Commons Sitting of 20 April 1882

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Canals, appointed.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—Resolutions [April 3] reported.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Water Provisional Orders * [135]; Gas Provisional Orders* [136].
Select Committee—Report—Arklow Harbour * [96–137].
Third Reading—Army (Annual) * [105], and passed.

QUESTIONS.

  MERCHANT SHIPPING ACTS—THE "CITY OF LIMERICK."
  MR. RYLANDSasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether it is intended to hold an inquiry into the loss of the steamer "City of Limerick."
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN: The City of Limerick was detained by the Board of Trade some time ago; but the case was carried to a Court of Survey. The vessel was unconditionally released by the Court of Survey and allowed to proceed to sea. The owners have since commenced an action against the Board of Trade for damages and costs of the detention. That case will, I hope, be heard in the course of a few days by the Court of Appeal. While it is sub judice it is, of course, not desirable to institute any other inquiry. When the case is decided by the Final Court of Appeal, I will consider whether a further inquiry should not be instituted.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—MESSRS. HELY AND DOWLING.
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he will take into consideration the cases of two farmers from Hollywood, county Wicklow, named

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  Hely and Dowling, who have been in custody for the last four months in Dun-dalk Gaol, and will, in consideration of the peaceable condition of the county, order their release?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, that the cases of these men had been considered; but he could not recommend their release.

  PEACE PRESERVATION (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—PROCLAMATION OF COUNTY WICKLOW.
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he has seen the following statement in "Wicklow News Letter" of Saturday last, the local Conservative Journal:—
  "Although the disease of agrarian disturbance has been somewhat prevalent on the western side of the county, not only have the greater and most important districts been entirely free from it, but even in those places where it has been represented as epidemic, rumour and current reports have exaggerated the real state of things.… The two cases representing the serious crime of the Baltinglass district for half a year were both dealt with by Justice Harrison on Friday last; one of them was the unlawfully exposing a child, and was punished by a week's imprisonment; the other, a trumpery case of Boycotting, in which the accused, a woman, being found guilty by the jury on the charge of intimidation, was ordered to come up for judgment when called on;"
  and, whether, in consideration of the peace and good order prevailing, he will recommend the Lord Lieutenant to revoke the Orders in Council under which the county is proscribed and proclaimed?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, that although, generally speaking, the present state of the county Wicklow was exceptionally quiet, he did not, as yet, see his way to the release of the political prisoners belonging to that part of Ireland.

  RETURN No. 88 (REVENUE, TAXATION AND POPULATION)—PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION.
  SIR JOHN HAYasked the Secretary to the Treasury, If he will lay upon the Table, as a Supplement to Return No. 88, the number of Members of Parliament which each of the three divisions of the United Kingdom would obtain if the 658 Members were allotted, in accordance with the contribution of each to the Imperial Revenue?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: The information which the right hon. and gallant Member now asks was omitted at my request from the Return moved for by the hon. Member for Stafford. My reason for objecting to the insertion of it was, and is, that there are doubts how far the figures in the Returns represent the true incidence of taxation in the Three Kingdoms; and this being so, it is not advisable to insert in an official Return figures resting on an uncertain basis. Anyone who cares to do so can readily make the calculation for himself.

  POST OFFICE (IRELAND)—THE POSTMISTRESS OF ARRAN ISLAND.
  MR. REDMONDasked the Postmaster General, Whether it is a fact that Mary Henion, who has held the office of postmistress in Arran Island for the last twenty years, has been dismissed in consequence of her son being arrested under the Coercion Act; whether during her long service she fulfilled her duties to the satisfaction of the Post Office authorities; and, whether her summary dismissal because of the suspected wrong doing of her son has been sanctioned by him?
  MR. FAWCETT: In reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that it is not the fact that Mrs. Henion, postmistress of Arran Island, has been dismissed in consequence of the arrest of her son under the Coercion Act. For some time past the duties of the Arran Island Post Office have not been conducted in a satisfactory manner; and it is on this account, and not on account of the son's arrest, that the office has been placed in other hands.
  MR. REDMOND: Did the dismissal come immediately after the arrest?
  MR. FAWCETT: It came after; but I had had the matter under consideration for some time.

  EGYPT—THE BAY OF ASSAB.
  BARON HENRY DE WORMSasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is true that Her Majesty's Government have recommended the Egyptian Government to enter into a Convention with the Governments of Great Britain and Italy for the cession to Italy of a portion of territory in the Bay of Assab, on the West Coast

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  of the Red Sea; whether this action is at variance with the policy hitherto followed by Her Majesty's Government as regards the claims of Foreign Governments to obtain territorial settlements on the Egyptian Coast of the Red Sea; and, if so, what are the reasons which have led to this change of policy; whether the Government of the Khedive have remonstrated against the pressure sought to be put upon them in this matter, and have refused to sign the Convention; what is the present state of the negotiations; and, whether there is any objection to communicate to Parliament the text of the proposed Convention, and the Correspondence that has taken place in respect thereto?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Her Majesty's Government have recommended the Turkish and Egyptian Governments to enter into a Convention with Italy, defining and limiting the rights of the latter country in respect to the territories at Assab, acquired and occupied by the Rubattino Company in the first instance, and subsequently by the Italian Government. They considered that it was for the interest of Egypt that such a Convention should be concluded in order to avoid the complications that might arise if the Italian occupation of Assab were maintained on an unrecognized and undefined footing, and with a view of obtaining the recognition by Italy of the Sovereignty of the Sultan, and authority of the Khedive, over the West Coast of the Red Sea. The proposed Convention stipulated that the establishment at Assab should have a purely commercial character, and contain provisions for the prohibition of the traffic in arms and of the Slave Trade. The Egyptian Government has refused the Convention; but correspondence on the subject is still going on, and the Papers could not be laid on the Table without the consent of the other Governments concerned. With regard to the hon. Member's suggestion that the action taken in this matter is at variance with the policy hitherto followed by Her Majesty's Government, as regards the claim of Foreign Governments to obtain territorial settlements on the Egyptian Coast of the Red Sea, I must point out that Her Majesty's Government had to deal with accomplished facts, and with a territorial settlement already obtained, and that they took the course which, under the circumstances,
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  seemed best calculated to protect the interests of this country and of Egypt.
  MR. BOURKE: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman can inform the House with whom the negotiations were first carried on between the Company and the territorial authority in Africa—whether it was the Native Tribes, or the Egyptian Government, or the Sultan?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: The Company appear to have obtained concessions from various local Sultans, and they actually occupied their settlements at Assab Bay a considerable time ago. I think that while the right hon. Gentleman was in Office the Italian flag was flying there.
  BARON HENRY DE WORMSsaid, that in consequence of the answer of the hon. Baronet he should deem it his duty to bring the subject under the notice of the House and to move a Resolution.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—MESSRS. JAMES DOWLING, DENIS SOMERS, TERENCE BYRNE, SIMON MALONE, AND ARTHUR MOLONEY.
  MR LALOR (for Mr. ARTHUR O'CONNOR)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the neighbourhood of Monasterevan, in Kildare, has remained free from outrages; whether Messrs. James Dowling, Denis Somers, Terence Byrne, Simon Malone, and Arthur Moloney, of that district, were arrested on suspicion; whether Messrs. Terence Byrne and Denis Somers have been liberated; and, whether the same considerations which led him to consent to their liberation will apply to the cases of Messrs. Dowling, Malone, and Moloney?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, that most of these men had been released. The cases of the remaining four prisoners had been considered—one had been released, and the other three could not with safety be released at present.
  MR. LALORasked why it was that James Dowling was refused the ordinary parole of three days?
  MR, W. E. FORSTERsaid, he should get Notice of that Question.

  EVICTIONS (IRELAND)—THE RETURN FOR QUARTER TO 21st MARCH.
  MR. LALOR (for Mr. ARTHUR O'CONNOR)asked the Chief Secretary to the

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  Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he will lay upon the Table Return showing the number of Evictions in the quarter ended 31st March 1882 (in continuation of Return, No. 9, of the present Session), and of the Judgments for the Recovery of Land entered up in the High Court of Justice (Ireland), and of the Ejectment Decrees granted during the same period (in continuation of Return, No. 10, of the present Session)?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, he had ordered these Returns, and hoped to lay them on the Table on Tuesday.

  THE ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY—DUTY OF PROTECTING "EMERGENCY MEN."
  MR. LALOR (for Mr. ARTHUR O'CONNOR)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether twenty men of the Kilkenny Constabulary Forces were employed from the 5th to the 23rd September last in "protecting" Emergency men on the property of Mr. Boyd, of Tinwere, Durrow, Queen's County, with extra pay at 3s. 6d. a-day; whether they were relieved by an equal number of the Queen's County Constabulary, drafted from different points of the county, who did the same duty, and were placed in the same circumstances as the Kilkenny men; whether it is true that a large number of the Kilkenny Constabulary were employed at Mr. Keating's residence at Woodgift, in county Kilkenny, for some three months, also receiving the 3s. 6d. a-day extra pay; whether application was made, in proper form, for the allowance by the Queen's County constables employed as stated; and, whether any, and, if so, what, answer was made to it; and, upon what ground the allowance is granted to one body and withheld from the other?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, that the men alluded to in the first instance received 2s. 6d. a-day extra pay while on duty at Durrow. They were replaced by men of the Queen's County, which was the place in which they were stationed. The station was reduced to 11 men, and they were lodged in the police barrack. The County Inspector did not think there was any necessity for extra pay for these men. The men employed at Woodgift received 3s. 6d. per day extra pay; but they were lodged in an outhouse, and in the opinion of
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  the officers were entitled to this extra pay.

  THE IRISH LAND COMMISSION—THE SUB-COMMISSIONERS.
  MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether a pledge was given by the Government that the names of the Sub-Commissioners would be laid before Parliament; and, whether any Return giving this information has been laid upon the Table; and, if not, in what manner a list of the names can be obtained?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, the Return would be presented to-day; but the Members of the House could very easily ascertain the names without this Return.
  MR. HEALYsaid, that as there always appeared to be some difficulty in obtaining Returns upon Irish matters, he would like to know from the Chief Secretary when they might expect the Return he had promised himself with reference to the prisoners under the Coercion Act?
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, he believed in a day or two.

  THE MAGISTRACY (IRELAND)—MAJOR BOND, R.M.
  MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the three months for which Major Bond was engaged are now up; and, if so, whether the appointment has been renewed or confirmed?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: The three months expired about the beginning of this month. He is now, like other magistrates, on one month's notice. It is not the case that he has been re-appointed for three months. At a month's notice his services could, if necessary, be dispensed with.
  MR. HEALYinquired whether it was the intention of the Government to retain Major Bond from month to month?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: That will depend on the condition of the country. There is no intention of giving him notice immediately.

  OFFICIAL SALARIES—MR. ALGERNON WEST.
  MR. W. J. CORBET (for Mr. BIGGAR)asked the Financial Secretary to the

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  Treasury, "Whether it is not a fact that Mr. Algernon West, O.B., the Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue, holds the post of Gentleman Usher to the Queen at a salary of £180 per annum, or thereabouts; and, if so, why his salary, as such, is not, in accordance with the instructions of the Public Accounts Committee, shown on the face of the Revenue Estimates, in addition to his salary of £2,000 as Chairman of the Board of Inland Revenue?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: As regards the first portion of the Question, the hon. Member is, as far as I am aware, correctly informed. The Committee of Public Accounts recommended that when a public officer receives a grant or temporary increase to his salary in respect to special services, the fact of such increase should be shown either on the Estimate or on the Appropriation Account of the Department to which he belongs. Payments made by Her Majesty out of Her Civil List to officers of Her Household do not fall within the recommendation of the Committee; and the Treasury have not required such payments to be noted in Estimates or Accounts.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—THE GORT BOARD OF GUARDIANS.
  COLONEL NOLANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If his attention has been drawn to a resolution passed by the Gort Board of Guardians, requesting that their Chairman might be released from prison; and, if he would kindly accede to the prayer of the Guardians?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, that he had seen the resolution in question, and that the case would shortly be reconsidered.

  ARMY ORGANIZATION—ROYAL ARTILLERY AND ROYAL ENGINEERS—OFFICERS' RETIREMENT.
  MR. STEWART MACLIVERasked the Secretary of State of War, If there is any Clause or Regulation in the Royal Warrant for Pay and Promotion, or in the Corrigenda Warrant, under which the Colonels and Lieutenant Colonels of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers, who obtained that rank prior to the 1st October 1877, can be compelled, against their wishes, to
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  retire, or remain unemployed if they do not retire?
  MR. CHILDERS: In reply to my hon. Friend, I have to state that under the Warrant of the 25th of June, 1881, now in force, of which the Corrigenda Warrant forms a part, there is no regulation compelling the officers to whom he refers to retire before the ages named in the Warrant, which are 60, 59, or 58, according to circumstances. These ages are earlier than those named in the former Warrant of 1878, and Her Majesty has undoubted power further to reduce them if thought necessary. As to employment, the Secretary of State has absolute power to approve the employment of such officers recommended by the Commander-in-Chief as he may think fit.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—EDITORS OF NEWSPAPERS ARRESTED UNDER THE ACT.
  MR. LALORasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Is it the fact that suspects who are now in gaol under the Coercion Act, and who are owners and editors of newspapers, are permitted to write for their journals, provided they shall not refer to imprisonment or to Government; and that in all doubtful cases the governor of the prison shall forward the manuscript of a leading article to the authorities of Dublin Castle; and, if it be not a fact that, in consequence of such regulations, leading articles have been kept back for a fortnight?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, it was a fact that prisoners confined under the Protection Act were permitted to write for their journals, upon condition that they did not in any way carry on agitation or proceedings which would be thought necessary to detain them. When the Governor of the prison considered articles or communications to be objectionable, he informed the persons concerned that the communications would not be forwarded. The person could then request the Governor to forward them to him (Mr. W. E. Forster) or the Under Secretary. He was not aware that leading articles had been kept back for a fortnight.
  MR. LALORasked if it was not a fact that the editors were not allowed to

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  mention anything in regard to prisoners, nor in regard to the Government of the country?
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, undoubtedly the editors could not, from the prisons, write articles complaining against the Government or their treatment.

  POST OFFICE (IRELAND)—"PAT."
  MR. LALORasked the Postmaster General, If it is by his orders that the comic paper "Pat," published in Dublin, is not allowed to pass through the Post Office, particularly when directed by Members of this House to their friends?
  MR. FAWCETT: I have made inquiry with reference to the Question of the hon. Member, and I find that nothing is known of any copies of Pat having been arrested in their passage through the post, either in this country or in Ireland. Certainly, I have given no instructions upon the subject.
  MR. LALORsaid, that if the right hon. Gentleman would apply to him privately, he would inform him of cases in which the paper in question had been arrested at the Post Office.
  MR. FAWCETT: If the hon. Gentleman will call upon me, I will gladly inquire into any case, details of which may be communicated to me.

  ARMY—PAYMENT OF PENSIONS.
  MR. O'SHEAasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether he is aware that considerable disappointment and inconvenience have, in many cases, been occasioned by the delay which has occurred in sending out orders for the payment of Army pensions under the new system; and, whether he will take steps to add to the great advantages which the new system confers on the pensioners, by arranging that in future all orders for the payment of Pensions shall be issued within a week of the date upon which the latter fall due?
  MR. GORSTalso asked, Whether the effect of the new Regulations for payment of Military and Naval Pensions through the Post Office has not been to cause a delay in the receipt of pensions, in some cases, of upwards of fifteen days; and, whether arrangements will in future be made for sending money orders to persons entitled to pensions at such
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  dates as will admit of their receiving their pensions on the days on which they are due?
  MR. CHILDERS: In reply to my hon. and gallant Friend (Mr. O'Shea), I have to thank him for the commendation which he has given to the new system of paying pensions. As might be expected on the first introduction of the entirely novel plan, there has been some little friction, and this has been aggravated by two circumstances; one, that, in consequence of the very large sum (£700,000) required, it could not be drawn from the Exchequer, under the present or former system, until a few days after the beginning of the financial year; and the second that the first day of payment fell in the Easter holidays—in fact, on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. But in spite of this the payments, on an average, in many districts will be completed at earlier dates than under the former system. I have given orders under which, in the three other quarters of the year, the payments will begin on the 1st of the month, and in April on the very earliest practicable day after the 1st, and this should secure the object of the latter part of the Question. It must be borne in mind that all these pensions are payments in advance—not, like salaries, after the completion of the service. This answer, I think, fully meets the Question of the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst).
  MR. GORSTasked whether the answer applied to Naval pensions?
  MR. CHILDERS: Yes; all payments, whether for Naval or Military pensions, are made through the Post Office.

  IRELAND—MR. CLIFFORD LLOYD—CIRCULAR BY THE INSPECTOR OF POLICE, COUNTY CLARE.
  MR. SEXTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is true that on Tuesday last Mr. Clifford Lloyd, special magistrate for Clare, interfered to prevent the erection of huts to shelter a large number of evicted families at Tulla, in that county, although a site for the huts had been secured from the legal possessor of the ground, and although twelve huts had been actually built, and six others were in course of construction; whether Mr. Lloyd declared the building of the

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  huts to be illegal, ordered the builder to leave the place that evening, and told him that if he did not leave he would be arrested; whether, if the facts be as stated, the policy of the Government is to prevent the sheltering of evicted tenants through the sympathy of their neigh bours, aided by benevolent action in their behalf; whether the following circular respecting Mr. Clifford Lloyd, or a circular to the like effect, has been issued by the County Inspector of Constabulary in Clare to the Sub-Inspectors under his command:—
  "Ennis,4th March, 1882.
  "As there is too good reason for the belief that every possible means will be used to assassinate Mr. C. Lloyd, it behoves the men of this county to be on the alert to prevent it:
  "Men proceeding on his escort should be men of great determination, as well as steadiness, and even on suspicion of an attempt should at once use their firearms, to prevent the bare possibility of an attempt on that gentleman's life:
  "If men should accidentally commit an error in shooting any person, on suspicion of that person being about to commit murder, I shall exonerate them by coming forward and producing this document:
  "H. SMITH,
  "1st Co. Inspector;"
  whether a similar circular was issued by the County Inspector of Constabulary in Limerick; and, whether both circulars were issued in obedience to instructions from the Inspector General of Constabulary; and, if so, whether the Government were cognizant of these proceedings, and approved of them?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: The first part of this Question refers to the prevention of the erection of huts provided for families at Tulla. I received notice of the Question yesterday at Dublin, and telegraphed it on to Mr. Clifford Lloyd for his observations. I have received a telegraphic despatch from him this morning, which I will read, and which, in fact, he wished me to read to the House—
  "The grossest intimidation is being practised by the Land League upon tenants. Fearing death, they are prevented in many instances paying their rents, and under League intimidation and inducement suffer eviction. When evicted, in order to keep a grip of the soil, the Land League built huts on other tenants' lands, who dare not refuse their lands for the purpose, many are glad to do so—(i. e., to give their lands), and the Land League then give permission to the owners to pay their rent to avoid eviction. Money is collected about the county
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  for the huts, no one daring to refuse to contribute. The plea of charity is shallow and untrue. The huts are meant to be and are the standing menace and intimidation to prevent the owner letting his land, and to intimidate any persons from entering it. Any person taking any such farm as tenant or caretaker, would at present, in the counties of Limerick and Clare, be murdered. After grave consideration, and with the view of protecting the lives and property of those within my jurisdiction, I have determined to put the law in force against any persons guilty of such acts of intimidation and lawlessness. As regards the evicted tenants near Tulla, many of them have privately paid their rents, but are not permitted by the Land League to return into their farms, but are forced to consent to occupy the Land League huts. On my individual authority as a magistrate I ordered the police to warn all persons engaged in this lawlessness to at once desist on pain of arrest, and warned an emissary of the Land League in Tulla to leave the county at once, which she did. I am also acting in a similar manner throughout the counties of Limerick and Clare, and am prepared to defend my action in a Court of Law. I yesterday upbraided several tenants, who were in fear of being evicted on Lord Cloncurry's property, for not standing together and defying the Land League's tyranny, sooner than submit to what they were undergoing. Their reply in the presence of other officers was, 'Life is sweet, sir; we should be shot if we did not obey.'"
  With regard to the second part of the Question, as to the protection of Mr. Clifford Lloyd, I believe that no instructions have been issued to the police with reference to it; but if the hon. Member will repeat his Question on another day, I will see what information can be obtained from the County Inspector on the subject.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he should not repeat the Question, and he would conclude with a Motion. He had the best evidence that this infamous Circular had been issued by the County Inspector of Constabulary in the County of Clare. It had come to him from a member of the Irish Bar, and upon the authority of one of the most respected priests in that county. He would read the Circular to the House—
  "Ennis, 4th March, 1882.
  "As there is too good reason for the belief that every possible means will be used to assassinate Mr. C. Lloyd, it behoves the men of this county to be on the alert to prevent it."
  So far, no one would for a moment question the propriety of the Circular. Let the County Inspector and his men, and the whole of the Constabulary Force, and the whole British Army in Ireland be on the alert to pre-

