Commons Sitting of 4 March 1881

MINUTES.
PRIVATE BILL (by Order)—Second Reading—Thames River, deferred.
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading—Peace Preservation (Ireland) [98]—Third Night.
Second Reading—Referred to Select Committee—Presumption of Life (Scotland) [86]; Coroners (Ireland) [73].

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  THAMES RIVER BILL. (By Order.)

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    SIR CHARLES FORSTER SIR CHARLES FORSTER moved that the second reading of the Bill be deferred until Tuesday, March. 15.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be read a second time upon Tuesday the 15th of March."—(Sir Charles Forster.)
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLbegged to move, as an Amendment to the Motion that the second reading of the Bill be postponed, that the Order for the Second Reading be read and discharged. The Bill was of enormous importance, and one of very great interest to the City of London and all up and down the River Thames. Taking in view the period of the Session at which they had now arrived, and the improbability of the Bill being able to be brought on at a time when it should be discussed at that length and with that care which its importance demanded, before it was passed into law, taking in view the extraordinary circumstances under which the Bill dealt with public questions, and even, as he understood set aside the Statute Law; viewing the nature of the Bill and its extraordinary character, and also the very curious manœuvre which was being adopted in reference to the measure by putting it down on the Paper conditionally from day to day so that it was impossible to know when the authors of the Bill proposed to proceed with it—under all these circumstances, he felt justified in moving that the Order for the Second Reading be read and discharged

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    in order that the Bill might be withdrawn and replaced by a Public Bill introduced on the responsibility of the Ministers, who would put their names on the back of it.
    MR. SPEAKER: If the noble Lord persists in moving that Amendment it will be my duty to put it from the Chair; but, at the same time, I think it right to point out to the noble Lord that the course he proposes to take without Notice is one which is very unusual.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out from the words "That the," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "Order for the Second Reading of the Bill be read and discharged,"—(Lord Randolph Churchill,)—instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    SIR CHARLES FORSTERmight say that he knew nothing whatever about the Bill.
    MR. SPEAKER, interposing, said, the original Question was that the Bill be postponed until the 15th of March, since which an Amendment had been moved to leave out all the words after the words "That the" for the purpose of adding these words—"Order for the Second Reading of the Bill be read and discharged."
    SIR CHARLES FORSTERsaid, the Bill was one which involved very important principles, and he would suggest to the noble Lord that the course which he proposed was a very unusual one to take without Notice. He hoped the noble Lord would withdraw the Amendment, in order that those who were interested in the matter might have an opportunity of being present when the Bill came on regularly for discussion.
    SIR HENRY TYLERexpressed a hope that the noble Lord would not persevere with his Amendment. It was quite clear that it was a very unusual one to make. The Bill was one which largely and very closely affected the interests of his (Sir Henry Tyler's) constituents. He would not trouble the House, at the present stage, with any arguments in favour of the Bill; but he would simply state that an association at Harwich had an interest in something like 800 vessels in which a very large sum of money, amounting to more than £100,000, was
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    invested. These vessels plied upon the Thames, and they were subjected to great losses and inconveniences incidental to the system of compulsory pilotage. For that and for other reasons he should feel it his duty, at the proper time, to support the Bill. He believed there were many other hon. Members who were prepared to support it when it came in a proper way before the House, and he hoped the Amendment would either be withdrawn or negatived.
    MR. LITTONsaid, he did not propose to speak upon the merits of the Bill; but he thought the course adopted by the noble Lord was one that was wholly unworthy of him. It was a most unusual course to move an Amendment such as that which the noble Lord had proposed without Notice. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, who had charge of the Bill, and who had already expressed his desire to consult the convenience of the House in regard to the second reading of the Bill, was not aware of the course which the noble Lord contemplated taking, or no doubt he would have been in his place. He felt bound to say that it did look something like sharp practice for the noble Lord to adopt the course he had now taken. It was quite plain, from the state of the House, that hon. Members generally had not expected that any serious discussion would arise. It was generally understood that the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill would move to defer the consideration of it until after the urgency which had been declared by the House in regard to other measures had been disposed of; and the course now proposed by the noble Lord, in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, was certainly one which the House ought not to approve of, and which he thought, on reflection, the noble Lord would see ought not to be adopted. He trusted that the noble Lord would withdraw the Amendment. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: No, no; certainly not.] The noble Lord was, he felt certain, open to argument; and a sense of fair play would certainly lead him to re-consider the matter, and withdraw the Amendment.
    SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFthought the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Litton) had

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    taken a good deal upon himself when he undertook to lecture hon. Gentlemen on that side of the House who had sat in Parliament for a much longer period than he had. The hon. and learned Member talked of sharp practice and of unusual events. Now, the Session had been full of unusual events, and perhaps none more unusual than that the President of the Board of Trade and the Secretary to the Board of Trade should have brought in this measure as a Private Bill, attempting, by doing so, to take an unfair advantage. The measure was one which, unquestionably, ought to have been brought in as a Public Bill on the authority of the Ministers of the Crown. He hoped that his noble Friend would persevere with his Amendment, and that he would succeed in throwing out the measure.
    MR. WALTERsaid, he had come down to the House early in the hope of hearing a discussion on the Bill, in regard to which the people of the Thames Valley were very much interested. But he had not been prepared to hear such an Amendment as that which had been moved by his noble Friend opposite. He entertained grave doubts as to the propriety of bringing in a Bill of this kind in this way, and he also doubted the wisdom of some of the clauses contained in the measure; but as yet he had not heard the question discussed, and until he had an opportunity of hearing it discussed, it was impossible that he could assent to the Amendment of his noble Friend, which would have the effect of getting rid of the measure by a sudden and unexpected blow. If he were to entertain all the objection it was possible to urge against the Bill, he could never consent to a Motion for disposing of it in this way. He hoped his noble Friend would not press the Amendment.
    SIR SYDNEY WATERLOWhoped that the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) would withdraw the Amendment. Although he (Sir Sydney Waterlow) had a Motion on the Paper in opposition to the Bill, he had not placed it there for the purpose of preventing a discussion upon the merits of the measure. The Bill raised very important questions affecting compulsory pilotage on the River Thames. There had already been two Bills before the House which proposed to abolish
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    compulsory pilotage—one in 1870 and one in 1871. The question was one of great importance; but he hoped to see it discussed upon the present Bill. No doubt, the Bill itself was a Private Bill, and dealt with important interests which ought to be dealt with by a public measure; but he did not see that any advantage would arise from adopting the course proposed by the noble Lord, and thus shutting out all discussion upon the merits of the Bill. He himself believed that the system of compulsory pilotage ought to be materially modified, if not abolished; but it ought to be done by a measure introduced, as a Public Bill, upon the responsibility of Her Majesty's Government. Nevertheless, although he opposed the present Bill, he could not support the Amendment of the noble Lord for discharging the Order for the second reading.
    SIR JOHN R. MOWBRAYhoped that his noble Friend would not press the Amendment. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, who had charge of the Bill, had postponed the second reading until that day with the view of naming a day when it could be taken. The right hon. Gentleman was absent now. The Secretary to the Board of Trade was also absent; and he thought his noble Friend, under these circumstances, ought not to press the Amendment.
    MR. E. W. HARCOURTthought that a very unusual course had been taken in bringing in the Bill as a Private Bill. He was not going now to enter into the merits of the Bill; but he hardly thought he would be acting rightly by those whom he represented on the Upper Thames if he did not avail himself of the opportunity of saying how extremely they disliked the bringing in a Bill of this sort as a Private Bill. There was another objection to the bringing in of it as a Private Bill—namely, that it entirely precluded those who were best informed upon the matter from forming part of the Committee on the Bill. All persons who lived in the Upper Thames Valley were interested in the measure. The Bill itself was of a most important and interesting description. It went far beyond the powers that were given in the Public Health Act of 1875; and, whatever course might be taken—whether the noble Lord pressed his Amendment to a

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    division or not—he felt that he should not be acting rightly, if, on the part of his constituents, he did not say how much they disliked the Bill.
    MR. LYON PLAYFAIR: Unfortunately, I was not present in the House when the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) made this Amendment; but I trust the noble Lord will not press it to a division, because I think that I shall be able to show the House that, whereas the House has frequently considered Bills of this character as Public Bills, they have, nevertheless, more frequently considered them as Private Bills. I hold in my hand a list of various Acts which have been passed with regard to the Thames navigation; and of these, I find that two of them have been introduced as Public Bills, whereas four of them have been introduced as Private Bills. I do not say one word in regard to the merits of the present measure, because that is not my duty; but I merely say that there is certainly rather more precedent for introducing Bills of this character as Private Bills than as Public Bills. I trust, at all events, that the Motion of the noble Lord will not be pressed. The President of the Board of Trade is not present in his place to explain why he has made this Bill a Private Bill; and, under these circumstances, I hope the noble Lord will not persist with his Amendment.
    BARON HENRY DE WORMSsaid, the argument that the President of the Board of Trade was not in his place was scarcely one which the House ought to consider. He was inclined to think that the right hon. Gentleman ought to have been in his place, knowing that a matter of this importance might possibly come before the House. As to the nature of the Bill, he (Baron De Worms) ventured to think that a more remarkable measure had scarcely ever been introduced into the House. It had been fostered by an unnatural alliance between the Thames Conservancy and Her Majesty's Government, and neither of them chose to accept the paternity. It appeared to him that the Bill, in certain respects, partook of the nature of a public measure. It had all the strength of a public measure; but, at the same time, it possessed all the disadvantages of a private measure, and he was bound to say, on behalf of the constituency he
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    represented, that every species of opposition he could offer to the Bill he should offer.
    MR. RITCHIEsaid, he did not rise for the purpose of entering into the merits of the Bill. He had intended, when the Bill came on, to move a Resolution on the subject; but he simply rose now to protest against the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Ways and Means, who, while professing to abstain from entering into the merits of the Bill, had said that there were more precedents one way than the other, an observation which was certainly directed towards the merits of the measure. Under these circumstances, he (Mr. Ritchie) thought he had a right to say, in order to prevent an improper impression from getting abroad, that he was prepared to meet the right hon. Gentleman on every one of his precedents, and to show that there was not one of them which bore upon the point. He flattered himself that when the right hon. Gentleman brought them forward he should be able to dispose of them in an entirely satisfactory manner. For his own part, he must say that he did not wish to see the Bill disposed of in the summary manner proposed by the noble Lord, because he looked forward with pleasure to the time when he should be able to show that the Government were altogether in the wrong in the course they had adopted. Therefore, as far as he was personally concerned, he had no desire to see the Bill thrown out at the present moment, being most desirous, he would repeat, of showing how completely wrong the Government were in every step they had taken in reference to the Bill. He would only say this in justification of the Amendment of his noble Friend—that the Bill had been postponed so frequently, and on one occasion after a particular day had been absolutely fixed for the consideration of the second reading, that hon. Members had been put to much inconvenience in regard to it. Many of them had been brought up from the country, from time to time, to oppose the Bill; and now, again, that evening, although the measure was on the Orders of the Day for a second reading, by an arrangement it was going to be again postponed. Therefore, although no doubt the Amendment of his noble Friend was not one that was usually made, yet it must be acknowledged that his

