§ Reclamation of Land and Emigration.
§ Clause 26 (Emigration).
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, the Committee were in rather a peculiar position at the present moment with regard to the Amendments which stood on the Paper. In the first place, the printed sheets containing the Amendments had not yet reached the Vote Office, and he knew how inconvenient it was for Members of the Committee to discuss Amendments when they had not a copy of them before them. In addition, the Committee were in this awkward position, that there was 761 no Minister of the Crown present to listen to the arguments which they wished to adduce; and, under those circumstances, he would move that the Chairman report Progress, and ask leave to sit again.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Biggar.)
§ MR. HEALYsaid, it was an extra-ordinary thing that the Government should bring Members down at that hour of the day, and that not one of the Members of the Government should turn up himself. They had kept hon. Members there until 2 o'clock in the morning, and had insisted on their being there again at 12 o'clock in the day. Yet when they came down they found that they could not get a copy of the Amendments at the Vote Office, and when they entered the House they found that there was not a single Member of the Government in his place. He was certainly not surprised that, under these circumstances, his hon. Friend the Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) had moved to report Progress, and he trusted his hon. Friend would divide the Committee.
§ MR. LITTONsaid, he hoped that the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was not serious in asking the Committee to report Progress. No doubt, it was an unfortunate circumstance that the Amendments placed on the Paper had not reached the Vote Office; but they appeared with the Amendments issued to hon. Members that morning at their private residences, along with the other Parliamentary Papers, and he presumed that they were easily obtainable. He also regretted that Her Majesty's Government, or, at any rate, some of them, were not present; but, at the same time, it would be exceedingly inconvenient for the Committee to report Progress, and that the whole day should be lost at a time when it was of the utmost importance that they should make progress with the measure from day to day.
§ MR. MACDONALDrose to Order. At the same time, he was afraid he might be out of Order in rising; but the question which he wished to put to the Chairman was this, as there were no Amendments obtainable at the Vote 762 Office, how could they discuss the Bill in the absence of the Amendments?
THE CHAIRMANThat is not a question of Order. The Amendments were delivered this morning with the blue paper Votes. The only thing that has not yet arrived is a copy of the Amendments on white paper. I myself received the blue paper Votes this morning, together with other hon. Members, and the simple difficulty is that the white paper Amendments have not yet reached the Vote Office.
§ MR. LITTONsaid he could not understand the great anxiety which hon. Members evinced in rising upon points of Order, which, so far from being in Order, were themselves most disorderly. The complaint made was that the Amendments were not on the Paper. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) must be aware that it was not necessary to have an Amendment on the Paper in order that he might be able to move it. An hon. Member having an Amendment on the Paper which had not yet reached the Vote Office was still competent to move it.
§ MR. LEAMYthought the Motion to report Progress was very reasonable upon this ground—if an hon. Member moved an Amendment there was not a single person responsible for the Government to say whether they would accept it or not. The Irish Members were treated very unfairly. They had been kept there until 2 o'clock in the morning, and if they moved at any time to report Progress they were accused of impeding the progress of the Bill. He was very much astonished to find that right hon. Gentlemen opposite took so little interest in the Bill that they declined to come down to support it.
MR. GLADSTONE(who had just entered the House): If the hon. Gentleman thinks it consistent with his dignity and with decency to hold such language about the small amount of interest which the Government take in the Bill I can only express my surprise. It is quite open to the hon. Gentleman to repeat that language as often as he pleases; but I trust that that will not be the feeling of his Irish fellow-countrymen, and I hope that no further time will be lost in proceeding with the measure.
MR. GLADSTONEWhether the Government have no interest in the Bill or not they are now present, and I hope the Motion will be withdrawn.
THE CHAIRMANI may mention for the convenience of hon. Members that the white paper copy of the Votes has now arrived, and may be had in the Vote Office.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, the reason for reporting Progress was not because Ministers were absent, but because the Committee could not get a single Amendment, and as a protest against the way in which they were treated in being brought down at that time of the day when the Government were not ready to go on with the Bill. He hoped that his hon. Friend the Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) would take a division upon the question. If the Government threw too much work upon the printing department that was not the fault of the Irish Members. He certainly did not see how they were to go on with the discussion of the Bill unless they knew what the Amendments were. What, therefore, was the good of bringing them down at 12 o'clock in the day?
§ MR. MACDONALDthought that the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) would be exceedingly ill-advised if he pressed his Motion to a division. He hoped that the Motion to report Progress would be withdrawn, and that the Committee would be allowed to proceed with the Bill.
§ MR. DAWSONsaid, he really thought there was something due to the heavy pressure which had been put upon all Departments of the House, and he had some sympathy with the officials who were now under so heavy a strain. If hon. Members were kept there last night until 2 o'clock this morning, so were also the printing officials, and he did not think that the Irish Members should be too hard upon the officials. They might blow up Her Majesty's Government as much as they liked. They were able to hear it; but they should not convey a Vote of Censure upon the officials. In all probability, better punctuality would be observed in future on all sides.
§ THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)stated that 30 or 40 Amendments were given Notice of late last night, which were sent off at once to the printers.
§ MR. M'COANsaid, he would join in the appeal to the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) to withdraw his Motion. At first there was some slight colour for the Motion in the accident of the Papers not being there; but he thought it was more apparent than real, because, in common with other hon. Members, he received a copy of the Amendments; and the accident of the absence of the leading Members of the Government for a few moments had resulted in no practical inconvenience.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he was disposed to take the advice and act on the recommendation of his hon. Friends, and he would not press his Motion to a division. But he objected to the statement of his hon. and learned Friend the Member for the County of Wicklow (Mr. M'Coan), who assumed that he had only a slight show of reason for what ho had done. Now, last night they were discussing this unfortunate clause until nearly 2 o'clock, and there was a squabble as to its adjournment with the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. When they came down to the House prepared to continue the discussion that morning two things occurred. The first was that they could not get the Amendments, and every hon. Member knew how exceedingly inconvenient it was to discuss Amendments which were not on the Paper. It very often gave rise to complaint if an hon. Member did not happen to give Notice of an Amendment in due time. And then another thing occurred. They had Amendments on the Paper on a question in which the Government were certainly interested, and they were in their places the moment the House was made. But, although they were there ready to go on with the discussion of Amendments in which the conduct and capacity of the Government for certain purposes were called in question, there was no Minister in his place to defend himself. Now, it seemed to him perfectly preposterous that they could go on with the discussion of the Bill under those circumstances. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite had official duties to discharge, and they had charge of an important Bill; and, therefore, they ought to be in their places so as to conduct the Business. They had an illustration of how quickly Amendments moved by private Members were disposed of at the Sitting of the 765 House last night. As soon as the House met at 9 o'clock, an Amendment, which had already been discussed at considerable length, and which he, as well as other Members, wished to discuss still further, was at once put by the Chairman and disposed of. In point of fact, it was constantly the practice to rush through important Amendments if hon. Members who were interested in them did not happen to be in their places at the moment. He would not press the Motion for reporting Progress, but would ask leave to withdraw it.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, the first Amendment which appeared on the Paper stood in his name, and its object was to omit certain words which appeared in the clause requiring the consent of the Treasury to an agreement entered into by the Land Commission with emigrants and contractors. He proposed, in lines 12 and 13, to omit from the word "with" to "Treasury" inclusive. He would shortly give his reasons for moving this Amendment. They were these. They all knew, as a matter of practice and of general observation, that it was very undesirable that responsibility should be divided. What was proposed to be done in this instance was this. The Land Commission was to have authority to do certain things subject to the control of the Treasury. Of course, they did not know at present who the Land Commission would be; but, at the same time, they would be gentlemen who lived in Ireland, and they would have more or less control over the merits of any particular scheme of emigration that was to be carried out, and they would be influenced, to a certain extent, by the popular opinion of the country in which they lived. They would, at least, read the Irish newspapers, and hear what was said by the leaders of public opinion in that country; and they would have an opportunity of hearing the arguments that could ho advanced for or against any particular course of action. But, on the other hand, what was the Treasury? The Treasury was a body living in London, who did not read the Irish newspapers, and who knew nothing at all of what was passing in that country, and who got all their information about Irish affairs entirely at second hand, and must be guided by the whispers they received 766 more or less from irresponsible parties. They were also within easy reach, being in London, of scheming speculators and promoters of fraudulent schemes of emigration and land speculation; and they were open, therefore, to be interested adversely to the interests of the Irish people. Then, again, the Treasury was a body of a very fluctuating character. The Financial Secretary to the Treasury sat in that House, and he had very laborious duties to discharge; but he was put plainly in that troublesome and laborious position simply as a step to something of an easier nature, which, although it might be a position of more dignity, was certainly one of much less labour. The result was this—that the Secretary to the Treasury, who must know all the details of every matter that came before the Treasury, was very much in the hands of the permanent officials of his Office; and if it were not for the assistance that he obtained from these officials he would be unable to give an explanation of the details of the Estimates when they were brought before the House. Seeing that that was the case, there was an opportunity open for fraud and for advertising the schemes of fraudulent speculations. They knew that at the head of the Treasury was the Prime Minister; but they also knew that ho had so many other matters in hand that it was perfectly impossible for him to inquire into these questions. They also knew, from the statement made to the Committee last night by the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Northcote), that Members of Parliament who had influential connections were hired by these fraudulent Companies as decoy ducks. [Cries of "Order!"] He did not mean that the hon. Member for Exeter was one, because he looked upon the hon. Member as an unsuspecting Gentleman, or the hon. Member would not have confessed openly in the House that he was the representative of these swindlers.
§ MR. GIBSONrose to Order. He wished to call attention to the fact that the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was now asserting that the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Northcote) appeared there last night as the representative of swindlers.
THE CHAIRMANUnfortunately I was looking at the Paper at the time, 767 and the words used by the hon. Member did not attract my attention. But if the hon. Member used the words imputed to him they are altogether out of Order.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he had guarded himself by saying that the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Northcote) had proved by his speech that he was an unsuspecting Gentleman who would not wilfully do a dishonest thing; but the hon. Member added that he represented these land swindlers in Minnesota and Manitoba. Now he (Mr. Biggar) was prepared to state deliberately that the Companies in question were advertising themselves very excessively, and hon. Members knew that any scheme which came from the United States must be perfectly unsound, because there was plenty of scope there and plenty of able men in the United States thoroughly competent to carry on public Companies, and any scheme with regard to the division of land among persons who were able to cultivate it, without coming to England for assistance. It was not necessary, therefore, that they should come to London at all if they had a sound and honest case on which to base their prospectuses. What they did, however, was to come here, where they knew there were a great number of people who had a good deal more money than brains.
THE CHAIRMANI must point out to the hon. Member that I certainly do not see the relevancy of his remarks to the Amendment.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he wished to show that the Treasury was likely to be imposed upon in regard to schemes embraced in a further part of the clause; and he wished to show, further, that whoever might be the proper body to be responsible for these loans and emigration schemes, the Treasury should have nothing whatever to do with them. They went entirely beyond the range of the duties of the Treasury, and it would be injudicious for them to mix themselves up with such schemes in any way. As he had stated, an hon. Member in that House very recently informed them that he represented a Company from Minnesota, and he (Mr. Biggar) wished to point out that a Company in Minnesota must be unsound, or it would not come to London. If it was a sound speculation, it would be carried on in Minnesota itself, where there was plenty 768 of opportunity for testing the bona fides of a Company. Again, a sound speculation carried on by sound men would be as successful in that country as here, and for these considerations he did not think it desirable that the Treasury should have anything to do with these emigration schemes. Then, again, they all knew that the Treasury was more or less a political body. They constantly saw absurd ideas propounded, such as were mentioned in The Daily Telegraph that morning; and a Minister who wanted to be popular would go in for a scheme, no matter whether it was unsound, no matter whether the body promoting it was responsible, if the fleeting influence of political partizanship were brought to bear upon him. He would give another illustration to show how unreliable the statements of Ministers were. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland told them plainly last night that the greater part of the present Session had been spent in promoting this Land Bill. That would have been all very well if the right hon. Gentleman had told it to his constituents in Bradford, or to somebody who knew nothing about the facts; but to tell the House of Commons that the greater part of the Session had been spent upon the Land Bill was only another illustration of how unreliable purely political parties were upon purely political questions.
THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Member must really make his remarks relevant to the Amendment, and his Amendment is simply to omit the words "with the concurrence of the Treasury."
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he was showing that the Treasury were a political party, and that they would be influenced by the action of practical politics and by pressure that it was undesirable should be brought to bear upon them. He would, however, go no further, but would be content to move to omit the words in question.
§ Amendment proposed, in page 18, lines 12 and 13, leave out the words "with the concurrence of the Treasury."—(Mr. Biggar.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERI do not think that the Committee will expect 769 me to reply at any length to the remarks of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar). I think he has answered himself. The hon. Member wants us to suppose that there may be schemes set on foot by speculators which may be unsound and fraudulent, and he stated that the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Northcote) had been hired here to represent a Company in Minnesota. All I can say is that I did not understand the hon. Member for Exeter to say anything of the kind. If the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) wishes simply to have security for the loans which the Commission are empowered to advance, it would be the business of the Treasury to examine the nature of the security offered. To say that the Commission should be able to enter into agreements would certainly be depriving the Bill of the security which it now gives. I do not think that any responsible Government would ever consent to get rid of the security which the concurrence of the Treasury is to involve in this case. The hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst) has stated that the money would eventually come out of the pockets of the British taxpayer. That is not the intention of the Government, nor is it the wording of the clause. The wording of the clause is that it should be a loan upon good security, and it is most desirable that the Treasury should have an opportunity of expressing its opinion upon the value of the security offered.
§ MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDsaid, the discussion which had taken place showed how very inconsistent the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was. The hon. Member was opposed to the whole policy of emigration, and yet he proposed now to leave out one of the most important safeguards the clause contained against extravagant exercise of the powers proposed to be given to the Land Commission. The proposal of the hon. Member for Cavan was to have the Land Commission standing alone as the authority to deal with the subject. Now, the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had expressed a strong objection against intrusting the Land Commission with the duty of undertaking the reclamation of land; and he (Mr. Arthur Arnold) certainly thought that it was a matter of doubtful policy to make the Land Commission an emigration agent. If 770 the Amendment were agreed to, the Land Commission would stand alone and supreme as an emigration agent in the matter; and he could not recommend the Government to attach to the Land Commission any such function. He thought it was desirable to confine the operations of the Land Commission to judicial questions, and, as the Amendment of the hon. Member affected the entire policy of loans to be granted under the clause for the purposes of emigration, they ought not to leave out of sight the policy which that proposition brought into view. In the Library of the House of Commons, the other day, he was looking at the Census Returns of the population of Ireland; and, in considering the policy of authorizing the Treasury to grant loans for the purpose of emigration, they ought not to forget that one of the consequences of emigration had been to leave in Ireland a proportion of deaf and dumb and afflicted persons—much greater than existed in any other country in Europe. He did not propose to discuss questions of political economy now; but he believed they would all agree with him that, whether the policy of the clause was sound or unsound, the worst export a country could make was that of its own population. Emigration should, at all events, be the last resort. Until they had arrived at a definite and certain conclusion that there was no possibility of dealing with the redundant population of Ireland in certain districts in any other method, he would earnestly counsel them not to look upon emigration as the wisest and best course that could be taken, for, as he had already said, they should always remember that the worst export which a country could make was that of its own population. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister took credit that the Government did not propose to engage in the reclamation of land. That was a policy of which he entirely approved; and he asked them now to go one step further, and not to undertake the work of an emigration agent. If the emigration to be conducted under this clause was to be of the same character as that which had taken place heretofore, it meant that the proportion of blind, deaf and dumb, and of the miserable and afflicted, would rapidly increase in Ireland as the work of emigration went on.
MR. MAC IVERrose to Order. He wished to know whether he would, in reply, be allowed to go into the general subject of emigration as the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Arthur Arnold) was doing?
THE CHAIRMANI think the hon. Member for Salford (Mr. Arthur Arnold) is wandering into matters which have no connection with the Amendment before the Committee. He is now really making a speech against emigration, and not discussing the clause.
§ MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDsaid, the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was to leave out of the clause the financial control which at present existed—namely, the most safe and valuable control of the Chancellor of the Exchequer; and he had been alluding to the expressions made use of by the right hon. Gentleman that the Government did not propose to manage or direct either the work of reclamation or emigration. He approved of the policy of the Government in declining to be active emigration agents or reclamation agents; and what he wished to point out was that the Amendment proposed by the hon. Member for Cavan was a palpable contradiction of the policy which the Irish Members had hitherto pursued in regard to the clause.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, the Chief Secretary for Ireland had made an important statement when he said that the Treasury would have to examine the nature and value of the security offered. That was quite true; but were they to understand that it would be the business of the Land Commission to go into the highways and byeways in order to find out the people who wished to emigrate, and then for the Treasury to say that the security was good? He understood that it would be the business of the Land Commission to pay some attention to the security, and also to the character of the parties who availed themselves of the advantages of the scheme. He would ask the Prime Minister to take the Amendment in connection with an Amendment lower down, which proposed to limit the entire amount of money to be placed at the disposal of the Land Commission. If that were done, and a fixed sum only granted, what necessity would there be for the controlling power of the Treasury? If a limited amount of money were placed at the disposal of the Land Commission, it would be the 772 duty of the Land Commission to see to the security and bona fides of the persons who undertook to carry out these schemes, and there would be no necessity at all for the retention of the control of the Treasury. But the fact was that the Government wished to place an uncontrolled sum of money into the hands of the Land Commission, and that was the very thing that the Irish Members dreaded. An uncontrolled sum of money was to be placed in the hands of the Land Commission, and therefore it was necessary that the Treasury should have a controlling power. If the Government fixed some tangible amount, the Committee would be able to discuss the clause from something like a reasonable standpoint. The Prime Minister said the present Government had no intention of granting a very large sum; but hon. Members did not know what would come after the present Government went out of Office. They had had plenty of experience of bad government in Ireland, and unless a limit was fixed it was impossible to say that at some time or other men might not come in power who might choose to offer the most extraordinary inducements to the people to quit the country; and, for anything they knew, an entire Province might in that way be depleted. And then, having depleted the population, the next thing would be to cut down the representation. Let the Government, at all events, tell them what sum of money they intended to place in the hands of the Land Commission. This was not a case like that of the purchase of farms. The Prime Minister said that no control would be put on the expenditure of the Land Commission in regard to the advances for the purchase of farms. The Irish Members admitted that that was a beneficial object, and they were quite sure that there was no sinister political object to be served by it; but in this case they had a distinct dread of some sinister object, and they would fight the matter tooth and nail. It was no argument to say that they had only the present Government to deal with, and that the present Government would give them their assurance that their intentions were good. They all knew something about the good intentions of the Government, but they must not forget that future Governments would follow; that other Governments would succeed the excellent Government of the 773 Prime Minister; and what did they know about them? Let Her Majesty's Government do one of two things. Let them give a fixed sum of money; and if they declined to do that, let them make the scheme operative for two years only. It was quite true that certain portions of the country had become congested; but would the Government confine the operation of the clause to those congested portions of the population? They admitted that Mayo and Galway were overpopulated; would the Government confine the clause to Mayo and Galway, and not give power to emigrate the people of the county of Dublin?
§ MR. C. S. PARKERrose to Order. The hon. Member for Wexford had been discussing two Amendments lower down on the Paper, one of which was in his own name.
THE CHAIRMANI think that the hon. Member is quite in Order in discussing the limitation of the sum to be granted to the Commission, because it has a bearing upon the Amendment before the Committee. But with regard to a limitation of the districts, I do not think that would be in Order.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he was prepared to admit that it was hard for the hon. Member for Perth (Mr. C. S. Parker), or any other Scotch Member, to see the exact bearing of these Amendments. But it was very hard upon an Irish Member, when he had to deal with English and Scotch Members, that his arguments should always be met in this way. If they were discussing these matters in a Parliament composed of themselves, they would be allowed something like liberty of speech; but they must remember that they were in a foreign Assembly, listened to by foreigners who had no sympathy with them. If the proposal were to export the constituents of the hon. Member for Perth to Zanzibar, or to Virginia, or to Zululand, the hon. Gentleman might object; but his interruption in the present discussion was quite irregular. What he asked was that the Government should give them some assurance that they would limit the total sum to be granted; that they would limit the power of the clause by confining its operation, and not extend it to the whole of Ireland.
§ MR. SHAWthought that the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) had made some good suggestions, especially 774 the one in which he proposed that the sum of money to be granted should be limited. He (Mr. Shaw) certainly thought that nothing like an unlimited sum ought to be placed in the hands of the Commissioners, although he had no fear that emigration would be carried out to an unlimited extent. There was something also in the suggestion that the operation of the clause should be confined to the distressed districts. It was very evident that if the Commissioners purchased property they would find upon it a number of poor small tenants. He knew some of those districts himself. He had been over them, and he had seen some of the estates upon which it would take 10 years to migrate the distressed people, unless they were taken bodily and put down in some of the rich lands of Meath. If the poor people themselves were asked whether they would prefer to be migrated to the poor mountain sides, or to be sent with their families to America on a well-arranged scheme of emigration, he knew what their answer would be. He was not speaking speculatively, because he had made it his business to put the question to the people who would be most deeply affected, not in the presence of the Commissioners, but whenever he could meet the people outside. They did not, however, want wholesale emigration in Ireland; and he looked forward to the time when, owing to the increased population, and also to new industries, labour in Ireland would not be a drug in the market, but would be able to command fair terms. But, in the meantime, he was strongly in favour of some provision for a well-considered system of emigration, which could not possibly do any harm, and might do, in many cases, a great deal of good. He certainly thought that they ought not, for any slight reason of their own, either political or otherwise, to prevent poor people now living in wretched hovels on the mountain side from having a fair opportunity of changing and bettering their position in another land. That was all that the clause proposed to do. Some Amendments had already been introduced by the Government, which he thought would improve the clause very much; and he should be glad if there were some expression included in the clause which would make the desire to emigrate originate with the poor people 775 themselves, and not make it seem that it was the desire of Parliament to get rid of them and send them somewhere else. At present, he was sorry to say that that was the impression which the clause produced in most minds. He thought that a few words might be introduced to direct that applications from persons wishing to emigrate should, from time to time, be considered. Neither landlords nor speculators should have power in the matter. The Committee had now discussed the clause at very great length, and he was sure it was not so important a clause as many of his hon. Friends thought, or as the representatives of the landlords seemed to think; but, at the same time, it was thought that there would be many cases where it would be exceedingly useful to the people themselves. His hon. Friend the senior Member for Waterford (Mr. Villiers Stuart) said last night that persons in Ireland were so attached to their little bits of land that no one could induce them to emigrate. If that was the case, why no one would emigrate. He might say that he had had the best opportunity, while acting with the Commission, of making inquiries, and he had made it his business to ascertain the opinions of the people in regard to this very clause. He believed that if they could see their way to obtaining a fair living at home, as he thought they would under this Bill, they would not like the idea of going to America at all. But round the coast of Ireland there were many spots where the land was not sufficient to afford a living for the people, and this clause would be a benefit to such persons. He did not think that the Government contemplated any scheme of extraordinary magnitude with regard to emigration. The people of Ireland, and the public opinion of Ireland, would not allow of anything that had not the full consent of the people themselves. But he would ask what his hon. Friends intended to gain by carrying the discussion of this clause beyond a legitimate point? A critical time was now passing, and the Bill had to be sent to the House of Lords. The clause could not do harm, and it might do good. It was, practically, of some importance. He hoped his hon. Friends would excuse the liberty he took. His only object was to do the best he could for his country. He must honestly say that he 776 was in favour of allowing this clause to stand part of the Bill.
MR. GLADSTONEI rise with the view of saving time. In consequence of what has been said, there is no objection on the part of the Government to the insertion of a provision of the kind suggested by the hon. Member (Mr. Shaw) in the clause. I do not know whether it is wanted or not; but the Government would have no difficulty in inserting words to make it clear that it is at the desire of the people themselves, and not by the intervention of middlemen, that the emigration should take place. I hope, under these circumstances, that the Amendment will be immediately withdrawn.
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYhoped now, after the suggestions made by the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) had been approved of by the hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw), and adopted by the Government, the debate would be brought to a close. There was, however, one suggestion of the hon. Member for Wexford which the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had not touched upon. The hon. Member for Wexford suggested that the provisions of this clause should be confined to the congested districts, and, if he made no mistake, the hon. Member for Cork approved of that suggestion. Now, if the clause was to be passed at all, the district to which it would be confined would be limited. There were certainly one or two districts upon which tenants were located who could not possibly derive a living. It was a matter of natural necessity that they should get a living; and if they were not able to get a living in Ireland, and were obliged to have recourse to emigration, it was only reasonable that they should get such assistance as the State could give them. But it was equally desirable that they should not unnecessarily extend the power of the clause, which would be very unpopular in Ireland, beyond those districts which had been pointed out by the hon. Member for Wexford. The reason why he should like to see it confined to those districts was this——
THE CHAIRMANThe hon. and learned Member could not have been in the House when I mentioned that it would not be in Order to discuss the limitation of the clause. That question is raised in a later Amendment.
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYthought the question had been discussed most distinctly, both by the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) and the hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw).
THE CHAIRMANNot when attention was called to it, and I ruled that it was out of Order to discuss that point.
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, that must have occurred before he reached the House, and he apologized for having unintentionally disobeyed the ruling of the Chair. The remarks which he wished to make would turn altogether on the necessity of confining the clause to the distressed districts, and with regard to those distressed districts——
THE CHAIRMANI have told the hon. and learned Member that there is an Amendment on that point which will come later on, and must not be discussed now. There are three pages and a-half of Amendments, and unless we go through them regularly it will be impossible to get through them at all.
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, he had misunderstood the observations of the right hon. Gentleman. With regard to the clause now before the Committee, it sought to take away from the Treasury all control whatever over any scheme of emigration. If it were put to the vote he should be obliged to vote against it for this reason—that the clause as it stood afforded the best security that could be provided against the abuse of any scheme. The Treasury was the very best security that the provision would be carried out properly and economically, and that the money would not be thrown away on speculative schemes of emigration, or the country unnecessarily depopulated. The best safeguard against the landlords having the power to turn out the people by wholesale was to give the Treasury complete control over the applications. Irish Members knew something of the difficulty of obtaining grants of public money for public purposes from the Treasury; and he would, therefore, suggest that the Amendment should be withdrawn.
§ MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDsaid, before the Amendment was withdrawn, he wished to remind the Committee that the voluntary emigration from Ireland last year amounted to 95,517, showing an increase of 47,000 over the previous year.
§ MR. LALORsaid, the hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw) had spoken of a well-arranged scheme of emigration; but where was that well-arranged scheme of emigration to be found in the Bill? He certainly failed to see any provision for a well-arranged scheme, and he had too lively a recollection in times past of the system of emigration carried on by Companies and by landlords from Ireland to Canada, not to be frightened at the idea of seeing a wholesale scheme of Government emigration of the poor people of the country, which would place them on the shores of Canada without a stiver in their pockets, or the chance of earning their own living. That was what was done in 1845, 1846, and 1847, when the Irish emigrants were huddled in sheds on the shores of the St. Lawrence, and died of fever. He saw nothing in the present Bill to guard against such a state of things occurring again; and he believed that if they were prepared to leave Canada out of the question altogether, and frame a good system of emigration in a way in which it could be properly carried out, the Irish Members would be better prepared to accept the clause.
§ MR. BLAKEasked the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) to give an explanation of another portion of his Amendment which came later. If that explanation was satisfactory, he should feel strongly disposed to support the Amendment of the hon. Member.
THE CHAIRMANThe Amendment now under consideration is the first one standing in the name of the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar).
