ACQUISITION OF LAND BY TENANTS, RE- CLAMATION OF LAND, AND EMIGRATION.

HC Deb 11 July 1881 vol 263 cc534-619

Acquisition of Land by Tenants.

Clause 25 (Reclamation of land).

Amendment proposed, In page 17, line 15, to leave out the words "the Treasury may authorise the Board of Works to," in order to insert the words "the Land Commission may, with the concurrence of the Treasury,"—(Mr. Charles Russell,) —instead thereof.

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

MR. PARNELL

said, he would appeal to the Government to reconsider the decision they had arrived at. The clause proposed that the Board of Works should advance the money from the Treasury for the purposes of reclamation or improvement of waste or uncultivated land and other works of agricultural improvement. The Amendment proposed to substitute the Land Commission for the Board of Works. He submitted that the Board of Works, a Board which stood condemned for incapability and mismanagement, was not a proper institution for carrying out important works of this character. It must necessarily follow that questions, grave and weighty, would arise from time to time in the working of the whole Bill with regard to the desirability of allowing Companies to purchase tracts of land in certain districts; and it was absurd to suppose that a body like the Board of Works could be trusted in regard to the decision of those questions of policy. But he might be told that it was not the Board of Works that would have to decide questions of policy, but that such questions would be decided by the Treasury. He did not think, however, that the Treasury was a proper body to decide questions of this character. What had been one of the chief grounds for believing that no Bill containing the "three F's," or no Bill establishing a peasant proprietary, would remove one of the chief evils of the Land Question in Ireland? It had been because there existed in the West of Ireland—in three or four of the Western counties, and in a few other counties—crowded districts where the tenants were settled in such numbers on poor and small holdings that it was utterly impossible for them to make a decent subsistence and to pay any rent at all. That fact had been vouched for by everybody who had studied the Land Question on the spot. They had the evidence of both of the Royal Commissions on this point. They had the evidence of Major Robertson and Professor Baldwin, the two Assistant Commissioners, who were appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the state of the poorer and smaller tenancies of Ireland, and more especially in those districts in which they had been told no measure could satisfactorily settle the Irish Land Question which did not in some way make provision for those small holders. After the Famine and at other times lands in many of the Irish counties were cleared of their popu- lation, and the people who had been cleared from the richer land sought refuge upon the poorer and more barren portions of the country. They had reclaimed the bogs and brought in the hill side, and they had been allowed to stay upon their little holdings, because at the time of their settlement the land on which they located themselves was absolutely worth nothing. They had made that land worth something, and since then the landlords had placed a rent upon the holdings such as the people were not able to bear, partly by reason of the excessive nature of the rent. Professor Baldwin and everybody else—he believed that hon. Members on both sides of the House had pointed out that something must be done for these small tenants, that they could not live where they were, and that it was absolutely necessary to give them some opportunity of settling down on holdings of a larger area than they at present occupied. There were in Ireland 360,000 holdings of a value of less than £8 per annum, and, he believed, something like from 200,000 to 250,000 which were valued at less than £4 per annum. Hence it followed that much of the misery which had been the chief cause of periodical famines and periods of scarcity in Ireland was owing to the fact that large numbers of the people were crowded upon small holdings which were absolutely insufficient to afford a living to such poor families. There were, undoubtedly, contrary opinions as to the best way in which this evil could be remedied. Some advocated emigration, and others advocated migration. He did not wish to go at any length into the question of emigration, because it was connected with a separate and distinct clause of the Bill. However, it came incidentally into this clause, because the clause seemed to have been pitchforked into the Bill for the purpose of providing an alternative scheme to that of emigration. In other words, the Government seemed to have relied on the Bill for the purpose of trying what could be done in the way of migrating families from the poorer districts to better holdings. But if they started by giving this duty to the Board of Works they would deprive the clause at the very outset of all possible chance of success. He did not wish at the present moment to enter into any discussion or to make any observations in regard to the nature of the clause itself, but rather to draw attention to the fact that it was proposed to hand over this power to private Companies instead of establishing a public body to undertake these beneficial operations of improvement. That, however, was a matter which would come on for discussion upon later Amendments which were lower down on the Paper. But he would say that no matter what the case was, the object was generally to improve land in Ireland which was capable of improvement, and to give employment and the means of living, perhaps by excessive labour, to the smaller tenant farmers living on the land he had described. The Board of Works was an institution which was already exceedingly overworked. It had, it was true, at its disposal a staff of engineers, and it had been said that they could not give the working of this clause to the Land Commission because the Land Commission had no staff of engineers at its disposal. He agreed to the highest and fullest extent that it was desirable that the Commission, if it was to undertake the duty of carrying out the clause, should have skilled and scientific help at its disposal; but what was to hinder the Committee from inserting power in the clause, or bringing in a new clause to give the Land Commission power to avail itself of the services of the engineering staff of the Board of Works, or of the department generally of the Board of Works, for the purpose of carrying out the engineering and mechanical works that might devolve on them in giving full effect to the clause? He submitted that if the Board of Works was to be brought in it must not be brought in as a prime mover—that questions of policy, questions of setting the machinery in motion, and what persons should be entitled to be brought under the provisions of the clause, were not questions to be decided by the Board of Works in the first instance, but should be decided by the Land Commission in the first instance, subject to the approval of the Treasury itself. By all means let the Board of Works be used as an instrument, as it was an engineering body, and had a skilled staff of experts at its disposal. Let it by all means be used for the purpose of carrying out the details which might require its aid; but do not let the Board of Works be introduced into the Bill as an imperio in imperium, because if they did that they would upset the whole principle of the Bill, which proposed that there should be a ruling authority in Ireland to decide questions of importance in regard to the land. He contended that they could not separate the clause from the rest of the Bill. If the clause was to be used at all, questions would come up as to the way in which they were to deal with the smaller tenants in the West of Ireland, and it was impossible that the Board of Works could have sufficient weight and knowledge to enable them to deal with such questions. He therefore trusted that Her Majesty's Government would reconsider their decision, and that they would substitute for the Board of Works some such body as the Land Commission, which was alone capable of directing the future policy of the country upon these matters.

MR. P. MARTIN

remarked, that this was one of the most important questions involved in the Bill. He entertained a hope that the reclamation of waste land in Ireland would be able to provide considerable employment throughout the country, and by that means afford a prospect of remedying, to a considerable extent, the prevailing distress. Under these circumstances, he thought it right to address a few words to the Committee with respect to the machinery proposed by the Bill. It appeared to him that they would entirely nullify and destroy all chance of the clause being made effective, and of insuring that the reclamation of waste lands should take place in Ireland if they intrusted the matter to the Board of Works. How had the Board of Works up to the present time administered the functions intrusted to them in Ireland? He did not wish to make any personal attack upon the members of the Board which was foreign to the administration of the Board, and he was content to take things as they were. As the Prime Minister had been pleased to observe, the Board of Works was really under the control of the Treasury. At any rate, they had been under the control of the Treasury up to the present time, and he did not care to inquire whether the faults connected with their administration rested with the Board of Works itself or with the Treasury. He would, however, remind the Committee that at the present moment there had been two Departmental Committees appointed to inquire into the control of the Board of Works, one of which was presided over by Lord Lansdowne, and the other by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) and the late Member for the County of Carlow (Mr. Kavanagh), both of which reported adversely to the administration of the Board, and both were of opinion that it was not desirable to intrust the work of reclamation to the Board of Works at all. Therefore, they had the Board of Works arraigned and condemned so far as being intrusted with the reclamation of land was concerned. The Report of the last Committee had been before the House since 1878, and right hon. Members who now sat on the Front Opposition Bench had promised, from time to time, ever since that Report was presented, that the whole of the administration of the Board of Works should be re-organized, and that there should be a new constitution of that Department. But, like most Parliamentary promises, although those two Reports had stood on record since 1878, nothing in the world had been done, and, having had nothing in the world done, they were now about to hand this most important matter of the reclamation of the waste lands of Ireland over again to the control of the Board of Works. Even supposing that the Board of Works up to the present time had worked effectively, and had not stood condemned by these two Departmental Committees, he should say, having regard to the structure of the present Bill, that the Board of Works was the worst body they could possibly intrust with the work of reclamation. Under a previous part of the Bill which had been already assented to by the Committee power had been given to authorize large purchases of property by the Land Commission. It would be necessary, in the purchase of these properties, that the Land Commission should buy a quantity of uncultivated and waste land, and it might experience some difficulty in disposing of it to the tenants of adjoining property unless they executed some works of drainage or reclamation upon such land. Under these circumstances, why should they have such a cumbrous system as that which was proposed to be established by the Bill?—namely, one Board purchasing land that must necessarily be reclaimed, and another Board dealing with the matter of reclamation and the question of drainage. He would ask the attention of Her Majesty's Government, without entering into any controversy at all as to the past demerits of the Board of Works, to the question whether these powers and functions ought not necessarily to be intrusted to the Land Commission? What were the Land Commission to do with large uncultivated tracts of land when they purchased property in the West of Ireland? Was it not the first part of their business that they should have the means of reclaiming and putting it in order for the benefit of the country? What was even more necessary would be found in an Amendment a little later on, which was intended to be proposed by the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell), who knew very well what would probably be the mode in which the matter would be dealt with—namely, by the reclamation being carried out by the tenants themselves. Everyone who had studied the evidence given before the Bessborough Commission would be aware that no small portion of that evidence dealt with the question of reclamation, and it was abundantly pointed out that the reclamation of land could alone be made beneficial by the tenants of the property—that the small tenants and men of that class were alone the men who could execute the works. Every single witness, landlord as well as tenant, had actually declared that the reclamation of waste lands by private Companies was a perfect chimera, and one which it was utterly absurd and impossible to give effect to. Under these circumstances, he would ask Her Majesty's Government, before they finally proceeded to vote upon the clause, to consider whether the duty of authorizing and superintending advances could not be transferred from the Land Commission to a body which, without entering into its merits or demerits, had mismanaged and destroyed all the beneficial operation of the "Bright Clauses" of the Land Act of 1870.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, he firmly believed that Her Majesty's Government, in putting this clause into the Bill, intended that it should be a beneficial clause, and were thoroughly genuine and honest in that intention. His faith, however, had been very rudely shaken In the Board of Works. If he wanted to tell the Committee all the opinions that he had formed about the Board of Works in Ireland, he should not know where to begin. Outside the circle of Dublin Castle there was not a single man, woman, or child who had the slightest confidence in the Board of Works. That was the opinion of almost every Irishman of every class and shade. To give the Committee an idea of the mode in which the Board of Works conducted its business—he could give lots of ideas, but he would only state one fact. He believed that the Board of Works had had to advance money upon two-thirds of the property in Ireland. He did not think that that was at all an exaggeration. But would it he believed that the Board of Works had never yet kept a record of titles? He knew a case in which a landlord had had 10 loans in 1870, and 10 times did the Board of Works desire his title to be investigated. Was a Department which carried on its business in that way a fit Department to intrust with these new and important duties? The Irish Government had no control whatever over the Irish Board of Works. The Irish Government might be extremely anxious to carry out a particular policy in relation to the land of Ireland; but they found themselves thwarted over and over again by the Board of Works, under the control of the Treasury and Sir Ralph Lingen. He wished to point out that the Board of Works had been twice investigated, and twice condemned. The Government had constantly expressed their intention of reforming the Board of Works; and if it was to be reformed at all, it would be better to reform it before they gave it these new and important duties. It was certainly idle, while they declared that it was unfit to discharge the duties already devolving upon it, to intrust to the Board of Works new and important duties; and then reform it in another year. It was acknowledged by all parties in Ireland that the First Commissioner of Works was not able to perform his present duties satisfactorily, and that he ought to be superannuated. At the time of the recent distress the country ran the danger of famine, because Colonel M'Kerlie, not from any fault of his own, was quite unequal to the work which fell upon him. So far as the Land Commission was concerned, it was to be a pre-eminently judicial body; and he doubted very much whether a body intended to be pre-eminently judicial ought to be intrusted with functions of this nature. Nothing, however, was more calculated to reduce the clause to a nullity than the course taken by Her Majesty's Government with regard to the Board of Works.

MR. GLADSTONE

I have endeavoured to gather, as far as I can, the feeling of the Committee; and I own, with great regret, that I see a disposition to support this Amendment, because it is a matter upon which the Government cannot change their ground, and I will give the Committee absolute reasons why the Government cannot do so. The hon. Gentleman the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) has made a most ingenuous speech upon the subject. He fairly alleges that the misdeeds of the Board of Works are misdeeds of the Treasury, and he says that the Treasury are totally unfit to manage this matter—that is to say, that the Treasury are totally unfit to control the expenditure of public money.

MR. PARNELL

No.

MR. GLADSTONE

But that is the whole question. Some other body is to be appointed to do it.

MR. PARNELL

I did not say that.

MR. GLADSTONE

If I have misquoted the hon. Gentleman, perhaps he will explain?

MR. PARNELL

I did not mean that the Treasury should not control the amount of money to be authorized. What I said was that the Commission should have the conduct of the policy of recommending the Treasury to advance the money, and not the Board of Works. I do not wish to take the matter ultimately out of the hands of the Treasury.

MR. GLADSTONE

The hon. Gentleman, from time to time, is one of the most ingenuous men I know. Every now and then comes from the lips of the hon. Gentleman some of the most ingenuous declarations; and the hon. Gentleman in this instance did fairly let fly at the Treasury, and I think justly, because it is on the Treasury that the sins of the Board of Works ought to be charged. There is no mistake about that. The hon. Gentleman now seems to think that he is completely master of all the machinery of government, and that he understands it from its inception upwards. That, however, is not the fact, and he must be content to take the assurance of some of those who know what the working of the machinery is. If the Treasury is bad, it is your duty to improve the constitution of the Treasury; but if you are merely to take over the functions of controlling the Public Expenditure, then this House would lose its security and its usual means of checking the expenditure of public money. What is the declaration of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill). He says that the Irish Government ought to be intrusted with the making of these advances.

Loan RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

I added, with the concurrence of the Treasury, in the words of the Amendment.

MR. GLADSTONE

I understood the noble Lord to say that the duty was to be discharged by the Irish Government alone.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Concurrently with the Treasury.