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    noble Friend had ample justification for proposing it.
    MR. EVELYN ASHLEYreally must say that he was astonished at the line of argument taken by his hon. Friend the Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie), and at the course he had taken. It was arranged the other day that the Bill should not be taken until a formal Notice was given, and if it had been intended to bring it on for discussion he (Mr. Ashley) would have been in his place. But after such an understanding had been arrived at, and after four days' Notice had been given that it would be on the Paper that day, simply to be deferred until another day—for his hon. Friend to take advantage of the temporary absence of those who were in charge of it——
    MR. RITCHIE: I rise to Order.
    MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Under such circumstances, to move that the Order for the Second Reading should be discharged was, he thought, to take an unfair advantage.
    MR. RITCHIEwished to say a few words by way of explanation. If the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Board of Trade had been in his place, he would not have made the observations he had just made in reference to him (Mr. Ritchie). He had neither moved that the Order for the Second Reading be discharged, nor had he said one word in regard to it. What he had said was simply an answer to the remarks made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chairman of Ways and Means, and he had not the slightest intention of taking any part in the debate on the subject, nor was it at all upon any proposal of his that the question was now before the House.
    MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCEwas strongly opposed to the Bill, and should use his utmost exertions in order to prevent it from being read a second time; but, at the same time, he could not join in the present Amendment of the noble Lord, because it was clearly understood that when the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade postponed the Bill until to-day, it was not intended that it should come on for discussion to-day. He entirely agreed with all that had been said in regard to bringing in the Bill as a Private Bill. It was undoubtedly a Public Bill, considering the large interests at stake, and
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    he was quite prepared to discuss it on that basis, and to oppose in the strongest manner, any proposal to retain it as a Private Bill. At the same time, he hoped the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock would withdraw the Amendment he had made.
    SIR JOHN LUBBOCKdid not think that his right hon. Friend the Chairman of Ways and Means was open to the accusation which had been brought against him by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie). The right hon. Gentleman said he was not prepared to discuss the measure upon its merits; and, in point of fact, he only mentioned the question whether it was to be discussed as a Public or a Private Bill, which was an entirely different matter from discussing the measure on its merits.
    MR. HERMONwould be glad if the Secretary to the Board of Trade would inform the House whether the reason for deferring the Bill was that further negotiations were taking place outside the House in reference to the measure. He understood that the Board of Trade had made certain overtures to hon. Members in order to induce them to withdraw their opposition to the Bill. There ought to be a clear understanding as to the reason why the Government desired to postpone the second reading of the Bill, which had already been fixed twice for a particular day, but was now proposed to be postponed again. The House was entitled to ask the reasons for the postponement.
    MR. EVELYN ASHLEYsaid, the only reason why it had been put off on previous occasions was that it would have been necessary to take it early in the day, and that there were measures on the Paper in regard to which "urgency" had been declared. No negotiations were going on in regard to the Bill.
    SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAremarked, that what he felt puzzled about was this—that two hon. Members—the Member for Gravesend (Sir Sydney Waterlow) and the Member for London (Mr. Alderman W. Lawrence)—who were strongly opposed to the Bill, and one of whom had put down a Motion that it should be read a second time on that day six months, should now object to the Amendment moved by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), which, if carried, would have the effect they appeared to desire. He (Sir Joseph

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    M'Kenna) did not intend to vote for the Amendment of the noble Lord; but he did wish, while he had the opportunity, to call attention to the fact that the Motions which had been placed on the Paper for the rejection of the Bill were not intended bonâ fide to throw out the measure, but were simply in opposition to the proposal to proceed with the Bill as a Private Bill. Under these circumstances it would be taking an extreme course to vote for the discharge of the Order for the Second Reading; but he certainly did sympathize with those who, in defence of the public principles that were involved in the measure, argued that it ought to be dealt with as a Public Bill, and that it should be discussed at a time when its merits could be fully considered on the second reading. In the case of a Private Bill, that was not possible. No doubt, this was a season for making New Rules; but if hon. Gentlemen really desired not to defeat the Bill before the House, he did not see why they should have put down Motions for the rejection of the measure and then decline to support the Amendment of the noble Lord, which was intended to effect the same object.
    MR. FINIGANsaid, he took a very deep interest in the Bill, and he intended to read and consider it most carefully, because he considered that whoever had framed it had framed it in the interests of the public welfare. But, at the same time, he must say that the conduct of Her Majesty's Government was of that peculiar type which they had been practising lately to the detriment of the best interests of that House, and he quite agreed with the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock that the Order for the Second Reading of the Bill ought now to be read and discharged. The Government appeared to be in the habit of bringing in a Bill to-day and postponing it to-morrow, and thought they could play fast-and-loose with the House. He protested against such a policy, or rather, he protested against such an impolicy; and he would suggest that as there was nothing before the House to-night except a mere matter of Supply—as he expected the Irish debate would be finished tolerably early—the Government might proceed with this Bill forthwith and have it fully discussed. It ought to be discussed at once; and he did not hold with the plan adopted by Her Majesty's
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    Government for dealing with either public or private measures. Private Bills, were, in his opinion, introduced in a very unjust manner; and, therefore, he should support the Amendment of the noble Lord, and he hoped the House would, without further delay, go to a division.
    LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, that, perhaps, the House would allow him to state that, under the circumstances, he would not press the Amendment to a division. He thought, however, that the discussion which had taken place would be a useful lesson to the promoters of the Bill to exercise a little more care in future as to the mode in which they attempted to force such measures upon the House.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Main Question put, and agreed to.
    Second Reading deferred till Tuesday 15th March.

NOTICE OF QUESTIONS.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL (MILITARY OPERATIONS)—THE MILITARY COMMAND.
  CAPTAIN O'SHEAgave Notice that, on Monday, he would ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether he has read the telegram in the "Standard" of the 4th instant, from the Correspondent of that newspaper in South Africa, whose great authority on the events and feeling in that country is universally acknowledged, which telegram contains the following passage:—
  "The arrival of General Wood has inspired the troops with great confidence. The Boers also avowedly fear his enterprise. They constantly inquire as to his whereabouts, and the reputation which he gained during the Zulu War, in which he had a corps of Boers fighting under him, evidently has a great effect on their minds;"
  and, whether under these circumstances Her Majesty's Government still intend to supersede Sir Evelyn Wood by any officer unlikely to inspire the troops with such confidence, the colonists with such respect, or the enemy with such fear?
  MR. CHILDERS: I can answer that Question at once, Sir. I have read the telegram in The Standard, and Her Majesty's Government do not propose to alter the arrangements which they have

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  made respecting the command in the Transvaal.
  MR. COURTAULD: On Monday next I will ask the right hon. Gentleman, Whether it has not been the constant custom to confer superior local rank on officers connected with commands in the Field; and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Government do not think this course might be adopted to the public advantage in the case of an officer of such proved ability as Sir Evelyn Wood?
  MR. CHILDERS: I may at once state, Sir, that Her Majesty's Government have this day conferred upon Sir Evelyn Wood the rank referred to by the hon. Member.
  MR. E. JOHNSONsaid, he would also give Notice that, on Monday, he would ask the Secretary of State for War, Whether, considering his high qualifications, the authorities will take steps to leave Sir Evelyn Wood an independent command, and in that way to utilize his untrammelled services in a country where he has already proved his high qualifications as a soldier and a negotiator?
  MR. CHILDERS: I must appeal to the House. I have answered this Question twice or thrice already, and must decline, Sir, to answer further Questions of this description. I do not believe the House of Commons really desires to interfere with those who are responsible for matters of this kind after they have clearly stated what they intend to do.
  Subsequently,
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, that, in order to prevent any misunderstanding and to provide against any inconvenient precedent being set up, he should like to ask, Whether the right hon. Gentleman, by the answer he had given, intended the House to understand that hon. Members were to be excluded from putting Questions and legitimately expecting an answer, or from raising a debate on an appointment which might be made by a Minister of the Crown?
  MR. CHILDERS: No, Sir, I did not mean to say that such Questions should not be put. What I meant to say was, that after I had given the clearest answers I could to three or four Questions on a subject which is expressly within the responsibility of the Secretary of State for War and the Com-
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  mander-in-Chief—I mean the selection of an officer under the Commander-in-Chief in Natal—I conceived it was not the wish of the House that these Questions should be continually repeated, although it is quite in the power of any hon. Member to challenge the conduct of the Government in the matter. From the manner in which my answers were received on previous occasions, I conceived that to be the general opinion of the House.

QUESTIONS.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL (NEGOTIATIONS)—SPEECH OF MR. EVELYN ASHLEY.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONasked the Secretary to the Board of Trade, Whether he is correctly reported, in the "Daily News" of to-day, to have stated at a public meeting at Cowes—
  "That, to protect her prestige, before England attempted to enter into negotiations with the Boers, they must be compelled to lay down their arms, as a warning to their neighbours that England could not be treated as a weak and impotent Power;"
  and, whether, if he so spoke, he spoke on behalf of Her Majesty's Government?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Sir, a new terror will be added to political life if a Member on his return from his constituents is to be cross-examined as to a telegraphic abstract of one sentence of his speech by the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle. I beg to reply that in the words he has put on the Paper I recognize an approximation, but no more than an approximation, to what I said; and I can re-assure him by stating that the words were the words of the Member for the Isle of Wight alone, with no more knowledge of the inner councils of the Government than is possessed by the hon. Baronet himself. As he has drawn such public notice to what I said, perhaps the House will, in justice, allow me one word in explanation. Torn from the context the passage might appear as if I had gone out of my way to preach a crusade or raise a feeling against the Transvaal Boers. That is not so. The words were spoken in reply to a previous speaker, who had urged that we might at once, and unconditionally, retire from the

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  Transvaal, because the nations of Europe were too well acquainted with our courage and resources to misunderstand our motives. I felt bound, in consequence, to point out to the meeting that it was not so much a question of what the nations of Europe might know or think, but, unless we were going to retire altogether from South Africa, the question was what the effect might be on the peoples and tribes out there.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL (MILITARY OPERATIONS)—TREATMENT OF NATURAL-BORN SUBJECTS OF HER MAJESTY AND OF NEUTRAL STATES.
  SIR HENRY FLETCHERasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether natural born subjects of Her Majesty the Queen, or of neutral powers, serving in arms against Her Majesty in the forces of the Transvaal Boers will be treated as belligerents like the Boors, and what instructions regarding the disposal of such persons when taken prisoners have been issued to the General and other officers in command in South Africa?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, that certain instructions, as was known to the House, had been sent out directing the mode in which the Boers of the Transvaal were to be treated during the present hostilities. The Secretary of State for War had already stated that he had sent out instructions contained in the following telegram:—
  "That, though the occasion had not arisen for determining any question of belligerent rights, the Boers were to be treated according to the recognized rules of civilized warfare, including the exchange of prisoners."
  Those instructions were applicable to the Boers of the Transvaal exclusively. Their case was peculiar, and therefore justly excited a desire for information as to the course Her Majesty's Government had taken, or might take, in regard to them. As regarded other subjects of Her Majesty, or the subjects of neutral Powers, he did not see any reason why their case should not fall under the general rules which were applicable to other cases of hostility. At any rate, Her Majesty's Government, placing confidence in the discretion of the Commander, did not at present see the necessity of making any new rules on the subject.
  MR. DILLONasked, Whether the House was to understand, from the right hon. Gentleman's answer, that Dutchmen from Holland, or from States bordering on the Transvaal, were, if captured, to be treated as rebels and hanged, rather than dealt with as belligerents?
  MR. GLADSTONE: The same Question might be asked with regard to hostilities in any country whatever, and it would have to be dealt with according to its merits. It is not a case in which, I think, it would be wise for us to issue instructions, and I apprehend that it would be much more likely to do harm than good.

  STATE OF IRELAND—OUTRAGE AT CLONAKILTY, COUNTY CORK.
  MR. HEALYasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether an outrage took place on Sunday 13th February, on the farm of Mr. Donovan, at Clonakilty, county Cork; and, if it is true that one of the labourers recently imported into the neighbourhood by a landlord is in jail charged with having committed the outrage?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): Yes, Sir; an outrage took place at the time and place mentioned in the Question; but it is not true that a labourer recently imported into the neighbourhood by a landlord is in gaol charged with having committed it. A labourer not imported, but born and habitually working in the neighbourhood, was arrested on suspicion of having been concerned in the outrage; but informations were refused against him, and he was discharged on the 17th of last month.

  LAW AND JUSTICE—COST OF LITIGATION.
  MR. BLENNERHASSETTasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether he is aware that during the trial of the case Fell and wife v. Apps, at Westminster on Monday last, Lord Coleridge, commenting on the fact that the costs of an administration suit referred to in the course of the proceedings amounted to a very large sum, instanced a case in his own experience where an estate of £1,300 was administered by the Court of Chancery and only £156 remained to be distributed, and added "I can

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  only say that a system that permits such a state of affairs is scandalous, yet so it is;" and, whether he will recommend this expression of opinion by the Lord Chief Justice to the attention of the Government?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES): I have no doubt whatever that the statement made by Lord Coleridge was correct, as the matter was within his own cognizance. It does not appear to me, however, that there is any necessity for formally recommending it to the notice of the Government. The Lord Chancellor, upon whom the responsibility of the matter rests, is most strenuously endeavouring to lessen the cost of litigation, and is taking practical measures to that effect.

  TREATY OF WASHINGTON, 1854— AMERICAN FISHERIES—THE FORTUNE BAY DISPUTE.
  SIR HENRY HOLLANDasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether any progress has been made towards the settlement of the Fortune Bay Fishery dispute; and, whether he can, consistently with the public interest, inform the House what is the present position of the case?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: In asking my hon. Friend to postpone his Question from last Tuesday to this day, I hoped, Sir, to be able to make known the position of the negotiations which were then proceeding; but, as these have not yet come to a conclusion, I can only promise that no delay shall take place in communicating their result to the House.

