§ (Mr. Forster, Lord Frederick Cavendish.)
§ COMMITTEE. [Progress, 18th June.]
§ Order for Committee read.
§ Bill considered in Committee.
§ (In the Committee.)
§ Clause 1 (Short Title).
§ On Question, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill?"
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, that he had intended to give Notice of an Amendment to the clause. The result of the Bill was to give assistance to the landlords and not to the tenants, and he felt very much disposed to move that the clause should not stand part of the Bill. He hoped, however, that such amendments of the Bill would be made in the course of its progress through Committee as would entitle it to be called a Bill for the Relief of Distress in Ireland. At present, it seemed rather a Bill for the relief of landlords than tenants.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he was proposing to criticize the clause.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he proposed to move that the clause should not stand part of the Bill. The result of the Bill would not be relieve Irish distress, but only to give a large bonus to Irish landlords. He had recently received letters from various of his constituents in the County Gavan, making complaints that a highly respected gentleman who was formerly a Member of that House had borrowed a large sum of money from the Government and was making objectional improvements upon his property, instead of employing the money in the relief of the small farmers. He was, in fact, giving employment to the sons of those farmers who were able to pay their rent, instead of granting relief to those who were in distress. Some complaints had been made in a great many other places, and he (Mr. Biggar) thought he was right in saying that 1446 the result of this Bill, particularly of this clause, would be to perpetuate that state of things. He thought that the clause should be expunged from the Bill, until they could see what the result of Amendments to the measure would be.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Clause 2 (Amendment of Relief of Distress Act).
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, that in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the County Carlow (Mr. Gray), he had to ask for permission to move the Amendment of which the right hon. Gentleman had given Notice. The Amendment related to the advances made by Parliament for the purpose of enabling Boards of Guardians in certain districts of Ireland to lend or advance seed in the shape of the potato seed, and for other crops, to such persons as should require them. By the Act under which these advances were authorized, it was provided that the loans should be repaid by the Boards of Guardians to the Treasury at the end of next year. But, in order to effect that re-payment, it had been necessary for the Boards of Guardians to collect the first instalment of the advance from the tenants. This was done, in many cases, before the growth of the crop to produce which the seed had been lent had been got in. It was very commonly the case, with regard to potatoes, to allow them to remain in the ground until a late period, because it was found that they ate the better for being left in the ground; also that they were less liable to disease afterwards. There was some talk in Ireland during the late Election of asking the Government to remit the whole of the amount advanced for seed; but the leaders of public opinion, upon re-considering the matter, had thought that if they could obtain for the tenants the postponement of the re-payment of the first instalment for another year, they would be thus in a position to pay the amount to the Treasury. The loans had been described as having been of enormous assistance to all classes in Ireland, and it had been felt by the tenants that they ought to endeavour to do their very best to repay the loans as soon as it was possible to be done. The seed purchased for the purpose of making these loans was purchased at a very high rate 1447 indeed. He might state that the rates were 112 per cent over the market price previously asked. The rise in the price of the seed was in consequence of the passage of that Act. The great demand for fresh seed caused an increase in the price. Consequently, Boards of Guardians had to buy seed at a price at which potatoes never reached before in Ireland. So, from every point of view, the charge was an exceedingly heavy one upon tenant farmers, and it would be impossible for them to meet it at the present time. The Guardians admitted that if the advance were collected at the present time, the result would be that the feelings of the people would be set against the re-payment of the loan altogether. The people desired to pay it; but if pressed by the Guardians for re-payment before their crops were brought in, public opinion in Ireland would be more or less set against the re-payment altogether. At present, the desire was to look upon this as a just debt, and to avoid any unnecessary hardship in the collection of the money. They, therefore, thought that the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Mayor of Dublin was a fair and proper one. They asked the assent of the Government to the proposal that the landlords should not be asked to repay their loans for two years; but they now asked that the same period should be extended to the tenants. The tenants were willing to pay half of the advance, if postponed for a year, and the remaining half at the end of the year. He begged to move—
THE CHAIRMANsaid, that he thought they were not proceeding quite regularly. The moneys for this purpose would be paid out of the Public Funds, and not out of the funds of the Irish Church Temporalities Commission. Under those circumstances, it was necessary that an Instruction should be received by the Committee, in the form of a Resolution passed by a Committee of the Whole House, before an Amendment could be proposed.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, that they did not propose to take money out of the Public Funds. The money had been already taken out of the Public Funds, and the Amendment dealt only with the question of the postponement of re-payment. With all submission to the Chair, he thought it was quite competent to 1448 move the Amendment. He would also point out that the Bill already dealt with grants from the Public Funds. By Clause 5, the Commissioners of Public Works were authorized to make advances of certain amounts of public money.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, that he only desired that their proceedings should be regular. If it were desired to take money from the Public Funds, the proposal must emanate from a Minister of the Crown; or if the purpose were to postpone an instalment of a debt due to the Crown, the consent of the Crown would be necessary. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would state his opinion on the matter, in order that he (the Chairman) might more clearly understand the points involved.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that he understood that any proposal with regard to the postponement of the re-payment of money to the Public Funds might be brought within the scope of this Bill without going through the form of a Resolution in Committee to obtain the approval of the Crown. He had, however, to make a proposal to which he trusted the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) would agree. He could not see that a loan for seed was in the same position as a loan for works. Loans for works, which necessarily took some time in making, could not repay themselves for some years; but loans for seed, which he believed had done a great deal of good, would repay themselves in a very short time. They had every reason to believe that, in an enormous majority of cases, the loans for seed would abundantly repay themselves very soon. There was a larger crop of potatoes in Ireland than there had been for a long time, and much good would result from the advance. He was very glad to find that the feeling in Ireland was strongly in favour of the re-payment of these loans. If it had not been so, it would lead them to suppose that it was thought unnecessary to repay any loan. A loan which would repay itself so soon, eminently required to be repaid. About £600,000 had been granted for these loans, and in a very large proportion of cases it would be far better for everybody that the re-pay-should be made soon. It would be a dangerous thing to let the crop, for the 1449 purpose of which the money had been advanced, come to an end without any repayment being made. That was an argument that tended very strongly against the proposal that had been made. But there were some very distressed Unions; and if the clause, which he believed was not strictly in Order, were now withdrawn, he would undertake before Report that a clause should be brought in which would give the Local Government Board the power to postpone payment for one year in cases in which it might be right to do so. He must accompany that statement by saying that they should require very strong cases of hardship to be shown before declining to exercise the power to exact re-payment in the present year. They should recollect that the largest sum to be demanded from any tenant would be £2 10s. He was aware that was a large sum to some of the small tenants in Ireland; but, generally speaking, the amount to be repaid would not be so much. He was informed that this money would be in process of collection between November and March, and, therefore, it would be paid out of the crop of the present year. He hoped that the hon. Member would consent to the course that he had suggested.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he understood the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to be disiuclined to extend the time, except in certain distressed Unions. The Seed Act applied to all Ireland, and in counties such as that which he represented it was only the very poor who, in extreme cases, had applied for seed. The seed given was of a very inferior quality, and it was only applied for when persons could neither beg nor borrow from any other source. It was, therefore, only the very poorest of the farmers who had applied for this miserable seed last spring. Although they had had no food for a long time, they were to be called upon to repay these small loans immediately after the harvest. If that were done, they would only bring the poor into the same condition next year that they were in this. If this year there was a good harvest, by means of the loan farmers might be enabled to tide over to next year. He was not in favour of the extreme measures put forward by hon. Gentlemen with whom he did not act; but he believed there could be no greater boon than the extension of the time 1450 sought for. He hoped that the Government would accede to the proposal that had been made.
§ MR. SYNANsaid, that he thought the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to postpone the matter until the Report was very fair. He did not think there could be any objection to leaving it to the discretion of the Local Government Board in Dublin, and to the Boards of Guardians, to determine in which cases re-payment should be postponed. It might be necessary in some cases to permit postponement, whereas, in others, there might not be the same necessity.
§ MR. TOTTENHAMsaid, that there was no doubt that in many Unions cases would arise in which the discretion of the Local Government Board and the Poor Law Guardians could be fittingly exercised. He thought it should be clearly understood that this was not to be taken as the commencement of a movement for the repudiation of the loan. He regretted that in several Unions in Ireland there was a desire to repudiate the re-payment of the loans.
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray) had stated, on another occasion, that he had originally intended to bring forward something very like a proposal for the remission of the debt on account of this loan; but that he had found public opinion in Ireland did not justify that course. For that reason, they might rest assured that the Irish people did not desire to do anything like repudiation. He should like to know whether the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland meant to extend the discretion of the power to cases in the unscheduled, as well as in the scheduled Unions? He hoped that he would undertake that power should be given to the Local Government Boards to extend their discretion to the Unions which were not scheduled as well as to those which were scheduled. He should suggest that, under the circumstances, the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlow should be withdrawn, and that it should be brought forward on the Report in order that they might see what the proposals of the Government were.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that the clause should be so framed that the 1451 Local Government Board should consult the Boards of Guardians as to the Unions in which postponement of the instalment should apply. He understood from the Clerk at the Table that there was some difficulty as to the form in which this matter should be brought forward. In the case of an additional grant from the Public Funds, it was necessary to go through the form of a Committee.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, that he could not understand the grounds upon which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland opposed the Amendment proposed by his hon. Friend (Mr. Parnell). The right hon. Gentleman admitted that the proposal was right in principle, but only objected to the details of it. There was no doubt that the Local Government Board in Ireland was thoroughly overworked. If the independent occupiers had any substantial moveable property that could be turned into money, the Guardians would not have made these advances; but they had not, and they not only required seed for their land, but they required sustenance for themselves. In many districts the people were more or less paupers, and were dependent upon charitable assistance; yet it was proposed, in remote districts, to exact re-payment of these loans before the people had the money to repay them. He did not think there was anything unreasonable in the proposal for postponement. It was only proposed that in the suffering districts the re-payment should be postponed for one year from the present time.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he did not consider the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland was quite so satisfactory as some of his hon. Friends seemed to think. But, in the absence of his right hon. Friend the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Mr. Gray), who had placed this Amendment on the Paper, and who took a great interest in the question, he could not take upon himself the responsibility of rejecting the compromise, more especially as he was assured that they could not continue the discussion upon this question by reason of the Rules of the House; but he would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, that he should take the power in his proposed new clause for the Local Government Board to postpone the re- 1452 payment of a portion, or the whole, of the instalments in any Union that the Local Government Board might think proper, because it was exceedingly probable that there would be a great many Unions where it was difficult for a portion of the tenant farmers to pay this year, and yet the remaining portion of the farmers might be able to pay. At the same time, he thought it would probably have been better if he could allow the whole of the charge to be postponed for a year. The Committee would recollect that that was the intention of the Legislature on the passing of the Act of Parliament. The intention of the Legislature was evidently that the farmer should pay in the next 12 months. That was shown by the way the Act of Parliament referred to the Boards of Guardians; but by a rule necessarily adopted by the Local Government Board, in order that the Boards of Guardians should pay next year, it became necessary that the tenants should pay this year, so that the intention of the Legislature was clear that the tenants should not be called upon to pay this year. He thought that where the payment could not be made without undue harshness or pressure upon those who had contracted the debt, then the re-payment was a matter which could not fairly be insisted upon. Of course, they had been charged with the desire to repudiate their debts; but he believed that no people were more willing than the people of Ireland to carry out their just contracts—contracts entered into according to the conditions under which contracts were usually entered into in civilized countries. He had seen no disposition on the part of the Poor Law Unions in Ireland to repudiate their just debts. He should ask permission to withdraw the Amendment.
§ MR. TOTTENHAMsaid, that he had accurate information as to the desire shown in some Unions to repudiate the re-payment of the loans granted under the Seeds Act. In one case a resolution had been agreed to by the Guardians of a Union, declaring that it would be morally impossible in a great majority of cases to collect the tax for the supply of seed potatoes.
§ MR. FINIGANsaid, that one swallow made no summer, and the fact that one Board of Guardians wished to repudiate their debt did not prove that the 1453 desire so shown was general throughout the Poor Law Unions of Ireland. He thought that the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) had scarcely justified his opinion that the Boards of Guardians wished to repudiate their just debts. The desire was to enable small tenant farmers to tide over the autumn, without any intention of enabling them to repudiate their debts.
§ An hon. MEMBER said, he hoped the Government would give the Unions further time for re-payment of the instalments under the Seeds Bill. There was not the slightest wish to repudiate a just debt on the part of the Unions.
§ MR. M'COANsaid, no doubt, many of the distressed districts were not included in the distressed Unions, and it might be a great hardship on individuals in a district not classed. He thought there should be a provision in the Bill to meet these cases.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he thought the proposal of the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) would enable the Unions to postpone payment in the cases referred to.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, the Amendment which he was about to move—namely, to insert, in page 1, after the word "Act," inline 15—
And whereas it is desirable to enable the Commissioners of Public Works, on the recommendation of the Local Government Board, to advance moneys by way of grant to the Boards of Guardians in scheduled Unions, subject to the restrictions and conditions hereinafter set forth,must be taken in connection with the next Amendment standing in his name— namely, the addition to this clause of the following words:—The Commissioners of the Public Works in Ireland may from time to time, on the recommendation of the Local Government Board, grant to any Board of Guardians of a scheduled Union, out of the said sum of one million five hundred thousand pounds, such moneys as the Local Government Board may deem necessary, having regard to the financial condition of such Union, to aid in giving out-door relief to such Union: Provided, That the entire sum to be so granted shall not exceed one hundred thousand pounds.That Amendment had been framed in view of the suggestion made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland the other morning, when they 1454 were discussing the second reading of the Relief of Distress Bill (No. 2). The right hon. Gentleman then suggested that the adjournment of that Bill should be agreed to, with the view of introducing an Amendment to carry out the effect of the modifications which he (Mr. Parnell) had agreed to make in his Bill. The Bill, as it originally stood, provided that the grant of £200,000 should be given to a Commission which was indicated in the Bill; but, in the discussion upon the second reading, the Chief Secretary for Ireland seemed so very much averse to taking the matter out of the hands of the Poor Law Board, that it was suggested that the Local Government Board should be intrusted with the distribution of the proposed grant. Now, he (Mr. Parnell) thought if power was given to the Local Government Board to grant money to certain Unions, it would facilitate enormously the setting in motion of the machinery of the Poor Law in reference to outdoor relief. Speed being of the utmost importance at that moment, he thought that if the right hon. Gentleman attempted to drive the Poor Law Boards in Ireland into the distribution of outdoor relief, it was most desirable that he should have willing instead of unwilling horses to drive. It stood to reason that if the Unions knew they had in the clause the means of obtaining grants in aid of out-door relief, they would be much more willing than they were at present to set their machinery in motion. There was an example in point in the Poor Law Act, which provided that medical stores and attendance should be paid by grant; and their experience of the working of the Act showed that the amount of medical comforts and attendance had been increased by the fact that only half of the cost was charged on the rates, while the rest was paid by the means of grants. Now, at that moment, the people of Ireland were getting weaker and weaker, and were becoming more liable to the fever— spotted typhus fever—which had broken out in Galway. The right hon. Gentleman seemed rather to take comfort to himself that this fever had not originated since he had commenced his system of out-door relief; but, at all events, it had originated since the right hon. Gentleman assumed the reins of government in Ireland. He (Mr. Parnell) had no 1455 wish to throw the responsibility for this upon him, because, no doubt, it had come as one of the heritages created by the ineffectual attempts of the late Government to deal with the distress. The people of Ireland had been living on meal supplied by charitable contributions; those contributions had fallen off, and in a few weeks the strain of relieving the people would be thrown upon the system which the Chief Secretary for Ireland was putting into operation. But the few Poor Law Boards administering relief had been doing so in an inefficient manner, and with the most careful regard to the pockets of the ratepayers; and already the Chief Secretary for Ireland had had to nominate paid Commissioners in their stead. The Committee possessed little information as to these official Guardians, and it might, he believed, be assumed that it was not easy to get men capable of dealing at short notice with the emergency which existed in Ireland. Any inducement, therefore, which the Legislature could give the Poor Law Unions to co-operate in the system of relief, would be of the utmost importance. He would, therefore, suggest that, in the event of his Amendment being agreed to, the Local Government Board should announce to such Unions as they thought proper, where any emergency existed, that they would give one-half, one-third, or one-fourth of the amount paid for out-door relief. The Unions would then have a direct stimulus to administer relief, because, if they refused, they could be forced to do so, and if they threw obstructions in the way of the Local Government Board, they could be punished by withholding from them the proposed grants in aid. He had a right to say that the unanimous opinion of the Irish Members was entitled to consideration; and when he moved the second reading of his Bill, hon. Member after hon. Member had risen and urged its acceptance by the Government. The Irish Members had in every way met the wishes of the Government, and they had agreed to leave the distribution of the money in the hands of the Poor Law Boards, although they were convinced that there existed an emergency with which it was impossible to cope, even by means of those Boards. He, therefore, urged upon the right hon. Gentleman the necessity of accepting his Amendment. The 1456 money was to come out of the Irish Church Fund, and would therefore lay no burden on the Imperial Exchequer. It was the money of the Irish people. Already £1,500,000 had been given out of the Irish Church Fund to the Commissioners of Works; and he believed that this grant, which he now proposed, would be instrumental, during the six weeks which intervened between that time and the harvest, in preventing much sickness and in saving a good many lives. The Special Commissioner of The Freeman's Journal reported that fever was raging in Swinford Union; a total of 21 people had been removed to the workhouse suffering with fever. Some doubt had been cast upon the opinion that it was famine fever; but, if it was not famine fever, it was fever caused by distress, and by want of food, as well as by the want of change of diet. Again, if it was not famine fever, it was because there had not been the same extremity of distress and actual famine in Ireland as there had been in 1846–7; but it was more virulent and more catching, and was likely to spread over a large area, if some machinery could not be had to provide better food and clothing for the people than they had during the last six months. He had information that the allowance of Indian meal to each person per day was about 32 ounces, and this, it would be seen, was not so good as the allowance in the prisons in this country, where they gave soup and potatoes twice a-day. Under these circumstances, he urged upon the Government the necessity of making further provision for the relief of the people of Ireland. But, unless some relief were given to the bankrupt Poor Law Boards, it would be impossible to make any change in the scale of diet which they were obliged to adopt With the object, therefore, of preventing further sickness and loss of life in Ireland, he begged to move the insertion of the Amendment of which he had given Notice, such Amendment to be taken, as he proposed, in connection with the next Amendment standing in his name.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 1, line 15, after "Act," to insert "And whereas it is desirable to enable the Commissioner of Public Works, on the recommendation of the Local Government Board, to advance moneys, by way of grant, to Boards of
1457
Guardians in scheduled Unions, subject to the restrictions and conditions here in after set forth."—(Mr. Parnell.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. LITTONsaid, he thought it would be extremely desirable if the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland could adopt some such suggestion as had been made. No doubt, it would be an encouragement to the Unions if they knew that a certain portion of the expenses of out-door relief would be paid out of some such fund as that indicated by the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell). He had the more pleasure in supporting these suggestions, because he had strongly opposed the Bill of the hon. Member. He could not help thinking, however, it was most desirable to give relief to Unions in the manner proposed; and, as they were to have a clause brought up on Report having reference to the postponement of the instalments of the loan for seed potatoes, he thought that power might also be given to the Local Government Board to grant sums of money in aid of out-door relief, out of a portion of the Irish Church Fund, as suggested. This would be accepted as an indication of the intention of the Government to meet the wishes of the people in Ireland.
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, the proposal made by the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Pamell), the other evening, differed from that now made. In the course of the interval, the hon. Gentleman had abandoned certain features of his project. The Amendment, as it now stood, meant that the Local Government Board should take to themselves the power to make grants, if it became necessary to do so, and was intended simply as a matter of precaution. They had lost one of the means by which distress in Ireland had been relieved— namely, the voluntary societies which had collected alms, but which were now at the end of their means, and were about to cease to exist, and the entire expense was now to be thrown upon the Local Government Board, who were confessedly unable to meet the distress of the past. Was it possible, he asked, that the Government were about to reject the means by which the hands of the Local Government Board could be strengthened at the moment when the 1458 machinery hitherto employed at their side was about to pass away? He urged on the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to accept the terms in which the Amendment was drawn. No constraint was put upon the Local Government Board to give the money. If they gave it, they were to have regard to the financial condition of the Unions, and were not to throw it broadcast over the land. They were only to give it in cases where the Unions would be reduced to further pauperism by the additional rates, and it was on recommendation of the Local Government Board, the Central Board itself, that any such grant should be made. Therefore, he thought the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork City contained every provision and precaution which could be deemed necessary for the purpose of saving the proposal from abuse; and, in his opinion, the proposal was one which might be abused unless it were so protected. It might be abused by those Boards of Guardians who had shown signs of neglecting their duty; but means had been taken to prevent this, because it rested with the Local Government Board to recommend the grant. Under those circumstances, surely the Government would hesitate before they refused to accept the Amendment. The Government organization in Ireland had already required the assistance of additional voluntary helps—the Mansion House Fund, and the other Funds which had been created. But those Funds were now disappearing, and a worse time was at hand, when the distress, according to all official accounts, would reach its acme. Again, he asked, would the Government cast away means which need not be called into use, but which, if the distress continued, would become absolutely necessary? There was now an almost unanimous opinion on the part of the Irish Members in favour of this proposal. The hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. Litton) had objected to the machinery which the hon. Member for Cork City had proposed to set up for the purpose of applying these grants. He had come down the other night, and was the only hon. Member who had made a speech against the Bill of the hon. Member for Cork City, grounded on his objections to the machinery proposed to be used; but the hon. Member had that morning joined in recommend- 1459 ing the Government to adopt the Amendment. He (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) could not say what were the views of the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan); but it was certain that, with the possible exception of that hon. Member, the whole of the Irish Representation approved the principle of the Amendment. Under those circumstances, apart altogether from what he believed would be the danger of losing the machinery suggested, he appealed to the right hon. Gentleman to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork City.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, it appeared to him that the sentence on the Paper was incomplete, inasmuch as it had no termination.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he could not but admit that hon. Members who were interested in this discussion were approaching the question in a way which showed their desire to meet all the difficulties of the case. Perhaps he might be allowed to explain his position in the matter. He did not want to make a larger dip into the Irish Church Fund than he could help; but he admitted there were purposes to which it might be usefully applied. He could not absolutely forget what was the wording of the Land Act—namely,"That the said property should be devoted mainly to the relief of those in suffering, yet not so as to impair the obligation which attached to property under the Acts for the relief of the poor." He admitted that, inasmuch as this was an Irish Fund, the opinion of the very large majority of Irish Members with reference to it ought to be considered. But he could not forget the duties of his own position. If he were responsible for the management of the Poor Law in Ireland, he must be careful before assenting to what would be, to his mind, of very injurious effect upon the future action of the Poor Law. He thought it would be a very-grave defect to weaken the sense of obligation on the part of the ratepayers to relieve distress, especially when it was remembered that the rates fell in Ireland more directly upon the land than they did in England. It was a very serious matter to lay down the principle that the rates should be excused when a period of distress arrived. He could not, also, forget the great benefit arising to the rates by the public subscriptions to the charitable funds, in consequence of 1460 which they had been remarkably exempt from pressure during the late distress. In many Unions where distress had occurred there had been scarcely any increase in the rates. They had now only four or six weeks to wait before the harvest would be ripe, and if the distress was not relieved by a good harvest, the Government would be driven to take steps beyond anything they had yet taken. That was the reason why he had been obliged to take up a strong position against the proposal made on a former occasion. The proposal now placed before them was, however, different. It was not absolutely to give a grant; but it left it to the Local Government Board to make a grant, if they found the distress could not really be relieved otherwise. He confessed he was not unwilling to accept that principle; but he must state that, in what he considered to be the interest of the Boards of Guardians, he should in all cases require definite proof that such grant ought to be made. He was grateful to have the burden of responsibility lightened by having that resort in the back ground, but wished to be clearly understood. He hoped the Guardians throughout the distressed districts would understand that the Government thought they ought to be able to do with the offer of loans made to them, and that they should clearly prove the necessity of a grant in the event of the offer of loans not being sufficient to meet their distress.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he was at a loss to understand why his name should be drawn into this discussion by the hon. and learned Member for the City of Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy}. The course taken by him (Mr. Callan) the other evening had been alluded to.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, that the hon. Member was out of Order in referring to other proceedings in the House of Commons.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he was referring to what had taken place in this discussion. When the Bill of the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power) came before the House, he adopted the course which he should recommend to hon. Members—namely, he supported his opinion, and never shirked a division in support of that opinion. This Amendment was quite different from the question before the House the other evening. The other evening he opposed the Bill; 1461 but he gave this Amendment his warmest and cordial support. For many reasons he supported the proposal that the Local Government Board should advise the Commissioners of Public Works to grant money to the Boards of Guardians by way of a grant. There were many cases where relief could not be given except money was advanced by way of grant. Some Unions would be happy to accept money by way of a loan who would not take anything as a grant. He thought, therefore, that it should be in the power of the Local Government Board to recommend that certain Unions should receive part by grants and part by loans; but he would suggest, however, that it would be better to leave the words "in scheduled Unions" out of the Amendment.
§ SIR H. HERVEY BRUCEsaid, that he did not wish to be understood as agreeing with the principle of the Amendment. He did not think it fair to give to one district in Ireland a preference over others.
§ MR. P. MARTINsaid, that he thought the power of the Local Government Board to make grants in cases where the Unions might be unable to bear the excessive strain on their resources in consequence of exceptional distress ought not to be confined to certain districts, but should be extended to the whole of Ireland. There might be a difficulty about the extension of the Amendment, if it were not proposed to leave the Guardians in the hands of the Local Government Board and within the direction of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. In many Unions, as the right hon. Gentleman well knew, which were not scheduled under the Relief of Distress Act, the suffering and destitution had been on the increase. The rates struck in these unscheduled Unions had been very high, and would, if continued, pauperize many of those who had not up to the present sought relief. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would listen to the suggestion which had been made on the other side; and, as this Fund belonged to the entire Irish people, the principle of the Amendment should be extended to include every Union throughout Ireland where exceptional distress which ought to receive aid should be ascertained to have overtaxed the resources of the Union.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, that he begged to thank the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland very much for the manner in which he had accepted this Amendment. He thought it might be worked so as to produce the greatest benefit to the county from which he came, and he thought it might also prevent much distress in Coleraine. If there were any distress in Galway or Kilkenny, he had no doubt relief would be sent to those counties through the Local Government Board, and, in that way, distress in any part of Ireland would be met. In the distribution of large funds like those of the Irish Church, it was inevitable that poorer districts should get more than rich ones, and the sooner people made up their minds to that being the case the better. He had a suggestion to make to the Government with respect to this Bill. It was clear that the Bill could not receive the Royal Assent before the 25th of July, and the Boards in Dublin could not do anything in the matter until the Bill received the Royal Assent. He knew that that was so, because he had some correspondence on the subject when the Seeds Act was passed. He was then anxious to issue Circulars before the Statute received the Royal Assent; but they explained that it was very difficult for them to act upon any Bill passing through the House, and that they must wait until the Act had received the Royal Assent. In the present state of the case, it would make a great difference to the distressed districts whether the good intentions of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland were to be put into effect within four or five days, or whether they were not to be carried out before the 25th of July. This was a matter of the greatest importance, and he hoped that the Government would at once issue instructions to the Local Government Board, that they might venture to act upon this clause before it received the Royal Assent, and after passing the House of Commons. He might mention that, to his knowledge, fever was very bad at the present moment in many districts. In the neighbourhood of Loughrea, and in the County of Galway, as many as 10 families were down at once with fever. He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would not only, as he had done, accept the proposal of the hon. Gentleman the Member 1463 for Cork City (Mr. Parnell), but that he would take care that it was carried into execution.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he thought that the Amendment must be restricted to the scheduled Unions, or rather to the action of the 3rd section of the Belief Act, which gave power to the Local Government Board, or certain Unions, to break the old Poor Law by giving outdoor relief. He thought, therefore, it would be better to withdraw the words "in scheduled Unions," because the scheduled Unions were understood to be those scheduled for the purpose of loans made. It did not follow that the 3rd section of the Act must apply to the Unions also which had been scheduled. But this power given to the Local Government Board ought to be restricted to those Unions in which only the power had been given to break the old Poor Law and to give out-door relief. He must tell the hon. Member for Kilkenny (Mr. P. Martin) that he understood the wish of the Committee to be that, if such grants were made, they ought to be made not simply because the rates were high, and with the view of relieving the rates, but because, without such help, the people could not be relieved from distress. The mere fact of the rates being high was no reason for making a grant. With regard to the observations of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan), he thought he could show him that the Government were anxious to do all that they could. He might state that, yesterday, ho gave directions that all the distressed Unions should be informed that the terms for loans would be much more favourable than at first, and that whatever money was borrowed would be advanced on the terms, and would be fixed by this Act. He thought that that would anticipate the good effect of its passing, and let the information go out to the distressed districts. Ho should suggest to the hon. Member to strike out the word "scheduled" from his Amendment. He thought it would be better to put it in this way—
Power should be given to advance money by way of grant to Boards of Guardians of any Union which gives out-door relief under Section 3 of the Relief Act.They could not exactly settle the terms until they came to the clause.
