Commons Sitting of 30 May 1881

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, Further Vote on Account—Class I.—PUBLIC WORKS AND BUILDINGS, Votes 6 to 24; Class II.—SALARIES AND EXPENSES OF CIVIL DEPARTMENTS, Votes 1 to 41; Class III.—LAW AND JUSTICE, Votes 1 to 4, 6 to 24, 29 to 38; Class IV.—EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART, Votes 1 to 19; Class V.—FOREIGN AND COLONIAL SERVICES, Votes 1 to 7, and 9; Class VI.—NON-EFFECTIVE AND CHARITABLE SERVICES AND RETIRED ALLOWANCES, AND GRATUITIES FOR CHARITABLE AND OTHER PURPOSES, Votes 1 to 10; Class. VII.—MISCELLANEOUS, Votes 1 and 2; REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, Votes 1 to 5.
Resolution[May 27] reported.
PRIVATE BILL (by Order)—Considered as amended—Great North of Scotland Railway.
PUBLIC BILLS—Committee—Land Law (Ireland.) [135]—R.P.
Third Reading—Land Drainage Provisional Orders* [153]; Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders (Bandon, &c.)* [163]; Local Government Provisional Orders (Halifax, &c.)* [159]; Customs and Inland Revenue* [136], and passed.

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  GREAT NORTH OF SCOTLAND RAIL WAY BILL (by Order.)
  CONSIDERATION.
  Order for Consideration, as amended, read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill, as amended, be now considered."
  MR. J. HOWARDsaid, that, in the absence of his hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. W. Barclay), he had a Motion to submit in regard to this Bill.
  MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. Member speak on behalf of the promoters of the Bill?
  MR. J. HOWARD: No; against it. He appeared there in the absence of his hon. Friend the Member for Forfarshire to oppose the Bill; and he begged to move, as an Amendment—
  "That, pending the inquiry into Railway Rates and Charges by the Select Committee of this House, the Consideration of the Bill be postponed."

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  The original intention of the Bill was to make a new branch line, with power to increase the rates over such line. The Select Committee to which the Bill was referred refused the power of extending the line, but, strangely enough, consented to grant powers for increasing the rates. He wished to point out that if the decision of the Select Committee were confirmed by the House, the effect would be to increase the rates for the carriage of lime and manures, in the case of lots under two tons by 50 to 100 per cent, and in the case of lots over two tons by 25 to 33 per cent. A similar increase was allowed in the case of stones, bricks, coals, tiles, slates, draining materials, and iron. Another objection to the Bill was that it altered the classification of manures which was adopted in the Model Clauses Bill of 1845—the Model Act of 1864—and which was to be found almost uniformly in every Railway Act down to the present day. Another objectionable feature of the Bill, which had been confirmed by the Select Committee, was that it empowered the Company to raise the weight for parcels in certain classes of goods from 5001bs., at present the limit in nearly every Act, to two tons in certain cases, and four tons in others. The opponents believed that this decision was without precedent upon an opposed Bill, and it was tantamount to a general increase of maximum rates, pressing with great severity upon small farmers and traders. The Railway Company alleged that the Bill was required because they wanted money for the passenger service; and, forsooth, for that purpose they asked Parliament to impose an additional tax upon the farmer. The opponents submitted that, in the present condition of agriculture, it was very undesirable that the additional taxation proposed by the Bill should be imposed upon the shoulders of the tenant farmers. That the present rates were ample and sufficient for their purposes, and were remunerative, would appear from the simple fact that the net return of the Great North of Scotland Railway, on all the traffic of the line, was higher than that of the other Scotch railways. The following extract from a statement prepared in June, 1880, by the late manager of the railway, Mr. Milne, who held that office for 30 years from the beginning of the railway, was
  1616
  conclusive upon the point. Mr. Milne reports that—
  "The net revenues amount to £29,000,000 for all the railways, and to £161,000 upon the Great North of Scotland alone, the latter being equal to an average return of upwards of 5 per cent on the Company's net expenditure of £3,000,000 (about £10,000 per open mile), as compared with only 4¼ per cent per annum on an average of all the Companies in the Kingdom—a striking result, to be explained mainly by the economy exercised both in capital expenditure and daily working. That the dividend on the ordinary Stock is no more than at present is accounted for, as formerly explained, by the duplication of that Stock under the Amalgamation Act of 1866, which converted or duplicated each £100 of the original Stock into £240, so that a dividend of only 1½ per cent on the ordinary Stock, as at present constituted, is equal really to a dividend of nearly 4 per cent on each £100 of the original ordinary Stock, and so on in proportion; and the high rate of preferential dividend, ranging from 5 to 10 per cent on some of the Guaranteed Stocks, also contributes to keep down the present state of dividends on the ordinary Stock."
  The average net return of Scotch railways, abstracted from the published accounts, showed that the dividend paid by this railway was greater than that paid by any other railway in Scotland. The Glasgow and South Western Railway paid 5 per cent; the North British 4 per cent; the Caledonian 3½ per cent. The average of the three leading Scotch lines was 4 per cent, while the Great North of Scotland and branches, including Strathspey and. Deeside, paid 5 per cent, and the average of the Highland and Skye and Sutherland lines was 4¼ per cent. It was not his desire, nor would it be necessary, to trouble the House with a large number of details. He would only point out that the real Object of the Bill was to defeat and reverse a decision or judgment pronounced by the Railway Commissioners, and confirmed by the Court of Session in Scotland, by which the Great North of Scotland Railway Company were required to convey all kinds of manures in the lowest class. The fact was, that for a good many years the traders and farmers of the district through which this railway runs had, in their innocence, believed that no Railway Company could be so dishonest as to impose charges beyond those to which they were legally entitled by their Act of Parliament. However, the farmers and traders at length had their attention called to the subject, and having been led to examine the Acts of the Company, they discovered the in-

  1617
  justice to which they had been subjected. At great expense they obtained a judgment to compel the Company to observe the law. For many years the Great North of Scotland Railway had greatly overcharged for coal, lime, and grain, as well as guano and artificial manures. The Company did not come to Parliament for power to enable them to refund the money they had unjustly abstracted from the pockets of their customers; but they came to the House of Commons new to legalize a system which was begun in injustice and dishonesty. He believed that these increased powers were, in reality, not put forward simply on behalf of the Great North of Scotland Railway alone, but in the interests of all the great railways in the Kingdom. As the opponents of the Bill very justly observed, in a Circular they had issued—
  "It was difficult to see on what ground it would be possible to resist the claims of other Railway Companies to similar concessions."
  He submitted that the decision of such a question, fraught with important consequences to the small traders and farmers throughout the country, should not be given until the Select Committee on Railway Rates, which was at present receiving evidence upon this and other questions affecting charges by railways, should have made their Report to the House. Upon these, as well as upon other grounds, he begged to move the Amendment which stood in his name.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "pending the inquiry into Railway Rates and Charges by the Select Committee of this House, the Consideration of the Bill be postponed,"—(Mr. James Howard,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. PORTMANremarked, that, as he had had the honour of presiding as Chairman of the Committee to whom the Great North of Scotland Railway Bill was referred, perhaps the House would allow him to say a few words in answer to the remarks of the hon. Member for the County of Bedford (Mr. J. Howard). The Committee very carefully considered the question of the reclassification of artificial manures, and they were of opinion that the demand
  1618
  of the Railway Company for a re-classification was one that ought to be granted by Parliament. Ho would point out to the House that under their former classification they were carrying valuable artificial manures at the same rate as ordinary stable manures, worth, perhaps, 7s. 6d. per ton, whereas the artificial manures were worth from £2 up to £15 a-ton. He might remind the House that in the Clearing House Classification of 1852 guano was classed with grain, which was one class higher than the Bill of the Great North of Scotland Company proposed to fix. He would also remind them that the Royal Commission which sat in 1867 recommended the classification he had referred to as the basis to be adopted in Railway Acts of Parliament for the future. There were also several other cases in which Railway Companies had sought powers from Parliament for a re-classification of artificial manures, which powers had been granted to them. He might mention one case in particular which occurred as long ago as 1867—namely, that of the North Eastern Railway Company of England, which applied for power, and obtained it from Parliament, to put valuable artificial manures in a higher class than the ordinary scale of rates imposed for farmyard manures. He might add that the Clearing House Classification of 1852, to which he had already referred, placed guano in a higher class than the Great North of Scotland Bill proposed to place it in. Touching the question of differential rates, it was proved to the satisfaction of the Committee that this Railway Company were working their small parcel traffic at a dead loss to themselves, and the Committee accordingly gave them power to alter their differential rates, because, in the opinion of the Committee, there was no question that they ought to be allowed to have such a power. With regard to terminal charges, hon. Members would be well aware that terminal charges were sanctioned by every Railway Act in this country. He believed that an attempt was made some years ago by a Committee composed of Members of both Houses of Parliament to fix maximum terminal charges. That Committee—a very able Committee too—decided that it was not necessary, but most undesirable, to fix a maximum; but that the word "reasonable" in con-

  1619
  nection with terminal charges was a matter to be determined between the Railway Companies and their customers. If the House agreed to the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire, they would, in all probability, postpone the matter indefinitely. They all knew the result of putting off a decision until a Select Committee of the House had time to present a Report. The Select Committee might report this year, or it might not. At all events, it was highly probable that some years would elapse before Parliament could act upon their Report; and he would, therefore, ask the House not to be led away by the reason assigned by his hon. Friend for his wish to put off the consideration of the Bill. He did nut think it would be fair towards the Great North of Scotland Railway to postpone the Bill, and he earnestly hoped the House would be induced to support the recommendations of the Select Committee, who had been appointed by the House to inquire into the merits of the Bill, and to reject the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Bedfordshire. One word more before he sat down. He wished to remind the House that if they sanctioned the Bill as it stood they would not be fixing a minimum, but a maximum rate. That maximum rate was one which it would be in the power of the Railway Company at any time, if they found their business falling off, to reduce without having to apply to Parliament for its sanction. They would have full power to reduce the rate of their own accord, and he believed they would be sharp enough to see whether a reduction was required in view of their own pecuniary interests. In regard to future legislation upon railways, he wished to remind the House that in the Bill they were now discussing there was a clause which provided that nothing in the Act should exempt the Company or the railways from the provisions of any general Act relating to railways, or from any future revision ea, alteration, under the authority of parliament, of the maximum rates of fares and charges, or of the rates for snail parcels. He hoped the House would be of opinion that the Select Committee had exercised a wise discretion in the matter. He really believed that the Committee had only done what was fair in the matter towards the Great North
  1620
  of Scotland Railway Company, and he believed the public would have great advantage in a better service of trains. For these reasons he trusted that the House would be disposed to reject the Amendment of his hon. Friend.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLthought the opponents of the Bill were placed in a somewhat awkward position in the matter. Indeed, those who opposed a Private Bill always found themselves in an awkward position. If they objected to a Bill on the second reading they were told—" Oh, that is most unusual. For heaven's sake let it go upstairs, where it will receive every consideration." That argument was generally sufficient to defeat the opposition to the second reading of a Bill in a most effectual manner. Then, when it came down from the Select Committee, if any hon. Member presumed to oppose it he was at once told—" How can you ask the House to throw out a Bill which has already been carefully considered by a Committee?" Somehow or other these two arguments generally exercised a strong influence on the House. He had not a word to say against the Committee which had sat upon the present Bill. He was sure they had taken every possible trouble and care to arrive at a proper conclusion upon it; but he thought they had not had their eyes open—as had too often been the fate of hon. Members of that House—to the peculiar artifices of the Railway Companies and their general mode of dealing with Parliament. Now, what was the origin of this Bill? The Company first of all pretended to come to Parliament to make a new line, and upon that line they asked to be allowed to impose terminal charges. In their Bill the Company inserted what were called the Staffordshire Clauses, and they asked for powers to raise their rates along the whole of their line. The
  primâ facie ground for coming to Parliament was that they might have authority to make a new line. The Select Committee declined to allow them to make a new line, so that the prim facie ground of the Bill was destroyed altogether. The next ground, which was the real ground for coming to Parliament, was to raise the rates to the farmers of Banffshire and that neighbourhood, and they attempted to get from the House of Commons permission to do

  1621
  that which they had really been doing for a great many years illegally, and what they would still have been doing if the Railway Commissioners had not stopped them. The decision of the Railway Commissioners was afterwards confirmed by the Court of Session in Scotland; and thus, two judgments being against them, the Company, with unparalleled audacity, came to that House to ask the House to do what the Railway Commissioners and the Court of Session had pronounced to be altogether unjust. He would ask the House to consider what had been going on in a very large and influential Committee of that House. If any hon. Member had had the opportunity of reading, and had taken the trouble to consider, the evidence which had already been presented to that Committee, he would find that the Railway Companies were accused generally of making unfair charges, unequal charges, and unreasonable terminal charges. There had been mountains of evidence presented to the Committee already to this effect. He might be told that the case of the Railway Companies had not yet been submitted to the Committee.
  MR. LOWTHER,rose to Order. He wished to know if it was in Order for the noble Lord to allude to what was going on in a Committee upstairs?
  MR. SPEAKERruled that the noble Lord was in Order.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLthought the hon. Member who interrupted him must have omitted to notice that the Amendment submitted by the hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. J. Howard) asked the House not to deal with the Bill at present, because a Committee was sitting at this moment upstairs on a question of Railway Rates. It was, therefore, a fair argument to refer to the nature of the evidence already given before that Committee; and he thought the general result of what was taking place upstairs was that they should be very careful how they proceeded in these matters, and how they consented to place unbounded confidence in the views of a small Committee of three or four Gentlemen, with, perhaps, only one really active man upon it in regard to railway legislation. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Portman), who was Chairman of the Select Committee, said that the value of arti-
  1622
  ficial manures was greater than the value of stable manure. But that had never been admitted to be a proper basis of railway charge. It had never been admitted that the value of any article should determine the price to be paid for the carriage of it. The hon. Member had alluded to the recommendations of the Royal Commission of 1857, and said that they were in favour of a different classification; but at that time there had not been the serious agricultural distress which had prevailed since, which rendered it almost a matter of life and death to the agricultural in-rest that the railway rates should not be raised. Then the hon. Member talked, also, of terminal charges. On all these points it was very unfortunate that they could not allude to the evidence before the Railway Committee, because he believed it would supply a large amount of valuable information which might determine the House in accepting or rejecting the present Bill. The hon. Member said that if the House consented to put off the Bill now they would put it off indefinitely. As a matter of fact, the proposal of the hon. Member for Bedfordshire would do no such thing. It would only put it off for one Session. There must be legislation next year, in order to renew the powers of the Railway Commission, or else the Commission would expire; and he did not suppose that the House of Commons would lightly consent to allow it to expire. And, therefore, after the Committee on Railway Rates should have reported, and the powers of the Railway Commissioners should have been renewed, it would be quite time enough for this Railway Company to come to Parliament for a revision of the rates they were now entitled to charge. But at this moment it would be imprudent and unjust to allow any Railway Company, in the absence of the information which was about to be placed before Parliament, to increase their rates, and to do what two legal tribunals had already decided they had not the power to do.
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEYsaid, the proceedings of the Select Committee on Railway Rates had nothing whatever to do with the question before the House; but he wished to say a few words as to the view of the Board of Trade on the present Bill. The question which arose

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  was simply this—the Committee on the Bill upstairs had exercised its discretion, and, after a careful examination of the evidence and of the facts of the case, had given to this Railway Company powers which were by no means unusual, and were only the same as almost every important railway in the Kingdom had got. If hon. Members would look to the position taken by the Committee, they would find that the terminal clause in the new classification of artificial manures, and other provisions contained in this Bill, were provisions which had been inserted in almost all the Bills of the great Railway Companies for the last 10 or 15 years. At the end of the Bill the promoters inserted a clause to provide that any change of legislation which might modify the charges of Railway Companies should apply also to the Great North of Scotland Railway Company. Therefore, the question the House had to consider was this—was it going, because it happened that a Committee was sitting to inquire into a general question of railway rates—was it going to refuse the Great North of Scotland Railway Company, with the uncertainty of what the decision of the Committee would be, the privileges and powers which had already been granted to other Railway Companies, owing to the accident that the North of Scotland Company came to Parliament at the time the Committee on Railway Rates happened to be sitting. He humbly submitted that if they listened to what the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) said, and adopted the conclusion at which the noble Lord had come, and on that ground refuse to sanction the decision of the Committee upstairs, they would be actually prejudging the questions submitted to the Select Committee on Railway Rates before hearing the other side of the story. If the Report of the Committee on Railway Rates, when it was presented, should be found to invalidate what was done by the present Bill, future legislation would set the matter right.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHdeclined to enter into the subject of the inquiry that was going on upstairs, although he was a Member of that Committee, nor would he pretend to form a definite opinion upon the questions which had been placed before that Committee; but he would submit that there was this salient
  1624
  fact—that very grave charges had been made against the Railway Companies for charging rates in excess of the maximum rates laid down in their Acts of Parliament. It had also been stated practically before the Committee that Parliament, behind the back of the public as it were, had from time to time raised the maximum rates, and that although the Board of Trade was primâ facie bound to report in all such matters to Parliament, yet that hitherto Parliament had had no opportunity of saying whether such, charges should be made or not. Parliament had, however, an opportunity of saying, in regard to the present measure, whether, under existing circumstances and considering the grave charges which had been made, it would allow, in this particular instance, at this particular moment, a serious increase of rates to be made. He must say, without for one moment wishing to dispute the propriety of the view formed by the Committee on the evidence before them, but seeing that the Committee had not had before them the charges made against the Railway Companies generally in the Select Committee on Railway Rates, which would at some subsequent period be the subject of a Report to the House, he must say that it did seem only reasonable that further procedure in regard to the present Bill should stand over until the Report of the General Committee had been presented.
  MR. WEBSTERsaid, he should have been quite content to leave to the statements which had been made by the Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Evelyn Ashley), and by the hon. Member who presided over the Select Committee upstairs to which the Bill was referred (Mr. Portman), any defence of the Great North of Scotland Railway Company, who were promoting the Bill, if it had not been for the fact that certain charges had been made against the Railway Company by the hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. J. Howard) and the noble Lord opposite (Lord Randolph Churchill), which he thought it necessary, in the interests of the railway, to deny. It had been said by the hon. Member for Bedfordshire that this Company had been acting in defiance of its own Acts of Parliament for a considerable number of years until they were brought to book by the Railway Commission. He hoped the House would allow him to

  1625
  explain how the matter was, and what the position of the Railway Company was. Owing to a misunderstanding between the Railway Company and the traders as to the construction of one of the provisions of its Acts of Parliament, a case was brought before the Railway Commissioners as to its meaning. Certain traders put one construction upon the clause, and the Railway Company put another. The Railway Commissioners decided that the Company were wrong; and, upon an appeal to the Court of Session in Scotland, the decision of the Railway Commissioners was confirmed. It was a purely a question of law, and the decision of the Court of Session and of the Railway Commissioners had nothing whatever to do with the matter now before the House. The hon. Member for Bedfordshire had also said that the Great North of Scotland Company were paying a higher dividend than any other Railway Company in Scotland. The hon. Member must have been greatly misinformed. This unfortunate Company was paying nothing upon its ordinary shares, and for the last half year there was a deficiency upon its preference shares.
  VISCOUNT FOLKESTONE,as a Member of the Committee who had sat upon the Bill, hoped the House would allow him to say a few words. He was bound to confess that, as the Representative of an agricultural constituency, when the Bill first came before the Committee he had almost made up his mind to prejudge the question, and to oppose any attempt on the part of the Great North of Scotland Railway Company to raise their rates; but when he came to hear all the evidence and everything that was to be said, both in favour of the Railway company and against it, he entirely turned round, and came to the conclusion that it was only fair the Railway Company should be permitted by Parliament to raise their rates to a certain extent as proposed by the Bill. He felt that although he represented an agricultural constituency, yet, at the same time, no agriculturist would wish to be benefited by what was manifestly unfair towards any other class. The Committee had evidence before them that the rates the Great North of Scotland Railway Company were permitted to charge had been settled as long ago as 1859, when guano and other artificial
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  manures where almost, if not entirely, unknown. They had also evidence to inform them that dung and stable manures were allowed to be charged at the same rate as artificial manures, although the price of the latter was as high as from £12 to £15 a-ton, and there were none of a less value than £10 a-ton. They further found, from the evidence laid before them, that almost every other Railway Company in England, Scotland, and Ireland were permitted to charge differential rates for artificial manures, and they thought it only fair and right to permit this Railway Company to do the same. It appeared that the rates the Great North of Scotland Railway were permitted to charge were lower than those charged by any other railway in the United Kingdom; and, therefore, after very careful consideration, the Committee unanimously came to the decision that it was only right to permit the Company to have the provisions asked for in the Bill, so that they might be able to increase their rates, and not be compelled to charge lower rates than any other Railway Company. It had been said by the opponents of the Bill that the Railway Company were charging illegally increased rates some time ago, and that it was so decided when a case was brought before the Railway Commissioners. But the Railway Commissioners said the case was a very hard one indeed; and they added—
  "Although we will not permit you to raise the rates, still we would recommend the Great North of Scotland Company to apply for a Bill to enable them to do so."
  He trusted that the House would not defeat this measure upon the consideration of the Report of the Committee, because he was quite sure that it was only fair towards the Company that they should have the power of increasing their rates. They were told by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) that it was a matter of life and death to the agricultural interest in that part of Scotland that the rates should not be increased. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: No, no!] Now, these artificial manures were worth from £10 to and £15 a-ton, and the Committee allowed the Company to increase the rates by a very small percentage. Yet they were told that the result of such an increase would be to increase the price of artificial manures to

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  the farmers to a very great extent. The hon. Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. W. Barclay) was a farmer on some part of this line, and the hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. J. Howard) had been put up by the hon. Member for Forfarshire to oppose the because the rates charged to the hon. Member were likely to be increased. The Committee had evidence before them as to the amount to which the rates paid by the hon. Member for Forfarshire and other farmers in that part of the world, Who farmed a similar quantity of land, would be increased, and it was shown that the additional charge would come to the alarming sum of 10 s. 6d. in the course of the year.
  MR. CRAIGsaid, the claim had been put upon the ground that similar charges had been put into Railway Bills during the last 15 years; but he would remind the House that every Company came and increased the rates to the extent of 15 per cent in 1859. At that time they must have been perfectly well acquaint with the fact that guano and artificial manures were not classified with coal or grain, but with ordinary stable manures. They said nothing about terminals in 1859, although they must have been perfectly aware of how much would be required for terminals when they obtained a general rise of rates. He would not have taken part in that debate had he not observed that a desire to raise railway rates was an epidemic which was spreading far and wide. It began in North Staffordshire in 1880, and now they had this application on behalf of the Great North of Scotland. The rates in North Staffordshire had been very similar to this. The North Staffordshire Railway, for many years, charged above their maximum rates, and it went on with the consent of the traders, who were aware that they also charged below their maximum in many cases, and were, using that railway conscientiously for the development of the resources of the district. But they were assailed by a trader in 1878, and judgment was obtained against them. They had come to Parliament in 1879, just as that Company had done, in order to rectify and make plain that error in their Act which had led to the over-charge, and to obtain an increase of rates. The traders opposed that, and while they opposed it the Company were unable to obtain the increase
  1628
  which they sought. They thereupon held public meetings in the district, and agreed with these traders upon terms, and came in 1880 with an unopposed Bill and got what they wished. That Company ought to be required to do the same thing. They had charged more than their maximum, though upon less justifiable grounds, because there was admittedly an error in the North Staffordshire Act; but in that case there was none. The phraseology was such as to lead to no such misunderstanding, because manures were all classed together. He quite admitted that it was right to come forward and ask Parliament to rectify any errors; but when they considered that that Company came to increase the rate to the extent of 25 per cent in 1859, he thought it was too much that they should come forward now and seek another increase to the extent of 50 and 100 per cent under the cover of re-classification of those manure rates. Then, when they came to consider that this very thing that they were now re-classifying—artificial manures—was exceptionally high, they ought to pause before giving them this power. He did not think that any railway in the Kingdom charged as high for the carriage of coal as that Company. He might, perhaps, be allowed to observe this. In Ireland there were lines of railway being complained of as charging excessively high rates for manures and coal, and agriculture and trade suffered by consequence. It was stated that they were 1½d. per ton per mile for coal and l¼d. for guano; and that was said to be destroying the vitality of the agricultural industry of Ireland, and preventing the carrying on of trade. The complainants were petitioning for a reduction of both the coal and artificial manure rates. But here was an application by ate promoters of this Bill for 2½d. per ton per mile for coal and manure; and if they were to grant this concession to this Company they might depend upon it that all the railways in the kingdom would come and ask for the same thing. If there was to be a reclassification, let the whole question be considered. The present opposers of the Bill did not object to an increase for artificial manures, provided that they reduced the rates upon coal. He asked—What right had this Company to obtain a re-classification of certain goods with-

  1629
  out the traders having a word to say; and, in fact, they ought not to be allowed to do so without going into the whole question of re-classification. The hon. Member who sat as Chairman on the Select Committee (Mr. Portman) had referred to the patience with which the Committee had gone into that question. He did not dispute that at all. But there was one statement made by the leading counsel for the promoters which he thought was quite sufficient to shake the confidence of hon. Members in the decision of the Select Committees appointed to consider questions of this nature. It was stated that the Brighton Railway Company came to oppose an opposition Bill, and offered inducements for the rejection of the Bill by proposing to bring in a Bill to reduce their rates if the Committee would throw out that Bill. They did so upon this undertaking, and the rates were accordingly reduced; but three years afterwards they came and got the rise again. If there had been sound judgment on the part of the Committee they would not have necessitated this three years' disturbance of the tariff; but the fact was the decisions of Select Committees were notoriously uncertain and unreliable from well-known defects of such a course so hastily extemporized. He submitted that the Bill should go back, and that this Company should be required to allow the traders to come forward and state their case and agree with them upon terms, as was done by the North Staffordshire Railway Company, which was their only precedent.
  SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, he found from a Circular issued that morning to hon. Members of the House that his name had been attached to a statement issued on behalf of the promoters of the Bill without his knowledge and contrary to his intention. He was anxious to show how the mistake occurred. The day after the Committee upstairs reported upon the Bill a meeting of persons interested in the questions contained in the Bill was held; and, being a Representative of the part of the country affected by the measure, he was asked to attend the meeting, and the Minutes of that meeting were drawn up. Some days after a printed paper was brought to him in the Lobby, which he imagined to be a printed copy of the Minutes of the meeting, and he signed
  1630
  the document under that impression. He afterwards found that it was not a copy of the Minutes of the meeting, but a printed copy of the Circular which had been distributed to hon. Members. He wished to add that he did not for a moment suggest that there had been any breach of good faith on the part of the Gentleman who brought the document to him to sign; but it was one of those unfortunate misapprehensions which occasionally did occur.
  MR. PLUNKETremarked, that it was extremely unusual, as the House well knew, to oppose a Private Bill on the consideration of the Report, after the whole of the circumstances connected with it had been inquired into by a Committee upstairs. In regard to the present Bill, since it was discussed upon the second reading, it had undergone considerable modification in order to meet the objections of some of those who were opposed to it. It then went before the Select Committee, and that Select Committee had unanimously reported in favour of it. He did not think—unless it should be shown that some very special circumstances existed in this particular case which vitally affected the Bill—that the House, after what had fallen from his noble Friend behind him, the Member for North Wilts (Viscount Folkestone), ought to reject the measure. The only exceptional circumstance pointed out by the opponents of the Bill was that there was a Committee sitting upstairs which was engaged in inquiring into the whole question of railway rates and charges. It was impossible now to go, in any detail, into the merits of the Bill, and it was only on general principles that the House could be asked to depart from its usual practice. In this case, the general objection assigned was that the Committee on Railway Rates might, some day or other, report in a way that would be unfavourable to some of the provisions of the Bill. If the Committee did so report, nothing would be easier than to alter the powers of this Railway Company in conformity with such a Report of the Committee; and he found that for that very purpose a clause had been inserted in the Bill—Clause 21—which ran as follows:—
  "Nothing in this Act contained shall exempt the Company or the Railway from the provisions of any general Act relating to Railways

  1631
  or the better and more impartial audit of the accounts of Railway Companies now in force, or which may hereafter pass during this or any future Session of Parliament or from any future revision or alteration under the authority of Parliament of the maximum rates of fares and charges or of the rates for small parcels."
  As this clause met the only legitimate objection that could be raised, he thought it would not be wise to depart from the ordinary practice of the House.
  MR. CHAPLINsaid, the railway interest had been so ably represented by the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down, the Representative of the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket), and by others in the course of the present debate, that he hoped he might be permitted to say a word on the part of the agricultural interest. He certainly was not able to say that the hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. J. Howard) had been put up to make this Motion by the hon. Member for Forfarshire (Mr. J. W. Barclay), as his noble Friend (Viscount Folkestone) had said; but he was delighted to think that at last, upon an agricultural question, he was able to find himself in the same Lobby as the hon. Member for Bedfordshire. He tendered his thanks to the hon. Member for the course he had taken. He thought the hon. Member had done the agricultural interest good service upon this question; and after having heard all that had been said, and without wishing to prejudge the question, he did not think he should greatly err if he gave his vote in support of the Amendment. The ground on which he objected to the Bill was of the broadest and simplest character. He had received that morning a Paper purporting to be a statement in behalf of the consideration of the Bill. In that Paper he found the objects of the Bill enumerated, and the first was to raise the charges upon artificial manure to a higher rate than those charged upon farmyard manure. He thought that any Bill which proposed to increase the charges upon the farmers was quite sufficient to insure its own condemnation. It was the very thing which those connected with the agricultural interest did not want. They objected altogether to higher charges being placed upon agricultural produce, and on this ground alone he should go into the Lobby against the Bill.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTthought the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) had not put the matter upon a proper ground when he said that it involved a contest between the railway interest and the agricultural interest. There was a question which concerned that House a great deal more, and that was the power of getting through the Business of the country if, by rejecting the unanimous decision of a Select Committee upon a Private Bill, the House, gave encouragement to the fighting out of these questions at half-past 4 o'clock in the afternoon. He entered a protest against the course now taken; the Committee upstairs had carefully gone through the whole of the evidence, and had now presented their Report; and if every interest which considered itself aggrieved by the decision of the Committee was to be encouraged to fight out the battle again on the floor of the House, there would be no end of such contests in future, involving a very great waste of time. Therefore, in the interests of the Public Business, he entreated the House to consider what would be the result of adopting the Motion of the hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. J. Howard) and rejecting the Bill. Personally, he was quite satisfied with the statements which had been made by his hon. Friend behind (Mr. Portman) and by the noble Lord opposite (Viscount Folkestone). He did not believe that the increased charges which the Bill authorized the Great North of Scotland Railway to make would be detrimental to the agricultural interest; and he, for one, would vote, as he always intended to do—unless there were much stronger grounds than had been shown in this case—in support of the unanimous decision of the Select Committee upstairs.
  MR. E. STANHOPEthought he was entitled to make a remark, inasmuch as he was the first Member of the House to object to the provisions of the Bill on the second reading. The reason why he did not on that occasion press his objection, and go into the Lobby against the Bill, was that the measure at that time contained provisions for the construction of a new line, which, he thought, ought not to be jeopardized by an opposition to other provisions of the Bill. Since that time, the Bill had been before a Select Committee, and the provisions