MR. GLADSTONE

But what is the use, if the Treasury are to have no means of forming a judgment upon the merits of the case? We should then have to make a Board of Works in the Treasury; we should have to equip the Treasury with a set of engineers who should survey and overlook the Board of Works. The Commissioners would suggest the policy, and the Treasury would be the judges of the amount of money required. But how are you to separate the policy and the amount of money? If the Treasury say that they would not allow more than one-half of the sum you ask, what becomes of the policy and judgment of the Commission? And if the Commission are to fix the amount, then what becomes of the control of the Treasury and of this House? The Board of Works is nothing but the arm of the Treasury, and if you regard the Treasury as unfit for its duty, it is exactly like saying that the Foreign Office is not fit to settle a foreign question; and, therefore, you will take such questions out of the hands of the Foreign Office and place them in the hands of the Home Secretary. If the organization of a particular Department is bad, amend it; but do not suppose that you can improve the administration of Public Offices by throw- ing them into chaos. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) says it is quite unnecessary, and that it is a principle of this Bill that all matters relating to the management of land in Ireland should be under one Public Department. The hon. Gentleman must excuse me if I say that he is entirely wrong. He seems to forget that this clause is nothing in the world except the extension of very large statutory powers now in existence; powers so large that when I look at them I seem hardly to know how they are capable of being still further widened. Yet all of those powers are powers exercised under the control of the Treasury by the Board of Works. Then, what do we come to next? That a public authority in Ireland has been inquired into and condemned. And the noble Lord comes down upon us with his own incomparable knowledge of the state of Ireland, and declares that there is not a man in Ireland outside Dublin Castle who has any confidence in the Board of Works. He says, further, and this is a most important part of the case, that the Board of Works has been condemned by two Executive bodies who have inquired into it. The Board of Works has, I believe, been censured in a former inquiry specially in reference to the execution of works made by the Board on the responsibility of the Government. But that has nothing to do with what this clause proposes, because, under this clause, the Board can do nothing of the kind; and, therefore, that condemnation is of no effect whatever, so far as the present case is concerned. The Board of Works, under this clause, is to advance money to the parties who are willing and desirous to do these things, and that is just the function in which they have been engaged for the last 30 years. And now let us see what Irishmen, whether in or out of Dublin Castle, think of it in that capacity, because here is a Report, signed as lately as the 20th June, 1878, by Lord Crichton. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: A Government official.] Lord Crichton was a Government official, and that, of course, entirely deprives him of any weight, or of the confidence of the noble Lord. Still, the noble Lord surely requires to know why it was that this Government official—this guilty man—gave his opinion in this particular sense, for it was just as open to him to have given it in any other sense, had lie so chosen. But it is not only with Government officials that we have to deal. Here is another Gentleman, Mr. Arthur Kavanagh, I believe he is an Irishman, and I rather think he is a person of some authority. I never heard that he resided in Dublin Castle. Then there is Mr. Mitchell Henry—is he tainted with the poison derived from Dublin Castle? There is also Mr. Fremantle, Master of the Mint—a most able man—not a man of our political Association, but an able, a very able, and distinguished public servant. Lastly, there is Mr. Herbert Murray. I am not quite certain that I can except him altogether from the taint of Dublin Castle; but, at any rate, I believe he is one of those who have been there. What do these fine gentlemen say when they are describing acts for purposes precisely analogous to those which are embraced in the present clause—namely, the business of advancing money to parties desirous of executing agricultural improvements? And in their official Report they say— The success of these acts is unquestionable. No legislative measures for Ireland have ever been more freely taken advantage of, and from no measures has the country probably derived greater benefit. They have been the means of securing, within the last 30 years, a capital expenditure of £3,000,000 in agricultural improvements, and of enhancing the value of landed property without involving any loss to the Exchequer. The successful working of these Acts must, in a great measure, be attributed to the Commissioners of Public Works. The administration of them has been liberal and judicious, and we think that it reflects much credit upon the Board. I think, after this, we shall have no more condemnation of the Board of Works; but I have heard one or two speeches to-night which make me think that what is really in view is to get rid of this principle of control altogether, and to substitute for it a principle of expenditure by the Government. [Mr. BIGGAR: Not at all.] I did not refer to anything said by the hon. Member for Cavan; but I have heard one or two speeches which have led me to surmise that that is so. We shall not agree to set the Government in motion for a purpose for which, in our opinion, it is quite unfitted. That would be a very great mistake. We shall endeavour to occupy a position in which the public funds may be made available, by way of judicious advance, for the purposes of this Bill, but only after the matter has been tested and ascertained by a Body armed with a competent staff of experienced agents, and fortified for the purpose of its duties by a long experience. But, instead of that, the proposition on the other side is that, while we are charging the Land Commission with the enormous duty—first of all, of the judicial administration of the law between landlord and tenant; secondly, with this most complex and difficult operation of the purchase and re-purchase of property; and, thirdly, with the superintendance of any measure that may be adopted with regard to emigration, it is also proposed that they shall charge themselves with the work of making advances to landlords and tenants. I say "tenants," because that is a matter which has been pressed upon the Government, and, so far as it is in their power, the Government will be glad to accede to such a proposal. But we cannot consent to put this duty upon the Commission; for, if we did, the consequence must be that the Commission, appointed for purposes wholly different, laden with charges and responsibilities of quite another character, and having no instrument suited for such a purpose as this, must immediately create another Public Establishment by the side of the Board of Works to overlook and superintend all these arrangements, notwithstanding the fact that the Board of Works has already a number of officers engaged in precisely similar work—for you do not propose to dispossess them of the work which they are now doing under the existing Act of Parliament. It is quite impossible for the Government to listen to a proposal of that kind. We should be very glad to listen to any reasonable proposal; but I think the Committee will not be surprised at the resolution which I have announced. I hope that hon. Gentlemen who are now in the House heard the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), who bore testimony on this point, as I have no doubt the right hon. Member for Westminister, who sits next him, would also do. [Mr. W. H. SMITH: Certainly.] It is very difficult to get over the force of testimony thus rendered by Gentlemen who found their opinions and knowledge upon experience long gained in the Public Service. Therefore, I must adhere, and adhere firmly, on the part of the Government, to the clause as it stands, so far as this part of it is concerned.

MR. HEALY

said, he thought that, although the Prime Minister had in some degree stated his points very fairly, the right hon. Gentleman would have done well if he had promised some inquiry into the character of the Board of Works. The Prime Minister had said that, no doubt, the ex-Chancellor of the Exchequer could give them some important information. He (Mr. Healy) hoped the right hon. Gentleman would get up and do so, especially as he had been over to Ireland, in 1879 or 1880, in company with the then Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), about this very Board of Works. It was a misfortune for Ireland that the late Conservative Government went out of Office when they did, because they were pledged to deal with the Board of Works, and had promised that an officer should be appointed specially responsible to Parliament to represent the Board of Works in this House, and that officer would, he believed, have been Lord Crichton. The condition of affairs was so bad, that the right hon. Member for North Devon and the then Secretary to the Treasury went over specially to make a Report. The present Prime Minister now said that the Government were unable to take this matter out of the hands of the Board of Works; but would he promise that some inquiry should be made as to the way in which the Board of Works was managed? In the course of a debate which took place in 1879, the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) gave the character of Colonel M'Kerlie, the Chairman of the Board, showing that the Board had kept no minutes for nearly 14 years, that there were no minute-books in existence, that Colonel M'Kerlie was one of those men who ought not to be at the head of any Department, that he insisted on the smallest letter on the most trivial business passing through his hands, that he insisted on doing everything himself, and that he did not possess that power which was so essential to public men—of making use of other people. The Prime Minister, in his remarks to-day, had set great value upon the Report signed by Lord Crichton, Mr. Mitchell Henry, Mr. Fremantle, and other distinguished gen- tlemen; but would not the right hon. Gentleman, when insisting on the importance of one part of that Report, set an equal value upon the remainder? What was it that Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson said in his Report in 1879 with regard to Colonel M'Kerlie? Why, that Colonel M'Kerlie was in a position of great difficulty, because the Board which he had to superintend had had so many additional duties placed upon it which rendered it utterly impossible for them to be efficiently carried out. That there were so many complaints was to be attributed mainly to the fact that the Commissioners had been excessively reduced in number, as two of them had been taken away—one of them having died, and the other having been appointed to another office—and the Treasury of the day, on the occasion of a vacancy occurring, refused to allow it to be filled up. The work of the Board had increased so enormously that it was impossible for two Commissioners to do it properly. That was the condition of things in 1879; and what had been done since then? They were promised by the late Tory Government that Lord Crichton should be made officially responsible in this House for the Board of Works; but now the present Government and the present Chief Secretary were allowing the Board of Works to come into this Bill. The fact was, that the Chief Secretary was in a condition almost of blind ignorance as to the existence of these complaints against the Board. The hon. Member for West Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) had admitted that he was inclined to believe that the Chairman of the Board had been anxious to do everything himself and not to allow assistance. But that was not the sort of man to whose charge should be handed over the working of the Irish Land Bill, so far as establishing a system of peasant proprietary was concerned. He (Mr. Healy) was perfectly ready to agree with every word of the Report read by the Prime Minister when it spoke of the Acts in question, and said—"From no measures has the country probably derived greater benefit." But then it should be remembered how very few Acts of Parliament had been passed which were of any use to Ireland, except the Irish Land Act and the Irish Church Act, and the legislation of quite modern years. And the fact was, with regard to the Land Act and those other Acts which the Report referred to, that even Colonel M'Kerlie could not prevent, by any arrangements he might make at the Board of Works, the spending of £3,000,000. He did his very utmost to strangle every application that was sent in, and if £3,000,000 had been spent over a long series of years, Colonel M'Kerlie was not to be thanked for it. What was it that the hon. Member for Cork County (Mr. Shaw) had said in 1879? Why, that he knew in his own county of farmers borrowing money at 6 per cent rather than go to the Board of Works to get it for 4 per cent, on account of the red-tapeism which prevailed there. The hon. Member added that he had done everything in his power to induce these farmers to be more careful of their own interests, but without success. He (Mr. Healy) would say, let them give poor Colonel M'Kerlie a retiring allowance, and let him go about his business. He had done the State some service, but he was an old man now, and it would be well to let the old man go and to put a new one in his place. Under any circumstances, he (Mr. Healy) hoped the Government would have a searching inquiry made into the condition of the Board of Works and into its personnel—an inquiry which would be likely to give some satisfaction.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

wished to point out that many of the most important recommendations of the Report that had been referred to had been acted upon. As to the complaint that there were only two Commissioners upon the Board of Works, he wished to remind the Committee that there were now three. With regard to the anything but encouraging references which had been made to the long services of Colonel M'Kerlie, he would ask anyone who had studied the Report of the Public Works Commission, and who knew anything of the great task imposed upon them last year by the measures taken for the relief of distress, to say whether they had not discharged in the most praiseworthy manner the heavy duties imposed upon them?

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

I was not aware, Sir, that the question of Colonel M'Kerlie's services or the general management of the Board of Works would be brought forward to-day, and I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Mem- ber for West Essex (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), who has taken so large a part in dealing with these questions, and who went to Ireland with me, is not now in his place in the House. He would have been able to speak upon the subject much better than I can do. The hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) has told us that I went over to Ireland in the autumn of 1879 with my hon. Friend with a view to consider what was to be done and how the Board was to be re-organized. That is not quite correct. I was in Dublin, and my hon. Friend went over also. He did not go with me, but he was over at the same time, looking at various Departments, and especially, no doubt, into this question of the Board of Works. I had several conferences with him upon the subject, both with reference to the general conduct of the business of the Board of Works, and especially as to the pressure put upon it, and apprehended at that time, in consequence of the distress. Undoubtedly, we were of opinion that it was our duty to do all that could be done in order to strengthen the Board; and it was found impossible that that special work could be done without some additional assistance. But with regard to the general character of the Board, I think the step taken previously of promoting Mr. Roberts to be Assistant Commissioner, and subsequently Commissioner, was a most important step. No doubt, if more duties are to be thrown on the Board, it is necessary to take care that there is full strength to discharge them. With regard to Colonel M'Kerlie himself, I feel that I must take the opportunity of protesting against the language which has been used with regard to that distinguished public servant. I know he has sometimes attempted to do more than was possible for one man to do, and I know he has sometimes brought himself into disfavour, not unnaturally, with those who are making applications for public money, owing to the great care and caution with which he has guarded the interests of the fund he had to lend. If that is a sin, it is, I think, a sin which is for the benefit of the country, and sinning is more commonly on the other side. No doubt, the Board ought to be continually watched and strengthened, so as to enable it to perform its duties properly; and I am sure there will be no indisposition on the part of the Treasury to recommend a proper liberality of treatment. As to the object of the Amendment now before the Committee, I must say I think we should be committing a very grave administrative error if we did not make use of the machinery we have—strengthened, it may be—already in use in the Board of Works. They are cognizant of the subject—they have a well-trained staff, and are capable of dealing with it. To attempt to set up two pieces of machinery side by side for the performance of what is practically the same work would be altogether useless and misleading, and, in my opinion, it might lead to serious consequences.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he thought this was scarcely a good opportunity for discussing the character of the Board of Works—whether it did its work efficiently or not, and whether it required any re-construction. The proposal of the clause was merely to add one other function to the Board of Works in the matter of recommending the Treasury to advance public money, and enabling the Board of Works to investigate the security offered by anyone who attempted reclamation. He had been delighted to hear the Prime Minister say that advances might probably be made, not only to Companies, but to tenantry. That was a most important concession. As to the Board of Works, he thought there could be no question that it did require reform to make it efficient. It had been agreed for a long time by both political Parties that that should be done. He did not agree with the noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish) that the Board was strengthened merely by making an Assistant Commissioner into a Commissioner. It was true that a particular individual was promoted; but then his time was thoroughly taken up in the work before, so that there was no real increase of strength. The fact that there were only two Commissioners before was a distinct violation of the Act of Parliament, and the appointment of a third, when that appointment only amounted to the promotion of a man whose time was already fully occupied in the work, did not improve matters or strengthen the Board in any way. It was not correct that an Assistant Commissioner had been appointed, and there could be no doubt that the Board was greatly overweighted. In England, the Board of Works was a very agreeable ornamental Department; but in Ireland the Board performed all the great functions of the Government, and all those duties depended upon a very small staff. When the Board was appointed, its duties were, in comparison, hardly anything; but it had never been strengthened, and the result was that the Board had broken down on many occasions. There had never been a greater waste of money than over the measures taken with respect to the relief of the famine. He opposed the policy of the Government before, and he opposed it now; and if there was any credit due to the Board—and he admitted there was credit due for the manner in which they discharged their functions—that credit did not appertain to the head of the Board, but to the other members of the Board, and especially to Mr. Roberts. However, the Board did want looking into and strengthening, and he urged the Prime Minister not to throw fresh duties on the Board until it was strengthened. The announcement that money would be advanced to tenants would mean a great boon to the people, and he trusted the Committee would not continue the discussion on this particular question.

MR. MARUM

said, that he had endeavoured to induce several proprietors of land to join him in undertaking work for repairing certain damage which had been done by a back-water at the confluence of the Nore and the Dinan in Kilkenny, and they all refused because the Board of Works was in bad odour, and they would have nothing to do with it.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY

said, he adhered to his opinion that the Board was the proper body to perform the duties which were in the 2nd clause of the Bill, with regard to reclamation. But he must admit that one suggestion which the hon. Member for the City of Cork had made deserved the consideration of the Government and the Committee. He did not think it could be denied that there would be great utility in having a central body, as suggested by the hon. Member, which would take a bird's-eye view of the whole country with regard to agriculture and to reclamation. He should be very sorry to take from the Board of Works the duty of seeing that the security for the money ad- vanced was satisfactory, and equally sorry to take away from the Treasury the right to decide whether an advance should be made. He also thought the rules laid down in the 2nd sub-section with regard to advances were very wise; but, at the same time, he thought it would be possible to bring the Commission into operation without interfering with the authority of the Treasury or the powers and duties of the Board of Works, and he would suggest that the Commission might with advantage be empowered, in the first instance, to recommend that any scheme of reclamation should be taken up. If the words "on the recommendation of the Treasury" were inserted after the words "Treasury may," that would be as much as the hon. Member for the City of Cork would ask; and the effect of that would merely be that a Company, desiring to start a scheme of relamation and wanting an advance, should submit their proposals to the Commission, who would then decide whether the advance asked should be recommended or not. That would not interfere with the authority of the Board of Works or with the powers of the Treasury, which he should wish to maintain. This suggestion was strengthened by the fact that money was to be advanced to tenants for reclamation purposes, many of whom would be already in connection with the Commission, and of whose character and solvency and general circumstances the Commissioners would be the best judges. Colonel M'Kerlie had one fault—he attempted to do too much, and whenever he thought it right to spend money, he always advo-vocated it strongly and warmly; and the hon. Member for Kincardineshire, who sat on the Committee for improving Harbours, would remember the firmness with which that gentleman advocated certain improvements.

MR. VILLIERS STUART

said, that, as far as his experience went, the Board of Works were not open to the charge of inefficiency, but deserved great credit for the manner in which they acquitted themselves during the crisis of 1870, when a tremendous strain was thrown upon then without any increase of staff. They had to deal with something like 10,000 applications for loans. He had taken out a loan, and at no stage of the transaction had he had any reason to complain of unnecessary delay. It should be remembered that the Board had an amount of experience and machinery such as was not possessed by any other body in Ireland.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he did not know a great deal about the Board of Works; but he knew something about the Ulster Canal, for which for many years the Treasury and the Board of Works had allowed £1,200 a-year A Committee which inquired into the matter some years ago, recommended that the grant should be discontinued and the land sold for grazing purposes; but the Board of Works and the Treasury insisted on throwing away £1,200 a-year, which might be much better employed in some other way. Then £200,000 had been spent on the Ballynamore and Ballycollin Canal by the Board of Works, and not a single penny had been got out of it. These were two cases of the mismanagement of the Board, and he maintained that the Land Commission was the proper tribunal to deal with land questions. The Commissioners would be well acquainted with all matters connected with land; they would have surveyors and engineers all over the country, and could easily get reports from those officers. The Government had better not give away money wholesale, but should use the machinery they were about to create instead of a body which had been held to be inoperative.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

asked whether, in view of the additional labour to be thrown on the Board of Works, the Government contemplated any reform or re-constitution of that body?

MR. GLADSTONE

No; our intention is that the Establishment shall remain, but will be made adequate to its duties as occasion may require.

MR. O'DONNELL

thought reform was needless, as the whole thing would be swept away in a few years.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 89; Noes 25: Majority 64.—(Div. List, No. 300.)

MR. GLADSTONE

There are several Amendments on the Paper which, if passed, will have the effect of preventing advances being made to public Companies for the reclamation of waste lands, and restricting them to tenants or occupiers. If hon. Gentlemen will allow these Amendments to remain over for the present, I will make a proposal of a more extended nature in a new section to be introduced after sub-section 1, when we reach that point.

MR. BIGGAR

said, there was a very important Amendment to which the right hon. Gentleman had not referred. It seemed to him preposterous that public Companies should be allowed to borrow money.

THE CHAIRMAN

The only Amendment which seems to be different from that of which the right hon. Gentleman has given Notice is that to which the hon. Member for Cavan alludes, and I do not know whether that is to be proposed. If it is not, then I will call upon Mr. Corbet.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (on behalf of Mr. CORBET)

proposed, in page 17, line 17, to leave out the word "companies," and insert "tenants or occupiers." The statement, he said, of the Prime Minister tended very much in the direction the hon. Member desired; but he would like to omit the second part of the Amendment, and simply propose to leave out the word "companies."

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out that if the hon. Gentleman leaves out "companies," without filling in anything, it will form nonsense; and he must be prepared with words to complete the sense.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he would propose to omit "companies," and insert "persons hereinafter mentioned." The evidence of Professor Baldwin, and everyone else who had spoken on the subject, showed that money lent to capital for reclamation had always ended in disaster, and that the only occasions when money had been spent on reclamation had been when the money had been given to labour. Nothing would open the door to abuse as giving the money to Companies, or more tend to separate, instead of unite, labour and ownership.