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  vent it. Let Mr. Clifford Lloyd have an escort before and behind him, and on each flank, and let them use every precaution that human ingenuity could suggest to prevent his assassination. But the Circular went on to say—
  "Men proceeding on his escort should be men of great determination, as well as steadiness; and even on suspicion of an attempt should at once use their firearms, to prevent the bare possibility of an attempt on that gentleman's life. If men should accidentally commit an error in shooting any person, on suspicion of that person being about to commit murder, I shall exonerate them by coming forward and producing this document."
  And the Circular was signed "H. Smith, 1st Co. Inspector." Who was H. Smith, first County Inspector? He was a person who was no more fit to be an Archbishop than he was to be an officer of police. He was the person who, at the head of his police force, used the language of a lunatic at Miltown, where he faced an infuriated crowd, and, presenting a revolver at them, cried out—"You cowardly dogs, come on." This was a peace officer who, instead of showing tact and self-command at a crisis, tried to inflame the passions of the people by threats of physical violence which were most likely to produce the state of things which would entitle him to shoot down the people. He had no doubt the Circular was issued; and now what would be the effect of such a document as that going into the hands of the police? Was the life of Mr. Clifford Lloyd, in the estimation of the House, or of the Government, or of the law, of greater value than that of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, or of the Viceroy? The Viceroy or the Chief Secretary proceeded through the country with ample guards, no doubt, but not with instructions given to the police which not only surpassed but directly contravened the law of the land. The House knew what was the law of the land. If a man's life was threatened he was entitled, in defence of his life, to wound or kill; or if public officers were placed in charge of any person, and an attack were made upon that person, they were entitled, in defence of his life, to wound or kill. But what an extraordinary travesty of the law was contained in this Circular! It was not required that there should be an attack, or even a threat; but it was left to the absolute discretion of the humblest constable in
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  Clare, with his loaded rifle on his arm, to determine at what moment he should shoot and kill any of Her Majesty's subjects. Mr. Clifford Lloyd had an ample escort by night and by day. Let the House consider the effect of this Circular. A man opening a gate or leaving a field to go on to the highway, or mounting a stile, or jumping over a hedge, or appearing to lounge in a doubtful manner at the corner of a road, if he was seen by any member of the escort was now liable to be shot—nay, was almost certain to be shot, for the danger to a policeman consisted, not in shooting, but in not shooting. The County Inspector was to the policeman the fountain of honour and of faith, and the sole source of promotion. The policeman knew that if he did not fire he would be reproved, and perhaps dismissed; while if he fired and killed a man, he would be exonerated from blame, and would be considered a man of steadiness and determination. He asked if that would not be the result of such a document, and if it was not a monstrous travesty of all law, that, instead of waiting for some overt proof of guilt, every common policeman was allowed to be the judge of a man's intentions. The effect of that document would be that the highways of the county of Clare would be denied to the people, for it would be impossible for a man wishing to regard his life to go on a highway where Mr. Clifford Lloyd might pass. He denounced that Circular, in presence of the House, as a gross, scandalous, and barbarous incitement to murder. He asked, was that one of the resources of civilization? Was the life it was issued to protect so very valuable—so much more valuable than that of the Chief Secretary or the Lord Lieutenant? He called for the withdrawal of the Circular, and he asked the Chief Secretary to inquire from the County Inspector whether he issued it. It was a singular evasion of the question that, instead of referring to the man who issued the Circular, he should refer to Mr. Clifford Lloyd. The question should not be asked from Mr. Clifford Lloyd, but the official bull-dog who put his revolver in the face of the crowd was the man who should answer it. He repeated that the Irish Party could not suffer such a document as that to remain abroad without demanding

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  its immediate withdrawal. As for Mr. Clifford Lloyd himself, he did not intend to waste many words upon that gentleman. He was that sort of pliant instrument which despotic Governments, in times of confusion, always found ready to their hands. He was by nature, as well as by his present function, a tyrant. He had no regard for age or youth, or respect for sex. He had signalized every day of his career as a magistrate by some act of tyranny and insult. He began by caning the people in the streets of Kilmallock. His next achievement was the arrest of a boy of six or seven years old, and afterwards prosecuted some ladies oh a baseless charge which he was obliged to withdraw in his own Court, not with shame—for shame was impossible to such a nature—but with confusion. Instead of allaying the passions of the people, he had done everything in his power to aggravate disturbance in his district, with the result that it was now one of the most unquiet in the country. Was it any wonder that they found his example imitated in a thousand forms throughout the country? But he knew he was a pet of the Chief Secretary. The year before last the right hon. Gentleman told a Resident Magistrate that Mr. Clifford Lloyd was the only honest man amongst them.
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: I entirely deny that statement.
  MR. SEXTON: Mr. Speaker, I can only repeat my observation.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not entitled to make that assertion after the disclaimer of the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. SEXTON: Sir, I shall not contest the right hon. Gentleman's statement. I shall only say that the statement was made to me by a clergyman, who declared that he had it from a Resident Magistrate.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman is bound to withdraw his observations, after the statement of the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he withdrew his remarks, and only said that much to justify himself. They had an instance of such conduct on Sunday night last, when a policeman in Waterford rushed into a shop where a respectable woman was engaged at the window reading the United Ireland, seized her, threw her
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  down, and, kneeling upon her, searched her in an indecent manner. Such an outrage, if committed in Bulgaria, would well serve to excite the horror of a Mid Lothian audience. But why was so much care taken of the life of Mr. Clifford Lloyd? What care had he taken of the lives of the Irish people that his own life should be considered sacrosanct? He (Mr. Sexton) must assume that Circular to be issued until he found that it was not. These poor tenants would never have been evicted if the Government, with their Land Act, had provided a humane and statesmanlike method of dealing with arrears. These tenants would not have been evicted if the Government had provided a plan by which the action of the Courts could be rapidly brought to bear on the case of the tenants. These tenants could get no satisfaction from their landlords as to arrears, or as to their current rents. And how did the Government treat these defenceless tenants? By the process of the law they were evicted; and when public funds, subscribed by the Irish people and their friends, were applied to the erection of huts to shelter them, Mr. Clifford Lloyd declared the erection of those huts to be illegal, because they had been got up by an illegal association. The Ladies' Land League was not an illegal association, although there was an assertion to that effect. Earl Cowper issued a Proclamation against the National Land League, but not against the Ladies' Land League. He refrained from doing that, and left it to one of those convenient subordinates at Dublin Castle. He would there notice a curious discrepancy between the reason given by Mr. Clifford Lloyd and the reason given by the Attorney General for Ireland for interfering with the erection of these huts.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): I gave no reason; I gave a hypothetical opinion on the statement of the hon. Member.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, that the Attorney General for Ireland gave a hypothetical opinion, which might be treated as an absolute opinion, considering how the facts stood. The right hon. and learned Gentleman's official zeal sometimes outran his official discretion, and he said Mr. Clifford Lloyd would be entitled to arrest people under the Common Law.

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  He (Mr. Sexton) thought the Attorney General for Ireland would have told him that Mr. Clifford Lloyd would be entitled to arrest people under an uncommon law—namely, the Coercion Act of last year. If Mr. Clifford Lloyd acted on that law, he would ask, why did he not suppress the Ladies' Land League? The Land League had been declared to be illegal by the highest tribunal; but the Ladies' Land League had not. It was by the arrest of individual after individual belonging to the Land League that the Government had endeavoured to put it down. Why had they not proceeded by the same process against the members of the Ladies' Land League? The Attorney General for Ireland had discovered something in the Common Law that no one knew of before. He (Mr. Sexton) asked the attention of the Attorney General for England and the Lord Advocate for Scotland to this—that the Attorney General for Ireland declared that, while the Coercion Act entitled the authorities to arrest anyone who was suspected of having committed an illegal act, the Common Law went much further, for it entitled the Government to arrest and imprison persons, not for anything they had done, but upon the vaguest suspicion of something they might hereafter do. The Common Law rested upon decisions. Would the Attorney General for Ireland name any decision of any Court in any century in England, Ireland, or Scotland, which sanctioned the imprisonment of persons who had been turned out of their homes and left shelterless on the roadside, because they accepted the shelter offered them by their neighbours? That the shelter given to these tenants was legally provided for them could not be disputed. Five of the huts were erected on the land of one man, who had as good a right to have those huts there as the Attorney General for Ireland had to sit on the Treasury Bench. [An hon. MEMBER: A better.] Yes; because his was a permanent right. The other huts had been erected on the land of men who, though not its owners, were its legal possessors. As to the monstrous suggestion that this had been done as part of a system of intimidation by the Land League, he dismissed it as unworthy of attention. There never was an organization which occupied such a grand historic position as the Land
  996
  League did at that moment. It started with two objects. One was to prevent rack-renting. The Liberal Party said they had achieved that; and therefore they had taken a leaf out of the Land League book. The other object was to make the tenants the owners of the farms. The Tory Party were now taking that leaf out of the book of the Land League. And the Land League occupied this position—that the two great English Parties were at the present moment plagiarists of its policy. He asked the Government to pause, even on the verge of the abyss that was before them. They had gone far enough against the people. Were the poor peasants to be turned out of their homes, and, being left without any means of shelter, to be driven over the precipice of despair? He begged to remind the Government of the story related by Plutarch regarding the Pro-Consul who told the Islanders to whom he had been sent to collect taxes that he had on his side a great God—the God of Force; when the Islanders informed him that they had on their side two Gods—the Gods of Poverty and Despair. He might say that the Gods of Poverty and Despair were on the side of the Irish peasants; and he warned the Government not to employ the God of Force too much. The right hon. Gentleman might say the people could go into the workhouse. They knew the feelings of aversion with which the Irish people regarded the workhouses. The humblest peasant would rather die than accept the charity of a workhouse. But why should they be asked to accept it, seeing that their neighbours had offered them sites for shelters, and that money publicly subscribed by their own countrymen was available to enable them to provide that shelter? What did the action of the Government mean? He would read to the House a document which he received the previous night from Mr. Murphy, Clerk of the Tulla-more Board of Guardians. The Board had, on the 18th instant, the application of Pat Meehan, his wife, and six children, for outdoor relief. Meehan was a carpenter employed by Mr. Kelly, of Dublin, who was the contractor for the erection of wooden huts on the property of Major Molony, of Tullow. Mr. Clifford Lloyd stopped the work, warning the contractor that he was working for an illegal society, and Meehan was

  997
  left without employment. The Guardians, after considering the case, resolved that the facts be inserted on the minutes, and that a copy thereof be sent by the Clerk to Mr. Sexton, with a request that the matter be brought before Parliament. The Guardians regretted that, under the present Poor Law, they could not grant outdoor relief to the applicants; and as it was probable that many such cases would arise under the present Liberal Ministry, they should be acquainted with the facts. A hundred times had they been told, in tones of deepest solemnity, that the object of the Government was to enable people to earn their living in Ireland. Would they enable Pat Meehan to earn his living? The poor man was in this dilemma—the Government would not let him build his hut, and the Guardians could not grant him outdoor relief—was he to gratify one of the whims of Mr. Clifford Lloyd to enter the workhouse? The Land Act was merely to be worked at the rate of a tortoise, while the sheriff and the bailiff were to proceed with evictions at the speed of the hare, and the people forced from their homes were to be left without shelter. Language could not possibly exaggerate the gravity of the situation. Must it be the final resource of civilization that the Irish peasants should be driven to starve and die in the ditches of their native land? He knew not how to convey to the House his sense of the great gravity and solemnity of the situation; but he felt bound to say that the idea of the Attorney General for Ireland was the least defensible and least rational he had ever heard. He said the people were not to be allowed to build huts lest they might watch their farms. Did the Attorney General for Ireland expect that, in the present state of public feeling, agriculturists would take those farms? The right hon. and learned Gentleman knew very well that they must be held by Emergency men. He was not accounting for the feeling which made such things necessary, neither was he defending it. He was simply pointing out the fact; and he wished to know what did the right hon. and learned Gentleman gain, in the interests of law and order, by banishing a few farmers from that particular district, while they left a few hundred others in it? "Would not those who remained hold the same
  998
  feelings as those who were sent away? Suppose some families were exiled from any particular district by the right hon. and learned Gentleman's new reading of the Common Law, and the whim of Mr. Clifford Lloyd, what was to be the distance within which the Common Law would operate? If the evicted tenants went only five miles distant from their farms, would this new reading of the Common Law declare them to be still too near? Must it be 10 or 20 miles—must they leave the country altogether? Who was to be the judge? If those evicted people were allowed to have a roof over their heads and food to eat, and to cherish some hope that they would be restored to their homes, was it not more probable that they would not resort to any act of violence than if they were driven away, and the lowest passions of the Bashi Bazouk vented upon them? If those people were driven away from their own district with feelings like those he had described rankling in their hearts, was it not more than likely that one of them might come back to do harm? He protested in the name of reason, of law, and of public right against the law of the land being travestied and outraged by any Pasha in the County Clare. He told the Government plainly that unless they withdrew this Circular, which was inciting the police to murder the people, and gave an assurance that tenants evicted from their farms through default of the Government would be allowed to live on at least as good conditions as the beasts of the field, he should think it his duty to rise up in that House and apply to the situation brought about by the Government such language as he thought proper. He cared not for the consequences personal to himself. He should be sorry to be forced to tell the people of Ireland what he thought, either of the action they ought to take or of the attitude they ought to preserve with regard to such barbarity. But if that occasion should arrive, he should fling to the winds every consideration except the thought that innocent men, women, and children were being hunted like wolves in the name of the resources of civilization. He begged to move the adjournment of the House.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: Before alluding to this Circular and the action of Mr. Clifford Lloyd, there are one or two extraneous remarks of the hon. Gentleman which I cannot pass unnoticed. I am glad to take this opportunity of saying that the Proclamation which was issued by the Lord Lieutenant included the Ladies' Land League just as well as any other League. [Mr. HEALY: Why did you not suppress it?] Any public meetings of the Ladies' Land League can be suppressed just in the same way as any meeting of the Land League to which the hon. Member belongs. The hon. Member (Mr. Sexton) taunts us with the fact that women belonging to the Ladies' Land League have not been arrested as "suspects." Undoubtedly, they have not been arrested. The hon. Member seems to wish to drive us to do so; but our course will be guided by what we consider best for the peace of Ireland, and the taunts and sneers of the hon. Member will have no influence upon our action in the matter. In regard to the hon. Member's remarks on Mr. Clifford Lloyd, I wish to repeat what I said before, that I believe Mr. Clifford Lloyd has stood between hundreds of men, women, and children in Ireland and death, or at least maiming, persecution, and ruin. It is unfair—it is more unfair than even I should have expected, and that is saying a good deal—that charges which have been over and over again disproved should be again repeated, as if there is no doubt about them. Nothing could have been so much disproved as the original charge of caning the people to the full belief of Members of this House, yet the hon. Member for Sligo gets up and repeats it as if it had never been disproved, and states that the same thing happened in Waterford. Again, in regard to County Inspector Smith, the statement about him has been denied by him, and I have given the denial; but the hon. Member repeats the statement as if no denial had ever been made. We come to the Circular itself. I stated in my answer that Mr. Clifford Lloyd said he knew nothing about it, and that if the Question was repeated I would give what information I could about it. I have communicated with both County Inspectors, and I have heard from one and not from the other. The hon. Member might have waited till I was able to
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  give him a complete answer. I have certainly reason to believe that the Inspector for the county of Clare did issue the Circular. I know nothing about the other. As regards the Inspector General of Constabulary, I am sure he knew nothing about it, nor were the Government cognizant of its being issued; but I make this statement—that I think the last two paragraphs of the document ought not to have been issued in the manner in which they were. But when the hon. Member states that people have been endangered by it, I believe nothing of the sort. The Circular is dated the 4th of March. That is some time ago, and no danger followed. If he asks me what its practical effect has been, its practical effect has been to prevent the people from shooting at Mr. Clifford Lloyd. [Mr. SEXTON: The people did not know about the Circular.] I do not know that—these things get out. This is undoubtedly true—that Mr. Clifford Lloyd has made himself obnoxious to the men who commit murder and instigate to murder; that he is hated by them; that there are attempts to assassinate him; that a price has been put upon his head—that is notorious; and that there is a combination and conspiracy to assassinate him; of that there is no doubt, and undoubtedly he ought to be protected. I suppose what was in the mind of the Inspector when he issued this Circular—which I think, and will tell him, he ought not to have issued with these last two paragraphs—was that the cowardly ruffians who would be likely to shoot at Mr. Clifford Lloyd from behind a hedge would not do it if they thought they would be in danger. They would be in very little danger if everybody waited until they were first fired at. That is a risk which a man has to run; and though Mr. Clifford Lloyd would not have allowed that Circular to go out himself, that was a risk which the Inspector, no doubt, thought ought to be provided for. Therefore, with too much zeal probably, he issued the Circular as it stood; but it was undoubtedly true that these murders, which had happened one after another, happened in this way—that those who committed them had no more notion of suffering harm from them than had the men who instigated them to do it. They fired from behind a hedge, and then ran away; and if they

  1001
  thought they would be in danger before they fired, they would be very much more careful about it. But it is a risk that a man ought to run, and that Mr. Clifford Lloyd is ready to run. In regard to what has been stated about the Land League huts, it is a matter which must be judged of according to the circumstances of each particular case. Generally speaking, I have stated both to the landlords and Constabulary officers and to the representatives of the tenants that it is a perfectly legal matter for huts to be erected in charity to the evicted tenants, but that they may also be erected for purposes of intimidation; and having been in that district myself, and having had the Reports of Mr. Clifford Lloyd and the men who have been intimidated and threatened, I believe it is the fact that the erection of some of these huts lead to, and are merely for the purpose of, intimidation, which Mr. Clifford Lloyd was bound to prevent. The hon. Member gets up and supposes that we have no dangers to contend with in those districts; but they are dangers with regard to which we should be unworthy of the name of officers of Her Majesty's Government if we did not do our best to contend with them, and endeavour to prevent them. The hon. Member conveyed the impression that no one would venture to take a farm from which a tenant had been evicted. [Mr. Sexton: Very unlikely.] But a man has a right to take such a farm. What we know perfectly well to be the case is, that hundreds of people are evicted from farms because they are not allowed to pay their rents. And, under such circumstances, is the Government to stand by and do nothing? Is the Government to stand by and say that whoever may have the courage to take such a farm is not to be protected and supported? The hon. Member seems to ask us to stand by altogether, and let the protection of the law be of no avail; to acknowledge that we have no power to protect that man; and, in fact, to let lawlessness, disorder, and outrage prevail in that country, instead of making the attempt, which we are making, and in which, not with standing all the opposition we experience, we believe we shall succeed—namely, to make the law prevail. The hon. Member alluded to a case to which Mr. Clifford Lloyd had referred, relating to
  1002
  arrears—I suppose he alluded to the case of Lord Cloncurry's tenants. That case, however, has nothing to do with the arrears question; it is scarcely possible, in fact, to find a case so inappropriate. It is one of the many cases in which the tenants—at any rate, some of them—are very sorry that they did not pay their rents; prosperous men, well-off, who have found that because they trusted in the stories that were told them by the emissaries of the Land League as to their being safe, have been evicted.
  MR. SEXTON: I never referred to the case of Lord Cloncurry.
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: Mr. Clifford Lloyd did; and the consequence is they find that they have lost their holdings, which have been sold for a mere song, and, with tears in their eyes, they have lamented it. Mr. Clifford Lloyd practically said to them—"Why were you such fools and cowards?" "Life is sweet," they replied; "we were afraid of being shot" And why were they in danger of being shot? Because of the instigation of the "no rent" policy, which is the curse of them now; and in regard to which Mr. Clifford Lloyd must be protected and saved from planned assassination, because he has more than most others been instrumental in defeating that conspiracy.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, that the speech of the Chief Secretary had given one more proof of the failure of the coercion policy of the Government. Nothing whatever had been accomplished in the way of restoring peace or order by the coercion policy, and it had only tended to bring forward a new kind of agitation in the country. The hon. Member for Sligo had made something by pressing his Motion at once, for he had obtained something like a repudiation of this most extraordinary Circular from the Chief Secretary two or three days sooner than if he had postponed his Question. It was not a very strong or earnest repudiation; but, at the same time, it was a disclaimer of any Ministerial justification for the policy which dictated the Circular. That document, he said, gave a licence to the police which the general of an invading army never did claim for the troops under him. When the Germans invaded France it was ordered that any civilian who took arms against them should be tried and shot if found guilty; but it was never said