§ DR. LYONSsaid, that it might be necessary to provide for very exceptional 1464 circumstances. Without going into the figures that he had produced to the Committee on a former occasion, and which proved that the measures proposed to be adopted were very inadequate to meet any great increase of distress in Ireland, he thought it would be desirable for the right hon. Gentleman to make some elementary calculations as to the sum which would be required. Before fixing the amount to be advanced, it would be very desirable to ascertain how much per head it would be necessary to provide for a given time in case of the recurrence of severe distress over an extended period. It would be found that £400,000 already distributed had not afforded above 1d. per head per day for the 500,000 persons who had been relieved. The relief of those 500,000 persons extended over a period of four months, and the right hon. Gentleman must be aware that in various districts of Ireland the exact amount of rates levied was no measure of the distress existing or of the relief given. They knew that relief was given very much by the varying theories of Boards of Guardians. In some districts where the distress had been considerable the rates were not high, and in other districts where less distress had existed the rates had been very high. As he said on a former occasion, if it should unfortunately happen that they had to face another bad harvest, and that this should turn out to be a wet year, there was no doubt that they would have before them a period of suffering such as Ireland had not gone through for a quarter of a century. In view of these circumstances, it would be well to make provision for the greatest possible pressure of distress that could occur. He would suggest that it might be much wiser to take the outside figures as the ground-work for the relief which could be distributed. He was not naming any figure; but he would strongly recommend the right hon. Gentleman only to go into an elementary calculation, when they would be able to see the necessity there was for providing for largo contingencies.
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, it would contribute to the progress of the Bill if they were to confine themselves to the Amendment, the principle of which the Government accepted. That principle was a definite one, and he was not going to raise any objection 1465 to its acceptance; but he thought it would be more convenient that the Government should undertake to bring up a clause, either before or upon Report, embodying the matter, inasmuch as the details required their consideration, and they would lose a great deal of time by discussing them in the present state of their opinion. Whatever clause was to be adopted, there was no use of discussing the details at the present time.
§ MR. PARNELLassented.
§ Amendment (Mr. Parnell), by leave, withdrawn.
§ Amendment (Mr. W. E. Forster) agreed to.
§ MR. SYNANsaid, that he did not wish to move the Amendment which stood in his name. There was an alternative one on the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for Roscommon (Dr. Commins).
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, that he thought his hon. Friend (Mr. Synan) was under a wrong impression. He would see that the Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Roscommon (Dr. Commins) was not of an alternative character for that which stood in his name. The Amendment of the hon. Member for Roscommon was one throwing an additional sum of £750,000 upon the Consolidated Fund, whereas that in the name of the hon. Member (Mr. Synan) was one reducing the rate of interest to 1 per cent.
§ MR. SYNANsaid, in that case, he would briefly call the attention of the Committee to his Amendment.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, that he had called upon the hon. Member to move his Amendment, and that, as he had not done so, he had called upon the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray).
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the county of Carlow (Mr. Gray) not having risen to move his Amendment, and no Amendment having been before the Committee subsequently, he submitted that his hon. Friend (Mr. Synan) was entitled to move that which stood in his name.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, that he understood the hon. Member for the City of 1466 Cork (Mr. Parnell) was going to move the Amendment of the right hon. Member for Carlow (Mr. Gray).
§ MR. SYNANsaid, that the object of his Amendment was to save the Irish Church Surplus Fund from bearing the loss of interest which would accrue by giving this money out of that Fund at 1 per cent. He thought it would be well for Her Majesty's Government to consider whether the interest, to be charged by the Treasury in its loans for this Bill to the Irish Church Commissioners, ought not to be 1 per cent. The Church Fund had only a balance to its credit of £350,000, whereas it owed a sum of £7,500,000. By having to give this sum of money at 1 per cent interest, the Church Fund would lose the difference between 1 per cent and 3½ per cent for a period of 37 years, and which would amount to over £13,000 a-year. That would make a heavy addition to the charges already placed upon the Fund. The balance of the Church Surplus would, if capitalized, amount to about £6,000,000, and it would be reduced by the present loans, and the Education loans, to less than £4,000,000. In fact, at present there was no actual surplus at all. The Church Commissioners were only in receipt of a yearly income, from different sources, which were pledged to the Treasury for loans, amounting to a large sum. In fact, it might turn out that there might be no surplus at all, if this mode of mortgaging it was to be adopted. It seemed to him that there were various purposes for which the Church Fund might be more usefully applied than this. This money might be expended in various ways for the benefit of Ireland. When the Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act was before the House, he moved that the money for the purpose should be taken from the Public Treasury, and not from the Irish Church Surplus. The Government of the day was then against them, and the Government was also against them on the present occasion. He did not think that the Church Fund should bear the loss of the interest, and he would put it to the Government whether it would not allow the loss to be borne by the Treasury? It would be a heavy burden upon the Church Fund, while it would be a light matter upon the Treasury. It would also be well to say to the people of Ireland, that the Imperial 1467 Government was willing to come to their aid on the present occasion, and to save an Irish Fund the small difference between 1 and 3½ per cent; that the Public Treasury was disposed to bear a certain amount of the expenditure necessary for the relief of distress in Ireland. Believing that this measure would not only be a great advantage to the Church Fund, but would also promote a friendly feeling towards the Government in Ireland, by showing that there was no intention to provide for distress in Ireland entirely from the Church Fund, but that the Public Treasury would bear its part, he begged to move the Amendment that stood in his name.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 1, line 26, after the word "aforesaid," to add the words "Provided, That the rate of interest to be charged on such loan shall not exceed the rate of one pound per centum per annum."—(Mr. Synan.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, that the present Government had only carried out the engagements of the late Administration. The measure for the relief of distress in Ireland was carefully considered by the late Government, and it was then decided by an overwhelming majority that the funds should be taken from the Irish Church Surplus. The fact that, after deliberate consideration, Parliament came to the conclusion to take the money from the Church Fund, seemed to him to be an argument against re-opening the question. The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Synan) proposed that the money should be advanced at 1 per cent by the National Debt Commissioners. He (Lord Frederick Cavendish) might say that the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt had no funds in their hands which they could legitimately invest at the rate of 1 per cent. It was absolutely clear that they would not be fulfilling their primary duty of properly investing the funds committed to their charge if they invested them in that manner. Moreover, if a precedent of this kind were once adopted, whenever an emergency occurred it would be applied to the case of England and Scotland. He thought there ought to be an overwhelming case before such a course 1468 was adopted. He should, therefore, oppose the Amendment for three reasons. First, that Parliament had already distinctly specified the lines of action to be pursued in meeting the case; secondly, that the National Debt Commissioners had no power to invest their funds at 1 per cent, and that it was their duty to invest them to the best advantage; and thirdly, that it would be establishing an embarrassing precedent for demands not only by Ireland herself but by Scotland and. England.
§ MR. M'COANsaid, that the few words which had fallen from the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish) had not convinced him of the justice of the grounds on which he opposed the Amendment. His own information was not to the effect that the obligations of the last Government extended to the whole of the amount now asked, but only extended to the sum of £750,000, and that anything further than that amount could only be covered by a supplementary Bill, in the nature of a Bill of Indemnity. The Government was now asking them by the present Bill to so indemnify the late Administration for sanctioning loans beyond that amount. The measure of assistance proposed to be given to Irish distress by the Act of last Session was limited to £750,000, advanced from the Irish Church Fund. The Gentlemen with whom he had the honour to act in the present Parliament were, however, willing to condone the grants sanctioned beyond that amount on condition that, if a further sum was now asked, the Treasury should bear its share of the burden. The Government had not as yet contributed one sixpence towards the relief of Irish distress, nor had any argument been offered from the Treasury Bench to justify refusal of such relief from the Imperial Exchequer. In now asking the Government to bear the difference between 1 per cent, at which these advances were made to landlords, and the 3¼ per cent that would have to be paid to the National Debt Commissioners, he did not think they were asking what was unreasonable. In consenting to indemnify the late Government for exceeding its powers, Irish Members might fairly ask that this course should be pursued. He thought that in a national emergency such as the Irish Famine, it was the duty of the Government to 1469 contribute something towards its relief out of the Consolidated Fund.
§ MR. FOLEYsaid, that the Irish Church Fund was the one in which the whole of Ireland was interested; and he did not think that the sum necessary for the relief of the distress of a particular part of Ireland ought to be borne by that Fund. Being a national distress, he thought that the National Funds ought to contribute to its relief.
§ COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, that the Government should come forward and bear a large part of the sum necessary for relieving distress in Ireland by placing it upon the Consolidated Fund. He believed that it would have been money well spent, from an economical point of view, and that it was a great mistake to have allowed, intentionally and willingly, as the late Government had done, the distress to be met by private charity. If the hon. Member for Limerick County (Mr. Synan) proceeded to a division, he should certainly support him.
MR. LYULPH STANLEYmaintained that it was incorrect to say that the National Exchequer had borne no part in relieving distress in Ireland, when it was remembered that £600,000 had been lent for two years without any interest. He thought that it was very unreasonable to try and interpolate into a Bill of this kind, which was an Act of Indemnity, a proposal that the National Exchequer should guarantee the difference between 2 and 3 per cent.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, that the statement that had been made previously that the distress in Ireland had not been relieved from the Imperial Exchequer was strictly accurate, notwithstanding the exception mentioned by the hon. Member. But it should be remembered that the Seed Potatoes Act, although it would be of great use in the coming winter, had not yet been of any assistance in relieving actual distress. It was true, therefore, that the distress in Ireland up to the present had not been relieved to any extent by the Government whatever. He demurred altogether to the statement of the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish) that the last Parliament had sanctioned this expenditure. The last Parliament did not sanction this expenditure. What it did sanction was an expenditure of £750,000. He 1470 contended that they were perfectly justified in asking the present Parliament to re-consider the matter. They were not asking this Parliament to re-consider the question of this expenditure; but they said that if they were bound to ratify the act of the previous Government, this ratification ought to be given at the expense of the Imperial Exchequer. But they ought not to put their hands into the unfortunate, and not very full, pockets of the Irish. What were the facts of this case? So far from the last Parliament having sanctioned the expenditure of the Government, it was exactly the reverse. By an Act of last Session £750,000 was granted for the purpose of making loans to landlords and sundry county authorities. This Bill was passed to ratify the proceedings and orders of the British Government, who found that, so far from the Irish Government having undertaken to advance £750,000, when the Treasury Minute, under which the Notice in The Dublin Gazette was published, only sanctioned the advance of £250,000. The Treasury Minute, after describing the purposes for which the Government were willing to advance the money, went on to say that the Government had. decided to recommend the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland upon the responsibility of the Government to make an advance not exceeding the total sum of £250,000. He thought it should be distinctly understood that, in accordance with these directions by the Treasury, a Notice was issued by the Commissioners of Public Works in The Dublin Gazette of the 3rd January, 1880, distinctly stating that loans not exceeding£250,000 would be granted on certain conditions. The landlords borrowing money were, therefore, distinctly informed that the loan would not amount to more than£250,000. The Government, however, came forward in the last Session and granted an additional sum of £500,000 to the landlords, making a total amount of money authorized of £750,000. There was not the slightest necessity for the further advance, as was shown by the Return moved by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote). That Return showed that up to the 10th of April, 1880, only £354,520 had been sanctioned and ordered to be advanced to the landlords. On the 7th of May, when the present Government came into Office, 1471 it was absolutely impossible that the further sum now asked for could in the meantime have been sanctioned conditionally. He confessed he could not understand upon what ground they were now told, in the course of this discussion, that the Government was morally bound to increase the amount. Originally, the Notice issued by the Government to the landlords distinctly stated that the amount of loan would be limited to £250,000, and that amount was subsequently increased to £750,000. But up to the 10th of April, the amount of loan sanctioned was only £354,520. He could see no excuse for the present Government asking that these loans might be sanctioned. The amount sanctioned by the Act of the last Session was only £750,000, and he could see no reason that they were morally or legally bound, or in any sense bound, to increase that amount. He wished now to make an explanation upon another point. The Government had given them the difference of this money, £200,000, and had taken power, by accepting the Amendment which he introduced later on, to apply a certain sum for the purpose of out-door relief. He thought it was only fair to them to pay interest and principal for such useful purposes out of the Church Surplus Fund. So far as the money at present advanced was concerned, not more than £60,000 had reached the hands of the distressed people, and he could not, therefore, regard the Act as one for the purpose of relieving Irish distress; but by the acceptance of his Amendment the Government had changed the situation, and he should be willing to accept such sums as the Government might advance to the Poor Law Board from the operation of the Amendment proposed by his hon. Friend (Mr. Synan). He was sure that his hon. Friend would be willing to agree to that Amendment. He wished to point out to the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury that the Government were dealing in a most shabby way with Ireland with respect to this distress. Up to the present time the Government had not given a single penny from the Imperial Exchequer for the relief of distress in Ireland. The Government of the Dominion of Canada had given £20,000, and the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. J. Lowther) was not ashamed to accept that amount 1472 and apply it to the relief of distress, although he refused to recommend his own Government to apply a single penny for the same purpose. The Legislature of Canada, one of the States of the American Union, and charitable persons throughout the entire world had subscribed sums for the relief of Irish distress amounting to £300,000, while the rich Government of England had refused to put its hands into its pockets for one single sixpence for the same purpose. He could not but think that the continual perseverance of the Government in that niggardly policy was a discredit to the Government of the country, and he trusted that his hon. Friend would press his Amendment to a division.
§ MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, he rose for the purpose of making an appeal to the noble Lord on the Treasury Bench (Lord Frederick Cavendish) in support of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan), upon the following grounds. It was obvious that the present measure was either one of generosity, or one of pure business. He had understood during the discussion, to which he had listened with great attention, that it was the wish of the Government to behave in the most generous spirit possible in the case of the distress of the Irish people, and, in fact, the Bill said as much as that. Now, he thought it was most unfortunate for the notion to get abroad, as being the true one, that the Government and the people of England and Scotland intended only to be generous so far as it involved them in no cost. He thoroughly admitted the whole of what had been urged by the noble Lord on the Treasury Bench, that a loss must result from the acceptance of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Limerick; but he (Mr. Bradlaugh) begged to submit that that was no sort of objection to a measure of generosity, and he appealed to the Government not to be generous with half a hand. The giving £200,000 for out-door relief took the matter entirely out of any range of discussion that might be bounded by the hard-and-fast rules of political economy. On behalf of an English constituency, which consisted of a very large number of English working men, he thought he should be only doing his duty in asking the Government to allow some loss to fall upon them, rather than that measure of generosity should be misunderstood. 1473 It was possible that the day might come when England or Scotland might have to ask the same favour that Ireland now asked of us. If that unfortunate occasion should ever arise, and either of those countries should be so reduced as for deaths to result from famine, and appeals were made to Ireland, he had no doubt that she, in her turn, would be as generous to the people of Scotland or of England as she now asked the Government in this crisis to be to her.
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, he thought the hon. Members for County Wicklow (Mr. M'Coan) and for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) seemed to be labouring under some slight misapprehension with regard to the sum now sought by the Government to be added to that which had been already voted. The hon. Member for County Wicklow had stated that the late Government were not justified in exceeding £750,000, and that the present Government were not justified, also, in making grants in excess of that amount. He (Mr. Gibson) wished to say a few words with regard to the actual position of affairs in relation to that matter. Under the 9th section of the Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act, passed under the auspices of the late Government, for which they were responsible, and which he might remind the Committee was passed unanimously without a division, the following was the state of the law. Having re-stated fully and without the slightest reserve the contents of the two Circulars of November, 1879, and January, 1880, it proceeded to deal with the instructions laid down in them, by which the Government were enabled, up to the 29th of February, 1880, to allow applications to be made for loans, both by landowners and the sanitary authorities in Ireland. Those applications were allowed to be entertained on the following conditions:—No interest should be charged for the first two years, and the interest thereafter, for the remaining 35 years, was to be at the rate of 1 per cent. The second Circular had words referring to loans not exceeding £150,000, and he supposed that was what the hon. Member for the City of Cork drew attention to; but that was not a condition. That was, briefly, the state of things under the two Circulars and the 9th section of the Act of last Session. All loans made by the Board of Works 1474 in compliance with those Circulars might also thereafter be made, inasmuch as all things done, or to be done, until the 29th of February, 1880, should be valid and effectual, in accordance with the terms and conditions he had read. Furthermore, the applications which had been received in accordance with those terms and conditions they were bound to entertain, inasmuch as the Bill authorizing the grants to be made had not only been accepted by the late Parliament, but adopted without a division, and had since become the law of the land in the same way as if it had been incorporated in the Land Improvement Act. That was, generally stated, the position of the present Government and Parliament in regard to that matter, and the late Government had never shown any desire to flinch from the responsibility which fell upon them in regard to it. When the present Government came into Office they had found that the sum offered under the Circulars had failed to a certain extent on account of not being sufficient, and they therefore, no doubt, decided to introduce a Bill for another sum of £750,000 to be devoted to the same purpose. Originally, it was thought that a much less sum than that first mentioned would be sufficient. First, £200,000 was agreed upon as being enough; it then reached £500,000, and before the Bill left the House it had reached £750,000. The sum required had grown, and, no doubt, grown legitimately, from that first stated to be required to that proposed to be ratified by the second Act of Parliament. For his part, he failed to see how the terms of the 9th section of the recent Act could be reasonably cut down or qualified, and by that section the limit had not been fixed at £750,000. That sum, if considered sufficient by the present Government, would, no doubt, have been adhered to; but it had proved inadequate for the purpose. That being so, the present Government were merely carrying out the obligations cast upon them by the action of their Predecessors and the late Parliament, and he, therefore, thought that discretion ought to be allowed them, as they were in possession of the facts, to say what they considered was a sufficient sum by which to augment that which had been voted by the recent Bill.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he had never hinted that the Government had no power to mate these loans; but he contended that there was no boon in making them. He quite agreed with what had fallen from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson). It was quite true that under the 9th section of the late Act the Commissioners had the power to make advances to the extent of £750,000, instead of £250,000, the sum promised in the Circulars of the Treasury. But his contention was that it was not a boon to issue grants to landowners, other than those granted or sanctioned by the Board of Works up to the 19th April, 1880. According to the Return moved for by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), the amount of loans sanctioned to landowners in Ireland was £354,520. He (Mr. Parnell) contended that it was that sanction that was referred to in the portion of the 9th section quoted by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin, when he intimated that all contracts, express or implied, which had been fully entered into between the Commissioners and any person, or the sanitary authority, respecting any such loans, should be valid and effectual. He would admit that if the Board of Works had entered into contracts up to the time when the late Government left Office to the extent of £1,250,000, the landowners would be, undoubtedly, legally entitled thereto; but, according to the Return of the Board of Works, they had only entered into such contracts to the extent of £354,520; therefore, the present Government could not shield itself if any excess beyond that sum was entered into. He wanted to know what the present Government did under these circumstances? There had been no Return on the subject and no information, although inquiry had been made, and the matter had been frequently alluded to in the discussion on that Bill. There had, he repeated, been no information whatever as to the amount of loans sanctioned by the present Government to landowners. When they came into Office, they had information in their possession to the effect that £354,520 had been sanctioned; but that was not £250,000. He should like to know how 1476 much had been sanctioned by the present Government, and the reasons why they sanctioned any additional sum to that they were entitled to do. The Government had often expressed their disapproval of those large grants, and they had thrown the blame of making such grants of public money, for purposes entirely useless, he must say, on their Predecessors. But the late Government, he contended, was only responsible for the sum of £354,520, sanctioned up to the date when they left Office. They must necessarily exonerate them from any further responsibility, and such responsibility must undoubtedly fall on the present Government.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that, without question, the statement as to the amount sanctioned by the late Government was entirely a mistake. More than £1,000,000 was sanctioned. [Mr. PARNELL said, the Return did not say so.] Perhaps, technically, it did not; but it must be understood that the loans were applied for upon terms which relieved the Government of all responsibility whatever as regarded their sanction. With reference to what had been done since, the Government considered they were only carrying out the actual undertaking made by the late Government, in sanctioning loans to landowners that had been applied for, on the condition of producing the requisite security. The Government had, clearly, no option in the matter. The hon. Member (Mr. Parnell) had asked for a statement of the amount advanced. He (Mr. W. E. Forster) was informed that more than £1,000,000 had been agreed to be advanced, of which a certain amount, in instalments, had already been paid. The hon. Gentleman was, he thought, not correctly giving the remarks which he (Mr. W. E. Forster) had made on a previous discussion. He had not stated that they considered those loans useless, for he never thought for one moment that they would be so.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, what he had meant was that the present Government disapproved of the low rate of interest on the loans to landowners, and had expressed a belief that they were useless for the purpose of relieving the present distress.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that he had stated that it was the lowest rate of interest he had ever heard of for such a 1477 loan. He did not say that he disapproved of it, for he was not sure that employment could be profitably given at a higher rate of interest. He did not recollect having given any definite opinion upon the subject, for he had been aware of the difficulties with which the late Government had to contend. What he chiefly regretted was that there were not more exact conditions with regard to the time in which the money was to be spent, and also as to the mode of employment. But their position was this—they, practically, found that the whole of the applications made before the 29th of February were to be considered as contracts which remained to be completed, provided the conditions were fulfilled and the requisite guarantees produced. In the same way he should have acted in his own business, if he had found a list of applications made to the persons into whose shoes, as it were, he had stepped. Considering that the Government had entered into certain transactions with individuals upon certain terms and conditions, he did not think that those loans could be in any way repudiated or substantially modified. The word "sanction" had a different meaning, as regarded the baronial presentments and the sanitary authorities, because then the loans were more immediately under the eye of the Government. The purpose for which the money was to be used was, in those cases, well ascertained.
SIR STAFFORD NORTHOOTEsaid, he thought it was desirable that he should endeavour, as far as he could, to clear up the position in which the late Government understood that they had left that matter. For that purpose he had particulars before him; but it was not a matter of great consequence what were the particular figures. He could state, generally, what was the principle upon which they proceeded, and what they considered to be the position in which they had left the matter. In the beginning they made an offer, thinking it desirable that landowners should be encouraged to take up money for the purpose of executing works which would furnish employment in the distressed districts; but those offers had failed to produce any large number of applications. Finding that to be so, and being anxious to pursue that line of conduct— he would not argue whether rightly or 1478 wrongly, considering that that line of policy had been proceeded with—they amended their offer, and accordingly offered lower terms of interest and greater inducements to landowners to come forward and make claims, and they stated that the applications were to be received before a certain day—namely, the 29th of February—and, in that case, they would be carefully considered. Of course, those applications had to be examined into. At the same time, they stated that they had estimated what they thought likely to be demanded upon those terms. Well, certainly, they considerably under-estimated the amount. In the first instance they estimated that, probably, £250,000 would be required. Very soon, however, they found that more than that would be required, and they accordingly raised it to £500,000; but, as matters proceeded and applications came in, they found that a still larger sum would be required. When they reached the end of February, the late Government found themselves in this position. Applications had been made very much beyond the amount contemplated, even on the highest estimate, and it became necessary to consider whether they should arbitrarily put a stop to those applications, or whether they should be all considered, and then, if necessary, application should be made to Parliament for further funds. Again, they had been obliged to consider whether it would have been right to proclaim suddenly, in the state in which the country was placed, and in the uncertainty which prevailed, after announcing that applications might be sent in up to the end of February, that they had drawn a line, and that no more applications would be considered; or, again, whether in the case of an application for, say, £1,000, they should grant only a portion of it, which might have the effect of spoiling the work intended to be done. When the late Government considered these difficulties, they came to the conclusion that their proper course, having regard to the distress existing in the country, was not to stop any of the applications, but to take upon themselves to accept them for examination and to consider the propriety of afterwards asking Parliament for such money as the increased number which might be agreed to might render necessary. They knew that when the appli- 1479 cations came in they would be very carefully sifted, and they had calculated that, perhaps, a large number of them would be rejected from their not meeting the proper conditions upon which the grants were to be made. It was not known, therefore, how much of this sum—upwards of £1,000,000—which had been asked for, would upon examination turn out to be really required. Up to the time the Return was made, no doubt, not more than £300,000 or £400,000 had been passed and authorized; but they had so far undertaken to deal with the other applications that they had rendered themselves liable, in honour and good faith, to provide means for advancing as much of the whole of the £1,200,000 applied for as might meet the conditions laid down. He presumed that the examination since made had shown, to a large extent, that the applications were sound and proper, and that it was on that ground the present Government now came forward to make this proposal. It was, of course, open to the Government to say—"We will provide the money by some other machinery;" but he considered the action taken by the late Government and approved by the late Parliament bound the present Government and Parliament, in good faith, to provide in some way or other for the amount now asked for.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, there was an obvious inconsistency in the position taken up by the late Government with reference to the Amendment. The Government had said that the distress was so intense that they found it absolutely necessary to bring in a Bill to increase the original sum obtained from Parliament by another like sum of £750,000. They went further, and, accepting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell), granted £200,000 in aid of outdoor relief; and, going farther still, they took a portion of the Bill of the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power), and said the distress was so intense that tenants must be protected from the consequences of the non-payment of rent which they were not able to pay. If the statement was correct, that the distress was so severe as to warrant those various measures, then he maintained that a case had been made out for aid from the Imperial Treasury. He was inclined to support the Amendment of the 1480 hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) upon the ground that, if it was not accepted, the Church Commissioners might be left in an insolvent condition. He found that they had an available income of about £800,000. On the other hand, they had to pay the National Debt Commissioners £600,000 a-year capital and interest on account of the original advances for commutations. They had also had cast upon them the interest of £1,000,000 for intermediate education, of £1,300,000 for pensions of school teachers, and since that time £1,500,000 had to be borrowed on the security of their income for the relief of Irish distress. Such being the case, he wished to ask the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish) what would be the exact balance, at the present moment, after providing for these demands, in the hands of the Commissioners of the Irish Church Temporalities? Could the noble Lord say that, after the provision for meeting distress in Ireland, the Commissioners had an available balance sufficient to bear the loss inflicted on them by having to meet the difference between 3½ per cent and the 1 per cent? On the ground of finance as well as of policy, he was, therefore, strongly tempted to support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Limerick.
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, the question of security had received the most careful consideration of the Government in consultation with the National Debt Commissioners, who were fully satisfied that the security was sufficient. Again, with regard to the interest, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer had had this question under consideration, in connection with the Savings Banks Bill, and had come to the conclusion that 3½ per cent, instead of 3¾ per cent, would be sufficient interest for the advance, and that the security given by the Church Commissioners was substantial. With respect to the appeal to the generosity of England put forward by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh), the Committee ought not to consider the question as one simply affecting Ireland, but should consider it with reference to the course adopted by that House when the Cotton Famine occurred in Lancashire. If ever there was a case of great distress in England it was that 1481 of the Cotton Famine; but still it was felt at that time that it was not wise to come upon the Imperial Exchequer, and practically interfere with the operation of the Poor Law. Once lay down the principle that, in times of distress you are to come upon the general taxpayers, and you will do far more mischief by your supposed generosity than you would do good. He wished the Committee to understand that, in rejecting the appeal for a grant from the National Exchequer, the Government were not animated by any feeling applying specially to Ireland, but were merely pursuing a policy which had been followed for the last 40 years in all eases of distress. He believed that to reverse that policy would be fatal in dealing with the distress existing in Ireland, which, after all, was not of an exceptional character, and was due simply to the fact that there had been three or four bad harvests.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, he would like to explain to some English Members who might not be aware of it, the exact demand which Irish Members were making upon the Government, and upon which they would probably have to elicit the opinion of the Committee by a division. The money lent under the Relief of Distress (Ireland) Bill was provided, first, by the Commissioners for the Reduction of the National Debt. And while the Church Temporalities Commissioners were authorized to lend money at 1 per cent, they had to pay 3½ per cent to the National Debt Commissioners. He called the attention of the Committee to this statement, because he had just been asked by an hon. Member in the Lobby to give him some idea of the matter under discussion. He was glad that the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) had given them his support on that occasion, and he thought the arguments brought forward by him were very strong. They had heard a fair statement from the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish); but it was not a conclusive statement, although, from the stand-point of one determinedly opposed to the principles of Irish Members, it was not unfair as an argument. With reference to the Cotton Famine, that was, no doubt, a great national emergency; but it had occurred in the centre of masses of wealth acquired in. the cotton industry, 1482 and if the operatives were thrown out of employment, they might fairly be left to the charge of their fellow-countrymen whose great wealth they had contributed so much to amass. He thought the Secretary to the Treasury had not conclusively shown the evil consequences which would flow from meeting a national calamity with contributions from the National Exchequer. The noble Lord had simply laid it down as an axiomatic principle; but which he (Mr. O'Connor Power), so far from regarding it as self-evident, believed to be absolutely false. He had hoped the noble Lord would be prepared to prove his theory, and show exactly how the Poor Law would be superseded. But the argument of the noble Lord was absurd, especially in the case of Ireland, where the life and death of millions was concerned. During the whole time that Ireland had had the misfortune to be governed by an alien Parliament the doctrines not only of political economy, but of constitutional liberty, had been set aside, and appeals had been afterwards made to protect life and property in Ireland by the suspension of personal rights. What greater emergency could arise than the state of national starvation which was now bringing the people of Ireland to the verge of the grave by the sure and speedy agency of famine and fever? He submitted that this was a case of great national emergency, and that the Government should accept the Amendment of his hon. Friend (Mr. Synan).
