Commons Sitting of 30 April 1875

MINUTES.
PUBLIC BILLS—Committee—Peace Preservation (Ireland) [77]—R.P.
Committee—Report—Falsification of Accounts * [121].
Third Reading—Municipal Elections* [118]; Artizans Dwellings* [126], and passed.
The House met at Two of the clock.

PARLIAMENT—PUBLICATION OF DEBATES AND PROCEEDINGS—EXCLUSION OF STRANGERS.—NOTICE.
MR. MITCHELL HENRYgave Notice, that he would, on the Motion of the noble Lord the Member for Radnor (the Marquess of Hartington), relative to the Reporting of the Debates of the House and the presence of Strangers, move—
"That it is expedient to make no permanent alteration in the rules relating to the reports of the debates or proceedings of the House or of any Committee thereof, or as to the presence of strangers, until the House has more fully considered the present system of reporting its proceedings, and the aid of information to be obtained by the appointment of a Select Committee."

ARMY—ROYAL ARTILLERY—THE ROYAL WARRANT OF 1871.—QUESTION
SIR HENRY WILMOTasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is intended to grant to Officers of the Royal Artillery, who retired under the Royal Warrant of 1871, the step of

1893
honorary rank which is given to Officers of the Royal Marines and Royal Marine Artillery, who retire under the Royal Warrant of 1870?
MR. GATHORNE HARDY, in reply, said, he had to state that special steps of honorary rank were allowed in certain cases in the Royal Artillery under the Warrant of 1871, but that was only in consequence of the great block which existed to promotion in that force. Steps of honorary rank were only allowed to officers retiring on full pay after 30 years' service; but it was not intended to grant such a step to those who retired under the Warrant of 1870, who would have the step on the ordinary retirement from the corps.

PARLIAMENT-PUBLIC BUSINESS—THE PUBLIC WORKS LOAN BILL.—QUESTION.
MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he understood, with reference to the Public Business on the Paper, that if the Peace Preservation Bill was finished that day, the Budget would be taken on Monday next; but, if that were not so, he should like to hear from the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he would proceed with the Public Works Loan Bill on Monday?
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER, in reply, said, that the Notice given by the hon. Member for Hackney (Mr. Fawcett) would make it necessary to consider what should be done with that Bill, and he would undertake not to bring it on for consideration without seeing that ample time should be allowed for the discussion of the important Motion of which Notice was given by the hon. Member for Hackney. In case the Peace Preservation Bill should be finished that day, he would proceed with the Budget on Monday.

ARMY—ACTUARIAL CALCULATIONS.

  QUESTION.
  SIR HENRY HAVELOCKasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he will lay before the House, the actuarial calculations that have been made for the War Office, showing the number of soldiers now serving who have enlisted since 1870 for short service, and the probable annual rate at which they will pass into the Army Reserve in the year 1876 and three following years?
  MR. GATHORNE HARDY, in reply, said, if the hon. and gallant Gentleman would ask him privately, he would confer with him as to the information that could be given.

PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) BILL— [BILL 77.]
(Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland.)
PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) BILL— [BILL 77.]

  COMMITTEE. [Progress 29th April.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 3 (Continuance of Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act, 1870, subject to Amendments and modifications).
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGmoved, as an Amendment, in page 2, line 37, to leave out the words—"When any person is charged in any proclaimed district before any justices of the peace assembled at petty sessions." He considered that to give the magistrates such a power of summary jurisdiction would be dangerous when political questions were involved. The first time that summary jurisdiction in degree was given to magistrates in Ireland, under any Coercion Act, was in 1870. That power was, however, limited; but, by the present Bill, it was for the first time proposed to give an extension of power to the magistrates of Ireland which they never possessed before. He believed that the Irish magistrates were as pure as any magistrates in the United Kingdom; but he considered the summary jurisdiction which the magistrates assembled in petty sessions possessed was too great, and the object of his Amendment was to do away with the power as exercised under the Acts of 1847 and 1870.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, the power of summary jurisdiction applied only to the restriction upon the possession of arms, and he had introduced it in the interests of persons accused, his experience on the English Bench having shown that defendants often preferred to be dealt with summarily instead of being committed for trial and having a charge hanging over their heads for an indefinite period. He would accept the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Captain Nolan), that a case should be dealt with summarily only with the consent of the accused, and he was prepared to reduce

  1895
  the term of imprisonment from six months to three in the hope that the clause would not be opposed. The main reason for the insertion of the clause was that it would tend to a speedy and cheap administration of justice in Ireland.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGthanked the right hon. Baronet, and said that he was willing to accept the compromise, and, on the statement just made, would withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  On the Motion of Mr. M'CABTHY DOWNING, the following Amendments made:—In page 2, line 41, after "think fit" insert the words "and if the person so charged shall himself desire it;" and in page 3, line 4, strike out the words "with or without hard labour."
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHmoved, as an Amendment, in page 3, line 5, to leave out "six," in order to substitute "three" months as the term of imprisonment.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGhoped that the usual limit to the magistrates' power of imprisonment would in this case, as in others, be two months, or a fine of £5.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he thought that three months was the more usual term; and it should be borne in mind that the magistrates could, if they thought fit, limit the imprisonment to two months or any less term.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Word substituted.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGmoved, as an Amendment, in page 3, line 10, after "if," insert "the person charged shall object to having his case summarily disposed of; and shall require same to be sent for trial in the ordinary way or if."
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PLUNKET)could not accept the Amendment, as he did not think it would be workable.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. BIGGAR (for Mr. FAY), moved, as an Amendment, in page 3, line 22, after "cause," insert "and such dismissal shall in every case carry with it the costs and expenses of the person charged against the prosecutor or prosecutors."
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PLUNKET)said, it was quite impossible for him to entertain the Amendment, or anything of the kind. Of course, in the case of a malicious prosecution the accused could recover costs in the ordinary way.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, as the Amendment was not his own, he did not feel justified in withdrawing it.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGsaid, the Crown being the prosecutor, costs could not be recovered against the Crown. Under the present law a magistrate had power of ordering costs. Therefore, there was no necessity for the Amendment.
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAhoped the Amendment would be withdrawn.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGmoved, as an Amendment, in page 3, lines 27 and 28, to leave out the words, "and sentenced to a term of imprisonment exceeding one month." The object which he had in view in moving that Amendment was to give an accused person a right of appeal against the decision of the magistrates. A man might be accused wrongfully, and sentenced to imprisonment; and it would be a great hardship, and a most serious act of injustice, to deny him the right of appeal against the sentence when he would have the right if he was fined one pound and a penny.
  Amendment proposed, in page 3, lines 27 and 28, to leave out the words "and sentenced to a term of imprisonment exceeding one month."—(Mr. Downing.)
  SIR GEORGE BOWYEEhoped Her Majesty's Government would accept the Amendment, as it would be a most serious punishment to imprison an innocent man a month without the right of appeal. He thought that there should be an appeal in cases of imprisonment even though the period was less than a month.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PIATNKET)hoped the Amendment would not be pressed as he could not consent to it. He would remind the Committee that a prisoner had the option of being tried at the Assizes. He could not be tried summarily by the magistrates unless by his own consent. The Government had followed the precedent of the Irish Petty

  1897
  Sessions Act, and under the circumstances he had stated he could not see the hardship which had been complained of as likely to be inflicted.
  MR. MELDONexpressed his intention of voting for the Amendment. The right of appeal as it stood was in a very unsatisfactory state. Over and over again persons fined £1 or a smaller sum applied to be fined £1 1s., so as to obtain the right of appeal, and there was much greater hardship in cases of imprisonment. They would have prisoners applying to be sentenced to more than a month's imprisonment, for the same reason if the Amendment were not accepted, as he hoped it would be by Her Majesty's Government.
  LORD ROBERT MONTAGUwas of opinion that the Amendment ought to be adopted by the Government. It would be a most serious thing to imprison a man, even for a day, without giving him a right to appeal against a sentence which, he being innocent, might ruin him in the estimation of his neighbours. Take, for instance, a respectable farmer. Such a sentence, without power of appeal, would be ruinous to him, and would embitter his future life. Surely it would be right that a man should have the power of proving before a higher tribunal that he was not a criminal. He was thus far in favour of his hon. Friend's proposal.
  MR. BIGGARsupported the Amendment, and contended that such summary power of jurisdiction should not be given to the magistrates.
  MR. O'SULLIVANstrongly disapproved of the power of summary jurisdiction being placed in the hands of the magistrates. He supported the Amendment, and hoped the Government would accept it.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, it should be remembered that the cases referred to were those in which the persons accused consented to be tried before the magistrates, and if they so consented they must take the consequences. What was now proposed was that an exception should be made from the general operation of the law, and he did not see why, if they were comvicted, they should be placed in a better position than persons tried at quarter sessions. He saw no reason for such an exception, and hoped, therefore, that the clause would be left as it stood.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERpointed out, in reply to the Chief Secretary, that that legislation altogether was of an exceptional character, and he thought that if an appeal was given where a man had been sentenced to be imprisoned for a month and a day, it ought not to be refused where the term of imprisonment was only a day less. He could not see why, because a man elected one of two modes to be tried, he should be deprived of the right of appeal.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, that depriving a man of the right of appeal would cause the decisions of magistrates to be looked upon as odious in the extreme. This was a case where it would be justifiable to make some departure from the ordinary law and allow an appeal.
  SIR PATRICK O'BRIENmust protest in the most emphatic manner against the power of summary jurisdiction proposed by the clause to be placed in the hands of magistrates. Imprison an innocent man without the right of appeal and you ruin him for life. The power proposed was most arbitrary, and he hoped the Committee would accept the Amendment.
  Question put, "That the words 'and sentenced to a term of imprisonment' stand part of the Clause."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 187; Noes 110: Majority 77.
  MR. SULLIVAN (for Mr. BUTT)moved, as an Amendment, in page 3, line 33, at end, insert—
  "Every proclamation heretofore issued under any of the Peace Preservation Acts hereby continued, and which shall at the passing of this Act be in force in any district in Ireland, shall, unless previously revoked, continue in force and effect until the first day of August next, and no longer."
  The effect of the Amendment was that in putting this measure in force the Government of Ireland should begin as it were with a clear board.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 3, line 33, after the word "mentioned," to insert the words "every proclamation heretofore issued under any of the Peace Preservation Acts hereby continued, and which shall at the passing of this Act be in force in any district in Ireland, shall not continue in force and effect after the first day of August next, unless previously renewed."—(Mr. Butt.)
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, if the Amendment was adopted, and the