Amendment proposed, in page 17, line 17, to leave out the word "companies," in order to insert "persons hereinafter mentioned."—(Mr. T. P. O' Connor.)

Question proposed, "That the word "companies" stand part of the Clause."

MR. GIVAN

said, he could not see that any good could be done by continuing the discussion after the statement of the Prime Minister, although he thought this was the proper point at which to consider this question. Under the circumstances, he would appeal to the hon. Member to withdraw his Amendment.

MR. CHARLES RUSSELL

said, it was a difficult thing to say on what terms Companies should be allowed to borrow, and that was not touched by the Amendment; but it was another question whether Companies should or should not be allowed to take up reclamation. The reclamation of land by any body was in itself a public gain; and if Companies chose to enter on the enterprize of reclamation they would in a great many cases effect good. There were several Amendments later on for imposing conditions on Companies as to how they should deal with land, so that they might not be in the position of having reclaimed the land to a great extent with funds provided from the public purse, and be able to then turn the land to their own aggrandizement. He hoped the Amendment would not be pressed.

MR. BIGGAR

said, it was all very well to say that good results would follow from reclamation by Companies; but these Companies would be floated in London very much by swindlers, and the result would be thoroughly disastrous to all the persons concerned, and no benefit to the public. It would keep the land from the people who ought to improve it—namely, the bonâ fide occupiers; and the Companies would try to plunder all the parties interested in the land.

MR. JOHN BRIGHT

I am very surprised at the extreme jealousy hon. Gentlemen show with regard to the operation of this clause. The intention of the Government with respect to it is, I believe, exactly what hon. Members of this House would wish it to be. It is said that in Ireland there are millions of acres of land not now cultivated; moderate calculations say that there are at least 2,000,000 of acres. I have undertaken, when speaking on one or two occasions in public, to assume that there was only 1,000,000 acres that might be profitably cultivated. Now, who will cultivate this land? It is obvious that if the present proprietors have not done it up to now, they can hardly be expected to do it in future. Who is to do it? The tenants who surround any large district of uncultivated land might add somewhat to the farms which they hold; that would come in under the Amendment which the right hon. Gentleman the First Minister has proposed to insert in the clause. But there may be a case where there are 5,000 or 10,000 acres of land that somebody, for a certain sum of money, might obtain possession of. A Company could do it, probably. For my own share, I do not think I should like to invest in it. But if a Company undertook to do it, it would be able to do it with profit. Individuals certainly could not; and the clause provides that the Company must expend one-half the sum before they can come to the Treasury to borrow any portion of it. Suppose there were 10,000 acres, and it would cost £5 an acre. [An hon. MEMBER: More.] An hon. Gentleman says that is not enough. Suppose, then, reclamation would cost £10 an acre. That would be £100,000 to put in proper order that particular district of the country. Then, when one-half of that money had been raised and spent—£50,000—the Company could come to the Treasury and ask for another £50,000. Of course, the £50,000 that had been expended would go far towards making the security good for the £50,000 it was intended to borrow. When the whole was done, the question is—What should be done with it? No one, surely, is of opinion that the Company would keep 10,000 acres of land in Ireland, and cultivate it as a great farm? What the Company would do, as a matter of course, would be to endeavour to sell this great piece of land in farms of such size as would meet the wants of the Irish farmers; and I should suppose that the Treasury, if such a thing was not certain without their interference, would ask, before advancing money—"What do you intend to do with the 10,000 acres of land when the reclamation is complete?" And they would say, as a matter of course—"We intend to divide it into farms varying from 10 to 50 or 100 acres, and to sell it in such a way as would be most profitable to the Company; and when the thing is wound up we shall be paid." By this means, occupying owners will grow up. Now, that seems to be exactly what hon. Gentlemen opposite have always been clamouring for as regards this question of reclamation. Who is to do it? No private individual would do it. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was not likely to do it. Who will do it, if you have not capital in Ireland? You may have men more generous and more enthusiastic in matters of this kind than in England, and they may undertake to do the work; but it can only be done in some degree by individual tenants, whose farms adjoin the unreclaimed land, and by Companies which may be formed for the purpose. I do not suppose the Board of Works or the Commission would themselves take 10,000 acres, and go through the whole process of reclaiming it. If they did, it would be for the purpose of dividing it into farms, just as a Company would undertake to do. Therefore, it appears to me that hon. Gentlemen from Ireland who object to this are objecting to the very plan by which there is any probability that any considerable portion of waste land in Ireland will be reclaimed. The clause which the Prime Minister proposes to add to this sub-section is this— That the Treasury may authorize the Board of 'Works to make advances for like purposes —I suppose like purposes for which Companies would be probably formed— to an occupier of land when satisfied that the tenancy or other security which he may have to offer, is such as to secure re-payment of principal and interest within such a number of years as the Treasury may fix, or when the landlord joins the occupier in giving such security. I do not think it is possible to add any words to the clause or to do anything more comprehensive, and, at the same time, more simple or likely to be more useful than that which the Government intend. Then, why should we have long discussions, hindering the progress of the measure, upon a matter upon which we are all agreed? I venture to say that hon. Gentlemen opposite might allow the clause to proceed, seeing that the Government is perfectly willing to do everything that can be done rationally, and with any hope of success, for the reclamation of waste land.

MR. PARNELL

said, the right hon. Gentlemen had proved their case. He had pointed out that there were two descriptions of waste land which could be reclaimed under the operation of this clause, and of the sub-section which the Prime Minister proposed to add later on; he had pointed out that there was the waste land lying adjacent to the present holdings, which the tenants could take in and reclaim under the provisions of the sections; and then the right hon. Gentleman had shown that they had large tracts of laud which were not in the occupation of any tenants, and which the adjoining tenants could not readily take up. With regard to the large tracts of land, they objected to the clause not so much because Companies were likely to avail themselves of the power given them in the clause of borrowing money, but simply because they feared that Companies would not so avail themselves. The fact was, they regarded this clause, apart from the section which the right hon. Gentleman had just read, as entirely illusory. It had been proved over and over again that land could not be profitably reclaimed in Ireland by the action of public Companies, and the right hon. Gentleman asked them—"What, then, do you propose?" He proposed that some means should be found for the purpose of allowing the labour of the country, which existed in such abundance, to get upon the land standing in need of that labour; and they believed that in that way, and in that way only, could they make the waste and semi-waste laud, which the right hon. Gentleman had estimated at 2,000,000 acres, available for the public benefit. They did not believe, firstly, that the Companies would take advantage, to any great extent, of this clause; and, secondly, they did not believe if the Companies did take advantage of it, that their operation would be beneficial or profitable, or such as was calculated to encourage other Companies to come forward and try the scheme. He had placed an Amendment on the Paper, which he did not see now. He presumed it would stand in the New Clauses. It was an Amendment to leave out Clause 25, and substitute for it the clause he had placed on the Paper. His clause, according to his opinion, suggested a simple way in which the kind of land they proposed to deal with by allowing public Companies to borrow money in respect of its reclamation, might be made available for the benefit of the country. It was true, it might necessitate the establishment of some body for the purpose of looking after the matter. He supposed permission might have been given to the Commission; but it appeared the Commission was not to have such power. Perhaps it was not too late to give the power to the Board of Works. If they did give the Board the power of purchasing reclaimable land, and of allotting it amongst small tenants or labourers, or surplus labouring population in Ireland, in the manner prescribed by Professor Baldwin, they would be working a very beneficial change as regarded this uncultivated land. A clause authorizing the Board of Works to advance money to public Companies must be entirely illusory and fail to satisfy the necessity of the case; in fact, the present clause would be valueless. He regarded the sub-section which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster had just read, as the most valuable part of the clause, though its provisions were entirely apart from the end the clause had in view. As to whether the Amendment should be taken to a division, perhaps, under all the circumstances of the case—as the Prime Minister had offered them such a concession—they might refrain from taking a division, and go into the further question which had been raised by the subsection which the Prime Minister intended to move.

MR. SHAW

said, he hoped they would be able to get rid of this discussion without a division. The Amendment to be proposed by the Prime Minister had entirely altered the value of the clause. Perhaps public Companies might not be willing to undertake the reclamation of land in Ireland; but if the work would not pay public Companies, he did not see how it could pay Government, or any Board of Works, or any other machinery provided for the purpose. It was not certain that Companies would not set about the reclamation of waste land in Ireland. He was in the City the other day, and saw the prospectus of a public Company being floated for the express purpose of reclaiming land in Ireland. He refused to go into the office for fear he might be tempted to embark in the enterprize. One saw so much nonsense now-a-days in the public prints in the shape of public Companies that he was bound to be careful. He, however, did not despair of the reclamation of the waste land in Ireland. They ought to be satisfied with the present discussion, and proceed to the next point.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, if they had an energetic and prosperous tenantry and small proprietary in Ireland, he did not see why the tenants should not be able to form Companies for the reclamation of waste lands.

Six EARDLEY WILMOT

congratulated the Government on at length taking in hand, in a practical way, this important question. The Prime Minister knew perfectly well that from 1814 to 1847, by a series of Reports of Royal Commissions and of Select Committees, and in various ways, the reclamation of waste land had been strongly urged upon Parliament and upon successive Governments. Lord Devon's Commission reported strongly in favour of reclamation, and Sir Richard Griffith, in letters which he (Sir Eardley Wilmot) held in his hand, urged upon the Government the importance of this subject. He had himself been a party to a Bill with similar objects, which was introduced into Parliament in 1875 by Mr. John George Macarthy, who had devoted much time and labour to the subject of reclamation. That Bill he held in his hand, and it proposed to give temporary aid to the proprietors of lands, and to encourage them to bring the waste land into cultivation. The present Bill proposed to make advances to public Companies for the same purpose; and, though he agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) that the shareholders in them could not anticipate large dividends from the enterprize, yet on the whole he regarded the clause as one calculated to advance the agricultural and general prosperity of Ireland.

Amendment negatived.

MR. GIVAN

, in moving, in page 17, line 19, after "land," to insert "agricultural buildings," said, the Amendment was merely a verbal one, and his only object in moving it was that the tenant should not be precluded from getting money from the Board of Works for necessary agricultural buildings.

Amendment proposed, in page 17, line 19, after "land," insert "agricultural buildings."—(Mr. Given.)

MR. PARNELL

said, before this Amendment was put, he would like permission to insert in line 19, after "waste," "semi-waste." There was a great deal of land in a semi-waste condition, and he hardly considered the words of the clause in this matter sufficiently expressive.

Amendment proposed, in page 17, line 19, after "waste," insert "semi-waste."—(Mr. Parnell.)

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)

said, he thought the addition of the words quite unnecessary, because waste was merely a question of degree. The object of the hon. Gentleman was fully accomplished by the use of the word "waste."

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

asked if the Government thought it necessary to put into this clause anything concerning the reclamation of the foreshores?

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he would insert the word "foreshores" on Report.

MR. PARNELL

asked leave to withdraw his Amendment.

MR. GIVAN

said, that before the Amendment was withdrawn he might move that after "waste," the word "unprofitable" should be employed.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)

remarked that this was also covered by the present words of the clause.

Amendment (Mr. Parnell), by leave, withdrawn.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he did not object to the introduction of the words "agricultural buildings."

MR. WARTON

did not quite understand how the clause would read if the proposed words were inserted. What did the hon. Gentleman mean by agricultural buildings?

MR. GIVAN

said, he meant by agricultural buildings, agricultural buildings.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

said, "the erection of agricultural buildings," was, perhaps, what was wanted.

MR. CHARLES RUSSELL

suggested that the difficulty might be got over if the Amendment were altered so as to read "or any other works including agricultural buildings."

MR. GIVAN

contended that his Amendment was perfectly intelligible.

DR. LYONS

regarded the introduction of the words as quite unnecessary.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, the hon. Gentleman might, perhaps, waive the point, considering how comprehensive the words of the clause were.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he hoped the Government would agree to the Amendment, because "agricultural buildings" were not now specifically included. He had had some experience in the administration of Acts of Parliament, and he did not doubt that at some time when this Act came to be administered, it would be ruled that agricultural buildings were not included.

MR. CHARLES RUSSELL

thought the words now used were sufficient. Suppose they put in "agricultural buildings," what would they do with roads and other matters which were obviously agricultural matters?

MR. GIVAN

said, that, according to his knowledge of the derivation of words, the word "agriculture" would not include buildings, and therefore he would respectfully suggest to the Prime Minister that he should adhere to his acceptance of the Amendment. The introduction of the words could do no harm, but would assuredly make things clear and save controversy hereafter.

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

pointed out that the Companies now engaged in agricultural improvement were largely occupied in building. He was fully persuaded the clause would include buildings.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. LITTON

in moving, in page 17, line 19, after "land," to insert "reclamation of foreshores," said, this Amendment would meet the view of the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan). All who were acquainted with Ireland knew that there was a large quantity of foreshore, which was quite capable of being utilized.

Amendment proposed, in page 17, line 19, after "land," insert "reclamation of foreshores."—(Mr. Litton.)

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

said, he was aware the question was not as simple as it might seem at a glance, for there would necessarily arise out of it some questions as to the Government right to foreshores. This Land Bill, or any other Land Bill, would only partially settle the Land Question unless they could, by the industry of the people and by measures such as this, add a county or two to Ireland. He believed they could add a county to Ireland by the reclamation of interior waste lands; and he had long thought they might add a considerable area to Ireland if they could get the consent of the Crown—reserving and protecting in all reasonable way the rights of the Crown—to the reclamation of the foreshores. There was a large field in Ireland for useful enterprize of this kind. At a time when a neighbouring State was laying out millions of money in reclaiming their foreshores, we might very properly try, by our independent enterprize and industry, to do something to imitate, on a small scale, the industry and enterprize of the Dutch Government. He knew the question was beset with certain difficulty; but he would ask the Prime Minister whether he could not, consistently with the preservation of the legitimate interests of the Crown, take some steps towards the reclamation of Ireland's foreshores?

MR. FINDLATER

called attention to the successful embankment, drainage, and sale of the Crown shores which had been carried out in Holland, and noticed that the Crown had already obtained 6,477 acres by reclaiming the foreshores of the Humber at Sunk Island. This land produced £13,196 annually, or about 40s. and 8d. an acre. It was very desirable that a large quantity of the foreshore about Dublin Bay on its north and south shores should be reclaimed in the same manner as was already done with the portion embanked between the Dodder and Merrion. There were about 3,000 acres available. The work would be quite as successful as the enclosing of the foreshores of Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly had proved.

MR. CHARLES RUSSELL

said, the clause as it stood left it open to the Crown to carry out any schemes of reclamation it thought proper, and to make such conditions as would protect its own rights. He did not think the object of his hon. and learned Friend would be attained by the adoption of the Amendment, although he hoped the Amendment would be accepted, because it was a very useful one.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, they would do well to include seine words of this nature. He would suggest that the words introduced should be "or foreshores or waste lands."

THE CHAIRMAN

We have passed that now. The Amendment may be moved on Report.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

said, he had risen just now to propose an Amendment of this character, but the Chairman had informed him that it could be more properly brought on at a later stage of the Bill. He heartily thanked the Prime Minister for assenting to the proposition.

MR. PARNELL

said, that before they left this question of foreshores, he wished to express a hope that the Government would favourably consider the question of allowing them to be sold to public Companies on reasonable terms. In the estuary of the Shannon there was a large amount of waste land. Some land in the estuary of this river had been reclaimed, but there was still a large quantity which could be reclaimed with advantage. The public Companies would be able to do this; in fact, it was about the only work of reclamation that they could undertake. There was a Mr. Drinkwater now engaged in reclaiming the foreshores of the Fergus River, in the estuary of the Shannon, and he (Mr. Parnell) had been told that this gentleman had paid a large sum for the purpose of being allowed to enter on the work.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, the Amendment he had on the Paper was of extreme importance, and it was to enable the Board of Works to make advances for the construction of roads, railways, or tramways, required as feeders to main lines of railway communication. In the West of Ireland the principal railways were, in some instances, 50 and 60 miles away from the agricultural portion of the country, and the inhabitants were perfectly ready to make lines of very light railway in these districts if they could get facilities for doing it. It was impossible to express to the Committee the difficulty of obtaining advances of public money for this purpose. Railway Acts were extremely expensive and cumbersome, and, unless something in the nature of his proposal were done, the people who cultivated the land in the extreme West, where there were no railways, would continue to find it impossible to get their crops to market, and would be placed at a great disadvantage in competing with their more favourably situated countrymen. His proposal, if adopted, could do no harm, as the works he contemplated would all be subject to the approval of the Board of Works and the Treasury. It was only where these two bodies were satisfied that the works could be profitably executed that they would be allowed.

Amendment proposed, In page 17, line 20, after "improvement," insert "including roads, railways, or tramways, required as feeders to main lines of railway communieation."—(Mr. Mitchell Henry.)

MR. BIGGAR

said, he wished to take the Chairman's opinion on a point of Order. This was a Land Bill, and the hon. Member was seeking to insert a provision in it for empowering the construction of railways. Could such a proposal be entertained?

