the Committee had a right to expect from the Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary for Ireland a clear and distinct statement of the reasons which had induced them to adopt the principle that simple occupancy was entitled to compensation. This movement on the part of the Government, according to one view of the case, meant that evictions were so often resorted to by the landlords that it was absolutely necessary to afford security to the tenants. Although the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. W. H. Gregory) had said that, upon occasions of this sort, Englishmen only endeavoured to throw dust in the eyes of Irishmen, he, as an English representative, stood up for what he believed to be right and just on behalf of the Irish landlord as well as the tenant. He therefore demanded from the head of the Government what his intentions were in introducing the clause under debate? With regard to the argument based upon evictions, it was a somewhat remarkable fact that the Report of the Poor Law Commissioners in Ireland declared that evictions were much fewer than they used to be, and that in most parts of the country they had entirely disappeared. From another authentic document it appeared that the number of evictions in all Ireland was very small, being one in 1,200 holdings in Ulster, one in 4,269 holdings in Munster, one in 3,245 holdings in Leinster, and one in 2,694 holdings in Connaught. That being the case, he should like to know whether the argument of evictions was a sufficient argument for having recourse to such an extreme Amendment? Let them put it in any way they pleased, it was an interference with the rights of property. Unless such a procedure could be justified upon some stronger ground than had yet been mentioned, he maintained that the Committee would be doing a grievous wrong in sanctioning it, and all who failed to oppose it would be guilty of a dereliction of duty. It was this very principle of interference with the rights of property, which he
  1314
  held that the Bill contained, that had prevented him voting for its second reading; and that was the reason which made him object to this clause. The right hon. Member for the University of Oxford (Mr. G. Hardy) had already quoted part of a speech of the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon the subject, and in another passage in that speech the right hon. Gentleman said—
  "I have sat on several Committees of this House to investigate this question, of the land in Ireland, and it has never been my fate to hear a single case of grievance or ill-treatment of a tenant alleged, with dates and circumstances, so that it could be verified. I sat on a Committee with the noble Lord the Chief Secretary for Ireland; he will recollect we heard many witnesses against the landlords, but there was not one fact adduced to bring the charges home."—[3 Hansard, cxc. 1488.]
  That was the language which had been made use of in that House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and he therefore called upon the head of the Government to give them his reasons for adopting the extreme proposal embodied in the Amendment. He had said that there were not many evictions in Ireland; but he would go a step further, and declare that what evictions had occurred upon the small holdings had proved beneficial rather than otherwise to Ireland. He himself knew of an estate which had no less than 5,500 tenants in the year 1837, but which number was reduced to 1,500 at the present day. That was certainty a large decrease, but no hardship had been inflicted. All the tenants were compensated: their passage paid to other places, should they have wished to emigrate, or comfortable cottages provided for them as labourers on the estate. This diminution, instead of being detrimental, had proved otherwise. He had no hesitation in declaring that the estate, with its reduced number of tenants, was in a far better condition, and doing far more for the good of Ireland, than it was when it had the larger number of miserable tenants or squatters living upon it. But what were the Government going to do by their clause? They were going to enable men who had money to evict their small tenants for a certain consideration, and thus get rid of them. He did not mean to say that even that would do any harm to Ireland; but let the Government look the position in the face, and do not let them turn round afterwards and say—"It is not what

  1315
  we intended." There was a party in Ireland—he might as well name them, they were the priests—whose business, duty, and wish it was to keep up the small impoverished holdings, because they made money out of the miserable people. It was not, however, for the benefit of Ireland that these small holdings should be perpetuated. A more miserable state of affairs could scarcely be imagined than to see a number of these small squatters taking possession of the land; and if a penalty hung over the landlords for dispossessing them, those that could not afford it must allow them to continue in the impoverished and wretched condition they had been in for generations—they would go on multiplying and subdividing, and they would impede the progress of the country. Only those who had had practical experience of Ireland could really tell how undesirable such a condition of things was. He himself had been in Ireland during the famine of 1846–7. At that time crime was very rife, but it was stamped out with an iron heel, Government at that time being determined to show the Irish people that they would be just as well as merciful; and in consequence of the executions and other punishments which then took place, Ireland had remained tranquil for twenty years afterwards, and had increased in wealth and social and political influence. ["Oh, oh!"] He did not forget what had happened recently; but it was not necessary for his purpose that he should now advert to it. He held, however, that if they did what was just and right to tenant and landlord alike that they would not have to deplore such occurrences. The men who honestly, manfully, and courageously did their duty were not the men who were shot. Those who were murdered in this way were rather the men who could not make up their mind to pursue a straightforward and bold course—to do their duty in fact. He hoped the Committee would not adopt the Amendment, for he did not believe it would do what the Government anticipated, but would work irreparable mischief.
  MR. SAUNDERSONsaid, the question deeply affected him as an Irish Member, and in its success or failure his future prosperity was involved. He would like to ask the Committee what course the Government ought to pursue
  1316
  in order successfully to legislate for Ireland in her present condition. All men were agreed that there was one part of Ireland where life and property were both sacred; and all men were further agreed that there was a necessity of something being done to put an end to the unhappy state of affairs which prevailed in the other parts of Ireland. This being so, it was clearly the course of the Government to strive to satisfy that part of the country which remained discontented, and this could only be done by dealing with the land. Hon. Gentlemen from the North of Ireland were aware that what was called a novel principle in the Bill was old in Ulster; and though the right hon. and learned Member for Dublin University (Dr. Ball) had made the sudden discovery that a new principle had started into being in the Bill, for his own part he had always been under the impression that a provision for the security of tenure was in the measure, and he believed that if that principle were taken out of the Bill it would be of no value to the Irish people. The Government had only three courses to pursue in order to satisfy the claim made by the Irish people for security of tenure. One course was to establish perpetuity of tenure; but he was opposed to that, because it would place the Irish landlord only in the position of the recipient of a rent-charge. The next course was to establish the Ulster custom throughout Ireland; but he thought it would have been most fatal to spread the Ulster custom all over the land. Such a proceeding would cause dissatisfaction to those who did not happen at the present moment to be tenants, and would give an unwarrantable been to all those tenants who lived in Ireland under the old customs. Then there remained the course which the Government had pursued of making it an expensive amusement to evict for any other reason but non-payment of rent. As regarded the Bill generally, he did not mean to say that it was a logical Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer did not consider it a very logical measure. He (Mr. Saunderson) had listened with great commiseration to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman on the previous evening. That speech reminded him of what he had often seen in the hunting field. He had frequently seen a well-bred, plucky horse, with too much load on its back,

  1317
  galloping over deep, sticky ground till it was brought suddenly up, and remained dismally wagging its tail to notify that it had had enough of it. That was the position in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to be. He had heard it objected that there was no certainty that the propositions of the Government would insure peace and prosperity to Ireland. Without pretending to be a prophet he might say that, in his belief, the measure would, at any rate, give satisfaction to one class in Ireland; though it would not give satisfaction to the Cork Farmers' Club, it would satisfy the great majority of the reasonable tenants of Ireland. He knew something about these Farmers' Clubs, and could state that they were got up by political demagogues for their own ends. Ireland was divided into two classes—the reasonable Irishmen and the unreasonable Irishmen; and both those classes were represented from time to time within the walls of that House. The reasonable Irishmen would receive the present measure in the spirit in which it was offered. They would accept it as an honest effort on the part of the House of Commons to do justice to Ireland in answer to reasonable demands. The unreasonable Irishmen, on the other hand, were men to whom Providence had not given that mental hook on which it was possible for an Englishman to hang a just inference. The Members of the Legislature would not be able to satisfy them, for they legislated against them and not for them, and by the help of Providence they would put their heel on them. In conclusion, he expressed a hope that the proposal of the Government would be accepted by the Committee.
  MR. GLADSTONE: If my right hon. Friend (Mr. C. Fortescue) thought that any impatience was manifested for the termination of the debate, that impatience was owing to the sentiment that more light would be thrown on the nature of our proceedings, and that more practical discussion is likely to arise on the point at which we shall next arrive than on the point we are now engaged in debating; because, when we come to consider the measure of compensation to be given for eviction, we shall arrive at a stage next to that which we virtually achieved last night. The right hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Henley) has put the pointed question to me, whether I will
  1318
  not explain to the Committee what we mean by loss to the tenant. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Dr. Ball) has also referred to the subject, and argued it with a candour and fairness to which we are far from being unused in this House. Sir, I thought when I was listening to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that our debate was more verbal than substantial. The right hon. and learned Gentleman says he is willing to recognize losses attendant on eviction; but not to recognize the principle of placing a fine upon eviction itself. He says we have no right to look upon eviction alone, but in connection with a loss of a positive kind. I am not aware that in the proposition there is anything to which I demur. It is not the abstract act of eviction that we wish to put down. We cannot adopt the doctrine of the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Colonel Barttelot). It was only a secondary point in his argument that facilities should be given for hanging. The real point of his speech was, that facilities should be given for eviction, and that eviction was the measure on which the happiness of Ireland was to be wrought out. The hon. and gallant Gentleman referred to an instance which had occurred on an estate well known to him, where 5,500 miserable tenants had been reduced to 1,500, and where happiness now reigned over the smiling scene. I do not pretend to be able to reconcile our arguments or our proposals with the views of these Gentlemen, and I avow at once that they are wide as the poles asunder. We object entirely to these forced consolidations of estates, and to the carrying out of a system in disregard of the fact that there is a population upon the land, and that the rights of that population to a subsistence, where they are willing to discharge their duties in labouring for it, ought to have an equitable consideration. The loss is the point we have endeavoured to explain. I cannot explain it better than it was explained by the hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Kavanagh). What is the greatest of all loss to a man? To lose his improvements is something, to lose his future profits is something; but what is the greatest loss to a man? To lose his daily bread—to lose his means of livelihood. That is the loss in respect of which he ought to be protected. If,

  1319
  having the means of livelihood, on being put out of his holding he finds himself in a country where, under his present circumstances, he cannot obtain other means of livelihood; if, as the hon. Member for Carlow says, his only alternative is emigration or the workhouse, I say he has suffered the severest loss a man can sustain—a loss which we in England have a difficulty in considering, because, happily, we live in a state of things which presents no real analogy to that which prevails in Ireland. When we think of loss it may be loss of profit—but in Ireland it is the loss of livelihood—the right to live. I shall only take two points, because I do not wish to detain the Committee beyond the absolute duty imposed upon me by previous speeches. It has been said that we cannot take cognizance of loss beyond mere charitable loss, and that lies at the root of much objection to these cardinal provisions. Now, that is not the law of this country. In 8 & 9 Vic.c. 18—a sufficiently well-known Act providing compensation in case of railways—in the 121st section we find provisions which deal with tenancies where there is no greater interest than a tenancy of a year, or from year to year—and that is a description of tenancies which I hope hon. Gentlemen will keep in view, because that is the main and cardinal class of tenancies with which, in this section, we have to deal. What, then, is the provision of that Act? It is this—
  "If a person be required to give up possession of any lands so occupied by him before the expiration of his term or interest therein, he shall be entitled to compensation for the value of his unexpired term or interest in the land."
  That is the something I have described as being of a merchantable character. That all will admit to be a loss. But you stop there, and you cannot understand a loss beyond that; and, happily, in England it does notfrequently happen. But the law made provision for loss beyond that. Because the tenant is not only to receive compensation for the value of his unexpired term or interest in the land, and any just allowance which may be made by the incoming tenant, but he is also to receive compensation for any loss or injury he may sustain. So that even the English law has recognized this principle of loss over and above the merchantable loss. [Mr. GATHORNE HARDY: To what Act do you
  1320
  refer?] That is the Land Clauses Consolidation Act of 1845. But I hold in my hand—for I wish to close as soon as I can the discussion on the subject of losses—and I am content to sum up the whole argument of the Government in a passage I will read from a speech spoken by Lord Russell twenty five years ago. It was spoken before those 300,000 evictions that have marked the annals of Ireland since the famine—which 300,000 evictions unfortunately, but feebly, represent the aggregate of suffering that has been caused by the power and threat of eviction if it was not carried to extremity. This is the passage I will read to the House, and I adhere to every word of its impressive language. The speech was delivered in this House on the 15th of June, 1846. Lord Russell, on that occasion, said—
  "However ignorant many of us may be of the state of Ireland, we have here the best evidence that can be procured, the evidence of persons best acquainted with that country—of magistrates for many years, of farmers, of those who have been employed by the Crown—and all tell you that the possession of land is that which makes the difference"—What difference? not between wealth and poverty. No, but the difference—"between existing and starving amongst the peasantry, and that therefore ejections out of their holdings are the cause of violence and crime in Ireland. In fact, it is no other than the cause which the great master of human nature describes, when he makes a tempter suggest it as a reason to violate the law—
  "'Famine is in thy cheeks,
  Need and oppression starveth in thine eyes,
  Upon thy back hangs ragged misery.
  The world is not thy friend nor the world's law;
  The world affords no law to make thee rich:
  Then be not poor, but break it.'"
  [3 Hansard,]xxxvii. 507–8.]
  That, Sir, is a too true description—that is, as to the state of the law which we ask you to put an end to.
  MR. GATHORNE HARDY: Sir, I did not intend to say one word in the course of this debate, having occupied the attention of the Committee for some time last evening. But the language which has just been used by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government seems to me so likely to mislead not only those in possession of land, but those not in possession of land, and others also in distress, not only in Ireland, but in this country, that I venture to say a few words in reply to what has fallen from the right hon. Gentleman. I admit, with the right hon. Gentleman, the right to life subsistence in the coun-