  ARMY—ARMY PAY DEPARTMENT.
  CAPTAIN AYLMERasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is intended to give to the senior officers of the Army Pay Department any compensation in consequence of their being superseded by their juniors through the operation of paragraph 8 of the Royal Warrant of December 25th, 1880?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, I will look into this matter; but, as at present advised, I do not consider that the senior officers of the Army Pay Department referred to in the hon. and gallant Member's Question have any claim whatever to compensation.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE BASUTOS (NEGOTIATIONS).
  LORD ELCHOasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, as the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies recently stated that Her Majesty's Government disapproved of the terms offered by the Governor and his Ministers at the Cape to the Basutos, which terms were then under negotiation, he will inform the House as to the definitive conditions which Her Majesty's Government propose that the Cape Government should offer to the rebels; and, whether any telegraphic Despatch upon this subject has been received from the Governor of the Cape since the 25th ult.; and, if so, whether he will communicate to the house the substance of such Despatch, and of any reply that may have been sent to it?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, that the full details necessary to give an intelligent, or, at least, a clear answer had only that moment reached him; but he hoped that, substantially, he could give the required answer. Her Majesty's Government had no intention of informing the House, or of suggesting to the Government at the Cape the definitive conditions which they would propose should be offered to the Basuto rebels. The ground taken in reference to the Basutos and the Cape Government by Her Majesty's Government had been stated generally in the Queen's Speech; it was well known to both parties, and they had no intention of deviating therefrom. Then, his noble Friend very naturally inquired why it was Her Majesty's Government expressed no opinion on the terms offered. For that there was the greatest possible reason, which he would explain as well as he could. Her Majesty's Government had been made parties in the step immediately preceding—namely, the arrangement of the armistice. On the 2nd of February, Sir Hercules Robinson telegraphed the reply which, with the concurrence of the Ministers, he proposed to send to the Basuto deputation, praying him to intercede for them. On the 3rd, Lord Kimberley telegraphed his approval of that reply, with certain modifications, to bring it into accord with the position Her Majesty's Government had taken up. The modifications were accepted by the Cape Government, and an armistice

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  was agreed to, commencing on the 18th and ending on the 24th February. Therefore, to that proceeding Her Majesty's Government were complete parties. On the 23rd of February the Cape Government signified to Sir Hercules Robinson that they intended to offer, and Sir Hercules Robinson telegraphed that they had offered, to the rebels certain conditions of peace that were to be accepted or declined within 24 hours, and that unless accepted hostilities would immediately be resumed. Under these circumstances, Lord Kimberley felt that, having been a party to the step immediately preceding, it was absolutely incumbent on him to make known that he was not a party to the step taken by the Cape Ministry on their own responsibility, and without reference to the Home Government. It was quite obvious that, reserving the right to appeal to the Government at home for advice, it must be well understood how far Her Majesty's Government had been parties, and in what they had not. That was the reason that caused his noble Friend (Lord Kimberley) to have the answer given by the Under Secretary of State on Monday last. The eight conditions of peace had been sent to the Basutos on the 23rd of February, and they were made known to Sir Hercules Robinson and the Colonial Secretary; but not until the 28th were they declared to the House. With regard to the effect of the declaration then made, he understood a remonstrance had been sent by the Cape Government; but, until that arrived, it was not in his power to give further information. All he at present knew was that there was reason to believe that the armistice was prolonged; and if that was so, he could not but regard it as a happy circumstance, and possibly it was in consequence of the declaration of the Government.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL (MILITARY OPERATIONS)—THE ROYAL MARINES.
  SIR EARDLEY WILMOTasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether, in addition to the Naval Brigade now employed in Natal and the Transvaal, it is intended to make use of the services of any portion of the corps of Royal Marines?
  MR. TREVELVAN: Sir, there is no present prospect of the naval detachment now serving on shore in Africa being increased. The First Lord of the Admiralty has a high appreciation of the Royal Marines, and would always give them an opportunity of serving where their services were called for. But Sir George Colley and Sir Evelyn Wood asked for guns and rocket parties, and seamen only were accordingly sent.

  ARMY—THE ARMY RESERVE—VOLUNTEERS.
  CAPTAIN O'SHEAasked the Secretary of State for War, the number of men in sections B and C of the 1st Class Army Reserve who have volunteered to return to the colours on the terms of the Army Circular of the 12th of February 1881, and the proportion per cent. of those who have volunteered, to the strength of those sections on the 1st of February 1881?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, men from the Army Reserve are volunteering from day to day, and it would be quite useless at this moment, even if we had the particulars, to give the proportions from sections B and C to the aggregate strength of those sections. If my hon. and gallant Friend will speak to me on some day late in April, when volunteering has closed and all the Returns have come in, I may be able to give him the information he requires.

  BOUNTIES ON FOREIGN SHIPPING—THE UNITED STATES AND ITALY.
  VISCOUNT SANDONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he is now in a position to lay upon the Table of the House, a report from Sir Edward Thornton with respect to any measures which have been recently proposed in the Congress of the United States, with the view of providing bounties for American merchant shipping; whether he will obtain a report for the information of Parliament from Her Majesty's Ambassador at Rome, as to any similar proposals with respect to Italian shipping which have recently been made to the Legislature of Italy; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House, any communications upon this subject which have been addressed by the Secretary of State

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  for Foreign Affairs to Her Majesty's Representatives at Rome and Washington?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, the Report from Sir Edward Thornton has been to-day laid upon the Table, and Sir Augustus Paget has been requested to forward a similar Report on any proposals that may have been submitted to the Italian Legislature. There have been no other communications between Her Majesty's Government and Her Majesty's Representatives at the place in question.

  CENTRAL ASIA—MERV.
  MR. ARTHUR ARNOLDasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether there is any truth in the report that the Russians had advanced to Merv?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, we have not received any information on that subject.

  AFGHANISTAN—RETENTION OF CANDAHAR.
  SIR HENRY TYLERasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether Her Majesty's Government have yet made, or have any immediate prospect of making, any arrangements for the permanent and peaceful settlement and government of Southern Afghanistan, which will justify the withdrawal of the British forces from Candahar during the present season?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, I have to point out to the hon. Member that a permanent and peaceful settlement and government of Southern Afghanistan is not an indispensable preliminary to the withdrawal of the British forces from Candahar. It is quite possible that the unhappy state of things resulting from the late war may postpone a permanent and peaceful settlement in Afghanistan for an almost indefinite period. In reply to the Question itself, I have to state that arrangements are in progress which Her Majesty's Government, fully recognizing the importance of leaving, if possible, a settled government in Southern Afghanistan, hope will conduce to that end. I do not think that it would be at present to the advantage of the Public Service to enter into details on the subject.
  SIR HENRY TYLERasked whether orders had already been given for the evacuation of Candahar?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Certainly no such orders have been given from home, and I do not understand that any positive orders have as yet been given by the Government of India.

  PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) BILL —DEPOSIT OF ARMS AND AMMUNITION.
  MR. GIBSONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been directed to the South African Act for the better preservation of Peace (assented to 2nd August 1878), under the 14th section of which all arms and ammunition deposited within a given time shall be duly valued, and the amount fixed by the valuation paid to the owners so depositing; and, whether, with a view to encouraging the speedy and peaceful deposit of arms and ammunition under the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Bill now before Parliament, he will consider the expediency of introducing a Clause embodying, with due safeguards, the principle of payment contained in the South African Act?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I do not think, Sir, that such an arrangement as the right hon. and learned Gentleman suggests could be conveniently introduced into the Bill, for there would be very great danger of people buying arms cheap in order to give them up to the Government dear. ["Oh, oh!"] I do not think that is at all an improbable arrangement in any country. But I think it is a very proper thing to consider what should be done with reference to the deposit of these arms and the manner of allowing persons to get rid of them on reasonable terms; but I think it will be better to leave that to the Lord Lieutenant to arrange by his Proclamation.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I beg to give Notice that on Monday next, at half-past 4 o'clock, I shall move that the state of Public Business is no longer urgent.
  MR. PARNELL: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, What will

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  be the course of Public Business on Monday?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, that the Peace Preservation (Ireland) Bill would be proceeded with on Monday.
  MR. CALLANsaid, it would be a great satisfaction to the country if the right hon. Gentleman could hint to the Irish Members when it was probable that the Land Bill would be brought in.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, in an answer to a similar Question a short time ago, I, no doubt, hinted to the effect that I would make a statement with regard to the general course of Public Business, and accompanied that with a hope that we might be able before long to discuss the Land Bill. I have been cherishing that hope for many weeks, almost from day to day; but it has been intercepted and postponed in consequence of proceedings for which I really think we are not responsible. Hon. Members may depend upon it that the Government are most anxious, and are sensible of the great public advantage which will attend the making known of its intentions with regard to the Irish Land Question. We will lose no time in bringing the measure before the House; but, in the present state of affairs, it would be idle for me to hold out any hope as to the time when we shall be able to do so, unless we can see our way to measures which are immediately and absolutely necessary.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 98.]
  (Secretary Sir William Harcourt, Mr. Gladstone, Mr. William Edward Forster.)
  PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 98.]

    SECOND READING. [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]
    [THIRD NIGHT.]
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [2nd March], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    And which Amendment was, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Justin M' Carthy.)
    Question again proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
    Debate resumed.
    MR. PARNELL: Sir, I take this opportunity of expressing my belief that the course which Her Majesty's Government has adopted in introducing and pressing to a conclusion coercive legislation for Ireland is one which will have lasting and permanent effects of a kind very different from that which they anticipate. I cannot imagine anything that the most ardent Nationalist could do to make the breach wider between England and Ireland, and to conduce eventually to the disruption of the Union between the two countries, worse than the course the Government has undertaken in forcing coercive legislation upon our country. And it is not alone the fact that you have introduced and persevered in this legislation, but it is the tone which has been adopted by every prominent Minister upon the Treasury Bench. The tone and the manner and the proceedings which we have witnessed in this House from day to day and from night to night make it very evident that you have done more to create and preserve a chasm between England and Ireland than the exertion of all the American Fenians from New York to San Francisco. I think it is an unlucky thing that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland should have had the carrying out of these measures of coercion. That right hon. Member is slow to move, and when he went to Ireland he went as a Radical; and, as Member for a prominent Radical constituency, it was supposed that he would have carried some of his Radical traditions with him; but there were not wanting among the permanent officials in the Chief Secretary's office at Dublin Castle men who openly boasted that, great Radical as he was, three months would not elapse before he became the veriest Tory of the whole lot. But whatever may be his faults—and I will not lay undue stress upon them—certainly the change we have seen in the hands into which the carrying out of this coercive legislation has now fallen has not been a very happy one. As little wanting in the way of conciliation as is the right hon. Gentleman, certainly the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department has not been an improvement upon him. We have seen, on three previous occasions, that the right hon. Gentleman is not very tolerant of Irish

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    Members; but he has certainly reserved for the carrying out of this Bill an exhibition of temper that the most resolute of its opponents never expected to have seen from him. With all the skill of a practised orator he has seized upon words which were spoken by my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), and he has not been ashamed to twist those words, and to hold up my hon. Friend in this House as an assassin, and a person who wishes to incite to assassination. If you ever again have to carry a Coercion Bill for Ireland, I would at least recommend you to do it with some other instruments and some other Minister than the right hon. Gentleman. I would recommend you to apply to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright), who throughout these proceedings has certainly not shown the same virulent animosity against Ireland that has distinguished one or two of the other Ministers. We heard a character given to Mr. John Devoy by the right hon. Gentleman. We were informed that that gentleman had sent a threatening cablegram to the right hon. Gentleman, threatening to stamp upon him. I was surprised when I heard of this intelligence, and I at once cabled from Paris to Mr. Devoy to know whether there was any truth in the statement, and I received back a message next day to say there was no truth in the information that he had sent any cablegram threatening the right hon. Gentleman, but had simply used the same words which the right hon. Gentleman had used in this House against the Fenian Society; and if the right hon. Gentleman is entitled to say in this House that he will stamp upon the Fenian Society like a nest of vipers, surely the Fenian Brotherhood are entitled to say in return that they will, if they can, stamp, not on the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary, but upon his Government. But the right hon. Gentleman was not satisfied with perverting and misrepresenting the meaning of the cablegram which he received from Mr. Devoy, but he tried to fix an additional stigma on the character of that gentleman. He spoke of him as a convict. But this is not the first time for Irishmen who have sacrificed their all for what they believed to be the good of their country, and have cheerfully faced the horrible punishment of penal
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    servitude for their opinions, to be stigmatized in this House as convicts. But look at the contrast between the right hon. Gentleman and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. That right hon. Gentleman, in speaking of another convict, once a Member of this House, the late Mr. John Martin, my Predecessor in the Representation of Meath, did not speak of him as a convict, although Mr. John Martin had been committed and sentenced to transportation for the same crime of treason-felony as Mr. Devoy. That Gentleman, coming up to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, asked to shake hands with him, saying that although he (Mr. John Martin) knew he was the enemy of his country, the right hon. Gentleman had never said an insulting thing about Ireland. You cannot say that of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. You cannot change the nature of the man; but if he would have imitated the high character of the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, he might perhaps have facilitated matters, instead of having avowedly gone out of his way to insult and traduce absent men, and thus might have prevented the widening of the chasm between England and Ireland, which must inevitably result from every occasion such as this. But not satisfied with misrepresenting Mr. John Devoy, he very ingeniously connects together two passages in a speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary, in which my hon. Friend advises the people going to meetings to march thither, and a subsequent passage in which he advises every man who has a rifle to keep it in his house, and then suggests from it that my hon. Friend advises the Irish people to go out at night firing into people's houses. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT assented.] The right hon. Gentleman nods his head. He did, then, misrepresent my hon. Friend. I know it is very hard for an Irish Member to put himself right in this House; but I do not believe that hon. Gentlemen, even in this House, will believe that my hon. Friend would do such a thing. Now, Sir, I pass from the Secretary of State for the Home Department with this word. He throws doubt upon the courage of the Irish people; but I leave him with the remark that it is not always those who go about flinging charges of cowardice at others who are