  1003
  that a man should be shot in cold blood on mere suspicion that he might take arms against them. As to the Land League huts, the monstrous suggestion was that the neighbours of an evicted tenant should not be allowed to shelter him near the farm from which he had been evicted. A man was not only to be removed from the farm, but he was not to be allowed to remain under shelter in the neighbourhood. This was in the old and bitter sense—in the Scriptural sense—exterminating a nation. The right hon. Gentleman spoke of these huts as if they were a line of fortresses. They were huts put up to shelter men, women, and children who had been ruthlessly evicted. Did the right hon. Gentleman imagine that men were less dangerous when they were unhoused, and had not a roof to cover them, than when they were preserved from the inclemency of the weather? The Prime Minister had talked of "social revolution;" but the Government were by their action bringing about a social convulsion, and were certainly not taking a course which was calculated to restore peace to Ireland. As long as they sanctioned such proceedings, it was impossible to have peace in Ireland. There was no country in the world where such conduct would not stir up the passions of the people.
  MR. LEAMYsaid, he thought it was quite evident that in the opinion of the right hon. Gentleman Mr. Clifford Lloyd, like the King, "can do no wrong" in Ireland. They had several times attacked him in that House, and he had always found a very warm defender in the right hon. Gentleman; but there was one question with regard to him put in that House, not by an Irish Member, but by the hon. and learned Member for Chatham (Mr. Gorst), which the right hon. Gentleman had never answered. The hon. and learned Member for Chatham said that Judge Barry stated at the last Assizes in the county Clare that the outrages which had occurred in that county for the two months prior to the Assizes were twice as numerous as in the corresponding months of the previous year. He would like to have some explanation of that from the Chief Secretary. If, as he said, wherever Mr. Clifford Lloyd went there was peace, how came it that the outrages in the county were actually double when he was in it to what they were before he went there?
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  The right hon. Gentleman admitted that this Police Circular was issued. He was under the impression that the ingenuity of Dublin Castle and of the police officials in the matter of Circulars had long since been exhausted.
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: I have already stated that at the Castle they knew nothing about this Circular. I never heard anything at all about it until yesterday; but I suspect, from a telegram I have received, that it was issued; but no information to that effect has ever been received by the authorities in Dublin.
  MR. LEAMYsaid, he was glad of that interruption from the right hon. Gentleman, and he invited the attention of the Radical Party to this fact. The Irish Members had often and often during the debate on the Coercion Bill last year pointed out that the law would be carried into execution, not by the Chief Secretary, but by the police throughout the country. Now they had the facts demonstrated beyond all doubt. If such a Circular had been issued by the Third Section in Russia, the whole English Press would have cried out against it. But here in Ireland, at their very doors, the police issued this infamous Circular, and the Chief Secretary for more than a month knew nothing about it. But the Chief Secretary thought that the last two paragraphs ought not to have been written—the paragraphs in which this Inspector stated that if one of his men shot down an innocent person by mistake he, the Inspector, would exonerate the policeman, setting aside altogether the verdicts of a Coroner's Jury, and the result of magisterial investigation or a trial by jury. With regard to the erection of huts, the question they had to ask was this—and they expected an answer from the Attorney General for Ireland—at what distance from a man's farm did it become illegal to erect a hut? Was it or was it not legal for a farmer, having land of his own, to let a house be built upon it? Did it become illegal to give it to evicted tenants? If that was illegal, under what circumstances did the erection of the hut become illegal? Were they not alone going to suspect the occupant of the house, but also the house itself that was in process of building? Their neighbours were ever the best friends of evicted tenants. If the latter

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  were driven away from their own parishes they would either fail in obtaining assistance, or be subjected to the shame of accepting it from the hands of strangers. He did not suppose there was very much use in bringing the action of Mr. Clifford Lloyd before that House. He had, indeed, long ceased to expect any defence of public rights from the occupants of the Benches opposite; but men had lately attempted to say in Ireland that the Chief Secretary was not responsible for these petty tyrannies, but now they had achieved, at any rate, that much good, that they had brought home to the Irish people that not alone did he permit Mr. Clifford Lloyd to act in this way, but that by doing so he was winning the approbation of the right hon. Gentleman. He would only say, in conclusion, that if the Ladies' Land League was to be put down it might become the duty of the Catholic priests, as perhaps the only organization with which the Liberal Government was afraid to deal, to look after evicted tenants, and assist in putting up houses for them. These houses would continue to be put up in spite of anything that Mr. Clifford Lloyd or any of his friends might do. They were threatened with more coercion for Ireland. He would only tell the Ministers that there was no form of coercion which they could devise which had not been tried in Ireland in vain in the attempt to break the national spirit. The Irish people defied coercion. Did the right hon. Gentleman think that they were forgetful of 1798, and the barbarous cruelties that were then practised upon the people of Ireland? He told English Ministers that they might bring in their coercion and they would defy them, as they defied them before. He told them their coercion policy would fail, as they were compelled to admit through the mouth of the Prime Minister it had failed. He told them now if they brought in more coercion it would fail also; it would only serve to strengthen and consolidate the spirit of hatred in Ireland against the rule of foreigners. When they tried coercion in Ireland before they failed, even though the Irish race was then confined within the four seas of Ireland. To-day the Irish were scattered throughout the world, united as they never were united before, and he told them they dare not bring in more coercion.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he thought the House ought not to be misled by anything that had been said on the other side. There were two classes of evicted tenants in Ireland. There were the tenants who were cruelly and wickedly evicted because they were utterly unable to pay the arrears which had accrued on account of disastrous seasons. Such tenants were evicted in the West of Ireland. He asked, what did the Land League do for them? What huts did they erect for them? None at all. What did they do to show their sympathy for those unfortunate creatures who were evicted on the hill sides of Connemara? Nothing. Perhaps there might be some small sum of money awarded which might or might not have been distributed, and which had given them no effectual relief; but, on the other hand, the Land League huts were erected in places in which they were intended to be nests of insurrection and insubordination. For his part, he thought that any tenants who were evicted under circumstances which they could not help themselves, who were evicted, as they had been in the county Clare and in many other places, from the terrorism of the Land League, which decreed that if they did not obey their behests they should be shot, for these persons huts and shelter should be provided; and, therefore, he could not for one moment justify this Circular of Mr. Clifford Lloyd. But if hon. Gentlemen whose indignation had been so great against persons whom they thought might in future be shot by mistake by the police had shown equal indignation against those who had already murdered their fellow-countrymen it would have come with more grace from them. They had heard a good deal of what might happen if this abominable Circular were acted upon. He called it abominable. In no other country but Ireland would it be possible, in his belief, that an Executive officer could issue it. It should speak to the House trumpet-tongued of what they whose voices were never attended to on that side of the House or the other had always been saying—that the Executive in Ireland, the permanent officials, from the highest to the lowest, had been utterly inefficient, and were utterly unable even to perform the ordinary duties of government. Did not this Circular show of what the permanent

  1007
  officials were made? And there had been other objectionable Circulars of this kind which had been issued and then withdrawn. But that apart, what he rose to protest against was this indignation against the Executive, and this assumption of great benevolence on the part of the Land League, who had utterly neglected the really unprotected and miserable creatures in the West of Ireland who were evicted wholesale, and who were unable to pay that for which they had been evicted. If huts had been erected for these people it would have done credit to hon, Gentlemen opposite and their organization; but nothing was done. These people could not make political capital for this organization; and, therefore, they were left to suffer as poor men, women, and children had suffered, who, if they had been able to reflect glory on the head of that Association who had done so much to ruin the country, would have had their sufferings brought forward often enough in that House.
  MR. HEALY,referring to the blame cast by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) on the Land League for neglecting the smaller tenants in the West of Ireland, explained that the League had only a limited amount of funds at its disposal, and, of course, could not expend more than it possessed. The hon. Member's income for one year would amount to more than the whole of the Land League funds. The Land League, accordingly, was only able to give small donations in each case, proportionate to what they considered the requirements of the case and the exigency of the country demanded. If the Land League was to do what should be done for the tenants of Ireland, in 20 or 30 days the whole of its money would be eaten up. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had made an extraordinary statement. He said that, in the first place, Dublin Castle knew nothing about this Circular which was issued on the instructions of the Inspector General to the County Inspector. What he wanted to know was, the Inspector General having given instructions that the Circular was to be issued, was it no part of his duty to see what it was?
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, there was no statement in the Question to the effect that the Inspector General knew anything about the Circular.
  MR. HEALYsaid, that everything could not be stated at once; but Irish Members were acquainted with that fact as well as of the issue of the Circular itself. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman would be astonished to hear that they had their sources of information as well as he had his, and that occasionally, perhaps, they were as accurately informed. With regard to the right hon. Gentleman's non-acquaintance with the Circular, he ventured to remind him of this extraordinary fact. The Circular was dated the 4th of March. On the 3rd of March the right hon. Gentleman himself was down in Clare, and Inspector Smith accompanied him. Of course, they were obliged to respect any statement made by the right hon. Gentleman; but when the Circular was dated the 4th of March, and when they knew the opinion the right hon. Gentleman had regarding Mr. Clifford Lloyd, he would like to ask—were no instructions given by him, was nothing at all said by Mr. Smith to him on the subject? What power had Mr. County Inspector Smith, a mere subordinate, over life and death?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER: Do I understand the hon. Member to challenge what I have said? My statement was that I knew nothing about the Circular at that time. Does he say that I did? Does he wish to convey that insinuation in any shape or form?
  MR. HEALY: If the right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood the statement I have made to the House he will have an opportunity of reply, to use the words of Mr. Speaker, "by the indulgence of the House." I would remind the right hon. Gentleman that when I interrupted him on a recent occasion he told me that I was importing new manners into the House. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman to restrain himself for the two or three minutes during which I shall address the House.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Mr. Speaker, I rise to Order, because I do not apprehend that it is a question upon which there can be any discussion. The question has been put by the right hon. Gentleman as to whether or not the hon. Member was imputing to him a false statement. ["No!"] That is what I understand. I do not for a moment say that the hon. Member for Wexford was imputing a false state-

  1009
  ment; but I understood the Chief Secretary for Ireland asked the question whether he did or did not intend to impute such a statement to him, and I think the House is entitled to have an answer to that question.
  MR. HEALY: It is quite touching to observe the liveliness with which right hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the Table support each other. I would remind right hon. Gentlemen that I know my rights in this House as well as they know theirs; but I understand the Chief Secretary for Ireland—
  MR. SPEAKER: I would warn the hon. Member that he is bound to accept the disavowal of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant.
  MR. HEALY: Perfectly, Mr. Speaker. You have exactly stated the position, Sir. Outside this House we resume our liberty of appreciation; and I will now resume the somewhat broken thread of this somewhat interrupted speech. They were bound to accept the statement of the right hon. Gentleman; but there had been nothing imported into the House which obliged them to accept the statements of Mr. Clifford Lloyd. He would deny that he was bound to accept Mr. Clifford Lloyd's statement, or Mr. Inspector Smith's denial. He had known Mr. Clifford Lloyd before, and had been the first to bring that gentleman's conduct before the House. He (Mr. Healy) was in the town of Drogheda on the 1st of January, 1881, and, after having dispersed a meeting, Mr. Clifford Lloyd had said to the people—"If you don't disperse quickly I will fire upon you." He (Mr. Healy) had brought that matter before the House, and had obtained the votes of several English hon. Members in support of the Motion which he had then made. Mr. Clifford Lloyd had denied his statement; but he (Mr. Healy) had heard him with his own ears, and, with the unfortunate incident of the town of Drogheda in his mind, he was unable to accept Mr. Clifford Lloyd's denial. What the Irish Members would accept was the evidence of impartial persons; they surely could not be blamed if they hesitated to accept the denials of incriminated parties. Was it not a fact that since Mr. Clifford Lloyd had been placed in Clare and Limerick there had been more murders in that district than in the
  1010
  rest of Ireland in the same time? The fact was that Mr. Clifford Lloyd was a firebrand, as had been stated even by Mr. Whitworth, the brother of the hon. Member for Drogheda. Mr. Boyd Kinnear, a well known Scotch writer and lawyer, in his letters in The Daily News, stated that he was down in Kilmallock, attending some of the trials held by Mr. Clifford Lloyd, and some of the most scathing condemnations about Mr. Clifford Lloyd had been written by Mr. Kinnear. It was a strange and terrible fact that this Circular rendered a man liable to be shot on mere suspicion. If the Chief Secretary suspected a man he might arrest him; if his subordinates suspected a man they might shoot him. To such a strange pass had things now come in Ireland If such a Circular had been issued to the Zaptiehs and Bashi-Bazouks of Bulgaria, the House would have heard a very different account of it from the Treasury Bench. On the introduction of the Land Act the right hon. Gentleman said—
  "We have now been engaged for two or three weary months with the dreary business of coercion, and we have entered now into the path of conciliation."
  Was this one of the steps in "the path of conciliation," to shoot persons on suspicion? It was impossible to conciliate the country by such methods. The Government should recollect that they had to deal with to-morrow as well as to-day. The officials of the Government in Ireland might make a desert and call it peace, but Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom; and when engaged in a struggle with some Foreign Power England might feel the effect of the proceedings of Mr. Clifford Lloyd. England's battles in the past had been fought by the arms and hearts of Irishmen; but English recruiting sergeants might find a difficulty in future in finding recruits in Mr. Clifford Lloyd's district. When England was engaged in a deadly struggle with some foreign foe, they would hear addressed from the Treasury Bench to the Irish people, not words of menace, as they did now, but supplications for assistance and support. They had to ask the right hon. Gentleman, Was he determined that the erection of these huts should be put a stop to? He stated that the Ladies' Land League was an illegal association? If so, why was it not proclaimed? He

  1011
  stated that he had not arrested any of them under the Coercion Act; but he sent them to gaol for six months, and they were kept in their cells for 22 hours out of the 24. There was no need for the Coercion Act for arresting women when he had got the law of Edward III. The people of Ireland were being put out by the score and by the hundred in the year following that Act which was to bring peace to the country. They were expelled from their homes mainly because of the arrears which the Chief Secretary treated with so much indifference when he (Mr. Healy) sought to introduce a clause into the Land Act dealing with the question. Now, when the unfortunate people were driven out on the roadside, he would not allow huts to be erected for their shelter. Was it more likely to promote the peace of the country to compel the unfortunate inhabitants of these huts to roam about from farm to farm than to allow them being comfortably housed by the Land League? The Chief Secretary for Ireland thought these people should go to the workhouse. He would probably like to see them once more going by the hundred into the poor-house, or across the Atlantic in the emigrant ship. If the right hon. Gentleman wished to obtain credit for his benevolence, let him allow those unfortunate people to obtain protection from those who were willing to protect them. Not one of them believed Mr. Clifford Lloyd. Nobody who knew him could believe him. The testimony of any man who could consent to become the instrument of the British Government in the way Mr. Clifford Lloyd had done was not worth a moment's credence. He was hated as much in Ireland as Major Sir was in 1798; and so long as he and persons like him were employed to carry out the dirty work which was going on in Ireland in the name of law and order, so long would law and order be despised.
  MR. SHAWsaid, there were two subjects before the House—the question of the Circular and the question of the huts. Three weeks ago he was shown the Circular by an hon. Member to whom it was sent, and he advised him strongly not to ask any Question about it until he had ascertained whether it was genuine, for he could not believe that any man in the position of the County Inspector of Clare would think of issuing such a Circu-
  1012
  lar. He did not think he would have issued the Circular in the first place without consulting his superiors in Dublin; and if those superiors had any fitness at all for their position, he could not imagine that they would allow it to be issued. If documents of this kind were allowed to be issued, he could only say that the fact gave a reason for an immense deal of the confusion that was going on in Ireland. He could not imagine that there was any real head or government of the police in Ireland. The idea of the Inspector of one of the most disturbed counties in Ireland issuing a Circular of that kind without the bidding of his superiors in Dublin Castle was, to say the least of it, the most absurd that he could imagine. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that the two last paragraphs were exceedingly improper; but he (Mr. Shaw) had expected the right hon. Gentleman to go much further. Did they intend to leave that Inspector in the county of Clare? He did not want to have him dismissed from the Force, because he might have a family; but if a man of that kind were left in a county like Clare, which was full of difficulty and disturbance, it would be the most injudicious thing in the world, and ought not to be countenanced for a moment by the Government. He thought it would be worth while for the House to inquire how it was that the Irish Police Force was governed or regulated at all. Were officers of this kind throughout the country left entirely to their own discretion as to the issuing of Circulars and the management of the people? The matter was most important for those who lived in Ireland. He knew himself gentlemen in command of the police in Ireland. He was happy to say the remark only applied to a few, who in case of difficulty ought to be locked up, or kept out of the way, for they were most unfit to manage in a case of difficulty. As a general rule, the men in command of the police were men of great judgment and sense, and discharged the duties committed to them with great propriety; but, as he had said, there were some of them, and he believed this man was one, who, on the occasion of any trouble or difficulty, should be locked up themselves. As to the huts, it was well known that they were being erected for the last six or eight months in many parts of Ireland. He never heard be-

  1013
  fore that they were illegal. He maintained that there was not a single case of the building of a hut in any part of Ireland which was not as much a menace as in the county of Clare. He really thought that the Government, before going to this extreme length, should have sent down some independent authority, some proved and experienced man, to inquire into the circumstances, and not have left the matter entirely to Mr. Clifford Lloyd, no matter how valuable a servant of the Government he might be. He would not stop to inquire into the justice or injustice of the evictions; but it was a fact that hundreds of people were driven out on the roadside; and it was a very extreme thing to say that dwellings should not be erected to shelter these people. It was too extreme a step to take without having sent down an independent person to inquire into the circumstances. He could not sit down without asking the Government whether they intended to go on in this way for ever? How long did they intend that this kind of thing should go on—war, absolute war, between the people of Ireland and the forces of the country? A policeman on suspicion might shoot a man. The man, as a matter of course, might shoot the policeman. It was absolutely clear that in Clare and the district surrounding it, there was a war going on, and the Government seemed to take one wrong step after another, in suppressing it. So far as he could judge they might go on in this course for years, and the thing would never come to an end. The crisis required a different policy. It required something stronger and bolder than anything yet done. If the Government were not prepared to take another course than that now being pursued, he believed the state of Ireland would go from bad to worse.
  MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, it was some satisfaction to hear the Circular condemned; but that was not enough. The Circular was a gross violation of the law of the land, and a direct encouragement to violence on the part of the people. If they wanted the people of Ireland to accept the authority of the law, they must respect the law themselves. This County Inspector Smith, charged as he was with functions of the greatest moment, had no right to hold so important a position in the county of
  1014
  Clare after issuing such a Circular. If the right hon. Gentleman would remove County Inspector Smith from a place where he was about to commit such crimes, he would do more to restore law and order than Mr. Smith and Mr. Clifford Lloyd could do. Unless the people saw that a man who did such a thing would be punished, the Government could not expect to see law and order restored. Let not the right hon. Gentleman shrink from doing to the author of this Circular what would be done if such a document were issued in any part of England. He trusted that the building of huts would not be prevented, unless it was proved that there was something illegal in it. It had been said by some that the tenants were not free to pay their rents for fear of being murdered, while others denied it. But one fact was worth a great deal of argument. He could bring forward the case of tenants who, wishing to remit their rents to the landlord, were obliged to go into a town far from their farms in order to evade outrage. [The hon. Gentleman here read a letter from a trader in Cork to the landlord, stating that such-and-such of his tenants asked him to send him a cheque in payment of their rent, and to have a receipt sent back to the writer, so that "Captain Moonlight" might be doubly baffled.] But while these things occurred, they were no excuse for illegality on the part of the Government or their officials. On the contrary, the fact that the people were threatened by illegal associations ought to be a reason why the Government should give no excuse for outrage by any illegality on their part. If they wished to get the law respected the best way to do so was to punish those who failed to respect it.
  MR. REDMONDsaid, he sincerely trusted that the speech of the hon. Member for Cork County (Mr. Shaw) would have due effect on the mind of the House, coming as it did from a Gentleman who had never given any assistance to the Land League, and to whom the Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary for Ireland were fond of going for advice. [Mr. CALLAN: No !] That hon. Gentleman had told the Government—what everybody knew would have happened—that their coercion policy in Ireland had been a dismal and melancholy failure. Their repression and