§ MR. BLAKEsaid, he would not trench upon the ruling of the Chair; but he hoped the emigration would not be confined to the distressed districts.
THE CHAIRMANThe Question before the Committee at the present moment is simply whether the words "with the concurrence of the Treasury" shall be left out of the clause. The Question that I have to propose is that the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question.
§ MR. CALLANwished to ask for some explanation of the reference to the concurrence of the Treasury in the remainder of the clause. Would the Treasury have any power to allocate the mode of application, or would their power be confined simply to the grant- 779 ing, securing, and repaying of the sums advanced? He should vote against the Amendment if the concurrence of the Treasury was limited solely to the granting, securing, and repayment of the sums advanced by the Commission for the promotion of emigration; but he should certainly vote in support of the Amendment if the Treasury was to have any authority whatever over the mode of application. The Commission was to be an Irish Commission. It would be constituted, he assumed, of Irishmen, and he trusted that would be the case, although he knew that there were Scotch and English applicants for the offices, who were willing to emigrate to Ireland in order to fill such a good pecuniary position. He should like to be informed, either by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland or by the Prime Minister, whether it was contemplated that the Treasury should exercise any authority over the mode of application, or as to the power of granting money to certain bodies. Anyone looking at the clause would see that it was intended solely and simply for the promotion of emigration to a British Dependency. Now, he happened to be reading that morning a report of a meeting of Poor Law Guardians in his own county, and he found that the Guardians wished to send away six pauper children about 15 or 16 years of age to America, and it was proposed to allocate the amount of their maintenance for one year in order to assist them in emigrating. The Local Government Board did not object to the emigration; but they did object to the children being sent to anywhere else except to Canada, not-withstanding that the emigration was to be done actually for the relief of the rates. The Local Government Board objected to the removal of the children if they were to be sent to the United States; but they would permit the operation to be performed if the children were to be sent to Canada. From the wording of the present clause, it was evident that the intention was to promote emigration from the inclement Western shores of Ireland to the equally inclement districts of Canada, and the people who desired to emigrate would not be at liberty to go to the United States. Now, if the Commission were to have authority to say in what mode the application was to be carried 780 out and where the people were to be allowed to go, he would vote that the Treasury should have full power to control the granting, and securing, and repayment of the money; but he thought that no power should be given to the Land Commission to prescribe the districts to which the emigration should be directed. The clause was altogether a very crude clause, and he should prefer to see it dropped out of the Bill. The Bill itself was said to be a Bill to amend the law relating to the occupation and ownership of land in Ireland, and for other purposes relating thereto, and he did not see why the concurrence of the Treasury should be called in.
MR. GLADSTONEThe concurrence of the Treasury in this case would be exactly what it is in military matters. The Treasury does not make itself a judge in military matters; but it exercises a certain financial control. It is proposed that the Treasury shall exercise a financial control here, exactly analogous to that which it exercises in military matters.
§ MR. FINIGANsaid, he was sorry that the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) had not had an opportunity of reviewing the whole subject; but he trusted that the hon. Member would be able to do so when the clause came up to be finally passed. He (Mr. Finigan) had risen now to ask the Prime Minister whether it was understood that the amount of the advances for emigration purposes would be limited, that the districts from which the emigration took place would be limited, and if a fixed period of time would be specified for the duration of the Act? If that was so, he would advise his hon. Friend the Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) to withdraw the Amendment, and allow the Government to state simply on what lines and to what extent this very wrong principle was to be carried out.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he was exceedingly unwilling to withdraw the Amendment, and for this reason. The Prime Minister had given a half consent to limit the amount, but had not told them what the limit would be. Now, the avowed policy of the Government was to stimulate this emigration as far as possible. They knew that the present Government would not last for ever, and if the Tory Party came into power, they 781 would be disposed, as far as possible, to give effect to the policy which they had advocated while in Opposition. He knew very well that Ministers of the Crown did not always pursue a policy when in Office which they had advocated when in Opposition; but he was speaking now of the independent Members of the Conservative Party, who, at the present moment, really seemed to be very much in favour of depopulating Ireland altogether, and the present Government had assisted them all in their power. They had encouraged evictions in a wholesale manner, and now, by this clause, they proposed to send the Irish people to a part of the world where they could only exist for a few years. Still, if a narrow limit were given to the extent to which the Act would go, of course the opposition of the Irish Members to the clause would not be so strong; but as the matter now stood, the avowed policy of the Tory Party was in favour of encouraging emigration. The Government had been pursuing, and, in spite of its disavowals, it was quite evident that the Government, as far possible, were in favour of pushing forward, a policy of emigration; and his object in moving the Amendment was to prevent the Treasury from having anything to do with the matter. The hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw) had spoken of the intentions of the Government and of the clause; but whatever those intentions might be, he (Mr. Biggar) would like to see them carefully specified in the Bill. As far as he had examined the clause, he failed to find in it any scheme of emigration, or any limit as to the extent to which it was intended to carry it out; or, in point of fact, any information upon the subject whatever. The general statement of the Prime Minister that emigration was not to be carried out to any considerable extent was very vague and indefinite. His words might soon be entirely forgotten; indeed, these small contentions in Committee might not even be reported in Hansard, so that it was impossible to bind the Government to a declaration of this nature; and the declaration itself, under these circumstances, was so vague that it was entirely worthless. He desired that the Prime Minister would state clearly what the limit was that he proposed; whether he would limit the entire sum generally, or 782 limit it per annum; and then he (Mr. Biggar) would be prepared to say whether he would press his Amendment or not.
§ MR. DILLWYNsaid, he thought there was considerable misapprehension on the part of hon. Members as to the object of the words in the clause which were objected to. He understood that they were words of limitation to prevent money being drawn from the public purse, except with the consent of the Treasury, which was the custodian of the public purse. The Prime Minister, as First Lord of the Treasury, was chief custodian, and the right hon. Gentleman had expressed his willingness to limit the amount. Hon. Members seemed to think that the words in question gave the Treasury power of interfering with the whole matter of emigration; whereas, as he understood, they simply gave the power of limiting the advances.
§ MR. HEALYappealed to his hon. Friend the Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) to withdraw the Amendment, and take the discussion upon the next Amendment.
§ MR. LEAMYsaid, the hon. Member for Swansea (Mr. Dillwyn) suggested that these were words of limitation. No doubt that was the intention of the words; but why not give full effect to the limitation. What was feared now was that the Government might be willing to sanction any scheme of emigration to a British Colony, but that they might refuse to sanction the transport of the Irish people to the United States.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, that, after the appeal of his hon. Friend the Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), and as he would have an opportunity of hearing from the Prime Minister, on some future Amendment, what was really meant by the clause, he would ask the leave of the Committee to withdraw the Amendment. At the same time he thought they were perfectly in the dark as to what the intentions of the Government were, and while the Committee were in that position it was impossible to withdraw their bonâ fide opposition to the clause. It had been suggested by the hon. Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw) that this was a factious opposition to the clause. Nothing was further from his (Mr. Biggar's) mind. He opposed the clause; but he thought if it was amended it might be made much less objectionable. But, at the same time, 783 he thought that those whose constituents were directly interested in a matter of this sort were entitled to criticize the language of the clause as much as they thought it was worth.
§ Amendment negatived.
§ MR. HEALYmoved, in page 18, line 13, after "Treasury," to insert, "and on being satisfied that a sufficient number of people in any district desire to emigrate." He thanked his hon. Friend the Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw) for the support he had given to the three suggestions which he had made to the Government, and he must say that he thought the Prime Minister had met them in a very fair spirit. He understood that this Amendment would rather allow the Committee a somewhat wider range; but he understood that the Government were prepared to accede to the two most important points—namely, that the range of the operation of the clause should be limited to the congested districts, and that a sum of money should be fixed for the advances. As he understood, the Government intended to accede to those two points. He was not quite clear that his Amendment, in a verbal sense, was exactly the best that could be proposed. It would be better to say—"on being satisfied that any number of people in a district to be hereafter mentioned," and then leave out "Ireland," and insert "Mayo, or Donegal, or Galway," where the congestion prevailed. If they were to discuss the question of emigration they ought to discuss it frankly. The Amendment, as it was now proposed, put upon the people themselves the entire initiation of emigration. That was a desirable thing, in his point of view, because it would prevent the people from emigrating; but, at the same time, if it was desirable that they should emigrate, it was not reasonable that the entire initiative should be cast on them. For instance, an unfortunate man, living in Connaught, who did not know a word of English, and who had lived all his life within sight of the smoke of his own hut, would not be supposed to know anything about the details of an Act of Parliament If it was desirable that a number of 784 unfortunate people, living on two or three acres of land, and unable to get a living, should go somewhere else, he thought their removal ought to be to some other part of Ireland, and not to America at all; but he would not discuss that point now. The clause, as it stood, threw the initiative upon speculators whose sole object was to make money. That he entirely objected to; but he thought that it was for the Government, and not for a private Member, to devise a more satisfactory scheme. The unfortunate inhabitants of the poorer districts of Ireland should not be left to the mercy of advertising agents and others, who travelled all over the country hawking about advertisements, working up emigration schemes, and making the most illusive and delusive promises.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 18, line 13, after the word "Treasury," insert "and on being satisfied that a sufficient number of people in any district desire to emigrate."—(Mr. Healy.)
§ Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERI can really scarcely understand the hon Member. I have failed to gather whether he is in favour of his own Amendment or not.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he had a preference for his Amendment, as against the Government proposal. He thought it was more desirable, from his point of view, to throw upon the people themselves the entire burden of their removal than to throw it upon a number of speculators; but he had also said that both schemes had their objectionable features.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERNow, I confess that I think the words proposed by the hon. Member are very good words, and words which the Government might accept. We did not propose to insert them ourselves, but we had a perfect intention of acting upon them. The Commission must have in their view a crowded district, from which the people really wish to emigrate. I cannot conceive that any Commission, or any Company, or any Government, would consent to do it under any other circumstances, and therefore it is desirable to insert these words. The Land Commission must, as I have said, have a particular district in view, such a district as those mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for the County of Cork (Mr. 785 Shaw), where the remedial measures of the Land Bill would not remove the miseries of the people. I think the words would certainly meet the object which the hon. Gentleman has in view. I think that an absolute limitation would be absurd. Suppose, for instance, that the inhabitants of a crowded district in Mayo asked to be removed to some Colony under proper regulations, where they knew they would be well received, it would be a very hard thing, if some people, in some other district, wished to avail themselves of the same provisions, to declare that they were entirely shut out. At the same time, certain districts would be in the minds of the Commission and the Treasury at the time they entertained the application for an advance. I am quite disposed to accept the Amendment.
§ MR. PLUNKETsaid, he had always taken an interest in this question. The Committee would remember that on the second reading of the Bill he had strongly supported the principle contained in this clause. As he understood the object of the Amendment, it was to limit the operation of the clause as much as possible to congested districts. Of course, the word "district" was an ambiguous word, and in that sense the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) might not do much harm; but he (Mr. Plunket) did think that it was a great pity to shackle the operations of the Commission in the power intrusted to them, not for stimulating, but for facilitating emigration, where it was clearly desirable that it should take place. He was not going to discuss the subject of emigration, or to urge it as a rival plan to that of the Government; but he believed that this clause contained a very necessary supplement to the other parts of the Bill, if it were to be successfully carried out. Everyone knew that he was not himself in favour of the policy of the other parts of the Bill—certainly not of a very great deal of it; but if the Bill was to become law he considered that it should act with as little hardship as possible. He wished to call the attention of the Committee to two points. The main policy of the Bill was to give effect to the "three F's" and the creation of a peasant proprietary. The object of this clause was to enable the Land Commission, in carrying out that policy, to avail 786 themselves of emigration by advancing the means out of the public funds. The best argument he had heard in favour of the policy of free sale was that the result would be that weak men would sell and strong men would buy, and that they would thus ultimately get those persons to cultivate the soil of Ireland who were the best able to do so for their own advantage and that of the community. But what was to become of the weak men who sold? The conditions under which they lived were miserable, and the conditions under which they emigrated might be made happy and prosperous. He adopted every word that had been said by his hon. Friend the Member for the County of Cork (Mr. Shaw). It was a mistake to say that the Tory Party wished to see the depletion of Ireland. Nothing was further from their wishes. He deeply regretted to see his countrymen going from their native shores; but when the only conditions on which they could live at home were miserable, and when those under which they could live abroad were happy and prosperous, was it not the wisest thing that could be done to provide them with facilities if they voluntarily wished to go abroad? What, otherwise, he would again ask, was to become of the weak men who had to sell? At present there was little enterprize or industry in Ireland. He looked forward to a better and happier time, when there would be enterprize and industry in Ireland, as in England, Scotland, and Wales, and when the country would be prosperous and contented.
§ MR. CALLANrose to Order. He did not wish to interrupt the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Plunket); but he wished to call attention to the fact that the Chairman was allowing the right hon. and learned Gentleman to discuss the clause when he had restricted other hon. Members to the words of the Amendment.
THE CHAIRMANI do not think the right hon. and learned Member (Mr. Plunket) has at all transgressed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was proceeding to explain why there should not be a limitation of the clause according to the Amendment.
§ MR. PLUNKETsaid, he had, when interrupted, been applying himself to clear the Conservative Party from the charge which had been brought against them of desiring to decimate the popu 787 ation of the country. What he was going to say was that if they put any limitation upon the operation of the clause as to a certain number of the population and a certain district desiring to go, they might prevent the Commission from dealing with cases that were likely to occur under the operation of the principle of free sale in Ireland. One word with regard to peasant proprietors. The Government said there must be a certain number of persons in the bad districts who wanted to go. But suppose the case of an estate where there was a number of people, and upon which there were only a few who could pay their rents. They would be in this difficulty—that they would not be able to purchase their holdings, and they would not be in a position to obtain an advance from the Commission for the purpose of emigrating. Surely there would be nothing unreasonable in such a case in assisting, perhaps, some two or three families to emigrate. For these reasons ho thought it would be a mistake to place restrictions of this kind upon the Commission. It certainly would be a mistake to limit the operation of the clause as to the power of the Commission to act when they had a considerable number of persons in a particular district who desired to emigrate.