  1321
  try; but the provision is fixed not on the landlord as regards his tenants, nor upon the master as regards his servants, but upon the State itself; it has been for the first time laid down by the right hon. Gentleman that when a landlord removes his tenant from the place he has occupied for any cause but non-payment of rent, if that man shall fall into difficulties, or circumstances in which he cannot readily obtain his daily bread, an obligation is laid on his landlord to provide that daily bread, to place him in a position little less satisfactory than that he occupied before; that he is to provide him with subsistence, which is the duty of the State if he is destitute; and so a burden is laid upon the landlord such as was never laid on him before. There are between 500,000 and 600,000 peasants in Ireland working for their daily bread. They are at times working for farmers who are unable to maintain them during the whole course of a year. Are they to be told in the solemn and dangerous language of the right hon. Gentleman that by those who disturb them in their occupations, when not able to provide them with labour as the means of earning their daily bread, that payment is to be made to them, or that otherwise they are guilty of some great moral offence. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I never used the word.] I am arguing on the language of the right hon. Gentleman. My reason for rising was that the language of the right hon. Gentleman extends far beyond the measure before the House. It is language like that we have complained of in former instances, which goes forth to the country and raises expectations which are wild, vague, and visionary; and which tells certain classes that it is not to themselves that they are to look, but that, in their trouble, they are to look to the State for legislation to place them in a position to which they have no title—a title which has never been recognized by any State on the face of the earth. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the Lands Clauses Consolidation Act, and he tells us when a man is dispossessed of his property—not by his landlord, but by a third party coming in to interfere between him and the landlord—that a liberal compensation is to be given. Various circumstances are to be taken into consideration. Why was that clause put in that forcible way into the Lands
  1322
  Clauses Consolidation Act? Because it contemplates an interruption, not by the landlord but for the benefit of the State; and that a man should not in such cases be removed without the most liberal and ample compensation. But in what respect does that apply to the case now before the Committee? I quite admit that the landlords of Ireland—who I believe have, as a whole, well discharged their duty—when they have found that it would be beneficial to the interests of property and for the country, have removed some of their tenants; but I believe it has been generally for the benefit of the tenant as well as the landlord. I disagree with the right hon. Gentleman when he says that a crowded population should dwell upon land where they cannot obtain sufficient employment to supply their wants. It is far better that they should be removed to a country where there is room for exertion, than that they should remain to depress others to the same condition as themselves. I did not, as I have said, intend to take part in this debate; but I must once more solemnly protest against the language used by the right hon. Gentleman. I trust it will not have the effect that I should anticipate from it; I trust that in the East-end of London it will not be supposed that those who may be deprived of their daily bread have a right to entertain angry and vindictive feelings against the masters who have been obliged to discharge them. I trust that the peasantry of Ireland will not suppose that they were dealt with unfairly by this Bill, because no provision is made in it for their perpetual employment—a conclusion to which the language of the right hon. Gentleman undoubtedly would lead. I trust that he himself will speak with greater moderation; and that in his desire to pass a Bill which he has much at heart, believing it to be for the welfare of Ireland, he will not raise expectations which cannot by possibility be satisfied, and which, once made, cannot, without great difficulty and greater danger, be disappointed.
  MR. MOOREsaid, he would not detain the Committee long; but as the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Colonel Barttelot) had declared that he had never heard of a single case of eviction in Ireland well authenticated, and quoted the Chancellor of the Exchequer in favour of his opinion, he wished to

  1323
  refer him to some Papers connected with the relief of distress in Ireland in 1848. He would cite one case, which was alluded to by Sir Robert Peel in the House of Commons, as illustrating the character of the evictions which took place at that time. Sir Robert Peel said—
  "I shall read to the House what is the Report of a military man on the case—a person employed by Government, and in whose statements apparently the utmost confidence may be placed; and I doubt whether in any country calling itself civilized, a case of more grievous injustice ever occurred. Major M'Kie, in his Report to the Poor Law Commissioners, stated, that—'It would appear from the evidence recorded, that the forcible ejectments were illegal; that previous notices had not been served; and that the ejectments were perpetrated under circumstances of great cruelty. The time chosen was for the greater part nightfall on the eve of the new year. The occupiers were forced out of their houses with their helpless children, and left exposed to the cold on a bleak western shore in a stormy winter's night; that some of the children were sick; that the parents implored that they might not be exposed, and their houses left till the morning; that their prayers for mercy were vain; and that many of them have since died. I have visited the ruins of these huts (not at any great distance from Mr. Blake's residence); I found that many of these unfortunate people were still living within the ruins of those huts, endeavouring to shelter themselves under a few sticks and sods, all in the most wretched state of destitution; many were so weak that they could scarcely stand when giving their evidence. The site of these ruins is a rocky wild spot, fit for nothing but a sheepwalk.'"—[3 Hansard,xcvii. 1009.]
  Sir Robert Peel, in the course of the debate which ensued, said that the obligations of the House were due to the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Scrope) for not allowing a ponderous volume to consign these facts to oblivion, and for having invited the House to express its opinion upon them. Thousands of similar cases had occurred in Ireland; he, therefore, hoped they should never hear it suggested again that no well-established cases of eviction had occurred in Ireland.
  SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, that a speech by Earl Russell on the Crime and Outrage Bill in 1846 having been quoted by the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, it was only fair that hon. Gentlemen opposite should listen to the opinions of another Member of great distinction on the Liberal side of the House. This right hon. Gentleman said—
  "We maintain a large army in Ireland, and an armed police, which is an army in everything but in name, and yet we have in that country a condition of things not to be matched in any other
  1324
  civilized country on the face of the earth, and which is alike disgraceful to Ireland and to us. The great cause of Ireland's calamities is, that Ireland is idle. I believe it would be found, on inquiry, that the population of Ireland, as compared with that of England, do not work more than two days per week. Wherever a people are not industrious and are not employed, there is the greatest danger of crime and outrage. Ireland is idle, and therefore she starves; Ireland starves, and therefore she rebels."—[3 Hansard,xcv. 984–5.]
  He would give a further quotation from that authority. [Cries of "Name," and "Oh, oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen opposite did not appear to like the quotation, and the right hon. Gentleman had actually twitted those upon the Benches opposite to him with talking upon issues different from that which was before the Committee, and with thereby delaying the passing of this measure. But while the senior Member for Waterford (Mr. Delahunty) was indulging in the rhapsody to which the Committee had listened, not referring to a single clause or word in the Bill, there was not a Member on that side of the House who had ventured to stop him; and, therefore, the complaint of the Prime Minister ought to have been addressed to his own supporters. The same right hon. Gentleman, whose remarks he had already quoted, went on to say—
  "I do not believe that the Bill for regulating the relations of landlord and tenant, as recommended by the hon. Member for the county of Limerick, will restore prosperity to Ireland. Such a measure may be passed with great advantage; but if it be intended by a Bill with this title to vest the ownership of the land in the present occupiers, I believe this House will never pass it; and if it did it would prove most fatal to the best interests of the country."—[Ibid.985–6.]
  He had been asked who was the speaker. It was the right hon. Gentleman who now filled the office of President of the Board of Trade; and he (Sir George Jenkinson) very much regretted that he was not present to justify and support the words then spoken by him. After the speech of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, there was no doubt that every Irish landlord would consider that, unless he gave a tenant a thirty-one years' lease, he must undertake to provide for him for the rest of his life.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGsaid, opinions had been attributed to him during the debate which he had never expressed.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am sorry it should be necessary for me again to rise

  1325
  after the unnecessary statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford. I should be prepared, if this were the place and the time, to question the wisdom of that statement; but the right hon. Gentleman has spoken of my observations in relation to other classes, as to whom I had not said a single word. What fell from me was entirely confined to the case of occupiers of land, and not one single syllable of that which the right hon. Gentleman objected to was my own; it was the language used by Earl Russell in the debate of June 15, 1846, and that language was used in the presence of some who now sit here. The person who followed Earl Russell in that debate, and who played the same part which the right hon. Gentleman plays today, seems to have taken a very different view of that language from what was taken by the right hon. Gentleman when he followed me just now, drawn forth by the urgency of the case. The person who followed Earl Russell on that occasion was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire (Mr. Disraeli); and, instead of finding all that dangerous and explosive matter in the speech which I have quoted verbum verbo, his only reference that I can find to the general character of the speech is that contained in these words—
  "Sir, the noble Lord has treated this subject with an eloquence habitual to him when he touches on the subject of Ireland—the case now before us."—[3 Hansard, lxxxvii. 517.]
  That was the comment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Buckinghamshire; the comment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Oxford we have all heard and perfectly recollect.
  MR. GATHORNE HARDY: I am in the recollection of the Committee when I say that I never alluded to the speech of Lord Russell at all. I never made a comment upon what was quoted by the right hon. Gentleman. What I commented upon was his own statement, that a landlord in disturbing a tenant in his holding in Ireland was preventing the tenant from obtaining his daily bread; and that he was thus responsible for the disturbance, and was the person who ought to pay for it. The language quoted by the right hon. Gentleman from Earl Russell, as to which I said nothing, was of a perfectly general character, and
  1326
  referred to the wrongs and miseries of Ireland; but the language of the right hon. Gentleman to which I referred applied not only to the case of "occupation," but to all cases in which one person was supposed to deprive another of his daily bread.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I must say that I am entirely at a loss to know what word or syllable fell from me in the course of my statement to which the right hon. Gentleman can refer. I must accept his assurance, however, as to the way in which he understood me, and I beg to assure him, on the other hand, that I never dreamt he had referred to anything I myself said—though I say again that I adopted the words of Earl Russell, to which reference has been made. My argument was entirely to this point—that there was a loss entirely independent of and beyond the question of profits of occupation, as they are understood commonly in England, and that that loss in Ireland, under the circumstances of the country, was the loss of livelihood. But I said no single word as to the liability of the landlord to find a livelihood for his tenants; that liability is, in my mind, to be read and understood exclusively in the light of the clause of the Bill. Therefore, I must ask the right hon. Gentleman to believe and to rest perfectly satisfied that whatever dangerous doctrines he may think he has discovered are entirely limited to the provision we have proposed in the Bill.
  COLONEL STUART KNOXsaid, he could scarcely at any time in its history find words in which adequately to express his opinion of the course taken by the Government in regard to this Bill. And his astonishment and difficulty were deepened when he heard the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government state that the hon. Gentlemen who formed the minority on the preceding night did not know why they voted as they did. He ventured to say, on the other hand, that if the votes had been taken by ballot many hon. Members who voted in the majority would have voted in the minority, and the right hon. Gentleman might have discovered that some of his Colleagues did not agree with him as to the course he had taken. He had risen, however, merely to urge that as the clause would only operate against good landlords, by compelling

  1327
  them to compensate all tenants, however good or bad they might be, it would simply result in harm to Ireland. Whatever the tenant might have done, the landlord would be called upon to pay. He had that morning received a letter from a Fermanagh landlord, which was the prospective first fruit of the Bill, and illustrated what he meant; but, before referring to the document, he must, on behalf of the landlords of Ulster, distinctly repudiate the views expressed by the writer. The letter enclosed for his perusal a circular which the landlord addressed to his tenants, accompanying, in each case, a notice to quit. He set forth that his tenants paid their rent well and behaved as well as he could wish; but self-preservation being the first law of nature, he must sever his connection with them. If he did not take this step—the landlord went on to say—he should be driven to have recourse to the law courts, and he was certain no tenant on his estate would wish to see him brought into the present courts of quarter sessions, to be at the mercy of assistant-barristers and pettifogging insolent attorneys, and to be the laughing-stock of insolent galleries. He would not let land to be subject to the operations of the new Act; and, though he parted with his tenants sorrowfully, he had the satisfaction of knowing that the separation was not of his own seeking, but was forced upon him by the conduct of the present Government. He would keep the land in his own hands, and so avoid much of the trouble and responsibility that would be entailed upon him by the Government Land Bill. Of course, inquiry should be made as to the sanity of landlords who would serve their tenants as this particular one had; but, at the same time, it must be admitted that many such notices to quit would result upon the passing of this Bill; and, this being so, he wished hon. Members to weigh well his statements, and to pause before assisting at the infliction of a great wrong upon Ireland.
  Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 293; Noes 182: Majority 111.
  MR. CORRANCEmoved, in page 3, line 4, after "compensation," to insert—
  1328
  "To be paid by the landlord for any loss sustained by him on quitting his holding, and for improvements made by him or his predecessor in title, as the Court may think fit, so that the sum awarded shall not exceed five years' rent, or extend to any holding valued under the Acts relating to the valuation of rateable property in Ireland at an annual value exceeding fifteen pounds."
  The hon. Member said he had offered to the Bill in its passage through Committee no factious opposition, but it had now reached a somewhat new stage. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in his speech, threw aside political economy and took his stand upon the ground of broad political necessity, and he (Mr. Corrance) was content to argue the question upon this ground. In the right hon. Gentleman's mind political economy generally seemed to stand for a set of practical rules that could not be departed from, and they generally existed as a bar to even the fair consideration of anything that was proposed for the benefit of the people of England. The truth was that political economy had many enemies, but its worst enemies were its friends. Now, the question was this—was the condition of Ireland so different from that of other countries that we must have a special law to meet, to some extent, the existing conditions? If this was conceded, and he did not deny it, in the minds of most men there was the belief that there should be a line of demarcation at which compensation should cease, and he found proofs of this in the remarkable speech delivered by the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer). He asked that hon. and learned Member whether, when the present proposition was before him, he could refuse his assent at all events to the general principle embodied in it? The case stood thus—that in the minds of those who agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Richmond there was a line dividing two different classes of men, in one of which classes the freedom of contract should not be done away with. The other class was composed of men who were called miserable and dependent; men to whom the right of free contract could not be given; because, practically, any contract that they entered into would not be binding upon them, though it would be binding upon their landlords. The question was in what position they should be left, and it was said that they should be brought

  1329
  under the protection of this Bill. His own opinion was that it would be better, both for their landlords and for themselves, if they could receive some protection from a court of law. But then came the question, what limit they would fix to the application of this principle. The proposal in his Amendment was that the line should be drawn at £15 yearly value. Mr. O'Brien's evidence before a Committee was—
  "I fully believe that if it could be accomplished, without doing injustice to the tenant, it would be desirable to get rid of the tenant-right custom altogether."
  Mr. Bence Jones, in reference to the compensation proposed in the Bill, said—
  "Then the making only one class between £10 valuation and £50 is very unjust to landowners. A £50 valuation in my district would imply a farm of nearly 100 acres, and a wholly different class of tenant from a £12 or £15 or £20 tenant. Where the land is better the practical result is the same—less land is of equal value. A 100-acre farmer is a man with good and large stock, worth much money, a man as well able to protect himself as any other class hi the community. The loss of his farm is neither a greater or less loss to him than it is to an English or Scotch farmer."
  Let the House consider for a moment what an extent of ground would be covered by adopting the limit of £15. Of holdings under £15 there were no less than 428,915, out of a total of 526,513, which would leave only 97,600 persons who would be able to make free contracts. If they did not wish to prevent free contracts altogether what narrower limit than this could they wish to confine it to? It would be proposed that £50 should be taken as the limit; but this would include 3,000 tenants in Ireland who would be capable of making free contracts. He believed that it would be found impossible to maintain the compensation at so high a rate as a maximum of seven years. He had thought it better to take the limit of five years. His contention throughout had been that the burden of compensation would fall upon the tenant and. not upon the landlord, who would recoup himself at the expense of the incoming tenant, and he hoped that the proposition which he had made would receive the advantage of intelligent criticism.
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUE,whilst acknowledging that the hon. Member for Suffolk (Mr. Corrance) had made no factious opposition to the Bill, submitted to him that he was raising several important questions by this
  1330
  Amendment, which would come on for consideration in due course, but for the consideration of which this was hardly the proper time. The hon. Member desired to abolish the scale, and to substitute for it one maximum of five years' rent, and to limit the provisions to holdings not exceeding £15 value. The time, however, to consider the scale would be when the scale itself was before the Committee. The hon. Member had supported the Government in their proposition that a tenant should be compensated for the loss sustained by quitting his holding, and he would remind him that nothing could be more unwise than for Parliament to give with one hand and take away with the other. He hoped the hon. Member would not so alter the principle to which he had already agreed as to limit its application in Ireland.
  MR. BRUENsupported the Amendment of the hon. Member for Suffolk, because he believed that a sliding scale would be very prejudicial to small tenants. The compensation which a landlord would be obliged to pay would act as a fine upon him for having a particular class of tenant, and it would, therefore, be to the landlord's interest to get rid of such a man. All Irish tenants were liable to fall into arrear with their rent, and whenever one did so a landlord would take advantage of the opportunity to get the land into his own hands. It would, therefore, be a cruel thing to the small tenants to make it to the interest of the landlords to get rid of them whenever misfortune occurred to them. He knew one estate on which during the last twenty years the payment of £13,000 of arrears of rent had been forgiven, and the tenants had been allowed to remain in their holdings; and on another estate £20,000 had been forgiven within the last twenty years, and yet the tenants had not been turned out. A great number of them were small holders, and he asked whether, if the proposed clause had been in operation they would have been allowed to continue in their occupations? He did not think that landlords would evict all their small tenants immediately; but disagreements would arise from time to time which would end in eviction; and it seemed to him that the only way in which that could be avoided was by having one uniform scale of compensa-