  1899
  Bill became law, it would affirm that it was necessary that power should be continued to the Lord Lieutenant to impose by proclamation certain exceptional laws upon such parts of Ireland as he thought fit, and, at the same time, every proclamation now in force would be revoked. That, he thought, would be a perfect absurdity. Under the Bill as it stood, the responsibility of the Lord Lieutenant in continuing a proclamation was just as great as that of issuing it, and they might rely upon it the Irish Government would not keep any district under proclamation longer than was absolutely necessary.
  MR. BUTTthought this was a very important Amendment. He obtained a Return last year, and found from it that all the proclamations which had been issued in 1866 were still in force in a great many districts in Ireland. They seemed to be retained as a matter of course, for there did not appear to be any inquiry instituted as to whether they were still necessary. The Chief Secretary had said there was as much responsibility in continuing as in issuing these proclamations, but he would like to know at what particular time that responsibility arose. All that was desired in proposing the Amendment was to make that responsibility distinct. He had the fullest confidence in the promises of the right hon. Baronet, but he wanted to embody in the Bill the pledge given by him that proclamations should be re-voiced in districts where they were not needed. The right hon. Gentleman said these proclamations were necessary in some counties, but which counties were they? And if it was intended to drop the restrictions gradually, why did not the Government bind themselves to do it? If the right hon. Gentleman wished to protect himself let him give himself the protection pointed out.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERthought there was a good deal in the arguments of the hon. and learned Gentleman, and that as they were continuing these Acts for another five years there was some ground for saying it should be made quite clear by the Bill itself that they expected from the Executive Government that it would examine whether these proclamations were really necessary. He would suggest, therefore, that the object of the hon. and learned Member would be better attained if the latter part of his Amendment were struck out and words
  1900
  were substituted providing that the proclamations in question should "not continue in force and effect after the 1st of August next unless previously renewed."
  MR. BUTTacceded to the suggested alteration. The difference it would, make was very trifling, but it appeared to be an improvement. The same words had occurred to himself, but he rejected them, because they seemed to be clumsy. He would, however, move the Amendment as altered by the right hon. Gentleman.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he could not accept the Amendment. He thought it was a remarkable fact that although the late Government, of which the right hon. Member for Bradford was a Member, brought in a Bill of that kind in 1870, which they afterwards renewed in 1871 for two years, and again in 1873 for another two years, yet on none of those occasions did they insert any such provision as the right hon. Gentleman now suggested, fettering the discretion of, and expressing a want of confidence in, the Irish Government. The inference to be drawn from the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman amounted to this—that he had no confidence either in the promises that had been given, or in the Irish Government. If they accepted that Amendment, it would be assumed that every part of Ireland was primâ facie in a state that would not justify the continuance, even in a modified form, of that measure. If the Government believed that to be the case, they would not have asked the House to renew that Act at all, and certainly not to renew it for five years. For his own part he had promised that when the Bill became law, he would carefully look into the circumstances connected with each proclaimed district, and he should do so in the hope that the Government would be able, consistently with law and order, to withdraw the proclamations from several districts and counties of Ireland. Having said that, he asked the Committee to put confidence in the Government, and not fetter its action.
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in answer to the charge of inconsistency made against him by the Chief Secretary, said, that the right hon. Baronet must have forgotten that there was a considerable difference between continuing such an Act for two years and continuing it, as was now proposed, for five years. Moreover,

  1901
  it did not follow that what the late Government thought was necessary some years ago for Ireland was necessary now; and the present Government themselves were making alterations in that code, because they did not think the state of things was the same now as it was before. All that the Chief Secretary was now asked to agree to, was to put into the Bill what he had just promised that the Government would do. That was only fair, under the circumstances, in a matter affecting the liberties of Ireland. He did not wish to fetter in the slightest degree the action of the Irish Government; but he thought hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House should not be charged with want of confidence in the Government now in office, simply because they held that it would be better for all persons to know what was going to be done, and that such intention ought to be stated in the Bill.
  CAPTAIN NOLAN, with all due respect for the Chief Secretary, was not prepared to give him the unlimited power which he claimed over the liberties of the people of Ireland. He gathered from the remarks of the right hon. Baronet that the people of Ireland were to trust to him. Well, he might be a very good Chief Secretary in his own estimation, and he (Captain Nolan) had nothing to say on that head, but he would call his attention to the fact that whilst in all the important divisions yesterday there were 40 Irish Members against him, there were only 20 with him. That was an evidence that in Ireland the people did not feel that wonderful confidence in the Irish Chief Secretary which was expected of them.
  MR. FRENCHwas sure they might put implicit confidence in the promises made by the right hon. Baronet; but they had no guarantee that he would continue in his present office for five years. In that case, the next Gentleman who might be appointed to the office might not consider himself bound by the promises now made by the right hon. Baronet, and they ought to have some guarantee against such a contingency as that.
  SIR HENRY HAVELOCK, expressed his full concurrence in the observations of the right hon. Member for Bradford.
  MR. MELDONsupported the Amendment, as he wished to make it imperative on the Government to consider im-
  1902
  mediately those proclamations which ought to be withdrawn, and those which ought to remain in force.
  MR. BUTTsaid, he was willing, if the right hon. Baronet thought the 1st of August was too soon, to give him to the 1st of September or the 1st of October to reconsider these proclamations. All he wanted was that they should be reviewed at some fixed time known to the public.
  Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 142; Noes 203: Majority 61.
  MR. BUTT (for Mr. O'REILLY)moved, as an Amendment, in page 3, line 33, at end, add—
  "Nothing heroin contained shall have the effect of continuing the seventh and eighth sections of the Act passed in the eleventh year of Her Majesty, entitled An Act for the better Prevention of Crime and Outrage in certain parts of Ireland until the 1st day of December, 1819, and the end of the then next Session of Parliament;' and from and after the passing of this Act the said sections shall he and the same are hereby repealed."
  Its object was to get rid of the special police tax, levied on an area arbitrarily determined by the Lord Lieutenant, a tax which was very oppressive in incidence, the more so as the Constabulary was not a civil force, but an army of occupation. There were districts in which the tax, added to compensations for outrage, had amounted to 6s. in the pound, a burden which had ruined some undoubtedly innocent persons, as the payment incurred under it fell upon the best behaved classes of the country. All the evidence before the Westmeath Committee was against this special taxation. Its imposition could do no possible good in the repression of crime, and it led many loyal men to view the Government with disaffection.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 3, line 33, after the word "mentioned," to insert the words "nothing herein contained shall have the effect of continuing the seventh and eighth sections of the Act passed in the eleventh year of the reign of Her Majesty, entitled 'An Act for the better prevention of Crime and Outrage in certain parts of Ireland until the first day of December one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine, and the end of the then next Session of Parliament;' but from and after the passing of this Act the said sections shall be and the same are hereby repealed."—(Mr. Butt.)
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he could not accept the Amendment. There was not an argument in favour of fining districts, in order to compensate persons aggrieved or injured through agrarian crime, which did not apply with still greater force to a local tax for the maintenance of special police stations in districts notorious for crime. The ordinary Constabulary Force was paid out of the ordinary Revenue of the United Kingdom; and, therefore, when the conduct of the inhabitants of any particular district rendered it necessary that a special and additional police force should be located amongst them, it was but fair and proper they should bear the expense of it. In 1874, there had been only three instances in which it had been necessary to call the Act into operation, and he believed that the whole of the cost did not exceed £184. He trusted the Committee would not be troubled to divide upon the Amendment.
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAurged the unanimity of the evidence before the Westmeath Committee against the police tax. That given by Mr. Rocheford Boyd, Mr. Talbot, and other stipendiary magistrates went to show that the provisions which it was the object of the Amendment to repeal operated with harshness upon the class of small farmers, and alienated them from any sympathy with the Government in the maintenance of law and order. The hon. Baronet read extracts from Mr. Boyd's evidence, complaining of the operation of the law even as it then stood in respect to fines on the inhabitants of certain districts, also a letter addressed to himself (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) by the late J. E. Studdert, resident magistrate, then stationed at Moate, in the County of Westmeath, in which the writer said he believed—
  "If the police were kept active, 80 per cent of the crime complained of could be put down, and if the people of the country were fairly treated the remaining' 20 per cent would soon cease."
  In the great majority of cases, murders in a certain district were not committed by the persons resident in that district, and thus the peaceful inhabitants in which a murder was committed had to smart for outrages perpetrated by a stranger. Every extra constable cost the country £37 per annum, and that was a great tax upon the well-disposed.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGalso supported the Amendment, and expressed the belief that the great majority of the magistrates in Ireland would be in favour of the repeal of those Acts. The magistrates who gave evidence before the Westmeath Committee were unanimous in desiring their repeal.
  MR. MOOREalso supported the Amendment, and believed that the real reason why men were recently found to be short in Tipperary was in consequence of their not receiving sufficient wages.
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he could not support the Amendment. He had full reason to believe that this power would be exercised with great care, and he was not able to satisfy himself that it would be desirable to relax precautions against agrarian crime. He believed there might be cases of hardship in this particular mode of meeting outrages; but he must admit the justice of the general principles of putting on a district some of the expense of providing against these special crimes, and rough as the remedy might be, he thought it was a fair one. Unfortunately, there were districts in Ireland in which public opinion was not so strongly exerted to put down crime as could be wished, and the cost of maintaining the extra police force was not unlikely to have a beneficial effect. Of course the districts objected; but he could not accept the objections of Members who represented these districts as conclusive.
  MR. SULLIVANsaid, that was really a "vengeance tax," and although the peasantry might have no sympathy with the murders committed in the neighbourhood, yet they were made to pay. The mode of its operation was exactly as if one of the Prussian commanders in France had a complaint to make against a particular district, and quartered a division upon the inhabitants in order to requisition the district; for the Lord Lieutenant might send down one of his battalions to punish a certain district, and eventually leave the people not a bed to sleep upon, and thus drive them from their farms and consign them to pauperism and the workhouse, or compel them to emigrate. It was more effective than any other mode for clearing off the small peasant occupiers of land, and he asked any landlord in the house, whether he believed that the position of the Irish peasantry was such that they could