§ MR. BLAKEregretted that he must dissent from the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) in regard to restricting the power of the Emigration Clause to distressed districts. There could be no question that the clause would be of more value in certain districts in the West of Ireland than elsewhere; but there were in nearly every county in Ireland—amongst them in his own county—places where it was desirable that many persons should be able to take advantage of this clause. He spoke in the position of having three of his constituents sitting beneath him, and he was naturally very proud of them. The hon. Member for Wexford, who had very wrongly described himself as a simple Member, was one, and the two hon. Members for the borough of Waterford were also among his constituents. He appealed to those hon. Gentlemen if it was the fact that in the county to which they all belonged there were not some localities containing a large number of poor people who, with great advantage to themselves, might 788 be emigrated. Some time ago he had prepared a simple scheme of emigration himself, which he had desired to carry out. He was neither the proprietor of large estates, such as had been described by an hon. Member, nor was he the proprietor of land either in Canada or America. Therefore, ho was not open to the charge that it was for his own purposes that he propounded a scheme. But he had been lately in Minnesota, and the Bishop of Minnesota, Dr. Ireland, told him that any number of young women of good character, from 15 to 25 years of age, might be taken out to that Colony, and be able to obtain £20 or £30 a-year in wages, with board and lodging, and the probability of getting a good deal more in a short time, and nearly a certainty of getting well-married in the end. Part of his scheme was, that every halfpenny of the money advanced should be repaid to him, and that there should be a thorough understanding on the part of the people who emigrated that they only had the money as a loan. Dr. Ireland told him that the women who went out would be placed by him under the care of the Sisters of Charity, and that the latter would endeavour to have the money advanced for their emigration paid back. He had communicated with the Rev. Father Nugent, the originator of the emigration scheme from Connemara to Minnesota, and Father Nugent told him he had no doubt that wages of from £30 to £40 a-year could be got by young women such as he had described, if they went to some of the more Western States. In various counties, and in his own, there were a great number of isolated instances of people who could do no good for themselves at home, and who would derive considerable advantage being sent away; and he therefore strongly appealed to the Government, and to the hon. Member for Wexford, not to persevere in limiting the benefits of the scheme to particular districts, but to allow the clause to be extended to such instances as those which he had described. The junior Member for Cork threw out a hint yesterday which he (Mr. Blake) very much approved of—namely, that in every case where people were sent out, it should be through the medium of Boards of Guardians, who should, in the first instance, satisfy themselves whether the persons pro- 789 posing to emigrate were eligible for emigration, and that their condition was such as to lead to the belief that they were not likely to succeed at home.
§ MR. A. MOOREhoped the Government would consider the matter very carefully before they accepted the Amendment. No doubt, it would be cruel to compel people to live in thickly populated districts; but the Amendment, he feared, was not sufficiently guarded. If there was to be any limitation, he should like to see the Committee adopt that of the hon. Member for Armagh, which said that they should be allowed to assist tenants in needy circumstances to emigrate with their families from the poorer and more thickly populated districts. It was essential to have some such limitation as this, because it was a crime to spend public money in assisting people to emigrate from districts which were too sparsely populated already. If this Amendment were agreed to, the Commissioners might emigrate families from the county of Meath, through which one might travel mile after mile without seeing the smoke of a house. Moreover, when families were emigrated there should be adequate guarantees that proper facilities would be afforded for transplanting the poor people from their native land to comfortable homes elsewhere, where they would not be subjected to the difficulties and miseries that emigrants now-a-days had to encounter. He hoped the clause would pass, but would be limited in its operation to those districts where the people, at present, were unable to live in decency and comfort.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLdid not agree with the hon. Member opposite that the principle of the Amendment was a bad one. The clause should be put into a more definite shape so that anyone who looked into it could see what the emigration was to be, and the Amendment would have the effect of doing this to some extent. It was rather too vague in its wording, however. What, for instance, did the words "sufficient number" mean? It would be almost impossible for the Commissioners to arrive at a decision; and, even when they did, they might discourage emigration where it was most desirable, because, in their opinion, there might not be the "sufficient number" desiring to emigrate that was in the mind of Parlia- 790 ment when the clause was passed. On the other hand, the Amendment might operate unsatisfactorily by inducing the Commissioners, in order to make up the "sufficient number," to unduly stimulate emigration where it was not required. He would suggest that after the word "on" these words should be inserted—"Application being made by poor persons or families desiring to emigrate." That would leave—what he considered to be a matter of great importance—the emigration to be spontaneous on the part of the people, and not an artificial and got up thing. He would point out that the words "poor persons or families" had been taken from previous Acts of Parliament. It was necessary that these poor persons should be acquainted with the text of the Act; but there would always be plenty of well-educated, intelligent people who would make the application to the Commissioners on their behalf, and who would give them all necessary information. Under the terms of his Amendment it would be open to individuals, who would easily have their attention drawn to the benefits of the Act, to apply to the Commissioners to assist them to emigrate.
§
Amendment proposed to the said proposed Amendment,
To omit all the words after the word "on," and insert "application being made by poor persons or families desiring to emigrate."—(Lord Randolph Churchill.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the proposed Amendment."
MR. GLADSTONEThe Amendment of the noble Lord is open to the very objection he himself has raised with regard to the "sufficient number" being in the discretion of the Commissioners. He says the Amendment is indefinite; but he makes the matter still more indefinite by saying that the Commissioners are to receive applications from "poor persons or families."
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLThese are the words of four Acts of Parliament.
MR. GLADSTONEI have no doubt those words have been used in former Acts of Parliament; but they must be viewed in connection with their context. However desirable they may have been in other Acts they are out of place here. If you object to the discretion of the 791 Commissioners you must lay down some iron rule. The Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) embraces two things—one is, that there should be something in the nature of a voluntary movement ascertained by the Commissioners. That is one of the principles to which we desire to give our assent; but I doubt whether it would be desirable to specify in the clauses that this should be ascertained through the direct application from the people. A provision of that kind would have a tendency to introduce confusion in the working of the clause. It is desirable to leave it to the discretion and sense of duty of the Commissioners to find out whether there is anything in the nature of a spontaneous movement. As to confining the arrangement to particular districts of Ireland, I do not conceive that principle to be within the scope of the present Amendment, therefore I will not go into that matter. The question as to whether we should endeavour to give a specific description of the districts had better stand over until it is distinctly raised. The second point of this Amendment, as we understand it, and in which sense alone we have accepted it, is that there should be a general assertion by Parliament that the kind of emigration on which this public money is to be expended shall be a collective emigration. With regard to sporadic emigration, the hon. Member does not propose that anything should be done to limit the action of the Commissioners. I do not think any severe or stringent limit should be imposed. There should be nothing to bind the Commission, or to prevent their having to do with a scheme of emigration where the emigrants come from different districts; but, as far as this sporadic emigration from the whole of Ireland is concerned, that has been, and is now going on at a very great rate, and I do not know that the intervention of Parliament is necessary in the matter. It is that sort of collective emigration which has reference to the special position of special districts which we have had mainly in view. It is to the relief of congested population by collective emigration that the Commission is to look rather than the application of a general stimulus to general emigration. That is the sense in which we accept the Amendment, and if we can dispose of it—provided the Committee approves of 792 that general idea—we shall come to consider, in a subsequent Amendment, whether it is desirable to attempt any more particular description of the districts where emigration is to take place, or whether it is not desirable to do so.
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he was sorry they had had such an authoritative pronouncement as this in favour of collective emigration, which he took to be nothing less than transportation en masse instead of that spontaneous emigration which the Amendment of the noble Lord clearly pointed to. He was in the best of Ireland last April, and his attention was drawn by a Conservative gentleman—Sir Ralph Cusack, Chairman of the Midland Great Western of Ireland Railway—to the fact that in one day 175 tickets to Liverpool viâ Dublin were issued to emigrants en route for America, and these emigrants varied in age from 15 to 30. There were upwards of 2,000 people at the railway stations to see these emigrants off, and most of these crowds consisted either of very young or old people. This was collective emigration—the emigration of the bone and sinew of the country. He had since entered into communication with the Chairman of the Midland Great Western Railway about this emigration, and had learnt from him that whilst this great amount of emigration was going on viâ Dublin, there was also a considerable amount from Athlone, Athenry, and Cavan, the Athlone and Athenry emigrants going by way of Queenstown, and the Cavan emigrants going by way of Derry. In six weeks the emigration had amounted to 8,524 persons, almost every one of whom was young and strong. He was opposed to the clause, because its spirit was transparent, the draftsman who, no doubt, had drawn the provision according to his instructions, having been unable to conceal it. He was opposed to the clause and in favour of the Amendment of the noble Lord, the object of which was to aid spontaneous emigration. According to the clause the Commissioners would have no power whatever to hear the application of a family or an individual desiring to emigrate; but they would be brought into contact with a person whose name stunk in the nostrils of every Irishman—namely, the "undertaker" of the emigration movement. These "undertakers" were the persons who had authority to contract, 793 on behalf of Canada and other Colonies, for the supply of emigrants. The Bill said the Commission might
Enter into agreements with any person or body of persons having authority to contract on behalf of the Dominion of Canada, or any province thereof, or on behalf of any British Colony or Dependency," &c.He would, therefore, urge the Government, in order to render these undertakers unnecessary, to accept a proposal enabling the Commissioners to hear applications from poor persons. He would propose that the noble Lord should omit the words "persons or," leaving his Amendment to stand thus—"application being made by poor families desiring to emigrate." [Mr. GLADSTONE: Hear, hear!] He was glad to hear the Premier cheer that suggestion. This would give to the Land Commission power to receive and consider the applications of whole families, and in future the emigration schemes might not denude the country of its youth and strength, leaving behind the weak and decrepid.
§ MR. CALLANI understand that the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) moved the Amendment, and I spoke on that Amendment.
§ MR. JESSE COLLINGSasked whether, if this Amendment were accepted, it would prevent the hon. Member for Armagh moving the Amendment at the bottom of the next page, which would meet the wishes of hon. Gentlemen opposite, and seemed to be in the direction in which the Government wished to go?
MR. MAC IVERpointed out that the alternative proposal suggested a pauper emigration, and for that reason he wished to support the original Amendment. They must remember that neither the United States nor Canada would have anything to say to a pauper emigration. Every shipowner knew very well that if he took out to America persons incapable of earning their own living, he would have to bring them back again.
§ MAJOR O'BEIRNEwished to know whether he was to understand from the right hon. Gentleman that the Government intended to accept the Amendment further on with reference to specifying particular districts?
§ MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, he hoped the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) would stand by his Amendment, because it would make it certain that the Government would see that the people wanted emigration, and would avoid doing anything to stimulate those feelings of discontent which emigration proposed through Government means would undoubtedly produce in Ireland. It was complained that this would lead to collective emigration, but it would not do anything of the kind. The very words of the Amendment precluded the idea of the Commissioners promoting anything like collective emigration. Some of his hon. Friends objected to the Amendment; but would they bear this in mind—that what was to be feared, and what the Conservative Members desired, was that the landlords might have the power, if they desired to use it, of suggesting and compelling emigration? This Amendment would put the law between the landlords and the people who desired emigration, because it would require the Commissioners to listen to the people and not to the landlords, and to see that it was the people, and not the landlords, who desired the emigration to take place. If anything could reconcile him to the adoption of the system recommended by the clause, it was the insertion of words which would assure them that the clause would work side by side with the will of the people. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) objected to the insertion of the words "sufficient number." As he (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) understood it, the noble Lord felt this—that unless a pretty large emigration was likely to take place from a certain district, it might be held that there was not a "sufficient number" according to the sense of the Act. He did not think they need fear this, because if the people seeking to emigrate were numerous enough, even if they were only one or two families, they could join in a general scheme of emigration, and it would not be necessary that there should be anything like a large or aggregate emigration from any particular place. It was feared that it might be possible to emigrate people from such places as the county of Meath, where there was a paucity of hands; but this must be borne in mind—that where there was a paucity of hands 795 the people, as a general rule, would not desire to emigrate. Wherever the people desired to emigrate, the Committee might rest assured that they would have good cause for it. Hon. Members must look at the ordinary rules of human action in these matters. As for the suggestion that there should be forms prepared which persons desiring to emigrate should sign, he considered that such a plan would only facilitate the object of these "undertakers" of emigration schemes. The "undertakers" would go round getting as many names as they could, in order to submit them to the Commissioners, and thus the very evil which the noble Lord dreaded would be created. The noble Lord said that that could be done under the plan of the hon. Member for Wexford; but they must remember that that scheme threw directly on the Commissioners the duty of seeing that a desire existed for emigration. If they had a formal application set up, that formal application would be the standard—it would be the letter and not the spirit of the application which would guide the Commissioners.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he was convinced that the Amendment was in the right direction, and for the reason that it had a tendency to curtail the vicious nature of the clause by mitigating some of the evils against which the Irish Members contended. The whole policy of the Government was to turn out and clear away the peasant population, and to consolidate the farms. Reference had been made to the county of Meath. Well, in that county the wholesale system of emigration which it was now sought to establish had, to some extent, been carried out already. After the Famine of 1847, the landlords thought it would be more profitable to feed cattle on their lands than to keep a population of tenant farmers. They cleared the best land in Meath of its population; and that was the intention of the framers of this Bill in regard to the whole of Ireland. But the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford, as he had said, would have a tendency to limit the vicious operation of the Bill, because, as he understood it, it would provide that emigration should take place under the measure only where the parties had made application iii sufficient numbers to make it worth while to effect a whole- 796 sale clearance. But that did not fully fulfil the condition which they would like to adopt—namely, that the parties should be absolutely free agents. They knew that in these Colonies nothing was more popular with the Government of the day than for them to borrow money in large sums to spend on railways, which never paid their working expenses, to encourage emigration, and to make a great show for the glorification of the Ministry. Ministries in the Colonies were very short lived affairs. The Colony of New Zealand had been steeped in debt by an ambitious Ministry through works of this kind. The Colonies might be able to give the English Treasury good security; but if they did, it would be a great evil to the Colony, and the Land Commission would be taught to hold out inducements to people to emigrate, which would, in the end, be found to have been based upon a thoroughly erroneous idea. The emigration agents held out the rosiest promises, which were rarely, if ever, fulfilled. In the last Parliament there was a Gentleman, who used to sit not very far from the position which he (Mr. Biggar) was now occupying, who represented the Dominion of Canada, and who had a number of sub-agents under him, who used to use their exertions to get as many people to go to Canada as possible. The unfortunate people of Ireland would be liable to be misled by the false statements of such sub-agents. Statements would be made which they would believe; and they would be trepanned into signing declarations that they wished to emigrate; and thus the evil which it was desirable to guard against would be brought about. He thought it desirable that every limit should be put to the operation of this particular clause.