  1331
  tion which should stop at a certain point. The line must be drawn somewhere, and where it should be drawn was for the Committee to decide.
  MR. SYNANopposed the Amendment on the ground that it would offer a direct inducement to landlords to consolidate farms. His hon. Friend (Mr. Bruen) should, therefore, have opposed the Amendment instead of supporting it. From 1847 to the present time the number of holdings in Ireland above £15 had increased; those under £5 had decreased; and the Amendment would have the effect of hastening a process which had been going on slowly during the last twenty years, so that in the course of another quarter of a century there would be no small holdings in Ireland. The small holders were those who could not take care of themselves, and, therefore, required the protection of this Bill; but if it were intended to extinguish them, nothing could be more expeditious than the Amendment of the hon. Member for Suffolk. The adoption of the Amendment would make the Bill very unpopular in Ireland, and prevent the object the Government had in view.
  MR. DENTsaid, he hoped the Amendment would be withdrawn. He had not found it very easy to vote for the principle of allowing compensation to tenants who had not made any improvements, and had only been brought to support that proposition by a consideration of the extreme difficulty of dealing with the small holders of Ireland. He, however, concurred in the statement of the hon. and learned Member for Richmond (Sir Roundell Palmer) that there must be a limit to the amount of compensation, and that it should only be given in cases of tenancy-at-will.
  MR. W. FOWLERalso hoped that the Amendment would be withdrawn, as he had an Amendment upon the scale of compensation upon which the whole question could be discussed.
  MR. CORRANCEsaid, he thought that hon. Members had entirely misconceived the spirit of his Amendment, which involved a much more important principle than seemed to be generally thought. In his opinion, the Committee ought to state at this stage of the Bill how far the application of this clause was to extend. The hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Synan) had objected to the Amendment on the ground that it
  1332
  would tend to diminish the number of small holdings. Now, he maintained that small holdings were a great misfortune, and that Ireland would continue in a state of misery and degradation until they were to a certain extent got rid of. On this point he would refer the hon. Gentleman to the Reports of the Poor Law Commissioners, and in particular, to that of Mr. O'Brien, who said—
  "I fully believe that if it could be accomplished, without doing injustice to the tenant, it would be desirable to get rid of the tenant-right custom altogether."
  If the Committee thought this great principle could be better discussed at a subsequent period he should be very glad to withdraw the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEmoved, inline 5, to leave out from "regard being had, &c." to "holding" in line 8, both inclusive.
  Motion agreed to.
  SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, that at that time he could not bring forward the Amendment of which he had given notice, and he begged, therefore, to move to report Progress.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he hoped the hon. Baronet would not persevere in his Motion; but that he would allow the Committee to proceed to the consideration of the scale of compensation to be awarded.
  SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, his objection was to the scale itself, which he believed to be unjust, for it admitted a liability which he denied; and he understood it had been arranged that they were not to commence this discussion until Thursday. He had postponed his Amendment in consequence of that understanding.
  MR. GLADSTONEprotested against the Motion, as what the hon. Baronet desired to do could be discussed when his right hon. Friend (Mr. C. Fortescue) brought on the question of compensation to be awarded according to the scale.
  SIR GEORGE JENKINSONsaid, he thought the Prime Minister had no right to use his immense power in trying to stifle the opinions of private Members. They had not yet had a fair discussion on the principle of this clause. He hated and detested the Bill; he had a strong feeling against it as a landlord,

  1333
  yet he had not voted upon the second reading, nor had he raised a word against it in Committee. His Amendment went to cut out the scale altogether, and he must therefore, insist upon his Motion.
  Motion negatived.
  MR. BOWRING,in moving the substitution of the words "which shall in no case exceed," for the words "not exceeding," in the 13th and following lines, said, that great changes had been made in the Bill since it was first introduced. It was now arranged that two distinct compensations should be awarded to the tenant, one for improvements and one for disturbance. As the Bill originally stood a maximum of compensation was fixed as a starting-point, but the onus of beating it down to a lower point practically rested with the landlord, as the words "not exceeding" were generally held to imply that the specific sum following those words should be granted, in default of proof to the contrary. He quoted instances in support of this view, and said that it was now only reasonable, in consideration of the additional advantages conferred on the tenant by the Bill as amended, that the views of hon. Members opposite should be to some extent consulted, and that the tenant, and not the landlord, should prove his case. He moved that words should be substituted in the 13th line, so that the 1st section of the clause would read that, in cases of £10 rental and under, the compensation "shall in no case exceed" seven years' rent.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he thought there was a fair ground for agreeing to this Amendment, in the fact that by the 10th clause it was required that the tenant should distinguish the particulars of his claim. But there was another reason for this. The words "not exceeding" were in many cases interpreted to be a mere formality, and it was presumed that the whole sum was to be given, and that was contrary to the intention of the clause. They were ready to insert the words proposed and they could commence next day with the number of years.
  LORD CLAUD HAMILTONtaunted the Government with their inconsistency. The Government were now admitting a new principle which they had previously denied in reference to this Bill.
  MR. CHICHESTER FORTESCUEsaid, the Government did not accept the Amendment on the ground of a new principle in the Bill.
  Amendment agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday.

  MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT PAYMENT. LEAVE.
  MR. P. A. TAYLOR*: Sir, I rise to ask for leave to bring in a Bill to restore the ancient constitutional custom of payment of Members of this House. When I first gave notice of this Motion it created some amusement, partly, no doubt, from its novelty, but also, as I believe, from what was deemed to be the extravagance of the proposition. I shall be disappointed, however, whether my proposal is accepted or not, if I do not succeed in convincing the House that it is, at any rate, a grave question, and well worthy of serious consideration. For myself, I may say that, when I first took up the question on general grounds of expediency and policy, I had no idea of the strength of the case that I should have in my hands. I find a practice supported by the precedent of hundreds of years in our own history—by all but universal adoption in every country but our own which has any pretence to representative institutions—and so entirely in unison with the principles of common sense and justice, that, to my mind, our recurrence to the system of payment of Members is a question of time only. I feel as confident of its ultimate adoption as, 10 years ago, I and other hon. Members near me felt assured of the adoption of an extended suffrage. The question has been so entirely neglected and forgotten for the last 30 or 40 years, that I should fail in respect to the House, and should not do justice to the question, if I did not make my statement now in this preliminary stage, rather than on the second reading; but I may console the House by the assurance that—should it accord to me, as I hope it will, leave to introduce the Bill—I shall not need to trouble them with a repetition of the argument. I have referred to my proposition as the "ancient constitutional custom." It may be thought that I am about the least likely person in the House

  1335
  to suggest the adoption of a practice because it was ancient or constitutional; and I will avow that, if I did not think it right and expedient now, I should not be greatly concerned to consider what our ancestors thought right 500 years ago. At the same time, it will be admitted to be worth noting that payment of Members did prevail in this country for centuries, and can hardly, therefore, be deemed incompatible with our constitution or national characteristics. Besides, I will acknowledge that I hope to command the support of hon. Gentlemen opposite upon this ground. Hon. Gentlemen opposite are always professing, and I am sure quite sincerely, their respect and veneration for the British Constitution. That Constitution has, in the course of time, undergone manifold changes and modifications; and it is not easy, perhaps, to define precisely what is the ideal they revere. But should I ask those hon. Gentlemen to name the time at which the British Constitution reached its most glorious proportions, they would probably fix it at that period when the Three Estates of the Realm exercised a very different proportion of authority to that which prevails now, when this Commons House of Parliament may be practically deemed supreme. Well, Sir, through all those halcyon days—in fact, from the very beginning of Parliamentary government down to some two centuries ago—the system of payment of Members was universal and unquestioned. But, of course, I shall be here met with the observation, that the conditions which rendered payment of Members appropriate in those days have entirely passed away, and given place to others, under which payment of Members would be as absurd now as it was appropriate then; that in those old days to be sent to Parliament was no object of ambition, but a troublesome duty, involving an expenditure of time and trouble, for which payment of wages was an essential condition; whereas now there is no need to pay persons for undertaking an office which is the object of general ambition. Upon this point I join issue absolutely. The principle of buying in the cheapest market and selling in the dearest, sound enough as applied to the affairs of trade, if applied to morals or to politics, is but another phrase for corruption and bribery. Let the House observe to what conclusions
  1336
  this reasoning would take us, if logically pursued—as when the man does not desire to be sent to Parliament he must be paid for it, so when it is an object of moderate desire he must pay his own expenses; and, as soon as it becomes the object of universal ambition, why should he not purchase that which others have to sell, and which he has the means to buy? If I am not mistaken, there are few of us who have not heard such argument adduced, with more or less covering of decent phraseology. In my view, when that change which has been adverted to took place, our system of government incurred a risk—rather an actuality—of mischief, which required to be dealt with in a very different manner. The system of corruption then inaugurated, and which in later times has swelled to such terrible proportions, should have been met by stern repressive legislation, and certainly not endorsed and accepted by cessation of payment to Members. Payment of Members is the symbol of a system of honest work fairly remunerated, while non-payment symbolizes a system which can hardly be more laconically illustrated than by a well-known politician of two generations back, who, in a moment, as I presume, of postprandial candour, thus apostrophized his constituents—"I bought you, and, by G—I'll sell you!" Small wonder, perhaps, that, in such a condition of things, this House, which should have been the best law-making machine in the world, is now more commonly known as the pleasantest club in the world. I should add, here, that I think the change of which I have spoken should, for obvious reasons, have been met by a transference of the charge from local to Imperial funds, and perhaps I need hardly say that such is the nature of the proposition I am about to make to the House. I lately met with a curious little illustration of how the question was regarded by a shrewd observer two centuries ago. Mr. Secretary Pepys relates that he "dined in the City on the 30th of March, 1668, with many men of mark;" that he there got into conversation with the rest of the company on State affairs; and that
  "All concluded that the bane of Parliament had been the leaving off the old custom of the places allowing wages to those that served them in Parliament, by which they chose men that

  1337
  understood their business and would attend to it, and they could expect an account from them, which now they cannot."
  I now propose, with the leave of the House, to state, as shortly as I can, the history of the practice in this country, then to refer to the practice in foreign countries, and then to say a few words upon the general principles involved in the question of recurring to it. I have found considerable difficulty in tracing exactly when and how the custom of payment of Members arose. On this, doubtless, many hon. Members learned in the law would be able to give us more distinct information. I propose to read a short statement to the House, which probably gives as succinct and accurate a relation as I could find. It is from Dr. Henry's Great Britain, vol. x. p. 63—
  "All the Members of the House of Peers always attended Parliaments at their own expense, that being one of the services they were obliged to perform for the baronies they held of the Crown. But as soon as the smaller tenants of the King in capite, or freeholders, were permitted to appear by representatives, they were subjected to pay the expenses or wages of these representatives. This custom of representatives receiving, and their constituents paying, wages, commenced with the commencement of representation, from a principle of common equity, without any positive law.…. The wages of knights of shires were always higher than those of citizens and burgesses, because they were really persons of a higher rank, and lived in a more expensive manner. For more than a century the wages of the Members of the House of Commons were sometimes higher and sometimes lower; but at length, in the reign of Edward III., they became fixed at 4s. a day for a knight of a shire, and 2s. a day for a citizen or burgess, and continued at that rate as long as they continued to be paid. Nor was this at first an incompetent sum, as 4s. then was equal to 40 s. at present. The proudest and most opulent knights thought it no dishonour to receive their wages, and even to sue for them; and no man in those times imagined that this custom ever could or would be changed, as it was so reasonable, and productive of so many good effects; particularly it engaged the attendance of all the Members to the very last day of every Session, because those who did not attend from the first to the last day received no wages, and their negligence could not be concealed from their constituents. Accordingly we often find all the Members present, and receiving writs for their expenses, at the dissolution of a Parliament."
  On the other hand, another writer—Mr. Home, W.S., Edinburgh—says that in Scotland it was by statute, dated 1427, which has been preserved. He thinks it was copied—like many of their other laws—from an English statute, which has been lost; he gives the opinion that
  1338
  the system could never have been introduced, but by statute. However this may be, it seems clear that Dr. Henry was not precisely correct in stating that the amount of wages was the same everywhere after the reign of Edward III.—namely, 2s. a day for a citizen or burgess, and 4s. for a knight of a shire, as an interesting extract from the Newcastle Records proves—
  "Johannes de Denton and Hugo de Hecham, in 1334, were each paid 2s. a day; Willielmus de Middleton and Robertus Swineburne, in 1413, were each paid 2s. a day; the Town Council voted, in 1054, 5s. a day; Robert Ellison, in 1660, was, paid 10 s. a day; Sir Francis Anderson, in 1661, was paid 13 s. 4d.a day. '1661, May.—Paid Sir Francis Anderson's sallarie for being Parliament man for the towne off Newcastle, 128 dayes, the last Parliament, at 13 s. 4d. per day, £85 6s. 8d.' The Members, in 1685, were paid 13 s. 4d. a day."
  Apparently the practice ceased to be universal at least 250 years ago. Hallam observes that "Andrew Marvell is commonly said to have been the last who received this honourable salary," while (he adds) it is asserted in a modern work—Lysons' Cornwall—that wages were paid in some Cornish boroughs as late as the 18th century. It has been by some incorrectly stated that payment was a voluntary offering on the part of the constituency; there is no doubt, on the contrary, that it was enforceable at law. Lord Campbell, in his Lives of the Chancellors, gives an instance in which this was done—
  "After the dissolution of Parliament, in 1681, Thomas King, Esq., late Member for Harwich presented a petition, stating 'that he had served as burgesse in Parliament for the said borrough severall yeares, and did give his constant attendance therein; but that the said borrough had not paid him his wages, though often requested so to do.' Notice being given to the corporation of Harwich, and the facts being verified, the Lord Chancellor ordered the writ to issue de expensis burgensium levandis."
  From a passage in the same work it would appear at least an open question whether the law or custom might not be put in force at the present day. Lord Campbell says—
  "Lord Nottingham's most important decision while he held the Great Seal probably was, that the obligation on constituencies to pay wages to their representatives in the House of Commons still continues.… I know no reason, in point of law, why any Member may not insist on payment of his wages.…. For this point of the People's Charter—payment of wages—no new law is required."
  As I stated just now, this question has quite fallen out of consideration for the

