Commons Sitting of 22 July 1881

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Report—Tithe (Rent-Charges) [No. 340].
PUBLIC BILLS—Select Committee—Report—Bills of Sale Act (1878) Amendment [No. 341].
Committee—Report—Land Law (Ireland) [135–225]; Metropolitan Board of Works (Money) [204]; Removal Terms (Scotland) [8].
Committee—Report—Third Reading—Seed Supply and other Acts (Ireland) Amendment* [217], and passed.
Third Reading—Incumbents of Benefices Loans Extension* [213]; Public Loans (Ireland) Remission* [212], and passed.
Withdrawn—Copyhold Enfranchisement (recomm.)* [195].
The House met at Two of the clock.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  EARL OF HARDWICKE'S ESTATE BILL.— [Lords.]

    THIRD READING.
    Order for Third Reading read.
    MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he should like to know something of the nature and tenour of the Bill. It was a Bill of 64 pages, and had already passed through the House of Lords. He thought some explanation of these Private Bills ought to be given before the House was asked to pass them. ["Oh!"] Hon. Members might cry "Oh!" but he wanted to know—and he thought the House should know before they passed these Bills to settle large estates—what was their real nature. He, therefore, hoped some hon. Gentleman would rise to explain the Bill now before the House.
    Bill read the third time; Verbal Amendments made; Bill passed, with Amendments.

QUESTIONS.

  EDUCATIONAL ENDOWMENTS (SCOTLAND) BILL—SHAW'S HOSPITAL.
  MR. J. W. BARCLAYasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether he has taken into his consideration the proportion of two out of nine governors, as provided by the scheme dealing with Shaw's Hospital now on the Table of the House, for the representation of the public on such governing bodies as contemplated by the Government in the Educational Endowments (Scotland) Bill, and what course he will take in the matter?
  MR. MUNDELLA: In answer to my hon. Friend, I beg to state that the Educational Department have no respon-
  1610
  sibility whatever in any of the schemes passed by the recent Scotch Educational Commission. Those schemes are referred to us as a matter of courtesy, and we have always given out best advice. With respect to the latter part of the Question, as to what course was contemplated by the Government in regard to the Educational Endowments Bill, I have to inform him that we have nothing at all to do with the matter.

  ARMY—COAST DEFENCES.
  MR. J. STEWARTasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether the Commission appointed to consider the question of the coast defences of the Country have yet reported; if not, whether he can state when the Report may be expected; and, whether the Report when made will be published?
  MR. CHILDERS: In reply to my hon. Friend, I have to state that no such Commission has been appointed; but that an official Committee—Naval, Military, and Civil—presided over by Lord Morley, the Under Secretary of State for War, is steadily investigating the defences of commercial harbours. Their Report will be a very valuable one; but I cannot now say when I expect it to be completed, nor could I, under any circumstances, undertake to lay the whole of it on the Table, as much of it, from the very nature of the case, must be strictly confidential.

  NAVY—DOCKYARD ESTABLISHMENT, GIBRALTAR.
  SIR JOHN HAYasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether there is any intention to reduce the Dockyard establishment at Gibraltar?
  MR. TREVELYAN: In 1876 the entry of trade boys or apprentices taken from the spot to some of the principal trades was commenced with a view to their eventually taking the place of some of the highly-paid artificers sent out from the Home Yards. The period of agreement of the latter has now expired, and as the boys have completed their time and become men, arrangements have been made for the return home of those sent out from the Home Yards. This is being carried out in accordance with a Report recently received from the captain in charge at Gibraltar. The Reports from several

  1611
  officers are now before the Board; but, to the best of my knowledge, no Lord has had an opportunity of considering them, and the matter has made no official progress whatever.

  COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH SPAIN (NEGOTIATIONS).
  Mr. O'SHEAasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Papers relating to the negotiation of a Commercial Treaty between Great Britain and Spain will be laid before Parliament during the present Session?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: I doubt whether the negotiations will have sufficiently advanced to allow the Correspondence on the subject to be laid before Parliament during the present Session without injury to the Public Service.

  THE MAGISTRACY (IRELAND)—MR. CLIFFORD LLOYD, R.M.
  Mr. O'SULLIVANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is true that Mr. Clifford Lloyd refused to take as bails for Mrs. Coleman, a farmer, named Thomas O'Donnell, who is rated over sixty pounds per annum, and a man named James Baulton, the owner of house property in Kilmallock; and, if so, if he will state why he did refuse substantial bails like those and commit the woman to prison?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER, in reply, said, he had obtained information from the Constabulary as to this matter. He was informed that it was not the case that Mr. Clifford Lloyd refused to take for Mrs. Coleman the joint security of T. O'Donnell and J. Baulton. T. O'Donnell did not offer, and in the case of joint security it was necessary that both should be qualified.
  MR. PARNELLasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether the committal of the aged woman Margaret Coleman to prison for six months, in default of finding bail, by Mr. Clifford Lloyd out of Petty Sessions, was not a direct contravention of the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act, and therefore illegal? He wished further to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether, before a decision was given in such a case, there should not have been two magistrates present, and not one?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW), in reply, said,
  1612
  that the acceptance and refusal of bail was within the ordinary powers conferred on magistrates, but was not subject to the provisions of the Act referred to. With respect to the sentence of six months' imprisonment said to have been passed on Mrs. Coleman, he was informed that she was net sentenced to that imprisonment, but that the magistrate committed her to gaol merely in default of her finding bail, and that she was detained there a day or two until the bail was obtained, and she was then released.
  MR. PARNELL: Was it not in contravention of the Petty Sessions (Ireland) Act that she was committed for six months?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)admitted that it would have been wrong for the magistrate so to decide a case of prosecution for a specific offence; but, as he had already explained, the woman was not convicted of an offence, nor was she committed for six months.
  MR. PARNELL: Was she not distinctly sentenced to six months' imprisonment in default of finding sureties? Was that not in violation of the Act, and should not two magistrates have been present, if such a sentence was to be pronounced?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): I have already pointed out that she was not sentenced to six months' imprisonment. No doubt the hon. Member is correct in saying that two magistrates should have been present in a case where a person was committed; but, as I have said, this was not a committal for six months.
  MR. O'SULLIVAN: I should wish to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman whether it is not the fact that three respectable persons offered bail for Mrs. Coleman whilst she was before the magistrates, and that they were refused?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): I do not think such bail as the hon. Member refers to was offered; but I am unable to say, and cannot answer the Question without Notice.

  AUSTRO-SERVIAN COMMERCIAL TREATY.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether by the Treaty

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  between Austria and Servia the following articles are exempted from all duty on entering into Servia:—1. Machinery of all kind and agricultural implements; 2. All railway materials, plant, and rolling stock; 3. Coal; whether by "the Most Favoured Nation Clause" between this Country and Servia of 1880, British goods of these denominations would not have been equally exempt from import duties into Servia; and, if he would explain why Her Majesty's Government have foregone advantages which British trade and industry might have reasonably expected to derive from the possession of these privileges at a moment when considerable enterprises for national development are contemplated by the Servian Government?
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked, Whether there exists in the Foreign Office any Telegram, Memorandum, Despatch, or other document relating to the discussion with the Servian Government on the duties on iron and steel, dated between the 22nd June and the 14th of July; and, if so, whether such document or documents can be laid upon the Table?
  MR. CAINEasked, Whether, under existing treaties with Servia, coals, Railway iron, and Railway materials are admitted into that country free of duty?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: The Question of my hon. Friend the Member for Scarborough (Mr. Caine) contains the answer to the chief portion of the Question of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock. All railway materials and coal imported from Great Britain into Servia are admitted free of duty. As regards those articles, Her Majesty's Government have not, therefore, as the noble Lord supposes, foregone any advantages to British trade and industry. As regards machinery and agricultural implements, in which, from their nature, but little trade with this country is done, Her Majesty's Government have consented, as I have already informed the noble Lord only on Tuesday last, to make certain concessions on condition that the duty on woollen and cotton yarns, in which this country is much interested, is reduced from 8 to 5 per cent. In reply to the Question of the hon. Member for Portsmouth, I may state that the negotiations were conducted almost entirely by Mr. Gould and M. Marino-
  1614
  vitch, whose permission will be asked' consents, there will be no objection on the part of Her Majesty's Government to lay on the Table the private correspondence on the subject.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Where it is stated in the Despatch of Mr. Locock that coal, iron, and railway material could be introduced into Servia, duty free, from Great Britain?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: It is not stated in the Despatch of Mr. Locock. The noble Lord will find that, in the Treaty between Austria and Servia which has been laid before the House, coal and railway material and rails are exempted; and we obtain the advantage of the clauses in respect of those articles by our "Most Favoured Nation Clause" in our existing Treaty with Servia. I may also point out that we likewise obtained advantage of the optional, ad valorem or specific duties obtained by the Austrian Treaty, and by our "Most Favoured Nation Clause."
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF: Coal and railway material are mentioned as being exempted in the Tariff annexed to the Austrian Treaty. Agricultural machinery is also mentioned as exempted. There are three or four exemptions. Now, how does it happen that the exemptions, which apply to coal and railway material, do not extend to agricultural implements?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Because there is a declaration between Austria and Servia. If the hon. Member wishes me to give chapter and verse, I shall be glad if he will give Notice of the Question. The reason is that these are articles to which exception was taken, and which Austria claimed as goods in the nature of Frontier traffic, and under the head of Frontier traffic is included agricultural implements. We objected all along, through a large Correspondence, to these articles being included under the head of Frontier traffic. By the concessions we have made on that point we have obtained a reduction from 8 to 5 per cent duty on woollen and cotton goods.

  POST OFFICE—TELEGRAPHS ACT, 1863 —SEC. 42—TELEGRAPH WIRES ACROSS PUBLIC THOROUGHFARES.
  MR. W. H. SMITHasked Mr. Attorney General, If his attention has been drawn to the forty-second section of "The Telegraphs Act, 1863," under which the

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  Companies constructing Telegraphs over streets were made liable for all damages and costs arising from default of their servants, public bodies having control over the streets being saved harmless; and, whether the Telegraphs were not transferred to the State subject to the liabilities imposed upon the Companies?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES), in reply, said, the Question was closely connected with two Questions which he had attempted to answer formerly. When the telegraphs were transferred to the Postmaster General, there were no express words rendering the Crown liable to be placed in the same position as the Companies. Legally and technically it could not be so, for the Crown could not be subjected to an action for wrong. But local authorities need be under no apprehension as to their responsibility for injuries arising from accident. If an accident should arise, the consequences would fall upon the Postmaster General. The public bodies were responsible for seeing that the telegraph poles were erected in proper positions, so that they might not be likely to cause injury to the public, and any dispute between the local authorities and the Post Office might be referred to arbitration. But when the poles were erected, the Postmaster General took charge of them; and he, without question, would legally answer that the Crown could do no wrong. But as he could not allow the local authorities to interfere with the poles when they were once erected, he had the correlative duty of seeing that they were properly maintained; and, if injury arose, it had been admitted that compensation could be claimed. In substance, it rested with the public bodies only to see that the poles were properly erected in the first instance.
  MR. W. H. SMITHunderstood from the answer that, in the event of accident arising from the breakage of the wires suspended from house to house in London, and erected prior to the transfer to the Government, or erected since by the Postmaster General, damages arising from such accident would not fall upon the local authority.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)said, the inference was right in substance as to the wires of the former Companies, or those erected by
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  the Postmaster General; but there might be private wires that the Postmaster General had nothing to do with. But as to the wires he took from the Companies or had erected since, as far as he (the Attorney General) could see, the public bodies in whom the streets were vested would not be liable.

  ENDOWED INSTITUTIONS (SCOTLAND).
  SIR DAVID WEDDERBURNasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, in consideration of the opposition to the Provisional Orders dealing with Endowed Institutions in Scotland now on the Table of the House, and which there is no opportunity for discussing, he will withdraw these Orders until after the discussion on the Educational Endowments (Scotland) Bill?
  MR. WEBSTERsaid, as a Member who was much interested in one of the Provisional Orders, he asked the Prime Minister whether it was competent for him, or for the Secretary of State for the Home Department, to take any such course as proposed in this Question; and whether it was not the statutory duty of the Secretary of State, after he had approved of, to sign such Provisional Orders, to be laid on the Table of both Houses of Parliament?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, he thought the second Question contained substantially the answer to the first. The laying of the Orders on the Table was an absolute statutory duty, and the withdrawal of them was a stop that could not be undertaken on account of any temporary difficulty. Consequently, the answer to the first Question would be in the negative.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE CAPE COLONY—THE ADMINISTRATION OF BASUTOLAND.
  MR. CROPPERasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether he has had any correspondence with the Government of the Cape Colony on the proposal that the Colonial Office shall resume the direct control of the administration of Basutoland; and, if so, whether he will inform the House if any conclusion on that subject has been arrived at?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE, in reply, said, the Correspondence on this subject

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  would be found among the Papers, which had been presented to the House, and would probably be distributed this week.

  FREE TRADE (BRITISH EMPIRE).
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTwished to ask, Whether the Government would give facilities for the discussion of a Motion of his which now stood first for the 2nd of August, relating to a question of greater importance than the Land Law (Ireland) Bill? The Motion declared that all trade within the limits of the British Empire ought to be free.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he was not aware that the Government were in the possession of facilities to give. Before they could give them they must be in possession of them.
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETT: Am I to understand that, if the Land Law (Ireland) Bill be finished before the 2nd of August, the Government will not take that day for their Business?
  MR. GLADSTONE: No, Sir; I by no means said anything of that kind. It is a very good rule for a Government to give no answers to Questions depending upon a hypothetical basis.
  MR. J. COWEN: In the event of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill being concluded before the House rises this evening, is it the intention of the Government to take Supply afterwards?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Yes, Sir.
  MR. J. COWEN: Is it, then, the intention of the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill) to go on with his Motion respecting Tunis?
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: If the Government take Supply before 10 o'clock, I will bring my Motion on; but not if the Land Law (Ireland) Bill goes beyond that hour.

  WIMBLEDON COMMON PRESERVATION ACT—BIRDS-NESTING ON WIMBLEDON COMMON.
  MR. CAINEasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention had been directed to the case of a man, charged at the Wandsworth Police Court with birds-nesting on Wimbledon Common, and fined £4, or in default committed to prison for 21 days?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT, in reply, said, that within the last hour his attention had been directed to the matter,
  1618
  and he had sent to the magistrate to ask for an explanation.

  PARLIAMENT—PUBLIC BUSINESS.
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTasked when the Army Estimates would be taken?
  MR. CHILDERS: I do not think they will be taken next week. I understand from the Secretary to the Treasury that the Civil Service Estimates are still more in arrear.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I understand the Navy Estimates are still more in arrear?
  MR. TREVELYANwas understood to say that was so.
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, he hoped the Education Estimates would not be taken without two or three days' Notice.
  MR. MUNDELLAsaid, he should be able to give Notice.
  MR. E. STANHOPEsaid, that early next week he would ask whether there was to be an Indian Budget?

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL—THE REPORT.
  In reply to Sir GEORGE CAMPBELL,
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that the Report on the Land Law (Ireland) Bill would be taken at 2 o'clock on Tuesday next, in the event of the Motion with respect to the Transvaal being closed on Monday night.

  TURKEY—MIDHAT PASHA—FULFILMENT OF SENTENCE.
  MR. M'COANasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If he had received any information with regard to the execution of the sentence passed on Midhat Pasha?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, that within the last 48 hours they had received no further information from Lord Dufferin on the subject.
  Mr. M'COANsaid, in view of a telegram of peculiar significance published that morning, and which seemed to point to an almost immediate decision in regard to the sentence passed at the recent State trial in Constantinople, he must plead the urgency and gravity of the case if he trespassed upon the time of the House for a few moments, and would, if neces-

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  sary, conclude with a Motion. The case was, shortly, this—One of the most noted figures in European politics, a statesman of the highest antecedents and reputation—["No!"]—at least, for an Eastern statesman, had been tried in a way notorious to the House, and his life at that moment was trembling in the balance. He did not say that Her Majesty's Government could bring any more pressure to bear on the Porte than they had done with reference to the subject. He was aware of the delicacy and difficulty, probably the impracticability, of any Government putting pressure upon the Sultan, except in the way of friendly intercession, which, so far, had had no effect. He, therefore, now wished to elicit from the House its opinion in reference to the recent trial and the action of the Turkish Government with respect to it; and he had reason to believe that such an expression of opinion would have the best possible effect at Constantinople. Midhat Pasha, after passing a distinguished official career, became Governor of Bulgaria, which he found overrun with brigandage, and in such a state that the revenue could not be collected. In a few months he put down brigandage, caused the revenue to be collected, and, under his rule, Bulgaria became one of the most prosperous Provinces of the Turkish Empire. One of his most persistent opponents was the Russian Ambassador. Midhat was doing everything to revive European confidence in Turkey, and as that did not suit Russian views General Ignatieff became his most persistent enemy, and intrigued against him——
  MR. NEWDEGATErose to Order. He submitted that the hon. and learned Member was asking the House to give an expression of opinion upon a Motion for Adjournment which was placing the House in a false position; because it was precluded by its own Forms from given an opinion on that subject on a Motion for Adjournment.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, that, as the House was aware, the only question on which the judgment of the House could be taken on the Motion for Adjournment was whether the House should or should not adjourn.
  MR. M'COANsaid, he would make his observations very brief. Subsequently Midhat Pasha became Governor of Bagdad. It was said by some that
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  Midhat Pasha was a poor man, and, therefore, presumably an honest man; by others that he was a rich man, and, therefore, presumably a corrupt man; and he was sorry to say that a very high authority—the Prime Minister—had given expression to the latter opinion in an article he published. This, however, he knew—that though the revenues of the Provinces he governed passed through Midhat Pasha's hands, he returned from each of them a poor man, in one case not having sufficient funds to pay his own and his retinue's travelling expenses, and in another not being possessed of £500. Afterwards he became Grand Vizier, and his famous Constitution elicited from Liberal politicians everywhere praise and admiration, and it was no fault of his that that admirable scheme did not become an Organic Law of Turkey. He failed in his efforts to reform the administration, and to turn corrupt misrule into good government. Subsequently, both in Syria and Smyrna, he carried out the same principles of administrative reform. He was, undoubtedly, a party to the deposition of the Sultan; but it was widely believed that he was no party to his death, if he did not die by suicide. The Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had admitted that the Report of the Medical Commission was in favour of the opinion that the death was caused by suicide. Dr. Dickson, the physician to the English Embassy at Constantinople, joined in that opinion, and had assured him (Mr. M'Coan) that after the most careful examination of the body he was clearly of opinion that it was a case of suicide. But what happened at the so-called trial? Why, that two of the doctors, who had, as Commissioners, certified that it was a case of suicide—Marco Pasha and Dr. Castro—actually at the trial gave evidence to the effect that, in their opinion, death had been caused by murder. Such evidence was worthy of the tribunal before which it had been given. In a reply to a Question put by him, the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs had stated that the President at the trial had been formerly an employé of the Municipal Police at Constantinople, and he had himself positive knowledge of the corruption of the man when he held a judicial position. He had also evidence, though not so direct, that this same person had continued to

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  be one of the most corrupt judicial functionaries in the service of the Porte; and also evidence, less direct still, that the other members of the Court which tried the State prisoners were of no whit better character. No European community, therefore, would hang a dog upon the finding of such a tribunal. He knew that Her Majesty's Government could not interfere directly, and that an unofficial or indirect appeal on the part of Her Majesty's Ambassador might have no effect; but he was proud to know that no other opinion in Europe could have such an effect on the Porte, or in the Palace, as that of the House of Commons, because it was thoroughly understood there that such opinion reflected that of the country, and so influenced the action of the Government. He begged to move the adjournment of the House, in the hope that such opinion would be expressed on behalf of an innocent, distinguished, and falsely-condemned statesman.
  THE O'DONOGHUEseconded the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. M'Coan.)
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he would not follow the last speaker in criticizing the trial that had taken place at Constantinople, a trial which he thought would not be considered satisfactory in this country. He would not make an appeal to the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government to interfere in regard to the trial; but he would remind him that on more than one occasion the interference of the British Government had saved the lives of men who had been condemned to death in Turkey. He trusted that the Premier would see his way to take some steps to bring the influence of Her Majesty's Government to bear upon the Porte, with a view of, at any rate, reducing the sentence passed on Midhat Pasha. He was a man of what was called a very liberal mind, and had discharged his duties in a remarkably impartial manner, and with much enlightenment, considering the difficulties under which he had had to labour. He ventured to suggest that the Premier would be doing a graceful act in using his great influence on behalf of this unfortunate man.
  MR. ASHMEAD-BARTLETTsaid, it was remarkable to notice the intense
  1622
  interest taken in Turkish Pashas by hon. Gentlemen who had lost no opportunity hitherto of denouncing them. The trial had by no means been so unfair as was represented, and the evidence against most of the accused was very strong. Everyone sympathized with Midhat Pasha, who was a great statesman and patriot, and it would be a most unfortunate thing if the trial resulted in his death. He doubted, however, if there was any danger of that. The present Sultan was a most humane and kindhearted man—and neither Midhat Pasha nor the other two Ministers who were condemned with him were in danger of execution. He thought the question might be safely left to the discretion of Her Majesty's Government without any formal expression of opinion by the House. It would be most unfortunate if any representations were made on behalf of the other condemned Ministers, Mahmoud, Damat, and Nouri Pashas, who were openly corrupt, and were guilty of almost every possible offence against the interests of their country and of civilization. It would be a matter of rejoicing if they could be brought to justice. It would be better if representations were made diplomatically by the Government without the direct interference of the House; and, although the influence of the British Government was much less than it used to be, he had no doubt they would have due effect.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I do not know that much advantage would be gained by a prolongation of the discussion. In answer to the appeals made, especially by the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), I think I can state very briefly what is a very simple matter—namely, the limits of action laid down for us, and the fact that we have not scrupled to act within them. Those limits were necessarily narrow. I was sorry to hear the hon. Gentleman who made this Motion introduce statements of so pointed a character respecting the individuals who have been called upon to conduct the inquiry. He may be quite warranted in all he says; but it is perfectly impossible that we can know that, and it is perfectly impossible, in justice to those individuals, to go in this House into the circumstances of which he speaks. If the trial be bad, an attempt to re-try the case in an Assembly of this kind, with the view to an ex-

  1623
  pression of opinion on the definitive merits of the case, would likewise be open to much objection. The real state of the case is this—have we a right of intervention in a matter of this kind? Clearly we have none. I use the words "right of intervention." But there are considerations of policy and humanity which have, on various occasions, led to representations, more or less formal, which are in the nature of interference with private affairs; but which are grounded on a sincere and dispassionate anxiety, in the first place, for the general principles of humanity and justice; and, in the second place, for the interests of the great Power in whose counsels you appear to intervene. Unquestionably, though we have no power to pronounce a final sentence on the nature of the proceedings in Constantinople, there has been a public opinion in regard to these proceedings both in Constantinople and Europe generally such as to make us believe that it would be greatly for the interest of the Sultan of Turkey were he moved to pursue a humane and liberal course. Recognizing these facts, we have not scrupled to act upon them. So early as July 4 instructions were sent to Lord Dufferin to use the least obtrusive, but, at the same time, the most confidential, direct, and effective means to make the kind of representations which we desired to be made. Lord Dufferin has, I think, with as much tact and delicacy as are in the possession of any man, and with, at the same time, as much good feeling and zeal, acted readily upon these instructions, and has, to the best of his power, made representations in the general sense I have described. We have no doubt whatever that a lenient and a considerate course will give satisfaction to the enlightened opinion of Europe, and will be greatly for the interests and peace of Turkey. Having said that, I think I had better add no more. I see no advantage in implicating or attempting to pass judgment on anyone. We have stood on the purely general consideration I have described; and I believe the House will be disposed to think, on the general statement I have made, that, without any special merit on our part, we have discharged our duty.
  MR. J. COWENsaid, he was sure the House had listened with satisfaction to the humane and generous observations of
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  the Prime Minister. He trusted his hon. Friend the Member for Wicklow, having elicited such an expression of opinion, would be content, and not push his Motion to a division. He entirely sympathized with him in the course he had pursued. It was desirable that the British Parliament should have an opportunity of recording its opinion of the very exceptional proceedings under the name of law that had recently taken place at Constantinople. Midhat Pasha was a distinguished Turkish Pasha. He had served his country ably and honourably in the highest offices the Sultan could confer. He had proved himself to be a friend of England and of progressive principles. He (Mr. Cowen) had the privilege of his acquaintance, and he could confirm the high character that the hon. Member for Wicklow had given him. He recognized the delicacy of the position, and he could appreciate the difficulties that the Premier had referred to. To interfere with the action of the Turkish Courts—however they were constituted—might be regarded as trenching upon the freedom of an independent State. If representations were made in a too emphatic way they might be resented by the Sultan, and have the very opposite effect that was designed. This was a possibility which they should all bear in mind, and of which the Government, no doubt, were conscious. They should remember also that it was impossible for the House to review the proceedings of the Constantinople tribunal. They might have their opinions; but they were not, and could not, be informed of all the details. But, still, admitting all this, the English Government had on other occasions interceded with foreign Rulers on behalf of fallen statesmen or popular leaders. There were many instances in history where there had been such friendly interference; and they had, therefore, the warrant of precedent for doing what was now suggested. He trusted that the Government would—with all the energy that they felt themselves justified in using; but, at the same time, with the necessary friendliness—intercede on behalf of Midhat Pasha. The Prime Minister had said that instructions to that effect would be sent to Lord Dufferin, and the House and the country would feel satisfied that any appeal by him would be supported by a man

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  of great ability, high character, and of generous spirit. Having called attention to the subject and made this representation, he would advise that the matter should be allowed to rest in the hands of Her Majesty's Government.
  MR. M'COANasked leave to withdraw the Motion.
  MR. BIGGARwished to say a word or two. He sympathized with the object of the Motion, because he did not believe in capital punishment for political offences. He was glad to hear the expressions of the Prime Minister; but he thought that while he was making his speech he might have added that it would give him great pleasure if the Sultan would intervene on behalf of several subjects of Her Majesty in Ireland, who were suffering, not for political offences, but merely on suspicion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 135.]
  (Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Forster, Mr. Bright, Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland.)
  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 135.]