COLONEL STANLEYAs a point of Order, it seems to me very inconvenient that hon. Members should accumulate Amendments upon Amendments in this way. We have had from the Government—from the mouth of the Prime Minister himself—the clear declaration that in principle he is not opposed to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy). Surely, then, the principle having been conceded, it places us in a position hardly becoming to men of business to discuss whether certain words should be inserted and 797 certain words left out. Such a course turns the House away from its proper function of criticism—in which the House is known to excel—and imposes upon it the function of draftsman, in which it has never been particularly distinguished. The Government wish to adopt words which, in their opinion, embrace the whole of this question; and many hon. Members wish to adopt other words. Well, if we were all to take our 650 different readings of the clause, and views as to how it would best read, and were to embody those views in Amendments, we should land ourselves in a position which would be one of simple folly. I must take exception to what fell from the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) just now, when he said that there was every anxiety on the part of the landlords of Ireland, and I think he said especially of the Conservative landlords, to unduly stimulate or force on emigration. That I do not believe for one moment to be the case; and I would venture, even from my partial knowledge of the matter, to give the statement the strongest possible denial. What is the present position of affairs? Great advantages have been given to the tenants—advantages they have never enjoyed before—for continuing in their holdings. I do not think it has been said that these holdings shall be below a certain size, and it follows from that that many of them will be consolidated. ["No, no!"] Men cannot exist on very small holdings. They will have to be consolidated, and if the stronger tenants are to remain, it follows that the Government are only doing their duty in endeavouring to help those who, from various circumstances, may be anxious to try their fortunes elsewhere, to emigrate; and, I am bound to say, that they are endeavouring to assist tenants to emigrate in a manner which will be as little harmful to them as possible, and with every consideration for their feelings. I understand it is not the desire of the Government to check sporadic emigration, and that it is their desire to assist, as far as possible, the emigration of families and persons in particular districts, so as to avoid the severance of family ties, which has been so painful a feature in the past, and to mitigate, as far as possible, the evils which some persons believe to arise from emigration. I 798 would therefore point out to the Committee that it is impossible for them to find words which will exactly suit the taste of every hon. Member, and appeal to the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) not to indulge in mere verbal criticism, but to withdraw his Amendment on the understanding that any verbal alteration that may be thought necessary will be made on Report.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, that during the progress of the Bill he had frequently looked along the Front Opposition Bench, and had always failed to see the right hon. and gallant Member who had just sat down in his place. The right hon. and gallant Gentleman now sauntered into the House in the middle of debate, and suggested that an Amendment that he (Lord Randolph Churchill) had proposed was merely one of verbal criticism. If the right hon. and gallant Member had been in the House when the Amendment was proposed, had heard what had been said, and had given as much attention to the details of the measure as many hon. Members, he would have seen that the proposal involved an entirely different mode of procedure to that of the hon. Member for Wexford. He, however, begged leave to withdraw his Amendment.
§ Amendment to the proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he did not like to take any part in the framing of this bad clause—it was even against his inclination to propose Amendments to it. He merely brought forward his proposal as an alternative. It would have this advantage—that it would restrict the power of the Commissioners, would prevent sporadic emigration, and be a check to the agents and speculators in emigration.
§ MR. VILLIERS STUARTsaid, he hoped hon. Members opposite would not hastily render ineffective this well-meant proposal of the Government. No one could feel more deep regret than he did at seeing a single Irishman compelled to leave his native country by stress of circumstances, and he should be the last man to support any scheme of emigration, or assist emigration, if he thought there was any other way out of the difficulty. But he could not conceal from himself that they must face circumstances as they were. He, of course, 799 felt that in the case of every country its population ought to he its wealth, and that where that was not the case it must be owing to misgovernment. Abundant population meant cheap labour, and cheap labour ought to mean successful manufacture. He felt that the reason why Ireland had not been successful in manufacture was that, through the jealousy of England, Irish manufactures had been strangled and destroyed. But it was of no use to go back to the past, and to cry over spilt milk. There was in Ireland a state of things which condemned a large number of Irishmen to starvation, and the only immediate remedy was either migration or emigration. Why should they not try both? Migration must be slow in its operation, for uninhabited districts could not be rapidly prepared for the reception of a population, and whilst the grass grew the steed starved. They might be sure that emigration would go on in any case, but with this difference—that if the Government proposal were not accepted, it would be the flower of the population that would emigrate. The strongest and most able-bodied would emigrate, leaving the feeble and the sickly behind. The effect of the Government proposal would be to enable their families to accompany the able-bodied out of the country instead of remaining behind a burden on the ratepayers——
THE CHAIRMANI would remind the hon. Member that it is the Amendment we are on, not the general subject.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he had not yet spoken on the subject of the Amendment, as he had desired to hear all the arguments which could be used for and against the proposal, and to have his mind clear on the subject. The proposal of the hon. Member for Wexford he believed to be one of the most dangerous with which they had to deal, because it practically—though he was sure it was not the hon. Member's intention—admitted the principle of the clause. His hon. Friend, in trying to amend the clause, not intentionally, but impliedly admitted its principle, or, at least, helped it on. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) wished it to be understood that he was opposed entirely and completely, not only to the Amendment of his hon. Friend, but to the proposal which he sought to amend. He had listened with great patience to some 800 speeches which had been made. It was said that they did not wish to assist sporadic emigration, but collective emigration—that was to say, that they did not wish to take the flower of the population, but the old with the young. Did anyone in his senses think that Canada wanted the old fathers and the grandfathers of families? They said, according to the clause, and according to the Amendment, that what they wanted was that not merely the young and strong in a family, but the whole family should emigrate. The clause did not proceed on the principle of benevolence; because, according to it, they would not be expending, but lending money. It was loans they were giving, not grants; and if they granted loans it was with the expectation of having the money repaid to them. The money could only be repaid if the speculations were profitable, and how could it be a profitable speculation to take to Canada old, decrepid, half-starved farmers incapable of earning a living? So far as their proposal was meant to deal with the old and infirm, it would result in defeating their own intention, or it would not work at all. He had heard about there being a great amount of congestion in some districts in Ireland; and the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. Villiers Stuart) had suggested two remedies. He had said—"You have emigration and migration, why cannot the two work together?" This was a question which he had answered at least a dozen times in the course of this discussion. Emigration and migration could not work side by side. One was absolutely destructive of the other. If they permitted emigration, they might as well say farewell to migration. Who would assist reclamation for purposes of migration, when they had a simple means of getting rid of the people by emigration? He was sorry they had had the Amendment before the Committee at all, and thought it would have been much better for them to have stopped at the line of general and complete hostility to the proposal of the Government.
§ MR. BELLINGHAMsaid, he hoped the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) would not withdraw the Amendment, which appeared to him one that was most excellent, and which he should have to support if it were taken to a division. His (Mr. Bellingham's) prin- 801 cipal object in rising was to answer a few observations which had fallen from the hon. and learned Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy). The hon. Member had said that the Conservatives—and he supposed that he meant Irish Conservatives—were in favour of emigration. Well, all the Conservatives that he (Mr. Bellingham) knew were against emigration, whilst all the Liberals of his acquaintance were in favour of it. A well-known Conservative (Mr. Fitzgibbon) a Master in Chancery in 1869, had written a pamphlet on this question, and in it he declared that the productive capabilities of the soil in Ireland might be increased ten-fold, that Ireland did not suffer from over-population, and that the cause of the backward condition of the country was the absence of security of tenure. Mr. Fitzgibbon said that if they once convinced the cultivators of the soil that the fruits of their labour would be their own, they would not desire to go to foreign countries for blessings they could enjoy at home. After that, it was ridiculous to say that Conservatives were in favour of emigration.
§ MR. LEAMYsaid, this proposal of the Government would be a very fair and reasonable one, provided the powers to be given to the Land Commission would not be exercised for, say, 12 months after the Bill had been in operation, and they had had an opportunity of seeing whether or not the tenant could obtain sufficient security. The great objection he had to the Amendment was that the unfortunate people at present might have that desire to emigrate which came from insecurity of tenure. Moreover, in the event of arrears of rent being due to the landlord, they declared that the Land Commission should have power to say what the rent should be, and the landlord should have power to say whether or not he would agree to a compromise, and, if he did not, that the Commission should be able to say to the tenant—"We can do nothing for you, you must go; but, if you like, we will pay your passage to America." If the Government believed in their Bill, they would prevent the Land Commission from having this power for at least 12 months after the Act came into operation.
§ MR. DAWSONsaid, he agreed with the hon. Member for the City of Galway 802 (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) that impliedly in the Amendment countenance was given to the project of emigration from Ireland. No doubt, the hon. Member had been actuated by this idea, that if the clause were to remain it should be as harmless as possible to the people of Ireland. He gave the hon. Member credit for that sagacious view of the matter; and, though he agreed with the hon. Member for the City of Galway, if the Amendment were pressed to a division he should vote for it. If there was a sufficient inducement to them to bring their energies into practice, all the emigration undertakers and speculators, and all those who were ever ready to project schemes for the depopulation of Ireland, would at once be up and eager for the fray. However, the Commission would be amenable to this House, and it would assuredly be visited with the condemnation of Parliament and the country if it in the slightest degree assisted these undertakers and speculators. At the proper time—and he had consulted the Chairman as to when would be the proper time—he should move a new clause, which would entirely obviate the necessity of this provision of the Government. His was a proposal for migration.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he did not know whether they would have a division on the Amendment; but some hon. Members were decidedly opposed to it. As far as he was concerned he would recommend his hon. Friends to accept no favours from the Government. The Government had agreed, as a favour, to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford, and thus it was held by some that they had entered into a sort of partnership with the Government in the clause, and would not oppose it when the proper time came. He must confess that he did not fully agree with that view of the question. Though the Government might agree to an Amendment moved by one of the Irish Party to curtail the operation of the clause, that Party would, nevertheless, when all the Amendments and alterations were admitted in it, be able to oppose it on its merits if they thought fit. The hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Bellingham) had read a quotation from a pamphlet by a Conservative gentleman, giving an opinion with regard to emigration. He was glad to see that, at least, some Conservatives were opposed to the principle 803 advocated by the Government and by so many Conservative Members of Parliament. Both Parties in the House should have their eyes opened to the fact that the population of Ireland was much too small at present, and, instead of offering facilities for lowering it, they should give their attention to increasing it. The Irish Members held that it would be desirable to increase the small holdings in size; and that was a very different thing from contending that the occupiers of these small plots should be turned out and left to the tender mercies of the emigration speculators of Colonial Governments. Furthermore, he held that the occupiers of these small holdings must be, on the whole, the judges of their own interests, and, if it suited their purpose to remain in occupation, he did not see why the Committee should agree to a proposition to force them to emigrate.
§ Amendment agreed to.
§ MR. DAWSONIs it competent, now, for me to move the clause I indicated to the Committee?
§ MR. DAWSONCan I not move this as an addition?
THE CHAIRMANIt will come in at the end of the clauses, and there are a great many Amendments before the end of the clauses.
§ MR. CALLANWould it be in Order to move at the end of the words the Committee have adopted the words "or migrate?"
§ MR. CALLANsaid, he wished to submit, as a point of Order, that though they had only accepted the word "emigrate," there had been no limitation agreed upon; and that, therefore, the words "or migrate," which would only enlarge the clause, could be accepted.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, that before the Chairman gave his decision on the point of Order, he should like to point out what was the object of the Bill.
THE CHAIRMANThat is not the question in the point of Order raised. It is my duty, as Chairman, to ascertain the whole scope of a clause and to find out whether Amendments are in agreement with that scope or not. For in- 804 stance, there is an Amendment further on to include the word "England." That is not admissible as within the scope of the Bill, this clause being confined to emigration.
§ MR. DAWSONI will bring on my Amendment later on in the form of a new clause.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORShould I not be in Order in moving to add the words "such district being one scheduled in the Relief of Distress Act, 1880?"
THE CHAIRMANI cannot say anything with regard to Amendments that are to follow, as I have not considered them in this connection.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORThen I rise to propose these words——
§ At this point the CHAIRMAN left the Chair:—Upon resuming the Chair,
§ MR. BIGGARasked the Chairman whether, as a question of procedure, after his usual retirement for a short time, it would not be convenient for him to have the Division bell rung?
§ MR. BIGGARthereupon moved that Progress be reported, and explained that he did not wish to make any imputation on the Chairman; but he had been from time to time misunderstood in regard to the practice he had pursued of moving that the House be counted on occasions similar to this, where there was scarcely any Members present.
THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Gentleman is referring to the procedure of the Committee, which is not the Question before the Committee. He is entirely out of Order in raising such questions on a Motion to report Progress.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he would not pursue the matter; but he moved to report Progress, because the Front Benches were empty, and there were very few Irish Members present.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Biggar.)
§ MR. O'SULLIVANobserved, that he regarded with great regret these obstacles 805 being placed in the way of this Bill. Such a proceeding as this might bring some hon. Members into notoriety; but the people who sent them there had some hope from this Bill.
§ Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; Committee counted, and 40 Members being found present,
§ MR. O'SULLIVAN, resuming, said, he regretted the Motion to report Progress at so early an hour. This Bill, if passed, would be the means of saving thousands of people who had been thrown out on the roadside. He could well understand the landlord party opposing this Bill, but he could not understand why any Irish Member should throw any obstacle in its way. He had seen with pain during the last week or fortnight that many obstacles had been thrown in the way of the Bill by those who ought to be the first to help it on; and, much as he should regret to disagree with any of his hon. Friends, he could not stand quietly by any longer and see the Bill delayed in this way. The Bill did not come up to the wants of the Irish people in every respect, but there were some good things in it. Ever since he was a boy the tenants had feared, first the rack-renter, and then the exterminator; but this Bill would put an end for ever to both, and he trusted his hon. Friend would withdraw his Motion, so that the discussion might be continued without further interruption.
§ MR. FINIGANsaid, he thought the reasons which the hon. Member (Mr. O'Sullivan) had advanced in favour of the clause under consideration were reasons which ought rather to go against it. The object of the Bill was to save tenants from eviction, and if it prevented unjust rents and processes of law this clause was not wanted in any way.
THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Gentleman is discussing the merits of the Bill, but the Question before the Committee is the question of reporting Progress.
§ MR. BIGGARobserved, that the hon. and learned Member for Limerick had expended a good deal of virtuous indignation, and had gained great applause; but when the Chairman resumed the Chair, the House was almost empty, and both the Front Benches were unoccupied. He did not feel disposed to talk to empty Benches, and he had moved to report Progress in order to 806 give hon. Members an opportunity of returning to the Committee to discuss this Amendment. That was his sole reason; but he would now withdraw his Motion.
§ Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
§ MR. GIVANsaid, he wished to move an Amendment, which he thought of considerable importance, because the Premier had stated that the object of the clause was not to promote the wholesale emigration of the Irish people, and not to promote the emigration of the people who were likely to be most useful to the country. But now that the Government had accepted the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), he would suggest that, after the Amendment of the hon. Member, these words should be inserted—
And that such persons shall be accompanied by their wives and children, and other relatives whom the Boards of Guardians shall certify to be dependent upon them.It was important that persons who emigrated should not leave behind them others who would be chargeable on the Union, and these might be not only a wife and family of an emigrant, but his father and mother, or uncle or aunt, or other relatives. He did not wish to carry his proposal too far; but he thought it important that the Boards of Guardians should decide such a question, and he hoped the Prime Minister would accept the Amendment, or something like it.
THE CHAIRMANI must point out that it is quite impossible to put this Amendment, because it will not read in the clause.
§ MR. BIGGARproposed an Amendment which would raise the same question. He would not discuss the general policy of emigration; but the Government had made no distinct statement as to how it was proposed to deal with the people who were to be called upon to emigrate.
THE CHAIRMANThe hon. Member's Amendment is equally unreadable with the last, and it is impossible to put it. It is out of Order in the form in which it is now, and I cannot put it.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he could not see how his Amendment was out of Order, and wished to ask in what sense it was out of Order?
MR. GLADSTONEThe hon. Member has no right to ask the Chairman for 807 the reasons why he rules him out of Order. He has no right to interrogate the Chairman, a course which is now repeated 50 times a-day.
THE CHAIRMANIf the hon. Gentleman persists upon this point, I shall consider it an interference with the Chair.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he did not wish to question the Chairman's ruling; but would he be justified in proposing to insert "regarding the best means of promoting emigration," omitting the rest of his Amendment?
§ MR. BIGGARbegged to apologize for any seeming incivility or improper conduct——
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he was sorry to interrupt the hon. Member; but his Amendment would not make English at all. The Commission could not enter into agreements regarding the best means of promoting emigration. They could enter into an agreement as to a particular plan, but not regarding the best means.
THE CHAIRMANThe Amendment to "enter into agreements regarding the best means of promoting emigration" is nonsense with regard to this clause.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, the clause gave authority to the Commissioners to enter into arrangements with certain parties with regard to emigration, and he thought it would be perfectly competent for them to say on what terms the proposed arrangements should be made; to ask the parties where they were going to take the emigrants, on what kind of vessel, and other questions. He submitted that he was perfectly in Order in his Amendment.
THE CHAIRMANI have explained to the hon. Member that the Amendment is not sense, and I cannot put it.
§ LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he hoped he might not get before the Committee the Amendment he brought out last night, but in which he was interrupted, and that the Amendment would not draw upon him another lecture from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Lancashire. He proposed to leave out the words—
Any person or body of persons having authority to contract on behalf of the dominion of Canada, or of any province thereof, or on behalf of any British colony or dependency, 808 or any state or other district in such dominion' province, colony, or dependency on behalf of any public company or other public body with whose constitution and security the land commission may be satisfied.Of course, the clause as it now stood, after taking the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), appeared to have a greater probability of some action arising out of it than before; but the effect of these words which he proposed to leave out was to place the Land Commission in the position of a great emigration agent. He could conceive nothing more unfortunate, both as regarded the Commission and as regarded the Irish Government, than to put duties of this kind on the Commission, because its first duty was to be a judicial body to decide questions of law and fact between the parties. Now, it was proposed to make it an executive and administrative body. But what was wanted principally with that Land Commission was that it should be a body enjoying the confidence of the Irish people, and he could not conceive anything more likely to destroy any confidence the Irish people might be disposed to repose in the Commission than to make the Land Commission a great emigration agent contracting with parties over all parts of the world for the emigration of the Irish people. Now, he proposed to bring in hero a body which had hitherto been uniformly selected by Parliament for the promotion of emigration from Ireland, and that was Boards of Guardians; and he had pointed out last night that four times had this subject come before Parliament. In 1838, 1843, 1847, and 1849, Parliament refused to go beyond giving powers to the Boards of Guardians to assist emigration. It refused to take a step which the Government invited the House to take now—to bring the Government in direct contact with emigration. If there was one thing wanted in emigration more than another it was that it should be the result of local effort guided by local knowledge. That he looked upon as essential; and he wanted to know how the Commission, with any persons such as were described in this clause, could possess that local knowledge so essential to successful emigration? But if Parliament brought in the Boards of Guardians, they would have bodies in whom the Irish people, as a rule, had confidence, because they were 809 to a great extent elected bodies. And it would command the co-operation of the Catholic clergy. The powers of the Boards of Guardians were already very great. They could charge the rates with money for the emigration of paupers who had been three months in the workhouse; they could charge the rates for the emigration of poor persons who had not been in the workhouse; they could charge the rates for the purpose of emigrating holders under £5, on the condition that the landlord provided two-thirds and surrendered all claims for rent. But by the last Act their powers were extremely wide. By the Act of 1849 they could, with the consent of the Poor Law Commissioners, apply any money they had in hand from the rates of any electoral division; or they could borrow from the Exchequer Bill Loan Commissioners, or from private persons, money to be spent in emigrating persons who were simply limited to the description of poor persons, absolutely distinct from paupers. And they could absolutely, in this Act of 1849, emigrate these persons, not only to British Colonies, but to any part of the world. Parliament might enter a limitation as to where the Guardians might assist people to be emigrated. He wished to point out what he considered of such importance—that there should be local authority. There had been enormous emigration from Ireland since the Famine, and that had planted in America and into British Colonies immense numbers of persons from Ireland; and when a person emigrated, the chances were he wished to emigrate to a neighbourhood or locality where he had relatives, and the relatives in America, Canada, or British Colonies would constantly send home the money to bring out to them those whom they had left behind. He would also point out that the reason why these Acts had not operated so fully as they might was that there was too great a limit on the power of raising money. In the first place, it was necessary the rates should be charged on the electoral division, which was too small an area for any purposes of emigration; and, in the next place, the Guardians had to pay back the instalments under seven years. He thought that was a very short period, and he was not surprised that Boards of Guardians had not been too ready to contract loans to be repaid in 810 so short a time. But, while leaving these Acts as they were, he wanted to ask the Government why they abandoned a line which Parliament had four times refused to abandon—namely, to leave this emigration in the hands of local bodies; why they were now, for the first time, proposing that the Commission should personally direct and stimulate emigration? Surely, the Government were not so popular at the present moment that they could afford to run the risk of so unpopular a step? Surely, they did not command that unlimited and unbounded confidence in Ireland which they enjoyed in England? And he could not conceive anything likely to be more disastrous to the Government in Ireland than that it should be connected, except indirectly, to advance money, with the emigration of Irish people. Then, if this Bill were passed, both landlords and tenants would stand on their rights. If tenants who were in arrears went into Court to get statutory terms, the landlords would force them to pay, and then there would be a great demand for emigration, and Boards of Guardians were the proper people to deal with such cases. The Land Commission ought not to be connected with any extensive deportation of the Irish people. The Prime Minister had said he would not favour any scheme which contemplated the conduct of emigration by the Commission; but the Chief Secretary had an Amendment for securing the satisfactory transhipment. How could there be greater detail of management than this? It was taking entire responsibility, and, if the Commission were to fulfil all such duties as that, nothing could be more disastrous. The Prime Minister had said distinctly that the object of the Bill was to stimulate collective emigration; but he objected altogether to that, because, if those words were taken with the words "a sufficient number," which had just been passed, they would mean nothing but clearing a whole district. That was the emigration the Prime Minister wished; but it was not the emigration he wished to see. He should prefer what he should call selected emigration by the Boards of Guardians. That would not in the least involve a pauper emigration, but the emigration of persons who held holdings of £4 or £5 value or under. The Chairman of the 811 Board of Guardians of one of the poorest districts in Ireland told him last year that such people had been utterly unable to exist in bad seasons, and they had no means of emigrating. Those were the persons who ought to be assisted—the squatters and very small holders, and not the farmers. He did not suppose the Prime Minister would accept his Amendment; but it had given him the opportunity of placing on record his distrust of the proposal of the Government, his alarm at the consequences which it might cause to the Government in Ireland, and his protest against collective emigration, which meant the wholesale clearance of districts in Ireland.
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 18, line 13, to leave out after the word "with," to the word "for," in line 19, in order to insert the words "boards of guardians, or with any persons for the time being authorised to act as guardians of any union,"—(Lord Randolph Churchill,)
—instead thereof.
§ Question proposed, "That the words 'any person or body of persons having authority' stand part of the Clause."