  1339
  last 30 years; but from the commencement of the agitation for Parliamentary Reform towards the close of last century, down to about the year 1840, it is worthy of note that almost every great scheme of Reform, whether springing from Whig magnates or from the Radical party, embodied the principle of payment of Members. In 1780 the electors of Westminster appointed a committee upon elections; C. J. Fox, chairman. In their report to the electors they recommended payment of Members. Immediately after, the Society for Constitutional Information was established in London. At the head of this society was the Duke of Richmond, president; supported by the Earl of Derby, the Earl of Effingham, the Earl of Surrey, the Earl of Selkirk, Viscount Mount-Morres, and Lord Kinnaird, and by 11 distinguished Members of the House of Commons. This society adopted the "Report of the Committee of Westminster," reprinted it in great numbers, and distributed it far and wide. In the year 1830 Lord Blandford introduced into the House of Commons a Reform Bill, which was supported by all the leading Liberals in the House. In his speech he observed—
  "As the object of this Bill is to restore the representation to its ancient purity, I propose among other excellent old laws now either repealed or become obsolete, to restore the principle and practice of paying Members the wages of attendance, according to the value of money at the present day, which I consider should be £2 a day for citizens and burgesses, and £4 for knights or Members for counties."—[See 2 Hansard, xxii, 170, 176,325,326,391,527,678,805; xxiii. 805, 1389.]
  The House will remember that in 1837 arose a great agitation for the People's Charter. That document was drawn up by a Committee consisting of six working men and six Members of Parliament—amongst the latter were such men as O'Connell and Mr. Roebuck—and contained this provision—
  "Be it enacted, that every Member of the House of Commons be entitled at the close of the Session to a writ of expenses on the Treasury for his legislative duties in the public service, and shall be paid £500 per annum."
  Again, in 1842 there was established an association, of which I had the honour to be a member, called the Metropolitan Parliamentary Reform Association. I do not refer to this for any great work it did, for its life was of very short dura-
  1340
  tion; but one of the objects in its programme was, "that each representative of the people should be paid for his services;" and amongst the promoters of this society I find such names as Henry Warburton, J. A. Roebuck, Wynn Ellis, Milner Gibson, Joseph Hume, the Earl of Radnor, J. Scholefield, and many others of note. I should here observe, that I do not propose to make payment dependent upon attendance, nor, indeed, to set up any Parliamentary surveillance over Members. I think this might be safely left, as now, to the decision and observation of the constituencies. It is for them to select representatives who hold their opinions and will do their work. There can be no doubt, however, that in olden time attendance was rigidly enforced. By an Act of Parliament, A.D. 1541, it was declared that, if any Member left the House without the leave of the Speaker before the end of the Session, he should have no claim for wages from his constituents. In 1580 the House of Commons resolved to fine all knights of the shire £20, and citizens, burgesses, or barons, £10 each, if they absented themselves without leave during the whole of the Session. It was provided that, in the case of those Members who had been absent without leave for only part of the Session, they should forfeit and lose the benefit of receiving their wages, and the Clerk of the Crown was prohibited from delivering out any writ for levying the wages or allowances for any such knight, citizen, burgess, or baron, without leave of the House. And in 1626 fine and imprisonment were decreed by the House of Commons for non-attendance. I come now to the second part of the question —namely, to the practice as it exists in other countries; and I think the House will be surprised to learn that, while there is great diversity in respect to the amount and mode of payment, still that the practice may be said to exist in every country but one—Spain—I except, of course, England and some of its dependencies— where there there is any pretence to Parliamentary government; and I may add that there seems a distinct relation between freedom of institutions and the amount of remuneration, the United States standing at the head, and I think Italy at the bottom, of the list. I have been greatly assisted in this part of the question by the fact that in

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  1868 a Royal Commission was appointed by the Government of Victoria—
  "to inquire and report generally on the practice of paying or compensating Members of the Legislature in all countries where the practice prevails, and with a special view of ascertaining in each case the rate of payment or compensation, the conditions or limitations, if any, under which it is made, and the form of legislative enactment by which it has been authorized."
  I hold in my hand the Report of that Commission, by which I am enabled to lay a great deal of information before the House, supplemented, however, by inquiries of my own, which show that in some particulars the Report of the Commission is not quite accurate. I should state here that, as a result of this Report, a Bill has been introduced into the Legislative Assembly of Victoria, proposing to give a sum of £300 a year to Members of the Legislative Council, and of the Legislative Assembly. After debates, which I may say would do credit to any Imperial Parliament; the Bill was carried through all its stages in the Legislative Assembly. In the Legislative Council, after debate, the further consideration of the question was postponed. I have heard, but am not sure whether it is officially known, that it has been since rejected; I can, however, say, with the utmost confidence, that it is impossible to read the debate in the Assembly without feeling convinced that the measure will be passed at an early day, as certain as it is to be passed here—somewhat later. I shall only refer to? that debate to quote a single observation of the Hon. Mr. Duffy, Chairman of the Royal Commission. In reply to an observation that the Commission did not report in favour of the measure, he said—
  "The reason was, that the terms of their appointment did not include a power to do so. They were directed to report as to the practice in other countries, and that report made the case so overwhelmingly in favour of compensation to Members as, without recommendation, to carry conclusion on the face of it."
  The Report states—
  "At the present time the representatives of the people are compensated for their attendance in the Legislature in every country where Parliamentary government is in operation, with the exception of England, the Republic of Switzerland, and the kingdom of Italy."
  This is not absolutely correct in respect to Italy, and is singularly incorrect as to Switzerland. [The hon. Member read passages at great length from the Report
  1342
  of the Commission (Victoria), of which the following are the material statements.] In Italy, which, before 1848, had no representative institutions, by Article 50, by the Constitution granted by Charles Albert (Sardinia)—"The functions of senator and of deputy do not bring in any remuneration or indemnity"—and this remains the same. In regard to Switzerland, the Members of the National-Rath—that is, of the House of Representatives of the Swiss Confederacy—receive from the Federal Exchequer daily payment, 12 francs, and travelling expenses (per Wegstunde), 1 franc 50 centimes. Spain, as I have already mentioned, is the sole exception, so far as I know, to payment of Members. In the United States, the existing practice is regulated by an Act passed in the year 1866. Every Senator, Member of the House of Representatives, or delegate of a territory not yet admitted as a State, is paid a salary of $5,000 (or £1,041 13 s. 4d.) per annum, and mileage to and from Congress at the rate of 20 cents per mile of estimated distance between his usual place of abode and the seat of Congress; but this mileage is granted only for two Sessions in each Congress. The recently-federated British Colonies on the same Continent, constituting the Dominion of Canada, have followed the example of the United States. The practice of compensating Members existed before federation, and has been continued by an Act of the Parliament of Canada, assented to in December, 1867. An allowance of $6, or £1 5s. for each day's attendance, is granted to Members of both Houses, provided the Session does not extend beyond 30 days. If the Session exceeds 30 days, each Member receives a sessional allowance of $600 (Or £125), and no more under any circumstances. The condition of personal attendance in Parliament is insisted upon. In New Zealand, the Members of both branches of the Legislature have been paid from their first Session in 1854. The practice was not established by any special legislative enactment, beyond granting the necessary sum in the Appropriation Act. The rate of payment is £1 per diem for each day the Member gives his personal attendance at the place of meeting of the Legislature. In Newfoundland, the Members of the Legislative Council and of the House of Assembly receive a cer-

  1343
  tain fixed sum per Session, which is provided for annually in a local act. The President of the Legislative Council receives $240; each Member, $120. The Speaker of the House of Assembly receives $923; each Member, resident in outports, $291; each Member, resident in capital, $194. In Holland, the revised Constitution of 1848 provides no compensation for Members of the Upper Chamber of the States General; but Members of the Second Chamber are paid an annual allowance of 2,000 guilders (or £160), besides mileage to cover travelling expenses. The Constitution of Belgium (1831), provides that Members of the Senate shall receive no indemnity for the expenses incurred in performing their duties; but a Member of the House of Representatives enjoys a monthly "indemnity" of 200 florins during the continuance of the Session—200 florins being equal to 423 f. 28 c, or £16 15 s. 1d.in English money. Deputies, however, whose ordinary place of residence is in Brussels, where the Legislature sits, do not participate in this allowance. I now come to Sweden and Norway, which afford an illustration of the observation I have already made, that, as a rule, the more democratic the Government, the more liberal is the pay. Thus it will be seen that in Sweden, the more aristocratic and wealthy nation, the payment is lower than in Norway, one of the most practically democratic countries in Europe. The latest law regulating the functions and privileges of the Diet of Sweden was adopted in 1865. Members of the Upper Chamber receive no compensation. In the Riksdag, or Lower Chamber, Members are paid a salary of 1,200 rix-dollars (or £66 13 s. 4d.) for each ordinary Session, and an allowance for travelling expenses. But if the Chambers be dissolved, or if the Member abandons his functions before four months have elapsed, and also in case of an extraordinary Session, the deputy receives, in lieu of the Sessional payment, an allowance of 10 rix-dollars (or a fraction under 10 s. 11 d.) a day. The entire sum received during a Session, however, must not exceed 1,200 rix-dollars. In Norway, the Members of both Chambers of the Storthing receive an allowance of three specie dollars (or 13 s. 3¼d.) a day during the Session, and all their expenses travelling to and from the Legislature. In Portugal, the members of
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  the Camara dos Pares are allowed no compensation; but the members of the Second Chamber, the Camara dos Deputados, receive remuneration at the rate of 10 s. a day during the Session. In Greece, the Representative body are paid 250 drachmas (francs) per month during the Session; the Senate 500 drachmas per month, not limited to the Session. In France, the payment of Members there, as here, is an ancient constitutional custom. In les anciens Etats Généraux, Members were paid by the districts which sent them, not with uniformity in amount, but rather according to their rank. When, at the Revolution, the Etats Généraux were transformed into the National Assembly, the payment was made uniform—18 francs per day during the Session. Under the Restoration there was no payment—another illustration that despotism is not favourable to the practice; nor was it renewed under the Monarchy of July. Under the Republic, 1848–51, the payment was 25 francs a day from the State Exchequer, during the Session. Under the Empire, 1852, the Senators were paid a salary of £1,200 a year, and Members of the Legislative Assembly £100 per month during the Session; since which a slight change has taken place, the Deputies being paid 10,000 francs (about £400) for the Session; but for Sessions of unusual length, so much per month in addition. The last reference with which I shall have to trouble the House is in relation to Germany. In all Germany, in Prussia as well as in Austria, in Saxony, Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Baden, Hesse—in fact, in every State that forms part of a country comprising nearly 50,000,000 inhabitants—there is payment of Members of the various Houses of Deputies. The payment ranges between 9s. (in Prussia) and £1 a day (in Austria). Besides, travelling expenses are awarded. So much, Sir, for the state of the question in other countries than our own. Before entering upon the discussion of the policy of our adoption of the system, I wish to say a word upon two or three points which, though not directly connected with the question, may be considered in some degree collateral with it, and which, without stopping to discuss, it seems right just to allude to in passing. I refer to—1. The duration of Parliaments; 2. The number of Members; 3. The question of more equal electoral

  1345
  districts. While the measure which I have the honour to propose may stand upon its own merits, yet I think it right to acknowledge that, if passed, it would have an indirect action upon the questions to which I have referred. Though the repeal of the Septennial Act is, as I think, a measure quite inevitable under any circumstances, still, I think that payment of Members would clearly hasten that repeal. I think, too, that under the system I propose the excessive numbers, as many think, of this Assembly would naturally come under revision. In regard, again, to electoral districts, it is evident that existing anomalies would be made still more glaring by the fact of an equal stipend being paid to the representatives alike of a few hundreds or of many thousands. And now, Sir, what is the main object sought to be attained by the measure which I propose? I shall not need to detain the House to answer the question, seeing that the objects lie upon the surface, are clear and undeniable, and must be admitted by all to be in themselves desirable, provided I can show that no greater evils of some other kind would be produced. Those objects are—first, to give to constituencies the widest possible area for selection; and, second, that the men they choose shall be, so far as possible, rendered independent of corrupt influences. In regard to the former of these points, let me quote the words of Mr. J. Stuart Mill, in his able work on the Subjection of Women—
  "In all things of any difficulty and importance, those who can do them well are fewer than the need, even with the most unrestricted latitude of choice: and any limitation of the field of selection deprives society of some chances of being served by the competent, without ever saving it from the incompetent."
  It must not be supposed that I wish to be understood that Mr. Mill is favourable to this measure. On the contrary, he is its firm opponent, and I shall have immediately to quote his own strong words against me, in the hope of being able to show that in this instance his arguments are not unanswerable. But there is another point in regard to which payment of Members will, I think, be admitted by all to be in itself desirable. I allude to the admission of working men into this House. Now, this is said to be desired as much by hon. Gentlemen opposite as by those on this side; and I
  1346
  maintain that no other means can possibly avail to insure that end short of a recurrence to the system of payment of Members. Sir, there is no quarter of this House, I think, from which the desire has not been expressed to see on these Benches some representatives of the working men. I fear those declarations will be received with but little faith if the House refuses to entertain this measure, and if, whenever a working man appears on the hustings, candidates from the Carlton Club or the Reform Club come forward to crush him beneath the weight of their long purses. If it be said that a poor man in the House must be subject to personal temptations, I reply, that that argument must be carried to the extent of excluding all poor men, and therefore working men; and that, if such are to sit in this House—as we all profess to desire—payment for their services is the only protection that can be afforded to them. Now, upon this point I beg to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government for his support. I shall quote some admirable words of his, which I think, at any rate, will place him in the alternative of being obliged to support my measure, or of showing very strong grounds for believing that disastrous effects would follow its adoption. In a speech—delivered in July, 1868—on the Corrupt Practices at Elections Bill, the right hon. Gentleman, in supporting the proposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett), used these remarkable words—
  "It was time Parliament expressed a judgment, especially with the widely-extended constituency, as to the true nature of Parliamentary duties, and decided whether sitting and voting in the House was a privilege to be enjoyed by the individual, or a duty to be performed towards the community. In his judgment, it was a duty performed towards the community, and preaching upon the subject would be greatly strengthened by enactments showing that it was regarded as a duty.… It would be worse than ridiculous to admit all classes to the franchise, and yet to continue arrangements which practically limited the choice of candidates. He thought that to hold it was necessary for the safety of our institutions to prevent poor men from coming into that House was a most pernicious doctrine.… The coming into Parliament of such men would be must beneficial to all classes. It would do more than anything else could do to strengthen the confidence of the people in the Imperial Parliament. He did not think this clause would effect much in the way of admitting those men, but at least it would remove a very odious barrier to their admission."—[3 Hansard, cxciii. 1448.]

