[BILL 1.] COMMITTEE.

HC Deb 16 February 1880 vol 250 cc688-772

Order for Committee read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Deputy Speaker do now leave the Chair."——(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.)

MR. SYNAN,

in rising to move, as an Amendment— That it is inexpedient that any portion of the property accruing to the Commissioners of Church Temporalities under 'The Irish Church Act, 1869,' shall be applied towards the temporary relief of distress in Ireland, and that the provisions of the Bill authorizing such advances out of such property cannot be satisfactory; and this House is of opinion that all advances to be made for the purpose of relieving the distress in Ireland should be made from Imperial resources, said, he was glad the point had not been decided on Thursday last, because since then information had arrived from Ireland which made it imperative, he thought, that the Government should adopt his Amendment in some shape or other. The present Bill was altogether inadequate for the emergency, and the mail from Dublin had solved the question. The 9th clause, which would exhaust as much money as all the other provisions, related to the application of money for the purpose of improving land in order to enable the landlords to employ the labouring classes in Ireland to save the rates. According to the Circular of the 22nd November, a proposal was made to the Irish proprietors authorizing them to apply for money at the rate of 3½ per cent, for the purpose of improving their estates and giving employment to the poor. That Circular, however, proved to be practically inoperative, for the landlords refused to avail themselves of its aid, and nearly two months later—namely, on the 12th of January—a new one was issued, offering the money at 1 per cent. The Irish proprietors, in order to relieve the rates, had answered that Circular, and applications had been made which would exhaust the whole of the £500,000 provided for by the Bill. If that £500,000 was to be ex- hausted by the applications of the Irish proprietors, where was any to be got for the Sanitary Board or the presentment sessions? Evidently, then, there waspro tantoa misapplication in the Bill of the Church Surplus Fund, and evidently, too, the £500,000 was totally inadequate to the occasion; because if that sum had already been applied for, and if the Government intended to grant it, and not break faith with the Irish proprietors, the rest of the Bill was so much waste paper. He had dealt with the proposals which related to presentment and extraordinary presentment sessions on Thursday. There was no analogy between the present state of things and that which existed in 1846 and 1847; and there was no danger, considering that money was to be given to the sanitary authorities and to Boards of Guardians, that this part of the Bill would lead to the pauperization of the labourers. There was a danger, no doubt, that useless works might be set on foot; but that was no argument against the principle, as that might occur in any case. With refer-once to Clause 4, relating to loans to Boards of Guardians, there was no clear provision that the sanitary authorities, which were generally the Boards of Guardians, would only have to pay 1 per cent, instead of 3. Then rates would nave to be levied, and the payment of these rates would, in many cases, drive the occupiers into bankruptcy. On the 29th of September it appeared that there were 47 Unions in Ireland in which the rates varied from 3s.to 4s.5d.in the pound. It might be necessary to raise them to 6s.,7s.,or even 8s.in the pound, which would mean the bankruptcy of the ratepayers. He had no objection to the application of the Irish Church Surplus to save the ratepayers from bankruptcy; but if the Government meant really to relieve Irish distress, they must do something more than apply this £500,000, and they would have materially to alter the provisions of the Bill, by adopting the principles set forth in his Amendment. At least £1,000,000 was wanted, and the Government certainly would not be able hereafter to say that they were not fully acquainted with the magnitude of the distress. In the last week two deaths from starvation had occurred in the heart of his own county. Up to the time of these deplorable events, he himself had been ignorant of the magnitude of the present crisis, and, consequently, he could not blame the Government for their ignorance of it. But he warned the Government that they could avail themselves of that excuse no longer, for it was now high time that they should see that the sum they proposed for the relief of the distress was an inadequate one, and that the measures they contemplated amounted to mere mockery. Reference had been made last week to the Cotton Famine, and to the Act passed for the purpose of relief in that case. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not in the House at the time of the allusion; but he came in afterwards, and he did not seem to be aware that any such Act was in existence. He (Mr. Synan) then put the Statute into the hands of the hon. and learned Member for Kildare (Mr. Meldon), and the answer given to that hon. and learned Gentleman was that the cases were not analogous. He would admit that the rates of interest were different; but the condition of the two countries were a sufficient reply to that objection. Would anyone compare rich Lancashire with pauper Ireland? In Lancashire there was a well-off middle class, and there was a wealthy upper class. In Ireland there was no middle class, and the upper class consisted of absentees. With such a country as Ireland without a substantial middle class, or a wealthy upper class, why should Her Majesty's Government higgle about 2 per cent? Why throw the proposed grant on the Irish Church Surplus Fund and on the ratepayers of the country, who distinctly told the Government that they would become bankrupt if this were the only measure brought forward to meet the existing distress? What was the action of Her Majesty's Ministers in this matter—what answer did they give to the call made upon them? Let them boldly say—"We will not allow the Treasury to lose 2 per cent; we do not think Ireland should ask us to do it, starving and pauperized as she is." Let it go forth distinctly that that was the reply of the Administration, and he should like to know what kind of a response it would receive across the Channel? He might be told, and it had been said by the Pross—"Oh, you are making a great noise about this Irish Church Surplus Fund. The money is there, why should it not be applied?" They did make a noise about it, and for obvious reasons. It was not a proper fund from which to draw the required advances, as there were already various purposes for which the £4,000,000 or £5,000,000 of that Fund, whenever it was realized, might be useful. They wished to reserve it for a great purpose. £1,000,000 of the Fund had been already voted for intermediate education. He (Mr. Synan) supported that, and on this ground—that it was impossible to ask the House, with its present opinions on denominational education, for any grant out of the public Treasury for the purpose of instruction in Ireland, and that was an instance of an equitable application of the Fund. It had also been applied for the purpose of supporting the famishing schoolmasters of Ireland. He supported that application on the same ground; and he affirmed that no Government, whether Imperial or Irish, would be blamed for such an application of the Fund. What was the purpose for which the Irish Members wished to keep the remaining money? They wished to keep it in order to make a great experiment with regard to a settlement of the Land Question. There was not a man in the House—there was not a man in the country—who did not know that that was the vital question at this moment in Ireland, and that, in order to have peace in that country, they must begin and deal with that subject. Nobody could deny that the proper mode of settling the question was by creating a peasant proprietary in Ireland. He hoped the experiment might be made this Session by carrying into effect the recommendations of the Committee over which the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) presided. If the experiment succeeded, the Irish people would succeed in demanding that it should be carried out more extensively; if it failed, those whom he addressed need not be afraid of the Treasury. They would not lose their money. That was their reason for regarding the Irish Church Surplus Fund in this matter as they did, and he hoped the House would aid them in keeping it intact. He also hoped the House would aid them in changing the provisions of the Bill, and in endeavouring to render it a measure worthy of, and adequate to, the occasion. They could not allow the Government to set their unholy hand upon the Irish Church Surplus Fund. Why did he say unholy hand? The Members of the present Administration opposed, as earnestly as they could, the creation of the Fund—they tried to prevent its being realized; but now that this great Fund had been realized, he called upon the House to help them in keeping it from the grasp of Her Majesty's Ministers. The Imperial Government now stood before the tribunals of public opinion all over the world. The cry of Irish distress had penetrated into every country of the globe. It had passed over Europe. It had crossed the Atlantic, it had gone to Australia, and funds were pouring in from abroad for the purposes of relief, while the Imperial Government of this great country—the wealthiest in the world—refused to give £500,000 out of the public Exchequer for such a purpose. Would the House permit the Members of the Government to continue in their refusal? If it did, a more shameful act would never have been done by any rulers of a great country. What would be said of it in France? What would be said of it in Germany, in Austria, in America, in Australia? He would not believe that such an act of refusal was possible until he actually saw it. But there was another tribunal before which Her Majesty's Ministers stood, and that was the tribunal of Irish opinion. They might defy it—they might despise it; they might treat it with contempt; but if they did so they might be assured that such a course of proceeding would recoil upon themselves. It would re-act upon them, and the exasperated public opinion of Ireland would furnish them with an answer which it would have been worth not £500,000, but £10,000,000, to have prevented being given. He did not suppose that even the Government estimated the affection or the gratitude of the Irish people so low as to think that the Sister Island was not worth a loan out of the Treasury of £500,000; but if they did, he trusted that the House would never support them in such a view. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Amendment of which he had given Notice.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER,

in seconding the Amendment, said, he was sure the House must have been impressed by the able arguments which the hon. Gentleman the Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) adduced in favour of advancing this money out of the Imperial Exchequer rather than out of the Irish Church Fund. The part of the speech of the hon. Gentleman which he (Mr. O'Connor Power) admired particularly was that portion in which he showed clearly that £500,000 sterling, whether taken out of the Irish Church Surplus Fund or from the Imperial Exchequer, would be totally inadequate to meet the crisis in which Ireland was now involved. It had been estimated that the total loss on agricultural produce in that country, owing to the bad harvest of the last year, amounted to no less a sum than £30,000,000. Of course, when they came to consider measures of relief for distress in the agricultural population it would be fair to remember that these figures represented the total loss, a portion of which had been sustained by large farmers, and by other men who were financially in a condition to bear the strain which was put upon them. What he believed, however, the House should do was to give relief as speedily as possible, and with as little demoralizing influences as possible, to the poor tenant farmers and labouring classes of Ireland; and what they had to do was to calculate what losses had been sustained by those portions of the community. Mr. Neilson Hancock, an eminent authority on the subject, estimated that the total loss on the potato crop alone in Ireland during the past three years had been £11,556,000, and that last year alone it was not less than £6,000,000. This was the loss which it should be the object of the Government to supply, and which pressed severely upon the tenant farmers and the labourers. In connection with the proposals of Her Majesty's Ministers, more than £500,000 had been already applied for by the landlords in anticipation of the passing of the Bill; and it must also be borne in mind that the circumstances under which the money was to be applied would render it necessary to make further advances from time to time. There was nothing which prohibited those who had already made application from anticipating others who might not be immediately prepared with the necessary security; and unless large dis- cretion were given to those who were to advance the money they might find themselves in a few weeks with difficulties similar to those which had been experienced in 1847. If he had one objection to the Bill stronger than another—and his objections were numerous—it was that so much was left to the power of the Viceroy. Recent illustrations showed that the present holder of that Office had odd notions of his duties as the Representative of the Queen in Ireland, and that he had allowed himself to be carried away by political feelings to offer a public insult to the capital of the country in the person of its Chief Magistrate. The present holder of the position, therefore, was not a Viceroy in whose hands so important a matter as the relief of Irish distress should be placed. Public works had been spoken of, and he quite admitted, he might add, that there had been a great deal of demoralization owing to the way in which public works had been prosecuted during the Famine of 1847; but the experience of that time furnished no conclusive arguments against works of the kind properly initiated and conducted. It must be recollected, however, that if they were to have no such works in Ireland the labouring population would experience very little relief from the measures proposed by the Government. Those measures would undoubtedly bring some relief to the tenant farmers, though if a sum of money were not guaranteed that relief would be of a paltry character. But what would become of the labouring classes of the towns, of the men who were walking about idle in Dublin, in Limerick, in Cork? The system of out-door relief would work well with regard to all persons living upon and employed upon the land; but he would make a great distinction between that class and the class employed, or rather lacking employment, in large towns. He would have no objection to the employment of labourers in public works, while he would decline to employ in that way tenant farmers. Those persons should be compelled to seek employment under their own landlords, or on their own holdings. Something had been said in the course of the discussions on the subject as to the position of the Irish Party in the House, and as to their refusal to affiliate themselves to either side. He found that in 1847 a noble Lord, then in Opposition, introduced an excellent scheme for the opening up of the industrial resources of Ireland. He referred to Lord George Bentinck and his scheme for opening up railways—a scheme involving the appropriation of £16,000,000. Impartial historians told them that Ireland had been deprived of this by the Whig Party, for when Lord John Russell threatened to resign if it were carried, the Irish Members actually voted in a body against it. They were not likely to act, at the present, in a similar manner; but he regretted to find that no official Member of the Opposition came forward to propose, on the present occasion, a statesmanslike measure to meet the distress which prevailed. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster), who was a great friend of Ireland, had, the other evening, made an extraordinary speech, and had adverted to certain promises which, according to him, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had made; but, notwithstanding that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had denied having ever made those promises, the right hon. Gentleman of whom he was speaking had, betraying his position, voted with the Government. A charge of Communism had been made against the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich in connection with a statement which he had made in regard to the expropriation of land; but he found that Lord John Russell, in 1847, was in favour of the expropriation of all waste lands where the annual value did not exceed 2s.6d.an acre, and that the proposal had met with general assent in that House. Ireland was in the unfortunate position at the time that the mass of the people were not represented in Parliament, but the bulk of the representation was from the landowners; and in 1847 Ireland was made a victim of the Party jealousy of Whigs and Tories. As a result of this state of things the proposal of the Conservative Lord, on the one hand, for the establishment of railways was defeated, and the proposal of the Whig Lord, on the other, for the reclamation of waste lands was also defeated. It seemed to him that the Opposition, as well as the Government, allowed themselves to be too much engrossed by questions of foreign policy, of which the general feeling in the country, both of Liberals and Conservatives, was that we had had too much. He was convinced that the Government had no intention, notwithstanding the wave of Jingoism that had gone over the country, to involve the nation in war before the General Election, and he would make the Opposition a present of the advice that if they wished to improve their position on both sides of St. George's Channel, the state of Ireland and home legislation generally appeared to him a much more fitting subject for their consideration than the foreign policy of the Government; and he would suggest to those hon. and right hon. Gentlemen, if they wished to enlist popular enthusiasm on their side, that they should turn their thoughts in that direction. He regretted very much that his hon. Friend the Member for Youghal (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) had not been able physically to take part in these debates; and he thought the hon. Member would be able to show that Ireland had a distinct claim on the generosity of the English Government and the English people. The result of English legislation in Ireland had been to leave the country considerably behind England and Scotland in the race for national prosperity. When the Union of Ireland with Great Britain took place the taxation of Ireland was £3,500,000. The very next year it was £7,000,000. In 1800 the National Debt of Ireland was £26,000,000, in 1817—after 17 years of English rule—it was £112,704,773. Ireland had to pay for what was then the Imperial policy of Great Britain—namely, the war on the Continent, for putting down principles in the success of which Ireland was more interested than in their extinction. From whatever point of view they looked at it, Ireland could establish a claim on the English House of Commons to make up for the robbery of the past, and for the efforts to destroy her manufactures. That was the spirit in which the question should be approached. Ireland should not be held up as a perpetual mendicant; and instead of £500,000 being devoted, to meet a loss of at least £6,000,000, the English Government should come out magnanimously and say they would not be content to make provision for the present distress, but would go into the causes of Irish misery and endeavour to apply a permanent remedy, so that when another time of pressure came the Irish tenant farmers, secure in their farms and in the protection of their own industry, would tide it over of themselves, and would not need to appeal to the magnanimity of Her Majesty's Government, or to the charity of the civilized world.

Amendment proposed, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "it is inexpedient that any portion of the property accruing to the Commissioners of Church Temporalities under 'The Irish Church Act, 1869,' shall he applied towards the temporary relief of distress in Ireland, and that the provisions of the Bill authorizing such advances out of such property cannot be satisfactory; and this House is of opinion that all advances to he made for the purpose of relieving the distress in Ireland should he made from Imperial resources,"—(Mr. Synan,) —instead thereof.