§ SIR HERVEY BRUCEsaid, he regarded the clause as a most useful provision for Ireland at the present time; but if Ireland were now a virgin soil ready to be ploughed up, and capable of yielding unlimited produce, he had no doubt that migration would be much more acceptable to the people than emigration. Being, however, satisfied that the power of reclamation was much exaggerated, and that there was not sufficient land in Ireland which could be used beneficially, he felt that reclamation and migration would not be of much use to the people. There were several impediments in the way. First of all, the nature and amount of the land; next, the difficulty of getting the land there was to be reclaimed—for this Bill would make it more difficult to get land every day, and the Commissioners, or whoever might intend to reclaim, would have to buy twice over—namely, from the landlord and from the tenant. The proposal of the noble Lord he looked upon with considerable alarm, for he believed it would do a great deal of harm. There were many Boards of Guardians who entered into long discussions on vexed political questions; and he feared the noble Lord's proposal 812 would turn the Boards of Guardians into debating bodies on political questions, and so the poor people would be left out in the cold. He did not regard the preference given to Canada as of much importance; but he would make a suggestion as to other Colonies. It was urged by some that the Government ought to give money for emigration to our Colonies, or any other parts of the world; but, in his view, that would be a great mistake in political economy. It was one thing to send people to our own Colonies, but quite another to send them to enrich other parts of the world. If it were thought necessary to send emigrants to the United States, the Government might send them there individually; but if we were to have a system of emigration of families which would be useful, it ought only to extend to our own Colonies. He was utterly adverse to the emigration of the labouring classes, and he thought the emigration of those people now going on was very disastrous to Ireland. The bone and the sinew, the young men and the young women, were leaving Ireland, while the old and the crippled remained behind; and he hoped the Bill would not give facilities to the labouring people to emigrate. The people to emigrate were the very small farmers. Their emigration would be beneficial to the country; they would take with them a happy recollection of the Mother Country, if they were sent in families at the expense of the State, and by them there would be implanted in the Colonies a love of the Mother Country among those who preceded them. He and others on that side of the House, although the Bill was against their interests, desired the Bill to pass and become law; and he did hope that the Government would persevere with this clause and not give facilities to the bone and sinew of Ireland to leave their country, but would give large and generous facilities to the small farmers to go from where they were in misery and distress to places where they could live more happily.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERThe object of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) is to confine this clause to assistance by Boards of Guardians; but, from experience, I believe that foreign countries do not look with as favourable an eye on emigrants coming by the help of Guardians as on those coming by help from other sources. 813 That kind of emigration will not meet our object, which is to relieve the great pressure upon land, and on employment in some parts of the most crowded districts. But does any hon. Member suppose that by merely helping a Board of Guardians—for instance, in the most over-populated districts in Mayo—we should be likely to relieve that pressure? I will not allude to Boards of Guardians bringing politics into discussion, for that is not the ground of my objection. My objection is that Boards of Guardians are locally interested in this question. If it is desirable to have cheap labour, a man who has a small holding and cannot live on it, is necessarily a cheap labourer, and that is a matter which must occupy the attention of the Guardians, either on one side or the other. With our popular system of electing Guardians, it is possible the people who wanted help would elect the Guardians; but it is also very possible that the employers of labour, the farmers or landlords, may be the most active persons in the Boards of Guardians, and I do not think they are the people to decide this question. I think it is perfectly right that we should require that the Commission, being an impartial and outside body, should be convinced that there is a desire for emigration; but it is another thing to go further and put the matter to public vote, not only as to whether the people wish to emigrate, but also as to whether they are willing to incur debts for emigration. That seems to me to put it out of the question that we should make Boards of Guardians the sole means of communication. The noble Lord said some remarks of the Prime Minister were inconsistent with the Amendment I have brought forward. He said the Prime Minister stated that we did not propose that the Commission should be the body to conduct emigration. Conducting emigration and controlling emigration are perfectly different things, and we do not propose that the Commission itself shall conduct emigration; but it is perfectly right, and we are willing to put in words to secure, that the Commission and Treasury should take care to control emigration, and one of the means of doing this is that there should be some arrangements by which emigrants can be taken out in proper ships, that due regard 814 should be paid to their health during the voyage, and that they should not be merely landed on the seaboard, but cared for until such time as they can get to their destination. I do not think the Government would be justified in lending money unless they get an assurance that these things would be done, and could see their way to their being done. I think, therefore, that the charge of inconsistency between the statement of the Prime Minister and my Amendment is fully disposed of. Despite what the noble Lord says, we have no intention whatever of "clearing" any districts; but for the time being we wish to relieve the pressure upon land, and upon employment in certain districts, and to provide that those who remain or who are not "cleared" shall be in a happy position. This coming to Parliament for any sort of assistance for emigration is merely done under the pressure of the present circumstances. We look forward as little as any man in this House to emigration as a final cure for the state of affairs in Ireland. I believe Ireland is under-peopled; but I believe equally that the Bill under discussion—and I am pleased to find it so much more approved of by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) and his Friends than it was when it was introduced—will bring about a new era in Ireland, and that we shall find that Ireland will support a much larger population. Of course, remedial measures do not change the face of a country in a day, and we have to deal with great calamities and miseries at the present moment. It would almost seem as if hon. Members below the opposite Gangway, who are supposed to be opposed to the Bill, really believe it will do more immediate good than we ourselves think it will do. There are many small farmers in some of the districts of Ireland, whose heads no change whatever in their relations with their landlords would put above water. I do not believe there will not be a change that will benefit the position of the small farmers generally. I think this Bill will considerably improve their position; but it must be remembered that there are some tenants who could not live upon their holdings, even if they held their farms rent free. Now, we have these people to deal with, and the noble Lord says—"Deal with them through the Board of Guardians 815 in the district." We do not feel that that is a satisfactory suggestion; we do not think that we could get a Board of Guardians to pick out those people who wish to emigrate, and who are most fitted for emigration. We look forward to some of these people being benefited by employment, and by the occupation of land elsewhere, and we have provided for this in our measure. This clause is opposed as if emigration was a new thing in Ireland. You may go all through the country, and you will hardly find a single village in which some of the people have not friends or relations abroad. When I visited, a short time ago, the districts which were most visited by the Famine in 1848, I found there was scarcely a man who had not got a friend in the United States; in one or two cases; the emigrants had gone to one or other of our own Colonies. Emigration is beset with great physical dangers, and still more with moral dangers. We do not pretend to be able to destroy them; but we think there would be an advantage if there could be some arrangement with any foreign or Colonial Government, or any Company—and it would have to be a very respectable and influential Company before the Treasury or the Government would venture to support it—by which these dangers would be guarded against as much as possible. Hon. Gentlemen have great suspicion of the Treasury, no matter what Government is in power; but this would be a matter for public opinion, and public opinion would very strongly condemn any assistance the Government might give to a speculative Company or a Company which wished to trade on the misery of these poor people. Arrangements may be made by which, instead of picking out the young men or the young women, you may send out a family, and every regulation can be made for their comfort. I am sure I look forward, if there is any organized system of emigration, to some of the bodies of emigrants being accompanied even by Catholic priests. [Mr. HEALY: Yes; Father Sheehy.] Why is it that there is this opposition to our proposal? What is there in what we are proposing to do that can do anybody any harm? You say that this is a scheme by which we want to depopulate Ireland. If we wish to do this, we have acted very clumsily, and we have 816 taken a very circuitous course to accomplish the object. Is there any other part of this Bill which has that object in view? If this Bill is to be any credit to the persons who have introduced it, it must result in making the Irish people more happy and contented, and in inducing more to remain in the country. Really, it is too unreasonable to contend that at the end of our measure the Government have introduced this clause with the object of depopulating Ireland, and of undoing all the good accomplished in the early part of the Bill. I doubt very much whether the people of Ireland wish this clause to be struck out of the Bill; in fact, I challenge any hon. Member to say that the persons really interested in this matter would prefer the plan for emigration to be struck out. I believe many of the Irish people will take advantage of the clause in order to join their friends in other countries. I do not say they desire to leave their country; but they would do so because there was a chance and hope of getting better off elsewhere.
§ MR. J. N. RICHARDSONsaid, if the Government did not accept this Amendment, he hoped they would assent to, or themselves put in, some plain words which would satisfy the Committee that the emigration fund would get into the hands of the proper people. His fear was precisely that of the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Hervey Bruce)—namely, that the bone and sinew might be taken from some districts where it was really needed, and where every man who went away would be a loss to the community; and that those who had better go would remain. What were the statistics of emigration? From Connaught there emigrated last year 20,519, and from Ulster 28,000. The only part of Ulster, so far as he was aware, where emigration funds were needed was Donegal; yet there were only 3,423 emigrants from that county. From Antrim, about the richest and best county in Ireland—certainly in the North of Ireland, for a portion of the large town of Belfast formed part of the county—there were 5,738 emigrants, or nearly double the number of emigrants from the poor county of Donegal. Unless some words were put in the clause, limiting the district to which or limiting the class of people to whom these funds were to be given, it might be found that from Antrim and other 817 prosperous parts of Ireland, applications would be made for assistance which ought not to be granted. He certainly hoped the Government would introduce some words which would relieve the minds of the hon. Baronet (Sir Hervey Bruce) and himself on this matter.
MR. GORSTsaid, he would confine himself strictly to the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), and would not be betrayed into the irregularity of making a general speech in reply to the general observations of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. The question immediately before the Committee was, whether, assuming that there was to be an emigration scheme, it would be better to intrust the management, or the outlay of money, to the local authorities in Ireland, or to the Government of Ireland itself? It seemed to him everything was in favour of the proposal made by the noble Lord. In the first place, it was a proposal in accordance with precedent. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary talked about having had experience of emigration schemes and about emigration having been successfully carried on in times past. True; but they were carried on under the management of local authorities. He did not think the Government could point to a single instance where the State or Treasury itself had controlled or managed a great scheme of national emigration. A local authority was the proper body to intrust with the management of emigration, because a local authority alone could successfully carry it out. Emigration was a distinct loss to the nation at large; it was an advantage only to the locality from which the emigrants went. The hon. Baronet (Sir Hervey Bruce) seemed favourable to some scheme of emigration which would send all the tenant farmers out of the country, and keep all the labourers in it. He (Mr. Gorst) did not know whether the Government were prepared to carry out that object; but, if they were, he did not believe they would succeed. The people who could be sent out of a country, with advantage to themselves, were extremely few, and if Parliament left emigration in the hands of a great State body in Dublin, it would be found that this body would become extremely unpopular. The Executive 818 Government could not judge who were the proper people to send and who ought to be left behind; and he was certain that if the Irish Government endeavoured to carry out an emigration scheme by means of a central authority, their unpopularity, which was now great, would be enormously increased. It seemed to him that if they were to be guided by precedence, by the experience of the past; if they were to proceed in the way which had hitherto been successful, it would be far better to give any assistance that was to be given in the manner indicated by the noble Lord.
§ MR. A. MOOREsaid, he thought the Prime Minister must be deeply moved by the solicitude expressed by the Fourth Party for the reputation of his Government. In his opinion, a more disastrous proposition could not well be placed before the Committee. If emigration was intrusted to Boards of Guardians, those authorities would, of course, use the power to suit local requirements—that was to say, they would be inclined to emigrate the people who were now a burden on the rates. That was not the way in which this question ought to be looked at. What was wanted was a lightening of the congested districts, and it was just possible that the Boards of Guardians there might not be the best judges of their own wants and necessities. He did not see, moreover, how a Board of Guardians could provide for the proper shipment, transport, and residence of emigrants. The influence of a Board of Guardians was purely local; and how could it be expected that they would be able to exercise any influence with a great shipping company or with the authorities of New York? The Government would be capable of making the necessary and proper arrangements.
§ MR. MULHOLLANDsaid, it was his wish that this clause should not be in-operative. It was a necessary supplement to the other clauses of the Bill, and upon its operation much of the success of the Bill must depend. The only satisfaction the landlords would experience for the sacrifices they were called upon to make would be the success of the Bill in pacifying Ireland, and in restoring prosperity to that country. There was no doubt it was advisable to relieve, by means of emigration, the congested districts of Ireland; but of all bodies to 819 entrust the management of emigration the Boards of Guardians were, perhaps, the least suitable. The first persons they would send out would be the paupers, so that the rates might be relieved. In the next place, unfortunately, the members of Boards of Guardians in some districts where emigration was most needed, were certainly not unconnected with political agitation; and the Committee had heard indirectly from hon. Gentlemen themselves that the chief objection to this clause had been based upon political reasons. Anything that would restore prosperity to the West of Ireland would make the people less willing to listen to those agitators who had, perhaps, been rather too much listened to hitherto. It was just possible that Boards of Guardians would not wish to facilitate the operation of this clause, but rather to throw obstacles in its way. He was decidedly opposed to the proposal of the noble Lord. In conclusion, he might say that he thought his hon. Friend the Member for Coleraine (Sir Hervey Bruce) had been entirely misunderstood. The hon. Baronet never suggested that all the tenants should emigrate, but that those whose position at present was uncomfortable should have facilities afforded them of doing so if they chose.
§ MR. MARUMsaid, he thought it was very desirable that the Land Commission or the Treasury should not have absolute power in the matter of emigration, but that a local authority—and the Boards of Guardians would be the most suitable body—should be able to exercise some influence over them. With regard to the political views of Boards of Guardians, surely the introduction of this Bill was a sufficient justification for the political action taken by Boards of Guardians and other bodies in Ireland. He would urge the Government to invest in the local Guardians a controlling power in this matter which was at present exciting a great deal of attention in Ireland. He had always advocated the principle of the Bill; but he felt that this clause was unnecessary, and was calculated to produce more harm than good—more ill-feeling and dissatisfaction than actual benefit.
§ Mr. FAYsaid, he would be much more satisfied if the Commissioners were the controlling power. He thought they would be much more likely to act in 820 a generous spirit than any Board constructed of foreign materials, and, in many cases, having no element of popular representation at all. He knew that in many districts in the North of Ireland the ex officio Guardians were not very favourable to the Catholic clergy. Then there was another view to be taken of the question; for, as the hon. Member for Down patrick had pointed out, the taint of pauperism would attach to these expatriated peasants who were shipped off by the Boards of Guardians, and that would be one of the most deterrent circumstances to prevent the people from applying for emigration purposes to the local Boards. In 1848, they died by the roadside rather than enter the poor-house; and he believed that in 1881 they would starve in thousands before they would apply in pauper form to be sent to America, Canada, or elsewhere. The name of pauper attached to the very friends of those who had been in any way relieved; and if the details of the emigration were left in the hands of the local Boards, it was known very well that they would take advantage of every opportunity to ship off the old and the maimed at the expense of the State for the relief of the ratepayers.
§ SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he did not think the Guardians should be the sole depositories of the power of emigrating the people; but he would by no means exclude them, and he hoped the present Amendment would be withdrawn in favour of an alternative Amendment of his own, which he intended to move at the proper time.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he understood that the proposition of the Government was not to send out parties who were willing and able to emigrate at their own expense, and thoroughly competent in all respects to take care of themselves. If those were the people who were to be emigrated, the Land Commission would be a very suitable tribunal to deal with them, because such parties might appear before the Courts of the Land Commission by themselves or by counsel to state their case and enter into contracts or arrangements with the Commission with regard to the amount of assistance they should get to facilitate their going abroad. But he thought the real object of the clause was to facilitate the emigration of those whose status in the country was thoroughly hopeless, and, in 821 that case, the Poor Law Guardians were the proper parties to come in contact with that class of people. The intention was not that any large area of the country should supply emigrants, but that the emigrants should be taken from certain defined districts; and the best parties to deal with them were the Poor Law Guardians, who knew the feelings and wants of their own particular districts, and probably each Guardian would know personally every inhabitant in his own district, and would be able to speak of each applicant from his own personal experience, and would be better able to give a correct opinion than a party who got his information only at second-hand. The Poor Law Guardian would, in point of fact, know whether the party proposing to emigrate was able to emigrate at his own expense, or whether he was likely to become a burden on the rates, and whether such a person could earn his own living by removing to a different part of Ireland, or perhaps to England or Scotland. Besides, the Poor Law Guardians had relieving officers under them, whose special duty it was to be acquainted with all the parties. Many of the parties who would be willing to go would be strong young men whom it was not desirable to have leave the country. The object of the clause was to remove those who could not help themselves in this country to another where they could lead an easier life and not be a burden on the ratepayers of the old country, or perhaps to the ratepayers of the new community among whom they were taken. But the Land Commission, which would be a judicial body consisting of gentlemen with very large salaries, could have no local knowledge whatever, and would be thoroughly incapable of knowing the facts, especially as they would have no machinery to enable them to make inquiries. Under these circumstances, he should support the Amendment of the noble Lord, which would probably have a tendency to make the Bill less objectionable than it was at present. He knew very well—indeed, it was notorious in Ireland—that ex-officio Guardians acted in direct contradiction to the interests of the local Guardians; but, at the same time, even the ex-officio Guardians would at least know the facts of the case and be enabled, if disposed, to give an impartial judgment on these questions.
MR. MAC IVERsaid, he supported most cordially the general intention of the Amendment of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock; but he could not vote for it as it stood, lest it should prevent the moving of other valuable Amendments on the Paper which it would supersede.
§ SIR PATRICK O'BRIENsaid, he was opposed to the Amendment, because it would enable the ex officio Guardians, who were the landlords in every district, to deport their own tenantry.