  1015
  their conciliation had been alike halfhearted. If the Government believed not in conciliation, but in repression, their policy ought to be more wholehearted. But if they believed in conciliation then why did they allow these things to go on? The facts elicited with reference to the Police Circular were such as should startle the minds of hon. Members who have been hitherto content to allow Ireland to be governed without too curiously inquiring the methods by which it was done. The worst thing about the Circular was that it was issued without the knowledge of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or the Irish Executive in Dublin Castle. The fact that such a Circular could be issued by a subordinate official without the knowledge or approval of the Executive in Dublin was the strongest condemnation of the present system of government in Ireland. The people could only conclude from such facts that each petty official was invested with power, not only over liberty, but over life in that country. In dealing with the subject of evictions the Chief Secretary for Ireland had dwelt upon the case of a father having been intimidated by his son from paying his rent; but the right hon. Gentleman must be aware that the majority of the evictions were not evictions of tenants who could pay rents, but who refused to pay. The most remarkable cases of evictions recently were those now being carried out on Lord Cloncurry's estate. Those tenants had offered to pay a fair rent at a reasonable reduction; but, so far from accepting such an arrangement, the landlord had announced that, not only would he not give that reduction, but that he would not permit the tenants to remain on their holdings unless they consented to pay an increased rent in future. The evictions now proceeding in Ireland were, to a large extent, the direct consequence of the course which the Government had pursued. The first time that the question of the arrears of impossible rent came before the House was when the Compensation for Disturbance Bill was introduced. What, then, was the attitude taken by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and by the Government? The House was told that, in consequence of partial famine, hundreds and thousands were unable to pay their rents, that they were threatened with eviction, which
  1016
  was tantamount to a sentence of starvation and death; and the right hon. Gentleman stated that he could not consent to be the instrument of carrying out injustice towards those unfortunate people. He now denounced the right hon. Gentleman as having acted dishonestly in that respect. If the right hon. Gentleman had been an honest politician or an honest man he would have taken a different course. [Cries of" Order!" and "Withdraw!"]
  MR. GOSCHEN: I ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether the hon. Member is in Order in using the words—"If the right hon. Gentleman had been an honest politician or an honest man?"
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member for New Ross must be quite aware that an observation of that kind is un-Parliamentary, and I call upon him to withdraw it.
  MR. REDMOND: I am sorry, Sir, that the Rules of the House militate against telling the truth.[Cries of "Oh! "and "Name him!"]
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member has not withdrawn the expression which I declared to be un-Parliamentary.
  MR. REDMOND: I rise, Sir, for the purpose of withdrawing the expression; and I would only say this—that I am sorry it is not in my power, within the Rules of Parliament, to make use of the expression. [Cries of"Order!"]
  MR. SPEAKER: I consider the conduct of the hon. Member offensive to this House. I consider his conduct, not only offensive to this House, but also especially offensive to the right hon. Member who has been addressed in the manner in which the hon. Member has addressed him. And I feel bound to Name Mr. Redmond as having disregarded the authority of the Chair.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, I have to move, in consequence of the statement which you have just made, that Mr. Redmond be suspended from the service of the House during the remainder of this day's Sitting.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That Mr. Redmond be suspended from the service of the House during the remainder of this day's sitting."—[The Marquess of Hartington.)
  Mr. SPEAKERhaving put the Question, declared that, in his judgment, "The Ayes have it." This not being

  1017
  agreed to, Mr. SPEAKER directed the House to be cleared for a division. Mr. HEALY having offered himself as one of the Tellers for the Noes, Mr. SPEAKER requested that hon. Gentleman to name a second Teller. Whereupon—
  MR. HEALY,addressing Mr. SPEAKER, sitting and covered, said—I wish to name as my co-Teller, Mr. Redmond, the hon. Member for New Ross. On the point of Order, I would remind you, Sir, that on previous occasions, when an hon. Member has been proposed to be suspended—and I myself last year had twice the honour of being suspended by the decision of the House—on each occasion I took part in the division and voted against the Motion. I submit that an hon. Member who is about to be suspended is equally entitled to tell as to vote. The hon. Member for New Ross is a Member of this House—he has not yet been suspended for the remainder of this day's Sitting—and, in acting as a Teller, he would only be carrying out his function as a Member of this House. The Speaker, I contend, has no power or authority to cut off the hon. Member for New Ross before the House has clothed him with that authority by agreeing to the Motion.
  MR. SPEAKER: If the hon. Member is not prepared to name a second Teller, I must declare that "The Ayes have it."
  MR. HEALY: Well, Sir, if you rule that you must take that course, I will name the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) as second Teller.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 207; Noes 12: Majority 195.—(Div. List, No. 66.)
  Mr. SPEAKERthen directed Mr. REDMOND to withdraw, and he withdrew accordingly.
  Question again proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: As, Sir, the Question "That this House do now adjourn" is again before us, I wish to say a single word, in order that there may be no misunderstanding as to the view taken by a large number of Gentlemen on this side of the House who have not taken any part in the discussion. As we understand, a Question
  1018
  has been addressed to the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland with regard to this Circular. He has informed the House that he was not aware, until his attention was called to it, that such a Circular had been issued, and he has expressed dissatisfaction with the phraseology of the last two sentences of that Circular, which he has reason to believe has been issued. I presume that, that being the case, the Government will take such steps as they may think proper in the matter; but I am anxious that it should be clearly understood that the House, while trusting the Government will take all proper steps in that matter, fully supports the Government in those measures they may find to be necessary, in the present critical state of Ireland, for the preservation of law and order. I wish also strongly to impress upon the Government that there is no disposition whatever, either in this country or in Ireland, to weaken the hands of those who are charged with a very difficult duty; and I would further express my own personal hope, as well as the desire of others, that nothing which has passed or may be said shall be allowed to have the effect of discouraging or weakening the efforts of those gallant men—the Constabulary of Ireland, who, performing their duty under circumstances of great trial, require to be supported. Moreover, I need hardly say that I think nothing that has passed will give, or can be twisted into giving, any impression that there will be any less care taken to protect Mr. Clifford Lloyd in the discharge of his duties, which, as far as we understand, he is performing with great courage.
  MR. O'CONNOR POWERsaid, he rose for the purpose of supporting, in the fewest possible words, the views taken by the hon. Member for Cork County (Mr. Shaw). He had nothing to say with regard to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of Her Majesty's Opposition to which they had just listened; but he wished to contrast briefly the demand which was made upon the Chief Secretary for Ireland by the hon. Member for the County of Cork with that which was made by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) and the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy). It was unnecessary to follow the hon. Member for Sligo into

  1019
  the variety of subjects upon which he entered; but he wished to endorse most fully the criticisms of the hon. Member upon this Constabulary Circular. All the hon. Member for Sligo asked was that if the Circular were found to be authentic, it should be withdrawn by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He did not ask for the withdrawal of the Inspector of Police, nor did the hon. Member for Longford. He wished to make an observation as a somewhat indirect reply to the speech of the Leader of the Opposition. It was not right that the public should imagine that because they condemned the issue of this Circular they also condemned energetic action on the part of those responsible for the administration of the law in Ireland. He, as the Representative of an Irish county, was as anxious for the preservation of law and order in Ireland as the English Gentlemen who so warmly endorsed the remarks of the Leader of the Opposition. But the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) was perfectly justified in calling attention to this Circular. When the Chief Secretary for Ireland was questioned about the document, he pleaded for more time to make inquiries, although in possession of the fact that the Circular had been issued. That was not candid treatment of the House. They had had some experience of the manner in which the Chief Secretary for Ireland threw his protection over officials of this description doing imprudent or illegal acts. He alluded to the case of the Chief Inspector of the town of Ballina. Although not in the habit of "bullyragging," as they would say in Ireland, the Chief Secretary for Ireland, yet, when he found an official in Ireland setting an example of violation of the law, he felt that it was more necessary to deal with him than with an ordinary citizen, because an official was looked upon by the general population as setting them an example of strict and careful observance of the law. In the case of this Sub-Inspector, he had issued a Circular of an atrocious character, which was distinctly an incentive to violence on the part of the people, and they called for a withdrawal of that Circular. It must not be thought that they objected to proper and legitimate means being taken to enforce the law. On the contrary, it was necessary that the primary duties of civilization and govern-
  1020
  ment should be discharged by someone; and in the presence of a great popular movement, those upon whom these arduous duties fell would, from time to time, make themselves unpopular even by a legitimate discharge of their duties. But, so far from promoting the peace of the country by extra legal measures, they were simply playing into the hands of those who kept Ireland in a state of perpetual disturbance. The hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. Redmond), whom he regretted to say had incurred the penalties of the House, though in a manner in which he could not endorse his action, made a statement in the course of his speech which ought to be corrected. He said that the Chief Secretary for Ireland was in the habit of consulting the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) in matters of Irish policy. He had also been reputed to share the distinguished honour of the political confidence of the right hon. Gentleman. He was able to say on behalf of the hon. Member for Cork County, as well as for himself, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had not thought either of them worthy of being consulted. Nor, indeed, had the right hon. Gentleman taken into confidence a single Representative from Ireland with regard to his Irish policy. He was talking lately to a Gentleman who represented a very large constituency in Ireland, who was returned to the House of Commons as an avowed supporter of the Liberal Government, and he had asked him if he did not think the position of the Chief Secretary for Ireland was a very arduous and critical one, first of all because the Irish Tory Members were opposed to him, and he would not get much sympathy from them, and the Members of the active Party were also opposed to him, while even those he ruled among did not rally round him? He had added that he supposed the moderate Home Rulers possessed his confidence, and that as the right hon. Gentleman was not an Irishman and was not acquainted with Irish institutions, he took the trouble of asking them how the Government in Ireland should be carried on. His hon. Friend told him that the Chief Secretary for Ireland had never asked him a single question about the government of Ireland since he had taken his seat on the Front Government Bench. If the right hon. Gentleman had any

  1021
  doubt about that he would be very happy to tell him who the hon. Member was. It was this supercilious conduct in reference to the opinions of Irish Members which had arrayed against the right hon. Gentleman all classes of the Irish Representatives. He was just reminded that another Irish Liberal Member, a staunch supporter of the Government, the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. C. Russell), had, during the Recess, issued a manifesto to the Irish people in which he too complained that the Chief Secretary took no means to ascertain for himself what were the opinions of the Irish Liberal Members. As there were several Irish Members on the Ministerial side of the House, he should be glad if any of them could contradict that statement; but it was not likely they would, because by doing so they would assume a share of responsibility for the policy of the right hon. Gentleman. As soon as the land agitation had reached national proportions, he felt that a revolution was approaching, and his attitude was shaped by his recollection of what had happened in other countries on the occurrence of great popular re-actions to overthrow systems opposed to the well-being of those countries. A revolution was going on in Ireland—there could be no doubt about that; and though it might be made by the Land League, it was not provoked by the Land League. The men who provoked revolutions usually belonged to one class, and the men who made them to another; but very often those revolutions were carried beyond the bounds of reason and justice, and, unfortunately, they saw countries deluged in the blood of their best and bravest; and he said to Her Majesty's Government, and to his hon. Friends, were they going to stain the modern history of Ireland with the blood of tenant and landlord? Were they going to keep up the heart burnings and antipathies that had raged between the two classes in the country for years? It would be the highest duty of Irish Representatives to prevent such terrible results if they could. Responsibility for the condition of Ireland was not confined to the Government or to the official class; they were all responsible. No Irish Member who forgot the terrible responsibility which rested upon the whole body in times like these could claim to be a patriot. Feeling that responsibility, he was in
  1022
  favour of the just, but firm and unswerving administration of the law, and of the swift punishment, with all the legal forms of justice, of the perpetrators of crime and outrage. But justice could not be served or peace promoted by allowing any portion of the official class to set examples of illegality and terrorism. For these reasons he joined his hon. Friend the Member for Cork in expressing a hope that Her Majesty's Government and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland—who, he believed, was anxious to do his duty to Ireland, though he also begged leave to say that he did not know how—would become alive to the duties they had to perform, and that the English Parliament would ultimately discover that there was no way of settling the Irish question but by overturning the present system of Irish administration, vitiated as it was by traditions of the past which Englishmen were ashamed of, and which Irishmen remembered only with feelings of inextinguishable hatred.
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, I think this discussion is wandering somewhat far from the starting-point; and unless some attempt is made to recall it to its original purpose, the inconvenience, which is already great, of raising irregular discussions in this way will be much aggravated. The question which we began to discuss was, I conceive, the Question which was raised on the Paper by the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton)—namely, regarding the conduct of certain County Inspectors in the issue of a Circular, which was quoted. But the question which we have now begun to discuss is the general condition of Ireland, the policy of this country towards Ireland during a great number of years, and, more especially, the conduct of the Chief Secretary in consulting, or otherwise, certain Members representing Irish constituencies. I cannot help thinking that if the discussion is to be protracted, it ought, at all events, to be confined to the original questions raised. The hon. Member who has just sat down has charged my right hon. Friend with some want of candour in the answer he has given the House; but I think that the charge is al together unfounded. My right hon. Friend telegraphed for information to enable him to answer the Question; he has not received complete information. He has received a telegraphic reply from

  1023
  one County Inspector which led him to believe that a Circular like that quoted from had been issued; but from the other County Inspectors he had received no reply at all, and he was altogether without any statement which these County Inspectors might desire to furnish in explanation of their action. In these circumstances I think my right hon. Friend was justified in asking the hon. Member to defer his Question until he was in a position to give an answer with full knowledge. But when the Question was further pressed, my right hon. Friend did not feel justified in keeping back the fact that he had reason to believe that such a Circular had been issued in one county; but he was perfectly justified in previously asking for more time, in order that all the facts might be laid before the House. With reference to the remark of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, I quite agree with him that not one word ought to be said—and I do not think one word has been said by the Chief Secretary for Ireland—which can, in the slightest degree, lead anyone in Ireland to suppose that the Government are in the least indifferent to the charge laid upon the Constabulary to protect the magistrates in the discharge of their duty. We are aware of the great responsibility which rests upon the Constabulary, upon whom devolves the protection of magistrates, who avowedly occupy a dangerous position, and who discharge their duties, as we believe, honestly and fearlessly. No doubt, a great responsibility rests upon the Constabulary charged with the protection of these magistrates, and it would be far from the intention of anyone to utter a word which could hamper them in doing anything which is necessary. My right hon. Friend has said that he is unable to justify a portion of the Circular alleged to have been issued. It is a painful duty to utter one word which would seem to show a want of confidence or approval as regards men placed in such a difficult position. We have a right to call upon them to display courage and zeal; but we have also the right to demand from them the exercise of discretion. But until my right hon. Friend has received a full explanation from these gentlemen, it would be unfair to them, and it would not be fair to the House, to ask him to pass an opinion on their conduct. I trust, in these circumstances, that this discussion,
  1024
  already unnecessarily prolonged, may be allowed to close.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, there were two questions which he wished to ask, respecting which he heard nothing from the noble Lord. He entirely agreed with the hon. Member for Mayo(Mr. O'Connor Power) with regard to his observations upon the desirability of visiting strong official displeasure upon the author of this Circular; but he would like to know from someone on the Government Benches whether any assurance would be given that the constables would be informed in future that no Circulars were to be issued until they had been submitted to the authorities in Dublin; and next, that Mr. Clifford Lloyd and others would be instructed that the huts might be allowed to be erected? He had expected to hear that the erection of them had been forbidden, because of some new reading of the Coercion Act; but they had been told that it was not done under the Coercion Act or under Statute Law, but that it was in accordance with the Common Law of this country. As he understood it, the Common Law was derived from the dictation of text writers and from the decision of Judges. Perhaps the Attorney General for Ireland would be good enough to explain what text writer or what Judge had laid it down as the Common Law of England, Ireland, and Scotland, that when a person was evicted from his own farm, and his neighbour, on a freehold, erected a shelter for him, that any Executive officer of this Realm might interfere and forbid the building of his hut?
  MR. JOSEPH COWENsaid, he had great hesitation in recommending any Member to take a course contrary to that which he seemed inclined to follow; but he would venture respectfully to suggest to his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) the desirability of withdrawing his Motion after the statement of the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India. He would have been glad if the Government could at once have declared their intention to withdraw Inspector Smith from Clare and repudiate his Circular; but the noble Lord had stated that the Ministers were not completely informed as to the issuing of the Circular, and that before taking any steps respecting it, they desired to have some further information. The request was a reasonable one, and after the dis-

  1025
  cussion that had taken place a few days' delay would not do any disservice to the cause which the hon. Member for Sligo had so ably pleaded. He could repeat the Question on a subsequent occasion, and, if necessary, renew the debate. He was conscious that hon. Members viewed these oft-recurring Irish discussions with something like despair. The subject overshadowed everything else. It was the last thing they seriously debated before the Recess, and it was the first thing after their reassembling. It confronted them at every turn—at Question time and at Adjournment. There were more Notices of Motion and Bills on the Order Book of the House respecting Ireland than on any other three or four topics. There was no aspect of the question that the eye could survey with satisfaction, or that the mind could dwell upon with hope. In the interest of the country, of the House, and of the Government, it was imperative that the policy of the Ministry should be re-cast, and a new departure taken. No doubt, they had acted on information they possessed; but that information, as his hon. Friend the Member for Mayo had said, was purely official. They had collected their knowledge from one class of the community alone, and that the governing class, or, rather, Castle. They had neither contact nor sympathy with the Representatives of Irish popular opinion. From this defective knowledge they had made an incorrect diagnosis of the disease, and, in consequence of that error, their remedies had not succeeded. Coercion had failed, hopelessly failed, and deservedly failed. And the Land Act had not succeeded. They had treated a great democratic and social uprising as an ordinary agitation. They accused the hon. Gentlemen opposite of having created the movement. The reverse was the fact—the movement had created the hon. Gentlemen. They were the outcome and spokesmen of it. A year's experience had only gone to show that the remedial policy of the Ministry had not ensured a remedy, and their repressive policy had brought greater disorder. For their own interest the Government were bound to give immediate consideration to the subject, with a view of dealing with it under fresh conditions and in a different spirit to that which had hitherto characterized them. He did not wish to detain the House; but be-
  1026
  fore sitting down he was anxious to say one word about the Chief Secretary for Ireland. No one had spoken more sharply against the policy that the right hon. Gentleman had pursued than he had done. He had condemned it from, the first. Before it was adopted he had warned the House repeatedly as to the disastrous consequences that would flow from it. But, while he condemned the procedure of the Chief Secretary for Ireland as bitterly and as strongly as any man could do, he could not join with those who imputed to him unworthy motives. It was quite easy to disagree with a man and still respect his integrity. He disagreed with the Chief Secretary for Ireland far enough; but he would have no hand in the set that seemed to be made at him personally. The policy that the Chief Secretary for Ireland carried out was the policy of the Government and the policy of the Party. If he went, the Government should go; and if the Government went, the Party should go. Any credit that was due to the Administration for success would be shared alike, and any discredit that attached to them for failure should be participated in by them all. They were all Coercionists, and the right hon. Gentleman had simply been their instrument and agent. It would be shabby to single him out for sacrifice. This attempt to throw the odium of a false and fatal course on one Member would only recoil on the Party as a whole if pushed to a conclusion. He hoped, after the engagement of the Government that they would get further information and submit it to the House, that his hon. Friend would allow the Motion to be withdrawn.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, the high respect he had for the character and conduct of the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen), and the value he attached to the frank admission of the noble Marquess respecting County Inspector Smith, led him to respond to the appeal that had been made to him to withdraw the Motion. He must say, however, that it had not been proved that by any law these people should be kept from inhabiting these huts. He therefore thought they should have some assurance that these people should be allowed to inhabit the huts, as there would be more danger in sending them away than in allowing them to remain.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, he would not have risen to take part in the protracted debate, but that so many Questions had been put to him by hon. Members that he rose to give his reasons for the opinion he expressed on a previous occasion. That opinion was, that if it was found that the tenants in question were building huts for the purpose of watching the farm, and of doing mischief to persons taking the farm, or preventing them from taking the farm, that would be an offence against the Common Law, as any lawyer in the House was perfectly well aware.
  MR. CALLANsaid, he thought that the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had exercised a wise discretion, although he did not agree with all that had fallen from the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen). There was always a victim when a mistake had been made, and he hoped a victim would be made of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, because he believed that the right hon. Gentleman deserved it. He had set himself directly to oppose the popular voice of Ireland. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) said that in no other country than Ireland could such an abominable Circular have been issued. The hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Shaw) spoke of it as an atrocious Circular; but the Chief Secretary for Ireland had not said one word in condemnation of it. Was that fit and proper conduct for the Chief Secretary for Ireland? Was that the manner in which a responsible Officer of the Crown was to obtain the support of the Irish people in the maintenance of law and order? He had given an un candid answer to the Question. The Question was whether a Circular had been issued by the County Inspector of Ennis, and no other, officer was implicated. That debate would never have arisen if the Chief Secretary for Ireland had given a candid answer. He told them that he had had admission of the Circular, but had not said one word in condemnation of it. The Chief Secretary for Ireland took credit for the issue of the Circular, for he said that the practical effect of it was to prevent the shooting of Mr. Clifford Lloyd. The idea of a Chief Secretary for Ireland getting up in that House and admitting that till he saw that Circular yesterday he knew nothing about it. The hon.
  1028
  Member for Cork had advised the locking up of the Inspectors and Sub-Inspectors. He would advise the Government to lock up the Chief Secretary for Ireland if they wished to have peace and contentment in Ireland. He was far more mischievous than the Inspectors or the Sub-Inspectors. If they locked him up there might be some chance of law and order in Ireland. What was the Government of Ireland? Five gentlemen governed it. There was Mr. Burke, the Under Secretary, who was Castle clerk from his youth; Mr. Hillier, the Inspector General, who, when in a subordinate position, had more than one inquiry with regard to his conduct; and Mr. Anderson, a mongrel lawyer, half-attorney, half-barrister, who usurped very much the duties of an Attorney General; and then they had the two men who really did the business in Ireland, who made the machine run—two sound Conservatives—namely, Mr. Robinson and Mr. Kay. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had said that charges had been brought against Mr. Lloyd which had been disproved; but would he tell him (Mr. Callan) when there had been a chance of proving them? He was sorry that the Premier was not there; but probably, with the caution which distinguished him on some occasions, he had stayed away, knowing the direction the discussion would take. He hoped the discussion would have its effect on the country, and that that would be the last occasion on which they would see the Chief Secretary in the official position of Chief Secretary for Ireland. As long as he remained in that Office no Irish Member would put any trust in the administration of Irish affairs. ["Oh, oh!"] Had the Chief Secretary for Ireland conciliated a single person in the country? He hoped that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would never honour them with his presence in Ireland again.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he had further considered the matter, and was prepared to state what he proposed to do. He would put down a Question for Monday concerning the huts, and the Chief Secretary for Ireland would have the interval for considering whether these people should be allowed to wander about through the district or inhabit the huts. He begged to withdraw the Motion.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—PERSONS CLAIMING TO BE AMERICAN CITIZENS DETAINED UNDER THE ACT.
  MR. SEXTONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Government have asked the Government of the United States to undertake that, in the event of the release of the "suspects" claiming the rights of American citizenship, they would go, and remain, out of Ireland, or out of the United Kingdom; whether the American Government refused to give any such undertaking on the subject; whether, since the refusal in question, the United States Minister here has demanded that these suspects be at once released or put on trial; and, whether any Member of the Government is now in communication with the United States Minister in reference to the subject?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, I can only repeat the answer which I gave to the hon. Member on Tuesday last—namely, that I think it would be very inconvenient to make, in reply to this Question, any statement that would necessarily be an imperfect statement, as Papers will be very speedily laid on the Table.
  MR. JOSEPH COWENasked whether the Papers would be laid on the Table next week?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he could not state the exact date.