MR. M'LARENsaid, the Amendment of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) meant, in other words, that the Treasury should lend money to the landlords and other parties in Ireland at the rate of 1 per cent. If the people of Ireland, through their Representatives in that House, desired to lend out their Fund at that rate of interest for 25 years, he had not a word to say against it; but he did not think that the Imperial Funds should be advanced on the same improvident footing, and he should certainly vote against any such proposal. It came to this—after paying 3½ per cent for 35 years, the landlords would practically receive a present of the principal. If the Irish people liked to squander their money in that way, let them have the responsibility of doing so; but he was dead against asking the Treasury to lend under such an improvident system.
MR. GORSTsaid, he agreed with the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren) that the proposal of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) was extraordinary; but the question was, whether they were not extraordinary circumstances that the proposal was intended to meet? In judging of Irish affairs, he thought many hon. Members were much more inclined to judge by what the Government did than by what they said, because, as far as his experience in that House had gone, he believed Governments said almost anything; but when it came to action, and they had to put their views into force by the introduction of Bills, they were tolerably sincere. The Government had proposed extraordinary measures, which they only attempted to justify on the ground of the extraordinary character of the Irish distress. Therefore, it seemed to him that, under circumstances which the Government deemed to be extraordinary, it was not unreasonable for Members of the Committee to propose a grant out of the Treasury. It was clearly a grant in aid of Irish distress which was proposed by the Amendment, and therefore he felt inclined to support it on the ground that extraordinary circumstances must be met by extraordinary measures. He wished to say a word upon another matter that had occurred to him. Were the Irish Church Temporalities Commissioners financially capable of bearing the drain put upon them? And here he agreed with the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), who had pointed out that they were really being asked to embark in a procedure which must drain and impoverish their resources. The hon. Member had asked whether that was the way in which Irish Members wished their funds to be squandered? But it was not the Irish Members, it was the Government, who were proposing to squander those funds in that particular manner; and before they did so the Committee, in his opinion, should have before them the facts necessary to enable them to judge whether, financially, the funds at the disposal of the Commissioners of the Irish Church Temporalities could bear the strain. The noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish) had said that the Government had satisfied themselves that the security offered by the Commissioners 1484 was sufficient. No doubt, that was so but he (Mr. Gorst) thought the Committee also would like to see that the security was satisfactory. They were not yet prepared to hand over all the finance of the country to Her Majesty's Government; and he hoped before the third reading of the Bill, before the matter was finally disposed of by the House, that some further information would be given than the extremely meagre information which the noble Lord had given in answer to his noble Friend (Lord Randolph Churchill). It was quite clear that the Fund of the Irish Church Temporalities Commissioners was nearly at an end, and if the Fund could bear the burden which the Government were now about to put upon it, it would very likely prove to be the straw that would break the camel's back; and though they were close to the very last of the Fund which Parliament had at its disposal, no facts or figures had been laid before the Committee which would enable them to judge whether they were doing right or wrong. He had already suggested that the House should be furnished with an intelligible account of the Fund of the Church Temporalities Commission, in which the assets and liabilities might be clearly shown, in order that they might be able to see whether that Fund would bear the drain that was now put upon it, and in case it would not, that they might have an opportunity of providing the requisite expenditure from other sources. He did not think that his request was an unreasonable one, and he therefore trusted that some sufficient information might be furnished.
§ MR. RYLANDSsaid, that the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Gorst) had charged the Government with squandering the Church Fund. That responsibility, he begged to say, rested with hon. Gentlemen opposite. If the hon and learned Member was anxious to look to some one who was responsible for that business, he should refer him to his own Leader; it was he that was responsible for a transaction which, in his (Mr. Rylands) judgment, was one of the most objectionable proceedings any Government, in his recollection, had ever done. The action of the late Government having ceased, it fell upon the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland 1485 (Mr. W. E. Forster) to carry out the scheme, and that was rendered necessary on account of the official position to which he had succeeded. That right hon. Gentleman had just before pointed out very clearly that the transaction had been a bad business transaction, and that, if he had had the initation of it, a better arrangement would have been made. What was the fact? The right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Northcote) had told them in a few words, what they already knew, that the late Government wanted landowners in Ireland to join them in the operations for the relief of distress, and they accordingly suggested that money should be advanced to them for that purpose upon moderate terms. The landowners stood aside, they held back, because they wanted to get greater advantages, and would not apply for loans until they were offered at terms that made them almost gifts. He objected to that transaction, whether or not the Church Fund could bear it; but they were unable now to alter it. He protested, altogether, as a British taxpayer, against that boon to Irish landlords, or rather that gift, being taken out of the pockets of the English taxpayers. He trusted that the proposition then before the Committee would not be entertained for a moment, and he, for one, regretted that they had been called upon to increase the amount voted to a scheme which, in his judgment, was open to so many serious objections.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, that, as an Irish Member, he could look with impartiality on the discords between English Members in regard to the gift to the Irish landlords. In their position as Irish Members, they were not responsible for that transaction, for the English Members had settled the matter between them. He accepted the proposition which had been laid down by the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish) and the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren); but he arrived at a different conclusion. He agreed with the remarks of the noble Lord as to the inadvisability of giving money from the National Exchequer in aid of the rates; but he would point out to the noble Lord that the question they were then discussing was not whether the money should be paid, but the particular manner in which it ought to be 1486 given. With regard to the remarks of the hon. Member for Edinburgh, he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) fully agreed with him, that to pay money out of the Irish Church Fund was an extravagant and ridiculous proceeding; but he must impress upon the Committee that no responsibility rested with the Irish Members in regard to that matter. That rested with the Imperial Government, whether Conservative or Liberal. The opinion of the Irish Members had been expressed over and over again, that the moneys of the Irish Church Fund ought not to be spent in bolstering up the credit of the Irish landowners. He wished to point out to the hon. Member for Edinburgh that the expenditure they were discussing was a gift of money made by the Imperial Government, in spite of the protest of Irish Members. That was why they contended that the loss of interest ought to be borne by the Imperial Exchequer.
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, that the hon. Member who had just spoken (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had told them that Irish Members were not responsible for that proposal of loans to landlords. He (Lord Frederick Cavendish) must say he could not quite agree with him. He remembered what took took place in that House when the proposal was made, and he believed, unless his memory deceived him, that that proposition was received and passed without a single dissentient voice. ["No, no!"] The hon. Member said, "No, no!" The reports would, no doubt, show whether he (Lord Frederick Cavendish) was right or no. But it was not merely that; but, if he was not mistaken, in the late Parliament the Leader of the Irish Home Rule Party, the hon. Member for County Cork (Mr. Shaw), in discussing the question, stated that—"The Government on the 1st of January, finding those advances under the terms of the November Circular were not taken up, issued another Circular in which more substantial advantages were offered; 1 per cent interest was then offered, and he ventured to say that if that had been done in the first instance, there would have been an amount of employment throughout Ireland almost sufficient to meet the entire case." Taking that to be the representation of the feeling of Irish Members upon that matter, he thought he might say that there was really no question in the 1487 former discussion as to whether the money should come from the Exchequer or the Irish Church Fund. He believed it had been admitted that to relieve the distress from that Fund was a good means to employ to meet the difficulty. He therefore thought that the Members of the Third Party were responsible for what was done. With regard to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), he must say he welcomed those remarks. The Treasury had been assailed from day to day, and subjected to abuse, with regard to those loans, and he was therefore glad to hear him say that they were only carrying out the engagements entered into by their Predecessors. For his own part, he did not believe that the Treasury was at fault in regard to that matter.
§ MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, he was one of the Members who had taken part in the debates on that subject in the late Parliament; and he certainly must say that, in his opinion, the memory of the noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish) was somewhat short in regard to it. He (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) remembered many Irish Members speaking in those debates, and all of them, he believed, protested as strongly as they could against squandering away the Church Surplus Fund in grants to Irish landlords. The fact was, the Irish Members were naturally most anxious to obtain money for the relief of the growing distress, and they said that the late Government had resolved to throw the burden upon the Church Fund, and they could not take on themselves the responsibility of standing between the Government and the relief of the distress in the country. All that could be done by private charity was being done, and they knew that those funds would probably soon come to an end. The hat had been carried round, so to speak, all over the world. His hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had taken scrip and staff and gone to America, in order to raise money there for the same purpose. But all those sources must soon dry up, and they therefore came to ask for further assistance, and they were now treated to a dissertation on the rules of political economy, by which it appeared that Irish distress might properly be relieved out of any Treasury except that of England. They had obtained assistance 1488 from the Government of the Dominion of Canada and from other Governments, and they had heard no objection raised on the score of political economy; but political economy was instantly appealed to as a reason why no grant should be made out of our own Imperial Exchequer. Under the condition of things he had described the Irish Members had been driven to accept the Government proposal; but they had condemned it over and over again, and had expressed their strong conviction that the Church Surplus Fund ought not to be squandered away for such a purpose. He could not admit that a gift to Irish landlords, out of that Fund, was intended for the benefit of the Irish people. It was strictly and properly what the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) had called it—a gift, because, after a certain time, both the principal and interest would be paid off in the easiest way, the landlord would have the full advantage, and the Irish people, to whom, strictly, the money belonged, would receive no permanent benefit from it whatever. Considering the extreme distress that existed—which the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury had admitted—he thought it was not a time when the rules of political economy were to be strictly adhered to. When extreme distress, national distress, was shown to exist in one part of the Empire, it was only just that the Imperial Exchequer should assist in relieving that distress.
§ MR. SYNANsaid, he thought it was due on behalf of the Irish Members to defend them against the accusation which had been made against them with regard to the action of the late Government, in lending money to Irish landlords at the expense of the Church Surplus Fund for 1 per cent. The Irish Members had resisted that proposal on the second reading of the Bill, they had resisted it on going into Committee and divided upon it, and 40 Irish Members voted against it, the whole of the rest of the House being opposed to them. If the Government wanted to give money at 1 per cent, why should they give it at the expense of the Church Surplus Fund? Was it not the duty of the Government to tell Irish landlords that the money was to be had at 3½ per cent out of the Public Treasury? He thought it was unjust, when they had been forced and beaten down in their divisions, and when 1489 they had protested against the proposal in the Bill, to be accused of having been parties to the lending of the money out of that Fund. They never had been parties to that. Ho should like to refer to the real question before the Committee. The hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr. M'Laren), with his usual ability when he came to figures, had exaggerated to an enormous extent when he talked of £750,000 as being asked for by his Amendment. In fact, the sum would be only about £14,000 a-year for the period during which the money was lent at 1 per cent out of the Treasury. What Irish Members wanted was that the Treasury should bear the expense of the difference between 1 and 3½ per cent, which would amount to the enormous sum of £ 14,000! That £750,000 was to come out of the Treasury was altogether an exaggeration; they only wanted £14,000, and he thought that was sufficiently reasonable to be accepted by the Committee.
§ MR. ILLINGWORTHsaid, that the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) was right as to the amount he proposed to charge upon the National Debt Commissioners. Deducting the £200,000 referred to he had made a calculation, and the loss between ½ and 1 per cent would amount to £13,750 a-year. He submitted to the Irish Members that that being so, the sum was a small one, and that the charge would be light, wherever it might fall. He was bound to say that he was surprised at the remarks that had fallen from the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst). In reality, the clause with which they were dealing was an inevitable extension of the powers of the Irish Relief Act of 1880. That Act, which was carried by the late Government, lent a sum of £750,000 to Irish landlords out of the funds of the Irish Church Commissioners. Not only was it an act of the late Government; but it had been admitted by the right hon. Gentleman the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer that morning, that it was a measure of the late Government, and that they were undoubtedly responsible for it in the first instance. He (Mr. Illingworth) could not see, therefore, how the present Government were in any way responsible for it. An appeal had been made on the score of generosity. His opinion was that the original grant was 1490 a great mistake, and nothing could be more unfortunate than making the Irish landlords the medium for relieving distress. If there was genuine Irish distress, the money should have been given through the Guardians, as it would be in this country. In fact, the whole affair was a huge job. He exceedingly regretted that the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell)had not raised a further objection when it was proposed to double the sum to be given to the Irish landlords in order to relieve the distress. He thought it was agreed on both sides that the money granted in the first instance was not effectual for the purpose. If the scheme failed, then he, for one, should deplore ever having consented to make a loan of public money, or that such funds should have been allowed to be tampered with by Irish landlords under such conditions. If they required money, they should have gone into the market for it. But the House was in this position—they had been asked by the Government to supplement the original loan. He appealed, therefore, to Irish Members, that if they had a grievance with regard to that matter, it was scarcely worth while to detain the Committee upon the clause. If it was a question of generosity, the money ought, perhaps, to come out of the Public Funds; but, at any rate, the matter was one that ought to be treated on its own merits rather than on technical grounds. For his own part, he was not sorry that the Irish Church Surplus Fund was coming to a close, as it was, no doubt, the cause of a deal of jobbery; but, he must say, that if they in England had a corresponding fund of that character, it would be grossly unjust to come on the Irish taxpayers to relieve the English. If the English Church were disestablished and a huge fund were available for other purposes, the hon. Gentleman would be entitled to say that that fund ought to be exhausted before the English came upon the taxpayers of Ireland. He could not agree with the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Brad-laugh) as to the willingness of the working classes to pay towards such an object as the distress, when there was a large fund already available. Besides, he thought it would hardly be fair to call upon them to do so, inasmuch as it was a well-known fact that the Imperial Funds were more largely contributed 1491 to by the humbler classes than by the owners of property. He hoped that the Committee would be allowed to proceed with the measure before it.
§ SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEsaid, he agreed with the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Illingworth), that they were not making great progress, and that the amount at stake was so small as scarcely to seem worthy of the amount of time that had been spent in discussing a question of such an amount as £15,000. He frankly admitted that there was a good deal more at stake than the question of that amount. It appeared to him that important principles were at stake; and while he did not complain of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) raising the question on the grounds he had stated, he had felt it was impossible that he could sit still and hear such statements as had been made, and such arguments as they had lately listened to, without protesting against the misrepresentations in which hon. Members had indulged as to the action of the late Government and the late Parliament in that matter, and putting on record a strong protest against the proposal now before the Committee. It seemed to him that they had been rather gratuitously going back upon the discussions which had taken place in the late Parliament, and on the principles embodied in the Act then passed. It was all the more gratuitous to do so, because, at an earlier stage of that very Bill, the same question had been raised, and remarks of the same character as those to which they had just been listening were discussed, and the House came to the conclusion that it was, at all events, desirable to proceed with the measure without renewing those attacks upon the two classes who seemed to be the favourite objects of attack—he meant the late Government and the Irish landlords. He could quite understand that it might be agreeable to certain persons to represent the matter so as to make out that those loan transactions were arranged by the late Government particularly for the benefit, not of the Irish people, but of a particular class, and that an unpopular class— namely, the Irish landlords. He did not think it necessary, then, to enter into the question as to the mode in which the Irish landlords were being treated; but he protested against the manner in 1492 which a measure of last Session was being treated, and that it was grossly unfair, and an entire misrepresentation of the facts of the case, to represent the legislation of last Session as only in favour of landlords. The facts of the case were that the distress had to be dealt with, and that that distress was undoubtedly imminent upon the people of Ireland. At the same time, it was most objectionable, as being contrary to the rules for the general administration of the Poor Law and the rules of political economy, to come forward with grants from the Public Exchequer. He did not believe it would have been possible, even at the worst period of the Irish distress, to have come forward and proposed grants in aid of the poor rates out of the Imperial Exchequer, without raising questions in other parts of the United Kingdom which it would have been seriously difficult to meet. What they found was this—that if they attempted to deal with the matter in that way they would not only be raising awkward questions, but they would also be in danger of demoralizing the people of Ireland themselves, and pauperizing them in a way that was not necessary. It had been urged by many of the best Representatives of the true interests of Ireland that they should—[Mr. BIGGAR: Hear, hear!]—he did not refer to [the hon. Member for Cavan, but to other Representatives—it had been urged that they should take such steps as would secure the people from the demoralizing effect of mere charity borrowed out of the Public Exchequer, and enable them, if possible, to earn themselves the means for subsistence. How was that to be done? They were told that it was wrong to lend money to landlords; but what was the alternative? They had offered sums to the sanitary authorities; but as to doing public works, he had more than once endeavoured to impress upon that House, by the light of the lessons they had received in the Irish Famine of 1847, that in adopting such a course there would have been great danger of doing serious evil. He was sorry to detain the Committee; but he had felt it his duty to place the matter clearly before them. It would have been a bad thing for Ireland if they had taken to the system of public works while a better system was open to them. They found the offer they first made to landlords not 1493 to be successful; but no word could be said by anybody when they limited it to affording facilities in the matter of getting advances. When it became necessary to consider in what way they were to force upon the people of Ireland the acceptance of money for the purpose of giving work, then came the question whether it would be expedient to introduce into that part a different system than that of making advances from the Public Exchequer which had been adopted in other parts of the country. That would have been impossible, or, at any rate, very dangerous. But, at that moment, it was pointed out, and advice reached them from all parts of the country with regard to it, that they had at their disposal a certain Fund, peculiarly an Irish one, which was described, and not unfairly so, as available for the purpose. It was not proposed to trench upon the capital of that Fund, but to borrow from it for the purpose of making advances which would be for the benefit and advantage of Ireland generally. They had acted in the most perfect good faith, and Parliament generally accepted the views which they had taken. He quite agreed there were many Irish Members who would have preferred to take the money from the Exchequer. But, since that, the hon. Member for Cork had come forward and made a proposal that a grant should be made. The late Government had made no such proposal. They had only proposed a loan. But the hon. Member had suggested that the grant should be made from the Irish Church Fund. That being accepted by the Government, it was conceded that the Irish Church Fund could be made use of in a proper way for the relief of Irish distress, and the points of difference were, therefore, rather limited, but not so as to get fully rid of the question whether the late Government used the best machinery or not. The hon. Member, no doubt, would say the work ought to have been done in some other way, and not through the landlords. He had explained why that course had been adopted. But the present Amendment of the hon. Member for Limerick was an attempt to make the Committee go back from the Resolutions of the last Parliament and make those contributions from the Imperial Exchequer. The sum in question was not a large one, but the principle involved was of importance 1494 and of great consequence. He trusted Parliament would pause before accepting an innovation upon the principles which it had laid down, and thought it was the duty of the Government in the maintenance of the true principles of legislation in these matters to stand firm against any proposal to make an advance from the Exchequer of the United Kingdom for this purpose. If the Government gave way they would, in his opinion, be opening the door to most serious inroads. He still hoped they would not do so, because he was satisfied that the concession would tend, not to the advantage, but to the ultimate disadvantage, of Ireland.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, it was necessary to get the Bill through, and that soon, if they were to meet the distress in Ireland. The Government had quite enough before them in considering how they should get a Bill passed which would enable them to do the most that could be done under the circumstances. With regard to the particular clause before the Committee, as he had stated before, their chief reason for asking for the additional sum of £750,000 was that the late Government had entered into greater obligations with respect to loans of money than they originally expected, and these the present Government were obliged to carry out. He quite agreed with the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, that it would be a serious thing to begin to give sums from the Imperial Exchequer for the relief of distress, especially when there were local funds available; but he was not surprised that hon. Members from Ireland took a different view. It was true that there was much difference of opinion upon the question of what was called by some hon. Members bonuses to landlords; but he wished to put it to hon. Members, were they not now in a position to come to a vote? The Committee had not proceeded very far in the consideration of the Bill, they had only reached the 2nd clause, and the Business which Parliament had to deal with that Session was so heavy that, unless the Bill passed through Committee that day, he knew not when it could be taken in Committee again. Of course, if hon. Members still supposed that their side of the case had not been fairly supported, there would be advantage in continuing the discussion; but he did not think it 1495 could be said that such was the case, and for that reason he urged upon them to go to a division at once.
§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, hon. Members and right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House were in the habit of holding up their hands and appealing to Heaven whenever they heard of a proposition to vote money for Ireland out of the Imperial Exchequer. But there was a great case against the Imperial Exchequer in favour of Ireland lost sight of as it appeared to him on the present occasion. He held the opinion that the present condition of Ireland was not due so much to landlord exaction—that was to say, to landlordism in its worse phase—as it was to inordinate Imperial exactions from that country. During the last 28 years the Imperial taxes levied in Ireland had been raised from 3s. in the pound to 5s. 3d. in the pound, and that system had been, in his opinion, if not the sole, at any rate the main, cause of the impoverishment of the country. The Imperial taxation of Great Britain amounted to 2s. 6½d. in the pound on the gross income shown in the Schedules for income and property, while the taxation of Ireland upon the whole income returnable was 5s. 3d. in the pound. When Great Britain, through its Representatives, said that a special Irish Fund was to be made the subject of a particular charge arising out of an extraordinary emergency, and that Ireland had no claim whatever upon the Imperial Exchequer, the question presented itself, what were the grounds for Ireland demanding that this extraordinary charge should not come out of their own special Fund, but from the Imperial Exchequer? He said that the present condition of Ireland was an Imperial subject, and that it was mainly due to the system of extortion under which the Irish people had suffered. For those reasons, he, for one, claimed that the £15,000 should come out of the Imperial Exchequer.
MR. M'LARENsaid, the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) had charged against him grossly exaggerated statements about the amount of interest; but the hon. Member must have forgotten the wording of the clause—
And the Treasury may, if they think fit, from time to time continue their guarantee to the loan and security varied as aforesaid.1496 Then came the Amendment of the hon. Member, providing—That the rate of interest to be charged on such loan shall not exceed the rate of one pound per centum per annum.He did not refer to the annual total amount of interest at all. There was not one word about paying the principal in either of these clauses. The fact was, as ho had stated, that landowners obtained loans on condition that they should pay 3½ per cent for 3.5 years, and then be discharged of all liability for the principal sum.
§ MR. DALYsaid, the distress in Ireland was national in its character and ought to be treated nationally. When he remembered that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, coincidently with removing a tax under which the people of England had groaned for years, had imposed upon his countrymen an additional Income Tax of 1d. in the pound, at a time when they were steeped in poverty, he could not but feel that every Irishman, whether Conservative or Liberal, ought to be a Home Ruler. It was most unfair that the people of Ireland were to have no claim upon the Imperial Exchequer in times of national distress after all the demands made upon them by way of taxation and otherwise.
§ MR. BYRNEsaid, he had much pleasure in supporting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan). If the Chief Secretary for Ireland wished to save time, he would do well to give way in this small matter in favour of a starving and suffering people. The resistance offered to the Amendment savoured more of the character of a pettifogging lawyer than it did of a Minister of this great country, with so large a majority behind him, and representing an Empire whoso ships sailed on every sea and upon whose territory the sun never set. It was unworthy of the Committee to resist so long such a small concession to the just claim of Irish Members with reference to the source from which the fund was to come. He wished to say that there was no Irish Member who had approved of its coming out of the Irish Church Fund. It was "Hobson's choice" with them; they must have it from some source, or the people would starve. The Government appeared to him to look upon Irish questions as if Ireland were not a part of the Empire; but they ought to regard those 1497 questions not from an Irish, Scotch, or English stand-point, but from an Imperial point of view; because Ireland had contributed the services of her sons to the Army and Navy, as well as to every other National Department. It was the bad finance of this country in the past that had brought about the present condition of Ireland, by over taxation and discouraging all manufacturing industry in that country. In the year 1800, when Ireland was absorbed into this country, the National Debt stood at £530,000,000; while, today, it amounted to over £800,000,000. But he would not detain the Committee any longer than to strongly urge the Government to give way in this small matter.
§ MR. BARRYsaid, he protested against attempts to oppose Irish opinion. If his hon. Friend the Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) went to a division, he should have much pleasure in supporting him, unless he heard from the Government some better reasons than had up to that time been advanced against the Amendment. The noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish) had said that the Government had not only to carry out their own arrangements, but also those of the late Government. He saw, by the Return of the 19th April, that the money granted to that date was £354,000. Therefore, he thought that the first reason of the noble Lord had fallen to the ground. Again, the noble Lord seemed to dread the possibility of establishing a dangerous precedent, and said if a similar calamity came upon England and Scotland, it would have a very dangerous effect. He (Mr. Barry) could not exactly follow the reasoning of the noble Lord, that it would be so a dangerous precedent if famine arose in England, and if a large sum of money had been taken from local funds at, say, 1 per cent, that the rate of interest should be supplemented by the Imperial Exchequer. The Irish Members had opposed the Bill from the first, when it was introduced by the late Government, because they believed they could clearly see in it traces of class legislation. They thought that the Irish Famine was of Imperial concern, and should be dealt with out of Imperial Funds. But they were now called upon to consent to a further Vote of £750,000 to be granted out of the Irish Church Fund at 1 per cent interest.
1498 He thought, to use the words of the hon. Member for Northampton, (Mr. Brad-laugh), that the question became one of business or generosity. Now, speaking as a business man, he thought they had stepped over the line of business in proposing to lend money at 1 per cent, and it appeared to him to be a very lame and halting generosity to filch for the Irish Fund a paltry 2 per cent. He trusted the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) would put his Amendment to a division, and that the Conservative Members would join in supporting it.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he did not think the time spent in discussing this question had been thrown away, because to Irish Members it was a very important matter whether £15,000 should be taken out of the Irish Church Fund or not. The Fund in question was the only one they had in Ireland for any purposes. But this sum of £15,000 would be an annual loss to the Fund for purposes which the Irish Members entirely disapproved from the first. It meant, also, a loss to the Fund for purposes carried against their will by a majority of English and Scotch Members. Surely, under these circumstances, when English and Scotch Members insisted upon applying money to purposes disapproved by the Irish Members, they should pay for it out of their own pockets, and not insist upon the Irish people paying for it. If Irish Members could have had their way they would not have devoted one penny of the Irish Church Fund in the way proposed by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. They had introduced certain Amendments indicating the way in which they desired the money to be spent; and so far as the right hon. Gentleman was willing to apply the money in the direction they wished, they were perfectly willing that the interest should be thrown upon the Irish Church Fund. But they objected that money applied against their will, and in accordance with the will of English and Scotch Members, should be paid for out of that Fund.
§ MR. FINIGANsaid, in correction of the statement of the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish), he wished to say that he had himself moved an Amendment in Committee, as well as spoken against the second reading of the Bill. Again, on going into Committee, he had also spoken against lending money to land- 1499 lords for the purpose of supporting them against the interests of the tenants. He had been very much struck with one of the arguments of the noble Lord, in which he said that he considered it a very strong reason for opposing the Amendment that the late Government had accepted the contrary principle. The noble Lord and those who acted with him were not in the habit of expressing outside the House any approval of the principles of the late Government; but he found, when it suited the purpose of their Party, they were willing inside the House to swallow what they refused to digest outside its walls. The action of the Liberal Government, in dealing with that matter, was unworthy of any Government claiming the name of "Liberal." Liberality ought to be tempered with justice and generosity. They had a right to ask that, so far as was consistent with principle, the views of Irish Members upon Irish questions should be taken in preference to the views of Irish officials. He was much struck by one of the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford North-cote). He said that the late Government had the lending of money to landlords pressed upon them; but he did not tell them by whom they were pressed, nor why it was that that Government were chiefly interested in gaining loans for the landlords. Certainly, he had not heard from anyone Member of the Irish Party any arguments adduced in favour of lending money to landlords; because it was the policy of the Irish nation, and the policy of the Representatives of that nation, to get rid of those landlords by fair and equitable means, and there was no desire that they should be foisted upon the Irish people. But the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer also told them that, so far as the principle was concerned, he was opposed to going out of the ordinary procedure of Parliament to charge the money in the manner proposed in the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan). He (Mr. Finigan) had always found that when Irish Members asked for anything, from an Irish point of view, they were referred to the procedure of previous Parliaments; but he thought it was quite time that they ceased to hear of the procedure of previous Parliaments. 1500 So far as Ireland was concerned, they had been too often ruled by the system of the precedents in that House—as, for instance, in the case of the precedent of the Act of Union. He felt it his duty to support in the Division Lobby the Amendment of his hon. Friend; and he trusted that many Liberals, who claimed to be really so, would go with him, and also that many Tories, acting on principle—for they could act on principle quite as well as Liberals—would give their support to the demand of the Irish Members. He could not sit down without alluding to the generous speech of the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh). He had heard many things against the hon. Member's character, but he thought he had shown on that occasion a spirit which self-styled Christians would do well to follow; and he trusted that they would vote in accordance with the principles of justice, and not according to the precedents of misrule.