  1633
  relating to the making of a new line had been struck out, so that the question the House had to deal with now was simply that which related to the increase of rates. He quite agreed with the statement of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary that the House ought to respect the decision of a Select Committee on a Private Bill. He respected, he hoped, as much as the right hon. Gentleman did the decision of a Select Committee, and especially that of a Committee which had so carefully considered the details of a Private Bill as this Committee had done. But, at the same time, he thought the House ought to reserve to itself the power of Considering and reviewing any proposal which affected the general principles upon which Private Bill legislation was to be conducted; and in this case there was an attempt to raise the railway rates and charges against the agricultural interest. He strongly objected to any such increase at a period of agricultural depression; and he would venture to urge another ground—namely, that in making provision for an increase of rates in the manner proposed in the Bill they were establishing a very inconvenient precedent. Upon these grounds, he was prepared to support the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. J. Howard); and even if the general question were not at the present moment undergoing consideration by another Committee upstairs, he should be prepared to protest and vote against the provisions which had been included in the present Bill.
  MR. BARNEScould not understand the support which the Secretary to the Board of Trade was giving to the Toll Clause of this Bill as being a usual one. For his own part, he might say that he had never before seen a Bill which sanctioned a charge of 3d. a-ton for coals and 2½d. for manures; and, on behalf of the Mining Association of Great Britain—the Coalowners'—of which he was President, he objected to the sanction of the House being given to such charges. It was important to bear in mind that the Bill not only affected manures, but that it affected coals also; and, on these grounds, he should support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. J. Howard).
  MR. MAGNIACregretted very much that he could not agree with the remarks
  1634
  which had been made by his right hon. Friend the Home Secretary. It was quite impossible that hon. Members could sit there silently and see important precedents established, as they were established by this Bill, without raising their voices and exercising their power of voting against them. The statements made by his right hon. Friend, and by his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Board of Trade, were scarcely capable of being supported by the facts of the case. The Secretary to the Board of Trade told the House that the rates authorized to be charged by the Bill were the usual rates enjoyed by every other Railway Company in the United Kingdom. If that were so, for what purpose did the Great North of Scotland Company apply to Parliament at all? If they were entitled to make these charges already, there was no reason why they should come to Parliament at all. It was quite evident that the Railway Company had not got the power, and that hitherto Parliament had not given them the privileges they were asking for. His ground, therefore, for opposing the Bill was a very simple one. If the House passed the Bill, the precedent established by the Select Committee upstairs would be accepted; and he strongly protested against any fresh precedent being made, especially while there was a Committee upstairs engaged in considering the whole question.
  MR. CARPENTER-GARNIERdid not wish to give a silent vote upon the question. He could assure the hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. J. Howard) that the views he had enunciated were fully discussed and weighed when the Bill was under consideration by the Committee upstairs. At the very commencement of the Sittings of the Committee, the question was raised whether it was competent or desirable for the Committee to go into the question of rates at all, as the whole subject of Railway Rates had already been referred to another Committee which happened to be sitting at the same moment. But it was pointed out to the Committee that they were bound to go into all the questions that were raised by the Bill before them, and that they were bound to decide, upon the evidence submitted to them, what the course of legislation ought to be in regard to this particular Bill. The noble Lord (Viscount Folke-

  1635
  stone) said that the Committee were unanimous. Now, he (Mr. Carpenter-Gamier) confessed that he had entertained considerable doubts upon the question of the classification of guano and artificial manures; and if anyone had moved to leave out the clause dealing with that question, he should certainly have had great pleasure in voting for such a proposition. There were several other important questions raised—such as terminal charges, the rates for small parcels, and other matters contained in the Bill, which had not been alluded to at any length in the present discussion. There was also another, and a wholly different, subject dealt with—namely, the propriety of sanctioning an amalgamation with another railway. His own opinion was that the raising of the rates on artificial manures was a very strong measure, and that it was scarcely warranted by the circumstances of the case. With regard to the question of precedent, it was said by an hon. Member opposite that the Committee were creating an inconvenient precedent. That was hardly the case, seeing that the precedent of the North Staffordshire Railway was allowed to be on all-fours with the present case. It was, however, impossible, in a short discussion like this, to go into all the complicated and difficult questions which were raised before the Committee; and he hoped the House would have confidence in the decision of the Committee, who had sat for many day hearing evidence, and who gave the whole matter the fullest and meat careful consideration.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 175; Noes 127: Majority 48.—(Div. List, No. 221.)
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill considered.
  MR. WEBSTERmoved, after Clause 12, to insert the following new Clause:—
  (Terminal Station.)
  "No station shall be considered a terminal station in regard to any goods conveyed on tie Railway of the Company, unless such goods have been received thereat from the consignor, or are directed to be delivered thereat to tie consignee."
  The clause was proposed by the promoters of the Company, but in the in-
  1636
  terests of the traders; and he believed there would be no objection to it.
  MR. SPEAKER: Is it a new clause?
  MR. WEBSTER: Yes.
  Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.
  MR. WEBSTERsaid, he had further to propose, in Clause 12, page 8, to leave out the word "covering." This was also an alteration in favour of the farmers, traders, and others, using the railway, and not in the interest of the promoters. He proposed it, however, with their consent.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Bill to be read the third time.

QUESTIONS.

  THE MAGISTRACY (IRELAND)—STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATES.
  MR. MELDONasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to a report in the "Irish Times" of the 26th April 1881, of a motion, in three actions brought against Major Fraill, a resident magistrate, for having illegally sentenced three men to imprisonment and hard labour; whether, in the said report, it does not appear that Major Fraill had been a Major in the Army before receiving his appointment as a resident magistrate, and that Mr. Baron Dowse stated he had been once told by a stipendiary magistrate that, as he was not a lawyer he did not know the Law, and did not pretend to know it; whether, in the case of stipendiary magistrates whose duties are to guide and advise the other magistrates, it would not be desirable that members of the legal profession should be appointed stipendiary magistrates, rather than military men or private gentlemen without legal knowledge or training; and, whether all or any of the stipendiary magistrates who have been appointed in Ireland since the present Government came to office are barristers, or have received legal training?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): I have seen the report in the newspaper referred to by my hon. and learned Friend, and find it is as stated in his Question. It is the case that of the few resident magistrates appointed by the present

  1637
  Government since their accession to Office none are barristers; but I believe they had all sufficient legal knowledge and experience to qualify them for the office. I must decline to express any opinion on the abstract question as to the desirability of appointing members of the Legal Profession in preference to others.

  EVICTIONS (IRELAND)—EVICTIONS IN MAYO.
  MR. PARNELLasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether Mr. G. A. H. Moore, of Moore Hall, county Mayo, has, since the rejection by the House of Lords of the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, evicted a number of tenants, and, amongst them, one named Stephen Loftus, of Ashbrook, Strard, Ballyvoy, Mayo, whose family numbers eleven, and the rent of whose holding was £8 15 s., while the Poor Law Valuation is only £4 7s. 6d.; whether the holding has been in Loftus's possession and that of his forefathers for one hundred and ten years; whether he has been left by the eviction without any employment or means of living; and, whether he will consider the desirability of advising the insertion of such clauses in the Land Law (Ireland) Bill as will protect this class of tenants?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): Stephen Loftus, the man referred to in this Question, was not originally recognized by Mr. Moore as a tenant. The farm was held by his brother, Thomas Loftus. It consisted of 38 acres; the annual rent was £28 2s. 6d.; tenement valuation, £17. Thomas Loftus sub-let a portion of the land to Stephen—about 12 acres, for which he received £8 15 s. per annum; tenement valuation, £5 5s. I have received a letter from Mr. Moore's agent on the subject, which shows that Mr. Moore has acted with great considerateness and kindness to his tenants. The following is an extract from that letter:—
  "Last November, instructed by Mr. Moore, I offered the Loftuses, if they paid one year's rent, £28 2s. 6d., that we would take it in full discharge of the £61 16 s. 3d. due on the holding, and give them a clear rent receipt for same. This offer was refused, they holding out to get the land at the Government valuation; and in February last we consented to take a year's rent at the valuation. The tenants then turned round and asked us would we
  1638
  take half Griffith's valuation, and if we did not that they would pay nothing. This offer, I need not say, we declined; and Mr. Moore then sent them word that he had withdrawn his previous offer to them, and instructed me to take proceedings for the recovery of his rent. …. An ejectment decree had been obtained on the 14th April, 1880, and as same was running out of date on the 8th April last, I put the decree into force, but instantly reinstated them as caretakers pending a settlement, at the same time stating that if they paid £14 1s. 3d., a half-year's rent, out of the £75 17 s. 6d., which they would owe on the 1st of May, I would take it and give them separate receipts for same, thereby creating a new tenancy. They paid this amount, and I even then remitted arrears to the amount of £19 12 s. 6d. The holding had been a very long time in their possession, and I am sure Mr. Moore wished it to remain as long more should they continue to pay their rents."
  Stephen Loftus was for four days a caretaker instead of a tenant on his holding, and now he is in undisturbed possession of his separate farm and recognized as a tenant. I must say I cannot see any hardship in this case.

  STATE OF IRELAND—DISTURBANCES AT QUINLAN'S CASTLE, NEW PALLAS, CO. LIMERICK.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (for Mr. SEXTON)asked the Secretary of State for War, If it is true that a force of about two hundred soldiers and as many police have been occupied for some days past in warlike operations around a ruin called "Quinlan's Castle," situate at New Pallas, in the county Limerick, in which some tenants threatened with eviction had taken refuge; if the forces, having first laid siege to the ruin, were, after a time, directed to retire, and did so, but if, subsequently, after a council had been held between the sheriff, the military officers, the stipendiary magistrate, and the officers of police, another advance was made, and the whole available force invested the ruin, with a view to reduce its occupants by starvation; if there is any later intelligence from the scene of these operations; and, if he will be able to lay before the House an estimate of their cost?
  MR. CHILDERS: In reply to the hon. Member's Question, I have to inform the House that a detachment, consisting of about 200 men, accompanied the police and resident magistrate to a farmhouse, near Castletown, on the 21st instant, and returned to Limerick on the same day. I have no further informa-

  1639
  tion on the subject. The railway fares to and from Pallas Station were about £28.

  CITY OF LONDON (INCOME AND EXPENDITURE)—THE CHAMBERLAIN'S ESTIMATE.
  MR. FIRTHasked the Under Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is not the fact that in an estimate of current income and expenditure recently presented by the Chamberlain of London, there is shown a probable deficit in the accounts of the Corporation of the City of London of £38,500 on Dec. 31st, 1881; whether this deficit is not exclusive of extraordinary expenses for various purposes named in the Report; and, whether he is prepared to promote the wish of the people of London to have the accounts of the Corporation submitted to a skilled and independent audit?
  MR. COURTNEY: I believe it is the fact that the Chamberlain's estimate for the current year shows a probable deficiency of £38,500. That estimate is so far exclusive of extraordinary expenses that it does not include certain works in abeyance, and it necessarily excludes extraordinary expenditure which may be authorized by the Corporation during the rest of the year; but it does include £41,500 expenditure upon the New City School buildings, against which hereafter will be set off the value of the present School site and buildings. The phrase "the people of London" appears to be ambiguous. As all the Common Councillors are elected annually on St. Thomas's Day, the people of the City could apparently insist upon a skilled and independent audit if they wished it. But the hon. Member probably denotes by the phrase the inhabitants of a much larger area, and he must invoke a stronger power than mine if he desires to promote their wishes.

  THE CENSUS, 1881—PRELIMINARY REPORT.
  MR. LEAasked the President of the Local Government Board. If it is intended to issue a preliminary Report of the Census, like that of June 20th 1871; and, if so, when such Report would be issued?
  MR. DODSON: Yes; it is intended to issue such a Parliamentary Report. Pro-
  1640
  bably the population will be 3,000,000 more than it was in the year 1871. I have every reason to believe that the Parliamentary Report will be ready in the first week in July.
  MR. LEA: Is that increase an estimate or an ascertained fact?
  MR. DODSON: I apprehend it is as yet only an estimate.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORasked, whether the Report would show the increase of the population in Ireland?
  MR. DODSON: I am not responsible for the Census of Ireland.

  CROWN LANDS—THE STAGSDEN ESTATE, BEDFORDSHIRE.
  MR. MAGNIACasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether he is aware of the great decrease in the population of the parish of Stagsden, in Bedfordshire, as shown by the last Census; and, if so, whether he has any reason to believe that such decrease has been caused by any action of the Commissioners of Crown Lands, who hold a large estate in that parish?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: In consequence of the Question of my hon. Friend I have made inquiries, and find that between the Censuses of 1871 and 1881 there has been a decrease of 132 in the population of Stagsden, which is at the rate of 19 per cent. I find also that five other parishes in the Bedford Union show decreases of from 18 to 24 per cent. It will thus be seen that Stagsden is not peculiar among its neighbours in showing a decrease, which has also, I fear, occurred in most of the agricultural districts of England. With regard to the action of the Crown. I find that at the time of the purchase by the Crown there were 103 cottages, of which 28 had to be pulled down as unfit for decent habitation. There are now 93 cottages, most of which are of a superior class both in size and arrangements. The Crown provides additional cottages for the farms when asked to do so by the tenants for the occupation of their labourers. I do not, therefore, think that the decrease in the population of Stagsden is to be attributed to the action of the Commissioners of Woods and Forests.
  MR. MAGNIACgave Notice that, on going into Committee of Supply, he would move that it was undesirable that

  1641
  the Commissioners of Crown Lands and the Ecclesiastical Commissioners respectively should make further purchases of real property so as to increase the extent of the land held by them in mortmain.
  MR. J. HOWARDinquired, whether the 24 cottages which were pulled down at Stagsden had been reported upon by the rural sanitary authority?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, he believed they were, and that notice was given that they ought to be pulled down.

  VACCINATION—HALIFAX FEVER HOSPITAL.
  MR. HOPWOODasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether it is the fact that the matron and one or more nurses at the Hospital at Halifax have recently taken smallpox, a few days after re-vaccination; whether there is any reason to believe the vaccination was of variolous matter; and, whether it is the fact that there is in use in the country a large quantity of vaccine which is in fact variolous matter, or smallpox communicated from the human subject to cattle, and from them extracted and used in innoculation under the Vaccination Acts?
  MR. DODSON: At the end of March last a small-pox patient was sent to the Halifax Fever Hospital, and thereupon the matron and staff were strongly urged to be vaccinated; but they all refused. Three weeks afterwards the matron showed symptoms of the disease, and on the day following four of the nurses were vaccinated. In one of them a slight attack of small-pox showed itself in two days, and in another a more severe attack in four days afterwards. It is evident, therefore, that they must have been under the influence of the disease when the vaccination took place, and at a stage when the latter could be of no avail. The other two nurses escaped altogether. There is no reason to believe that the vaccination was of variolous matter, and the medical man who vaccinated them distinctly states that it was good vaccine lymph. As to the last Question, if by variolous matter is intended the matter of small-pox, or matter capable of producing small-pox, there is no such matter used in vaccination under the Vaccination Acts; and, as a matter of fact, all attempts of late years to produce small-pox in cattle by innoculation
  1642
  with variolous matter would seem to have proved altogether abortive.

  RAILWAY FARES—THE RACING MEETINGS.
  MR. LABOUCHEREasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that Railroad Companies are in the habit of making extra charges for the conveyance of passengers during Ascot, Goodwood, and Epsom Races; whether, in some cases, these charges do not exceed the maximum allowed by statute; and, whether they have any right to raise, on such occasions, their ordinary fares?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN,in reply, said, his attention had not been officially directed to the statements contained in the Question; but he had no reason to doubt their substantial accuracy. His hon. Friend asked him to give what would be a legal opinion on the subject. He was not qualified to offer such an opinion to the House. But according to some correspondence in The Times of July 8,1878, it appeared that a Mr. James Bussey commenced proceedings against one of the Railway Companies to try its right to make an extra charge during the Ascot week. The Company paid the sum claimed into Court, and so avoided a legal decision. He supposed the impression left on the mind of his hon. Friend would be that they had good reason to do so.

  CRIMINAL LAW (IRELAND)—COMMIT TALS TO COUNTY LIMERICK GAOL.
  MR. SYNANasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether Mr. Clifford Lloyd, R.M. did on Friday the 20th instant at the Kilfinane Sessions, in the county of Limerick, commit nine men (tradesmen and labourers) to the County Limerick Gaol (a distance of thirty miles) on remand until the next sessions without giving them the option of bail to appear at such sessions, and without specifying and calling any witnesses to prove the offence with which they were charged; and, whether the families of the men sent to prison are not left destitute in consequence?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): Nine men (tradesmen or labourers) were committed to gaol on remand by Mr.

  1643
  Clifford Lloyd on a charge of riot, bail being refused. This was at Kilmallock Petty Sessions, not at Kilfinane. Witnesses were called and evidence of the commission of the offence taken in the presence of the accused. With the exception of two, the men are all single, and I am informed that the families of these two are not destitute.

  POST OFFICE—MEMORIAL OF METROPOLITAN LETTER-CARRIERS.
  MR. SCHREIBERasked the Postmaster General, Whether he has received Petitions from the Letter Carriers of the eight metropolitan districts, forwarded on the 26th of last month through the customary official channels, and concluding with the request that he would receive a deputation of the Petitioners' delegates, in the event of his requiring any further explanation on the subject of the said Petitions; and, if so, when the Petitioners may hope for an answer either to the prayer of their Petitions or to their application for an interview?
  MR. FAWCETT: Before such Memorials as those referred to in the Question of the hon. Member are submitted. to me, it is considered expedient that they should be reported upon by the officials under whom the Memorialists immediately serve, and who are in a position to give valuable information on ninny of the points referred to. In consequence of the Memorials in question having thus to be examined, seven of them reached me as late as Saturday week, and one was received on Tuesday last. It is scarcely necessary for me to say that, in these circumstances, I am not now in a position to arrive at any decision on the subject.

  TUNIS—SEARCH OF BRITISH SHIPS IN TUNISIAN WATERS.
  MR. H. R. BRAND (for Mr. OTWAY)asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether a British trading schooner with her colours flying was recently boarded from a French man-of-war in Tunisian waters, taken possession of, and overhauled, on the plea of searching for arms; whether arms formed any part of the cargo of the schooner; and, had such been the case, by what right the French authorities (their Government not being at war with the Government of Tunis or a bel-
  1644
  ligerent Power) impeded a British ship when pursuing her lawful commerce; and, whether, in consequence of this transaction, Her Majesty's Government contemplate taking any steps to secure for British seamen and their trade in Tunisian waters the protection to which they are entitled?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: On the 23rd of May, Her Majesty's Agent at Tunis reported by telegram that the French ship of war Léopard had overhauled the British schooner Nova Stella, on the 19th instant, and, after searching her for gun powder, had escorted her to Sfax, to be more closely inspected by the local authorities in the presence of a dragoman of the British Consulate. Lord Lyons was instructed to inquire into the matter, and was informed by the French Minister for Foreign Affairs that it was in consequence of a regretable misunderstanding of his instructions that the Commander of the Léopard had visited one or two foreign vessels. He had been instructed to watch suspected vessels, and to support the Tunisian authorities in repressing smuggling; but he was by no means authorized to visit foreign vessels on the high seas, and fresh instructions had been sent to him to prevent any misunderstanding in future. Communications on the subject have taken place between Captain Tryon and the Commander of the Léopard. A Report of these has not yet been received from the former; but M. St. Hilaire informed Lord Lyons that the two officers had come to a perfect understanding as to their respective obligations. In view of the explanation given by the French Government of the affair, Her Majesty's Government do not, as at present informed, contemplate taking any further steps in the matter.

  ARMY ORGANIZATION—FIELD OFFICERS' ALLOWANCES.
  LIEUTENANT-COLONEL MILNE HOMEasked the Secretary of State for War, If arrangements have been made with the Indian Government for payment of the usual field officers' allowances to those captains who under the proposed Army Organisation Scheme will become majors when serving with their regiments in India; and, if he is prepared to make allowances to officers in other than Highland and Rifle regiments for changes in

  1645
  their uniform, necessitated by the intended re-arrangement of brigades?
  MR. CHILDERS: In reply to the hon. and gallant Gentleman, I have to state that about two mouths ago, we were in consultation with the India Office as to the scale of pay and allowances for the additional field officers proposed to be appointed as from the 1st of July. We have no official letter on the subject, but arrangements are being made. With respect to the second Question, I am not aware of any claim for such an allowance as the hon. and gallant Gentleman suggests which might not have been put forward by officers transferred from one to another linked regiment under the present organization, and I see, therefore, no reason to extend the rule.
  LIEUTENANT-COLONEL MILNE HOMEasked whether the right hon. Gentleman would take into consideration the cases brought before him?
  MR. CHILDERS: I am most anxious to do so.

  CUSTOMS DEPARTMENT—EXTRA OFFICERS.
  SIR TREVOR LAWRENCEasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether the extra officers of Her Majesty's Customs are not deprived of their pay on Her Majesty's birthday and other public holidays, which is not the case with temporary employés in other branches of the Civil Service; and, whether, if this is the case, he will not reconsider this treatment of a poorly paid class of public servants?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: I understand the hon. Member to allude to the class called extra men employed by the Board of Customs. These men are employed in such numbers and on such days as is found necessary. They are paid strictly by the day, and only for the day on which they are actually employed. I see no reason for altering this system in the manner suggested, the effect of which would be to give them pay for days on which they are not employed. There is no analogy between their position and that of other temporary employés of Government. I may say, however, that, as a matter of fact, a certain number of extra men are employed on all holidays, and are paid accordingly.

  LAW AND POLICE—ALLEGED SALE OF A WIFE.
  MR. T. D. SULLIVANasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to a case tried before the Sheffield County Court on May 25th, and reported in the "Daily News" of May 26th, in the course of which it transpired that a man, whose name is not given in the report, sold his wife to a married man named Moore for the consideration of a quart of beer; and, whether, having regard to the fact that such sales are not uncommon in England, the Right honourable Gentleman will take such steps as may be in his power to remove the impression which appears to exist in some parts of England that the sale of wives is a legitimate transaction?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I do not know whether the hon. Member expects a serious answer to this Question. I find nothing in this affair, except the casual utterance of a drunken ruffian in search of an excuse for his own immorality. There was nothing like a sale that deserves the name at all; and I confess when I see such suggestions as are down in the latter part of this Question, I have only to say that to treat a brutal incident of this character as representing a practice not uncommon in England, and to say that an impression is prevailing that incidents of this kind are legitimate transactions is, in my opinion, at once a waste of time and an insult to the common sense of the House. Everyone knows that no such practice exists. ["Oh!"] Well, Sir, if hon. Gentlemen from Ireland know the case to be different with reference to that country, I have nothing to say; and, for my part, I entirely repudiate the slur that would be cast on the people of this country by seriously dwelling on the gross language of a degraded wretch as if it were representing a national practice and belief as to the law deserving the attention of Parliament.
  MR. CALLANasked, Whether, in making allusion to Ireland, the right hon. Gentleman meant anything serious?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, I did not mean anything serious at all. I did not think it could be a serious subject. I make no more imputation upon Ireland than upon England and

  1647
  Scotland, I believe the practice to be equally unknown in every part of the United Kingdom.

  THE ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY— COLONEL HILLIER, THE INSPECTOR GENERAL.
  MR. GILL (for Mr. T. D. SULLIVAN)asked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If the Colonel Hillier, who is the nominal author of the Circular recently issued to the Irish police, is the same Colonel Hillier who a few years ago was tried at Dublin before the late Chief Justice Whiteside for a gross assault on a Belfast solicitor, and was sentenced to pay a penalty of £100 for the offence; and, whether, if he be the same person, the Irish Executive consider it proper to retain that officer in command of the Irish constabulary at so critical a juncture in Irish affairs as the present?
  MR. TOTTENHAM,before the right hon. and learned Gentleman answered this Question, wished to ask, Whether in the case referred to the conduct of Colonel Hillier had not been approved by the Government, and the fine paid by the Crown?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): I presume the hon. Member alludes to the action brought by the late Mr. John Rea nearly 10 years ago against Colonel Hillier for illegal arrest. Mr. Rea was addressing a large and excited mob in inflammatory language, and, after being repeatedly cautioned by Colonel Hillier and requested to desist, continued his harangue, defying the officer to order his arrest. Colonel Hillier at last, fearing that a riot would be the result, thought it his duty to direct Mr. Rea's arrest, and for this the action was brought. I do not think the circumstances of that case afford any ground for supposing that Colonel Hillier—who is an excellent public officer—is in any way unfitted to continue Inspector-General of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Colonel Hillier's conduct was approved; and, I believe, his expenses were paid by the Government.

  ARMY—SCHOOLS FOR MILITIAMEN— ARMY CIRCULARS, FEBRUARY, 1881.
  SIR JOSEPH BAILEYasked the Secretary of State for War, What has been the annual cost of the schools for the
  1648
  instruction of militiamen during preliminary drill and training; whether the instruction therein given has not proved of great advantage to men availing themselves of it; and, whether, if that is the case, he would reconsider the Clause in Army Circulars of February 1881, by which these schools have been abolished?
  MR CHILDERS: In reply to the hon. Baronet, I have to state that so far from schools for Militiamen during their training proving of great advantage, I am satisfied that they are entirely useless now that the Education Act is in fall operation. It is difficult to estimate exactly their expense, perhaps a few hundred pounds; but they were not discontinued for financial reasons.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PRO PERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—MR. HODNETT.
  MR. O'SULLIVANasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If it is true that the Governor of the County Limerick Prison refused to allow Mr. Hodnett (a prisoner confined therein) to see some friends on Thursday last; and if the said Governor refused to inform those friends of Mr. Hodnett why it was that he did not in this instance comply with the rules of the prison?
  MR. HEALYalso asked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether it is true that on Ascension Thursday (a Catholic holiday) Mr. Hodnett, a political prisoner in Limerick Gaol, was deprived of the privilege of associating with other prisoners as a punishment for hurrying from his cell into chapel, a distance of twenty yards?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): I am informed by the General Prisons Board that Mr. Joyce, their district Inspector, has been directed to inquire into this matter, and the Prisons Board expect to have his Report on the entire case this morning. If the hon. Members will repeat their Questions in a day or two, I hope to be in a position to answer them.

  CENSUS (IRELAND)—MISAPPLICATION OF ENUMERATION PAPERS.
  MR. HEALYasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the misapplication of the Census papers, reported in the "Freeman's Journal" of 26th May;

  1649
  whether the facts are as stated, viz. that on Wednesday a farmer named J. Moore was summoned at Termonfeckin for writing an alleged threatening letter; whether Constable Marmion stated on oath, that to procure evidence as to the handwriting of this letter, he examined 126 of the Census papers which he had collected in the townland; that, suspecting the handwriting of one of the forms to be the same as that of the alleged threatening letter, he went to J. Moore and said to him "You have not properly filled your Census paper," and, on Moore protesting that he had, used an artifice to induce him to fill up another; whether, on this second Census form being filled in the constable's presence, Moore was taken into custody; whether these forms are not regarded as secret documents to be applied to no use but that which Parliament has sanctioned; whether every Census paper does not contain the following pledge as to the confidential nature of its contents, &c.:—
  "Strict care will be taken that the returns are not used for the gratification of curiosity or for any other object than that of rendering the Census as complete as possible;"
  whether Constable Marmion admitted that it was against his positive instructions to put a Census form to an illegitimate use; whether, nevertheless, Moore was returned for trial on the single piece of evidence against him; whether the Government approve of the constable's ruse to obtain the filling up of the second Census paper; whether they approve of the breach of faith with Parliament and the public in its misapplication as criminal evidence; and, if not, whether they will at once give orders for Constable Marmion's dismissal and for the withdrawal of the charge against Moore?
  MR. CALLANasked, whether the constable referred to was not unpopular, and ought not for this conduct to be dismissed the force?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): My attention has been called to the report of this case in The Freeman's Journal, and I believe the facts are substantially as stated. A serious mistake has, no doubt, been committed in making use of the Census paper; and I have therefore directed the withdrawal of the prosecution. The mistake, however is not one
  1650
  which, in my opinion, requires the dismissal of the constable. I have no information as to the man's unpopularity.
  MR HEALY: Although the prosecution is withdrawn, is the man safe from the Coercion Act?

  WESTERN ISLANDS OF THE PACIFIC—THE SOLOMON ISLANDS—MURDERS AND OUTRAGES BY THE NATIVES—OPERATIONS OF H.M.S. "EMERALD."
  MR. ALEXANDER M'ARTHURasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether he will lay upon the Table the Report of the Captain of H.M.S. "Emerald," relative to the operations which that officer lately undertook at the Solomon Islands in retaliation for the murder of Lieutenant Biron and other outrages; and, whether he will also publish any further Correspondence on the same subject which the Lords of the Admiralty may have received?
  MR. TREVELYAN: I shall be very glad to lay on the Table the Report of Captain Maxwell, as well as a Copy of the Instructions from Commodore Wilson under which he sailed. Those are the only Papers on the subject which would give any valuable information to the House of Commons.

  IRELAND—ANTRIM LICENSING SESSIONS.
  MR. BIGGARasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If it is the fact that two Annual. Licensing Sessions are held in each year for the county Antrim portion of the borough of Belfast—namely, the Recorder's Annual Licensing Sessions in September, and the County Court Judges' Annual Licensing Sessions in November; is he aware that such last-mentioned Sessions, at which county justices attend, is availed of by applicants who have been refused their certificates by the Recorder, very much as a court of appeal, although fresh notices are served, and that, in most cases, such second application is directed and encouraged by the said Recorder; is it desirable that the Recorder's adverse decisions should be reviewed and reversed by a bench of justices having almost no interest in the Borough; and, is it according to Law that there should be more than one Annual Licensing Sessions for a district in the year; or that the Board of Inland Revenue should

  1651
  accept certificates from two clerks of the peace for licences for the county Antrim portion of the borough of Belfast?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): It is a fact, as stated, that two Licensing Sessions are held in the borough of Belfast—one being held by the Recorder as the sole Judge of the Borough Sessions, and the other by the County Justices in that portion of the county which lies within the borough of Belfast. I am not aware of any appeal; but it is no doubt the fact that persons refused licences by the Recorder have applied again to the County Justices sitting in the town of Belfast.