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

MR. RYLANDS

said, he was quite aware that the loss which would be entailed upon the agricultural population of Ireland arising from the bad harvest which they had experienced would be greater than the £500,000 at present proposed by the Government—in fact, it might amount to several millions; but, at the same time, it did not by any means follow that the sum provided by the Government might not be sufficient. Upon that he expressed no opinion; but he did express a very decided opinion that if the Government found, from the evidence which might come before them, that the amount which they contemplated would be sufficient was not really so, they ought not to lose a moment in coming to this House to provide for the further wants. Now, as to the immediate object of the Amendment, he would say at once that he thought the application of the property accruing to the Commissioners of Church Temporalities ought not to be made to Irish distress unless there were some very strong grounds indeed to justify the action, and theonus probandirested entirely with the Government to justify the course they proposed to take. It must be remembered that a very large amount of money which was now proposed to be taken from the Church Temporalities Fund was with a view to assist landlords in Ireland to carry out improve- ments on their own estates. Now, the House ought to very carefully consider what arguments the Government could put forth for the proposal. At present it appeared to him (Mr. Rylands) that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had given no sufficient reason; and he did not see why the Government should be allowed to depart from the ordinary rule as to advances. This money ought to be advanced under the provisions of the Public Works Loans Act, and the advantage of that would be that the advances would be kept within the view of Parliament, which he was afraid might not be the case if the money came out of the Church Temporalities Fund. In fact, he should like to ask the Government to say whether, if there was a loss under this proposed arrangement, that loss would be brought under the notice of Parliament? Now, another objection to the proposal of the Government to grant these loans to the Irish landlords was this—in what way were the Government to prevent the landlords increasing the rents of their tenants after their lands had been benefited by the advances? It was quite clear, if a certain amount of money was devoted to the improvement of the drainage of land, it would increase the rateable value of the land; and he could not for the life of him see what security they had that, having increased the values of the land, it would not end in increasing the rent. There was nothing in the Bill to prevent such a result, and that was a natural result, because the land would be worth more in the market in consequence of the money allowed to be expended on it by these advances. A proposition was made by the hon. Member for Tralee (the O'Donoghue) last week, which was treated by the House as if it was altogether an impracticable and untenable proposition. The hon. Member said, if they were going to lend money for the improvement of land, why not lend it to the tenant instead of to the landowners; and he pointed out that in Ireland it was desirable the tenants should get a property in their land over and above that held by the landlord. Ulster tenant right had been an unmixed boon to the farmers living in that part of Ireland; and he understood the hon. Gentleman would have been very glad if, under this Bill, there might have been some means devised of advancing money to the tenants to make improvements, which should afterwards be absolutely the tenants' property, and that there should be a right on the part of the tenants which might, to some extent, give them a claim upon the soil. He sympathized with the hon. Gentleman entirely, and would say, if it were practical for the State to advance to the tenant farmers, with such reasonable security, as he was bound to say the State ought to require in advancing money, if there could be any means devised for the tenant farmers to have these advances for the improvement of land, he, for one, should be delighted to see it done. Now, how was it that there was no security which the tenant farmers could offer in certain parts of Ireland? They had security in Ulster; but in other portions of the country, where the land tad been improved through the exertions of the tenants, that had been a cloak for raising rents, until now the rateable value of the land was no greater than the rent upon it, and the tenant farmers had absolutely nothing to offer as security beyond it. Now that was a very objectionable state of things, dealing as they were doing with a great state of distress in Ireland, and when they were told that the tenant farmers, after passing through two bad harvests, were now in a state of utter destitution and distress, and when they periodically heard these tales from Ireland about men who had scarcely the means to keep existence together. His hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had recently been complimented in the Press for the excellent manner in which he discharged his duties as a landlord in the West of Ireland; there were many others like him who did all that lay in their power to promote the welfare and the prosperity of their tenants. But there were a number of absentee landlords, and these he (Mr. Rylands) considered a curse to the country. An absentee proprietary carried their rents out of the country, instead of employing the money in improving their lands and increasing the employment of the industry of the country; and he held that they were partly responsible, in some degree, for the present distress existing among their tenants. Of course, it was a very disagreeable duty for him to speak thus on the subject in that House, which, to a large extent, represented the land of the country; but he might justify himself by referring hon. Gentlemen to a leading article which appeared in last Friday'sTimeswith regard to the Land Question. The writer said— In the details of Irish destitution there is generally, not to say always, an omission that would never he found in any corresponding details in this country. Where is the landlord? If a population were found in any part of this island hugging the soil, fighting for patches, living like pigs, and every now and then clamouring for somebody to tide them over their difficulties, we should at once ask for the landlord. No title, no political influence, no personal merits, would protect him from a very unpleasant intrusion into his private affairs. If he pleaded that he could not help it, the public would soon see that his hands were at liberty. Why do wretchedness and squalor give an ill odour to rent in England and not in Ireland? It is often said the landlords cannot help it, and that when they try and do their best they are baffled by the pertinacious adherence of their tenantry to their bad old ways. But it is also well known that in ordinary times a tenantry of this sort is very remunerative—nay, that an Irish landlord will often get double the rents prevailing hero, besides having comparatively few outgoings. The actual position of the Irish landowner is still rather a dark spot in these questions; and should there be a real inquiry, it is to be hoped we shall learn a little more about his powers and his difficulties than has been shown in some former Parliamentary Reports. He (Mr. Rylands) endorsed every word of that article. He was of opinion that the 1,940 landlords who owned three-quarters of the land in Ireland ought to be called upon to do their duty instead of being granted loans with which to improve their property. They were now asking for loans in order to do that which as owners they should have long since done. If they could not have done that which was their duty they should sell their property. Then it was said that the tenants were bad farmers—that they were not provident, nor industrious. He admitted that this was the case where they had no security that their providence and industry would be their own. He had been much struck in connection with this branch of the question by a passage in one of a most interesting series of letters addressed toThe Timeson "Irish Farms and Irish Farming," in which it was related that a man planted himself upon a piece of bog in Ireland some 30 years ago, and, knowing that he would not be disturbed so far as the fruits of his industry were concerned, proceeded in a laborious manner to reclaim it. He commenced by draining the bog, and, having drained it, procured manure and carried it to the reclaimed land in circumstances of great difficulty. Having slowly improved the character of the soil he had reclaimed, the man left it to his sons as a heritage of the industry which he had undertaken. This certainly struck him as being a case of a most remarkable character as illustrating what Irish tenants would and could do in favourable circumstances. Such enterprize on the part of small tenants should be encouraged; but in too many cases where farmers had brought bogs into cultivation, they were rented up to the last shilling of the value, and if they did not pay it they were evicted. This was not his own opinion, but was based upon testimony of a most reliable character. Professor Baldwin, of Glasnevin College, near Dublin, a very high authority, perhaps the very highest authority on agriculture in Ireland, and who was a member of the Royal Commission on Agriculture, had recently stated that— Wide areas of land in Ireland are not yielding a fourth of the produce which could he obtained from them. The dwellings of a vast number of small farmers in Ireland are wretched. In this age of progress it is unsatisfactory to find that there are in Ireland very many small farmers with large families whose dwellings consist of one apartment, in which cattle and pigs are also housed. There are 4,000,000 acres of medium land now growing poor herbage which would pay far better in tillage. At present the gross return of these 4,000,000 acres does not amount to twice the rent; if put under a proper system the yield would amount to five times the rent, and the wealth of the country would be increased to the extent of several millions. The want of drainage is a crying defect in Irish agriculture. In Ireland at least 6,000,000 acres are in need of drainage. This work could be effected at a cost of £5 an acre. The annual letting value would be thereby increased by £3,000,000 a-year. But Professor Baldwin went further than this. Undoubtedly, £30,000,000 was a large sum to be spent for the purpose of drainage; but he says a great portion of the labour required should be provided by the tenants themselves; that they could perform the labour themselves, and produce the results already stated. Some people might ask—"Where was a capital of £30,000,000 to effect all this?" but the reply of the Professor was to the effect that the greater part of the capital required was labour, that the farmers had a great deal of labour in their families, and that almost all the sons of the farmers could do the work. Everyone who knew anything of Ireland knew it to be a fact that there was a large number of young men whose labour would be available for such a purpose. Then, Professor Baldwin further stated that every experienced agriculturist would agree that the labour would double the present income of the farmers; and what could be more desirable than that every small farmer in Ireland should be offered the opportunity of doubling his income? Why, then, did not they double their income? Professor Baldwin replied that— The small farmers felt that every improvement in their agriculture would be taken hold of by their landlords as a cloak for raising rent. It was the old story. What was wanted by the tenant was security for his improvements. If that was not provided, every scheme for the improvement of the condition of Ireland would prove delusive. For his part, he could not agree with those who held that a scheme of emigration was the remedy that ought to be applied. The people ought not to be driven from the country in which they were born. They might perhaps be better off in Canada or in the United States; but if they could be supported in Ireland—as high authorities held they could be—then their leaving could not but be a loss to the country. To starve down the land was to starve down the population, and the starving down of the land was the result of the present suicidal system of land tenure. He considered that the present population of Ireland was far below what it would support if her resources were properly developed. He referred the other night to the case of the Channel Islands, where the population was much greater in proportion, and the people were supported in greater comfort because the resources of their soil were fully developed. He had shown on the authority of Professor Baldwin that the produce of Irish land might be increased four-fold, and a much larger population than 5,500,000 prosper upon it. The policy of giving the people an interest in the soil on which they dwelt was a Conservative policy; and he could not but regret that the proposal of Lord John Russell, made in 1847, that £1,000,000 should be devoted to the expropriation of a number of proprietors of bog-land and the cultivation of the bog-land was not adopted. It had been defeated by Irish landowners, who undertook to carry out the scheme, but had failed to do so. He did not know which of the great Parties in the State would deal with this pressing and important question; but he felt that it could be dealt with successfully only by the provision of full security to the tenant farmers of Ireland for the valuable improvements they effected upon their holdings. With regard to the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan), he agreed with it because he was opposed to the Government giving relief in the present distress out of the Irish Church Temporalities Funds. He held that this Fund should be held sacred for the great purpose of placing a number of peasant proprietors upon the soil of Ireland. He hoped that the present distress, like the Famine of 1847, would not pass away without this Government doing something substantial towards rendering similar calamities in the future impossible. For these reasons, he would support the Amendment of the hon. Member.

COLONEL KING-HARMAN

said, he had not intended to take a part in the present debate, and had, indeed, up to a very recent period, been engaged in taking his part in the relief of the distress existing in Ireland, trying his best to render the condition of the people as little painful as possible; and, in passing, he might say—and he was happy to be able to do so—that he had observed a rift in the dark cloud which had descended upon them. He had, however, come over, at considerable personal inconvenience, to this country, purposely to be present, and with the hope of hearing the Amendment of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan), now that distress was acknowledged to exist, discussed calmly and in a manner which would have shown the people of Ireland that the alleviation of their distress was an earnest purpose of the House of Commons; and he was not prepared to hear the attacks which had been made upon Irish landlords. Those attacks might or might not have been just and right. He was not there to defend the proceedings of an entire body, and would not take up the time of the House in the advancing of arguments which might well be deferred to a future occasion. The question before them was a pressing one—the relief of distress, and they ought not to delay its settlement by any discussion as to the policy which had led to its existence. He did trust, therefore, that the House would confine itself to the Bill before it. Whatever might be the causes of the distress, let them not delay business by going into them now, when it was proposed to do something to alleviate that distress. Surely the alleged causes of its existence could be discussed hereafter. If it could then be shown that it was owing to the bad behaviour of any class of men, no matter who they might be, let them be held up, and very properly, to opprobrium. The real question before the House now was, whether an advance for the relief of the starving and suffering people was to be made from the Irish Church Surplus Fund or from the Imperial resources; and as to that, in his opinion, there could be no hesitation. It seemed to him that if the past few years had been excellent years in England and Scotland, the Irish people might very well have come to England and have said—"You have had good years; we have had bad. We call on you to assist us. You are prosperous. We are the unfortunate ones. We call upon you to assist us out of the Imperial fund." But when he realized the depth of the calamity which had fallen on the country, and when he cast his eyes about for the best means to relieve the distress, he was bound to look to the state of England as well as Ireland. He was bound to place himself in the position of the English farmer who had sunk his capital and lost it, of the English landowner whose land was left on his hands, of the English manufacturer whose trade was dull, and the mechanic whose employment was gone, and he said to himself—"I do not think it right for the Irish people, poor as we are, to ask a people nearly as poor as ourselves to help us." He looked at the provisions of the Irish Church Act, and he found that under that Statute there was a fund which was available, and which was intended, by a wise provision, to be used on the occasion of a great national calamity. And could there be a greater national calamity than famine—that which was now afflicting the sister country? It was one of the greatest ever known. It was not only in the scheduled districts, but in many other parts of Ireland, that the want and suffering were great. The deep distress of the small working tenant farmer was not known yet. In many of the papers there had appeared graphic descriptions of distress from correspondents who had gone through the country in a hurry, doing their best as conscientious men; but what they had described was on the surface. What he had seen was below the surface. He spoke of their small farmers, hard-working men, too proud to show yet what they were enduring; and he said a famine which touched that class was a great calamity. What was wanted was something to enable these men to tide over their difficulties. The landlords had been greatly denounced; but what had they been doing with their people? Not only were abatements made in the rent, but a great many landlords had not called up their rents. The people, if called upon, might have been able to pay; but after it they could not go on. Give them time, and he believed that one good year, in God's providence, would enable many of them to get on their legs again. Anyway, let the House go to the point at once. The Government proffered them the money, and let them take it, no matter whence it came. There were many other matters waiting. There was a Bill of the greatest importance—the Seed Bill—waiting; and if time were wasted they must incur fresh disasters, for sowing time would be past. As one who had come over at great personal inconvenience from the post of duty, and who was anxious to get back to superintend some works, and do what he could, as long as God gave him health and strength, in the service of the people, he implored the House to waste no time in passing the Bill.

MR. STANSFELD

said, he should not transgress in the direction wisely indicated by the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel King-Harman). He merely wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland a question or two. He had no fault to find with the Government for the prudence and reserve which they had shown in regard to the relaxation of the regulations respecting out-door relief. He thought that the measures which they proposed on that subject were such as to recommend themselves to the House. He did not see, however, why the 31st of December should be fixed upon as the date beyond which the Local Government Board might not authorize loans; and wished to ask, why should the Government favour especially public works presented by the baronial presentment sessions, and why should it look with comparative disfavour on smaller and more local works undertaken by private owners or sanitary authorities? It seemed to him precisely this latter class of work that was likely to be most useful in relieving local distress; and with regard to baronial presentments, he should like to know what were the precautions which the Government contemplated taking to avoid the dangers and mischief experienced in 1847?

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, he had no intention of following the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Stansfeld) through the details of the subjects he had brought forward. He was ready to admit that the action of private owners and of local sanitary authorities, when it could be obtained, was to be preferred to that of baronial sessions, which was contemplated only where other facilities were not used. When a presentment was made by a baronial sessions, the plan the Government intended to adopt was to investigate carefully the sources of employment which existed, or which might be called into existence, within the barony through the agency of landowners, local authorities, and private persons; and they would consider whether it was necessary to act on the presentment and increase the facilities already afforded for promoting employment. In a district where it was proved to the satisfaction of the Government that there were already adequate means of employment, they would not embark on the dangerous experiment of public works carried on by these extraordinary means; but, at the same time, they might be necessary in districts where other means of employment were wanting—for it must be borne in mind that there were some districts and baronies in Ireland where there were no means of providing that employment—whether that arose from the inability of landowners or that of the local authorities to provide it. To whatever cause the position of the district was due, employment must be provided; but the circumstances of each case would be carefully looked into when applications were made. The right hon. Gentleman asked why the date, the 31st of December, appeared in Clause 3 of the Bill; but if the right hon. Gentleman would be good enough to examine it, he would find that there was a further period of two calendar months. The object of that was, this being a temporary measure, to enable the Government to take all the measures which might be necessary during the interval which must occur before the next meeting of Parliament. The right hon. Gentleman also asked why, in Clause 9, the period for granting loans to local sanitary authorities was retained; whereas in the case of Board of Works loans the date was fixed at the 29th of February, during which applications might be made. The object of the Government fixing an early date was to induce persons to lose no time in making applications. The object, of course, was that money should be applied for as rapidly as possible, and that as great a portion of it as possible should be expended in the immediate employment of labour. If the Government had fixed the limit at six months, persons would have gone into elaborate plans, which might or might not have turned out to be beneficial; but the object—namely, finding of immediate employment, would not have been obtained. The hon. and gallant Member for Sligo (Colonel King-Harman) had offered very wise counsel to the House—namely, to avoid the introduction into the discussion of topics, however interesting and important, which did not bear upon a measure of temporary relief for urgent distress. But the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) had favoured the House with his views with his usual ability, and at some length, with regard to land tenure. He (Mr. J. Lowther) did not intend to follow the hon. Member's observations further than to say that there was not a single syllable of that portion of his speech with which he was able to agree. He could not admit that the strictures on landed proprietors were well founded; and he must certainly protest against any hon. Member of that House selecting the present time, when it was of the utmost importance that all sections should cordially co-operate in doing all they could to relieve the distress, to sow dissension between different classes of Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland. It was most ill-advised, at a time when it was all-important that landlords should be induced to borrow money, to incur obligations, to burden their estates, and to make personal sacrifices for the purpose of affording employment, to disparage their efforts, to impugn their motives, and to discourage them in their attempts to do their duty in that state of life to which they had been called. Deference had been made to the Irish Church Surplus Fund; and the hon. Member who moved the Amendment (Mr. Synan) spoke in favour of hypothecating the entire amount of that Fund for the purpose of endeavouring to create a peasant proprietary in Ireland. He (Mr. J. Lowther) did not wish to follow that question farther. He had his own view on the question; but he did not think that was the proper time for devoting himself to an explanation of it. He might say that he did not think that would be a proper remedy. What he ventured to remind the House was that he had failed to find any such provision as had been mentioned in the Irish Church Act. He did not, of course, consider himself individually bound in any shape or form by the Irish Church Act. Parliament was, of course, perfectly free to repeal the whole or any section of it, and, of course, the method of apportionment of the Surplus in that Act was merely an expression of opinion, and was not binding on that or future Parliaments; but the words of the Act were that it was expedient that the Surplus should be devoted mainly to the relief of unavoidable calamity and suffering. The proposal of Her Majesty's Government was far nearer to the purpose contemplated by the Act than the interesting experiments which had been indicated by the hon. Member for Limerick. He (Mr. J. Lowther) wished to say one word with regard to the amount which was proposed to be devoted for this purpose. Fears had been expressed that the amount in the Bill—namely, £500,000, would not be adequate for the purpose in hand. He might explain that when the Bill was drawn the amount of money for which application had been made had not been such as to lead the Government to think that that sum of £500,000 would be inadequate; but applications had recently been coming in more freely, from the owners of land especially, and applications had already come up to the amount named in the Bill. On that account, and with the view to be prepared to meet future demands for loans, he was glad to say that his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer intended to move in Committee that the sum of £500,000 should be changed to £750,000.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY

said, he could not agree that all the other topics alluded to by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) ought to be excluded from the present debate, as they were questions which would have to be discussed with a view to legislation during the Session. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had quoted the words of the clause in the Irish Church Act for the purpose of showing that raised funds should not be used for the purpose of making peasant proprietors. But if the right hon. Gentleman had read a little further he would have found that the words of the Act interposed a prohibition for the appropriation of the Fund to such a purpose as that now contemplated. The Act said that any unseen misfortune or unavoidable accident, such as the present distress, should not relieve property from its duties in connection with the relief of the poor. The hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) protested against borrowing from this Fund for the relief of distress; he did so on general grounds, and he also did so on special grounds; for there were ways in which the Fund could be employed to relieve the distress, without incurring waste, and without contravening the principles of political economy, as the methods of the Government must do. He thought the Chancellor of the Exchequer was bound to show how he would approach the Church Surplus, and whether he was proceeding in the most economical manner. None of these things had been explained by the Government. He also thought the Government ought to explain why they made advances to landlords at 1 per cent for the purpose of permanently improving their own property. It must be borne in mind that if Parliament advanced on these terms they would have no power to prevent the landlords unduly raising their rents; and while they gave the landlords money at 1 per cent, how did the Government deal with the ratepayers? Boards of Guardians would have to pay 3½ per cent interest for their loans; and whilst the landlords were allowed 35 years to repay the advances made to them, the towns, who could only expend the money in out-door relief, were only allowed 10 years. The Bill would also impose on Unions the necessity of giving extended out-door relief. Surely that was a good reason for placing them on the same footing as the landlords. Why should baronial sessions be the only public bodies authorized to make proposals for expending this money? Why should not the sanitary authorities of towns have the same power? Towns ought to be provided with the same machinery as rural districts in the case of baronial sessions. It was quite plain that a much larger sum than even £750,000 would have to be spent. It appeared that £500,000 had already been demanded on loan by the owners of land. This Bill was prepared with a knowledge of that fact; and the Government might rely upon it that a much larger sum would, be required.

MR. J. LOWTHER

repeated, that when the Bill was drawn the sum of £500,000 appeared to be sufficient, looking to the applications which had then been received; but from the number of applications which had since been received that sum appeared to be inadequate, and, therefore, it was proposed to increase the sum to £750,000.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY

did not think that the Bill, as originally drawn, would provide what on a fair calculation would be necessary to meet the item of out-door relief. He therefore hoped this stage of the Bill would not be allowed to pass without a division.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, he was quite as anxious as any hon. Member to proceed at once with the Bill. At the same time, there were one or two observations of the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down which he could not allow to pass by. He had asked how they proposed to deal with the Church Fund. He (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) had stated some time ago that it was his intention, in the course of the Session, to introduce a measure for the regulation and disposition of that Fund. At present, strictly speaking, there was no Church Fund at all; but only an annual income derived by the Church Temporalities Commission from certain sources. That income had certain charges laid upon it, and, especially, the Commissioners had to pay the interest on a sum of £5,700,000, which they owed to the National Debt Commissioners. They had not only to pay that interest, but they had out of the surplus of their income to make re-payments of the principal of that debt. But there was no regular provision as to what amount was to be paid from time to time to the National Debt Commissioners; and if Parliament should go on as it had recently done, laying further charges on the future surplus or present income of the Church Commissioners, of course the re-payment to the National Debt Commissioners must be inevitably delayed. He proposed, therefore, to introduce a Bill, the main character of which would be to fix a time within which that debt should be paid off by turning the regular interest and uncertain instalments into terminable annuities, which would cancel both principal and interest in a certain time. Whatever advances might be made under this Bill from the Church Fund for the relief of distress, and which would have to be raised by further borrowing from the National Debt Commissioners, would be discharged by these annuities. As to the amount fixed in the Bill, as his right hon. Friend had explained, the £500,000 had been fully applied for, and of this some £50,000 or £60,000 had been applied for by the sanitary authorities, and other claims were still coming in. The Government, therefore, thought it necessary to increase the amount. The hon. and learned Gentleman had charged them with dealing unfairly by Boards of Guardians because they lent money to the landlords at 1 per cent interest, and gave them 35 years to repay the principal, whereas the Guardians were charged 31 per cent interest, and had to repay the principal in 10 years. The House would observe the very great difference between the two cases. The great object of the Government in offering advances to landlords was to induce them to come forward at a time which was a very bad one for them, and undertake works upon their property in order to give employment to the poor, and thus prevent them becoming chargeable on the rates. Therefore, in order to tempt the landlords to do this, they had offered them terms which were ex- ceedingly liberal. The Government were asked to compare those terms with the charge made to the Boards of Guardians; but in the one case the Government were inviting persons to undertake works which might not be necessary or incumbent upon them otherwise than as a moral duty, whereas Boards of Guardians were called upon to discharge legal duties. They were called upon to provide out of the rates for the support of the poor and destitute; and it would be a great assistance to them to enable them, instead of providing out of the rates of each particular year, to borrow for a period of 10 years at the favourable rate of 3½ per cent, in order to meet an expenditure which they would be bound to make in one year. After these explanations, he hoped they would now be allowed to go into Committee, and that any further questions that might occur might be raised in Committee.

MR. CHILDERS

thought the Bill had not been drawn with the care usual in the case of money Bills; and there was much in it difficult to understand. The portion of the Bill which referred to the expenditure of Boards of Guardians and loans to Boards of Guardians did not anywhere express that the money for these loans was to be lent at a different rate of interest than the current rate of interest—namely, 3½ per cent; but, looking at Clause 17, which referred to the re-payments to the Treasury to see who were to make these loans, it was left in complete obscurity whether the loans were to came from the Church Temporalities Commission or not. [The CHANCELLOR of the EXCHEQUER: No; they are not.] If Clause 17 did not allow the money to be borrowed from the Treasury, Clause 19 provided distinctly that the re-payment of all loans made to Boards of Guardians should be made to the Church Temporalities Commissioners. It struck him that the Church Temporalities Commissioners had made a very good bargain; because, according to these clauses, they would be paid what they had never advanced. Of course, that was not intended; but it showed, the carelessness with which the Bill was drawn. Were these loans to come from the Irish Church Temporalities Fund, or was there a mistake in the 19th clause?

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, that the intention was that the loans which were made to Boards of Guardians in order to enable them to meet the expenses of out-door relief and other charges which were thrown upon them—not money borrowed for improvements in out-door works and works of that kind—would be advanced by the Treasury out of the Imperial Exchequer. These would not come out of the Church Temporalities Fund. The 17th clause was so worded that it provided that the advance originally made by the Commissioners of Public Works should come out of the Church Temporalities Commission to the extent of £500,000 or £750,000; but if the two clauses—the 17th and 19th—were not quite plain, they could be rectified in Committee. With respect to the loans made to the Guardians as sanitary authorities, they were to come out of the Church Temporalities Fund.

MR. CHILDERS

replied, that it then came to this—that the 17th clause did not include all advances on account of distress. Not only would £750,000 be advanced on loans to private persons and to baronies; but other considerable sums would be advanced to Boards of Guardians, the total amount of which the House at present did not know, besides £500,000 advanced for seed. That was not a satisfactory way of making a financial statement. The House was at considerable difficulty in discussing this Bill. Whether the Government knew their own mind in the matter it was not easy to tell; but it was perfectly plain that the draftsman did not know the mind of the Government. He had asked whether the Irish Church Temporalities Commissioners had any funds or not. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said they had not. The Irish Church Commissioners, therefore, while owing a very large sum, to be re-paid by instalments, in order to get money must borrow, or suspend, to a certain extent, re-payment of their debt. What the matter came to was this—they were asking persons to lend money who had no money whatever to lend. They were going on with this extraordinary process of A borrowing from B, and B from C, none of which bodies had got the money. Would it not be very much simpler and more satisfactory if, instead of this confusion and complication of accounts, these advances were to be made, like all other advances, through the ordinary agencies which the Chancellor of the Exchequer had done so much to improve by Acts passed by this Parliament? The deficiency in the interest might be charged on the Church or any other Fund; but that did not require all this complicated process. After the explanation given on both sides of the House, and especially after the speech of the hon. and gallant Member for Sligo (Colonel King-Harman), who, he must say, put the case more tersely and clearly than any Gentleman who had spoken from the Benches opposite, it would be very difficult to resist the proposal that the loss of interest should fall on the Irish Church Fund. He was very sorry for it, and wished it were otherwise; but it was very difficult at this juncture to resist the proposal on the ground of its being forbidden by the Irish Church Act. This proposed use of the Irish Church Fund was as close as anything could be to what was contemplated by the Act. It was a much more consistent application of the Fund than the provision of pensions for schoolmasters, the promotion of intermediate education, or even the establishment of an Irish University. The object to which it was proposed to apply the money being, as he admitted, strictly Irish, the distress being localized to Ireland, and the words of the Church Act being almost literally followed, it was very difficult to refuse to agree to the proposal of the Government. He hoped, however, that on this very account the hon. Members from Ireland would make it their business to watch the application of the Fund, and would take care that it was not squandered as loans had been in former years. The sum in question was very considerable, and would probably amount, from first to last, to £1,500,000, in round numbers. It was not without great hesitation that he supported the Bill.

MR. REDMOND

observed that, if Ireland was to be regarded as an integral portion of the Empire, there could be no reason why the Imperial credit should not be pledged for the necessary loans. It would be borne in mind, if that were done, that Ireland, as part of the United Kingdom, would contribute her share of the money. With regard to the application of the money, he believed that it could be expended in no more profitable way than in draining the land. The plan of lending to the land- owners would be universally approved of in Ireland, hut for the widespread feeling that in some cases the landlords would avail themselves of the improvements by increasing their rents. If it could have been possible that the money could have been paid directly to the tenants for use on their farms there was nothing he should have liked better. The bulk of the tenants in Ireland did not possess what had been well called the "basis of credit" such as was enjoyed by all those who held land under the Ulster tenant right system. Therefore, he found the money must go to the landlords; but, at the same time, there surely might be some means whereby the money could be lent on such terms as to prevent landlords from securing undue increase of rent in consequence of the State-made improvements. Then it would be the landlords who would have to repay the money; and he would be the last to say that the landlords should not receive anything from the improvements in their land. At the same time, he thought the tenants had a clear right to participate in the benefit of any improvement that might be made. They ought to be protected against the injustice and ungenerosity of the landlords. He admitted with satisfaction and pride that there were in Ireland very many landlords who did not require any compulsion whatever to make them give to their tenants justice or generosity; but, unfortunately, the existence of others of a different character engendered throughout the country a want of confidence and a suspicion which made it imperative on the Legislature to provide protection against injustice. It was to be regretted that the distress could not have been entirely met by the profitable employment of the people; and he believed that that might have been done if the Government had been more prompt in their action, especially as the distress had not arisen very suddenly. But, as things were, they had to rely upon the extensive administration of out-door relief. To meet the cost of that relief a very large rate would have to be imposed in many districts, and, in the end, might prove to be a crushing burden on the ratepayers. If a rate in aid or any similar device was contemplated, it ought to be an Imperial rate, so that the errors of the years 1848–9 might be avoided, and Unions, themselves barely solvent, might not be taxed for the support of others. He had heard with great satisfaction the suggestion of the noble Lord the Member for Donegal (the Marquess of Hamilton), that the powers of the Bill should be extended so as to provide for loans to railways, harbours, and fisheries. Such assistance was very much needed, as there was a great deficiency in the resources necessary for such enterprizes. In the county of Wexford, for instance, he could mention a railway that was still unfinished, although it promised to be of the utmost public utility. With regard to that railway, the Treasury consented six months ago to sanction the advance of £53,000; but the conditions exacted were so rigorous and the responsibility sought to be imposed upon the directors personally so onerous, that the greatest difficulty had been experienced in raising the funds; and up to the present time no portion of the £53,000 had been advanced. In these matters he thought Ireland might be more liberally and more generously dealt with. That might be done without loss or risk to the public Treasury, for in no way so well as by increasing the material prosperity of the country could they work for the tranquillization, the contentment, and the future welfare of Ireland.

MAJOR O'BEIRNE

objected altogether to the baronial sessions presentments as the tribunal for approving the advances, as the members were not elected by the ratepayers, and, consequently, their selection involved the principle of taxation without representation. He believed that in one sense the Bill would be practically inoperative; whilst, on the other hand, it would tend to demoralize the labouring population by making them less reliant.

MR. FINIGAN

said, he should not have addressed the House to-night but for some remarks which had fallen from the Government which might tend to give rise to misconception. It seemed from what had been said that the landowners had applied for loans amounting to £500,000 out of the £750,000 they now proposed to grant, and that the sanitary authorities had applied for a further sum of £60,000 out of that amount. However, they did not yet know how much would be asked for by the baronial sessions, which was a most irresponsible body. The Government appeared to have totally lost sight of the Unions in Ireland, who were being crushed beneath the weight of the taxation they had to bear, which was equal in amount almost to that of 1847. In the year 1847 the Unions of Ireland were taxed to the extent of 17s.8d.in the pound, and the present rate of taxation was nearly as heavy. No provision was, therefore, made in the Bill to meet the very objects it was intended to meet—namely, the distress in Ireland; and it was, therefore, useless for that purpose. The real object of the Bill, it appeared to him, was to enable the landlords further to oppress the tenants of Ireland. In carrying out this object, the Government was now acting in opposition to the spirit of modern legislation; and he protested against the continuance of the system of landlordism which this Bill was evidently intended to bolster up. The landlords would have placed in their hands such large sums of money that it would only stave as a premium for eviction. The landlord would be independent of his rent, and the land would thus be kept in the hands of a small number of persons. As to the financial scheme of the Government, that he considered had already been abolished by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers); and he should feel it to be his duty not only to oppose the Bill now, but when it reached Committee.