MR. CHARLES RUSSELLsaid, he did not wish to prolong the debate; but he wished to state why he should vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan). He did not think it advisable that the debate should be prolonged, inasmuch as the case on the part of the Irish Members had been fully and completely put before the Committee, and he was anxious that the Bill should be proceeded with. He hoped, therefore, that the discussion would be soon brought to a close, and that a division would be taken. He thought that, in discussing this matter, there was no necessity for going into the policy of the late Government with regard to the loans they had made. He was most ready to accept the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the late Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir Stafford Northcote), giving full credit for the best motives in what they had done. With regard to the question whether or no the loans should be made from the Exchequer, they had heard reasons from the Front Benches why loans of public money should not be made at that rate of interest. He himself was not sufficiently conversant with the question to understand whether those reasons were forcible or satisfactory or not; but he would remind the Committee that that was only a technical question. The real question before the Committee was— 1501 was the distress, was the famine in Ireland to be treated or not as a matter of merely Irish concern or of national concern? Was it, or not, a case in which the people of this country, to which that country was united, should help by taking money out of the purse to which they— the Irish—had also contributed, in order to relieve the distress which was and ought to be regarded as of national concern? He could not but think that it was a matter in which the Government might easily make a concession; for he could see no reason why an Amendment should not be adopted by which the Consolidated Fund would indemnify that of the Church Surplus for the loss it must otherwise sustain.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he wished to say a few words; but he did not wish to prolong the discussion unnecessarily. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members who expressed their hilarity, should recollect that he had not yet spoken in that debate. There was no point that had arisen in the discussion which had not already been ably advocated by his Colleagues; but he felt it incumbent upon him to protest against the attempt of the present Administration to throw responsibility upon the Irish Members with regard to the original acceptance of the principle of giving loans to landlords as a means of relieving the distress. They had protested, all of them, against the adoption of that principle, when the Bill was first brought in. He, himself, when the second reading came on, put on the Notice Paper a separate Amendment, for the purpose of tying up, as far as possible, the hands of the landlords so that they might not be able to misuse those loans. They were against giving them loans in the first place, and when obliged to yield to the formidable majority that the late Government possessed, they did their utmost in Committee to minimize the evils contained in the proposal. His Amendment was that no portion of any loan should be expended in connection with consolidation exceeding the value of the holding of the land, and it also sought to provide that no landlords effecting other loans by means of those loans should be allowed to charge a higher rate than that contained in the Government proposal. They had, in fact, first objected to the proposal altogether, and then sought to restrict, as far as possible, the 1502 capacity for misusing it. He could not but think that it was singularly inconsistent on the part of the present Government to renew that principle of giving loans to landlords, because he would venture to point out that, in fact, while the Government was thus proposing to offer landlords an opportunity of incurring liabilities, they were obliged at the same time to bring in what he would call a Crisis Bill—the Compensation Bill—in order to diminish the capacity of landlords to meet their liabilities. Of course, hon. Members need not vote for that Bill; he only referred to it in order to show the singular inconsistency of the Government, when, with one hand they were asking landlords to take loans, and with the other hand obliged, in consequence, as a set-off, to restrict the power of the landlords from calling in such loans as they themselves had made. He was unable to congratulate the Liberal Administration on grafting Conservative measures upon a Liberal policy; but he wished to join his voice in protesting against this matter being treated in the way it was, instead of being made a question of Imperial necessity, and against the whole loss being made to fall upon overburdened, despised, and impoverished Ireland. He certainly sympathized with the position of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell) who had just addressed the Committee. He had expressed his surprise at the line the Liberal Government were pursuing. The Government, it appeared to him, (Mr. O'Donnell) spoke of them as a united people, when any measure for assisting to carry burdens was before the House; but they were treated in a very different way and altogether separately, when it was found that there was a question before the House by which they could be deprived of the advantages to which they would otherwise be entitled.
§ Question put.
§ The Committee divided: Ayes 58; Noes 184: Majority 126.—(Div. List, No. 38.)
§ MR. DALYsaid, he begged to move the Amendment which stood in his name. In page 1, line 26, at end, he proposed to add—
Provided always, That in view of the want of employment of the labouring classes, and the 1503 consequent distress in certain districts in Ireland, the time for completion of works by owners of land already sanctioned, or of such other works as may hereafter he sanctioned, he limited to the thirty-first day of May one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one.He thought it would be the means of making the landowners feel that that House was strongly of opinion that many of the labouring classes should be provided with immediate employment. There was, at present, no recognition of the fact that immediate employment should be given, and the only practical way was, he thought, to annex a term in which the contract must be completed. There could, he thought, be no hardship in compelling the landlords to complete the work by a given time. They were not to be charged any interest for two years, so that, in point of fact, they got the money for nothing, subject only to a future charge for interest. Therefore, the intentions of the Legislature would be best fulfilled by compelling the landlords to execute such works as had been sanctioned within a given time. They ought not to lose sight of the fact that, in case of a bad harvest, a large number of persons would be anxious to work in the autumn. The present condition of affairs was most peculiar; there was no ready money going, nor any credit obtainable by small farmers or labourers. The condition of things was similar in all the distressed districts; men who used to be able to get credit for £2, £3, £5 or £6, could get none at all now. He was not one of those who thought that the wants of the people would be best met by giving them eleemosynary relief. There could be no more direct way of assisting the labouring man than by giving him employment. The Government, in accordance with its benevolent intentions, had placed large sums of money in the hands of landlords on very easy terms. He wished to remind them that not a sixpence would be added to the charges upon those loans by stating to the landlords that they had received money for which they would be charged nothing for two years, and that all the Government asked in return was that they should give immediate employment, inasmuch as that was the purpose for which the money had been granted. He was anxious for the Bill to become law, and he recognized the motives of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland in pushing on with 1504 it. He would not delay the Committee any longer, but move the insertion of his Amendment in the clause.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 1, line 26, at end, to add, "Provided always, That in view of the want of employment of the labouring classes, and the consequent distress in certain districts in Ireland, the time for completion of works by owners of land already sanctioned, or of such other works as may hereafter be sanctioned, be limited to the thirty-first day of May one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one."—(Mr. Daly.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
§ MAJOR O'BEIRNEsaid, that, in the case of the first grant of money, no limit had been placed as to the time during which it was to be spent. This Amendment placed a limit at the 31st May, 1881. He had always thought that some such limit should be inserted in the Bill, and he therefore hoped that the Amendment would be accepted.
§ MR. VILLIERS STUARTsaid, he begged to state that, as an Irish landlord who had himself taken out a considerable loan, he fully approved of the principles of the Amendment. He thought it was only fair that a limit should be fixed, in order to secure the money being used for giving employment within the period that it was needed, and thus relieving distress. For his own part, the only alteration he would suggest was that that limit should be fixed at next year's harvest, instead of May, 1881.
SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFEsaid, he agreed with the principle that the money should be spent as soon as possible for the purpose of affording immediate employment; but there was a kind of works upon which it was impossible to place more than a certain number of men. Tunnels and drainage works were instances of the kind, and to limit their completion to a certain date would practically put a stop to them altogether. For that reason, it was desirable to add some words to the Amendment which, if it was carried in its present form, would have the effect of putting a stop to useful works and throwing away the money advanced.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the powers sought to be enforced by the Amendment were already given by the Act of 1505 1862. The limit when small works were undertaken was one year, while for larger works two and three years were allowed. The time necessary for completion, of course, depended on the nature of the operations, and it would be seen to be quite impossible that a number of large works could be finished within the time suggested by the hon. Member (Mr. Daly). Again, with respect to the greater number of the works, the time allowed for their completion had been provided for in the bonds executed by the parties to whom the loans had been made.
§ MR. DALYsaid, he considered that a grave omission had been made in the Bill, in not appointing an early day for the completion of works on which money was advanced. In the face of the motive for early completion, it was, in his opinion, the imperative duty of the Government to compel the money borrowed to be laid out within a period which would bring food and wages to the working classes.
§ SIR H. HERVEY BRUCEsaid, he thought, if the Amendment were carried, it would remove some of the objections which had been made both to this Bill and that of the late Government, on the ground that the money was being advanced simply for the benefit of the landlords in Ireland. The money was intended to be spent during the distress. It might be complained that there had been some slight broach of agreement, if the Amendment were adopted; but he did not expect there would be, and if that should happen it could, no doubt, be very easily got over. As the money was advanced under special circumstances, and at an exceptional time to the landlords, he thought that, perhaps, the matter might be rectified by the money being advanced at the rate originally intended, if the works were not completed within the time mentioned in the Amendment of the hon. Member (Mr. Daly). He should vote for the Amendment.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he wished there had been some period fixed in the original Bill; but it was the duty of the Government to keep faith with those who had applied for loans. He would like to hear the interpretation of those who made the bargain with reference to this point.
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, he thought the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Daly) had 1506 spoken with sufficient clearness on the subject. He thought the reasonable course was to leave the matter over for Report, and, in the meantime, the Government could consider how far the contracts had been entered into. That proposition would not injure any interest. There could, however, be no doubt that adding terms to a contract already entered into might be a breach of faith. Having regard to the character of the works, he thought it might be assumed that they could be speedily executed, and if the matter were allowed to stand over for Report, it would give the Member for Cork and the Government time to look further into the subject. The right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law) had referred to one of the numerous statements that regulated and controlled the management and spending of these grants, which was a strong reason for postponement, in order to allow the hon. Member for Cork to look into the Act in question. In the meantime, it might be considered by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland how far contracts had been entered into by those who had borrowed money for the completion of alterations. It would be unfair that the borrowers should take up money at a certain date, and then that an Act of Parliament should be passed, saying in effect, notwithstanding the arrangement entered into at the time the money was advanced we will make a new one. It was usual for loans made by the Board of Works to be spread over five instalments, and it was, he believed, provided that the first should be advanced on the 31st July.
§ MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, there could be no more important Amendment than that before the Committee, so far as the present Bill was concerned, because the whole of Ireland was studded with incomplete works under the charge of the Board of Works. He, himself, knew of many cases in which loans had been advanced, while the works intended to be executed had remained unfinished for years. The Committee would do well not to be misled by some of the arguments which had been advanced upon the subject. The Act of 1862 did not apply to these loans in the sense in which it had been applied by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law). That 1507 Act enabled the Board of Works to make advances, and fixed times for the completion of the works contemplated. But those periods had not been adhered to. That had been found out by the Committee, on which he sat, to inquire into the operations of the Board of Works. But there was, moreover, this extraordinary anomaly in the argument of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. It appeared that the reason why this enormous sum of £1,500,000 was called for to be advanced was that contracts had already been entered into. But, if that were so, how could anybody argue that the Act of 1862 was to regulate the completion of these works? He had never believed that the present Government were under any obligation whatever to carry out the quasi-promises of the late Government. He had already stated that he considered the thing to be wrong, and had since met with nothing which had caused him to alter his opinion. But, having done the act, they ought to be careful that the works should not be left in an unfinished condition. He was not at all willing that the subject of the Amendment should be postponed; hon. Members knew well what that meant. He was not particularly anxious that the date of limitation should be the 31st May; indeed, he thought it would be better to give a longer period, and suggested that the end of October should be the time fixed. His hon. Friend would probably not object to the extension of the period named in his Amendment; at the same time, some period should be fixed for the completion of the works. But he wanted to know in what way borrowers were to be compelled to complete their works? The Government could be compelled to advance the money to the landlords; they advanced it in instalments, and took precautions that a portion of the works should be completed by the 31st July, before the borrower could get the second instalment. And there was also the provision, in the former Act, that the third instalment would not be advanced unless the second had been used when that became payable. But there was no power beyond that. What he asked was to prevent a landlord obtaining three instalments, and never applying for the fourth at all. Enormous sums of money had been spent in that way under the Board of Works in Ireland 1508 that were absolutely useless because they had not been completed. Again, the Government had given no strength to the Board of Works, but had put upon that overcharged Department the superintendence of the expenditure of £1,500,000 before they had even given them the means of overtaking their ordinary work, and, at the same time, they asked the Irish Members, the trustees of a Fund for the use of the Irish nation, to sanction the action of the Board. He hoped his hon. Friend would press his Amendment, and not wait for the Report.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he thought his hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) was rather confusing the landlord loans with the presentments of the baronial sessions. The late Government had thought they would get rid of some of the danger of useless works by putting it on the landlord to borrow money for works useful to his own interest, and, accordingly, they laid down the condition that the first instalment must be spent before the second instalment could be obtained. Whether his hon. Friend the Member for Galway was right in his estimate of the Board of Works or not really did not affect the matter in hand. He (Mr. W. E. Forster) quite understood the feeling of the hon. Member that it was a bad thing to encumber Ireland with unfinished public works. But the works referred to were not of a public character. They were private works. And the object of the late Government was to get landlords to undertake private works in order to give employment. He believed this was the whole meaning of the loans to landlords. The right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law) had referred to the Land Improvement Act of 1862. Now, the conditions on which these loans were made to the landlords included a lower rate of interest; but otherwise they were on the same conditions. Therefore, the clause of that Act relating to the period of time for completion of works did apply to the present loans. He entirely and absolutely agreed with the object of the Amendment; but he felt it would not be right to assent to the alterations proposed until he had an opportunity of ascertaining the opinion both of the late and present Attorneys General as to how far the Government 1509 could insist upon the execution of the works within the appointed time. He thought the point might be fairly left over for consideration until the Report.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that, perhaps, under ordinary circumstances, they might best meet the convenience of the Government and of Irish Members who desired an important matter to be settled in Committee by postponing the consideration of the clause, because it was quite clear that if it got out of Committee the Irish Members would lose a great deal of their power over it. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had expressed his hearty concurrence with the object of this Amendment, and the postponement of the clause would give him full time for further consideration as well as keep the clause still under the control of the Irish Members. He therefore suggested that the clause should be postponed.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, it was not possible to frame the clause that day. He appealed to hon. Members to remember that the Committee had been occupied for six hours, and now it was proposed to postpone the clause. That proposal meant really that they were to make no progress at all. It meant, further, that they would be obliged to put off the expenditure of the £45,000 until late in the year. He had not the slightest desire to stop the expression of opinion upon the subject of the Amendment; but it was rather too bad to ask for the postponement of the clause.
THE CHAIRMANpointed out to the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell), that the clause having been amended could not be postponed.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he had not moved, but merely suggested, the postponement of the clause. For his own part, he was quite satisfied with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he could not entirely agree with the advice of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland that the Committee should hurry through his Bill for the reasons stated by him. They had seen how much mischief had been done in the last Parliament by the hurried legislation which had taken place with reference to the relief of Irish distress. The various points now raised had been dictated by the experience gained since that time. It was rather unsatisfactory to be told 1510 by the Chief Secretary for Ireland that unless the Bill were passed through Committee that evening he did not know when he could again bring it forward, and that, in consequence, a number of benefits would be lost to Ireland. But there was nothing to prevent the right hon. Gentleman agreeing to the loans to Boards of Guardians; and so far as the Fishery Piers and Harbours were concerned the amount of £45,000 was a very insignificant sum, and one which ought to have been considered outside this Bill. He had himself urged upon the Chief Secretary for Ireland the desirability of such non-contentious matters being dealt with in a separate measure. The right hon. Gentleman, however, had not thought proper to agree to that suggestion. For his own part, he was unwilling to surrender his right of discussion for the purpose of getting the £45,000. He would further point out that the Amendment had been down on the Paper for a fortnight; and it was somewhat unsatisfactory that one of the Law Officers of the Crown, the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland, who, he (Mr. Parnell) thought was not over - burdened with work, had not considered it and given the Committee the result of his consideration. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had told the Committee of the Act of 1862, and that under it bonds had been entered into. But did he know to what extent the £1,500,000 proposed to be lent by this Bill had been dealt with in those bonds? Again, did he know the terms adopted by the Board of Works under the powers of the Act of 1862, if they limited the works to one, two, or three years? Of course, information upon these subjects was exceedingly valuable, and was very much desired by the Committee for their guidance. Seeing that the Amendment had been on the Paper for a fortnight, it must have been evident to the right hon. and learned Gentleman that a discussion would be raised as to the terms of the bonds which had been entered into. He could not help thinking that the right hon. and learned Gentleman ought to know what terms had been agreed upon. If the Committee were supplied with that information, he could not see why they should not proceed to deal with the subject at once. However, in the absence of that information, he did not think it 1511 desirable to postpone the question until Report; because, as it was difficult to obtain from Government reasons why they were honourably bound with reference to this sum of £750,000, they might on Report be unable to furnish reasons why they were honourably bound not to accept the terms of the Amendment. He thought the Committee was entitled to some further information, and would suggest either that the Amendment should be accepted at once, power of alteration being reserved to the Government, or that the clause should be withdrawn; and as it was obvious that the stage of the new clause could not be reached that night, it might be brought in as a new clause a few days later, or whenever the Government wished to take the Bill again in Committee, He preferred that course to postponement until Report, which simply meant a foregone conclusion.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he hoped the Bill would be allowed to pass through Committee that day. He did not think it was necessary to postpone the consideration of the clause because the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Daly) was not at once accepted. He (Mr. W. E. Forster) was most anxious that there should be a limitation of time, if it could be fairly come to; any man in his position would, of course, desire it, so that the loans might be as useful as possible. He could assure the hon. Member (Mr. Parnell) that the fullest opportunity would be given on Report for discussing the matter, and he hoped they might then get on through the Committee stage. The hon. Member must for the present put aside the question of the Fishery Piers, though, certainly, an immense amount of representation had been made about them, and there was, no doubt, much greater interest taken in the matter than hon. Members were aware of. When the hon. Member talked of terms with Boards of Guardians being made, he must be aware that it was impossible that they could delay administering the law, according to the terms of the recent Bill, by making the clauses now proposed retrospective. He was much obliged to the Committee, who, it seemed to him, were willing to proceed with the Bill, and he did not think he was asking much in saying that that matter should be allowed to stand over 1512 for Report. He would go further, and say that any appeal made by any hon. Member coming from any part of the Kingdom, with regard to that matter, should be fairly considered.
§ MR. DALYsaid, he fully recognized the value of what the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster) had said, and he was deeply impressed with his anxiety to do good. He would only say that he would put himself in his hands; he had no wish to oppose, but, on the contrary, a great desire that the Bill should become law. But he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman with regard to one point. A large portion of the works the right hon. Gentleman's Government had received as a kind of legacy, and, of course, in good faith, ought to be attended to. Those works had been assisted by loans to which no limitation of time was annexed, and they now sought to bring about some limitation. Would the right hon. Gentleman take the matter into his consideration?
THE CHAIRMANDo I understand that the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Daly) wishes to withdraw his Amendment?
§ MR. DALYsaid, he was anxious to take any course that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland thought best. Perhaps, on Report, when he brought up his Amendment, he should amend it by leaving out the words "already sanctioned."
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he did not wish that there should be any misapprehension. He did not think that the words had much to do with it. They considered that, as Notices had been sent out on the 1st of November and 12th of January, they might rely on the loans being employed in accordance with the terms of those Notices. He had already stated that he thought the term "sanction" had a different meaning with regard to the landlords as compared with the baronial presentments and sanitary works. In those cases, the sanction lay in the fulfilment of the conditions. He could honestly say that, with regard to the inconvenience they had been put to in keeping faith and, making conditions as to time, he was very much strengthened in his opinion by the remarks which had fallen from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the late Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson).
THE CHAIRMANDo I understand that the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Daly) wishes to withdraw his Amendment, and bring it forward hereafter as a new clause?
§ MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he should like to say a few words before the Amendment was withdrawn. He was willing that it should be postponed; but the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster), in his recent remarks, had referred to those of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the late Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson). He wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman refused to take the responsibility, as he understood him to say that they would accept the Amendment provided that the Law Officer of the late Administration agreed with them that they could do it in good faith? He should like to know what were those arrangements, that they so perpetually heard of, as having been made with the landlords, arrangements which did not seem to be contained in any public documents, or, at any rate, in those sanctioned by the late Act? The Circulars of November and January sanctioned certain uses of public property; and now they were told that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster) could not act for himself, but that he must appeal to the late Attorney General for Ireland as to certain arrangements which had been made with landlords which could not be broken. He (Mr. Mitchell Henry) knew how it would be; ho dare say that hon. Gentleman would be impatient in discussing that matter, because it was not their money that was to be expended—it was the money of the Irish, and not that of the Imperial Exchequer. He knew perfectly well what would happen—half of those works, and more than half, would never be completed at all, so that that expenditure would be rendered almost worse than useless. He was well acquainted with the way in which things went in Ireland, and he knew that that would be so. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland himself stated that he thought the Board of Works had no right to make conditions with landlords, but only with the sanitary authorities. No 1514 doubt, the sanitary work would be completed under the superintendence of the Local Government Board; but it appeared that the landlords would be able to do what they liked with their advances. He thought, unless they had some further assurance from the right hon. Gentleman that some means or other would positively be adopted to insure the completion of works of that kind, it would be the duty of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Daly) to press his Amendment.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he should be happy to give the assurance called for if he were able to do so. It was not the business of the Government to insure that those landlords who had borrowed money should complete the works. What they obtained from the landlords was the employment of the people, and he was not aware that Irish landlords were the only class in whom not the slighest degree of trust could be placed to look after their own interests. After having borrowed the money in order to make works, it would be to their interest to finish those works. The money paid to them, and the low rate of interest, would be by no means useless. He thought it was a most dangerous principle to lay down that, having lent that money to private persons that they might employ people for the public good, they should be called upon, and the responsibility should be thrown on them, of seeing that the works were finished. With regard to what his hon. Friend (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had stated about avoiding responsibility, he could assure him that it was not their intention in the slightest degree to do so. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the late Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) had made a bargain, and they should, no doubt, adhere to the terms of it as strictly as they could. His hon. Friend had, two or three times, referred to public documents. Those public documents, or rather the terms of them, were contained in the 9th section of the Belief of Distress (Ireland) Act. The documents themselves were the Circulars issued to the Commissioners of Public Works in November and January, by which they were authorized to make loans to landlords. They considered them fully binding, and they were unable to depart from their terms. If it had not been for that, the present Bill 1515 would probably not have been laid before the Committee.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he rose because he thought the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland was, quite unintentionally, a little unfair in regard to this matter. [Cries of "Agreed!"] Hon. Members might be agreed; but they were not all agreed. He objected, as an Irish Member, to being interrupted by hon. Gentlemen who were responsible, only technically, by that unfortunate Act of Union. The hon. Members on his side of the Irish Party fully recognized the spirit of kindness with which the right hon. Gentleman approached the subject. What was quite patent was the great lack of information possessed by hon. Gentlemen on the Government Benches in regard to this matter. If the right hon. Gentleman himself gave them a certain amount of guarantee then, they knew that when the subject was brought forward on Report the information with which he would be furnished would be little more than the opinion of a number of Irish officials. If there was a statement which, by consent of all Parties, was regarded as unfavourable and unreliable, - it was that of the Irish officials. Under all the circumstances, all they pleaded for was more information, and they should like to have the opportunity of pointing out to the right hon. Gentleman what, in their opinion, was reliable information. He certainly thought that it would be a good thing if the information of Irish officials could be corroborated or supported by independent Irish Representatives.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, that, according to those who had been critizing the working of the Act in Ireland, it seemed to be in a sad plight. He thought that the word "bargain" was an unfortunate one to introduce. He did not recollect whether the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had used that word, or another hon. Gentleman. If the Board of Works were lavish in giving money to landlords, they should bear in mind that by the Act that money was only to be advanced in instalments, and the second instalment was not forthcoming until a certificate had been produced that the money of the first had been expended. That was a sufficient guarantee. He thought, with regard to the period that remained, the limitation 1516 might be inserted as regarded the time during which the money was to be expended; but he thought the landlords and tenants might be trusted to receive the money even without those terms. He believed that the hon. Member for County Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) sat on a Departmental Commission of the Board of Works, and he ought to be aware that these were public documents and not "bargains." He (Mr. Callan) apprehended that there was no such thing as private bargains of that nature, and that there was no arrangement between the landlords and the Board of Works which was not public. Of course, on the other hand, such documents need not be open to everyone.
MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, he would venture to express his opinion that there was a substantial agreement as to the mode of procedure with reference to that Bill, and that hon. Gentlemen should not get up and delay the Business by the introduction of irrelevant matter. If, on every opportunity that presented itself, they were going to discuss the general principles of the Bill, he saw clearly that no substantial progress would be made. He had reason to complain, for there was a difficulty in following the question. He should like to know whether the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Daly'), who had moved the Amendment, and the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster), agreed upon any point before the Committee? Was there an arrangement between them? His impression was, and, in fact, he had understood, that the right hon. Gentleman had made an offer which his hon. Friend had accepted. How was it that they had not advanced a single inch since? He appealed to the Chairman to exercise his undoubted authority not to allow them to sit on until the Sabbath morning listening to such irrelevant remarks as had just fallen from the hon. Member for the County Louth (Mr. Callan).
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he should like to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law) whether he could then give them the information for which he asked a short time since? First, as to the number of bonds entered into between 1517 the landlords and the Board of Works under the previous Act of 1862. Secondly, the amount of money covered by those bonds. Thirdly, the term of years covered by each class of bonds— for he had understood that there were different terms for the different classes of bonds. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman could give him an answer at the next Sitting it would do quite as well.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, he could not now enter into the details of the matter; but, at the same time, he had no wish to withhold any information. As he had already mentioned, the Commissioners were empowered to limit the time of the execution of the works for which the loans were granted; and, accordingly, the bonds given by the landowners as security for the advances provided for the execution of the works in a given time. In reply to the questions of the hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork, he begged to say that it appeared that the number of landowners to whom loans were granted was 1,590, and the amount of capital represented by those loans was upwards of £1,000,000. He assumed that the regulations of the Board of Works were sufficiently stringent, and that they had taken care, before the issue of the first instalment, to take bonds for double the amount of the entire loan. Assuming this to be so, the 1,590 gentlemen who had thus borrowed money had entered into bonds by which they bound themselves, not only to repay the advances, but also to execute the works within limited periods. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster) had told them that a very large number had borrowed small sums; and in all such cases the completion of the works was, no doubt, required to be within one year.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster) if he was aware, with reference to the late Act, that these Notices were based upon the Notices in The Dublin Gazette of November and January? He hoped that the right hon. Gentleman would be able, on the next occasion that they discussed that clause, to tell them the terms with regard to the payments of the instalments, and whether it was 1518 true that the second instalment, for instance, could not be given until the first was certified as having been expended in the manner intended? He believed that hon. Members were very much in the dark with regard to these loans to landlords.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, he would answer the question of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar). The Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland were authorized to pay the landowners their advances by instalments, subject to certain conditions. The interest, after two years, was at the rate of 1 per cent, and the borrowers were required to give security, by bonds, in double the amount of the entire loan. If they failed in any one particular of the contract, no further sum would be advanced to them on the present favourable terms.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. BIGGAR,in moving, as an Amendment, in page 1, line 26, at end, to add the words—
Provided, That no further loan be granted to owners of land after the passing of this Act except in cases where the Commissioners of Public Works had sanctioned such loan previously to the seventh day of May, one thousand eight hundred and eighty,said, in November last the late Government made an offer of loans at cost price to landowners. Again, in January, they offered them loans to the extent of £450,000, specifying that sum in the Notice. However, it seemed that the response to that offer was the application for a large number of loans. Then, in February last, the late Government introduced a Bill that proposed to lend a sum not exceeding £500,000. They then proposed to amend the Bill, and make the amount to be lent £750,000. The Committee had been told that day that the clause containing this provision had been passed without controversy or opposition. He wished to state that it was not passed without controversy, although it was ultimately passed without a division, after a number of Amendments had been put forward. One of the provisions of the clause was that a sum not exceeding £750,000 should be lent to the landlords. Irish Members had objected to the giving away of so large a sum of money; but they could not help 1519 themselves, and the result was the Bill passed into law. A new Government had since come into power, and many new Members had taken their seats. That new Government said—"We think the late Government made a most absurd arrangement, and having, first of all, by Act of Parliament, obtained authority to lend a certain sum of money in a very objectionable way, they have, in addition to that, contracted to lend a very much larger sum, and wish now for an indemnity." But the present Government were now not only indemnifying the late Government for what they did illegally, and beyond the statutory powers conferred by Act of Parliament, but seemed also disposed to go on lending money in the same way. Of course, if they did not intend to do so, he should not press his Amendment. He had heard that only a small proportion of this money went in relief of the distress in Ireland, and that the landlords got the money. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford North-cote) had stated that during the early stages of this plan for lending money to landlords he obtained the best information on the subject. But Members of the present Government should bear in mind that the best authorities they could get were the public statements of hon. Members from Ireland made in that House, which were the expression of the opinions of their constituents, and, consequently, of great value. He begged to move the Amendment of which he had given Notice.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 1, line 26, at end, to add the words, "Provided, That no further loan be granted to owners of land after the passing of this Act, except in cases where the Commissioners of Public Works had sanctioned such loan previously to the seventh day of May, one thousand eight hundred and eighty."—(Mr. Biggar.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, the Government had taken no responsibility whatever beyond that which awaited them on taking Office, when they found applications for loans made up to the 27th February, which they thought ought to be complied with upon certain conditions laid down by the Act of last Session. He could not agree to the Amendment.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, the Act of February last had been passed through the House under great pressure, with the representation that it was very desirable, in order to meet the urgent distress in Ireland. If those persons who made applications for loans in February last were not able or willing to fulfil the conditions imposed by the authorities up to May last, they had, in his opinion, forfeited all claim to the consideration of the Government. It was unreasonable to ask the Committee to agree to a one sided transaction. He should certainly not withdraw his Amendment. Up to the early part of May something under £1,000,000 of this money had been really arranged for—that was to say, the landlords had fulfilled the conditions imposed by the Government; and he held that any landlord who had not, up to the present, fulfilled those conditions, was not entitled to relief under this Bill.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, there was a Return published under date the 18th March, in which it was stated that the amount sanctioned up to the 19th April was £354,520. That was just before the present Government came into Office, and he did not see why the Government should have gone on sanctioning fresh loans, believing, as they did, that this application of money was not all that it might have been. Now, it appeared to him that the Act of last Session distinctly referred to the Notice of the 12th January, issued by the Commissioners of Public Works, the obvious inference from which was that the Government were not bound to sanction loans to a greater extent than £250,000 until the Act of last Session was passed. It was admitted that the previous Government had not sanctioned loans to a greater extent than £400,000or£500,000. What the present Government wanted was a sanction for their conduct with reference to this matter in continuing to sanction expenditure. They said they were morally bound to expend this sum of £1,500,000. It seemed that there was no control whatever over the proceedings of the Irish Government, and that when anything was done, all that was necessary was for the Chief Secretary for Ireland to say that he felt himself bound in some way or other; and that was all the satisfaction that could be had with reference to the applications for this money. If his hon. Friend (Mr. 1521 Biggar) went to a division, he should vote for his Amendment. It was a monstrous thing to place a charge upon the Irish Church Fund which was not applied to the relief of distress in Ireland.