  INDIA—GRANT TO GENERAL SIR FREDERICK ROBERTS.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the Secretary of State for India, Whether any actuarial calculation was made of the value of the annuity of £1,000 given to Sir Donald Stewart at the same time as the calculation was made with respect to Sir Frederick Roberts; and, if not, why this formality was omitted; whether it is not the case that, if Sir Donald Stewart had been treated on the same footing as Sir Frederick Roberts, the sum granted for the surrender of his annuity would have been about £9,868, instead of £12,500, or that, if Sir Frederick Roberts had been treated on the same footing as Sir Donald Stewart, the sum granted to him would have been about £15,827, instead of £12,500; and, if he can state the reasons for which an advantage was given to Sir Donald Stewart over Sir Frederick Roberts in the sum granted to him, as in both cases the recipients had been equally adjudged, as a reward for their services, an annuity of £1,000 a-year for one life, a grant the value of which depends on the age of the annuitant? The actuarial calculation, he added, was based on 58 as the age of Sir Donald Stewart and 49 as the age of Sir Frederick Roberts.
  THE MARQUES OF HARTINGTON: The exact sum which Sir Donald Stewart would receive on his pension of £1,000 a-year, if commuted at the present time, would be £9,478 if calculated at 5 per cent, or £10,286 if calculated at 4 per cent. But, as I have already stated, the grants made by the Indian Council to Sir Donald Stewart and Sir Frederick Roberts were not precisely
  1652
  the actuarial value of the cumulation of the £1,000 a-year at the present time. When it was found that difficulties existed in the way of carrying out the original intention of the Indian Council of making a grant to each of these officers, it was considered desirable to substitute for that proposal a grant of a lump sum.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF: Has the noble Lord any objection to giving a Return of all special military grants made by the Indian Government to Indian officers for the last 40 years?
  THE MARQUES OF HAUTINGTON: If the hon. Member will give Notice of that Question I shall answer it.

  STATE OF IRELAND—DISTURBANCES AT QUINLAN'S CASTLE, NEWT PALLAS, CO. LIMERICK.
  MR. TOTTENHAMasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether, on Saturday 21st May, the sheriff of the county of Limerick took a force of two hundred soldiers and one hundred police to protect him in the execution of certain ejectments and legal decrees in the neighbourhood of New Pallas, county of Limerick; whether he neglected to provide a sufficient (or any) staff of civil assistants, and had, in consequence, to return without executing the ejectments; and, whether it is the duty of the sheriff to provide himself with such assistance; and, in the event of his neglecting to do so, whether he can be held liable for the cost incurred by the State in the collecting and sending out of so large a force, which failed in its object owing to such neglect of duty?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): The facts appear to be correctly stated in the Question of the hon. Member. The attention of the Government has already been called to the matter; and on the 26th instant a communication was addressed to the sub-sheriff asking for an explanation; but as yet no answer has been received.

  TUNIS—THE ENFIDA CASE.
  MR, MURRAYasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's, Government has any reason to suppose that the French Government has now retreated from its position in regard to the Enfida affair, viz.:—

  1653
  "That it was impossible under the circumstances that the French Government could consent to leave the Enfida affair to the decision of the Tunisian local tribunals" [Tunis, No. 4, 1881, No. 40];
  and, if not, whether Her Majesty's Government consider that they are fulfilling their duty to Mr. Levy in declining
  "To interfere in the difference which has arisen between the contending purchasers of the Enfida estate;"
  and, also how circumstances have thus altered to Mr. Levy's detriment since last February, when Her Majesty's Government checked the special action of the French Government in the Enfida affair by the movement of H.M.S. "Thunderer," which were admittedly made to depend upon those of a French ironclad sent to "weigh in favour of the French Company?"
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: As regards the first part of the Question, Her Majesty's Government are unable to say whether the French Government have retreated from the position referred to, since no reply has been returned to the communication addressed to them by Lord Lyons on the 4th instant, under instructions from the Foreign Office. As regards the second part of the Question, the Papers before the House show that while the Enfida Question was under discussion the French iron-clad Friedland was sent to Tunis, as Her Majesty's Government had reason to believe, in connection with this affair; whereupon they thought it desirable to despatch the Thunderer to the coast of Tunis. In the course of subsequent explanations between the two Governments, it was stated that the mission of the Friedland had no connection with the Enfida Question, and both vessels were withdrawn.

  BULGARIA—SUPPRESSION OF THE CONSTITUTION BY PRINCE ALEXANDER.
  MR. LABOUCHEREasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he will instruct Mr. Lascelles, Her Majesty's Representative in Bulgaria, to obtain from M. Zancoff and the friends of the late Bulgarian Constitution their case in regard to the arbitrary suppression of that Constitution by Prince Alexander, in order that this House may have the case of the
  1654
  Constitutionalists as well as that of the Potentate in regard to recent occurrences; and, whether Her Majesty's Government has any objection to express its sympathy with the Constitutionalists of Bulgaria, and its earnest hope that the country will not condone the violation of his Constitutional oath by the Prince?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Her Majesty's Government have received despatches from Mr. Lascelles containing the views expressed at Sofia with regard to the action recently taken by the Prince of Bulgaria; but they are unable to lay any of the Correspondence upon the Table without consultation with Mr. Lascelles. Her Majesty's Government are not prepared at present to express any opinion as to the course pursued by the Prince of Bulgaria.

  ARMY ORGANIZATION—THE FIVE YEARS' COMMAND—LIEUTENANT COLONELS.
  CAPTAIN AYLMERasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether the fixed period of five years allowed to lieutenant colonels will under the new rules refer to all lieutenant colonels from date of promotion to that rank; or, whether the five years' tenure of office will be counted only from date of attaining to command of a battalion?
  MR. CHILDERS: The point raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman has been fully provided for, and the new Warrant will specify what term "in command of a battalion," and what term "in the two offices of lieutenant colonel commanding and lieutenant colonel second in command," will qualify.

  SOUTH AFRICA—THE TRANSVAAL— PROTECTION OF THE NATIVE INHABITANTS.
  MR. GORSTasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, What steps Her Majesty's Government are taking to protect the native inhabitants of the Transvaal against wanton aggression on the part of the Boers during the sitting of the Commission?
  MR. R. N. FOWLERasked the right hon. Gentleman, Whether his attention had been called to a telegram from Durban in The Standard of that day, stating that the entire Transvaal was to be given up to the Boers on their own terms; and, whether he could give any information on the subject?
  MR. GRANT DUFF: I am afraid it I would be very far indeed from advantageous to the peace of the Transvaal if I were to state from day to day what the Royal Commission is doing, either in regard to the Native question or any other question. I had occasion the other day to show that the Commission heel dealt most promptly and successfully with the only Native question of any real difficulty that had arisen. I was further happy to be able to show that the Boer leaders had acted with great frankness and fairness in assisting our people in dealing with the question. I am sure that it will be the opinion of the House that the Commission may be safely left to deal with ordinary questions with regard to the Natives as they arise. Of course, if any question of real difficulty arises they will consult Her Majesty's Government. I should like to take this opportunity of giving answers to those Questions which were put to me on Friday by the right lion. Gentleman opposite (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach). We telegraphed as we promised, and we received replies. The first question was, whether British troops had started for the re-occupation of Potchefstroom, and we have received the following telegram from Sir Evelyn Wood:—
  "May 28.—Escort and garrison for Potchefstroom leave here to-day. Cross border Monday. Buller accompanies. Will not leave Standert on until guns are received."
  Our second question was—
  "Is there any truth in report that Natives in Boer employment have been ordered by their Chiefs to return to their kraals, and that Natives in English employment have been warned to be ready to join tribes in case of war?"
  To that we received the following reply from Sir Hercules Robinson:—
  "Yours 27th.—Lieutenant Davidson, heliograph officer so reports from Heidelberg. Wood endeavouring to verify this and similar rumours before reporting to you."
  In reply to the Question of the hon. Member for the City, all I can say is that the terms and conditions on which local freedom was to be granted to the Transvaal have already been made known in full to the House, and that negotiations are still proceeding within the limits and upon the alternatives then made known.
  MR. GORSTasked, if the English Commission in the Transvaal had power and authority delegated to them by Her
  1656
  Majesty's Government to take, if necessary, military measures for the protection of the Natives?
  MR. GRANT DUFF: Most undoubtedly, Sir. The state of things in the Transvaal is this—that the garrisons of Her Majesty remain in the Transvaal, and that justice is administered in the name of Her Majesty precisely as it was before the outbreak.
  MR. CARINGTONasked what notice Her Majesty's Government had taken of Kronje having attacked a friendly Kaffir Chief and killed 70 of his men?
  MR. GRANT DUFF: We know nothing whatever of 70 men of any Kaffirtribe having been killed; and if the hon. Member cares to have my opinion on the subject, it is that I do not believe a word of it.
  LORD EUSTACE CECIL: The right hon. Gentleman says that justice will be administered as heretofore. When I asked him the other day a Question on the subject of the murderers of Captain Elliott, I understood that they were to be tried by a Court in the Transvaal, but not a Court according to the old-established rule. Now, I should be glad, indeed, to know what Court it is that these persons are to be tried before?
  MR. GRANT DUFF: If I conveyed the impression which he has just stated to the mind of the noble Lord, I must have been, I fear, curiously infelicitous in my mode of expression. What I said was that the murderers of Captain Elliott would be tried by the existing High Court, according to the existing law, and I really do not know how to put what I have to say more clearly.
  MR. GORSTgave Notice that he would ask whether a letter had been received from Montsuni by Sir Evelyn Wood, stating that ho had been obliged to take up arms, owing to the Boers instigating his enemies to attack him because he was faithful to the English during the war, and what reply had been sent to it?

  TOBACCO CULTIVATION (IRELAND)
  SIR EARDLEY WILMOTasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If he would consider the desirability of allowing the Irish farmers to grow tobacco on lands now uncultivated in Ireland, as an inducement to them to bring those lands into cultivation, and at the same time to

  1657
  supply themselves with an article which, in their climate and condition, is one of the necessaries of life; such tobacco to be retained for home use and not to be exported; it having been stated, on good authority, that the moisture of Ireland is peculiarly favourable to the growth of tobacco, and that it flourished formerly in that Country?
  MR. GLADSTONE: There has been no recent discussion on the subject of the growth of tobacco in Ireland, and if the question should be raised, it would undoubtedly have to be considered with reference to the Kingdom at large. The hon. Member is probably aware that for about 50 years the growth of tobacco has been permitted in Ireland, and that its growth was protected by high differential duties. We also know that the repeal of that permission was recommended by the Commission of 1830, inasmuch as the experiment was not successful. At the same time, I regret the prohibition of any agricultural product by law as very unsatisfactory. I am at all times open to the reception of any statement or suggestion tending to show that if that prohibition was removed we could satisfactorily levy the duty on the commodity if grown at home as we do when imported.

  PARLIAMENTARY OATH—MR. BRAD LAUGH—INTERFERENCE OF A GO VERNMENT OFFICIAL AT WOOLWICH.
  BARON HENRY DE WORMSasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he will take steps to inquire whether some of the Government officials of the Arsenal at Woolwich have been using their influence with the employés in the Arsenal to induce them to sign Petitions condemning the action of the House of Commons in regard to Mr. Bradlaugh, and urging his immediate admission to the House; and, whether such Petitions have been sent round for signature during working hours?
  MR. CHILDERS: In reply to the hon. Member, I have to say that last week I ordered inquiries to be made into the subject of his Question, and I have learnt that it is the case that one of the Government officials in Woolwich Arsenal—a junior writer in the Carriage Department—did circulate a Petition in favour of the admission of Mr. Brad-
  1658
  laugh to this House. I am not aware what influence he brought to bear in order to obtain signatures, and ho states that the whole affair was a joke. I fail to see any humour in this joke; and I have directed the same censure to be conveyed to this gentleman as I did last week to the promoter of a Petition in the opposite sense.

  MERCHANT SHIPPING ACTS—EMIGRANT SHIPS.
  VISCOUNT LYMINGTONasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether the inquiries which he promised to make relative to a letter in the "Pall Mall Gazette," signed "Charlotte G. O'Brien," respecting the state of things on board an emigrant ship, have proved the substance of that letter to be correct; and, if so, what steps he intends to take in the matter?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN: I stated to the House on a previous occasion that on seeing the letter from Miss O'Brien which appeared in The Pall Mall Gazette, I had direted Captain Wilson, one of the officers of the Board of Trade, to proceed to Queenstown to inquire into the facts of the case, and that Mr. Gray, the Assistant Secretary of the Marine Department, who was in Liverpool at the time, would also make an independent inquiry into the subject. I communicated at the same time with Miss O'Brien, and learnt from her that the vessel to which her description was intended to apply was the Germanic, of the British White Star Line. I have now received full Reports from Mr. Gray and Captain Wilson, and these show, first, that all the requirements of the law have been fulfilled, and even exceeded, by the owners of the White Star Line, in their provision for emigrants; secondly, that the general arrangements on this line are at least as good as those on any other of the 10 lines which take emigrants from Liverpool and Queenstown to America; and, thirdly, that these officers are totally unable to recognize the state of things described by Miss O'Brien in anything which has ever existed on board the Germanic. Captain Wilson was accompanied in his inquiries by Miss O'Brien herself, and visited with her 10 ships belonging to different lines. On the 20th of May Miss O'Brien and Captain Wilson visited the Germanic on her last outward voyage, and on the

  1659
  completion of their inspection Miss O'Brien wrote a letter to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, which she has desired me to read to the House. This letter is as follows:—
  "My dear Mr. Forster,—I have just seen the Germanic with Captain Wilson. As it is present, nothing can exceed the beauty and perfection of the arrangements. I can in no way reconcile my former impressions with what was to-day shown us. I have, however, written to some of the emigrants who travelled on the Germanic on the 10th of March. If their testimony is against mine I shall certainly withdraw my accusations against this particular ship. though not against the whole system, which I look on as certain to lead to abuse, and as requiring legal alteration, Meanwhile, I am much puzzled.—Yours very truly, C. G. O'BRIEN."
  I am informed by the owners of the Germanic that the arrangements on the 20th of May were precisely similar in character to those in use when Miss O'Brien first saw the vessel on the 10th of March, and this statement is confirmed by the emigration officer, who cleared the vessel on both occasions. I ought to add, with reference to a statement in Miss O'Brien's first letter, to the effect that the Germanic, which was supposed to carry 1,000 steerage passengers, carried on one voyage last year 1,775 emigrants, that, as a matter of fact, the largest number of steerage passengers carried by the Germanic in any one voyage during 1880 was 864, or less than one-half the number mentioned by Miss O'Brien. On the occasion of Miss O'Brien's visit the number carried was only 365. I should have been glad to leave the matter here, but I have since received a letter from Miss O'Brien which. I am totally unable to explain. In this letter, which is not dated, she says—
  "My letter to Mr. Forster, which Captain Wilson and Mr. Graves saw, really means nothing. Mr. Forster has the letter, which states that the present arrangements, as shown on the 19th were excellent, that I was unable to reconcile them with what I had previously seen; but that I had written to some emigrants of the date in question to ascertain their testimony. I should wish my letter in its own words to be read in Parliament, as I distinctly do not withdraw my former letter; but I do not wish to press it against the Germanic, as I have now plenty of evidence against the system under Captain Wilson's testimony. I expect soon to be in possession of further evidence: but I must take no step that would weaken my present standpoint, as any appearance of going hack on my first letter would do."
  1660
  This letter leaves me as puzzled as Miss O'Brien. It is difficult to deal with statements of a lady who writes a sensational letter one day, who writes a month later what appears to be a qualified withdrawal of the serious charges contained in the first, and then a day or two later another letter to say that her withdrawal means nothing because she must not weaken her standpoint—that is, a standpoint to bring further charges. Miss O'Brien incloses in this letter a list of questions conveying imputations of a serious character, which I understand to be directed against the ships of other lines; but the questions themselves contain no precise indication as to the particular vessel to which they refer. I am leaving these questions examined, in the hope of obtaining positive information with respect to them, and I am carefully considering the whole subject, with a view of seeing whether any improvement can be made in the existing practice or law; but, meanwhile, I have to say, in answer to the noble Lord, that, in my opinion, the letter in The Pall Mall Gazette professing to describe the state of things on board the Germanic on the 10th of March was not correct in substance.
  MR. PARNELL: The Grand Jury at New York have found indictments against British and other steamships which were overcrowded. Has the right hon. Gentleman received any information with regard to this statement from the British Consulate in New York, and will he make inquiries into the matter?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN: I will make inquiries into the matter with pleasure; but I have received no special information on the matter.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: Within the next two or three days I will put a Question on the Paper with reference to the same subject. I have received a letter from Boston, from an ex-constituent of mine, who was not and could not be in communication with Miss O'Brien, and who gives a picture of female emigrants almost corresponding with hers.

  EDUCATION (IRELAND)—DEGREES BY THEOLOGICAL COLLEGES.
  MR. BERESFORD HOPEasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he can assure the House that, in case any Theological Colleges in Ireland are empowered to grant degrees in divinity

  1661
  provision shall be made that such degrees shall only be given to persons who have already graduated in arts at some University, so as to ensure an adequate standard of literary proficiency on the part of persons graduating in divinity?
  MR. GLADSTONE: There is a plan before the Government for constituting a body in Ireland for granting degrees in Divinity in connection with the Presbyterian Communion. I am not able to say the precise security we shall take that the degrees shall be granted in connection with a proper standard of attainment in other matters; but the subject is well worthy of consideration, and will be duly weighed.

  ARMY ORGANIZATION—WARRANT OFFICERS OF THE ROYAL ENGI NEERS.
  SIR HENRY TYLERasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he will be so good, in his new scheme, to consider the question of giving the rank of Warrant Officer to First Class Military Foremen and First Class Staff Clerks of the Royal Engineers, so as to place them on an equality in this respect with Master Gunners?
  MR. CHILDERS: In reply to the Question just put to me, I can only say that, while reluctant to give driblets of information as to a scheme the full details of which will shortly be before the House, I believe that the hon. and gallant Gentleman will be quite satisfied as to the classes of non-commissioned officers in which he is interested.

  POST OFFICE—TELEGRAPH WIRES (METROPOLIS).
  SIR HENRY TYLERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been drawn to the continually increasing and apparently unlimited development of webs of wires stretched tightly over the thoroughfares of the Metropolis; to the periodical deterioration of strength in those wires from the action of the atmosphere; to the danger that would arise, with probable loss of life, from the fracture of any one of those wires; to the constantly augmenting risk consequently occasioned, especially in many of the principal thoroughfares; and, whether he will consider the question of providing against such danger?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT,in reply, said, that the Question raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman was deserving of attention, but did not lie in his Department. It really rested with the Postmaster General and the authorities having control over the streets. He would refer the hon. and gallant Member to the Telegraph Act of 1862 if he wished for information with regard to the control over telegraph wires.

  LIFE ASSURANCE COMPANIES' ACT, 1870—RETURNS.
  SIR HENRY TYLERasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether it is desirable to publish (for instance) in the Blue Book of this year, the Returns published by so many Life Assurance Companies the same time last year, and, to proceed on the same system, by which the Returns for the past year, and for the past quinquennial period, published this spring, would next spring appear in the Blue Book; and, whether it would not be possible to include in the Blue Book for each year those Returns printed and published by the Companies in the early portion of that year?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN: I think that the changes suggested by the hon. and gallant Member cannot be legally effected. The 24th section of the Life Assurance Companies' Act, 1870, requires the Board of Trade to lay before Parliament all Returns deposited with it during the preceding year.

  POST OFFICE—PARCEL POST—COLLECTION OF ACCOUNTS.
  MR. A. GRANTasked the Postmaster General, Whether, in making his arrangements for the introduction of the Parcel Post, he will consider if it is practicable to connect with it the system, as followed in Germany, whereby the Post Office undertakes to collect, on account of the sender, the amount stated in an invoice accompanying the parcel, before giving delivery of the goods?
  MR. FAWCETT,in reply, said, that, after giving the subject careful consideration, he regretted to find that there were serious difficulties in the way of such a scheme as was suggested in the Question of the hon. Member.

  INDIA—PROTESTANT MISSIONARIES.
  MR. WHITLEYasked the Secretary of State for India, If he will state the reasons why the present Viceroy has for the first time prohibited public preaching by Protestant missionaries in Calcutta?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON,in reply, said, that he had asked the hon. Member on Friday to postpone his Question. He had, at the same time, asked the hon. Member whether he had any information on the subject beyond certain telegrams which had appeared in the newspapers. He understood the hon. Member had no further information. He had, on the former occasion, pointed out to the hon. Member that the statements in those telegrams did not correspond with what was contained in his Question. The statement that he himself had seen was to the effect that any action which had been taken in the matter had been taken by the police under the instructions of the law authorities, and not in any way by the direction of the Viceroy of India. He had no further information on the matter, and had no reason to believe that either the Viceroy or the Government of India had taken any steps in the matter.

  ROYAL HIBERNIAN MILITARY SCHOOL.
  MR. MELDONasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether the Royal Hibernian Military School is incorporated by Charter, or how otherwise; and, if by Charter, the date of same; whether there is any objection to lay Copy of the Charter of Incorporation upon the Table of the House; and, whether the office of Commandant, and other superior officers of the School, are Civil or Military appointments or not; and what are the rules regulating the status and rank of such officers?
  MR. CHILDERS: In reply to my hon. and learned Friend, I have to state that the Royal Hibernian School is incorporated by a Charter dated September 8, 1871, and I presume that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland will have no objection to laying a copy on the Table. The duties of the Commandant, Adjutant, and medical officer are mainly civil, although technically for certain purposes these officers have a military character.

  SOUTH AFRICA—LOAN FOR THE CAPE GOVERNMENT.
  MR. ANDERSONasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, If the new loan of two millions for the Cape Government, just announced by the Crown agents for the Colonies, is being issued under instructions of Her Majesty's Government; and, if he is yet in a position to say whether the Cape Government is a corporation that can be sued; and, if not, whether he is satisfied that the giving instructions would not of itself carry responsibility, failing other remedy?
  MR. GRANT DUFF: To the first Question my reply must be in the negative. The loan is issued, as the prospectus shows, on behalf of the Cape Government under an Act of the Colonial Parliament. In reply to the second Question, I have to say that I am not yet in a position to add anything to what I said on the 2nd of this month. As to the third Question, I have to repeat that the Imperial Government undertakes no responsibility for this or any such loan, direct or indirect. I have further to remind my hon. Friend that I promised Papers on this subject as soon as possible.

  STATE OF IRELAND—DUNGARVAN WORKHOUSE.
  MR. R. POWERasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, If it is true that on the 12th instant a body of police entered the workhouse at Dungarvan without assigning any reason for so doing; that they remained there while the board was sitting; and, if he can give any reason for so unusual a proceeding?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): It is not a fact that the police entered the workhouse at Dungarvan on the 12th instant, and remained there while the board was sitting. What really occurred was this. On the occasion in question there was an election being held for the clerkship of the Dungarvan Union. One of the candidates was put forward by the Land League, and a good deal of excitement existed. It was thought that a demonstration might be attempted by the crowd outside the workhouse against some of the Guardians when proceeding to vote, and it was therefore deemed advisable to take the usual course of

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  having a small police force in the vicinity to preserve order if required.

  RELIEF OF DISTRESS ACT—LOANS TO RAILWAYS.
  MR. P. MARTINasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Is it the fact as stated in the "Daily News" of Saturday last, that in consequence of the restrictions inserted by the Government in the Relief of Distress Act passed last Session, there is but one alone of the various Irish Railways scheduled with the purpose of being benefitted under that Act which is capable of receiving a loan under its provisions; was it not declared at the time when the Bill was passing through the House, to have been the intention of Parliament to encourage employment by granting loans in all proper cases to these scheduled Railways; and, under the circumstances, is it his intention in the present Session to introduce a Bill to amend the Act?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW): The statement upon which this Question is founded is not quite correct. It is true that most of the Railway Companies mentioned in the Schedule to the Relief of Distress Act either have not come into existence at all, or are not in a position to borrow money legally, because their share capital is not subscribed, or not paid up. It is not my intention to introduce any Bill which would enable baronial guarantees to be given, or loans to be made to non-existing Companies, or to Companies which cannot legally borrow money.

  LANDLORD AND TENANT (IRELAND)—CONDITIONS OF TENURE.
  MR. HEALYasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether every yearly tenant in Ireland has, under the present Law, full power to sell his interest in his farm; whether he can convey to any person he pleases all his rights in his holdings by deed or writing; whether the only check on this right is the landlord's power of eviction or rent raising, which may be as freely exercised on the tenant himself as on any purchaser from him; whether, if the landlord wishes to exercise this power against the purchaser, he must not terminate the tenancy by notice to quit, as if he were
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  dealing with the tenant himself; and, whether the purchaser, if evicted, has not equal rights with the tenant himself under the Land Act of 1870, save as restricted by section 13 thereof?
  MR. GLADSTONE: In answer to the hon. Gentleman, I am advised that unless a tenant holds under a written contract which prohibits assignment, he has the power. This is a question which could be better discussed when the hon. Gentleman proposes the repeal of the 13th section of the Land Act—a proposal which we are not indisposed to entertain.

  AFGHANISTAN—EVACUATION OF PISHIN—ALLEGED SETTLEMENT OF THE DIFFICULTY WITH THE BHEELS.
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I beg to ask the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India, Whether the telegram which has appeared in The Times, stating that the Government have given peremptory orders to the Government of India for the evacuation of the Pishin Valley as early as practicable, is true?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: There is no foundation for the statement, and I cannot find out how it could have originated. In the only despatch sent on this subject since the discussion in this House, while we asked for an explanation as to the large force said to be kept in Pishin and Sibi, we repeated, and rather confirmed and extended than restricted, the discretion which had been given to the Government of India as to the time at which the evacuation of this district should be carried out.
  COLONEL MAKINSasked, Whether the statement by the Correspondent of The Times was correct, that the Government had made terms of peace with the Bheel tribe, and that one of the terms was that in future the Bheels were to be allowed to levy black mail on travellers?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: If the hon. Member wishes for full information on this subject, he had better give Notice of the Question. I cannot give particulars as to the terms of the arrangements made with the Bheels; but my impression is that the statement Has as little foundation as that mentioned in the previous Question.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether it is his intention to move to report Progress in Committee on the Land Law (Ireland) Bill at any particular hour?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Before 12 o'clock:

MOTION.