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    themselves the bravest. The Land League has been represented as akin to Fenianism. That I deny. I have the greatest respect for many Fenians. I have the greatest respect for men who announce themselves publicly to be Fenians—who believe in the separation of England from Ireland by physical force, and who do not look to Constitutional agitation. And although I do not believe that they are right, I say the Ministry of to-day are doing their best to prove that those men are right; they are doing their best to thrust men like myself, the hon. Member for Tipperary, and many others, outside the lines of the Constitution. We shall not oblige them. But though I have this respect for those men, I have never been able to see that a physical force policy was practicable or possible to adopt, either in Ireland or out of it, as regards the relations between the two countries; therefore, I have always avoided connection with it. There are organizations of the kind in America; but the bulk of our money has not come from them, simply because they have their own organizations to support. They may have sent us money, as individuals; but I deny that there is any connection, either open or secret, between the two organizations. We have been represented as advising the assassination of landlords; but I cannot help thinking that an unhappy passage in my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary's speech has been seized on by the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and has been twisted to suit his purpose. I regret exceedingly that my hon. Friend should so have committed himself by those words, as he undoubtedly did. Knowing, as I do, his natural disposition, and how his mind shrinks and revolts from any recourse to physical force, he could not contemplate injuring the smallest creature, much less one of his fellow-creatures, without the greatest repugnance. I can well understand how, in the heat of the moment, he was led into the announcement which he made yesterday, that if he were an evicted tenant he would fire on his evictors, and defend his homestead. But I believe that my hon. Friend meant that he would do it openly. I believe he meant that he would not shoot from behind a hedge, but that he would fire at his evictors face to face, and shoot
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    them if he could, and be shot in return if he could not. Although that is not a possible, a wise, or a judicious policy; although a recourse to such method should not be recommended; and although I myself could not, for a moment, tolerate such language, I should say there was nothing like cowardice in that. There was nothing mean or dishonourable in the announcement my hon. Friend made, nor did he invite anybody else to imitate his example. But if my hon. Friend had been Professor Blackie, if he had used the words which Professor Blackie used a short time ago in addressing a public meeting in Scotland, then, indeed, he would have incurred the imputation which the right hon. Gentleman endeavoured to attach to him. Professor Blackie, the other day, during a lecture delivered at the Literary Institute, Edinburgh, said that, at the time the Covenanters were reduced to desperation, Scotland was in the same state that Ireland is in now. There was no protection from the law, just as there is no protection from the law in Ireland; just as there is no protection from the law for the property of the Irish tenants, and nothing for the tenants themselves but starvation and death, which the Prime Minister last year said were threatened against 11,000 of the men, women, and children of Ireland. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] If it was not a sentence of death by starvation, I do not see what else it was to be. Professor Blackie said—"We will declare war, partly open, and partly, it may be, by assassination." Then he referred to the case of shooting landlords in Ireland, and said he did not defend the war of Parnell, or those who shot landlords from behind a hedge; but he did say, in the same spirit as Sharp was pulled out of his carriage and murdered by the Covenanters, "Serve him right!" He firmly and completely sympathized with the murderers. It was the rude refuge of nature, and if the law was not the ministry of the God of Righteousness, but of the devil of lawlessness, he wanted to know why it should be called assassination because it took "a rude course to do what the law could not do." If my hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary went over to Ireland and said what Professor Blackie said, he would be laid by the heels by the Chief Secretary for Ireland under the recent Coercion Act, and

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    locked up in prison. But my hon. Friend has not used any language of that kind; but the language he used has been deliberately twisted and perverted by the Secretary of State for the Home Department for the purpose of blinding and misleading hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway. We have been told that the state of society in Ireland is desperate, and that the Government must have this Bill to disarm the people. I tell you that you will not prevent a single murder by this Bill. You will scarcely deprive a single one of the mauvais sujets, and the village scoundrels, referred to by the Chief Secretary for Ireland in a former debate, of the power of shooting his landlord if he desires. You will not get at one of the Fenian guns, if there are any Fenian guns in Ireland. No; but you will get at the shot-guns of the farmers, who have bought a few of them. I may remark that the Government have not produced any statistics showing the number of such arms; but they were afraid, I suppose, that if they did so, the number was so small, that this House would scout their Bill. You will just take the arms from the farmers, who have bought old fowling-pieces for the purpose of shooting hares and rabbits under the Ground Game Bill. You will take from them the power of carrying out the law, which the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir William Harcourt) ostentatiously announced would be applied to both England and Scotland and Ireland. It will also enable every policeman, every magistrate in Ireland, to seize anybody, man, woman, or child, in the day-time or the night-time, on the high road or anywhere else, except in their own houses, where they can find them, and it will enable them to search their persons. There is a Liberal programme for you! We have heard that the Government quite believe in the Irish magistrates and the police, and they give them the power to search every man, woman, and child in Ireland if they please. But what are the facts with regard to the state of Ireland? So far from homicides or murders having increased, they are actually below the average. In 1880, the number of homicides and murders is actually below the average of the last 10 years. In 1845, there were 139 homicides and murders; in 1880, there were only 69. The average during the last 10 years, from 1870
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    to 1879, was 82, or 13 more than the number of homicides and murders for the last year. In 1845, there were 540 assaults; in 1880, only half that number. During last year the average was 287. The assaults with injury to life in 1880 were 245. The average during the last 10 years was 255—far above the number of last year. The offences of firing at the person in 1845 were 138; last year they were only 79. In the case of firing into dwellings—in 1845 there were 134, last year there were only 98, and so on. But there is a point which has been very much lost sight of during the debates on these questions. It is a point I had intended to bring before the House on the second reading of the Bill that has since become law; but, with the permission of the House, I shall venture to allude to it now. It is the proportion of evictions to crimes. The Prime Minister told us that crime dogged the steps of the land meetings, and he thought to create a great case against the Land League on that account. I tell the Prime Minister back, that crime dogs the footsteps of the evictors, and if you want to put a stop to crime, you must put a stop to eviction. You will not succeed by this Bill in protecting landlords who violate every feeling of justice and mercy. You will not prevent outraged tenants from shooting their landlords. The Bill will increase the number of murders and outrages in Ireland, and it will also increase, as unhappily we have already seen too evidently, the number of evictions. In the county of Antrim I find there were 13 evictions only, and only 15 crimes. In the County Cork, 222 evictions and 290 crimes, or rather more than one crime for every eviction. In Wicklow I find there were 33 evictions and 23 crimes. In Leitrim, 83 evictions and 102 crimes. I have got a list of all the Irish counties here, and shall be happy to place them at the disposal of any hon. Member who desires to see it. By these Returns I am able to show that in every case in every county in Ireland the crime is in direct proportion to the number of evictions. For instance, we have in Mayo 106 evictions and 343 crimes. We have in Tipperary 77 evictions and 106 crimes. Wherever the evictions are few, the crimes are few; and if it has been necessary to hold Land League meetings, it is because Land League meetings have been held where evictions

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    have been most numerous. Wherever we heard that the landlords were trampling upon the tenants, there we decided to hold our meetings; and the crimes would have taken place, whether we held our meetings or not. Now, a great deal has been said about Land League Courts, with a view to support the contention that the ordinary law of the land has been over-ridden. Sir, I regret exceedingly—as I regret many incidents in this Land League struggle—I regret exceedingly the institution of these Land League Courts. They were instituted in certain counties—Clare, for instance—which were very little under the control of the Central Executive of the Land League in Dublin; but immediately we heard that their proceedings were objectionable to the Government—and it is very right that they should be objectionable to the Government, as they were to us, because many of their proceedings were farcical in the extreme—but directly our attention was called to the holding of these Courts, we issued directions that they should cease. But upon what ground do you say the ordinary law of the land has been over-ridden? It is only the ordinary law of the land so far as it is used for the maintenance of injustice. But the law of the land as regards ordinary purposes is supported better in Ireland, according to the admission of the Chief Secretary for Ireland himself, than it is in England and Scotland. The number of convictions in the aggregate for general offences is greater than in England or Scotland; and it is only where a tenant is unjustly evicted from his holding, it is only where an agrarian offence is committed in consequence of this unjust eviction, that the public opinion which I once called the unwritten law of the land—a phrase that has been made so much use of—it is only where this occurs that the public opinion of the neighbourhood comes to the rescue—and, undoubtedly, it does defeat the administration of the law. I admit that; and I say it is right that public opinion, legitimately expressed, not by violence, or by agrarian crime, should be entitled to defeat the ordinary law of the land under those circumstances, and that the Government should not be allowed, under cover, to come to the rescue of the landlords, and, by force and intimidation, attempt to put
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    down the public opinion of the country. But would any man in his senses, except a Liberal Government driven to that course by the Party they have ousted from Office—would any man in his senses refuse to listen to such teaching? If there is injustice, it follows that the people will resist injustice. You cannot prevent them; and if you want to have your law obeyed, surely the proper way is to make that law just first. You have put the cart before the horse. You have entered upon a policy of repression and intimidation in order to secure obedience to law which the Prime Minister confessed last year compelled him to acknowledge that it inflicted injustice upon a suffering people. Instead of bringing forward your measures of conciliation, you have brought forward your measures of repression; and you may, perhaps, in the course of a few weeks, be up to your elbows in the blood of innocent persons in your attempt to uphold an infamous and unjust territorial system. Reference has been made to trades' unions, and we have been told that if the Land League was like the trades' unions, there would be no objection to the Land League; but, somehow or other, it appears that whenever political movements are started at first, they are always subject to the same kind of criticism which we have to meet now. They are always told that they are aiders and abettors of assassination. The Prime Minister made a bid to the trades' unions of England when he said they never supported assassination. We never said that they did; and we say also that the Land League never supported assassination. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Illegality.] Well, illegality. We do not say that trades' unions ever did support illegality; and we also say that the Land League never did support illegality. The only illegality that the Land League ever supported is in the advice given to tenants to break their yearly contracts. These contracts are not real contracts. Not one tenant in a hundred knows that he has entered into such a contract. They are a legal fiction, and they have been condemned by the Report of your own Royal Commission, which declared that freedom of contract does not exist in Ireland. But what has been said about trades' unions? Mr. William Overend, Mr. Thomas Irwin