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, when the Government came into Office he felt it would be a breach of faith not to complete the loans in question. He could only state that the honour of the Government was involved in this matter, and they must adhere to the arrangement entered into with those landlords who had fulfilled the conditions required by the Notice and Act of Parliament.
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, it was but right to say he entirely concurred with what had fallen from the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish). The landlords were told that if they complied with certain conditions, the Government would be willing to comply with their obligation to make the loans. The landlords having submitted to those conditions, putting it on the lowest ground, it would be the shabbiest thing in the world to say now that the loans would not be completed.
§ MR. FINIGANsaid, he had very carefully considered the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), which, in his opinion, was a very reasonable one. There was not much difference between the hon. Member and the noble Lord opposite (Lord Frederick Cavendish), who stated that the Government felt bound in honour to carry out the arrangements with regard to loans entered into before the 29th February. He did not think his hon. Friend had any objection to that, because the Amendment said—
Except in cases where the Commissioners of Public Works had sanctioned such loan previously to the seventh day of May, one thousand eight hundred and eighty.He (Mr. Finigan) could not help saying, with regard to loans the arrangements for which were not completed by the 7th day of May, that there must be something very wrong either on the part of the landlords or of the Irish officials. Therefore, he could not see that his hon. Friend was asking too much, and he had yet to understand what the exact position of the Chief Secretary of Ireland was with reference to this matter. He (Mr. Finigan) understood that the hon. 1522 Member for Cavan quite agreed that all loans which were entered into up to the 29th February should be passed and sanctioned, but that any loan not sanctioned previously to the 7th day of May should not be completed by the Government. That proposal being a very reasonable one, he should feel himself compelled to go into the Division Lobby with his hon. Friend.
§ MR. FAYsaid, he hoped the Amendment would be withdrawn, as he believed that, unless there was a great principle involved, it was a mistake to delay the advancement of the Relief Bill by Motions of an unimportant, but possibly harmful, character. He had some knowledge of these loans to landlords, and could only say that, from their inception to their completion, they were, so far as he knew, obtained bonâ fide, and were expended for the advantage not of the landlord alone, but of the tenant and labourer. A Bill like this Relief Bill should be expedited, and he implored his Irish Colleagues to view it as a measure introduced by friends, not foes. Surely this was not a time to minimize, when every day might place the Bill in such a position as not to be passed that Session. If any defects hereafter appeared, they could be rectified in the Winter Session which was surely to follow.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he wished to take, in the best part, the advice of his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Fay); but he must reply to him, in equally good part, that he intended to occupy as much time in moving the Amendments in his name as he should think necessary. His hon. Friend appeared not to make sufficient allowance for the circumstances of hon. Members from Ireland, who had from the commencement of the Session taken much trouble with the Bill and had imported into it valuable Amendments. He could not imagine how any sensible person could stand up for the proposition of the Government contained in this clause. But to show the absurdity. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law) had pointed out that the Government were morally bound to lend money to those landlords who had applied up to the 29th February last. Now, he would ask the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish), who had endorsed that proposition, and 1523 the Chief Secretary for Ireland also, whether, if £20,000,000 had been applied—for an amount which the Church Surplus Fund could not guarantee—they would have come forward under this moral obligation, which they so much commended, and carried a Bill through Parliament to grant that sum of money? He ventured to think that had they attempted to introduce a measure dealing with English money as they were now dealing with Irish funds, their tenure of Office would have been very brief. The Government were certainly not legally bound to continue in the disastrous and useless course of their Predecessors.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he hoped the Government would proceed to a division, as Obstruction was dead and gone.
§ MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, it was impossible the Amendment could be accepted; for, if it was, it would put a stop to all loans under the ordinary Act by which loans were advanced out of the Consolidated Fund. He agreed, however, with the spirit of the Amendment. If he rightly understood the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish), no loans under that particular Act would be sanctioned of which instalments had not already been paid, or would be so, up to the 31st of the present month. There was no object, therefore, in passing the present Amendment besides the fact that it was opposed by the terms of the Act of 1862 with reference to loans.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he should like to ask the Committee to be allowed to amend the proposed Amendment by adding a few words thereto. He proposed to insert the words—"Under the authority of 'The Belief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880,'"at the end of the Amendment.
MR. LYULPH STANLEYsaid, he rose to Order. Was it competent for one hon. Member to ask another hon. Member to amend an Amendment?
THE CHAIRMANIt is proposed to amend an Amendment by adding the words—"Under the authority of 'The Belief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880.'"
THE O'DONOGHUEsaid, with regard to the statement made by the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish), it appeared to him that there could be no question, that in the case of these loans large sums had been expended by the land- 1524 lords; and he must say that the statement of the noble Lord was quite contrary to his experience on the subject. He would venture to say that the statement of the noble Lord was inaccurate.
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, that he referred to the sum of money which had been paid.
§ Question, "That those words be there added," put, and agreed to.
§ Proposed Amendment amended accordingly.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 1, line 26, at end, to add the words" Provided, That no further loan be granted to owners of land after the passing of this Act, under the authority of 'The Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880,' except in cases where the Commissioners of Public Works had sanctioned such loan previously to the seventh day of May, one thousand eight hundred and eighty."—(Mr. Biggar.)
§ Question put, "That those words be there added."
§ The Committee divided; Ayes 23; Noes 123: Majority 100.—(Div. List, No. 39.)
§ MR. SYNANsaid, he begged to move the next Amendment which stood in his name. It was as follows:—In page 1, at end, add—
Provided always, That whenever by any award or otherwise the rent of any tenant shall be increased by reason or in respect of any works executed on his holding under said Act, then, and in every such case, the works so executed shall, so far as such increase shall be paid by such tenant or his successor in title, be deemed to be improvements made by such tenant within the meaning of the fourth section of 'The Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1874.'The Amendment was of great importance to the tenants of Ireland, and the principal difficulty with regard to it arose from the fact that, by it, he (Mr. Synan) proposed to introduce words in the present Bill which would alter the effect of the Act of 1880. Provision was made in that Act for the protection of the tenant, but it did not go far enough. The Act provided that if the rent of a tenant be increased by an award of the Board of Works, it could only be so increased having regard to the amount of instalments paid under that Act. No doubt, if every landlord proceeded on fair and liberal principles, as, generally speaking, 1525 they did, there would be no necessity for any further protection for the tenant. It was possible that the landlord might not consent to an award, and would increase the rent more than allowed by the Act, and, as an alternative, give notice to quit; in that case there was no protection for the tenant. The present Amendment was originally framed by his right hon. and learned Friend the present Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law), when the prior Act was under consideration, and although the Amendment was passed in that House, it was rejected by the House of Lords. He now prepared to repeat it in the present Bill. It would, he believed, give full protection to the tenant. It provided—That the increase in the rent of the tenant should only he in respect of the works executed, &c.That was a larger protection than that given by the 9th section of the recent Act, and would afford complete protection for the tenant. It was contended by some landlords that it went further than giving complete protection, and that it would do them injustice.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he was sorry to interrupt the hon. Member (Mr. Synan), but surely the Amendment could not be inserted in the present clause. It must take the form of a new clause.
THE CHAIRMANI would call the attention of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) to the fact that the proposed Amendment does not bear directly on the clause now under consideration. The most convenient plan would be to bring it in separately as a new clause.
§ MR. SYNANsaid, it was a matter of indifference to him whether it were taken as a new clause or not. The reason why it appeared to him to be pertinent was that that clause dealt with the amendment of the Act of 1880, and therefore it seemed to him that it was proper to consider his Amendment there, and not elsewhere, in the form of a supplemental clause to the Bill. It could, however, take the form of a new clause if desired.
THE CHAIRMANAs a matter of convenience, it would be better that the Amendment should take the form of a new clause. The hon. Member will 1526 have an opportunity of bringing it forward in that manner.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. FINIGANsaid, he begged to move, in the absence of his hon. Friend the Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell), the next Amendment on the Paper. It was as follows:—In page 1, at end of clause, add—
The Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland may from time to time, on the recommendation of the Local Government Board, grant to any Board of Guardians of a scheduled Union, out of the said sum of one million five hundred thousand pounds, such moneys as the Local Government Board may deem necessary, having regard to the financial condition of such Union, to aid in giving out-door relief in such Union: Provided, That the entire sum to he so granted shall not exceed one hundred thousand pounds.[Mr. PARNELL entered the House while the hon. Member (Mr. Finigan) was moving the Amendment.]
THE CHAIRMANIf the hon Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) will listen, I propose to make some alterations in form, so that the proposed Amendment will make the clause run as follows:—
The Commissioners of Public Works may from time to time, on the recommendation of the Local Government Board, grant to Boards of Guardians in any Union authorized to give out-door relief in the Belief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880, out of the said sum of one million five hundred thousand pounds, such sum or sums as they may deem necessary, having regard to the financial condition of such Union: Provided, That the entire sum do not exceed two hundred thousand pounds.
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, he thought that a very important clause; and he thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster), who had assented to it, would desire that the relief proposed to be granted should only be so granted under very stringent and special conditions. The only special condition he found in that clause was contained in the words "having regard to the financial condition of such Union." He should like to add to the Amendment, in that place, the words "the pressure of distress, and the impracticability of otherwise adequately relieving." That would render the conditions very special. If the right hon. Gentleman would say that he would consider before 1527 Report putting in such special words, he should be quite satisfied. That was the phrase which the right hon. Gentleman had himself employed some time ago. He was satisfied that the right hon. Gentleman would agree to that.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he would think over the words. It appeared to him, however, that their spirit was conveyed in the word "necessary." The words "impracticability of otherwise relieving" were very binding. He thought it important that the words should be altered in the following way:—
They may deem necessary, having regard to the financial condition of such Union and to the partial distress then within its limit.
§ Amendment of said proposed Amendment agreed to.
§ Amendment, as amended, put, and agreed to.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 3 (Railway and other loans); and Clause 4 (Guarantees by presentment sessions).
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he proposed to postpone these clauses until the others had been passed. He should, therefore, move that they be postponed.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Clauses 3 and 4 be postponed."—(Mr, W. E. Forster.)
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, he took a different view of the matter, and he was extremely anxious that those clauses should be passed, so that arrangements might be made for loans to railways in Ireland by which they might be assisted in their operations. He had never been in the habit of concealing his feelings with regard to any Motion or Bill before the House. He considered it was binding on them not to postpone those clauses. The fact was, they had in them a good deal that was good, and also a good deal that was bad. The good part of the clauses allowed the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland to develop the resources of the country by adding branch railways, and assisting others that did not quite pay, from a capitalist's point of view, although they did so from the point of view of the particular district railways 1528 that so nearly paid that they deserved encouragement. That was the good part of the clauses. The bad part of the clauses was with reference to the baronies. Some baronies were, no doubt, fully competent to perform the work allotted to them, and against those he had nothing to say; but there were others which, although originally existing under the old feudal system, now existed only in name, and all that remained of them was their geographical position. Those were altogether use-less.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he rose to Order. The Question before the Committee was that Clause 3 be postponed. The hon. Member was then discussing Clause 4.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, the hon. Member (Mr. Warton) was quite right. He (Major Nolan) referred to the 4th clause in order to avoid making a second speech, and so interfering with the time of the Committee, as the hon. Member did so often himself. He did not wish to make another speech on the same subject, and so imitate the example of the hon. Member. He had referred to the bad part of the clauses, and he thought it would be to the convenience of the Committee if they were allowed to discuss those questions of loans then. The money lent by the baronial sessions was lent exclusively to tenants. Now, if some other arrangement, such as, for instance, an equal share granted to both landlords and tenants, were made, he thought it would be better and fairer; and when taxes were raised for the benefit of the country, he thought that the landlord should pay half and the tenant half. He had an Amendment to that effect on the Paper. That was a matter he had pressed on the Government for the last two or three years, and he, therefore, did not think it right to consent to the postponement of the clauses without stating his objections to that arrangement. He was convinced that it was a matter of great importance. He was quite aware that all hon. Members were not quite agreed upon the matter of railway loans; but he was willing to give way, to a large extent, in that matter, in order to meet the general feeling with regard to it. He must say that he was sorry that a proposition had 1529 been made to postpone those clauses, as so many districts were interested in their becoming law as soon as possible. He should like the Government to re-consider their decision, and to see whether they would not be able to take the discussion on those clauses at that time. At any rate, he, for one, was of opinion that there were no more important clauses in the Bill than these.
§ MR. R. POWERsaid, he would move to report Progress. Hon. Members had been at work from 12 to 7, and had been in the House a great many hours at previous Sittings, and as late as 4 o'clock that morning; therefore, he thought that they ought to get some rest.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. R. Power.)
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid he was sorry he could not consent to the Motion to report Progress. It was quite true they had been sitting some time, and he supposed he had been there as long as any other hon. Member, and he had been occupied previously. But he was very anxious to get on with the Bill, and he should be glad to have the support of the Irish Members in doing so. He did not see that the Committee were in anyway unable to discuss the questions that came before them, and his only object in postponing Clauses 3 and 4 was because he foresaw there would be important questions introduced with regard to them. He was prepared to sit to any time that evening, and, although hon. Members did not seem to be all of that opinion, he hoped they would not think of separating yet. He wanted first to take those clauses which would not involve so much difference of opinion; but he could assure the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan) that he would bring up Clauses 3 and 4 afterwards. He hoped the Committee would be allowed to go through the Bill.
§ MR. A. M. SULLIVANappealed to the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. R. Power) to let the Committee proceed to make as much progress as possible. There was, however, great force in what the hon. Member had said. They had been kept unusually late nearly all the evenings that week; but it behoved the Irish Members to set themselves right 1530 with the country and the House, by working as long as the Government chose to keep a House. If it were for a week they should be ready to sit, and all the more from the necessity of discussing some of the Amendments they had put down. If they adopted the Motion to report Progress they would be in the wrong in the eyes of many other hon. Members, who would think that they failed to earnestly discuss the Bill, and that they were "fiddling while Rome was burning." All the Amendments had substance and merit, and he entreated hon. Members to remain, if necessary, till the next morning. He felt so conscious that the case was one of emergency, and that their Amendments were not obstructive but wise Amendments, that he urged them to make sacrifices of their comfort and time in order to meet the Government in passing the measure.
§ MR. FINIGANsaid, the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) had not been there all the afternoon as they had. [Mr. A. M. SULLIVAN replied, that the hon. Member for Ennis (Mr. Finigan) was mistaken.] He might be wrong as to the whole of the afternoon, but the hon. and learned Member was certainly absent for a considerable period. But he (Mr. Finigan) was just as anxious as the hon. and learned Member to get the Bill through Committee, and he would suggest to his hon. Friend who had moved to report Progress (Mr. R. Power) that he should withdraw that Motion. At the same time, he thought that the Committee should certainly adjourn for two hours, from 7 to 9, so as to give them time to get some rest. [Cries of "No!"] Well, if there was to be no compromise, he would support his hon. Friend's Motion; but, if they had two hours' rest, they might then go on until the next afternoon.
§ MR. A. M. SULLIVANexplained that, probably, the reason why his hon. Friend (Mr. Finigan) thought he (Mr. A. M. Sullivan) was absent so long was that he held his tongue. He had been sitting behind the hon. Member since 3 o'clock, listening most determinedly to his Colleagues, and thinking he was helping just as much by holding his tongue.
§ MR. FINIGANbegged his hon. Friend's pardon.
§ MR. METGEasked Irish Members not to flinch from their duty. At such a time it would be disgraceful to give up.
§ SIR H. HERVEY BRUCEwould much regret to obstruct; but he had been waiting seven hours to get to the most important clauses in the Bill, which would confer more real benefit than any other part of the measure, and he was so taken by surprise at the proposal to postpone those clauses that he should vote for reporting Progress.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he made his proposition merely to suit the convenience of the Committee. He was not against going on with these clauses, and if the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. E. Power) would withdraw his Motion to report Progress, he (Mr. W. E. Forster) would withdraw his Motion for postponement of the clauses.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he was one of those who thought those two clauses were so utterly worthless that they could not possibly be made any better, and he doubted very much whether they could be so amended as to carry out his hon. and gallant Friend's (Major Nolan's) views. If the ratepayers, through their representatives, wished to charge themselves for the construction of county works, he (Mr. Parnell) had no objection; but the proposition contained in those clauses was entirely different. It was, that anon-representative body called the associated cesspayers, who were chosen by the Grand Jury and who would be confined to the magistracy of the county, should be entitled to saddle vast sums of money upon the ratepayers, at an extraordinary presentment sessions convened by the Lord Lieutenant. All the checks provided by the Legislature and by the Orders of the House of Commons were dispensed with, and, consequently, there would be practically no guarantee to the ratepayers who might be affected. If they had a representative system of county government in Ireland, these clauses might be made workable and very valuable; but, in the absence of any representative system, he feared to trust the very large power that would be given. He observed that a great number of Amendments had been placed upon the Paper to open the floodgates still higher, and, in his humble opinion, they would make the clauses still more dangerous than they were already. But he thought the Committee 1532 were entitled to have some reason for the postponement of the clauses. They ought to know whether the right hon. Gentleman proposed to postpone them in order to consider the desirability of giving them up altogether, or whether he intended to stand by them. If the first reason was the true motive, and the effect of the proposal would only be to save the time of the Committee, he should certainly be in favour of going on with the other part of the Bill. But, with reference to the remarks of the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Metge), who seemed to be in a state of intense excitement about the whole measure, and feared they might lose something very wonderful if they did not get it, he could only say that, so far as they had gone, they had not obtained any very important concessions. Perhaps they might obtain those concessions by-and-bye; but, in explanation of the misapprehension of the hon. Member for Meath with respect to the merits of this measure, he (Mr. Parnell) might be permitted to state that he had no recollection of the fact that the hon. Member had assisted in the numerous consultations which had been held for the purpose of practically improving the Bill, notwithstanding that the hon. Member represented that great evils would attend the stopping of so beneficial a measure. He (Mr. Parnell), for one, would very much like to ask the hon. Member for a fuller explanation of what his views really were.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) had depreciated the Bill very much; but he (Mr. W. E. Forster) must remind the hon. Member that he had previously expressed, in the very strongest terms, that it was a matter of almost life and death to obtain the concession that had been included in the Bill. He was, therefore, exceedingly surprised at the remarks which the hon. Member had now made, in the course of which he had described that concession as worthless.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he certainly did not say the concession was worthless. At any rate, he had no intention of going further than saying that it was not satisfactory.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he should be sorry to misrepresent the hon. Member; but he certainly understood his 1533 argument to be to the effect which he had stated. He would state to the Committee his views concerning the Bill, because that would be the shortest way of explaining the reasons for the postponement of Clauses 3 and 4. He should be glad if those clauses could be passed, because he believed they would give a power which would be of considerable use in enabling the Government to devise the best way in which works of the kind could be developed. He was quite aware that there was some objection to the machinery which was proposed; but if they were to wait until they had got the machinery exactly to their mind, they might have to wait for a very considerable time. The position was, that there were several matters of the first importance to be dealt with in the Bill before the Committee. The first was as to how far Her Majesty's present Government were under obligations to carry out what they considered to have been the obligations to which the late Government committed themselves; the second was as to proposals made by the Government themselves, and others which they had accepted from the hon. Member for Cork City, in order to meet the immediate necessities of the ease; and the third was the clause in reference to the Fishery Piers, which would enable grants to be made and the work to be commenced at once. He should not ask the Irish Members to say that the first object was one that they cared about; but the second and third they did care about, and so did he, because he thought the interests of Ireland were involved in them. But, with the greatest possible wish to get it done, he did not see how or when he was to get this discussion renewed, if it was continued now as it had been continued hitherto. He did not complain that the debates had been too lengthy; but ventured to suggest that if they were to be continued at the same length, the Government would not be able to give to the Bill more than what might be called the middle of the night. He was very sorry for that; but felt that the matters to which he had referred were of very great importance, and were also matters necessary to be decided at once, and, therefore, he hoped that the Committee would deal with them If, after that, it was thought well to proceed with the Railway Clauses, he should be glad that such a course should be taken.
§ MR. SYNANsaid, it was clear to him that some part of the Bill must be postponed; and as it appeared to him that the only question was as to which part should be so postponed, he ventured to suggest that the 3rd and 4th clauses of the Bill were not the most pressing. His hon. and gallant Friend (Major Nolan) would have an ample opportunity, when the rest of the Bill had been disposed of, to insist upon a full discussion of those two clauses; but he (Mr. Synan) saw no reason to object to their postponement on the present occasion. The general wish of the Irish Members, and of the Government, to consider the most pressing part of the Bill first, should be acceded to.
§ COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, he must also add his request that the 3rd and 4th clauses be postponed, mainly on the ground that his hon. Friend and Colleague (Mr. Shaw), who had suggested that the representatives of the Poor Law Unions should assist in this matter, was unavoidably absent, but would be in his place in the House next week. In his absence, an opposition to these clauses had been developed in most unexpected quarters. He was sure that the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) was acting in opposition, not only to the wish of the county, but to that of the City of Cork. There was no fear of anything like bogus railway schemes being forced upon the ratepayers by the operation of the clauses. It had been said by the hon. Member for Cork City that the scheme would only be submitted to the sessions; but he (Colonel Colthurst) had always understood that they would be submitted also to the Boards of Guardians, and that railways could not be constructed without the consent of the Boards through whose districts they would pass.
§ MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he was afraid that, unless those clauses were postponed, little or no progress would be made with the Bill, because they all knew the powers of discussion which were possessed by hon. Members opposite. He would have been very unwilling to agree to the postponement, unless on an assurance from the Government that it was really intended to press on those clauses with as much earnestness as the other parts of the Bill. It was very uncomfortable to him —to say the least of it—to hear the hon. 1535 Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) say that which he (Mr. Mitchell Henry) feared when it was proposed—namely, that they would be postponed with a view to their abandonment. He disputed altogether the right of certain hon. Members who sat below the Gangway on the opposite side of the House to represent to the Committee that Ireland was indifferent or hostile to those clauses. He believed those clauses to be about as valuable, if not more valuable, than any other clauses of the Bill. They had long asked for them, and to set up theoretical objections against them appeared to him to be not for the benefit of the country. He hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give them an assurance that, if they did postpone those clauses, he really intended to proceed with them; and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would couple that assurance with another—namely, that he was open to reasonable suggestions with reference to them. He found some difficulty, sometimes, in discovering whether the Government intended to put its feet down, and carry through what it designed, or whether it was really open to fair argument on the part of those who might be particularly interested; and he would only add that, after a little consultation amongst some of the Irish Members on the matter, they were particularly anxious that these clauses should be improved.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTER,remarked, that he was asked whether the Government had put its feet down? They would certainly do what they could to carry these clauses; but they were not going to risk the Bill for the sake of them. He would give his hon. Friends and the Committee, as far as he could, any opportunity of discussing them; and he hoped it would be done that night, after they had got through the other clauses. Meanwhile, it was a waste of time to talk so much about the postponement As to the question of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) with regard to suggestions, whenever he had had charge of a Bill he had always endeavoured to entertain suggestions from anyone interested, quite irrespective of the quarter of the House in which he sat; and he could assure the hon. Member for Galway that every suggestion in this matter would be considered.
§ MAJOR NOLANdid not consider the discussion was any waste of time. 1536 Honestly, those clauses were a matter of the utmost importance. He looked on the Motion to report Progress as a bogus Motion, and would only remind hon. Members that they could get their dinners in 20 minutes. He desired to press the importance of those clause's. The county he represented had set its heart upon three different railways. In one case the Poor Law Unions had guaranteed the whole of the expense; and, in another, a large railway company had guaranteed the whole of the expense if they could borrow the money at 3 per cent. If the Government brought forward a scheme by which those railways could be made, they would be made to a certainty. He was very glad to find that the difference between himself and the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) was narrowed to a certain extent. The hon. Member for Cork City was vexed with the proposed tribunal. Well, he (Major Nolan) also was vexed with the tribunal; but he would say this—that there was not the slightest chance of their making any-bad railways; and, therefore, he did not attach so much importance to the objection, except that he thought it would tend to narrow the scope of the Bill and prevent its being put into operation. The fact was, that the tribunal would be too careful. What he did object to very strongly was the incidence of the taxation; and if some of the Amendments on the Paper were not carried, it might be a question whether they should not reject the whole scheme. He thought it would be most disgraceful to put the whole charge on the ratepayers and the tenants; but there was every opportunity, by Amendments, to change the incidence of taxation, and to put it partly on the landlord and partly on the tenant. The Government would not be able to maintain the position of putting it all upon the tenant, and, consequently, they would have to come forward with some proposition to divide it. For these reasons he was most anxious that the clauses should not be postponed, and that they should be now discussed, and amended in the course of the discussion, which he believed was perfectly possible. He did not even object to the baronies, provided the taxation was amended. The baronies were not such a good machinery as he desired, but still they would be very good. At the 1537 same time, if means were wanted for making those branch railways, which would very nearly pay, he knew very well that it would be doing a very dangerous thing if the schemes were not sent to the Boards of Guardians. The hon. Member for Cork City spoke for himself and his Colleagues; but the Committee would remark, at any rate, that the two Members for Gal-way, the largest county in Ireland, were both anxious for the clauses in question.
§ MR. SYNAN rose to Order, and inquired of the Chairman, whether the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan) was in Order in discussing the clauses on a Motion to report Progress?
THE CHAIRMANruled that the hon. and gallant Member would not be in Order in discussing the details of the clauses; but as the Motion to report Progress was, practically, for the postponement of those clauses, he could not say that the hon. and gallant Member was not in Order in speaking of their general principle.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, he was very sorry that the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) should try to limit discussion on those very important clauses. If hon. Members meant to reject them, let them do so, and take the whole responsibility; and if his county spoke to him afterwards about the railways, he would say—"I will do my best; but certain Members, like the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan), prevented our even having a discussion on the subject. "Then the responsibility would not rest upon himself and his hon. Colleague. As to the Motion before the Committee, he thought it would be discreditable to the Irish Members to report Progress, and he hoped the Motion would be withdrawn.
§ MR. R. POWERsaid, he should be very sorry to divide the Committee. He was anxious that the Bill should go through; and if the right hon. Gentleman would only let them adjourn for an hour and a-half until 9 o'clock he would be satisfied. He did not know whether the right hon. Gentleman himself had dined. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: No.] Well, it was a very convenient system not to dine, and he only wished some of his hon. Friends would get into the habit.
§ MR. R. POWERthought if they reported Progress, and the Committee temporarily adjourned, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster) would find that it really facilitated the passage of the Bill. They would all come back refreshed and in much better spirits, and prepared to sit until 7 o'clock in the morning.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERhoped the hon. Member would not persist in the proposal for adjournment. He had never heard of its being done in that way, and he did not know that they would be able to do it. He could not consent to do it, and if he did, he was not sure he would get the Committee together again. He must remind the hon. Member that that was not the first debate—he might say it was not the five hundredth debate— in which there had been a great deal of interest, and in all previous instances hon. Members managed to go out and get their dinners. He believed he was the only person who was in any real difficulty, because he was bound to stop and look after the Bill. He did not think it would look well in Ireland if they had to stop because Irish Members wanted their dinners.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he was extremely anxious to put it to the right hon. Gentleman as earnestly and forcibly as he could that he should persevere with his Bill, and that he should proceed with it in its proper order. He was anxious to support the right hon. Gentleman in doing so. He thought it was a matter of the very highest importance, on general principles, that when Business was to done it should be done in a business-like and regular manner; and the result of taking clauses out of their order was that hon. Gentlemen who had Amendments could not tell when they might come on. He (Mr. Warton) had no Amendments; but there were his hon. Friends the Members for Coleraine (Sir H. Hervey Bruce) and Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham), to say nothing of others, who had Amendments on the 3rd and 4th clauses of this Bill. Moreover, going beyond general principles, he attached special importance to the arguments of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan), and quite agreed with them. 1539 Having the interest of Ireland at heart, he was anxious that railways should be promoted as well as fishery piers; and the reason why he put it very strongly to the Chief Secretary for Ireland was that the right hon. Gentleman seemed to him to be fascinated by the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell), who seemed to have a power over him that no other hon. Member had. It was quite clear that the hon. Member for Cork City did not want the railway scheme at all; and it seemed to him (Mr. Warton), if he might say so, with great respect, to show weakness on the part of the right hon. Gentleman to yield to the hon. Member in that respect. He (Mr. Warton) thought he was justified in saying that, because a very ominous expression had fallen from the lips of the right hon. Gentleman, who said that he would not imperil the Bill for those clauses, because the hon. Member for Cork City, as the right hon. Gentleman knew, intended to obstruct their passing. Personally, he (Mr. Warton) was quite willing to sit any length of time to help Ireland, to whom he wished full justice done.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he must confess he would like to find some way of carrying the Motion without going to a division. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland seemed to think that no one but himself was dinnerless; but he (Mr. Parnell) could assure the right hon. Gentleman that many of them had had nothing to eat since breakfast. He would not press that argument, because he thought all the Irish Members were very ready to vote fasting; in fact, Irishmen were generally understood to be able to fight without anything to eat, whilst Englishmen and Scotchmen always required to be well fed. But as regarded those two clauses, he really thought it would be a great waste of time going into them that night. As the right hon. Gentleman had said, the fishery piers and his own proposal of grants to Boards of Guardians were, in his opinion, the only important parts of the Bill.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERremarked, that he did not give that as his opinion.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he was quite aware that the right hon. Gentleman did not. He only gave it as his own opinion. Although he did not think it was a very wonderful concession to have the option of giving to the people of 1540 Ireland £200,000 of their own money, when they were going to give£l,500,000 of their own money to the landlords, still, of course, it was a concession, and he was happy to admit it. However, since the 3rd and 4th clauses—which he was really not clear that they ought to have come into any relief of distress Bill, and which would take an enormous deal of time to lick into shape—if, indeed, they could be licked into shape, which he very much doubted—since those clauses were to be postponed, he was, personally, perfectly willing to go on with the Bill for any reasonable time; and perhaps, under those circumstances, the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. E. Power) would reconsider his Motion.