  FORTH BRIDGE RAILWAY BILL—BOARD OF TRADE REPORT.
  MR. ANDERSONasked the President of the Board of Trade, Whether it is the intention of that Board to make any report upon the proposed Bridge over the River Forth (for the construction of which power is sought under the Forth Bridge Railway Bill now in dependence before the House), and upon the extent to which such Bridge may interfere with or otherwise affect the navigation of the Forth, and the access of vessels to the anchorage of St. Margaret's Hope; and, if not, what are the reasons for no such report being in contemplation?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN: Sir, it is not the intention of the Board of Trade to make any Report on the proposed bridge over the River Forth. My hon. Friend is aware, probably, that this Bill has been
  1030
  referred to a Hybrid Committee, instead of, as is the ordinary course, a Private Bill Committee, and it appears to me that the question of navigation, involving, as it does, matters of detail, may very well be left in the hands of the Committee without coming before the Board of Trade, and I should point out, also, it is rather exceptional for the Board of Trade to make any Report.
  MR. ANDERSON: Will the Board of Trade be represented on the Hybrid Committee, so that the safety of the public and the interests of navigation will be properly looked after?
  MR. CHAMBERLAIN: The Board of Trade will not be represented on the Committee.

  NAVY—CHATHAM DOCKYARD WORK-MEN.
  MR. GORSTasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether it is a fact that all the men employed under the Clerk of the Works Department in the Chatham Dockyard were discharged on Friday last; whether the men employed on Government work in this department will in future be hired and employed by Messrs. Foord and Sons of Rochester, instead of by the Government itself; whether a similar arrangement with the same contractors, which subsisted formerly, was discontinued some years ago in consequence of the abuses to which it gave rise; and, why the old system has been again revived?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, there has been no discharge of hired workmen employed on the extension works at Chatham, except those whose services are no longer required, in consequence of the near completion of the works. As Messrs. Foord hold the contract for ordinary repairs, any men required for the execution of works under that contract must necessarily be hired by them; but so long as any men are required on the extension, they will continue to be hired by the Admiralty as at present. The arrangement under which the contractors for ordinary repairs for a time supplied men for the extension was discontinued in 1877, not on account of any abuses, but simply for the purpose of saving to the Government the contractors' profit on a transaction which the Government could equally well manage for itself. That arrangement was due to the representations of

  1031
  the hon. Member, and he did the public good service in the matter. There is no intention to revive that arrangement.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881—TRANSFER OF PRISONERS DETAINED UNDER THE ACT FROM CLONMEL GAOL TO NAAS.
  MR. HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is the case that 22 suspects have been transferred from Clonmel Gaol to Naas, owing to fever having broken out in the former Gaol; and, whether one of the prisoners so transferred has now been taken ill; and, if so, what is the nature of the disease?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, it was true that 22 persons, confined under the Protection Act, were transferred from Clonmel to Naas Gaol. Fever broke out in Clonmel Gaol some time ago, and although there had been no case of fever in that prison for three weeks previously, it was thought better that the prisoners should be transferred. One of the prisoners so transferred had a feverish cold a day or two ago, but the two medical officers came to the conclusion that it was not fever. The man was now better.
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is a fact, as stated in the telegrams, that the political prisoners have been removed from Clonmel Gaol, on account of the prevalence there of fever, to the gaol at Naas, where no fever exists, bringing the infection with them; that the Naas prisoners refused to enter into the cells, and that the military were called in to compel them amid great excitement; and, whether he sanctioned this exercise of power by the military force to compel uninfected prisoners confined on mere suspicion to mix with prisoners from an infected gaol?
  MR. W. E. FORSTER,in reply, said, that it was true that these prisoners refused to return to their cells, and the Governor, after a good deal of remonstrance, found it necessary to obtain the assistance of 50 soldiers and a force of police to compel them to return to their cells. MR. W. J. CORBET asked whether it was not possible to transfer those prisoners to any other prison?
  MR. W. E. FORSTERsaid, there was no reason to believe the man had taken
  1032
  fever in Clonmel. They had got the idea into their heads, perhaps not unnaturally, and they acted with insubordination, which had to be put a stop to. There was every reason to believe there was no foundation for it.

  POLICE (SCOTLAND)—DISTURBANCES IN THE ISLAND OF SKYE.
  MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSHasked the Lord Advocate, If he can explain the circumstances under which fifty of the Glasgow Police Force have been sent to the Island of Skye; and, whether this step has been taken with his sanction, and on whom the cost will fall?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR): Sir, for several months past the crofters—small tenants—at Braes, in the Island of Skye, have refused to pay any rent unless on condition of getting back a piece of hill grazing of which they say they were deprived some 17 or 18 years ago. In consequence of the crofters taking this position, Lord Macdonald, the proprietor, or his factor, sent a Sheriff's officer to Braes, on the 7th of this month, to serve summonses for the payment of rent, and also summonses for removal upon crofters. The Sheriff's officer was accompanied by an assistant, and also by a ground officer in the employment of Lord Macdonald. When they came to Braes, they were met and stopped by about 150 persons, who assaulted them, took from the Sheriff's officer the summonses, burned them on the spot, and at the same time threatened the officer with more serious violence if he returned. It was a clear case of premeditated assault on an officer executing a legal warrant, and I accordingly directed that four or five of the ringleaders who had been named should be apprehended and tried. The authorities of the county—Inverness-shire—stated that they believed that the force of constables at their disposal might not be adequate for the apprehension of the offenders, and they therefore applied to the police authorities at Glasgow for aid, under the provisions of the Glasgow Police Act, and the Glasgow authorities gave the services of the constables in regard to whom the Question is asked. These steps were taken with my approval, and the offenders were apprehended and lodged in prison yesterday morning with a view to their trial. The cost will fall on the county of In-

  1033
  verness-shire, as the constables were required for the vindication of the law in that county.

  LAW AND JUSTICE—"GURNEY v. BRADLAUGH."
  MR. P. A. TAYLORasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether his attention has been drawn to the defendant's demurrer in Gurney v. Bradlaugh, now standing for argument in the Queen's Bench Division; whether the demurrer challenges the legality of certain proceedings of the House in similar terms to a demurrer in Stockdale v. Hansard; whether, since in the last named case the then Attorney General was instructed to appear and appeared, in the name of the defendant, in order to defend the privileges of this House, any Correspondence has taken place between either of the solicitors for the parties in Gurney v. Bradlaugh and any officer of this House; and, whether there is any objection to lay such Correspondence upon the Table?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENERY JAMES): Sir, my attention has been called to the pleadings in the action of "Gurney v. Bradlaugh" in consequence of Mr. Speaker having placed them in my hands. They were forwarded to Mr. Speaker by the solicitors of Mr. Bradlaugh, accompanied by a courteous letter calling his attention to the questions involved. Having, at the request of Mr. Speaker, considered them in conjunction with the Solicitor General, it appeared to us that there was nothing in the issues raised which affected this House, so as to require any interference on its part or the intervention of the Law Officers on behalf of the House. In the case of "Stockdale v. Hansard," the action was brought against Messrs. Hansard in consequence of their having obeyed an Order of the House to print certain official Reports presented to Parliament, which were alleged to contain libellous matter; and it was thought that as the bringing the action was a contempt of the House, and that it was directly responsible for such publication, its agents ought to be protected, and the Attorney General was directed to defend the Officers of the House. But in this present case, no such considerations arise. With the action for penalties in itself the House is not concerned, although, no doubt, the result may be of interest and afford guidance to Members individually. The only
  1034
  correspondence which exists is the letter of Mr. Bradlaugh's solicitor forwarding the pleadings, and the reply of Mr. Speaker, in which he says that—
  "He sees no reason for his interfering in anyway with the proceedings now pending in connection with the suit in question."
  If the House should desire these two formal letters to be printed, I have the authority of Mr. Speaker to say that there is no objection to the wish being complied with; but probably my hon. Friend will not press the request.

  STATE OF IRELAND—POLICE PROTECTION—MURDER OF A CARETAKER.
  MR. CHAPLINasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is true that, in the case of Richmond Roach, a caretaker in the employ of the Emergency Committee in Dublin, and who was shot dead on the night of the 17th, on the property of Mr. Caldwall, near New Pallas, county Limerick, that special protection had been applied for and refused by the Irish Executive?
  MR. LEWISasked whether there was any truth in the report that the bailiff of Lord Leconfield had been murdered in the county of Clare?
  MR. W. FORSTER,in reply, said, that, as far as he could learn, there was no foundation for the report just referred to by the hon. Member for Londonderry. With regard to the case mentioned in the Question of the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire, he had telegraphed for specific information, and would give him a precise answer hereafter upon it. The statement he had already received was that there were four caretakers in this place. They were armed with Snider rifles, revolvers, and swords, and it was thought that they needed no special protection; but frequent police patrols were ordered in the district. The poor man who was murdered was murdered away from his post when he was alone. If his comrades had kept with him it was probable that he would not have been murdered.

  COAL MINES—RECENT COLLIERY EXPLOSIONS.
  MR. BURTasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he will authorise the appointment of some competent legal man to represent the

  1035
  Home Office at the Coroner's Inquests at Tudhoe and West Stanley Collieries, in order that a searching investigation may be made into the cause of the explosions and loss of life at those places?
  MR. HIBBERT,in reply, said, his right hon. and learned Friend had given instructions to appoint a competent legal person to attend the inquests in question.

  CORRUPT PRACTICES (DISFRANCHISEMENT) BILL—SUSPENDED BOROUGHS.
  MR. LEWISasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, having regard to the serious questions affecting seven Constituencies at present deprived either wholly or in part of their representation in this House, and also relating to the conduct at recent Elections of two Cabinet Ministers, raised by the Amendment on the Second Reading of the Corrupt Practices (Disfranchisement) Bill, he will fix an early day, after the disposal of the Budget Resolutions, for the discussion on the Second Reading?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, on behalf of my right hon. Friend, I have to say that the Government are perfectly aware of the importance of the questions affecting several constituencies which are raised by the Bill referred to in the Question of the hon. Member. With reference, however, to a paragraph in the Question, I am unable to admit that the conduct of two Members of Her Majesty's Government has been impugned by anyone except the hon. Member himself. The fact is that both the right hon. Gentlemen referred to were examined by the Commissioners, and in neither case was the slightest censure passed on them. I am unable, therefore, to admit that the intention of the hon. Gentleman to bring forward certain not specified charges against them constitutes any degree of urgency; but the Government are conscious of the importance of the Bill, and it is with very great regret that I have to state that we are at this moment unable to fix a day for the discussion.
  MR. LEWISgave Notice that on that day week he would move the issue of new Writs for the cities of Gloucester and Chester, and that, with respect to Chester, he would then state the charge against the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board.

  INLAND REVENUE—THE INCOME TAX (SCHEDULE B)—ENGLISH AND SCOTCH FARMERS.
  MR. BIDDELLasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he was aware that an English farmer who paid a rent of£500 a-year for a farm, subject to a tithe of£120 and rates of£50 a-year, would pay an Income Tax of£5 12 s. lO d. while a Scotch farmer, holding a farm of like value and subject to similar outgoings, would pay but£4 17 s. 8d.; and, whether he will take this inequality (15 per cent.) into his consideration by reducing the Tax upon the English farmer?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: Sir, the facts as stated in the Question are correct, and doubtless show an apparent inequality in the treatment of the two countries. But the system of assessment to Schedule B, which includes this inequality, has existed since 1842, and was, I believe, explained by Sir Robert Peel in imposing the Income Tax. The intention is in both countries to levy the tax according to the true income of the farmer.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—TUESDAYS.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, seeing that the House has already been counted out on many successive Tuesdays this Session, he will endeavour to secure the keeping of a House on such days in the future, so that the remaining Tuesdays of the Session may not also be wholly or mainly lost to the business of the Country?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON: Sir, I have to say it is impossible for the Government to undertake the responsibility for the performance of duty which certainly devolves upon the House itself. I believe it never has been considered that it is part of the duty of the Government to keep a House on Tuesday nights. If hon. Members do not take sufficient interest in the matters which are brought forward by independent Members, I do not think it is in the power of the Government to obviate the consequences. In fact, I am assured that it has been found to be absolutely impossible, when the attempt has been made, to secure the attendance of Members who might be willing to come to facilitate the progress of Government Busi-

  1037
  ness. They do not feel themselves bound to keep a House for independent Members. I have, however, to add that, partly in consequence of what has occurred, partly with the desire to obviate a further waste of time from such a cause, and partly, further, for the purpose of endeavouring to make some progress with the important measures the Government have on hand, we propose on Tuesday next, and on subsequent Tuesdays, to ask the House to sit at 2 o'clock. I would also add that I understand, on the authority of the authorities of the House, that sufficient progress has now been made with the transaction of Private Business to enable the House to meet for the transaction of Public Business somewhat earlier than it has hitherto done, and on Monday next, in the opinion of Mr. Speaker, the Public Business may be commenced at a quarter past 4 o'clock.
  MR. GORSTasked, Would the House have an opportunity of expressing an opinion on their proposed Tuesday Morning Sittings?
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, he did not think it was usual to make a Motion for the House to meet on Tuesday. The House usually ordered the consideration of a certain Bill to take place at 2 o'clock. He would not postpone any Bills for that purpose to-night. There was no intention of taking Friday Morning Sittings.
  In reply to Sir STAFFORD NORTHCOTE,
  THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTONsaid, that he was not able at that time to say what Government Business would be taken next Tuesday.

ORDER OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY—COMMITTEE.
  Order for Committee read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

NAVY—STRENGTH OF THE NAVY.

  RESOLUTION.
  LORD HENRY LENNOX,in rising to call attention to the strength and condition of Her Majesty's Navy; and to move—
  "That, owing to the enormous increase in the Iron-clad Navies of the World, the Trade and Commerce of the Empire is endangered,
  1038
  and that it is desirable that steps should be at once taken to make an adequate addition to the strength of the Navy,"
  said, that the difficulty of interesting the public on this subject was, strange to say, very great. The fact was, that from their cradle upwards Englishmen were taught to believe that England must needs be the mistress of the seas, and were accustomed to hear incessant praises of our Navy, and the reiterated statement that it was strong enough to meet all the Navies of the world. It had always been said that our Navy ought to be a match, not only for the Fleet of any one Power, but for those of any probable combination of Powers. That was the doctrine held at the be-ginning of this century, and he only regretted the prevalence of the delusion that our Navy was actually sufficient for that purpose in the present day. At the beginning of the century the victories that covered our naval heroes with glory were due to the excellence of our seamen and of our seamanship. A revolution, however, had taken place in shipbuilding, and another revolution, under the able direction of his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty, was also in progress, by which gunners and stokers were substituted for sailors. Several circumstances combined to make it more and more difficult for our Navy to maintain its old superiority. Eighteen years ago there were only four or five considerable Naval Powers. But now every single State endeavoured to possess men-of-war. Italy built enormous vessels that were unmatched by any of our own; and even China had steel gunboats with guns heavier than those of the Inflexible. And to say nothing of the fact that steam and electricity favoured rapid combinations, England was unquestionably more vulnerable now than formerly. Her Navy, it was evident, had always had to perform far more difficult duties than that of her most powerful neighbour. According to Admiral Fanshawe, England in 1805 had 83 line-of-battle ships in commission, while her enemies, France and Spain, had respectively 37 and 24; but when the hour of danger came we could assemble only 27 ships—the other 56 being engaged in protecting our Colonies and our trade—as against 33 vessels of the combined French and Spanish Fleets. He would venture to quote a few figures which would show

  1039
  the magnitude of the commercial interests that would have to be protected by our Navy. He found that the trade of the United Kingdom amounted in 1878 to£614,254,600, and our Colonial trade to no less than£964,000,000—that being more than a fourth of the trade of the world. The tonnage of the trading steamers during the same time was—British tonnage, 4,200,000; and French tonnage, 420,000. He quoted these figures to show the relative duties which the Fleets of the two countries had to perform in time of peace. Then, again, the increase of our food supply during the last few years had been most remarkable. In 1846 the imports of corn and flour into the United Kingdom amounted to 17 lbs. weight per head of the population. In 1858 it had risen to 70 lbs.; in 1865 to 93 lbs.; and in 1878 to 188 lbs. Our Colonies and Dependencies, too, which we had to defend embraced one-seventh of the land surface of the globe and nearly one-fourth of its population, and the total area was estimated at 7,647,000 miles, or more than 60 times the extent of other countries. The total area of the French Colonies was 335,629 square miles. In referring to the condition of the Fleet of our nearest neighbour he was not actuated by any feeling of hostility to the French Government or to the French nation. He wished that this country would remain on terms of the strongest amity with the French Government. Yet, above all things, he was an Englishman, and he thought it was his duty to call the attention of the House of Commons, and especially of the Admiralty, to the statement which he had made elsewhere, when he had not the advantage of the presence of the Secretary to the Admiralty. He began with a comparison of the two Fleets, and for that purpose he would begin with our iron-clad fleet absolutely built—that was to say, the iron-clads that were in commission and in reserve. There were 28 iron-clads. Of these, 14 were of the first class, 9 of the second class, and 5 were for coast defence. The French had now in reserve and in commission a total of 19. Of these, 9 were of the first class, 3 of the second class, and 5 for coast defence. Of the British Fleet, those that were at home at the present moment for the protection of our coasts were 9 first-class, 3 second-class, and 5 coast defences, making 17 in all. The French had at
  1040
  home 6 first-class, 4 second-class, and 4 coast defence vessels, making 14; so that while our iron-clad navy numbered 28, and the French 19, the ships at home were only 17 in our case and 14 in theirs. It was an absolute fact that of our 17 first-class seagoing iron-clads 3 were purchased during a panic by the late Government; and he thought the Secretary to the Admiralty and his hon. and gallant Friend the Member for the Wigton Burghs (Sir John Hay) would agree with him that ships bought in a time of panic were not likely to be of the class which you would deliberately select to be added to the Navy or would build in a dockyard. It was a most remarkable fact, and he hoped the House and the country would take it to heart, that while the French laid down a programme which they carried out carefully, steadily, and completely, our naval policy was a system of spasmodic efforts—at one time of going back for the purpose of economy, and at another time, in the face of a panic, of jumping in and buying what ships could be got. We had five coast defence vessels. He would say nothing of their seagoing qualities. They were ordered during the panic which followed upon the outbreak of the war between France and Germany. They were brought under the notice of the Committee of Designs and strongly condemned by Admiral Ryder. His right hon. Friend the late First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. W. H. Smith), who was now present, declared in a work recently published that, in the opinion of the Committee, the coast defence vessels which were purchased in a time of panic were only able to go safely from port to port, and that in fine weather. There was another point to which he wished to draw attention, and that was that, while our iron-clads were knocking about in the Mediterranean and wearing out their engines and their boilers and straining themselves so that after four years' service an enormous sum was required to repair and refit them, the French vessels in reserve remained quietly in port and were as good as on the day they left the dockyard, the police duties being performed by what were called obsolete ships. He had been charged with leaving vessels out of his English list that ought to have been in it. All he could say was that he had never left out a single vessel from the list of iron-clad