  1905
  afford to pay increased taxes for the maintenance of a police force without letting their rents fall into arrears? And if they fell into arrears with their rent, then their landlords, who were not worse than landlords in any other part of Great Britain, distrained, and they were turned out of their holdings. The unfortunate people were too poor to be able to pay the 6s. 3d. in the pound for the quarter, and had to beg from door to door to get the means of paying the "vengeance money." They went to the police officer, who treated them very kindly, but said he had no power to give them the further time which they asked for. They had to pawn their goods. A Protestant gentleman once told, him he had seen such scenes. The people brought their little bits of furniture to the cross roads, and the wretched spectacle was presented of these poor people selling their bedding at prices varying from 3½d. to 3s. 6d., and thus producing a sum of no use to the Government, while it loft many poor children without any bed but one of heath, plucked for them from the hillside. As an instance of its oppressive character, in the case of the murder of Mr. Bradshaw, in Tipperary, an extra police force had been stationed in the district; and yet the inquest disclosed that the murder arose from domestic circumstances which had never been probed. The peasantry had to pay a police-tax more than equal in amount to their year's rental. Their rents accordingly fell into arrear, their landlords distrained upon them, and they lost the chance of availing themselves of the compensation clauses of the Tenant Eight Act. Again, a Mr. Hunter was shot in Mayo, but not by the peasantry. An iron police barrack was, however, brought down from Dublin, and a police force was quartered on the district. There were 60 families in the district, who were asked to pay 25 s. in the pound. They were too poor to pay, and they were obliged to sell everything they had. If English gentlemen could only realize the scenes which took place, and the wretchedness which followed them, they would hesitate before they imposed such legislation. He protested against it, and said, as the police were in reality a military force, they ought to be treated as such, and be paid for in the usual way.
  MR. CLIVEsaid, he could not support the Amendment, for if there was one
  1906
  clause in the Bill more valuable than another, it was the one in question. He thought there had been some exaggeration in the speech just delivered. A more harmless man than Mr. Hunter never existed, and he oppressed nobody, yet he was murdered. In the following year a farmer was shot at within two miles of his (Mr. Olive's) door, the ball passing through his clothes, and that was done because he had befriended the widow of Mr. Hunter. In the neighbourhood was a very troublesome population, but as soon as the extra police force was stationed in the district they became very quiet and orderly.
  THE O'CONOR DONobserved, that those cases rather furnished an argument against the tax. The tax in Mr. Hunter's case was enormous, but from his known inoffensive character, and from his general popularity, the inevitable conclusion was that his death was the consequence of a domestic quarrel. There was another case in the same county in which the claim to compensation was resisted on the ground that the murder was committed by a member of the family of the' murdered man. In the case of Mr. Hunter, there being no motive for the crime on the part of neighbours, that ought certainly to be an argument against the imposition of a fine so tremendous as was then levied, and as the imposition of this fine led to the bad treatment of the widow, Mrs. Hunter, he maintained that the law had directly led to the commission of crime instead of having repressed it. The subject was very fully gone into before the Westmeath Committee in 1871. A large number of witnesses were examined by it, who knew the country well, and they declared that this provision would have a most injurious effect. Even landlords, who were strongly and urgently in favour of all other means of coercion, were opposed to a resort to this one; and some who avowed that at one time they thought it would be useful, having seen it in operation, declared before the Committee that its operation had been the very contrary of what the Government expected it would be.
  Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 83; Noes 282: Majority 197.
  MR. SULLIVANmoved, as an Amendment, in page 3, line 33, at end, add—
  "Provided always, That nothing herein contained shall be deemed or taken to continue the tenth section of the Act passed in the eleventh year of the reign of Her Majesty, entitled 'An Act for the hotter Prevention of Crime and Outrage in certain Parts of Ireland until the first day of December, one thousand eight hundred and forty-nine, and to the end of the then next Session of Parliament,' and from and after the passing of this Act the said section shall be and the same is hereby repealed."
  The hon. Member, referring to the Answer given a few nights ago "by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in reply to his Question as to what the Government intended doing with regard to American gentlemen who were expected in Ireland to shoot in a rifle competition, declared that they were going to exercise the dispensing power which dethroned James II. There was no use blinking the question. Unless the Government repealed the section in question it would be in the power not only of the police, but of any civilian, to walk up to any of those American gentlemen, and on his failing to produce the shooting licence from Dublin Castle have him removed to gaol. The right hon. Gentlemen would not like that 30 American gentlemen should go back to their country, and say "Talk of the British Constitution, why when we got under it our rifles were taken from us, because we had not a police ticket of leave for shooting." The right hon. Gentleman said that those gentlemen would not be interfered with more than English gentlemen who went to Ireland for sporting purposes; but if those gentlemen were not interfered with, by virtue of any power conferred by statute, the Government were exercising the very same power as drove James II. from his Throne. It was not the case, however, that English gentlemen were left unmolested by the police in Ireland as regarded shooting. On the contrary, he had letters from English gentlemen complaining of their treatment by the police. One gentleman he would mention, who had rented the shooting of rabbits at a warren near Cork, could not produce his ticket-of-leave when called upon, and was bluntly told that unless he ceased firing until he got his ticket-of-leave, his next bedroom would be a cell. He could mention one or two other cases of the kind, but would conclude by moving his Amendment.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he did not know why the hon. Member was so anxious about American riflemen, who were not coming to Ireland at his invitation, and who were not going to be entertained by him. He had been informed, however, by those who had invited these gentlemen, that the same arrangements which had been made on previous occasions in cases of this kind, would be made to prevent the riflemen from coming into collision with the law. The section which the hon. Member proposed to repeal only provided that persons unlawfully carrying arms should be apprehended, and that magistrates should have the power to order a search for arms. It would be evident that it would be impossible to carry out a law restrictive of the use of arms without some such provision; and, looking at the majorities by which the Committee had affirmed the restriction on the possession of arms, he hoped the matter would not longer be contested.
  CAPTAIN NOLANsaid, that, unfortunately, the statement of the right hon. Gentleman as to the riflemen not having been invited by the hon. Member for Louth was perfectly correct. They were not coming at the request of a Representative of the Irish people—he might say at the request of Ireland.
  MR. RONAYNEasked, if it was illegal to carry arms, why were people allowed to get over the illegality by this hocus-pocus work? There was evidently some secret communication between the officials of the Castle and the police, by which persons of one class were permitted to commit illegal acts with impunity, for which those of another class were severely punished, and it was this that the people of Ireland objected to. The hon. Member instanced several cases in which gentlemen who had been arrested with arms illegally in their possession had been saved from the necessity of attending at quarter sessions by the interference of friendly magistrates or officials in direct variance with the law.
  MR. BIGGARtrusted the Government would accede to the Amendment.
  MR. SULLIVANsaid, the Committee should insist upon having a statement from the Government on this very important subject. Let him bring out from his secret desk ["Oh, oh!"]—yes, from his secret desk—let him produce some documents showing where he obtained

  1909
  this power to excuse certain persons from the penalties of carrying arms. Hon. Members could not find the power in any of the volumes before them—in neither the common nor the statutory law. Where, he asked, did the Chief Secretary get his power to deal as he proposed with these American riflemen? In a constitutional way he said the right hon. Gentleman must produce it to the Committee if it were in existence. With regard to the taunt which had been directed to him (Mr. Sullivan) as to his not having invited the American riflemen, he would make this offer to the right hon. Gentlemen—he would undertake to bring over from America battalion after battalion of riflemen, and let it be seen who would first cry, "Hold! enough!"
  MR. E. E. PLUNKETT, as one of the Irish Eight, said, he was certain that when their American guests came over to Ireland, they would not be inconvenienced in any way by the Act in question. If he thought they would be inconvenienced he should not support the Government. The grievance of the hon. Member for Louth was a sentimental one.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHwas reminded of the saying about a storm in a tea-cup by the denunciations of the hon. Member for Louth. The hon. Gentleman seemed to imagine that there was some secret and awful power vested by law in the Government which nobody knew of but the present Chief Secretary, and which was never applied before.
  MR. SULLIVANsaid, he did not imagine anything of the kind, but only said that the right hon. Baronet had foreshadowed it by saying he knew how to arrange matters.
  SIRMICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, he would explain the simple state of the case to the hon. Gentleman. He was informed by the Secretary of the Irish Rifle Association, that it was the practice to apply to the licensing authority some days before the match came off for licences for the gentlemen they had invited to compete in shooting. These licences were, of course, granted, and nothing took place which could wound the national susceptibilities of any visitor.
  MR. RONAYNEwished to know whether the same privilege would be extended to the riflemen whom he and his friends might invite?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, the hon. Member for Cork had repeatedly told them that he would not submit to the degradation of asking for a licence for himself; and it could therefore hardly be supposed that he would ask for licences for his friends or wish that they should degrade themselves by asking on their own behalf.
  MR. RONAYNEsaid, neither would he for himself. He had deprived himself of considerable source of pleasure as a sportsman for some years rather than go through the indignity of asking a policeman for permission to carry a gun.
  Amendment negatived.
  MR. RONAYNEmoved, in page 3, line 33, at end, to add—
  "From and after the passing of this Act none of the provisions of the Act of the eleventh year of the reign of Her Majesty which were continued by 'The Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act, 1856,'land are continued by this Act, which relate to the having or carrying arms, or any penalties for same, shall extend to any arms or other things mentioned therein except to guns, pistols, and other firearms, and all such provisions, so far as same are continued by this Act, shall be read as if guns, pistols, and other firearms, and no other arms or weapons, had been iucluded or mentioned therein."
  The meaning of the clause would be understood by the definition of the word "arms." The Bill, as it stood, was intended by the Government to put down agrarian crime. Well, as agrarian outrages had never been committed by means of the cutlass, the sword, the pike, or the bayonet, surely these need not be retained in the provisions. A great deal of annoyance had been caused to people through their houses having been searched, and old weapons, such as swords belonging to ancestors being taken away. Under the Bill as it stood, even the possession of foils and stage rapiers was illegal—so that the Bill would deprive the Irish people of the pleasure of acting Shakespeare's plays, for what would Hamlet be without a sword? Then cannon were in-eluded in the Bill. Well, he had never heard of a landlord having been shot with a cannon. Yet cannon were included in an Act—the pretence of which was the suppression of agrarian outrage in Ireland. He did not think he was asking anything unreasonable in requesting that his Amendment be accepted.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 3, line 33, after the word "mentioned," to insert the words "From and after the passing of this Act none of the provisions of the Act of the eleventh year of the reign of Her Majesty which were continued by The Peace Preservation (Ireland) Act, 1856,' and are continued by this Act, which relate to the having or carrying of arms, or any penalties for same, shall extend to any arms or other things mentioned therein, except to guns, pistols, and other firearms, and all such provisions, so far as same are continued by this Act, shall be read as if guns, pistols, and other firearms, and no other arms or weapons had been included or mentioned therein."—(Mr. Ronayne.)
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHobserved that the Amendment would exclude revolvers, swords, cutlasses, pikes, and bayonets from the term "arms." Everybody knew that a pike was not an unknown weapon in Ireland, and instances had come before him of party processions in which imitation pikes had been carried; and he had no doubt real pikes would have been carried but for this prohibition. It was needless to say that he could not agree to the Amendment.
  Question put, "That those words be there inserted."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 67; Noes 270: Majority 203.
  THE O'CONOR DON, in formally moving the omission of the words giving the Grand Jury power to assess damages upon a district where an outrage had occurred, said, he only did so to put himself in Order. It was admitted by the Prime Minister that there ought to be no fine where the criminal was given up, or where no reasonable ground existed for supposing that evidence which might lead to a conviction was kept back. He had on former occasions strongly objected to the whole system of fining innocent individuals under any circumstances. His objections had not been met. He would not then repeat his arguments; but he wished to know from the Chief Secretary whether he was prepared to make any concession in the direction indicated on a previous evening?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, the question had been fully discussed already, and he hoped it was not about to be re-opened. He had hoped that the hon. Member would himself have proposed an Amendment to give effect to his views, and was rather surprised that he had not done so. He did not, upon
  1912
  consideration, think that it would do to exempt from payment a district in which some person had been convicted of the crime, though it might be hard to punish a district when it was shown that the inhabitants had done their best to deliver the culprit up to justice. However, he was willing, at a later stage of the Bill, to introduce an Amendment to the existing law to the following effect:—
  "Provided that no such presentment be made or affirmed unless in the opinion of the grand jury there is reason to believe that material evidence is withheld by any person resident within the districts on which the presentment is to be levied."
  Though he did not pledge himself to the exact words, that was the Amendment which he was prepared to propose, and he hoped it would be accepted as a settlement of the difficulty. He wished it to be understood that while the Government would maintain the principles of the Bill intact, they desired to render it as little oppressive as possible.
  THE O'CONOR DONthought that the Amendment proposed would be satisfactory. The right hon. Baronet expressed surprise that he (the O'Conor Don) had not put Amendments on the Paper similar in spirit to that which he had himself proposed; but he had such an objection to this legislation in principle that he did not think that he would be justified in making any attempt to patch it up. He, however, hoped that his hon. Friends would withdraw their Amendments, and accept the proposition shadowed forth by the right hon. Baronet.
  MR. M'CARTHY DOWNINGsaid, he could not agree that this would be a very great improvement, for Grand Juries would generally be of the opinion referred to in the Amendment. What would be a great improvement would be this—that the ratepayers should have the right to traverse the presentment, and try the question before a Judge and jury, as was the practice under the old law, which gave compensation for malicious injuries.
  MR. BIGGARconcurred in the objection to the proposed Amendment, and thought that instead of the term "any person," it should be "any ratepayer."
  CAPTAIN NOLANsaid, he would not again discuss the question whether compensation should be paid to the relations of a murdered man. That question had been already settled by the Committee.