§ MR. CALLANhoped the Bill would be entirely finished that night. Other hon. Gentlemen besides the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) had been there all day and had not dined; and he wished to point out that with the tactics pursued by hon. Gentlemen opposite, the only chance of getting the Bill through that night was to go at it in a workmanlike manner, and to keep at it until it was passed. He was not a general supporter of the Government— quite the contrary—but as a Irish Member—as deeply interested in his country as any hon. Gentleman present—as the Chief Secretary for Ireland had shown an anxiety and a laudable desire to aid in passing this Bill, at great trouble to himself, he did hope that the right hon. Gentleman would have his efforts crowned with success, and all the Irish Members should certainly remain to aid him until midnight.
§ MR. R. POWERsaid, that after the appeal which had been made to him by the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) he did not feel justified in pressing his Motion. He was sorry the debate could not be adjourned; but, of course, he deferred to the feeling of the Committee, and he hoped they would sit until the Bill was carried, if it should be 3 o'clock in the morning. After he had had a little refreshment, he would be prepared to sit until the Bill was passed, and he hoped every hon. Gentleman present would do the same. He would now ask leave to withdraw his Motion.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
1541§ Question put, "That Clause 3 be postponed."
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, he would not object to that, provided Clause 4 were proceeded with.
§ Question agreed to.
§ Question put, "That Clause 4 be postponed."
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERobserved, that it would be foolish to discuss this clause after postponing Clause 3.
§ MR. DALYsaid, he was in favour of the principle of those clauses, and was willing to sit until 3 o'clock, if there was any prospect of a settlement. At the same time, he thought they should be postponed, because he quite coincided with the views of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland as to the more imperious necessity for carrying the other portions of the Bill. After that was done, if the hon. and gallant Member for Galway required assistance to carry the 3rd and 4th clauses, he would be quite prepared to sit with him all through the night and the next day.
§ MR. A. M. SULLIVANhoped the clauses would be postponed, in order that they might, if possible, carry the Bill that night; but he should join the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan) in support of those clauses which, in his humble opinion, might be the means of affording considerable relief, by way of employment, that might also be really of enduring service long after the memory of the distress had passed. Railways constructed under those clauses would shower benefits upon the agricultural population. There could be no greater advantage to an agricultural community than to provide them with facilities of transit which would bring their produce into the neighbourhood of quicker markets. A farmer would find his produce worth much more if he had a railway station near his farm. Therefore, he hoped the Committee would make the utmost possible progress with the Bill.
§ MAJOR NOLANwould assent to the postponement under protest; but when the clause came on he intended to move that the Poor Law Unions be inserted to the exclusion of the baronies.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, the hon. and gallant Gentleman was not in Order in 1542 discussing the details of the clause on a Motion for its postponement.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, his objection to the clause was that it was based on obsolete, reactionary, and unfair principles, and showed ignorance of the present state of public opinion in Ireland. He pressed upon the Government to consider the necessity of equalizing taxation under the clause.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that he thought the remarks which had been made by the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Major Nolan) showed that there was some reason for postponing the clause. As far as the Government were concerned, this discussion, though it was somewhat irregular, had not been without advantage. It had enabled him to find out the opinions of various hon. Members. This was a matter on which to consult the feelings of the Irish Members. He, therefore, thought it would be advantageous to have an opportunity of discussing the question before the clauses came on; and, consequently, he had rather altered his views about carrying them that night.
§ MR. BIGGARthought that if the clauses in their present shape could be discussed, the Government would be satisfied that it was perfectly impossible to pass them in any reasonable time. There was an enormous difference of opinion among the Irish Members on the clauses generally, as well as on the details, and it would require at least two or three Sittings of the House to pass them. He thought, therefore, the best way would be to postpone them sine die, and not let them hear any more about them.
§ MR. LEAsaid, his constituents felt very strongly on the matter. They had been looking forward to those clauses as one means of advantage in the coming winter. He was ready to help the Government in passing the Bill; but he must protest against those clauses being postponed with a view to their abandonment.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, he also objected to their postponement sine die, and thought the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) should put his views more fully before the Committee, in order that other hon. Members might have an opportunity of repudiating them. He was quite willing to yield to the Government; but was very anxious that 1543 those clauses should not be postponed with an intention of quietly killing them afterwards. Of course, he could not object to their being killed, if they were to be killed; but he wanted it done in a proper fashion.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he should like to make a suggestion to hon. Members who were interested in those clauses. He should be very glad to meet them, and to find out what alterations they thought should be made. Of course, he could not say beforehand that he would consent to those alterations. It was possible, however, that if hon. Members were in favour of those clauses, and could agree as to how they thought they should be placed before the Committee, they might be able to get them through without the difficulty which would evidently otherwise arise.
§ MR. A. MOOREthought the Committee should be satisfied with the answer of the right hon. Gentleman, who had made a very proper proposal. He only wished after what had been said by other hon. Gentlemen to put his opinion on record that those clauses were of the greatest possible value. His constituents were most anxious for them; and, putting aside questions as to machinery and so forth, he regarded the main principle as extremely valuable.
§ Question agreed to.
§ Clause 5 (Powers of Board of Works).
§ MR. A. M. SULLIVANsaid, that in the absence of the hon. and gallant Member for Leitrim (Major O'Beirne) he would move in page 3, line 13, to leave out "thirty" and insert "sixty." The object was to increase the sum proposed to be given for the purposes of fishery piers.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, it was out of Order for a private Member to move to increase the grant proposed to be given out of public moneys by this Bill. Such increase could only be proposed by a Minister of the Crown.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERbelieved that was the case. He therefore begged to move that "forty-five" be put in the place of "thirty." When the latter sum was first decided upon, it seemed to him to be the sum required to build piers in the most distressed districts, and where they would do most good; but it had been found desirable to increase it to £45,000, in order that they might 1544 take advantage of all the money so generously granted by the Canadian Government. He did not expect hon. Members to say they were satisfied, and that that sum would meet the requirements of all the distressed districts; and however much might be proposed, he dared say they would feel justified in asking for more. But this was a considerable advance, and he believed it would do very great good.
§ Question, 'That 'thirty' stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.
§ Question proposed, "That 'forty-five' be inserted."—(Mr. W. E. Forster.)
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, the right hon. Gentleman told the Committee that, in the opinion of the Government, £30,000 represented what would be likely to be wanted before they had any information, or before they took any steps to meet the grant from Canada. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER explained that he did not say that.] He could only say that if the Government had information about the Canadian grant they must have been sadly wanting in arithmetical ability not to have arrived at a fairer figure.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, what he said was that they fixed the sum of £30,000 at first, because they thought it would meet those piers for which there was the most urgent necessity.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORdid not wish to misrepresent the right hon. Gentleman; but it did seem strange to him that when the Canadians had given £10,000, the Government should have proposed to give only £30,000. At any rate, they knew that from outside sources there was a fund of £15,000 now available, which, treated as a fourth of the entire expenditure, would leave a balance of £45,000 to be supplied from Imperial funds. That was supposing that no contribution whatever was to come from Ireland for fishery purposes. It was supposed, in fact, that the example of the Canadians would not be met by anyone in Ireland. It seemed to him that it was an entirely gratuitous assumption on the part of the Government; and he wished to point out that this clause, and, in his opinion, the whole Bill, was a thorough sham. The Bill, in its entirety, was a sham, and any portion of it was a sham. It was a 1545 sham in the first part regarding advances to landlords; and he was convinced that it was a sham with regard to those clauses which even the right hon. Gentleman himself proposed to throw overboard now.
§ MR W. E. FORSTERsaid, he must prevent this thorough misrepresentation of what he had said. He had within the last 10 minutes distinctly stated that he did not intend to throw these clauses overboard; and, therefore, it was most unfair of the hon. Gentleman to say so.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, the right hon. Gentleman, at any rate, told the Committee that he was not going to imperil the Bill for the sake of those clauses; and if that did not amount to much the same thing as throwing the clauses overboard he (Mr. O'Connor) did net know what did. Now the Government proposed, in the third portion of the Bill, to allocate the sum of £45,000 for the purposes of the establishment or repair of fishery piers in different parts of Ireland; but what in reality did that amount to? They knew that for years a sum of £5,000 had been taken in the Estimates for that very purpose; and the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish) had, on a previous occasion, informed the House that, in order to provide for the funds referred to in this Bill, the annual grant was for some years to come to be suspended—in other words, that money which otherwise would have been spread over several years was swept up into one heap, and placed as a total in this Bill, and under the provisions of this Bill it was to be distributed over piers in different parts of the Island. Anyone who was conversant with the history of the establishment of these piers knew that there was hardly any kind of work that was more slow or more liable to frequent and long interruptions; and the noble Lord himself, if he chose to consult those channels of information which were open to him, would find plenty of ground for concluding that it would be impossible to do all the work that was to be done within the period during which the distress was expected to be most intense. He would find that in works of that magnitude the expenditure would have to be spread over a long time, and that in all probability the practice of sweeping the annual grants into a heap would 1546 have to be reversed by spreading the expenditure over several years. Under all the circumstances, he could not consent to the substitution of the word "forty-five" for the word "thirty," and must, therefore, oppose the Amendment. He would suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that he would much more thoroughly meet the requirements of the case by doubling the amount, or, at any rate, substituting £60,000 for the sum of £45,000.
§ MR. BLAKEsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forstor) should know-that that £45,000, of which £ 15,000 was a supplementary grant from independent sources, would not finish more than about 20 harbours in the distressed districts. That was positively the fact, so that out of 35 harbours in those districts which should be finished as speedily as possible only 20 could be completed. That was only a little more than a third of the number required. They had heard from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish), that it was the intention of the Government to give the usual grant for fishery piers; but even if that was done, the total sum would not be nearly enough for the purpose. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would consent to the proposed increase of £15,000, he (Mr. Blake) would venture to say that it would have the effect of doing a vast deal of good. The money could all be usefully employed, and they might take his word for it that if that additional sum were not granted more than half the harbours in the distressed districts which were absolutely urgently required could not be proceeded with. He earnestly appealed to the right hon. Gentleman not to allow such a sum as £15,000 to stand between the Government and the universal feeling of the Irish Members.
§ COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, that he understood that on that fishery question his hon. Friend (Mr. Blake) was an authority, and he was sure that he had not represented the matter too strongly to them. For his own part, he (Colonel Colthurst) knew that in the County Cork there were 12 piers which urgently wanted assistance, not only as being a means of giving employ- 1547 ment, but also in aid of the fishermen of that district. He had himself, within the last four or five weeks, been in districts—he referred especially to 40 miles of coast—where there was not a landing place where a boat could be drawn up. The districts were barren, and the ordinary means for building those piers were altogether wanting. There was one hard case which he wished especially to bring to the notice of the Committee. That was the case of a pier and harbour of refuge at Ballycotton that was urgently needed. A pier was already built there by the Board of Works; but it did not go far enough into the sea. There was no turning point where fishing boats could get out of the roll of the sea and lie up; and many boats had been wrecked there, not only on coming in, but actually when lying at the pier. He believed that to construct a harbour of refuge there would not cost more than about £10,000, in which both boats and fishing vessels could lie. Application had been made with regard to that pier to the Board of Works; and the answer had been that, as the law then stood, their application could not be entertained. The place lay in the centre of an exceedingly distressed district. He understood that the Guardians had unanimously—or, at any rate, by a large majority—agreed to apply to have the Union scheduled, and their application had been refused, on the ground that the construction of that pier totally excluded them from consideration. Therefore, he would earnestly appeal to his right hon. Friend that he would consider the advisability of granting that £15,000 in aid of that Vote; and that such works as those at Ballycottan, to which he had alluded, might be taken into consideration in preference to others which lay in districts which were not absolutely entitled to be termed distressed districts.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that in answer to the hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. A. M. Sullivan), who had appealed to him, it appeared to him (Mr. W. E. Forster) that they thought he had the key of the Treasury. He had not got it, and he would inform the hon. and learned Member that it was not his (Mr. Forster's) money that he was asking for, but the money of the people, which was to be raised by taxation. He must state that he did not think the Government could increase the grant. In so doing, they would be acting quite con- 1548 trary to all precedent, and nothing but a very strong case would induce them to allow of an increase. He must honestly say that he thought the authorities had done quite right in being reluctant to give public money in such an unprecedented way. He was perfectly sure that it was not in his power to increase the Vote, and if the Amendment was proposed he should be in favour of the Vote remaining at £30,000.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he wished to say a few words, as he was deeply interested in that question. He thought that the grant was utterly insufficient, and he would call the attention of the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish) to the fact that before long £40,000 would be required for a harbour at Galway. It was not, he knew, a fishery harbour; but that sum alone amounted to within £5,000 of the Vote they now were to receive. With regard to what fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, he would beg to say that the grant of Imperial money for local harbours was not altogether so unprecedented as he wished to make out. Imperial money had been given to matters partly Imperial and partly local before then; and, as that money would go to assist in the construction of harbours of refuge, it was necessary, he thought, that Imperial as well as local funds should contribute. He understood from the hon. Member for the County of Waterford (Mr. Blake), who was the highest authority upon that subject, that according to the present system the power of giving money for fishery piers was, practically considered, rather decreased than increased, and that heavier conditions were to be required from those making applications than were required before. He thought the grant might well be increased to £60,000. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Forster) had stated that he had not the key of the Treasury; but he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) understood that the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury had it. He would suggest that the way out of the difficulty was to grant the £45,000, and also continue the annual grant of £5,000.
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, that the proposals of the Government had been spoken of as a sham; he 1549 must say that he could not regard it in that light. That was an epithet that could hardly with propriety he applied to any Supplemental Vote. Whether or no the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) was right in characterizing the Bill as a sham, there could be no doubt that contributions were to be paid in aid of local works. With regard to the remarks of the hon. Member (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) who had just spoken, as to a single harbour absorbing the whole sum, he would beg to point out to him that the money for fishery piers was limited to comparatively small works, and would not be employed for piers for shipping and such larger craft. For that reason they did not see why the Vote should be increased to £45,000. He was not prepared to say that in the present state of the Exchequer the amount could be increased. It was intended, however, to continue the usual grant of £5,000.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, it appeared from the remarks of the noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish) that the Treasury would be threatened with bankruptcy in case that grant were increased to £45,000. That only showed to what desperate devices hon. Gentlemen might be driven in order to avoid any increase of expenditure. He did think that such a sum as £45,000 was a poor miserable sum considering what was required to be spent on the West Coast of Ireland. The Inspectors of Fisheries had recommended that some harbours should be built. They asked for that purpose for a Vote of £45,000, and £15,000 was to be given by Canada and Liverpool, making a total of £60,000, and that was all that could be obtained, in order that the fishermen might reap the magnificent harvest that Providence sent them. As a measure for the relief of distress it was equally miserable. He was sorry that the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury had not seen his way to be more generous in that matter. £45,000 was a poor contribution out of the Exchequer for the relief of distress. It was not what they might have expected from a great country, and he thought that they should have received a sum equal to the emergency—say £100,000. It would not ruin England to give a grant of that kind, and the advantage and benefit of it to the poor fishermen on the Western Coast of Ire- 1550 land would render them perfectly satisfied. Upon studying the question he had become so convinced of the great necessity that existed for a larger sum of money to be expended that he had placed upon the Notice Paper, the previous night, a new clause, in order to enable the sum of £250,000 to be given for that purpose out of the Church Surplus Fund, and he hoped that when the time came for considering that clause the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. Forster) would see his way to agree to it. He knew of no purpose to which the Church Surplus Fund could be better put than in national works of that kind, and thus to improve the industrial resources of the country, and increase the wage-earning power, and so relieve those who were then dependent upon relief Committees for their daily bread. He had merely referred incidentally to his own clause, which he hoped to introduce. Looking at the history of the distress in Ireland, he was afraid to think what the state of things would have been had it not been for the magnificent contributions they had received from the United States and far-off Australia. He trusted that the Government would not limit their contributions to the miserable grant of £45,000.
§ MR. BLAKEsaid, he had heard the opionions of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland with regard to that matter; but he could adduce very strong claims for assistance in the matter of piers and harbours. Fifty years ago a Bill was passed in that House to abolish the grant of £5,000 for harbours in Ireland; but it continued the contribution of £3,000 which had been paid to Scotland. The grant was removed from Ireland, and continued to Scotland, which he believed at the present time did not want a single harbour. Since the Act of Union, Scotland had obtained £1,500,000 more than Ireland for fisheries; and until a very few years ago Scotland received £7,000 over and above the sum granted to Ireland for the same purpose. It would be a mistaken policy on the part of the right hon. Gentleman and the noble Lord—for if the right hon. Gentleman had not the key of the Treasury the noble Lord had it—not to sanction the £15,000 additional being given. The right hon. Gentleman had sufficient information 1551 before him to know that not a third of the harbours could be completed with the proposed sum. There were four harbours in his (Mr. Blake's) own county, for which nothing could be done on account of lack of funds. Money was urgently needed to enable the unfortunate people living along those coasts to obtain a livelihood. If those harbours were not completed, the right hon. Gentleman might depend upon it that, on a future occasion, they would have to come before the House and ask for a larger grant to relieve the necessity of the population. He hoped, therefore, that he would be induced to increase the grant to £60,000.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, that as an English Member who viewed with the greatest concern some of the revolutionary schemes of the Government for confiscating property in Ireland, and who disagreed with that policy, he should wish to say a few words on that occasion in behalf of Ireland. He thought that, instead of confiscation and revolutionary measures, the best English policy was to develop the material resources of that country; and he must say that, for developing such resources as the railway system and fisheries, the sum under discussion appeared very small indeed. He earnestly hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who was very often squeezed to a considerable extent, would give what was a fair and legitimate sum for that purpose. He asked him, as the Minister of the Crown then present, to acquiesce in what had fallen from two different Irish Members of Parliament—namely, that £60,000 was required, and to grant that Amendment. He (Mr. Warton) could not agree with what had fallen from the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish) as regarded the state of the Imperial Exchequer. Certainly, with the present Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Budget that had been laid before them, they could, he believed, well afford to part with some of the income they were sure to have. In all probability, the arrangements were intended to produce a larger sum to the Exchequer than they were told of. The calculations were, no doubt, arranged so as to produce a considerable surplus in order that they might look with astonishment at the wonderful financial ability of the Chancellor of the 1552 Exchequer. He was perfectly certain that with such a noble purpose a supplemental grant would not be out of the way.
§ MAJOR NOLANsaid, he hoped that as the appeal for an additional £15,000 had the support of the whole of the Conservative Party present in the House, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would not be hardhearted, but give way on the point.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, they had been charged with hard-heartedness, and their generosity had been appealed to. But it was absurd to talk of hard-heartedness in the matter; what they had to consider was the general requirements of the Public Service and the interests of the country all round. It was quite an exceptional thing to make a grant at all, more so one of £30,000, and still more so to be asked to increase it afterwards to £45,000. He must repeat to the Committee that he did not think it possible to go any further than the sum they had stated. He was bound to state that £45,000 was what they had been asked for, and probably if they had granted £60,000 they would have been asked for £80,000, and if they had given £80,000, hon. Members would have asked for £100,000, and so on. There had been a good deal of talk about different harbours about the country; but that was not the object which had been brought before the Government. It was the case of the stormy West Coast, where fishing was the only alternative occupation, and they were asked that small harbours might be constructed. He would not put his information against that of the hon. Member for Waterford County (Mr. Blake); but they had acted on the testimony of the Fishery Department, and several piers were expected to be made at a small cost. No doubt a great deal was required to be done; but it could not all be done under that Act. It was impossible, by the present measure, to develop the resources of Ireland. When that was done, it ought, he thought, to be done by loan and not by grant. He was sorry that what they had done was referred to as being miserable. The only reply he could give to that was, that it was not their own money they were dealing with, but they were the trustees of the money of the public. He never expected to get much thanks for the grant, if any. There 1553 was no reason why they should be thanked for doing what was best, considering the balancing of the claims of all concerned, and the exceptional circumstances of the case. He believed that the £40,000 they had, or even the £30,000 of the grant, would give a good number of cottiers in those distressed districts employment, and they had apparently nothing to do at present but miserable cultivation—no alternative employment whatever.
§ MR. DALYsaid, they ought to bear in mind the circumstances under which the grant was given. They might be told hereafter that when the question was raised they had not stated that £45,000 would be insufficient. That sum of £45,000 consisted partly of £10,000 from Canada, and £5,000 from Liverpool, making together £15,000. If he understood the noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish) rightly, he had said that, in case those contributions were by any means diminished, the Government would increase their grant in proportion. Could he not see his way to making the increase without that diminution taking place? They only asked for a sum of £15,000, which represented only £450 a-year. The whole question was a paltry one, and he trusted the Government would see their way to yield to the wishes of Irish Members with regard to it.
§ Question put, and agreed to; words substituted accordingly.
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, the special object of the Government in inserting the date 1880 was to give immediate relief; but he would not object to the Amendment.
§ Amendment agreed to. Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 6 (Terms upon which Commissioners may undertake works).
§ MR. BLAKE,in moving, as an Amendment, in page 3, line 26, to leave out from "Commissioners" to "Commissioners," in line 35, and instead of "Commissioners" insert "they," said, he wished to draw the attention of the Committee to that and the following 1554 Amendment which he had on the Paper. If the clause were agreed to as it stood, not a single harbour would be erected on the West of Ireland, or anywhere else. The local contributions, being a fourth of the whole cost, were raised with the greatest possible difficulty. These districts were distressed districts, and it was not easy to raise the necessary amount. The conditions, as put in this 6th clause, amounted to this—that in the event of the estimate formed by the engineer of the Board of Works falling short of the sum required for completing the work, the locality must undertake to give their proportion, or a fourth of whatever might be in excess. Supposing the estimated sum for a harbour was £2,000. The engineer had gone down, and made an examination, and said that was the sum required. The Board of Works gave £1,500, and the locality raised £500 by local contributions. There was a condition of that character at present; but the locality was not bound to any sum in excess. The work might come to £3,000 or £4,000, and with the condition compelling the excess sum to be contributed locally in proportion, it would be hopeless at present to get the conditions complied with. It was hard enough to get the fourth, as calculated in the first instance. What he wished was, that when an engineer officer of the Board of Works went down, and made an inspection, in the event of the work not being completed for the estimated sum, the excess should be drawn out of the Consolidated Fund. As it stood at present, so far as the piers and harbours on the West of Ireland were concerned, the Bill was not worth the paper it was printed on. From his experience as a Fishery Inspector, ho knew that the localities would not bind themselves to a fourth of whatever the excess over the estimate might be. He asked the noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish) and the Chief Secretary for Ireland to ponder well on what he said, and, if necessary, to suspend the clause until they had communicated with the Fishery Board in Ireland; and if they did not confirm what he said he would withdraw his opposition to the clause.
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, he fully admitted that, with this provision, there would be great difficulty in the way of immediate expenditure of this money. He was willing to with- 1555 draw the words, and accept the first Amendment, but not the second. If it was found that the actual cost was likely to exceed the original estimate, then the matter would stand over for consideration. The object of the hon. Member would be attained if he (Lord Frederick Cavendish) consented, as he now did, to the withdrawal of those words.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, what would be the effect of adopting the first Amendment and not the second one? It appeared to him, in that case, the work would be stopped, and not proceeded with.
§ MR. BLAKEsaid, as the law stood at present, if the estimate amounted to £2,000, and the proposal of a contractor to £3,000, it was optional for them to say that they would go on or not; but as the clause stood it was compulsory. His subsequent Amendment was to the effect that when the Board of Works engineer estimated the cost, and it was found when the work was proceeded with that an extra sum would be needed, then that sum would be borne by the Board of Works. If they made a blunder, it was right that the sum needed should come from them.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ MR. BLAKE,in moving a further Amendment, in page 3, line 40, after "that," to leave out to end of paragraph in page 4, and insert—
In any case where the actual cost shall exceed that estimated by the Engineer of the Board of Works, then the entire of such excess shall be defrayed out of any moneys placed at the disposal of the Commissioners by Parliament for the making of loans or grants,said, it was a very reasonable proposal. As Inspector of Fisheries, he had recommended harbours to be made, and got the parties to raise the sum originally estimated; but it was found that the contractors estimated higher, and numerous useful works had, in consequence, to be abandoned. In the present impoverished state of the country that was more likely to occur than ever. The works were of a very simple character, and required no great engineering skill to calculate the cost; and if reckless calculations were made the cost should come from the Board of Works. If the proposal was not acceded to, a great deal of the good intention of the Bill would be destroyed.
MR. RAMSAYsaid, he hoped, before the right hon. Gentleman acceded to the Amendment, he would consider the source from which the money, if it was required in consequence of the error of the engineers, was to be drawn. The hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Blake) had no care of the interests of the taxpayers of Great Britain. It was said that the money for the relief of the Irish distress was to be taken from the Irish Church Surplus Fund. For that very reason, the matter had received less consideration on the part of the Members for Great Britain than it would have done if the money was to be taken from the Consolidated Fund; but the proposal now before them was to take from an Imperial fund the money required for works in Ireland, as to the value of which there was room for diversity of opinion; and he conceived it would be necessary to pause before granting the principle of this Amendment, which would impose a burden upon the taxpayers of this country without regard to their wants and wishes. He protested against the adoption of the Amendment, and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would not accede to it. He had listened with great interest to the discussion that had taken place, and had heard, with pleasure, the persistent efforts of hon. Members opposite to get money for purposes which might be of use to the people of Ireland; but when they came to ask for money which would come out of the pockets of people living on the West Coasts of Great Britain, where harbours were as much needed as in Ireland, he thought it was requisite to pause. There was a point beyond which the Members for Scotland and England could not be expected to go.
§ MR. BARRYsaid, unless this Amendment was adopted by the Committee, the whole clause would be, to a large extent, practically inoperative. There was the keenest distress in this part of the country, and he was quite sure the prospect of a large and indefinite expenditure would deter any expenditure whatever. The Government ought to consent to the Amendment. If the Government Inspector sent down to make an estimate made a serious blunder, and fell short by some thousands of the amount required, it was a hard case that an impoverished district had to contribute to meet a portion of the blunder.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, if the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Blake) would withdraw the Amendment, he would move that the whole of the paragraph dealing with excess be deleted, so as to meet the Amendment previously carried.
§ MR. BLAKEsaid, he wished the Board of Works to make correct estimates; and where they did not make correct estimates it was a small affair that they should pay the excess. If they made an erroneous calculation they should pay for it, and useful works should not be abandoned.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, if the words he (Mr. Forster) had alluded to were struck out, then Notice would be published of the intentions of the Board of Works to undertake the works, and, by the clause, the works would be proceeded with. The suggestion of the hon. Member to insert words in the clause went a great deal further. With regard to the estimates, he said the engineer ought to be quite safe. The result of putting it in that way would probably be disadvantageous to the matter in hand; for it would be a strong stimulus to the engineer to put the estimate at too great a height, so as to be within the actual outlay. He thought the clause might be fairly left without any proviso. The result would be that upon the reception of a Report the Board of Works would begin the work. They would spend three-fourths of the money upon it; and he did not think it at all likely they would give it up without very strong reasons. What they probably would do, if left to themselves, was to ask the parties locally interested whether they could not subscribe the other fourth.
§ MR. BLAKEsaid, he did not want to worry the right hon. Gentleman, because he had been worried enough; but he could give cases in point where the work was left unfinished, and liable to be swept away with the first heavy storm, in consequence of localities being unable or unwilling to meet expenses beyond the estimated cost. They might depend upon it, if this was put upon the Board of Works, the estimates would be correctly made.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he did not think there would be any difficulty in raising the fourth, as he could not believe that the distress was so great that the very small sum of a fourth of 1558 the excess could not be found. He thought they could leave it safely with the Board of Works.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORcomplained that a very useful provision of the Piers and Harbours Act would not be available under the terms of the Bill. Clause 4 of the Fishery Piers Act prescribed the conditions under which a grant should be made as follows:—
And the amount of any such grant shall not exceed three-fourths of the total actual cost of any such work, and such grant shall only be made on condition that the repayment of the residue of such grant shall he secured or agreed to he secured by the county or district, or proprietors of lands, which or who, as hereinafter directed, ought, in the opinion of the said Commissioners, to provide for securing the same.The 5th clause went on to provide that not only might the Commissioners grant three-fourths of the total expenses, but that if the locality failed to provide the other fourth the Commissioners might advance it on loan at interest. Now, it seemed to him (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) that, considering the difficulties which had beset many of these piers in different parts of Ireland, it would be a very good thing if the Government would consent to leave in that provision, in order that, in cases of emergency, the Board of Works might have the power to advance on loan that fourth part which the locality could not supply.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he thought the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) rather misunderstood the objects with which they started, one of which was to get the work done as quickly as possible, and that was why they had not put in these clauses of the Fishery Piers Act.