    COMMITTEE. [THIRTY-THIRD NIGHT.]
    [Progress 21 st July.]
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)

    COMMITTEE. [THIRTY-THIRD NIGHT.]

      NEW CLAUSES.
      MR. GLADSTONE: It now becomes my duty to move a new clause of a character which I may describe as not unimportant, but in some degree formal. It is a clause for the purpose of bringing the pecuniary transactions of the Land Commission in Ireland under the regular review of the Comptroller and Auditor General of the Exchequer. About the beneficial character of the proposal there can be no doubt whatever, and there is only a single remark I ought to add. It is thought by the Executive Government that some distinction may properly be drawn between the kind of control and extent of discretion exercised by the Comptroller and Auditor General of the Exchequer in the case of the ordinary public expenditure through the Executive Government, and the discretion it
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      is needful for it to exercise in the case of a body external to the Executive Government having received the confidence of Parliament under an Act of the legislature, and called upon to administer funds for a special purpose under clear and specific rules. We assume the general intentions and the general discretion of a Commission of that kind. With respect to the ordinary public expenditure, the Department of the Audit Office exercises very large powers and very beneficial powers of examining more than what is purely formal; but in the case of an expenditure of the kind here in view, we are generally of opinion that what the auditor will have to do will be not to touch matters affecting the merits, but to look simply to the remedial character of the acts the Commission may perform, and to see that they correspond with the Act of Parliament. This is not a matter which requires any detailed explanation; but it is a distinction which, to a certain extent, is not entirely without importance. It rests upon the principle that while as regards the Executive Government it is impossible to have too close and too severe a control over the expenditure of public money, still, in a case like this, it would not be right for either the Treasury or the Audit Department to interfere with the discretion or the policy of the Commission in dealing with the funds placed under their management by this Bill. I beg to move the second reading of the clause.
      New Clause—
      (Audit of account of Land Commission.)
      "The Land Commission shall from time to time prepare in such form and at such times as the Treasury from time to time direct accounts of their receipts and expenditure, and within six months after the expiration of the year to which the accounts relate the Land Commission shall transmit the same to the Controller and Auditor General to be audited, certified, and reported upon in conformity with the regulations from time to time made by the Treasury for that purpose, and the accounts, with the reports of the Controller and Auditor General thereon, shall be laid before the House of Commons not later than three months after the date on which they were transmitted for audit if Parliament be then sitting, and, if not sitting, within fourteen days after Parliament next assembles.
      "Provided, That the regulations made by the Treasury under this section shall be laid before the House of Commons within one month of the date thereof, if Parliament be then sitting, and, if not, then within fourteen days after

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      Parliament next assembles, and that such regulations shall not have effect until they have lain for thirty days upon the Table of the House."—(Mr. Gladstone.)
      New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this Clause be read a second time."
      SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFremarked, that he had not yet said anything upon the Bill; but upon a question of account he should like to know if the Treasury could not be instructed, either by words inserted in the clause, or by an undertaking on the part of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, to keep a separate account of the advances made by the Church Commissioners in respect of arrears of rent. It appeared to him that there was likely to be a great complication of accounts between the Church Commission and the new Commission; and, therefore, he should like to see a provision made for keeping the accounts separate.
      MR. W. H. SMITH: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers that question, I wish to point out that the clause proposed to be inserted in this Bill is not precisely the same as the clause inserted in the Church Act. I believe there is a marked difference between them. I understand the view of the right hon. Gentleman to be that it is not the intention of the Government that the Comptroller and Auditor General shall express any opinion upon a question of policy; but that he shall simply investigate the application of the funds to be administered under the clauses of the Bill and see whether it has been in accordance with the strict letter of the Act of Parliament. All interpretations as to the policy of the application of the funds are, I understand, to rest with the Commissioners. I think it is desirable to bring out that question very plainly, because there is a certain amount of legal doubt about it, and it should be clearly stated what the powers of the Comptroller and Auditor General are. I therefore wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether I rightly understand him to say that the discretion of the Commission in dealing with these funds will be completely unfettered?
      MR. GLADSTONE: The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. H. Smith) has per-
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      fectly understood the meaning of my statement. There will be nothing less than a full legal audit; but we are inclined to lay down that where the Executive Government is concerned we ought not to check or narrow the interference with the expenditure where the question concerned is one of discretion and one of merits. With regard to the remarks which have been made by the hon. Member for Portsmouth (Sir H. Drummond Wolff), I entirely agree with him that the account to which he refers should be kept distinct from the rest.
      MR. WARTONasked over what period of the year the accounts would range? Would it be the natural year, the financial year, or some other year?
      MR. GLADSTONE: That will have to be settled hereafter by the Treasury. As a matter of convenience I think it will most probably be the natural year; but we must abide by circumstances.
      Motion agreed to.
      Clause read a second time, and ordered to be added to the Bill.
      MR. E. STANHOPEmoved, after Clause 1, to insert the following Clause:—
      (Provisions with respect to sale of tenancy of holding subject to arrears of rent, &c.)
      "Where the tenant of any holding, who is indebted to his landlord on account of arrears of rent or other claims on the part of his landlord, gives the prescribed notice to the landlord of his intention to sell his tenancy, the landlord may, without prejudice to any other right by this Act conferred, give the prescribed notice to the tenant of his intention to become the purchaser of the tenancy in case the tenant cannot find a purchaser willing and able to pay, by way of consideration, for the purchase of the tenancy, a sum sufficient to satisfy the amount of the tenant's indebtedness to the landlord on account of the arrears of rent and such other claims as aforesaid, such amount failing agreement between the landlord and tenant to be determined by the Court; and, in case the tenant cannot, within the prescribed period, find a purchaser willing and able to pay a sum sufficient to satisfy such amount as aforesaid, the landlord shall thereupon be deemed to be the purchaser for a sum equal to such amount as aforesaid."
      The clause really spoke for itself. He quite admitted that it dealt with a point which ought to have been raised at the time Clause 1 was under discussion. Under Clause 1, when the landlord did not desire to purchase the tenant's interest and there were arrears, the landlord would be entitled, until the arrears were

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      paid, not to accept the purchaser of the tenant right as the incoming tenant. The object he had in view in proposing this new clause was to protect the landlord where the sum proposed to be paid by the purchaser was not sufficient to cover the tenant's arrears of rent. It was not right that the landlord should suffer because he had been lenient and easy. He did not mean to say that it was the best way of meeting the difficulty; but he would move the second reading of the clause.
      New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."—(Mr. R. Stanhope.)
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, he was of opinion that the object the hon. Gentleman had in view was sufficiently provided for by the Bill as it stood. It already provided that the landlord, upon getting notice from the tenant of his intention to sell the holding, could apply to the Court. If the landlord desired to buy the tenant's interest he could do so at a fair price, and he could not complain if it was less than the amount to which his arrears of rent extended. The Court was bound to ascertain what was the true value of the property, and no harm could be done. On the other hand, if he liked to secure himself he could bid up to the price to which his accumulation of arrears had run. That was the present practice where a person had an incumbrance on property sold by a Court.
      MR. E. STANHOPEsaid, the view of the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland would be perfectly right if the tenant was going to sell by auction, because the landlord might then come in and bid against anybody else. But an arrangement might be made in secret of which he knew nothing, and the sum given might not be sufficient to cover his arrears. He would not, however, press the clause; but he thought some words might be introduced into the 1st clause on the Report.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      MR. HEALYmoved, in page 3, after Clause 1, to insert the following Clause:—
      (Release to tenant who has sold his tenancy.)
      "A tenant who has sold his tenancy in pursuance of the provisions of the first section shall be deemed to be thereupon released and discharged from all actions, suits, and remedies at the suit of the landlord and all persons claiming by, through, or under him, in respect of all rent subsequently accruing due under such tenancy, and in respect of all future breaches of the conditions thereof."
      The position of the tenant was this—At the present time, under the existing law, if a man assigned his tenancy, he was responsible to the landlord and his heirs for 50 generations or more, not merely for the rent of the holding if the assignee should make default, but for any breach of the conditions of the lease on the part of the assignee. Perhaps it was right that such provisions should exist under the present law, because there might be a lease with onerous conditions in it, which conditions might be got rid of by making an assignment to a man of straw; and it might, therefore, be right to give the landlord the power of coming down upon the man who had been the original lessor. But what did this clause do? In cases of assignment, it imposed upon the tenant a series of most onerous conditions—it required him to give notice to the landlord of his intention to sell the tenancy; where the tenant agreed to sell the tenancy to some other person than the landlord, he should, upon informing the landlord of the name of the purchaser, state therewith the consideration agreed to be given for the tenancy; where the tenancy was sold to some other person than the landlord, the landlord might, within the prescribed period, refuse on reasonable grounds to accept the purchaser as tenant; and so on through a whole series of most onerous and extraordinary conditions, none of which had existed before. As he had said, there was at present a necessity for protecting the landlord, in case the tenant assigned the holding to a man of straw; but the circumstances would be entirely different under the new conditions, and he proposed that a provision should be inserted in the Bill acquitting the original tenant in consequence of the extraordinary conditions now imposed upon him. It was useless to argue that the existing rights should be allowed to continue, because the Court would take care that no assignment was made to a man of straw. The

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      Court would allow no fraudulent transaction to take place, and no improper bargain to be entered into. He knew it was generally thought in Ireland that the Decies Act met the case; but in his opinion it did not. Decies Act, it was quite true, would meet the case where the landlord's consent had been obtained in writing; but what landlord would be such a fool as to give his consent in writing? He would not be damnified by withholding where it would be no advantage to him to give it. He would have the right, as well as coming on the existing tenant for his rent, to come also on all the assignees. Therefore, it was useless to argue that Decies Act covered the case, because it did nothing of the kind. The landlord had an abundance of guarantees, and when the Bill made an inroad into the right of free sale, as it did—because it was absurd to say that it gave the right of free sale—the least they could ask the Government to do, when they had abolished the Common Law right of free sale, was to abolish also the Common Law right which gave the landlord the power to come on the assignees for all generations.
      New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
      MR. FINDLATERsaid, the hon. Member was under a misapprehension. He never understood that the assignees were reponsible after the tenancy had been assigned.
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, that under this Bill hon. Members would remember that a tenant meant an occupying tenant, and when once a man ceased to occupy he ceased to be a tenant within the meaning of the Act. The whole of the obligations of Clause 4 were imposed upon a tenant in occupation. For tenancies from year to year the clause was not at all required. The only class for which it was required were future leaseholders; but he thought that the Act of 1860, in their case, made ample provision. A landowner agreed very often to let land to some particular person because he was solvent; and the man who took the lease contracted, not only for himself, but for his assignees, that they would pay the rent and fulfil the
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      other obligations of the tenancy. In such a case, where the tenant deliberately contracted, not only for himself, but for the assignees, the landlord should not be deprived of this security without his consent, and if he consented the Act of 1860 relieved the original tenant from all further liability. Whether they regarded the class of future leaseholders or existing tenancies from year to year they were all alike, adequately protected.
      MR. HEALYsaid, he was not thinking of that which the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Findlater) had directed attention to; but he had in his mind statutory tenancies. He must admit that the Attorney General for Ireland had cleared up any doubt he might have had on the subject. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had shown that the statutory tenant who succeeded to a tenancy would be responsible; and, if that were so, there was no reason to move the Amendment. His object had been to save a statutory tenant from responsibility, which, he thought, ought not to attach to him.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      MR. FITZPATRICKmoved, after Clause 1, to insert the following new Clause:—
      (Payments to be made to landlords out of purchase money of tenancy in certain cases.)
      "Where the tenancy of a holding created before the passing of this Act is sold by the tenant for the first time after the passing of this Act, the landlord shall be entitled to apply to the Court to have paid to him out of the purchase moneys of the tenancy, the sum, if any, which he can prove to the satisfaction of the Court to have been paid by him or his predecessors in title by way of consideration for the purchase or acquisition of any right of sale of the tenant's interest in such holding; subject nevertheless to any deduction which the Court may deem just in respect of any money received by the landlord or his predecessors in title by way of fine or otherwise on account of the sum so paid as aforesaid."
      The hon. Gentleman said that, in moving this clause, he must explain to the Committee why he had left that which was a very important matter until so late a date in the progress of the Bill. He had waited throughout all the discussions that had taken place in order to hear what the Prime Minister was going to say about those landlords who, on the second reading, he had said had been put upon their trial, but had been ac-

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      quitted. He confessed, however, that he had waited in vain. He had heard nothing as to what was to be done for those landlords who had done their duty by their tenants and their property, and had brought the holdings in their possession into a flourishing condition. By the clause that he now brought before the Committee he dealt only with the estates where the Ulster Custom had been bought up by the landlords, or where the landlords themselves, by cash payments to the outgoing tenants, had obviated the necessity of the incoming tenants giving anything to their predecessors, either for the improvements they had effected, or for what was called "tenant right"—that right which the Committee were told had existed from time immemorial throughout Ireland. The Government had said that by the Act of 1870 they inadvertently created "a something" which the tenant had to sell. Well, that might propably be so. He did not contest the proposition; but, so far as he could see, that "something" did not seem to be more than the compensation for disturbance, which was to be given to a tenant if he were capriciously evicted, and where hardship was done. By the present Bill they would be actually giving the tenant "something" to sell, which he had never bought, and which he had never acquired. What this "something" was, therefore, he could not make out, especially if the landlord, as he had said, had done everything to enable the incoming tenant to come on to the farm with capital intact, and had put the farm in order. By the Bill they told the tenant to go into the open market, and they said to him—"You can get for this 'something' the best price that is possible." He was to sell the pretium moderationis of a good landlord, who had permitted him to remain on his holding. They asked him to sell the consideration the landlord had shown in leaving him on the land and giving him all the improvements and amenities granted on what were, in common parlance, called "live-and-let-live estates." He wished to point out, to the best of his ability, what this "something," which the tenant was now to sell for the best price, really was. He would quote from a pamphlet by the hon. Member for Linlithgowshire (Mr. M'Lagan), published in 1869—a very short pamphlet, which put the thing very clearly. The writer
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      gave an account of an expedition that he had taken through Ireland, and he called his pamphlet Land Culture and Land Tenure in Ireland. The writer said—
      "The amount given for the goodwill depends on this circumstance; it depends upon the character of the landlord. If he and his family have been considerate to the tenants, and have shown no disposition to raise their rents, he is considered a good landlord, and a larger sum will be given for the goodwill on his estate. Thus the tenants trade on the character of their landlords."
      Then he says—
      "It depends on the rent. The lower the rent the more is given for the goodwill, and vice versâ."
      The writer then went into a discussion, showing how the rent and goodwill acted against each other. That was a good description of this "something" that they were told the tenant had to sell for the best price he could get. He was willing to admit that where tenant right was accepted in the South of Ireland the tenant was entitled to receive from the incoming occupier, or the landlord, what he had paid; and, if they had a legalized tenant right in the South of Ireland, that would be fair. But he could not see the equity of allowing a tenant to sell what he had not bought, and to receive large cash payments for this consideration, that he had been living under a good landlord and receiving all these amenities. To illustrate what he meant much more plainly in pounds, shillings, and pence, he would take a typical case—the case of an estate with which he was most familar, that of his father (Lord Castletown). On that estate no tenant right had existed. The proprietor had spent upwards of £16,000 in paying tenants who went out for the improvements they had made; and also in giving them a sum of money, whether large or small, to enable them to emigrate, so that an incoming tenant might not be able to say—"I have paid so much for this and you must give it to me when I leave, or I shall have to get it from the man who follows me." The incoming tenant came on the farm with his capital untouched, and the farms were nearly all let at low rents, which had not been changed for 20 years. Lord Castletown had spent—25,000 on improvements, for which he had received no interest. No tenant right had existed on the estate, these

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      large sums having been spent in keeping it out; and he wished to know what would be the result to this landlord and the landlords of his class—and there were more of them in Ireland than some people were inclined to think—if the Bill passed in its present shape? The result would be that, first of all, where the estate was well managed, the landlord was popular, and the rent was low, the tenant right would be exorbitantly high. And those tenants who were able to get their sons and relatives on to a farm on the estate without paying for it would now have to pay a huge sum down to a man who was a bankrupt or was obliged to leave. What would be the result to the tenantry on the estate he had been speaking of? Hitherto they had had no capital taken out of their pockets; but now when a tenant came in he would have to pay to the man going out, who was probably a drunkard or a spendthrift, and was off to America, a good round sum. This money the disreputable predecessor would put into his pocket and spend elsewhere. He would give the Committee an instance. He knew a case where a family had been for a long time on an estate. A member of that family came into possession of the farm only two years ago, and was given a sum of money to enable him to develop his holding. The result, unfortunately, was that he became a drunkard, and spent everything he had without improving the property; and, naturally, when this Bill passed, he would sell his tenant right for an exorbitant sum and take himself away. But what had he got to sell? When he had taken the farm it was in perfect order. The sum he would receive for the tenant right would benefit nobody but himself, and why would he be benefited? Simply because he was a drunkard. The incoming tenant following him would have to pay an enormous sum for that which last year he could have got for nothing. That would show the difficulty that would be experienced in working the Act, unless such a clause as this he proposed were accepted. The Bill, as it stood, would be a premium to spendthrift tenants, who, after failing in their agricultural industry, would be able to say—"I am tired of this. I can make a good sum out of my tenant right, and I shall be off with it to America." The clause he proposed merely said that the landlord should receive back what he
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      had paid in order to keep out the tenant right. By agreeing to his proposal on the first sale they would give incalculable benefit to the tenantry on many estates, and, at the same time, would tell the landlords of Ireland who had tried to do their duty—"We are not going to deprive you of the capital you have invested in your land." He need not point out how unfair it would be to make a landlord pay twice over for the tenant right if he wished to exercise the right of pre-emption. They should not make him pay, perhaps, next year for what he had paid this year or last year. He was told that there were hundreds and hundreds of cases where the tenant right had been bought up. He had safeguarded also any case where a fine had been paid by the tenant to the landlord in creating the tenant right, because, of course, as no doubt the Attorney General for Ireland was aware, in the South and West of Ireland, where tenant right had been created, it was often created by the payment of a fine to the landlord at the time he was hard pressed, or by the payment of a sum to some unscrupulous agent, who had said—"Give me so much and I will sell you an interest, and will make it right with the landlord." The subject was a very important one, and he could assure the Government that if they could see their way to agreeing to what he had suggested, they would go far towards helping the people of Ireland to look upon this Bill in a more complacent frame of mind than they did now, because they would be putting the honest tenant on a fair footing, and showing him plainly what he had to sell. It would do a great deal towards facilitating the working of the clause in a great many particulars, which would take him too long to explain.
      New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
      MR. GLADSTONE: I think, with great submission, that it will not be difficult to show that this clause is proposed upon a misunderstanding of the facts of the case and the position of the parties. Great difficulty has been professed on the other side of the House, and, I have not the least doubt, honestly professed, in understanding what it is

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      the tenant has to sell. It has been described under all sorts of mysterious phrases as being impenetrable and unintelligible, and from that unintelligibility, which I will suppose to be the fact, inasmuch as hon. Gentlemen are the best judges of what they do and what they do not understand, I think they have been led into consequences which might be ruinous to the Bill. We, on our side, have always contended that the tenant right was a thing that it was not at all difficult to comprehend. We have always contended that it is a commodity the tenant carries into the market, and for which people are ready to give him money—that it is principally based on the improvements which he and his predecessors in title have made on the farm; but that over and above that he has to sell his right of occupancy. His right of occupancy depends, partly on the particular conditions named and attached to that right by the law of the land, and partly by the state of the market—the demand for land as compared with the supply. Well, how do these considerations apply to the clause of the hon. Gentleman? Let me first say that he certainly deserves credit for his moderation in limiting the operation of his clause to the first sale after the passing of this Act. I am not at all aware why it should not be made a permanent provision extending to all sales, if it be good at all in principle. But I contend it is not good in principle; it is unsound. Accepting the facts as they have been given me by the hon. Gentleman, I cannot at all enter into the question whether these cases are few or many, for that is really irrelevant to this particular discussion. The supposition of the hon. Gentleman, which I receive in perfect good faith, is that in certain cases the landlord has paid to an outgoing tenant a certain sum in respect of his tenancy, so that the man who is coming in may have no claim whatever in regard to something which he had paid to the tenant. Very well, be that so. What is the consequence? The consequence of that proceeding is to make all the improvements on the farm the property of the landlord. There can be no doubt at all about that; if so, unquestionably the incoming tenant has no interest whatever in the holding. He has no right to sell these improvements—they are the landlord's, as much so as if they
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      had originally been made by the landlord; and in ordinary circumstances it is the sale of the improvements that constitutes the basis and bulk of that interest in the tenancy which the tenant has got to sell. Of course, there are other things which must be taken in view. First of all, they must take into view the improvements the incoming tenant might make; and, secondly, the value of his right of occupancy. In the case to which the hon. Member has referred, where a particular man was, unfortunately for himself, a drunkard, we may assume that he would make no improvements on the holding; but, at the same time, he has got the occupancy. You have him on the farm invested with his tenancy; but that will not enable him to get in the market such a price as he would have obtained if the improvements had been his. There is no reason why, if his right of occupancy is of real value—and we will not go into a discussion of the constituent parts that comprise the occupancy—there is no reason why he should not receive the price. Let us look at the effect of the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman. Suppose the improvements on a farm to be worth £200, and the landlord has paid £200 to the outgoing tenant for these improvements. They have become his property. The incoming tenant takes no interest in them whatever, and, consequently, cannot sell the interest in them, and the presumption is that he pays rent for them. He has an interest in them, but cannot sell them, or convey them. Surely that will operate unfairly. No doubt, the hon. Member has brought in the clause in perfect integrity; but I do not think I shall be exaggerating if I say that, under all the circumstances of the case, it would operate unjustly.
      MR. MULHOLLANDsaid, that in the case the right hon. Gentleman had quoted, where £200 had been spent in improvements, in all probability the price paid for the tenant right would be £500; the other £300 would represent the goodwill, which seemed to be a synonym for his right of occupancy. Under the Act of 1870 tenants were invited to purchase the tenant right. He would ask now, under this Bill, and under the interpretation that the Prime Minister had put on it, what it was that the landlord did buy? He had bought

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      the improvements; but he did not purchase beyond that, although he paid for something beyond it. The 1st clause of the present Bill only gave the tenantry of Ireland exactly the equivalent of the Ulster tenant right. They had the right of free sale, and they could sell both their improvements and their goodwill; and it was clear that anyone selling under the 1st clause would sell over again what the landlord had previously paid for. He should have preferred to have seen an exception made to the 1st clause of the Bill, and he could not see any logical reason for the distinction made by the Government when they said that where the tenant right was in the landlord's hands now it should be free from the conditions of the Bill; but where it had been parted with two or three years ago the case was different. The landlord had bought "something," and had the other parted with it? He did not think so; but the tenant was now to be allowed to sell the goodwill to the landlord that he had doubly paid for. The Prime Minister smiled, and perhaps he could not imagine why any landlord should have bought it. Probably no landlord would have bought it had he anticipated this Bill. There were many landlords who thought this competitive price given for the goodwill was an injury to the tenant and to the estate, and were willing to pay the money in order to protect the incoming tenant and prevent him from ruining himself. He was surprised that the Prime Minister did not see any difference between the first payment and the subsequent payments. It seemed to him that no argument could be more conclusive than that if the tenant sold something which had not been transferred to him by the landlord, whatever belonged to the landlord ought to be refunded.
      LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he thought that the clause was unnecessary. If his hon. Friend would look to the Act of 1870 he would find a provision that where the landlord had purchased or acquired from the tenant the Ulster tenant right the holding ceased to be subject to the Ulster tenant right custom. The Ulster tenant right custom was nothing more or less than the Common Law right of assignment. It included the Common Law right of assignment with this difference—
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      that the landlord, by the Common Law right of assignment, was not bound to recognize the assignee in connection with the tenancy, but under the Ulster Custom he was bound to do so. Therefore, if the tenant sold to the landlord the Common Law right of assignment which he possessed he had nothing whatever to sell. If the landlord had bought up the Ulster tenant right custom or analogous usage, and the interest came to be sold, the landlord could take documents into Court to prove that the tenant had sold him the right of assignment which he possessed.
      MR. MACFARLANEsaid, the noble Lord had referred the Mover of this Amendment to the Act of 1870; but if he referred to the 1st clause of the Bill he would find that the case was fully met by the provision that where a tenant sold his tenancy to any person other than the landlord, the landlord might, at any time within the prescribed period, give notice both to the outgoing tenant and to the purchaser of any sums which he might claim from the outgoing tenant for arrears of rent or otherwise. Further, sub-section 9 provided that—
      "Where any purchase money had been paid into Court it shall be lawful for the landlord and also for the outgoing tenant and for the purchaser to make applications to the Court in respect of such purchase money."
      Now, if the landlord made application to the Court under that sub-section, surely it would be open to him to show that he had already purchased the tenant right which had been sold to the incoming tenant; and if that was so the landlord was absolutely protected from the second sale of a thing which he himself had purchased. He would not refer to the clause of the Act of 1870 quoted by the noble Lord; but, judging from the intelligent interest taken by the noble Lord in the provisions of the Bill, he felt sure he had taken a correct view of the subject. For his own part, upon the grounds he had stated, he must say there was no necessity for this Amendment.
      LORD GEORGE HAMILTONpointed out to the Prime Minister that unless he accepted some such provision as that contained in the Amendment before the Committee, the landlord, whenever he had bought up the tenant right, would be forced to apply to the Court under Clause 7 to have the rent raised. It