  PARLIAMENT—PRIVILEGE (MR. P. EGAN).
  MR. MITCHELL HENRY: I regret to have to call the attention of the House to a Breach of Privilege of so serious a character that it is impossible not to take notice of it. I refer to a letter which has been published in a newspaper by Mr. Patrick Egan, treasurer of the Land League, reflecting in very gross and vulgar terms on the conduct and motives of hon. Members of this House as regards the votes they have given on a measure now under discussion. The writer of this letter, who, from his own account, appears to have had a good deal to do with the election of Members of Parliament who were returned to support the policy of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) and the Land League, seems to be of opinion that the time has come that was prophesied by Grattan at the time of the Union, when the Irish people would return to this House, in revenge, some of the greatest scoundrels that ever disgraced a Legislative Assembly.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVAN: I rise to a point of Order. [Cries of "Order!"]
  MR. SPEAKER: Does the hon. and learned Member rise to Order?
  MR. A. M. SULLIVAN: Yes. I wish to ask whether these words should not be taken down? I understood the hon. Member to say that, in his opinion—["No, no!"]—If I am wrong I will be very glad to withdraw; but I understood him to say that, in his opinion, the time alluded to by Mr. Grattan had come, and I wish to know if he meant those words to apply in any sense to hon. Members on this side of the House?
  MR. MITCHELL HENRY: If the hon. and learned Gentleman was a little more attentive to what was being said, and not so anxious to distinguish himself by rising to points of Order so frequently, probably he would conduce
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  more than he now does to the order of our proceedings. I said it was the writer of the letter who seemed to be of that opinion; and I was going on to say, when I was interrupted, that I did not think, whatever the opinion of that official person of the League may be, the House of Commons would permit anyone to make such reflections upon the conduct of hon. Members in this House as are made in this letter without taking notice of it. The letter is dated from the Hotel Brighton, Paris, 22nd May, and the writer is in the habit of coming into the Lobby of this House, because it appears from an answer to his letter which has been made by an hon. Member that he actually shook his fist in the face of the hon. Gentleman, and threatened him for the action he had taken in this House. I therefore trust that some steps will be taken to protect Members from any possible assault of this kind in future. The letter is to Thomas Brennan, esquire, Dublin.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: I rise to Order. I would like to have your ruling, Sir, whether a Question of Privilege can possibly arise on an act committed in a foreign country?
  MR. SPEAKER: I understand the hon. Member to be reading, or to be about to read, from a newspaper published in this country.
  MR. HEALY: I rise to Order, Sir. I understand that a matter of Privilege is one which must be brought at once under the cognizance of this House. I understand this letter was published last Wednesday; and I wish to ask whether, several days having intervened between the publication of the letter and the calling attention to Privilege, it is now in Order to raise the question?
  MR. SPEAKER: In answer to the appeal of the hon. Member, I see no ground at present for intervening between the hon. Member for Galway and the House.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRY: This letter was published in The Freeman's Journal on Thursday; it did not reach this House until Friday; and I do not see, therefore, how earlier attention could have been called to it. The letter is as follows:—
  "Hotel Brighton, 218 Rue do Rivoli,
  Paris, 22nd May, 1881.
  "MY DEAR MR. BRENNAN,—Since last advice I have received from our friends of the 'Irish

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  World,' New York, per cable, the sum of 3,500 francs; from the St. John's Branch Ladies' Irish National Land League, San Francisco—Mrs. J. Grogan, president; Mrs. P. J. Corbett, treasurer—507 50–100 francs, and from Branch No. 8, Parnell Land League, Moutelair, New Jersey—Mr. Hugh Galligher, treasurer—778 10–100 francs. I will advise by wire any further remittances that arrive up to Tuesday. I perceive that on the division on the Land Bill certain Irish Members supposed to belong to the active Party went over to the Government, and prominently amongst them I notice Mr. O'Connor Power and The O'Donoghue. Both of these Gentlemen were Members of the active Party. They attended the meeting at which the policy of the Party was considered, and they voted on the resolution binding the Party to abstain from voting. This being so, they were clearly and unmistakably bound by the resolution passed at the meeting; and I consider that they, and the others who acted in like manner, stand exactly in the position of a blackleg on a racecourse, who, if he wins, will pocket your money, but if he loses will refuse to pay. I consider I am bound to call particular attention to a carpet-bagger, who, after a hard-fought battle by the gallant men of Wicklow, was returned for that county by a majority of seven votes—Mr. M'Coan. This person, who is utterly unknown to the people of Wicklow, had the audacity to say to me a few days ago in the Rouse of Commons that he defied the Land League, and that he could go back to Wicklow and be re-elected in despite of all the influence of the League. I wonder much what honest James Grehan and our other friends in Wicklow will say to this? Of course, Mr. O'Connor Power, The O'Donoghue, Mr. M'Coan, and the rest of the trimmers, will plead their deep regard for the interests of the tenant farmers; but I think the country will plainly see that their motive was a desire to help the present cowardly, hypocritical, priest-hunting, buckshot-distributing Whig Government, now, as ever, base, bloody, and brutal.—Yours sincerely,
  "PATRICK EGAN.
  "Thomas Brennan, Esq., I. N. L. League, Dublin."
  I apprehend that there never was a letter of a more atrocious character reflecting upon the conduct of hon. Members. It is not for me to defend any of these hon. Gentlemen; but I will take leave to say of one of them, with whom I have had the pleasure of sitting for a good many years in this House—I mean the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power)—that whilst he is a Gentleman very advanced in his opinions, he is also known as one who has the courage of his opinions. He is one who has shrunk from the cowardly course of hiding himself in London and pretending to be in Paris, or taking any other course by which he would stimulate poor men to risk their lives and fortunes in a vain struggle with the Executive Government.
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  I do not wish to make a martyr of this person by bringing him to the Bar of the House; but I trust that you, Sir, will be pleased in your discretion to order that he shall no longer be admitted within the precincts of the House. I will move that this letter be read by the Clerk at the Table, and that it is a gross breach of t e Privileges of this House.
  MR. PARNELL: May I ask—["Order, order.!"]—whether—["Chair!"]
  MR. SPEAKER: This is the ordinary course. The first step to be taken is that the statement complained of should be read by the Clerk of the House.
  The Clerk of the House then read the statement referred to.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRY: Then, Sir, I beg now to move—
  "That the Letter published in the 'Freeman's Journal' of the 26th May, signed Patrick Egan, is a breach of the Privileges of this House."
  MR. M'COAN: It is with some reluctance that I rise to second the Motion that has just been made—a reluctance arising, in the first place, from my own opinion of the insignificance of the incident embodied in the letter; and, secondly, because I have given myself the personal satisfaction of replying in The Freeman's Journal. So far as Mr. Egan is concerned, I do not think he is much in my debt; but inasmuch as the letter of which complaint has now been made to the House is not an attack simply upon my personal position or character, but reflects upon the character, and is an insult to other Members of this House, I do not think I do more than discharge my duty in formally seconding the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Letter published in the 'Freeman's Journal' of the 26th May, signed Patrick Egan, is a breach of the Privileges of this House."—(Mr. Mitchell Henry.)
  MR. PARNELL: I think the hon. Member who has brought forward this question has not exactly foreseen the consequences of the adoption of the Motion brought before the House. It appears to me that if the House adopts the Motion it would be tantamount to a declaration that the editor and persons connected with The Freeman's Journal have been guilty of a Breach of Privilege by the publication of the letter referred to as being signed by "Patrick

  1671
  Egan." I am speaking now without any communication with Mr. Egan, and entirely without an authority from him; but, of course, the House has no evidence before it—["Oh!"]—it has no legal evidence as to who the letter was written by; the only evidence in the possession of the House is that The Freeman's Journal of the date named contained such a letter. Of course, if the House considers it desirable to treat the publication of such a letter as a Breach of Privilege I shall not object for my own part; but I will only say that upon other occasions when Irish Members have brought forward much more libellous matter published by English newspapers against Irish Members the House has always refused to treat it as a Breach of Privilege, and has either passed on to the Order of Business or set the question aside in some indirect fashion. But, of course, if the hon. Member wishes to bring the editor of The Freeman to the Bar for publishing the letter, I am sure he will not evade the responsibility involved in such publication; and when my friend Mr. Egan is attacked by a direct Motion I am quite sure that he also will duly meet his responsibilities.
  MR. CALLAN: I am sorry the hon. Member for Galway has brought this matter forward, instead of giving private Notice to Irish Members. I may say that I am certainly most impartial upon this matter. I have no sympathy with either party. If the hon. Member for Galway had consulted with his hon. Friend the Member for Mayo, he would have been asked not to bring this matter forward, for the hon. Member for Mayo, I am sure, would not object to the use of what might be harsh language; but I remember in this House, not more than two years ago, when we assembled for a great national purpose—to vote Supplies for the Afghan War—the Leader of the Party to which I then belonged—yes, a Member respected by every part of this House, Mr. Isaac Butt—was termed "a traitor," because he would not—he could not—obstruct the Imperial Business. The hon. Member who so charged him was the hon. Member for Mayo, who should not have been a party to the bringing forward this matter by the hon. Member for Galway. As to the letter which has been read, it was an illustration of the saying that when friends fall out they
  1672
  become the bitterest enemies. I remember when Mr. Patrick Egan and the hon. Member for Mayo were fraternal brothers, and I must say they were Arcades ambo.
  MR. O'CONNOR POWER: While I sincerely offer my thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Galway, who has drawn the attention of the House to this subject, I sufficiently sympathize with the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down to enable me to say that I do not require any Resolution of this House in vindication either of my public or personal character. I regret as much as anyone that it should be necessary to call the attention of the House to a question of this kind; and I should be very reluctant to fetter, in the slightest degree, legitimate public criticism. If the letter of Mr. Patrick Egan were not an official document, stamped with the official sanction of an organization which is presided over by the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), and of which many of my hon. Colleagues who are now sitting close to me are members of the Executive Body, I, too, should have considered that the reply which I have had an opportunity of sending to the denunciation of Mr. Egan would have been the most fitting answer that document should call for. But it is clear to everybody that a letter of that character could not have found its way into the office of The Freeman's Journal without some help from the Executive of the Land League; and I must express my disappointment that since the hon. Member for the City of Cork thought proper to interfere in this debate, he did not think proper to so far sympathize with the position of a Member of his own political Party in this House, and a Colleague of many years, to either reprobate, or, at least, disavow the sentiments contained in that letter of his official colleague. I have already shown, Sir, by my action with reference to the measure of Land Reform introduced by Her Majesty's Government, and to which this letter refers, that I am not to be terrified by the resolutions of the Land League. It was, therefore, quite unnecessary on the part of the hon. Member for Galway to make this Motion for my protection; but I am perfectly sure it was imperatively necessary that he should make it for the protection of some of my Colleagues. This is only a small part of

  1673
  the terrorism which has been practised, and which, as far as I can gather from the speech of the hon. Member for the City of Cork, it is intended shall be continued, towards Gentlemen who dare to differ from the decrees of the Irish National Land League. The word has gone round, Sir, from persons high in authority in that organization, that every man who dares to support any measure introduced by the Government shall be branded as a "place hunter;" and when anyone reflects upon the painful character of the relations which have subsisted for a long time between the English Government and the Irish nation—between the Irish nation and this House—I am sure he will readily recognize how artful and how dangerous an accusation of that sort is. I have been for a longer period a Member of this House than the hon. Member for the City of Cork, or many of his Colleagues who are members of the Executive of the Land League. I am speaking in the presence of Ministers of the Crown and of ex-Ministers of the Crown; I am speaking in the presence of a crowded House; and I say I challenge any Member of this Assembly to dare to assert that my vote or action has ever been compromised by mercenary considerations. Nay, more, I regret to be obliged to add that gentlemen who are engaged in bringing these accusations against their countrymen are themselves gentlemen who have within less than 12 months repeatedly applied to me to use my influence to obtain for them situations under Her jesty's Government. ["Name, name!"] The hon. Member for the City of Cork asks for name. I shall give it him. I shall give the name of a paid official of the Land League, who sends this telegram from the executive offices of the League in Dublin—
  "T. P. Quinn, Land League Offices, Dublin, to John O'Connor Power, M.P., January 20. Mr. Monaghan"—who is, by the way, a Very prominent member of the Land League in Ballinrobe, County Mayo—"telegraphs you requesting influence on behalf of Mr. Daly"—Mr. P. J. B. Daly is a well-known solicitor in Mayo, who has been recently employed in defending the oppressed tenant farmers, and hired for that purpose by the Land League—"solicitor, Ballinrobe, who seeks Crown Prosecutorship for Mayo. Comply with Monaghan's request, by me reasked, and both shall remember, and doubtless one day will repay you. I will write you to-night."
  Here are gentlemen, members of an
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  organization—one of them at present a paid secretary in the office of the Land League in Dublin—who try to induce me to do what I have never done in reference to Government patronage in my constituency or anywhere else in Ireland—who endeavour to seduce me from my invariable rule not to interfere in Government patronage by the promise of political support on some future day. I have felt it necessary that I should, in a manner in which the whole country should be a witness of my acts, repudiate the insinuation that has been levelled against me. I do not appeal merely to the English Members of this House, but I appeal to the most intimate friends and associates of the hon. Member for the City of Cork, when I say to-day that they know very well I am not capable of being influenced by such considerations as the treasurer of the Land League has thought proper to attribute to me. Unfortunately, Irish politics are in this position—that it requires greater courage to support a Government when they are right than to oppose them when they are wrong. I have supported them by voting in favour of the second reading of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill, because I believed I was right, and because I had a mandate from my constituency, legally and legitimately conveyed to me at a public meeting in the country. I am very much embarrassed at being under the necessity of making this statement to the House; but when not only the courtesies of Party warfare, but the obligations of political comradeship—aye, and truth itself—have been sacrificed to gratify an insane ambition, I humbly think that the hour has come for a man who can be neither bribed nor terrified to record his protest in the light of day.
  THE O'DONOGHUE: I am also one of the Members alluded to in the letter which has been brought before the House by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Galway. Perhaps I may likewise be allowed to say a few words. I was sorry when I heard such a letter had been written, and I was sorry when I read it, because I saw it must lead to dissension, and that it would impose upon me the necessity of protesting against the imputations cast upon me by that letter. From the moment I heard the speech of the Prime Minister I felt there was little doubt that I would support the second reading of the Land

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  Law (Ireland) Bill. I read it many times over in conjunction with a gentleman of the highest ability, character, and patriotism, and I came to the conclusion that I was bound by every consideration of duty to support that measure. Sir, I believe that a more thorough measure was never introduced into Parliament. ["Question!"] Sir, it is the Question. I believe that a more thorough measure was never introduced into Parliament; and I have no doubt it will be carried through by the Government and the Liberal Party unflinchingly, and without allowing its main provisions to be impaired. Whatever differences I may have with the Government on matters of general Irish policy, I am resolved to co-operate with them loyally to carry this measure, as if those differences did not exist, or had never existed. I cannot claim to be more docile or tractable than other Members; but I believe that I am as willing to hear what has to be said on the other side of the question as any other Gentleman, and to yield when I find reason against me. Long as I have been in the House I have never allowed—and I never intend to allow—myself to be carried on one side whilst my convictions are on the other.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, it appears to me that there are two matters which have come into our view on the present occasion. One is the Motion made by my hon. Friend, with respect to which, considering it nakedly in its terms, I apprehend there can be no doubt it is a proposition which must be affirmed—that is to say, that the letter which has been read is a breach of the Privileges of this House. I am not speaking now of the authorship of that letter; but the matter of the letter attaches to it that character. At the same time, I greatly doubt whether we ought not to endeavour to persuade my hon. Friend not to persist in the Motion that he has made. And for this reason. He himself has said that he thinks there is no advantage in enabling a person to aspire to the character of a martyr by calling him to the Bar of the House; and he suggests in lieu of that that you, Sir, in your official capacity, should order that this gentleman be debarred from entering the precincts of the House. I quite concur with my hon. Friend in thinking that we should not do well to
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  invest this gentleman, whoever he may be, with any sort of glory by bringing him to the Bar; but, on the other hand, I think that to put in motion the machinery of this House, and the authority and dignity of the Chair, for the purpose of debarring from entering the precincts of the House a gentleman who has no title to be there—except such as is possessed by every one of the 4,000,000 people of this Metropolis and by the 34,000,000 people of this Realm—would be an operation too great, too serious, for the end at which it aims; and, consequently, I should hope that my hon. Friend will not put in movement such machinery for a purpose apparently so trivial. But, besides the Motion before us, there is the discussion which has arisen upon it, and to that I confess I attach no inconsiderable significance. In the first place, in the position I have the honour to hold in this House, I think it is only fair that I should render my testimony as to the Gentlemen whose characters have been impugned. One of them has sat here for a very short time; the others have sat here for a considerable time. One of them has, I think, sat here for a very considerable time; and I know of no title that any man possesses to say one word reflecting on the Parliamentary character or conduct of any of the three. I am quite sure, with respect especially to the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power), who has been particularly attacked, that it was needless for him to challenge any man to cast imputations upon him, as he did in the strength of conscious innocence; because, so far as I am acquainted with the sentiments of this House—and I think I know the sentiments of a very large, and, perhaps, preponderating number of Members—the very last thing they would think of doing, either at this moment or at previous periods, when the hon. Member may have been taking a political course different from ourselves—that one of them would dream of would be to raise the slightest question as to his motives, or to throw the slightest doubt upon his honour. Another personage has, however, appeared upon the scene—namely, the hon. Member for the City of Cork, and the case stands thus:—We have before us a letter of the matter of which—whatever its importance may be—of the matter of which I imagine that almost, if not quite,

  1677
  every man in this House is of opinion that it is in a high degree libellous, scurrilous, and discreditable to the person who wrote it. Under these circumstances, the hon. Member for the City of Cork rises, and he describes the gentleman whose name appears at the close of this letter as his friend. [Mr. PARNELL: Hear, hear!] What course does he take in respect to the matter of the letter? He does not avow it, and he does not condemn it. But the measure that he takes is a measure to endeavour to throw the House off the scent as to the person who is really in question. "Do not, I entreat you," he says, "bring into accusation the proprietors or the writers of The Freeman's Journal," and he sets them forth as the victims whom the hon. Member for Galway has in view. Now, although I have had no communication with the hon. Member for Galway, I venture to say that these are not the persons he has in view. The summoning of the editor, or proprietor, or printer of The Freeman's Journal to the Bar would, I apprehend, be, if this were a matter which ought properly to be pursued, only a formal step on the road of detection of the real offender, and the real offender in this case is the gentleman whom the hon. Member for Cork has described as his friend and has tried to screen from our view. What I mean is The hon. Member for Cork says that we have no evidence as to the authorship of this letter—no evidence at all. We know that it was published in Dublin on Thursday in last week; we know that Mr. Egan exists; we trust that he is well; we think it probable that he has read this letter as published in The Freeman's Journal. And if Mr. Egan, being in existence, and being in the possession of sound mind, and in possession of his health, and having read that letter, thinks that the appearance of that letter with his name at the foot of it does not call upon him for some disavowal, then, Sir—I am not speaking now of legal evidence, which I do not want, because I do not wish to proceed in the matter. [Mr. PARNELL: Proceed, proceed.] I think we have the strongest moral evidence that the letter was written by Mr. Egan. But Mr. Egan is not to be regarded as an individual, but as a powerful and prominent officer of an organization; and that organization is the organization of
  1678
  which the hon. Member for the City of Cork is the centre and the soul. And this House has a right to know from the hon. Member for Cork whether he thinks this is the manner in which it becomes him and his agent to describe the Parliamentary proceedings of his Colleagues. I think he will feel the force of this appeal. He will be aware that they, and aware that we, have a right to know whether it is by means like these—by terrorism like this, as it has been justly called—I might, perhaps, say by terrorism of a kind not unlikely in certain circumstances and in certain places to be followed up by other measures—whether it is thus that the hon. Member seeks to establish peace, order, and liberty in Ireland? Sir, the writer of that letter, be he who he may, is a man in whose mouth every profession of a regard for liberty is a mockery and a delusion. And there could be no greater misfortune for Ireland than that the cause of her people should be disgraced by having its support and its propagation confided to such men.
  MR. HEALY,having referred to the avidity with which denunciations directed against Irish Members were listened to, said, it was exceedingly remarkable that though there was no collusion between the hon. Member for Galway and the hon. Member for Mayo, the hon. Member for Mayo should have so conveniently in his pocket the proofs of guilt of certain Members connected with the Land League. [Mr. O'CONNOR POWER, said, he had got more.] If the Motion of the hon. Member for Galway were carried, and Mr. Egan should be excluded from the precincts of that House, he could only say that Mr. Egan, on the very first opportunity, would be found coming into that House in a representative character; and he, for one, if only to prove how utterly such sentiments as those which had proceeded from the hon. Member for Galway were discredited in Ireland, he, for one, would be willing to give way for him. He felt sure, no matter with what satisfaction such an arrangement might be regarded in that House, that that satisfaction would be nothing to the satisfaction which the constituency which he had the honour to represent would feel in having as a Representative a man so upright, a man who had spent so much of his time and of his money in the cause of Ireland as

  1679
  Mr. Patrick Egan. He himself might have brought under the Speaker's notice a more gross and calumnious attack made on himself and other Trish Members, not in an Irish but in an English newspaper; but he had refrained from doing so, though he was called an Obstructive, because the Land Law (Ireland) Bill was before the House; and he regretted that the hon. Member for Galway, who professed to be more in favour of that measure, had not taken the same course. He would read to the House four lines from that newspaper.
  MR. H. SAMUELSONasked whether, on a Motion that a certain article in a newspaper was a Breach of Privilege, it was in Order for a Member to rise in his place and read other newspaper articles which he thought were injurious to him, but with respect to which he proposed to make no Motion to the House?
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, that the hon. Member for Wexford had a right to speak on the Question before the House.
  MR. HEALYsaid, as the hon. Member for Frome had never been noted—
  MR. H. SAMUELSONwished to make himself understood before the hon. Member for Wexford proceeded to castigate him. Was the hon. Member in Order in reading an extract that had nothing whatever to do with the Question before the House, and upon which he founded no Motion?
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, that the hon. Member for Wexford was about to quote from a newspaper when the hon. Member for Frome interrupted him.
  MR. HEALY,after the reproof just addressed to the hon. Member for Frome, would let him severely alone. He would now read the extract to which he had alluded from a newspaper which he would not advertise by naming it. That paper said that of course Mr. Healy was put up by Mr. Parnell to oppose the Vote of Thanks to Sir Frederick Roberts and the troops engaged with him in the Afghan War; that if that young man was left to himself he would make a very good Member of Parliament; but, unfortunately, he was not only elected as a follower of Mr. Parnell, but also as an employé of that person, and if he did not obey orders the connection would terminate and the salary would cease. If he had brought that matter before the House he would not have received the sympathetic and cordial cheers which
  1680
  had been given to the hon. Member for Galway and the hon. Member below Lint, but he would have been rebuked for wasting the time of the House, and delaying an important measure. The statements made in the paper to which he had just referred were as untrue as many others which appeared in English newspapers about the Irish Members; and he would advise the hon. Member for Galway and those who acted with him to show some of the patience with which the Irish Members on his side bore the attacks directed against them.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRY: I would ask the permission of the House to withdraw my Motion—["No, no!"]—after the noble vindication of the rights and privileges of Members of this House which that Motion has evoked from the Prime Minister, and which I trust will be a lesson to hon. Members, both as regards their conduct towards their fellow-Members and also as regards those with whom they associate themselves. I beg to withdraw my Motion.
  MR. A. SULLIVANsaid, he did not intend to interfere in a scene which to him was exceedingly painful, and one which he regretted should at all have occupied the attention of the House; but the Prime Minister alluded just now to the fact that the hon. Member for Cork City claimed Mr. Egan as a personal friend; and he (Mr. Sullivan) confessed at a moment when such obloquy and denunciation were hurled at the head of a gentleman whom he had long called a friend, it would ill become him to refrain from saying that he shared with the hon. Member for Cork the privilege of calling Mr. Patrick Egan his friend. One might honestly differ from a friend, and one's friend might often say and do things which one might regret. He read with sincere sorrow the letter of his friend Mr. Egan, for the sake of one passage contained in it. He had long known his hon. Friend behind him (Mr. O'Connor Power), and nothing within his knowledge or belief would ever induce him to sympathize with a charge reflecting upon his personal honour. He deplored that letter; but he complained of the Motion before the House, which must not be withdrawn. The hon. Member must not be allowed to make an empty parade. He knew that in attacking Mr. Egan amid screams of applause he was attacking Mr. Egan in a

  1681
  place where he could not be heard. [Mr. O'CONNOR POWER: Mr. Egan is well represented in this House.] Besides, Mr. Egan's letter had been replied to in Ireland in language which he could not trust himself to describe in that House. The hon. Member for Galway had raised a scene which he knew well the enemies of Ireland would gloat over, which he know was calculated to hold Ireland up to ridicule, and which he knew every honest Irishman would deplore. Mr. Egan, owing to the infamous system which prevailed in Ireland now, was driven from his home. There was neither justice nor law in Ireland at present, when men were dragged from their beds, and every protection which men should have in a free land was denied. Mr. Egan had a large mercantile business in the City of Dublin, and in that city he had borne for years a spotless reputation as a merchant and a man of business. He seized that opportunity to claim Mr. Egan as his friend, and he should hardly be deterred from that course because the hon. Member for Galway came there in his last Parliament to have it out with the people of Ireland by exhibiting their Representatives engaged in a discreditable quarrel of this kind. The hon. Member for the County of Galway had been no party to these charges whatever. He was in no way touched by the accusation. Let him go through with his discreditable work. Let him not fire his blank cartridge and then run away. Let him bring the publisher and Mr. Egan before the Bar; and the House would find that Mr. Egan was as honourable a man as the Member for Galway ever associated with inside or outside the House.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Sir, it has more than once been my lot to take part in proceedings when letters or articles in the newspapers have been challenged as Breaches of Privilege in this House; and the general inclination of my mind, and my general course, has been to dissuade the House, as far as possible, from taking notice in a serious manner of imputations such as those that are cast upon the House, or its Members, in public newspapers. If this had been an ordinary case of that sort, I should entirely have agreed with those who think that that course should be pursued on the present occasion. But, Sir, I think that it is utterly impossible to
  1682
  shut our eyes to the fact that this is not an isolated letter which, is written and can be regarded as an isolated transaction. We cannot ignore the fact that the letter must be taken in connection with the proceedings of the body from which it is asserted the letter emanated. It is impossible to close our eyes to the fact that there is a system of terrorism, which is applied in the most unscrupulous manner, and of which this letter may be, and appears to be, an example. And that being the case, I think this House has no option but this—that it is bound to protect, as far as it can, its Members from attacks of the kind which are aimed at hon. Members, and calculated to disparage, if possible, the honesty of their votes and proceedings. The hon. Members who have spoken in this debate may very safely leave their characters in the hands of those who have witnessed their conduct in this House. I can add nothing to what has been said by the Prime Minister on that subject. But I do think it is a case in which, the charge having been made, not by Mr. Egan as an individual, but as the representative—the treasurer—of the Land League, and his action having been taken of and not disavowed in this House, and the challenge, therefore, having been put with all that weight and authority, it seems to me that it is quite impossible for us to do otherwise than give a vote which, undoubtedly, is that which the House will be bound to give if the Motion of the hon. Member is put. I should myself, under other circumstances, have joined in the request to the hon. Member to do that which he says he is willing to do—to withdraw his Motion, and leave the matter upon what has been said; but we are told that that course will not be allowed. We shall be challenged to vote, and I think it would be well for the hon. Member not to attempt to withdraw, but to take a vote on his Motion.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: No doubt, the declaration made by the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. Sullivan) makes it impossible that the Motion should be withdrawn; and I think, under these circumstances, it will be advantageous that we should see who are the Members of this House who approve of this letter, and who declare it to be not an improper letter, and not a Breach of the Privileges of this House.

  1683
  Every man who votes against the Motion is a man who approves this letter. ["No!"] The hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) shakes his head. Has he dared to say whether he approves this letter or disapproves? He is in a position in which he dare not say one or the other. He will not undertake in this House to say he approves it, and he dare not say out-of-doors that he disapproves it. That is the explanation of the position of the hon. Member for Cork City with reference to this disgraceful, this scandalous, this discreditable this scandalous, this discreditable document. How is this production headed? This letter is headed thus in The Freeman's. Journal—
  "The following letter from Mr. Patrick Egan, Paris, treasurer of the Irish National Land League, was intended to be read at the meeting, of the Land League yesterday, but it arrived too late."
  It is an official missive—an address to the Irish Land League. I challenge the hon. Member for Cork City to get up and deny that it was not sent as an official letter from the Irish Land League to The Freeman's Journal. Will he dare get up and justify this letter in the face of the House? If he does not, then I venture to say there is no man in England, Scotland, or Ireland, who will not say that the letter signed "P. Egan," and the spirit and sentiment it expresses, are the sentiments of the hon. Member for Cork City. It is his policy, his spirit, his actions, which are expressed in every line of that letter. The hon. Member for Cork City and those who follow him will vote their approbation of this letter, and they will say that it is not a Breach of the Privileges of this House; but I believe that a great and overwhelming majority of the Representatives of the people of the three countries—the Gentlemen who are Members of the House of Commons—will affirm the Motion which has been brought forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Galway, and declare that language of this description is scandalous, and a Breach of the Privileges of this House.
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEwished to point out that the debate was rather drifting away from the Question which was before the House. They were getting into a discussion upon the conduct and character of the hon. Member for Cork, and that was not the Question before them. No one in that House would be suspected of sympa-
  1684
  thizing with the astonishingly gross language used with regard to this question. He deprecated putting the whole machinery of the House in motion, because if they agreed to the Resolution they would have to take further steps in the matter. He asked the House to remember the conflict which they had last Session.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLsaid, that he needed not to express his hearty concurrence in the remarks which had fallen from his noble Friend. He thought the best course to pursue was that the Motion should be negatived, and that they should proceed with the Land Law (Ireland) Bill. He would point out that if the Motion were carried, it would be absolutely necessary that the publishers and printers of The Freeman should be summoned to the Bar of the House, in order to get at the writer. That would come on after to-morrow or Thursday; then the discussion would follow. But another question might arise, as the letter was written from a foreign country, and hardly came within the jurisdiction of the House. There was no doubt that the hon. Member for Galway would have withdrawn his Motion if it had not been for the speech of the Home Secretary, who always came forward on these occasions as the Bombastes Furioso of debate denouncing everybody right and left. He was sure the right hon. Gentleman's Colleagues would regret that he had ever made that extraordinary speech. Whenever the right hon. Gentleman saw an opportunity of making an attack upon any Member of the House, he could not resist it. If the Land Bill of the Government was obstructed and did not make progress, they would have nobody to blame but themselves and the foolish and stupid advice of the Home Secretary.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I think, Sir—
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I rise to Order, Sir. [Cries of "Order!"]
  MR. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman, having risen to a point of Order, is entitled to be heard.
  Sir WILLIAM HARCOURTnot rising again,
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, he disapproved entirely of the letter of Mr. Egan, and thought it was quite unnecessary for the hon. Member for Mayo and his Friends to ask the House to say

  1685
  that the allegations contained in the letter complained of were unjustifiable. But they were asking that the House should declare that the letter was a Breach of Privilege. There was no doubt that, technically, the letter was a Breach of the Privileges of the House. But he could not help thinking that the suggestion of the Prime Minister was better than that of the Home Secretary. He did not suppose that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, or the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. Sullivan), would desire to press the matter to a division. There was another reason why he thought that the Motion should be withdrawn, and that was that the hon. Member for Mayo himself had written a reply to Mr. Egan, and the reply was so strong that the hon. Member himself ought to be considered to have debarred himself from asking the House to interfere. He would read part of the letter to the House. The hon. Member said—
  "In my opinion, the real blackleg is the cad who bolts with the stakes; the real coward is he who keeps out of the fight which he himself has provoked, and who, skulking either in London or in Paris, tries to hide his own poltroonery by impugning the courage of others."
  He (Mr. Labouchere) was not concerned to defend Mr. Egan, but, unquestionably, those observations meant that Mr. Egan was a thief and a coward; and as the hon. Member for Mayo had answered in such very strong language the accusation which was made against him by Mr. Egan, he thought that the matter should now come to an end.
  MR. BIGGARmight be allowed to make one or two observations on this occasion, as he was joint treasurer of the Land League with his friend Mr. Egan. He did not say that he approved of what Mr. Egan said in his letter, because he was not present when it was written; but, at the same time, he might say that he thought Members of Parliament would do well not to be so exceedingly sensitive as they were. He had seen many attacks upon Members of Parliament, and he had seen very few Members of Parliament rush into print to defend themselves. He had seen still fewer who came to that House and asked to be protected from charges which were brought against them by writers in newspapers. He would, therefore, be disposed to say that the
  1686
  Motion was simply a very carefully rehearsed artifice got up between the hon. Member for Galway and the hon. Member for Mayo, to attack in a covert, he would not say underhand way, his hon. Friend the Member for Cork City. That was the real animus which was at the bottom of the simulated innocence of the hon. Member for Mayo. The hon. Member for Mayo insinuated in Isis speech that certain Members of the Irish Party had asked him to use his influence to get situations from the Government; but when called upon for names, he produced a telegram from an obscure paid clerk of the Land League, asking him to use his influence to get a situation for an attorney who was paid to defend a few members of the Land League in a local Court, and who, probably, was himself a member of the Land League, or a subscriber to its principles. The lion. Member for Galway had, in his opinion, made a mistake in defending the conduct of the hon. Member for Mayo, which he did not think was that of a man of high honour.
  MR. CALLANsaid, before the House proceeded to a division, he wished to ask a question for his own guidance as well as that of the House. He saw in the valuable book upon the practice of this House, by Sir Erskine May, that the Member making the complaint must be prepared to name the printer and publisher of the paper in which the statement appeared. There was no allegation here that either the printer or publisher of The Freeman had any malice in publishing the letter; and in case it was declared a Breach of Privilege of the House—as it undoubtedly was—he wanted to know what was the course of procedure to be adopted? He thought when hon. Members who objected to the withdrawal of the Motion of the hon. Member for Galway were made aware that the result of their action would be to cause great inconvenience to the printer and publisher of the paper, who were the innocent parties in the transaction, they would probably allow the Motion to be withdrawn. He, therefore, wished to know what would be the result if the letter was declared a Breach of Privilege?
  MR. SPEAKER: In the event of the Motion before the House being carried, it would be for the House to say what