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    Barstow, and Mr. George Chance, the Assistant Commissioners reporting to the Royal Commission some years ago, said in reference to trades' unions—
    "Rattening has always been done with the knowledge of the union, and very commonly by direction of the secretary. In Sheffield no less than 12 out of 60 trades' unions prompted or encouraged outrage. Ham-stringing animals, firing and injuring dwellings, injuries to machinery, &c., have frequently occurred. The complicity of the union, so far from being denied, has been admitted in public court, and £200 has been paid out of their funds to the perpetrators."
    That is not my statement—I do not believe it is true. I do not say it is true. I read it to you as the statement of Commissioners appointed for the purpose of inquiring into the matter. In the Report of the Royal Commissioners—and I have given you the names of the gentlemen who were their assistants—I presume they have made this statement after full and accurate inquiry, and on examination of witnesses on the spot, a thing that you have not done before you ventured upon blackening the character of the Irish National Land League. These are not statements hurriedly made in the course of debate without anything to support them but the ingenuity of right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench. They are carefully and deliberately made, and notwithstanding that the Prime Minister tells us, as he is undoubtedly right in telling us, that trades' unions had no recourse to illegality. I am also entitled to say on my side, wait for 10 years, and we shall find the Prime Minister doing the Land League justice, and stating in his place in the House that the Land League never had recourse to illegality. Where would be the Land Question was it not for the Irish National Land League? If the members of it were now to be hunted like vermin out of their own country, where would the Land Question be? I had the honour of sitting in his House during the last Parliament, and I watched from time to time the late hon. and learned Member for the City of Limerick (Mr. Butt) bringing forward his Land Bill with all the skill and genius which so eminently distinguished him. I also watched the majority of the right hon. Gentlemen who now sit on that (the Treasury) Bench, and who are now about to bring forward a Bill of the very same cha-
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    racter, go into the Lobbies against it. One right hon. Gentleman only of the whole line shakes his head—it is the right hon. Gentleman the Vice President of the Council (Mr. Mundella), and he certainly does form the exception—with one or two other very honourable exceptions. I wish to give him the full credit of the prescience and foresight which he exhibited on that occasion, which certainly should have entitled him to a higher post than the Office he holds. Now, Sir, what said Earl Granville about trades' unions, an English statesman who is alive and flourishing, and a Member of this present Liberal Government, who traduces the Land League? Lord Granville said, at the beginning of this Session—
    "Take the case of 'Swing.' Swing destroyed an enormous amount of agricultural property. …. The question of the rent of farms was also involved, and it took this country four years to put down 'Swing' completely. Then there is another case, that of the Rebecca riots, which began in 1839, in consequence of an alleged grievance, though perfectly legal—that of levying tolls at turnpike gates—and the disturbances were renewed still more remarkably at the beginning of 1843. What happened then? There was destruction of property and a perfect defiance of the law, and it was impossible to obtain necessary evidence. One toll-keeper was murdered; and the jury were so intimidated that, against all the facts of the case, they returned a verdict of acquittal."—[3 Hansard, cclvii. 30.]
    That was to say, the jury returned a verdict contrary to common sense; the very thing juries are accused of in Ireland at the present moment. The noble Lord went on to say—
    "This state of things, which extended itself to the questions of workhouses, justices' clerks' fees, tithes, and rent complained of as exorbitant, was put an end to after four years by a complete concession with regard to the original alleged grievance."—[Ibid.]
    What a prospect for the Government! The noble Lord continued—
    "Take another case—the outrages at Sheffield, which might have been described in stronger language than that used by Sir William Smith and Chief Justice Bush in 1832, or than that which has just been used by three Judges in reference to Ireland. You had then every sort of iniquity. You had explosions; you had compounds thrown into houses with the intention of destroying houses, property, and life, of destroying the property of the workmen as well as the employers."—[Ibid.]
    We have not got so far as this yet in Ireland. In spite of the dark insinua-

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    tions of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, at that time, according to the noble Earl—
    "You could not get evidence; you could not trust your jury. The most atrocious cases were acquitted; and in other instances, juries—I suppose they were manufacturers—insisted, contrary to the direction of the Judges, in bringing in verdicts of guilty, and free pardons had to be given. The result was that the perpetrators of these outrages escaped, and the law was altered in favour of trades' unions."—[Ibid.]
    Here is one Minister in the House of Lords attributing crime and outrage to trades' unionism, while another Minister in the House of Commons—the distinguished Minister at the head of Her Majesty's Government—says trades' unionism has never been guilty of any such acts. O'Connell's agitation, Sir, was condemned in the same way. He was called the instigator to assassination, and all the other beautiful epithets that have been showered on us. It happened, unfortunately, that he was an old man. He was an old man, and so the Government, by imprisonment, soon broke him down. But I am happy to say that the men who are engaged in the present movement are young; and after this 18 months' suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act is over, we shall be in as good a position as we were before to resume our work, and to press it to an issue—that is, as we see it at present. Of course, I do not know what your intentions are with respect to the Land Bill. So it has always been, Mr. Speaker, that a political action in every country in its inception is denounced, and accused of horrible crimes by the classes against whom that agitation is directed. That is so everywhere. But it is far more easy in the case of Ireland to create a false impression of a respectable movement than it would be with a respectable movement in your own country. When hon. Gentlemen remember how their own legal trades' unions have been traduced at a time when public opinion could see what was going on; when they reflect how much more easy it is to traduce and vilify an agitation in Ireland; how very much more difficult it is for the public opinion of the Irish people to assert itself; how very much more difficult it is for us to bring the truth home to your minds, in the face of gagging Rules, the imposition of the clôture, and the other Continental devices which have been introduced in this House,
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    you will think and pause a little before you take for granted everything that is told you with regard to the Irish National Land League and Irish agitators. But, at least, if you refuse to do so, I do not think that we—I do not think that the Irish people—will, in the long run, be the sufferers. If you think the Irish people will be the sufferers, you make a mistake; because it is important that you should maintain the link between the two countries. It is of importance to you to conciliate the feelings of the Irish people; it is of importance that your Government should not be known to history, and remembered in Ireland, as the Coercion Government; it is of importance that the Irish people should not bear your rule in mind as a rule of petty tyranny and police, a rule of magisterial oppression, as a rule of suspicion, and not of law. It is of importance, from your point of view, that this should be so. It is not from ours. The more you tyrannize—the more you trifle with the Irish people—the stronger will burn the spirit of nationality, the more they will free themselves from the yoke which renders such things possible. We may have our day—our short day—of persecution. I believe the public opinion of the people of England will, at some day or other, do justice to our motives, even if they do not approve of our course.
    MR. MITCHELL HENRYthought the speech of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down (Mr. Parnell), on his return from Paris, or from where nobody exactly knew, showed that he was, in some degree, sensible of the ruin which he had brought upon his country. The hon. Member seemed to suppose that language was not to bear its ordinary meaning, but that when it had produced in the minds of those to whom it was addressed its legitimate results, if those results were inconvenient, the language itself was to be explained away in a non-natural sense, an idea insulting the common sense of all those who chose to think for themselves. The hon. Member had for many months past deluded the Irish people by leading them to believe that the English House of Commons had determined to enslave them, and to prevent any amelioration of their condition as regarded the Land Laws. He had now repudiated the notion which, on repeated occasions,

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    he inculcated on thousands of peasants, that they were to seek for relief from the laws which kept them in thraldom by physical force. ["Never, never!"] The hon. Gentleman had commenced at Liverpool by speaking of the 100,000 swords which were to flash in the face of the people of this country; while the hon, Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), who was more candid and less careful, had repeatedly informed the Irish peasants that their duty was to march in military array and to purchase rifles and revolvers, to be used for purposes which he boldly pointed out last night. ["No, no!"] Could hon. Members, he would ask, justify the use of the language in which they taught the uneducated peasantry of Ireland, and reconcile themselves to repudiating in that House the natural meaning of their words? The hon. Member for the City of Cork, only the other day at Clara, told the Irish people that they were to commit one of the most hateful and spiteful acts that could enter into the mind of man, to lay the land which labour and the bounty of God had made fit for pasturage useless for the purpose for which nature and art had made it useful. What was the result of that teaching? When the hon. Member found that it would bring himself and others within the purview of the Criminal Law, he hastened to repudiate it. But the advice had been followed. There were two Questions upon the Paper that very day, but which had not been asked, with reference to peasants having taken the advice of the hon. Member, and ploughed up land to the extent of 40 ploughs. It was useless to expect that that advice, given openly to the peasants of Ireland, could be done away with by a letter in the newspapers, which many of them, probably, never saw. This should be a warning to the hon. Member, to think before he gave such hateful advice to men who, unfortunately, believed in his teaching. The hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) had talked of another and more successful Hartmann for Ireland than there had been in Russia; and one of the lieutenants of the Land League, Mr. Matthew Harris, had said that if the landlords were shot down like partridges or rabbits, he would not be one who would say "No." [Mr. PARNELL: He withdrew it afterwards.] Could the hon. Member himself withdraw his advice
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    about ploughing up the land? He (Mr. Mitchell Henry) would ask those hon. embers who traduced him, and others who felt that they had a conscience to restrain, to remember that they had maintained in that House, in the face of the revulsion of feeling which had been produced in the minds of hon. Members by the language of those opposite, that there were real grievances of the Irish people which ought to be redressed. He rose to inform the House that the operations of the Land League and the advice given by its Leaders met with almost universal condemnation in Ireland, from North to South, East to West.
    An hon. MEMBER: In Galway?
    MR. MITCHELL HENRY: Yes, in Galway.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: Certainly not.
    MR. MITCHELL HENRY: Yes, by every man who wished to advance the cause of law and order, and who advised the tenants to trust to Constitutional agitation to obtain the redress of their grievances. The Irish Bishops had condemned the Land League. Only the other day one of the most respected Bishops in Ireland, the Bishop of Sligo, issued a pastoral in which he told all those connected with the Land League, who had given immoral advice to the people, that they had pursued a course which was fraught with danger to both body and soul. As the House was well aware, there were numbers of tenants who wished to pay their rents, and who were able to pay them, but who were not allowed to do so, simply in consequence of the advice of hon. Members opposite, who, having succeeded by their machinations and pestilent agitation in reducing the country to its present condition, had the face—some of them had the face—to come to the House and repudiate, if not the very words which they used, yet the natural meaning of their own expressions. Although Parliament was most unwilling to have recourse to coercive measures, why was it, he would ask, that instead of such measures the reform of the Land Laws was not at that moment under discussion? [Mr. CALLAN: Because the Bill is not ready.] He (Mr. Mitchell Henry) believed that when Parliament adjourned it was well understood that not only the Liberal Party, but many Tory Members, were desirous

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    that the Land Question should be settled on the basis of justice and equity. But the hon. Member for the City of Cork, and other hon. Members, had gone through Ireland with the deliberate purpose of preventing the too-confiding people from believing these promises. When the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), who, if an amiable, was undoubtedly a very dangerous man, told the House that his advice to the Irish people was to make use of revolvers and firearms, and suggested the purchase of arms for the purpose of defying the law, they found another hon. Member (Mr. Parnell) coming there to-day and telling them that his hon. Friend's words, which were not uttered in the heat of debate, were not what they intended to be. The hon. Member for Tipperary himself, however, shook his head and refused to accept the explanation. [Mr. DILLON: I never did anything of the kind.] The hon. Member, he repeated, refused to accept the excuses made for him. In conclusion, he must be allowed to state that although the unfortunate peasants in Ireland had been deluded, they were a people not prone to do ill, and he appealed to the House not to relax its generous efforts in their behalf. He appealed also to the Prime Minister to make the earliest use of the renewed strength which they all rejoiced to believe had been given to him by stating the intentions of the Government. If those were equal to the intentions expressed by the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster at Birmingham, they would prove a panacea for the woes of Ireland, and would do away with the necessity for all Coercion Acts. They would, as he believed, convert the peasants into the firm defenders of Constitutional Government, and would give to them a shield which would always preserve them from the machinations of evil men.
    MR. A. M. SULLIVANsaid, the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had not, from his first sentence to his last, said one word on the merits or demerits of the Bill before the House. The lion. Member had, no doubt, reached the summit of his ambition in having, for the first time in his Parliamentary career, won the plaudits of the House generally, although not, unfortunately, those of his fellow-Representatives for Ireland. The hon. Member had taken
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    advantage of the Bill, and had made a speech not to the Speaker in the Chair, or to that House, but against the real Representatives of Ireland, because he had in his pocket the declared wish of his constituents that he should resign his seat. Since this question arose, there had been several public meetings held in the hon. Gentleman's constituency, and at each of them a resolution had been passed, calling upon him to retire. [Mr. MITCHELL HENRY: I have never received a single requisition.] The hon. Member, who had such a tender conscience, could not find it in his heart and conscience to respond to those invitations; but he had just delivered a discursive speech which had been received with plaudits by those who were wont to walk out of the House when the hon. Member rose to speak. The hon. Member had treated the House to a horrifying story of expressions made use of by one of the traversers at the Dublin trials, to the effect that he would see landlords shot like rabbits without interfering; but although he was cognizant of the surrounding circumstances, and knew the inferences the House would draw from his references, he deliberately suppressed the material part of it—that, namely, which showed the words to have been used in a perfectly innocent manner. What was the truth of the matter?
    MR. SPEAKERrequested the hon. Member to confine himself to the Question.
    MR. A. M. SULLIVANsubmitted that a certain statement having been used as an argument in support of the Bill, he was entitled to show that that statement was false. If the traverser alluded to had really expressed the sentiments ascribed to him, it would be a powerful argument in favour of the Bill; but he (Mr. Sullivan) would give the explanation. The man in question was Matthew Harris, one of the traversers in the recent State trials at Dublin, and, as was admitted by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Law), who had a finer sense of honour than the hon. Member for Galway possessed, the words were intended by him merely to refer to the fact that at the time of the dreadful misdeeds of the Ribbonmen, he had visited the haunts of those evil-doers to prevail upon them to alter their course.