  1041
  ships except those included in the Admiralty official documents as obsolete ships. [Mr. TREVELYAN: Included in what list?] The ordinary Admiralty list. We knew now exactly how we stood. We had 28 iron-clads against 19, and 17 for home service against 14 which the French also had in reserve. The next part he had to deal with was the most important of all, and that was the building programme. In discussing the building programme of the two countries they must always remember one thing, and that was that wages were much lower in France than they were in England, and that the money voted by France for the Naval Estimates embodied a larger amount of work than the same amount of money in England. In the English Dockyards during the Administrations of Lord Northbrook and the right hon. Gentleman opposite, 15,963 men were employed; while this year that number was raised to 16,844, being an increase of 800 or 900 men. The policy which induced the hon. Member to sanction this increase he entirely approved of, and he congratulated the hon. Member upon it; but, after all, it was not an absolute increase, for large numbers of men were discharged last year, and a Supplementary Vote of£50,000 for overtime was the consequence. They now had 16,844 men; but the French had at least 22,500, or something between 5,000 and 6,000 more men than we had. During the French year, which was reckoned from January to the following December, they contemplated building 16,000 tons according to our reckoning, or 21,000 tons according to their own measurement, which included hulls and machinery, in 1882, and 26,000 in 1883, thus showing an increase of 5,000 tons in the year 1883. This was not a spasmodic effort or the result of panic on the part of France. It was a careful and well-measured system of carrying out the programme which they started with great vitality two years after a disastrous war, in 1872, which they revised in 1879, and which was to be completed in 1885. They would then have no less than 38 iron-clads, 12 second-class ironclads for coast defences, which had been suspended during further torpedo experiments, 34 cruisers, troopships, and other vessels. Their determination to carry out this scheme was evinced by the enormous sums of money voted year
  1042
  by year for the purposes. In 1882, 269,342,422f., and in 1883, 280,618,343f. was to be applied to that object, though, he was bound to say that 8,275,921f. only of that sum was a real increase in the Vote, the balance, amounting to 3,000,000f., accruing from the sale of old stores, one-fourth of the whole being devoted to the service of the New Construction Department. The Vote for this portion of the Service amounted in 1882 to 35,842,000f., and in the Estimates for 1883 to 40,336,400f.—that was to say, an increase of 5,000,000f. in the year 1883 as compared with 1882, and of 14,000,000f as compared with the year 1881. If evidence were needed of the determination of successive French Governments to carry out the programme they had originally laid down, these figures would supply it. The French Government had also made estimates as to how far the work begun upon each of the new iron-clads had progressed in a manner similar to the plan of the hon. Gentleman. During the naval year in England, three ironclads would be built and added to the Navy, seven would be commenced, and two so little advanced that they could hardly say they had been commenced. He would say they had been talked about. In the French Estimates for 1883, there would be five iron-clads built, nine commenced, and two talked about. That would give us in 1883 three more iron-clads than the French, but if we consider the French Dockyards, with their enormous staff and their unlimited Votes of Credit, and if both nations maintained their relative rate of naval progress, where should we be in 1885? These Estimates, moreover, for 1883, were moderate Estimates, were such as moderate men would accept, and they would not sanction any less; but they were not such Estimates as the "Grand Ministry" of M. Gambetta would have voted. By 1885 the French would have added to their Fleet a number of most powerful ships, and with steel armour. Five of these ships would have their guns protected by 18 inches of steel armour. Five others would have their guns protected by 16 inches of solid steel armour. Four of them would have at the water-line 20 inches of steel armour. Two of them would have at the water-line 21½ inches of steel armour, and four others would have 18 inches of steel armour. If the state-

  1043
  ment he had made was mythical, then the statements made before the French Chamber of Deputies were mythical too. They could not avoid coming to the conclusion that it was highly probable—nay, more than probable—that in 1885, France, who did not depend upon the sea for her food supplies, who had few Colonies, and an insignificant trade—France, who had a Standing Army of nearly 1,000,000, would have an armour-clad Fleet equal in number, if not superior, to that possessed by that Empire which used to be considered the mistress of the seas. He hoped that public opinion might be brought to bear, in some measure, on this subject, and that the Secretary of the Admiralty, who, while addressing audiences in the country, expressed his determination to keep up the strength and prestige of the Navy, would have the backbone to insist upon the making the necessary additions to the Navy. The additions to the French Navy would be completed much sooner than had been originally intended, and with this view arrangements had been made for pushing on the ships with still more activity. They would be finished, in fact, in three years, instead of six years. The immense additions which the Minister of Marine made to the Estimates were for the purpose of finishing the ships in three years. As to unarmoured ships, certainly we had made great efforts to add to our cruisers; not that England had done all that he could have wished to see done. While we had been very active in completing our cruisers, the French had not been idle either. They were building two first-class cruisers which would be able to steam at the rate of 10 knots an hour over 5,000 miles at a stretch. This must add greatly to the strength of the French Navy. With reference to the difference between the system of artillery adopted in France and that adopted by England, it seemed to him that, during the last 20 years, successive Governments in England appeared to have been asleep. They did not seem to have been able to keep pace with the naval artillery of France and Germany. There was one suggestion which he had very much at heart, and that was the absolute necessity of establishing a Department of Naval Ordnance. ["Hear, hear!"] He was very glad that the lion, and gallant
  1044
  Member (General Sir George Balfour) cheered that remark, as when he came to bring the subject before the House he would claim the support of the hon. and gallant Member. Perhaps one of the most important points of all was the personnel of the Navy. They could not guide ships and fight them without men. Attention had been called to the personnel of our Navy some years ago, and the folly was pointed out of looking upon the petty officers and seamen as fighting men. It was observed that 9,000 were stewards and others who could not be regarded as fighting men. They did not know how to hold a gun, as they had never been trained. What he wished to impress on his hon. Friends opposite was the advisability of introducing a system by which every man who appeared in the Estimates as connected with Vote 1 should be trained as a combatant. Our total of petty officers and men was 31,000, the French had over 35,000; and, in 1873, when it was argued in this country that the more powerful ships required a less number of men, in France the number of seamen was increased by 845, and the reason given was that it was required on account of the more powerful character of the ships. With regard to the Marines, that force had been reduced by the Government to the extent of 600. This year the Marine Force of Great Britain stood at 12,400, while that of France stood at 22,014. The French Marine Force formed, perhaps, the most highly-trained and valuable body of combatants in that country. He might mention that this was the force that defended Paris with the greatest success. In addition the French had a Marine Reserve Force of 10,752 highly-trained and disciplined men, so that their Marine Force really amounted to more than 32,000 men. Even if we were permitted to add our 4,000 Coastguards to our Marines, the preponderance in favour of France was found to be 16,354. What, he asked, could be the object of a Power which was not dependent upon foreign food supplies, which possessed but few Colonies, and which had only an insignificant trade to protect—what could be the object of her having, in addition to 1,000,000 men in arms, an iron-clad Fleet equal to or greater than that of the greatest maritime Powers, and a Marine Force larger than our own? On another

  1045
  occasion he should tell the House what class of ships he wished the Government to add to the Service of the country. He could not think that the Government would grudge such an addition to our Navy on the ground of expense, for the First Commissioner of Works was going to introduce a Bill which would legalize the expenditure of millions in building and gilding some new public palaces; and if the Government did not grudge money for such a purpose as that, they surely could not regret the sum which must be spent in improving the Navy. He had been told that it was unpatriotic to publish the facts which he had brought before the House. He agreed that it would be unpatriotic, if the facts were only known to the Secretary to the Admiralty and himself. But as they were known to every Government in Europe, and as the only people in the world who were ignorant of them were the English people, who were deeply interested in the subject, he thought he was taking a right course in giving publicity to the facts in question. He deprecated panic, and he deprecated optimism; the former, because, under its influence, the Government might fill the Navy with indifferent ships at a great cost, and the latter, because it might lead to a fatal assurance. It was optimism that characterized the French Army at the commencement of the Franco-Prussian War, and the result of that optimism was crash and ruin. He ventured to press upon the Secretary to the Admiralty the absolute necessity of asking for further funds in order that large additions might be made to our armour-clad and cruising navy. A demand of that kind made by the Government would be received with popular favour, for the taxpayers of this country would rejoice to see the Royal Navy in a thoroughly efficient state. The noble Lord concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.
  MR. BENTINCKsaid, that he had a Motion on the Paper somewhat similar to that of the noble Lord. But he was glad that his noble Friend had been able to bring forward his Motion first. In rising to second his noble Friend's Motion, he had only one fault to find, and that was that his noble Friend, by his exhaustive statement, had left him very little to say. He regarded this question as, perhaps, the most important question
  1046
  of the day, in as much as upon it the very existence of the country depended. It appeared strange that in the present condition of Europe, and in the present aspect of foreign affairs, there should be any doubt existing in this country as to the efficiency of the British Navy. Yet there was no doubt such doubts did exist, and he grieved to say that, in his opinion, they were well-founded. The first explanation that suggested itself to him as to the cause of this remarkable state of things was one which he had had occasion to bring before the attention of the House many years ago, without success, however, so far as convincing the House of the correctness of his views; but he was still convinced that the present condition of the inefficiency of the Navy—which he held to be a matter of fact—arose chiefly from the prevalence of the civilian element in the constitution of the Board of Admiralty. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Trevelyan) had stated the changes which it had been thought advisable to make in the constitution of that Board; but he naturally did not advert to any such doubts existing. In deprecating the presence of civilians in the most responsible positions on the Board, he (Mr. Bentinck) was not casting any slur upon those distinguished men. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty the other day, in introducing the Navy Estimates, accomplished that which was rarely achieved; he made the subject an interesting one to all classes. He was said to have made an eloquent speech—an opinion which he endorsed. Nobody doubted the hon. Member's talents, and nobody doubted the talents of the noble Lord who was at the head of the Department. Other distinguished men on the other side of the House, who were civilians, had also presided over the Admiralty Board, and nobody doubted their talents; but, in spite of their admitted ability, he contended that the real cause of what he might almost describe as the unnatural condition of the British Navy was to be ascribed to the presence of civilians in the more prominent positions at the Board of Admiralty. He made these remarks in no Party spirit. The question was entirely a general one; but he held that, in consequence of the present arrangement, the Navy virtually had no Representative

  1047
  in the Cabinet or in Parliament. The question was one of the utmost importance, and one which ought to be brought before the country. He would quote, in support of his views, the opinion of Admiral Sir George Cockburn, who said that our existing system was the most unsatisfactory one which could be well devised, and that the ultimate decision on important professional questions rested with men who could not, without elaborate explanations, understand professional statements or even expressions contained in professional documents. He (Mr. Bentinck) contended that the man who was to give opinions upon the condition and requirements of the Navy ought to be the man who was able to take command of a fleet, and to take it into action, and it was owing to the total want of such representation that the present painful condition of the Navy was to be attributed. He trusted, however, that the time would come when the advocacy of the cause which he was pleading would fall into better hands than his own and meet with better success. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty had told the House most truly that our safety depended upon our having plenty of armoured vessels, and yet it was perfectly plain, from a perusal of the Estimates, that our fleet of armoured ships fell far short of the necessities of our position. We had many more interests to defend than any other Power, and our Navy was being worn out with service in all parts of the world; while that of France, for instance, remained in harbour, ready for any emergency. Independently of that consideration, it was a doubtful question whether, in point of weight of guns and of speed, we were at present equal to the French Navy. The French had heavier guns and faster ships than we had. In the event of any combination of another Power with France against Britain, we should be in a position of inferiority. The superiority of our Navy was essential to our national existence, whilst the Navies of other Powers were to them comparatively unimportant. So great an authority as Admiral Sir Thomas Symonds held that in order to enjoy the same relative superiority as we did 100 years ago, we ought to possess 92 first-rate iron-clads. It should be remembered, moreover, that wars were now-a-days begun and
  1048
  ended in a few months, so that there would be no time after hostilities opened to remedy our naval shortcomings. In view of these facts, he was forced to the painful conclusion, though he was afraid the House of Commons would not allow itself to be convinced, that our naval position was at present utterly unsatisfactory, and that our national honour was in jeopardy.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "owing to the enormous increase in the Ironclad Navies of the World, the Trade and Commerce of the Empire is endangered, and that it is desirable that steps should be at once taken to make an adequate addition to the strength of the Navy,"—(Lord Henry Lennox,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. GOURLEYsaid, he felt bound to say that the speech of the noble Lord (Lord Henry Lennox) was not only eloquent, but able and instructive. So far as he could understand, neither the present nor the late Boards of Admiralty seemed to have any policy with regard to the ships they built, which were of all sizes, and all sorts of power as regarded guns. The noble Lord showed very clearly that the French were now building ocean cruisers very much superior to any which we possessed. Our Inconstant, for example, could carry only two and a-half days' fuel, and the Iris, which was our latest type of cruiser, was incapable of steaming with her own fuel for more than five days. It was a suicidal policy and waste of money to build such vessels, while other countries had cruisers carrying more fuel, which, in case of pursuit, would inevitably escape from them. The noble Lord, therefore, in calling attention to what the French were doing and had done in this respect, did good service to the House and the country. Nor in the event of war would it be possible for us to convoy the large amount of property which we had afloat in our Mercantile Marine. If the Government would turn its attention to an amendment of the Treaty of Paris of 1856, it would take the right course. The Americans were no parties to that Treaty, for the simple reason that they knew it would be out of the power of

  1049
  any nation in these days of steam to convoy its ships and merchandize effectually. Such an extension of our naval power as would enable us to do so would be next to impossible. During; the American Civil War the United States had a very large mercantile fleet, and three Alabamas destroyed the whole of their trade. If we happen to be at war with a nation which had only a few swift vessels, the very fact that these vessels were known to be in search of our ships would be the means of raising the amount of insurance to such a height that our trade would be driven into other hands. In his Report upon the Naval Reserve, Admiral Phillimore said he was positive that there was one fatal defect in connection with our inshore reserve, or fighting ships—that was, their very deep draught of water, ranging from 17 to 18 feet. These vessels, such as the Resistance, the Lord Warden, and the Hercules, in the event of war, instead of being able to perform the duties of coasting reserve, would be compelled to seek shelter in some of our deep-water estuaries, either behind forts or behind torpedoes. Those vessels were so obsolete, and so utterly useless, either for ocean cruising or for fighting, that they would be totally incapable of competing with or beating vessels of a more modern type—even such vessels as were recently built by Sir William Armstrong's firm for the Chinese Government. That firm built a number of steel gunboats or floating batteries for inshore fighting on the Coast of China. Why should our Government allow a possible hostile Power such as China to have a more useful class of ships than we possessed? It would be said that those Chinese vessels were unarmoured; but then our own were limited with respect to the power of their guns. If we could have some 20 vessels such as those of the Chinese Government, the draught of which was only 9 feet 6 inches, it would be very much better than to carry so many eggs in one basket in the shape of one large ship. In a contest with 10 or 20 such vessels an iron-clad, while she might sink a number of them, would herself ultimately be sunk. A comparison between the gunboats built for the Chinese Government and our own large iron-clads like the Dreadnought proved the superior advantages and convenience of the former for purpose of coast de-
  1050
  fence. He wished to impress on the Government that the time had come when some attention ought to be paid to the necessity of having some organized system in regard to the vessels we possessed for coast defence, as he understood there was no organized system of that kind, and he thought we should have vessels of an improved type, not of the same size of those which had been built for the Chinese Government, but much larger, with powerful guns. That might involve the expenditure of a large sum of money, perhaps, of something like£1,000,000; but he was sure that if there was one thing besides education on which the taxpayers of this country would be willing to spend£1,000,000, or even£2,000,000, without grudging, it was in having a thoroughly efficient Navy.
  SIR JOHN HAYsaid, that the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Gourley) had alluded to very interesting topics, as to some of which he should have desired to follow him; but he himself had on the Paper for that day a Notice entirely in the same sense as that of his noble Friend the Member for Chichester (Lord Henry Lennox), and, perhaps, it would be better for him now to confine himself to the want of iron-clads, which he believed to be at present the great want of the Navy. They required large iron-clad ships to protect their base of operations, and they also wanted light vessels with heavy guns, for other purposes; but he would address the House on that matter of vital importance—the small number of iron-clads which we had for purposes of war—and he believed he would carry with him, though not, perhaps, to the same extent, the feelings of his hon. Friends the Secretary to the Admiralty and the Civil Lord of the Admiralty (Sir Thomas Brassey), who sat opposite. His noble Friend the Member for Chichester had placed before the House most clearly the condition of the Fleets of France and England; but he had not alluded, to any extent, to the Fleets of other countries, which must be taken into consideration when that subject was under discussion. In addition to the iron-clad Fleet of Great Britain and that of France, the numbers of which his noble Friend had given, they had the fact that Germany had 15 iron-clads and Italy had 18, He would not trouble

  1051
  the House with any reference to other Powers; but if, under any conditions, the Navies of France and Germany or Italy combined, they would outnumber us nearly two to one, looking at the duties which we had to perform. It must be remembered that our Navy had much more extensive duties than any other to perform; that our Colonies were in all parts of the world; that at no time was there in this country four months' provisions for our population; that it was necessary to convey along great lines of communication our food supplies, as well as to convey safely the commerce by which we bought those supplies. We had six great trade routes to attend to. There was the route through the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal to the East, passing under the guns, so to say, of the French, Spanish, Austrian, and Turkish Fleets; then there was the route by the Cape to our Australian Colonies; then the route by Cape Horn to the Pacific, with which we had trade, where Russia at Vladivostock, and France at Tahiti and Noumea, as well as the South American Republics had always iron-clad ships, and that was also the route home from Australia; then there were the routes to the West Indies, North America, and the Baltic. All along those routes there were 20,000 British mercantile vessels to be protected, and 12,000 Colonial and Indian—32,000 ships that had to be convoyed and protected in time of war. For those duties what force had we to show? He would only speak with regard to the iron-clad fleet, because that was the base of operations of all our small ships and frigates. Many foreign countries had fortified harbours in distant parts of the world. France had three fortified harbours in the Pacific, and in the Indian and Pacific Oceans she kept, he believed, some smaller vessels and one iron-clad. It was only necessary for France to have one ironclad far away from home; but this country kept 11 iron-clads on service in distant parts, even in time of peace. According to figures which he did not think could be controverted, in 1885 the British Navy would consist of 38 armour-clad ships and 20 obsolete vessels, besides one iron-clad which, he believed, it was intended to build. It was with great dissatisfaction, however, that he saw the Vixen, the Viper, the Water-
  1052
  witch, the Scorpion, and the Wivern included in the list of ships which were of service to the country. They might be useful enough for the defence of harbours; but as some of them had only 3-inch armour, and none were of great speed, they should not be placed in the fighting line and reckoned among the 20 obsolete vessels. Among the 38 iron-clads, the Cyclops, the Hydra, the Hescate, and the Gorgon were ships which had been reported upon as not being satisfactory seagoing iron-clads, though of use under certain conditions. Taking those four away, the number of armour-clad vessels was reduced to 34, while the list of obsolete vessels was reduced to 15, by the five he had mentioned being deducted. The French Navy consisted of 33 new vessels and 23 obsolete ships, exclusive of 11 other vessels not serviceable, except under certain conditions. The result was, that this country would only be able to place 39 iron-clads against 56 of France. Great exertions had been made by France to complete her Navy. In 1872, after recovering from her disasters, she set to work to complete her Navy at a time when the Naval Expenditure of this country was being reduced. From 1860 to 1870 the Naval Expenditure of Great Britain averaged more than£12,000,000 a-year; but from 1870 to 1880 it had averaged a little more than£10,000,000. Except in the year in which the Turkish iron-clads were purchased, the Naval Expenditure of this country had not exceeded in any single year£11,000,000 since 1870;£2,000,000 a-year had been saved during the last 12 years, and that£24,000,000 represented exactly the amount of iron-clad shipping, of which they were short. Representing, as it did, 48 iron-clads, in his opinion, the relative proportion he had shown to exist between the Navies of France and England ought not to be the rule. Italy and Germany also had respectively 15 and 18 iron-clad vessels. England was thus becoming a second-class Naval Power. If the£24,000,000 saved since 1870 had been spent, they would now have had about 48 more iron-clad vessels, which would not be at all too many, and would only represent the French and Italian Navies combined. There were 166 iron-clad vessels in the world; in his opinion, this country ought to possess as many of these as