  1913
  He would only say that if Ireland would not be the pleasantest place in the world to be murdered in it would be so far as the next of kin of the victim were considered, seeing that they were to receive compensation in money in consequence of the commission of the crime. He begged to move as an Amendment in page 3, line 38, after "presentment," to insert—
  "That the money shall be levied off a poor law union or off an electoral district of a poor law union, or of several districts of a poor law union, and through the collecting machinery of a poor law union, and in the same proportion between the proprietor and the occupier as that in which the poor rates are now collected, and also."
  The rates in Ireland were of two different kinds—the poor rates which were paid equally by the occupiers and the landlords, and the county cess which was paid entirely by the tenants. The theory of the county cess, as settled by this House in 1870, was that the rate should be paid equally in cases of new contracts, but the landlords were in the habit of contracting themselves out of this rate altogether. His contention was, that half of the money presented as compensation should be paid by the landlords and half by the tenants, and this would practically be the case if it was paid out of the poor rates. If they did not adopt the Amendment, they would be declining to carry out a principle which had been adopted in the case of the Explosive Substances Bill and other measures.
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACHsaid, the principle brought forward by the hon. and gallant Member in his Amendment was that the tax should be paid partly by the occupiers and partly by the owners of property, instead of by the occupiers only as at present. He did not propose at present to go into the question of local taxation, nor would he attempt to deal with the question of Grand Jury compensation; but he would address himself to the reason why this should be an occupier's and not an owner's tax. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had accused the Government of going against the principle of existing legislation, but he had to remind him that the 69th section of the Irish Land Act specially provided that charges of this description—for murder or malicious injury—to be levied under the Peace Preservation Act, should not be divided between owner and occupier. The occupier of land, as a rule, would be
  1914
  a resident in the district, whereas the owner would, very likely, be non-resident, and the result of this was that by taxing the occupiers the tax fell on those who would in all probability possess some knowledge of the criminals who had disturbed the peace of the district, whereas if the owners were equally taxed, those who knew nothing whatever of the matter would have to bear the burden equally with those possessing a guilty knowledge.
  THE O'CONOR DONregretted that he could not support the Amendment of his hon. and gallant Friend. To do so would be to admit the principle that the person who had suffered an injury arising out of some agrarian cause, was justly entitled to receive a money payment in respect of it, though not entitled to receive such compensation if the injury arose from some other cause. He could never see the justice of this principle, and could assent to no Amendment which embodied it. The only principle on which the compensation rate could be at all justified was, that it would fall, to a certain extent, if not on the perpetrators, at least, on the aiders and abettors in the commission of the crime. He did not mean to say that it was his opinion that even this was a just principle, or that it would really work out as anticipated; but to place any portion of the fine or rate on the proprietors, against whom not the slightest suspicion of complicity with the crime could be raised, seemed to him to embody a most dangerous principle, which might lead to making the enactment permanent.
  MR. PEASEsaid, he perfectly agreed with what the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had said about the tax; the Amendment which the hon. Gentleman had moved, or was going to move, materially altered the position of the case. The case of the Explosive Substances Bill, to which the hon. and gallant Member (Captain Nolan) had referred, was not at all in point. If the Grand Jury were satisfied that occupiers were harbouring criminals, or not doing their best to bring offenders to justice, then alone would the tax be levied, and it ought to be borne by the occupiers. Owners being occupiers would have the tax to pay.
  MR. SULLIVANregretted this policy on the part of the Government, and denounced it as a policy for encouraging

  1915
  the absenteeism of landlords at the expense of those who stayed at home and did their duty. In the counties of Car-low and Wicklow, and elsewhere, where the local gentry remained at home and discharged their duties faithfully, we did not hear of any outbreak of agrarian crime; it was where the landlords were absentees that the people were disaffected, and throwing the entire burden of exceptional taxes upon residents was merely offering a premium for absenteeism.
  MR. PARNELLregarded the argument as an unfortunate one that because a landlord was non-resident he should be released from the responsibilities of his position. As a resident Irish landlord, he feared that such a clause as now proposed, which embodied the principle of taxation without representation, would add to the feeling in Ireland that this was a tyrannical Bill.
  CAPTAIN NOLANmoved, "That the Chairman report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
  Motion agreed to.
  House resumed.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
In reply to Mr. STANSFELD,
MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, the Committee on the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Bill would be resumed on Monday. The Public Works (Loans) Amendment Bill would not be proceeded after half-past 10 o'clock on Monday night.
It being now ten minutes to Seven of the clock, the House suspended its Sitting.
The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

SUPPLY.
Order for Committee read.
Motion made, and. Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

THE IRISH COLLEGE (PARIS).

  MOTION FOR A SELECT COMMITTEE.
  MR. BUTT, in rising to move—
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into and report upon the allegations of the Petition from the President and Members of the Irish College at Paris, presented on the 4th day of August last, and also those of the Petition from the Roman Catholic Prelates of Ireland, presented on the 23rd day of March,"
  said, these two Petitions prayed for reparation for property confiscated by the French Directory in 1793, and they founded their claim under the Treaty made between the French Government after the Restoration and the English Government, by which a sum of money was transferred to English Commissioners to compensate British subjects whose property had been confiscated. They also prayed for the appointment of a Committee similar to that appointed in the Baron de Bode's case to investigate the whole matter. He knew the subject was one of considerable complication; but he believed he should be able to make the facts known to the House in the few remarks he should have to make; and further, that the appointment of this Committee would be a right and good action. The Irish College in Paris was founded at a time when there was a difficulty in educating Roman Catholic clergymen in Ireland. It was founded entirely by British money—or rather, he ought to say, Irish money. It was always in the hands of Irishmen, subjects of the King of England; always under their management exclusively. Neither the French Government nor the French Episcopacy ever received any control over it. He would not trouble the House with the early history of the College, but would come at once to the year 1789, when a decree was adopted by the National Assembly which confiscated all ecclesiastical property in France to national purposes, and under that decree the French Government attempted to take possession of the property of the Irish College. Lord Gower, however, then the English ambassador at Paris, was instructed to interfere, and the result was the National Assembly appointed a Committee to inquire, and the Committee reported that the property was British property, and it was accordingly restored to the College. Immediately afterwards a decree of the National Assembly was

  1917
  passed exempting the professors and officers of the Irish College from taking the oath required from French ecclesiastics. By the joint action of the two Governments the College was then declared to be a British establishment in the sense of being under the protection of the King of England. Unfortunately, however, the property was afterwards confiscated on the very ground that saved it in 1789, for in 1793, the French Convention passed a decree by which all the property of British subjects was sequestered, and the property of the College seized beyond all question as the property of British subjects. The College was for a time shut, but in the beginning of the century, under the First Consul, it was re-established. Its property, however, was not restored, for it had been sold as part of the confiscated property, and with crippled means the College had ever since subsisted in Paris as a British establishment. After the Restoration, the French King endeavoured to interfere with it, but there was a very interesting account in the "Annual Register" of 1815 of Archbishop Murray applying to the French Government, who had taken possession of the College, and pointing out that it was not a French but a British establishment. Accordingly the French president was removed and an Irish priest appointed as administrator of the College. In 1814, after the first Restoration, by the treaty of peace between the two countries, France undertook to indemnify British subjects who had suffered by the confiscation of 1793, and the Government inscribed on their book a sum of money equal to 3,500,000 francs of Rente for the purpose of meeting the claims to be made. The money, however, was not paid, for before the treaty was carried into effect Napoleon's return interrupted everything; but on the 20th of November, 1815, another treaty was signed between England and France, by which the French Government renewed its obligation to compensate British subjects whose property had been seized, and special provision was made for that purpose in a Convention attached to the treaty. Under that Convention a mixed Commission was appointed to investigate the claims, and he believed it would be established before the Committee—it was positively stated by the authorities of the College on information received from the French Go-
  1918
  vernment —that the Mixed Commission declared the claim of the College to be legitimate, and they inscribed it on a register which they were bound to keep to the extent of £67,000. He thought it right to say, however, that he had not been able, with such research as it was in his power to make, courteously assisted as he had been at the Foreign Office, to lay his hands on documents which would prove the fact, although there was no doubt of their having existed. If the Mixed Commission reported in favour of the claim he could not understand why it was not paid in 1818. In that year it became the object of the French and English Governments to get rid of the military occupation of France, and a further sum producing a dividend of 3,000,000 francs a-year was put down as the amount which would discharge in full all claims made by British subjects. It was not clear what was to become of the surplus, if any, but it was clear that all the claims were to be settled before the English Government appropriated it. That was the view, no doubt, of the English Government at the time, because in 1819 an Act was passed appointing an English Commission to deal with these claims, fixing the time the claims were to be made, and authorizing the Treasury to appropriate the balance as they might think desirable. The College originally claimed £103,000, and as he had said, £67,000 was set apart for it, but the money was not paid. The first step taken was not to apply to the English Commissioners for payment, but to the French Government, who had already handed the money over to the Commissioners. The French Government refused to pay. That Government said—
  "No, your claim was before a mixed Commission. It was proved, and we handed over a sum of money to meet all the claims made to purely English Commission."
  At that time Lord Stuart de Rothesay was British Ambassador at Paris, and he strongly urged the claim upon Mr. Canning, and he (Mr. Butt) believed that if Mr. Canning had lived, the claim would have been satisfied. The case came before the Privy Council, and the ground upon which it was rejected by the Privy Council would be found, in a Parliamentary Paper, as stated by Sir John Leach as Master of the Rolls in 1830, when it was held that the claimants could not be