§ MR. O'DONNELLthought the hon. Baronet was suffering from some misapprehension. There was no danger that the landlords would use the machinery of the clause to clear the land for themselves. It was in a different way that the proposal of the Government would assist the evicting class of landlords. If the facilities proposed by the Government for emigration did not exist, then the evicting landlords would be hampered by the knowledge that the Government would be obliged to deal with the mass of evicted tenants, and would not have any means of shipping them off to foreign ports, and, consequently, the evicting landlords would be afraid to refuse reasonable compromises, because they would know that if they unduly increased the embarrassment of the Government by increasing the number of evicted tenants, the Government, which disliked nothing so much as embarrassment, would have to take some steps to limit the operations of the evicting landlords. But when those landlords knew that the Government had an easy and expeditious way of getting rid of embarrassment by simple transportation to foreign shores, they would at once hold out for the exaction of the utmost farthing of arrears, and the utmost letter of their bond, and Her Majesty's Government would be able to meet the remonstrances of the Irish Representatives by saying—"If there are a large number of evictions, we, at all events, are graciously providing for the evicted tenants in Manitoba, Van Dieman's Land, and other salubrious localities in which the discontented Irish tenantry will not be subject to the evils of English legislation." The Amendment supplied a most useful and, indeed, an infallible test as to the real design of the Government. The noble Lord who moved it said, very reasonably, that if the Go- 823 vernment proposal was really intended to solace, and to carry off, and to bettor the state of numbers of poor farmers in Ireland who could not have their condition bettered in any other way, the proper persons to carry out the benevolent intentions of the Goverment were the Boards of Guardians, local representative bodies, possessing local information, knowing which were the poorest and the hopelessly bad cases of those who could not be got to live in comfort and prosperity at home, and knowing the families whose only chance consisted in deportation from their native land. But the Chief Secretary had at once risen to let the Irish Members know, what they had suspected previously, that it was not the hopelessly bad cases for which there was no other outlook than emigration which were really meant to be operated upon by this beneficent measure of the Government. It was the voters of Ireland whom Her Majesty's Government really wished to clear out, the men who returned Nationalist Members, instead of Whigs, to sit at the back of the Ministry.
§ MR. O'DONNELLI am referring to what was said by the Chief Secretary. Their cardinal point is that they will deport the Irish voters.
§ MR. O'DONNELLMay I ask whether it was in Order for the Chief Secretary to do so? [Cries of "Name, name!"]
THE CHAIRMANIf the hon. Member defies the authority of the Chair, he knows what consequences will follow.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he was about to ask the Chairman a question on a point of Order. He was sorry, however, he was not allowed to state it. In proceeding with his argument, he would observe the Boards of Guardians were specially calculated to exercise a useful restraining influence on the operations of the Government. Though there were ex-officio Guardians, the majority of the Boards were elected, and elected by the very classes who would be benefited or injured by the operation of this emigration proposal. They possessed the local information, the time, and the capacity 824 to deal with the question; they had financial responsibilities, and they were, in short, precisely the best persons in the present state of the law to carry out an emigration proposal for the real benefit of the people. As to the proposal to put the working of the Emigration Clause in the hands of the Land Commission, it was only necessary to point out that that Land Commission was a central body. On what or whose information was it to act? Were they not to act upon local advice at all? Were secret circulars to be sent down asking for information to be supplied secretly to the Government with regard to the disposition of the people to emigrate or not? Was it the magistracy or was it the constabulary which was to set in motion the Land Commission and the Government scheme of emigration entirely in the dark? The Chief Secretary had said that if the emigrants lauded on foreign shores under the auspices of the Board of Guardians, they would be regarded as paupers. But what sort of an argument was that to address to the Committee? Was it not notorious that Her Majesty's Government were proposing to ship off Irish paupers "anywhere, anywhere out of" its jurisdiction? Did not everybody know, whether in Canada, the United States, or elsewhere, that it was the people of the Irish nation who had been reduced to extreme want and distress who were to be shipped away under this emigration scheme? What was the good of pretending to conceal, or of hoping to conceal, that every man who went out under these circumstances would go out branded with the British brand of pauperism? The Chief Secretary, in saying that he hoped to save these emigrants from the brand of pauperism by deporting them from this country under the auspices of some other body than the Board of Guardians, simply showed that he had a higher opinion of the obedience of his majority than he had of the reasonableness or of the common sense of the House. The men who would go out from Ireland in this manner would land on a foreign shore with the brand of pauperism. If that was their object, if the Government wished to begin by so branding the men, they would do better by giving up this emigration proposal entirely, and allowing the men to stop at home. To a certain extent, he would accept the representations of the Govern- 825 ment that there was a very great difference between beginning life as a pauper in a foreign land and finding a new start among one's own countrymen at home. If the Government declined absolutely to accept every reasonable guidance of the local representatives of the class specially affected, they would only convey the idea to that class that they were too ready to receive—that they were anxious unrestrained to have the carrying out this emigration scheme. He had not heard from the Government one word of the slightest intention that they would accept any restraint or guidance. Now, considering that the operation of their proposal was certainly likely to go on for a considerable space of time, it was too much to ask the Committee to give into the hands of the Government a blind authority, uncontrolled, to do what they like after their own fashion. The Government, in the person of the Chief Secretary, said—"We want carte blanche to deport as many Irish families as we think ought to be deported." Such a power should not be granted to the best-meaning Minister; he would refuse it to an Irish Chief Secretary for Ireland as he would to an English Chief Secretary for Ireland. The best-meaning of central authorities must be radically incapable of making a judicious choice of local subjects for emigration without the assistance of the local authority. In their own interest, the Government ought to desire to have their authority shared; and they should accept, if not the precise words of the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill), some Amendment instituting some local check on the administration of this emigration scheme, and the exercise of central discretion. He was very much inclined to amend the Amendment by providing that Boards of Guardians should hold special meetings, and constitute themselves after a special manner, in order to take into consideration proposals for emigration. He should, in fact, provide that at these special meetings of the Boards of Guardians no member of the Board should sit, act, or vote, except those elected. He thought if the noble Lord would consent to that amending of his Amendment by eliminating from the Board all ex officio Guardians who were more or less belonging to the landlord class, or in many cases interested in the expatriation of the people, then there would be a number 826 of local bodies approaching as nearly as possible to the character of fairly elected representatives of the popular wishes. The Government lamented the unfortunate circumstances that had prevented them introducing a system of county government in Ireland. Now, here was an opportunity of providing an organization in the interval which would carry out some of the purposes of local government in a most important matter. If the Government would consent to this, he was sure that they would find co-operation from five-sixths of the Irish Representatives. In this way the intentions of the Government and the wants of the people would coincide, and harmony would take the place of discord between the central authority and the people. It would work thus. The Land Commission would be authorized to apply a sum of money to the emigration of necessitious persons in certain counties; they would consult a special meeting ad hoc of a Board of Guardians, from which the ex officio element had been eliminated, as to local wishes and the number of bonâ fide poor people who were willing to emigrate; then at once the Government would be able to clear the Irish soil of encumbrances that would cease to be encumbrances elsewhere, and the fears of the Irish people of wholesale deportation would be removed, because, while, on the one hand, the Government offered all due facilities for the removal of the necessitous poor, on the other hand, the local Guardians would act as a check whenever it seemed that a scheme for the relief of the poor was degenerating into a scheme for the deportation of the population. He would not move the Amendment just at present, as he would hope to hear that the suggestion was favourably considered—in the first place, by the noble Lord, to whom it was only due that he should have the opportunity of dealing with it; and, above all, by the Government, who had the means of giving effect to the suggestion. He must emphatically object to the view of the Chief Secretary that the central authority should have this power, unchecked by any safeguard whatever; and he generally supported the proposition of the noble Lord that Boards of Guardians, as representing the wants and wishes of localities, should have the necessary consultative voice in the arrangements. But he reserved to 827 himself the liberty of proposing an Amendment on the Amendment, to provide that Boards of Guardians, for the purpose of carrying out this emigration proposal, should consist exclusively of elected members, and that landlords and land agents should not take part in the proceedings when such proposals were under consideration.
MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he would at once answer the appeal which had been made to him. He could not agree with the proposal of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill); but he admitted there was one strong point in the recommendation which was sustained by the precedents in which Parliament had vested authority in Boards of Guardians. But that principle had been deliberately departed from in the proposal in the Bill. Then, when he looked at this Amendment from another point of view, he found that the hon Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell), in his anxiety to forward the progress of the Bill, proposed that the Government should forego the desirable means of management they had made; secondly, that they should introduce the Board of Guardians; and, thirdly, as Boards of Guardians had an unsatisfactory constitution, that they should reform the constitution of Boards of Guardians. Incidents, these, to forward the progress of the Land Bill! He (Mr. Gladstone) had listened to the discussion which the noble Lord was quite entitled to raise, and which had been carried on for a considerable length of time, and which had received but a very moderate amount of support from Irish Members, and he could not help hoping that the Committee was now in a condition to dispose of the Amendment. He quite admitted the fairness and legitimacy of the discussion, and the weight due to the consideration that Parliament had made use of this instrumentality before; but it was quite clear, for various reasons he would not now go over, that the Government could not consent to the substitution of Boards of Guardians for the agency they contemplated. He was afraid that if there was only one objection to the proposal—and it was far from being the only one—it was this, that it would attach more or less the suspicion or idea of pauperism to the people emigrated—that it was sending paupers away. This would fatally embarrass the 828 action of the authorities under the clause, and create an impression on the other side of the Atlantic which would be fatal to the prospects of those persons whom the noble Lord, with perfect sincerity, sought to benefit.
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, he did not think that the Government of the country to which the emigrants were sent had a right to insist that they should get only healthy and strong persons without any mixture of others. The idea was preposterous that none but parties thoroughly able to work should be sent away at the expense of the State, leaving the old and infirm behind. He thought in cases of this sort the interests of the locality from which the people went should be consulted; but the proposal seemed to be that these Companies should be allowed to draw away the strong and young who would support their aged and infirm relatives, and that was a proposition that seemed to come with an exceedingly bad grace from a British Minister having the interest and welfare of the community in view. The remarks of the hon. Member for King's County, that the Boards of Guardians contained a mixture of ex officio members, of course had weight with them, and he did not mean to say they were a perfectly representative body; but they were less objectionable, from his point of view, than the body the Government proposed to administer the provisions of this Bill. Although, as the hon. Baronet said, only half of the Guardians were elected, it was known at the same time that the selected Guardians, as a rule, attended to their duties with greater regularity, and what they might lose in social position they gained in the influence that always attached to those who were zealous in the discharge of their duties. Those of the Committee who were not Irishmen should know the manner in which the election of Guardians was conducted. It was not by means of the ballot, but by means of voting papers; so the landlords really did exercise considerable influence on the result. Besides, the voting power of the ratepayers was not one vote for each ratepayer, but according to the amount of the valuation; so, in point of fact, the Boards of Guardians were not at all a democratic body, as a rule, and they would not be at all likely to act in a manner very much in opposition 829 to what might be supposed the general ideas of landlords, being largely representatives of the higher rank of ratepayers. If the Commission could not attend to the work of reclamation, he did not see how they could attend to the operation of this clause, and which would require a knowledge of details not likely to be possessed by the Land Commission.
§ Question put, "That the words 'or persons, or body of persons having authority,' stand part of the Clause."
§ Question put,
§ The Committee divided:—Ayes 266; Noes 19: Majority 247.—(Div. List, No. 303.)
§
Amendment proposed,
In page 18, line 14, to leave out the words "on behalf of the Dominion of Canada or any province thereof, or."—(Mr. William Edward Forster.)
§ Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
§ MR. BIGGARsaid, this Amendment was only in appearance a concession to Irish public opinion. Even if the Amendment was carried, the other parts of the clause would make it quite as mischievous as though it was passed in its original form. What he would wish to see was the insertion of words which would specially except the Dominion of Canada from the provisions of the Bill, and by that means give a guarantee to the unfortunate people who were, practically, to be sent to penal servitude that they should not be sent to a climate that was perfectly unsuitable for them. In his view, the Land Commission and the Treasury ought not to be allowed to enter into contracts with the Government of any country in reference to this matter whose climate was not compatible with the health of people who had been reared in Ireland.
THE CHAIRMANsaid, the hon. Member was discussing an Amendment which was not on the Paper, and was therefore out of Order.
§ MR. HEALYsaid, he had on the Paper an Amendment for the insertion, after the word "the," of the words "United States of America" in this particular part of the clause, and he therefore wished to know what would be the position of his Amendment if that 830 of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was now passed?
§ MR. DAWSONsaid, considerable difficulty would be removed if the right hon. Gentleman would state that the effect of the clause would not be to prevent the sending of emigrants to the United States.
§ MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he thought the inquiry of the hon. Member would be met by the later words in the clause, which were to this effect—
Or on behalf of any public company or other public body with whose constitution and survey the Land Commission may be satisfied.
§ MR. WARTONsaid, he regretted that the Government had allowed themselves to be influenced by the unworthy pressure which had been brought to bear in order to induce them to except the Dominion of Canada from the operation of the Bill.
§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR, rising to Order, asked the Chairman whether the hon. Member was in Order in saying that pressure, no matter from whatever quarter of the House it came, was unworthy?
THE CHAIRMANsaid, he did not regard the expression of the hon. and learned Member for Bridport as un-Parliamentary.
§ MR. WARTON, resuming, said, that Canada was one of the most loyal among England's Colonies, and he should therefore have thought Irish Members would have felt grateful for the generous assistance which the Canadians had given to Irish fisheries and towards the relief of distress in Ireland. He could not help repeating the expression of his regret that a graceful and merited compliment to Canada was about to be struck out of the Bill.
§ MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, he was grateful to Canada for her very practical sympathy with Irish suffering; but, at the same time, he must be allowed to say that he had no desire to see or to hear of the bones of his unfortunate fellow-countrymen being committed to the snows of that Colony. The clause, as it stood, was practically one for deporting the Irish people to Canada, and to nowhere else.
§ MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he regarded the Amendment of the right hon. Gen- 831 tleman as purely illusory, and for this reason——
And it being a quarter of an hour before Six of the clock, the Chairman reported Progress; Committee to sit again To-morrow.