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      was clear that if the landlord had bought up the tenant right of a holding and had not placed upon that holding an additional rent, the tenant, when he sold his interest in that holding, would sell the value of the tenant right which the landlord had bought up. The landlord, in order to protect himself, would be compelled to go to the Court to have the rent settled, regard being had to the interest of the landlord and tenant respectively. There could be no doubt that the interest of the landlord would be included in the tenant right bought up, and the landlord would be forced to apply to the Court to fix the highest rent for the holding. Now, he did not think it advisable to put the landlord in that dilemma. They had all along been told that the landlord might protect his interest by raising the rent; but that was the very thing which his hon. Friend (Mr. Fitzpatrick) wanted to avoid. For his own part, he felt certain that unless some provision of the kind proposed by his hon. Friend were inserted in the Bill many landlords would be obliged to apply to the Court who otherwise would not do so.
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, he did not see the case in the same light as the noble Lord at all. Take the case put by the hon. Member for Portarlington (Mr. Fitzpatrick) by way of illustration. The landlord himself bought the interest of the tenant rather than allow it to be sold to others; he put a value on the improvements, and something more for any interest the tenant had. The landlord then got into possession of the holding, and having paid for the improvements they became his own; he could now do what he liked with the holding, but, not choosing to keep it unused, he transferred to another tenant the right of occupation which was formerly in the original tenant. If he did not change the rent, he had, it must be assumed, some good reason for it; but, presumably, he would let a new at a rent which would pay interest on his outlay as an investment, or, if he did not raise it, it would, no doubt, be because it was already a sufficient one, even giving the landlord credit for the improvements he had thus acquired.
      LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, that he had failed to recognize in the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman
      1642
      the Attorney General for Ireland any reference to the comments of the noble Lord upon the existing law. He wished to know whether the clause of the Act of 1870, to which his noble Friend had alluded, was or was not affected by the 1st clause of the Bill?
      MR. WARTONsaid, he should like to supplement the observation of the noble Lord who had just spoken by asking the Attorney General for Ireland the exact relation in which this Bill stood to the Act of 1870. The Government had repealed one section and partly repealed another; and he wished to know whether the 1st section of that Act remained in full force?
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. Law)said, that the two Acts were to be read together. If the hon. Member referred to the 47th clause, he would see that it provided machinery for carrying out the Act of 1870.
      LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he did not think that the point raised by his noble Friend (Lord Randolph Churchill) had been answered. Did the section on which his noble Friend founded himself apply to Clause 1 of this Bill?
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): Yes.
      MR. GLADSTONEsaid, his right hon. and learned Friend had given his opinion as to the relation between the Act of 1870 and the Bill. The Government had quite enough to do to answer the questions of the noble Lord, without being led into devious paths by their renewal in differ ent forms.
      LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he asked an extremely simple question, and did not want the Attorney General for Ireland to deviate into any paths at all. Was the section of the Act, to which his noble Friend referred, overruled by the 1st clause of this Bill?
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): No.
      MR. FITZPATRICKsaid, he had heard no answer at all to the arguments urged in favour of his proposal which had been put forward in the most moderate and temperate form; and he should, therefore, be obliged to put the Committee to the trouble of a division.
      Question put.
      The Committee divided:—Ayes 78; Noes 210: Majority 132.—(Div. List, No. 324.)
      SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he had placed a clause on the Paper with the object, not of promoting any lengthy discussion, but of ascertaining exactly what were the rights of present tenants with regard to the continuity of their tenure. The clause which he intended to move declared that a present tenant had a continuous right of occupancy. He had been rather puzzled as to the word he should use to express that form of right; he dare not use the word "perpetuity;" and had, therefore, chosen the phrase "continuing right of occupancy." He left it to the Government to say whether the clause was unnecessary, or whether the proposition contained in it was untrue.
      Amendment proposed, after Clause 2, insert new Clause—
      (Continuity of tenure.)
      "Every tenant in this Act described as a present tenant, and to whom all the provisions of the Act regarding present tenants apply, has a continuing right of occupancy in his holding, subject to the rent payable for the time being, or determined from time to time under the provisions of this Act, and to the other conditions in this Act prescribed."—(Sir George Campbell.)
      New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
      SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he hoped the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy would not press this clause, as it was merely an expression of what he understood to be the effect of the Bill.
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the clause was quite unnecessary, as the continuity of occupancy was already in the tenant subject to the provisions of the Bill.
      Amendment negatived.
      MR. CHARLES RUSSELLsaid, that as the clause of the Chief Secretary for Ireland with reference to agricultural labourers partly—but certainly not adequately—secured the object he had in view in placing the Amendment on the Paper which stood in his name, and as he was desirous at that stage of the Bill not to occupy the time of the Committee if it could be possibly avoided, he did not intend to move it.
      THE CHAIRMANpointed out that the next Amendment in the name of the hon. Member for Wicklow County (Mr. W. J. Corbet) was inconsistent with Clauses 7 and 4 of the Bill, and could not, therefore, be put.
      MR. R. POWERsaid, he was sorry the Government had not seen their way to deal with a great evil affecting Ireland. It appeared to him that in no period of the history of Ireland had the evil of absenteeism been felt more intensely by the people than during the last two or three years, when poverty, want, and misery came home to them in the most aggravated form. He had framed an Amendment in connection with this subject of the most moderate character, and submitted it in that shape in the hope that it would have some chance of being accepted by the Government. In considering this question it was, of course, necessary that some examination should be made of previous history and the various attempts that had been made to check the evil of absenteeism in Ireland; and it would be found that so far back as the Reign of Henry II. a most stringent Act was passed, which provided that all manner of persons whatsoever who had any lands or tenements in Ireland should reside or dwell upon the same, and that all such as had there any castles or other forts thereupon should also dwell therein, otherwise the Government might dispose of half their living. Such was the nature of the very stringent Act passed in the Reign of Henry II., and if they went forward a little further they would find that in the Reign of Richard II. it was enacted that all persons holding property in Ireland should reside there or else pay a tax to the amount of two-thirds of their Irish rental, and that all persons who attended English Universities, or were absent by special licence, were exempted from the penalties of the Act. That Act worked well for a time; but, unfortunately, the power so reserved to the Crown to grant leave of absence was exercised to such an extent that it became of little value for the purpose for which it was intended. In considering this question hon. Members should always bear in mind that one of the conditions on which these absentee proprietors received their property was that they should live on their estates and

      1645
      discharge the duties which they owed to the community at large. Again, hon. Members would find that the Irish Parliament was also alive to the evils which this system of absenteeism brought upon the country; and in 1715 a tax of 4s. in the pound was levied on all profits, employments, fees, and pensions derived from Ireland in all cases where the receiver did not reside in the country for six months in the year. It would be seen from these references to history that various attempts had been made to check the effects of absenteeism in Ireland. He was, of course, aware that his proposal would not receive the support of political economists; but he could never understand the principle which they laid down, that money which was derived from the soil of Ireland, and which was spent in other countries, operated quite as much for the good of Ireland as if it was spent there. On the contrary, in making these observations, he reminded the Committee that there was nothing wild or revolutionary in the ideas put forward by Irish Members on this subject, because they had good precedents for the course they advocated; and, moreover, their country bore witness to the evil effects of the system which they sought to remedy. But there was one argument in favour of such a course to which no disciple of political economy should refuse to listen, and that was the moral effect which absenteeism had upon the community at large. It was to the landlords that the people looked for encouragement in works of utility, which tended to the development of their resources, and to the establishment of peace and order; and he maintained that by the severance of the relations of the landlord and the tenant the doors of generosity, of mutual support, so necessary in the interest of both, would be closed between them. As a particular instance of the evils of absenteeism he would allude to a body of persons in the North of Ireland called the Irish Society, composed, as he believed, of the members of the Corporation of the City of London, and, with regard to them, he would not detain the Committee longer than by observing that the manner in which their estates were managed was not satisfactory. But he was obliged to remind hon. Members of a case brought into the Dublin Courts two years ago
      1646
      in connection with the Patriotic Life Assurance Company, and on which occasion the Judge said—
      "Could such a system exist were the landlord resident; where the landlord would have personal interviews with his tenants? But dealing with this Company, it was highly improbable that any one of the tenants would ever see a landlord in the flesh, as this Company were nonresident, and never came to Ireland to discharge there the duties which the owners of property owed it to the country to discharge."
      He would also refer to the recommendation of a Select Committee of that House, who sat in 1825, and who declared in their Report that in closing their labours, which had continued during three Sessions—
      "Your Committee feel an earnest hope that the peculiar situation in which Dublin has been placed by the Union will not be lost sight of by the House. Prior to that event, 98 Peers, and a proportionate number of wealthy Commoners, inhabited the city. The effect of the Union has been the withdrawal from Dublin of many of those who were most likely to contribute most effectually to its opulence and its importance. The increase of the industrious and middle classes, so desirable under all circumstances, is checked by the exaggerated pressure of local taxation."
      That recommendation, like many other recommendations on Irish affairs, was treated, he regretted to say, with very little attention. But, coming nearer to our own times, there was one man who, he believed, had he lived, would have solved this question long since. He referred to Lord George Bentinck, who expressed a hope that some arrangement might be made which would compel absentee landlords to contribute to the wants of the poor in Ireland, and suggested that there should be two poor rates introduced, by which means, as appealing to their interests, absentee landlords would be induced to reside in Ireland. It was that opinion of Lord George Bentinck that encouraged him to lay his proposal before the Committee; and he trusted that the Government would, by accepting it, lend their assistance to check, to some extent, the great evil under which Ireland had so long suffered. He begged to move the Amendment standing in his name.
      Amendment proposed, in page 8, after Clause 7, insert the following Clause:—
      (Provision as to absentee landlords.)
      "Any person who under any tenancy becomes the occupier or tenant of any premises liable to grand jury cess, and who is liable to

      1647
      pay a rent in respect of the same to an absentee landlord, shall be entitled each year to deduct from such rent the sum which he shall have during such years paid as grand jury cess. In case of dispute as to whether the landlord comes within the meaning of the word 'absentee,' and is without fixed residence in Ireland, the same shall on application be determined by the Court according to the circumstances of the case."—(Mr. Richard Power.)
      New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
      MR. GLADSTONE: I am sorry I can only meet the proposal of the hon. Member who has just sat down with a refusal. I wish to say nothing which will lead to the supposition that we do not view the subject of the hon. Member's Amendment as one of importance. On the contrary, the question raised by the hon. Member with reference to absentee landlords is, I think, one of very great gravity. I do not adopt the theory of those who who have undertaken, at times, to prove that absenteeism is not a misfortune to Ireland, in an economic sense; and, morally, I estimate it as a very great misfortune and disadvantage. But I should say that the proposal of the hon. Member is not germane to the present Bill. I think that a question appertaining to the local rates in Ireland is one which ought to be dealt with, if at all, in a separate Bill, and not in connection with a Land Bill. But there is one difficulty, which I must point out, in the clause proposed by the hon. Member, to which he has not referred in the speech which he has just made, and that is the difficulty, perhaps the impossibility, of defining what is an absentee landlord. In the time of Henry II., and in Tudor and Stuart times, the Executive Government undertook to make definitions for itself. But the hon. Member proposes to refer this definition to the Court, and I find, even in the clause itself, sufficient indication of the difficulty under which the hon. Member laboured, because he says, in case of dispute, it is the duty of the Court to ascertain two things; first of all, whether the landlord comes within the meaning of the word "absentee;" and, secondly, whether he is without fixed residence in Ireland. These two things are perfectly distinct from each
      1648
      other; and I believe the late Lord Hertford was the only man who would have been hit by this clause, because there is no doubt that he was an absentee landlord, and had no fixed residence in Ireland, although he derived a large income from estates in that country. To define an absentee landlord is, I believe, beyond the power of any legislator, and to refer it to the Court would evidently be placing on the Court the necessity of deciding a question entirely beyond their power. In expressing my inability to admit the clause of the hon. Member, I may say I hope he will not think I have treated his proposal with any disrespect, because I admit the gravity of the matters involved in it; and if he can see his way to make a proposal to lay special burdens on absentee proprietors, I should strongly affirm his right to do it, if he thinks fit.
      MR. GREGORYsaid, the Prime Minister seemed to indicate an impression on his mind that some liability should appertain to absentee proprietors; but, for his own part, he could not help thinking that "absentee" proprietors were, in many cases, the best proprietors in Ireland. He recollected that 50 years ago he was taken over the estate, in Ireland, by the agent of one of these so-called absentees, who pointed out to him the many and important improvements made by himself in respect of drainage, fencing, and agricultural works of all kinds, but observed that the landlord, for all the outlay he had made, had not received the return of 1s. The hon. Member, in laying his proposal before the Committee, had referred to some public Companies as absentee proprietors; but he (Mr. Gregory) doubted whether there were any estates in Ireland better managed than those of the London Societies, and he believed that their outlay was beyond that of any ordinary proprietor in the district. It seemed to him that if this Bill became law it would be likely to promote absenteeism in Ireland, because, whatever might be said, the Government were reducing the landlord to a position very much like that of a rent-charger. They were depriving him of the rights which attached and contributed to the enjoyment of property in this country, and the landlord would no longer be able to deal with his own as he could at present; he would have to look more to the revenue

      1649
      than to any enjoyment which could be derived from it. It was, therefore, impossible that landlords deprived of the rights which attached to the ownership of land in England and other countries should feel much interest in their Irish estates.
      M. W. CORBETsaid, the Committee had but little idea of the great extent of absenteeism in Ireland, an evil which was not felt at all in England, because of the reciprocity which existed there. No doubt, there were many English absentee landlords; but this was compensated for by the number of persons who came to England from all parts of the world, and, therefore, he spoke of reciprocity, which did not exist in Ireland. The non-resident Irish proprietors numbered 2,973, and the area of their estates was 5,127,167 acres, with a valuation of £2,476,816, to which, if one-third were added for the difference between valuation and rental, there would result the sum of £3,294,421 as rental, an enormous amount, but which, nevertheless, did not represent the whole drain upon Ireland caused by absenteeism, because a great number of so-called resident proprietors spent a large portion of their revenue in England, and when they came to Ireland it was only for the purpose of saving and not of spending money. Again, the number of Companies which held land in Ireland was 161, the area of their property was 584,327 acres, andits valuation £234,768. From these figures it would be seen that considerably more than one quarter of the area of Ireland was held by absentees, and the effect of this upon the agriculture of the country might be very easily understood. Everyone would know that if one took out of a farm everything that it would produce and put nothing back, the soil would be exhausted; and it was precisely that result, metaphorically speaking, which had taken place in Ireland owing to the system of absenteeism, which had gone on for generations. It was England that had created this system, and it was to that House that Irish Members looked to remove the evil. He should most cordially support the clause of the hon. Member for Waterford.
      MR. R. POWERsaid, after the speech of the Prime Minister, he did not intend to put the Committee to the trouble of a division. If the right hon. Gentleman
      1650
      was still in want of a definition of an "absentee," it would not be necessary to go back to the Reign of Henry II., because in 1715 it was enacted that 4s. in the pound was levied on propety in all cases where the landlord did not reside in the country for six months in the year. But perhaps the best definition was that of Dean Swift, who said that an absentee landlord "was an Irish landlord who lived in England on his Irish estates."
      MR. PARNELLsaid, he had an Amendment on the Paper to give power to the Court—
      "Where application is made by the landlord in the Court, under the provisions of the previous section, to fix a fair rent in respect of any holding, the tenant of which alleges that the landlord is an absentee, the Court may refuse to accede to the application on the ground that the absence of the landlord from his estate is of such an extent and character as to disentitle him to make such application."
      He thought this would have been the best way of approaching the subject of absenteeism; but he understood that the Chairman had ruled that the clause could not be put; and, therefore, he would merely say that he regretted that he should not be able to put the matter before the Committee in that shape, because he believed he would have been able to show, on unanswerable grounds, that absentee landlords ought to be treated on a different basis to other landlords. Now, the Amendment of the hon. Member for Waterford approached this matter in a milder way, and he was sorry that the Prime Minister had not seen his way to accept his proposal. He certainly thought that landlords who lived out of Ireland for nine or ten months in the year ought to have some mark attached to them as regarded their treatment under this Bill. It was clearly improper that a landlord who derived a large income from Ireland, and who spent but a very small portion of it in that country, should receive all the advantages which this Bill would undoubtedly confer upon Irish landlords by many of its clauses. They would be better able to tell after six months how this matter stood; but his idea was that, if the landlords chose to apply to the Court to fix a judicial rent, the result would be a very material increase of rent, and, consequently, considerable dissatisfaction amongst their tenants.

      1651
      He found there were 2,973 absentee proprietors in Ireland, owning 5,000,000 acres of the best land of the country, and who spent most of the money derived therefrom out of the country—that was to say,—3,500,000 annually. He thought the policy of separate treatment for absentee landlords was very important, especially when taken in connection with the general character of the Bill, which would, undoubtedly, establish a uniform rate of rent, to which landlords and tenants would be able to appeal. In fact, in the course of five or six months after the passing of the Bill, it would be possible for tenants in any part of Ireland to know what judicial rent the Court would fix in respect of holdings throughout Ireland.
      MR. T. P. O'CONNORwished also to express regret that the Government had not seen their way to deal with the question of absenteeism. There were several reasons why the Government should take up this question, one of them being that the proposal they might make would not meet with any serious objection from any section of the House. He was not, of course, qualified to speak as to the opinion upon this subject which was entertained by Conservative Gentlemen in that House; but lie believed he was correct in saying that their feelings were quite as strong as those of Irish Members with regard to its injurious effects upon the people of Ireland. He knew of one Conservative Gentleman who evinced, in quite as strong terms as any Irish Member, his feeling with regard to absenteeism in Ireland; and the feeling which he believed to exist amongst the Conservative Party was one reason why the Government, if they saw their way to deal with the question, would not be overloading their Bill, because their proposal would not be likely to receive any serious opposition. Another reason was because the Bill would do little for Ireland unless it materially increased the application of capital in Ireland; and how could it do that when it allowed one-third of the whole rental of the country to be exported? He did not know what were the exact figures, nor had he the means of testing the accuracy of the Estimates which were made of the amount annually taken away from Ireland under this head; but he believed that the sum drawn annually from the country by absentee landlords
      1652
      was estimated at from £3,000,000 to £4,000,000. It was impossible that, as long as this large drain continued, there could be prosperity in Ireland; and it appeared to him that, in dealing with this question of land tenure, and endeavouring to promote the future agricultural resources of the country, they had committed the error in passing by and entirely ignoring one of the most radical evils of the land system. He would point to one or two other questions raised in the course of this discussion—the question relating to the agricultural labourer. When that was raised at first, there seemed to be an eager competition between the different sections of the House as to which would prove to be the true friend of the agricultural labourer. He was not going to analyze motives, but it appeared to him that the Conservative Party took up the question because the agricultural labourer offered a convenient form of working against the tenant farmers, and that the Liberal Party did so because it was a convenient counterpoise, while Irish Members sitting below the Gangway on that side of the House were said to have taken it up from motives of the darkest and most dire character. He wished to draw attention to the fact that when the case of the agricultural labourer came before the House, although it was foreign to the purport of the Bill, every section of opinion amongst hon. Members was joined in pressing it on the attention of the Government, while, at the same time, the Government devoted a large amount of time and energy to the subject. But, after all, was not the truest way of approaching the question to increase the wages fund of the country? And how could that be attempted while one-third of the rental went out of the country?
      THE CHAIRMANpointed out that the hon. Member was travelling beyond the Question before the Committee.
      MR. T. P. O'CONNOR, of course, submitted at once to the ruling of the Chairman. He had been endeavouring to reply to the argument of the Prime Minister, which he understood to be that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Waterford was rather foreign to the purpose of the Bill, and that it was an Amendment of a kind which, according to the practice of the House of Commons, could not be dealt with; and he

      1653
      was endeavouring to show how the Government had dealt with another matter which, to his mind, was far more foreign to the Bill.
      THE CHAIRMANsaid, this was probably, a fitting moment to point out why it was that he had ruled two Amendments out of Order and allowed this one to be discussed. The reason for this was that the question of county cess was determined by the 56th clause of the Act of 1870, and, therefore, might be amended by a Bill of a like character.
      MR. T. P. O'CONNORunderstood the provisions of the Bill as passed provided for the application to the Court with regard to fixing a fair rent, but that nothing was said in regard to the persons who made the application. The Bill did not contain any provision for the exclusion of any particular class of landlords; and he should be glad if the Attorney General for Ireland were able to take advantage of the raising of the question dealt with in the present Amendment to give some indication of his own opinions on the subject, and also of his willingness to co-operate with Irish Members in making some proposal for the purpose of dealing with the grave and serious evil of absenteeism.
      LORD JOHN MANNERSremarked, that the hon. Member who had just sat down had expressed his belief that Conservative Members of the House would take the same view as himself with regard to the evils of absenteeism. He did not pretend to speak in their behalf with the same authority as that claimed by the hon. Member; but he believed that everybody would wish to see Irish proprietors resident on their estates during a great part of the year. To that extent he agreed with the hon. Member; but that was one reason which induced the Conservative Party in the House to oppose the Bill—because they regarded it as a measure which would increase absenteeism. But it was not Conservatives only who took that view, because, having heard the speech of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell), he was inclined to think that hon. Members had come round to the same view, for he had told the Committee that the Bill was designed in the interest of the absentee landlords of Ireland. They had always said that this Bill would induce by penal consequences landlords to give up their residences in Ireland and take as much
      1654
      Irish money out of the country as they could for the purpose of spending it elsewhere.
      MR. T. P. O'CONNORdesired to correct a misapprehension. He did not say he desired to see the absentee landlords return to discharge their duties in Ireland. For his own part, he would like to see all the landlords of Ireland absentee, or rather he would like to see the landlords present and landlordism absent.
      LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he thought the hon. Member and his Friends were a little inconsistent, because in the early debates on this Bill the example of the great absentee landlords was held up to the House as justifying one of the important provisions of the measure—namely, that relating to free sale. From all sides the management of the estates of Lord Portsmouth was praised. He understood Lord Portsmouth was a non-resident landlord; but now the Committee were told that non-resident landlords ought to be fined.
      SIR EARDLEY WILMOTsaid, he cordially sympathized with the Amendment, and was prepared to go into the Lobby with the hon. Member for Waterford to support it. One of the greatest evils of Ireland was that landlords who derived a considerable revenue from the country spent the money, estimated by Mr. Giffen at £6,000,000, in England or in foreign countries, and deprived Irishmen of the kindly and social influence and example which produced such inestimable benefits wherever they were felt. He was not one of those political economists who held that money spent out of a country must benefit those who were in it. Though he agreed with the Prime Minister that there were difficulties in the matter, he maintained, with Burke, that it was the business of a Government to overcome difficulties.
      THE CHAIRMANsaid, that the question was not one of absenteeism, but whether there should be an apportionment of the county cess between the tenant and the absentee landlord.
      SIR EARDLEY WILMOTsaid, he understood that this was a proposal to mulct absentee landlords. He would like to see a double Income Tax placed upon landlords who did not reside upon their estates six months in the year. If the highest personages in the Realm