  1687
  steps, if any, should be taken with regard to that Motion. The matter is one entirely for the determination of the House. Is it your pleasure that the Motion be withdrawn?
  MR. PARNELL: No. [Cries of "Agreed!"] Am I entitled to address you upon this Question, Mr. Speaker?
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has exhausted his right to speak.
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: I wish to ask a question. If this Motion be adopted by the House, will not the House be obliged to take further steps in the matter?
  MR. SPEAKER: In answer to the noble Lord, I have to say that it is a matter entirely for the determination of the House.
  MR. HEALY: The hon. Member for Cork City has already spoken on the Question of Privilege; but the Question now before the House is that the Motion be withdrawn, and, therefore, I apprehend, he is entitled to speak upon that Question.
  MR. SPEAKER: The Motion before the House is the same, and the hon. Member for Cork City, having spoken once, is not entitled to speak again.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  MR. PARNELL: I now wish to ask the hon. Member for Galway County what steps he proposes to take, having brought a Motion before the House declaring that the letter published in The Freeman's Journal of the 26th May is a breach of the Privileges of the House, and the House having adopted that Motion?
  MR. MITCHELL HENRY: This Motion having been carried unanimously by the House, I must take ample time to consider.
  MR. PARNELL: On a point of Order, Mr. Speaker, I wish to know whether, in the event of the hon. Member not taking advantage of this opportunity to ask the House to take further action in this matter, he will not lose his right to do so at any future, time?
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANwished to know whether an opportunity was not going to be given to the hon. Member for the City of Cork to answer the questions which the Home secretary had called upon him, as a gentleman, to answer?
  MR. NEWDEGATErose to speak.
  MR. SPEAKER: I must point out to the House that there is no Question before the House at present. The hon. Member for the City of Cork asks me whether, in the event of the hon. Member for Galway not taking advantage of this opportunity to ask the House to take further action, he would not lose his right of precedence in the matter? I apprehend that if the matter is postponed now, and no action is taken upon it, he will lose his right to ask the House to do so at any future time.
  MR. PARNELL: I will, with your permission, Mr. Speaker, now ask the hon. Member whether he intends to take any further action?
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYdid not reply.
  MR. PARNELL: To put myself in Order, Mr. Speaker, I shall conclude with a Motion. Nobody can say that we have desired to hinder or impede the hon. Member for Galway County in bringing this question under the notice of the House, although I regret exceedingly that the hon. Member should have been guilty of an action almost unprecedented in this House, by bringing forward a question which concerns a gentleman outside this House, and which concerns other Gentlemen inside this House, when he knew perfectly well that the gentleman whom he was attacking could not necessarily have appealed in his own defence. But having proceeded so far, it shows the want of bona fides of his whole proceedings when he refuses to ask the House to take the steps which his Motion naturally points to. Now, I think I am entitled to ask the hon. Member to proceed with this matter. If he does not, he will show that this Motion has been brought forward, not for the purpose so much of vindicating the reputation of two or three Members of this House, as for the purpose of attacking an absent individual under circumstances which would prevent that individual from having the right to reply. I think it is almost the first time that a person not a Member of this House has been attacked in the House, and has not been allowed the opportunity of reply, and yet that is precisely what the hon. Member for the County Galway thinks fit to do. It is evident, from the conduct of the Treasury Bench, that the importance they attach to the Motion of the hon. Mem-

  1689
  ber for Galway was not so much from his assumed desire to vindicate the character of Members of this House, but that they might, by a one-sided blow, attack the Irish Land League. They have shown the importance they attach to the organization and Mr. Egan, its treasurer, by endeavouring to connect his action in writing that letter with the Irish Land League, of which he is the acknowledged treasurer. I will only say for myself that Mr. Egan wrote that letter without any previous consultation with me, and, so far as I know, without any previous consultation with any of the members of the Executive of the Irish Land League. I do not say this in order to admit that the letter was so heinous in its terms, or to judge the letter in any way, but merely as a matter of fact, which I am entitled to state, as the Land League has been assailed, when we are told that this letter, being written by Mr. Egan from Paris, is necessarily the action of the Land League. The first intimation I received of this letter was in seeing it in The Freeman's Journal, and there is not the slightest foundation for connecting this letter with the Irish Land League. I do not propose to criticize the letter, nor express any opinion on it in the slightest degree. I say I may have wished that the letter had not been written, or I may not have wished that it had not been written. But I do not propose here to go into a question which is a question between Irishmen, and not a question between Englishmen. I believe we shall always be able to settle our own disputes amongst ourselves; and I regret to see the hon. Member for Mayo occupying, for the first time in this House, what I conceive to be a humiliating position when he is appealing to the protection of Englishmen against his brother Irishmen. The tone of the speech of the hon. Member delivered on that occasion gave me very great pain, because I cannot help feeling that in the action which he took—
  MR. SPEAKER: I wish to point out to the hon. Member that the question lately debated has been concluded. He has now risen in his place, and said he will conclude with a Motion; but he is not entitled to allude to what has already taken place in the House on a former debate. I must call upon him to refrain from doing so.
  MR. PARNELL: I will not refer to the debate which has just concluded; but I will point out that by the course which the hon. Member for the County of Galway has taken in refusing to proceed with this matter to its legitimate conclusion, we are deprived of the only opportunity that could be afforded us to answer the untruthful and unfounded allegations of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary. ["Order!"] The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the adjournment of the House.
  SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN: I rise to make one observation.
  MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member applied the term "untruthful" to any Member of this House, I must call upon him to withdraw it.
  MR. PARNELLraised his hat.
  MR. SPEAKER: I must call upon the hon. Member to withdraw, without hesitation, the expression which he has used.
  MR. PARNELL: I took off my hat to signify that I withdrew it.
  SIR PATRICK O'BRIEN: I merely, Sir, rose to make one statement. I heard the hon. Member for Mayo during the whole of his long speech, and he did not in any sentence throw himself upon the protection of Englishmen.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member for the City of Cork has committed the irregular act of addressing the House without concluding with a Motion. [Mr. PARNELL was understood to intimate that he had moved a Resolution.] I will now call upon the Clerk to read the Orders of the Day.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, that he had distinctly heard the hon. Member for the City of Cork move the adjournment of the House.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, he also distinctly heard the Motion made, and so did hon. Members near who were not of the Irish. Party.
  MR. HEALYasked Mr. Speaker whether, it having been signified to him that the Motion was made, it should not now be put?
  MR. SPEAKER: I have called upon the Clerk to read the Orders of the Day.
  COLONEL ALEXANDERwas bound to say, though he had no sympathy with the hon. Member for the City of Cork, that he distinctly heard him move the adjournment of the House.
  MR. SPEAKER: If that be so, with the indulgence of the House, I must recall the instructions I have given to the Clerk, and put the following Question:—"That this House do now adjourn."
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Parnell.)
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he was of opinion that the House should look for guidance to its Leaders. The position which the House had taken up was, it seemed to him, a difficult one, for it left the person inculpated by the Motion no opportunity of explaining or vindicating his conduct.
  MR. SPEAKER: I have already stated to the hon. Member for the City of Cork that he was not at liberty to debate a matter which had been already decided by the House, and I must make the same observation to the hon. Member for North Warwickshire.
  MR. HEALYsaid, the Irish Members had received some impressions from the debate which would not be lost upon them. They had often, full of a burning sense of the brutal and ruffianly arrests under the Coercion Act, come down to that House determined to have these things debated; but his hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork had declined to be any party to the proceeding, on the ground that it would obstruct the Business of the Government. But what had they seen that night? When an hon. Member opposite rose to make an attack upon Irish Members, the Prime Minister not only had no word of censure for him, although the Land Law (Ireland) Bill was upon the Paper for discussion, but gave him a patient and sympathetic hearing. He hoped the hon. Member for the City of Cork, when next the Irish Members had grievances to ventilate, would remember how the Prime Minister countenanced attempts to bring Irish affairs into disrepute, and would avail himself of his right to move the adjournment whenever it suited him.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, he should support the Motion fur Adjournment, because it seemed to him the House was placed in an unprecedented position, being asked to pass by without further notice a matter which it had expressly declared to be a Breach of Privilege.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Mr. Speaker, on former occasions attempts have been made to prosecute Breaches of Privilege, which attempts have subsequently been found likely to lead to inconvenience; and the House has, on the whole, thought it prudent to retrace its steps. I apprehend we are perfectly free—indeed, we have it on your authority—to act at this present moment according to prudence. We had to pass an opinion on a document. We have not entered on the question of the excuses the writer of that document may have to produce. The writer has the option, if he thinks fit, of vindicating himself before the public. We were entitled to pass an opinion on the document before us. It cannot be surprising that I, who urged upon the hon. Member for Galway County not to proceed with the Motion which he desired to withdraw, but was prevented from withdrawing, should respectfully recommend to the House that we should not proceed any further, as we distinctly understand that there is no technical and formal obligation, and certainly no moral obligation whatever to that effect. The hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) says that I, who am continually urging the necessity of proceeding with the Land Law (Ireland) Bill, gave, not only a patient and careful, sympathetic hearing to the Motion of the hon. Member for Galway. Now, I am bound to say I did not give it a sympathetic hearing at all. After I heard the discussion upon it, I thought matter of great importance was raised in that discussion which I was compelled to notice; but I must own that the feeling with which I heard my hon. Friend rise to make this Motion was the feeling which in my mind is invariable when I see that some of the few precious hours that we have at our disposal are about to be wasted, and that I regretted the subject was over introduced.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he hoped the hon. Member for Galway would accept the rebuke, which the Prime Minister had just given him for having caused time waste of two hours and a-half which might have been devoted to the Land Law (Ireland) Bill. He wished now to appeal to the right hon. Gentleman to state what opportunity he proposed to give the Irish Members of discussing the Vote of Censure upon Ministers which they had placed upon the Journals

  1693
  of the House, and the 10,000 or 15,000 impending evictions, which were a far more serious matter than the dispute between the hon. Member for Mayo and Mr. Egan. Would the right hon. Gentleman give such an opportunity? The right hon. Gentleman made no sign, and it was now his duty to tell him that the Irish Members would make the opportunity they desired. As for the subject of that evening's debate, the Irish people would form their own estimate of a Government which, under cover of a defence of the hon. Member for Mayo, permitted a most dangerous attack to be made upon the hon. Member for Cork and the Land League. The Home Secretary, in particular, seemed to take pleasure in baiting the hon. Member for Cork, so as to make him use expressions which might be turned against him. It was most unfair to take advantage of a personal quarrel between individuals to vilify the Land League. Why, it might be asked, did not hon. Members connected with the Land League join in that discussion? The reason was that they did not wish to wash dirty linen in public, and that they were aware nothing could be more gratifying to the House than the ignoble spectacle of Irishmen quarrelling among themselves. He would recommend the hon. Member for Galway, who was so solicitous of the honour of Irish Members, to go to Galway and hear what his constituents had to say to him instead of setting such store upon the opinion of a prejudiced English House of Commons. With regard to this letter, the form of it was very inelegant, nor was that of the hon. Member for Mayo much better.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is adverting to a debate which is concluded. He is not at liberty to do that.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I was not adverting to that, but to a letter which I wish to bring before this House. The hon. Member has used the expression "these white-livered filibusters of the tongue have no fight in them."
  MR. O'CONNOR POWER: Hear, hear!
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: The hon. Member approves of that language. He may be a high judge of literary style; but if, having used that language, he comes here in formâ pauper is—
  MR. O'CONNOR POWER: That is not true. I deny it. You heard the
  1694
  opening sentence of my speech in which I disclaimed any appeal to the House.
  MR. CALLAN: The hon. Member for Mayo has applied the expression "That is not true" to what was said by the hon. Member for Galway, and I rise to call your attention to that observation.
  MR. HEALY: I understand that the words "That is not true" are not unusual, and I can bear testimony to your having already permitted that expression to be used. It is not two months ago that the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant used it.
  MR. SPEAKER: These interruptions on points of Order are very often themselves disorderly. If I had heard any such expression coming from the lips of the hon. Member when he was addressing the House I should have interposed.
  MR. CALLANsaid, the words were not used by the hon. Member who was addressing the House, but by the hon. Member for Mayo, and were heard by a number of hon. Members sitting near.
  MR. SPEAKER: If any hon. Member made an observation of that kind it was a very disorderly proceeding.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, the hon. Member had asked him distinctly to state the truth, and that he most certainly intended to do. The hon. Member had been accused, he would not say where, of a breach of Party loyalty, and the hon. Member had been guilty of want of Party loyalty, because the hon. Member had no right to go into a Party and not abide by the decision of the majority of the Party. Attempts had been made to damage the Land League through the quarrel between the hon. Member for Mayo and Mr. Patrick Egan. That matter, however, had nothing to do with the Land League. He had watched with great interest the proceedings of the right hon. Gentleman the Homo Secretary, because the right hon. Gentleman was a master of Party tactics, and he could have told exactly what the right hon. Gentleman would have said.
  MR. SPEAKERsaid, the hon. Member was alluding to a former debate, and he must caution him that he was out of Order.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORapologized, and said, it was not easy to keep within the four corners of a Motion for the adjournment of a debate when he wanted

  1695
  to get outside them. He thought that it would give the Home Secretary a capital opportunity for backing up the Irish Executive in suppressing the Land League when an Irish Member got up and complained of the terrorism exercised over him.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANsaid, he thought they might well seize hold of this tranquil moment to proceed to the Land Law (Ireland) Bill. Somehow or other, something was at most sure to happen every night to mar the harmony with which some of them would like to discuss that Bill. They had now, perhaps, wasted sufficient time, and might think a little of the condition of Ireland.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

ORDERS OF THE DAY

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) BILL.— [BILL 135.]
  (Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Forster, Mr. Bright, Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland.)
  COMMITTEE. [THIRD NIGHT.]
  [Progress 27th May.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  PART I.

  ORDINARY CONDITIONS OF TENANCIES.
  Clause 1 (Sale of tenancies).
  MR. H. R. BRANDsaid, the object of the Amendment he was about to move was to give a chance to future generations in Ireland of adopting a better and sounder system of land tenure. In using this phrase of the Secretary of State for India, he should, had the noble Lord been in his place, have made an appeal to him to support this Amendment, because, after carefully considering the Bill, he had not been able to discover that it contained any provision for the future of the kind indicated. He had frequently noticed that when Amendments to Government measures were moved by hon. Members sitting on those Benches, they were objected to, on the ground that they were at variance with the principle of the Bill, and would be fatal to it. Hon. Members, therefore, who moved such Amendments were exposed to a certain amount of odium. But it would be
  1696
  found that his proposal was not contrary to the principles of the Bill. He contended that it was consonant with them, and with the opinions of Ministers; and he would say that had it been in his view contrary to the principles of the Bill, that Amendment would not have been proposed by him. Even at that time, if the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland could show him that the Amendment was contrary to the principles of the Bill, he should not be inclined to press it; because he had stated, on the second reading, his anxiety that the Bill should become law, and he had certainly no desire now to prevent it. There was, however, a verbal inaccuracy in the Amendment, as it stood on the Paper, which would have to be corrected. The Amendment on the Paper read thus—"Leave out 'for the time being of every,' and insert 'of every present tenancy.'" It ought to have been, first—"Leave out 'for the time being;' and, second, insert after 'every' the word 'present.'" The clause, if the alterations were adopted, would then read as follows:—"The tenant of every present tenancy to which this Act applies may sell, &c." He thought he could show that there was a radical distinction between existing tenancies and tenancies which would be created afresh. To the present tenant there attached a certain claim in respect of the improvements which he might have effected, and sometimes for the reclamation of waste land and bogs. But no claim of that kind could possibly attach to a tenant who came in after the termination of a present tenancy. He would have had no connection with the land previously, and could have no claim of any kind except that which existed by reason of his contract of tenure. The claim which attached to present tenancies, he believed, had been generally admitted; and although he would not then discuss the character of the tenant's interest, them was no doubt that the Act of 1870 did create in tile tenancies outside Ulster a greater value than existed prior to the passing of that Act; and, that being the case, the present Bill endeavoured to establish this right on a firm basis, and, with the view of establishing it, gave the tenants of Ireland the power to sell their tenancies at the best price they could get for them. Whoever drafted this Bill must

  1697
  have been a most astute and intelligent person, for he found, on account of the order in which it was arranged, it was impossible to criticize with advantage that portion of it which related to free sale. It was clear that the clause relating to free sale was bound up with Clause 7. Looking from the point of view of the tenant's interest, he saw very great objections to the principle of free sale; but, as the tenants had asked for that power, they would get it. But from the point of view of the owner's interest, he saw no insuperable objection to the principle of free sale, so long as the owner had access to the Court, and care was taken that the rent should not be estimated with reference to the price paid for that portion of the tenant right which was exclusive of the value of the tenant's improvements. But how could one know what might become of Clause 7? If he were quite certain that the Government would take care that the competition value for mere possession of the farm should not be considered by the Court in determining the rent, then from the point of view of the interest of the landlord, he should not care what a man gave for the farm when he came in. The right of sale, under the provisions of this section, was given by direct enactment, because it was denied that any such thing existed as freedom of contract between owner and occupier in Ireland. He wished to point out that this inequality would be greatly redressed by the purchase clauses of the Bill; and, as far as he was concerned, he should vote for any reasonable extension of those clauses, because he was strongly in favour of increasing the number of farmer proprietors in Ireland. Hon. Members opposite must feel, as well as he did, that no success would attend the creation of a numerous peasant proprietary; and that, in order to insure success, the farms must be of a certain size. He did not think any man could get on as a farmer with less than 20 acres of land. Notwithstanding this view, he hoped to receive some support from hon. Members who followed the bon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), because they must know very well that the new owners would meet with great disadvantages from the operation of this clause. Some of them, for instance, after coming into possession of their holdings, might have occasion, through illness or some other rea-
  1698
  son, to let their holdings; but if the Bill remained as it now stood, they Would not be able to do so without creating in the lessee a joint proprietary interest with themselves. Having admitted the right of the present tenant to an interest in the farm, it followed that the present tenant had an interest which he ought to be able to sell. Was the same claim to be vested in the future tenant? Surely it would be acknowledged that land which was free and unincumbered with tenant right was in a different position from land which was subject to claims in respect of tenant right; and, therefore, he had to ask three questions. What was the claim of the present tenant? How long would the present tenancies exist? And what was the nature and character of the claim of the future tenant—that was to say, of the man who came in after the determination of the present tenancy? Now, the claim of the present tenant was avowedly based on the fact that he had increased and, in some cases, created the productiveness of the soil, and that in some cases he and his predecessors in title had continuously resided on the land. That being the claim of the present tenant, how long would such tenancies exist? Turning to the 45th clause of the Bill, which was a very peculiar one, he found these words—
  "A tenancy to which this Act applies shall be deemed to have determined whenever it is sold in consequence of a breach by the tenant of a statutory condition, or, in the case of a tenancy not subject to statutory conditions, of an act or default on the part of a tenant which would, in a tenancy subject to such conditions, have constituted a breach thereof."
  Supposing, therefore, a tenant had committed a breach of any statutory condition—for instance, supposing he had not paid his rent, and upon notice given by the landlord he elected to sell his tenancy—the tenancy would thus be detertermined. He had a question to ask upon that point. If the tenant sold to a third party after breach of statutory condition, would he sell a tenancy of a less value than that which he himself possessed? In his opinion, a breach of statutory condition ought not to occasion a determination of the tenancy. If this were the case, present tenancies might exist for a very long period of time, seeing that the holders of such tenancies had a right to devise or alienate them, and his Amendment would only effect

  1699
  tenancies upon which the tenant right had become merged in the fee simple. What, then, would be the position of the future tenant? He would have no claim in respect of labour, because he had never put a spade into the ground, and he would have no claim for improvements, because he had not made any; and yet, according to the Bill, the very day he came in he could sell his interest. But what was it that he could sell? Then, if the landlord let at a low rent, he would secure himself in that case by exacting a heavy premium, and the tenant would be rack-rented. It was evident that, whatever they might do by Act of Parliament, they could not in future prevent the owner from getting his full value for the hire of his land, and they could not prevent the tenant having to pay the equivalent of the full commercial value of the land. That state of things, which the Bill would perpetuate, could hardly be good for Ireland. He put it to the hon. Member for the City of Cork whether tenants who purchased their interest from the landlord would like the operation of this clause? He regretted the Prime Minister was not in his place, because he wished to quote the words of the right hon. Gentleman for the purpose of strengthening his argument. The right hon. Gentleman, in speaking against perpetuity of tenure—and the words applied to the necessity which would exist for every future tenant in Ireland having to pay a premium on coming in—said—
  "If I am only to let it to a perpetuity man, I can only let it to that class of men who are prepared to cultivate the soil and to pay me the price of the permanent possession. The strange position in which we should then find ourselves would be that all that active and energetic class which does not require any permanent estate in the land, but exists by the intelligent and profitable application of capital to fanning purposes, would be absolutely proscribed. You would not anywhere let a man in to put a spade or a plough into the ground unless he was able to purchase the perpetual estate."
  Such, then, was the position in which he maintained Ireland would find herself by the operation of this Bill, not for a short period, but in perpetuity. There were only two objections against his proposal. One was, that it would establish two classes of tenants in Ireland; and the other, that there would be a grievance felt by one class because it did not enjoy the same advantages as were possessed by the other, To this
  1700
  he answered—first, that under this Bill there would be present tenants enjoying the right of going into Court to have their rent fixed; and secondly, that the other tenants who would not have that right would come in under contract. The second objection was, that as all tenants holding under leases would become future tenants, if the Amendment were carried they would be excluded from the operation of the Bill. To this, he replied that there were strong arguments in favour of leases being included within the provisions of the Bill; and for his own part he would like to see the Commission have power to apply the measure to such leases as they might think desirable. He hoped he had now sufficiently explained the Amendment he had to propose. His object was to raise the question whether there should be a permanent restriction upon agricultural industry in Ireland, or whether an opportunity should be given to the industrious and thrifty labourer to take a farm without having to pay a heavy price for the goodwill. Let the Bill pass in its present form, and the labourer's back would be broken by the necessity of obtaining capital for the payment of the premium for going into occupation. In conclusion, he appealed to those hon. Members who did not wish to see industry hampered, nor to perpetuate a system which would have the effect of rack-renting every future tenant in Ireland, to vote for the Amendment which he now begged to move.
  Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 7, to leave out the words "for the time being," and insert after "every" the word "present."—(Mr. H. R. Brand.)
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, that the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. H. R. Brand) wished to facilitate the acquisition of farms by persons who had not at present got any. Now, with respect to lands in Ireland, they were either in the hands of present tenants or in the hands of the landlords; and it must, of course, be admitted that there was no possibility of unprovided farmers getting hold of lands in the possession of the present tenants without buying them. If, then, the future tenant paid for his farm, he presumed he must be allowed to sell it. The farms that were in the hands of the landlords were open to the entire population of the country who had not got

  1701
  farms, but wanted them, and the landlords, he supposed, would charge a full rent. He did not like rack-renting. The practice was, indeed, grossly unjust as applied to occupying tenants, who had already an interest in their farms; but the case of persons who had not got farms raised wholly different considerations. From the statements which had been made, one would suppose that the moment an incoming tenant got possession he would want to sell. But that was an entire fallacy, for the very last thing which any Irish tenant, present or future, would think of doing when he got possession of a farm was to sell it. He bought it because he wanted to invest his capital in it, and because it offered the most profitable way of using the labour of his family. Putting aside the difficulty which lay in the way of his hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) of providing money for those persons who wanted farms which were now in the possession of others, and must be paid for, he pointed out that where a landlord bought up the tenancy, and re-let the farm, the new tenant would have to pay, he presumed, fair value for it, either in the shape of a full rent, or, if less than a full rent was charged, by payment of a fine to the landlord. In the latter case, at all events, it would, he thought, be obvious that such future tenant, getting his farm at a low rent by payment of a fine to the landlord, should be allowed to sell his tenant right. It would be grossly unjust to prevent his doing so. Another class of cases might arise—a present tenant might be unable to pay his rent, and be forced to sell by threatened eviction. That class of cases was regulated by Clause 45, under which a present tenancy, thus compulsorily sold, would become a future tenancy. But here, again, after the forced sale and purchase of the tenancy by a person who thereupon became a future tenant, it would be plainly inequitable—nay, he might say dishonest—to preclude such a future tenant from selling the tenancy he had thus been tempted to buy. But there were other, and, as it seemed to him, powerful reasons against this exclusion of future tenants. What was wanted in Ireland was that the land should be improved—better drained, better cultivated—and that there should be better farm-buildings and cottages. By what process, then, was this duty to be performed? There were about
  1702
  500,000 small tenancies spread over Ireland, and it was plain that the necessities of the case forbade the landlords making the desired improvements. Then the tenants must have the security afforded by the Bill, or they would not do it either. For every reason, he thought it would be exceedingly impolitic to deprive the future tenant of the power of sale. To enact this would do no good to anyone; but it would cause a vast amount of mischief, not only by discouraging improvements, but also by creating discontent and renewed agitation on the part of the constantly-increasing class of future tenants. Her Majesty's Government did not expect the Act would operate for all time; but they hoped it would have some durability. If they were to leave every tenant who came into a holding after the Bill passed without the security afforded by the provisions for sale of his tenancy, in 10 or 20 years' time there would, as a matter of course, be fresh clamour on the part of those future tenants when they saw that the value of their holdings, with their improvements, was left practically unprotected. Her Majesty's Government felt they would not be justified in accepting an Amendment which would deprive future tenants of the right of sale conferred by the Bill, and leave them, in consequence, without the inducement necessary for the improvement and proper cultivation of the soil.
  MR. H. R. BRANDasked, whether, if a present tenant sold to a future tenant, the landlord would be able to raise the rent immediately upon the purchaser entering?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, the 3rd clause dealt with the raising of the rent on a future tenancy at any time after the initial rent had been fixed.
  MR. GREGORYsaid, the Amendment of the hon. Member for Stroud raised an issue of very great importance, and one which had to a considerable extent been acknowledged by the Attorney General for Ireland. It was, whether this Bill did or did not confer perpetuity of tenure? Or, in other words, as the question was raised by the hon. Member for Stroud, "was this right of sale to be conferred on existing tenants alone, or was it to be conferred on the successors of those existing tenants?" He perfectly admitted that the present tenant should have the right of sale.
  MR. H. R. BRANDsaid, the hon. Member had not exactly understood his Amendment, which limited the right of free sale to the present tenants and their descendants, so that it should not extend to future tenants succeeding them.
  MR. GREGORYadmitted that the present tenant should have the right to sell; but he wanted to ascertain the effect of this on future tenants. In fact, who were future tenants? Were they to exercise the same rights which were conferred by this Bill on present tenants? As he understood the Bill, the present tenant had the right to go to the Court and obtain a lease at a fixed rent for 15 years, and that the power of selling was conferred on his successors. Was the Court to carry on the title to his successors? If that were so, he apprehended that the Bill gave perpetuity of tenure. Did the Government mean to confer this? Because, if they did, that perpetuity of tenure would be at once stopped by the Amendment. Before the Committee proceeded further, he thought this point should receive a satisfactory explanation.
  MAJOR O'BEIRNEsaid, he was connected with several properties where the right of sale existed, and it had been found to be thoroughly beneficial, both to the landlords and the tenants, whenever it had been exercised. As to the objection that the farmer paid such a high price for his tenant right that it allowed him to realize no profit from the holding, that was a pure delusion. Seeing that free sale of tenant right was established by the Bill, he thought the Government were bound to buy up the estates of those persons who bought them in the Irish Estates Courts since 1870. There was another question upon which he wished to have an explanation—namely, with regard to the statutory term of 15 years for the letting of land. If a landlord put a tenant into a farm for a time, was it compulsory upon him to make the term 15 years? If he could not put any tenant into a farm under statutory conditions for less than 15 years, what would the landlord have to do who wished to let his land for three or four years only? No landlord would be content to take a tenant whom he only wanted for a few years if he was to be compelled to buy him out afterwards. It would, therefore, be a great objection to the Bill if it were found that no landlord would be allowed to let his land for
  1704
  less than 15 years. A landlord ought to be allowed to let his land for any period that suited him, whether it was three, six, 10, or 15 years. If the Irish people had the management of their own land to-morrow, they would not tolerate a restriction such as this, and it would certainly not be tolerated in any other country in Europe. In every country where a proprietor had his own land under his own management, and desired to lease it, he only let it for a period which suited his own convenience. ruder these circumstances, he thought that that part of the Bill which required a landlord to let his land for no less a period than 15 years was unsatisfactory, and should be amended.
  MR. PELLunderstood the questions raised to be these. What would happen in the case of a tenant possessing himself of a freehold, and becoming the solo possessor of the land? And what would happen where the landlord had possessed himself of the right of occupation, and had all the interest of the farm? He understood that the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) wished to obtain an answer from the Law Officers of the Crown upon these points. He (Mr. Pell) wished to know if it would be possible, in the event of the landlord leasing land, after having become possessed of the tenant right—in such a case as the case of pastoral land turned into arable land, and in the event of the landlord wishing to put in a new tenant, and the new tenant going out in the course of a few years—would it be possible to make any demand upon the landlord for the rights of the tenant on giving up the farm? In point of fact, what would such a tenant have to sell? What he wished to get at was this. Of course, the tenant would be compensated for any improvements he had himself made, however short a time he might have been upon the holding; but would he be entitled to compensation for disturbance in respect of having been the tenant of the land for a period of, say, one or two years? How would he differ, or in what different position would he be, from the tenant who had bought the right of occupancy from the tenant who preceded him, and had not taken the tenancy direct from the landlord?
  LORD EDMUND FITZMAURICEwas glad that the hon. Member for South Leicestershire (Mr. Pell) had quite understood the Amendment of the

  1705
  hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand). He said that, because he did not think his hon. Friend the Member for East Sussex (Mr. Gregory), who preceded him, had quite seen the object of the Amendment. The object of the Amendment moved by his hon. Friend was to ascertain more clearly what was to be the position of the future tenant—how the future tenancy was to be formed under the Bill. A future tenancy might arise, as the Attorney General for Ireland had pointed out, when the tenant right had been merged in the purchase on the part of the landlord; or it might arise immediately after the passing of the Bill, in the case of land itself at this moment in the hands of the landlord. There was a third way in which it might arise practically under Clause 45, when a tenancy was determined in the manner mentioned in that clause. Now, he would put aside for a moment the case of Clause 45, because that clause was a most difficult and intricate one, and it seemed to him that it would have to be considered, on the whole, on its own merits. It was a very large question, indeed, as to how far it was desirable or right that a tenancy should be held to have actually, altogether, and entirely determined by the acts of the tenant there mentioned. This was a concession which he made, without pledging himself to any private opinion, to certain hon. Members on that side of the House, whose views were I strong on the side of the tenant. He preferred at this moment, however, not to take the case of Clause 45, but rather to fall back upon the two cases which occurred more immediately—the case of land unlet at this moment; and the case of such parts of the landlord's demense as were on his hands at this moment, and where the landlord had exercised his right of pre-emption under the Bill. His hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) wanted to ascertain what would be the legal position of the future tenant in the other two cases—that was to say, whether he could in any sense be considered the representative of any goodwill ho had purchased, or of any improvements that might have passed to him. It was argued that there was no privity between him and any other tenant, and, therefore, that he could have no claim in respect of the goodwill and improvements. Then, how could it be argued that he was endowed
  1706
  with the right of free sale, which, undoubtedly, had at its root and its origin a connection between these two circumstances—namely, improvements made by the tenant, coupled with that tradiditional feeling about the occupation of land which in England was called goodwill, and in Ulster was known by the name of tenant right? The Attorney General for Ireland said that in that case the landlord would charge an initial rent up to the full competition or rack rent value of the land; and, further, that the tenant would have nothing whatever to sell. His (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice's) own impression was, that if the Attorney General for Ireland and the future tenant could be closeted together now, and the imaginary future tenant were told this, he would be very much astonished and would strongly demur to the position taken by the Attorney General for Ireland. But that was not all. The right hon. and learned Gentleman went on to argue that if, in the exercise of his right, the tenant executed improvements which he would have the right to sell; and then he said—by implication, although not in actual words—that the good will or tenant right which existed in the present tenant would, with the fluxion of time, revive in the future tenant, and that that interest of the future tenant would be inadequately protected by compensation for disturbance under the Land Act of 1870. He assumed that the argument of the Attorney General for Ireland was good; but he wished to point out that it took the right hon. and learned Gentleman a great deal farther, because if it was good that the whole of the tenant right would be actually revived in the future tenant, then in that case he was bound to give to the landlord that protection of the intervention of the Court which the House had been expressly told by the right hon. and learned Gentleman on a previous occasion was the protection of the landlord against the tenant right eating out the rent. There would be tenant right forming and growing, and therefore they were bound to give the landlord protection against that tenant right gradually eating out his rent. Consequently, if the argument of the Attorney General for Ireland was good, it was good for a great deal more than the right hon. and learned Gentleman was willing to grant. It was an argument, not against the Amendment of