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

THE O'DONOGHUE

was anxious to have the discussion prolonged, in order to give the people of Ireland an opportunity of expressing themselves on the subject of this Bill. One corporate body after another, as soon as they could do so, were giving their decided opinions against the principle of the Bill. The policy of the Government in dealing with Ireland had been the invariable policy of previous Governments towardslreland—namely, that of giving her one thing while, in reality, they gave her another. By this Bill the Government appeared to give relief to the Irish people; but, in reality, the Bill was intended to uphold a system which was held in abhorrence by the great majority of the people of Ireland. The other night the Chief Secretary stated that the House, on the Second Reading of this Bill, unanimously approved of it. The refutation of that utterly groundless assertion was absolutely essential. To let it pass uncontradicted and unchallenged would be for the Irish Members to plead guilty either to sheer incapacity, gross negligence, or wilful dereliction of duty. The high position the right hon. Gentleman occupied as Her Majesty's Chief Irish Minister called for the prompt exposure and contradiction of misrepresentations, in order that the public might be able to estimate the proper amount of reliance which was to be placed on the right hon. Gentleman's statements. The Resolution moved by the senior Member for the county of Limerick (Mr. Synan), and agreed to at a very full meeting of the Irish Members, was this— That it is expedient that any portion of the property accruing to the Commissioners of the Church Temporalities under the Irish Church Act, 1869, shall he applied towards the relief of distress in Ireland. The provisions of the Bill authorizing such advances out of such property cannot be satisfactory, and the House is of opinion that all advances to be made for the purpose of relieving distress in Ireland shall he made from Imperial resources. What was the proposal of the Government? That the distress should be relieved out of purely local resources, a proposal the most opposed that could be conceived to that of the Irish Members. Almost every line of the speech of his hon. Friend condemned the plan of the Government, and called for alterations—alterations not insignificant in character, but vitally affecting the measure. With the exception of two Members of the Government, almost all those who had spoken had either condemned the Bill absolutely, or had pointed out its innumerable defects. He put on one side as altogether worthless opinions of the noble Marquess the Member for Donegal (the Marquess of Hamilton), because the premises upon which he based his observations were purely imaginary. The Chief Secretary on Friday stated that the Bill had received the unanimous approval of the House. What was the truth? That the Bill must be held to have been met with unanimous disapproval. It had been adversely criticized by all those who had a practical interest in it—that was, by all who were likely to come under the operation of its clauses. What value could be attached to the approval of those who either notoriously had misrepresented their countrymen, or those who had no more practical concern with this measure than the North American Indians, and the impartiality of whose judgment was guaranteed by the fact that the Bill relieved them of the responsibility which ought to devolve upon them as citizens of what they would persist in calling the United Kingdom. The right hon. Gentleman had an unfortunate habit of starting up suddenly and blurting out anything that came into his head. He could not think of anything more flattering to say to the right hon. Gentleman. It would reflect too injuriously upon the quality of his mind and endanger his prospects as a statesman to have it supposed that anything he had yet done or said had been the result of thought. Generally speaking, there was nothing surprising in the right hon. Gentleman's being inaccurate; but, in this instance, he had several hours for the preparation of his inaccuracy. He remembered many Chief Secretaries of various politics—Lord Cardwell, the late Lord Mayo, the noble Marquess the Leader of the Opposition, Lord Carlingford, the right hon. Gentleman the present Secretary of State for the Colonies—and he might say of all of them that by their talents, diligence, and deportment, they conferred increased importance upon one of the highest Offices of the State. The right hon. Gentleman who now occupied that high place was simply provoking, and proved by every act and word that he was the meanest of partizans. This Bill had been contrived by one who was ignorant of, and indifferent to, the condition of Ireland, and one who was a reckless supporter of the extreme pretensions of the landlord class. The first inference was deducible from the fact that the Bill proposed to carry out sanitary works and public works with money borrowed upon the security of the rates and to be repaid out of the rates. No one with any knowledge of the embarrassed condition of all the Irish ratepayers, and particularly in some districts, could dream of making such a proposition as that; and to talk of relieving Irish distress in this way was a perfect mockery. To do so would, in innumerable instances, be putting additional burdens upon persons quite as poor as those whom it was the ostensible object of the Bill to relieve. The nest inference as to the views of a concocter of the Bill was justified by its offer to make loans to the landlords at a very cheap rate of interest, thereby enabling them, without any previous agreement with their tenants, to step in upon the tenant's farm, to shove him aside, and supersede him as an improver of the soil, and with the help of the public money utterly to defeat the intentions of the Legislature in passing the Land Act of 1870. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, in his invariably superficial andad captandumstyle, asked how could anyone object to the soil of a country being improved by its owners? He should not now raise any question as to the sense in which the right hon. Gentleman used the term owner, further than to say that in any society such as theirs the word owned could only be applied to the possession of land within certain well-defined limitations. Let him remind the hon. Gentleman that the soil of Ireland had been parcelled out amongst occupiers, that the landlord could not now of his own mere will, without previous agreement, slip in upon the farm of his tenant to make improvements, and must have the sanction of the Board of Works, the tenant having the power of objecting. The Irish tenants generally had a great repugnance to being saddled with the interest of these loans, not merely from the immediate pecuniary loss they entailed, but from an intuitive perception the tenants had that the loans would lead to the raising of rent, and that the landlord's object in procuring the loan was to enable him to say when he wanted to get rid of the tenant. Owing to the dependent position of the Irish tenant, his power of objecting to the landlord going to the farm and making improvements was merely nominal. The tenant-at-will was always liable to receive notice of eviction, while the tenant with a lease could be harassed by the thousand and one annoyances at the command of the landlord. With the large number of tenants whom ruin had already overtaken, or over whom it was impending at this moment, the tenants' rights could be outraged with the most perfect impunity. It was nothing short of an act of violence, in the absence of an agreement at the time of letting, for a landlord or agent to enter the farm of a tenant to make improvements which the tenant was prepared to make himself, provided he could get the use of that public money which a system of class legislation would reserve for the benefit of the landlords. An attempt was made to palliate this invasion of the tenant's home and rights by pretending that landlords and agents had been seized with an irresistible impulse to find work for the labourers. The pretence was transparent. Who were the labourers? They were the sons and grandsons of the men who were swept off the land by the crowbar brigade, and who had to fly for refuge to our cities and towns and villages. Against them the farmer's door was now closed. To his table they were always welcome, by his fireside they always found a place, and upon his bit of land they would have found a home had not landlord and agent warned the farmer that to harbour the labourer, or to give him land, was an unpardonable offence. He had no fear that landlords or agents would be able to bribe the labourers to form an alliance against their own flesh and blood—the tenantry. If the landlord had land in his own hands, by all means let the Government lend him public money to improve it; but the Irish Members insisted that the same advantage of using public money must be afforded to the occupier of the soil. With this object his hon. Friend the Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) had given Notice of a clause; and he hoped, at all events, that the Bill would not be allowed to pass until that clause had received the sanction of Parliament. They had been called upon to amend the Bill; but it was almost impossible to do so. The whole principle of the Bill was wrong, and nothing but a total change of principle would meet the necessities of the case. He was confident that the baronial sessions and the Boards of Guardians would make very little use of the power which it was proposed to give them of raising money on the security of the rates. They knew very well that they could not do it, and anything that they did would be the merest fiddling. The ignorance which prevailed in England with regard to what took place in Ireland was constantly receiving remarkable illustration. He remembered when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Gladstone) told them that pepper was an indispensable condiment to the Irish peasant. That morning they had English ignorance of Ireland illustrated in that great public instructor,The Times,which, commenting on his hon. Friend the Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) for proposing that out-door relief should not be given in money, was evidently not aware that for years it had been the custom in Ireland to give outdoor relief in money, and, he believed, in money only. He was confident that the only way of reaching distress was by means of a system of State works, and that any other mode would be not only useless, but positively injurious to the country.

MR. BIGGAR

expressed his fear that the inadequacy of the Government measures would lead to a renewal of these discussions later in the Session. He had recently received letters from various parts of Cavan describing the great distress which existed there, and from these he judged that the poverty and distress in less favoured districts of the country must be very extreme, requiring much greater efforts to cope with it than any yet attempted by the Government. He thought the propositions of the Government were not calculated to carry out in the best way what ought to be done. He was opposed to the proposal to lend money to the landowners. He believed that the present Lord Leitrim was a very different man from the late Lord, and was the only landlord in his county who would obtain a loan under the Bill. If so, the result would be that in only a very small district would relief be afforded in that way, and not one penny would be spent in any other part of the county. It was not to be supposed that the small farmers and labourers could go more than a few miles to get employment on that property. The same would apply to other counties, and thus the money voted would not be spent for the relief of the poor at all. He was of opinion that it was idle to talk of drawing funds from the Irish Church Surplus, when, in fact, such Surplus did not and might never exist. Even if there was such a Fund, what right had the Government to say that a heavy charge should be made upon it in this particular year? The only reasonable and proper way of dealing with this Fund, if it was to be dealt with in this fashion at all, was to defer the matter to some remote period, at which, perhaps, the tenants in Ireland could not live even on the terms at present existent. At all events, let them wait till the Fund was in existence; and then let the Government and the Parliament of that day dispose of it as they thought best. He advocated the buying of lands by the State, and the selling of such lands in small lots tobonâ fideoccupiers. It would be no greater interference on the part of the Government with the rights of property, if they enabled the occupier to become the owner, than they were accustomed to in this country in the case of compulsory sale, or where a man was prevented from making a use of his land which was annoying to his neighbours. Indeed, by doing so, they would only be carrying out the provisions of the Land Act of 1870, by which the occupying tenant could recover compensation for improvements from his landlord. Far more was claimed by Irish landlords than from any other class of property-owners in the Kingdom. The landlords were spenders, not producers, and were not entitled to more consideration than others. The proper persons to have loans were those who cultivated the land and contributed to the wealth of the country; and if money were lent out in small sums to that class the employment which was so much needed would be afforded. It was said that there was no sufficient security; but the advance might be made a first charge on the holding, a principle that was not new in legislating. He objected also to the power given to the presentment sessions. They were well acquainted with the objections urged against the Grand Jury system in England. They were of greater force as against the Irish system; and the Government ought to have passed a Grand Jury Bill before giving such authority to the presentment sessions. The present Bill ought to have authorized the Guardians at once, if they thought fit, to give outdoor relief, instead of requiring, as a preliminary, an authorization from the local authority. He thought the Government should take back the Bill, and re-consider and re-construct it. He had received letters from Ireland which described the people as having reached their last bag of potatoes, and he hoped the Government would deal adequately with the question.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

said, that whatever the Government might do he hoped that they would consent to the principle of the Amendment, and would not apply any part of the Irish Church Fund to this particular occasion. It seemed to him that there was something rather petty—he was almost going to say paltry—in making that kind of use of any portion of a fund which was intended to be the means of conferring an enduring benefit on Ireland, and which was certainly not intended to be the means of staving off a purely temporary distress. If so treated, it might be so frittered away as to vanish without leaving any permanent traces of its existence. The course proposed by the Government was like the conduct of some paternal personage, who, having provided his daughter with a fortune intended for her lasting benefit, should borrow a portion of the money on the first occasion that she was sick to pay her medical expenses. The distress, though very keen, was not likely to be enduring, and was just such a sudden misfortune as the whole strength of the State might fairly be expected to assist. The Government would greatly conciliate popular feeling in Ireland if they would consent to meet the present emergency out of national funds, and even for the sake of simplicity it would be advisable to seek the money elsewhere than in the Church Surplus Fund. There was, as a matter of fact, no Church Surplus available, so that the Church Temporalities Commissioners would have to go and borrow from parties who would borrow from somebody else, and the interest would accumulate. In some very sensible and judicious remarks, the hon. and gallant Member for Sligo (Colonel King-Harman) had deprecated delay in the passing of this Bill. He agreed with him that any unnecessary delay in the passing of so important a measure would be very much to be deplored; but, at the same time, there was something even worse than delay, and that was hasty and bungling legislation. There could, be no doubt that the Government had the means to meet any distress that might occur during the passage of the Bill through the House; and, consequently, there was no reason why the measure should not be considered with care and attention. He was old enough to remember with sufficient clearness the Famine of 1846–7, and the legislation which then took place in the House. He very well remembered how, when Lord George Bentinck on side of the House and Lord John Russell on the other, contended that that was the proper time to take such steps as would prevent the recurrence of similar distress by placing things in Ireland on a better foundation, they were met by the same cry of "No delay; let us get quickly to some temporary legislation, and put off permanent measures until we have time to consider them." And what happened? When the emergency passed all thought of permanent measures was forgotten, and the opportune moment for making some lasting improvement in the state of the country was lost. He believed that the present was a fitting time in which to effect a permanent amelioration in the condition of Ireland, and to do away with this perpetual distress and these perpetual demands for assistance, which were, he felt sure, painful to every patriotic Irishman. Such action would do more good to the country, and more to establish its peace and loyalty, than the bayonets of policemen or the sulky humours of Lords Lieutenant. Although the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland seemed to regard with something like scorn the suggestion which proceeded from the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) for using the Fund to establish a peasant proprietary, yet he was not, happily, inflexible in his opinions. He was sometimes open to argument, and occasionally it happened that his Chiefs decided upon taking a course which he had just declared no Government could possibly adopt. Therefore, he was not wholly deprived of hope; and he would appeal to the Government not to fritter away that Fund, butte leave it to be the beginning of the foundation of something which might be of enduring benefit to the country.

MR. O'DONNELL

also objected to the application of the Church Surplus Fund in the manner proposed by the Bill. He contended that the roundabout, complicated, and absurd system initiated in the Bill for the purpose of providing the money required in the present emergency ought to be sufficient to condemn the measure, even if there were no other objections to it. It seemed to him that the Government were uneasy so long as anything was existing in the shape of a separate Irish Fund which might, in the future, be used to bring about some permanent benefit to Ireland. He charged the Government with making Irish distress an excuse for the confiscation of the funds of the Irish Church. The distress should be regarded distinctly as an Imperial question; and Ireland, he maintained, ought not to be treated as in any way separate from England on an occasion like the present. The Government treated Ireland as a separate country, while proclaiming their attachment to the Union between it and Great Britain. Whenever there was a question of allowing Ireland a share in the benefits of the British Constitution, of placing the Irish on the same level and footing as British citizens, the Government were always greater separatists than the Irish separatists themselves. By the confiscation of the Irish Church Fund in the way now proposed the Irish people were having a fine imposed upon them for that Imperial legislation which fostered a vicious land system, and which, in former years, directly prevented the growth of Irish manufactures. The proposal of the Government was, in his opinion, wholly indefensible; and the Irish Party in that House ought to offer to it the most strenuous resistance in their power.

Question put.

The Housedivided:—Ayes 126; Noes 34: Majority 92.—(Div. List, No. 6.)

Main Question, "That Mr. Deputy Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, andagreed to.

Billconsideredin Committee.

(In the Committee.)

Clause 1 (Short title)agreed to.

Clause 2 (Interpretation)agreed to.

Clause 3 (Extension of power to grant out-door relief in food and fuel).

MR. SHAW LEFEVRE

thought that it was desirable to extend the time named in this clause, which mainly applied to the granting of out-door relief by the Local Government Board; and he therefore proposed, as an Amendment, to omit the words "31st day of December, 1880," in order to insert "the 1st day of March, 1881."

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

did not exactly understand the object of the Amendment. The Government had thought it right to extend the powers of granting out-door relief to the end of the present year. They hoped that the next would be a favourable harvest, and that there would be no occasionat all for further extension; but it might happen that the present bad harvest might be followed by another bad one. In that case, there would, undoubtedly, be some reason for extending the time. It was therefore proposed in the Bill to extend the time between one Session of Parliament and the next by giving extension to the powers of the Guardians for two months. If, in the following year, there should be a necessity for further extension of time, this could be effected when Parliament reassembled. He did not think there was any occasion at present to carry on the power to the 1st of March; and he thought that the object of the hon. Member for Reading (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) was obtained by the wording of the Bill.

Amendment, by leave,withdrawn.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, that under this clause the Local Government Board might authorize the Guardians of any Union to administer relief in food and fuel. So far as out-door relief was at present administered, the aged and the sick could receive it in food, fuel, or money. He did not, therefore, see why the same option of giving money for the relief of out-door distress in the present circumstances should not be allowed. The giving of money would, in many respects, be of great benefit. Among other things, it would allow to persons, perhaps, technically speaking, able-bodied, a very useful choice of food, for with that money they might be able to buy something more suitable for them than the food actually distributed at the relief centres. Besides this, they would be able to be provisioned more conveniently, for the provisioning of a considerable number of persons might be a matter of great difficulty. Again, the labour of provisioning them would be greatly lightened by giving them the money to purchase what might be required. The power of giving money would, to a large extent—in many cases to a very large extent—relieve the local relief centres from the necessity of piling up food, which hon. Members knew, by experience of former distress, became destroyed or deteriorated. If Her Majesty's Government placed power in the hands of the Guardians, or left them the option to give money, it would be found in 100 cases that it would be most advantageous both for the Guardians and the poor persons to be relieved. In a great number of cases, the danger of accumulating unwieldy masses of stores liable to deterioration and destruction would be entirely removed. There were, of course, possible abuses of this system; but there were possible abuses of every system of relief, while there could be no doubt that the giving of money would be most agreeable to a great number of persons. The Guardians being on the spot, moreover, and knowing the circumstances under which the money was to be distributed, would be able to give where they thought they could do so safely, and. withhold where they thought otherwise; and he saw no reason for tying their hands in this case any more than under the ordinary circumstances of out-door relief. He therefore begged to move, in the absence of the hon. and gallant Member for Cork (Colonel Colthurst), in page 1, line 23, to leave out "either," and insert "or money or any."

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 23, to leave out the word "either," in order to insert the words "or money or any."—(Mr. O'Donnell.)

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, that the Government had endeavoured to deal with the present distress by what was merely a temporary measure, and they in no way contemplated a general amendment of the Poor Law. If the House was of opinion that the Poor Law Acts were intended to hold, a provision of the kind contained in this clause was absolutely necessary. Under these circumstances, he could not accept the Amendment of the hon. Member.

MR. SHAW

could not agree with the Amendment of his hon. Colleague. He thought that it would be a most dangerous element to introduce the giving of money as a provision in this Bill. But he thought it would be worth the while of Her Majesty's Government to consider whether they should not give to the Poor Law Guardians the power of employing men, and returning them money for their labour. He had a strong opinion that the Guardians, as a body, were a better medium for carrying out relief of the present distress than any other; he therefore trusted that Her Majesty's Government would consider the advisability, not of changing the Bill as suggested by the Amendment of the hon. and gallant Member for Cork (Colonel Colthurst), but in the direction of giving employment. With regard to the giving of money to tenants, the subject had already been brought before the Government by himself some time ago in a written document. He was himself acquainted with thousands of acres of land which required to be drained in the neighbourhood of Cork, the landlords of which were absentees. Now, if the money could be borrowed to drain this land, the work could be carried out by local engineers, and the money could be afterwards collected under the Poor Law system and paid into the Treasury. If Her Majesty's Government would make provision for this there would not be one shilling lost, and it would really look like doing something for the tenants in Ireland. They were doing an immense deal for the landlords, and he trusted that the landlords would do something in return for it. He trusted that the Government would consider the question which he had raised upon the Amendment before the Committee; and although he could not agree to the principle contained in that Amendment, he was strongly in favour of giving money through the Guardians for employment on public works.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, if the Bill were intended to be of a permanent character, there might have been something in the objections which had been raised to the Amendment; but as the relief proposed was only temporary, he suggested that it should be given in the way most agreeable to the people of Ireland. In his opinion, the consequence of prohibiting relief in money, and of confining it to relief in food and fuel, would be that the people would not come for it; while many more might be expected to apply, if the Government consented to the Amendment proposed by his hon. and gallant Friend.