      1655
      were to go to Ireland occasionally, as they did to Scotland, not only would Ireland benefit financially, but a kindly feeling would be aroused, and the difficulties from which they now laboured would be removed.
      MR. DAWSON, while sympathizing with the object of the hon. Member for Waterford, could not agree that his Amendment embodied the best means of securing it. He believed that the proper way of bringing people to live in Ireland was to attract them by the advantages of living there; by social order and contentment; by the pleasures and enjoyments of a refined society, and by all the attractions which a capital, the seat of the Legislature of the country, would hold out. He repeated that while he cordially sympathized with the object of his hon. Friend, he should regret that any class of persons should be forced to live there as the result of a penal clause in the Bill.
      MR. R. POWERdeclined to withdraw the Amendment, because he found that his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) would not be able to move the clause of which he had given Notice.
      SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAappealed to his hon. Friend (Mr. R. Power) not to put the Committee to the trouble of a division.
      Question put.
      The Committee divided:—Ayes 40; Noes 249: Majority 209.—(Div. List, No. 325.)
      Mr. PARNELLsaid, he wished to submit a point of Order to the Chairman, in respect of the clause which stood in his name. He had given Notice to insert, after Clause 7, a new Clause, which provided—
      "Where application is made by the landlord to the Court under the provisions of the preceding section to fix a fair rent in respect of any holding, the tenant of which alleges that the landlord is an absentee, the Court may refuse to accede to the application, on the ground that the absence of the landlord from his estate is of such an extent and character as to disentitle him to make such application."
      By Section 7, which the Committee had already passed—
      "The tenant of any present tenancy to which the Act applies, or such tenant and the landlord jointly, or the landlord, after having demanded from such tenant an increase of rent, which the tenant has declined to accept, may, from time to
      1656
      time during the continuance of such tenancy, apply to the Court to fix the fair rent to be paid by such tenant to the landlord for his holding."
      That meant that every tenant to whom the Act applied, and every landlord were entitled, under the mode prescribed in Section 7 in the second part of the Bill, to apply to the Court to fix a fair rent. Then, by sub-section 4, that right was limited in the following manner:—
      "Where an application is made to the Court under this section in respect of any tenancy, the Court may, if it think fit, disallow such application where the Court is satisfied that on the holding in which such tenancy subsists, the improvements have, during the tenancy of the tenant and his predecessors in title, been made and substantially maintained by the landlord and not by the tenant."
      That sub-section was not so much an exception of the rights of the landlord as of the tenant to apply to the Court, as a limit in respect of their application after it had been made, or, in other words, it permitted the Court to disallow the application after it had been made under the provisions of Clause 7. Following the precedent set by sub-section 4, he had drafted the new clause which he had read to the Committee during the discussion of the previous Amendment. It gave power to the Court, where an application was made by the landlord to the Court, to disallow that application on the ground that the landlord was an absentee landlord, and that his absence was of such a character and extent as not to entitle such application to be allowed. He had thought, and still thought, to a certain extent, but he did not wish to press the matter, as the Chairman had ruled otherwise, that the precedent giving the Court power to disallow an application made by the tenant under certain circumstances would also entitle him to move his new clause, giving power to the Court to disallow the application when made by the landlord under certain circumstances. But it appeared to him that the Chairman had probably based his ruling on the fact that Clause 7, with its limiting provisions and exceptions, had already been passed, and, therefore, that it was not in Order to modify or alter that clause in any way by a subsequent new clause. What he wished to ask was, if it would be in Order to move this new clause on the Report in the shape of a sub-section to Clause 7?
      THE CHAIRMAN: I have no power to give an opinion as to what may be considered in Order when the Speaker is in the Chair. It will be for the Speaker to give that decision when the Report is before the House.
      MR. PARNELLwished to know if the Chairman had based his decision against the proposed clause on the ground that it was not in Order to modify a clause after it had been passed by another clause, or on the ground that the subject-matter of the new clause was foreign to the Bill?
      THE CHAIRMAN: It is because I am of opinion that the clause the hon. Member proposes is inconsistent with the provisions of the clause empowering the Court to fix a fair rent, and also Clause 34.
      MR. PARNELLsaid, that, under those circumstances, he would not move the clause of which he had given Notice.
      MR. MARUMmoved, after Clause 8, to insert—
      (Provisions for encouraging the planting of timber trees.)
      "That from and after the passing of this Act the provisions contained in the first section of the Act of the fifth year of the reign of George the Third, chapter seventeen, for encouraging the planting of timber trees in reference to tenants for lives renewable for ever, and as confirmed by the eleventh section of the seventh year of the reign of George the Third, chapter twenty, in reference to tenants holding by fee farm, shall apply to every tenant of a present tenancy under this Act, so that such last-mentioned tenants shall not be impeachable of waste in timber, trees, or woods, planted by them after the passing of this Act. For the purposes of this Act, timber, trees, and woods so planted by the tenants of a present tenancy shall be deemed to be improvements within the meaning of this Act."
      He thought the clause covered a very important subject, and one that was of great interest to Ireland. There had been various Acts passed upon the subject, dating from the Reign of William III., and the object of all of them was to encourage the planting of trees in Ireland. It was found that the old timber in Ireland was fast disappearing, and various attempts had been made, from the time of William III. down to the year 1765, to encourage planting; but all of them failed, owing to the requirement of registration. It was provided that the timber must be registered, and the tenants would not go to the trouble of registration. In 1765 there were
      1658
      leases for old plantations, with covenants for perpetual renewal. As the Committee were aware, it was the inheritor or the owner of the inheritance who was entitled to the timber; but, still, the timber did not belong either to the owner or the lessee by the terms of the lease, and, consequently, an Act was passed for the purpose of vesting the timber in the lessees subsequently created. He proposed by this clause to transfer the rights conferred under the Act 5 Geo. III. from lessees in Ireland to statutable tenants with the perpetual right of renewal. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law) desired any alteration in the clause, or even to omit the latter part of it, which provided that, for the purposes of the Act, timber, trees, and wood so planted by the tenants of a present tenancy should be deemed to be improvements within the meaning of the Act, he would confine the clause to the first part, which simply provided that the provisions of 5 Geo. III., c. 17, confirmed by 7 Geo. III., c. 20, should be applied to every tenant of a present tenancy under the present Act. He had simply copied the words of the Acts of Geo. III., and the second part of the clause only conferred the same rights on tenants in fee farm as were conferred upon tenants for ever. He did not think there would be any real question of dispute between either the landlord or the tenant as to the encouragement of timber planting. It was a well-known fact that the timber of Ireland was fast disappearing. Within the last 18 months both landlord and tenant had been very hard up, and they had made use of all the timber they could get hold of. In his own county (Kilkenny), if the destruction which had been going on was continued, in a very short time they would be left without trees altogether. It was important, therefore, not only in the interests of the tenant but of the landlords and of the country generally, that something should be done to encourage the planting of timber.
      New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
      THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the hon.

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      Member for Kilkenny (Mr. Marum) had raised a question of considerable importance; but it was also one of considerable difficulty. It must be remembered that they had given a considerable amount of freedom to the tenant already, and that it was not desirable that they should go further, unless what they did could be shown to be for the general benefit of the Irish people; and he wished to point out that if the alteration now proposed by the hon. Member were accepted, it would be necessary to alter various statutes that were at present in force. It would certainly be requisite that there should be a system of registration if the tenants were to have an absolute property in the trees that were planted by them. Fifty years hence it would be almost impossible, without some formal record, to discover when a tree was cut down whether it was a tree that was there before the passing of the Act of 1881 or not. All the timber now on a holding belonged to the landlord, and it was not proposed by the present clause to make any interference in that respect. But his hon. Friend proposed that all timber planted after the passing of the Act should belong to the tenant; and who could tell 50 years after the passing of the Act which tree belonged to the tenant and which to the landlord? He would, however, promise to give the question further consideration before the bringing up of the Report.
      MR. MARUMsaid, that his right hon. and learned Friend the Attorney General for Ireland anticipated that there would be legal difficulties in the way, and as he (Mr. Marum) was sensible of them himself, he would not press the clause; but as no objection had been raised to it on that side of the House, he hoped his right hon. and learned Friend would give the subject some consideration, and see whether he would not be able to deal with it upon Report.
      Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
      MR. CHAPLINmoved, after Clause 13, to insert the following Clause:—
      (Yearly Return respecting judicial rent.)
      "There shall be, not later than the first day of March in each year, laid before both Houses of Parliament a Return showing the judicial rent fixed in every case by the Court, or by the Land Commission, and showing whether the same is equal to, or less than, or greater than, the rent payable by the tenant at the date when the application was made; and where it
      1660
      is greater or less than the former rent, the amount by which the increase or reduction has been made, and the circumstances and reasons in and for which the increase or reduction was made by the Court or Commission."
      The object of the clause was to provide that early every year a Return showing the judicial rent fixed by the Court or the Land Commission should be presented to both Houses of Parliament. The Return would show whether the rent had been fixed at a greater rate than before or at a less rate, and the amount of the reduction or increase. It would also give the reason why an alteration had taken place. He reminded the Committee that the Bill was a serious innovation upon their ordinary legislation. It was one that was introduced for the first time; and there was to be no appeal whatever from the decision of the Land Commission. It was therefore only fair to the tenant whose rent might have been increased, and also for the interest of the landlord whose rent might be lowered, that such a Return should be laid periodically on the Table of both Houses of Parliament, in order if there was an irregularity in their decisions there might be an opportunity of calling attention to it.
      New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
      Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
      MR. GLADSTONE: I hardly think that the hon. Gentleman can require the Returns in connection with the judicial rent which he asks for in this clause. Returns will be presented to Parliament by the Land Commission possibly in the first year of its existence; but I do not think that it will be a very interesting matter to know all these minute details. No doubt, the Court will give the general facts in regard to their movements and operations; but I do not think we should call upon the Court to go into extreme details. And there is also another objection, that it might not be desirable or agreeable to give these Returns in the interest of private persons. I think there are many cases in which the details of the transactions would be found to be very objectionable to the parties most intimately concerned.
      MR. PARNELLsaid, the clause proposed by the hon. Member did not

      1661
      require that the names of the owner and the tenant should be given. [Mr. CHAPLIN: No; only of the holding.] The clause did not require that the names should be given, and they might be specified by numbers. He thought it important that Parliament should have detailed information of the working of the Land Commission; and he did not think that the reason assigned by the Prime Minister—namely, that it might consume a certain amount of paper in giving the returns, and entail some trouble on the officials in making them, should really have any practical weight. He trusted that the right hon. Gentleman would not deem it necessary to oppose such a Return in a modified form. He certainly hoped that Parliament would obtain this information, which would be of a most interesting character, and without it they would not be able to astertain the working of the Commission, or know anything about what was really doing. It would be exceedingly inconvenient if they did not get this information, and all sorts of statements would be made as to the working of the Commission—some of them true, others untrue, and others very much exaggerated. It was, therefore, most desirable that there should be some means of checking unfounded reports.
      MR. GLADSTONE: We could not entertain the clause in the form in which it now stands. Not only are all the partitulars to be given in figures, but the Return is also to show the amount by which the increase or reduction has been made, and the circumstances and reasons in and for which the increase or reduction was made by the Court or Commission We certainly could not accede to such an Amendment.
      LORD GEORGE HAMILTONsaid, he hoped the Government would assent, if not to the actual Amendment on the Paper, to the insertion of some words by which Parliament would hereafter be placed in possession of all the facts in relation to the working of the Commission so far as the fixing of judicial rents was concerned. The object of his hon. Friend would be gained if words were inserted in the clause already proposed by the Government in reference to judicial rent, to show what a judicial rent was, what the Government valuation of the holding was, and what the rent of the holding was before the judicial rent
      1662
      was fixed. That was all that was necessary; and it was most desirable, for various reasons, that some Return of this sort should be made. It was almost necessary that the Government should furnish the House with an authoritative record of the proceedings of the Commission; and if this Return were given, it would afford an additional inducement to landlords and tenants to come to an amicable arrangement as to rent, without making an application to the Court. Unless the real facts were given in the Return, he did not see how landlords and tenants would be able to come to a satisfactory conclusion.
      SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he such was of opinion that it would be sufficient if the Annual Report of the Land Commission brought out as many details as possible.
      MR. GLADSTONE: It appears to me that it will be clearly the duty of the Land Commission to make a Return which will give all the information in their power.
      MR. CHAPLINremarked that, if it would remove the difficulty in any way, he would be willing to omit the words with regard to the circumstances and reasons for which the increase or reduction was made. He did not see in any respect the difficulty which the Prime Minister had pointed out. Surely the Court would keep a record of its proceedings; and he only asked the Court to specify once a-year the reduction or increase which had been made in the rent. Unless a record was kept that was available for the use of Parliament, the proceedings of the Court or of the Commission would be practically carried on in the dark; and he must say that in the novel state of things like that which was about to be established a proceeding of that kind was one which Parliament ought not to sanction. If the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister was willing to give an undertaking that provision would be made in the Bill for Returns to be laid on the Table once a-year, giving the facts in each case where the rent had been increased or reduced, he would not press the clause further.
      MR. GLADSTONE: I do not think the Government could give such an undertaking.
      SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he hoped the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister would consider the sub-

      1663
      ject before the Report. It was of immense importance that they should educate the public mind in Ireland as to the working of this Act; and, therefore, it was desirable to lay a Return before Parliament showing that such and such facts had resulted from bringing the questions in dispute before a judicial tribunal. Such a Return would enable the landlords and tenants in future to see how they could best make arrangements between themselves. He did not think that it would entail much inconvenience upon the Commission to give the Return asked for by the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin).
      MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, that, admitting the importance of getting this Return, he would suggest to the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Chaplin) that it would be better to wait until the Commission had been at work for a certain time, and then to move for a Return. If such a Return did not include all the information the hon. Gentleman desired, he would be much better able to frame a Return stating clearly what he wanted.
      MR. CHAPLINsaid, he could explain in a moment why this proposition would be utterly useless. What was the use of his moving for a Return from the present Government? He could not see any possible objection to the present clause. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said it was not desirable to give the details asked for in the interests of private persons. Now, he thought it perfectly possible that there might be cases of hardship which would arise in the fixing of judicial rents; and if there were such cases of hardship, it was desirable that they should not be concealed—that the work should not be done in the dark—but should be laid openly before Parliament. He was not anxious to delay the progress of the Bill. On the contrary, he was very anxious to see it brought to a close, so far as that House was concerned; and he, therefore, asked the Government to say at once what their feeling was in the matter. He understood that they were willing to make some concession, and he wanted to know what it was. If the principle of his clause were rejected altogether, he was afraid he must put the Committee to the trouble of a division.
      SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, they were having a large staff of
      1664
      Assistant Commissioners. Nobody knew who they were to be, and it was only right and proper that their proceedings should be subject to the criticism of Parliament. He entertained a strong view on this point, because he was anxious that if the provisions of the Bill were to be put in force the work should be well and properly done, and there should be some supervision over the proceedings of the Assistant Commissioners such as that of the House of Commons. He had hoped the Prime Minister would see his way to accept the proposal for laying a Return before both Houses of Parliament. Without such a Return there would be no guarantee that the Assistant Commissioners would do their duty.
      SIR THOMAS ACLANDsaid, he had no doubt that the House was entitled to get a Return of the way in which the work of the Commission was done; but he did not think the foresight of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) was any better than the foresight of those who had been engaged in framing the Bill. They ought not, therefore, to take the Amendment as one which anticipated all the experience which the country could give. It was admitted on all hands that it was desirable to have Returns from the Commission; and the only question was whether the best mode of furnishing those Returns was to be obtained by the adoption of the hon. Member's clause.
      LORD JOHN MANNERSsaid, he thought the argument of the hon. Member who had just sat down (Sir Thomas Acland) was all very well as far as it went; but what his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) suggested was that there should be a certain definite orderly proceeding; whereas the suggestion made by hon. Members on the other side was that there should be a Motion proposed from time to time, and that would possibly lead to an angry debate. He thought the suggestion of his hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire was a very reasonable one, and the objection to it of the Prime Minister was simply one of sentiment. The omission of the words objected to by the Prime Minister would make the clause a perfectly fair and reasonable one.
      MR. WARTONwould suggest that in addition to the alteration his hon.

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      Friend the Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) desired to make, he might add a few words at the end of the clause to this effect—
      "Provided always that neither the names of the landlords nor the tenants shall be given in the return."
      MR. GLADSTONE: The hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) has stated his willingness, if the Committee will read the clause a second time, to leave out the words at the end of the clause—
      "And the circumstances and reasons in and for which the increase or reduction was made by the Court or Commission."
      But the Return then would be of very little value, for it would simply be a nominal enumeration of a very great number of holdings belonging to particular landlords and occupied by particular tenants. If, without stating the circumstances and reasons in this way, when a reduction of rent was made the other particulars of each case were to be given, an opportunity would be afforded for the most invidious remarks to be made against individuals, without the Return containing any countervailing advantage, because the Return would be of no use whatever unless it was accompanied by a statement of the circumstances and reasons. What could possibly be the use of a statement in figures of a great number of holdings? It will be the duty of the Commissioners to set out all interesting matter as the result of their proceedings; but it would be possible for them, if the hon. Member gives up the circumstances and reasons, to give the particulars of the cases without adding the circumstances and reasons. If we cannot trust the Commissioners to give all information of interest connected with their proceedings, then I am afraid that it will not be a very good omen for the satisfactory working of the Bill. The clause which we have already adopted lays it upon the Commission, as a matter of absolute duty, to present to Parliament, in the most convenient and accessible form, all the information which is necessary to give Parliament an insight into the working of the Act; but to give the dry bones of a perfectly dead skeleton, containing nothing but an enumeration of names without the motives and reasons, would be most unadvisable.
      MR. A. M. SULLIVANsaid, he really could not see why there should be any difference of opinion upon the matter. To his mind it seemed almost certain that the Commissioners would give the particulars asked for. When the House was about to enter upon the discussion of the present Land Bill, he asked the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to present to the House for its information a Return showing the number of cases which had occurred under the working of the Land Act of 1870, which Return was to give the particulars now asked for. On that occasion the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland admitted that such a Return would be of invaluable assistance to the House on this measure; but said that it would take three months to prepare it, because the Commissioners had not kept their accounts in a manner that would facilitate such a Return. Although he believed that the Commissioners would do what the Prime Minister suggested under the present Bill, he could not see any harm in taking care that the books of the Land Court should be kept in such a manner as to show the number of cases in which an application was made to the Court, the amount of rent paid, and the amount fixed after the audit. He had himself employed a clerk to go over the books in order to obtain a Return similar to that procured at the instance of the late Mr. M'Carthy Downing in 1871, 1872, and 1873; and he regretted very much that he had not been able as yet to obtain it complete, because he thought that if he had been in a position to produce it, it would have disposed of many of the charges which had been brought against the Act of 1870. Really, he did not see why the Government should refuse to give the particular Return asked for.
      MR. MULHOLLANDsaid, he could not understand why the Government should refuse to give this information. All the information would bo in the possession of the Court, and it would appear in the local newspapers, and he did not think that any Irish landlord would have the least objection to the publication of these Returns. It was delightful to find the Irish Members unanimous for once, and as all of them had spoken in favour of this clause, he trusted that the Government would give

      1667
      due weight to their request. The powers that were proposed to be given to the Court were altogether unprecedented, and as there was nothing to guide the Commissioners, it would be a great advantage to the people of Ireland to know how they were discharging their duty. He did not see how the information could be so well given as by the presentation of a Return similar to that asked for by the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin).
      MR. CHAPLINsaid, he was more than ever convinced that it was desirable for the Committee to accept this clause. With all respect to the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, he thought that in the last speech made by the right hon. Gentleman he had entirely changed his ground. It was quite true that he (Mr. Chaplin) had consented to give up the words "circumstances and reasons;" but he had done so at the invitation of the right hon. Gentleman himself, and in order to get rid of a difficulty which the right hon. Gentleman pointed out. But now the right hon. Gentleman said that as those words had been given up the whole clause was useless, and vitiated the entire proposal. Now, how was that consistent with the right hon. Gentleman's assurance that there was to be a record which was to be laid on the Table of the House? His hon. Friend (Mr. Mulholland) said that all the particulars would be published in the local newspapers. That was quite true, and all that he asked in addition was that once a year the same particulars should be placed on the Table of the House in a concise form. Certainly, it was of interest to the tenants to know whether the rents had been increased, and it was to the interest of the landlords to know whether they had been lowered. His hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Thomas Acland) told them that it was desirable to have the information; and then, having told them that, he proceeded to argue that it was undesirable that the means of getting the information should be provided in the Bill. He entirely differed from his hon. Friend, and thought it was most desirable and necessary that the means of getting the information should be provided by Parliament before the Bill became law. That being so, unless he could get a more satisfactory assurance
      1668
      from the Government, he should certainly take a division upon the clause.
      MR. DALYjoined in the appeal to the Government to permit the publication of this information. It would involve no trouble whatever to the Court, as the Court or the Commission must keep a record of the cases which came before it to be tried. He believed himself that the first thing they had to do in regard to the Commission was to create confidence in the mind of the public, and he thought it was even desirable to have a summary published of all the cases and of the reasons for the decisions, so as to enable all persons to see whether there was uniformity of decision. Such a Return would be invaluable to Members of Parliament. It would enable them to ascertain whether the Assistant Commissioners were able and competent men. At present there was some distrust in the mind of the public as to the manner in which the provisions of the Bill would be carried out, and a similar distrust had been displayed in regard to the working of the Act of 1870. Certainly, there had been a great want of uniformity in regard to the decisions of the Chairmen in the different counties. He thought the Prime Minister had failed to give any good reason why the Return in an extended form should not be annually made. There was another feature. The hon. Member for Cork had said that 12 persons would see that a certain uniform basis of rent would be established through the majority of opinions, if the majority were to be the basis for an advance of rent, or if it was to be a basis for leaving things as they were. He (Mr. Daly) believed that the publication of these statistical summaries would be one great reason for deterring people from going to the Court. There really were no reasons but those applicable to the question of the labour of getting them out, why they should not have the Return asked for in its extended form.
      MR. REDMONDsincerely trusted that this Motion would be pressed to a division. It seemed to him that they had arrived at a condition of things in which the demand advanced was almost unanswerable. They found that the demand made by the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Chaplin) had been put forward on behalf of Gentlemen who, perhaps, of all others in that House, might be more

      1669
      accurately supposed to represent the landed interest on that question; and, on the other hand, the proposal was strongly recommended and supported by those who represented directly in that House the tenant farmers of Ireland. They had, therefore, both parties who were interested in the question most anxious for a Report such as was asked for by the Motion before the Committee. What, he asked, was the demand that had been made? It was simply this, that the Land Commission should not carry on their work in the dark. It was simply that the working of the Committee should be reported annually—that the amount of the reductions of rent which the Commission might make should be annually published; that a Return should be made which would have, in one column, the old rent, and in another column the judicial rent, and in a third column, perhaps, the valuation rent. It seemed to him that the contention of Her Majesty's Government that, because they thought it unadvisable in every case to state in a Return such as this the reasons on which the Land Commission might come to a decision, therefore they should not state the decisions themselves, was wholly and utterly indefensible. For his part, he could not see why they should not only state the decisions, but also the reasons that had guided them in arriving at those decisions. Of course, if they went minutely and fully into every particular case decided, and the reasons which in any way had governed those decisions, they might have to furnish very voluminous Reports; but he must say that the statement that the production of those Returns would be invidious, had, in his view, no foundation whatever, because they found that the hon. Gentleman who had spoken a moment ago, and who was a landlord, or who represented landlords, and others who acted with him, were most anxious that this Return should be made, and it was not likely that they would ask for any information that they thought would be prejudicial to the landlords. The House had been told, not only on this occasion, but on almost every other in reference to this Bill, that the conduct of the landlords in Ireland had been such as not to be in the least liable to injury by having the full flood of light thrown upon it. On more
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      than one occasion the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had stated that the majority of the Irish landlords had been acquitted of any misconduct as far as rents were concerned. If this were so, on what conceivable ground could Her Majesty's Government in justice refuse that a Report should be made to that House which would acquaint them exactly with the condition in regard to rent in which the Commission would find those estates with which they would deal, as well as the condition in regard to rent in which the Commission would leave them? He must express his sincere hope that the Motion before the Committee would be pressed to a division. He did not think it could be fairly left to the Commission to do the work they were charged with without a special clause directing them to do what was now proposed. If it were supposed that the Commission would make such a Report of their own Motion, then the speech of the Prime Minister and others who had opposed the Motion were wholly unnecessary, because their case was that such a Report ought not to be made. ["No!"] Hon. Gentlemen said "No!" but he asserted that the contention on the part of the Government was that the Report asked for ought not to be made. It had been refused by Her Majesty's Government on the ground that the Commissioners could not state the figures without giving the reasons that guided the settlement of those figures, and that, consequently, the Report asked for ought not to be made. This being so, he sincerely trusted that the hon. Member who had charge of the Motion would press it to a division; and for his part he was not sorry that, almost for the first time during these discussions, he should have the pleasure of finding himself in the same Lobby with the Conservative Party.
      MR. JOHN BRIGHT: As I have listened to the arguments used in support of this Motion on that side of the House, I have arrived at the conclusion that I shall be compelled to vote against it. The hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) has said that there might be some great hardship in particular cases, and that particular judgments and counter judgments might require exposure and discussion in this House; but I think that neither the House nor this Committee will desire that we should

      1671
      have some 20,000 cases published in a Blue Book in order that the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire may pick out one or two cases of great hardship and bring them before this House for exposure and discussion. The hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) has said he wishes to have a summary of the business done by the Commission; but that is exactly what the Commission are bound under this Bill to give. In the clause, as already passed, there are these words—
      "The Land Commission shall once in every year, after the year 1881, make a Report to the Lord Lieutenant as to their proceedings under this Act, and every such Report shall be presented to Parliament."
      That is as comprehensive as the direction generally given to Commissions of this or any other kind as to the Reports they shall make. The hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire further said there would be different judgments and opinions in the working of the Act in different districts of the country; and he wished to examine these, and contrast them, and put one against the other—in fact, to bring generally the secrets of the various Courts in Ireland, not only before the public, but before this House, for the purposes of discussion, approval, or censure. I do not see why we should do this. We have lately had a Question put in this House to the Home Secretary as to a sentence passed by one of the Judges. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary said he had no power to alter the sentence, or increase the severity of it; but what would be said if hon. Members from Ireland, or the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Chaplin) were to be constantly bringing questions as to the decisions of the Courts under this Bill before the House? It seems to me that we should, by passing this clause, be showing a want of confidence in the Commission that is being appointed which is quite unusual, which is quite unnecessary, and which might lead to very great difficulty hereafter. The hon. Member who spoke last (Mr. Redmond) seems to be quite unaware that the Commission are already bound by a clause in the Act to make a Report to Parliament, and there can be no doubt that the Commission will be most anxious to give Parliament the fullest information that can possibly be required; and if it should be possible to suppose that the Commission would be unwilling to
      1672
      do this, the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary would be willing to urge upon them the necessity of discharging their duty in this respect; while if there should be any such failure to give information, it would be easy for hon. Members to complain that the Report was not sufficiently clear. There are plenty of modes of getting what we want without drawing a hard-and-fast line like this, by which we should be saying that the Commissioners are to put down every particular case. If on every occasion the Commissioners were to put down every case that came before them from all parts of Ireland, you would have one half of the Commissioners engaged in recording what the other half does, and at the same time compiling a Blue Book of such a size that nobody would read it, and of which, if anyone did read it, be could make no practical use. I think the Committee might trust to the Executive Government and the Commissioners for all the information that will really be required, without laying down rules that would be very inconvenient and entirely unnecessary.
      MR. E. STANHOPEsaid, he thought that if anyone showed a want of confidence in the Commissioners it was the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who did not seem to desire the proceedings of the Commissioners to be made public. The right hon. Gentleman had intimated that if they wanted to get the particulars asked for by the clause there was no doubt they would get them if they were to move for them in the ordinary way; but he (Mr. Stanhope) and those who acted with him said "No." They might find that the Commissioners would not make the sufficient Returns nor in reasonable time, and they desired by a clause of this kind to give warning to the Commission that such Returns were likely to be wanted, and that it was necessary that so useful a check was to be kept.
      LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in opposing the clause had said that he thought a use might be made of the Returns which would bring the decisions of the Courts to abuse, and that one part of the Commission would be holding views that were opposed to those of the other part, while the decisions in

      1673
      one county might be adverse to those of another county. But this result would not be effected by the granting of the Return; it was what would happen in any case, for the proceedings of the Court would be sure to be subjected to the closest possible scrutiny and brought before the House and made the subject of debates. The great object of the Return was that by its means the House should have the most reliable possible information. The Report of the Commission would otherwise be a most general thing; and it was absolutely essential that general Reports of this kind, which would lay down general principles, should be borne out by detailed statements. No doubt, Her Majesty's Government had a very good reason for refusing this complete Return. It was because Her Majesty's Government knew—but perhaps he should be wrong in saying what he was about to say, and he therefore would not say it. He might, however, say that the reasons which had been assigned by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster were not very strong.
      MR. MACARTNEYsaid, there was one remark that had been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster that had struck him very forcibly. The right hon. Gentleman had said the Commission would be ready and willing and prepared to give the fullest information to the House. Well, this was all the Committee required. What they wanted was the fullest information in every particular, and if the Commissioners would be willing to give this it seemed most natural and just that it should be required by Act of Parliament. He merely wished to add that a great deal of the time of Parliament would in future be saved if such an annual Return as was asked for were given, because it would otherwise happen that wherever information might be required as to particular districts, hon. Members representing those districts would ask for Returns; and as this process might be repeated over and over again, and week after week every Session, it would save time if the Returns could be given in the form asked for.
      Question put.
      The Committee divided:—Ayes 97; Noes 161: Majority 64.—(Div. List, No. 326.)
      And it being ten minutes before Seven of the clock, the Chairman reported Progress; Committee to sit again this day.