  1053
  any two Great Powers put together. The question was how the state of things which now existed could be remedied. Many iron-clads could not be built at the same time; but he believed that 12 could be built at one time, besides those building at the Dockyards. They would take three years in building, and the expense could be spread over that period at the rate of£2,000,000 a-year. In his opinion, the country expected the Navy to be brought up to the strength he had indicated. He hoped to hear from the Admiralty that the deficiencies in the protection of this country, which were owing to parsimony during the last 10 years, would be made up by expenditure, which would not be an extraordinary expenditure, but merely a going back to the rate of expenditure when Lord Palmerston was Premier and the present Premier was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and that an iron-clad Fleet would be created which would restore us to the position of the first Naval Power in Europe.
  MR. TREVELYANsaid, this debate had been anticipated by the Government for a considerable time; but it was a little difficult to know what line the Representatives of the Board of Admiralty should take. This was an extremely delicate subject for discussion, because it consisted of comparing our Fleet with that of a friendly Power, for the purpose of stimulating the production at the Admiralty. The details of the French Fleet were very familiar, he had no doubt, to the late Government; but up to the present time it had not been the custom to recommend the Navy Estimates by referring to the strength of a friendly Power, any more than it was the custom to recommend the Army Estimates by referring to the Force of any particular Power on the Continent. The noble Lord had made a speech which was marked with ability and considerable knowledge, and undoubtedly it was his (Mr. Trevelyan's) duty to say something, and he would say it as speedily as possible. Calculations relating to the strength of particular iron-clads were sure to differ. No one could have read what had been written without seeing that it was the most elastic of all topics. For instance, the noble Lord gave the names of first-class iron-clads available at home and abroad for the defence of the country as 10 first-class sea-going ships and four doubtful ones on the side
  1054
  of the English, and seven on the side of the French. According to the information of the Admiralty, out of these seven French iron-clads only four had been completed at all, and of the other three two had never yet been classed by any authority, except the noble Lord, as first-class iron-clad ships. There was not one of the 14 English ships alluded to by the noble Lord which was not ready for sea at a moment's notice. That was, in itself, a very great difference. Again, the noble Lord spoke of the speed of the French ships as exceeding that of English ships; but the noble Lord, he thought, was not aware that of those French ships only two had been tried for speed, and it was extremely doubtful whether they would ever fulfil the speed which they were supposed to have, while the speed of the 14 English ships was as well known as though they were packets trading between Liverpool and New York. The noble Lord spoke of four of our iron-clads as being scarcely sea-going ships; and he said they were bought during a panic. With regard to the Rupert, she had a most successful commission under Captain Gordon. The commission, he thought, was for three years, in which she encountered severe weather in the Mediterranean. The Hotspur went to sea for a year, and a favourable account was given of her by the Naval Lords. The noble Lord said that 16,000 workmen were employed in our principal Dockyards. Sixteen thousand were employed last year, and 16,800 this year. He did not know whether the noble Lord included Malta among the six principal Dockyards; if he did, then there were employed this year in our principal Dockyards 17,600 workmen. The noble Lord, however, had raised a much more serious difficulty on the question of quality. In regard to the Sea Force, they must consider what the ships were, and what the men were who would have to fight in them. The noble Lord talked of our only having 12,400 Marines, while the French had a powerful Marine Force of 30,000 men. There was really no comparison between our Marines and those of the French. Our Marines were amphibious—they were really seamen; whereas the French Marines were the Colonial Army. They were nothing more nor less than the First Army Corps for foreign service. The noble Lord, in his pamphlet, made a

  1055
  comparison between the tonnage of the English Dockyards and the tonnage of the French Dockyards. So far as he could judge, the noble Lord had committed a grave error, which had unfortunately been before the country in a very attractive form during the last six weeks. The noble Lord, in his pamphlet, said the French proposed in 1882 to provide 21,600 tons of armour-clad ships, and the English only 11,000 tons; but he thought the noble Lord now admitted that the calculation was wrong, because he took what was called the displacement tonnage, whereas we calculated by the proportion of the weight of the hull, as was always done in the shipbuilding accounts. If both calculations were brought to a common standard, the English estimate would be 11,466, and the French 15,250 tons. But the English always worked up nearly to their programme; whereas in 1878 and 1880 the French fell 5,000 tons below the estimate of each year, and, so far as they could judge, that was the amount to which they always fell below their estimate; and in the case of 1882 the difference in the calculation of the 10 ships, amounted to 17·3–100hs, or a ship and three-quarters. The noble Lord had also raised the question of the French expenditure. He quoted the French Estimates of 1882; but he (Mr. Trevelyan) declined to enter into that, because the French year began in January and ours in April. The French Estimates were voted in July, and a certain part in December, and until they were voted they could not know what they were to be. But it was very different with the English Estimates; and as the French year 1881 was coincident with nine months of our year of 1881–2, he maintained that they had no right to compare the year 1881–2 with the French year 1882, with which it was coincident for only three months. The noble Lord had said that, according to the best judgment he could form, the French Estimates for the year 1882 were£9,500,000, or 238,000,000 francs. The Admiralty had carefully examined the figures, and came to the conclusion that£8,500,000 was nearer the mark than£9,500,000; and a person of great authority had said there ought to be a further deduction of 18,000,000 francs. But he would not accept that reduction, and was content
  1056
  to leave the figures at 214,000,000 francs—that was£8,500,000 of our money. Then the noble Lord talked of two French ships with 100-ton guns.
  LORD HENRY LENNOXsaid, he never alluded in his speech to any ships with 100-ton guns. He only alluded to the subject in a pamphlet which was not under the notice of the House, and the figures were taken from the interesting book published by a Colleague of the hon. Member the Secretary to the Admiralty.
  MR. TREVELYANbegged to withdraw anything he had said as to the 100-ton guns. The noble Lord spoke of French ships to be armed with the 72 and 75-ton guns, and compared them very unfavourably with the ships we proposed to arm with the 60 or 64-ton gun, which was, as far as he could gather, an actually heavier gun than that which the French had decided upon. He had chosen those instances for the purpose of showing how impossible it would be to lay the state of the Navy before the country by entering minutely into the figures which were given by previous speakers. He did not wish to say anything that could be attributed to a Party motive; but it was absolutely necessary in discussing this question, when hon. Members rose to call for a rapid increase of shipbuilding, for the Admiralty to put itself right, and to show that an increased rate of shipbuilding was certainly not a matter in which they were wanting. In regard to the efficiency of the Fleet for the time being, he quite allowed that the present Government were absolutely responsible. The Government that had been in Office for a year or two ought to have brought the Fleet into a thoroughly efficient state by attending to repairs; but, as regards the numbers of the Fleet, it could not be denied that previous Governments were responsible. It was the Government of four years ago that were responsible. The Government might have followed the obvious course of taking a cursory view of the English and French Navies respectively, for the purpose of showing that the French had a real Fleet, whereas ours was a mere phantom Fleet, and of gaining popularity by such a course. But they took a course more consonant with the loyalty which ought to subsist between two successive Governments, and assumed that

  1057
  their Predecessors had good reason for adopting the course which they had followed. They, therefore, went quietly and steadily to work to ascertain the real state of things. Now, what was the actual conduct of the late Government, which was just as well aware as the present Government were of what the French were doing? In 1874–5—the year they came into Office—they built 8,457 tons of iron ships. In 1875–6, while efficiently and thoroughly repairing the Fleet, they built 14,276 tons. Then, in 1876–7,they built 11,448 tons. In 1877–8, they built 7,113 and bought 14,808 tons of vessels more or less complete. 8o that during their first four years of Office they built at the rate of more than 10,000 tons of iron-clad shipping a-year, and likewise purchased 14,000 tons more. But after that the late Government began to relax their efforts. In 1878–9 they built only 8,430 tons; in 1879–80, 7,427tons; and in the Estimates of 1880–1 the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. W. H. Smith) only proposed, to build 7,231 tons. When Lord Northbrook became First Lord of the Admiralty, it became their business to examine the state of our own and Foreign Navies, and the conclusion at which they arrived was, that the time had come when they ought to increase the rate of iron shipping; and so, without making any noise about it, they began building the ships which the right hon. Gentleman opposite had commenced at a faster rate. In 1880–1, instead of 7,231 tons, Lord Northbrook actually built 9,235, and in 1881–2, 10,816tons; and this latter estimate was adhered to within 100, or, he might say, 40 tons. In the coming year his noble Friend proposed to build no less than 11,466 tons. That was the quiet and unsensational, and not ineffectual, way in which they had dealt with the situation. What was the evidence on which the charges of negligence against the present and the late Board of Admiralty rested? The right hon. and gallant Baronet opposite (Sir John Hay) had been constantly urging the Governments to increase their iron-clad Fleets, and he deserved well of the country, because, while he kept the subject before them, he was careful in his statements, and did not try to throw the country into a panic. But that was not the case with all critics. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Bentinck) had
  1058
  quoted Sir Thomas Symonds as a great authority. Sir Thomas Symonds had said that the French had six sea-going armour-clads, armed with 72 and 75-ton guns, while the English had only one with 80-ton guns, and that the French had also nine armour-clads armed with 48-ton guns. If he (Mr. Trevelyan) had read one he had read 20 leading articles on that sentence; but the French had no ships with 72 and 75-ton guns; and as regarded the vessels with 48-ton guns, five were either building or progressing towards completion, and of the four others, the keel of only one was laid at this moment, and another was going to be built on the slips on which another ship, which was always quoted as a French ship afloat, was still being built. Those ships of the French were balanced by English ships with regard to which Sir Thomas Symonds was absolutely silent. The fact was that in 1872 the French came to the conclusion that they wanted more ships. Of their Fleet 31 ships were wooden, with iron plates. The programme laid down in 1872 had been more or less adhered to; but, instead of a ship costing£330,000 to£360,000, it now cost from£520,000 to£560,000. The English had 26 iron-clads, including the Polyphemus, in commission, and 23 in reserve, making a total displacement tonnage of 320,000 tons. The French had only 11 iron-clads in commission, and 29 in reserve, with a displacement of 225,000 tons. But of the French ships 21 were wooden with iron plates, whereas only two of ours were of wood. The French Admiralty had actually condemned no fewer than 17 wooden iron-clads, with an aggregate tonnage of 71,780 tons, and even after this great clearance there still remained 12 wooden ships in the French Navy as against two of ours. This was the case as regards the armoured ships that were already built. As regards those in course of construction, the number of the French iron-clad ships designed, building, or completed appeared on paper as 19, and the English ships as 13. The rapidity of the French work fell much below the Estimates; but in spite of that it was ascertained that the progress of the French ships was such that Lord Northbrook increased the outturn of our iron-clad tonnage by half as much again as was thought sufficient during the last two or three years. Last

  1059
  year he stated that no great Fleet was better armed than our own. Having made that statement in Parliament, he repeated it in the country, and it attracted the attention of the noble Lord the Member for Chichester (Lord Henry Lennox), who made some rather strong observations about it. Among other things, the noble Lord said that a formidable weapon now universal in the French Navy did not exist in our Navy, and that the French Fleet was undoubtedly better armed than our own. Since this question had been started again, he wished to put it absolutely beyond dispute. Therefore, he had had a Report made of the number and weight of the armour-piercing guns now actually mounted in the two Navies. The total number of armour-piercing guns in French iron-clads was 284, and their weight was 4,476 tons. In the English iron-olads the number of armour-piercing guns was 480, and their weight was 6,224 tons. In unarmoured French ships there were 26 armour-piercing guns, their weight being 201 tons, while in unarmoured English ships there were 79 armour-piercing guns, and their weight was 880 tons. So much for the weight and numbers. As regards their quality, so far from their vastly superior weapon being now universal in the French Navy, only eight guns of the new type were mounted in finished vessels. The rest were guns of the old type, certainly not superior to our own, which the French were engaged in superseding as fast as they could, just as we were doing with ours. There was at this moment only one French ship afloat which could not be pierced in every part of her frame by the 38-ton gun, with which our more powerful ships were armed, leaving out of account the 80-ton guns of the Inflexible. But the real point of the controversy turned not on the old guns, but on the new. On this point he was bound to make two observations—first, that if our heavy guns of the new type were not sufficiently far advanced, it was the late Government which should bear the responsibility; and next that since this question had been started and pressed with such extreme energy, the Government were not prepared to affirm that the undertaking—the long and complicated undertaking—of providing the Navy with new guns was in a sufficiently
  1060
  advanced stage when they took Office. Less than this he could not say, and more he certainly did not wish to say. Now, the providing of heavy guns for the Navy was a question of detail, and the most important detail was to have ships ready to carry them. Sir William Armstrong said—
  "What should our Government do in regard to the great work of re-arming the Fleet? I take for granted that all new ships will be armed with the best guns that can now be made."
  So the first matter was to see what these new ships were. The order in which our new iron-clads would come into the effective list was first the Ajax and Agamemnon; then the Conqueror; then the Edinburgh and the Colossus. Now, if the late Government had seen their way to press forward our new guns earlier, the Ajax and the Agamemnon, like the latest French ships, might have been armed with guns of the new type. But they did not see their way to it. On the 23rd of December, 1878, the Admiralty came to the following decision:—
  "The First Lord is not prepared to delay the ships (the Ajax and Agamemnon) any longer. The change to longer guns and breech-loading or loading outside the turret, as proposed in the model, involves large considerations which cannot be disposed of hastily, and the long guns are not yet made, and, therefore, untried. The ships must be completed for the service 38-ton gun chambered as it now is."
  Well, that settled the question of the Ajax and Agamemnon. They were armed with the 38-ton gun; only it was chambered so as considerably to exceed its former range. From the first, it always carried a charge of 160 lb.; but on board the Ajax and Agamemnon it carried a charge of considerably over 200 lb. So much for the Ajax and Agamemnon, whose armament was settled by the late Board, and not by the present one. The next ship coming on for armament was the Conqueror, and the War Office engaged positively that three of the new 43-ton guns—equal, or, as far as they knew, slightly superior to the new French 46-ton gun—would be ready next December; two to be mounted in the Conqueror and on for reserve. Two more were to be ready in March, 1883, and six more in July, 1883; so that the eight guns required for arming the Edinburgh and the Colossus were promised us as soon as the ships were in a state to receive them. The 10 9-inch 18-ton

  1061
  guns of the new type would be ready in July next to be mounted in the turret of the Rupert and in the broadside of the Hercules; and that was the date which Woolwich was prepared to name for the delivery of 21 11½-ton guns. As for the 60-ton gun, of which he spoke in the Statement of the Estimates, and which he earnestly hoped was the biggest gun which either French or English authorities would think it necessary to aspire to, the design had already been laid before the Ordnance Committee and communicated to the Admiralty; and it was hoped that a half of the gun would be finished this year, and its construction would be advanced in parallel strides to that of the Howe, the Rodney, and the other ships which were being built to carry it. He thought it would be impossible for the armament of the ships to have proceeded more rapidly than it did under the present Government. Meanwhile, the experiment which, if successful, would secure equal power with a lighter weapon, was in an advanced stage. Sir William Armstrong had sent to Woolwich a wire gun of 10·2-inch calibre, which weighed only 21 tons, as against the 26 tons of the "Woolwich 10·4-inch breech-loader, and that gun was going to Shoeburyness for trial. As regarded the 6-inch and other lighter guns, he did not wish to state over again what he had said at quite sufficient length before Easter; and he would only remark, as a melancholy, but pretty convincing proof, that the task of rearming the Navy had begun in earnest, that the Estimates for Naval Ordnance, which, in the last year of the late Government amounted to£303,000, would next year reach the very formidable figure of£616,000. Those who had been writing and speaking about the decadence of our naval supremacy had insisted on one or two points, and had left out of sight broad considerations which were strikingly re-assuring. In the first place, if they looked, as he was glad to look, to other nations besides France, they found that whereas, in 1872, those nations were building 23 iron-clads, they all of them together were now building only seven. Next, in calculations of fighting power, everything depended, not on what was intended, but on what was accomplished. When it came to a question of comparing military strength, they must look, not
  1062
  to what existed on paper, but to what they had actually ready in wood and iron. Let them take the iron-clads in commission—that was to say, the ships whose condition was constantly tested and tried by the only sure ordeal, their actual power of keeping the sea. They had of iron-clads, armed and manned, which were actually ready to fight the day after to-morrow, at the latest, 26, with a tonnage of 188,000, only two of which had wooden frames, while the French had 11, with a tonnage of 66,000, four of which had wooden frames. If what they looked to were size and strength, let them take ships of upwards of 9,000 tons and with upwards of 9 inches of armour. Of such ships England had eight and France three. Let them take unarmoured vessels. Of frigates and corvettes, counting only those which were equipped for war and not for police or harbour duties, they had in commission on the high seas 19, as against seven of the French. If, instead of taking number, they chose the test of swiftness, they had built or building 11 ships over the speed of 16 knots, and the French had three. If they took the lower speed of 14 knots, they had 44 and the French 29. And then look at their reserves. In time of war, if such a disaster should occur, the whole maritime energy and resources of the country would be directed to warlike purposes, until the country could be pronounced secure. It was not only that for extempore iron and iron-clad shipbuilding our capabilities far exceeded those of all the rest of the world together; but in time of war, the example of the late Government in the year 1878 would undoubtedly be followed, and the iron-clads which at the time were building or repairing for Foreign Powers in British private yards would be a reserve in the hour of danger. And as for cruisers, there were 165 merchant steamers on the Admiralty list, of which the odd 65, with a gross register of 250,000, exceeded 12 knots an hour, with water-tight compartments, and able to carry the new 6-inch guns, just as effectively as if every one of the 65 had cost the country£120,000 to build, and half as much to keep in repair. A naval war was a long business, and had the whole globe for its stage of action; and the power of a country to sustain such a war, and carry it to a successful result,

  1063
  must be founded on its having a great Commercial Marine and a great maritime population. And there was one consideration to which he had seen no allusion, but which appeared strongly to illustrate the declaration of the French Government that their recent shipbuilding was a temporary measure undertaken for the purpose of replacing an obsolete Fleet. The whole of the extraordinary French Estimates for rebuilding their Fleet had hitherto been provided, not out of Revenue, but as an increase to the National Debt. In the French Estimates of 1882 it bad been intended that the shipbuilding should as usual be paid for out of a loan; but the Committee had recommended that for this year and for all the future the shipbuilding should be met out of Revenue. That circumstance, in his opinion, was a strong confirmation that, with the completion of the programme of 1872, the object at which the French Admiralty had been aiming would have been accomplished, and a still stronger guarantee that they would carry it no further. They, meanwhile, without incurring 1d. of debt, had seen their way to raise their shipbuilding to the standard of what they might call the English programme; and, for the second time in 10 years, the figure of 20,000 tons was to be attained, an amount of effort they and their successors might confidently hope to be able to maintain, and which if maintained, as he earnestly trusted it would be, would provide Great Britain with an ample and an efficient Fleet. The general conclusion, then, of the Admiralty was this—that it was not necessary for the safety of the country to ask for any special grant of money for iron shipbuilding, unless the French Admiralty, having completed its programme of 1872 and replaced its obsolete ships, should then go on building as fast as ever, but that it was necessary to build at the rate laid down by the right hon. Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers). He concluded as he began, by saying that he regretted that he should have been obliged to adopt the line of argument he had taken, and to compare our Military and Naval Forces with those of other countries; but the Admiralty, after carefully considering the matter, came to the opinion that they had no choice in the matter. He was relieved, however, from the feeling that the making these comparisons was
  1064
  in any way invidious to the great country which was allied to ours by the freedom with which the French Government had published the facts relating to their shipbuilding, and by the generous admission which they themselves had made. The Commission of 1879, presided over by M. Gambetta, indicated that the idea of naval rivalry between the two countries had passed away. "No one," it was stated, in a most interesting passage of that Report, "disputes the first rank with England;" and it was in the same amicable spirit with regard to France, and with the intention of showing the same amicable spirit towards hon. Gentlemen opposite, that he had made the comparisons which he had the honour of laying before the House that night.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, that no one could complain of the spirit in which his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty had treated the subject in replying to the temperate and able speech of his noble Friend the Member for Chichester. There had been a feeling that the number of iron-clads was not sufficient for the needs of a great country; but he entirely sympathized with his hon. Friend opposite in the feeling that the comparison of our ships of war with those of other nations was to be deprecated, and was only to be made on those rare occasions when it became necessary to inform the House of the state in which our armaments stood with respect to other countries, while, at the same time, they had no reason whatever to expect that those Powers would be unfriendly to this country. At the same time, he thought it unwise for the Government to ignore the exertions of foreign countries, and he was glad that the present Board of Admiralty had seen the necessity of increasing the strength of the iron-clad Fleet. His hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty had referred to the additions to the Fleet made by the late Board; and he wished only to correct the statement in which he had spoken of the addition of four important ships as having been made by their Predecessors. The four vessels in question were purchased, not in 1875, but in 1878, by means of the Vote of Credit that the Government fortunately had at its disposal; and they were, undoubtedly, a great addition to our Navy. The Secretary to the Admiralty had laid down the principle,