  1707
  the hon. Member for Stroud, but in favour of including future tenancies in Clause 7 of the Bill. In the debate on the second reading, he (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice) had pointed out that the Government were caught between two stools. The conclusions arrived at by Lord Bessborough's Commission were perfectly logical. They were in favour of extending the protection of the Court, and giving free sale and fixity of tenure to future tenancies. The Report of the O'Conor Don was also coherent and logical, when he said that it was only fair the present tenant should have his rights protected. But the O'Conor Don argued that the future tenant was not in the same position, and therefore he put the future tenant on one side of the line and the present tenant on the other. But the Government did neither the one thing nor the other. They had invented a class of future tenants, and had given them some of the privileges of the Bill but not all, and had placed the landlord in reality in a worse position as against the future tenants than in regard to present tenants. He was aware that in one sense these arguments, whether on one side or the other, were not of very great importance, because the number of future tenants, for a considerable time, would be very small. He was perfectly convinced, for the reasons he had given on the second reading of the Bill, that it would be a very long time indeed before there were future tenants. They would probably have to pass several more Land Bills; and, no doubt, this question would be swallowed up in the general vortex of the Land Question. But he was discussing the Bill in the presumption that it was going to be a permanent settlement of the question; and, in that light, he must say that he thought the arguments of his hon. Friend had not been adequately analyzed, and that the present Bill either went too far or not far enough.
  MR. O'SULLIVANwas sorry to find such an Amendment coming from the other side of the House. He could understand it if it came from that (the Opposition) side, because he thought if t were passed it would be fatal to the Bill. If they were to allow this power to be only given to the present tenant, as proposed by the Amendment, it would destroy all the benefit which the people of Ireland expected to get in the future
  1708
  from this legislation. The Amendment said quite plainly that the Bill should apply only to present tenancies; whereas, as he understood the Bill, it was to apply to every tenant. Consequently, if the Amendment were accepted, it would destroy the usefulness of the Bill in one of its main principles; and all the Government could say under the circumstances was—"Save me from my friends!" He was somewhat astonished to find that the Amendment which most vitally affected the principles of the Bill came from the other side of the House. Those who were in earnest in wishing to settle the Land Question would, undoubtedly, oppose the Amendment, and support the Bill.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)thought it desirable that the House should be perfectly clear as to what the object of the Amendment was. There was no doubt that without this Amendment the 1st clause of the Bill would apply to present and future tenants. The object of the Amendment, therefore, was to strike out from the 1st clause the Proviso as to future tenancies, and to restrict it to present tenancies. Now, the questions that were asked in reference to this proposal were these. "Suppose," said the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand) and the noble Lord the Member for Calne (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice)—"suppose land is in the landowners' hands"—for that was the way it was understood in Ireland—"suppose land is in hand, either through not having been let by the owner, or by the owner having purchased from the tenant the interest of the tenant in that land. What is the position of that owner letting such land after this Bill passes and so creating a future tenancy; and what is the position of the future tenant?" There was an old proverb, which he believed to be a correct one, and one that prevailed pretty much throughout the transactions of life—namely, that "the proof of the pudding was in the eating." Accordingly, these questions might be solved by reference to facts. He would take a case, which was not an imaginery one, but one that really existed; because he thought that hypothetical cases and imaginery arguments did not tend very much to advance the practical question. He would take as an illustration the case in Ulster of a landlord who had bought up the interest of his tenant, and thus

  1709
  had the land in hand to let.. He found in the evidence taken by the Bessborough Commission, at Question 4,461, in the evidence of a gentleman named McIlroy, an auctioneer largely connected with land transactions in the North of Ireland, a statement made as to what would be the effect there in such a state of things—
  "Do you mean to say," asked Mr. Kavanagh, "that if the fee simple and the tenant right were put up together, that the price obtained would give 64 years' purchase for the two?"
  The answer was—
  "The question is a peculiar one, because the two interests are never put up together."
  In answer to Question 4,462, he says—
  "I remember one case, but it is not exactly parallel. The landlord had bought the tenant right of a farm. I sold the tenant right of that farm on behalf of that landlord, and I sold it at a very high rate of purchase—I believe 20 or 24 years' purchase. He had the fee simple remaining still, and it would have brought its own price; the tenant right brought its own price, and if the fee simple had been sold it would have brought its own price too."
  Therefore, in a case where the landlord bought up the tenant right, and kept the land "in hand," he could, after this Bill passed, adopt one of two courses. Having the land discharged of all obligations to any tenant, he could, as to a future tenant, put a full rent upon it; or, if he preferred it—and he probably would—he could take a fine, or what is virtually the same thing, sell the tenant right to the incoming tenant, and keep the rent of his farm on a level with the rents in the district. He could do exactly what the landlord did in the case Mr. McIlroy spoke of, and take a fine from the tenant equivalent to the tenant right he had paid for, and let the land at a low rent. It amounted to precisely the same thing. Such, then, would be the position and power of a landlord, who, after this Bill passed, let land in his own hands to a future tenant. The hon. Member for Stroud and the noble Lord the Member for Calne then said—"Suppose the tenant was to leave the farm next year, is he still to have the right to sell?" Certainly he was; and over and above this fine, if he had paid one, if he had made any improvements in the farm, and had done his best to improve the condition of it—his right of occupancy, his good will in his holding, would have a saleable value more or less. He might repeat one observation
  1710
  which had already been made, that the last thing in the world an Irish tenant would do was to leave his farm as long as he could hold by it, and, so far from taking a farm and desiring to sell it the next day, he would be far more likely to look out for additional land; but if he did want to sell, he had a saleable goodwill commanding a money value. The more a farm was capable of improvement, the greater the value to which the tenant's goodwill or tenant right might be increased, so that the tenant who bought the goodwill of a farm had a direct interest in increasing its value, and bought with that object. He had already referred to a case which occurred in the North of Ireland; he would now mention one which occurred not far from his own home in the Province of Munster, where it was said, but said inaccurately, that no tenant right, and nothing equivalent to tenant right, existed. In Munster, just as in every other part of Ireland, the tenant on taking a farm took the power of improving it and increasing the value of his occupation right in it; and if he remained there one year or 100 years it was only a question of degree what was the value of his right of occupation in the goodwill of his farm, and that depended on its condition and the improvements he effected upon it. In the Barony of Duhallow there was a farm the valuation of which was £54 a-year. Hon. Members would be aware that, in the opinion of the Commissioners, Griffith's valuation might be taken all round at 33 per cent below the fair letting value of a farm. ["No, no!"] An hon. Member said "No, no!" and he took it for granted that he had not read the Evidence of Mr. Ball Greene, the Commissioner of Valuation. He (the Solicitor General for Ireland) had read that Evidence, and he would rather trust to the Commissioner, who was a gentleman of experience, than to the denial of the hon. Member. This farm, valued at £54, was let at £80, which was a fair and reasonable letting rent. The proprietor was satisfied with it, and the trustees who succeeded to the management of the estate, after the death of the proprietor, were also satisfied with it. Yet could the Committee imagine for a moment what the interest was which the tenant had made in that farm? The man who held it sold his interest in it for £500.

  1711
  They would find the case mentioned in the evidence of Mr. Jeremiah Hegarty, at page 531 of the Report of the Richmond Commission. He was asked—
  "What did you give the £500 for:—For the interest in the land; for the goodwill of the outgoing tenant. I suppose when you gave £500 for this farm, you thought you were buying what was worth the money?"
  The answer was—
  "I looked upon it in that way. Then I should like to know how you made the calculation?—I made the calculation that the land was capable of being vastly improved; I made a calculation of what it would be able to produce when I bought it, and what the interest upon the money would be in its present condition, and in an improved condition, after the expenditure of a considerable sum of money. There were no buildings upon it when I took it, and I expended £500. or £600 on buildings. If you were able to expend all that amount of money—£500 in purchasing the farm, and £500 or £600 on buildings—was not the runt of £80 a-year a low rent?—It was a fair tenantable rent. The valuation was only £54."
  The Committee had there pretty good evidence as to what a tenant in Munster coming in and buying the goodwill in a farm could do. He could make a farm worth only £80 a-year rent worth his while to pay £500 for the tenant right of it, and to spend £600 in improving it—making about £1,100 in all. Of course, the tenant made the property more valuable for every interested in it; and what reason could there be for not selling the goodwill of a farm to a man who would make it fructify for the benefit both of himself and of the landlord? [Colonel MAKINS: What was the acreage?] He apprehended that was wholly beside the question; the value of a thing was what it would bring. It was perfectly immaterial what the acreage was. The question was, what was its value? Perhaps some hon. Members were not aware that there were mountains in Ireland which would not bring 2d. an acre as rent, and yet might be, and had been, made good land by tenants' labour and expenditure. It was not a question of acreage at all, but a question of value. Well, then, when land in the owner's hands was let after this Bill was passed to a future tenant, what possible objection could in reason be made to his selling at any time his goodwill, or tenant right, or right of occupation, whatever you chose to call it, and which it was the interest of the tenant, or of the purchaser from the tenant, daily to make more valuable by improving the farm? The next question put by the hon. Mem-
  1712
  ber for Stroud and the noble Lord the Member for Calne was, what would be the position of a tenant under Section 45 of the Bill? He would be a "future tenant." A present tenancy might be determined and turned into a future tenancy, but it might continue. There were instances, he believed, particularly in the county of Gloucester, of farms being occupied by the same family for 300 or 400 years without any lease at all—merely yearly tenancies. Why should not the same thing exist in Ireland? A "present tenancy," no matter into whose hands the tenancy went, so long as it existed, and was continued by transmission, was, and it would have, all the advantages of a present tenancy. The future tenants would be persons who, if the present tenancy was broken, would come in, and their condition would be similar to such cases as he had already mentioned of farms held "in hand." A future tenant, roughly speaking in a word, would have all the advantages and privileges of the present tenant, with the sole exception, as the Bill now stood, that he could not go to the Court to get a fair rent fixed under the 7th Section of the Bill. He believed he had now fairly answered all the questions that had been put.
  MR. PLUNKETsaid, he was disposed to support the Amendment. The hon. Member (Mr. Brand) proposed to exclude future tenancies from the operation of the clause, and for very good reasons. As he (Mr. Plunket) understood the effect of the clause, it would be almost impossible for any landlord to get quit of the saleable tenant's interest in his property. Of course, to hon. Gentleman who were in favour of enforcing the landlords of Ireland to keep land in their own hands, or to part with it altogether, or to take upon their property tenants who would always be able to sell their interest for the best price they could get, the Amendment would be a very bad one. They were only to incur and encourage this peculiar provision of land tenure in Ireland under great and pressing necessity, and for temporary purposes. He could foresee the temptation to the landlords to charge as high rents as possible. He could not understand the ground upon which the right of free sale was to be extended to future tenancies; but he saw considerable practical inconvenience in doing so.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, it was well the Committee should be aware of the importance the Government attached to this Amendment. The Bill had been introduced with the intention of asking the Committee to consider with care all fair Amendments, but not to admit any new Amendment which would give the measure a new character. He could not say too explicitly that in their view the admission of the present Amendment would give a now character to the Bill. They could not, under any circumstances, be parties to depriving any future tenancies of the right of free sale. That, he begged, might be understood as clearly as possible, because the Government considered that if, on the one hand, they declined to accept the large mass of Amendments essentially altering the Bill in the sense of extending and enlarging its provisions, they were, at least, bound by every consideration of honesty and principle to resist Amendments which would go to narrow the Bill, and that was the principle upon which they meant to act. There were three great changes introduced into the law by this Bill. One was that they abolished virtually, and they would be prepared to abolish directly, the limitation which the Land Act imposed upon the right of assignment. The right of assignment being established, that assignment was the tenant right, which tenant right, being in itself agreeable to the law of land tenure, happened from the circumstances of Ireland to bear in that country a peculiar value, and to wear a character there of which it was not usually possesseda—a character of which it was certainly not possessed in this country. That change was one which, in his belief, and in its essence, had been made by the Land Bill of 1870 had the Bill been permitted to continue in the shape in which it was sent from this House. But it was not permitted so to continue; most unfortunately, influences at work "elsewhere" forbade the tenant to assign. And he was sorry to find the noble Lord the Member for Calne (Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice), with whom this was not the first time they had boon unable to agree upon very important matters in Ireland, disposed to ridicule the Bill beforehand. He wished he had hearth the noble Lord lament time course taken by the House of Lords in 1870, and lament that these limitations were imposed, for he did not hesitate to express his dis-
  1714
  tinct opinion that if it had not been for that most unfortunate prohibition of the right to assign, the probability was that nine-tenths of the necessity under which they now laid for a new Land Bill for Ireland would not have existed. The second great change to be introduced into the law was the provision of a system which they hoped might be a self-acting system to check arbitrary increases of rent-not to prevent increases of rent, but to check them. The third great change was the power of appeal to a Court for fixing a judicial rent. He had been very unfortunate in explaining himself on this Bill to the minds of hon. Gentlemen opposite; but he hoped he had made it quite clear that that which was viewed by them as exceptional and extraordinary in the Bill was the power of going into Court. There was not one word in any speech uttered from this Bench upon the Bill that had ever sustained the idea under which the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Plunket) seemed to labour—namely, that the introduction of the principle of free tenant right was looked upon by the Government as an exceptional and temporary change in the Land Law of Ireland. They stood upon it on its merits; they maintained that it had stood the proof of experience. It was shown by experience to be beneficial to the landlord not less than to the tenant; and they, holding that view, could hardly be expected to propose it as a temporary measure. They hoped that as it had worked in Ulster—he would not say to exactly the same extent, and if the Bill passed as it now stood it could not reach the same extent; and he meant by the same extent the exceptional price in certain cases—they hoped that that which had proved so beneficial in Ulster, and which had been attested in Ulster as to its benefit to the interest of the landlord by the far greater increase of rents in Ulster than in any other part of Ireland—they hoped that that principle which was ineradicably planted in Irish instincts and Irish traditions would exist and flourish as a permanent part of the Land Law of Ireland. Although he was not present during the early part of the debate, he understood the cases to be tried were those of the demesne lands and of the landlords who had bought up their tenant rights. Why were they to try a great and fundamental part of the Bill upon

  1715
  cases thoroughly exceptional? There was not one case in a thousand of all the holdings that were likely to be in Ireland that would fall under either of those categories. If his hon. Friend thought that the case of a landlord who had bought up the tenant right required a special provision, let him move such a provision. It was clear that if a landlord had bought up the tenant right he ought to have what he had bought, and there was no doubt he would have it. He apprehended there was not the smallest doubt he would have it. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Plunket) attempted to show that the landlord might be tempted. to charge the highest competition rent, and, instead of acknowledging that answer as perfect for the purpose for which it was given—namely, to show that the landlord's interest was secure—turned round and said he would rack rent the tenants. The answer to that was that it remained in the hands of the landlord to charge, if he pleased, the highest competition rent. If he did not like to do that, then let him get from the tenant whom he had introduced the best price he could for the tenant right. That was what the Bill would allow him to do, and consequently there was not the slightest semblance of interference with the right of the landlord. But then it was said it was very wrong to give the power of sale. The Landlord could sell to the tenant, and the tenant ought to be allowed to sell in his turn. The case of a landlord not wishing that the tenant should sell the tenant right to a party independent of him was provided for, because they had given the landlord the pre-emption. Tim landlord, therefore, was fenced round in all his rights. If his hon. Friend (Mr. Brand) wanted more protection, let him propose something that had reference only to the cases where the landlord had purchased the tenant right. But now, in the same way in regard to the demesne lands, let the landlord fix whatever rent he pleased, and let him put on the land whatever else it was worth in the shape of tenant right. These were exceptional cases; and if there was a necessity they might deal with them by exceptional provisions; but his hon. Friend came down and said—" No; on account of these exceptional cases I will limit the right to sell to present tenancies." Now, let them consider what
  1716
  that meant. There were 600,000 and odd tenant farmers in Ireland who would be invested by the law with this right to sell; but by degrees all these tenancies would become future tenancies. The future tenancies would buy from the present tenancies. ["How?"] The first tenant of the future tenancies would have to buy from the last tenant of the present tenancies. [Mr. H. R. BRAND: Under what clause?] It was under the clause in which the Amendment had been moved. Well, were the future tenants to purchase from the present tenants, and then be deprived of the right of sale?
  MR. H. R. BRANDsaid, that was not the object of his Amendment. He should think tenancies purchased from the present tenants were continuations of the present tenancies.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the future tenancies would come in by purchasing the holdings from the present tenancies, and the Committee were going to give the holders of present tenancies the power to sell the tenant right, and that was a thing which would bring a price in the market. If anyone came into the holdings as future tenants they must come in by purchase, and the proposal now was that they should have no right to sell. [Mr. BRAND: No.] His hon. Friend said "No." Well, then, let him alter Lis Amendment, because, as it now stood, it confined the right of sale expressly to the present tenancies.
  MR. H. R. BRANDsaid, he apprehended that all persons purchasing from present tenants would be present tenants themselves. The right hon. Gentleman, in introducing the Bill, said the modes in which land could pass from a present to a future tenant were if there be a breach of covenant or eviction. The occupier, after the land had passed back into the hands of the landlord, would be a future tenant.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, that was quite true, and that was the only way in which there could be future tenancies. The sale of the tenant right might be compulsory, and the succession of tenants might be broken. But the incoming tenant would have to pay, and the Committee were now invited by his hon. Friend to say that that man, having been induced to buy, should be permitted to sell. The Government would rather break up the Bill altogether than accept such an Amendment; and, in their opinion, that would be

  1717
  most unfortunate. They desired Parliament to enact what, in the main and in ordinary circumstances, would be a good Land Bill for Ireland, and they were convinced there could be no good Land Bill for Ireland if it be framed in defiance of the bust usages of the country. The best usage of the country was that which had prevailed in Ulster, where the tenant and the landlord had flourished most. That usage, as they now had it reported to them by their Commissioners, prevailed over all the country in a constantly increasing degree; there was no county in which it was not found, and it was nothing but the artificial prohibition inserted in the 13th clause of the Land Act which prevented it being universal in Ireland. They desired that the Land Law of Ireland should work harmoniously, and it was a fundamental principle of the Bill that the right of sale should be enjoyed by generation after generation.
  MR. GIBSONsaid, he could not regard the question as a complicated one. In his mind the Amendment was simple, and the considerations which should guide them to a conclusion were clear. The Amendment drew a distinction between present and future tenancies, and it proposed to leave the whole of the 1st clause of the Bill untouched in reference to present tenancies, the definition of which he did not think had been very clearly presented to the House by the Prime Minister. Although it might be reasonable, having regard to the present circumstances of agricultural affairs in Ireland, to deal exceptionally with present tenancies, no such urgency or necessity could be suggested in reference to the future tenants. The Prime Minister, in introducing the Bill, in his speech on the second reading, and in subsequent speeches, had pointed out that his object had been to interfere with the existing laws of freedom of contract and demand and supply as little as the present grave exigencies would permit. That being so, even if the 1st clause, instead of being amended was altogether struck out, future tenants would, under ordinary circumstances, have power to sell and to assign; so that the Amendment was merely dealing with a special right which, under the existing section, was given for the special purpose of the Act. What, then, were future tenants? Present tenancies meant what nine out of ten men would consider
  1718
  future tenancies; and therefore it was necessary to have clearly defined the difference between future tenants according to our ordinary modes of speech, and future tenants according to the technical mode under this Bill, for it was only to the technical class of future tenants under the definition clauses of the Bill that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Stroud was directed. Present tenancies comprised, under the Definition Clause, not only every existing tenant, but also every person who might for generations occupy those tenancies in any form of continuity of title. That showed that the Amendment left untouched, within which he would call the equity of the Bill, all present tenancies and all persons who for generations might stand in the shoes of the present tenants. What class were excluded? Those who might under certain clear and settled conditions become the holders and owners of what the Bill called technically future tenancies. Those he would call, roughly, three. A landlord could make a future tenancy by letting out some of the land now in his own hands. Was it reasonable that that landlord, clothed with absolute dominion in his property, if at any time after the passing of the Bill be chose to make a new contract, should be bound by the terms of the Act, and not be left to the operation of the ordinary Common Law? That he thought unreasonable. Then he would suppose that a landlord, instead of letting out some of the land in his own hands, acquired by purchase possession of a farm, and let the farm again—what was the equity of a future tenant in that case? Why should the landlord be saddled with the special section in this Bill, instead of being left under the ordinary Common Law, which had hitherto been considered sufficient? Then there was the case of a future tenancy created by a breach of the statutory conditions by an existing tenant. This was not a time for much consideration for landlords he was aware; but he would venture to ask why if an existing tenant, who was given all the vast equities under this Bill, who could not be evicted except for a breach of certain statutory conditions, the keeping of which was but the simplest regard for ordinary good husbandry, lost a tenancy by such a violation, the future tenant should come in over the bones of the broken conditions, and stand in a better position than all the other future

  1719
  tenants? What was the sole answer of the Prime Minister to that? He picked up the usual incidental suggestion about the House of Lords, and said if something had not happened "somewhere" this Bill would be necessary, and that if something which had been introduced by the House of Lords in another Bill had not been introduced, this Bill might not have been necessary. That kind of statement had been heard on several occasions; it had been traced to its source, and would not stand close examination. He was glad to know that the House of Lords had not hesitated to produce a Return which would indicate the smallness of the changes made by that House, and which would show whether those changes had made this Bill necessary. The Prime Minister stated that the landlord had the remedy in his own hands. What was the meaning of that? He would take it that the landlord in possession of his land let a farm at full competition rent. Then there was nothing to sell; and, in other words, the worse the landlord the more certain it was that he would be secure from the operation of this Bill. Then the Prime Minister said the landlord might let at a moderate rent and with a full fine. In other words, he might let it at full value and laugh at the tenant; so that the only person who suffered was the good landlord who took a moderate rent without a fine. The Amendment was, of course, an important one—he quite concurred with the Prime Minister in that—but he could not regard it as being of that overwhelming importance suggested. It was, however, entitled to support, and he hoped it would be accepted.
  MR. SHAWthought it very interesting to see the great sympathy which was shown by hon. Members opposite for the future tenants; but he would suggest to them that the best way of showing that sympathy would be to urge the Government to raise the future tenant in all respects to the position of the present tenant. They gave advantages to the present tenant which they would deny to the future tenant; but he did not think the hon. Member who moved the Amendment agreed in that view. He (Mr. Shaw) differed entirely from the statement of the right hon. and learned Member (Mr. Gibson) as to the number of instances in Ireland of the two particular cases referred to. Instances of
  1720
  landlords buying back their land and re-letting it were very few; and supposing that in future they did so, would they put up buildings and offices? Nothing of the kind. They would let the land to the incoming tenants just as it was, and, as a general rule, the tenants would have to lay out money on the land; but by tins Amendment they would be denied the right to sell the property they had created. How many cases wore there of landlords who distinguished tenant right in that way? There were landlords who did not allow their tenants to deal with each other; but the number of cases in which landlords bought up the tenant right was very small. The object of the Amendment was to minimize the effect of the Bill. He did not speak on behalf of Members of the House; but he thought he might speak as knowing the opinions of Members and of the people of Ireland. The Prime Minister had said this Bill was the least way in which the Land Question could be settled, and he believed that was the fact; and that if in any way the House minimized the effects of the Bill, it would be his duty, and the duty of those who felt with him, as representing the Irish people, to treat the Bill as a lapsed Bill. He believed some of his hon. Friends opposite thought that even as it was the Bill would hardly satisfy the people of Ireland; but they were willing, if the Government passed it with certain Amendments, to accept it and give it a trial. But the House must not think they could play with this question or with this Bill. They had never been brought face to face with a more important crisis. They might minimize the Bill by this or other Amendments; but did they suppose that the Irish Representatives, knowing the wants of the people, could possibly go on with the Bill and aid its further progress? That was perfectly impossible, and they would have to oppose the Bill; and then the House would see what would be the state of things in the coming winter. They could not evict the whole nation, and, speaking from his own knowledge of the state of feeling in the South and in the North of Ireland, he believed that if this question was not settled quickly and wisely, there would be a state of things in Ireland that would make the strongest heart tremble. They were in the face of an agitation which would probably shake

  1721
  the institutions they revered and the Empire they loved. He felt deeply on the subject; he had worked hard upon it, and he was convinced that this Bill was the minimum Bill which would satisfy the people; and he hoped hon. Members would not by Amendments give excuse for dissatisfaction, and make the Bill useless and worthless.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANwould offer no opinion as to the intention of the hon. Member who moved the Amendment; but he would show him what the effect of the Amendment must be in minimizing the benefits of the Bill. The Amendment was perfectly logical, and he could understand such an Amendment coming from an hon. Member who believed that the Bill was about to do something vicious, absurd, and mischievous, and who desired that it should be limited in point of time and narrowed in its scope; but those who believed that it was going to be a great and healing measure, could not but regard the Amendment with jealousy. There had been a good deal of incredulity when the Prime Minister said the future tenant might purchase, and therefore why should he not sell? He could give many cases in which the incoming tenant might be a purchaser from the outgoing tenant. Such a tenant was a future tenant if he purchased from an outgoing tenant, who sold because he had not paid his rent; and if he purchased, why should he not sell? Then there was the case of the tenant who was compelled to sell because he had persistently committed waste. The man who purchased from him was a future tenant, and why should he be prevented from selling when he had the right to buy? A third class was that of the tenant who had refused to allow the landlord to exercise his right to mines, and was compelled to sell. The man who bought of him, and who, perhaps, paid him £2,000 for his interest, became a future tenant, and yet the Amendment would prohibit his selling. That was something like a reductio ad absurdum. Another case was that of a man who was compelled to sell because he had sub-let or sub-divided his holding without permission, and the man who purchased from him became a future tenant. His construction of the future tenant was borne out by the Interpretation Clause. A future tenant might also come in where a man took a holding which the
  1722
  landlord had himself been working, and in which there was no existing tenancy. He did not believe the hon. Member for Stroud had in his mind the danger to which he (Mr. Sullivan) had called attention. The right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin had drawn attention to the great advantage it would be to landlords to be able to do what they liked in future. With some knowledge of how the Act of 1870 had worked, he would warn the Committee to beware of the hidden danger in that direction. The Amendment would put a premium on the clearing of farms in Ireland; and the moment the landlords were given a reward for using in a severe way all the powers of clearing the farms, there would be a new crop of evils. According to the Interpretation Clause tenancy meant the tenant's interest in his holding and the interest of his successors, and the rent of the tenancy meant the rent for the time being payable. But future tenancy meant any tenancy beginning after the passing of the Bill. Any person who held under an unbroken continuity was a present tenant for generations to come; but if the continuity was severed by any of the modes provided in the Bill the continuity ceased, and the future tenancy began. He appealed to the hon. Member to consider whether it was fair to forbid a purchaser the right to sell?
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLthought there was no very wide difference between the Government and hon. Members on that side of the House; but he considered the Amendment would go further than would be consistent with the intention of the Mover, and it was possible that the Bill as it stood might go rather further than the Government intended. Still, he thought the Prime Minister had, to some extent, met the hon. Member when he said he would consider favourably any alteration which affected this particular clause in regard to landlords who had bought up the tenant right. That was really the whole question. In various ways the landlord might take up the land and not be willing to let the tenant buy the tenant right from him. The Prime Minister was evidently of opinion, and, no doubt, he had had vast experience on this subject, that free sale was a cherished custom and practice in Ireland. That, however, was not so. No doubt free sale, so far as it existed, was an Irish custom,