MR. GLADSTONE

I must confess that, with the hon. Member who has just spoken, I think this Amendment is altogether outside the scope of the measure. If it were a question of lending money to existing railways for the reclamation of land, we should know what we were about; but that is provided for by Acts now existing, and for which Railway Companies give their debentures. And if, on the other hand, it is a question of lending money for reclamation for purposes of agricultural improvement, we know where we are; but it is nothing of the kind. The proposal is indefinite as to whom we should have to deal with and as to what the works might be that, though I do not discourage the endeavour to deal with the matter; and, though I think that such a measure as the hon. Member proposes might be useful, I fail to see how it could come in here.

THE CHAIRMAN

Before the hon. Member moved the Amendment, I thought the proposal was in connection with the reclamation of land—that these railways and tramways were for the purpose of giving facilities for such reclamation. That, however, does not appear to be the case, and, in the large sense in which the hon. Member has moved the Amendment, no doubt it is outside the scope of the Bill.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he had no objection to the Amendment being taken in connection with reclamation. He was absolutely certain that unless something of the kind he proposed were done the West of Ireland would continue to be in the deplorable condition in which they now found it. He hoped it would be remembered that the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) had prevented, or, at all events, done all in his power to prevent, the greatest improvement that could be effected in the condition of the poorest people in the West of Ireland. Of course, now, with the Government and the Irish Representatives against him, it was no use pressing the Amendment. Her Majesty's Ministers, seemingly, did not entertain the intention of improving the people of the West of Ireland in the spirit in which alone that improvement could be effected. This Bill, as it now stood, would do very little for these unfortunate people. Their pauperism would continue—it would remain the scandal to England and to Europe that it now was. Parliament would do nothing to assist these miserable people out of their wretched condition. No private Companies would assist them. What private Company would come forward to reclaim land in the West of Ireland under existing circumstances? Why, none in the world. No attempt had yet been made; but, if his Amendment were accepted, the people in particular localities, a long way from railways, would, with the assistance of the landlords, only too gladly make light railways and tramways, and add the reclaimed land to the agricultural wealth of the country. He only asked that facilities should be given to them for obtaining advances of money to assist them in carrying out objects which the Prime Minister himself admitted to be highly advantageous. This Amendment was on the point of agricultural reclamation, and he was exceedingly sorry that the right hon. Gentleman could not accept his proposal.

MAJOR NOLAN

said, he looked upon the Amendment as connected with reclamation. In Galway County—which he represented—for instance, one of the uses of a light railway, or tramway, would be to transport the limestone which would be necessary in carrying out reclamation. Without such a road or railway there could be no reclama- tion. The roads that at present existed were looked after tolerably efficiently; but it would be advisable to have such an Amendment as this in the Bill, because their main object ought to be to increase the general resources of the country, and, unless they had cheaper means of communication, they could not do that. There were hundreds of miles of country in the West of Ireland which, at present, were unsupplied with railway communication, although it was just the district which required it most.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

said, there was no doubt in the world that the narrow-gauge railways and tramways could do a great deal in Ireland; but the question was whether these works could be promoted in a Land Bill dealing entirely with the matter of agriculture? As hon. Members who had advocated railways of this description knew perfectly well, he had been their stout ally when they had brought forward their proposals.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

regretted that the hon. Member for County Galway had not received more support front the Irish Members. It certainly did not look well for the Irish Representatives to raise points of Order on proposals for carrying out improvements in Ireland. The Amendment might not be quite in Order, but he should like to see its object effected.

THE CHAIRMAN

I must say that it is not competent for this Amendment to be put, or for hon. Members to discuss it, when—according to what has just fallen from the hon. and gallant Member for County Galway (Major Nolan)—its object is to bring about the construction of hundreds of miles of railway. I only allowed the Amendment to be put on the understanding that it was to apply to railways on the estates where particular reclamations were being effected—to railways considered necessary for the purposes of reclamation. As the discussion is going upon the question of railway construction in the ordinary sense, the Amendment cannot be put.

MR. W. H. SMITH

I would call the attention of the Committee to the words of the Amendment. They are—"including roads, railways, or tramways, required as feeders to main lines of railway communication." It seems to me that the mere reading of the words shows they are out of Order.

MAJOR NOLAN

said, in answer to what had fallen from the Chairman, he wished to disclaim any idea of suggesting that under this Bill they should make a railway 200 or 300 miles long.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he did not wonder at the Committee refusing to support the Amendment, seeing that the Irish Members themselves threw cold water on it.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

said, he had not mentioned the word "railway," because he had wished to avoid going into a matter that was doubtful. His intention had been to call the attention of the hon. Member for Galway to the spirit in which the Prime Minister had received his proposal. The right hon. Gentleman had felt the force of the objection on the ground of Order; but he distinctly sympathized with the object which the hon. Member for Galway had in view. He (Mr. O'Connor Power) would suggest to the hon. and gallant Member, in view of the reception his Amendment had received—the opposition to it having been mainly on the ground of Order, and its principle having been approved of—that he should re-cast it, restricting it to reclamation works, and bring it up on Report, when he had no doubt it would receive the support of the English and Scotch, as well as the Irish Members.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he wished to say, in answer to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Galway—

THE CHAIRMAN

There is no Question before the Committee.

MR. BIGGAR

I will put myself in Order.

THE CHAIRMAN

I call upon Mr. Gladstone, who has an Amendment to propose.

MR. GLADSTONE

I rise to move the words which I promised the Committee to propose to the effect that the Board of Works may make advances to occupiers of land when satisfied that the security is such as to secure the repayment of principal and interest, or even when the landlord joins the occupier in giving such security. There are two branches to this proposition, and the later one—when the landlord joins the occupier in giving the security—was a recommendation made by a Departmental Commission that examined into the case for the Board of Works. As to the other case, under the former law, when the interest of the tenant was not so far recognized by law as to become a regular marketable commodity, it was proper, probably, to confine the advances to tenants to cases where there was a definite term of a considerable number of years unexpired in the lease. Now the case is different. First of all, there is the definite interest of the tenant in the holding; and, secondly, there may be a statutory term; and, under these circumstances, in many cases the tenants will be in a condition to offer a really good security for the purpose of an advance. That, of course, will have to be examined, and, under these two heads, I think it is well to make a proposal of this kind. It would not have been desirable to introduce it into the first part of the clause.

Amendment proposed, In page 17, line 20, after "improvement," insert "The Treasury may authorise the Board of Works to make advances for the like purposes to an occupier of land when satisfied that a tenancy or other security which he may have to offer is such as to secure the repayment of principal and interest within such a number of years as the Treasury may think fit, or when the landlord joins the occupier in giving such security."—(Mr. Gladstone.)

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

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, he did not rise to discuss the policy of the Amendment; but he wished to ask a question as to repayment, as he observed that the right hon. Gentleman had adopted different words in this Amendment to those in the 3rd sub-section. In the 3rd sub-section it was set forth that the money should be repaid in accordance with the provisions of a previous Act; but in the Amendment the money was to be repaid according to the discretion of the Treasury.

MR. GLADSTONE

The reason is this. If money in this way is to be advanced to an occupier of land, the only possible way in which you can do it is to leave the matter to the discretion of the Treasury. In the 3rd sub-section we are dealing with positive interests which, like those of the landlord, are permanent in their character. There is no difficulty in such a case to refer to the provisions of an Act which deal with loans made on the security of permanent interests. But in the case we are now dealing with it is obvious that the tenant's interests may be of a very limited and varying character, and that the advances may be small. I think the way we propose is the only way of doing the thing if it is to be done at all.

MR. CHARLES RUSSELL

said, this was a very valuable Amendment, and went in the direction of one that he had himself put on the Paper; but it would be more effective, and was a great improvement on his proposal.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he agreed with the hon. and learned Member (Mr. C. Russell) that the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman was a wise and acceptable one, and he hoped the Committee would adopt it. But there was one point on which, he thought, it fell short, and it was this. He was not sure whether he interpreted the Amendment rightly, but, if he did, no money could be advanced except to a person already in possession of some land. That scheme was admirable so far as it went; but it avoided one important part of the question of reclamation, because, as had been pointed out by various authorities, there was a large quantity of labour in Ireland which was quite capable of being applied to the reclamation of land—labour not from the farm, and not of people who were in the occupation of land. He had been trying to find in the Blue Book, Professor Baldwin's allusion to this before the Land Commission; but he had not succeeded. His recollection of the evidence, however, was sufficient to justify him in saying that Professor Baldwin pointed out several instances where labourers had had small pieces of unreclaimed land given to them either at no rent or a very small nominal rent, and, having managed to exist for the first year on borrowed money, or in some other way, had in time rendered the land valuable and capable of yielding them a subsistence.

MR. HEALY

said, the lion. Member was in error. The persons he proposed to give employment to would have no interest in the reclamations that would be made.

MR. E. STANHOPE

said, that as far as he understood the Amendment, it seemed to him very reasonable; but, at the same time, he thought the Government should have put a proposal of this sort on the Paper. The Amendment, as also the clause to which it related, were very important, and the Committee should not have been kept in the dark with regard to it. He would appeal to the Government for the future to put their Amendments on the Paper at least a day before they intended to bring them forward.

MR. GLADSTONE

The greatest efforts have been made by the Government to put their Amendments on the Paper. When the hon. Member comes to have charge of a great and complicated measure to which there are no fewer than 1,500 Amendments—Amendments which are put down from day to day—he will appreciate the difficulty of the present position of Her Majesty's Government. It was not an easy matter to examine the many Amendments proposed, and to make those proposals which seem to us to be necessary with regard to them.

MR. GORST

said, that, in justice to his hon. Friend (Mr. E. Stanhope), he would point out that this was an Amendment which could only be moved by Her Majesty's Government. It was an Amendment making a charge upon the public funds, and therefore was one which could only be moved by a Minister of the Crown. His hon. Friend surely was justified in complaining that an Amendment of this kind, which could only be moved by a Member of the Government, had not been duly put down on the Notice Paper.

MR. P. MARTIN

said, that the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell), which was somewhat similar to that of the Prime Minister's, had been on the Paper for a week. The Amendment now proposed simply used different and more effective words to give effect to the same object as that stated by the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk. The Committee could not be said to have had this Amendment in any way hurriedly presented for their consideration.

LORD GEORGE HAMILTON

wished to say a word in justification of what had fallen from his hon. Friend (Mr. E. Stanhope). The Committee were adopting a novel principle, because money was to be advanced on the tenants's interest in his holding, and that interest the Government had said, over and over again, they could not define. Under these circumstances, the Committee should have had Notice of such an important Amendment as this.

MR. DAWSON

said, that if this Amendment was to be applied only to tenants in occupation of waste land, it would do very little good indeed. There was lots of waste lands, at present, in which no tenant had any interest. If the Government insisted upon this interest, they would be doing very little to put the waste lands into the possession of the Irish people.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

was not surprised that the suggestion of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) should have attracted some attention. He agreed with the hon. Member that unless some provision were made that would invite unemployed labourers to apply themselves to the reclamation of waste land, reclaimable lands would never be reclaimed, and the danger of periodical famine in Ireland would never be removed. There was an Amendment further on in the name of the hon. Member for Dublin, the object of which was to enable the Land Commission to buy lands for the purpose of tempting farmers in the crowded districts to cultivate them. That would cover the whole matter. No doubt, the hon. Member for Galway had done well in calling attention to this matter; but, if he had seen the Amendment lower down, he would have known that there was ample time to provide for the case he had in view.

MAJOR NOLAN

said, the Board of Works ought to be enabled to lend sums of less than £100, otherwise the small tenants might not be able to derive benefit from the advances. Would the Government give the Board of Works power to advance small sums?

MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD

said, that under the Relief of Distress Act loans of £40 were granted. He would point out, in answer to the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), that the Companies who would engage in the work of reclamation would find it to their interest and advantage to employ labourers of the kind referred to, and, no doubt, they would do so.

MR. PELL

wished to know what security they would have that the improvements would be carried out when the money was advanced? Was the money to be given in advance before the improvements were effected or after? He should be glad to know in what position the Treasury would stand in the case of a tenant who had borrowed money for the improvement of his tenancy, had subsequently broken the statutory conditions of his lease, and upon whose interest in his holding the landlord, under the Act, had the first lien for unpaid rent? In such a case, who would have the first claim, the landlord or the Treasury? He agreed with the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. E. Stanhope) as to the disadvantage they were under in not having this Amendment—which was by no means so simple as it looked—printed on the Paper. The Committee should have had an opportunity of seeing it in print, and of giving it the careful consideration it deserved. At the same time, there was some force in the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister on this head.

MR. GLADSTONE

The question is a very reasonable one. I do not know that we have a right altogether to exclude improvements; but we must look not to them, but to the value of the securities. One guarantee that improvements will be effected is the interest the tenant has in his holding.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

I cannot help thinking that that is taking rather a sanguine view of the matter. There will be a great temptation to men to undertake works that seem at first sight—until tested—very likely to yield profit. I understand that these tenants are not to be subject to the conditions that Companies are to be subject to, and that it will not be necessary, before they receive an advance, that they shall have expended some amount of money themselves. The money is to be advanced directly the Treasury are satisfied that the tenants have sufficient security to offer. We know what the outcry against the Board of Works has been; and if there is any hesitation on their part to advise the Treasury, or any hesitation on the part of the Treasury to accept the suggestions made to it, they will be called narrow-minded, and will be accused of preventing that which is in the interests of the people of Ireland. These words require very careful consideration before they are adopted by the Committee.

MR. GLADSTONE

I do not think the primary business of the Government, in these cases, is to look at the value of the improvements. We do not inquire whether the tenant's works are works that must necessarily answer. What we ask is whether the tenant can offer us a security of such a substantial character as to warrant our making the advance. That is the principle upon which all these offers to landlords and tenants have been made. Heretofore it has always been done on the very firm and solid interests of the landlord, or on the interests of the tenant that could be stated to Parliament, such as a given unexpired term of a lease. Evidently, the business to be done must be done on the credit of the Treasury. No one can see what the value of the tenant right will be, and I do not see my way to define it in an Act of Parliament. We must leave the Treasury to its own responsibilities as to any rule for making advances.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

But who will have priority of claim? Will the Treasury take priority over other advances—over other debts?

MR. GLADSTONE

I apprehend that that will certainly be so.

MR. W. H. SMITH

I think that, as a matter of practice, it is customary for the Board of Works to make itself satisfied that the works have been carried out before the instalments are paid over to the landowner. It is found to be a most necessary and useful rule, because, otherwise, money which is borrowed for one purpose, may be spent on another. Unless this condition is insisted on in connection with advances of all kinds, I am afraid that misappropriation will arise.

MR. GREGORY

thought it was necessary that some solid security should be given to the Treasury.

MR. WARTON

said, he must protest against the plan adopted by the Government of moving Amendments of a most important character on such very slight Notice. Before they considered an Amendment, two things were necessary. First, that they should get the actual words of it. Now, if Amendments were showered upon them in this way, it was a difficult thing to get possession of the words of a proposal. After this, it would be a necessary qualification for a Member of Parliament to be able to write short-hand, otherwise they would not be able to get on. If he had not been able to write very quickly, and if he had not heard the Amendment read out three times—first by the Chief Secretary, then by the Premier, and lastly by the Chairman—he should not have been able to gather, even in the imperfect manner in which he had gathered them, the phrases of the Amendment. And the next step, after getting the words of an Amendment, was to understand them. The very moment an hon. Member commenced to comprehend them, the hon. Member for Sussex (Mr. Gregory), the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), or some other hon. Member, rose and pointed out a difficulty. He did not suppose that all hon. Gentlemen present cared to understand the words. He did, however, and had watched every word of the measure with the intention of understanding it, if possible. There was a point upon which he was not clear, and upon which he should like to have some information. There was a section of the Bill which provided that there should be no advance, even to a Company, before part of the money had been expended. Supposing that the money had been expended, and supposing that, at the same time, a baronial guarantee had been given, what security would the Treasury get from the Company?

MR. GLADSTONE

We will look carefully into the conditions on which such advances are to be made to tenants, and it will be our duty to suggest words to meet the difficulty the hon. and learned Member anticipates.

SIR R. ASSHETON CROSS

Did I understand the right hon. Gentleman just now to say we are not to look to the value of the improvements, but to the value of the securities, so that the Government may be safe? The Prime Minister said, afterwards, that the Treasury were to have a prior claim over other creditors. I would ask, then, what is to become of the landlord, if his security is to be subsequent to the tenant's liability to the Government?