  1919
  held to come within the meaning of the words "British subjects." The Petitioners, however, alleged, amongst other things, the property in question was clearly the property of British subjects. It must be admitted that the Petitioners came before the House under the difficulty that their claim was an old one, but what he submitted was that if their claim was a just one, no lapse of time could bar it. The first proposition was that the lump sum was transferred by the French Government to the English Government, and the latter, as trustees, were to pay every legitimate payment. They had no right to apply any of the money to their own purposes, and it could not be held that the lapse of time was a bar to a national trust. The Petitioners made several further allegations. They said this property was beyond all doubt property of British subjects; that their establishments were always kept distinct as Irish establishments, and that this property was confiscated as the property of British subjects. They then said there was now in the hands of the English Treasury a sum of money to some extent applicable to them. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: A very small sum.] However small it was, he should be content if the right hon. Gentleman would give it to him, with interest, from the time he got it. He thought he could prove, however, if the Committee were granted, that at least £26,000 was still available for the purpose. Those were the allegations of the Petitioners. They were told that the case of the Baron de Bode was of a similar character, and that the Privy Council had decided against his claim. But in Baron de Bode's case the property was not confiscated but forfeited, and it therefore formed no parallel. Lord Lyndhurst brought the case before the House of Lords in 1852, on a Petition similar to, though not so strong, as the Petition now before the House, and he, too, asked for the appointment of a Committee, which was unanimously acceeded to. Some of the observations made by the noble Lords on that occasion applied also to the present case. It was admitted by Lord Lyndhurst that there had been a long lapse of time, but he said it would be disgraceful to Government to avail themselves of it. Lord Truro used strong language, which he (Mr.
  1920
  Butt) did not see the occasion for. He said the Act of 1819 was a wicked Act—probably meaning that it was wicked to allow the Treasury to appropriate any of the money, whilst there remained a claimant unsatisfied. Lord Derby acceeded to the Motion, a Committee of the House of Lords sat, and they reported in favour of the claim to the House of Lords. There was a case which formed an exact precedent to the Motion, and he thought it would only be justice if the facts contained in the present Petition were true to appoint the Committee prayed for. No one would deny that the property confiscated was that of British subjects, for it was by reason of their being British subjects that the property was confiscated. He also thought his hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General would agree with him when he said that a lapse of time was no bar to a legal claim, and that no justification could on that ground be given for withholding the payment of a just demand, if that demand were founded on truth and justice. The last allegation in the Petition was that there were funds in the hands of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER dissented.] The right hon. Gentleman, by shaking his head, seemed to think that that was not so, but if it was not then it ought to be so. At all events it was not a very singular fact that an annual income derived from the French funds and amounting to 6,500,000 francs was handed over to the English Commissioners in 1818. The French funds were sold, the dividends received, and yet no account was ever given to Parliament of the application of that money until 1871, but in the meantime a great deal of it had been disposed of. The Treasury drew out of it £250,000, partly in order to pay the Duke of York's debts and partly to rebuild York House. It was true the money was repaid when the attention of the Committee of the House of Commons was called to the matter, but it was repaid only after a remission had been made of one-half of the interest. In 1871 an account of the application of the fund was for the first time rendered to Parliament. That account showed a balance of £310 0s. 11 d. Some of the items, however, required explanation. For instance, the sum of £23,000 was said to be paid to a claimant by the

  1921
  Commissioners out of the proceeds of the property, which was sequestered in 1798. A note to the Return stated that the particulars had been given in a Paper presented to Parliament in 1836. To pay £23,000 for wrongs inflicted by the British Government upon a French subject out of a fund entrusted to them by the French Government for the giving of compensation for wrongs inflicted upon British subjects by the French Government was certainly a strange proceeding. While the claim of the Irish College at Paris existed, the British Government had no right to apply the money entrusted to them by the French Government in any other way than in satisfying that claim. Why should different justice be dealt out in this case from that dealt out in the case of the Baron de Bode. Ultimately the case of the Baron de Bode broke down. This case, he hoped, would not break down, but if it did, inquiry into it by a Select Committee of the House would show that justice had been done. He wished to know whether there was any answer to the case he had made. The only answer he believed that could be given was the lapse of time, but to rely upon such a quibble as that would be unworthy of a great nation. This was never a settled account. He had beyond all doubt falsified it in one particular, and he thought he had shown reason for falsifying it in another. He contended it had been practically conceded that the claim was one which ought, at all events, to be investigated. There was a primâ facia case made out for redress and the proper way to pave the way for that redress was to appoint a Committee. The hon. and learned Gentleman concluded by moving his Amendment.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "a Select Committee he appointed to inquire into and report upon the allegations of the Petition from the President and Members of the Irish College at Paris, presented on the 4th day of August last, and also those contained in the Petition from the Roman Catholic Prelates of Ireland, presented on the 5th day of this instant April,"—(Mr. Butt,)
  —instead thereof.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERsaid, he would frankly admit that he was utterly unable to cope, either in point of eloquence or legal
  1922
  knowledge, with the hon. and learned Gentleman. But he must also say that the case which the hon. and learned Gentleman had presented to the House was very far indeed from satisfying his mind that there was any occasion for the appointment of a Select Committee on the question. Without going into all the questions that the hon. and learned Gentleman had raised, he thought he was right in saying that the foundation of this case was simply this—that in the course of the French Revolution, and especially in the troubled year 1793, and the years immediately following it, considerable injuries were inflicted by persons who obtained power in Paris and in France upon British subjects, and great losses were sustained by British subjects, and that amongst the sufferers were to be found the Body known as the Irish College. After the Peace in 1814, conventions and treaties were made between the French and English Governments, and those treaties contained stipulations for making compensation on the part of the French Government to English subjects who had sustained loss. The mode in which that was done appeared to be this—that the French Government appeared to pay over a certain sum or to create in rentes a certain annual sum that should be equal to a certain capital sum which it was supposed would be sufficient to make good the losses sustained by British subjects, and British subjects who had claims were called upon to come forward and make their claims. Those claims were to be investigated and to be made good out of the monies so provided by the French Government. The sum originally deemed to be sufficient was equal to 70,000,000 francs. It was found that that sum was not enough, and it was increased by a further sum of 60,000,000 francs. That sum was given by the French Government in order to compensate those English sufferers who could prove their claims. It was contemplated that the claims would be paid in full, if the gross amount given proved sufficient for the purpose; and, in case of its falling short, a proportionately smaller sum was to be awarded. By 59 Geo. III., passed in 1819, certain Commissioners of Liquidation and Arbitration were appointed to investigate the claims, and other Commissioners—called Commissioners of

  1923
  Deposit—were appointed to administer the fund which was placed in their hands. The same Act provided that in case the decision of the Commissioners failed to give satisfaction, there should be an appeal to the Privy Council. This certainly seemed to him to have been a very efficient machinery for obtaining fair examination and equitable decision as to any claims that might be made. It having been arranged that, in case the fund provided was not sufficient to meet the claims in full a reduced amount was to be paid, it was further provided that, in case there was a surplus, it should be disposed of in such way as the Commissioners of the Treasury for the time being might direct. This being the machinery provided, what was the course of this case of the Irish College? The representatives of the College put in a claim for indemnity, and that claim was heard, like a great many others, by the Commissioners of Liquidation, and they decided against it. No doubt, the Mixed Commission had thought it a proper claim for investigation; but when it had been examined the decision was against it. Then the representatives of the College, not being satisfied with the award of the Commissioners appealed to the Privy Council, and the appeal was heard in 1832. No doubt, the claimants had not then the advantage of the advocacy of the hon. and learned Gentleman, who was then distinguishing himself at Trinity College, Dublin; but they had the assistance of gentlemen of eminence to lay their ease before the Privy Council. The judgment of the Council was delivered by the Master of the Polls, and it turned to a certain extent upon Lord Gifford's judgment in the Douay case, and it was held that they were precluded by the Douay case from any further consideration of the subject. It would be presumptuous in him (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) to criticize that judgment; but this was clear, that there was at that time a certain function performed, and there was no reason to suppose that there was anything wrong in the case, but, on the contrary, that it had been fairly tried and decided on. It was impossible that they could be continually re-opening cases of this sort which had been decided 40 years ago. It was true that in the Baron de Bode's case Parliament did consent to appoint a Committee to look into the matter. They
  1924
  all knew that after extreme perseverance the Baron de Bode succeeded in obtaining one or two hearings, which were more or less formal; but after all they resulted in the same thing, that was in setting up and confirming the decision of the tribunal that was originally engaged in deciding the case. So far as the precedent went, then, it was against rather than in favour of the proposal now made by the hon. and learned Gentleman. He wished to say that the decisions of the Privy Council upon these appeals were not mere matters of form, because in 16 or 17 cases they reversed the awards of the Commissioners, and in some 15 or 16 cases they confirmed the awards. Moreover, if the Government should consent to the appointment of a Committee to look into the case of the Irish College, what could they say should the Marquess of Lansdowne or the parties in any other unsuccessful case ask for a Committee? The hon. and learned Gentleman referred to Lord Truro having called the Act of 1819 a wicked Act, because it barred the claims after the lapse of a certain time; but what happened under it? After the claims which had been sent in in time had been examined there remained a surplus, and the Treasury thereupon relaxed the rule as to the time for sending in notice of claim. In consequence of that, a number of claims of which notice had not been sent in in time were examined into, and in satisfying these claims the surplus was disposed of. The whole of the surplus was adjudicated to one person and another; and, although there ultimately remained £903 in the Exchequer, yet there were claims against it which amounted to rather more than £1,200, so that if all these claims should be brought forward there would be a deficiency. If the Government were to give money to the representatives of the Irish College, why should they not also give money to every other claimant who had not made out his claim? The hon. and learned Gentleman had grossly exaggerated the surplus, and said that there was interest which was unpaid upon the Duke of York's advance; but it seemed, from a Paper which he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) held in his hand, that the money, and also the interest, had been repaid. It was now too late to reopen this case by asking for a Select Committee. If they yielded to the claims