MAJOR NOLAN

said, that nothing, geographically speaking, could be better than the Unions in Ireland for the relief of distress, inasmuch as they wore grouped round the towns; and, on the other hand, nothing could be geographically worse than the situation of the baronies, which were planned out, as a general rule, without any reason whatsoever. The Poor Law Unions were much better calculated to succeed in their endeavours to relieve distress than the baronial sessions, which only met every three months; while, on the other hand, the Poor Law Board met every week in town to decide about the local affairs, and were, therefore, a practical body. He was quite aware that the Government might say—"We have got the baronial machinery;" and he quite acknowledged that it would be a difficult thing for them, at the present moment, to change the very constitution of the baronies, and make the Poor Unions superintendents of these relief works. But they should endeavour to do so as far as possible, because they were really working bodies. He hoped that the Government would consider whether they could not effect something in this direction.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY

supported the proposal to give powers to the Guardians for the employment of the people. A great deal of money was given under the head of out-door relief, whether it went in money, food, or fuel. Was it not proper that some of this should go in the employment of labour, and would it not be less demoralizing to the people? The power sought could be very well guarded, for the reason that no one would be allowed to spend the money until the Board of Works had examined the proposals for any works suggested and approved by the Local Government Board. With reference to the proposal of the hon. and gallant Member for Cork (Colonel Colthurst), if the Bill remained as at present, he was afraid it would be necessary to give the Boards of Guardians power to administer relief in money; and, indeed, he could see no very great danger in such a proposal, because, in the latter part of the section, the Guardians were bound to make such provision. If the Government gave the people the opportunity of buying what they wanted, he would be sorry to see money given to them for out-door relief, as there would be great danger, in his opinion, that the money so given would find its way in a wrong direction. On the other hand, if they were not to have money distributed in out-door relief, they should have some assurance that proper machinery and a proper distribution of food and fuel would be provided.

MR. FINIGAN

said, he was in favour of work being provided for the agricultural labourers, in order that an honest means might be afforded them of earning money. At the same time, he begged to say that he fully agreed with, and should support, the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell).

MR. SWANSTON

said, that he regretted that this system of presentments at baronial sessions had been included in the Bill. He could not but think that the evils of such a system must have an extraordinary effect upon the country. There appeared to be no way of checking such advances. On the other hand, he felt sure that the grant of powers to Boards of Guardians to expend money or to institute works would be beneficial. He therefore hoped that Her Majesty's Government would consider both of these means of relief under this Act. He thought that if the money which had been granted to landlords at 1 per cent had been granted, instead, to the tenants, it would have effected more in the way of relief. He wished that works had been commenced during the month of November last. The works which would now be commenced by grant from the sessions now being held would have been carried on for some time back, and would not have interfered with the spring work about to commence by the farmers. The state of the country was such, at the present time, that he thought that money would be better expended in assisting the labourers to carry on the work of the country than by the institution of public works. He would just give them one instance of application for public works. In the barony of Bere, in the county of Cork, the making of 47 roads had been applied for, which, the chairman of the baronial sessions said, if passed, would cost over £7,000.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, that the hon. Member was travelling somewhat from the subject in hand.

MR. SWANSTON

said, he merely mentioned this as an instance of what was likely to occur. The chairman said he trusted that the applications would be rejected by the magistrates. He begged to protest against such an expenditure, the consequence of which would be an increase of £600 a-year to the rates of that barony. The entire of the works were rejected.

MR. MELDON

quite agreed with the hon. Member for County Cork (Mr. Shaw) in suggesting that Guardians should, be empowered to give relief by means of employment, and not by outdoor relief alone. He could not see, if that course was found efficacious during the distress in Lancashire, why it should not be equally so in the case of Ireland. In 1863, £1,200,000 had been granted to the local authorities from Imperial resources for the purpose of carrying on works to alleviate the distress then existing in Lancashire. He felt bound to support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan, as he considered that, in many cases, out-door relief in the shape of money was by far the most efficacious and economical. He thought that if provisions only were distributed there would be a good deal of jobbery. Either goods of an inferior quality would be sold at best prices, or else a very large price paid for provisions which could be more cheaply purchased by the people receiving relief. In the present distress there was not an absence of food; on the contrary, the necessaries of life were cheap. What was wanted was money with which to purchase food. If the Guardians exercised discrimination in their relief, giving only to those who were actually in want, he felt sure that no evil would arise from money being granted to them for that purpose.

MR. CHILDERS

said, that the question to be decided was whether something which the clause did not include should be inserted. He ventured to impress upon Her Majesty's Government the necessity of doing something beyond the limits of the clause. Boards of Guardians might grant relief not only by way of food and fuel, as was stated in the clause, but also in the shape of wages, not so much for employment on public works as for improvements on farm lands, such as the drainage of fields, erection of farm buildings, and so forth. Much land in Ireland was capable of great improvement; and if Boards of Guardians were allowed in certain cases to make advances for actual improvements to property on the security of the land itself, the intentions of the Act might be well carried out, and, at the same time, the people would be in no way pauperized. He thought, perhaps, that the matter might be more effectually treated in the latter clauses of the Bill; but he fully concurred in the suggestion of the hon. Member for County Cork (Mr. Shaw).

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, there were two ways of giving relief—direct, and indirect. The direct mode was by distributing to those in need necessaries or money by which to purchase those necessaries; the indirect mode was by giving work, which, if the people did, they would be paid for, and so obtain money. These two modes had been kept separate in this measure, and he thought they should be so separated. In the first instance—that was, in the 3rd clause of the Bill—it was proposed to deal with the manner of giving direct relief; it was proposed that that should be given in food or fuel, and it had been suggested that it be given also in money; and that was the question to be decided. That question should not be mixed up with the suggestion of the hon. Member for County Cork, who said—"I do not propose that the Guardians should give work, except so as to enable people to get money as wages, and so to obtain means for procuring food and fuel." The question was whether the Guardians should be allowed to provide work so as to enable the people to earn wages, and so to get money. It was to be considered whether the work so provided was likely to be as good and beneficial as that provided by persons such as the sanitary authorities and others, acting under a grant from the baronial sessions. A great deal was to be said on the question of baronial sessions; but that was not the time to discuss it. The Amendment was whether money should be added to the other forms of out-door relief proposed in the clause. He thought such a course would be inexpedient and lead to a great deal of abuse. Experience of former times showed that relief in kind and works were superior to any other form. He should ask the Committee to decide whether money should be added to the clause, knowing, as they did, the danger of its being applied in a manner which they might be sorry for afterwards.

MR. BIGGAR

said, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had stated that he had no wish to change the system of Poor Law in Ireland. But the Guardians had given money previously, and the present Amendment only had for its object that it might be at their option to grant either money, food, or fuel. Now, as to the desirability of giving cash instead of coals and fuel for out-door relief in certain cases, he would point out that some of the Poor Law Unions in Ireland were very extravagant, and that, in other cases, the Unions extended from 12 to 15 miles beyond the workhouse. Did the right hon. Gentleman seriously mean that those poor persons who lived 12 or 15 miles from the workhouse were to be compelled to travel that distance and back again to their homes in order to get an allowance of Indian meal or coal? If the poorest of the peasants were to be compelled to do this many of them would perish in the mountains. What was meant by this Amendment was that the Government should have the option, as they had at present, of giving relief either in cash or food as they might think desirable in any particular case. It did not propose that all the relief should be given in cash, but only where the circumstances made it desirable it should be so. Neither was it at all argued that a preference should be given to cash payments. In the majority of instances he was of opinion the relief should be in food or fuel; but, as he had pointed out, there might be cases of hardship if they adhered to that hard-and-fast line, fie hoped, therefore, the Government would agree to the Amendment.

MR. EVELYN ASHLEY

agreed with the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the two points involved in this discussion should be kept separate; but this clause would settle what the law really was to be as to the powers of the Guardians in regard to relief. The suggestion of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) was a very important one, and one which would be of great advantage to the community. There were certain small holders of two to ten acres of land who were often very anxious to get their land drained. They could not borrow money themselves because they were only tenants at will, and, besides, they could not get loans in sums of less than £ 100, whereas all that they wanted was £25 or £30. The landlord could not lend them the money, because, probably, he had not got it; or if he had, he would not do it, because there was no doubt great distrust existed at the moment between landlords and tenants in Ireland, in con- sequence of causes to which he would not now refer further. If the Guardians, knowing the circumstances of a tenant, and that he was a person whom they could trust, might advance him money for work on the farm, that would give him a new start. As to the other proposal, to give money instead of food or fuel, he protested against it. When these people got the money they knew to what temptation many of them would he exposed, and where it would be spent. Therefore, to give money instead of food or fuel might, in many cases, have the worst possible effect.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, this clause was one of the utmost importance to the people of Ireland. In refusing to give the proposed option to the Boards of Guardians, the Chancellor of the Exchequer was setting up theoretic ideas against the knowledge and business capacity of those living in the distressed districts of Ireland. To give money, instead of food or fuel, might occasionally lead to a few shillings getting into wrong hands; but most drunkards in a parish were well known to the Boards of Guardians. And the clergy, both Roman Catholic and Protestant, would be interested in the proper distribution of the relief, and they would see that well-known drunkards were not in any way assisted. In fact, plenty of witnesses would be forthcoming to give evidence as to the character of any person applying for relief. The direct distribution of food and fuel would be quite as demoralizing as the giving of money. In ten cases, perhaps in a thousand, errors might be committed; but because of those ten cases they ought not to tie the hands of the Guardians altogether. The suggestion of the hon. Member for Cork was a most important one, and he thought it should be brought up in the form of a special Amendment. A very heavy responsibility would rest upon this House if, in the progress of this distress in Ireland, cases began to be reported in the newspapers of Boards of Guardians passing resolutions to the effect that, in consequence of the unnecessary restrictions which had been placed upon them by this Bill, they were not able to meet the necessities of many cases. If there was a doubt, let the Boards of Guardians have the benefit of it, and let their powers be extended as much as possible rather than restricted. A reasonable demand of this kind ought not to be opposed by the Government on the ground of any artificial distinction, and it was a very artificial distinction which had unconsciously misled the Chancellor of the Exchequer. There was no distinction between the indirect and the direct relief of the starving, the relief being direct in both cases. In the one case they gave without expecting any return, while in the other they expected some return in the form of re-productive work; but, in the first instance, there was no distinction, it was all direct relief of destitution; and the only distinction which they ought to draw was between demoralizing and non-demoralizing relief; and if there was one form of relief less demoralizing than another it was that suggested by the hon. Member for Cork, and the Amendment was one which the Government ought to adopt.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

regretted very much that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not replied in a more generous spirit to the observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers). That right hon. Gentleman had pointed out conclusively that the adoption of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork would be very advantageous. The Chancellor of the Exchequer must not imagine that the Irish Members were merely theorizing upon this question. Most of them had had some practical experience in the administration of the Poor Law. He could speak for Unions in his own county where the people would have to travel distances of 15 or 16 miles to get to the workhouse. He knew one Union which extended 30 miles in one direction, being very thinly populated throughout; and the question was whether they were to compel poor men and women to trudge 15 miles for a bag of meal, and then to trudge home again? Such an idea was simply ridiculous. Besides, the rough food which was distributed at the workhouse might be entirely unfit for some of the applicants; and if they were given a couple of shillings they would be able to go to the apothecary and obtain something which would keep body and soul together. It was to be borne in mind that they were not proposing to substitute money relief for relief in food and fuel, but only that there should be power to do so in certain cases. The Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the baronial sessions would have the power to deal with the question of money advances; but the matter had better be settled at once by this House. He should prefer to rely upon the practical intelligence of the Boards of Guardians, representing, as they did, both the landlords and the tenants, rather than to the baronial sessions. Complaints were already being received as to the summoning of the baronial sessions, and the chances were greatly in favour of the measures of relief proposed by them entirely breaking down. That was an additional reason why the Government should re-consider the matter.

MR. SHAW

hoped the Government would, at all events, say they would favourably consider the suggestions which he had made. He had not made it from any spirit of speculation, but from his own practical knowledge of Poor Law Guardians for many years. If the Government would say they would favourably consider the matter he thought they might be able to make progress with the Bill; but if they would not, he should move the postponement of this clause, because he considered it a most important one, and the present point of the Bill was the proper place at which to settle the question. As to the machinery for distributing food and fuel relief under the Bill, he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer had carefully considered what ought to be done in consultation with the officials in Ireland, and that it was not intended to bring the poor people from their homes to the central workhouse. If he proposed that, it would, in many cases, simply lead to death from exhaustion. He knew districts where the men and women would have to travel 20 miles. What they ought to do was to insert in this clause words providing for the establishment of depots in various districts, and it ought not to be left to the mere will of the Boards of Guardians to say—"Here is food—you must come and fetch it;" when the workhouse might be 10 or 20 miles away.

THE MARQUESS OF HAMILTON

said, the questions they had to deal with were of the utmost importance, and it was a matter of considerable gravity to decide whether Unions should give relief in the shape of money or in kind. With regard to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw), he thought there was much argument in its favour; and he hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would feel himself at liberty to take up the proposition and include it in his Bill.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

said, the Chancellor of the Exchequer had asked the Committee, with a great deal of reason, to bear in mind the distinctions contained in the Bill between two possible methods of relief—first, a method of relief by the distribution of food gratuitously; and, secondly, a method of relief by means of providing employment. The discussion, however, which had just taken place, must have shown the Government that there was a close and intimate connection between the two; and it was hardly possible to discuss one without considering the other also. As far as he was able to gather, there was a considerable difference of opinion in the Committee as to the desirability of enabling the Committee to give gratuitous relief in the shape of money. Many Members from Ireland, however anxious they might be to extend the power to be given to the Boards of Guardians under this Bill, were doubtful as to the expediency of allowing Boards of Guardians to distribute relief in the shape of money. A suggestion had been made by the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) that the Guardians should have power, in addition to the other powers conferred upon them, of affording relief indirectly by means of employing labour in a way not provided by the Bill. The Chancellor of the Exchequer asked them to consider this separately. It was quite right, in his (the Marquess of Hartington's) opinion, that it should be considered separately; but he regarded the appeal made to the Government as a reasonable one, and he thought the Committee ought to hear from them, at all events, that they had not formed a decided opinion against this principle before they were asked to vote upon the proposition now before them. If the Government had made up their minds that they would not extend, in any degree, the second means provided by the Bill of affording relief, and would not take into consideration, under any circumstances, the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Cork, he did not think they should reasonably call on the Committee to decide the question now. He asked the Government, at the present moment, to assent to the suggestion of the hon. Member for Cork. That suggestion had only been made for the first time that evening, and it was quite right that time should be afforded for considering it; but if the Government had made up their minds not to accept it, then it seemed to him that the principle before the Committee would assume a very different aspect than if they announced their intention of favourably considering the proposal made to them.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

failed to see the logical course of the argument of the noble Marquess. He admitted that the question whether the Guardians would be a better or as good a machinery for the employment of the poor as the baronial sessions was a question of importance, and one which they could fairly discuss. The noble Lord said it had been stated to-night, within the last few minutes, for the first time. It might be the first time it had been stated in the House; but it was not the first time the question had been before the Government, because they had considered it very fully in the course of the autumn, and they thought it would be better that the mode of giving relief should not be through the Board of Guardians, but through the baronial presentment sessions. Whether that were so or not, he still maintained that the point now to consider was how the relief was to be given, not as wages for work, but as direct relief; whether it should be given in food and fuel or in money. The only argument he had hitherto heard in favour of giving it in money rather than in food or fuel was that which had been suggested—that if they distributed it in kind the poor people who required relief might have so far to go that it would be almost impossible for them to avail themselves of that relief. If that was really to be admitted, then it would be a strong reason for considering whether, in certain cases, the relief should not be given in money. But the question was whether it really was so. The assumption appeared to be that at present the relieving officer was only to be found at some central point of the Union, to which everybody who required relief would have to go in order to obtain the relief. He fully admitted that, if that really was the state of the law, it would be necessary that some further provision should be made; but, at the same time, he did not admit that it was the state of the law. He did not speak of his own knowledge, for he did not know the practice in Ireland; but this he found to be laid down as the duty of relieving officers:—The first duty was "to attend the meetings of the Board of Guardians," and so forth; and secondly— To attend at some places in Ms district at such times in the day and on such days in the week as the Board of Guardians shall from time to time direct, for the purpose of dispensing relief and for receiving applications for relief. Therefore, he understood that the relieving officer went to such districts and such places as were found to be convenient for the distribution of relief to the people, and the objection taken in regard to the great distances the people would have to go was an objection that was rendered nugatory by the practice which prevailed. Further, his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland would send instructions to obtain information as to the mode in which the Act was to be carried into effect, and he thought, after all the urgency with which the Board of Guardians had been impressed to take care that the people were adequately supplied, there was no danger that this difficulty would arise. The people would want the relief within their reach; and he thought it was far better that, as regarded direct relief, it should be given in kind and not in money.