  1347
  Now, Sir, upon this I think I may venture to claim the support of the First Minister, or at least that he should prove very patent evils in the measure which I propose. He declares that to exclude poor men from the House is "a most pernicious doctrine;" nay, he believes that the presence of such men would be "most beneficial to all classes." He acknowledges, with perfect truth, that the proposition of the hon. Member for Brighton, to throw election expenses upon the constituencies, would effect but little in the way of admitting such men. I venture, therefore, to ask him, upon what grounds he is prepared to oppose a measure which alone can resist what he terms "a pernicious doctrine," and can produce results which he asserts would be "most beneficial to all classes?" The fact is, Sir, that the reforms in this House, which have taken place as the result of a long course of public agitation, have had for their aim to get this country out of the slough of class legislation. Now, I venture to remind the House that the evils of class legislation may exist—nay, be as rampant—under a system by which you limit the choice of constituencies, as under one by which you deny them votes. Suppose, for instance, you gave the people universal suffrage, but limited their choice to great landed proprietors: should any of us expect that the question of the Game Laws was likely to be discussed with entire impartiality? Or if, under universal suffrage, the choice of the constituencies were limited to railway directors, is it likely that our means of locomotion would be particularly safe or satisfactory? And so, if you maintain a system under which only the wealthy can gain admission to this House, what wonder is it if the interests of wealth and of privilege are more considered than the rights of the people or the interests of labour? Does anyone doubt that such is the fact? I ask any hon. Member to recall the groan of despair that echoes from Bench to Bench at a proposition to add 1d. to the income tax, as compared with the dignified equanimity with which we discuss the taxes on tea, coffee, or sugar. If hon. Members receive such doctrine from my lips with incredulity, let me quote words to them which they may perchance recall, as it is not so long since they echoed within these walls—
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  "But when this House is told of rights, and of rich and poor, let us remember that this House is an assembly in which the poor are not represented, in which poor men are not contained."
  These words, Sir, were spoken by the Prime Minister but three days back; and, while I honour him for their utterance, I appeal to him for their application. Well, now, Sir, what is the great objection to a proposition which appears upon the surface, at any rate, so obviously desirable and essential to the existence of free Parliamentary institutions? The objection raised is of course that, under this system, the character and tone of the House would be degraded, and that it would be made the arena for petty personal ambition, instead of being, as it is assumed to be now, full of disinterested desire for the public weal. I feel bound frankly to put this objection in its strongest form, and I will, therefore, quote the words of Mr. Mill. In his Representative Government he says, speaking of payment of Members—
  "It amounts to offering 658 prizes for the most successful flatterer, the most adroit misleader, of a body of his fellow-countrymen."
  He also quotes, with evident approval, the observation of a writer in Fraser (Mr. Lorimer) that—
  "By creating a pecuniary inducement to persons of the lowest class to devote themselves to public affairs, the calling of the demagogue would be formally inaugurated.…. If there were 658 places of certain, however moderate, emolument to be gained by persuading the multitude that ignorance is as good as knowledge, and better, it is terrible odds that they would believe and act upon the lesson."
  Now, Sir, what is the value, what is the weight, which is to be attached to this continual cry of alarm about demagogues? What is the object of representative government but that the people should send men to Parliament to represent their principles, express their opinions, and make laws in harmony with them? Clearly it is desirable, in the interests of morality and earnestness, that the people who make the laws here should ex animo hold with the principles and the opinions of the people who send them. But surely this is at most a matter of secondary importance. I admit, indeed, that it is desirable in a secondary degree, in the interests of abstract morality, that the measures promoted by representatives should be absolutely in harmony with their own fixed and matured convictions; but I cannot admit

  1349
  that the absence of this most desirable condition would be destructive to the principles of representative government, or would create what is somewhat vaguely called the reign of demagogy. But beyond this I must ask the House, do they think that this evil condition of things is unknown or rare under existing circumstances? Do Members always now hold in their inmost hearts with the principles they are sent here to advocate? and, furthermore, are there not, special evils under existing relations which might be expected to cease, or at least to be diminished, with an unlimited power of choice by the constituencies? To flatter the people is mean and injurious enough; but I am not sure it is more mean, and I think it is not so injurious, as bowing before the temptations of a Government. I return for a moment to the last portion of the passage I have quoted—namely—
  "That if emolument were to be gained by persuading the multitude that ignorance is as good as knowledge, and better, it is terrible odds that they would believe and act upon the lesson—"
  for the purpose of declaring that, in my opinion, it involves a gross libel upon the people, and shows how much such arguments are based upon a want of faith in the people. What ground has Mr. Lorimer for imagining that the people could be taught "that ignorance is as good as knowledge, and better?" Was it amongst the people that up to the last quarter of a century the saying was so rife—" Don't educate the people, or you will make them discontented with the situation in which it has pleased Providence to place them?" And now, from whence comes the demand, most loud and clear, for a national education, free, compulsory, and unsectarian, but from the masses of the people, who have most deeply felt the want? I ask again, Sir, what real ground is there for this theory, that in relation to political action all the ordinary principles of common life are to be reversed, that in regard to them alone it is held that the labourer is not worthy of his hire, or at least that the mere touch of Mammon—that is, the payment for services rendered—degrades and lowers the recipient? Is it supposed that there is something so pure and sacred in the profession of politics, that in regard to them alone all ordinary principles of action must be repudiated? Why, Sir,
  1350
  do we not pay all classes of employment and professions, some of which at least are ordinarily supposed to be of a higher and more elevated type? We pay our ministers of religion, although the same cynical observation as to the result of remuneration might be deemed applicable with greater force. Might it not be said that we were bribing one of the most important classes of the community to profess opinions which they did not hold, and, like Shakespeare's scurvy politician, seem to see the thing they do not? Do we not pay our doctors, and is not that open to the obvious remark that we give a pecuniary temptation to men, in whose hands we are all but powerless, to make us ill, and keep us so? We pay our Army and Navy, and is not this equally open to the remark that we create a class of men whose interests lie in war, and not in peace? Payment for services, I repeat, rendered to the community—payment sufficient to tempt men to devote themselves to the studies by which they may render themselves fit to exercise the various offices which humanity requires—is the rule of our society and of the world. We do not, it is true, pay M.P.s and J.P.s, and cynics have not been wanting to declare that it was doubtful whether the legislative functions of the one, or the judicial functions of the other, were performed with less efficiency or satisfaction. But, Sir, we even pay politicians, so soon as they become official politicians. Of course I am at once told—"Oh, that is quite a different thing; they have to devote their time and abilities to the public service." The inference is unmistakable: this devotion is not expected in unpaid Members of Parliament. Sir, that is my argument: where there is payment, duties are recognized; where there is not payment, the contrary is the natural inference. But I shall be told we can always find out of the leisure class men willing to undertake the duties of a Member of Parliament. Well, Sir, is not the same the case in regard to at least all the higher orders of officialism? Take the case of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister—if he will permit me to allude to him in his presence—whose Leadership we on these Benches are so proud to follow, always excepting the occasions on which he turns sharp round upon us, and presents a revolver at our heads. Does anyone believe that

  1351
  the right hon. Gentleman, inscribing, as he clearly is, his name and principles on a page of his country's history—does anyone believe that the pittance he receives forms an appreciable incentive in his career? Sir, there attaches to officialism power, influence, patronage, unknown to the humble Member. I am really not sure that I might not use the à fortiori argument, and say that, if either Members or officials must work for nothing, it had better be the latter than the former. Yes, Sir, we pay politicians when they become official; but, more than this, we pay them with enthusiasm. An official who is unpaid is a dark stain upon the brightness of the Constitution. I well remember last Session with what indignation an hon. Member who sits on the front Bench opposite (Mr. Sclater-Booth) denounced the principle of official non-payment. He said—
  "Many gentlemen entering public life would, he felt, have some reason to be jealous at seeing a person appointed an officer of the Treasury without the salary which properly belonged to such an appointment, because he happened to be a nobleman possessing a large fortune.—[3 Hansard, cxciv. 847.]
  Sir, I well remember how the hon. Gentleman spoke as though in his mind's eye he saw the bulwarks of the Constitution crumbling at his feet before so unprecedented an event. Sir, it would seem that our Constitution is of a peculiar and fragile composition: it is endangered if a young nobleman, with more money than he knows what to do with, consents to serve his country without pay; but it is still more rudely shaken if a poor man, chosen by a constituency to represent them, is enabled, by remuneration for his services, to fulfil them. Now, Sir, will the House permit me to ask what is, or what is thought to be, the character of this House, in respect especially to the existence of those personal and sordid interests which it is thought would so greatly prevail if Members were paid for their services? And I would remind the House that, with regard to the character of such an Assembly as ours, what is thought to be is only secondary in importance to what is, in reference to such character. Now, Sir, it would be a most invidious task for any Member of this House to criticize this august Assembly; for so humble a Member as myself it would be simply intolerable, and nothing should
  1352
  induce me to undertake the task. Still, I must be permitted to remind the House that the answer to this question is most important for my argument; for I might be told—"True, you have discovered a blot in our system in theory, but that is all; a better House, a truer representation of the people than we achieve, it is almost impossible to imagine. From, amongst our numerous leisure class we find so many of the highest intelligence, the most thorough culture, the highest benevolence, and the most untiring devotedness, that under no system, however theoretically perfect, could improvement be hoped for. Do not fish in the troubled waters of innovation, in the vain hope of securing a greater prize." Now, I shall ask the House to permit me to read a short criticism upon the composition of this House, traced by no adverse hand; certainly, at any rate, not from a quarter likely to undervalue the existing from pure love of change. I quote from The Quarterly Review—
  "The House of Commons is growing less attractive and less easy of access than of yore to the best men, while it retains all its charms and opens wide its doors to the worst men. Those whom we most need there are not those who can most easily get there, or who most eagerly seek to be there. Those whom the country can well dispense with flock to it in scores, and step easily over the threshold. Those who have personal, professional, or class interests to serve, have every motive for entering Parliament.… It will be sought, too, by Members who deem it a fit appanage or a natural corollary of their social position, as well as by those who hope through it to attain or assert a social position which is not theirs by general consent or hereditary right.… Partly for the same reasons, and partly for special ones applicable to themselves alone, the sons of noble families will still appear freely as candidates. The old sentiment—whether logically sound or not—that their wealth and social standing entitle them to a large share in the county representation, still lingers both in their own minds and in the minds of a considerable portion of the electoral body.…. The squirearchy and the aristocracy, therefore, will never be lacking among the aspirants to Parliamentary honours. The same may be said of lawyers.…. There is yet another class of men who, so long as legislative processes remain unchanged, will always abound, and superabound, in St. Stephen's Chapel—viz., railway directors, and the managers and chiefs of other great companies, who, as we all know, are far more influential than is desirable for the public wellbeing. They have every motive for entering the House of Commons, and every facility for winning entrance.…. Another class of men, at least as undesirable, will always crowd the avenues to the House of Commons, and force, buy, or beg their way into it by swarms—viz., the nouveaux riches—those who have suddenly grown wealthy

  1353
  by lucky speculation or exceptional sagacity, and who wish to obtain by membership the one thing which mere money cannot purchase."
  If that, Sir, be in any degree a true description of this House, I think all who hear me will allow that there is not much to be feared from such a change as I propose. Now, will the House permit me to compare the results at which, according to The Quarterly,this House has arrived, with the theory of what causes produce such results, according to the philosophy of Edmund Burke, and then see whether it does not appear that such and no other are the inevitable results flowing from the system which we maintain. Speaking on the question of remuneration for public service, he says—
  "Ordinary service must be secured by the motives to ordinary integrity. I do not hesitate to say that that State which lays its foundations in rare and heroic virtues will be sure to have its superstructure in the basest profligacy and corruption. An honourable and fair profit is the best security against avarice and rapacity.… For as wealth is power, so all power will infallibly draw wealth to itself by some means or other; and when men are left no way of ascertaining their profits but by their means of obtaining them, those means will be increased to infinity. This is true in all the parts of administration as well as the whole."
  But, Sir, I can appeal to another and more modern authority on the condition of this House, and that is to the speech of an hon. Gentleman whom I do not now see in his place—I mean the Member for South-west Lancashire (Mr. A. Cross). That hon. Gentleman, in the Committee on Parliamentary and Municipal Elections which reported only the other day, opposed the introduction of the Ballot into this country; and one of the reasons he gave was its uselessness here, as compared with Australia, on account of "the absence of rich persons there willing to pay any sum of money for social position." Now, I ask that hon. Gentleman, and those who agree with him, what remedy do they propose for such a state of things? It is a frightful charge against the Legislature of the country, and not the less frightful because there is a great deal of truth in it. It amounts to nothing less than the declaration of a condition of hopeless corruption at present prevailing in. this country, and likely to increase rather than diminish. Surely the hon. Gentleman—jealous, as I am convinced he is, of the honour of this country—
  1354
  could not intend to place his statement on the records of the House, and not propose some remedy; and yet, what remedy has been proposed? My hon. Friends around me believe in the Ballot as a remedy; but the hon. Gentleman opposite repudiates it as ineffective under the conditions which here prevail. I confess, too, that I have never been so enthusiastic about the Ballot as many of its more ardent supporters. My remedy is in the Bill which I am now pressing upon the House; and I ask again, what remedy does the hon. Gentleman propose? He says that in this country we have a wealthy class who seek entrance to this House for the social distinction which it confers; he describes the evil; he repudiates the Ballot, the remedy proposed. Then, I say, there are but two courses open to him, if he would cleanse the country from this stain; he must either confiscate the wealth of this corrupting class—which he, no more than I, would advocate—or join with me to cut off the temptation, to lower this House in the sense of social position, to degrade it from its existing character of the pleasantest club in the world, while elevating it to the higher dignity of a pure Legislative Assembly. When poor men, and men of the working classes, sit side by side with us, the social prestige of the House will be greatly changed, and the magic letters M.P. will no longer serve as the ticket of admission to the ball of a duchess or the dinner of a lord. Now, Sir, I must say a word in answer to a plea that I have seen urged against this measure—the plea of economy. It is said that the country would not stand the expense. Sir, I hardly know how to meet the objection. What! England—the richest country on the face of the earth—the only one that cannot afford to pay for honest legislation! Sir, if I am told that the country is already overburdened with taxation, and cannot stand this charge, I can only answer it by saying that, on that very ground, the country cannot afford not to pay its legislators, and that upon the simplest of all grounds, just as not one of us would accept the services of bailiff, steward, or butler, if he should offer to serve us without pay, because we all know that gratuitous work is generally not good work, and that it is cheaper and better to pay for work that is to be