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    He had incurred great peril by these visits. The expression he had made use of was that he regretted the wasted nights he had spent, and said he "would have interfered no more if he saw the landlords shot down like rabbits." By that he meant that it was useless for him to risk his life by such actions, and he would leave the criminals to be dealt with by the authorities, instead of constituting himself a special policeman. Yet the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) knowing this, had misrepresented the expressions of the traverser before that House in the endeavour to shed discredit upon the Irish Party. He had intended that the words he had spoken the other night should be the last against this misguided policy of the Government; but he could not allow misrepresentations of the kind they had listened to to go unchallenged. There were those in Ireland who loved law and order, but who were opposed to coercion, in spite of the hon. Gentleman's assertion to the contrary. For instance, he had received a letter from one of the most respected of the Catholic Prelates of Ireland thanking him and his Colleagues for having opposed the Coercion Act. He would remind the Government that there were abundant precedents for Arms Bills in Ireland; but he challenged the records in Dublin Castle to show any instance where agrarian crime had been hindered by the want of a weapon wherewith to commit it. By stripping Ireland of its arms, while training the youth of England to the use of arms, they were showing an inclination to hold Ireland as a conqueror. What better test could there be of the contentment of the people over whom England ruled than that they should be allowed the liberty which was claimed in the Bill of Rights? He knew that the Bill would be eluded, and that it was powerless to prevent harm. He said, on the faith of letters in his own possession, and from many years' experience, that the one section of Irishmen who would be gratified by this legislation were the irreconcilables and conspirators who had mocked at the Irish Members, and derided them for attempting to keep the people within the lines of Constitutional methods. They had warned the Irish Members that the Government would at last show them only the bared sword and the iron hand of power. It had been the dream
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    and the hope of the Irish Members that that Liberal Government would have pursued the right path in dealing with Ireland; but that hope was now dissipated. The Irish Members had now to face consequences far worse than anyone had ever predicted, for no one would have dared to prophecy that the ancient Forms of Parliament would have been broken and trampled under foot for the purpose of gagging the Irish Members who were struggling for the liberties of their country. Never since the days of De Montfort had a minority to struggle with an odds so terrible. He had also to complain that the coercion debate, in any case likely to inflame feeling in his country, had been made additionally hateful by the tone of right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench. Knowing that there were a few of his (Mr. Sullivan's) Colleagues who were of peculiar views and temper and feeling, they had angled for the intemperate expressions of his Friends, and had played for the passions of some impulsive young Irishmen on those Benches, in order that the expressions of some individual sitting there might be turned to the Ministerial account, and hurled at men whose pain at hearing such language was far more sincere than the simulated feeling of the Treasury Bench. They had succeeded in their purpose, and some of the Irish Members stood in a cruel position. They were denounced in the House by Ministers and in their own country by infuriated men who had been lashed into despair by English misgovernment. But there were men there who objected, and naturally, to being held up as the aiders and abettors of the hateful doctrines of the assassin and the midnight marauder. After the passage of that Bill, he did not see how he and his Friends could go to their countrymen and ask them to have faith any longer in the Government. There was a Land Bill coming; but they dared not discuss it. They only knew of it that it was promised. They could only allude to it incidentally; but the Prime Minister told them it would be introduced when there was an hour on which it could be done in the midst of the crowd of legislation. The night before there was an hour to spare; but it was not a question of urgency that was brought on, while in 10 sentences the Prime Minister could have told his

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    message which was to bring peace and succour to the Irish people. But no, the people must be first whipped, and Ireland had to take her punishment, and to wait as long as the Prime Minister pleased for his beneficent Land Bill. He was sure that the Bill before the House would put an engine of oppression in the hands of the landlords and the police, from which violence and bloodshed might reasonably be expected. He only trusted that the powers of search for arms would be very rarely used. Intercommunication with America and Ireland had had an influence on the peasants of Ireland which he begged them to remember; and he believed any attempt to use the powers of personal search and stoppage on the highway which the Bill gave would lead to scenes which the Government might use as a justification of the measure, but which every Irishman who loved his country would deplore, seeing that it wrecked all hope for the improvement and regeneration of his country. He admitted that the Government had some provocation. The outrages which did happen were all too many for him. He heartily deplored them; but he denied that they offered warrant of justification for stripping his countrymen of every protection of Constitutional liberty. He was sorry to see the Prime Minister should feel it necessary to be in his place after circumstances which none regretted more than himself and his combatant Colleagues, giving his countenance to a Bill which discredited his noble impulses, his generous professions, and which was out of accord and harmony with a life which was known to all as signalized by its love of liberty all over the world. He could only protest once more, and say with confidence that when the Prime Minister came to survey his life, with all its vicissitudes and crowning honours, amongst the passages he would most keenly regret would be the present chapter of his experience in regard to Ireland.
    SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAsaid, he would recall to the recollection of hon. Members the remark of the late Mr. Butt, that the Irish Members were doing good service to their country and to the Government in making known the amount of disaffection in Ireland, and now he Sir Joseph M'Kenna) would say that, notwithstanding the existence of a cer-
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    tain amount of disaffection, which, he supposed, could not be denied, the measures taken by the Government might well have been less stringent, and might have been accompanied by, at least, a sketch of the intended Land Bill. In his opinion, it was a monstrous error on the part of the Government to introduce Coercion Bills before having formulated and explained to that House and the country their views upon the Land Question. If the Government had done that, there would have been no need of anything more than some police regulations. He contended that the suspension of the liberties of the people for 18 months and the passing of that Bill for five years were indefensible. At the present time, however, arguments would be of no avail, and he would, therefore, content himself with voting against the Bill at every stage; not on account of any sympathy with the violent speakers of the Land League, but simply because it went too far in the direction of severity, and, in his opinion, was to be continued in force for too long a time. He should attempt to mitigate the operation of some of the clauses when they got into Committee.
    THE O'DONOGHUEsaid, it was easy for the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) to say that the Irish people were deluded; but it was absurd for the hon. Member to take upon himself to say that he was a better judge of what the interests of Ireland were than the Irish people themselves. The best answer that could be made to the arguments of the hon. Member was to be found in the fact that, at the present time, he could not offer himself in any part of Ireland for election with any chance of success. It was also news to learn from the hon. Gentleman that the Irish Hierarchy were opposed to the Land League. To the best of his (the O'Donoghue's) belief, almost without exception the Catholic Hierarchy were in favour of the objects of the Land League, as enumerated by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). The Secretary of State for the Home Department had, in his heavy way, and in laboured rhodomontade, given the country to understand that it was in danger of universal slaughter and general combustion; but that he was at his post, making heroic efforts to save it.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
    THE O'DONOGHUE, resuming, said, the aim of the right hon. Gentleman, no doubt, was, at any cost, and at any sacrifice of those principles which English statesmen used to hold dear, to poison the mind of the public with charges against the Irish Members. Parliamentary usage would not permit him to stigmatize the statements of the right hon. Gentleman as they deserved, and he could not go beyond saying that they were absolutely without foundation. Some of the Irish Members seemed to regret that the right hon. Gentleman had charge of the Bill; but the fact was one to rejoice over. He (the O'Donoghue) preferred the right hon. Gentleman to any other Minister in this matter. The right hon. Gentleman was the faithful exponent of the majority of the House, especially of the Whigs, in their views as to Ireland. He preferred the gross and palpable exaggeration of the right hon. Gentleman, his coarse clap-trap, his defiant way of waving his pockethand-kerchief, to the ambiguous phrases of the Prime Minister, the mixture of spite and maudlin sympathy of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or the incoherent eloquence of the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington). The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) spoke of the valiant Home Secretary as trampling on the Irish Members. The Irish Members were not aware that they had been subjected to any feat of the kind. The truth was that when the Irish Members were flagging, the venomous attacks of the right hon. Gentleman roused them, and they returned to the charge with renewed vigour. But the right hon. Gentleman flattered the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) at the expense of the hon. Member for the City of Cork. He could not see what was to be gained by indulgence in that transparent "gammon." No one could be so silly as to suppose that either of his hon. Friends was in the least influenced by the opinion entertained of him by the Secretary of State for the Home Department or any of his Colleagues. The Irish people looked on the performance of the right hon. Gentleman in this particular with the most complete ridicule. The right
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    hon. Gentleman had trailed his coat before the Conservative Opposition; but, seeing the feeling he aroused, he at once changed his tone to one of the most abject obsequiousness. The noble Lord the Member for Woodstock deprecated the conduct of the Secretary of State for the Home Department in triumphing over the Irish Members. He was not aware of the grounds the right hon. Gentleman had for exultation. The hon. Member for the City of Cork had done all that it was possible to do with his present following. They never thought they could thwart and defeat the schemes of the Government, and nothing had happened that they did not anticipate. He believed that the tyrannical course the Government had taken in pushing through the coercion measure would have the effect of bringing public opinion to bear upon the questions; and the Irish people would be willing to do and to dare more than they had ever done or dared before. Like all latter-day coercionists, the right hon. Gentleman based his case upon the Charges of the Judges. It was very well known—he (the O'Donoghue) predicted it long ago—that the Judges were preparing the way for coercion. With regard to those delivered some months ago at Assizes in the South and West of Ireland by Mr. Justice Fitzgerald and Mr. Baron Dowse, they clearly established the fact that some, at least, of the Irish Judges were in collusion with the Government to lay the necessary basis for the introduction of the Coercion and Arms Bills. But the Government, notwithstanding that judicial aid, had not been able to show any real or substantial foundation for their proposal and in part completed legislation. The operation of the Arms Bill, therefore, would prove purely vexatious. To justify the measure it should be shown that there was a large quantity of arms in Ireland; and also that there was a large importation going on; but the Government had not shown those things; and, on the other hand, it appeared that an insignificant number of outrages had been committed by means of firearms. It was impossible to connect threatening letters with the possession of arms, and it had been shown that in only three instances out of 1,500 had threatening letters been followed by a resort to firearms.

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    Of the Charges of the Judges, that of Mr. Justice Fitzgerald was the only one in which it was stated directly that there were large quantities of arms in the possession of the people. He (the O'Donoghue) thought the learned Judge was led into exaggeration from his excessive zeal to furnish the Government with a groundwork for their coercive policy. He was far from attributing to the learned Judge any wilful mis-statement; but he thought it likely that he was misled by documents set before him, and that his imagination supplied any deficiencies there were in the Returns. The learned Judge stated that every farmer's son, and every farmer's boy, in the Province of Munster, possessed either a rifle or a revolver. Speaking with an intimate knowledge of the county of Kerry, he (the O'Donoghue) ventured to say that those words did not apply to that county, and he believed their inapplicability to the other counties in Munster could be proved also. The House ought to see that this Bill would be perfectly useless. Those who had arms would conceal them where they would not be found by the emissaries of the Government. From the passing of the Arms Act of 1843, it appeared that there were many then, as now, who believed that arms might be held by the people without indicating any intention to rebel. The passing of the Act was opposed by Mr. Hume, who said that it was the privilege of freemen to carry arms, and that it was degrading to freemen to be deprived of them; by Mr. Shiel who said that Englishmen would not endure an Arms Act; and by Lord Brougham, who said that such an Act was repugnant and hostile to the principles of British liberty, and that he hoped the people would sweep away the Government by whom such a sacrilege on the Constitution was perpetrated. He was a member of the Land League, and he thoroughly approved of its policy; and if the Secretary of State for the Home Department attempted to tell him that, because he did belong to the Land League and agreed in its policy, he favoured assassination, he would be compelled to tell the right hon. Gentleman that he was deliberately stating what was false. The House should not lose sight of what was passing in Ireland. The landlords of Ireland were endeavouring to rob the Irish people by ex-
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    torting rack-rents. Her Majesty's Government brought out police and military, and they said to the farmer—"If you don't give the landlords what they want, we will shoot you." He did not hesitate to say that the Government had dealt in that way with an unarmed people, and were threatening them with murder. The Irish people had used their Constitutional rights in vain, because the House had trampled upon those rights; and if the Irish people had arms, and used them in defence of their homes, the man who charged them with murder for so doing would be held by the whole civilized world to have lied. The Irish people had been advised to resort to the means sanctioned by God, and those means only; and they had been advised to struggle on and trust in God and the justice of their cause for the overthrow of a tyranny which he had no hesitation in saying it would be impious to consider as destined long to endure.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, with reference to the speech of the hon. Member for Galway County (Mr. Mitchell Henry)—he could not call him his hon. Friend after to-night—he did not think the hon. Member was capable of acting in the manner he did. From former experience he thought the hon. Gentleman had some wish to support the cause of the Irish people; but after the exhibition they had that evening, he came to the conclusion that the hon. Member had made up his mind to retire from Irish politics, for undoubtedly he could never think of representing an Irish constituency again. He hoped, in future, the hon. Gentleman would abstain from attempting to speak on behalf of the people of Ireland, for their opinion was diametrically opposed to that of the hon. Member. He denied the hon. Member's first charge that the country had been ruined by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell); and with regard to the second it was notorious that the intention of the Government was to enslave the Irish people, for they had been busily engaged in that operation for the last six weeks; in fact, they had been trying to do little else ever since the Session began. He must deny that the Land League had counselled physical violence; and as an illustration of the falsehood of that charge, he would say the meetings of the Land League had been always presided over by Roman