MR. GLADSTONE

said, the existing Act would deal with such cases.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

asked whether they could not manage to persuade the Governent to postpone this matter? He did not wish to meet the question in any hostile spirit. He had carefully examined the Amendment in the hands of the Chairman, and found there were two alternatives in it. One was that the Government might advance the money if the tenant produced sufficient security; and the other was that the Government might advance the money without any substantial guarantee at all if the landlord joined in the security. The result of that might be that the Government might advance money, though the landlord was directly opposed to the expenditure. That was an extraordinary position to put the landlord in. They had admitted in Ireland that which up to now they had never admitted, and what was not admitted in England—namely, that the tenant had an interest in the soil. This being so, surely the two persons who had an interest in the land should co-operate. If there was to be a Government advance for effecting permanent improvements, surely the two partners in the concern should concur in the arrangement, especially as it appeared that the Treasury, as a creditor, was to have priority of claim for payment. The tenant might have only a fleeting interest in the soil—he might be here to-day, and gone to-morrow. There was always a substantial security so far as the landlord was concerned, but this was not so in the case of the tenant; and yet they proposed to give him an advance, absolutely irrespective of the consent of his partner with a more permanent interest. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) was afraid the matter had not received from the Government that deep attention which the importance of the subject required. That the occupier, who might break his contract at any time, should have as great a right as the owner of the fee-simple, was a remarkable thing.

MR. GLADSTONE

The noble Lord has repeated his argument over at least 10 times. It is said that what we propose is novel in principle, and that there is no precedent by which to sustain it. The noble Lord must have entered the House immediately before he made his speech; otherwise, he would have been aware that the principle of making advances to occupiers is already recognized in our law, and that the questions with regard to the relative positions of the landlord and tenant, and the degree at which it is right to insure that the works are intended to be, or have been begun to be, executed, are dealt with in our law, and that the only change now made is with regard to new interests. New interest having been defined on behalf of the tenant, it seems reasonable to extend the principle already well established to those interests. I fully admit that we shall have to apply to this clause the same principles of justice as to the bona fides of the tenants that we have applied in other cases. I mean the principles applied in the case of the Act of 1847, passed in consequence of the Famine. It was provided in that measure that a tenant might become a borrower from the Government for improvements; but the lease was liable to forfeiture on breach of conditions.

MAJOR NOLAN

said, he had not yet received an answer to his question.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

The hon. and gallant Member is mistaken in supposing that the limit of £100 would apply to this clause.

MR. PELL

said, he thought the point to which the Prime Minister had addressed his observations was hardly clear yet. If the improvements contemplated in the Amendment were to be such as would add to the letting value of the land and improve the security, no one could have any objection. He should be pleased to see money advanced to the tenants for the purpose; but they could not disguise from themselves that the tenant might borrow to make improvements which would not add permanently to the value of the land. Money had never been advanced to the tenants of England to enable them to improve the letting value of their land; but where English tenants were in difficulties he should be glad to see it done. There should be some direction to authorities in the Amendment to the effect that where money was lent to a tenant for improvements, those improvements should be of a permanent character, and not such, for instance, as would run out by a severe course of cropping or careless treatment of the land. He trusted the latter part of the Amendment would be accepted by the Committee, for the landlord would be a most proper person to judge whether or not the improvements were desirable and proper. The very fact of his joining in the security would be a guard against the borrowing of money by a tenant for a visionary purpose.

MR. WARTON

said, the Premier had given the noble Lord credit for repeating his argument over many times, and had proceeded to answer the argument advanced. He (Mr. Warton) was, no doubt, to be blamed for not having repeated his question several times, for, as a punishment, no reply had been vouchsafed him. What he wished to know was this. Why did the Premier propose to make advances to the occupier on terms so very different—so very much more favourable—to those allowed to a Company? Why should the Treasury advance money to a mere occupier, with no restriction whatever as to a single farthing having been spent?

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)

said, there need be no difficulty in the minds of hon. Members as to the character of the improvements. "Improvements," in Ireland, were well known to mean works which added to the letting value of the holding and were suitable to it.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

I should like to ask the Government whether there is any precedent in which advances have been made by the State before any work at all has been done?

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)

said, that the manner in which the thing was done at present was this. The State authorized advances to be made; this was carried out by the Board of Works, and a memorandum was required from the person borrowing, setting out the title to the holding, the work to be done, and the money value of the work. That was tested by an engineer of the Board of Works, who reported whether the memorandum was substantially correct, and if it was the advance was authorized by the Board. According to the present practice in Ireland, the advance was made in five parts. As soon as one-fifth of the work was completed, a report to that effect was made out by the person to whom the advance was to be made. The work so executed was examined by the engineer to the Board of Works, who reported whether the work was properly executed pursuant to the requirements and the memorandum. On receipt of that report, if favourable, one-fifth was advanced, and the same process was repeated in regard to each successive fifth.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

Will the same system be adopted under this Bill?

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)

Yes; the arrangement will be such as to suit the ordinary requirements of the Board of Works.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, he would move to amend the pro- posed Amendment by leaving out the word "or," and substituting "and." By this it would be necessary for the landlord to join the tenant in the security. He considered it monstrous to force on the landlord improvements that he might not want, and which, in fact, he might consider detrimental to the letting value of the estate. A tenant might, for his own purposes, wish to carry out improvements which would alter the character of that part of the landlord's estate, or wish to carry out a system of drainage which would not fit in with the drainage of the adjoining land. They said the landlord had a joint interest in the land; why, then, should he not have a joint interest in the improvements to carry out which money was to be advanced by the State?

Amendment proposed to the proposed Amendment, after the word "fit," to leave out "or," and insert "and."—(Lord Randolph Churchill.)

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

MR. GLADSTONE

We propose that there shall be two conditions under which the tenant can obtain an advance for improvements. One is when the landlord joins the tenant in giving security, and the other is where the tenant himself gives a sufficient security. The one method is entirely agreeable to the present law, and only a new extension is given to it; the other is as to the grants made on the security of the landlord and tenant. The noble Lord's proposal is to give the landlord an absolute veto, and that we cannot accept.

MR. BRODRICK

wished to know whether the improvements would include the erection of labourers' cottages?

MR. WARTON

wished to know whether the words "such security" had any reference to what went before?

MR. GLADSTONE

In reply to the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Brodrick), I may say that labourers' cottages are included.

Question put, and agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

MR. COCHRAN-PATRICK

said, he had an Amendment on the Paper, the object of which was to require an accurate record to be kept of the archæologucal remains likely to be injured by the improvements for which advances were to be made by the State. The great importance and interest attaching to the antiquities, which were so plentifully scattered over the soil of Ireland, was only now beginning to be realized in this part of the United Kingdom; and the present was a very fitting opportunity, and one which might not present itself again for some time, to endeavour to preserve some record of them. This proposal was not open to many of the objections which had been taken to other means of dealing with ancient monuments. It would in no way interfere with the rights of property, and it would not interfere with the scope of the Bill, but would merely provide for the preservation of those relics and antiquities which, if once destroyed, could never be replaced again. The proposal had received the sympathy of the Council of the Royal Irish Academy, a body that had done very good work in connection with the antiquities of that country. Whilst the Government were paying large sums for patches and shreds of antiquities and relics from other countries, they systematically neglected the evidences and remains of civilization which lay at their very feet, and which were as important as any ancient relics to which they had ever devoted their attention.

Amendment proposed, In page 17, line 20, after the word "security," at the end of the foregoing Amendment, to insert the words "Provided, That, whenever advances are made by the Treasury for the purpose of reclaiming or improving waste or uncultivated land, on which archæological remains exist, likely to be injured by the operations, accurate plans, views, and descriptions of such remains shall be taken in triplicate, and one copy shall be deposited in the British Museum, one copy in the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, and one copy in the National Museum of Scottish Antiquities in Edinburgh; and that efficient means shall be taken to preserve and secure for the National Collections all relics of antiquity which maybe discovered in the course of the operations."—(Mr. Cochran-Patrick.)

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

SIR, JOHN LUBBOCK

said, he hoped Her Majesty's Government would see their way to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Cochran-Patrick). From the expe- rience they had had in the past, there could be no doubt that when these works were carried out many of these ancient relics would be destroyed. Already a large number of them had perished, and in the future they should not allow such a thing to occur. The House, in an early period of the Session, passed by a considerable majority a Resolution in favour of preserving ancient monuments. He should have liked to ask whether Her Majesty's Government would be prepared to take any steps in accordance with that Resolution; but he had abstained from pressing the right hon. Gentleman, because he knew very well what difficulties the Government had to contend with in connection with other subjects in passing this Bill; yet this matter was one of great importance, and he felt bound to impress upon the Committee the desirability of preserving, at any rate, a record of any relics which might be destroyed.

MR. A. M. SULLIVAN

said, he thanked the hon. Gentleman most sincerely for having brought forward this Amendment; though, at the same time, he should like to point out to him an alteration of which it was susceptible. He would suggest to him that all he should ask the tenant to do would be to allow reasonable facilities to the officials of the Royal Irish Academy in makiug these drawings. If they threw on the tenant the duty of themselves preparing these views and sketches, they would run the risk of having some very inartistic and untrustworthy productions sent up to Dublin. He not only sympathized, however, with the object of the Amendment, but he had prepared an Amendment to it, which he thought would reader it more effective. He would propose that, after the word "operations," the following words should be inserted:— The persons proposing to carry out such reclamation or improvement shall allow reasonable facilities to any person authorized on their behalf by the Board of Works. And he would suggest that most of the remaining words should be omitted; because, to whom could they intrust the duty of sending one copy to the British Museum, one copy to the Library of the Royal Irish Academy, and one to the Museum of Scottish Antiquities in Edinburgh? When they who were now in the House were all passed and gone there might be many persons sitting in their places who might regret very much that such a plan as that now proposed had not been carried out. He had had occasion to visit various parts of Ireland for the purpose of making sketches of Irish antiquities, and had had great reason to regret that there were not in existence such records as the hon. Member sought by his Amendment to have prepared.

MR. PERCY WYNDHAM

said, the only objection he had to this Amendment was that it seemed to assume that all these monuments in Ireland were to be destroyed. As Her Majesty's Government, however, would get a lien upon the land for which they advanced the money, they should be asked at once to take steps to insure that, at least, the small antiquities should be inclosed and preserved. Of course, the preservation of many large antiquities might interfere with the proper cultivation of the land; but as to small ones, no drawing could have the same archæological value as the original relic. It was a very difficult thing, at any time, to get good and accurate drawings that would be of any value made of these things. He trusted Her Majesty's Government would take the whole question into their consideration, so as to deal with it in such a way as to preserve, at all events, those antiquities which it would not cost much money or labour to save, and to have accurate drawings made of the remainder.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)

said, he wished to remind the Committee that the question now before them was the progress of the Irish Land Bill. The Motion of the hon. Member had not reference to the preservation of ancient monuments, but to the preparation of views and drawings of them. Well, the national history of a country was not written in views and drawings. It was written in the monuments that existed, and he believed that Ireland possessed an advantage over every other part of the United Kingdom in the number and preservation of its great national monuments. Most of these national monuments of Ireland were ecclesiastical and were under the care of a Board, whose engineer inspected them from time to time, and preserved them from ruin. The monuments existing on uncultivated lands were Druidical remains, which consisted of large stones, and raths, usually called Danish raths, or cromlechs; and these were and would be best preserved by the national sentiment, as long as national feeling existed in Ireland. The people of Ireland would no more allow a rath to be invaded by the plough, or a stone to be taken front a cromlech, than they would allow the roof-tree to be taken from over their heads.

MR. E. STANHOPE

said, there was evidently a strong feeling in the Committee on this subject; but, no doubt, hon. Members would be thoroughly satisfied if the right hon. Gentleman would say that he would be prepared later on to put words into the Bill for the purpose of preserving these ancient monuments.

MR. GLADSTONE

I recognize the excellent spirit in which my hon. Friend has made an appeal to me; but, at the same time, I really cannot accept the task he invites me to undertake. I am asked to frame a scheme for the general preservation of ancient monuments, and to introduce into this Bill such words as will be conformable to its other provisions. Well, it is not in my power to do anything of the kind. If the Committee chooses—if the Committee sees its way to framing a scheme of this kind—it is not for us to offer an obstinate opposition to it; but it is impossible for me to undertake an engagement in the face of the Committee, when I know that I have neither mental strength nor time to fulfil it.

SIR JOHN LUBBOCK

said, he should be extremely sorry to impose any additional tax upon either the time or strength of the Prime Minister; but, so far from it being the ease that ancient Irish monuments were now well cared for, he had only that morning received from Miss Stokes, an Irish lady, whom most of them must have heard of, a list of the Irish antiquities which had been demolished within the last few years. From this list it would be seen how misinformed on this subject was the Solicitor General for Ireland. What was it that his hon. Friend asked for? It was not that any general scheme should be prepared for the preservation of the ancient monuments throughout the entire Kingdom; but that where, in consequence of the works carried out under this Bill, monuments were destroyed, full records for historic and scientific purposes should be kept of them. The Solicitor General for Ireland had said that the monuments that would be interfered with would be Druidical stones. But he would point out that very frequently when works had been undertaken on these waste lands, other antiquities had been discovered—such as ornaments of gold, bronze, and stone. It would be disgraceful to a country like ours if, in passing a Bill of this kind, they did not take some measures to preserve records of these interesting antiquities.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

said, he could not see any great object in refusing to allow the words to be inserted. He did not attach any tremendous importance to the proposition; but, at the same time, the matter was one of some archæological interest, and he hoped the Committee would allow the Amendment to be carried. There was a strong feeling on the part of some of his archæological Friends that this was one of the most innocent forms of Amendment that could be made to the Bill; and he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister would accept it, which he might certainly do with the assurance that it could not do any great harm.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, he only wished to say one word. His hon. Friend said he had proposed this Amendment in the interests of ancient monuments; but he (Mr. W. E. Forster) really thought that if it were carried it would really be against those interests, because it would create an idea that wherever these monuments existed they need only take photographs or drawings of them, and then the monuments themselves might be destroyed. There was not, however, as he hoped, any general feeling in favour of the demolition of ancient monuments; and with regard to those things that were found in the shape of coins and so forth, they, as his hon. Friend was aware, were paid for by a regular scale, and would not be affected by the Amendment. If the Amendment were carried, there might be those who would say—"We will take drawings of these things and then destroy them as fast as possible.

MR. DAWSON

thought it absurd to suggest that the Irish people would destroy all their ancient monuments be- cause photographs or sketches were made of them. He believed that there were a number of very ancient monuments which had been left to the care of the Irish people, and that might still be trusted to that care. The people would not destroy those monuments; and all he asked was that, instead of passing Amendments enabling sketches to be taken of these relics, a provision should be enforced under which, at the present moment, the preservation of ancient monuments in Ireland was carried out.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, Her Majesty's Government did not seem to have shown much consideration for ancient monuments in Ireland, for only a short time ago the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (Mr. W. E. Forster) had despatched a whole battery of artillery against one of the most ancient Irish monuments. He hoped the Committee would be inclined to adopt the Amendment; but, at the same time, they should remember that the progress of the Land Bill was concerned in the matter, and they might as well go to a division on the Amendment, solacing themselves for a certain defeat with the knowledge that it might not be very long before they might be in the presence of a Government having more consideration for Irish national feeling. Nothing more dignified nor more ancient that belonged to the era of a caucus could ever hope to command the consideration of Her Majesty's Government.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had been very complimentary to his (Mr. T. D. Sullivan's) countrymen in the remarks he had just addressed to the Committee. He (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) liked to hear compliments to his countrymen when he thought they were deserved; but on this point he knew, as other Irishmen knew, that it was a fact that numbers of ancient monuments were being dilapidated and had been deteriorated within their time, and probably would continuo to be dilapidated, unless attention were called to them and something done to insure their preservation. In most civilized countries some care was taken for the preservation of relics of this kind; and what was now proposed was that in the dispersion of any of the Irish national monuments, if such a thing should become necessary in the process of reclamation, something should be done, by which, at least, a reliable record of them should be preserved to the country. He should be very sorry to do anything to delay the progress of the Bill, but he did think that this was a fair proposal; and he hoped the Government would say that as the works of reclamation about to be undertaken under the Bill would, to some extent, be destructive of some of the ancient monuments of Ireland, there ought to be some sort of record of those relics preserved for the benefit of the country. He knew of cases that had occurred within his own knowledge in which the remains of ancient abbeys had been dilapidated, and sometimes taken away. The peasantry had removed the stones from these ancient edifices in order to build houses, and in some cases to build pig-styes. They could not shut their eyes to the fact that the remains of these ancient buildings had been torn down by the peasantry. It was perfectly true that there were in Ireland many of these objects with which a superstitious feeling was connected. If it were a national feeling, so much the better; but, as he had already said, there were numerous cases in which great harm had been done, and was still being done, and would continue to be done—harm which this Bill would accelerate unless some provision were made such as was suggested by this Amendment. He did not wish to occupy the time of the Committee unnecessarily, nor did he wish to involve the Prime Minister in any great or elaborate scheme for the preservation of ancient monuments; but he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would give his mind—and he had a great mind—to this matter, feeling assured that if he were to do so he could easily devise a sentence or two by which, in a very few words, be might carry out the spirit of the proposal expressed in the Amendment then before the Committee.

MR. HEALY

said, the chief ancient monument they would require to take care of in Ireland under this Bill would be the one set up to the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant on his departure from the control of Irish affairs.