  1723
  for it was not met with anywhere else; but it was not practised all over Ireland, and they would have under this Bill, as they had had under the Act of 1870, the landlords fighting and struggling against it because they hated it, and believed that it was thoroughly bad and economically unsound. Within the last few days they had had a marvellous proof of its unsoundness, in a Return issued with reference to the number of ejectments. In Ulster they were four times more numerous than in Leinster, three times more numerous than in Munster, and twice as numerous as in Connaught. In Ulster they were 1,200, as against 300 in Leinster. What could be the meaning of that if this free sale was a panacea for everything, as the Prime Minister believed it to be? This state of things must arise from one of two causes—either that free sale did not offer that security for rent which, in some quarters, it was alleged to offer, or that the tenant had paid such a high price for the goodwill that he was unable to cultivate his land properly and pay the rent to the landlord. He did not believe that landlords were all going to run away if the Bill passed; but he had no doubt they would struggle against free sale as hard as they had done before, for the reason that they believed it to be unsound. There was another aspect in which the matter might be viewed. The landlord might succeed to the tenancy of his own land on intestacy of the tenant, or might come into possession through breach of the statutory conditions on the part of the tenant, or might buy up the tenant right. He might get hold of the land and hold it in his own hand, and farm it and improve it. Then such a landlord, hating tenant right, might say to an incoming tenant—" I could make you pay me a sum as tenant right; but I will not do anything of the kind, as I believe the principle to be unsound. I believe the capital you should give me should be put into the land. I will charge you a certain rent and, as long as you pay that, you shall be my tenant." He would ask did they want, by this Bill, to give to these tenants—and he was sure the cases he had described would not be uncommon—absolutely the same rights that they would give to future tenants who paid directly for their tenant right? He hoped the Prime Minister would be able to exclude these tenants from the Bill—in tact, the right hon. Gentleman
  1724
  had partly intimated to the hon. Member for Stroud that he would do so.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he could not vote for the Amendment, which had been brought forward to remove a cause of alarm; but he must confess that the explanation they had heard from the right hon. Gentleman had alarmed him in another way. He had been under the belief that, after the passing of the Bill, future tenants would be a rare class—that they would only exist when the landlord had obtained possession of the property free from tenant right. In tins case, it seemed, the Prime Minister was not unwilling to make some concession, and he (Sir George Campbell) had himself thought that something should be done in that respect. But he now understood from the right hon. Gentleman, that the future tenants would be a large and a growing class; and, therefore, that a large number of tenants would undergo a degradation into a lower class. That, it seemed to him, would be a great evil. They had frequently heard of the evils of divided property. This measure, he had hoped, would tend to put an end to the division of property; he had thought that a higher class of tenants would be the result, and that these tenants would eventually buy out the landlords in some way and become the owners of the soil. When the landlord had got rid of all tenant right, or when the tenant had become the landlord himself, they would have a clear and complete owner, and they would no longer have this intermediate stage described as a modus vivendi. This process of degradation, however, would defeat that process of gradually terming a complete ownership at which he, for one, hoped the Bill aimed. First class tenants would be gradually degraded into second class, and every landlord who had acquired a complete property in his land would be prohibited from introducing the English or Scotch system of tenancy. This seemed to him to be not so much a question of the rights of landlords as one of public policy. Did they wish to make it impossible for the landlord, however completely he had become the owner of his land, to let a farm on the English or Scotch system? He trusted the Prime Minister would have this matter, as to the definition of future tenancies, cleared up, so that the evil he had described might be avoided.
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, it was an extraordinary thing, but it was nevertheless the fact, that the further they went into this Bill the more difficult it was to understand. He had understood that one of the Government principles of the measure was fixity of tenure. That was absolutely denied by the Prime Minister, because the right hon. Gentleman stated, and stated distinctly, that he hoped, in no very long time, to see a large number of new tenancies created. How could these new tenancies be created? Why, in three ways, as had been shown by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand). By the landlord parting with his demesne lands; by the landlord's buying up the tenancy and letting another tenant have that property; and, under Clause 4, where, according to the statutory conditions of the Bill, the tenants would have the right to compensation for disturbance, and new tenants would be created. But what he objected to was that, in fact, notwithstanding all that had been said by the Prime Minister, the Bill would give perpetuity of tenure, because no one having parted with his land could get rid of his tenant unless he did something that came under Clause 4. That was the whole question, and he could not for the life of him see how the conditions of Clause 4 would be broken. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Gladstone) shook his head. The Prime Minister's head had, certainly, been set going this evening; but perhaps he (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) would be able to find out something which would somewhat change its motion. As he understood the Bill, a tenant could only be got rid of if he did something which was a breach of the statutory conditions of the measure. That had been clearly explained by the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan); and he would point out to the right hon. Gentleman that to give a man who had been got rid of for a breach of the conditions of Clause 4 the right of free sale or compensation for disturbance was putting a premium upon bad farming. That was the one thing they wished to get rid of, and that was the one thing they would perpetuate by the conditions of this measure. The hon. and learned Member for Meath had enumerated the conditions under Clause 4. The firs
  1726
  three were the most important—namely, non-payment of rent, bad farming, and persistent waste by dilapidation of buildings, &c., which was quite as detrimental to the holding as bad farming. Well, the tenant who failed in these conditions had no right to free sale; therefore, he held that the proposal of the hon. Member for Stroud was a sound one, and one which ought to commend itself to the judgment of the Committee. They would be doing nothing unjust to future tenants by accepting it. It was the tenant's own fault if he could not sell that which he had. He only forfeited it by doing that which he had no business to do under the Bill; and if he had forfeited, he had no right to be able to sell, and the Committee had no right to confer on him the power. There was one thing he was glad to hear the Prime Minister say—namely, that he would take into consideration the two classes mentioned by his hon. Friend. He (Sir Walter B. Barttelot) had an Amendment on the Paper himself, but he believed this of the hon. Member for Stroud to be a sound one; therefore, he should support it.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir FARRER HERSCHELL)said, he would trouble the Committee with very few observations; but as he thought there was some misapprehension in the mind of the hon. and gallant Gentleman, it was only right that he should correct him at once. The hon. and gallant Gentleman said that the Bill created complete perpetuity of tenure, and that it was only through a breach of the statutory conditions that a tenant could be got rid of. But it should be remembered that this Amendment dealt with the distinction between present and future tenancies. This Bill did not create perpetuity of tenure with respect to future tenancies. [Sir WALTER B. BARTTELOT: Present tenancies.] The hon. and gallant Member said "present tenancies;" but the Amendment dealt with the distinction between present and future tenancies. They were not dealing with the position of present tenancies, but the reasons for excluding future tenancies from the provisions of the Bill. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) had said that the creation of future tenancies was a remote and improbable contingency. Well, if that were so, it could not be such a very

  1727
  serious matter if they were dealt with in the same way as present tenancies. He did not think it, however, such a remote and improbable contingency, because there were various ways provided in the Bill by which future tenancies might come into existence. Every piece of land let for the first time after the passing of this Bill would be a future tenancy. Whore the land was now under lease and the tenant after the expiration of the lease entered into a new arrangement with the landlord; where the tenant did not comply with the statutory obligations; and where, after the expiration of 15 years from the passing of the Act, the landlord exercised his right of pre-emption and again let the land—in all these cases future tenancies would be created. Therefore, before long many of these tenancies might exist, and, consequently, the creation of future tenancies was not such a remote and improbable contingency. In one way or another these tenancies were very likely to grow up in Ireland. Then arose the question how they were to deal with these tenancies. He agreed that it they regarded the provisions of this section as bad in themselves, as simply intended to deal with a temporary difficulty—an evil which they must submit to for that purpose—there might be something in the argument of those who had condemned the application of this section to future tenancies. But when they might have future tenancies at so early a date as after the passing of the Bill, it was a very serious and dangerous policy to raise great difficulties with regard to them. But the Government did not think that this right of sale was an evil thing in itself; and he ventured to say, that if they carefully weighed the evidence taken before the Land Commissioners, the balance of evidence would be found to be the other way. [Sir WALTER B. BARTTELOT: As to present tenancies.] He did not care whether as to present or future tenancies. What he was contending was that the power of the tenant to sell his tenant right, and so realize the value of such improvement as he himself had created, was all that the provision came to. ["No, no!"] Well, he thought it was unquestionably the case, and he would prove it in a minute. He would appeal to hon. Members who understood the Ulster Custom whether the creation of improvements was not one of the great
  1728
  elements which entered into the sale of the tenant right? He did not say it was the only element; but it was a great one beyond all question. But they proposed, with regard to the future tenant, not to allow him any right as to that element or any other element. ["No, no!"] Hon. Members said "No!" but he was quite sure that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin would confirm what he had said. Whether it was the sale of the improvements which the tenant had made, or anything else, if they carried this Amendment it was quite clear they would prevent the sale of those improvements at all. There could not be any doubt about that. Let them take the case which had already been put. Take the case where a future tenancy arose in any of the methods he had described. Suppose the landlord to be in possession of the land, and suppose that he, having the tenant right in his own hand, let the land to a tenant, receiving from him the sum he had paid for the tenant right, or, having had the land in his own hands, the value of the improvements he had effected, they proposed by the Amendment to prevent the incoming tenant from selling the tenant right he had bought. Suppose, on the other hand, the landlord let the land at the full competition rent, they might say the tenant had nothing to sell. That might be true when rue man entered into possession; but he might very soon make something to sell—he might improve it and make it much more valuable, but they would deny him the right of realizing the value of his improvements. ["No, no!"] Hon. Members said "No!" The Government had been accused of making the Bill obscure; but, he must say, that this was about as plain as anything he could conceive. They would deprive the tenant of the value of his improvements. ["No, no!"] Then if they would tell him how the man was to sell, when they had said "You are not to sell," he should be content. There was a third case. Suppose the land was let at a moderate rout, the landlord could raise it if there was any attempt to sell the tenant right, and deprive him of his due. Therefore, the right of free sale did not damnify the landlord, and, he contended, the experience of the province of Ulster proved that that was the case. Let them take this case.

  1729
  Suppose the tenant was compelled to sell his tenant right under the provisions of this Bill, it was out of the price of the tenant right that the landlord was to be paid the arrears of rent, if there were any; and if there had been any damage by breach of covenant, as, for instance, by waste, compensation was to come out of the price of the tenant right. And yet they said that the man who had provided the funds out of which the landlord was to get the amount of damage was not to sell his right. That would be the operation if the Amendment were carried. He did not propose to detain the Committee further. He had endeavoured to put forward these things as clearly as he could, and, if it was found that there were likely to be cases of exceptional hardship—where the clause would work oppressively—it might be amended. But, in a wholesale manner, to deprive future tenants of the right of free sale, would have a most prejudicial effect. Experience showed that if there was anything which tended to prevent undue fiction where a difficulty arose as to payment of rent, or as to the tenant right of the occupier—cases of which kind were, unfortunately, so common in Ireland—it was a fair concession of this right of free sale.
  MR. CHAPLINrose for the purpose of asking the Government for an explanation on one or two points which arose naturally out of the speech of the Prime Minister, and which he did not understand to have been cleared up since the right hon. Gentleman had spoken. He understood the right hon. Gentleman to oppose the Amendment on the ground that he thought it desirable to establish the right of assignment—that was to say, the principle of tenant right—for generation after generation in Ireland for the future. And he grounded that policy on two assumptions. First, he said that in nearly every case the future tenant would have bought his holding; and, in the second place, he said that the Ulster Custom had been eminently successful in Ireland. It had, however, been pointed out by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) that the right of pre-emption which the Bill gave to the landlord would largely prevent the future tenant from becoming the proprietor of his holding. Many landlords in Ulster, differing from the right hon. Gentleman in his view of the right of assignment—and he (Mr.
  1730
  Chaplin) quite admitted it was a matter open to argument—disapproved of the principle of tenant right altogether. He knew many cases where large sacrifices had been made by the landlords for the purpose of getting rid of the custom. Let them take the case of a landlord who exercised his right of pre-emption, and did not choose to charge the future tenant with an excess rent—what was to be his position? Did the right hon. Gentleman mean to tell them that, under circumstances such as these, it was absolutely necessary for the welfare of the tenant, just for the landlord, and for the future benefit of Ireland, that the tenant was always to have the right of selling something which he had never bought? The right hon. Gentleman referred to Ulster, and argued before the Committee as though the case of that Province was identical with the case of the rest of Ireland where tenant right did not exist. Surely he must have forgotten that the Ulster tenant had always bought when he entered a farm, which was very different from the case of a man who entered on tenant right without paying anything for it at all. He would cite against the right hon. Gentleman an authority as high as himself, who disapproved of the extension of the Ulster Custom to the rest of Ireland. This authority, when it was argued that the extension of the Ulster Custom to the rest of Ireland was open to re-consideration, said—
  "I must say that the extension of the Ulster Custom to the rest of Ireland does appear a manifest violation of the principles of justice, and to be impossible, if we mean to respect those principles."
  And then he went on, a little bit further, to say this—
  "But when you talk of extending the custom to other parts of Ireland, you speak of a change which would alter the terms which, in those other parts of Ireland, have already been agreed upon between landlord and tenant; and, therefore, if you gave, in such a case, to the tenant the value of the custom existing elsewhere, you would be just taking so much from the landlord and giving it to the tenant."—[3 Hansard, cxcix. 1666–7.]
  The authority who made this statement was the Lord High Chancellor of England. This being the view of, perhaps, one of the right hon. Gentleman's most distinguished Colleagues, he hoped he would not think he was going beyond his right in asking for some explanation on this point. He had understood the right hon. Gentleman to say that but for

  1731
  the alterations which were made in "another place" in the Act of 1870, nine-tenths of the present legislation would have been rendered unnecessary. The Prime Minister, however, on another occasion, had used the following words, which were very inconsistent with the statement to which he alluded:—
  "Defects have been developed in that Act which have seriously marred the completeness of its operation. Some of these defects, undoubtedly, …. are clue to the changes which the Bill underwent after it had left this House. But others of them, I am bound to say, were involved in the original construction of the measure, and even if it had passed into law in the same state as it passed this House, it would not have been completely adequate for its purpose."—[3 Hansard, cclx. 893.]
  This was rather different from what the right hon. Gentleman had said to-night—namely, that nine-tenths of the necessity for the present legislation would not have arisen but for the changes made in the Act of 1870.
  MR. H. R. BRANDsaid, his Amendment would only affect cases where the landlord had bought up the tenant right, and, if he understood the right hon. Gentlemen aright, he had made a concession in this respect. He was prepared to consider the case where the landlord had purchased the tenant right; and he was prepared, therefore, to give the landlord the power to let his land without conferring on the tenant the right of free sale. ["No, no!"] That, he thought, was the interpretation to be put upon the right hon. Gentleman's speech. If he (Mr. Brand) was correct, he would have no objection in withdrawing his Amendment, on the understanding that the Prime Minister would accept an Amendment in the same direction later on.
  MR. GLADSTONE: What I said was this, that, in my opinion, my right hon. Friend near me had pointed out that the landlord was perfectly and absolutely protected in cases where he had bought up the tenant right. ["No, no!"] I beg pardon, but I am stating what I know to be the case. At the same time, the cases where the landlords buy up the tenant right are extremely few, and I should be loth to quarrel with my hon. Friend (Mr. Brand) as to limited cases of this kind. I do not know what form the proposal would take; but, without binding myself, I should look favourably on any proposal to carry out my hon. Friend's object.
  MR. W. FOWLERwished to mention one other case, not mentioned by the Primo Minister. Let them take the case of a man owning a lot of waste land, and making it fit to be farmed by good tenants. That was a case very well known in some parts of Ireland, and it was well worth the consideration of the Prime Minister. The landlord would have bought up the tenant right, or it would never have existed, his own money having brought about all the improvements. He hoped the hon. Member would press the Amendment to a division.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Does the hon. Member wish to withdraw this Motion?
  MR. H. R. BRAND: Yes.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I think we ought clearly to understand the position in which we shall leave this subject. Do we understand that the Government decidedly promise to accept an Amendment on this question? ["No, no!"] Then, as I understand it, the hon. Member for Stroud is going to withdraw his Amendment without making provision for the classes he desires to protect. The object of the hon. Member for Stroud is to Meet certain cases in which the future tenants might come in, not by purchase from the present tenant, but under certain circumstances, such as the landlord letting the demesne which he has held, or cases in which the landlord, having bought up the tenant right, afterwards wished to relet. As I understood the Prime Minister, he suggested that these cases might be met in the future by Amendments; but we wish to know are they really to be met, or is the matter to stand over in an indefinite way without any promise or understanding at all; and, if so, is the hon. Member for Stroud content with that condition of affairs? It seems to me that the hon. Member made out a case which is one very deserving of consideration—a case which we know does arise in Ireland. I suppose every hon. Member who has friends in Ireland can point to cases where that is so—where the landlord has thought it to be the best way to manage his estate never to allow a tenant right to arise, and in which he has made sacrifices of money which he might have received as arrears of rent had he allowed the incoming tenant to pay the outgoing tenant. I understand that you desire to protect

  1733
  the landlords who wish to carry on their estates on that principle under the operation of this Bill. The Amendment is given up; but we should have a clear understanding as to what is to be put in its place.
  MR. H. R. BRANDsaid, there was an Amendment lower down standing in the name of the hon. and learned Member for Meath (Mr. A. M. Sullivan); and if that was agreed to, he (Mr. Brand) proposed to bring up a clause excluding the cases mentioned. He understood from the Prime Minister that that Amendment would be favourably considered by the Government, although they could not commit themselves to a promise to accept it.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  THE CHAIRMANcalled upon the Attorney General for Ireland to move the next Amendment.
  DR. COMMINSrose—
  THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member must trust to the Chairman for calling an Amendment in its right place. The hon. Gentleman who rose will presently find himself fully protected.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, his was merely a verbal Amendment. If they looked at the clause they would see that the word "tenancy" was used twice, and in each case in a different sense.
  Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 7, leave out "tenancy," and insert "holding."—(Mr. Attorney General for Ireland.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, the next Amendment in order stood in the name of Dr. Commins.
  DR. COMMINSsaid, he intended to move the omission Of the words "to which this Act applies," in order to substitute the words "not hereinafter specially excepted." The Amendment would add nothing to the meaning of the Bill as the Committee understood it. He believed the intention of the Bill was that it should apply to every tenancy not specially excepted, but that was not expressed. It might naturally be expected that somewhere in the Bill there would be an enumeration of the tenancies to which the Bill applied; but no where in the Bill did such an enumeration exist of the tenancies to which the Act would
  1734
  apply. If they went carefully through the Bill they would find that, at all events, it would greatly puzzle a nonprofessional person, and, he believed, even a professional man, to understand what the tenancies were that were intended. He could only find two or three clauses which specially applied the Act to any particular class of tenancies; and unless this Amendment were inserted it would be doubtful whether the Act would apply at all to one class which was, probably, the largest class in Ireland. Take the tenancies implied in Clause 3. Before the landlord demanded an increase of rent it might be asked whether or not the Act applied to tenancies where the tenant was satisfied with the rent and the landlord was satisfied with the tenancy? If the landlord made no demand, he believed the Act would not apply to the tenancy at all; and, therefore, such tenancy would not be one that would fall within the present section, and the tenant would have no right to sell the holding. To prevent such a doubt existing which might afterwards lead to endless litigation, and mar the effect of the Act, he suggested to add the words—" Every tenancy not specially excepted from the provisions of this Act."
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 1, line 7, to leave out the words "to which this Act applies," and insert "not hereinafter specially excepted from the provisions of this Act."—(Dr. Commins.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am not quite sure of the necessity of these words; but, on the whole, I think that they tend to make the matter clearer. They do not alter the meaning and intention of the clause.
  MR. WARTONthought the Amendment might be slightly improved by omitting the last words. "Not hereinafter specially excepted" would be quite enough.
  Question put, and negatived.
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. WARTONmoved, as an Amendment to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Roscommon (Dr. Commins), to omit the words "from the provisions of this Act."
  Amendment proposed, to omit from the proposed Amendment the words "from the provisions of this Act."—(Mr. Warton.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Amendment."
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)thought the adoption of the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) might have the effect of introducing an unnecessary ambiguity.
  MR. WARTONsaid, he certainly did not agree with the right hon. and learned Attorney General.
  MR. GIBSONthought it would be better to defer the consideration of the proposal of his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Warton) until they came to the exceptions at the end of the Bill. If the matter had not by that time been made quite clear, it could be further considered.
  Amendment to proposed Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question put, and agreed to.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The next Amendment in order is in the name of Mr. Ramsay.
  MR. RAMSAYsaid, he understood that the Prime Minister intended to report Progress at 12 o'clock; and as that hour had almost been reached, and the Amendment he (Mr. Ramsay) intended to propose would require a lengthened explanation, he would move to report Progress.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Ramsay.)
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the time at the disposal of the Committee had been so dreadfully cut into in the early part of the evening that he was in hopes his hon. Friend would not have taken off another slice at the end of the evening. If his hon. Friend would kindly state his case before the Committee reported Progress it might be useful.
  MR. GIBSONthought the Amendment of the hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Ramsay) was capable of being moved in a very short time and in a very few sentences; but it must necessarily lead to some discussion.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he had no wish to prevent discussion.
  MR. GIBSONthought that, under all the circumstances, it would perhaps be most convenient that the hon. Member should open the day with the Amendment.
  MR. HEALYunderstood that the Government had accepted the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Roscommon (Dr. Commins). He thought they ought to go a step further, and include the ordinary tenancies under the Act. The ordinary tenants, as the Bill was now drawn, did not get a single bit of benefit from it, and he saw no reason why they should be restricted. He had himself an Amendment to move, the object of which was to apply this clause, subject to any such conditions as were in the Act declared to be statutory conditions. His point was, that if they only accepted the hon. Member for Roscommon's Amendment they would still exclude tenants who were under ordinary conditions. If the Bill stood as it was drawn, ordinary tenants would get no benefit from it; but it would take away the few benefits from them which they now possessed.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked if the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury intended to proceed that night with his Motion in regard to the Business of the House?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, he did not, if it was likely to lead to any discussion.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he should oppose the Motion for reporting Progress, unless the noble Lord gave a pledge that he would not bring the Motion on at that hour of the morning. It was simply playing with the House to attempt to subvert the ordinary Rules of the House at that hour of the night.
  THE CHAIRMAN: That is a question which is not at present before the House.
  SIR H. DRUAIMOND WOLFFintimated that he should challenge the Motion for reporting Progress.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLwished to point out, with all respect, that the question of reporting Progress had a great deal to do with the Business that was to be taken afterwards. It was understood that Progress was to be reported at 12 o'clock, because the Prime Minister was anxious to ask for a Vote of Credit; but it was not understood

  1737
  that they were to report Progress to enable the Government to bring on the question of going into Committee of Supply on Mondays compulsorily without an opportunity being afforded for discussing any previous Motion.
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, the noble Lord need be under no alarm; he would not proceed with the Motion of which he had given Notice.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow, at Two of the clock.

SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICES AND REVENUE DEPARTMENTS.

  FURTHER VOTE ON ACCOUNT.
  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a further sum, not exceeding £2,541,300, the granted to Her Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the Charge for the following Civil Services and Revenue Departments for the year ending on the 31st day of March 1882, viz:—

CIVIL SERVICES.

  CLASS I.—PUBLIC WORKS AND BUILDINGS.
  Great, Britain:—

  £

  Furniture of Public Offices

  500

  Revenue Department Buildings

  35,000

  County Court Buildings

  7,000

  Metropolitan Police Courts

  1,000

  Sheriff Court Houses, Scotland

  1,000

  New Courts of Justice &C.

  15,000

  Surveys of the United Kingdom

  20,000

  Science and Art Department Buildings

  500

  British Museum Buildings

  1,000

  Natural History Museum

  10,000

  Edinburgh University Buildings

  Harbours, &c. under Board of Trade

  1,000

  Rates on Government Property (Great Britain and Ireland)

  50,000

  Metropolitan Fire Brigade

  2,500

  Ireland:—

  Public Buildings

  15,000

  Science and Art Buildings, Dublin

  Shannon Navigation

  1,500

  Abroad:—

  Lighthouses Abroad

  1,000

  Diplomatic and Consular Buildings

  2,000

  CLASS II.—SALARIES AND EXPENSES OF CIVIL DEPARTMENTS.

  England:—

  £

  House of Lords, Offices

  4,000

  House of Commons, Offices

  4,000

  Treasury, including Parliamentary Counsel

  10,000

  Home Office and Subordinate Departments

  15,000

  Foreign Office

  12,000

  Colonial Office

  13,000

  Privy Council Office and Subordinate Departments

  10,000

  Privy Seal Office

  500

  Board of Trade and Subordinate Departments

  20,000

  Charity Commission (including Endowed Schools Department)

  5,000

  Civil Service Commission

  4,000

  Copyhold, Inclosure, and Tithe Commission

  3,000

  Inclosure and Drainage Acts Expenses

  2,000

  Exchequer and Audit Department

  15,000

  Friendly Societies, Registry

  1,000

  Local Government Board

  25,000

  Lunacy Commission

  2,500

  Mint (including Coinage)

  5,000

  National Debt Office

  2,000

  Patent Office

  4,500

  Paymaster General's Office

  4,500

  Public Works Loan Commission

  700

  Record Office

  3,000

  Registrar General's Office (including Census)

  15,000

  Stationery and Printing

  80,000

  Woods, Forests, &c., Office of

  4,000

  Works and Public Buildings, Office of

  7,000

  Secret Service

  2,000

  Scotland:—

  Exchequer and other Offices

  500

  Fishery Board

  1,000

  Lunacy Commission

  500

  Registrar General's Office (including Census)

  5,000

  Board of Supervision

  1,000

  Ireland:—

  Lord Lieutenant's Household

  500

  Chief Secretary's Office

  3,000

  Charitable Donations and Bequests Office

  100

  Local Government Board

  20,000

  Public Works Office

  2,000

  Record Office

  500

  Registrar General's Office (including Census)

  5,000

  Valuation and Boundary Survey

  2,000

  CLASS III.—LAW AND JUSTICE.

  England:—

  £

  Law Charges

  7,000

  Public Prosecutor's Office

  600

  Criminal Prosecutions

  15,000

  Chancery Division, High Court of Justice

  25,000

  Central Office of the Supreme Court, &c.

  15,000

  Probate &c. Registries, High Court of Justice

  5,000

  Admiralty Registry, High Court of Justice

  500

  Wreck Commission

  1,000

  Bankruptcy Court (London)

  5,000

  County Courts

  20,000

  Land Registry

  500

  Revising Barristers, England

  Police Courts (London and Sheerness)

  1,000

  Metropolitan Police

  50,000

  County and Borough Police, Great Britain

  1,000

  Convict Establishments in England and the Colonies

  20,000

  Prisons, England

  50,000

  Reformatory and Industrial Schools, Great Britain

  Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum

  2,000

  Scotland:—

  Lord Advocate, and Criminal Proceedings

  5,000

  Courts of Law and Justice

  5,000

  Register House Departments

  2,000

  Prisons, Scotland

  10,000

  Ireland:—

  Law Charges and Criminal Prosecutions

  10,000

  Supreme Court of Judicature

  15,000

  Court of Bankruptcy

  1,500

  Admiralty Court Registry

  100

  Registry of Deeds

  2,000

  Registry of Judgments

  500

  County Court Officers, &c.

  10,000

  Dublin Metropolitan Police (including Police Courts)

  30,000

  Constabulary

  220,000

  Prisons, Ireland

  25,000

  Reformatory and Industrial Schools

  20,000

  Dundrum Criminal Lunatic Asylum

  500

  CLASS IV.—EDUCATION, SCIENCE, AND ART.

  England:—

  £

  Public Education

  400,000

  Science and Art Department

  50,000

  British Museum

  15,000

  National Gallery

  2,000

  National Portrait Gallery

  300

  Learned Societies, &c.

  5,000

  London University

  2,000

  Deep Sea Exploring Expedition (Report)

  1,000

  Sydney and Melbourne International Exhibitions

  1,000

  Scotland:—

  Public Education

  80,000

  Universities, &c.

  2,000

  National Gallery

  Ireland:—

  Public Education

  130,000

  Teachers' Pension Office

  100

  Endowed Schools Commissioners

  100

  National Gallery

  300

  Queen's University

  500

  Royal University

  200

  Queen's Colleges

  2,000

  Royal Irish Academy

  300

  CLASS V.—FOREIGN AND COLONIAL SERVICES.

  £

  Diplomatic Services

  30,000

  Consular Services

  50,000

  Suppression of the Slave Trade

  500

  Tonnage Bounties, &c.

  1,500

  Suez Canal (British Directors)

  Colonies, Grants in Aid

  5,000

  Orange River Territory and St. Helena

  500

  Subsidies to Telegraph Companies

  CLASS VI.—NON-EFFECTIVE AND CHARITABLE SERVICES AND RETIRED ALLOW ANCES, AND GRATUITIES FOR CHARITABLE AND OTHER PURPOSES.
  £

  Superannuation and Retired Allowances

  100,000

  Merchant Seamen's Fund Pensions, &c.

  6,000

  Relief of Distressed British Seamen Abroad

  2,000

  Pauper Lunatics, England

  1,000

  Pauper Lunatics, Scotland

  1,000

  Pauper Lunatics, Ireland

  10,000

  Hospitals and Infirmaries, Ireland

  1,500

  Friendly Societies Deficiency

  Miscellaneous Charitable and other Allowances, Great Britain

  500

  Miscellaneous Charitable and other Allowances, Ireland

  500

  CLASS VII.—MISCELLANEOUS.