  PUBLIC LOANS (IRELAND) REMISSION BILL.— [BILL 212.]
  (Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Lord Frederick Cavendish.)
  PUBLIC LOANS (IRELAND) REMISSION BILL.— [BILL 212.]

    THIRD READING.
    Order for Third Reading read.
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, he objected to a measure of this kind, which related to a very large sum of money, being run through the House at that hour. He should block the Bill in order to get a full statement from the Government respecting it.
    Third Reading deferred till this day.
    The House suspended its Sitting at five minutes to Seven of the clock.
    The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.
  Progress resumed.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)proposed a new clause, providing for additional payments to clerks of the peace and other officials, in respect of any duties imposed upon them by the Bill.
  Clause agreed to, and ordered to be added to the Bill.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The clause of the hon. Member for Waterford County (Mr. Villiers Stuart), dealing with the state and condition of labourers' dwellings, is rather for a Public Health Act than for a Bill dealing with the Land Laws, and is, therefore, outside the scope of the Bill.
  MR. VILLIERS STUARTregretted exceedingly that it should be so; but, of course, if it were ruled out of Order, there was nothing for it but to submit. Sanitary inspection was most important, and one of the leading features of any Bill for the improvement of Ireland; and a want of sanitary conditions caused a great waste of the health and strength of the people. He would only add that the clauses already passed were, of course, very valuable, but they did not

  1675
  cover the whole of the ground by any means.
  MR. O'SULLIVANasked if that part of the new clause which had reference to the erection of labourers' dwellings was out of Order?
  THE CHAIRMAN: I understand that all these clauses of the hon. Member hang one to the other and run in sequence. They are, therefore, out of Order.
  THE O'DONOGHUEthen proposed the insertion, after Clause 18, of the following Clause:—
  (Security to labourers of equitable rent and permanence of tenure.)
  "Every letting to a labourer under the two sections lastly hereinbefore contained shall be for the statutory term created by the Court at the time at which the Court sanctions or requires such letting, or in existence at such time, and shall cease and determine if and when the labourer to whom it is made shall refuse or omit without reasonable cause to work for the tenant of such statutory term.
  "In fixing the rent to be paid by the labourer in respect of such letting, the Court shall have regard to the acreable rent paid by the tenant of the holding, and to the expenditure (if any) made or to be made by him for the purposes of fitting the premises sanctioned or required to be let for the residence or accommodation of the labourers to whom they are let.
  "The procedure for the recovery of cottier tenancies under the statute of the twenty-third and twenty-fourth years of the reign of Her Present Majesty, chapter one hundred and fifty-four, sections eighty-four, eighty-five, eighty-six, and eighty-seven, shall be applicable to Proceedings for the recovery of lettings to labourers made under the two Clauses lastly hereinbefore contained: Provided always, That either party to any such proceedings shall have a right of appeal to the Court; but such right of appeal, if exercised by the labourer, shall not give him the right to keep possession of the premises let to him pending such appeal."
  The hon. Gentleman said it was not for him to address the Committee at any length at this stage of the Bill, more especially as he did not anticipate that he would carry his clause. At the same time, he thought that it contained a very useful provision. There were very nearly 700,000 occupiers of land, and if they were reckoned five to a family, it would give a population of over 3,000,000. Taking the labourers at about 200,000, and allowing five to the family, they would have a population of about 1,000,000. He did not think this would be considered to be a very low estimate, when they remembered that it only left 1,100,000 of all the other various classes of which the Irish community was com-
  1676
  posed. Of this 1,000,000 of the labouring population he did not suppose that there would be more than 300,000 who could be fairly classed as able-bodied, and therefore fit to be employed as agricultural labourers. He might assume that no one would think of compelling farmers to take labourers if he did not want them; and he thought it would be admitted that the farmers themselves must be the best judges of whether they wanted the labourers or not. He did not think that there would be anything feasible in the proposal to enable good landlords to take half-acres or acres from the farmers, nor to have the labourers down upon them. This being his view, he certainly could not have voted for the Amendment which had been placed on the Paper by the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell). If he himself were a farmer, and the landlord took an acre or a half-acre of his holding and put a labourer upon it, he most certainly would not employ that labourer, and he would assert his right to choose his labourers for himself. He approved of the proposal by the Government that the initiative of providing for the labourers should rest with the farmers; and he thought that the ultimate decision as to whether the holding should be in the labourer at all should be left to the Court. He had no doubt that the Court would do what was necessary to comply with the wishes of the farmers when they wanted to take labourers. The interposition of the Court would be useful to save the farmer from putting undue pressure upon the labourer, and it would save the public from the establishment of mere squatters. It would also guarantee, as far as legislation could do it, that the labourers would only settle down where employment could be provided for them, and where, therefore, they could be made comfortable. At all the meetings held during the land agitation, the farmers themselves said they would, as far as possible, considering the difference in the position of the farmer and labourer, obtain for the labourer the advantages they got for themselves. The clause which had been carried in the Bill certainly secured equitable rent for the labourer, but nothing with regard to tenure; and it was to remedy this defect in the proposal of the Government that he was anxious this clause should be

  1677
  added to the Bill. If a farmer made up his mind to take a labourer, he went before the Court and obtained the sanction of the Court to have that labourer; and he (The O'Donoghue) proposed by this clause that the labourer should have the same tenure as the farmer. If the farmer lost his holding owing to any of the causes of forfeiture under the Bill, he proposed that the labourer should lose his holding also, because the same measure gave him a right to his allotment and his cottage. Of course, they did not know whether the next occupant of the farm would want labourers at all, and if he did he supposed it would be admitted that he should have the right to choose for himself. He proposed that the labourer should only forfeit his tenure of the cottage and the allotment in the ease of his refusal to work for the farmer; and his clause empowered the farmer to go before a magistrate at Petty Sessions to obtain recovery of his cottage and his holding, if he could show that the labourer unreasonably refused to work. Of course, he took it for granted that the magistrates and the Land Commission would take into account whether the farmer acted reasonably or unreasonably. He could imagine the magistrate or the Court deciding, in a case where the farmer offered wages below the ordinary wages, that that was unreasonable conduct on the part of the farmer, and the labourer should not forfeit his cottage and allotment for refusing to work for wages below the ordinary rate. The clause gave both parties a right to appeal to the Land Court; but, pending the appeal, it did not enable the labourer to retain possession of his cottage. He was aware it would be said that it would be unreasonable for the farmer to keep a labourer whom he did not like; but he could not admit that argument when the landlords objected to the tenants having a permanent tenure. They said—"Why should they keep tenants they did not like?" But that argument was rejected; and, therefore, he did not think it could be used in the interest of the farmers, nor did he admit that the agricultural labourers could be treated as domestic servants any more than they could treat artizans in a factory or miners in a mine as domestic servants. Farmers could not expect to have everything their own way any more than the landlords—they must be prepared to make sacrifices for the
  1678
  benefit of the labouring population. All the agricultural classes under this Bill were going to have a fresh start under most favourable conditions, and the farmers must do what they had engaged to do in carrying out the wishes of the labourers; while the labourers on their part, he was certain, would recognize the fact that it was their interest and their duty to make themselves useful to the farmer. He certainly should press this clause to a division, if it were only to obtain an expression of opinion as to the right of the labourer to have a permanence of tenure.
  New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, he was afraid that the object the hon. Member had in view was foreign to the purpose of the Bill. The provisions after which the hon. Member proposed to insert his clause did not contemplate the erection of cottages for agricultural labourers for any fixed or specific period, but enabled the farmer to provide proper and suitable tenements for such labourers as he employed. The Amendment of the hon. Member proposed to locate the labourers, and turn them from the condition of labourers into tenants; and, if it were followed out to its consequences, the result would be this, that when the farmer got a statutory term of 15 years, the labourer who happened to be employed at the time for the farmer would also get a statutory term for his dwelling, and, instead of being one of a migratory class, would be continued for 15 years, and possibly even for successive periods of 15 years. It seemed to him that it was quite impossible to accept the Amendment, and therefore he trusted that the hon. Member would not press it.
  MR. O'SULLIVANsaid, that, in order to secure something for the labourers, decided action should be taken on this clause, because it was melancholy that the unfortunate labourers should have to go from three to four miles to their work, and he thought that the Government should require something to be done for them in this respect. There was no desire to place them where they were not required; but it was important they should live on the farms where they were at work.
  MAJOR NOLANsaid, he was not going to discuss the details of this clause; but he certainly hoped that the hon. Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue) would press it to a division. The hon. Member's way of improving the condition of the labourer might not be his own; but, unless the Committee determined to do something, the labourer would certainly be left out in the cold. They must remember that the labourer in Ireland was in this position—he was created by the landlords, and from the laws of entail and from the impossibility of selling small plots of land, there was no inducement offered to the labourer to save his money for the purpose of purchasing a small plot of land or a house. It was an axiom that the Irish labourer would only save to purchase a house or a plot of ground—something that he could see. A labourer was willing to pay for the house or plot of land, and if he had been able to do that during the last 50 or 100 years there would have been a considerable number of them with plots and houses. They were under a debt to these strong men, and they ought to try and do something for them. Very little had been done hitherto. Several propositions were on the Paper, and he hoped the Government would accept some of them. The clause of the hon. Member for Tralee, although he did not assent to all its details, contained in it something which would do the labourer good.
  MR. CHARLES RUSSELLsaid, he did not yield to the hon. and gallant Member who had just sat down, or the Mover of the clause, in his desire to benefit the labourer. But this was an Amendment which he could not vote for. It was a mistake for the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan) to suppose that the effect of the Amendment was to provide cottages or facilities for the building of new ones. [Mr. O'SULLIVAN: It provides labourers with cottages.] That was not so. He could quite understand that it might be quite necessary to have some protection for the labourers as against small farmers; but he wanted to point out that the effect of this clause was not to provide them with cottages, but to fix the working population in definite places, although the claims of the labour market might call them somewhere else. This Amendment would be most disadvantageous to the working classes. It would be objectionable to
  1680
  those having a small quantity of land, instead of taking their labour to market, to be fixed on a small holding. He quite agreed in the desirability of providing increased facilities for the acquirement of proper houses on the small holdings, and he also agreed in the necessity of controlling the terms on which the farmer let the land to the labourer; but this clause would neither effect the one nor the other, for it would fix and limit the supply of labour.
  MR. DAWSONsaid, he thought the object of the Government clause was that where the farmer brought labour to the farm, he should provide accommodation for that labour. That, he thought, was the humane intention of the Bill. But he thought it would be right to place some restrictions upon the relations of the employers and the employed. He thoroughly sympathized with the labourer, and he was sorry to say to the Committee that the clause which he had on the Paper would be excluded from their consideration. In that clause he offered improvable ground on which to labour, and in that lay his hope for the relief of the labour market, which, at the present time, was overstocked.
  MR. GILLsaid, he hoped that the hon. Member for Tralee (The O'Donoghue) would not press his Amendment. He objected to the fixity of tenure to the labourer. The farmer was only allowed to build a certain number of cottages. If these got into the possession of two labourers, who turned out to be idle and drunken men, and unable to do his work, if he left them on his land he would have no means to build cottages for any other labourers, and he would be perfectly at the mercy of these men when they knew that they had fixity of tenure. They might act in a different way if they knew that the farmer could turn them out.
  THE O'DONOGHUEobserved, that if the labourer got drunk, and was unable to work, as was suggested by his hon. Friend, the clause gave the tenant power to dismiss him. He did not think that there was anything in the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman who talked about the clause binding the labourer down to his holding. There was nothing to bind him to his holding in it.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, he did not like to offer any decided opinion upon any

  1681
  question with regard to the labourer, for it seemed to him to be a very complicated and difficult question; and it was exceedingly difficult to know what effect certain provisions would have. But with regard to the statement of the hon. Member for Tralee, it seemed to him that it was a proposition in which he coincided—namely, that the party who supplied the allotment should not be the landlord but the tenant. The tenant farmer was more likely to know the amount of labour that he was likely to require than the landlord was for him; and, as a commercial speculation, for a landlord to build cottages, it would be perfectly unprofitable, and would not re-imburse him for the outlay. Therefore, in his opinion, the two parties who ought to come together in this matter were the tenant and the labourer. This clause had been unfairly criticized with reference to the statutory term. The principle embodied in this Amendment was very much embodied in the Bill with regard to the holdings of farmers from landlords, because in this clause there was a statutory term for 15 years, and a particular rent; but in the case of certain misconduct of the labourer, the arrangement should cease and determine. They had a similar provision with regard to the holdings of farmers and landlords. If a farmer committed a breach of statutory conditions, he would lose his interest in the holding; so that it seemed, in principle, the two cases were equal. He did not mean to argue that it was a sound principle that there should be such a thing as a statutory term. It seemed to him that this was a very reasonable clause.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 17; Noes 78: Majority 61.—(Div. List, No. 327.)
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, he had a clause to propose which deserved the serious attention of the Committee. They had given power to the tenant to enable him to purchase his holding under certain conditions. They had also given power to the Court to purchase properties under certain conditions, and he now asked that under certain circumstances they should allow the landlord to get the Commission to purchase his holding from him. He had
  1682
  amended this clause on more than one occasion. He had endeavoured to simplify it as much as possible by trying to deal only with holdings that came under the statutory conditions which had been imposed. He proposed that when the tenant had asked for a reduction of rent, and statutory terms had been imposed, the landlord should be able, through the Commission, to sell the holding. Looking at the Bill as it now stood, if it became an Act, it would inflict upon many landlords gross injustice. It would reduce rents where hitherto they had been fair and reasonable. It would place the landlord in a totally different position to that which he had ever held before. In 1870 any proposals of this kind would have been met by a corresponding compensation, and he, therefore, ventured to ask that this very moderate amount of compensation, which he now proposed, should be awarded to the landlords. What was the great cry of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway on the Opposition side of the House? Their great cry had been that there were 660,000 tenants in Ireland who were entitled to become possessors of the soil. He saw the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) in his place opposite; and would he for one moment get up and say that his great object had not been to enable these tenants to become the possessors of the soil which they now occupied? Hero he was offering them another opportunity of purchasing their holdings from the Commission. He proposed to give the landlord an opportunity to sell at a fair and reasonable price to the Commission. The right hon. Gentleman to whom he had alluded had argued this question; but it had been still more strongly argued by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), who had said that his great object was to get the estates of the landlords by fairly paying for them. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) saw the difficulties that would be raised by the Prime Minister as Chancellor of the Exchequer in the way of the acceptance of this proposal; but when they came to this House and asked for a Bill of this kind they were bound to look at all sides of the case. He ventured to say that he had put the present case fairly before the Government, and had argued reasonably enough that where the landlord was un-

  1683
  fairly damnified by this Act, they were bound to compensate him; and he asked them to do that by giving to the tenant an opportunity of purchasing from the Commission a holding at the instance of the landlord. There was something beyond all this to which he wished to call the attention of the Committee. He would point out to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell), who was so thoroughly acquainted with all these matters, that this Bill, in its present form, was likely to do very serious injury to the proprietors of small holdings. In the Act of 1848, where they asked people, whoever they might be, to purchase the land in Ireland under the Encumbered Estates Court, they gave the purchasers a title, and enabled them to raise the rents. Many of them had laid out the whole of their capital; and now, when it was proposed to lower the rents, they would be reduced to a point of starvation. What was a fair thing to do under the circumstances? Why, to purchase the property, and to enable people whom they had inveigled into purchasing the land to give it up. If they did not do this the Act would prove a gross injustice to all the small proprietors in Ireland. He would appeal to the Irishmen he saw around him, whether what he said was not really the case? The large properties in Ireland were let at a much lower rent than the small ones, and the reduction would not be so great in their case, so that, in all probability, the Bill would not bring ruin to the proprietors of the larger properties. He would appeal to all those interested in the welfare of Ireland, whether he was not right, and whether, if the Bill passed in its present form, they would not be really expropriating from Ireland the class of small proprietors? If this Amendment were not accepted, what would the Court do? They would take the opinion of the land agents as to what was the value of the property, and the large properties would rule the small ones. The small properties would be found to suffer very materially, and many of their proprietors would be ruined. It was because he believed it was neither the wish nor the object of that Committee to drive out of Ireland the very class of people which, by the Act of 1848 they established there, that he brought forward this proposal. His
  1684
  clause was a moderate, fair, and reasonable one, and he appealed to the Committee to support it.
  New Clause proposed, after Clause 20, insert the following clause:—
  (Purchase of holdings by Land Commission in certain cases.)
  "The landlord of any 6 holding may, within twelve months after the same becomes subject to statutory conditions, at the instance of the tenant, give the prescribed notice to the Land Commission requiring the Land Commission to purchase such holding, and forthwith, after receipt of such notice, the Land Commission shall purchase such holding, for such sum as may be agreed upon between the landlord and the Land Commission, or as, failing agreement, may be determined by arbitration in manner by this Act prescribed: Provided always, That the Land Commission may appoint any Land Commissioner or Assistant Commissioner to be an arbitrator to act together with an arbitrator to be appointed by the landlord for the purposes of such arbitration: Provided also, That where such holding is subject to incumbrances, or any doubt exists as to the title, the Land Commission may, unless satisfied with the indemnity or terms given by the landlord, decline to make such purchase as aforesaid.
  "Any holding so purchased by the Land Commission may be sold by the Land Commission to the tenant of the same, in accordance with the provisions of this Act with respect to the sale of holdings to tenants, or subject to the tenancy in the same to any other person."—(Sir Walter B. Barttelot.)
  New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: In the very last night of the debate we have a very important clause submitted to us, which, if adopted, would entirely change the nature of the Bill. I cannot imagine the suggestion of any clause which could have been more important, because its effect would be to impose upon the State the compulsory purchase of any estate a landlord might wish to sell. [An hon. MEMBER: Not the estate, but the holding.] Well, it comes to the same thing, because the holdings constitute the estate. The clause would apply to all holdings and to every estate the tenant or the landlord of which has applied to the Court, and the holding has come under statutory conditions. In all those cases the hon. and gallant Member proposes that the landlord shall have the power of compelling the State to purchase. That might go to an extent

  1685
  which, it appears to me, might be exceedingly disadvantageous. What we have do neup to this point is this. We have stated that the Government, or the Land Commission, may come in and purchase estates or holdings for the sake of selling them to the tenant. This is a very different matter. The proposal before us is that the State must purchase from the landlord, and may sell to the tenant; and the final result of that undoubtedly would be that the State would become a very large landowner, probably the largest permanent landowner in Ireland. I do not think that would be an advantageous result. The State steps in for the purpose of facilitating both sides agreeing to the purchase of the property by a tenant, and the tenant is allowed, all parties being agreeable, to purchase the fee-simple of his holding. But that is a very different thing from the landlord being able to make the State buy the holding; because there is no security whatever that the State, subsequently, will be able to sell to the tenant. The State may, therefore, as I say, become the largest permanent landowner in Ireland, if this clause is adopted. The hon. and gallant Member justifies that on this ground. He says the clause would not apply to large properties. Well, I am not at all sure that would be the case. I am not at all sure that large landowners would not take advantage of it; but whether they would or would not, the hon. and gallant Member justifies it on the ground that small landowners would take advantage of it, because, he says, this Bill would reduce them otherwise to starvation point. What right has he to suppose that? The Bill merely contemplates that the holdings should be sold at a fair rent. Why should we throw on the tribunal, which is to fix a fair rent, the slur that it will reduce the rents in the case of small holdings to starvation point? There is no reason whatever to say that. I think this Bill will be justified by what will happen, and I think the final result of the measure, within a few years, will be that the landowners of Ireland, small and large, will be better off than they are at this moment. Therefore, there is no reason for the State to step in in this way. I hope the Committee understands the exceeding width and importance of this clause, which we are asked to pass on the last night of the Committee on this Bill—a
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  cause the effect of which, in all probability, would be to make the Government—that is, the taxpayers of the Three Kingdoms—by far the largest landowners in Ireland.
  RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, it was perfectly true, as stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, that the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) had moved one of the most important Amendments that could possibly have been brought forward on this Bill. In considering this Amendment, he could not help recalling some of the phases through which it had passed. It did not altogether owe its origin to this side of the House. It had been put down in very much the same form—he thought in almost, if not quite, the same words—[Sir WALTER B. BATTTELOT: Not quite.]—in almost the same words by the hon. Baronet the Member for the Eastern Division of the West Riding of Yorkshire (Sir John Ramsden). The Amendment had been put down with a tremendous flourish. It was put down shortly afterwards by the hon. Member for Great Grimsby (Mr. Honeage), and that hon. Member had succeeded in running the Government to a division in which they had only a majority of 25. Encouraged and elated by what was almost tantamount to a victory, the hon. Baronet (Sir John Ramsden) put on the Paper a similar Amendment at a later stage; and they had every right to believe, from conversations that had taken place, that this was the great rallying-point of the Whig Party—that the Amendment was to be supported by the entire strength of the Whig Party, which was, in all likelihood, to put the Government in a minority if they resisted it, and which was also, as far as they could understand, to be supported by independent Members from Ireland. That was some time ago. But the division on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby had a most extraordinary effect, and had led to some extraordinary incidents. A Circular was issued by the Birmingham Caucus, warning the Whigs that their conduct in regard to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Great Grimsby had been such as to bring on them the censure of the Liberal Party, and that if they persisted in this evil course of bringing forward Amend-