§ Clause, as amended, agreed to.
§ Clause 7 (Power to undertake works); and Clause 8 (Management and maintenance of works when constructed) severally agreed to.
§ Clause 9 (Supplementary provision as to presentments).
§ MAJOR NOLANsuggested that the clause should be postponed, because it contained a reference to Clause 4.
§ Question, "That Clause 9 be postponed," put, and agreed to.
§ Clause 10 (Interpretation).
§ MR. W. E. FORSTER,in moving, as an Amendment, to add the following words in page 5, line 17:—
The term 'scheduled union' means a Poor Law Union, which, or any division of which, was comprised in any Schedule published by the Commissioners of Public Works in the 'Dublin Gazette' as a union or division in which loans might be made in accordance with the notices of the said Commissioners dated the twenty-second day of November one thousand eight hundred and seventy-nine and the twelfth day of January one thousand eight hundred and eighty,said, he moved the addition of these words to define the meaning of the term "scheduled Unions." It was necessary to put in that definition.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he had hoped the right hon. Gentleman would have continued the discretion of the Local Government Board, and not have confined the Bill to the Unions which were scheduled several months ago, because since then distress had arisen in other Unions, and more accurate information could now be obtained. He thought they should give the Local Government Board full power to name the Unions.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERthought that, considering what the Committee had done in the earlier part of the evening, they ought to take the same definition here as there. He would withdraw the Amendment, and define the Unions in the same manner as they had been defined by previous Amendments.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ Clause agreed to.
§ Question, "That the postponed clauses be postponed until after the new clauses have been considered," put, and agreed to.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERmoved, as an Amendment, in page 5, after Clause 9, to insert the following Clause:—
§ (Amendment of terms of loans to boards of guardians.)
§ "The fourth and fifth sections of 'The Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880,' shall be amended, so far as relates to scheduled Unions, as follows (that is to say): —
- "(1) The term for which money may be borrowed by the board of guardians of any scheduled union shall be extended to twelve years. The rate of interest at which the Commissioners of Public Works may lend
1560 to any such board of guardians shall be reduced to one per centum per annum; and, in the case of any loan by the Commissioners of Public Works to any such board of guardians, the payment of the first instalment payable in respect of such loans may, with the consent of the Treasury, be postponed for any period not exceeding two years from the making of the loan, and no interest shall be charged on such loan during any such period of postponement of payment of the first instalment; - "(2) In addition to the purposes specified in the said fourth section as the purposes for which a board of guardians may borrow, any board of guardians which has contracted any loan under the provisions of the said Act may borrow money to pay off such loan;
- "(3) So much as may be necessary of the said sum of one million five hundred thousand pounds payable by the Commissioners of Church Temporalities to the Commissioners of Public Works shall be applied by the Commissioners of Public Works in making good any advance by way of loan which they may make to a board of guardians under the authority of 'The Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880,' upon the terms prescribed by this Act;
§ "The provisions of the nineteenth section of 'The Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880,' shall apply to the repayment of all amounts advanced as last aforesaid by way of loan to Boards of Guardians, as fully as if such advances had been specified in that section."
§ The right hon. Gentleman said, that whereas Boards of Guardians were empowered to give out-door relief, and to borrow money, which the National Debt Commissioners were to lend at the usual terms of 3½ per cent, the Amendment was to enable the Boards to borrow out of the Church Surplus Fund for the same term of years, with an additional two years at no interest, and afterwards interest at only 1 per cent.
§ New Clause (Amendment of terms of loans to Boards of Guardians) brought up, and read a first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be now read a second time."—(Mr. W. E. Forster.)
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, he was not sure that he thoroughly understood the clause. He understood the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster) to state that it was to enable money to be advanced to Boards of Guardians at 1 per cent out of the Irish Church Surplus; but that was not, he thought, the construction of the clause, taking it altogether. It was to be read, of course, in connection with the Belief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880, which 1561 it sought to amend; and that enabled loans to be made to Guardians out of money provided by Parliament. Bearing that in mind, let them read the clause proposed. The clause was divisible into three sub-sections; the first being that the term for which money might be borrowed should be extended to 12 years. That was a general statement; it might be good or bad policy, but he did not dispute it. The second enabled Boards to borrow money to pay off those loans, and he did not question the prudence of that. But then came the 3rd subsection, which, in no respect, governed or was controlled by the previous subsections. It was entirely independent, and might stand or fall by itself. It might be struck out or retained, and would not operate in the slightest degree upon the two previous ones. He should say it was subsidiary and complementary, but not governing. But did the right hon. Gentleman mean to exclude all other resources than the Church Surplus? He apprehended that if the clause were passed, money voted by Parliament would be a source out of which loans might have to be made, so far as it was necessary to supplement this £1,500,000.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the intentions of the clause varied, and applied to any money borrowed for the purposes of out-door relief. He would be prepared to add a word or two to make it clear.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."—(Mr. W. E. Forster.)
§ COLONEL COLTHURSTmoved, as an Amendment, in line 5, to leave out "twelve" and insert "thirty-five." He admitted that some of the reasons which might induce the Committee to accept the Amendment had been modified by the action of his right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster) with respect to the proposal of the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell); but he (Colonel Colthurst) claimed the credit of having made the proposal when the hon. Member for Cork City moved his Bill for the relief of distress. He (Colonel Colthurst) then suggested that the Boards of Guardians should be the channel through which 1562 relief should be given. He had been denounced in Ireland by the special protégés of his hon. Friend opposite, and he supposed those denunciations would now be withdrawn, seeing that the hon. Gentleman had practically adopted his suggestion. In February last he proposed that the same favourable terms as were given to the landlords—namely, loans for 35 years at 1 per cent interest, should be given to Boards of Guardians for purposes of out-door relief, because he had all along felt that the true way to meet this crisis was through the liberal administration of Poor Law relief; but that the Guardians ought to be forced to give out-door relief, and they could not force them to do so unless they gave them liberal terms. The question was, whether, after the concession Her Majesty's Government had made, the Amendment was still necessary. He humbly submitted it was, because, as the hon. Member for Dublin (Dr. Lyons) had pointed out, the £200,000 to be given in grants, as proposed by the hon. Member for Cork City, would go but a very little way. Perhaps it was because he was enamoured of his own suggestion; but he believed that his proposal to advance £200,000 and such further sums as might be found necessary for 35 years at 1 per cent was a better proposal, taking the interest of the poor into consideration, than the proposal of the hon. Member for Cork City, which had been adopted by the Government. However, that was a matter that was done, and he would now ask the Government to accept his Amendment.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERproposed to alter the wording of the first sub-section of his clause by omitting the words "scheduled Unions" and inserting the words—
Any union authorized to give out-door relief under the 3rd Section of 'The Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880.'
§ MR. CALLANwas afraid the words would have a restrictive effect. He wished to leave the Local Government Board full power to extend the provisions of the Act to any Unions in which circumstances might hereafter occur which, in their opinion, justified such extension. He would suggest that the words "scheduled Unions" be left out and not replaced by any other definition, unless it were made to read in this way—"Any Board of Guardians 1563 approved of by the Local Government Board. That would leave the Board perfectly free.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERthought the words he had proposed were sufficient. The Poor Law Board had full power to use its discretion with regard to the Unions.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, if the hands of the Board were not tied, he was satisfied; but he should like to know the exact effect of the Amendment. To what Unions would the operation of the clause be restricted?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERreplied, that it would be restricted to whatever Unions the Local Government Board found it necessary, in consequence of the state of distress, to give out-door relief. It applied to all Ireland upon the discretion of the Local Government Board.
§ COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, he would repeat his Amendment.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERhoped his hon. and gallant Friend would not press the Amendment. He hoped the Boards of Guardians would be able to get on with the grants; but, if they required loans, he thought it would be better not to have more than the two descriptions of loans now existing and the possible grants. Besides, 35 years was a dangerously long time.
§ COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, of course, he would not press his Amendment against the wish of the right hon. Gentleman or the Committee; but he regarded the administration of out-door relief as the real, vital question at that moment, and he wished to induce the Boards to be liberal in giving out-door relief. Therefore, he thought there was quite as good a case for granting loans for that purpose as for sanitary purposes.
§ Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he understood the point of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) to be that these loans should not be extended to every purpose for which Boards of Guardians might borrow.
§ MR. GIBSONexplained that, in his view, the construction of the clause seemed to supersede the right of borrowing from Imperial funds.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, that was not the intention. It was intended to 1564 confine the clause entirely to loans borrowed for the purpose of out-door relief. He would introduce some explanatory words on the Report.
§ Amendment (Mr. W. E. Forster) agreed to.
§ MR. GIBSONpointed out that a consequential Amendment must be made in the two other sub-sections of the clause, in accordance with the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had proposed, as to the definition of the Unions. If they inserted the words "of any Union as aforesaid" it would make the sections harmonize. He wished to know whether certain Unions which had borrowed money under the old system would have the benefit of the new proposal? He also suggested that in the 3rd subsection the word "necessary" should be replaced by the word "available;" because it was obvious that they were putting so much on this £1,500,000, that if it were made compulsory to do everything out of it, according to that Amendment, it would be an impossibility.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he would accept the words "of any Union as aforesaid." Three or four Unions had already borrowed money since the last Bill, though not to a large extent; and, of course, they would feel themselves in a very unfair position if neighbouring Unions were now enabled to get loans at a cheaper rate. That was the reason why this clause was put in. He moved to omit, in lines 15 and 16, all the words from "in addition" down to "borrow."
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That those words stand part of the sub-section."
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, he was not sure that identity of meaning would be accomplished in that way, and would suggest that the necessary alteration of the wording might be done on Report.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he would like to get it done now. He would, therefore, move to insert in the same sub-section the words—
The Board of Guardians of any Union authorized as aforesaid which has contracted any loan under the provisions of the said Act for out-door relief,after striking out from "any," in line 16, to "Act," in line 18.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he understood the right hon. Gentleman had considerably widened the number of bodies entitled to borrow money. He had added to the scheduled Unions all those who had borrowing powers.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, what he limited the clause to was to those Boards of Guardians who were empowered, in the first place, to give outdoor relief not in accordance with the old provisions of the Poor Law. It was meant to apply to any Board of Guardians throughout Ireland in that position.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORinquired, if it applied to them whether they were in the distressed districts or not?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, yes, if by distressed districts the hon. Gentleman meant the Unions hitherto considered as distressed. Of course, the provisions would not apply to Unions which were not distressed. The Act this year made no restriction in any part of Ireland as to the Unions that would give out-door relief. It was left to the discretion of the Local Government Board. These loans were meant to apply equally to any Union.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORremarked, that the right hon. Gentleman had by that time discovered that the fact of a Union being scheduled was not a true criterion that it was the only Union in a state of distress. He was informed that hitherto the Unions had been scheduled rather by preference of the local governing bodies than by the prevalence of distress; and he would recommend the right hon. Gentleman to consider whether it was not desirable to add a great many Unious to those already within the scope of the Bill?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, these questions had not been left out of consideration. He hoped to be able to show why he adhered to some definition of the Unions.
§ MR. BIGGARobserved, that the right hon. Gentleman seemed to have some doubt of the importance of the question raised by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor). His own Colleague, who was a native of County Cavan, told him that the Unions had been scheduled in a most absurdly incorrect way. He said the Union in which there had been most distress was not scheduled at all.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
1566§ MR. PARNELLmoved, in sub-section 2, after the word "money," to insert "under the provisions of this section."
§ Amendment agreed to; words inserted accordingly.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."—(Mr. W. E. Forster.)
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, he wished to move the rejection of sub-section 3.
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, he must repeat his suggestion that the word "available" should be substituted for the word "necessary," in the same sub-section. He thought that necessary, because the clause was a mandatory one.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERthought it would meet the object of the hon. Member for Cork City if he moved to omit the words "so much as may be."
§ MR. PARNELLwould move to omit those words. It was not necessary to go over the arguments which had already been adduced in favour of placing upon the Consolidated Fund the difference between two rates of interest; but an important alteration had been made by the Amendment of the Chief Secretary. Under the Belief Bill of last Session the money borrowed by Boards of Guardians for the purposes of out-door relief was borrowed from the Exchequer. It was now proposed to be borrowed from the Irish Church Fund, and to that he objected. He wished to have it borrowed, as it was now, from the Imperial funds.
§ MR. W.E. FORSTERsaid, he made this proposition in the hope of meeting the views of hon. Members. He need not go back to a question which had been fully debated, and which had been decided in favour of the public purse. He believed the alteration would not affect the Church Surplus Fund to a large extent, and he hoped the Amendment would not be pressed.
§ MR. PARNELLasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would agree to this compromise, that the difference in the interest should be borne by the Treasury?
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERwas afraid he could not do that. The amount in question was not large; but he must adhere to the principle which they had laid down.
§ Amendment proposed, to leave out sub-section (3).—(Mr. Parnell.)
§
Question put,
That the words' So much as may be necessary of the said sum of one million five hundred thousand pounds payable by the Commissioners of Church Temporalities to the Commissioners of Public Works shall be applied by the Commissioners of Public Works in making good any advance by way of loan which they may make to a Board of Guardians under the authority of 'The Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880,' upon the terms prescribed by this Act,' stand part of the Clause.
§ The Committee divided: —Ayes 65; Noes 32: Majority 33.—(Div. List, No. 40.)
§ Question again proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
§ MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he wished to call attention to the fact that now that the rate of interest had been lowered at their request, the loans had been transferred from the Imperial Exchequer to that special Irish Fund. That fact ought to be known in its naked truth. It was one of the most monstrous things that had ever been done. The Imperial Exchequer had shuffled everything off itself when it was agreed that the interest should be lowered. They resisted the obligation to assist a starving community, and put it upon the Irish Church Fund.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he did not admit the allegation. In agreeing to give loans at a low rate of interest they had adhered to the principle laid down at the outset, that they should come out of this Fund, and not out of the Imperial Exchequer.
§ MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he was quite aware of that; but he wanted to put the fact before the country. The proposal was at first that the loans to Boards of Guardians and others should come out of the Imperial Exchequer; but when they asked that equally good terms should be given to the Guardians as were given to the landlords, and that concession was granted, the Government transferred the loans to this miserable Fund, and so withdrew the modicum that was granted from the Imperial Exchequer.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, if the hon. Member wished to call public attention to the matter, all he (Mr. W. E. 1568 Forster) had to say was, that nothing had been withdrawn. The loans were to have been granted on the usual terms, so that there would have been no loss. The question whether the public funds should relieve the Irish distress had been decided by the Bill in the negative. His hon. Friend was not correct in stating that any help out of the Revenue had been withdrawn.
§ MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he must affirm distinctly that something had been withdrawn.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he was sorry he could not make his hon. Friend understand it. Under the first Act that was passed, the Guardians were able to borrow money, and the Commissioners of Public Works to lend. The money was to be given at a cheaper rate than it could be got elsewhere; but there was to be no loss to the Treasury. However, a change was made in the rate of interest which would have caused a decided loss; and, right or wrong, it was decided that was not to be borne by the general taxes. As no loss was contemplated, so nothing had been withdrawn.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, there might have been a loss to the public funds, independent of the interest which, by the change, would now have to be borne by the Church Surplus Fund. It sometimes happened, and it might happen in this case, that some of the Boards of Guardians might not be able to repay the loans, and to that extent the Church Surplus Fund would be a loser instead of the Exchequer. To that extent, a difference had been caused by the adoption of the clause of the right hon. Gentleman. Under the Act of last Session, if any Board of Guardians became bankrupt, as they did in 1847–8, so as to be Tillable to repay the advances to the Treasury, the public funds would have been the loser; but now, under the alteration made by the right hon. Gentleman, the Church Surplus Fund would be the loser. He trusted the right hon. Gentleman would consider the advisability of inserting a new clause, by which the risk of that loss might be taken from that Fund. It was manifestly not fair to put it upon it, for it was not originally intended to do so. It was decided in the last Act that the money should be lent out of the Consolidated Fund; and, consequently, it should bear any loss that might possibly result from 1569 the non-payment of the Boards of Guardians. He (Mr. Parnell) thought it would be fair, under all the circumstances, to propose a new clause, which would prevent such loss being thrown upon the Church Surplus Fund.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHmoved that the following Clause be added to the Bill:—
§ (Funds for preliminary expenses of loans.)
§ "In addition to the sum of five thousand pounds which it is provided by the fifteenth section of the Act of the Session of Parliament held in the tenth and eleventh years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter thirty-two, may he advanced by the Treasury to the Commissioners of Public Works in any one year, to be applied by them in making the necessary survey, inspection, and investigation, and in taking all other proceedings preliminary to making any loan or advance as therein mentioned, the Commissioners of Public Works may at any time before the thirty-first day of March next after the passing of this Act, with the consent of the Treasury, out of any moneys placed at their disposal by Parliament for the making of loans, apply the further sum of five thousand ponnds, or such other sum as the Treasury may from time to time deem necessary, for defraying the expenses mentioned in the said section."
§ Motion agreed to; Clause ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ MR. PARNELLmoved, after Clause 8, to insert the following Clauses:—
The Commissioners of Public Works may, from time to time, out of the said sum of one million five hundred thousand pounds, payable to them by the Commissioners of Church Temporalities, apply any sums not exceeding in all the sum of two hundred and fifty thousand pounds for the purposes of the Fishery Piers Act, to be expended in the manner therein mentioned, but subject to the conditions and exceptions hereinafter mentioned.Upon the publication by the Commissioners in the 'Dublin Gazette' or otherwise, as they shall think fit, of a notice of their intention to undertake any work which may be executed under the Fishery Piers Act, such notice shall be instead of and shall have all the force and effect of the final notice mentioned in the sixteenth section of the Fishery Piers Act.Before publishing such notice, the Commissioners may, if they think fit, do any matter or thing, and shall have, and may if they think tit, exercise any right, power, or authority in connection with such work, which they might do or would have with reference to any of the proceedings preliminary to the publication of the final notice mentioned in the Fishery Piers Act if the work were undertaken in strict compliance with the said Act.The provisions contained in the following sections of the Fishery Piers Act (that is to say); section four, sub-section four, section 1570 five, and sections ten to fifteen, both included, relative to proceedings preliminary to the publication of such notice, shall not apply to any such work.
§ (Power to undertake works.)
§ "At any time notice after the publication by the Commissioners of Public Works of any such notice as is mentioned in this Act, the Commissioners may commence and proceed with the works proposed to be executed and to which such notice relates.
§ "The Commissioners may, if they think fit, do any matter or thing, and shall have and may, if they think fit, exercise any right, power, or authority with reference to such work, which they might do or would have if the work were undertaken in strict compliance with the Fishery Piers Act, and all the enactments contained in that Act, save so far as they are modified by this Act, shall apply as nearly as may be with reference to any such work."
§ (Management and maintenance of works when constructed.)
§ "When such work has been constructed, all the provisions of the Fishery Piers Act and of the Act of the Session of Parliament held in the sixteenth and seventeenth years of the reign of Her present Majesty, chapter one hundred and thirty-six, as amended by any Act or Acts, shall apply to such work as if it was a pier constructed in strict compliance with the Fishery Piers Act."
§ The hon. Member said, he trusted the Government would carry out the new clause he had placed upon the Paper last night. He regretted he was unable to give longer Notice; but he had intended to bring in a Bill in reference to the matter, and finally came to the conclusion it would be more convenient to propose a clause in connection with the Bill under discussion. The Committee was aware they had agreed to grant the sum of £45,000 out of the Imperial Exchequer in aid of the construction of fishery piers and harbours on the West Coast of Ireland. As many as 70 piers and harbours had been recommended by the Commissioners as urgently required; and in order really to develop the harbours and piers on the West and South Coasts of Ireland, it was necessary that they should have a very much larger grant. He asked, by these clauses, to allow them to have some of the Church Surplus Fund for that natural object. The hon. Member for the County Waterford (Mr. Blake), who was for many years Inspector of Fisheries in Ireland, and had fulfilled his duties in a most satisfactory manner, had assisted him (Mr. Parnell) in framing these clauses, and 1571 from his practical knowledge of the operation of the Fishery Piers Act of 1847, he assured him that they would work perfectly with that Act. They would enable the Board of Works in Ireland to undertake the construction of fishery piers and harbours, which they could undertake by the Act of 1847, without the necessity of any local contribution. The Act of 1847 allocated a grant of £50,000 for Fishery Piers and Harbours in the West. It provided that a contribution of one-fourth was necessary from local sources. That had usually been found by baronial grants; but, owing to the repugnance of the ratepayers to burden themselves more, it had been impossible to get these. He proposed to dispense with the necessity of a fourth, and the red tape required by the Act of 1847, and enable the Board of Works to undertake the construction of the fishery piers and harbours which were so much needed. He had every confidence in recommending the application of some of the Church Surplus Fund for this purpose. It would be most difficult to point out a work more urgently needed than the construction of these harbours. It was quite impossible to hope that they could be constructed without this system, for the West Coast of Ireland was far removed from civilization; it had no resident landlords, and the people were left in a sort of wild state to subsist in the best way they could, without anyone to look after their interests; and it would be of the greatest advantage to the teeming population if a grant such as he proposed were made to get on with some of the 70 piers and harbours which had been recommended by the Fishery Inspectors. Some of the piers and harbours constructed in 1847 had fallen out of repair and were now useless, so that very much was needed to develop the fisheries. He asked the Committee, with the utmost confidence, to agree to the second reading. The Irish Members, he believed were almost unanimous in its favour, and thought that no application of the money would be more advantageous to the country.
§ New Clause (Mr. Parnell) brought up, and read a first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be now read a second time."
1572§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he could not accept the clauses. He was not quite sure that£250,000 would be available, although he hoped it might be; but he did not think they ought in a Relief of Distress Bill to vote a large sum out of the Irish Church Surplus Fund for public works, independent of the immediate relief. It would be a very good thing to have piers and harbours made; but that should be done under some great and comprehensive scheme, by means of money lent on good security out of the public funds. It was a very strong and sudden step to take that the remainder of a very large part of the Fund should be swept up in supplying fishery piers. The Government, as trustees of the Fund, could not consent to the clauses.
§ MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, that with a moderate expenditure upon the piers and harbours of the country they could develop the fisheries, and do a great deal to relieve some of the most distressed of the Irish population. He could not lose this opportunity of supporting the hon. Member for Cork City in pressing this proposal upon the Government. With proper facilities the agricultural population near the coast could supplement their incomes by fishing where piers and harbours had been recommended. Owing to the maladministration in Dublin, that speedy help had not been given which the people had a right to expect. If the right hon. Gentleman had made inquiries which had satisfied him that the expenditure of any money on the Irish fisheries could not be a profitable investment, he could understand his position; but he (Mr. O'Connor Power) was not prepared to accept that conclusion. He was satisfied there was a mine of wealth encircling Ireland which only required development. He would not enlarge upon the general question; but he might easily show by reference to Scotland that Ireland had not been fairly treated in this matter; and even at the risk of detaining the right hon. Gentleman they should endeavour to impress the Government with the necessity of the case.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he was afraid he had not made himself understood. He did not deny that it would be of advantage to Ireland that the fisheries should be developed; but he must 1573 remind the Committee that since 1846 £125,000 had been spent in fishery piers. The total number of boats engaged in the Irish fisheries had declined from 19,046 to 5,778. He did not deny that advantage would be gained by the development of the piers and fisheries; but that was not the only public industry which it would be well to develop, and now that they were dealing with the question of immediate distress, they were not going to fork into the Bill what would be the great bulk of the Irish Church Surplus Fund for fishery piers. Why not give it for railways or other purposes? If the best way to use the Church Surplus Fund was to apply it to public works the different claims ought to be considered, and they should not grant £250,000 to one, simply because they had a Bill before them to meet the distress.
§ COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, a Bill stood for second reading on Wednesday next, dealing with this very question of sea fisheries. Without wishing to deprecate the advance of this large sum, he did not see the slightest chance of the Government adopting a proposal made in this sudden manner. As the hon. Member (Mr. Parnell) had the interest of the poor fishermen at heart, he had better withdraw these clauses, and bring them on as an Amendment to the Bill which stood first for discussion on Wednesday. The Government might then reconsider this matter.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, did the hon. and gallant Member (Colonel Colthurst)really imagine that a private Member's Bill, the second reading of which was to be moved on the 7th of July, would pass into law that Session? If he did, he had really occupied his time with little purpose so far as Parliamentary procedure was concerned. This proposition was very reasonable. It was that part of the money granted by this Bill should be spent on fishery piers. It was not proposed that a fresh sum should be taken from the Church Surplus Fund. It came with wonderfully bad grace from the Chief Secretary for Ireland to talk about plundering the Church Fund —plundering, of course, was not the word he used. Well, to talk about an inroad on the Church Fund, when for the necessity of the landlords nearly £1,500,000 had been taken. When an immensely larger sum was given to a 1574 particular class, it was not right to talk of giving a large sum to one interest. If the sum given to the landlords had been granted to the tenant farmers, they would have been aiding a much larger and more deserving class. He thought the Committee should agree to the clauses as proposed.
§ SIR PATRICK O'BRIENsaid, he had given the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) his support when he proposed that a sum of £200,000 should be applied to the immediate relief of the distress; but it was not proposed by this new grant to deal with the distress at present existing in Ireland. They were about to fight the battle of the Church Surplus Fund, and upon a bye question. No one would, for a moment, deny the importance of fishery piers and harbours; but that was not the question before them. The question was whether a Bill introduced for a specific purpose, to relieve the existing distress, was to be turned into a Bill for the allocation of the general property of the whole people of Ireland. Admitting the necessity of doing all that the hon. Member for the City of Cork and other hon. Members said as to the piers and harbours, he would ask whether there were not persons in Ireland who did not profit by the sea, who had a right to look for a share of this sum, especially when it was not made for the purpose of suppressing the existing distress? He thought it was premature to discuss the allocation of the Fund upon the Bill before them.
§ MR. BLAKEwished to correct the erroneous impression conveyed to the Committee by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland on the information of the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish). He was sorry to say it, but if the right hon. Gentleman had been a better student of the Reports of the Inspectors of the Irish Fisheries he would not have fallen into the blunder he had. He had conveyed to the Committee the information from the noble Lord that, with an increase in harbours, there had been a decrease in the fishery industry and in the number of boats employed in it—that, though since 1846 there had been £120,000 spent in fishery piers in Ireland, there had, notwithstanding, been a decrease in boats and crews. The right hon. Gentleman might 1575 have seen from some of the last Reports of the Inspectors of Fisheries, made before he (Mr. Blake) left office himself, that the Inspectors had made a complete revision of the statistics regarding the Irish Fisheries. Formerly, every boat on the Irish Coast employed in the fishery, even if only for one day, was put down as a fishing boat. Many of these boats were really ferry and market boats, and not fishing boats at all. No boat was now put down in the statistics which was not actually a fishing boat. Hence the apparent decrease in the number of boats. No class had suffered more severely from the Famine of 1846–7–8 than the Irish fishermen. The capture of fish used to be pursued, to a large extent, among them; but, during the Famine, thousands were obliged to give up the industry, who were never afterwards able to resume it. Much needed to be done for the Irish Fisheries. There were, on the West and South Coasts of Ireland, large tracts of fine fishing ground, which, for want of suitable harbours, could not be fished, because the fishermen were afraid, owing to the tempestuous character of these seas, to go out except in very fine weather, lest they should be caught in a storm and not be able to regain their little harbours. For the last 10 years the fish had been keeping farther out to sea than before, thus making larger boats and better constructed harbours a necessity. The £45,000 now named by the Government, added to the Canadian, Liverpool, and other grants, would go a very short way in supplying the requisite harbours. For the wants along the East Coast alone, the £5,000 a-year, which the noble Lord said would be continued for future years, would not be sufficient. The hon. Member for Wexford was very anxious for a harbour to be constructed at Cahore for instance. If that were done, some 100 more men than were now employed would be able to ply the trade. Then the hon. Member for Cork was anxious for one at Ballycotton. If four other harbours were constructed in his (Mr. Blake's) county, £10,000 worth of fish would be added to the food supply. Now, if the proposal of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) were carried into operation, and loans were given to the counties that did not receive them now from the Irish Reproductive Loan Fund, he ventured to say 1576 that at least £1,500,000 worth of fish would enter the market beyond what was caught now. It was not alone Ireland that was interested in a matter of that kind. The English consumer was interested in it. An enormous quantity of fish came to London and other parts of England, and a great deal more could find a ready market there. Considering the bad agricultural season of the past few years, and the enormous foreign competition that had to be faced in the supply of butcher's meat, pork, and other such commodities, they should endeavour to make the very best of whatever industries remained to them. The seas round Ireland were capable of supplying, under proper management, at least five times the amount of employment and of food they did at present; and, under these circumstances, he thought the proposal of the hon. Member was well worthy of the favourable consideration of the right hon. Gentleman, and those associated with him in the Government of Ireland.
§ MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, the argument of the hon. Member for Waterford County (Mr. Blake) was an argument for weighing any well-considered scheme on the subject which might be submitted to that House; but it was no argument for the spending of £250,000 immediately on works which, if they were to be of any permanent value at all, required the greatest possible care in their preparation, deliberation in their plan, and skill in their execution. Anyone who knew anything about harbours and piers knew that they could be constructed only during a limited portion of the year. Unfortunately, much of the money which had been spent in England, Scotland, and Ireland on these works had turned out to be a useless expenditure. The question now was, whether money for works of this kind should be taken from other purposes of relief; for that, he thought, was the proposal of the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell), that £250,000 should be taken out of the sum of £1,500,000 proposed to be given from the Irish Church Surplus, and should be applied to the construction of piers and harbours. In all probability, if that sum were expended immediately, it would be wasted. It would not give the relief that was contemplated, and it would fail to afford the facilities which the hon. Member 1577 desired should be given to the working of the Fisheries of Ireland. For his own part, he (Mr. W. H. Smith) might say there was no one who would be more prepared to give the most careful consideration to any scheme which promised to develop the industries of Ireland; but he most cordially supported the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in his opposition to the Motion, he-cause he believed it would entirely defeat the object they had in view, which was to relieve the present distress out of the money which was available.
§ MR. SYNANalso regretted that he could not support the Motion. He did not see why they should promote the interests of the consumers of fish in England at the expense of the Irish Church Surplus Fund. Nor did he see how it was possible to meet the present distress in Ireland by the promotion of this scheme. These works were of an Imperial character, and ought to be constructed out of the Imperial Treasury. They were works which should be provided for by a separate Bill, instead of being forced into this Bill, which was only intended for the relief of the present distress in Ireland. He had no doubt it would be a great service to spend £1,000,000 for the purpose of developing the Fisheries of Ireland, and he believed it could be done in such a way that the loan would pay itself; but the money ought not to be taken from the Church Surplus Fund. That was a Fund that should be devoted to purposes for which an Imperial loan could not be obtained. It was intended for the benefit of the whole Irish people in times of famine and calamity; and the Irish Members, who were the trustees of the Irish people, should see that it was encroached upon for no other purpose.
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, the objection to the proposal of the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) was that it was a proposal that would spread over some years the expenditure of a very large sum which should be applied to the relief of the distress which now existed, and that expenditure of that nature was not capable of immediate application in relieving distress. It was not, it was objected, a direct means of giving relief, however useful the expenditure might be for other purposes. The hon. Member for Cork City had, at least, this excuse for having made the propo- 1578 sition which was open to these charges, that the main machinery of this Bill for giving relief was equally indirect. It gave no more than 25 per cent at most of the money it voted to the actual relief of the people. The rest went mainly to benefit the landlords, and would enable them, by improving their estates, to gain in the end an increase of their rents. He thought, therefore, that, so far as the indirectness of the effect went, the hon. Member for Cork City had some excuse in the general framing of the Bill. But, notwithstanding, there might be something in the objection of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. It was a large sum to be spent on those piers, and it was hard to approach the subject now with any chance of proper discussion. There was no doubt that there was a great deal of want; there was no doubt that they could usefully employ people, who would otherwise remain hungry, in building piers; and there was no doubt that the piers would be of much utility if constructed. If, however, instead of taking this £250,000, a small sum were taken for this description of work, could anyone doubt that it might be usefully expended in the relief of distress? They had £45,000 from the Treasury, £15,000 from Canada and other quarters for the purpose of making these harbours. But it had transpired already in the course of this debate that although by means of these sums, and the contributions likely to be raised locally, many works might be carried on for some years, there would be danger of these being at last left uncompleted. Was it an unfair and unreasonable thing to suggest that some small sum, not £250,000, but a sum equivalent to the sum already granted—£60,000—the amount of the two grants—should be given from the Irish Church Surplus? That was justified by the distress which prevailed in those sea-board places, and by the necessity for something more than had yet been secured to complete these works. When the large sum of £1,500,000 was given to the Irish landlords to swell their rents ultimately, it was not too much to ask that some portion of the same Fund should be given in cases where it could be applied directly to the relief of distress by such works. He did not think there was much in the argument of the hon. Gen- 1579 tleman (Mr. Blake), who feared that the ultimate effect of such a grant would be to cheapen fish for the English market. Whether the fish came to pious Catholics in English counties, or to Protestants who liked it, the fishermen would equally be benefited.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he was glad to find that after nearly 12 hours' debate they were still so cheerful; but he wished to remind them of a difference between that mode of making use of the Church money and any other that had been suggested. As to what had been said about the giving of loans to the landlords resulting in an eventual increase of their rents, that system of giving loans to the landlords had been decided upon by the late Government. The hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) had asked whether they might not make a small grant for fishery piers to promote employment, when they were giving so large a sum to the landlords for the same purpose of promoting employment. But there was this immense difference—that they lent the money to the landlords, whereas it was proposed to give it for the fishery piers. That was an enormous difference at the very outset of their proposal, and it was introducing a perfectly new principle, which it had never occurred to anyone could be brought into this debate. They had to consider whether they should absolutely give away an Irish Church Surplus for public works. He thought they should be very careful before they made over the principal of the Irish Church Surplus for any such purpose. This evening they had assented to the possibility of a diminution of the principal of the Fund for the special purpose of relieving immediate distress and keeping the people alive; but it was a somewhat startling proposal that they should allocate any of that principal for this description of public works. He could not imagine that hon. Members from Ireland, if aware of its full effects, would assent to the Motion, or that it would be generally accepted.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, the Chief Secretary for Ireland had remarked a difference in the nature of the two proposals. He had said that the money to be advanced under the other provisions of the Bill was to be given in the way of loan. But when money was given in the shape of a loan at a nominal rate of 1580 interest, the real fact was that the proceeding amounted to a present of three-fourths of the money. Then, as to the question whether this money was really used for the relief of the poor. They knew very well, from the discussions that had taken place, that there was only a nominal relief provided for the poor by this money given to the landlords. A very small amount of the principal sum of that loan would even reach the poor. The hon. Baronet the Member for King's County (Sir Patrick O'Brien) had insinuated that some of the supporters of this clause were actuated by selfish motives, because they represented maritime counties. He (Mr. Biggar) represented an inland county which had no sea-board whatever, and a town in a tidal river which had no fishing whatever; and he was, therefore, free from any personal temptation. But he really did think, in all seriousness, that it would be a very much more judicious outlay of this £1,500,000, were it given for the purpose of these piers which would be reproductive, if they were to believe the statements of the hon. Member for Waterford County (Mr. Blake), whose experience was worth that of all the rest of the Members of the Committee, than if given to the landlords. The hon. Member had shown them that the money would not only be reproductive and benefit the fishermen, but that it would also benefit the consumers of fish in Ireland and England. The hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) seemed to think that it was a great grievance that the consumers of fish in the large towns of England should reap any part of the benefit. But they would simply get the benefit of these large supplies of fish, if they gave a price for it which would tempt it from the mouth of the Irish consumer. And if they got the fish, the men who caught it and sent it to England would be benefited. The other systems of spending the money would only benefit a few people, and that in a much more questionable way. He thought the Government ought to agree to the proposal to allocate a portion of this money to fishing piers, which, under the former provisions of the Bill, would be commenced, but were never likely without a further grant of money to be finished, and which were, therefore, likely to be utterly worthless.
§ MR. P. MARTINsaid, that the Irish Members were not unanimous in recommending the adoption of the proposal. He did not think it would be a wise proceeding to take £250,000 for fishing harbours and piers out of the £1,500,000 which it had been already arranged to allocate for the purpose of relieving the immediate distress existing in the country. The description of work required in erecting harbours and piers would not be the kind likely to be useful for the purposes of affording that immediate relief demanded by the exigency of the present circumstances. Skilled labour would be required, and to supply it he feared in very many cases the artizans employed would be brought over from England. That had been found too frequently to be the case in their past experience. But wherever the labour came from, this description of work required time; and it would not be effectual, as it occurred to him, in at once and before the harvest relieving the sufferings of those shown to be in a state verging on starvation. Under those circumstances, he trusted that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would adhere to the resolution he had come to, and would not suffer the sum which should be applied to the immediate relief of a distress that was of a deep and widespread character to be applied to purposes of a different nature. If they were discussing the general question as to whether the Fisheries of Ireland should be encouraged or not, he would quite agree with the weighty observations delivered by the hon. Gentleman who had been lately an Inspector of Fisheries. He trusted the Chief Secretary for Ireland would take these observations into consideration at the proper time, and find funds for promoting an industry too long neglected in Ireland. He had heard something said about Scotland. In Scotland harbours were rising very* much from the aid given, not by the Government, but from a body of resident landlords, able and willing to encourage works of that character. This, unfortunately, was not the case in Ireland. The Scotch Fisheries, which had admirable piers, had also, however, been assisted by Government formerly in a way that the Irish had not been up to the present. He hoped that, in process of time, attention would be given to this subject; but, so far as this Bill was concerned, he thought, notwithstanding the 1582 respect he had for the hon. Member for Cork City, that they ought not to accept his clauses.
§ MR. PARNELLthought there was some force in the objections which had been urged on the other side to grants being taken at such short notice, more especially as it would appear to raise the question of the allocating of the Church Surplus Funds, and their distribution among the industries of Ireland; but the proposition of the hon. Member for Lei-trim (Mr. Tottenham) did not fall under these objections. The amount which had been allocated by this Bill—one of the most useful the Bill contained next to that of £200,000 for assisting the Poor Law Unions in giving out-door relief—that for harbours and fishery piers was a very small one, and when that question was under discussion the Irish Members urged the desirability of increasing it. This was impressed on the Government; but the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury was unwilling, he said, in view of the Budget proposals, to recommend an increase. Taken with the Liverpool and the Canadian funds it would amount to £60,000. This was a very small thing for the assistance of the Fisheries of the West Coast. It would go a very little way, and he was afraid it would raise expectations among the fishermen which, in nine cases out of ten, would be doomed to disappointment. Now, if power were given to the Commissioners to take from the Church Surplus Fund £60,000 in addition to the £60,000 already granted for piers and harbours, it would make something of a little gift to the West Coast Fisheries. Although there was a great deal of force in the objection of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) that a considerable portion of this must go in materials, though not so much as he seemed to think, yet nothing he (Mr. Parnell) believed would do more to relieve the poverty and privations during the coming winter than affording such facilities to these fishing stations. In many instances they had no harbours, but only little boat slips. It would encourage the men to hold on and fight through the winter. He would ask the right hon. Gentleman to consider this. He did not know whether it was the intention to finish the Bill that night; but if not he would ask leave to withdraw his clause for the present, in order that it might be fully considered in the interval 1583 between then and the next Sitting of the Committee; that the right hon. Gentleman might consider whether or not he would give, say £60,000, so as to make something of a little gift to these little harbours of the West Coast. This would not trench much on the Church Surplus, and it would be something out of the £1,500,000, which he felt sure would do a great deal of good. The question had been thoroughly inquired into, the harbours were well known. The Board of Works would know perfectly well where the works were to be constructed, and he felt sure it would be an enormous assistance.
§ MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, this amended proposal was really a most reasonable one. He was a little startled with the original proposal, and could not have supported it. He would remind the Committee that there was a Committee of the Board of Works, composed of at least one Member of that Board, one Fishery Commissioner, and one Naval Officer, sitting now in Dublin on this question of small piers and harbours, for which the Treasury gave £45,000, and charitable funds provide other £15,000,making together £60,000. Applications to that body had been very numerous, the greater part of them for sums of £30,000 and £40,000, and these grants would be of the greatest use. But the Commissioners could only make a selection from the applications; they could not take a great number, because their funds were limited. What could be more reasonable than to take from this Irish Fund, which the House disposed of as it wished, not as the Irish Representative wished, out of which the House, under the auspices of the Government, took £1,500,000. What more reasonable than to apply £60,000, for this purpose to supplement the sum of £60,000 already allocated? When the winter came, whether the year's harvest were good or bad, there would still be an immense deal of poverty in, the country. Nobody must suppose, when they heard these tales of distress told to the world, that they described an exceptional state of things; they were the normal condition of many parts of the country, where a sum spent as proposed would be spent for the best purpose. Therefore he hoped the Chief Secretary for Ireland would not "put his foot down" and refuse the proposi- 1584 tion, but that he would reconsider it between now and when the Bill was finally disposed of, whether he could not permit Ireland to have £60,000 out of her own money spent in this way.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, yes: he proposed to withdraw his clauses in order to give the right hon. Gentleman a little time for consideration, for a very short Notice had been given of them.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. VILLIERS STUART,in rising to move the following Clause:—
§ (Power to Board of Works to make advances to boards of guardians, &c.)
§
It shall be lawful for the Board of Works to make advances to boards of guardians and municipal corporations in scheduled districts on the same terms as to landlords, to enable them to give employment as an alternative to gratuitous out-door relief to able-bodied labourers, and to make advances through the medium of boards of guardians to tenant farmers in scheduled districts to enable them to give employment on their farms in the making of permanent improvements,
said, as a large proportion of Irish distress was created by want of employment, of course the obvious means of relieving that distress would be to afford employment. That was the principle which the late Government had recognized in granting the loans to landowners. That was a good measure so far as it went; but it did not go far enough, because it did not sufficiently diffuse the employment given. Only the area immediately surrounding the estate upon which the loan was expended derived any benefit, the district beyond remaining untouched by it. Labourers could not come from their homes a distance of four or five miles for work, returning again when the day's work was over. What was wanted was a measure which should be the means of diffusing the employment; and he ventured to submit that no better means could be devised for doing that thoroughly than by advances to tenant farmers to enable them to make improvements on their holdings, making the Board of Guardians the intermediaries for these advances. There was a precedent for such a measure in the Seeds Loans, and the Bill which was introduced for that purpose last Session. Of course, there was the question of security; but
1585
in the Seeds Loans this presented no great difficulty, and the difficulties would he more easily met in the case of loans to large farmers than was the case in the Seeds Loans, which included an infinite number of petty loans to small cottiers. There would be no difficulty in reaching the tenant farmers through the means of the Board of Guardians, and also in taking sufficient security. Of course, the Board of Guardians were the natural and proper machinery for relieving distress; they would be thoroughly acquainted with the circumstances of every man in the Union; they could put their finger on him at once; they knew which farmer was solvent and which was not; in fact, no more capable machinery could be employed or any more immediately available. There they were available at once, and he thought that relief could not be more carefully administered than through the medium of the Board of Guardians. The Government proposal was to confine the loans to these bodies for purposes of out-door relief; but the object of his Amendment was to enable the Boards to give not only outdoor relief, but to give employment, and to have a discretion; for Poor Law Guardians well knew the demoralizing effect of giving out-door relief. The labouring men were perfectly conscious of that themselves, for he heard deputations of them say—"We do not want charity; we want employment to earn an honest subsistence for ourselves and our families." And there was no doubt that was by far the best means of meeting distress without unnecessary delay. At the present time the Boards of Guardians were not empowered to give employment; they could only give out-door relief; and he had often heard Guardians complain during the last winter of the demoralizing effect of the mode of relief, and that if they only had the power to give employment it would be an immense benefit. He hoped the Government would think favourably of his proposal, which was—
It shall be lawful for the Board of Works to make advances to boards of guardians and municipal corporations in scheduled districts on the same terms as to landlords.
So far as that went, the Chief Secretary for Ierland had stated his unwillingness to extend the term of repayment beyond 12 years. Yet he hoped he might be willing to
1586
extend the term beyond 12 years, because he knew in the case of baronial sessions what an obstacle this had been in preventing ratepayers availing themselves of the loans. He hoped the Chief Secretary would see his way to making the term a little more near the condition attaching to loans to landlords; and if he saw objections to extending the term to so long as 35 years, yet he might extend it to 25 years. If he would do that he would be adding immensely to the boon he was bestowing. He then proceeded to move the first of the two clauses of which he had given Notice.
§ New Clause (Power to Board of Works to make advances to boards of guardians, &c.) brought up, and read a first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be now read a second time."—(Mr. Villiers Stuart.)
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, one reason for objecting to the clause was that he did not know that there was the money to meet the object to which it was directed. The £1,500,000 would be pretty well swept up by the several charges put upon it. In addition to that, he thought this proposal was made at the beginning of the year, as an alternative mode of relief. It was not then adopted, and it was not too late, as a means of meeting the necessities of the time between now and the harvest. They were within five or six weeks of the harvest, and the clause would require at least two or three weeks to come into operation. He did not think it would be possible to change the operation of their machinery now, even supposing his hon. Friend's idea was the best. Whether it was the best or not, he (Mr. W. E. Forster) did not say; but he did not think it was possible now to make the change. He hoped his hon. Friend would not press the Amendment. It would appear to be a matter that deserved a thorough consideration, if brought forward earlier; but now, certainly, it was too late to bring it forward.
§ MR. FINIGANsaid, as it was a very late hour, and it was agreed that this was an important new clause, he thought the Committee could not do better than close the Sitting, and he would move that the Chairman do now report Progress.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."— (Mr. Finigan.)
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, there was only that clause, and just one or two others, and he could hardly suppose those would be pressed. Of course, if they led to a long debate it would be useless to prolong the Sitting; but he did hope it would be felt that it was too late now to introduce the clause.
§ COLONEL COLTHURSTalso ventured to ask the hon. Member for Waterford County (Mr. Villiers Stuart) not to press the clause. He did so, because in February the hon. Gentleman had moved an Amendment to enable advances to be made to Guardians and Municipal Corporations on the same terms as to landlords, for the purpose of giving employment, instead of gratuitous relief. But the Amendment was then rejected, and the hon. Member must see it was too late to hope to carry it.
§ MR. PARNELLdid not think the clause, as moved, would be found of a workable description. In order to set it in motion, some scheme would have to be provided. At all events, the outlines of the scheme would have to be embodied in a set of clauses, for it would be quite impossible to set in motion the clause as it stood. He had been thinking about the best means of meeting the object of the clause, and had intended, if it had not been so late in the season, if the urgency had not been so great, and if they had not had other concessions of a valuable character from the right hon. Gentleman, he had intended to move a set of clauses in the Bill which would have enabled the Committee, at all events, to discuss the subject properly. However, he did not wish to detain the Committee with the clauses he had proposed to move. He would have constituted the county surveyor to assist, in conjunction with the Poor Law Boards, in the machinery for carrying into effect the provisions of the clause. He would have proposed that power should be given to Boards of Guardians to make advances to occupiers of land, and that they should borrow money, to be so advanced on the security of the rates, and that the money should be recovered from occupiers in the shape of rates. Therefore, this money would be 1588 the first charge on their holdings. He would propose that the county surveyor should be appointed as the authority for checking the Poor Law Boards in their allocation of the advances. That would have given the county surveyor the veto, as regarded any work proposed. He had the clauses there; but he did not propose to read them, for he had abandoned all intention of moving them some time ago. But, in that way, a simple machinery would be provided for carrying into effect the object of the hon. Member for Waterford County (Mr. Villiers Stuart), the county surveyor acting as a check on the Poor Law Board, as to the work to be undertaken. But now, as the season had got so late, it would be useless for immediate relief; and as he was assured that, should the distress continue next winter, the Chief Secretary for Ireland intended to adopt sweeping measures to cope with it, then there would be an opportunity of raising the question again. He did not see the slightest practical use in persevering with the clause now.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERtrusted the Motion for reporting Progress would be withdrawn. He was thankful to the Committee for having sat so long, and hoped soon to relieve them from further effort.
§ MR. BIGGARreally thought they ought to report Progress. There was no ground for going on longer, and if they wanted to go to church at all they had better get to bed. He believed the clause of the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Villiers Stuart) though, perhaps, not couched in the proper form, still did contain a valuable principle. Amendments might be found to it, and certainly he thought the Committee should consider them. As to the argument of the hon. Member for Cork City, that this subject had received a discussion in the last Parliament, and should not, therefore, be discussed now, he (Mr. Biggar) would only say that the present Parliament represented popular ideas and interests which its predecessor did not, and he thought it obligatory on a so-called Liberal Government to give the opportunity of another discussion.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, if he went to church on the morrow, he should do so with a clearer conscience if he first got the Bill through Committee. He 1589 thought the hon. Gentleman would see that this was really not a remarkable clause, and that it was too late in the history of the distress to bring this clause in now. If they had another bad harvest, they would have to consider this and much more besides. He hoped also that the Motion to report Progress would not be persevered with. They were within a short time of going through all the clauses; and he had always found that a Committee having once got to work appreciated the convenience of not leaving off until they reached a point for making a clear division of their labours.
§ MR. VILLIERS STUARTexpressed his unwillingness to withdraw his Motion for the insertion of the new clause.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, it might be left until the time came for dealing with the clause of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan). That was the only other important clause on the Paper with the exception of the "Suspension of Ejectments" Clause in the name of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar), which he (Mr. Parnell) thought had better be left to be moved as an Amendment to the Government Land Bill. So far as he could see, the only important part of the Business remaining was the clause of his hon. Friend; but, of course, if a discussion was raised upon that, they ought not to go on that night.
§ MR. FINIGANsaid, why he moved to report Progress was because when they asked for grants for fishery piers, they were told it would take so long that it would be useless for purposes of relief; and then when they asked for money for the tenant farmers, they were told it was too late for the relief of distress, although they had previously been told that some of the loans advanced to landlords would not be expended for two or three years. Really he could not understand which of these reasons to believe. It was simply because, to use a common expression, "things had got considerably mixed" in the Committee, that he moved to report Progress; but, in answer to the appeal of his hon. Leader, he would withdraw his Motion.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. VILLIERS STUARTsaid, he would now ask leave to withdraw the clause.
§ Motion and Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
§ COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, the clause of which he had given Notice was not likely to provoke dissent. It was only to extend to the Local Government Board that which they had now to enforce, or require out-door relief to be given in certain districts up to the 31st December this year, to extend that power up to the 30th June next year. He therefore moved the insertion of the following clause:—
§ (Grant of out-door relief.)
§ "The Local Government Board shall, up to the thirtieth day of June one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one, he entitled to authorise the grant of out-door relief in food and fuel, or either, by order for the time and subject to the power of revocation stated in section three of 'The Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act, 1880,' and the said section three shall be read and construed in all respects as if the said thirtieth day of June one thousand eight hundred and eighty-one had been there inserted, instead of the thirty-first day of December one thousand eight hundred and eighty."
§ New Clause (Grant of out-door relief) brought up, and read a first time.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be now read a second time."—(Colonel Colthurst.)
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, it was reasonable that the clause should correspond with the other portions of the Bill which ran into next Session; and, therefore, if the hon. and gallant Gentleman would make the date March 1st, instead of June 30th, he would accept the clause.
§ COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, he would agree to the Amendment, and would accordingly move the substitution of the date March 1st for June 30th.
§ Amendment of proposed New Clause agreed to.
§ Clause, as amended, read a second time, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ MR. SYNANsaid, he had a new clause to propose, which, unless accepted by the Government, might lead to a long discussion; and, if it would be more convenient, he was willing to let it stand for discussion among the postponed clauses. He was quite prepared to move it now. It was a clause which was intended to amend the 9th clause of the Bill of last 1591 Session. It was contained in the Bill as it left the House of Commons, but was rejected in the House of Lords. The clause was as follows:—
§
(Definition of improvements under s. 4 of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870.)
Whenever by any award or otherwise the rent of any tenant shall be increased by reason or in respect of any works executed on his holding under the Belief of Distress, Ireland, Act, 1880, then, and in every such case, the works so executed shall, so far as such increase shall be paid by such tenant or his successor in title, be deemed to be improvements made by such tenant within the meaning of the fourth section of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870.
It was admitted that the money was given out of the Church Surplus Fund, not for the benefit of the landlords, but for the purpose of relieving distress in Ireland, and, indirectly, for the purpose of promoting the agricultural interest of the country. Under the Act as it stood, by an Amendment of his (Mr. Synan's), the landlord was prevented, if he had an award for raising rent, from charging the tenant more under that award than he paid himself; but that Amendment would not prevent a bad landlord from serving a notice to quit, and evicting his tenant, unless the tenant consented to pay a greater rent. For the purpose of taking that power out of the hands of the bad landlord, this new clause came in to supplement the other clause, so that if a tenant were disturbed in the enjoyment of his holding he should be paid the value of his improvements, as far as he had paid the instalments upon them, but no farther. If he had paid increased rent he was entitled to the value of improvements, so far as that increased rent went. The property of the tenant was not protected unless some such arrangement were made. Probably three-fourths, or even nine-tenths, of the Irish landlords would be content with the award, and would regard themselves as well paid by having their rents well secured. Under those circumstances, he put it to the Government whether they were prepared to accept the clause. It was accepted by the previous House of Commons and rejected by the House of Lords.
§ New Clause (Definition of improvements under S. 4 of the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870) brought up, and read a first time.
1592§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be now read a second time."—(Mr. Synan.)
§ SIR H. HERVEY BRUCEthought there was no great objection to the principle of the clause, because the tenant who had been paying interest on his outlay ought to receive the benefit of it; but he could not accept the wording of the clause, because there was no appeal. It said "that the rent of any tenant shall be increased by reason." It did not say who was to decide.
§ SIR H. HERVEY BRUCEsaid, the wording should be more clear as to the tenancy that was to be benefited. If he read it aright, a tenant for one year would be benefited by that use; and if another tenant came in for a year or so, he also would be benefited. Some words should be inserted to limit the operation of the Bill to tenancies of a certain period.
§ MR. GIBSONthought the hon. Baronet the Member for Coleraine (Sir H. Hervey Bruce) was perfectly right in the point he had taken. A tenant might have the enjoyment for 15 or 20 years, until the improvements exhausted; and then a County Court Judge, under this clause, might award him the full value. There was a clause in the Land Act to the effect that the Judge should take into consideration the enjoyment that the tenant had had; and he was sure the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) did not wish to withdraw that from his consideration.
§ MR. SYNANquite agreed with that; but it was met by the words—
Shall be deemed to be improvements made by such tenant within the meaning of the fourth section of 'The Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Act, 1870.
§ MR. GIBSONthought it would not apply to all tenants, but only those existing at the passing of the Land Act.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, this was a matter upon which it was necessary to consider, not only the words of the clause, but what had already been done. He was in favour of the clause when it was originally brought in. He thought that in its general meaning it was perfectly fair and equitable; and his only 1593 doubt about it would have been whether they had any right, at that time, to import any fresh condition into the contract by putting the landlord under a fresh obligation to the tenant. His difficulty was removed when the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson) stated that he saw no objection to the spirit of it; and, therefore, he was quite willing to accept the Amendment, subject to the possible alteration which had been suggested.
§ MR. GIBSONsaid, he must discharge himself from any misunderstanding. He only came into the House when the hon. Baronet the Member for Coleraine (Sir H. Hervey Bruce) was speaking, and rose at once to apply himself to the matter he heard going on. The clause was open, no doubt, to objections; but he preferred taking the matter as far as he could without objections. He would consider the matter carefully between that time and Report; and, of course, he reserved to himself the full right of making any objection on Report.
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Clause read a second time, and ordered to stand part of the Bill.
§ Postponed Clauses 3 and 4.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, before coming to those clauses, there was an important point to be settled in reference to the Seeds Act. He believed the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster) undertook to bring up a new clause.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he undertook to do so on Report, as far as he could recollect.
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, there was also the hon. Member for Limerick's (Mr. Synan's) clause as to limitation of time, and his (Mr. Parnell's) own little matter about the £60,000. He supposed the right hon. Gentleman did not intend to finish the Committee that night; and, therefore, he would be content to allow the three questions he had named to remain until the Committee resumed. He, therefore, now moved to report Progress.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."— (Mr. Parnell.)
1594§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he did not wish to ask the Committee to proceed any further now.
§ MR. PARNELLinquired whether it would be possible to move any other clauses when the Committee resumed?
§ Question put, and agreed to.
§ Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.
§ House resumed.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. William Edward Forster.)
§ MR. PARNELLsaid, it was only 20 minutes past 12, and he thought they might go on with the Registration of Voters (Ireland) Bill, and take a step in that; and there was also the Municipal Franchise (Ireland) Bill. They were both opposed Orders; and if they had not an opportunity of taking them now, they might not be able to get them any other night.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, the Government clearly pledged themselves that nothing should be taken at that Sitting but the Compensation for Disturbance (Ireland) Bill, and they were certainly bound by their guarantee to hon. Members who were not now present, and must abide by it.
§ MR. CALLANappealed to hon. Gentlemen who wished to proceed not to persist in that idea. He was as anxious as they were for the measures which had been mentioned; but the House was honourably bound, and every individual Member who assented to the undertaking of the Government was bound by it. Although he did not wish to speak against proceeding with an Irish Bill, he certainly should vote with the Government on that occasion. But he hoped hon. Members opposite would not place himself or others in the false position of voting against Bills in which they were interested. He appealed to them not to oppose the adjournment of the House.
§ Question put.
§ The House divided:—Ayes 43; Noes 22: Majority 21.—(Div. List, No. 41.)
§ The House was adjourned accordingly at half after Twelve o'clock till Monday next.