  1355
  paid for directly and openly, rather than by some indirect and probably sinister mode. Sir, I venture to prophesy that in the first Parliament of paid Members a saving will be effected equal to half a century's salaries. If hon. Gentlemen think this a rather wild assertion, I will venture upon an illustration. I last year invited the House to refrain from throwing away the last £1,500,000 upon fortifications, whose usefulness no man is now found to maintain. I believe that a house of paid Members would have backed me in that demand. I believe, too, that such a House would make very great savings in our defensive system. Without impugning the efficiency of our Army, I may probably assert without opposition that, in proportion to effective strength, no country pays so much as we do. Upon this question of economy I shall ask the House to permit me to read one more extract, and it shall be the last, to see how differently the wise reformers of last century thought on this matter. In an address—dated 1781—from the York Committee of the Constitutional Association, to which I have already referred, I find this passage—
  "But though the corruptibility of Parliament may be justly dated from that innovation of royal authority [creation of small boroughs], the actual corruption of it was reserved for a more unfortunate period. The seeds of political depravity were for ages latent in the defective frame of the House of Commons; and it was possible they might still have remained there, in a state of harmless inactivity, if chance and the ill-judged parsimony of our forefathers had not presented to the Crown the opportunity of Parliamentary seduction. From the depreciation of money, the ancient salary paid by the counties, &c., to their respective Members had become too insignificant to be worth their acceptance; and from a most absurd frugality, the necessary augmentation had been improvidently omitted."
  And this was signed, amongst a number of county magnates, by such men as the Rev. Mr. Wyvill, Chairman; the Earl of Effingham, the Dean of York, Sir George Strickland, Sir R. D. Hildyard, Sir James Norcliffe, &c., &c. That, Sir, is my case for payment of Members. But before I sit down I shall be expected to answer a question which has been addressed to me a great many times, privately, by hon. Members—"How much are you going to give us?" It would, Sir, be highly presumptuous in me to desire to dictate at this time to the House the exact amount to be filled up in the Bill
  1356
  —that can be more fitly inserted in Committee; but I should like, Sir, to be allowed to indicate very shortly my opinion upon this point. There are three clear gradations in respect of amount which might be adopted, depending upon the principle on which such payments should be based. The first would be to give such a sum as should be sufficient to tempt into the political arena men fitted by intelligence and education to do good service here, but who are entirely without independent fortune; and, Sir, I do not hesitate to avow myself an advocate for this principle. I conceive that the country loses a vast amount of available power by making wealth a condition of its being put to use. If it has ever happened to any hon. Member to advertise for a secretary, he has probably been astonished, and perhaps shocked, by the overwhelming number of replies from men of intellect, of education, and of character, all rushing in the hope of some poor pittance of perhaps £200 a year. Again, when we hear of men who have taken University honours working at the diggings of Ballarat or California, or eager to obtain a place as station-master on a railway, or even as engine-driver, I can hardly doubt but it will be admitted that the country fails most grievously to utilize all its valuable elements. I should say, Sir, that the amount to be given under this theory should be placed as a minimum at £500 a year. The second gradation to which I would allude will be applicable to the theory of giving just so much as would enable a person with the humblest desires to exist while serving in this House—such a sum as probably to any of us would be but a small proportion of the inevitable expenses attendant upon membership. When I say this, I have in my mind some such sum as £150 a year. The third gradation I mention is one which seems to have arisen in the minds of a portion of the working classes. Keeping steadily in view as the one object the possible admission of working men into this House—which, as the House will have observed, is only one of the objects in my mind—they have said—"Why should, not those Members be paid, and those only, who, being without means, should make a declaration to such effect at that Table, and should thereupon be entitled to some such bare subsistence as I have already indicated?" Although,

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  to some extent, such a plan would not be without precedent in the case of official pensions, it must be admitted that there are grave objections to it. It would tend to divide this House into castes, and would place the recipients in a false position, both outside this House and within it. Still, should the House be disposed to go thus far, and no farther—regarding it as but a stepping-stone to the full acknowledgment of the principle—I would gladly and thankfully accept it. It now only remains for me to thank the House very sincerely for the kind and patient hearing they have accorded me, and, in conclusion, to express my sincere conviction that the measure I have brought under their consideration is one eminently calculated to extend the usefulness and increase the efficiency of this branch of the Legislature, and therefore to raise it in credit with the country and in honour with the world.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to restore the ancient constitutional practice of Payment of Members."—(Mr. Taylor.)
  MR. GLADSTONE: My hon. Friend who has made this Motion has predicted with much confidence that it will be carried within some reasonable period, and that the Septennial Act will be repealed and electoral districts established. Now, I do not at all think that the prospect of changes of that kind is so alarming that it need drive hon. Members out of their senses, or induce us to indulge in any vulgar outcry on those subjects. They ought each of them to be regarded upon their own merits. With respect to some I think their character is often misapprehended, and, as an example, I will take the subject of electoral districts. The plan for establishing electoral districts originally made its appearance in this country, I believe, as a part of the scheme of the Chartists, and from that circumstance it has been supposed to be a revolutionary, or at least a democratic and Radical measure. I know, however, that some Gentlemen think it open to argument whether it would be a Radical proposition at all. There may, no doubt, be much said against it, but much may, in my opinion, be likewise urged in its favour, apart from the question of its being more or less Radical or democratic. With respect to the particular question under the notice of the House, I must
  1358
  say my hon. Friend has made a fair contribution tonight towards realizing his own prophecies, for the subject he has brought forward could not have been better presented to the House and the country than it has been by my hon. Friend in his entertaining and also interesting and instructive speech. I hope my hon. Friend will not think I am aiming a revolver at his head if I say that, after having listened to such an interesting speech on the subject, I hope I shall not have the pleasure of listening to him again. I own that, looking at the whole circumstances of the time and the merits of the question conjointly, I do not think it is desirable that the House should entertain the question he raised. Let me say, however, in the first instance, that I do not recede in any degree from any part of the quotation which my hon. Friend made from the speech I delivered on the subject of introducing poor men into this House. To see this House composed and constituted of men who have received a limited education and are in dependent circumstances would be a most calamitous thing. But so far from that being a calamity which we have to apprehend we see the total exclusion of poor men from the House, and, with reference to that exclusion, I have spoken strongly in favour of the principle of the important measure proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton (Mr. Fawcett) with regard to the charges imposed upon candidates coming into this House, and, moreover, I have supported the measure, being sensible, at the same time, of the extreme difficulty which would attend any attempt to give it a perfectly satisfactory application in the present state of circumstances. Nothing could be more difficult than to make a satisfactory arrangement in respect to those charges; but I perfectly agree with my hon. Friend that, if possible, we ought to have a satisfactory representation of the less opulent portions of the community on the Benches of this House. How is that to be done? My hon. Friend reasons as if he thought that, by appointing payment for Members, you would neutralize the distinction at present existing between rich and poor in this country. I own, however, that I think it is a matter of great doubt whether it would have that effect. By giving to the rich man a certain salary you do not destroy his

  1359
  superiority over the poor man in his circumstances and external advantages. And we must not omit from our consideration that the tendency and disposition of the people of this country is to choose from among the more opulent classes those who are to represent them. It is not by the mere force of wealth, lavishly spent, that constituents are induced to return wealthy men. They themselves prefer to do so. No person, since the passing of the Household Suffrage Act, can have watched the comparatively slight efforts which have been made to open the doors of this House to the working men without seeing the immense difficulties that must be overcome. Supposing it to be open to the working man to come to the Table when he has got into the House, and to declare himself unable to serve his country unless he receives a salary—and I am far from seeing anything which is of necessity dishonourable or degrading in his so doing—does the hon. Member think he can make sure that we could get a single working man to make that declaration? I myself do not feel otherwise than extremely sceptical on the subject. It is not, after all, for the sake of introducing a mere handful of working men, even if we could be certain of effecting the object, that we ought to entertain the question of so large a change as that proposed by my hon. Friend. If it be desirable to open the House to those who are unable to support themselves during the time they are engaged in the discharge of their public duties here, it appears to me that we should have indications of that desire by the voluntary action of the constituencies themselves. We should have had such indications long before this. My hon. Friend has much faith in the voluntary principle. Now, what is there to prevent the members of a constituency from subscribing among themselves to enable a poor man to come into this House? I have heard—but I do not know whether it is true or not—of one instance of a person, who need not be named, but who, while he was here, commanded and preserved as much personal respect as any man among us, and the means of whose coming to London, and of paying his expenses here, were provided by the voluntary system. There is nothing to prevent a repetition of the experiment; but having been now in public life for
  1360
  thirty-eight years, I may say that is the only instance I can recollect. And yet, surely, if the measure of my hon. Friend would operate extensively in bringing poor men into the House, we should have had more indications of the kind among the constituencies, who, if they liked, might easily make the efforts necessary to secure the payment of such persons. It appears to me that if this subject were to be entertained at all, my hon. Friend, who has been so constitutional tonight, would do better if he kept still more in the road of the ancient Constitution, because the ancient Constitution knows nothing whatever about the little change which my hon. Friend slily slipped into his proposal of imposing the burden not on local rates, but on the Consolidated Fund. He skilfully skipped over, almost in a whisper, that part of the subject; but that is a most important and essential change. When the charge is locally levied it is an indication of a very strong sense in the local community of the necessity of the measure, and of the value of the services of the man; but if these payments are to be made out of the Consolidated Fund, then I must ask whether it is generally desirable that, irrespective of highly exceptional cases, which may be counted on one's fingers, we should alter entirely the practice which has so long governed our conduct with regard to the payment of Members. My hon. Friend does not question that this was originally a local charge, and that each community paid its own Members; but he says they were too niggardly, and therefore would not continue to do it; and, because they would not continue to do it, he proposes that we should cajole, wheedle, or induce them to do it by paying the charge out of the Consolidated Fund, in which case each community would be entirely insensible of its own share of the burden. The communities were, however, the proper judges of the value of the services rendered, and of the necessity for continuing the remuneration, and yet each and all of these communities, several hundreds in number, came to the conclusion that there was no sufficient reason for the payment of Members. They, therefore, all abandoned the practice, and all parties were satisfied with the result. My hon. Friend, I think, cannot conceal from himself that in one part of his speech his statements were

  1361
  less than accurate. He said that we had in this country no cases of gratuitous service except M.P.'s and J.P.'s. If that was strictly true, I should still doubt the policy of it; but surely it is very far from the truth. This country is full of gratuitous services; and whenever there is a public service to be done you do not pay for it unless you find it necessary to do so. I contend that that is a system well adapted to the circumstances of the country. If, indeed, you tell me that the service is ill done, that is another matter. My hon. Friend, says you mistrust the butler who comes to you and offers to perform the functions of his office for nothing, and I quite agree with him. I remember hearing an anecdote of an individual who offered himself for a footman's place in London, and when the person to whom he applied put the question, "What wages do you expect?" his answer was—"Well, as to wages I am indifferent; the two things I look to are recreation and perquisites." Can my hon. Friend show that this House is fairly open to the charge of having its heart set upon recreation and perquisites, while it is obviously indifferent to wages? Let us see whether my hon. Friend has stated the facts of the case with perfect accuracy. We have gratuitous service in this House and in the other House of Parliament, although my hon. Friend has not stated what course he proposed to take with regard to the Lords, either Spiritual or Temporal. The Lords Spiritual are not yet relieved from their attendance in Parliament, and they are subject to divers expenses whenever they come to London. The Lords Temporal are, happily on the whole, very largely blessed with the external and material gifts of Providence, yet to some of them an addition might not be unacceptable. How does my hon. Friend propose to proceed with regard to them? But besides the Houses of Parliament, we have the great instance of the magistracy, and we have likewise municipal services. Excepting the cases in which mayors are paid, and I believe they are very few—[An hon. MEMBER: Half-a-dozen.]—the whole of the municipal service of the country is performed gratuitously. Then what are we to say about parochial services? All the persons connected with parochial offices, including the churchwardens of this country, who dis-
  1362
  charge, not only ecclesiastical duties, but also very important civil ones, are unpaid. Again, if we look at the defensive forces of this country, let us consider how large a portion of their energy, ability, and skill is arrayed, either for no remuneration at all, or for a payment so slight that it cannot be considered to represent the value of the service. Take, again the administration of the Poor Law. Why do we not pay Poor Law Guardians for their difficult and very responsible duties? Look, also, at all those miscellaneous public services which are performed in this country from time to time through the medium of Commissions. I see my hon. Friend the Governor of the Bank of England (Mr. Crawford) here; he has served the Crown not only in this House, but also upon Commissions of great importance, with much expenditure of both time and thought. Such services as those are almost invariably gratuitous, except where they involve to a great degree the exercise of professional skill. Sir, I think I have said enough to show that we are discussing a much wider principle than my hon. Friend appears to suppose, and that gratuitous service where it can be obtained, and is not worse than you would get by payment, is the rule and principal practice of the country. [Several VOICES: Remember jurors, grand jurors, and sheriffs.] I am reminded of the case of jurors, both grand jurors and those who sit in criminal courts, who also render gratuitous services, and there is no doubt that the list might be very greatly lengthened. Now, are the examples of other countries entirely applicable to this case? Is it true that the service that is rendered gratuitously in this country is efficiently rendered? Is there anywhere among all the Legislative Assemblies of all the countries of the world, which, as my hon. Friend has reminded us, are in almost all instances in his favour, though I think we might have found some more in our own Colonies against him; but admitting that the rule is with him, is it true that those Legislative Chambers are more distinguished either by laborious service or by conscientious service than this British House of Commons, which is admitted in all countries to stand at the head of the Representative Assemblies of the world? What Assembly is there that attempts and transacts such

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  an amount of business? What Assembly is there in which not only the official Members—who, as my hon. Friend says, are paid, and I will go one step further, and say, are amply and liberally paid—but also all the other Members, without distinction of class, undergo so much personal effort and personal inconvenience, so much sacrifice of comfort and risk to health, really and truly arising out of the discharge of duty, as is done by the Members of this House? It is not, then, on the inefficiency of unpaid duty that my hon. Friend bases his arguments, neither is it with regard to those other classes of duty to which I have referred. But the truth is this—and let us not disguise it from ourselves—the condition of this country is peculiar. We have in this country a vast leisure class to which there is nothing parallel on the face of the earth. There is no country in which such an amount of wealth is concentrated within so small a space, and where, with respect to occupations, wealth being abundant in the market—if I may use a metaphor of political economy—commands but a small price. We have wealthy men in this country to whom wealth is nothing, because it is so common, but power, honour, distinction, the confidence of their countrymen, the favour of the Crown—all these things have value in their eyes; they are not money, but they are money's worth, and the public has no difficulty whatever in finding competent and qualified persons—the most competent generally, and the best qualified persons—to discharge all these offices without pay. There is one case, indeed, the case of the sheriffs, where you find an unpaid office regarded as a burden, and often and often have I been engaged in fastening that burden on the shoulders of men sufficiently unwilling. That is as regards the country at large, but is not this most curious? Go into those centres of society where wealth is most rapidly created; go into Lancashire, and there you find that the office of sheriff, so far from being shunned, is coveted with all its burdens, because public charge and responsibility, and the being chosen to be a servant of the Crown and guardian of the public peace is itself an object desirable in the eyes of the wealthy. The people of this country have many disadvantages with regard to public charges. They have a very heavy debt to bear, and
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  they have to pay a very high rate according to the value of labour. I am afraid my hon. Friend himself threatens a considerably greater augmentation of the public charge than he allows. My fear is that if my hon. Friend goes into the market and bids for labour which he can get for nothing, a price on the part of the public, he will not only have to pay that price in that particular case, but he will also entail a similar charge in all other cases in which gratuitous service is now rendered, and he may also raise to an artificial height the scale for all paid labour now in the market. Be that as it may, I contend that the public enjoys the fortunate advantage of having plenty of persons who are ready to serve it for nothing, and that the public is entitled to the benefit. When there are numbers of well-qualified men ready to give their labour without being paid, why should we go out of our way and insist upon adding to the taxation of the country for the purpose of giving them a payment? I think we are only doing the public fair justice in taking advantage of circumstances which happen to be in our favour, and I shall hold to that argument until my hon. Friend shows me—for he certainly has not done so tonight—that by the large and general change which he proposes with regard to the basis of Parliamentary service, we should obtain more efficient and more valuable service for the public than we receive at present. That being so I think it would not be wise to entertain my hon. Friend's proposal. I know that there is a practice of allowing Bills to be introduced into this House and of taking issue upon the second reading, and so far it would have been recommended by convenience that if the Bill had been introduced in silence we should have had—the enemies of the Bill would have had —to grapple with my hon. Friend upon the second reading; and how in the world or when in the world he would have found a day for that second reading I cannot tell. Upon the whole, then, with regard to this proposal, which is almost entirely new to our Parliamentary annals—without attempting to invest it with an access of horror or of tragic circumstances, and without pretending that the Constitution is dependent on the rejection of the Motion—I must own to thinking that my hon. Friend has not shown sufficient