  1687
  ments to which the Liberal Government could not assent, they would have no chance of being again retured to Parliament in the Liberal interest. The effect of that on the hon. Baronet and his Friends opposite had been surprising. The Whigs had seen clearly enough that the effect of the Bill would be to plunder certain classes, and their desire had been to offer some compensation. But where was the Whig Party now—where were the unfortunate and miserable Whigs? He did not see one—he did not see a single one of the gallant 35 who followed the hon. Member for Great Grimsby into the Lobby. He saw the hon. Member for Ipswich (Mr. Jesse Collings), who was not altogether unconnected with the Birmingham Caucus, and he offered him his humble congratulations upon the success which had attended the celebrated Circular—on the effect that it had produced on this Whig coterie. The Whigs had abandoned their Amendments; they had run from the battle. It was to be hoped that, like those who fought and ran away, they would "live to fight another day." Now, the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) was left alone in his glory to move this Amendment. Its principle was such that if it had not been for the Bill—if it had been proposed by itself—it was not such as his hon and gallant Friend would have brought forward. The Committee had, to a certain extent, abolished a great many of the rights of ownership, and what they might call the amenities of ownership. Before the measure was brought in, a man had rights and privileges which, in the event of the measure passing, he would no longer possess. Hon. Members opposite said that the Bill would not place the landlord in a worse position than he was in before. Well, as to the actual collection of rent he was not sure that that would not be so; but there were other privileges and rights connected with the ownership of property besides the mere collection of rent. There was the right and privilege of improving land and spending money on it, of separating farms and adding to them, of erecting farm buildings or taking them away, or of converting them to other purposes. All these rights the landlord had now, but they would vanish when the Bill passed. They had taken away these rights, which were as sub-
  1688
  stantial as anything they had given to the tenant, and they reduced him to the position of Shylock, to whom they would give nothing but what was in the bond. The landlords replied to them—"Now, you say you deprive me of part of my property, and I call on you to take the whole." That was the principle pursued in all railway legislation which was effected for the benefit of the community. They said to a Railway Company that proposed to take a portion of a person's property—"You shall not take a part without the whole." ["No, no!"] Well, he ought to have some knowledge upon this question. He had had some experience with regard to it, because he had succeeded in defeating a Bill which proposed to subvert that very principle. The whole principle of railway legislation had been that a Railway Company had no business to spoil a man's property unless they were prepared to buy the owner out. ["No, no!"] Yes; it was absolutely so, and all the hon. and gallant Member for West Sussex asked was that they should deal in the same way with the Irish landowners. They were not legislating for the benefit of the Irish landowner, they were legislating with the object of securing peace in Ireland, and for benefiting the people of Ireland; and if, for that object, they interfered with private rights and the privileges of private landowners, they must be prepared to pay the penalty—they must be prepared to purchase them out altogether. There was nothing he would look on with greater fear and alarm than seeing all the Irish landlords bought out. It seemed to him that the Government wished to leave the Irish landlord in the odious position of being a rent-charger—of having nothing to do but to exact a tax from the people of Ireland, and simply because they dared not come in and take that duty upon themselves. They were making the landlords the buffers between the Irish people and themselves, and it was that that his hon. and gallant Friend wished to avert. If the Government chose to initiate legislation of this sort, and, without compensation of any kind, to plunder individuals, he would say to them—"Face the mob you have excited yourself. Take the responsibility of collecting the rent yourself, and do not throw it upon a class whom you refuse to protect." The ob-

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  ject of the Amendment was to bring before the Government the real responsibility they had taken up in this matter. There were many landlords in Ireland who had devoted their lives to the improvement of their land and the advancement of their tenants. ["Oh, oh!"] Yes, there were many of this kind in Ireland; but they would not be prepared to stop in the country one hour the moment they were deprived of the power of doing good, and the moment they were placed in the odious position of being merely tax-gatherers. The Amendment was one which would not have been proposed had it not been for what had gone before. Remembering what the landlords had done in Ireland, he was prepared to assist his hon. and gallant Friend in endeavouring to protect them from the hateful position into which it was now sought to place them.
  MR. CHARLES RUSSELLsaid, he did not propose to follow the noble Lord opposite (Lord Randolph Churchill) through all the details of his interesting, although somewhat excited speech. It was a mystery to him how the noble Lord was able so frequently to work himself up to such a pitch of excitement. What was the grievance? When the statutory condition was seriously contemplated it would be found simply to mean that the Court was to fix a fair rent for a fair period. He could not understand how the noble Lord could take such an exaggerated view of the hardship on the landlord of having that fair rent fixed. The Amendment involved the adoption of an altogether new principle not hitherto to be found in the Bill, because, up to this moment, that part of the measure dealing with the sale of estates was entirely voluntary. The estates were to be purchased where the landlords were willing to sell, and where the Land Commission was willing to buy, the Land Commission, however, having first ascertained that the tenants themselves were willing to purchase. How was the new principle sought to be justified by the hon. and gallant Gentleman? He put his point very clearly, and it was this—that under the operation of this Bill the rents of the small landlords of Ireland would be reduced to what was called starvation point. What did that mean? Were the words "starvation point" used as synonymous with the words "fair rent;" because, if they were not, how was the
  1690
  starvation point reached? All the Court would have to do would be to fix a fair rent. What was the next stage of the argument? This proposal was supposed to be for the benefit of the landlords, but how was it to benefit them? Did the hon. and gallant Gentleman suppose that the purchase of an estate upon a rent which he described as at starvation point would satisfy the landlord? If all that it was worth was to be given, and if the value was as was described by the hon. and gallant Member, how was the small landlord to benefit? He left the hon. and gallant Member, when he came to address the Committtee, to explain this. The hon. and gallant Gentleman could only hope that by the machinery laid down in this clause the small landowner might get more than his estate was worth; because, unless that was so, no benefit at all was conferred upon the small landowner. He would point out that this clause did not provide at all for tenants being willing to purchase. All that was necessary to satisfy the conditions of the clause was that the Land Court should buy at the instance of the landlord. The Land Commission might in that way be asked to buy up many, and those the most unsuitable, estates in Ireland; and, therefore, he submitted that the proposal was faulty in principle and would not serve the purpose the hon. and gallant Member had in view.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEThere can be no doubt that the objections raised to the clause moved by my hon. and gallant Friend, both by the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant and the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. C. Russell), are objections of a clear and substantial character, and I have no doubt that my hon. and gallant Friend is perfectly conscious of the fact. At the same time, there are two sides to this question, and I think my hon. and gallant Friend has done well in bringing the matter before the Committee in the form in which he has introduced it. Let me remind the Committee of what has been said on former occasions as to this question of compensation. I will not allude to speeches made 10 years ago, when we were told that some of the things now proposed were of such a character that they could not be recognized, because they would give the landlord claims to compensation which

  1691
  it would be inconvenient to deal with. But even in the discussions on this very Bill itself we have had expressions of a general character from the Prime Minister, in which he has used such language with regard to compensation as implied that the matter was one he did not decline to consider on principle, but which he would put aside until he saw during the progress of the Committee whether any case for compensation could be made out. We have always held throughout these discussions that it was quite possible on a principle to come before Parliament and say—"Now, by this legislation you have inflicted a serious blow on the landlord class, and you have done that for a purpose that you consider to be of national importance; and if you do, for the purpose which you consider to be of national importance, injure a particular class of society, it is but reasonable that some compensation should be made to them." Well, if that is so, you come to the difficult question, how is the compensation to be assessed, and how is it to be discovered what the compensation shall be? The suggestion which has been made by more persons than one, by persons sitting in different parts of the House, and which is embodied in the proposal now before us, is this—that instead of attempting to assess compensation in particular cases, you ought to allow the landlord, when he feels himself to be aggrieved by the measures you have adopted, to compensate himself by selling that property which he is no longer able advantageously to hold. There are a great many classes of cases in which the landlord will undoubtedly be the sufferer, and will have a claim against the Legislature which has made him a sufferer. No doubt, the man who holdst he handle of the whip looks upon a whipping from a different point of view to the man who feels the lash; and Members of this House, no doubt, look upon the results of this measure in a different light to the unfortunate men who have done the best they can, and who have made great sacrifices for the improvement of the country in which they live. These landlords will have to suffer considerable inconvenience and loss—a loss which must be measured not only by the direct loss they sustain in consequence of the reduction in the amount of their rents, but
  1692
  indirectly by the apprehension which must necessarily arise through the power of Parliament of further reducing their position and income by future legislation in the same direction. It does not seem an unreasonable proposition that a landlord who finds himself in this position—that on the one hand he will be odious to the country and his tenant as a mere rent-charger, with no power of executing improvements; and on the other hand finds himself deprived of the income he has enjoyed, and who is left subject to heavy burdens that he is not able to bear, and who will always remember that he was encouraged to invest his capital and take up these burdens by the State and by Parliament itself—it does not, I say, seem unreasonable that a landlord so situated should feel his position to be a very unfair one. It is not at all unnatural that he should desire to be relieved from that position. Then comes the question of policy. Is it desirable that you should compel men in that position against their will to remain on their properties? Then comes my hon. and gallant Friend's proposal. No doubt, that was met by most serious objections. It was met by this great objection in practice—how is the Commission or the State to manage if the whole or the greater part of the land of Ireland is presented to them for purchase, and they are compelled to take it? My own suggestion, however, would be that the difficulty might be got over by giving the landlord the option of selling his property at a price which, while it would save him from utter ruin, would offer him no undue inducement to sell. Take the judicial rent as your basis, and give a limited number of years' purchase—say 20 years. By so doing you surely would not tempt the man to sell. You should give that kind of relief that is given in the Money Market, if I may use the illustration, in a time of panic when you suspend the Bank Act. When people find that they can get money at 10 per cent, they are not so anxious to run after it. The knowledge that they can get it gives relief. I admit that this clause, taken by itself, while it is valuable as enabling my hon. and gallant Friend and those who agree with him to state their case, and point out what the difficulty in principle is, would require a good deal more pressure before it could form any legislative measure; and, look-

  1693
  ing at the circumstances in which we stand, I hope my hon. and gallant Friend will not think it necessary to call upon us to divide. ["Oh, oh!"] I do not understand what hon. Gentlemen mean by that expression; perhaps they call for a division. But I have expressed my own opinion that the clause contains in itself the recognition of a principle which Parliament ought to be slow indeed to infringe, and that is, that when you sacrifice the interests of a class for what you consider a general benefit, you ought to be called upon to make compensation. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, perhaps it is one of those principles which is going out of fashion, but it is one for which I have some respect. It is, perhaps, the remnant of an old prejudice, but some of us think it is the remnant of an old principle. I should be sorry to see it entirely abandoned. Though I could not support the clause as it now stands, I think it does contain a germ of a principle that it is desirable to recognize.
  MR. GLADSTONE: If, as has been said, Parliament is about to invade the property of the Irish landlords, this question of compensation becomes a very serious one indeed, and one concerning which, if we are prepared to deal with it at all, we ought to speak in most decisive terms. I certainly, in that sense, see no advantage that can be gained by following the course of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and telling the hon. and gallant Baronet behind him that, though his proposal contains a very important principle, he ought not, in the circumstances, to press it. If, in truth, the principle of the clause is an important one, we ought not, as a Government, to be content to get rid of it on the strength of a few sentences of fair words, which will bear no fruit whatever. That, at any rate, is not my idea of dealing with questions of property. I remember—and I do not suppose many hon. Members will have forgotten—the period at which the late Government actually confiscated the property of the owners of advowsons in Scotland, by giving them, in the shape of compensation, a price which bore no relation to the market price of their property. We, in 1869, having to deal with the holders of advowsons in Ireland, provided that every one of them should receive the full market price of
  1694
  his property. This we held to be the true principle on which the compensation should be based; and this is the principle on which we hold that the question should be approached on the present occasion, if approached at all. I do not hesitate to say that I look upon this matter as vital to the Bill; and I am determined, as far as I am personally concerned—and I think I can, speaking for my Friends near me, say that they share in my determination—that, in doing our duty to the several classes in Ireland who are immediately affected by the Bill, we shall not forget the duty we owe to the nation at large. If these classes, either or both of them, have a just claim to compensation in consequence of the manner in which their interests will be affected by this Bill, we are bound, as a Parliament, to give it to them; but, if not, it is our determination, as it is also our obligation as a Government, to offer a firm resistance to any claim to compensation that may be put forth on their behalf, and not to palter with the matter by setting forth stories about possible coming evils. This claim for compensation has been too often urged. At the time of the Corn Law agitation an immense advantage was conferred upon the Irish landlords, and they were compensated by a very heavy charge upon the Public Treasury. On various other occasions, from time to time, claims for compensation have been urged upon that patient and enduring creature, the public of this country; but, in my opinion, those claims have never yet been made good in reason and in argument, nor, in my opinion—for that matter—has a much more plausible case been set forth than the one which is now before the Committee. I do not hesitate, with regard to that case, to say that if it can be shown, on clear and definite experience at the present time, that there is a probability, or if after experience should prove that, in fact, ruin and heavy loss is likely to be or has been brought upon any class in Ireland by the direct effect of this legislation, that is a question which we ought to look very directly in the face. But what I contend is that there is no such case before us at the present time, and that the Member of this House who votes for compensation as now proposed must vote against his convictions, in that there is no case

  1695
  under this Bill for claiming compensation. In the year 1870 the claim for compensation, though occasionally mentioned in the course of the debates, did not take any substantive form; but there was a great deal more to be said at that time in support of claims for compensation than there is now, because, in 1870, there was this fact patent that by the law of the land anterior to the passing of the Bill and the making of the Act, improvements on the holdings which were made by the tenants were the property of the landlords, and by the Act of 1870 that particular property of the landlords became distinctly and undeniably the property of the tenants. Therefore, in 1870 there was, at least, a primâ facie case for compensation. We, I may say, did not believe in the existence of a real case for claiming compensation. We believed—and our belief has been borne out by experience—that the Act of 1870 in the aggregate of its operations went to improve, and not to depreciate, the value of the property of the landlords. Upon what ground at the present moment, therefore—and I am not speaking of anything that experience may hereafter develop, as to which I have my own opinions and expectations—is it that, having regard to the proposed legislation now before us, compensation is to be demanded? If it is to be demanded, according to this clause, because a judicial rent and statutory terms are about to be established, all that I can say is, that a judicial rent can only be fixed, and statutory terms can only be established, according to the judgment of a dispassionate and impartial judicial body who will have to decide between man and man according to facts proved before them. I admit that it is unusual, and requires very strong and exceptional circumstances to justify the passing of an Act of Parliament which contemplates the fixing of a judicial rent; but I deny that it is an injury to any one class in particular. Why is it, or can it be, an injury to the landlord to have fixed a fair rent; and, if such a fact could be possible, why is it not an injury to the tenant? If you are to compensate the landlord for having fixed a fair rent, which may, in certain cases, be a reduced rent, why should you not compensate the tenant when it is perfectly possible that the fair rent fixed by
  1696
  the Court may be an increased rent? No man can say, at the present moment, in how many cases this will happen. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), than whom there are few men more qualified to speak on this subject, has distinctly indicated his opinion that many of the absentee landlords have, as it were, compounded for the fact that they were absentee landlords, and performed the duty pertaining to such landlords by giving their tenants the benefit of low rents. As I then stated, my opinion was that the operation of the Bill would, in many cases, have the effect of raising the rents, and thereby creating discontent. I quite agree that if Parliament were to pass a law providing that rents in Ireland should be universally reduced to Griffith's valuation, that would be a fair case for compensation; but in the present case, the State, on the ground of policy, on the ground of humanity, and on the ground of general utility, interfered with private property. No one can doubt that at one time the State endeavoured to fix wages; but no one, as far as I know, has ever heard that compensation was ever claimed from the State for persons whose wages were so reduced. This, I take it, was a much stronger case than the one now before the Committee. The State has again and again, as hon. Members know, limited the access of employers of labour to the labour market, and has made labour comparatively dear by means of that action; but employers of labour did not on that account come to this House and make and lodge a claim for compensation. I am quite sure that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman who has recently addressed the House was well intended as far as landlords are concerned. I cannot refrain from saying that I still feel the greatest doubt whether, in the course which he has taken, he has conferred upon them any favour. I would be bold enough now to repeat in effect what I said in 1870, which was that I then believed—the result having justified my expression of belief—that in a moderate but, at the same time, perfectly appreciable degree the effect of the legislation then proposed has been to raise the capital value of estates in Ireland, as far as the landlords are concerned. I may repeat that Her Majesty's Government entertain the same hope as

  1697
  far as this Bill is concerned. I do not now propose to enter into the question of whether the action of the Court in fixing a judicial rent may not, upon the whole, lower the rents rather than raise thorn, in its first operation. It is perfectly possible that this might be so, and I have no doubt that such a result is largely anticipated on the other side of the House; but if, in its first effects, the action of the Court has that tendency, then all I can say is, that it is perfectly within the probabilities of the case that its ulterior tendency in giving confidence, in producing harmony between landlords and tenants, and in bringing about a larger development of the productive powers of the soil may be to repay the landlords for the incidental mischief of the Act twofold or threefold. Why, I would ask, is Ireland to be doomed for ever to that state of things in which there should be such an absence of confidence, and such apprehension of danger impending, as that no one will be willing to invest their capital in land in that country, upon terms more nearly approaching to the settled state of things which we enjoy in this country. Without presuming to attempt to determine the future relations of the judicial rents to the present rents, I will only say that I, for one, shall be bitterly disappointed with the operation of the Act if the property of the landlords in Ireland does not come to be worth more than 20 years' purchase on the judicial rent. In this hopo I probably have with me the sympathies of Irishmen themselves. They have naturally a feeling for their country, and do not wish to lag behind in the race of civilization. I believe, therefore, that no legislation, however liberal to the tenant, can be really satisfactory unless, in all the relations of social life, it is favourable to the joint interests of all the classes concerned in the great matters which we are endeavouring to settle.
  SIR HERBERT MAXWELLsaid, he merely wished to remark, in reference to one observation which had been made, that advowsons in Scotland never had a commercial value; and that it, therefore, could not be said that in the transfer of advowsons in that country property of commercial value was transferred from one person to another.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR, said, he had only one fault to find with the speech of
  1698
  the Prime Minister, which was that it had no reference to the proposed clause. He could only suppose that the right hon. Gentleman had made his speech in anticipation of something that was likely to be said in "another place." As far as he could understand it, the hon. and gallant Baronet (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) had given no hint as to compensation, but had left it to the Committee to do no more than discuss the terms of the clause before it. It seemed clear that the Prime Minister looked forward to the perpetuation of landlordism in Ireland; but, as he (Mr. O'Connor) believed, the main advantage of the Bill would be that it would enable the Irish tenants to elbow landlordism out of the country. He did not admit that the Bill went as far as he could wish; but, as its tendency was in the direction he had indicated, it was, to some extent, satisfactory. The hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell) had pointed out that the effect of the clause might be to throw a large quantity of land on the hands of the Commission, who might, perhaps, be compelled to buy at too high a price, and, therefore, injustice might be worked upon the tenants. The first of these objections was met by the provision that the purchase should not take place until a fair rent had been fixed and the tenant secured in his holding. He admitted the force of the observation that the effect of the clause might be to put a large quantity of land into the possession of the Commissioners; but this arose from the fact that while the purchase of the land from the landlords was compulsory, the letting of it to the tenants was optional, as far as the tenants were concerned. That, however, would not prove an insuperable barrier to the working of the Bill, if the Government would provide that the holdings should only be purchased if the tenant was willing to buy them at the price fixed by the Commission, and to make such other provisions as would bring about a joint proprietorship between landlords and tenants in the soil.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, he had always held that the landlord system should, as far as possible, give way to the tenants; but he admitted that the landlords were entitled to compensation. The Prime Minister spoke of this clause as simply a mat-

  1699
  ter of compensation to the landlord for imaginary wrongs; but he could find nothing in it to compensate a dispossessed landlord. No matter whether the rent was fixed fairly or not, the Bill made a material change in the condition of the landlord with regard to the soil. It took away from him certain distinet and very substantial proprietorial privileges, and reduced him to the level of one merely dealing with a tenant for rent. He approved of that; he was glad that the Court could step in between the landlord and the tenant; but still it did reduce the landlord to a level much below that which he had previously occupied. The landlord was therefore fairly entitled to say—"You have altered my position altogether. You have done this probably for the good of the country; I admit that, but you have changed my social status and taken away what I have always believed to be my rights, and you ought to allow me to go out of the land, and you ought to buy it from me." He did not want to do injustice to the landlord any more than to the tenant; but they had to consider, above all things, just now the condition of the Irish tenants, and the prospect of forming a peasant proprietary in that country. For that reason he was anxious that as many landlords as could be induced to leave their land should do so as soon as possible; and he would support any proposal for enabling the Government to get possession of the land and to form a peasant proprietary upon it. He should be false to the purpose he came to the House to serve if he did not support every proposal which endeavoured to bring a larger quantity of land under the control of the Government, in order that they might plant a peasant proprietary upon it; and, therefore, he should support the Amendment, although he did not often find himself in sympathy with the advocates of the landlords' claims.
  COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, he could not think that the hon. Members for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) and Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) expressed the real opinions of the Irish people upon this point; and certainly they were not acting in their interest. The Committee was now at the last stage of a Bill which admittedly would confer immense benefits on the occupiers of land in Ireland; and that Bill, whether
  1700
  effective or not, was framed upon certain principles—the principle of voluntary sale of their property by landlords, and the principle of voluntary acquisition of the same by the Commission. His hon. and gallant Friend opposite (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) brought forward this clause at the last moment to establish a totally different principle; but he did not think it was just, because he could not admit that the landlord who had let his land at a fair rent was injured to the extent of 1d. by this Bill. Therefore, he should oppose the Amendment; but how stood it with Members representing popular constituencies in Ireland? The Prime Minister had said he could not accept this Amendment, which would vitally alter the whole structure of the Bill—no Government could; but the hon. and gallant Member proposed to put the House in the position of endangering and imperilling the Bill by an Amendment which, however good in itself, was incompatible with the Bill, and which the Prime Minister and the Government—without whom the Bill could not be carried—stated would be fatal to the Bill if accepted. For these reasons he had not the slightest hesitation in predicting that public opinion in Ireland would support those who supported the clause in opposition to the Amendment.
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTONremarked, that the arguments which had been advanced exactly illustrated the principle upon which this Bill had been conducted. The Prime Minister said the clause provided compensation, but there was not a word about compensation; and then the Prime Minister, having mis-named the clause, said whoever voted for compensation voted against the Bill. If the clause meant compensation, and if the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) supported it, and proposed merely to take 20 years' purchase, the Prime Minister contended that 33 years was the proper period. He said that was the average price payable for land in this country; but that was a very startling assertion. There was a great deal in the argument of the Prime Minister in which all must agree, because he did not think anyone could contend that the mere establishing of a Judicial Court to arbitrate between the landlord and tenant and fix a fair rent

  1701
  constituted in itself any claim on the part of the landlord for compensation. But what was the object of establishing this Court? It was not to relieve the tenant from the excessive pressure produced by excessive demands for land. The object was, according to the words of the Act, to enable the tenant for the time being of every holding to sell his tenancy for the best price he could get. That was to say that whilst, on the one hand, the Bill deliberately took from the landlord the benefit of the market price, it did so in order to hand over to the tenant something that did not belong to him to enable him to get the full benefit of the market value of the commodity. And it was distinctly admitted that there would be cases where the tenant would sell something which he had neither acquired nor created nor bought. The Bill deprived the landlords of the market price which excessive competition had produced, because they were few, and gave it to the tenants because they were many, and that was the great fault of the Bill. The Prime Minister was very sanguine that the creation of this tenant right would produce tranquillity from one end of the country to the other, and had alluded to the condition of Ulster. He did not know that Donegal was in a more satisfactory state than the rest of Ireland, or that the Ulster right existed in a less degree there than in any other part; but the real reason why the North of Ireland was in a better condition than the rest of the country was that the manufactures absorbed the surplus population. If any hon. Member assumed that because the North of Ireland was more peaceable and quiet, and that the relations between landlords and tenants there were better than in other parts, that must not be attributed merely to tenant right, but to a number of circumstances which did not exist in any other parts of the country.
  MR. A. MOOREsaid, he regarded this as a most important Amendment, and one which could not be disposed of hurriedly. It was well worthy of the consideration of the Committee, for it contemplated a class of men with small means and heavily mortgaged, who could not afford the possible reduction which the Court might inflict. The hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr.
  1702
  C. Russell) said—"Oh, but his rent must have been too high if the Court reduces it to starvation point." Not at all; he might have let his land, as men sold coal and iron, at the best possible price; and the Court might compel him to reduce the rent. But he might be heavily mortgaged, and utterly unable to live if the rent was reduced; and the object of this Amendment was not, perhaps, to give the "upset" price in the market, but to give him something by which he could leave his land, with all the staff he had been accustomed to, and possibly find a happier home in some other country, where he could set himself up in some other walk in life with the remains of his property. The Amendment was a golden bridge for the retreating landlords, and was one which was quite necessary; for there would be many serious cases of people who could not afford to have their rents reduced. The hon. and learned Member for Dundalk had said high price meant high rent; but the tenant need not buy at all. He would have got his rent fixed, and it would be a case of caveat empton.
  MR. DALYwished to bring the Committee back into the regions of common sense, and said, if the Court established a fair rent which was greatly less than the tenant had been paying, that was simply the redressing of a wrong; but he believed that in many cases the interposition of the Court would lead to the raising of the rent. It was assumed by some hon. Members that the principle of the Bill was confiscation of the landlords' property. He denied that, for he believed the principle was the restitution to the tenant of the right that was acknowledged in 1370. The hon. Member for the City of Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had expressed his anxiety to see the landlords elbowed out of Ireland. He had no great anxiety to see them elbowed out; but he had a strong objection to their being elbowed out with their hands in the pockets of the State. There were plenty of people outside the State who would be willing to invest their money at 5 per cent if security was given and peace was restored to Ireland. It was asserted by Irish Conservative Members that the landlords were being wronged; but he repudiated that, for what was being done was a return to the