  £

  Temporary Commissions

  5,000

  Miscellaneous Expenses

  500

  Total for Civil Services

  £1,961,300

  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEasked if it was intended to take Supply before the Land Bill was finally disposed of, or was it intended to suspend Supply while the Land Bill was before the House? He was anxious to know what the condition of the House was. So far, they had taken very few Votes in Supply.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, it was very difficult for the Government to judge what time the Land Bill would take in Committee. Indeed, it was extremely difficult; and, therefore, he was unable to give any authoritative answer in reference to Supply. He certainly did not expect to make any great progress in Supply until the Land Bill was got rid of; and after that was done Supply would be regularly proceeded with.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFwished to put a Question to the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister in reference to the order of Business. There were several Bills put down constantly which he did not believe the Government had any intention of bringing on; but the fact that they were down on the Paper gave a great deal of trouble to hon. Members. For instance, there were the Parliamentary Elections Bill and the Parliamentary Oaths Bill. He did not think the Government ought to put down Bills of such importance unless they intended to bring them on. Night after night he saw the Parliamentary Oaths Bill on the Paper. There was no necessity for this, as there could be very little intention on the part of the Government of proceeding with it at once, and ho was certain the right hon. Gentleman had no wish to carry it forward in an underhand way.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Questions relating to the Orders of the Day can only be asked in the House, and not in Committee of Supply.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFwould, under these circumstances, move to report Progress, so that he might be able to put this Question.
  THE CHAIRMAN: That would still be an irregular course. The Question which the hon. Member proposes to ask can only be put in the House with the Speaker in the Chair.
  MR. T. COLLINsaid, they could not have the Speaker in the Chair unless they reported Progress; and as it was desirable that they should report Progress, in order to have the Speaker in the Chair, he would second the Motion for reporting Progress.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Sir H. Drummond Wolff.)
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he did not understand one of the phrases made use of by the Prime Minister. The right hon. Gentleman said that Supply would be taken when "the bulk of our work on the Land Bill was concluded;" but he had not made it clear whether he referred to the work in Committee, or to the work which the House would have to do on the third reading.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, in some cases work strictly analagous to work in Com-
  1742
  mittee went over to the Report. If that were so in the present case, he should include the stage of Report in the expression he had used.
  MR. GORSTasked if the Prime Minister could give the House any prospect of a discussion on the state of affairs in the Transvaal? A great deal of reticence had been exercised in connection with this subject in order not to cause the Government embarrassment in the position in which they were placed; but the right hon. Gentleman would be conscious that the state of affairs in the Transvaal were extremely serious, and that many hon. Members who desired to see the undertakings of the Government carried out were very anxious with regard to the Transvaal question. He trusted the Government would appoint an early day for the discussion of the Motion which stood upon the Paper.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, the answer he had given to the right hon. Baronet (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) was that Her Majesty's Government could not appoint a day for discussion on his Motion until the labours of the Commission were completed. A telegram had been received that day, stating that the work of the Commission had begun, and he presumed, when it was completed, the right hon. Baronet would renew his application to the Government. The answer to that application would depend on one consideration. The desire of Her Majesty's Government was that the discussion should be taken as soon as it could be proceeded with without detriment to the Public Service; but their decision must be founded on the actual progress of the Commission in its work.
  CAPTAIN AYLMERunderstood that the Estimates would be postponed to the end of the Session, when most hon. Members were out of town. He had given a great deal of attention to the various items of Supply last year, and had frequently addressed the Committee when scarcely 40 Members were present in the House, owing to the Estimates having been introduced at so late a period of the Session. There could be no doubt that the postponement of Supply to the last days of the Session was most injurious to the interests of the Public Service.
  EARL PERCYsaid, as Supply was the special work of the House of Commons, it was very important that the

  1743
  Votes should be fully discussed. Although it was disagreeable to those who had no right to speak with authority on the course of Business to mention the subject, yet he thought hon. Members had a right to know whether, in the opinion of the occupants of both Front Benches, the course proposed to be followed in the case of the Civil Service Estimates was for the interest of the country. Was it for the interest of the Public Service that a second Vote should be taken on account, and that all consideration of the Estimates should be relegated to a period when there could be no possible opportunity for full discussion?
  MR. ONSLOWasked, whether the Prime Minister would appoint a Morning Sitting on an early day for the consideration of the Indian Budget? He also wished to know whether the Parliamentary Oaths Bill was intended to be postponed until after the third reading, or when the Report of the Irish Land Bill was taken?
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORhoped the Prime Minister would give a satisfactory answer as to the course of Public Business to hon. Members who had just spoken above the Gangway. He considered the conduct of the Government with regard to Supply was deserving of severe animadversion. On Friday night last, the Government waited until 1 o'clock in the morning, and then, having two Notices on the Paper with regard to Supply—namely, the 1st and 2nd Classes of the Civil Service Estimates and the 10th Vote of the Army Estimates—the noble Lord the Financial Secretary to the Treasury intimated that it was a great deal too late to agree to the Civil Service Estimates at that hour. Now, these two classes, in their entirety, did not amount to so large a sum as the single Army Vote, which was for £3 500,000. This latter sum was voted when there were scarcely 40 Members present, although it seemed to provide for almost all the Military Administration, and amounted to nearly one-third of the total Effective Vote for the Army Service. The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War told the Committee that it was absolutely necessary that the sum should be voted at once. But it must be palpable to anyone acquainted with the facts of the case that such a representation was ab-
  1744
  surd—that before two months of the financial year had expired the War Office could require nearly one-half of the whole amount of the Military Estimates for the year. Yet, upon that representation of the right hon. Gentleman, the Committee was induced to vote a sum which made up a total of nearly £8,000,000 on account of the Army Estimates. He (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) and one or two hon. Members opposed this Vote upon the principle that it was unfair to the country and the House of Commons to bring forward as matters of urgency Votes on Account which at that time of the financial year could not possibly be required. He should to the utmost of his power always oppose the voting of public money in this manner. On the present occasion, therefore, he should ask Her Majesty's Government to give the House an assurance that they would not do what had so often been done before—namely, put off the Committee of Supply to the end of the, Session, when nothing like serious discussion or examination of the Estimates would be practicable. He remembered the Prime Minister admitting, in his place, that he would be very glad to see the Estimates thoroughly canvassed, and that he did not think they hard always received the attention which they deserved. It was perfectly useless to make observations of that kind if he so managed the Public Business that these Votes should not be brought before the House until the Session was nearly at an end. For these reasons, he joined the hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone (Captain Aylmer) in the representations he had made.
  SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, the Prime Minister stated, at the beginning of the Session, that he proposed to take a Vote on Account for three months; but, upon his offering opposition to the Motion, the right hon. Gentleman consented to reduce the amount asked for to two months' Supply. At the same lime, the right hon. Gentleman stated that in consequence of the pressure of Business, owing to the long debates on the Protection of Person and Property (Ireland) Bill and the Arms Bill, he would very likely have to ask the House to give another Vote on Account before he went into Committee of Supply. This Vote of two months' Supply was readily granted, and it was also understood that, under peculiar cir-

  1745
  cumstances, the House would not object to the further demand which was now made. But he (Sir R. Assheton Cross) hoped it was clear that there would be no further Vote on Account after the present, and that the Government would, in the course of the next six weeks, bring forward the Estimates from time to time. He could not help thinking that it the Government put a little pressure upon their Friends on Friday evenings there would be no difficulty in making a satisfactory arrangement. The late Government had often been obliged to take that course. Again, it was very unsatisfactory that the Estimates should be brought on at so late an hour. It would be remembered that when the Army Estimates were proposed the Vote was granted on the understanding that the money was absolutely necessary for the Public Service, and that there would be an opportunity given for discussing the particular points which hon. Members had to raise, but which they did not then raise, upon the Vote. The late Secretary of State for War (Colonel Stanley) sat up to 5 o'clock in the morning, and, together with other Members of the late Government, assisted to pass the Vote. When the Vote came forward for discussion he trusted it would be brought on at an earlier time than on the last occasion, for it was almost needless to say that 5 o'clock in the morning was not a suitable hour to discuss Votes in Supply.
  MR. GLADSTONEadmitted that it was most unsatisfactory that Supply should be taken either at too late an hour of the night or at too late a period of the Session; but what were the Government to do? Two hours or more of every Government night were consumed by the Questions put to Ministers. Those Questions were, to a great extent, no doubt, a consequence of the extreme strain put upon private. Members of late. But if the condition of private Members was bad, that of the Government was still worse. He could only say they would do the best they could under difficult circumstances; and he hoped that hon. Members opposite would call them to account if they did not make a judicious use of the limited resources at their disposal.
  MR. GORSTreminded the Prime Minister that in the early part of the Session two hours, at least, were wasted
  1746
  on each of three successive nights becaues sufficient Votes in Committee of Supply were not on the Paper, and Progress was reported very early.
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, that on the occasion referred to Progress was not reported till close on 12 o'clock, and then only because some of the Irish Votes had to be postponed, as they were likely to give rise to a lengthy discussion. It was often complained that Supply was taken at too late an hour.
  MR. SCLATER-BOOTHpointed out that if time was wasted in putting Questions, time was also wasted by the ridiculous answers to those Questions.
  MR. PARNELLasked the Prime Minister if he could not agree to leave the Vote for the Irish Constabulary out of the Votes, and so rescue those Irish Members who thought as he did from an exceedingly disagreeable position? His hon. Friend the Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) had a Motion on the Paper, amounting to a Vote of Want of Confidence in the Administration of the Irish Executive. There were questions of a very vital and grave character in reference to that Motion which he desired to bring before the House, questions connected with the administration of the money which they were asked to vote to-night. He supposed he should be told, if he objected to the granting of this £220,000 with which to buy buckshot for the Irish Constabulary, to be used in shooting down women, and children, and men in the West of Ireland, who were unable to pay the excessive rents required of them—he supposed he should be told he was obstructing the Land Bill. They could not give this money to the Irish Government without a protest, and he was convinced that public opinion in Ireland would cheerfully give up a day or part of a day from the Land Bill to finish the discussion on the Motion of his hon. Friend. It must be remembered that the Land Bill could not be passed for a considerable time. There were 1,500 Amendments on the Paper, and they had taken two whole days in discussing two of them. It would not require a very difficult calculation to ascertain, if two Amendments took two whole days, how many days 1,500 Amendments would take. Assuming that the Amendments remaining on the Paper

  1747
  were only to take a fraction of the time occupied by the two Amendments already disposed of, the Committee would admit that they must sit, in all probability, for two months before they could pass the Bill. In the meantime, time Irish people were to be exposed to all the horrors of what was very little short of martial law. The Prime Minister told them they dare not take a division on the Motion of the hon. Member for Longford; he did not think the right hon. Gentleman thought so now, and he did not think many hon. Members thought so. They had never shown any fear to take the opinion of the House when it was necessary or desirable. He believed every line of the speech the Chief Secretary made the other day could be answered. A friend, who had seen time hon. Member for Tipperary in prison, wired him as follows:—
  "Mr. Dillon Wrote by last night's post to the Speaker complaining of being forcibly prevented from representing his constituents, and demanding an opportunity of repudiating time report of speech made by Forster about him. If possible, get Dillon's letter read to the House."
  Now, consider what their position was. They maintained that the charges which had been made by the Irish Government against the 110 men who were now confined in gaol were libellous and calumnious, and this they could prove to the satisfaction of the House. They could prove that the class of men that the Chief Secretary said his Act was intended to arrest had not been arrested, and that all the persons who had been arrested were men of stainless character; they could prove that the class of men who had been arrested by the Government, so far from being village scoundrels and ruffians, were men of the highest respectability. What had been done in reference to his friend, Father Sheehy? The Chief Secretary did not scruple to suggest that Father Sheehy, an esteemed clergyman, against whom nothing had ever been brought, had been guilty of an act for which, had he really been guilty, he would have been unfrocked by the discipline of his Church. The Chief Secretary suggested that Father Sheehy had taken part in a violent and secret agitation, that he had induced an unlawful assembly, and had, therefore, become amenable to the law.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Gentleman is referring to a previous debate,
  1748
  and the next Order of the Day is one on which he could legitimately discuss this matter. I think he is not regular in discussing the question upon a proposal for a reduction of this Vote.
  MR. PARNELL,said he was endeavouring to urge upon the Committee and time Government the propriety of postponing this Vote until they had had an opportunity of finishing the debate and taking the judgment of the House upon the Motion of the hon. Member for Longford. No one would really begrudge the short time necessary for the purpose of finishing the debate; it could not have any appreciable effect upon the Land Bill, for it could not delay the passing of the Bill for more than a few hours. He feared, unless something was done in time way of relief much more quickly than was proposed by the right hon. Gentleman, trouble might come which might shake the whole of Christianity; they might fear a serious collision between police and people. At the present time counsels were being given which he had never given, and which he had from the commencement refused to sanction, and those counsels were that the people should refuse the payment of all rent. But if aggravation was to be piled upon aggravation, if the Government insisted upon tuning a deaf ear to the complaints of an unfortunate people, if the Government compelled them to wait for several long and dreary months before the Land Bill could possibly become law, could they be surprised if the people listened to men who were more advanced, and if they sought protection in the only possible way open to them, and that was by starving out the landlands by refusing payment of all rents? He entreated the Prime Minister to relieve the Irish Members of the difficulty, and not to insist upon the Vote for the Irish Constabulary until an opportunity was afforded them of putting their case properly before the country, and this they would have on the Motion of his hon. Friend (Mr. Justin M'Carthy).
  Question put, "That the Vote be agreed to."
  MR. T. COLLINSrose to Order. A Motion had been made to report Progress, and had not yet been withdrawn.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he would be willing to withdraw the

  1749
  Motion if he obtained a satisfactory answer from the Government upon the point he had raised.
  MR. R. N. FOWLERsaid, of late the practice had grown up of reading to the House Notices of Questions. Questions, he thought, might very well be handed in to the Clerk at the Table. His chief object, however, in rising was to suggest that Questions, except on special occasions, should not be put on Government nights. Time was of comparatively little importance on Tuesdays and Fridays, and might be spent in Questions.
  MR. T. COLLINSdisapproved of the latter suggestion. It appeared to him that, inasmuch as the Government had deprived private Members of nearly all the time understood to be at their disposal, Questions ought to be put on Government nights only.
  MR. GLADSTONEcould not understand how it was said that the Government appropriated the greater part of the time of the House, for not only now, but for a long time past, three times as many Questions as formerly were put to Ministers, necessarily occupying a considerable time. The Vote now under discussion was simply to enable the Government to fulfil the obligations of the State in the shape of the payment of the servants of the State. When a Vote was required to cover the financial year, the whole subject could be discussed.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORcould not reconcile the statement of the Prime Minister with the fact that of the total cost of £915,000 for the County and Borough Police in Great Britain the Government only proposed to take £2,000, or 1-450th part; while besides £220,000 already granted for the Irish Constabulary, they now wished another £220,000, or more than one-fourth of the total Vote of £1,192,000.
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHexplained that the smallness of the English Vote was owing to the fact that a large proportion of the cost of the English Police was paid out of the rates. The payments in England from the Exchequer were made provisionally; but the whole cost of the Irish Constabulary was paid by the Exchequer, and at once.
  MR. HICKSwished to know why so many Orders were placed on the Paper? and referred to the great inconvenience private Members were put to by not
  1750
  knowing what Business would come before the House. As an instance, he mentioned that the Parliamentary Oaths Bill, which had been off the Paper, had now been put on again; and he asked what use it was for the Government to put down Notices which they had no intention of taking?
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFexpressed his willingness, after the explanation of the Prime Minister, to withdraw his Motion.
  MR. PARNELLinquired how he could move to reduce the Vote for the Constabulary?
  THE CHAIRMAN: By a Motion to reduce the whole sum.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Original Question again proposed.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That a further sum, not exceeding £2,321,300 be granted to Her Majesty, on account, for or towards defraying the charge for the following Civil Services and Revenue Departments for the year ending on the 31st day of March 1882."—(Mr Parnell.)
  MR. HEALYwished to call attention to the arrest of a man named Murray.
  THE CHAIRMAN: I do not see that that subject is properly before the Committee.
  MR. HEALY: Can I raise it on the Vote for Prisons?
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORrose to a point of Order, and asked, whether, if the Vote was now taken, it would be competent to any Member to reduce it by the amount for Secret Service?
  THE CHAIRMAN: It would be competent to an hon, Member to reduce the sum by a substantial amount for a particular purpose. It would not be competent to reduce an item. I do not see that this comes under the Prisons Vote.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORwished to know whether it was necessary to vote this money then in the interests of the Public Service? If so, he could not understand the way in which the Government managed their Business. They brought on their Votes at a time when there could be no discussion, and insisted that they must be passed. Was it fair that the Irish Members should be asked to Vote £220,000 for a matter they had, over and over again, tried to get discussed? He did not wish to enter into a contest with the Government if he

  1751
  could possibly avoid it; but he must ask the Prime Minister to answer a question he had put earlier in the evening. The Vote of £220,000 raised the question of the policy of the Government in continuing to lend the Constabulary and the Military to assist in evictions; and he wished to know whether the right hon. Gentleman would, before the Whitsuntide Holidays, give the Irish Members an opportunity of discussing this question. If not, he was afraid they must continue the discussion.
  MR. A. M. SULLIVANregretted that this Vote had been taken in the absence of the Chief Secretary, for it could not fairly be discussed in his absence. He would, however, ask the Attorney General for Ireland what the Government intended to do with those policemen who had scandalously abused the confidence and secrecy of the Census papers? Was the Committee to reward those policemen by giving this Vote? A police officer had admitted, in open Court, that, having got a correct Census paper, he took another paper to the man's house, under the pretence that the other was erroneously filled up; and so, on that lying pretence, obtained the man's signature to the second paper, in order to give evidence against the man in one of those miserable prosecutions now current in Ireland. He had told the Prime Minister that this was one of the things that would be done by Irish policemen more zealous than conscientious; and he wished to see whether there was an Englishman in the House who would defend such trickery, chicanery, and falsehood. What was to be done with the policemen who had acted in that way? What censure had been passed upon them?
  MR. HEALYwished to put a question to the Attorney General for Ireland upon the arrest of the man named Murray. He was told that that man was a thorough scoundrel, and he believed that everyone would approve of the arrest. He was a bailiff, and he was popularly supposed to have shot his employer, with whom he had had a dispute. The man was clearing out of the country in September or October, but he was arrested at Queenstown. What good did his arrest do? He was leaving his country for his country's good, and he could not see the advantage of keeping the man in prison for 18 months. The Go-
  1752
  vernment had not been able to get any evidence against this man, who was charged with attempting to murder his employer, Mr. Wheeler; and he was not arrested under the Coercion Acts. It was a good job for the Government that the Chief Secretary was absent. In dealing with the Attorney General for Ireland, Irish Members knew that they were dealing with a Gentleman in whom they had some confidence. If the Chief Secretary had been in his place they would have offered much more resistance to the Government. Before the Easter Recess, he had brought before the House the case of a man named Downey, who was arrested under the Coercion Acts, but who proved his innocence, and had to be released, after being kept in prison for three months. Why was that man arrested; and why did the Government, instead of making some inquiries, trust to the local police, and only set the man free when his case was brought before, the House? If it was right to release him, it was wrong to arrest him; if it was right to arrest him, then it was wrong to let him out.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORasked when the House would have an opportunity of continuing the discussion on the Motion of the hon. Member for the county of Longford? There was no time to discuss the matter on this, Vote, and, in order to give the Government time to consider when they could give an opportunity of resuming the debate, he would move to report Progress.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. T. P. O' Connor.)
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. LAW)said, that even assuming, for the purpose of argument, that one or two policemen in Ireland lead done wrong, surely that was no reason for refusing the money for the maintenance of the whole force
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORwas sorry to see the difference there was between the County Constabulary of Ireland and the Borough and County Police of England. It was said that this Vote on Account was for sir weeks, and if they went into a calculation of the totals for the year they would find that the sum required was £150,000; but in this Vote on Account they were asked to give £220,000.

  1753
  This was considerably more than they ought to vote, and he desired some explanation from the Government with regard to it.
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, that although the Vote was only for six weeks, it included two monthly payments; therefore, it was one-sixth of the total amount that was now asked for.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, the Government had made no answer as to the resumption of the debate on his Motion. It was difficult to discuss the whole question of the Irish Police on these Estimates, and, as they had a distinct Motion on the matter before the House, they asked whether the Government would enable them to resume its discussion? If the Government did not afford them the opportunity they desired, they would be compelled to avail themselves of any irregular chance that might present itself for discussing the subject, or leave it undiscussed altogether. They could not possibly allow the Government Vote with regard to the Irish Police to go unchallenged, and they did not intend to.
  MR. T. COLLINSwould suggest that if the hon. Member wished to raise a discussion on this matter, the best thing he could do would be to put down his Motion for, to-morrow, and then move that the other Orders of the Day be postponed until that Motion was disposed of.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONcomplained that the course the hon. Member who had just sat down had recommended would be most irregular. As to the appeal of the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy), what had fallen from his right hon. Friend (Mr. Gladstone) had shown that he was anxious that the debate should be continued, and that the sense of the House should be taken upon it; but, believing as they did in the paramount importance, especially to Ireland, of the discussion on the Land Law (Ireland) Bill, they could not hold out any hope that time would be afforded for the resumption of the debate at an early hour in the evening. It had been hoped that the debate might have been resumed to-day. The discussion on the Land Bill was adjourned at 12 o'clock, and if the present conversation had not been so prolonged some further progress might now have been made. An oppor-
  1754
  tunity had been afforded to hon. Members to make their charge against the Government, and the Government reply had been given. By that reply the Government were prepared to stand, and if hon. Gentlemen had desired to take the sense of the House upon it, they could have done so by complying with the request his right hon. Friend had made on Tuesday. Hon. Members, if they wished, might resume the discussion to-night, and, if they desired, they might take the sense of the House on the Motion. It was not at present in the power of the Government to name any convenient time for the resumption of the debate, and he really failed to see what useful end could be gained by involving the House in a conflict on the question of this Vote on Account.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, it would seem that the enormous number of Amendments to the Land Bill standing in the name of Liberal Members was a perfect godsend to Her Majesty's Government, because, at every point at which their policy was challenged, whether at home or abroad, they took their stand on the alleged necessity for giving time for the discussion of these Amendments. He could not help thinking that there was some connection between the multitude of Liberal Amendments and the policy of Her Majesty's Government, and, instead of addressing so many appeals to that side of the House to abstain from discussing the affairs of their own country, the noble Marquess the Secretary of State for India and other Members of the Government should address themselves to their own followers, and request them to be more saving of their breath and of the time of the House in the discussion of their own Amendments. As for the suggestion that the Irish Members ought to be satisfied with the opportunity already given to them of discussing the Motion of the hon. Member for Longford, he thought it required all the proverbial impassiveness of the Secretary of State for India to enable the Government to place such an astounding proposition before the House. The way the Government facilitated hon. Members from Ireland in this matter was by forcing the Mover of the Motion to open the charge against the Chief Secretary and his subordinates at 4 o'clock in the morning. Then, indeed, he must frankly admit the Government did give him

  1755
  (Mr. O'Donnell) an opportunity of contributing some observations to the elucidation of the Government case. Then came the Chief Secretary with a speech of two hours' duration, leaving about 30 minutes for exposing the monstrous tissue of misrepresentations which had been imposed upon that innocent and incredulous person. The Whips had issued their mandate, and the Government were prepared with their strong battalions. The bulk of the Liberal Party had only been present at the observations; but they were to snuff out the Irish debate by voting blindfold, in trust upon the observations of the Chief Secretary alone. Such a manner of treating Irish affairs was something like adding insult to injury. He would ask the noble Marquess to use some of his influence to induce a more economic use of time in the discussion of the Land Bill, so as to enable Irish Members to bring forward the very grave charges they had to bring forward against the Irish Administration. He was not aware what opportunity could be given for discussing the affairs of Ireland, if the noble Lord and those who acted with him persisted in encouraging their followers to take up the time of the House in unnecessary discussions on the Land Bill, to give the Government an excuse for shelving every discussion on every subject. There were a large number of Amendments, some of which were to the effect—
  THE CHAIRMAN: I must point out that the hon. Member is going beyond the Motion before the House. He is discussing the Amendment.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he was sorry he had been misled, but he understood the Secretary of State for India had introduced the necessity for discussing the Land Bill. He (Mr. O'Donnell) did not wish to mention the words of the Bill, but only to say that the Government should not bring forward the Land Bill as a convenient extinguisher of every matter that was proposed for discussion. Repressive measures were working as badly as possible for the Government, and he could assure them that this Motion would remain hanging over their heads, and that, in season or out of season, they must have an opportunity of showing that the Chief Secretary had been imposed upon by a monstrous set of fabrications. As yet nothing but
  1756
  that monstrous set of fabrications had been laid before the House; and to say that "the sense of the House" could be taken on that was a mere juggling with words and paltering with the intelligence of the House. The noble Marquess should be reminded that the people of Ireland were not to be treated by the noble Marquess as he treated the Natives of India.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORwished to know whether the Government were or were not going to give them an opportunity of discussing the affairs of Ireland? ["No, no!"] [Mr. FINIGAN: Hear, hear! Excellent Radicalism.] He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) heard replying to his question the voice of an hon. Member who had added little to his dignity by unseemly squabbling during the course of his election. He had put his question to the Government, and not to the hon. Member. Early in the evening he had informed the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister that they would not begin the discussion of the Motion of the hon. Member for Longford at 12 o'clock at night. They wanted an earlier discussion, and would have been perfectly prepared to go on with the debate at 10 o'clock if they had been allowed. The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for India, and several other speakers on the Treasury Bench, had laid great stress on the decision of the House being given on this question. He might say, on his own behalf, and on behalf of several hon. Friends behind him, that they had very little regard for what the decision of the House might be. They were not so foolish as to suppose that their Motion of Censure against the Irish Executive would be carried in that House. They knew that, necessarily, they would be in a miserable minority; but what they wanted was a fair discussion, in which their side, as well as the Government side, of the question would be laid before the public of this country and the people of Ireland. What was the position of affairs at the present time? Why, the real speech which was before the country was that which the Chief Secretary delivered on Tuesday afternoon. The right hon. Gentleman ended his speech at 10 minutes or a quarter past 6 in the evening. The contested Business at these Morning Sittings had to be concluded at 10 minutes to 7, so that the Irish Members had only had

  1757
  from 10 minutes past 6 to 10 minutes to 7 to answer a speech of an hour and a-half in length. His hon. Friend then took up this question, which was entirely unconnected with the real question at issue, and the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, carefully prepared, very ably put together, and characterized by his usual dexterity in putting his case, was allowed to go before the country without any reply on the part of Irish Members. The Government must understand that they would not be permitted to dismiss the House for the Whitsuntide Vacation until Irish Members had had an opportunity of giving a full reply to the speech of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He did not wish to discuss this Vote at so late an hour if he could avoid it; but Irish Members could not allow it to pass without discussion, inasmuch as it raised the whole question of the Government policy in Ireland.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYrenewed the suggestion made to the noble Marquess that he should consent to take the Land Bill up to 10 o'clock on Thursday night, and allow Irish Members to go on with this discussion at that hour. The two hours that would be thus given would not be much time to take from the discussion on the Land Bill; and if the opportunity were afforded, Irish Members would have the satisfaction of knowing that their case had gone before the country. He trusted that this proposal, which was made with the object of arriving at a convenient settlement of the difficulty, would be accepted by the noble Marquess.
  MR. CALLANhoped the noble Marquess would not yield to the proposal of the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy), inasmuch the Land Bill was of far more importance than any other subject at the present time. He suggested to the Government that instead of having Morning Sittings on Tuesdays and Fridays, they should, take the entire days until the Bill had been disposed of, and that the progress of the Bill should not be interfered with by the discussion of any other subject.
  MR. HEALYremarked that, notwithstanding the solicitude of the Government to pass a Land Bill for Ireland, they had occupied the time of the House for six or eight weeks in discussions on Coercion Bills, and that, after applying
  1758
  coercion to Ireland in the most brutal manner, they would not give Irish Members an hour for the purpose of discussing the Motion of his hon. Friend. It was clear that the Government did not wish the speech of the Chief Secretary to be replied to.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: I entirely acknowledge the courteous tone in which the proposal of the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) has been made; and if I thought it was possible to meet his wishes with regard to Thursday night, without seriously interfering with the further discussion of the Land Law (Ireland) Bill, I should be very happy to accede to a proposal so fairly made. But I wish to point out that the suggestion would, unfortunately, reduce the time which we should be able on Thursday to devote to the consideration of the Bill in Committee to perhaps two or three hours. It is too frequently the case now that we do not reach Committee until an advanced time in the evening; and if we are to adjourn the debate at 10 o'clock on Thursday, the day would be almost entirely lost for the purposes of the Bill. I must also point out that it would not be in the power of the Government to secure the object in view in that way. It frequently happens that when an important debate is proposed to be adjourned at an early hour, all sorts of opposition is raised to that Motion. Therefore, if we proposed to adjourn the debate at 10 o'clock on Thursday, it might be impossible to secure the opportunity desired by the hon. Member for Longford. If hon. Members from Ireland are really anxious that this debate should be renewed, I ask whether it would not be possible to renew it on Friday next? If so, Her Majesty's Government will do all in their power to induce Members, having Notices of Motion on going into Committee of Supply, to withdraw them, and would take measures for making and keeping a House in the evening.
  MR. PARNELLthought the Government had made the best proposal in their power, and for his own part was perfectly willing to accede to it.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 18; Noes 185: Majority 167.—(Div. List, No. 222.)
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow, at Two of the clock.
  Committee to sit again upon Wednesday.

  SUPPLY—REPORT.
  Resolution [27th May] reported.
  Resolution read a second time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORmoved that the Vote be re-committed. The Vote, he said, was brought on at 10 o'clock on Saturday morning and it was represented by the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War that it was absolutely necessary that it should be taken, and that it was a Vote which might be passed without much discussion. As a matter of fact, this particular Vote required to be very carefully scrutinized and canvassed by the House. Year after year it had been rapidly increasing. In 1875–6 it amounted to £2,950,000; but that was a great deal more than was really required, inasmuch as at the end of the financial year the War Office had in their hands no loss than £95,000. In 1876–7 the Estimate went up to £2,997,000, and again there was a surplus. The increase went on, and in 1877–8, including the Supplementary Estimate, the Vote was £3,188,000; but this sum was in fact exceeded by no less a sum than £282,000. In 1878–9 the Estimate, including the Supplementary, amounted to £3,800,000, and this was exceeded by £500,000. In 1879–80 the original Estimate was exceeded by £2,000,000. In 1880–1 the Estimate fell to £2,790,000; and now the sum asked for amounted to £3,500,000. Now, the War Office authorities had already obtained under Vote 1, £4,500,000. The present Vote would put them in possession of £8,000,000. The total of the Army Estimates for the year was about £16,000,000, and the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Childers) wished the House to understand that it was absolutely necessary before the end of the second month of the financial year that one-half of the Army Estimates should be voted. It seemed to be perfectly impossible that the War Office could require that 50 per cent of the whole of the Army expenditure should be voted so early in the financial year. It was hardly reasonable that a Vote which,
  1760
  covered almost every ground of Army administration should be taken at 2 o'clock in the morning. The Vote was for food, forage, fuel, and light, lodging allowances, field allowances, grants for home and abroad, besides miscellaneous sources—in fact, it was difficult to understand what part of Army administration might not be affected, at any rate, by the Vote. It was a Vote which might very properly provoke criticism; but the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for War represented that it was just the reverse. Some Members in the House on Saturday morning expostulated; but the Secretary of State for War seemed to think it was exceedingly unreasonable of them to do so. The hon. Baronet the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (Sir Henry Holland) went so far as to suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should be content to take one-half of the Vote, and leave the other half as a ground for raising any criticism which might appear on some subsequent occasion to be called for. If the right hon. Gentleman had agreed to this suggestion, he (Mr. A. O'Connor) would not have raised a single objection. The noble Lord the Financial Secretary to the Treasury did not urge any of the Civil Service Estimates, on the ground that it was too late an hour. It seemed extraordinary that when it was too late to take the Civil Service Estimates, which in amount did not equal this single Vote, the Secretary of State for War should press on this Vote. When the Vote was brought on the Committee was scarcely in a mood to consider the Vote properly, and the consequence was there was a great deal of heated discussion, which did not conduce to the proper appreciation of the subject. Included in the Vote were a number of items, which might fairly be criticized, especially under present circumstances. There were charges for the continuance of soldiers upon work which certainly Irish Members could not be expected to countenance. It was only fair the House should consent to have the Vote re-committed, to admit of proper discussion He now moved that that course should be adopted.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the said Resolution be re-committed,"

  1761
  —(Mr. Arthur O' Connor,)—instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. R. N. FOWLERsaid, the hon. Gentleman (Mr. A. O'Connor) seemed to think the Vote was passed on Saturday morning after a short discussion. As a matter of fact, the discussion occupied from 1 o'clock to 5; and that, notwithstanding the importance of the Vote, could not be considered an inadequate consideration. After the long discussion on Saturday morning, and after a responsible Minister of the Crown, supported by his Predecessor in Office, had declared that it was necessary the Vote should be taken at once, it seemed unreasonable that it should be further postponed.
  MR. BIGGARsaid, the greater part of the Sitting on Saturday morning was occupied in discussing the Motion for Adjournment. On account of the lateness of the hour no report of the proceedings of the House could be made; and although, no doubt, a large majority of the Members were in favour of granting the money, it was not wise to set aside the established and very salutary custom which had heretofore been looked upon as almost the law of the House—namely, the custom of considering Votes of such large sums at an early hour of the evening.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolution agreed to.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) [PAYMENT OF IN DEMNITY, ADVANCES, SALARIES, EXPENSES, &C.].
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Resolved, That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, of any indemnity which may be given by the Land Commission, also the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of sums required for advances or purchase of Estates, as well as of the salaries of Commissioners and others, and of the expenses incurred by the Land Commission, which may become payable under the provisions of any Act of the present Session to further amend the Law relating to the occupation and ownership of Land in Ireland, and for other purposes relating thereto.
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow, at Two of the clock.
  House adjourned at a quarter after Two o'clock.