MR. COCHRAN-PATRICK

said, his Amendment by no means meant to convey any imputation on the Irish pea- santry; on the contrary, it was a well-known fact that the ancient monuments of the country had been cherished and preserved by the Irish people. If he had the smallest encouragement from the Treasury Bench in supposing that before the intended works of reclamation took place some means should be guaranteed by the Government by which a durable record of the monuments that would be destroyed should be secured he would ask the leave of the Committee to withdraw his Amendment.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, the Committee ought to be aware that there was a Department of the Board of Works which was specially charged with the duty of looking after the ancient monuments of Ireland; so that if the Amend-mend were withdrawn, it did not follow that proper care would not be taken of those monuments. The Board of Works would have the superintendence of the improvements that were to be undertaken with the public money to be advanced by that Department, and if that Department discharged its duties, all that the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Cochran-Patrick) asked for by his Amendment would be done.

MR. LEAMY

said, the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had told the Committee that the Board of Works were already charged with the duty of looking after the ancient monuments of Ireland. He (Mr. Loamy) was informed that the Board of Works had whitewashed Cormick's chapel.

MR. GLADSTONE

I may say that I have myself examined the church of Glendalough, which is under the care of the Board of Works; and it is not only my own opinion, but that of everyone who has had the opportunity of going there, that there never was anything more admirably done, with more careful skill and unremitting diligence, than the reclamation of those monuments.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, the authority of the Prime Minister might be high authority; but a far higher and more trustworthy authority had been referred to, and according to that authority it was undoubtedly the fact that objects of archælogical interest had been destroyed in Ireland during a comparatively brief period. Did this, he asked, accord with the high character the Prime Minister had given of the Board of Works?

MR. T. COLLINS

said, the only authority the Board of Works in Ireland possessed with regard to these ancient monuments was that which was in-trusted to them under the Irish Church Act; they had no control over the monuments in general.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

said, he did not impugn in the least degree the care the Board of Works had exercised in respect to architectural monuments. He believed that their care and attention in respect to those monuments that were under their supervision had been complete; but with respect to the agricultural improvements that would take place under the Bill, it might be that some of the ancient relics such as mounds and burrows would have to be removed, and it was only a reasonable proposition that someone should have charge of those monuments, who should see that before they were removed some record of them should be taken for preservation.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 143; Noes 189: Majority 46.—(Div. List, No. 301.)

MR. LITTON

rose to move an Amendment standing in his name.

MR. BIGGAR

asked what had been done with the Amendments that stood before that of the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Litton)?

THE CHAIRMAN

All the Amendments, except those which I called, were on matters previously decided, and could not be put; and as to those that were called, hon. Members in whose names they were put down did not answer until I came to that of the hon. and learned Member (Mr. Litton).

MR. BIGGAR

said, perhaps as he had not heard his Amendment called, the Chairman would allow him to move it, as it took precedence of that of the hon. and learned Gentleman. His Amendment was, in page 17, line 26, to leave out all the words from the word "with" to "guaranteed "in line 28, inclusive. The Government had shown that they were exceedingly careful, and very properly so, with regard to money which was guaranteed by the Public Treasury; but they did not seem to exercise the same care with regard to other parties, and were willing to empower the advance of money to be expended on certain improvements properly in cases where a guarantee from a barony was given. But he held that the guarantee of a barony could not come into operation for the improvement of private property and for the benefit of private individuals. These baronial guarantees would be simply guarantees on behalf of some half-dozen of perfectly irresponsible private parties. It was an absurd proposition that private persons should be guaranteed in this sort of way. It was all very well for a person to put his name to a carefully-prepared document and become responsible for another, but that some half—dozen people should mortgage the property of all the rest living in their own barony simply for their own benefit was, as it seemed to him, a proposition that could not be defended.

Amendment proposed, in page 17, line 26, leave out from "with," to "guaranteed," in line 28, inclusive.—(Mr. Biggar.)

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

MR. TOTTENHAM

thought that one expression lie had heard fall from the Prime Minister was peculiarly applicable to this Amendment—namely, that anything introduced into the Bill ought to be in accordance with the provisions of the scheme it embodied. He (Mr. Tottenham) maintained that the words proposed by the Amendment to be left out were entirely superfluous for the purposes of the Bill. It seemed to him that the clause as it stood was an extension of the principle which had always been held in great disfavour by Parliament, and one which, in the year 1874, a Standing Order of the House was specially framed and passed for the purpose of checking. That Standing Order was No. 67, and, without reading the whole of it, he would inform the Committee that it provided— That if a copy of the Bill should be approved by a majority of the members of the Grand Jury, Presentment Sessions, and the Board of Guardians respectively, it should be deposited at the Private Bill Office. That Standing Order was specially framed to prevent any measure being slipped or passed through without the knowledge and assent and against the opinion of the ratepayers of the county, who, it was intended, should have every opportunity of thoroughly sifting and notice, for an advance of public money discussing it. That provision was specially passed for the purpose of insuring that this should be the case. If it were necessary to restrict the mode in which these things were done for public purposes, how much more was it necessary to do so when it was proposed, as by the present clause, to give powers which solely and entirely related to what generally would be regarded as private purposes? The Relief of Distress Amendment Act of 1880 swept away all these safeguards that were enacted by the Standing Order of 1874; and by Section 14 of that Act it was provided that the Lord Lieutenant might from time to time, if in the exercise of his powers he might deem it necessary, convene extraordinary sessions for any barony, and might, by instructions to the justices, authorize them, by presentment, to charge the barony with a guarantee for the repayment of any sum advanced under the provisions of the Act. This power was, under the Act referred to, given to the Presentment Sessions alone, and that Act swept away the provisions of the Standing Order of 1874. The Presentment Sessions, by their own Act, were enabled to charge the barony with the sum applied for without notice or advertisement, or without any appeal from their decision. This was, however, for public purposes, and merely referred to the Standing Order of 1874, as to applications for railway purposes; but it was now proposed, under the present Bill, to apply this power for the purpose of reclamation of land for agricultural purposes, which in no sense of the term could be called public purposes, but were essentially purposes of a private nature intended for the profit and emolument of private individuals, whether the land belonged to a single individual or to a Company, for which there was provision in the Act. In the case of drainage, the improvements effected might possibly accommodate and benefit a certain number of occupiers within the area of what was called the catchment basin that was proposed to be drained; but beyond and outside this the ratepayers had no interest in the expenditure. It could not advantage the general public, and he could see no justification for legislation which proposed to put it in the power of any individual to make application, after a fortnight's for the purpose of making improvements that would have the effect of enhancing the value of his own property at the expense of the ratepayers, who would receive no benefit whatever. He was altogether in favour of guarantees having for their object matters of public utility, such as the construction of railways, canals, and so forth, from which an indirect benefit could be derived by the general public; but he could not see any sound policy, and he could not understand the justice of a proposal which contemplated the throwing on ratepayers of a charge in return for which they would not and could not, as in the present instance, receive any benefit whatever. Therefore, although he was, unfortunately, not in the House when his name had been called by the Chairman, or he would have moved the Amendment he had on the Paper, he would give his support to the Amendment before the Committee.

MAJOR NOLAN

was sorry to find that railways were not included in the proposal; and though he saw that the clause was framed in such a manner that hon. Members might take exception to it, he nevertheless thought it would be a great advantage to have some local body empowered to give a guarantee; and, even if the baronial sessions were deemed in some respects objectionable, he thought they would be found to be on the side of economy.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

hoped the Government would be disposed to accept the Amendment.

MR. PARNELL

said, he was very sorry the Government had mixed up the Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act of 1880 with the present Land Bill. The Relief of Distress Act, which conferred for the first time on the Lord Lieutenant and an Extraordinary Presentment Sessions the power now proposed to be given to the baronies, was passed for the purpose of meeting an exceptional emergency; and it was certainly found that, as far as the emergency went, that provision had proved an entire failure. But still it was passed to meet an emergency, and the Amendment Act of 1880, which had been spoken of by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) was also passed, to a certain extent, to meet an emergency. The extension of the provisions of the Relief of Dis- tress Act by the Act of 1880, was only an experiment, and it was carried on as an experiment; but its operation was chiefly confined to works of a public character. It was, in fact, confined to Railway Companies, Harbour Boards, and so forth; and the suggestion made in this clause—namely, that baronial guarantees should be given at Extraordinary Presentment Sessions, hastily convened by the Lord Lieutenant under the exceptional provisions of the Relief of Distress Act of last year, for the purpose of levying heavy charges on the ratepayers of the Irish counties, was quite a new departure. He did not mean to say that no Irish county should be allowed to charge its securities for public purposes on the ratepayers or county cesspayers; but he thought that before they gave the additional facilities now proposed to authorities who were only nominated and not elected, and therefore not representative, they ought to pause and reflect on what they would thus be doing. As far as he could see, the only temptation a public Company could have to go over to Ireland and embark in these projected schemes for the reclamation of waste lands would be that which was afforded by the proposed baronial guarantee, with the knowledge that it would be possible for that Company, if the undertaking proved a failure, to charge on the defenceless ratepayers of the county the loss that might have been sustained. He certainly hoped the Prime Minister would hesitate before accepting the principle contained in the Relief of Distress (Ireland) Act—a principle opposed to all modern ideas of taxation with representation and so forth, and which, if adopted, would undoubtedly lead to a great deal of jobbery. There was in the clause as it stood no guarantee that the property of the ratepayers would be respected in the slightest degree. It had been well pointed out by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leitrim that all the old checks which Parliament had by its Standing Orders deliberately placed on these sort of guarantees—namely, the necessary consent of the Boards of Guardians and Grand Jurors, were at one stroke swept away by the Act of 1880 for the Amendment of the Relief of Distress Act, so that there remained nothing between the taxpayers and any amount of jobbery that might take place under this clause. With regard to what had been said by his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Galway (Major Nolan), he knew that this was a question about which they had an old dispute; but he would remind the hon. and gallant Gentleman that when Parliament was passing the amended Act, it had carefully scheduled the Railway Companies, while they were now asked to open an unlimited field for jobbery without scheduling any Companies whatever. And he would also remind the Committee that the guarantees were to be confined to the next four years, and would, in all probability, be granted before the County Government Bill, which he hoped the Government would bring forward at some time or other, was likely to be passed.

MR. GLADSTONE

This is one of those cases in which we have to lament the absence of really representative Local Government Boards. Perhaps, at the time this Bill was framed, we may have cherished the hope that it might have been in our power to propose a scheme of that kind with a prospect of carrying it in the present year. Any hope of that kind, however, has now vanished into thin air; and, therefore, I am bound to say that this provision of the Bill is no longer defensible. Consequently, I will accede to the Amendment.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

wished to express his great regret that the Prime Minister had accepted this Amendment. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) pointed out that the Bill scheduled certain districts in reference to railway purposes, and in conjunction with baronial guarantees. During the discussion of the Bill he had been constantly receiving letters from his constituents in the County of Mayo, asking him to get as many railways as possible scheduled. He might mention one name that was well known to many hon. Members—Dr. McCormick, the Bishop of Achonry. That right rev. Prelate was in the House that night listening to the present discussion, and he had not changed one iota of the opinion he had originally formed, that it would have been better for Ireland if a larger number of railways had been scheduled and had been in a position to enter upon works of construction. He wished to know whether the right hon. Gentle- man the Prime Minister would be in a position next year to bring in a Bill to empower County Boards to spend money for these purposes; and he would also ask why they should hesitate to lend money to bodies which were not wholly representative? He was in favour of encouraging everybody in Ireland to do all that was possible in favour of developing the resources of the country; and the localities should have facilities for applying to Parliament, from time to time, for aid in doing that which they were willing to do for themselves if they only had statutory powers. He warned the Prime Minister that if he made concessions of this kind he would be entailing on himself an accumulation of labour hereafter in the direction of some such provision as that which it was proposed to omit front the Bill. The opposition of his hon. Friends to the proposition of the hon. Member for the County of Galway would not be endorsed by the Irish people, and he regretted to see them persist in obstructing the industrial development of Ireland.

COLONEL COLTHURST

said, he concurred in the views expressed by the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power). The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) took the same course last year in objecting to these powers being given to Presentment Sessions, and the result was that some Railway Companies were not scheduled, and several most useful works were left out. He was of opinion that the carrying out of a scheme of arterial drainage would benefit the country generally, and he might remind the Committee that the baronial sessions never erred on the score of extravagance. It had always been a most parsimonious body, and anyone who took the trouble to investigate their transactions during the last few years would find that the last thing they could be fairly accused of was extravagance. He, therefore, very much regretted that the right hon. Gentleman should have given way to the opposition of hon. Gentlemen who professed exclusively to represent Irish interests. The proposal was one which was calculated to benefit Ireland generally, and he was very much surprised at the course which had been taken.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

said, the hon. and gallant Member who had just spoken on behalf of the County of Cork (Colonel Colthurst) assailed the position which had been taken in this discussion by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). He thought nothing could be more unfair. He (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) had himself spoken before the hon. Member for the City of Cork took part in the debate; and he was perfectly convinced that all the observations which had since been made as to the importance of retaining these words were mere "bunkum." Nobody would suffer by the omission of the words, and he was in favour of their omission, because he believed that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, who had taken such pains in regard to the Bill, could not retain words so ineffective and so utterly unwarranted.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

said, he was very reluctant to detain the Committee; but he thought the observations of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down required one word of comment. So for from the resolutions of the baronies being looked upon with indifference or as a dead letter, only a few days ago he had received a letter from his constituents asking him to leave his duties in Parliament in order to take part on the Grand Jury at Castlebar, the capital of his county, in supporting a proposal of this kind. He appealed to the hon. Member for Youghal (Sir Joseph M'Kenna) whether that was not a sufficient justification for the protest he had made.

Question put, and negatived.

Amendment agreed to.

MR. LITTON

moved, in line 26, after the word "section," to insert— Provided that such advance to any company shall be made subject to such conditions as the Board of Works shall impose for the sale or letting of the reclaimed, improved, or drained lands, so as to promote the creation of occupying proprietors. He had made one or two alterations in the Amendment as it appeared on the Paper. He had left out the words "upon the Commissioners" after the word "impose," and he had substituted "Board of Works" for "Land Commission," and "occupying proprietors" for "yeoman proprietors."

Amendment proposed, In page 17, line 26, after the word "section," insert "provided that such advance to any company shall be made subject to such conditions as the Board of Works shall impose for the sale or letting of the reclaimed, improved, or drained lands, so as to promote the creation of occupying proprietors."—(Mr. Litton.)

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

MR. GLADSTONE

I must point out to my hon. and learned Friend the position in which the matter stands. It is not as if we were in circumstances where we had a great rush of Companies wanting to occupy the ground for the purpose of reclaiming land in Ireland, so that, with full knowledge on our part, we could impose conditions on them. The great doubt in my mind is whether the Companies will be forthcoming. We hope they will; but it makes it no slight matter to interpose any obstacle in their way. Can we expect that any Company will undertake any portion of this work subject to the absolute discretion of the Land Commission as to the mode in which it is to deal with the land in the reclamation of which it has invested its capital. The insertion of this provision would, I think, render it hopeless to get Companies to undertake the work, nor do I think the Proviso at all necessary. If the Companies come, and if they reclaim the land and provide a new field for capital and industry in the work of agriculture, they would do an immense amount of good in whatever way they let or sell the land. Another reason which induces me to believe that it is unnecessary is that I think Companies of this kind are essentially commercial undertakings quite unlike the case of the Companies in the North of Ireland, which have no commercial elements. If they come into existence they will come into existence with commercial aims, and it would be their desire to convert their capital into improved land in order that they may turn it over in fresh enter-prize.

MR. LITTON

said, that, under the circumstances, he would not persist in the Amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

On the Motion of Mr. TOTTENHAM, Amendment made, in page 18, by omitting subsection 4.

MR. D. GRANT

moved, at the end of the clause, to insert— That it shall be within the powers of the Land Commission to purchase, for the purposes of reclamation, such estates as may seem to them suited for the purpose, such lands to be reclaimed by the officers and agents of the Land. Commission, and, when reclaimed, to he re-let with power of purchase by the tenant. There seemed to be a fear on the part of the Prime Minister that the Companies would not be forthcoming.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member proposes in the Amendment that "such lands are to be reclaimed by the officers and agents of the Land Commission," and when reclaimed to be re-let. That proposal is irregular, as it would involve the expenditure of money.

MR. D. GRANT

said, he had consulted the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Ways and Means before he moved the Amendment, and understood that it would be in Order.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member certainly showed me his Amendment, and asked me if the words giving power to the Land Commission to purchase were in Order. I did not observe at the time that it was to be a compulsory power.

MR. D. GRANT

said, he did not propose that the power should be a compulsory one.

THE CHAIRMAN

The point is not that it is a compulsory power, but it gives power to the Land Commission to spend money.

MR. D. GRANT

asked if he was to understand that the Amendment was irregular?

THE CHAIRMAN

Yes; I cannot put it.