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    Catholic priests, who would not tolerate any such counsels if they were given. For his own part, notwithstanding the hon. Gentleman and the accusations which had been made, he could state with perfect truth that he had never uttered a single word at any of the many meetings which he had attended in Ireland recommending a resort to acts of violence. With reference to the speech of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in reply to that of the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), he (Mr. Biggar) had listened to that speech, and he understood the hon. Gentleman's meaning to be that though he advised the Irish people to procure rifles, he did not advise them to use them, for he would advise nothing which was beyond his own power to do. As to the allegations of the right hon. Gentleman that the Land League was allied with the Fenians, he was aware that the great proportion of the members of the Land League had no more to do with Fenianism than the right hon. Gentleman himself. Whether the Fenians had anything to do with the Land League or not he was not aware, for they gave him no information on the subject. The hon. Member for the County of Galway, in the course of his speech, referred to the opinion of the clergy, and urged that it was in opposition to the views of the Irish Party; but he could assure the House that the very large proportion of the Bishops and also the clergy in Ireland were in favour of the Land League. He had himself received a complimentary letter upon the subject from one of the Bishops, praising the efforts which had recently been made in connection with the Coercion Act which has just been passed. If the Bishops and clergy held such an opinion of those with whom they lived, any statement in contradiction of it was not entitled to any very great weight. An unfair construction had been placed upon the speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary, inasmuch as throughout he expressed himself in opposition to civil war. ["Oh, oh!"] His hon. Friend said distinctly he was sorry he was unable to recommend it, and surely that was a very different thing to telling the people to adopt it. The Secretary of State for the Home Department, in his speech, had attempted to produce prejudices against the Irish
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    people, but which would not bear the light of a clear and calm judgment. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of the liberty of England; but the fact was that the liberty of England was the worst in the whole civilized world. The people of England talked a great deal about it, but knew very little of it in reality. There was liberty of speech and freedom of action as long as people did not become troublesome; but as soon as their conduct was annoying, a Coercion Bill was brought in to imprison them. The mode of speech adopted by the right hon. Gentleman should not have been used by a Minister of the Crown, who should exercise somewhat of a judicial mind, without being influenced by the prejudices of persons outside. Instead of such a result, however, the House had been compelled to listen to cases of exaggeration and heated contentions. It had been said that the Bill was not levelled at the liberty of the Irish people; but unless that was so, he could not see what it was levelled at. It was wrong to interfere with the right of any farmer to shoot sparrows and rooks. He had never shot himself, and never expected to do so; if he attempted it, he was afraid he would shoot himself. The Irish farmers, therefore, had a right to object to the Bill; and, in fact, the measure would have the effect of annoying persons who were perfectly innocent of offences without touching persons who should be controlled by it. The hon. Member proceeded to quote from the Blue Book, at considerable length, the particulars of various outrages which had occurred in the county of Cavan.
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. Member was treating the subject in a most tedious manner. In fact, he was almost trifling with the House. The hon. Member must address himself to the Question before the House.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, he would do so. The charge in one case in the county of Cavan was that a shot was fired into a House, but it did not appear that any injury was done. Indeed, all the cases reported from the county of Cavan seemed to be of a very slight and trivial character.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, there was little to add to the speech of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell). He (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) supposed there must be some reason for the

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    course now taken, and that the Bill was not introduced because it was necessary for the preservation of the peace in Ireland, but merely because it was needed to conciliate the support of the Conservative Party, or because the promised Land Bill was not ready. He should be glad to see a Bill passed which would restrict the use of firearms all over the Three Kingdoms; but he objected to that penal legislation, applicable only to one portion of the United Kingdom. Although the Government had not formally abandoned their intention of bringing in the Bill, the language of the Chief Secretary for Ireland on the first Coercion Bill pointed to its postponement, at least for the present, to the Land Bill, and that showed that the Ministry had no well-defined belief in its necessity. It was no settled conviction long entertained that led the Secretary of State for the Home Department to adopt the strong language he used. It was plain that Ministers were too ready to inflict penal legislation on Ireland without regard to its actual necessity. What was most to be regretted, apart from the injustice of the Bill, was that it postponed remedial legislation. The country could not afford to wait much longer for Land Reform. Evictions were threatened in large numbers, trade was reduced to a standstill, and discontent was growing more general and deep-seated every day. But the people would be firm and patient. Their cause was so just, the sympathies of the bulk of English people and the Continental nations were so strong in their favour, that they must be near the prospect of some redress. Words had been spoken by the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) which were not meant as a deliberate advice to the people of Ireland; but as the hon. Gentleman, through his honesty, enjoyed, in a very high degree, the confidence of the country, what he had said would be carefully weighed by them. He (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) was certain the hon. Member would never have used such words if he had not been irritated and exasperated by the harsh and injudicious language of the right hon. Gentleman. He was sure that if the hon. Member found himself in such a position as he supposed under the temptation to shed blood he would not yield to it. He trusted sincerely that when Irishmen road those words, they would remember
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    the good advice which the hon. Member had given to them on other occasions, when he was not exasperated by cruel language such as had been used against him. The hon. Member for Tipperary had often during the agitation protested against the shedding of human blood. He had been listened to with respect, and he (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) believed his advice had prevented much crime. He trusted Irishmen would continue to follow the advice the Member for Tipperary had given them at many public meetings, and abstain from all violence and bloodshed. It was perfectly useless to do more than to protest against such coercive legislation, and he only rose for the purpose of entering his protest against the Bill.
    MR. CALLANsaid, he did not regret the language used by the Secretary of State for the Home Department in introducing the Bill, because that master of quips and jibes had exposed the policy of the Government in all its naked deformity.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
    MR. CALLAN, resuming, said, he was sorry the right hon. Gentleman had seen fit to support the Bill in language of such acrimony and exasperation towards Ireland. They were told by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) that the Bill had been brought about by the Irish Members. He (Mr. Callan) did not think the House attached much value to the remarks of the hon. Member, who, from Manchester to Woodstock and thence to Galway, had boxed the political compass, and deserted all in turn. It was not surprising that the hon. Member had now proved true to his character by deserting the Irish Members. As to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, he seemed to have the instinct of domination when Irish interests were at stake. He (Mr. Callan) could not conceive a Bill more in keeping with the saturnine character of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Chief Legal Adviser of the Government (Mr. Law); and he perfectly agreed with those speakers who had endeavoured to show that the Bill was far more stringent than the Peace Preservation Act of 1875. Under that Act a person who might be sum-

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    marily convicted was entitled to appeal. That power was not given under the Bill. He was not surprised that Conservative Members had supported the Bill, for it would serve as a sort of Game Preservation Act, and would save them keepers. Further than that, there was a clause to the effect that the person appointed to grant licences to have and to carry arms should be bound to grant a licence to any occupier of one or more agricultural holdings who produced a certificate from two justices of the peace. The inference to be drawn from the omission of that clause from the Bill was that the Government would not give power to the local magistrates to make such recommendation, and that everything was to be left to the stipendiary, non-resident Government magistrates. At that time the county in which he (Mr. Callan) resided was proclaimed, and, at the same period, he belonged to a Volunteer corps in England. He believed he was a member of the "Devil's Own."
    MR. SPEAKER: I am at a loss to see the connection of the hon. Member's observations with the Question before the House.
    MR. CALLANsaid, he had intended to show that he, at the time of which he was speaking, attended when about 100 of these applications were made. He found that they were heard privately in the magistrate's room, and not in open Court, and every application made by a Roman Catholic was refused. He (Mr. Callan) supposed that he should not be described even by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland as a "dissolute ruffian." He made an application himself, and he was asked "Who recommends you?" He replied that he required no recommendation, because he was allowed to carry arms in England as a Volunteer, and he held that it would have been a humiliation to have asked for one. He was endeavouring to show the injury which would be inflicted upon the well-to-do farmers in Ireland by the carrying of the Bill. It was a much more stringent Act than that of 1875, and he thought some good reason ought to be shown for departing from the precedent of that time. He should also have some assurance that crime prevailed to more than ordinary extent before an Act of such a character was passed. He hoped
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    that the Bill would be discussed in Committee at such length as to greatly improve it; and that course would have the advantage of giving the Prime Minister every opportunity to consider his Land Bill, the details of which were at present somewhat shadowy.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 144; Noes 37: Majority 107.—(Div. List, No. 108.)
    Main Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 145; Noes 34: Majority 111.—(Div. List, No. 109.)
    Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.
    MR. B. T. WILLIAMSinformed the Speaker that he had by mistake got into the wrong Lobby on the last division.

PRESUMPTION OF LIFE (SCOTLAND) BILL.— [BILL 86.]
(Mr. Anderson, Mr. Baxter, Mr. Orr-Ewing, Mr. Preston Bruce, Mr. James Campbell.)
PRESUMPTION OF LIFE (SCOTLAND) BILL.— [BILL 86.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. ANDERSON, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, he would explain in a very few words what its object was. The Bill proposed to remove a defect by introducing into the law and practice of Scotland a presumption similar to that in force in England, that when a person had been absent and unheard of for a certain time he had ceased to exist. In Scotland, if an absentee disappeared, and no one knew anything about him, there was no limitation to the presumption of his being alive. In England, he understood, they had a more sensible rule of law. The law was, that if a man was absent from England, and was entirely unheard of for seven years, the presumption became one of death. There was no such law in Scotland; and, in consequence, a man being absent might be presumed to be alive for an indefinite period. Unless 100 years had elapsed from his birth, the Courts would still consider that he was alive. That was a very bad state of the Scotch law, and

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  though the Court of Session had power to consider cases of that sort, it was known the Court required evidence of probable death, and had no rule of law to guide them in cases of mere absence; and therefore people would not go to the Court at all. Consequently, there were hard cases where, after long absence of a person, the successors could not get possession of the property because they could not afford to go to the Court on so doubtful an issue, and provide the caution money that the Court, in cases of success, required. The grievance of the present state of the law was, therefore, one that should not be measured by the cases that came before the Courts, but by the cases that existed, and did not come to Court. His proposition was, that when a man was absent and was entirely unheard of for seven years the law should presume he was dead, in so far as giving to his successors the income and use of any property he might have left, or become entitled to since he left. At the end of another six years, making 13 years' absence in all, and still being entirely unheard of, he proposed that the successors should be enabled to get any movable property left; but if there was any heritable property he gave a further six years, making 19 in all, before that could be obtained, thus following the lines of English law as regards limitation of actions to six years for personal and 12 years for real estate. Those absorbed the chief propositions of the Bill. There was also a proposition relating to absent heirs of entail; but that was only an adjunct to the Bill, though a useful one. However, he did not wish to take up much time at present. As he had said, those were the main provisions of the Bill; and he thought they would commend themselves to Members of the House, especially to English Members, who had already so much more sensible a law. He would, having made that explanation, move the second reading of the Bill.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Anderson.)
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. M'LAREN)confessed he did not altogether agree with his hon. Friend (Mr. Anderson) with regard to his proposed mode of dealing with the subject. At
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  the same time, he would admit that the practice of the Courts of Scotland in dealing with the property of persons who had been absent from the country for some considerable time was not satisfactory, therefore he felt it would be ungracious on the part of a Member like himself, who had not sat long in the House, to oppose the second reading of a Bill introduced, under the circumstances attending the one under notice, by an hon. Member of so much greater experience than himself; and he thought probably, without any departure from the principle, such alterations might be made in Committee as might effect an improvement in the existing state of the law, and assimilate it in some respect to the practice in England. It appeared to him that the period of seven years was much too short a time to fix upon as creating a presumption that a person who had been absent for that time had ceased to exist. The rule of the law in England, which he believed was not an absolute rule, but merely a presumption capable of being overcome by other evidence, related to a very remote period of their history, when travelling was not so general as now, and when there were not so large a number of the population emigrating to Colonial and foreign countries, and there making their homes. Because a person had gone to a Colony and remained unheard of for seven years, that was not sufficient reason to presume he was dead. In assigning the limit, it was not sufficient, without regard to the circumstances attending his previous history, without regard to his age and strength, and the fact that it was not unusual for persons in the Colonies to break off communication for a long period from their friends, to determine that the man was dead, and that his estate should be divided amongst his next of kin; nor did he think that was a sufficient reason why next of kin should have the right to use the property. It would be a serious thing to distribute property, or hand over its usufruct, when the owner had been away for only seven years; but the presumption might arise after a disappearance of 20 years. He quite admitted, however, that the law in Scotland, in treating the case as a question of fact to be decided on its own merits, had often worked unsatisfactorily, and the receivers appointed by the Courts