MR. SULLIVAN

was sorry to be compelled to differ from his hon. Friends near him upon this question. It seemed to him to be objectionable on many accounts to give public relief under the Poor Law system in money. He should infinitely prefer to see it given in a suitable manner, and at convenient places, in food of the common kind. In listening to his hon. Friends he found he was a great deal older than he thought he was, for it seemed to him that he was the only one old enough among his hon. Friends to recollect the process actually carried out. He had seen the process, read from a book by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in actual operation, and it appeared to be one that was most convenient to the people. What actually happened was this. Instead of the food being distributed at one central depot in the Union, there were some 20 or 30 people engaged in distributing food re- lief all over the Union; and, in point of fact, the food was brought nearer to the homes of the people than it would he at any of the market towns. This was a matter of fact which he knew of himself, as he had participated in the administration of the Poor Law, and had seen what he was now describing. There was a contractor, who contracted with the Board of Guardians for the supply of food on orders from the relieving officer, and he contracted to supply it to the holders of relief tickets at as many places as the Guardians might indicate—from east to west, and from north to south—in the Union. He had seen the carts of these contractors, loaded with food, going four or five miles nearer to the homes of the people than any market town. His hon. Friends said it would be too great a burden for the people to carry food from a central place to their homes; but they must go to the market town. [Mr. O'CONNOR POWER: They grow the food on their own farms.] If they grew it on their own farms they had only to eat it. He should be sorry to think that if they had the food, and enough of it, on their own farms, there was any necessity for this Bill. His hon. Friend the Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) was only endeavouring to correct him in a friendly spirit; and all he wished to say to his hon. Friend was, that he was old enough to remember what he had been describing when Ids hon. Friend was a child. He had participated in it, and seen it himself, in the distribution of relief, having been engaged in assisting in the administration of the Poor Law at the time. If the money were given at a central place the people would still have to carry the food home. Supposing they received the money at a central point of the Union, they would still have to go to the shops and buy the food, and then they would have to carry the food to their own homes; so that it came to the same thing. All other things being equal, they would have to carry home the food purchased at the shops on the presentation of the Union ticket, and the same thing would happen if they had the money in their pockets. As he had already said, he had seen all this in actual operation; and although he was sorry to differ from his hon. Friends, he entirely differed with them in the conclusion they arrived at upon the point. He would infinitely prefer to see the public relief given at convenient places in food rather than in money. As to the other point—the question of employment by the Boards of Guardians—he presumed that he should have another opportunity of speaking upon that subject.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

thought his hon. and learned Friend, who was usually so logical, was very illogical in the present instance. When he (Mr. O'Connor Power) referred to the small farmers growing the food on their own farms, his hon. and learned Friend turned round and performed a trick of debate, saying—"Well, then, let them eat it." It was their misfortune that they had not been able to grow it this year, and the retort of his hon. and learned Friend would certainly not win him distinction at the Bar. He hoped his hon. and learned Friend, when he pleaded before a Court of Justice, would improve his logic. His hon. and learned Friend argued that if the money were given to the people in the centre of the Union they must also buy their food there—as if there were no shops anywhere but next door to the workhouse. In the Poor Law Union of Belmullet, there were small farmers who, under the circumstances which had been referred to, would have to travel 20 miles in order to obtain food, while they had plenty of shops near their own houses, with shops also at the cross roads. What, then, became of the contention of his hon. and learned Friend, who had just presented himself in his most venerable form? He trusted the Committee would not allow itself to be influenced by such arguments as his hon. and learned Friend had adduced.

MR. MACARTNEY

said, the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) seemed to forget that they were legislating for this year. The hon. Gentleman said the farmers had food in ordinary years; but this year they had none. Therefore, if anybody wanted to purchase from them, they had nothing to supply. The hon. and learned Member for Louth had described what had happened formerly. The Guardians had established food depôts in many of the districts, which supplied the food, and sent round carts which carried it to the people; and, no doubt, the food so supplied would be of far better quality, and larger in quantity, than it would be if purchased at the small shops. Then, again, there was another objection to supplying poor people with money—namely, that they might have to purchase in shops where they were already in debt to the shopkeepers, who might appropriate the sums tendered to them in payment of old debts, instead of supplying food for it.

Question put, "That the word 'either' stand part of the Clause."

The Committeedivided:—Ayes 193; Noes 20: Majority 173.—(Div. List, No. 7.)

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he had to move an Amendment, after the word "them," in page 1, line 23, to insert the words "or cases of labour;" or he would accept the suggestion of the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power), and, instead of those words, he would propose to insert these words, "or the money for farming operations." He hoped that, under these circumstances, the Government would be able to meet the wishes which had been expressed, not only by the Irish Party, but also by several English Members—namely, that they should allow the Guardians the liberty of engaging labour for actual farming operations and such like. Practically, his Amendment was the same as that suggested by the hon. Member for County Cork (Mr. Shaw); and he hoped that the Guardians, at any rate, would be allowed their own option. The Committee had decided that the Guardians were not to have the option of giving money in general, and they had heard a great deal about the superior advantages of the direct distribution of fuel and food. Now, there was not a single Member who supported the liberty of option of the Guardians in the matter of the direct distribution of money who said a single word against the very great advantage of the direct distribution of food and fuel, and all the argumentation that was expended in praising up the system of the direct distribution of food and fuel was quite thrown away as regarded the object they had in view. No matter how good the distribution of food and fuel might be, it would be better if the Guardians had also the option of giving money relief in the cases that seemed suitable to them. But that, as a general rule, had been refused by the House; and, consequently, in the limited form suggested by the hon. Member for County Cork, he had begged to propose his Amendment. He hoped that nothing out of the practice of the years 1847 or 1848 would be brought against a proposition so eminently reasonable, and eminently useful, and eminently profitable, in the best sense, as this Amendment. Wherever they could, he thought they ought to give liberty to the local authorities who were on the spot, and, in 999 cases out of 1,000, would know better how to deal with isolated cases than even the aggregate wisdom of the two Front Benches of the political economists, and of the Gentlemen who had a particular objection to any of the money being expended on liquid refreshments. He believed he had mentioned the heads of the recent opposition which defeated them so overwhelmingly on the Land Question. He would ask the Committee, before deciding to limit still further the liberty of the Boards of Guardians, just to call to mind a result of that limitation—for they, too, could quote the Famine of 1847. Let the Committee remember the result of the limitation of the authority of the Boards of Guardians and of the local rural authorities in the time of that terrible famine. In their great wisdom, and instructed by a number of leading political economists of the day, the House of Commons declared that no out-door relief should be given to any who held more than a quarter of an acre of land. That was a limitation of the liberty of the local authorities. That was an imposition of the superior will of the Imperial Parliament upon those inferior persons, the members of the Boards of Guardians. And what was the result? That interference of the Imperial Parliament with the powers of giving out-door relief by the local authorities was the measure that slew the people of Ireland by tens of thousands. It was that limitation of the power of giving out-door relief which compelled the cultivators to throw up their farms, and to give up the last chance of keeping up the struggle for life. It was that which compelled them to flock in myriads to the Poor Law Union centres of relief, and which, in a word, completed the ruin of the people of Ireland at that time. He would once more earnestly entreat the Committee, where anything like a reasonable doubt existed, to give the benefit of that doubt to the side of local authority, and local liberty of option, and local liberty of choosing the means of meeting the distress. He was sure his words would be supported by an immense amount of the most powerful testimony in that House. He was sure that all the Irish Members most entitled to speak on the subject would vote with him; and the hon. Member for County Cork, in seeing the absolute necessity of giving Boards of Guardians power of employing labour for farming operations, and in giving relief in the best manner, with the best general results, and with the fewest chances of demoralizing the individuals receiving that relief.

Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 23, after the word "them" to insert the words, "or money for farming operations."—(Mr. O'Donnell.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, he was not very clear what the hon. Gentleman's proposal was. As he understood, the hon. Gentleman proposed that Guardians should be allowed to give wages or money to persons who were in destitute circumstances for farming operations. He wanted to know what the hon. Gentleman meant by "farming operations." Where were these farming operations to be carried on? Were they to be carried on upon land belonging to the Guardians? He was not aware that the Guardians had any land which could be used for the purpose. Were they to be carried on by people upon their own farms? He understood the hon. Gentleman to say that; but he was not quite sure.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he was very willing to make the Amendment wider, and to extend it to the wages of labour generally; but he was endeavouring to produce a case which the Government could not strictly resist. With regard to farming operations, he did not know that he ought to be able to give a better definition than a country gentleman, who so admirably fulfilled all the duties of his position in Devonshire; but he understood that farming operations would extend to any of the possible uses of the spade, the pick-axe, the plough, and various agricultural implements employed by human muscles in or upon the surface of the earth.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, that was not the point. Supposing that to be the meaning of the hon. Gentleman, what he wanted to know was where these farming operations were to be carried on. As far as his experience went, farming operations had to be carried on upon land of some sort, and he wanted to know what land the hon. Gentleman had in view; was it to be the land of the occupier himself—the person to be relieved—or was it to be upon some waste land? He did not understand that point—it had not been made clear by the hon. Gentleman, for continued references were made to the experience of the great Famine of 1847; and though he was thankful to think that the distress now pressing upon a part of Ireland was by no means to be compared in magnitude to the terrible distress in that year, yet, undoubtedly, what they did then must be to them a warning and a lesson with regard to what was now taking place. He would just quote from the authority which had been referred to so many times in that debate. Sir Charles Trevelyan, in his well-known history of that Famine, said it was loudly demanded that instead of men being employed on the roads the people should be paid for working on their own farms. Now he (the Chancellor of the Exchequer) did not know whether that was the demand on the present occasion. The historian went on to say that the demand was then steadily resisted by the Government. If it had been adopted, it would have meant that the entire cost of carrying on the agriculture of the country would have been transferred to the Government, without its being able either to test the applications for assistance or to extract the proper amount of exertion, so that, ultimately, the Government would be made to support the people, instead of the people the Government. That indicated the sort of difficulty into which, if that matter went on, they might find themselves plunged; and he did maintain that it was not sufficient for the hon. Gentleman to get up and make a vague proposal such as those words amounted to. The hon. Gentleman must tell them distinctly what his plan was, and in what way he understood the Guardians of the poor were to provide this labour, and how it was to Be employed.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he apprehended all those extracts from Sir Charles Trevelyan's work were really quite beside the question except as matters of abstract speculation. The whole clause was governed by the words which gave power to the Local Government Board to do certain things within two calendar months. It was during those two calendar months that the people would be starving, and that it was, at the same time, necessary that they should labour on the ground, to prepare it for the crops of next season. To him, all those extracts from political economists seemed enough to make one sick, with the knowledge that he had that thousands of people in the West of Ireland were now kept from death by the distribution of yellow Indian meal, which, with a little water, and some seaweed, if they could get it, mixed with periwinkles, formed the food of thousands of Her Majesty's subjects. What was wanted was that something better than Indian meal should be given to the people; and he took the only object of the Amendment to be that the Guardians should at their discretion, and subject to the superior authority of the Local Government Board, have the opportunity of adding a distribution of money which should provide for sick and aged persons, and afford them something better than the miserable food to which he had referred. What the House should do was not to put forward in a petty spirit the abstract rules of political economy—which, after all, were merely the outpourings of half-knowledge—but endeavour to enable those people to carry on their farming operations by giving them a little relief in money. That money would not be expended in luxuries. The only luxuries which the Irish people had learnt from this luxurious age was the use of a little tea and a little white bread, as they called it—a little flour. That was the one luxury which the Irish peasant in the West had learnt to enjoy. And what did this House do? For every Is. spent on tea by the Irish peasant, the House took 8d.in taxes. To talk of wishing to prevent their resorting to stimulants, and then to keep such an amount of taxation upon tea, appeared to him to be the greatest hypocrisy. He earnestly and strongly supported the Amendment. The whole of the clause was governed by the powers of the Local Government Board to permit the giving in particular Unions of out-door relief in money or in kind, or in both, for a period of two months. And now the House was told of what took place in the Famine of 1845 or 1847. What did take place? What took place was this—people were starving, and were unable to drag themselves across the mountains to the public works which, after months of inaction, the Government instituted. That was the cause of the failure of the public works—that the people were allowed to fall into such a state of destitution and weakness, that when public works were instituted in central localities, according to the doctrines of political economists, the people were unable to drag themselves across the mountains to those central works, and they died in numbers by the way-side. He could take any hon. Member who might visit the place where he lived to a lake situated in the midst of mountains where a brother and sister, traversing the mountains to get to the relief works, without which they could get no assistance for themselves or their aged parents, found that one of them—the sister—was unable to go any further, and her brother had to leave her to drown herself in the lake. He could take hon. Members to places where people were buried in scores out of one coffin with a moveable slide to tumble the corpses out, and whose deaths were owing to the doctrines of political economists. He protested against such extracts being read now. What they wanted was to save the lives of the people, and to that sentiment his hon. Friend, appealed by his Amendment.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY

wished to point out that the Amendment did not carry out the suggestion of the hon. Member for County Cork. What he wanted was not farming operations, either in the ordinary or technical sense of the word, but the improvement of farms by small drainages and other works of a more permanent character. There was another element of very great importance. Nothing was said in this Amendment as to the re-payment of those advances; but the hon. Member for County Cork suggested that they should be repaid by the farmers to the Guardians. He thought, on the whole, that the hon. Member for County Cork's Amendment was a much more useful one than this, and, in his opinion, it should be pressed, and not this.

SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN,

said, he was as anxious to have reproductive works as any hon. Member; but he quite differed from those who said they were to ignore what had occurred in previous years. He lived in Ireland in those days, and he had a sorrowful recollection of the proceedings that took place in reference to reproductive works at that period. He was one who, the other evening, endeavoured to impress upon the Government the necessity of reproductive works; but he also pressed upon them that there should be care taken that the extraordinary occurrences that happened in 1846 and 1847 should not again occur. The hon. Gentleman who brought forward this Amendment had an Amendment immediately preceding it. Upon that he voted with the hon. Member; but he was not prepared to vote with him upon this, inasmuch as he did not state in what way he proposed to carry out the arrangement. This was not a landlord's question, it was a question of the occupier. The occupiers would have to pay the rate that was to be enforced by the Act; and it was all very fine to make speeches to the country and to the public out-of-doors; but when hon. Gentlemen got up there they had a right to specify what they asked at that time of excitement and distress. No one would say they ought not to give any amount of money and work, if it were necessary, by that means, to save the people from starvation; but he should cease to be a Member of that House if it was necessary to enunciate opinions of this character—to make general statements in the House and say—"Oh! spend your money; throw it away broadcast upon the country;" and not to ask, economically, how money was to be expended, and how the people were to be employed. He would say one word as to the question of employment upon farming operations. The hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) had lived in the country and knew something of the farming operations of the district. He was not going to say that the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) was totally unaware of what agricultural operations were; but he had a strong opinion in that direction, and he was there to express it. [_Laughter.] He regretted that his observations in that regard had been met with laughter, for nothing was more from his mind than to excite risibility upon a question of the deepest interest to the Irish peasantry. Let them not be led, by making statements, and by asking for things that could not be obtained, to prevent substantial good being done to the starving people in the Western portions of Ireland. Supposing, as the hon. and learned Member for Limerick had stated, that the money was to be expended on drainage and matters of permanent improvement, the very nature of the work would command attention. The work would require supervision on the part of the Board of Works, or otherwise, to see that the money was not frittered away, as it was in 1847, and robbed from the people. No doubt he would be told it was very fine for him to get up to speak on this subject, and that he was a landlord, and that it was his interest. His reply was, that he was sprung from the tenant class, and was originally connected with that class in the House, and had as much their interest at heart as those who made broader professions. They had a right to see that the people received relief, and that the people to be taxed for it would not be unfairly taxed. They had a right to ask hon. Members who brought forward a Motion of this character in words—mere words—for some statement of the manner in which it was to be administered. When the hon. Member presented a Motion in that fashion he would support it.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, the hon. Baronet the Member for King's County (Sir Patrick O'Brien) had succeeded in discovering an almost infallible method of gaining cheers in that House. He had only to insinuate that the hon. Member for Dungarvan, or the small body of Irish Members whom he represented, were ignorant of the facts relating to the subject under discussion. Notwithstanding the correction of the hon. Baronet, his memory bore him. out in saying that the hon. Baronet had not confined his opposition to the hon. Member for Dungarvan, but that, on many occasions, it had been directed against his Colleagues also. He had only to accuse the hon. Member for Dungarvan of ignorance or insincerity, and of speaking for some unworthy purpose, and he was certain to gain the warm applause of that body of Members of the House whose political animosity he (Mr. O'Donnell) was by no means sorry that he had most thoroughly deserved. He did not envy the hon. Baronet his oratorical success, but trusted it would go far towards smoothing his path at the next Election. The hon. and learned Member for Limerick had stated that this Amendment did not touch the question of advances made to farmers on certain securities for re-payment; and he (Mr. O'Donnell) ventured to think that an Amendment of that kind would come in better at a later stage of the Bill. They would have to consider the advances to be made to tenants and occupiers. His suggestion was an alternative to the clause that contemplated direct gifts of food and fuel. It was not a question of advancing money on the security of profitable investments, to be returned to the Treasury. He maintained that there were hundreds of starving men in Ireland to whom the Government were willing to give food and fuel, and that they would certainly be doing no injury either to the Treasury or to the people, if money were given directly to these men for their labour—and the labour, he suggested, was to be expended on farming operations. The hon. and learned Member for Limerick had suggested that drainage and so forth were not farming operations; but he (Mr. O'Donnell) ventured to think otherwise; and, furthermore, that the Boards of Guardians would be justified in giving a large interpretation to the clause. If the Boards of Guardians thought they might usefully employ 100 or 200 working men, either upon their own farms or upon the farms of other people, it would be, under any circumstances, necessary to support them, so that the labour of these people would be so much clear gain. Therefore, he maintained that the Boards of Guardians ought to be allowed to give money directly as labourers' wages, instead of giving relief in food and fuel. His proposition was an alternative to out-door relief, and it had no relation to the subsequent clauses on the subject of borrowing for profitable investments. That was one thing; the giving of out-door relief was another. The Government refused outdoor relief in money as a general rule, and he (Mr. O'Donnell) only asked them to allow out-door relief to be given in money in a special class of cases, where it would set on foot farming and other agricultural operations. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer was willing to take the words "wages of labour" generally, he should have no objection to their being substituted. But if the Chancellor of the Exchequer was willing to give money as wages of labour generally, then,à fortiori,he should be willing to give money for farming operations, because wages for money surely included wages for farming operations. He thought that his Amendment was much more strict and intact than the Amendment of the hon. Member for the County of Cork. That proposal was properly divisible into two heads, as it contemplated both outdoor relief being given, and also power being vested in the occupying tenants to employ labour, after giving proper security for the ends for which the labour was to be employed. He considered that the latter portion of the proposal of the hon. Member for Cork belonged to a stage of the Bill which had not yet been reached, and that, as the Committee were then considering the clause relating to outdoor relief, they ought to confine themselves solely to that question; but, as he had said before, if the Government were ready to allow the Guardians to pay directly in money for labour in general, he would be ready to withdraw any opposition to that Amendment. On the other hand, the very least he should require would be that wages of labour, when that labour was expended on farming operations, should be paid as an alternative to food or fuel, as a means of out-door relief. Nothing but that was suggested; and hon. Members who were in favour of a larger measure should certainly be in favour of the lesser one. Several Members on the Opposition Bench were, he believed, in favour of wages of labour; and he could not see why they should not be in favour of outdoor relief being given for labour expended in farming operations. He, there-fore, hoped that those hon. Members would support an Amendment allowing occupying tenants, as well as landlords and sanitary authorities, to borrow money for the employment of labour. It was not he who was confusing this question—it was the Government and those hon. Members who criticized his Amendment. They were not considering the question of borrowing money for out-door relief. As one of the alternative forms of outdoor relief, he suggested that liberty should be given to the Guardians to give money for the direct employment of labour, whenever that labour should be directed to such eminently useful classes of work as farming and other agricultural operations in Ireland. In the midst of such distress as at present existed, he ventured to impress this upon the Committee—always reserving his right to withdraw his Amendment in favour of a more general proposal, whenever it should be brought forward by Her Majesty's Government.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

did not think that the discussion which had taken place had been thrown away, notwithstanding the severe censure which had been passed upon the Amendment by the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell). He ventured to think that it was a very proper Amendment. There were two kinds of farming operations in which tenants could be employed—either on their own farms, or upon the farms of the Unions. He (Mr. O'Connor Power) was prepared to believe that the terms of the Amendment did not quite convey what was the exact meaning of his hon. Friends; but he reminded the Committee that one or two words would make the matter perfectly plain. He appealed to the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) to state his views to the Committee; and he had no doubt that the House would receive from him some suggestion which would carry out, on the one hand, the views of Her Majesty's Government, and, on the other, the opinions of the humble individuals who sat on that side of the House.

MR. SHAW

regretted his absence from the House during a part of the discussion upon this Amendment. There was nothing he thought out of place in the Amendment which had been moved by the hon. Member for Dungarvan as to the employment of labour by the Board of Guardians on farming operations. He regretted that the hon. and gallant Member for Sligo (Colonel King-Harman) was not in his place; but he thought he could remember that in one of his speeches the hon. and gallant Member referred to had suggested the very same thing—namely, that the poor people might be employed on their own farms as the very best way of meeting existing distress. He admitted at once that, as a general rule, this would be an exceedingly dangerous operation; and he was sure that it was one which would be watched very carefully by the Guardians, because upon them would fall any loss which might accrue. His anxiety was that the Government should give Irish Members some idea that they had not a fixed determination against them, and that they should allow time for framing the Amendment precisely, as it involved a question of importance. They did not wish to violate the law, but to give power to the Guardians to employ labour. The people in distressed districts were bound to do something to relieve the distress; would it not be better to take 50 acres of land and employ labour in draining it? If the landlords would not act, let the Guardians act with the tenants in draining their land. The money given in relief in this way would be recovered; but in the other case it would be thrown away. Although he was not a lawyer, he felt himself competent to frame an Amendment that would meet this requirement, and he was quite sure that the Government could do so if they were willing.

COLONEL KING-HARMAN

admitted that he had expressed an opinion that, where practicable, it would be extremely desirable to employ men in a state of destitution in the improvement of their own holdings, rather than to place them as labourers on public works. But he had gone closely into the question, and was very much afraid that in country districts it could not be found possible or practicable. He had tried it himself on a small scale in his own immediate district, where he considered it best to find out the holdings of widows and infirm persons who were unable to till their own holdings, and to employ the small farmers round about those localities in cultivating the holdings of those who, by the visitation of Providence, were not able to work themselves. He had found, from practical experience, that although, in a few instances, he could get this done by the neighbours, the difficulty was so great, and so much supervision was required, that he had been reluctantly compelled to abandon the idea of working in this way upon any large scale through the Boards of Guardians. He regretted that he did not see how supervision was to be carried out, and he was afraid that the money would in many instances be thrown away, that the work would be scattered, and that the whole scheme would prove disastrous. Going farther into the matter, he saw that under the present clause the Unions were able to borrow money for sanitary purposes, and there were very few Unions scattered through the country in which there were not sanitary works requiring to be effected of the most necessary character. He referred to sewage and other works, which would employ a large number of persons, if the Boards of Guardians availed themselves of the powers which they possessed. He thought there would be an ample supply of work for the people; and, speaking with great diffidence, he could not see how the desired result could be arrived at in the manner which had been suggested.

MR. CHILDERS

said, that it was not a question of the quantity of relief to be given, but whether the Government could not supplement the larger loans which it was proposed to make to landlords by smaller amounts to be expended under the direct charge of the Boards of Guardians, and which would, in the end, be an advance more directly to small tenants. That proposal was strictly on the lines of what had been done during the Lancashire Famine. He urged upon the hon. Member for Dungarvan that he should withdraw his present Amendment, on the understanding that the Government should promise to look into the arrangements which were made in the case of the Lancashire distress, and consider the proposal of the hon. Member for Cork, and that farther time should be given for discussion.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, that the Government had carefully considered what machinery could be set in motion in the event of facilities being given for undertaking public works. Amongst other suggestions, it had been proposed that Boards of Guardians should be enabled to undertake the carrying out of certain public works. An alternative suggestion had been put forward to the effect that the baronial sessions should be empowered to carry out works of that description. The relative claim of those two bodies had been carefully considered. It was thought that as roads and works connected with roads would be the first objects which would be likely to engage the attention of any public body intrusted with the carrying out of public works that the road authorities of the district were the proper persons to choose. He was bound to say that the proposal to make loans to the farmers did not commend itself to practical persons. It had been proposed that loans should be made to the tenants for the purpose of cultivating their own farms, provided the consent of their landlords was obtained. He wished to point out that machinery already existed under the Land Improvement Acts, as extended by the present Bill, by which the landlord and the tenant were able to combine together for the execution of any work undertaken for the improvement of the land. If hon. Gentlemen would look at the Land Improvement Acts as amended by the present Bill, they would see that machinery existed under the present law by which, in the event of a combination between the landlord and the tenant, a loan might be obtained for the purpose of carrying out any improvement on the land. He failed to see that any good would be gained by re-considering the provision before the Committee, as, in the opinion of the Government, the proposal submitted in the Bill was well suited to meet the end in view.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

observed, that the condition of the extreme West of Ireland was very different from that of any other part. It was no use talking of sanitary works for the employment of the people where towns and villages did not exist, and where such works could not be carried on. That portion of Ireland where the most distress existed consisted of mountainous districts, and of islands in the Atlantic Ocean, where no sanitary works were possible. If, as now proposed, Boards of Guardians were restricted to granting relief in kind, the people would receive their doles of meal and other things, and have to carry them miles away upon their backs to their own homes; but if power were given to the Boards of Guardians, under the superintendence of the Poor Law Board, to grant small sums of money to enable people to work upon their farms, the results could not fail to be of a very advantageous character. The works which were contemplated by the Bill were of a permanent character; but the grant of small sums of money would enable the peasants to put their farms in a position to receive the seed potatoes which it was proposed to distribute, and thus give some promise of a good harvest next year. His experience of Boards of Guardians was that it would not be necessary to restrain their acts of liberality; but that, on the contrary, they would require stimulating—for it must be remembered that every penny which the Board of Guardians distributed was to be re-paid by the persons who granted it. It seemed to him that the restraint imposed on Boards of Guardians assumed that they would lavishly distribute their own money. He had given some employment on the farms of tenants himself, and there was no difficulty about it. He believed that the idea entertained by the House of Commons, and by many others as to the Irish people, was that they were a lazy, worthless set, who preferred to be idle rather than to work. His experience with the Irish peasant led him, on the contrary, to think that he was one of the most hardworking persons on the face of the earth—but his labour was often ill directed because he had never been taught how to apply it. The Irish peasants required spades and other implements of husbandry for the cultivation of their farms; but they had not a shilling in their pockets wherewith to get them. It was proposed to give them clothes and meal, but no money; and without money they could not buy tools—for they had no credit. Unless power were given to the Guardians to grant small sums of money to distressed people he believed that a great deal of land which ought to be, and which could be cultivated, would be left unfilled. Those advances could be made under the control of the Local Government Board. The Boards of Guardians could be allowed to make such advances for a period not exceeding two months; and if at the expiration of that time the Local Government Board found by means of the Reports of its Inspectors that the power had been abused, then it would come to an end and not be renewed. He sincerely trusted that the Government would introduce some words into the Bill enabling this to be done. In his opinion, it was useless to talk about drainage and other public works. Many such works would be useless when done; but much good would be effected by enabling the tenants to work upon their own farms.

MR. CHILDERS

desired to draw the attention of the Chief Secretary for Ireland to the fact that, under the Land Improvement Acts, no advance could be made of any sum under £100.

MR. SHAW

remarked, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had said that no practical person could think of adopting the suggestion which had been made. That was the most extraordinary statement that had over been made in that House—although they had heard some very extraordinary ones. One of the greatest misfortunes suffered by the Irish in the present crisis was the Chief Secretary's want of knowledge of Ireland. He conducted the business of his Office, in a general way, with great ability; but he (Mr. Shaw) feared very much that the sympathies of the right hon. Gentleman were not such as to lead him to easily understand the extent of the misfortunes from which Ireland was now suffering—that was one of the greatest difficulties which they had to struggle against. He (Mr. Shaw) stated that as his opinion in a speech made some months ago in Dublin; and since that time some of the most practical men with whom he had come in contact fully concurred with him. The loans which might be made under the Land Improvement Acts were only granted on the initiative of the landlord; but he might be absent, or he might be frightened, or, it might be, in bad humour with his tenants, and so the tenants could not obtain a loan. In the case of sums under £100, he would give the power of making the advances to the Boards of Guardians; and with respect to advances over £100 he would leave the initiative with the tenant. In that manner, he was quite sure an amount of employment could be given which would not only relieve the distress now existing, but would permanently benefit the country. If the Government would not give the House an opportunity of fully considering these questions, of course they were in their hands; but they certainly would be acting in a manner which would not satisfy the people of Ireland.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

protested against the language used by the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) towards his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He was well aware that Englishmen were always liable to be told by Irish Members that they did not understand Ireland; but when his right hon. Friend was charged with being wanting in sympathy for the people of Ireland, and in conducting the business of that country without feeling with those for whom he was acting, he felt bound, on the part of his right hon. Friend, and on that of the Government, to repel the imputation. His right hon. Friend had fulfilled the duties of his Office with unwearied zeal, and had done his best, with the limited knowledge that an Englishman possessed of the requirements of Ireland, to deal with the questions that came before him. He felt sure that his hon. Friend the Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) would withdraw the charge which he had made. With regard to the subject under discussion, the Government had felt a very great sense of responsibility. The Government had felt that by sanctioning the distribution of money in every possible way they would be exposing themselves to the risk of doing serious injury for the sake of gaining a little temporary popularity. The suggestions of his hon. Friend the Member for Cork were, of course, entitled to all respect; but he did not see how the Government could take advantage of them without exposing themselves to the charge of opening the door to jobbery, and burdening Boards of Guardians with tests and duties which they would be unable properly to perform. Whatever scheme might be proposed, it would be wrong, he thought, to attempt to introduce it into the clause before the Committee. The proposal made had reference to the best manner of advancing money for carrying on works; and when they came to that part of the Bill which dealt with advances, then such a proposal as that favoured by the hon. Member for Cork might be fairly considered.

MR. G. E. BROWNE

remarked, with regard to the loans under the Land Improvement Acts, that it must be recollected that the loans must be effected for a period of 42 years, and for not less than £100. He thought that if the Boards of Guardians had power to advance money it would be repaid. He trusted the Government would give the proposal their favourable consideration.

MR. SHAW

disclaimed any intention of imputing to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland any deliberate want of sympathy with the feelings of Irishmen. In the conduct of the business of his Department, the right hon. Gentleman fulfilled his duties to the best of his limited knowledge. What he complained of was that the right hon. Gentleman's sympathies were not with the people of Ireland generally—that, in fact, he was a Tory of the Tories. The right hon. Gentleman had all the exterior of a modern man of fashion; but in his feelings he was a Tory of 70 years ago. He could not enter into the wants and feelings of Ireland, as, in his opinion, a Gentleman occupying his position ought to do. He really did not think that it was possible for him to understand the feelings and wants of Ireland.