  1703
  position of right between man and man. He was willing to accord the landlords full and fair rents, but he was not willing to go beyond that; and he knew that if this Amendment was passed it would place the Government in a most embarrassing position, and would lead to their occupation of great tracts of land. He entirely agreed with the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk that a greater injury to the tenant could not be effected than by the State becoming owners of land. On all these grounds he opposed the Amendment.
  MR. E. COLLINSobserved, that if the clause did not mean competition he could not tell what it meant; and he would advise his hon. Friends on the other side below the Gangway to hesitate very much before they consented to this Amendment. He would like to ask the hon. and gallant Member who made this proposal whether he made it in the interest of the tenant or in the interest of the landlord? He knew that the hon. and gallant Member would be disposed to act in favour of the landlords; but he would advise the Committee not to accept the Amendment unless the hon. and gallant Member so modified it as to provide that if a landlord bought, he should do so on terms agreed to by the tenant.
  MR. DAWSONsaid, that what animated the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) and an immense proportion of the Irish people was a desire to see the system of landlordism in Ireland abolished. He believed the landlords had been as much the victims of the legislation for Ireland as the tenants; and he would support the clause if it gave compensation. He did not believe it did; but he would pay the landlords well in order to restore the agricultural land to the working occupiers. If the price were an exaggerated price, it would be well repaid by the increased development of the land. If there was a compulsory purchase a handsome price must be paid, and conversely; but to make this clause practicable the tenant must be willing to buy and the landlord must be willing to sell. In that case he would compel the Court to buy the holding; and there was nothing in that to outrage the principles of commerce, there was nothing to warrant the Prime Minister in being
  1704
  frightened at the amount of compensation; and if the Amendment was modified by the hon. and gallant Member, he thought it might be acceptable to the Committee. At all events, he believed it would meet with acceptance by the people of Ireland on account of its sound policy.
  MR. BLAKEsaid, he was averse to asking the Government to charge themselves with a quantity of land; and he suggested the insertion in the clause, after "Commission shall," the words, "after being satisfied that the land can be sold without loss to the State."
  MAJOR O'BEIRNEobserved, that land in Ireland would become more valuable after this Bill was passed, and advised the Government to accept the Amendment.
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, he had been pressed very much to insert in the clause a proviso that if the Commission purchased the property the tenant or someone else should purchase it from the Commission. To that he had no objection; but he must join issue with the Prime Minister on his remark that whoever voted for the clause voted against the principle of the Bill. There was nothing in the Bill which would be outraged or violated by his proposal. The Prime Minister himself had proposed that the market price should be absolutely abolished so far as the landlord was concerned, and that the Commission should regulate the price. Therefore, he maintained, the Prime Minister ought to vote for this Amendment. When the Slave Trade was abolished, the right hon. Gentleman thought it nothing that this country should give £20,000,000 for compensation, and this clause, although it did not amount to compensation, amounted to the right which the landlord ought to claim when deprived of the rights and amenities he had possessed. Something ought to be done to enable him to get rid of his property on fair and reasonable terms. He should be prepared to modify the clause as suggested, and he asked the Committee to support what he considered a fair, reasonable, and just proposal.
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he thought the clause an eminently fair one, for he thought a man whose property was seriously affected by the Bill

  1705
  had a right to ask for an opportunity of getting rid of property which had been wholly changed in its nature. At the same time, accepting in good faith the statement of the Prime Minister that the proposal was in vital opposition to the principle of the Bill, and not desiring to throw any obstacle in the way of the Bill, he would not vote for the proposal.
  MR. MACFARLANEsaid, he thought the remedy should be the same for the tenant as for the landlord; and if the Commission were to be forced to buy holdings where the rents were reduced, they ought to be required to buy a holding where the rents were raised.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 88; Noes 151: Majority 63.—(Div. List, No. 328.)
  SIR WILLIAM PALLISERmoved to insert the following Clause after Clause 22:—
  (Purchase by instalments.)
  "Where the purchaser shall in any one year pay an instalment of six pounds per centum on the advance interest shall be charged for that year at the rate of three pounds per centum upon the advance or the unpaid balance thereof.
  "Where the purchaser shall in any one year pay an instalment of over six pounds per centum on the advance, interest at the rate of three pounds per centum shall likewise be charged upon the unpaid balance or balances of the advance in the subsequent year or years in which the said excess payment shall make up the instalment or instalments paid in the said subsequent year or years to six pounds per centum on the advance.
  "Excess fractional payments in separate years shall be added together, and when their sum shall be sufficient to increase the instalment in any one year to six pounds per centum on the advance, then interest for that year shall be charged at the rate of three pounds per centum upon the unpaid balance of the advance.
  "All payments above five pounds per centum per annum on the advance, together with the allowances made to the purchaser by the State in respect of them, shall be placed to the credit of the purchaser, but shall nevertheless be available as a reserve fund until the advance is repaid; that is to say, where the purchaser shall in any subsequent year pay less than five pounds per centum on the advance, his default shall be made good from the reserve fund, and interest at the rate of ten shillings per centum upon the unpaid balance of the advance shall be deducted from the reserve fund for every pound or fraction of a pound taken from the reserve fund, and for which an allowance of ten shillings per centum upon the advance or the unpaid balance thereof had previously been made to the purchaser."
  The hon. Gentleman said, that when
  1706
  the State made an advance to a tenant to enable him to purchase his farm, it was of the greatest importance that as soon as possible after the completion of the purchase a margin or reserve fund should be created. The advantages of the early creation of such a reserve fund were so great that it would be well worth while for the State, from a commercial point of view, to pay a little more, or rather to make a small allowance for the purpose of obtaining it. The benefit of these proposals to the landlord and tenant were so obvious that he would not take up the time of the Committee in going into them, and he would confine his remarks to the benefits which the State would derive from them. If there were no reserve fund, and if a series of bad seasons were to follow each other, and if, in consequence, the purchaser had failed to pay his instalments, the State might be forced to put the land up for sale, in order to recover the money advanced upon it. But owing to the bad seasons the land would not command so good a price, and when the land was sold the State might incur a heavy loss. If, moreover, the landlord had taken a second charge on the farm in part payment for it, and if the farm were sold as soon as the State had got back the loan and the interest, the landlord would be left out in the cold. It would, therefore, be most unwise for a landlord, when selling, to leave a portion of the purchase money, as some had suggested, as a second charge on the farm, under the Government scale of repayment. On the other hand, if Government would concede the advantages proposed in this clause, he thought the landlord might fairly make an arrangement with the tenant to take a second charge on the land if the tenant would covenant to repay the loan by 6 per cent instalments. The allowance off the interest to be made by the State, under this clause, would amount, in the first year, to 10 s. per cent; but this allowance would decrease each year. If there were a farm which sold for £133 6s. 8d. the amount advanced by the State would be £100. In the first year the allowance upon that would be 10 s. per cent, or the 1–200th part of £100. In the next year, as £3 would be paid off, the allowance would be 1–200th part of £97; and in the third year it would be the 1–200th part of £93 14 s. 6d.

  1707
  These payments would thus become smaller and smaller, and would amount to only £6 15 s. 9d. over the whole period of repayment. That would be a very small sum for the State to pay in return for the advantages. The whole debt would be repaid to the State in 23 years, 6 months, and 14 days; instead of requiring 35 years for repayment; and, as the money would come back in two-thirds of the time, it followed that £2,000,000 lent on these terms would go as far as £3,000,000 lent on the Government scale, and the investment would be much safer. Under the 5 per cent, or Government scale, only £8 0s. 11 d. would be paid during the first five years; but under the 6 per cent scale the amount paid in five years would be £15 18 s. 6d., leaving only £84 1s. 6d. to be repaid. Further, out of the £15 18 s. 6d., a sum of £7 17 s. 7d. would be available as a reserve fund for the State to draw upon if the tenant made default. The man would have 8 per cent practically laid by, and if in bad seasons he were unable to pay his obligatory instalments in full, then the local bank would assist him; whereas, if he had been paying 5 per cent instalments, there would be no reserve fund, and, therefore, he would not be able to get assistance from the bank. In this case, the State would be obliged to sell him out. A remarkable Bill was introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary to the Treasury a few days ago to remit certain loans formerly made from the Consolidated Fund. It was entitled the Public Loans (Ireland) Remission Act; and the Schedule stated that repayments commenced in 1826, but that after the tithes disturbance in 1831 no further steps were taken for the recovery of the advances. Government should take every precaution to prevent a similar Bill becoming necessary a few years hence. His proposal was strictly consonant with the first principles of business, finance, trade, and political economy. In ordinary private business transactions they all knew that when goods were sold by a manufacturer they were generally paid for by a bill at three months, or 2½ per cent discount was allowed for ready money. A bill could generally be discounted at the rate of 4 per cent per annum, whereas the vendors were willing to make an allowance, for cash, at the
  1708
  rate of 10 per cent per annum, and to incur a loss at the rate of 6 per cent per annum for the purpose of avoiding the risk of bad debts and getting their money back quickly. These principles applied with equal force to the State as to private individuals. As he had said before, where a man had paid for five years instalments at the rate of 6 per cent he would become the owner substantially, and by that time there would be established a class of men who would be conservative in the best sense of the term, for then they would see and know what was within their reach; they would know that no reasonable amount of bad harvest could interfere between them and the unencumbered freehold at which they aimed. And when there was a class of men with a stake like that in the country there would be less necessity to keep up a vast body of police and troops, and the saving upon that head would more than counterbalance the little cost to the State for these allowances. The proposal also was good morally, because it would encourage thrift and providence. There was no doubt that sometimes the Irish farmers had very good seasons. When trade was brisk and work was plentiful in England, and when in consequence there was a large demand for beefsteaks and mutton chops, then there were fine prices for beef, mutton and butter, and then Irish farmers made large profits. But when those times came the ladies—namely, their wives and daughters, would never leave them alone till they got their money out of them to spend in wearing silk dresses and driving jaunting cars, &c.; but since his proposal was to give the farmer a bonus of no less than 50 per cent for every pound he paid over and above what he was obliged to pay, he was certain that the Irish farmer was quite astute enough to see the advantage of making pre-payments during the good times; and he did not think the farmer's wife would, under such circumstances, interfere with her husband in such a matter, but would, on the contrary, encourage him to lay the money by. As he had said before, the cost was £6 15 s. 9d. spread over 23 years; and he trusted that the Government, seeing the very great advantage of the proposal, would accept it. He recommended it on the grounds of political economy, morality, and prudence.
  New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  MR. GLADSTONE: In the first place, from what the hon. Member has said, I have no doubt he understands this proposal himself. I give the fullest credit to the hon. Gentleman for understanding it. He has gone through a deal of trouble—he has taken immense pains, and shown how much the public will lose by it. They will lose £6 15 s. for every £100, spread over three years.
  SIR WILLIAM PALLISER: No; not unless the State has to pay £3 10 s. per cent for the money.
  MR. GLADSTONE: They will not?
  SIR WILLIAM PALLISER: No; with all due respect to the right hon. Gentleman. If the condition of the market would admit of the Government borrowing at 3 per cent, they would not incur any loss. And, perhaps, if I were permitted to explain——
  MR. GLADSTONE: I think I have gathered at least one definite and intelligible statement—the hon. Gentleman has not destroyed my impression in that respect—but I may venture to say that there is no part of his statement that I am able thoroughly to comprehend. I do not hesitate to say that nothing but the most minute actuarial calculation could possibly establish the proposition he lays down. With regard to certain statements of fact which I can detect in this Motion, it appears to be founded on two propositions—first, that the public can reckon on borrowing at an average rate of 3 per cent; and, secondly, that the administration of the money, the reserving of proper balances, the transmission of it to different quarters, and the collection in minute sums at a multitude of points from the people, is an operation which will cost just nothing at all. On these two propositions the proposal rests. They are both of them totally inadmissible. The established fact of borrowing by the public is that it cannot be done for less than £3 5s. per cent. And we know very well that some margin for the keeping and collection and borrowing the money for making the advances is absolutely necessary. I do not hesitate to say with regard to that 5s. per cent, left as a margin—I do
  1710
  not hesitate to say that, as Chancellor of the Exchequer, I heartily wish, in a pecuniary point of view, that I were rid of the whole concern, and I should be glad to see the hon. Gentleman himself or anybody else take it off our hands. It is a very considerable financial difficulty which we are undertaking for great political and social objects; but a proposition of this kind, that we should borrow at a rate which we know does not exist, and that we should advance and recover the money which we borrow without charge, is altogether unsound. There is, undoubtedly, an element of good sense in giving encouragement to those who are desirous to pre-pay, and if you want to do it, it is really the simplest thing in the world—you have only to make them an allowance of so much per cent. I am quite willing to look into this; but I can assure the hon. Gentleman, seriously, that he might as well have introduced his proposal writ out in sanskrit letters, for we should know just as much about it.
  SIR WILLIAM PALLISER: I may say that my proposal is founded upon an actuarial calculation that has been very carefully prepared. I will send the right hon. Gentleman a copy of it.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I shall receive it with the greatest interest.
  SIR WILLIAM PALLISER: Would the right hon. Gentleman accept the proposal if I were to insert at the commencement the following condition:—
  "That when the condition of the money market will admit of it, without causing loss to the State,"
  the allowance shall be granted; and if I were also to put at the end—
  "When the condition of the money market will not admit of the full allowance of ½ per cent being made to the purchaser without causing loss to the State, the Court may make an allowance such as would not cause any loss to the State."
  Clause negatived.
  MR. MACFARLANEmoved, in page 18, after Clause 25, to insert the following Clause:—
  (Powers of Commission over reclaimed lands.)
  "In the case of waste land capable of reclamation the Land Commission may call upon the owners to take steps, within such time as they may deem reasonable for the reclamation thereof; and in default, the Land Commission may receive offers from tenants or other persons for

  1711
  allotments of such land for the purpose of reclamation in blocks of such size as they may deem suitable, and the Land Commission may grant possession of such allotments at such rents for such number of years as they may consider equitable and just, the tenant contracting to reclaim fixed portions of the land within fixed periods, the Land Commission reserving the right to resume possession in case of any failure on the part of the tenant to fulfil the said contract.
  "At the termination of the period allowed for reclamation, the tenant or the landlord may apply to the Court to have a fair rent fixed, having regard to the tenant's labour and capital expended thereon. And the Court may grant statutory leases in the same manner as is provided in this Act for present tenants."
  The hon. Gentleman said that under this clause, if the landlord did not act, the Land Commission would act for him, treating the property as the Court of Chancery might treat it, in trust for the landlord. To pass clauses providing money to be spent in reclamation without giving compulsory powers to the Land Commission to avail themselves of the land would be like passing a Railway Bill without giving a compulsory right to purchase the land through which the line was to pass. The proposal could not injure the landlord if he were willing to allow the laud to be reclaimed, because in that case it would not be operative, and if he were not willing it was for the good of the State that he should be compelled to permit reclamation. At the lowest estimate, there were 4,500,000 acres of waste lands in. Ireland. Of that, 1,000,000 acres were capable of being reclaimed; and, considering the amount of food that could be produced on so large an area, and the amount of employment that could be applied to it, it would be a most beneficial thing to provide for its compulsory reclamation. In addition to the 1,000,000 acres that could thus be gained for agricultural purposes, there was, at least, another 1,000,000 capable of being used for the planting of timber. If such a clause as this had been in force in Ireland 50 years ago, the landlords of the present day would have been very thankful, and they would have had good reason to be grateful for the compulsion put upon their forefathers. He made the proposal because it was for the public good, for the man who kept 1, or 10, or 1,000,000 acres unused as waste land was a public enemy. It was quite evident that the landlords of Ireland would not deal with these matters on
  1712
  their own account, and he had no belief in the scheme sketched out by the Government for reclamation by Joint Stock Companies which would never pay. But reclamation in small portions by tenants who would expend their own time and labour upon it when not otherwise engaged—time and labour which otherwise would have no money value—that was a kind of reclamation which would pay. He would like to know what portion of the land of Ireland cultivated at this moment had been reclaimed by the small tenants? He would venture to say that it was a very large proportion. But, in the case of reclamations in the past, the landlords had charged full rent for them. His proposal was that, after a proper time had been allowed for reclamation by the Commission, the landlord or the tenant might apply to the Court to have a fair rent fixed, taking into consideration the fact that all but the raw material belonged to the tenant. If hon. Members would only read the clause, he was sure there would be very little opposition to it.
  New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  MR. GLADSTONE: This is a question of great importance and of great complication; but the hon. Member will find that in all cases when you take compulsory powers, and endeavour to act upon people against their will, it requires the greatest care, involves a multitude of details, and compels the expenditure of a great deal of the time of Parliament. Under these circumstances, I ask whether, at half-past 12 o'clock, on the 32nd night of this Committee, we are to be asked to sit here through Saturday? Shall we have a Sitting on Sunday? Shall we go on on Monday oversettiug the whole of the arrangements for next week? Is the Report also to be conducted on the same principle of ventilating every imaginable scheme that the ingenuity of hon. Members can devise? Or are we not to address ourselves to the humbler purpose of closing these discussions on this rather wide subject? That is the view to which we incline; but whether or no we cannot introduce such clauses as this at this time. At this period of the Ses-

  1713
  sion it would be wholly impossible to entertain them.
  MR. MACFARLANE: Under these circumstances, I am ready to withdraw my clause, hoping to bring it forward at some other time.
  Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The next Amendment, which stands in the name of Mr. Parnell ("Commission may purchase and sub-divide certain land"), was substantially negatived in an Amendment moved by Dr. Lyons. I, therefore, rule it to be out of Order. The next Amendment stands in the name of Mr. Lever ("Facilities to Companies for purchase of waste lands, &c.") I should like him to explain wherein it differs from Clause 25, except in the substitution of the Land Commission for the Board of Works.
  MR. LEVERsaid, that if the Attorney General for Ireland could assure him that the object he had in view was already secured by the 25th clause, he should not propose the clause which stood upon the Paper.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOE IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the purpose in view was entirely met by the 25th clause, providing advances of money for any agricultural improvement.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The next Amendment on the Paper, which stands in the name of Mr. Dawson ("Poor Law relief "), cannot be put. Its object is to repeal section 10 & 11 Vict. c. 31, and that is already repealed by 25 Vict. c. 72.
  MR. DAWSONsaid, a portion of the section in question still remained unrepealed, and that related to the giving of out-door relief to people in Ireland. If ever it pressed hardly upon the people of Ireland, it pressed hardly upon them now. It was very hard that a man who was struck down by misfortune should be prevented from getting out-door relief, and should be compelled to go into the poor house and break up his establishment. All he wanted was that any man who only possessed half an acre should be able to get out-door relief in Ireland in times of temporary distress, just as was done in England.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The clause is certainly outside the scope of this Bill, which is a Bill to amend the Land Law
  1714
  of Ireland, and not the Poor Law. The next clause on the Paper, which also stands in the hon. Gentleman's name ("Migration"), is out of Order, because it was negatived on the 11th of June. His 3rd clause ("County cess") is in Order.
  MR. DAWSONthen moved, in page 18, after Clause 26, the insertion of the following Clause:—
  (County cess.)
  "On and after the passing of this Act, the county cess shall be paid in equal parts by landlord and tenant, and any power to contract out of said provision is hereby repealed."
  The hon. Gentleman said, he was glad that this, at least, was not out of Order, and he did not see how it well could be, as it was included in the Land Act of 1870, where the payment of the county cess was allowed to be divided between landlord and tenant; but, by the 12th section, in the case of tenancies of over £50 of annual value, the parties were allowed to contract themselves out of the provision. Mr. Vernon, one of the new Commissioners under the Bill, had stated in the most explicit manner his opinion that in all cases the tenant should be debarred from contracting himself out of the Act, so far as regarded the payment of county cess.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the Government could not accept the clause.
  Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
  COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, he would not propose the clause of which he had given Notice ("Definition of owners in the sense and for the purposes of 5 & 6 Vic., c. 89, &c.")
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLalso declined to trouble the Committee with the clause of which he had given Notice ("Lettings by purchasing tenant.")
  THE CHAIRMAN: The next two clauses, which stand in the name of Mr. O'Sullivan ("Repair of roads ") and ("Deduction of rent for use of roads"), belong rather to a Highway Bill than to a Bill of this description. The next, which stands in the name of the same hon. Gentleman ("Sale of waste lands,") cannot be put.
  MR. A. MOOREsaid, he did not propose to move the clauses of which he had given Notice—("Agricultural labourers") and ("Conditions for

  1715
  erection of labourers' cottages by tenants")—but with regard to the second, he hoped that when the Government clause dealing with the labourers came up upon Report the word "tillage" would be omitted from it.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The next clause on the Paper, which stands in the name of Mr. Macnaghten ("Restriction on increase of rents after sale or alienation of estate") is unnecessary. The next clause, which stands in the name of the same hon. Gentleman—("Settlement of rents")—disregards altogether Clause 7 of the Bill, and proposes another scheme for the settlement of rents which is inconsistent with that clause. It therefore cannot be put.
  MR. CHARLES RUSSELLsaid, he should not proceed with the next clause which stood upon the Paper, and which was in his name—("Middlemen interests")—nor would he proceed with the clause following—("Corporate estates")—although perfectly satisfied of the wisdom and practicability of both—except so far as regarded its last section, which he should move in the following form:—
  "No company or corporation owning an agricultural estate in Ireland shall sell such estate, unless such sale be to the occupying tenants thereof, without first serving on the Land Commission notice of their intention to sell such estate; and thereupon the Land Commission may purchase such estate at such price as may be agreed on between the Land Commission and such company or corporation."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)appealed to the hon. and learned Gentleman not to press the Amendment, which it was obvious the Government could not accept.
  MR. CHARLES RUSSELLbegged leave to withdraw his Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. CHARLES RUSSELLsaid, the next Amendment he attached some importance to, and it was perfectly germane to the matter. He was content to leave it, without argument, in the hands of the Prime Minister.
  New Clause—
  (Land registry.)
  "The Land Commission shall kept a see of registry books divided into counties and baronies, in which books shall be registered all conveyances, fee farm grants, mortgages, and other deeds affecting any holding in respect of which the Land Commission shall have advanced any money or which shall have been the subject
  1716
  of sale or purchase by the Land Commission, and all deeds affecting any holding placed on such registry shall have priority according to the time of their entry on such registry, and from and after the date of any instrument dealing with any such holding having been placed on such registry, no document affecting such holding shall gain any priority under the existing law of notice, and any registration of any such document entered on the general registry of deeds, Henrietta Street, Dublin, shall have no force and effect, and any affidavit to be made under the provisions of the thirteenth and fourteenth Victoria, chapter twenty-nine, for the purpose of charging any land with any judgment debt under the said law shall lie registered in the registry to be kept by Land Commission, and not in the existing registry of deeds in Ireland. The Land Commission shall make such rules and regulations as they may deem necessary for the due keeping and maintenance of such registry, and in doing so shall have special regard to the importance of simplifying future dealings with the holdings placed therein,"—(Mr. Charles Russell,)
  —brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he could assure his hon. and learned Friend that this matter had not been overlooked, and that it had been carefully considered before the introduction of the Bill. He was desirous to settle all these matters of registry with regard to the transfer of land; but when they came to be examined, he found it impossible to do so without reference to a scheme of registry for the whole of Ireland. There were many subjects connected with the tenure and transfer of land to which Parliament would be bound to turn attention; but a line had been now reached when such a large subject must be allowed to stand over.
  MR. CHARLES RUSSELLbegged leave to withdraw his Amendment.
  Clause, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. CALLANsaid, he had a clause to propose, which he would very shortly explain. The present valuation of Ireland, known as Griffith's valuation, was founded on the Ordnance valuation. Some 40 years ago there was an Ordnance Survey of the gross acreage of each town-land in each county in Ireland, and upon that came the Ordnance valuation, and the method of that was explained in the evidence given before the Bessborough Commission by Mr. Vernon, now one of the Land Commis-

  1717
  sioners. After the Ordnance valuation came the tenement valuation. Taking as an illustration a town-land which he had in his mind's eye, consisting, according to the Ordnance Survey, of 204 acres, this was valued under the Ordnance valuation at somewhere about £200. Then came the tenement valuation, when the valuators divided all the Ordnance valuation into tenements, and the surveyors struck along the roads a dotted line, and they took the area of each tenement from the middle of the road along this dotted line, thus including on either side the whole of the public roads, so as to make the survey tally with the Ordnance Survey of 20 years before. Now if, as in justice they should, the surveyors had excluded the roads, the difference would have been in that town-land he had in his mind an area of four acres. But in the result tenant farmers were paying rent to the landlords, paying county cess to the county, paying rates to the poor rate, and Income Tax to the Imperial Government on these public roads. In the same way, in the case of a farmer who gave evidence before the Commission, he paid upon six acres more than the extent of the holding. He was asked before the Commission if it was a fact that tenants were made to pay upon the roads, and his reply was—"Yes; it was." Then the O'Conor Don, with the instinct of a landlord, asked was it not a fact that the road was of great use to the tenant, and the common-sense reply was that the road was of use to everybody who travelled on it. Then Baron Dowse put the shrewd question—would it not be of as much use even if not measured in with the tenant's land; and the reply was, of course it would. There was an intelligent farmer from the South Riding of Tipperary, and he, taking the computation of the county roads there from official documents as 6,500 acres, calculated that the tenant farmers paid on that area in rates and county cess about £4,000 a-year. Then county Limerick was spoken of, and it was shown that there were about 1,200 acres of public roads, and the average rent being 30 s., the tenant farmers paid close on £2,000 a-year on this account, the fee simple of these roads having been bought from the landlords. On his own knowledge, he knew that when roads were made landlords received 30 years'
  1718
  purchase on Griffith's valuation, and the tenants received two or three years' purchase for disseverance in his holding, but he continued to pay rent. But not only did the landlord receive 30 years' purchase, but he continued to receive the same old rent from the tenant farmer. Mr. Anthony, of Dungarvan, put it very clearly when he pointed out the great hardship it was in the county of Waterford, where roads were measured in with the tenant's holding. There roads were called the Queen's highway; but if a new road were made to-morrow, it would be the landlord who would be recouped at the expense of the tenant. There was one town-land in which there was only one farm containing 259 acres 1 rood 35 perches, and the rent was £199. He went to the Poor Law Office, and he found that the Ordnance Survey gave exactly that area for the town-land. Then he went to the Surveyor's office, and he found that the roads through that farm amounted to 7 acres 1 perch, and the tenant paid to his generous English landlord the same rent for the roads as he did for the remainder of the farm. This was a great hardship, and for this his Amendment proposed a remedy, that if any part of a holding had been or should be taken under authority for the making of roads or railways, then the tenant should not be liable for rent for that portion of the holding thus allocated. It was fair that the Land Commission should have power to deal with such cases, for they were not met by the Act of 1870, nor by the Land Clauses Act. The tenants had been the victims of, he would not say the mistake, but a most unfair blunder perpetrated during the tenement survey, which was merely a division of the Ordnance Survey, and to make the two surveys tally the surveyor included the roads.
  Moved to insert the following Clause:—
  "If any part of the holding of any tenant shall have been or shall be taken or acquired under the exercise of any compulsory power conferred by the legislature, either for the construction of Railways, the making of public roads, or any other purpose, then, and in any such case, in the absence of agreement in writing to the contrary, the tenant shall not be liable to rent for that portion of the holding so taken or acquired, and the rent payable is to be apportioned between that portion and the residue of the holding, and such apportionment may be settled by agreement, and if such apportionment be not so settled by agreement,