DR. LYONS

moved, in page 18, at the end of the clause, to add— (5.) The Land Commission may from time to time purchase such waste, semi-waste, or uncultivated lands, as to them shall seem fit, apportion then in such lots as they deem suitable, and may let or sell such lots to persons of approved character, and competency, and may advance to such tenants or purchasers such sums per acre as may in the opinion of the said Commissioners be adequate and proper, either in bulk sum or by annual instalments for the due reclamation of such waste lands. All sums so advanced to be secured upon the lands in such manner as the Commissioners shall determine, and to be made repayable, as hereafter set forth in regard to other advances under this Act. The object of the Amendment was to empower the Commissioners from time to time to purchase such waste lands as they might think fit, and let or sell them on terms to be agreed upon and in conformity with the general provisions of the Act. In placing such a power in the hands of the Land Commission, he had in view a further object—that of enabling the Commission to carry out what he believed would be found, on reference to a subsequent clause, a most important, necessary, and desirable provision—namely, to enable them to offer allotments to such persons as they might induce to go from over-crowded localities in which there was a congested population. It had been stated that the Bill as yet contained no provision for dealing with the localities in which, as was recognized on all hands, there was a congested mass of the population, and this Amendment did provide such a scheme.

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order! I must point out to the hon. Member that he is proposing that the Land Commission shall advance money for the purpose of purchasing reclaimed land. The Board of Works, under various statutes, has that power; but the Laud Commission has no such power, and it can only be given through the Board of Works.

DR. LYONS

said, he had been about to mention that, in consequence of the alterations in previous clauses, it might possibly be held as an objection to the Amendment that it proposed to give the power to the Land Commission. He would, therefore, after the intimation of the Chair, propose, with the permission of the Committee, to substitute the Board of Works for the Land Commission. So far as he knew, no power that was exactly of this kind existed in the hands of the Board of Works at the present moment; and he desired, through the operation of the Land Commission, instigating the Board of Works, or through the Board of Works itself, to give the power to provide allotments on which persons would be induced to settle from the congested parts of the country. He believed this to be one of the most important, as well as one of the most necessary, operations to be carried out under the Bill, if they desired a real practical amendment in the condition of things in certain localities which need not be specified, but which, on all hands, were admitted to be overstocked with population. Unless something of an effective kind was done to remove this population, he believed they would only go on, generation after generation, becom- ing year by year worse and worse. He had two subsequent Amendments on the Paper; but he only alluded to them now for the purpose of illustration and not of discussion. Their object was to enable the Board of Works to purchase out these tenements throughout the country, and by the present clause to provide localities into which the surplus population of the congested districts might be induced to transfer themselves when liberated from localities they now occupied. It might interest the Committee to know that the subject of the waste lands of Ireland had occupied the attention of the Government of this country even from a date prior to the existence, in its present shape at all events, of the House of Commons. The House came into existence in 1265; but so early as June 11, 1250, King Henry HI. had issued a mandate to Luke, Archbishop of Dublin, Maurice Fitzgerald, Peter de Birmingham, and others, to impart their counsel, under seals to the King, whether it was more expedient to settle and cultivate hospitari et excolere the King's waste lands in Ireland or to let them to the men of Ireland. It was not easy to ascertain what action was taken on this mandate; but in the following year, July 25, 1251, a mandate was found to have been issued to the Justiciary of Ireland to provide Thurston de Pierrepoint with 10 librates of foreign waste lands there which he caused to be inhabited; he to render to the King such service as the Justiciary should think proper. These citations, with others which he (Dr. Lyons) did not think it necessary to trouble the Committee further at present, showed that at even this early date the importance of the subject of the waste lauds of Ireland had been fully recognized. In more recent periods inquiry had been repeatedly directed to the matter. The two Amendments which stood in his name upon the Paper, in reference to a subsequent clause of the Bill, provided that tenants of small holdings under 10 acres might sell their holdings to the Land Commission or the Board of Works, and authorized advances to be made to assist them in migrating elsewhere. The object of that provision was to enable the Land Commission or the Board of Works to offer to the occupiers in the overcrowded populations inducements to give up their holdings and seek elsewhere in Ireland a position in which they could better maintain themselves. He begged to move the Amendment.

Amendment proposed, In page 18, at end of clause, add—"(5) The Land Commission may from time to time purchase such waste, semi-waste, or uncultivated lands as to them shall seem lit, apportion them in such lots as they deem suitable, and may let or sell such lots to persons of approved character, and competency, and the Board of Works may advance to such tenants or purchasers such sums per acre as may in the opinion of the said Board of Works be adequate and proper, either in bulk sum or by annual instalments for the due reclamation of such waste lands. All sums so advanced to be secured upon the lands in such manner as the Board of Works shall determine, and to be made repayable, as hereafter set forth in regard to other advances under this Act."—(Dr. Lyons.)

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

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

hoped that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister would give a favourable consideration to the Amendment. He thought enough had been said about the difficulty of inducing Companies to come forward, and the views of the Government themselves were not such as to lead to a sanguine anticipation that very much would be done in that direction. The Committee had been told of various reasons which private Companies might have for not embarking in a work of this kind. They might not have sufficient security, and anyone who had any idea of the prospective agriculture of the country would be aware that it would require considerable inducement to induce men to enter into agriculture at all. The American competition was so keen that unless the conditions were very favourable they were not likely to prosecute the work of agriculture with success. Unless they sot themselves face to face with this difficulty, that they would either see Ireland turned into waste, and the labour of the Irish people directed into other channels, or they would see the only agents by whom they could hope to realize the prosperity of any country sent away to build up an empire over the sea. From all the Prime Minister had said, he was sure the right hon. Gentleman was not satisfied with the provisions already made for the promotion of agriculture in Ireland; and he therefore trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would accept the Amendment now proposed by the hon. Member for the City of Dublin (Dr. Lyons). The objection which he had pointed out to this clause on the second reading of the Bill was an objection founded on the working of the "Bright Clauses" of the Land Bill in combination with the working of the Church Temporalities Commission. The Church Temporalities Commission had succeeded in establishing 6,000 peasant proprietors—and why? Because it was the business of someone to see in that case that negotiations were entered into for the purchase of estates in the interests of the tenants. But the "Bright Clauses" of the Land Act of 1870 had remained a dead letter, because it was nobody's business to undertake similar negotiations; and under the present Bill, as it stood, it would be nobody's business to go out into the waste lands and see that they were brought into a state of cultivation, and that people were induced to go upon them. He thought the most cruel thing the Government could do would be to raise expectations on the part of the people which they were not prepared to fulfil. Therefore, if they proposed that there should be any reclamation of waste lands at all, let them set about it in a business-like fashion, and fix upon some persons with practical skill who should look after the matter. If that could be done in India without involving a heavy expenditure, he saw no reason why it should not be done here, and why they should not adopt the Amendment for the purpose of interesting the people of Ireland in the development of the resources of the country. He was glad to see that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was now in his place, because he believed the right hon. Gentleman had said that the effect of the clause would be to provide a practical remedy for the evils of a congested population in Mayo and other parts of the country. Hitherto, from the county of Mayo they had been in the habit of exporting to the work of the English harvest something like 15,000 or 20,000 labourers every year. That was at a time when the agricultural interests were prosperous in England. But what were the facts now? If the agricultural resources of Mayo were properly developed, as they might be under a provision of this nature, they could find profitable em- ployment for every one of the labourers in that county. They had in that county at least 400,000 acres of land that might be profitably cultivated, not according to the system of hired labour in England, but according to the Irish system of cultivation, where the tenant's little boy or girl, on the way home from school, could bring in the cows, and feed the ducks. Upon every reason of State policy lie recommended that some provision of this kind should be introduced into the Bill, and he earnestly solicited the favourable consideration of the Prime Minister to it. If there happened to be any technical defect in it, which lie confessed he was himself unable to see, he trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would not throw it overboard with a wave of his hand, but that he would look upon it as a matter which, from time to time, had been pressed upon successive Governments, and which was never more worthy of serious attention than at the present moment.

MR. GLADSTONE

It is with concern and even melancholy I observe that the greater the extension we can give to the scope of the Bill the greater become the demands which are made upon us. We have given to-night a large extension to the Bill in a matter which is of advantage to the tenant. In regard to the purchasing part of the Bill, I have thought that we were undertaking an extremely bold operation indeed. I certainly think we are undertaking an extremely bold operation in saying that we will go out into Ireland and, without fixing any positive limit to the operation, buy land for the purpose of re-selling it to the tenants if the tenants are willing to take it. There are, however, limits to the embarrassments of proprietorship in which it is undesirable that we should involve ourselves, and the extent of the operations we propose to undertake are limited by the Bill. What has taken place to-night? Hon. Members who have spoken seem to think there are very little hopes, or none at all, that Companies will undertake the reclamation of waste land. [Mr. O'CONNER POWER: I did not say that.] But the hon. Member appeared to think that therein lay the strongest argument in support of the proposal that the reclamation should be undertaken by the Government—that is to say, that the Government should undertake an indus- trial operation which ought to depend on the profits it will realize, and in respect of which the opinion entertained is so unfavourable that, practically, there is only the slenderest hope that the expectation of profit will induce private persons to come and do it, although private persons would carry the work into effect with the utmost economy, and, therefore, with the largest possible profit. Hon. Members think, therefore, that this is an occasion to say it is right that that which private persons will not undertake shall be undertaken by the Government, whose operations in such a matter never can be economical. I am very sure that the provision which it is proposed to add to the Bill would be an enormous extension of the scope of the measure, and an extension which, if we were to adopt it, would render it extremely difficult to put a limit to the operation. A case of the purchase of estates is a natural operation, in the willingness and ability of the tenants to become proprietors; but in this case, as long as there were any waste lands existing in Ireland, a resistless pressure would be brought to bear upon the Land Commission, and it would be almost impossible for the Commission to know why they should purchase in one district and why not in another. On the one hand, it would be an indefinite operation, or, on the other, there would be incessant discontent and murmuring. Is it, then, really a rational undertaking on the part of a Government to invest the proceeds of the taxes of the people in an endeavour to reclaim waste lands? Are we justified in taking action for such a purpose? You have just cast out of the Bill a provision which, in the mildest form, offered a voluntary opening for the voluntary action of the local authorities of Ireland. The great majority of the House was opposed to that provision; and having, in that way, recognized the incapacity of local bodies, with full knowledge of the facts, to deal with the question of reclamation, you now say that the taxes of the people levied by the Government are to be expended through the Land Commission in assuming these functions. What is to be done? The Land Commission is to buy these districts of waste land; and, having bought them, is to find people to settle upon them. Where is it to find them? Is it to send out agents? It is admitted that they are not to be found on the spot. The hon. Member for Mayo says they are not to be found in Mayo for the waste lands there.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

I said exactly the contrary.

MR. GLADSTONE

I understood the hon. Member to say there are none to be found in the local market.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

Plenty.

MR. GLADSTONE

I gathered that they were to be brought upon the land; but that they were not already upon the land, and had no interests there. But they are to be made acquainted with what is going on; and the land is to be mapped out for them. And then, having no interest in the land, because a tenant's interest in a waste is worthless, the Board of Works is to make them such advances as they think proper for the reclamation of these waste lands. Having undertaken a rash and unprecedented purchase, you are to give effect to such purchase by making advances upon a basis of nullity, because nullity is the basis which would be afforded to you by the tenant's interest in waste land, because they will have acquired no interest, and nothing ostensible that they can carry into the market; and yet you require that the public is to provide for them the means of reclaiming the land. Is that a fair and a legitimate use forusto make of the resources placed at our disposal as stewards of the funds we extract from the labour of the people of this country? I think not. I cannot see my way to embark in these functions. I know not what the view of the Committee may be; but I feel deeply the responsibility we have already undertaken. I cannot use too strong language in the statement of those responsibilities. It has required motives of the utmost urgency to induce me to touch with my little finger such subjects. We have gone great lengths; but this further advance is an enormous stride, far outside anything we have hitherto contemplated; and I confess that I have not the resolution to attempt it.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he fully admitted that this was an important substitute for that which he believed to be the right way of dealing with the subject. But, on making a few remarks upon what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman this question—Were there no such things as public works in India? What was the reason that the State was induced to undertake public works in India? They undertook public works in India because there existed a starving population, and there was nobody else to do the work. That was precisely why he had always advocated the undertaking in a reasonable manner of public works of reclamation in the West of Ireland. It did not at all follow that the formidable picture which the right hon. Gentleman drew of the liabilities which would fall on this country was a true picture. No one would suppose for a moment that all the waste land in Ireland could be purchased. All that was proposed was this—that as it was notorious that in one particular part of Ireland there was an immense congestion of the starving population—seeing that vast quantities of unreclaimed land existed that were perfectly capable of being converted into excellent agricultural land, all that was asked was that the Government should purchase some portions of these waste lands, and should undertake the work of reclaiming them, either directly themselves, or by contract with others, or by giving facilities to some portions of that starving population, who would continue to starve, in spite of their Land Bill, if they did not do this. What he had often proposed to the right hon. Gentleman—and he believed that he had very much wearied his right hon. Friend in private—was that he should devote a reasonable sum of money to the improvement of the condition of Connemara. He believed a considerably less sum than £200,000 would do all that was necessary in the way of purchasing land; and such land, when purchased, could be reclaimed by the State in the way in which he had personally been able to reclaim a small tract, both with profit and advantage. When the land was reclaimed by the labour of the starving population, it could be let out to them in suitable farms of 20, 30, or 40 acres, at a rent which should represent, not merely the capital sum, but also the interest of the money expended in reclamation. He could show by document, which nobody had ever attempted to confute, that the land could be let at 10s. an acre, and that in the course of a very short time it would be worth 20s. an acre; so that the people placed upon it would not only be able to pay their rent, but repay, by the simple operation of a sinking fund, the advances which had been made them. He heard an hon. Gentleman behind him ask what the Government had to do with it. He would tell the hon. Gentleman what the Government had to do with it. At this moment, in consequence of the condition to which Ireland had been reduced, they had one-half of their entire Army in that country, and they were unable to enter into any European combination because they had to intimidate a starving population. There would be no difficulty in entering into small public works in the West of Ireland, which would give employment to the starving population, and which, when properly carried on, might easily provide a sure source of livelihood for the people, and prove a gain to this country. The Government would be able to withdraw their Coercion Acts and their soldiers and enormous army of police; and he told the House solemnly that the cause of discontent in Ireland was misery and starvation. The people would not put up with the diet they could gather on the seashore, and with habitations in which Members of that House would not keep their hounds. These things had been demonstrated over and over again, and evidence of the most extraordinary character came from every quarter. It had been shown by every newspaper correspondent, and every philanthropist who had visited Ireland during the last crisis, and by abundant evidence before the two Land Commissions; and although he felt grateful to the Prime Minister for what he had done for the rest of Ireland, he was convinced that unless the Government dealt with the West of Ireland the Land Bill would not be worth the paper it was printed on.

MR. FAY

thought a great deal of time had been lost by turning on side issues, and the question now being discussed was a side issue. It would be a far better subject for a Bill on its own account; but a great many subjects had been introduced which merely added obligations and difficulties without advancing the Bill in its proper onward course. He thought the Irish Members should be ashamed of much that had been said that evening, especially the vulgar abuse of the Chief Secretary; and, as an Irishman, he protested against it, for he had that day felt more shame than he ever experienced before. The Amendment, he thought, was entirely outside the scope of the broad principles of the Land Bill, and his recollection of Professor Baldwin's suggestion was not in that direction at all. That suggestion was that if any advances were made for reclamation, they should be made for the employment of imported farmers or labourers, who should receive Government wages, bring the land into reclamation, and ultimately be allowed to purchase the farms. Such a suggestion could be carried out more ably by a Company than by a private body, and ho believed that Companies would spring up under the influence of the Bill. Land Banks would, he expected, spring up in all directions; but the present Amendment would render the Bill a Parliamentary abortion, and he should, therefore, support the Government.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

observed, that the Prime Minister appeared to have two minds as well as two Offices. As Prime Minister he was desirous of being generous; as Chancellor of the Exchequer he put a tight grasp on the money bags. The right hon. Gentleman reminded him of the Chancellor in "The Merchant of Venice," who said first—"Oh, my daughter!" and then "Oh, my ducats!" That was just the Prime Minister's attitude with regard to the Irish Land Bill. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of this suggestion as being of a model character; but the few Irish Members who took part in the long and dreary discussion on the second reading of the Bill urged the necessity of making some such provision. In that discussion he had said that the scheme, with regard to reclamation, had the vital defect of making no such provision. What was the meaning that underlay the action of the Government on this question? The right hon. Gentleman did not avow what the real meaning was; but he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) would explain it. The Government did not want migration, but emigration, and they would not have the slightest objection to advancing money to drive the people to Canada or other parts of the British Empire. Migration was only to act as the step-sister of emigration, and the Government only wanted to get rid of what they considered disturbance in Ireland by sending the disturbers out of the country. The Irish Members, however, wanted to keep their people at home, to improve their land and not the land of Manitoba, New South Wales, and other countries. There was plenty of land to be found, although the Prime Minister had said it would be necessary to make a voyage of discovery to find it. There were many acres of land in Mayo which were a monument of disgrace to British rule. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Fay) objected to the Amendment; but if that hon. Member had been present during the consideration of the 1st clause of the Bill, he would have known that "a person of good character" was one of the provisoes which the ingenious mind of the draftsman had introduced into that clause. What security did the Chancellor of the Exchequer ask for the money that was to be advanced? Did anybody suppose that 28 acres of land or 40 acres of land, if they were given to the agricultural labourer, who was willing to come from Ireland to England or Scotland to get the means of paying his rent, would not in two years' time be put into a condition which would be ample security for the small advance? If the Prime Minister had read the evidence of Professor Baldwin, he would have seen several cases in which land had been given at no rent, or at a nominal rent, to agricultural labourers, and which in the course of a few years had been made fertile and fruitful, and the tenants had in the end been willing to pay as much as 10s. and 15s. an acre rent. He perfectly understood why the Government would not accept the Amendment. They wanted to get rid of the people of Ireland, and to exile the population of Mayo and other portions of Ireland which they considered were disturbed; but he would advise the hon. Member for Dublin (Dr. Lyons) to proceed further in this matter until he got a satisfactory answer from the Government. Upon this question the whole of the Irish Members were united, and they would help the hon. Member with such persistanee and firm adherence to the Amendment as might seem well to them.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

said, he thought the scheme which the hon. Member for the County of Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had brought under notice was a very practical one, and would, no doubt, work out well. But the hon. Gentleman spoke with great authority on such a subject, and what he had said was well worthy of consideration. That was not the scheme which the Committee were discussing on the Motion of the hon. Member for the City of Dublin. The proposal before the Committee simply was that the Government should become land-jobbers for uncultivated or waste lands. They were not to cultivate the land; but they were to buy it, and then let it to anybody who could be got to take it. That, he thought, was a very hopeless way of dealing with a great question; and upon that ground, while he should be quite prepared to give every consideration to the scheme of the hon. Member for Galway, he could not support the Amendment.