COLONEL KING-HARMAN

said, that without going into the evil tendencies of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, he wished to draw attention to the points that had been raised by that discussion. The most important seemed to him to be that of advancing sums of money to small farmers for the purpose of working their own holdings. He was sorry to say that to that plan he saw a very grave objection. Any man who lived in the West of Ireland would know that one of the chief causes of the very great distress which now existed in those districts was from the small farmers being steeped in debt. He believed that the like state of things existed in the South. He did not see how the Government or Boards of Guardians could with safety make advances to men who were so steeped in debt that they could not procure credit for a bag of meal. It was a most deplorable thing; but it was, nevertheless, the absolute fact; and, no matter how much they might be helped during the present crisis, he felt very strongly that the Government would be obliged to pass some measure of local bankruptcy, to clear the people from the load of debt that now oppressed them, and enable them to hold up their heads again. Men owing sums of £20 or £30 were unable to effect a composition with their creditors; and some large measure of the kind he had indicated would, he felt sure, be necessary. He did not see how it would be possible, with safety, to add to the liabilities of those men by lending them money.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, that the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just spoken had well said that there were two points—one, that of advancing money to small farmers, and the other a question of affording out-door relief. The latter was the only point then before the Committee. He wanted to know what was to be done to save the small cultivators from starvation? They had no tools, no money, and were quite unable to procure the necessary implements of husbandry. What was the use of doling, out to them sacks of meal and loads of bread? It was out-door relief in the shape of money that was required. The Boards of Guardians should have the power to give grants of money where that loan would meet the circumstances of the case. In a great many cases money would not be required; but there were many parts of Ireland where relief in that form only would be of use. Throughout the County Galway, for instance, there were many hundred cases of small starving cultivators who required loans of money and not sacks of meal. It was necessary that the Board of Guardians should be at liberty to advance sums of money to small farmers, and they should not be prevented from doing so by any rule passed by that House at half-past 12. The Board of Guardians throughout Ireland knew a great deal more concerning the nature of the relief required than that House, or ten Houses like it. It had been very properly stated by the hon. Baronet the Member for King's County (Sir Patrick O'Brien)—who, although he thought he was opposing, yet in reality was supporting him—that the money of the ratepayers it was that the Board of Guardians would have to distribute. They would keep a tight fist enough over the money in their hands—a very much tighter fist than the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had kept over the National Revenue for a number of years. The Guardians could not easily give out-door relief in money; but there were many cases in the South and West of Ireland where out-door relief in money would alone be of use. The Boards of Guardians included the magistrates and justices of the peace, and he could see no reason for not giving them some liberty in the matter. If they gave too much in one ease they would make up for it by giving too little in another. They ought to have power to give out-door relief in money to the small cultivators, when doles of meat and bread alone would not tide over the exigencies of the present crisis.

MR. FINIGANmoved to report Progress.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Finigan.)

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, that this measure was one of very great importance to the people of Ireland, and had been brought forward as the most pressing Business of the Session. The House had considered it, in one form or another, for a very considerable time, and he had hoped that they would that evening finish the Committee on the Bill. It was obvious, however, that it was now too late to do so; but he thought that it would be an entire waste of time if the discussion which had now been going on for so long a time should be broken off, and Progress be reported.

MR. SHAW

inquired whether the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer intended to proceed with the Bill that night? He certainly thought that a little more time was necessary for the consideration of the proposal which had been made. So far as his own Amendment was concerned, he was willing either to move that words carrying it out should be inserted in some other part of the Bill, or to introduce a new clause.

MAJOR NOLAN

hoped that one Bill would not be run against another. He thought that the discussion of the clause might be proceeded with.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

observed, that it was not until they came to close quarters with a Bill of that kind that the House began to understand the points really in dispute. He did not consider the discussion that had taken place over that very important clause had been in any way a waste of time. He had, however, expected that the Chairman would have stopped a considerable part of the discussion, as not germane to the Business before the Committee. The marginal notes to the Bill stated that it was with regard to the extension of power in Boards of Guardians to grant out-door relief in food and fuel—so that the point which had been raised by the hon. Member for Cork referred to something totally different. The Committee had recently decided not to allow Boards of Guardians to grant sums of money to poor persons for general purposes. That appeared to him to be an unfortunate proceeding; but it could not be helped. The hon. Member for Dungarvan had now proposed to introduce words into the clause giving power to Boards of Guardians to grant relief in money to the small tenants, in order to enable them to cultivate their farms. He would wish to ask the House of Commons how the holdings of the small farmers could be cultivated unless such relief were granted them? The Government had obtained great credit for doing away with the disability that existed in England, and allowing Boards of Guardians to grant out-door relief. In England Guardians were empowered, during the Cotton Famine, to grant outdoor relief in the shape of money to persons like those referred to in the debate. It was in their own discretion whether they gave money or not. He would ask hon. Members representing English constituencies, whether Boards of Guardians in Ireland were not as fit to be intrusted with the same privilege as was accorded to Guardians in their own country? On what ground could the Government justify its refusal to grant to Boards of Guardians in Ireland the same power of affording out-door relief that was enjoyed by analogous bodies in England? It was no use to distribute bags of meal and bread—the small farmers required money besides; and surely Boards of Guardians in Ireland ought to be treated, in the expenditure of their own money as trustees, on exactly the same terms as English Boards of Guardians. He entirely denounced the perpetual system of putting limitations upon the Irish public authorities—a system which was born of mistrust, either of their integrity or of their discretion. That was not the way to conciliate the Irish people; and if they were discontented he was not surprised, for everything showed them that they were mistrusted. He appealed to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to re-consider his decision, and to accept the Amendment of his hon. Friend. The former decision of the Committee had been only on the general principle; but now there was an opportunity of granting the Guardians power to make advances of money for purposes of cultivation to the small tenants of Ireland.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, that the observations of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) appeared to be entirely wide of the question before the Committee. They were considering the propriety of reporting Progress, and it was hardly correct to enter into discussion upon the merits of any particular Amendment. The hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) had asked for information with regard to the other Business to be brought before the House. The next Order of the Day was the Order for the Seeds Bill, of which there were the postponed clauses for consideration, and which would not give rise, he thought, to much discussion. He impressed upon the Committee that time should not be neutralized or wasted on the Motion to report Progress.

MR. O'DONNELL

thought that the hon. Member for Galway had not been very wide of the mark when he referred to the general nature of the discussion which preceded the Motion for reporting Progress; because the reason why that Motion had been brought before the Committee was that the Government had not attempted to perceive, and had not perceived, the point advocated by hon. Members on his side of the House. In what position was the Committee placed? Was it not that the Head of the Government in that House had persisted in ignoring what the Irish Members were aiming at? The right hon. Gentleman had behind him 200 English and Scotch Members for the purpose of making laws for the Irish people, whose lives were then at stake. The Government treated this question as one to be dealt with out of the Irish funds, when it ought to have been dealt with out of the Imperial funds. The position of the Government in this matter was that they did not care to understand what were the arguments put forward by Irish Members, and particularly by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry), who himself represented one of the most distressed districts, and who knew thoroughly, by personal experience, the class of remedies most suitable to apply to this distress. After the hon. Member had taken up some time in explaining to the Committee the pitiable condition of affairs, he received an answer from the Government, which clearly proved that the Government had not either listened to him, or, for some occult purposes, was not disposed to appear to listen to him. That was not the manner in which to meet the Business of Irish Members, and it was merely playing with them and treating them as fractious children. The Government seemed to say—"We do not know what you have been talking about for the last half-hour—we have got our majority, and we intend to deal with this matter by means of our majority; we do not know what you want, and we do not care what you want; we shall do what we like, and we do not care for what you like." The Committee wanted to know what should be the position of the Business to be transacted under the Leadership of the right hon. Gentleman during the rest of the evening. If he meant that the Government, when they brought in any Bill, were determined to receive no Amendments from Irish Members, let him embody it under the Standing Orders. It was a farce to go on transacting Irish Business in this manner, with his large majority. He had said that seven more years of Tory rule would do good in Ireland; but a few more nights like the present would go far to drive home the fears which were already thoroughly prevalent in the minds of the Irish people.

MR. BIGGAR

supported the Motion to report Progress. He had had some experience in the House with regard to the progress of Business after 1 o'clock, and he never had been able to discover that any progress was made; for either the Bill which, under those circumstances, was supposed to be passed by the House was so absurdly incorrect that, when it passed into law, there was no possibility of understanding it; or, otherwise, a wrangle was sure to take place, which lasted for an hour or two, when Progress would be reported. It seemed to him that there was no possibility of coming to a sound decision that evening with regard to the particular Amendment before the Committee, and certainly not with regard to any other Amendment which hon. Members might feel it their duty to bring forward. He had himself an Amendment to propose to the last paragraph of the clause, which he would like to have the opportunity of moving at a time when he could offer some arguments in favour of the course which he proposed. He would certainly not like to move that Amendment at 2 o'clock in the morning.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

hoped that the Committee would not agree to the Motion to report Progress until they had disposed of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell). Hon. Members who asked the Committee to report Progress did so because it was said that the Chancellor of the Exchequer either could not, or would not, understand the meaning of that Amendment. Whatever might be the opinion as to that, he considered that the Committee were in as good a position to understand and decide upon the Amendment as it was ever likely to be, the hon. Member having already explained it at least three times. He wished to point out that the Committee would be in no better position to decide upon that Amendment even if it were deferred until Thursday next, when a very large number of hon. Members would be present who had not heard the protracted discussion which had already taken place; at all events, he thought that the Committee which had listened to the long discussion which had taken place should decide upon the Amendment which was before it.

MR. MACARTNEY

said, that it had been remarked in the course of the discussion that whatever was to be done should be done quickly, and that while hon. Members were speaking the people of Ireland were starving, and that if speedy measures of relief were not taken the result would be alarming. It seemed to him that the speech which contained these remarks had been entirely forgotten by Gentlemen on the other side of the House, and it would seem that as much time was likely to be consumed upon this Bill as was expended upon the Mutiny Act of last year. He should have thought that those hon. Members who believed in Irish distress would have passed the Bill as soon as they possibly could. The House was not quite so obtuse as not to understand the meaning of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungar- van; and he (Mr. Macartney) appealed to hon. Members to proceed with the Bill without delay, or otherwise its discussion would occupy three or four weeks.

MR. SULLIVAN

pointed out that the hon. Member who had just sat down had evidently not read the Bill that was before the Committee, for he was clearly not aware that the things to be done had already been ordered. The hon. Member had told the Committee that whatever was to be done should be done quickly; but he (Mr. Sullivan) reminded him that this Bill was dealing with that which had already been done. He, as well as other hon. Members, were ready to remain in the House until 10 o'clock to-morrow morning for the purpose of getting through the Bill, and he did not think the Rules which had already guided them in the House ought to be applied at a time when the people of Ireland were starving. He deplored exceedingly that the excellent suggestion which had emanated from the front Opposition Bench had not been accepted by the Government—namely, that they should give to the Committee some indication that the principle which was really behind the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan, and which was followed in the case of the Lancashire distress, would be applied in the present instance. If that intimation were given, he was ready to remain in the House as long as might be desired for the purpose of passing the Bill. With regard to the adjournment, he believed it would be a mistake and a waste of the time that had been spent. He therefore appealed to his hon. Friend not to proceed with his Motion for the adjournment in the middle of that discussion.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY

thought the Committee should proceed. The views of the hon. Member for Cork were not placed upon the Paper in the way of an Amendment, and until that was so he thought that a discussion thereon could not fairly and fully be taken. There were some Amendments on the Paper which, if the Committee proceeded, might be disposed of in a very short time. After that the Committee might turn to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork—he trusted with a far greater chance of success than they had at the present moment.

MR. BIGGAR

was sorry he could not agree with the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy). He had just heard in private conversation an hon. Member say that, looking at the Amendment which appeared at the bottom of the page, it was better to give up the whole Bill rather than that the Amendment should not be carried. He thought that the best thing was for the Motion to report Progress to be withdrawn, in order to allow a division to take place upon the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan, when Progress might be reported, and aboná fidecommencement made on the other side.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

thought that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had not treated him at all fairly in this matter. They were entitled to know from the Government, and he thought also from the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition, who desired to have a division upon the point, whether there was any ground for denying to the Boards of Guardians in Ireland the power which was given to Boards of Guardians in this country. That was the question to be decided. If the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dungarvan were negatived, the result would be that that very day a fresh disability would be imposed upon the people of Ireland.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, that the Poor Law was applied in Ireland in the form in which it had been settled by Parliament. That settlement was come to deliberately by Parliament, and the present measure did not profess to make any permanent alterations in the Poor Law as it at present existed. This was simply an exceptional measure of temporary relief, and did not deal with any question of principle.

MR. ASSHETON CROSS

felt bound to point out that Boards of Guardians in Ireland were, under the existing law, able to grant relief to able-bodied paupers in Ireland.

MR. O'DONNELL

remarked, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had told them—what they knew already—that this was not a permanent measure. They knew well that no permanent alteration was contemplated; but they asked that, for three poor months, Boards of Guardians in Ireland might have the same power of relieving out-door distress in districts in Ireland, where the peasantry were starving, as was possessed by Boards of Guardians throughout the length and breadth of England. He rose to express a hope that the hon. Member for Ennis would withdraw his Motion to report Progress, and allow a division to be taken on the Amendment. He did not know whether the noble Lord the Leader of the Liberal Opposition would consider it a symptom of returning allegiance on his part; but he was bound to say that he took the course he did, in advising the withdrawal of the Motion, simply on his recommendation. If the Motion to report Progress were withdrawn, the Committee would then have an opportunity of enabling Boards of Guardians in Ireland to relieve the distress in the only way which would really meet the exigency of the situation. He was curious to see in what manner the noble Lord the Leader of the Liberal Opposition would act when that opportunity was presented to him.

MR. FINIGAN

said, that on the suggestion of the hon. Member for Dungarvan he would withdraw his Motion.

Motion, by leave,withdrawn.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, that Boards of Guardians in England had the power of granting out-door relief in money to poor destitute persons. During the time of the Lancashire Cotton Famine no Act of Parliament was passed to enable the Guardians to grant out-door relief in money; but they were permitted to do so by the Poor Law Board. On that occasion a liberal construction was put upon their power of granting outdoor relief, and no questions were asked. That was the position in which Boards of Guardians in Ireland claimed, and rightly claimed, to be placed.

Question put, "That those words be there inserted."

The Committeedivided:—Ayes 29; Noes 127: Majority 98.—Div. List, No. 8.)

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON)

wished to move an Amendment, the object of which was to remove any ambiguity which might arise under the existing words of the clause as to whether the relief to be granted was to be confined to able-bodied persons or to be applicable to all. He begged to move, in Clause 3, page 1, line 23, after the word "Union" to insert "whether such poor persons under the Poor Law Act be entitled to relief in the workhouse or not."

MR. SHAW

said, that under the Bill as it now stood relief in food or fuel was to be granted to poor persons in any Union. He wished to insert the words "or in any electoral division thereof." It might be desirable to confine the power given by the Bill to some particular electoral division of a Union.

MR. BIGGAR

observed, that it was very inconvenient for Amendments to be proposed which were not on the Paper. He thought it would be much better that they should then report Progress.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Biggar.)

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON)

observed, that the Amendment they were discussing was very easy to understand. He wished to make it quite clear that all persons could be relieved whether able-bodied paupers or not. The hon. Member for Cork County (Mr. Shaw) had then proposed that the relief to be granted could, if necessary, be confined to an electoral division of the Union.

MAJOR O'BEIRNE

supported the Motion to report Progress. It was decided by the House last year that Amendments which were not on the Paper should not be discussed.

MR. SHAW

expressed a hope that, as the Amendment was merely verbal, his hon. Friend (Mr. Biggar) would withdraw his Motion to report Progress.

MR. BIGGAR

said, that as he had been appealed to to withdraw his Motion he would do so on the understanding that no further progress would be attempted with the Bill at 2 o'clock in the morning. It was preposterous to proceed with a measure of this nature at so late an hour.

Motion, by leave,withdrawn.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON)

said, that, unquestionably, the Bill was one of great urgency. Until the Bill was passed there was no power of compelling the Poor Law Guardians to grant the relief which the exceptional circumstances ren- dered necessary. It was also desirable that the Guardians should be in no doubt as to the persons who they might relieve.

Amendmentmoved,in page 1, line 23, after the word "union," to insert "whether such poor persons under the Poor Law Act be entitled to relief from the workhouses or not."

Amendmentagreed to.

Amendmentmoved,in page 1, line 23, after the word "union," to insert "or any electoral division or divisions thereof."—(Mr. Shaw.)

Amendmentagreed to.

MR. FINIGANmoved to report Progress.

Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do now report Progress, and ask leave to sit again.—(Mr. Finigan.)

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER

said, that they had now reached an Amendment to be proposed by the hon. Member for Cavan, which would undoubtedly give rise to discussion; and it might be well, therefore, that they should not enter upon it at that hour. It would be desirable that the hon. Member should formally move his Amendment, in order that they might proceed at once to discuss it on the next occasion. The Bill was really one of great importance, and he hoped the House would support Her Majesty's Government in passing it at the earliest possible period. As had been pointed out, until the Bill was passed, there were no mandatory powers for compelling Guardians to grant the relief needed, and there were other points which made it desirable to pass the measure at the earliest possible moment. The mode in which the rates were to be charged, and other questions of that kind, which would very much determine the action of Boards of Guardians in making the rates, were at present undecided. For the present, they were simply acting upon the orders of the Government. He trusted they would be able to proceed with the Bill to-morrow.

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

asked when the Committee would be resumed? There was an important discussion for to-morrow upon the Irish franchise.

MR. MELDON

said, he understood from the Chancellor of the Exchequer that the Government were prepared to make an arrangement by which the Bill could be proceeded with to-morrow; and he should have no objection to the Bill proceeding to-morrow, if the Government were prepared to assent to his Motion.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER,

regretted that he could not fall in with the proposal of the hon. and learned Gentleman. He should appeal to the hon. and learned Gentleman to allow the Bill to proceed to-morrow.

Committee report Progress; to sit againTo-morrow.