  1719
  such apportionment shall be settled and determined by the Court; and after such apportionment the tenant, as to all future accruing rent shall be liable only to so much only as shall have been apportioned in respect of such residue of the holding; and all other conditions and agreements (except as to the amount of rent to be paid) shall remain in force, as regards the residue of the holding, as between the landlord and the tenant in the same manner as if the residue of such holding only had been originally included in the holding."—(Mr. Callan.)
  New Clause brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, there was a good deal in the hon. Member's argument; but he could not see exactly that it came within the scope of the Bill. It belonged to that class of legislation which dealt with the taking of land for public purposes rather than to a Bill dealing with the relations of landlord and tenant. The Grand Jury Act provided that in all such cases there should be awarded a substantial sum to the owner if he did not like his farm cut up; and in the same way the occupier, if he made good his claim, generally got full value. Again, if he did not think the compensation sufficient, he could traverse that decision, and the ease came again before a jury. It should also be remembered that if the tenant was injured in this way, he would have a right to have the matter considered in fixing his judicial rent. The Committee, however, in any case, might do well to leave it over for legislation next year, when it was hoped the question of County Government in Ireland might be dealt with.
  MR. CALLANsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had misapprehended the drift of his observations. To take an instance from his own position. He paid Imperial taxation, he paid Income Tax on about 18 acres of public roads, and he could not see why he should pay Imperial taxation on land not in his own possession, over which he had no control, and from which he derived no benefit whatever. If his clause were agreed to the Land Commission would have power to exclude from his holding whatever amount of land was included in the public roads
  1720
  adjoining. It was preposterous to say it was a question that should be reserved for County Government legislation. This was a question that did deal with the relations of landlord and occupier. There was a Queen's highway, and the tenant paid rent for it, and if the Court were satisfied that this was an injustice the Court would settle and apportion the rent as they might determine. He certainly felt bound to take a division, and it was only by such explanations as these that a knowledge of the peculiar working of the Land Laws in Ireland was arrived at. The question which he had raised affected, to a large extent, all those who lived along public roads in Ireland. There was an instance of an estate in Louth extending along a road which was 40 feet in width. Tlm large occupiers lived off the public road, and their holdings were reached by private roads; but the small occupiers with farms of about 20 acres along this road of about three miles had each to pay for 20 feet of the roadway.
  MR. REDMONDsaid, he did not think the clause would be altogether necessary if the Court, in fixing a fair rent, took this point into consideration. If a man were rented for land, a certain portion of which consisted of roadway, this must necessarily be taken into account.
  MR. LEAMYsaid, the question he would like to put was this. The right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland said that when land was taken from a yearly tenant, say by a Railway, Company, then the yearly tenant would receive compensation. So he did for severance; but his rent was not reduced even though he did receive compensation from the Railway Company. He still continued to pay rent to the landlord, though the latter had received the fee simple in full. But if a tenant became a statutory tenant under the Bill, having practically a lease for 15 years, would he be put on the same footing with, leaseholders under the 27 & 28 Vict.?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the damages he would get from the arbitrator would be calculated on the annual loss he would sustain during his term.
  MR. LEAMYsaid, he would refer to the subject again on Report.
  Clause negatived.
  MAJOR NOLANproposed an Amendment with the object of making the Bill useful to the labourers by means, not of some fancy scheme, but by something which had stood the test of time. In France, and Russia, and India, and other countries, certain of the common lands were allotted to the poorer people; and his proposal was that Town Commissioners or Poor Law Guardians should be enabled to acquire land for the same purpose. Labourers in Ireland very much wanted allotments on which they could employ their spare labour; and there was no way in which land could be so easily obtained as by allowing it to be purchased by organized public bodies. They would not let the land, and would, therefore, have no temptation to charge high rents. But there must be some guiding power over them, and he proposed that such lands should be used only for the accommodation of labourers under such rules as the Land Commission might direct.
  New Clause—
  (Purchase of land for labourers.)
  "The Land Commission, out of moneys in their hands, may, if satisfied with the security, advance sums to the Guardians of a Poor Law Union or to Town Commissioners, or to the Corporation of any town, for the purpose of purchasing land for the benefit of labourers, provided that it is inserted in the deed or instrument of purchase that such land shall be used solely for the accommodation and benefit of labourers under such rules and conditions as the Land Commissioners may from time to time lay down and direct,"—(Major Nolan,)
  —brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he did not for a moment deny the importance of this proposal; but the clause as brought in would be of very little effect, for while it gave the local authorities power to purchase, it gave them no power to compel persons to sell. The question of accommodation for labourers might hereafter be met by enabling local bodies to obtain land for them; but this was a very difficult and very wide question—too difficult and too wide to be added at the very end of the Bill. In settling the relations between landlord and tenant the Government had endeavoured to insure that the labourer's
  1722
  position should be improved by what might be done by the landlord or tenant. This proposal went quite outside the question of landlord and tenant.
  MR. REDMONDsaid, he hoped the hon. and gallant Member would go to a division, that there might be an expression of opinion from Irish Members in favour of the principle of the Amendment. The proposal would especially benefit labourers living in towns in Ireland, as they might be enabled to get small allotments in the neighbourhood. Some such clause was absolutely essential if the labourers were to be benefited by the Bill, for the proposal of the Government was altogether permissive, and would not be of very great practical assistance.
  MR. DAWSONagreed with the Chief Secretary that it was probably too late to enter into this wide question now; but Town Commissioners had great powers under the Artizans' Dwellings Act of greatly increasing the accommodation of labourers, and he should be glad if the Government would facilitate such action. The Corporation of Dublin had largely availed themselves of these powers on their estates; but although local bodies had power to do a great many things, so long as it was permissive they were unperformed. For the benefit of the labourers these powers should be made compulsory.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 39; Noes 151: Majority 112.—(Div. List, No. 329.)
  MR. CHAPLINdesired, if in Order, to move an Amendment providing for a class which he thought had escaped the notice of the Government—namely, those whose estates were heavily mortgaged, and where the judicial rent was so fixed that there would not be enough left to pay the charges with.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The Committee has already decided that the Bill will not compel the Commission to purchase land, and the proposal is only one instance where the same principle will apply. The Amendment, therefore, cannot be put.
  House resumed.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Tuesday next, at Two of the clock, and to be printed. [Bill 225.]

  METROPOLITAN BOARD OF WORKS (MONEY) BILL.— [BILL 204.]
  (Lord Frederick Cavendish, Mr. John Holms.)
  METROPOLITAN BOARD OF WORKS (MONEY) BILL.— [BILL 204.]

    COMMITTEE.
    Order for Committee read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."(Lord Frederick (Cavendish.)
    MR. MONKrose to move that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee. This measure was a gigantic scheme for taxing the ratepayers in the Metropolis. It proposed to give the Metropolitan Board of Works permission to raise a sum of £4,540,000. It was quite true that a portion of that sum was re-voted; but if Parliamentary sanction was required for that sum being raised, he thought there should be some Parliamentary supervision over the money. In almost every instance in which a certain sum had been granted to the Board by Parliament, that sum had been exceeded, and then the Board came to that House to ask for an additional sum in excess of the sums granted by Bills last year, and in previous Sessions. He did not wish to take up the time of the House; but he wanted to put it to the House that there ought to be Parliamentary supervision over the expenditure of the Board, and the only way to obtain that would be by referring this Bill to a Select Committee. He could hardly think the Secretary to the Treasury would oppose his Motion, except on the ground of the lateness of the hour, for it must be an advantage to the Treasury to have the aid of a small Select Committee to investigate the expenditure of this Board, and especially to consider the excesses which bristled in every clause of the Bill. By Clause 4, £40,000 was asked for, instead of £30,000 last year, for the Fire Brigade. Previous to last year the amount was £20,000, and he wished to know the reason for this increase? Then, an additional sum was asked for on account of that wretched Obelisk on the Embankment—for one of the most unsightly objects in the Metropolis. An additional amount was put down for the main drainage, £400,000 being asked for instead of £300,000. He proposed to refer the Bill to a Select Committee to take evidence as to the cause of these excesses. There was a great deal in the
    1724
    Bill that could not be explained now; the borrowing powers asked for by the Board had gone on advancing by leaps and bounds; £27,000,000 had been raised or asked for, and he should like to know where this was all to end? No doubt the Board had done excellent work in improvements; but if they came to Parliament for Parliamentary sanction to raising these enormous sums of money—as much as the interest of the National Debt for a year—then they ought to accept Parliamentary supervision. He begged to move that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the Bill be referred to a Select Committee,"—(Mr. Monk,)—instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL HOGGsaid, he was surprised that, considering the period of the Session, the hon. Member for Gloucester had not deferred his objections to this Bill. He would go through those objections as briefly as he could. The hon. Member said the Money Bills of the Board had not Parliamentary sanction; but, as a matter of fact, Parliamentary sanction had been given to every item contained in this Bill. All these things—the Main Drainage Bill, the Bridges Bill, and others contained in this Bill—had passed through Parliament; and he thought, therefore, that the hon. Member could hardly maintain his recommendation to refer the Bill to a Select Committee. With regard to the Treasury, he thought the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury (Lord Frederick Cavendish) would state that the expenditure of the Board was under the control of the Treasury. The Treasury Auditor audited every one of the accounts, examining them whenever he chose. He could not conceive that it was a wise and proper policy that, after all these things had been passed by Parliament, they should be revised by Parliament, as was now proposed. With respect to the increased demand for the Fire Brigade, everyone knew that the houses in the Metropolis were increasing in every direction, and demands for increased protection from fire came from all sides. The Board felt it to be their

    1725
    duty—and he believed the House would agree with them that they were bound to do everything in their power to afford protection against fire. He admitted that they had gone slightly beyond what Parliament sanctioned last year, and they were asking for an increase at the end of the year in order to extend the protection from fire. The hon. Member talked about that "wretched Obelisk." Well, Parliament sanctioned its being erected, and it was considered better to make the Obelisk an ornament rather than the reverse, and there had been a slight increase in the cost. Those who understood the casting of metals and artistic work would be perfectly well aware that artists were not always within their estimates exactly, and sometimes more money had to be given. The Board thought they would be able to put up figures and other ornaments at a trifling cost; but they were now obliged to add a few thousand pounds; and he did not think it right to use the epithet the hon. Member had applied to the Obelisk. To come to a larger and much more serious matter, the hon. Member objected to the amount asked for for the main drainage of the Metropolis. At this time of the year, when there was not a surplus of water, but, perhaps, slightly the reverse, hon. Members might not be so anxious as the Board were, who knew that the rainfall sometimes came down in a heavy and constant downpour, and who had had representations from every district urging them to prevent houses being flooded. They were anxious to meet that difficulty; and instead of putting the whole of the surplus water into the ordinary sewers they were trying to put the rain-fall into a separate system of sewers to carry it into the Thames. For that purpose they were obliged to ask for a certain extra amount of money, and he was sure the House would agree with him that it was much better to spend an extra £50,000 or £100,000 than to allow hundreds and thousands of people to be flooded out of their houses and their premises destroyed. He had received thousands of letters showing the injury that had been done; and if the hon. Member only saw them he was sure he would sympathize with the people, and, instead of opposing the Bill, would help him and the Board in every way to prevent these dreadful
    1726
    occurrences. He should be glad to answer any questions hon. Members might wish to ask.
    MR. DAWSONrealized the importance of the matters contained in the Bill, and expressed a hope that the Corporation of Dublin might be able to induce the Chief Secretary to give them similar powers. He wished to ask the hon. and gallant Member (Sir James M'Garel-Hogg) who was made liable in the Metropolitan Board of Works for any mistake in the signing of cheques, and whether the Insurance Companies contributed anything in return for the benefits they received from the Fire Brigade?
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGreplied that, with respect to cheques, he believed that the individual members of the Board were not liable; but be had power to disallow any charges he thought improper. All the members of the Board were liable somehow; and with regard to the Insurance Companies, they paid so much per £1,000,000 on the insurances effected on property in the Metropolis.
    LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, he hoped his hon. Friend would not press his Amendment to a division, although he was very much inclined to agree with the object of it. It seemed very desirable that this Bill should be considered by a Select Committee; but if that were done this Session, it would prevent the Bill passing, and so cause serious inconvenience. The object of this Bill was to bring before Parliament annually the liabilities of the Metropolitan Board of Works. Up to the time of the important change made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster, Bills were passed from time to time giving enormous powers to the Board for borrowing, and it was not an easy task for anyone to discover what their liabilities amounted to. Now, however, under the new system, there was an annual survey of all those liabilities; but he hoped the Bill would be introduced next year at such a period that it might be referred to a, Select Committee.
    MR. FIRTHsaid, he hoped the hon. Member would withdraw his Amendment, on the distinct undertaking that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee next year. There were many things in it to be objected to; but it

    1727
    was important that the Bill should pass.
    MR. MONK, on the assurance of the noble Lord (Lord Frederick Cavendish), had much pleasure in withdrawing his Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Main Question, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," put, and agreed to.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clauses 1 to 7, inclusive, agreed to.
    Clause 8 (Power to Board to expend money for purposes of the Metropolitan Bridges Act, 1881).
    MR. FIRTHmoved to reduce the amount of £760,000 for the erection of Bridges to £560,000, mainly Putney and Battersea Bridges. It was proposed to spend £406,000 on Putney Bridge, which could be built for £206,000.
    Amendment proposed, in page 3, line 25, to leave out "seven," and insert "five."—(Mr. Firth.)
    Question proposed, "That seven 'stand' part of the Clause."
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGexplained that Sir Joseph Bazalgette had prepared two designs for Putney Bridge, one entirely in stone and the other in stone and iron. He hoped the hon. Member would agree with him that when they were going to erect bridges, it was wise that the Board should erect bridges that would last, and which would be bridges of good design and handsome structure, instead of tumble-down timings. The Thames Conservancy required a certain amount of headway, and the bridges had to be raised higher than they otherwise would be. To do that the Board were obliged to take land on both sides in order to make proper gradients. They hoped, however, to subsequently sell some of that land and so recoup the ratepayers. For Putney Bridge £460,000 was set down as the cost; but the net was £406,000; and for Battersea Bridge the amount was £240,000 gross and £215,000 net. It was absolutely necessary to spend £62,000 in alterations of Vauxhall Bridge, and—12,000 on Deptford Bridge; and the total net amount was—695,000. Whenever the Board had power given them in this
    1728
    way, they endeavoured to show the total sum required in each year, and the original grant was reduced each year by what was spent in each year. He hoped the hon. Member would not press his Amendment.
    MR. ONSLOWobserved, that the money of the ratepayers was being voted without anyone knowing how it was to be spent; and asked whether the sum of £82,760 to be raised for bridges up to December 31st, 1882, was the total amount intended to be spent; or whether more would be asked for after that date? It was the duty of the House not to pass a Bill of this kind off-hand, and he trusted this would be the last time a Bill of this nature would be brought forward without any real information.
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, the sum named was the gross estimate for the whole of the work; and the Board did not propose to ask for any further amount. The expenditure of this money would be shown year by year.
    MR. W. H. JAMESasked whether the hon. and gallant Member would guarantee that the Bill should be brought in next year in time to be referred to a Select Committee?
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGreplied, that this Bill had been before the Treasury for two months. He did not think it wise to send the Bill to a Select Committee; but he would take care that next year the Bill should be introduced in time to be referred to a Select Committee.
    MR. FIRTHwas willing to withdraw the Amendment, although the point he raised had not been touched by the hon. and gallant Member.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 9 (Power to Board to expend moneys during year ending 31st December 1882, for purposes of 18 & 19 Vict., c. 120, s. 144, and 25 & 26 Vict. c. 102, s. 72, of Street Improvements Act (35 & 36 Vict. c. clxiii.), of Parks and Open Spaces Acts, of Embankment Acts, Improvement of Sun Street, of the Obelisk on the Victoria Embankment, and of the Toll Bridges Act, 40 & 41 Vict. c. xcix).
    MR. WILLISproposed that sub-section (d) of the clause be omitted. This sub-section dealt with the Obelisk, and he observed that anything more worth-

    1729
    less than bringing home that wretched stone from Egypt was never done. It was proposed to spend £12,000 for Sphinxes to be placed at the base of the Obelisk. For what earthly purpose? So far as he could understand, they would only make the Obelisk worse than it was at present. It was no embellishment to the Embankment, and it gave no information. It was part of a wretched system of bringing home pieces of stone and other things that were found abroad "to adorn our mud-built capitals." He considered this a waste of money, and he protested against the proposed additional expenditure for adding Sphinxes to the Obelisk.
    Amendment proposed, in page 4, line 10, to omit sub-section D.—(Mr. Willis.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTpointed out that the Obelisk was not bought by public money, but by private money. He disagreed with the hon. and learned Member as to the bringing home of old stones, and, reminding the Committee of the Elgin Marbles, said he thought it a great distinction to the Metropolis to have this Obelisk. The sum proposed was small, and did not all go for Sphinxes; and he thought that at that hour time would not be profitably spent in discussing it.
    MR. FIRTHsaid, he hoped the Amendment would be withdrawn, and mentioned that the Board of Works had had nothing to do with bringing the Obelisk home.
    MR. BROADHURSTadvised the hon. and learned Member not to divide the Committee. He approved of the Obelisk, but disapproved of its position, for it had disfigured a beautiful piece of masonry. The Obelisk was a good piece of work, and if it had been put up in a proper place, everybody would have been pleased. He would not discourage the Board of Works when they were spending money on artistic objects.
    Amendment negatived.
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 10 agreed to.
    Clause 11 (Power to Board to expend money for purposes of street improvements under 40 & 41 Vict. c. ccxxxv. and 42 & 43 Vict. c. cxcviii.).
    MR. MONKsaid, sub-section (a) of this clause gave power to the Board to
    1730
    raise £1,500,000, "or such further sum as the Treasury may approve." He thought that the power to raise this £1,500,000 was quite sufficient borrowing power to give this year; and he should oppose any further power being given through the Treasury.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 5, line 11, to leave out the words "or such further sum as the Treasury may approve. "—(Mr. Monk.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, the Board put in the Estimates as accurately as they could; but in some cases it was necessary to go to the Treasury in order to go on with the work. He did not think they ought to be bound for a few thousand pounds.
    MR. ONSLOWpointed out that power was proposed to enable the Treasury to advance up to £37,112, and said it was monstrous that power should be taken to raise £2,000,000, when the Board of Works only asked for £1,500,000. If the hour were not so late, he should be disposed to move to report Progress; but if the Committee were determined to carry the Bill through, that was a stronger reason for sifting these matters next Session by means of a Select Committee.
    LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, that the amount of £3,700,000 was the entire sum since 1877; the amount of—1,500,000 was in consequence of the work being carried on more rapidly than was expected. He did not think there would be much economy in delaying the work.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 41; Noes 19: Majority 22.—(Div List, No. 330.)
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 12 (Power to Board to expend money for purposes of schemes under 38 & 39 Vict. c. 36).
    MR. FIRTHsaid, that the observations he had made on the last clause might apply to this; but as no answer was forthcoming then, he supposed none would be made now.
    Clause agreed to.
    Clauses 13 to 15, inclusive, agreed to.
    Clause 16 (Extension of amount of loans by Board to managers of Metropolitan asylum district).
    MR. FIRTHsaid, the objection he had to this clause was founded on opinions expressed in a Petition from the Kensington Vestry and from other bodies. The power of the Board to raise hospitals throughout London had been questioned in the House of Lords; the policy was doubtful, and the necessity denied in all parts of London.
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, the Asylums Board had the power to raise the money, and it was simply a question whether it should come out of the current expenditure. He believed that if the interests of the ratepayers were consulted they would agree to the clause.
    Clause agreed to.
    Remaining clauses agreed to.
    Schedules agreed to.
    MR. FIRTHsaid, the clause which he had to propose was simply in pursuance of a suggestion made in the House by the present Home Secretary, and of a resolution passed by the Board of Works some time ago. In consequence of the answer given by the Home Secretary in the House a committee had been appointed, and was now sitting, in the City of London; but, of course, the Corporation could only deal with the matter within their own area. Outside the Corporation had no control. Therefore, he thought that the Metropolitan Board might be intrusted with the power to make a general inquiry with the view of establishing markets for food supplies for London. This was most important to those living outside the City; and though the Board might be wanting in the character of a representative body, there was no other existing body better qualified to carry out the inquiry.
    New Clause—
    (Expenses of inquiry as to markets.)
    "The Board may, as part of their general expenses, pay all costs, charges, and expenses which may be incurred by them, up to the thirty-first day of December one thousand eight hundred and eighty-two, of and incidental to any inquiry to be instituted with respect to markets for the sale of food supplies within the metropolis, as defined by 'The Metropolis Management Act, 1855,' and preliminary to, in, and incidental to the preparing, applying for, and obtaining an
    1732
    Act of Parliament with respect to such markets or any of such markets,"—(Mr. Firth,)
    —brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
    MR. R. N. FOWLERsaid, the Corporation had power outside the City, and had exercised that power for many years. They had appointed a Committee who were now considering this question, and he thought the House might give them time to report. It appeared to him that this clause would only enable the Board to enter into litigation, and it was a clause that should be discussed in a fuller House. He certainly could not allow it to pass without a protest.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 53; Noes 6: Majority 47.—(Div. List, No. 331.)
    Clause added to the Bill.
    Preamble added.
    Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

  REMOVAL TERMS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  (Mr. James Stewart, Dr. Cameron, Mr. Patrick, Mr. Mackintosh.)
  REMOVAL TERMS (SCOTLAND) BILL.

    [BILL 8.] COMMITTEE.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he offered a certain amount of opposition to this Bill on the previous night on the ground that it contained controversial matter that should not be discussed at a late hour; but he understood that almost all the controversial matter had now been omitted. He understood that the Government intended to exclude all but town districts; and, under the circumstances, he would offer no opposition, for he believed the Bill, if not an useful, would, at least, be a harmless measure.
    Clauses 1 and 2 agreed to.
    Clause 3 (Terms of entry to and removal from lands and heritages fixed).
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 2, line 5, to insert "which relates to Parliamentary and Royal boroughs."—(The Lord Advocate.)
    Amendment agreed to,
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 5, to leave out "Candlemas."—(The Lord Advocate.)
    MR. J. STEWARTsaid, there were quarterly terms in England, and he had thought it might be convenient to have quarterly terms in Scotland; but, however, as the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate had taken the question up, he did not propose to interfere.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. M'LAREN)said, that under the Bill, as introduced by the hon. Member, the security of the landlord in the tenant's interest would, by the institution of four terms, have been extended beyond the time for which the law gave the landlord a preferential right.
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 6, to leave out "Lammas."—(The Lord Advocate.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 2, lines 9 and 10, to leave out from "to act," to "the twenty-eighth," in line 10.—(The Lord Advocate.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 2, lines 11 and 12, to leave out from "Whitsunday," to "and the," in line 12.—(The Lord Advocate.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, agreed to.
    Clause 4 agreed to.
    Clause 5 (Period of notice of removal).
    Amendment proposed, to leave out lines 24 and 25.—(The Lord Advocate.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, agreed to.
    Preamble.
    MR. J. STEWARTsaid, in consequence of the Amendments, it would be necessary to amend the Preamble.
    Amendment proposed, in line 11, leave out from "and," to "be," in line 16.—(Mr. J. Stewart.)
    Amendment agreed to.
    Preamble, as amended, agreed to.
    Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

  PUBLIC WORKS LOANS [ADVANCES].
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Resolved, That it is expedient to authorise further advances out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, or out of moneys in the hands of the National Debt Commissioners held on account of Savings Banks, of any sum or sums of money not exceeding£1,400,000 in the whole, to enable the Land Commission in Ireland to make advances, or for the purchase of estates, in pursuance of the provisions of any Act of the present Session relating to the Land Law of Ireland.
  Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.
  Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members not being present,
  House adjourned at a quarter before Three o'clock till Monday next.