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  cause to induce us to depart from those usages which are so widely extended, and so deeply rooted, and have so long continued in this country. Thinking that, and believing that, I am only expressing the feeling of the vast majority of this House when I say that we do not wish to entertain this subject with reference to any practical issue. I think the fairer and more manly course towards my hon. Friend is to toll him that, while we frankly acknowledge the benefit that all must have derived from, his luminous discussion of the subject, it is better for us not to raise false hopes or to tantalize him by acceding to the introduction of the Bill, and then joining issue with him on the second reading. I would rather seek to avoid joining issue with him by appealing to the good sense which he possesses in such abundance, and asking him not to press this Motion upon the House, because I am convinced that many will be compelled to vote against a Motion of such a sweeping character as it undoubtedly is. Truly sympathizing with my hon. Friend in his heartfelt desire that we could see the representatives of all classes in this House, that they might join with us in promoting the public good—all voting upon a perfect equality, I am sure he will see that he would be placing us in a painful position, and rendering our sentiments liable to misconstruction if he were to press his Motion.
  MR. HIBBERTobserved, that the hon. Member for Leicester had begun at the wrong end. Before such a measure as this should be introduced the way ought to have been cleared for enabling Members to get into this House by doing away with the large expenditure that now existed at Parliamentary elections. The legal expenses alone at the last General Election amounted to £1,250,000, and they might be considerably reduced, and indeed, as had been proposed, they might be thrown on the county and borough rates, and then the more humble class would be enabled to obtain seats in this House. In addition to the usual expenses of election, it was well known that Members of Parliament were called on from time to time for a considerable expenditure for charitable and other objects in connection with their counties and boroughs, and those additions to the real expenses of Members of Parliament ought to be got rid of before such a Bill
  1366
  as this was entertained. Again, if Members of Parliament were paid for their services, the same course ought to be followed in the case of the holders of municipal offices and the members of Boards of Guardians. On all these grounds he trusted that the Motion would not be pressed to a division—if it were, he should be compelled to vote against it.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, the hon. Member for Leicester had referred to a Resolution which he (Mr. Cross) had placed at the end of the Resolutions passed by the Committee which sat last year on Municipal and Parliamentary Elections, and in consequence of that Resolution had claimed his vote in support of the Bill. But he could not allow such an inference to be drawn. The question before that Committee last year was, whether the example of Australia ought to induce us to accept the Ballot, and among the reasons which he recorded in the proceedings of the Committee for the view he entertained on the subject was that, while in England there were many rich men who were quite willing to pay any money for the social position given by a seat in this House, that was not the case in Australia. That was the reason why he recorded his Resolution on the books of the Committee. He wished also to remind the hon. Gentleman that, according to the ancient constitutional practice of England, all the magistrates throughout the country were paid as well as the Members of Parliament. In the name of the ratepayers of Lancashire, whom he represented, he protested against a revival of that practice. There were 800 magistrates in Lancashire, or as many magistrates as policemen, and he could not support a return to the old practice of paying them about 4s. a day each, and saddling the ratepayers with that additional expense.
  VISCOUNT BURYsaid, he had lived familiarly in some of the countries referred to by the hon. Member for Leicester in proof of the benefits attendant on the adoption of such a proposal as this, and his experience of them was that in those countries politics were degraded into a trade, and there was nothing like that public spirit which induced men in England to give their services to the State without reward or hope of reward. In France such a thing as gratuitous labour for the benefit of the State would not

  1367
  even be understood; Frenchmen could not conceive why people should give gratuitous services when they might demand adequate remuneration for them. He maintained that if the proposal under consideration were carried out the social distinction of that House would be destroyed, and a class of representatives would be introduced who would not be drawn from the highest, best-educated, and best-cultivated class of the community, but from the ranks below that class. ["Oh, oh!"] Gentlemen might protest; but he would reiterate that the new representatives, under the circumstances he had described, would not be so cultivated, and politics in England would be reduced to the level of what they were in some other countries. They might, in fact, descend to something like the "lobbying" system practised in the United States, where men of position and intellect were ashamed to avow themselves politicians. No doubt the American Congress contained Members of the very highest distinction, education, and honour; but the rank and file of that Assembly did not belong to that order. As an illustration of the depths to which politics had sunk in the States, he might mention that one representative had his travelling expenses challenged on the ground that he had charged five times the necessary amount. On being taxed with having done this, he replied—"Oh, but I came round Cape Horn." "Even then you have charged one-half too much," persisted the auditor. "Oh," was the response;" I came in a sailing ship, and there being a heavy head-wind on we had to tack about." The point of the story lay not in the jest that it contained; but the manner in which it had been received in Washington, where it was regarded as far from reflecting disgrace or dishonour upon the Member of Congress of whom it was related. Such a circumstance tended to show that a lower tone of political morality prevailed in America than in this country. If the principle of the payment of Members was adopted in this country, persons would endeavour to obtain seats in that House for what they could get. He recollected that when the question of increasing the remuneration of Members was before the Canadian Parliament, an hon. Member rose in his place and said—"If I am not worth five dollars a day to my consti-
  1368
  tuents, I am worth at least that sum outside in the lobby, and there I shall go." It was because he believed that the high tone of political morality which now prevailed in this country would be degraded and lowered were payment to be made to Members that he should record his vote against the Motion of the hon. Member.
  MR. COLLINSobserved, that at the present time we should narrowly look at every principle before we adopted it. We were now adopting the system of compensation for disturbance, and if hon. Members were to be paid for their services in Parliament they would be entitled, in the event of a Dissolution, to compel the Treasury to compensate them for being disturbed in the possession of their seats. The cost to the Revenue would not be limited to the payment of such compensation, but would be increased by every long speech that an hon. Member chose to make. He was afraid he should not be able to give his vote in favour of the Motion.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 24; Noes 211: Majority 187.

WATER SUPPLY ON SUNDAY (METROPOLIS) BILL.

  LEAVE. FIRST READING.
  MR. STAPLETON,in moving for leave to bring in a Bill to make better provision respecting the supply of Water to the Metropolis on Sundays, said, that, although this might seem to be a small matter, yet such a measure as he proposed would be a great been to a very large population. It was a practice amongst certain classes to clean their houses on Saturday, and, in this manner, their supply of water was, to a great extent, exhausted; and yet, under the present arrangement, they received no further supply from the company on the following day. A good water supply on Sunday was of great advantage to those persons who wished to attend church decently, and even in the interests of temperance it was desirable; because if people could not get pure water, they sought to make it drinkable by the admixture of spirits, and if they had none, they went to the public-house. Mr. Green, the engineer of the East London Water Company, stated, before

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  the Committee over which the present Chief Commissioner of Works presided in 1867, that 20 per cent of the houses in the district supplied by his company had nothing but an eighteen-gallon tub for the storage of water, and that many houses had no means whatever of storing water; that many of the water-butts were near water-closets; that the poor stored water by putting it under their beds; that some of them stole water from each other on Sunday. Even if the people could supply themselves with cisterns for storing water, the storing of water in cisterns would be a more fertile source of impurity than any pollution of the river from which it was drawn. A Report of a Royal Commission since that date quoted a Report of the Board of Health made in 1850 to that effect. Having become acquainted with this state of things, he had put himself in communication with the several companies which supply the metropolis with water, and he thought it right to say that they had met him in the fullest and fairest manner. The West Middlesex Water Company informed him that they already supplied water on Sundays to Marylebone and Paddington. They had since given a supply to Kensington, and intended to extend it to Hammersmith. That was satisfactory so far; but as the supply was merely given as a favour at present, it might be withdrawn at any time. At any rate, an Act of Parliament, making it compulsory, would do no injury to their company, and would enable its directors to resist any objections from shareholders; while it would also have the effect of preventing an alteration of the arrangement by any future Board. The Secretary of the Chelsea Waterworks Company stated that they were giving a half supply on Sundays. They put the water on in the poorer districts. It was hardly fair to the public to allow each Board to determine which houses should have water and which should not. The letter from the Grand Junction Waterworks Company was, in effect, much the same as that of the Chelsea Company, stating that they supplied a very considerable quantity of water on Sunday, and were not unwilling to go a good deal further in that direction. Again, the New River Company stated that they supplied 57,000 houses on Sundays, and were willing to supply as many more as was
  1370
  necessary. In his opinion, it was necessary that they should supply all houses. The East London Company—into whose affairs Mr. Ayrton's Committee inquired—did not give so satisfactory an answer as the West-end Companies, although it was far more important that the people of their district, who were mostly poor, and had much smaller cisterns, should have a Sunday supply. The East London Company rested their opposition to his proposal entirely on one ground. They said that about 40 per cent of their district was supplied on the constant system, and they were prepared to carry out that constant system as soon as the inhabitants made the proper alterations that were required to prevent the enormous waste that would otherwise ensue. They also said the company had always been ready to furnish a Sunday supply when needed in times of epidemic and other special cases. By giving a Sunday supply in times of epidemic the company admitted its necessity, and by withdrawing it at the end of one outbreak of epidemic disease they laid the foundations of another. The company raised no objection to a regular Sunday supply, except that it would retard the extension of the constant supply system—a system good in itself, but difficult of attainment, because involving very considerable expense, to be incurred, not by the persons directly interested only, but by their landlords. The Southwark and Vauxhall Company stated that they supplied the whole of their metropolitan, but not their suburban district. The Lambeth Company answered very much in the same terms as the New River and the Grand Junction Companies. The Kent Company made the objection that a great part of their district was not in the metropolis; but Greenwich and Woolwich might be reckoned within the metropolitan area. He took the metropolitan district as defined by existing legislation, and he proposed that the penalties under his Bill should be the same as those prescribed by an existing Act—namely, £200 for the first offence, and a continuing penalty of £100 per month, to be enforced through the action of the Board of Trade. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving for leave to bring in the Bill.
  COLONEL STEPNEY,in seconding the Motion, said, the water supply both for the better class of houses and for the

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  worst in the metropolis was deficient at present; and, under ordinary circumstances, water was more likely to be wanted on Sundays than on week-days.
  DR. BREWERsaid, he had for several years investigated the subject, and found the principal difficulty was not to prove that the artizan and labouring classes were not supplied with water on the Sunday, but to determine how the supply could be secured to them consistently with the interests of the various water companies. In the majority of cases the supply at lodging-houses was insufficient to last from Saturday to Monday morning. Having regard to the practice of flushing the sewers, the absence of a supply of water on a hot Sunday had a prejudicial effect on the health of a locality, and to a defective supply of water those epidemics, which from time to time broke out in the metropolis, might be traced.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHconcurred in the object sought by the promoter of this Bill. No doubt the metropolis, as a whole, was still very inadequately supplied with water; and irrespective of all other considerations, a Sunday supply ought to be added to the weekday service. And now one word upon the larger question of a constant, as compared with an intermittent, supply. He had the honour of sitting on a Committee, presided over by the First Commissioner of Works, who was thoroughly conversant with all that could be urged on this very important subject. He would suggest to the Home Secretary to hand over to the First Commissioner of Works the duty of seeing that the metropolis was furnished with a proper water supply, and he had no doubt that right hon. Gentleman would be able to produce a comprehensive scheme. It was a discreditable thing that this metropolis, with its enormous wealth and importance, should be supplied with water in a way far inferior to Glasgow or Manchester. It was true, it was not easy to compel the water companies to afford a constant supply without making householders provide proper taps and adequate means for preventing the enormous waste that would otherwise arise. This, however, was clear, that it was the duty of Parliament to take care that a constant supply of fresh water was within the reach of every occupier in the metropolis. Concurrently with
  1372
  the Committee of 1867 a Royal Commission sat, which was presided over by the Duke of Richmond, and two very important plans were laid before it, one of them apparently very alarming from its magnitude and costliness. The Royal Commission reported against that scheme on the ground that there was in the valley of the Thames sufficient means, if adequate storage were provided, for greatly increasing the present supply. He wanted to know whether the Government had taken the recommendations of that Commission into their consideration; and, if so, what decision they had arrived at? He had observed, within the last few days, that the Conservancy of the Thames had withdrawn a plan which seemed to have within it the elements of what had been recommended by the Commissioners. If so, a good opportunity appeared to have been lost.
  MR. CLAYsaid, that having been connected with water companies during the greater part of his life, and, having been chairman of two of the principal companies in London, he wished to say a few words on this subject. Some fifteen years ago there was, no doubt, a very deficient Sunday supply in the metropolis; but that was not on account of any indisposition on the part of the water companies to meet the public wants; but in deference to the feeling which it would be recollected prevailed very generally against labour of any kind on the Sunday, and which found a remarkable manifestation in the closing of the Post Offices, both in London and the country, by vote of that House. After that time this feeling diminished so far that the water companies were enabled by degrees to give a Sunday supply. The letters from the officials of the companies, to which his hon. Friend referred, contained in a small compass an account of the position which the water companies occupied with the exception of one, the Kent Water Company. What they stated came to this—that for a long time past the companies had supplied all their poorer districts. The hon. Gentleman had spoken of "the distribution" of water on the Sabbath; but the House should recollect that the companies could not compel the owners of small houses to take their water, and an immense number of the smallest and poorest houses, which would be most benefited by the water

  1373
  supply, were not tenants of the water companies. Another thing was this, the companies could not make a man enlarge his cistern; all they could do was to fill it, and if the small houses had cisterns large enough there would be no difficulty. For years past it had been the rule to give a water supply on Sunday to those who asked for it, and if anyone wrote to the West Middlesex Company—if that was the one referred to by the hon. Gentleman—or to the Grand Junction, if that was the one, he would have a supply next Sunday. The only persons who had not a Sunday supply were either those who had furnished themselves with capacious cisterns and did not need it, or, a not inconsiderable class, chiefly suburban, who, the House would be surprised to learn, objected to hearing the water fall into their cisterns as an abomination, because they knew it caused work to be done by some on the Sabbath day. He would not object to the first reading of the Bill, nor probably to the second; he would only say that it was spurring a willing horse. The conditions of a satisfactory water supply were simple enough. They were, that the water should be perfectly good and the supply of it sufficient. As to the first of these conditions, the Committee presided over by the right hon. the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ayrton), and the Duke of Richmond's Commission, both admitted that the quality of the water was as good as could be desired, and the sufficiency of the supply was only a question of the largeness of the cisterns, for if large cisterns were provided the companies would fill them. The intermittent had an advantage over the continuous supply. In the course of the year 4,000 or 5,000 accidents occurred through the bursting of mains and pipes. Under the system of cisterns you knew nothing of these accidents; but under the constant supply system the supply must be stopped during the repair of the pipes.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, there could be no question that the Bill was well worthy of attentive consideration. It was only a contribution towards a larger subject; because any person who had considered the question must see that the time was near at hand when the whole matter must be considered, and when the proposal for giving a regular supply, and compelling every house to receive a
  1374
  regular supply, must be entertained. His own opinion was that no satisfactory arrangements would be made for a proper supply of water until a better system of local self-government was provided. That appeared to be a necessary condition to secure a sufficient supply, and by that means many towns had already obtained it. All he could say on the part of the Government was, that when his hon. Friend introduced his Bill it should receive their attentive consideration.
  Motion agreed to.
  Bill to make better provision respecting the supply of Water to the Metropolis on Sundays, ordered to be brought in by Mr. STAPLETON, Colonel STEPNEY, and Dr. BREWER.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 94.]