  1925
  of the Representatives of the College, he did not see how they could resist the claims of individuals; but the great objection to the Motion was that it sought to constitute the House of Commons as a Court of Appeal from the more competent tribunal, the Privy Council, which had already given judgment in the matter. He hoped the House would not support the Amendment.
  THE O'CONOR DONsaid, every argument used by the right hon. Gentleman (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) might have been applied to the case of the Baron de Bode, and yet Parliament did consent to that case being re-considered. His contention, however, was that this case was quite different from all the other cases which came before the Commissioners, and one, therefore, deserving of consideration. Those Commissioners made no formal award, because they assumed that the Irish College stood on the same footing as the College of Douay, whereas the one was totally different from the other. For that reason, he thought the ease should be reheard.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALasked if it was really the intention of the hon. and learned Member for Limerick to appeal to the House against the decision given 40 years ago by the highest tribunals of the country, and which had been also confirmed and solemnly decided by the Privy Council? If that was allowed, the time of the House would be continually occupied with discussions of this kind, greatly to the obstruction of Public Business. It had been urged that the Privy Council, in deciding the case of the Irish College, had considered themselves bound by the previous decision in the Douay College case, and that the circumstances of the two cases were different; but it would be found upon examination that the reasons for an adverse decision were that the College, if British, was an establishment contrary to the law of England, and if French, no claim could be made. However, the real question now was whether, after this lapse of time—or, indeed, after any lapse of time—that House should become a Court of Appeal against the decisions of the highest tribunals. This case was unlike that of the Baron de Bode, who, apart from any treaty, pressed his claim on the British Government
  MR. BUTT, interposing, said, it appeared from documents in his possession, that the Baron de Bode's Petition of Right was founded merely on the Convention of 1815, on the ground that the British Government had funds to pay him, and that he could not get them except under the Act of 1819.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERALsaid, that was so as regarded his Petition of Right; but the Baron de Bode failed in those proceedings, and it was afterwards, as an outsider, not having the benefit of a treaty, that a Committee was obtained in his favour in the House of Lords. He was quite ready to admit that time could not bar a claim of this kind in the case of a trust in which wrong had been done, but then it must be shown that there had been error in the accounts. In this case no such error had been shown, and, neither on principle nor on the precedent cited by his hon. and learned Friend, was there any reason for this House constituting itself into a Court of Appeal to rehear the case of the Irish College at Paris.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he hoped the House would consider for a moment the origin of the College, which was established in France for the education of Irish Roman Catholic youths, to be sent to Ireland as priests after they had been educated and trained. It was always a French College, but called an Irish College, because those educated in it were intended for the Irish Mission. It was established not by Irish funds, but by French funds. The claim was, however, set up because certain inhabitants of Ireland contributed to the establishment; but he thought that the College was subsidized by the French Government previous to the Revolution, and therefore the Commissioners held it to be French property. He added that historical recollection in order to strengthen the hands of Her Majesty's Government in resisting a claim which had been rejected by the tribunals of this country after repeated trials.
  MR. O'CLERYsaid, he wished to correct the hon. Member for North Warwickshire. It was a fact, that owing to the Penal Laws, which prevented the establishment of a College in Ireland for the education of priests to serve on the Irish Mission, it was found absolutely necessary that the students should receive their education abroad; and it was

  1927
  also a matter of fact and history that the funds which established the College in Paris were furnished mainly by British subjects. The French Government never gave a subsidy to the College, but only an official recognition, as a Catholic Government recognizing a Catholic establishment. He considered the case had been made out by the hon. and learned Member for Limerick, and it was one which was eminently entitled to the consideration of this House.
  Question put, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  The House divided:—Ayes 116; Noes 54: Majority 62.
  Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

ARMY—A CENTRAL ARSENAL.

  OBSERVATIONS.
  MAJOR BEAUMONT, in rising, pursuant to Notice—
  "To call the attention of the House to the question of a central Arsenal, and to move for a Select Committee to inquire whether the cost of removal from "Woolwich would not be recovered by the altered condition of manufacture and the diminished cost of raw material,"
  said, that after the numerous discussions which had taken place upon theoretical questions in connection with the Army he thought it might be satisfactory to hon. Members to have one of a practical character brought under notice. It was essentially one of defence; and he apprehended that, whatever might be the difference of opinion on matters of offence, on the subject of defence there would be complete unanimity. He attempted to bring it forward last Session, but was not fortunate in the day obtained for the purpose. He however asked the Secretary for War whether the Government would postpone their contemplated purchase of land for a tactical station in the North of England, until the question had been discussed, and though the answer was a negative one, he was happy to learn that no action had been taken by the Government up to the present time in the matter. He did not by his Motion ask the House to commit itself to any question of principle. The onus of proof lay on Mm, and he was prepared to show on primâ facie evidence that the cost of the change
  1928
  he suggested would be more than fully recouped by the improved conditions of manufacture. As to the desirability of a change, he thought that from a military point of view few critics would dissent from the principle that the capital of a country and its arsenal ought not to be in one and the same place. The first object of an invader on entering an enemy's country was to reach its capital and its arsenal. In reaching the capital he paralyzed the Government, interfered with the progress of commercial relations, and crippled the money-producing power of the nation; and in striking at the arsenal he struck a blow which deprived the Army of its force and the country of its strength. Consequently, it was of the utmost importance to an invader that he should be able to attack us in those two vital points by one operation, and it was, of course, most desirable for purposes of defence that he should be prevented from doing so. In his early wars Napoleon's objective point was Berlin. Again, the Prussians marched on Vienna, and in the late struggle between Prance and Germany the cry on the one side was "To Berlin," and on the other "To Paris." The only thing that would justify the capital and the arsenal of a country being in one situation was the fact that the capital was defended by fortifications, and that the arsenal, being within those fortifications, was in the strongest position in the country. In Prance the engineers had thought it desirable to spend very large sums of money in perfecting a system of fortifications round Paris which was far from imperfect before the war. He would not discuss whether or not a mode of expending that money could not be found which should give a greater amount of defence; but the circumstances which obtained in Paris were not those which obtained in this country; and he did not think the House of Commons should be called upon to vote money for fortifications round London. The line of works would be too extended to enable them to be properly manned, and their cost would be too great. The Government had, he believed, a plan on paper for the defence of London, and he thought it was all right and proper as long as they confined such a scheme to paper, and went no further. According to the Report of the Commission appointed in 1859 the cost of completing a satisfactory line of fortifica-

  1929
  tions round Woolwich would be between £2,000,000 and £3,000,000; whereas the establishment of defensive forts on the top of Shooter's Hill might be carried into effect for £700,000. There ought, he contended, to be no half-and-half measures, and if Woolwich was to be fortified the work ought to be done completely. He, for one, he might add, as a Northerner, entirely deprecated the idea that the country must give in to an enemy because the South found itself unable to keep him away. It would be, in his opinion, a most pernicious view to get abroad that because London happened to be taken England must therefore be considered as lost. The Commission of 1859 was composed of most able military and scientific authorities, and their recommendations had, on the whole, been carried out very well, although there was one point in their Report which had not, perhaps, been attended to—the establishment of a central Arsenal. In the first part of that Report they referred to Woolwich—the great depot of our munitions of war—as a place of the most vital importance. The Government in which Lord Herbert was Secretary of State for War deemed the matter to be of such moment that a second Instruction was given to the Commission, to report specially with reference to the question of a central Arsenal, and in the third paragraph of the Report they stated that it was impossible to render Woolwich safe against attack without such an outlay of money as they did not feel justified in recommending. The advantages of Woolwich were, first that it existed, and secondly that it was easy of access for the distribution of stores; but there was the disadvantage that if it was easy of access to us, it would also be so to an enemy. Taking all those circumstances into consideration, he must say he was rather surprised at the boldness of the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Boord) in putting on the Paper an Amendment which challenged the Motion on the Report of that Commission; but, at the same time, he must say that he was eager to hear the arguments that would be brought forward by the hon. Member, as he thought they would be somewhat curious in their bearing upon the matter. The question, he might add, as to the distribution of stores was nothing as compared with the enormous importance of the whole subject in
  1930
  a strategic point of view. He did not propose that all the stores should be removed from Woolwich; on the contrary, he was of opinion that stores from other quarters might with advantage be shifted there. For instance, the Clothing department at Pimlico, and the India Store department might be conveniently transferred to Woolwich, and in that way two valuable sites in London would be set free to be turned to other uses. He would now pass to the question of site, regarding which he would merely say that he did not commit himself to any particular locality. The Report of the Commission, however, had dealt pretty conclusively with the subject, and there were two sites prominently mentioned as being suitable for the purpose. The first was Cannock Chase, which, from its position in connection with railways and canals, was perfectly suitable for the purpose. The recent discovery of minerals, however, under that estate, and certain other circumstances which had come to light since the report was presented, led the Government not to look so favourably on that site as they had done before. But there was another which appeared to him more than any other to meet the general requirements of the case, and that was the site which had been also under the consideration of the Government—namely, Ilkley, not far from Leeds. There a tract of land of some 7,000 acres in extent could be purchased for a moderate sum. But there were several other sites which would be suitable. In fact there were in this respect an embarras de richesses. The Government, also, had it under consideration to render more perfect the gun-wharves or small arsenals at Plymouth and Portsmouth. He had no objection to offer to that, for it was a very good thing to do; but, supposing it done, it would not meet the requirements of the case. He came now to the question of cost. Engineers had a rough-and-ready rule of thumb for estimating the cost of a building at so much per cubic foot. A fair estimate for such iron buildings as there were at Woolwich would be 3d. a cubic foot, and for the brick buildings 5d. There were in the Arsenal approximately 40,000,000 cubic feet of building, 15,000,000 of iron, and 25,000,000 of brick; and if these figures were multiplied respectively by three and five we should get a rough