MR. DAWSON

said, that, according to the Report of the Devon Commission, there were at present 326,000 occupiers of land whose holdings varied from seven to one acre, and which were quite inadequate for supporting a family. It was computed that by a consolidation of all holdings up to eight acres 500,000 labourers, equivalent to 2,500,000 of population, could be provided for, and, by the reclamation of waste lands, £20,000,000 would be added to the value of the products of the country. When they were talking about periodical panics, was it not right that they should be struck by a proposal which would not only remove the lamentable state of things in Ireland, but add to the wealth of the nation? A great deal had been heard from the Prime Minister about the English taxpayer; but Ireland did not want English gold; they wanted to nerve and strengthen the right arm of the Irish labourer with a sense of security, so that he should not be beholden to England. He was sure the Prime Minister, whose objects and whose intentions in the Bill were manifest, would not lose this golden opportunity of settling this vexed question; and he asked him to allow the Irish labourers to get the little modicum of capital necessary to work the land. It would be ample security to pay the State and to pay for the men's families.

MR. PARNELL

said, the question of removing the congested population was one of the six most important points in connection with the whole Bill. The suggestion made by the noble Lord upon the Front Opposition Bench was an important one; and if the Amendment of the hon. Member for Dublin (Dr. Lyons) could be modified in such a way as to earn the support of the noble Lord, he was sure his hon. Friend would be willing to modify it in that direction, provided the objects of his own Amendment were not sacrificed. But the discussion had commenced at a late hour, and a great deal might be said in favour of the proposal more than had been yet said; and, as the question was deserving of the greatest consideration from the Government, and was one in reference to which they might come to some compromise in the direction indicated by the hon. Member for Galway and by the noble Lord (Lord John Manners), he hoped the Government would allow the question to be further considered to-morrow, especially as there were several Amendments, including one by himself, which, of course, would be put out of the way by a hasty disposal of the Amendment at present before the Committee. The postponement of the matter until tomorrow might enable the Government to agree to some compromise; and he, therefore, would move to report Progress.

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

MR. GLADSTONE

said, he hoped the hon. Member would not press his Motion, for this was the 24th day of this Bill, and the whole business had been postponed to enable Irish measures to pass. This clause was begun on Friday, and now the hon. Gentleman said he would not allow the Bill to proceed.

MR. DALY

said, that he was as anxious as the Prime Minister that the Bill should pass; but if the House legislated for a country, let them not in any foolish haste hurry over a matter of such importance as this. It would be impossible to give a satisfactory decision upon this clause without a debate of three or four hours; and was it fair to ask the Committee to enter upon such a debate after 1 o'clock in the morning? An opportunity for reflection would be of great advantage, for the Government might see their way to agreeing, in some measure, to the proposal of the noble Lord (Lord John Manners). He believed that if the Prime Minister and his Colleagues would give a couple of hours' serious thought to the question of how they could advance the views of the hon. Member for Dublin without prejudice to the taxpayers they would be able to make some concession. The Government were prepared to spend money in promoting the emigration of Irish people to British Colonies; but every man, woman, and child deported from Ireland represented a customer less for England's manufacturers. If they used the money of the British taxpayers as proposed by the Amendment, they would recoup themselves by keeping their customers in Ireland at home. From another point of view, it would be better to adopt the proposal, for it would pay better to get rid of the soldiery and police in Ireland; to imprint on the Irish people the impression that they were treated as the English people were; and if Irishmen were allowed to settle on these holdings, they would become the most law-abiding people to be found in any country. Not more than a few hours' debate would be required further, and he appealed to the Prime Minister to agree to the postponement suggested.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

Before we decide, I think it would be very convenient for the Committee to know what the intentions of the Government are with regard to the other clause which forms part of the Bill. This part of the Bill has reference to reclamation of land and emigration, and there can be no doubt that there is a very great connection between those two clauses. A rumour has spread—I am not able to say whether it is well founded or not—that it is not intended to proceed with Clause 26; and I should like to know what the intentions of the Government are.

MR. PARNELL

wished to suggest that the Emigration Clause should be postponed till the end of the Bill. The question of emigration would tend to very considerable discussion; but that would be very much facilitated by the result of the deliberations of the Committee on the questions of arrears and labourers, for, of course, the principal arrears were those of small tenants, who would be the most likely to take advantage of the Emigration Clause.

MR. ONSLOW

said, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman would reconsider his decision as to reporting Progress. The subject upon which they were engaged was one in which all the Irish Members took much interest, and it could not be disposed of that night.

MR. MACDONALD

said, he had not hitherto interposed in the discussion, and had every desire to facilitate the progress of the Bill; but he now rose for the purpose of requesting the Prime Minister to consider not only the postponing of this Emigration Clause, but the advisability of letting it fall out of the Bill altogether. He strongly advised the right hon. Gentleman to the latter course. He was perfectly certain that its discussion would occupy a very long time indeed, and, if passed at all, it would be a most unsatisfactory clause in the Bill, and be the promotion of no service to the Irish people whatever. If there was one part of the Bill that ought to be thrown out, it was this Emigration Clause.

MR. CHAPLIN

hoped the Prime Minister would not think of following the advice just given; and, with all respect, he thought it was not in the power of the right hon. Gentleman to do so. When this discussion first commenced in Committee, he (Mr. Chaplin) moved that the first part of the Bill should be postponed, that the Committee might consider at once the most important part of the Bill contained in the remedial clauses. The right hon. Gentleman refused to accede to that, and he gave the Committee most distinctly to understand that the Government regarded the Bill as a whole, and drew no distinction between the parts, as being of more or less importance.

MR. GLADSTONE

said, with regard to the Motion for reporting Progress, he would not press resistance to the Motion, seeing where the hands of the clock had reached (5 minutes past 1). With respect to what had just fallen from the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), he did not think he had quite accurately described the statement made in the earlier stage of the Committee. Most undoubtedly he stated that, in comparing that portion of the Bill which related to landlord and tenant with that which related to the purchase and sale of estates, that these were portions in which the Government drew no distinction, in point of importance, that they regarded the Bill as a whole, and intended to pass it as a whole. He spoke of the main leading portions of it. He did not see the very great connection between the questions of reclamation of land and emigration, and never thought of placing either of these last in the same rank as those parts of the Bill relating to landlord and tenant and the purchase of estates, though they were important parts of the Bill, and proposals he believed highly beneficial, and he hoped the Government had not shown any disposition towards persistent opposition to Amendments proposed, nor, on the other hand, had shown levity in departing from anything material. With regard to emigration, there had been no change whatever. What rumours might have been circulated within the last few days he did not know; but he stated, with regard to this clause dealing with emigration, in his opening speech, with moderation, undoubtedly with no inflated expectations, that it was the intention of the Government to let this clause come on and to hear the opinion of the Committee; and he said, on this and on the question of reclamation, that, setting aside the obligation the Government must have to keep in mind the interests of the taxpayer that any general view of a majority of the Irish Members would constitute a great element in the Government judgment of the case. That was all he had to say in relation to it; and he could not, therefore, meet the desire of his hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Mr. Macdonald). The hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) had stated that he thought the Emigration Clause might, with advantage, be postponed, and the reasons for that he had, no doubt, stated in good faith regarding other important matters to be disposed of. He did not know whether it would be most convenient; but he hoped that if they met the hon. Member on this question they might part with the 25th clause to-night. That, he trusted, he might expect, and that, he thought, was a fair proposal.

MR. PARNELL

thought the right hon. Gentleman had rather misinterpreted his intention in moving to report Progress. There were many Irish Members who had not spoken on the question of reclamation, or rather of migration, a subject of very great interest, especially in connection with the Western counties, and there was the wish among these Members to have the opportunity of putting their views before the Committee to-morrow, but not at any great length; and if Progress was reported there was no intention of carrying the discussion to an unreasonable length. Really he did not think such a condition should be attached as would preclude the claims of those who had something to say on the Migration Clause.

MR. R. POWER

said, that he had an Amendment to leave out Clause 26, and would now only say that his conduct in future would be greatly guided by the action of the Government in relation to that clause. He thought it would be wiser for the Government, and better for the progress of the Bill, if the Committee went on in the ordinary manner, taking the clauses and Amendments as they stood, and not postponing them. For his own part, if the Government insisted on inserting Clause 26, that would materially alter his position towards the Bill. If the clause were inserted it would do away with any little benefit the Bill might contain. He would very much like to know what was the position of the Government towards the Emigration Clause. If they meant to retain it, it would be the duty of some of the Irish Members to take up a certain position towards the Bill; but if they meant to leave it out he, for one, would be most happy to do anything to support the Government in passing the Bill.

MR. O'CONNOR POWER

said, he understood the Prime Minister to accede to the Motion to report Progress, and the moment the right hon. Gentleman made the announcement there was an exodus from all quarters of the House, and a very large number of Members had left under the impression that there was no contention of the point. The Motion was made on strong and intelligible grounds. The Committee were debating a most important point in connection with the clause; but it had only been reached an hour before. The question of administration by the Board of Works had occupied hours, of which nobody complained; but when they reached a more important pert of the clause they were told that an hour was enough to dispose of it. Now, that was not sufficient. The feelings of the Irish people of all shades of parties had not yet found a voice, and he trusted that Progress would be now reported, that they might have some opportunity of fully stating their views.

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

said, the Prime Minister had said there was no great connection between the two cluases; but they were connected, and he would say so on these grounds. As ho understood it, the great difficulty in Ireland was the earth hunger arising from the inadequacy of the supply to meet the demand. These two clauses dealt with two different sides of this problem—the clause upon which the Committee were engaged was to increase the supply of land by reclamation or otherwise, whilst the clause to follow was one to relieve the demand in certain cases by providing other means for acceptation by those who cannot find a living on the soil. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry), who spoke with great knowledge of the subject and practical acquaintance with that part of the county where the difficulty more greatly existed, told the Committee what had been said by Reports of Commissions and otherwise, that in the West of Ireland the population was greater than could be maintained on the soil such as it was, and he recommended reclamation on a large scale, and through Government assistance. On the other hand, others said that it was impossible for the people to live on a soil incapable of supporting them, and they must be emigrated elsewhere. Hon. Members must then take the two clauses together; if they took emigration then they had less difficulty with the other case, and if they provided a sufficient system of reclamation and migration, possibly emigration would be less necessary; but they must deal with the two together. He must say he thought the Government would give the Committee a good deal of cause to complain if they withdrew, or even postponed, unnecessarily, the important clause relating to emigration. He could see no reason for its postponement, except as a preliminary to its withdrawal, and if that was intended the Committee should be made aware of the intention. The clause came in its natural place in connection with the Reclamation Clause, and the Committee had a right to ask that it should be proceeded with in its proper order.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he agreed that the Emigration Clause and the Migration Clause went together. That the subject had not been discussed was no fault of his, and he had hoped that the Government would take it up, and thought he had good reason for the hope. But what had happened was this—the Chairman ruled his Amendment, which would have brought the subject forward in a prominent manner, out of Order. That judgment he had no right to question, and the matter, therefore, was only raised indirectly. It was, nevertheless, of the utmost magnitude, and it was quite impossible to exaggerate the importance of it. After every famine in Ireland, they had proposals for public works. Sir Robert Peel proposed them, Lord Russell, and so did Lord George Bentinck, as the Committee well knew. But after the proposals there came a good season, a good harvest or two, and the whole subject was dropped, and now things remain in a chaotic state, and we present this disgraceful spectacle to Europe, of a large portion of Her Majesty's Dominions in Ireland on which the people live more shockingly than in any part of Europe. Now the opportunity offered of dealing with this state of things, and the Government were going deliberately to shirk the question. If they did this, what would happen hereafter? In three or four years bad harvests would again come round, and the whole case would come again before Parliament with aggravated force. Let the Government remember that whatever there was of complaint on the part of many tenants, complaints that might seem to them unreasonable, they derived their force from the undoubted misery of the population in the West of Ireland. He only asked the right hon. Gentleman to make an experiment, and let him consider it between now and to-morrow. An advance of £500,000 to the Board of Works, to be expended under the direction of the Treasury, would do an immense amount towards carrying out the views he had advocated. Half a million of money! Why, the Government did not hesitate to give £750,000 to Irish landlords last year, against the remonstrances of the Irish people; and they gave it out of Irish money. In the name of all that was wise, all that was just, let not the Government throw away this grand opportunity of refuting the charge that they would do nothing but get these unfortunate people out of the country by emigration. Emigration and migration were both necessary. He was not an opponent of emigration; but as to accepting it as the sole remedy for the distress he should be ashamed to do so. He trusted that before to-morrow the Prime Minister would consider whether he could not make the experiment suggested. It was a mere question of a small amount of money, it was not necessary to provide a very large scheme; but if the Board of Works advanced money for so many purposes, why in the world should they not, with the authority of the Treasury, do so for this purpose, when the amount asked for was so small in quantity?

MR. GLADSTONE

said, it was an unusual practice of which the hon. Gentleman had just given an example, and there had been several during the evening, to give a kind of instruction to the Government, and to desire that, whereas they had evidently paid no attention whatever down to the present to some subject that an hon. Member might think very important, and to subjects, in many cases, of extreme importance, that they would, between the current date and the next, or another day, give their mind to the subject. Such modes of denunciation or instruction were not complimentary, and seemed to assume some dereliction of duty on the part of the Government with regard to some particular portion of a subject. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) said the Government were going to shirk the subject and not touch it; whereas, what the Government wished the House of Commons to say, but hon. Members would not permit it to say, was, that if any person in this great commercial country was willing to prosecute this easy commercial enterprize—as the hon. Member pointed it out—then the State would offer half of the capital required, and not limit it to the £500,000 the hon. Member proposed should be advanced. This was what the hon. Member thought it fair to describe as entirely shirking the subject, and refusing to touch it! This was not an equitable mode of procedure. The hon. Member knew quite well what were the views of former statesmen in former Parliaments, and he knew how greatly in advance of these they were travelling on this occasion, and how they were straining, their capacity and responsibility as Representatives of the people at large—he was not surprised that the hon. Member should think the interests of reclamation would be best promoted by his own plan—but he was very sorry that the hon. Member should think it fair and just to describe the efforts the Government were making as shirking the question.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he would accept the rebuke of the Prime Minister with shame and humiliation if he deserved it. But he did not deserve it. The right hon. Gentleman said that Parliament had done this or failed to do that; and what he proposed was to trust to commercial enterprize to do that which all experience had shown commercial enterprize would not and could not do. He had lived in the midst of the district; the right hon. Gentleman had never been there. He knew the sympathy in the House was general and real on this subject. But when the right hon. Gentleman visited Ireland, he saw those portions of Ireland that exhibited the greatest degree of prosperity to be found in the Island; but neither he nor any great statesman, except the Chief Secretary for Ireland, visited the district for which he was speaking. Let the Chief Secretary now open his heart and his mind, and say what he thought, for he must know that unless something more was done than was proposed by the Government the condition of the West of Ireland would remain as it was—a disgrace to this country. He would accept the rebukes of the Prime Minister when he deserved them. His motives were not factious, nor to interrupt the Bill, and certainly not to cast reflection on the right hon. Gentleman; but he spoke with confidence in the interests of Ireland and of this country, and would again say that unless the Government reconsidered the matter this country would rue it.

MR. O'DONNELL

hoped the Prime Minister would return to his first decision, and accept the Motion for reporting Progress, without the futility of forcing a division.

Motion agreed to.

Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow at Two of the clock.