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  had frequently kept in their hands the estates of persons who had gone abroad for a longer time than was necessary for protecting the interests of such persons. He should not oppose his views to those of the hon. Member in this matter, and would therefore support the second reading, in the hope that, either by a Committee of the Whole House or by a Select Committee, the Bill would be turned into a more perfect shape.
  SIR JOHN HAYthought the suggestion of the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate that the Bill should be referred to a Select Committee was a very sound one, and that such a course would be most advantageous. The hon. Member for Glasgow had introduced the Bill for the purpose of assimilating the law to that of England; and if it was referred to a Select Committee, the differences in the law might be properly considered, and, if possible, the law of the two countries assimilated. As that was the object of the hon. Member, and as the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate agreed with it, he (Sir John Hay) heartily supported the proposition that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee.
  MR. OSBORNE MORGANsaid, he thought the proposed course of referring the Bill to a Select Committee would be the best to take. There was no Statute Law on the subject in England, except the statute relating to bigamy; but it was true that in other cases the Courts, following the analogy of that statute, presumed when a person had not been heard of for seven years he was dead, but that, like every other presumption, it was liable to be rebutted by evidence. The law of England, as far as he knew, had worked exceedingly well, and he never heard any complaint on the subject; and it was, in his opinion, desirable that the law of Scotland should be assimilated, as far as possible, to the law of this country.
  DR. WEBSTERremarked that from experience it was found that no tribunal worked better than that of a Select Committee. Therefore, he entirely agreed with the proposal, and he believed the Profession in Scotland would all agree with it. He did not think, however, that the law in Scotland was so bad as the Mover of the Bill had stated.
  DR. COMMINSopposed the second reading, believing that instead of assimilating the Scotch law to that of England,
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  it would be an advantage if the English law followed that of Scotland. The Bill introduced a principle which was not followed by the law of England. The presumption after the lapse of seven years only existed in the case of a prosecution for bigamy. Administration of the effects of an absent person could only be obtained on satisfactory proof being given to the Court that such a person was presumably dead. There was no rule of law on the subject with regard to personal property. With regard to real property also there was no rule whatever. He thought that if the Bill were allowed to pass, some more scientific principle than existed already might probably be introduced into English law.
  SIR EDWARD COLEBROOKEassumed, from what the hon. and learned Lord Advocate had told the House, that there was a want of principle or a want of rule in the decisions of the Courts, and that therefore it was matter for consideration. If that were the case, the best course would be to refer it to a Select Committee. If it were desirable to assimilate the law of England and Scotland, he should suggest that the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself should bring forward a Motion to that effect. Under the circumstances, he concurred in the proposal to refer it to a Select Committee.
  MR. DAWSONinquired whether seven years' absence in England was really a presumption of death in all cases, or whether this presumption was only applicable in cases of bigamy?
  MR. HINDE PALMERsaid, that seven years' absence of husband or wife would exempt a person marrying again from the penalties attaching to second marriage; but, so far as related to the general law of England, the period of seven years had only been adopted by analogy to the law relating to bigamy. It was by no means a hard-and-fast line that seven years was a presumption of death. The Courts were simply in the habit of taking that period as a foundation of proceeding, and were always careful to ascertain whether or not the presumption could be fairly applied in each individual case. If the rule applied in every instance, without the relaxation applied by the Courts, it would probably be found that the law required amendment; and he was very

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  much inclined to think that, by some such Bill as that under consideration, they might make the law of England more specific and safe; and, under those circumstances, he was very glad that the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate did not object to the principles of the Bill, and wanted to make it as perfect as he could. He should therefore very gladly support the second reading of the Bill, concurring in the suggestion that it should go to a Select Committee. It proposed a very material amendment of the law, which might, to some extent, be adopted in England.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.

CORONERS (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 73.]
(Mr. Healy, Mr. Gray, Mr. Barry.)
CORONERS (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 73.]

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. HEALY, in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said, its object was to increase the payment to Irish Coroners for their services, and to increase their superannuation. It provided for the payment of Coroners in Ireland by salary, instead of, as was the case at the present time, by fees. That method of paying Coroners by salary had been in force in England since 1860. Irish Coroners, at the present time, received 30 s. for each inquest held by them up to a certain amount, the limit being £100 per annum. He knew of a case not long back in which a Coroner had to travel a long distance to attend an inquest, which lasted a month. The total amount he received for this was £2. That, he (Mr. Healy) considered to be quite inadequate remuneration. The Bill, therefore, proposed that the fees payable to Coroners should be added together in each case for the last five years; but at the rate of £2 10 s. per inquest, instead of £1 10 s., and the resulting sum paid as a salary. On an average, this would only amount to about £83 per annum to each Coroner. It was also proposed that a superannuation allowance should be given to every Coroner after 21 years' service, that he should be allowed to appoint a deputy, and that candidates for the office should be taken only from among magistrates, licentiates of medicine, barristers, and
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  solicitors. He moved the second reading of the Bill.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Healy.)
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW), said, he was sorry not to be able to accept the Bill. The Bill was a short one, and altogether inadequate. Any measure to deal with the subject satisfactorily must be much more comprehensive than the present Bill. His main objection was that the Bill was at best of a fragmentary character, and would interfere with the free action of the Ministry in framing their promised measure of re-organization of County Government in Ireland. A Bill for putting the law of Coroners on a new basis was brought in during the time of the late Government, and was fully considered by a Select Committee, who amended it so that it ultimately contained some 60 or 70 clauses. After all, the chief object of the present Bill was to obtain superannuation allowances; but he would remind hon. Members that superannuation did not exist in the English system. He did not think that 30 s. was an insufficient sum for attending an inquest. With respect to the other provisions, he considered that no sufficient guarantees of ability could be offered by freshly-admitted barristers, solicitors, or medical men; but, above all, the Government had to consider whether the office of Coroner should still be retained. He concluded by moving that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  MR. CALLANappealed to the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland to withdraw his opposition to the Bill, on the understanding that the Committee stage should not be taken for a month, during which time the Grand Juries of Ireland could express their opinions upon it. He objected to the supercilious and official tone adopted by the right hon. and learned Gentleman in opposing the

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  second reading, and complained of the narrow-minded lawyers who formed the Irish Executive objecting to the Bill, which had not been petitioned against by a single person in Ireland.
  DR. COMMINSsaid, there were many instances in England in which Coroners did their work by deputy, and, the necessity being admitted, the appointment and the pay ought to be a public matter, and not one of private arrangement. He urged that there was plenty of room for improvement in the office of Coroner in Ireland, and that it was better to pass a fragmentary measure than to wait for an indefinite time for a comprehensive reform.
  MR. SERJEANT SIMONsupported the Bill, and expressed his inability to understand the ground upon which it was opposed, inasmuch as it merely sought to assimilate the law of Ireland to that of England, by paying Coroners by salary instead of by fees, and to facilitate the appointment of Deputy-Coroners. It afforded English Members an opportunity of showing Irish Members their willingness to redress Irish grievances, and to pass a reform for Ireland which had already been effected in England. At a time when they were passing coercive legislation for Ireland, they ought, if they could, to meet the views of Irish Members on a question of this kind. He therefore trusted that English Members would not vote against this Bill, because it was introduced by an Irish Member—the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy)—but would follow into the Lobby the Irish Members, who were the best judges of what was needed in this matter.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, he was glad to say it was an English and not an Irish Member—namely, the hon. and learned Member for Dewsbury (Mr. Serjeant Simon), who had endeavoured to introduce into the debate an element of bitterness which ought not to exist, and for which there was no foundation. It was rather too much for any Member, and especially an English Member, to suggest that a Bill could be rejected, not upon its merits, but because it was presented by the hon. Member for Wexford. He hoped it was the last time that such a suggestion would be made. The hon. and learned Member had undertaken to explain a Bill which he had failed to comprehend.
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  He (the Solicitor General for Ireland) would consider the measure solely upon its merits, and he would point out that it was not a Bill to reconcile the English and Irish practice. It did not attempt or pretend to do so. It was laid before the House, he apprehended, because it was thought it would be acceptable in Ireland; but he differed from it in principle. Under the law at present provision existed for holding inquests in the absence or illness of the Coroner; and, therefore, in no case, he might say, under the existing system, was an inquest left unheld in Ireland in which it ought to be held, and consequently the object which it was sought to accomplish was already effected without any increased charge upon the public. The Bill was, therefore, in his opinion, as unnecessary as unwise in its proposition as to a Deputy. It was not, in his opinion, wise to make the salary of a Coroner vary in proportion to the number of inquests held. The proper way to proceed was rather to regulate and fix it in accordance with the average duties which he might have to perform. He disapproved of the proposed qualifications, none of which sucured sufficient experience for the discharge of the duty devolving on a Coroner. There was, he might also point out, a strong objection to giving a superannuation allowance to an officer whose time was in no way wholly devoted to the service of the public. A Coroner was free to follow any profession or pursuit; it was only occasionally that he was called upon to act as Coroner; and he was not aware of any case in which such an allowance was made to a person discharging duties such as those to which the Bill related.
  MR. R. N. FOWLERhoped the Secretary of State for the Home Department would see his way to reforming the whole system with regard to the appointment of Coroners in England, for as it existed at present it was a scandal. He had lately had experience of this in an election for the county of Wiltshire. He thought the whole system was bad, and required alteration.
  MR. DAWSONsupported the Bill, on the ground that it would remove a great anomaly. The liberty of Coroners' Courts in Ireland was invaded by the police, who carried off witnesses and, otherwise interfered with the initiatory inquiry which ought to be held in all suspicious

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  cases. At the same time, he quite agreed that the whole system of Coroners' Courts, both in England and Ireland, required revision. He advocated the payment of liberal fixed salaries to Coroners utterly irrespective of the number of inquests they had to hold, or the distance they had to travel in order to fulfil the requirements of the office.
  COLONEL MAKINSthought that, as the Government had so great a difficulty in introducing Bills of their own, they might with advantage accept that Bill and draft some Amendments of their own upon it, such as the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland considered necessary.
  SIR PATRICK O'BRIENsupported the Bill. He recommended the Government to assent to the second reading, and then to refer the Bill to a Committee upstairs. He regretted that the Committee which was appointed some time ago to consider Coroners' duties were not authorized to pay some attention to the duties of Coroners in Ireland. He thought in rural districts dispensary doctors were best qualified to act as Coroners.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANapproved of the suggestion of the hon. Baronet the Member for King's County (Sir Patrick O'Brien. No doubt the Bill was capable of improvement; and he would therefore appeal to the Government to allow the Bill to be read a second time and referred to a Select Committee. The question had been before the House for 12 years.
  MR. INDERWICKsupported the second reading of the Bill, as it, in his opinion, contained very reasonable clauses.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYsubmitted that it would be well to refer the Bill to a Select Committee, impartially chosen, as, by the provisions in it as it stood, the franchise would be restricted and dispensary doctors might be appointed Coroners. He objected to that proposition, and also to the superannuation clauses out of the rates. The Bill, if passed as it was now, would be most unpopular in Ireland.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, that he had objected to the Bill because it dealt with such a small part of the subject; but he would withdraw his objection on the understanding that the Bill be referred to a Select Committee, and that
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  when the proper time came he should be permitted to move an Instruction to the Committee to inquire into the whole of the present law affecting coroners in Ireland.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed to a Select Committee.
  House adjourned at a quarter after Eleven o'clock till Monday next.