  1931
  estimate of the cost of erecting the buildings that would be required. From that he had estimated the total cost of removal at £1,000,000. He was here dealing only with the Carriage and Laboratory departments; but, as a set off against that, they would have the value of the land relieved by the change. Some of that land set free by the dismantling of the Dockyard had been sold for £4,000 an acre, and although he did not estimate they would be able to realize such a price for the Arsenal property, still, whatever they might obtain for it would be a very handsome set off against the amount he had mentioned. He was not, however, anxious to insist on this question of the value of land; but what he insisted on was the economy which would be effected on the materials used and the work done. Woolwich used something like 80,000 tons of coal a-year, 7,000 tons of coke, and the number of workmen employed was about 7,000. The amount of work turned out by the gun-factories and the laboratories amounted to about £500,000. He asked the House to consider the different value of these figures when the work was done at some point contiguous to a manufacturing centre, instead of near London. On coals there would be a saving of 10 s. a-ton, or £40,000; on labour there would be a saving of 5 per cent; on coke there would be a saving of £7,000; and altogether he found there would be a difference of £70,000 every year for the value of the war material turned out of an arsenal situated in the centre of England as against Woolwich, if the Arsenal was established contiguous to a great manufacturing centre. The establishments at Woolwich were, no doubt, conducted in a most admirable manner; but the Arsenal had been built piecemeal, and everyone knew how important it was, in reference to economical production, that there should be a regular sequence carried through the different branches of the establishment. That, however, did not exist, and as an evidence of the want of organization, he might state that the wood was brought in at one side, then taken to the other, and again removed before being used. The same remarks applied to the cartridges. There would also be considerable saving in grouping all the boilers together, whilst at Woolwich they were
  1932
  distributed in different parts of the place. Then, again, each department of the Arsenal had a store of its own, instead of there being only one purchasing and one issuing department. He believed that the re-organization to which he had alluded would lead to a saving of 4 per cent upon the value of the stores, or £20,000, which, added to the £70,000, would make a total saving of £90,000 a-year. The necessary sum, £1,290,000, could be raised at 3¾ per cent by Terminable Annuities, which would cause a payment of £56,000 for 30 years; and this could be paid out of the £90,000. He would now proceed to move for the Select Committee of which he had given Notice, and which he hoped would be granted. Ten or twelve meetings would suffice to go fully into the inquiry, and to elicit what he knew would prove valuable information.
  MR. SPEAKER, interposing, said, he wished to point out that it was not competent for the hon. Member to do more than call attention to the subject, the House having already decided that the words, "That the Speaker do leave the Chair," should stand part of the question.
  MR. BOORDsaid, he must confess that he felt some diffidence in placing on the Paper the Notice of opposition that stood in his name; but he was re-assured by the statement the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Major Beaumont) had made at the commencement of his remarks, to the effect that he would explain his case in such a manner as to bring it within the comprehension even of civilians, and he therefore trusted he might venture to claim the indulgence of hon. Members whilst he briefly drew attention to certain considerations which, it appeared to him, had either been altogether overlooked, or to which due prominence had not been given. The speech in which the hon. and gallant Gentleman had explained the action he was desirous that Her Majesty's Government should take, was, unquestionably, an interesting one, and in every respect such as might have been anticipated from an officer holding the position he did in the scientific branch of his profession. He had expressed surprise that exception should be taken to his proposal to follow out the recommendations of the Royal Commission of 1859, instead of to the calculations by which he proposed to

  1933
  prove Ms case; but he (Mr. Boord) desired to go behind that array of figures in order to attack the foundation of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's argument, which was contained within the four corners of the Report of the Royal Commissioners. Now, the appointment of that Commission was chiefly due to the disease called "Gallophobia," under which the country was labouring at the time. He did not deny that the result of its deliberations, so far as they had been referred to, had been correctly stated; but he did assert that the tone of the Report was in great measure due to the then prevalent panic. And what better evidence could they have of that than was revealed in that portion of the Report which related to the fortification of Woolwich? The Commissioners considered three alternative schemes; one, an elaborate line of fortification, its right resting on the Thames at Greenwich Marshes, passing round by Shooters' Hill, and so to the River again at Erith, to cost about £4,000,000—another, less extensive, £2,000,000—and the third, which was recommended, a strong fortification on Shooters' Hill only, at a cost of £700,000. It appeared, then, that the amount of vacillation in their policy might be represented by the difference between the highest and lowest of these amounts—no less than £3,300,000—and the very fact that they should have entertained such widely divergent schemes, pointed to the operation of some disturbing influence on their deliberations; but when it was considered that 15 years had elapsed without one penny being expended in pursuance of this portion of their advice, it became clear that their counsels were influenced by the same feeling that gave so sudden an impulse to the Volunteer movement throughout the country about that time. It did not appear, therefore, having regard to the peculiar circumstances in which that Royal Commission was issued, that they were bound to do any more than had already been done towards carrying out the recommendations of its Report. What were the hon. and gallant Gentleman's arguments in favour of his plan? They might be briefly stated under two heads. One was founded on the advantage, from a strategical point of view, of having a central rallying point on which we might fall back in case of need, and the other was based on
  1934
  the alleged insecurity and inconvenience of the present Arsenal. The former of these might be well left to other hands, for if he could succeed in refuting the charges that had been levelled against the Royal Arsenal, sufficient reason would have been given for declining to enter that boundless field of abstract speculation in which the hon. and gallant Gentleman had been luxuriating. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had said that the Royal Arsenal was insecure; that it was inconveniently situated; and that there would be a saving of the cost of labour and materials effected by the change he advised. Regarding the security or otherwise of the Arsenal, we might suppose its liability to attack by land and by water. But what did the supposition of a land attack imply? It implied simply this—that a hostile force had been able to gain a footing on our shores, and that the national Army had been unable either to dislodge them, or effectually to impede their progress—in other words, that our forces by sea and by land were utterly inadequate to the performance of the duties assigned to them. He felt sure that the right hon. Gentlemen at the head of the Military and Naval establishments would not be prepared to give their assent to such a proposition as that, and he could only imagine that the neglect with which this portion of the subject had been hitherto treated was mainly due to a general and not unfounded confidence in the pluck of the British soldier and sailor, if not always in the administration of the Services. And no better proof of indifference could be given than that furnished by the House of Commons itself, when the late General Sir de Lacy Evans, to whom the appointment of the Commission was, in the first instance, due, was advocating the carrying out of that part of its recommendations relating to the fortification of Shooters' Hill—he was actually counted out almost before he had commenced his argument—and that occurred only six months after the date of the Report. The defence of Woolwich on the land side was no new idea; it had been suggested by the Duke of York so far back as the year 1810, and again 50 years later by the Commission in question, but each time without result; primâ facie, therefore, there appeared to be no good

  1935
  ground for its adoption, and the Arsenal might be held to be sufficiently secure without any further precaution; but if it were otherwise, London itself seemed to be in still greater need of protection, for supposing a sufficient force to have landed and that they met with no effectual resistance, surely their destination would be the metropolis; having gained that and cut off railway communication, the capture of Woolwich would appear but a secondary consideration. But if the Arsenal were taken or communication with it interrupted, we should then not be destitute of resources—we had already auxiliary Arsenals at Portsmouth and Plymouth, which were capable of expansion at short notice, not to mention those gigantic private manufactories in the North—complete Arsenals in themselves—which now supplied Foreign Governments with the very articles we should require; in time of such an emergency as that contemplated this trade would necessarily cease, and, failing a foreign market, interest and patriotism would surely combine in placing every' facility at the disposition of the Government of the day. Regarding the safety of Woolwich by water, it must be remembered that all had been done that was recommended by the Royal Commission, the batteries commanding the waterway of the Thames had been strengthened, and in addition to those precautions, we were now in possession of a far more powerful engine than was ever contemplated at the time the Report was issued—the submarine torpedo would alone be found capable of protecting the entrance to the Thames. It could scarcely be forgotten that during the Franco-Prussian War the entire French fleet was kept outside Kiel harbour simply by extinguishing the lights and laying down torpedoes—and since that date the construction of those weapons had undergone many improvements. If Woolwich was not safe from attack by water, what was to be said about Chatham and Sheerness? They were unquestionably in a more exposed situation. At the time of the Royal Commission, and for some 10 years after, there was a dockyard in operation at Woolwich, which was closed in pursuance of what, he ventured to think, was a mistaken policy on the part of the late Government. Well, what had become of the work that was executed there? It
  1936
  had in great part been transferred to Chatham—20 miles nearer the sea, and, therefore, by so much the more dangerous. He certainly must dissent from the opinion expressed by the hon. and gallant Gentleman that the situation of the Royal Arsenal was inconvenient. What did the Royal Commissioners say in regard to the position of such an establishment?
  "The great products of our Arsenals, guns, gun-carriages, shot, &c, are intended almost entirely for the Navy, coast defences, or for our Colonies; and it is conceived that an Arsenal should he situated, if not actually, on the sea, yet so near as to have easy and rapid communication with it."
  If a situation could be specially prepared for the purpose, it could not better fulfil those conditions than that now occupied by the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich, and by its direct communication, through the South Eastern, with the entire railway system of the country, it possessed one advantage in addition to those enumerated in the quotation he had just read. It would undoubtedly reduce the cost of the raw material if our manufactories were nearer the sources of iron and coal; but that saving would be almost, if not quite, counterbalanced by the cost of carriage of the manufactured article, for he imagined the railway companies would hardly consent to carry such a monster, for example, as the new 80-ton gun, at anything like the same rate, ton for ton, as the material of which it was constructed. [Major BEAUMONT: I do not propose to remove the manufacture of heavy ordnance from Woolwich.] He (Mr. Boord) was very glad to hear it, and would, therefore, not pursue that argument any further. In one of the letters that passed between the Royal Commissioners and the War Office, there occurred a passage of ominous import. It was this—
  "Circumstances may occur which may render it expedient, in addition to this central depot, to have also an Arsenal on the western seaboard, capable of furnishing a portion of the supplies which are now manufactured exclusively at Woolwich."
  Prom that it would appear that the plan advocated by the hon. and gallant Gentleman might be, and probably was, only part of a still more extensive design on the pocket of the British taxpayer. He had no doubt, as the Commissioners