  HOUSE TAX.—RESOLUTION.
  MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCE,in rising to move—
  "That the House Tax is unequally and unfairly assessed, imposes unnecessary restrictions upon the construction of buildings specially adapted for the working classes, and ought to be repealed,"
  said, he was anxious to bring the subject before the House previous to the Chancellor of the Exchequer's statement on Monday next. The house tax was a rare example of a tax that had once been repealed., being re-imposed with all its former restrictions, regulations, and anomalies. It was abolished in 1834; but in 1851, when the window tax was remitted, the house tax, moderated in amount, was re-imposed. Many people thought the duty applied only to those who had good incomes and occupied good houses; but it really pressed heavily on the working classes in London and other large towns. The price of land was rising every day, and the result was, instead of a number of small houses being built covering a large space of ground, it was necessary to build larger houses, which were occupied, room by room, by working men and their families. These houses, being rated at more than £20 a year, were liable to the duty of 9d. in the pound, and the landlords in order to recoup themselves were compelled to charge 1s. in the pound upon the tenants who occupied their rooms. Not only did the tax in such cases lead to an increase of rent, but it interfered materially with the construction of houses intended for the use of the working classes. In the nine blocks of houses

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  built by Sir Sydney Waterlow's company, where the proportion of rent to the wages of the tenants was exactly one-fifth, and the average rent of each of the 819 families occupying rooms was 5s. 8½d. a week, the buildings were rated to the property tax at £8,628, and the house tax, which upon this assessment amounted to £310 8s. 6d. a year, was saved because there was no front door to these dwellings. There was a public staircase, and each tenement had an entrance door from it, and persons who chose to build in this form might avoid payment of the house tax altogether. The Corporation of London had done so; but the tax was paid upon the dwellings erected by Miss Burdett Coutts, and the Peabody Trustees and others, who had not conformed to this plan. There were objectionable features about houses of this kind, arising from the lurking-places afforded by them to persons of bad character, and he believed the police had already declined to take charge of these open staircases on some of the beats. Imagine the Seven Dials with the doors off all the houses in order to save the house tax. The Chancellor of the Exchequer would lose, and extra police would be required. It must be remembered that these large blocks of buildings erected by Sir Sydney Waterlow and others did not meet the requirements of the great mass of the working people, who were compelled to live in inferior dwellings, and to pay their share of the duty. Yet we all professed great anxiety that the working classes should live in houses more conducive to decency and order; and, indeed, the great problem of the day was the better housing of the working classes. We had passed laws enforcing drainage, water supply, &c., and all these things raised rents, increased the difficulty of building separate houses, and rendered it inevitable that the working classes should be accommodated in houses that could be sublet to several tenants. The consequence was that in London and large towns families lived in single rooms, with far less accommodation than was enjoyed by those in the country who were receiving less wages. There were miners and workers in mills who lived in comparatively good houses, because land was cheap. We ought to aim, at providing all families with at least two rooms, and this could be done only by lowering
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  rents or raising wages—the latter, the House could not do; but they could take of the tax upon those dwellings. We had taken off taxes on food and clothing; but we had taxed lodging until the small-wage class were obliged to live in places that were a disgrace to civilization. The repeal of the house tax would afford a double relief; for not only would the tax be saved, but the removal of the present restrictions would allow houses to be built more convenient for the working classes. The house tax pressed very lightly upon the baronial residences and mansions of the rich, because it was laid upon the amount of rent which it was presumed they would let for; and as most of them could not be let for anything like their value, the tax upon them was only nominal. Houses that had cost £200,000, £300,000, and even £500,000 were rated at only £200, £300, and £500 a year. Two friends of his, who were large merchants in the City, had each built a mansion at the cost of £20,000, and one was rated at £60, and the other at £80 a year; and close by them was the mansion of a noble proprietor who had spent £30,000 in improving it, and he was rated at only £100 a year. These facts justified him in saying that the tax was unequally and unfairly assessed. No doubt the Chancellor of the Exchequer could quote political economists who defended a house tax in the abstract; but who always insisted that it ought to be fairly and equitably assessed; for John Stuart Mill had stated that—
  "The public were justly scandalized on learning that residences like Chatsworth or Belvoir were only rated on an imaginary rent of, perhaps, £200 a year, under the pretext that, owing to the great expense of keeping them up, they would not let for more; probably, indeed, they could not be let even for that, and if the argument were a fair one, they ought not to have been taxed at all."
  It was true that the tax produced as much as £1,000,000 a year; but the Chancellor of the Exchequer could not better apply a portion of his large surplus than in dealing with it, and relieving the lodgings of the poor from the pressure of this tax, which was abolished in Ireland in 1822. Any attempt to make it equitable or just would most certainly fail. Another grievance was that small manufactories connected with houses were assessed to the tax, while the large manufactories were exempt; and he wondered that the teetotallers had not

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  taken up the question, because coffee houses paid 9d. in the pound, while public-houses and beer-houses paid only 6d. in the pound. The fact was that Sir Charles Wood, when he removed the window tax in 1851, reimposed the old house tax of 1808, without the slightest care to adapt it to the modern circumstances of the country, or to modify its gross inequalities and remedy its injustice. There was one matter he wished to bring under the notice of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, because the idea of that right hon. Gentleman was that the working classes, being exempt from the income tax and some other duties, were lightly taxed. Now, if the subject were discussed from that point of view, he should be able to prove that the working classes paid a larger share to the Revenue in proportion to their incomes in respect of the duties on malt, spirits, tea, sugar, and tobacco than was paid by those whose income amounted to £10,000, £20,000, or £50,000 a year. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving his Resolution.
  MR. COLLINS,in seconding the Resolution, called the attention of the President of the Poor Law Board to the unequal manner in which the value of large houses was assessed. A gentleman's large house in the country, which might have cost £20,000 to build, was often assessed at the ridiculous low sum of £100 a year, because it would not let for more than that sum. This was felt to be a great grievance by tradesmen who had taken large premises for the purpose of carrying on their business, and were assessed at a much higher rate. There ought to be some other mode than the present for computing the value of large mansions, and he would suggest that the occupiers of them might be assessed on the selling value of the premises.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the House Tax is unequally and unfairly assessed, imposes unnecessary restrictions upon the construction of buildings specially adapted for the working classes, and ought to be repealed."—(Mr. Alderman Lawrence.)
  MR. STANSFELDtrusted that his hon. Friend the Member for the City of London would not consider him disrespectful if he declined at that late hour to follow him throughout his arguments. The argument of his hon. Friend was to the effect that the house tax was unjust,
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  unequal, and oppressive in its incidence on the poorer part of the population; but his argument fell far short of that wide and sweeping proposition. The tax, as was stated by the hon. Member, was repealed in 1834 and afterwards re-enacted; but his hon. Friend forgot to state that previous to 1834 the house duty was imposed on houses down to a rental of £10, and that now all houses below the rental of £20 were exempt from the duty. It was well worthy the consideration of the Chancellor of the Exchequer or of the President of the Poor Law Board, whether there might not be some alternative mode of assessing large houses, which were let for a rent not at all representing the interest of the money spent in their erection. With respect to the allegation of the oppressive nature of the house tax—which, at any rate, did not fall on the poor who lived in separate tenements under a £20 rental, he desired to state that in 1832 the house duty and window tax, which might be placed on the same footing, amounted to £1,040,000; whereas the assessment for the house duty in Middlesex was at present not more than £400,000 a year, though the value of property must have increased 300 per cent. The hon. Member did not prove his case by stating that there were some hardships and inequalities in the house duty, because there was hardly a tax not liable to the same objection; but the question was whether, looking at the whole financial system, the house duty was a tax which ought to be first repealed. He believed that Parliament would not be of that opinion, for the tax now objected to by the hon. Member had the merit of falling on occupiers in a very fair proportion to their ability to pay. It was a direct tax, and free from the objections urged against the income tax; and, at any rate, it was not, all things considered, standing first for repeal as a tax falling OIL the labour and industry of the country. For the secrets of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, hon. Members must wait till Monday; but he did not think that, on the whole, the house tax was a bad tax, and he could not hold out to his hon. Friend any hope of its repeal.
  MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCEsaid, he should not divide the House on the question; but he was quite convinced, that when the Chancellor of the Exchequer attempted to tax equitably the

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  princely houses and mansions throughout the country, it would be found that the easiest plan was to abolish the tax altogether.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS.

  MOTION FOR AN ADDRESS.
  MR. T. HUGHES,in rising to bring forward the Motion of which he had given notice, said, it would be remembered that in 1861 the Public Schools Commission was appointed, which reported in 1867; and in 1868 the House passed an Act known as the Public Schools Act, under which the then governing bodies of seven great public schools were empowered to reconstitute themselves by a certain day—the 1st of May, 1869. In the event of their not so reconstituting themselves the powers which were thereby given to them were handed over to Her Majesty in Council. Under the authority of the Act two of the great schools—Eton and Westminster—had reconstituted themselves; the five other great schools did not reconstitute themselves, and the consequence was that their power lapsed as was provided by the Act. The special Commissioners had considered the case of those schools, and passed the statutes which should form the future constitution of their schools. In each of these statutes the qualification of the future members of the governing bodies was made to depend on membership of the Church of England. By the 19th section of the statute, it was provided that the statutes by which the schools were in future to be governed should be laid on the Table for forty days, the object being to enable the House, if it should think fit, to tender advice to Her Majesty as to those statutes. Now he intended to cast no reflection whatever upon the conduct of the Commissioners, of which with one or two exceptions, he entirely approved; but to the necessity of membership of the Church of England he entertained a very strong objection. He believed it would be bad for the schools—that the distinction between endowed and public schools was an unfortunate one. He had applied to the authorities of Rugby for their opinion, and one of the senior Masters—a representative of the majority of the Masters, had declared himself
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  emphatically in favour of the Motion. There was also a Petition signed by a large body of the assistant Masters of Harrow to the same effect, and though the head Master had not signed it Dr. Butler had written to him, saying—
  "It seems to me that if the Nonconformists claim to be eligible, their claim cannot fairly be resisted. Personally, I should be sorry to think that a school like Harrow was obliged to look for its governors beyond the. bounds of the National Church; but I do not believe that the interest of the school could be fostered by a system of legal exclusion."
  He also believed that the system in question would not only be bad for the schools, but bad for the Church of England. There was still much distrust of the Church of England existing in the minds of the great body of the Nonconformists in this country, and the only way in which that jealousy and distrust could be done away with was that the Church of England should no longer claim any exclusive privileges whatever. It would be a great misfortune for the Church of England if such a proposal as this should be passed, and. if the seven great schools of the country were to be handed over to her as an exclusive appanage. It would be a shackle upon her rather than an increase in her strength. Besides these reasons for addressing the Crown he contended that the present Parliament would stultify itself by allowing these constitutions to go unchallenged after the course taken in regard to the Endowed Schools Act in 1869, the first year of the Reformed Parliament. The 17th clause of that Act declared that no person should be disqualified for the governing body of one of the endowed schools on account of religious opinions. No real difference existed between the public schools and the endowed schools, and it would be mischievous to both to establish any. One other reason which he would press upon the Government in support of this Motion was the difficulty in which their supporters were placed with respect to the great question of primary education. It was of great importance that the Government should make a distinct declaration upon this point, for the warmest supporters of primary education were divided sharply into two camps—those who favoured purely secular instruction and those who believed in the possibility of a religious system of national education. How could the

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  Nonconformists be induced to believe in the possibility of establishing this perfectly fair common ground of religious instruction in primary schools unless in the higher branches of education also they were assured that they would receive perfectly fair play? In these seven great public schools the large majority of the legislators in both Houses of Parliament were educated, and if these seven schools were all reserved as appanages of the Established Church, how could they expect to be looked upon otherwise than as a dominant sect? He trusted, therefore, the Government would see their way to supporting the Motion, and that the Nonconformists would thus receive the assurance that both in the highest class of education and in primary education they would receive perfectly fair play.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying Her to be pleased to order that in the five Statutes for determining and establishing the constitution of the new governing bodies of Shrewsbury, Winchester, Harrow, Charterhouse, and Rugby Schools, the words requiring membership of the Church of England as a qualification in the case of persons elected or nominated members of the governing bodies may be omitted."—(Mr. Thomas Hughes.)
  MR. MOWBRAYmoved the adjournment of the debate. At such a late hour it was perfectly impossible to enter upon the discussion of so large a question. Without taking into account the advanced hour to which the House had sat the night before, the Speaker that day had been in the Chair since two o'clock, and would have to take the Chair at twelve o'clock tomorrow. Moreover, there had been a general understanding that the debate would not be proceeded with that night, in virtue of which his right hon. Colleague in the representation of Oxford University had left the House, and also the two Members for the University of Cambridge; and not only they but the First Minister of the Crown had left. He knew also that two of the Public School Commissioners—the Recorder (Mr. Russell Gurney) and the Solicitor General—who were both prepared to take part in the debate, and to defend the recommendations of the Commissioners, had left the House with the full understanding that the debate would not come on.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, he trusted his hon
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  Friend would accede to the Motion for adjournment. Had the debate proceeded he should have been prepared to take up the Motion and to give to it a hearty and undoubted support; but, considering the importance of the question, he thought it would prevent a fair discussion if they were to debate it at that hour, especially in the absence of the two Public School Commissioners to whom reference had been made, who, no doubt, would have had some observations to make. The matter was one well deserving the attention of the House, and he trusted his hon. Friend would press it upon the earliest possible day that the discussion could be renewed. He would suggest Friday for the purpose, when facilities could, perhaps, be given him for bringing it on.
  An hon. MEMBER suggested that unless the debate were proceeded with at once the supporters of the Motion might be precluded from moving the Address, which it was very desirable to carry at once.
  MR. BRUCEsaid, that until the debate was terminated no Order in Council would pass.
  Debate adjourned till Friday.
  House adjourned at One o'clock.