  1937
  said in a subsequent paragraph of the same letter, that—
  "Besides the duplication of our resources of production, another advantage which it is assumed would he gained by the establishment of an Arsenal on the Mersey would he the facility of ingress and egress to our colonies abroad;"
  but it might also be desirable, from a purely military point of view, and for similar reasons, to have such establishments on various other parts of the coast. Would the nation be content to pay for these whims at the rate oven of £1,000,000 a-piece, which was the modest sum at which the hon. and gallant Gentleman apparently valued them? When he sat on that side of the House, the hon. and gallant Gentleman was, no doubt, in common with the majority of his Party, a strict economist; his change of position appeared to have made some difference in his opinions in that respect, or else he would probably have endeavoured to persuade his Friends to consider this question when they held the reins of power. If the changes he advocated were necessary now, they were still more so when he first came into the House. Then there were wars, and rumours of wars—now nothing could be more encouraging than the foreign relations of the country, and, under the able guidance of the noble Lord at the head of the Foreign Office, we had every guarantee that they would continue so. For his own part, he must confess that he saw nothing in the plan but increased expenditure, without any corresponding advantage to recommend it. The first outlay would be enormous, the cost of maintenance very largo, and the accumulation of obsolete stores still greater than at present; besides which, he could not help thinking that the publication of evidence like that which must be collected by a Committee, such as the hon. and gallant Gentleman asked for, would be, to say the least, undesirable. He hoped he had succeeded in showing some reason why Her Majesty's Government should once for all decline to listen to the proposal of the hon. and gallant Gentleman.
  LORD EUSTACE CECILsaid, that while he had listened with interest to the figures and mass of detail which the hon. and gallant Gentleman had laid before the House in relation to his proposal, he could not help thinking that, although his soft and persuasive words in refer-
  1938
  ence to an unnamed site in the North were spoken in the House of Commons, the hon. and gallant Gentleman's heart was somewhere in South Durham. He (Lord Eustace Cecil) could not, however, at that late hour go into those details. The Commission which considered the whole of this subject, and which made certain recommendations in 1860, if it were able to meet again, would, he was informed by its Secretary, Sir William Jervois, no doubt report in a very different way, because the state of things now was very different from what it was in 1860. By water, at least, the Arsenal at Woolwich was almost impregnable. Suppose that impossible event, the Battle of Dorking, were to be fought, he did not think the enemy would make for Woolwich, but would at once make for the metropolis. As regarded the defence of Woolwich by water, the hon. and gallant Gentleman knew the number of fortifications on the Thames. All those fortresses were more or less armed with heavy guns. Most of those guns were in position; if not actually so, they would be shortly. He would not now go into the question of torpedoes, but the hon. and gallant Gentleman knew that a wise use of torpedoes in themselves would make the river practically impregnable. The hon. and gallant Gentleman, moreover, did not appear to have given a good reason why we should remove the departments he proposed to remove from Woolwich. The wish of the War Department at present was to have the clothing and all the outlying departments more immediately under the Central Government, so that if they perceived anything wrong going on in those departments, they could have the officers at the head of those departments more immediately under their command. As to Indian stores, he (Lord Eustace Cecil) was not competent to speak; that was a question for the Indian Government. If the hon. and gallant Gentleman had known the difficulty which the War Department had to induce the Indian Government to adopt its views, he would not so readily have made his proposals as to these stores. As to the cost of the plan proposed by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, it was impossible then to go into detail. The cost of the removal of the Arsenal from Woolwich he estimated at something like £1,000,000; but he (Lord Eustace Cecil) was told upon competent

  1939
  authority that it would be much nearer £2,000,000. The hon. and gallant Gentleman spoke of the large sums which the sale of land at Woolwich would produce; but he could tell him that, so far as land was concerned, the Government had to buy in the dearest market and sell in the cheapest. The 280 acres would hardly produce the sum he calculated on. No doubt, if they took away the manufactories at Woolwich the houses in which the artizans now lived would be untenanted and the value of the land would fall, and he should be very much astonished if they got more than £100 an acre for the land. He could not agree in the accuracy of the hon. and gallant Gentleman's calculations as to the quantities of material used at Woolwich, or the saving that would be effected if his plans were carried out. Instead of 80,000 tons of coal, for instance, only 52,000 tons had been used in 1874. Indeed, all such calculations, unless formed upon a very accurate basis, must be wholly fallacious. As to the iron used at Woolwich, he might say that of the 13,000 tons used yearly 10,000 tons consisted of old material—shot, shell, and condemned guns. That was an enormous saving, which would go on for some years to come. The hon. and gallant Gentleman asked him to consent to a Committee. Well, he should be very glad to oblige him if it would do any good. But the object of a Committee was information, and he thought they had already all the information they wanted on this subject. Besides if a Committee reported in the sense of the hon. and gallant Gentleman he was not at all sure that the House or the country would consent to their recommendation, and their labour would be entirely thrown away, and he did not like to assent to a Committee unless its inquiries could lead to a useful result. The manner in which the question had been brought forward afforded proof of great industry, and he wished he could believe that the labour had been well spent. He was sorry he could not give the hon. and gallant Gentleman a more favourable answer; but until he brought forward a more practicable scheme, he did not think it would be possible for the Government or any other Government to consent to his Motion. The hon. and gallant Gentleman had imparted a great deal of valuable information to the House, and, having done himself great
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  credit, he hoped he would be content at present with the attention he had called to the subject.
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, he concurred in the observation that his hon. and gallant Friend had collected an great amount of information on a question which was interesting and vitally important; but where so large an expenditure was involved, it was natural that the Government and Parliament should be cautious. He was bound to say that if the noble Lord's Predecessors had been on the Treasury Bench, they would probably have been as slow as he to take any step in this matter at a time when so much was being spent on fortifications and localization. It was rather hard for the noble Lord to taunt his hon. and gallant Friend with having an eye to the interests of his constituents in a matter to the consideration of which he brought a high degree of technical knowledge, and in which he naturally took special interest from a professional point of view; but if he was to be exposed to such a remark, what must be said of the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Boord)? He was sorry that more attention could not be given to the subject by the House; and it would have been a satisfaction to have had his hon. and gallant Friend's case brought before a Committee, even if it were disproved, as he was inclined to think it might be. The Motion on the Paper was not directed against the Government at all; it was an important subject and his hon. and gallant Friend would doubtless have deemed it his duty to bring the matter forward whatever Government had been in power.
  SIR WILLIAM EDMONSTONEsaid, he would not enter into a discussion of the question further than to say, as a naval officer, let them make their defences safe. With regard to the removal of their arsenal to a central situation, it would be attended with enormous cost, and, in his opinion, they could never get a more important site than the present. He believed that the Thames might be so fortified that no attacks from ships of war need be apprehended. He did not like these discussions on the weak points of our position—these battles of Dorking. A central depot such as had been spoken of might be useful, in certain emergen-

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  cies; but at Woolwich there was abundant depth of water for vessels to come alongside, and altogether we should never get so good and convenient an arsenal.
  GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, he would he glad enough could the Government have seen their way to allow a Committee to have been appointed, as it would dispel by the information it would have collected, many illusions about the weakness of our military positions, in case of having to assemble our Forces in centrical and important positions; but, as it was, the Government had decided wisely to resist the Motion, so far as regarded the removal of any of their great manufacturing establishments from Woolwich.
  CAPTAIN NOLANsaid, that very great evils would result, if the Government were to separate the gun department from the carriage department. If they removed their arsenal to a distance from the metropolis, they would land themselves in a great difficulty. All their war departments ought to be placed around the metropolis. Such was the arrangement in Russia, and it was of great importance.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ARTIZANS DWELLINGS BILL.
(Mr. Secretary Cross, Mr. Sclater-Booth, Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson.)
ARTIZANS DWELLINGS BILL.

  [BILL 126.] THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read the third time."—(Mr. Secretary Cross.)
  MR. W. HOLMS, in moving that "the Bill be read the third time upon this day month," said, he was not actuated by any hostility to it, but by a belief that it required still further amendment. He feared that its machinery was so defective that it would prove as great a failure as the Act of 1868. The hon. Member made a detailed comparison between the Act of 1868 and the present Bill, and contended that the former offered greater inducements for the local authorities to carry on operations for improvement of artizans' dwellings than the latter; indeed, some features of the former Act offered the highest inducements to local authorities to make use of it. It had been in operation for seven
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  years, and yet from a Return issued since this Bill passed through Committee, he found that during that period only 10,600 houses had been demolished or improved in England and Wales, and the greater part of them—upwards of 9,000—were in three towns. The Act of 1868 had been almost a total failure from two causes—first, from its permissive character, and secondly, from the fact that upon the medical officer rested the responsibility of putting the Act in motion. He would be glad to learn from the Home Secretary in what respect the Bill of 1875 differed from the Act of 1868, so far as related to any inducement being offered to the local authority to carry on operations under it. In some respects the present Bill was retrograde. It was one of those showy but feeble measures so defective in the means by which its objects were sought to be accomplished, that practically the mischief to be remedied would remain unaltered. He would conclude by moving his Amendment.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day month.—(Mr. William Holms.)
  MR. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTHsaid, he regretted that his hon. Friend the Member for Paisley (Mr. W. Holms) had thought it necessary to make such a Motion, for he (Mr. Kay-Shuttleworth) had hoped that the House would have been unanimous in passing the Bill. But as his hon. Friend had a right to speak with experience and authority on the subject, and as he had referred to opinions expressed by him (Mr. Kay-Shuttleworth) and by the hon. Baronet the Member for Maidstone (Sir Sydney Waterlow) on the Motion for leave to introduce this Bill, the House would permit him to say a few words in reply. It was quite true that he had on that occasion remarked on the objections to a Bill the whole operation of which "hinged on the action of the medical officer." But those objections had been to a great extent removed by the alternative modes of action secured by Amendments in Committee. As regarded London, the Metropolitan Board of Works would now have their own officer, who could put the Bill in motion, if the local medical officer failed to do so. Moreover, any medical officer might be called on to act

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  by two justices, or by 12 ratepayers; and the latter need not in London be residents in the district of the medical officer, but might be any 12 ratepayers in London. Again, if their representation failed of its object, they could appeal to the "confirming authority," who could institute an inquiry that might result in an improvement scheme. At that late hour—nearly 1 A.M.—he would not weary the House by detailing the great improvements in the Bill made in Committee, but would only refer his hon. Friend to Clauses 4, 12, 18, and 14, in the amended Bill. His hon. Friend founded his complaints on what he termed the "miserable and almost total failure" of the Act of 1868. But although, thanks to its mutilation in the House of Lords, it had not accomplished the expectations of the hon. Member for Finsbury (Mr. W. M. Torrens)—that Act had been productive of considerable results in certain places, as he could show from the Return moved for by the hon. Member for Paisley, and from which he had quoted. In some districts of London, many of the worst houses and groups of houses had been improved, or taken down, under Torrens's Act, But the Return, whilst it showed the number of reports made by medical officers under that Act, did not always specify the number of houses affected, and thus. might mislead. Moreover, no Return of that kind could show more than a part of the results of such an Act. Local authorities could use and had used it as an engine for putting pressure on owners of property, to execute improvements or repairs; and in that way an Act might do a great deal without being actually put into operation. He must take advantage of the opportunity now afforded to thank the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Cross) for the fair manner in which he had accepted numerous suggestions and alterations, proposed from that side of the House, both in Committee and on the Report. The Bill had been greatly improved. And though he was perhaps not quite so sanguine as the right hon. Gentleman as to the amount that it would accomplish, he hoped it would do good work in London and other places, and, at least, it was a step that might be followed by others in the same direction.
  MR. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he had no fault to find with the Motion, or
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  with the spirit in which it had been submitted; but he did not think that any real ground had been shown for postponing the third reading of the Bill, which he believed was justified by the circumstances of the case, and would answer the purposes which it was intended to serve. Some of the great corporations of the Kingdom were prepared to put the Bill into operation immediately it was passed into law, and he anticipated that it would prove beneficial. Should the reverse be the result, it would be easy to remedy its defects when those defects had been ascertained.
  MR. STANSFELDsaid, he concurred generally in the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, and would express a hope that the hon. Member for Paisley would not press his Motion to a division. He was not very sanguine that the Bill would prove of much good, but he should be glad if he was disappointed.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.
  House adjourned at a quarter after One o'clock, till Monday next.