  1065
  with which the House would probably agree, that for the efficiency of the Fleet for the time being the Government of the day was responsible. There could be no question that the Government for the time being ought to maintain the Fleet in a condition efficiently to perform any service that might be required of it; and if he had a fault to find with his hon. Friend—though it was difficult to find fault with him—it would be on the ground that the present Board had failed to maintain the Fleet in a condition to meet a sudden emergency. His view of the case was that the Navy existed for the contingency of a possible war at very short notice. Our iron-clad fleet existed not for the purpose of facing combinations that might be formed after six, or, perhaps, 12 months' notice, but in order to meet events occurring suddenly like the Franco-German War. Any other war that might overtake Europe would probably be equally sudden; and those who were responsible for the Forces of the country would incur a very heavy load of responsibility if its resources were not available at very short notice. His complaint, then, was that the Admiralty had allowed the existing Forces of the country to become more or less inefficient for want of that vigilant attention to repairs which was at the bottom of all efficiency, and without which our ships would become useless. In the Estimates for the year 1881–2 the House was informed that certain ships were being repaired and would be completed in a certain time, and similar promises were made in the following year with respect to other ships. He would read the names of these ships. The Audacious, an ironclad, was promised for 1881–2, and was to be completed on the 21st of March of the present year. The Bellerophon, ironclad, was promised in August, 1880, to be completed in July, 1881; the Rover, 3,460 tons, was promised for 1881–2, and was not yet completed; and the Opal, the Himalaya, the Sapphire, the Pelican, the Rupert, the Active, the Avon, the Volage, the Shah, the Raleigh, the Juno, and the Wild Swan, were all promised to be repaired within the last two years, a distinct undertaking being given by the present Board of Admiralty. They amounted to 54,000 tons all told; and, for the most part, little or nothing had been done to them, and they
  1066
  now remained to be repaired in the course of the present year. Now, as none of these vessels were at the present moment fit for use, the Navy was so far weaker by their absence than it was in April, 1880. His hon. Friend had supplied to him a list of ships that had been removed from the effective list between that date and the present April as being no longer worth repairing, amounting to upwards of 25,000 tons. Adding the 54,000 tons which remained yet to be repaired to the 25,000 tons which had been struck off the effective list, we got a total of 80,000 tons, which in two years had been taken off for the time being, or altogether, from the effective list of the Navy. What was there on the other side of the account? According to the Estimates in the two years, if the contracts were carried out, there would be 19,271 tons of armoured ships, and 16,000 tons of unarmoured ships, making a total of 35,000 tons, against 80,000 tons, or a difference of 45,000tons. The five ships that were ineffective for want of repair were the Resistance, which was not in the programme at present, the Shannon, which was in it, the Audacious, the Bellerophon, and the Rupert, the four latter being good and useful ships. Altogether these represented 30,660 tons of iron-clads, as against the 19,000 tons in the building programme. This subject required the careful consideration of the Admiralty. He did not complain of the expenditure of a single farthing upon the building programme; but he did complain very much that money had not been found to keep efficient the ships which the Admiralty felt to be necessary to the efficiency of the Service. It would have been wiser if the Admiralty had taken money for the repair of these vessels; but the provision made had not been sufficient to carry out the Dockyard programme of building, and also to maintain ships in repair. It should be a canon at the Admiralty that the Navy ought to be in a condition to meet sudden war with all its available resources. He had had furnished to him a list of the ships which, when they were launched, would be efficient; but they would not be available for one or two years. He had given credit for the actual programme which would be accomplished in the two years; and he had set against it the deterioration in the same period. More

  1067
  than two years had elapsed since the order was given by the late Government for the manufacture of a 43-ton gun; and last year they were informed that the present Government, following the example of the late Government, had ordered 6-inch, 8-inch, and 10-inch guns, which would be supplied to the Navy before the 31st of March, 1882. When they got into Committee he should ask how many of these guns were in the possession of the Admiralty; and whether there were carriages for them? He deferred observations which he desired to make on this and some other topics.
  CAPTIAN PRICEsaid, it was satisfactory that an opportunity had at last been found for bringing forward the important question raised by the Motion of the noble Lord the Member for Chichester (Lord Henry Lennox), which Motion he cordially supported. It must have produced astonishment that throughout the whole course of the statement of the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty no assurance had been given that the Fleet for which they were asked to make provision was sufficient for the purpose for which it existed. Obviously that was a very difficult duty to perform, when an examination of the strength of the Navies of other countries had to be made a part of the statement; still, he thought there were higher considerations than those merely of the manner in which a specified sum of money had to be divided between the different branches of the Service. He maintained that in all cases in which the naval policy for the year was sketched out some statement should be made, either by the First Lord or the Secretary to the Admiralty, that the Fleet was being maintained, or that a sufficient number of new ships was being built to keep the country in an efficient state of defence. That statement, however, was one which was generally absent on the occasion of the discussion of the Naval Estimates, and constituted one of the drawbacks of our system of Party Government. Whatever Government might be in power, whether it was a Liberal Government, or a Government composed of Gentlemen now sitting on that side of the House, it was the case that they were guided more by Party considerations than those which he had indicated with
  1068
  regard to the strength of the Navy. The defect which he spoke of was one that was reflected, and naturally reflected, at the Admiralty, where the mode of carrying on business was, as he believed he might say with accuracy, as follows:—The First Lord of the Admiralty, assisted by his Parliamentary Colleagues, and influenced by various considerations, into which he need not enter on the present occasion—sometimes affected by the nearness of a Dissolution, and sometimes by the state of the national finances and the fear of coming to that House for an increased Vote—decided what sum should be asked to be granted for the Service of the Navy. In such a case, to ask was to obtain, for he was convinced that the House would never refuse to a responsible Minister of the Crown any sum in reason which he might ask, upon his assurance that it was required for the maintenance of the Navy in an efficient state. The First Lord of the Admiralty, having decided that a sum of, say,£10,000,000, or less, might be asked for with propriety, and without inconvenience, went to the Naval Advisers of the Board of Admiralty, and said—"Be good enough to inform me how this money is to be spent." Now, he contended that this course was the converse of that which ought to be followed. The Naval Lords were experts in the matters for which the money was required; and instead of the First Lord going to them to ask how a certain fixed sum of money might be appropriated, he should make it his duty to inquire of them what sum was required to maintain the Fleet in a state of efficiency? Were that course followed, he repeated his conviction that the House of Commons would not for one moment withhold any sum which the First Lord of the Admiralty might state to be actually necessary for the Service. He was glad that this discussion had taken place, because it had, at least, elicited from the Secretary to the Admiralty something more than an expression of the usual after-dinner sentiments that one often heard, but which no person who had entered into comparisons of the naval strength of this and other countries could for a moment entertain. General, vague, and sometimes wild statements had been made on the assumption that the strength of our Fleet was greater than that of any other Fleet;

  1069
  and he had once heard the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary state that the Fleet of this country was superior to the combined Fleets of the world. Now, it was said that the subject was a delicate one, and that it was invidious and unwise to make comparisons between the Navy of this country and the Fleets of friendly Powers; but, after all, we were only inquiring into the strength of the Navy—and he understood by that term the relative force of our Navy compared with the Navies of other Powers. What else was there of Foreign Powers besides their Fleets that we could possibly make this comparison with? The only reason why we kept up a Navy at all was because Foreign Powers had Navies which might, under certain circumstances, be dangerous to this country. We had also to consider whether our Fleet was sufficient for the growing duties imposed upon it; and the hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Thomas Brassey) had, on a former occasion, made some remarks upon this subject—referring to the extraordinary growth of the trade and shipping, which our Navy existed to defend—to the effect that—
  "In looking back over a series of years, it would be found that, while an extraordinary growth had taken place in our trade and shipping, the Naval Estimates had remained practically stationary; that the Effective Votes for 1881–2 were£8,662,000, and the exports and imports were£697,000,000."
  He went on to say that—
  "Under the Duke of Somerset, who was the First Lord of the Admiralty in the Liberal Administration from 1859 to 1865, the Naval Estimates were far in excess of the present amounts. In 1863, and again in 1864,£9,300,000 was voted for the Navy. At that time the value of our imports and exports was£200,000,000 less than at present, and our steam shipping was less than a third of the present tonnage. The facts which he had laid before them, he said, appeared so conclusive as to the strict economy which had been exercised in our Naval Expenditure, that the question would rather be—whether we were doing enough to provide for the security of our vast Empire and our extended commerce? Upon this point it was difficult to be precise without entering into invidious comparisons with other Powers; and he therefore asked them to be satisfied with the general assurance that we were at that moment in a satisfactory condition."
  Now, the noble Lord, and those who supported the proposition which he had brought forward, had been styled "alarmists"—that was to say, they were
  1070
  persons who foresaw dangers to which they and others were exposed. But, he asked, were not the alarmists in this case authorities upon the question? Of course, he did not refer to himself; but surely the experience of the noble Lord at the Board of Admiralty, and the researches he had made, entitled him to this designation. Again, the view of the noble Lord was supported by Sir Thomas Symonds, Admiral of the Fleet; by the right hon. and gallant Member for Wig-ton (Sir John Hay); and by Sir Spencer Robinson, who was Controller of the Navy under a Liberal Administration, who had published a pamphlet on the subject, and who, directly he left the Board of Admiralty, declared in unqualified terms that the Navy of this country was wholly inefficient for the work it had to do, and that, in many essential respects, it was inferior to the Navy of France. Those who took an optimist view of the qualifications of the Navy rested their case upon a series of probabilities. The first was that we should have plenty of notice of a coming war. Surely that was not a probability upon which we could rely. The second was that this country would be certain to have Allies, and that our opponent would probably have none. That, again, was surely not a probability upon which to rely. The third probability on which hon. Gentlemen opposite rested was that of our ability to concentrate our Fleet in European waters. A fourth was that there was some arrangement on which the food supply could be assured; and a fifth and most important one was that of the iron-clads in course of construction in other than Government Yards. But as to our ability to purchase iron-clads, he asked whether there was a single vessel of the kind ready for use on which we could lay our hands? The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), when First Lord of the Admiralty, was, undoubtedly able, in 1876, to purchase five first-class iron-clads, complete, or nearly so. But he contended that, at the present moment, there was not a single iron-clad to be bought in a similar manner. [Mr. TREVELYAN: There are seven at different stages.] He (Captain Price) had made inquiries on the subject last year, and was informed that there were only two vessels at all advanced. The hon. Gentlemen had spoken of main-

  1071
  taining our Navy upon an equality with of that of one foreign country, and had assumed that so long as it was superior to that one leading Power it was sufficient. But that was undoubtedly a new departure in the policy of this country, which used to be, in regard to Naval matters, that our Fleet should he equal to the Fleets of any two Foreign Powers. The whole of the arguments heard that night went to show that the provision we were making was insufficient. It was altogether beyond the question to say that our Fleet was equal to that of another country. If we took the Fleet as it now stood it was, no doubt, a good deal superior to that of France; but if we inquired into the effect of the policy which was being pursued in our own Navy and that which was being pursued in regard to the French Navy, it would be seen that a considerable superiority would result to the latter in the course of two or three years. He asked who was responsible for that state of things? For the purpose of comparison, he would divide our Fleet of iron-clads into three classes. In the first class he should include ships capable of carrying guns of 43 tons weight and upwards, built, building, and provided for in the current Estimates. He might, at this point, express the surprise he felt at hearing the hon. Gentleman cast doubt upon the statement that French ships now building would carry 72-ton guns, because it was a fact that guns of that weight were now being made in France; and for what were they being made if not for the purpose of being mounted? Then, what right had the hon. Gentleman to say that French ships of the first class were not going to carry guns of this calibre? The fact was that of vessels of the first class, built, building, and provided for, we had 10 ships; whereas France had 18 and Italy 7, the average weight of their heaviest guns being 55 tons in the English, as against 61 tons and 100, respectively, in the ships of France and Italy. Moreover, while the French had 70-ton guns actually building, our 60-ton guns were only on paper, the hon. Gentleman having stated that perhaps two or three 43-ton guns would be ready by the end of the year, while, he believed, the whole of the seven Italian vessels would be armed with 100-ton guns. The average thickness of armour on the English ships was 18 inches, as compared with
  1072
  19 inches on the French ships. So far as France was concerned, the average speed was the same as our own, while, in the case of Italy, it was somewhat higher—that was to say, the average of our first-class ships was 14·25 knots; of the French, 14·25 knots, and of the Italian ships 15 knots. Thus, France and Italy combined had 25 first-class ironclads, as against our 10, the respective averages of guns, armour, and speed being those which he had pointed out. Of vessels of the second class—namely, those which carried guns of from 18 to 38 tons, England had 26, France 18, and Italy 5. In the weight of guns we had slightly the advantage, as compared with France, the average being 24¼tons, against 22 tons. The same remark applied to the armour, the average thickness of the plates carried by the English ships being 12¼inches, and that of the French 11 inches. But in the more vital matter of speed we were behind, the average speed of the French vessels being 13·6, and of ours 13·25 knots. Of vessels of the third class—namely, those carrying guns of less than 18 tons, and with armour of less than 9 inches in thickness, England had 15, France 13, and Italy seven. At first he thought it would be well to include in the third class every vessel, built or building, which carried, or was intended to carry, armour-plating of any kind; but on re-consideration that appeared to be hardly correct; and he had, therefore, carefully calculated the number of ships which could be made use of, and those which would not be of use to the country in time of war. Of these ships, as he had before pointed out, we had 15 and the French 13. Now, until the commencement of the present year, the French counted on their Navy List, besides these 13 vessels, 14 others, which made a total of 27. They also had 12 floating batteries built since the Crimean War, and which until lately they had looked upon as vessels which might take their place in action. Certainly, they did not consider them useless vessels, for they kept them up more efficiently than the two floating batteries which we had at the present time However, he should not include these amongst their vessels of the third class. But he must remind the House that a number of ships had been struck off the list of the French Fleet which last

  1073
  year actually took part in the bombardment of Sfax. Whether they could be brought forward again he was, of course, unable to say; but it was only fair that, as they had been removed from the French Navy List, they should not be included under the head of vessels of the third class. He said, then, that Italy and France combined had 20 iron-clads of the third class as against our 15; and, therefore, the sum total of iron-clads of the three classes was for England 51, France 49, and for Italy 19. In other words, England would have 51 ships as against the 68 of France and Italy combined. He asked whether or not the comparison he had made was a true one, and for this reason—because, when they made a comparison of the kind, they were not replied to in the terms of that comparison, but some other comparison was set up which was not applicable; and it would certainly be far more interesting to the public to get a categorical denial, if it were possible, of that which he now made in support of the Motion which the noble Lord had brought forward. If it were said that this comparison was not a true one, he asked to what extent it was not true? The Secretary to the Admiralty had made to the House a very lucid and explanatory statement; but, notwithstanding that his speech had been of the most interesting character, he had by no means denied the statement of the noble Lord, or the other statements which had been made on that side of the House. He should like, therefore, to get an answer from the hon. Gentleman, in general terms, as to whether, in the first place, he would deny that the French Naval Estimates were increasing, while ours were decreasing? The hon. Gentleman had referred that evening to the sum mentioned by the noble Lord as being voted this year in France—namely,£9,000,000—which the hon. Gentleman compared with our Estimate of£10,500,000; but, in doing so, he entirely forgot to state that in the French Vote was not included the sum which we include in our Estimate for the Non-Effective Votes. Was the hon. Gentleman also able to deny that the French were employing a very much larger number of men in their Dockyards, and building a larger amount of tonnage than we were? The figures of the hon. Gentleman agreed with his, in
  1074
  showing that the French were building 15,000 tons of iron-clads as against our 11,500 tons; and when the hon. Gentleman said that the French would not carry out their programme, he should be glad to know on what foundation that statement rested. Would the hon. Gentleman deny that their programme for last year was carried out? The French Estimates were published, and they had voted money for building the same amount of 15,000 tons of iron-clads next year. It mattered nothing to the present inquiry whether or not they had carried out their programme in 1878 or 1879. What we had to do was to compare with our Estimates and tonnage the money they had voted this year and the tonnage intended to be built by them in the coming two years. Again, could the hon. Gentleman deny that the French were adding 600 or 700 men to their Navy, while we were reducing our men by a like number? The hon. Gentleman stated at an earlier period in the Session that the number of men and boys asked for was the same for this as for last year; but he added that we were reducing the number of our Marines, whom he justly described as forming part of the ship's company. Therefore, it was correct to say that while we were reducing our Navy the French were increasing theirs. Again, the French, both this year and last year, had voted more money than we for guns, and were progressing with more rapid strides than we in the armament of their Fleet. They were building new types of guns more quickly, and, therefore, their ships would be sooner armed than ours; and, at the same time, they were spending more money on torpedoes. He said it would be satisfactory to the country that some Representative of the Admiralty should, if possible, emphatically deny those statements; and if he could not deny them in toto, then the House should be informed to what extent they were incorrect, or that they were not incorrect at all. The Admiralty, up to the present, had sheltered themselves under the old excuse, that it was invidious to make comparisons and that they must trust the Government. For his own part, he did not believe that the Government of any Party was to be trusted in such a matter as this; and the suggestion which he had to make, although it was not likely to be accepted, and would be considered

  1075
  by a large number of Members as impracticable, was that a Royal Commission should issue to inquire into the question of what was a really sufficient Fleet for this country to possess. The Commissioners should examine experts of all kinds—naval officers, engineers, Admiralty officials, and all those who were capable of giving an opinion on the subject—and then make their Report. But, although this would be a step in the right direction, it would be by no means enough, for it was probable that if Nelson, Collingwood, and all our old naval heroes were to rise from their graves and demonstrate from their own and the accumulated experience of later days that the country ought to be supplied with a far larger Fleet than it had, no Government would ask for the money that was necessary. Nevertheless, the country ought to be supplied with a Fleet sufficient in every respect; and he was quite certain that if the money were voted for this purpose, not one word of dissatisfaction would be heard throughout the Kingdom at the step which had been taken.
  MR. R. W. DUFFsaid, he had listened with attention and interest to the speech of the noble Lord the Member for Chichester (Lord Henry Lennox), who, in his opinion, had done good service in calling attention to the Navies of Foreign Powers, not with standing that in his statement he thought he had somewhat over-estimated the strength of the French Fleet while under-estimating our own. Moreover, he thought the reply of his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty went a considerable length in the direction of answering the noble Lord's complaint. At the same time, when they looked on the vast increase of the Italian and German Fleets, quite apart from that of France, he could not feel satisfied that our own Navy was such as it ought to be. He had heard the same statements and arguments that had been advanced that evening used on many occasions during the years he had had the honour to sit in that House; while it was contended, on the one hand, that the Fleet was insufficient for the national requirements, it was usually replied, on the other, that while the Government admitted that the Navy was not quite what it ought to be, it was in the same position when they came into Office. That kind of attack and defence had gone on
  1076
  for years. But what they had to consider was not whether the Navy was better now than it was when the Opposition were in Office, but whether it was what it ought to be for the service of the country. He was bound to say that the noble Lord had brought forward facts and statements which, in his opinion, had not been entirely answered by his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty, although, in dealing with details, he had shown some inaccuracies on the part of the noble Lord. His object, however, in rising was to call attention to the manning of the Fleet. The noble Lord had said very truly that, deducting supernumeraries, the number of seamen amounted to about 18,000, and as he (Mr. R. W. Duff) had not seen any contradiction of the statement which he made last year as to the small number of those who had seen six years' service, he would like to know whether the Admiralty would furnish the House with a statement showing the number of years' sea service which these 18,000 men had? The hon. Gentleman had told them that there were 153 steam vessels in the Merchant Navy, all of them fit to carry guns of great calibre; but he was very much concerned to know where the men were to come from for the purpose of manning these guns, particularly as the hon. Gentleman had, to a certain extent, reduced the Royal Marines. We were now introducing breech-loading guns into the Navy, although our men were always drilled with muzzle-loading guns. [Mr. W. H. SMITH: There are no breech-loading guns in the Navy.] He (Mr. R. W. Duff) had certainly been given to understand that the Navy was actually supplied with some breech-loading guns. Whether that was correct or not, he thought it was high time that breech-loaders were introduced into the Navy; and he felt sure his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty would admit that the sooner this was done the better, for they had been proved to be better than muzzle-loaders. Without detaining the House by entering into details, he was bound to say that, on the whole, his noble Friend had made out a case for increasing the Navy. Although he had been answered to a certain extent, he had not been entirely answered; and, therefore, he trusted that the Admiralty would not, upon any false ideas of economy,

  1077
  shrink from bringing forward such Estimates as would enable them fully to maintain our Naval Forces. He was satisfied that no one was more convinced than the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Admiralty of the absolute necessity of keeping up the seamanship of our sailors; and if the statement which he (Mr. It. W. Duff) had made last year with reference to the amount of their sea service were correct, he trusted there would be no hesitation in bringing forward proposals on that important subject that would be satisfactory to the country. He would not, at that late hour, deal with the statements made by his noble Friend (Lord Henry Lennox); he would only say that although he agreed on many points with the noble Lord, especially when he spoke of what the Navy ought to be, he saw very great difficulty in combining in one vessel all the requirements of a naval ship. His noble Friend talked of vessels which were to be very swift; they were not to draw much water, they were to be lightly built, and yet they were to carry very powerful guns. He would like to see his noble Friend design such a vessel. If he were to do so, he would do great service to the Navy and the country.
  SIR MASSEY LOPESsaid, they were indebted to the noble Lord the Member for Chichester (Lord Henry Lennox) for having initiated this discussion; and it was a matter of congratulation that the Navy was no longer an arena of Party politics, and that all of them, whatever their political views, were unanimous in endeavouring to maintain the efficiency, the supremacy of our Navy. There was, undoubtedly, some uneasiness and some alarm—and he thought the debate of that evening was not calculated to allay it—with respect to the condition of our Navy at the present time, and with respect to its strength, relatively, to that of the Navies of foreign countries. It was admitted that our Navy at present was more efficient than the Navy of any other country; and he would give credit to the present Board of Admiralty for having endeavoured to maintain the efficiency of our Navy so far as the limited means at their disposal would allow. The question for them was not whether our Navy was more efficient than it ever was, but whether our Navy bore a more favourable comparison with the Navies of other
  1078
  countries than it did some 10 or 20 years ago. That was the crucial question for them to consider. There was no doubt that the Navies of other countries, more especially that of France and Italy, had been vastly developed of late years. He believed our Navy was absolutely superior to that of France; at present there was no question about that. But then, in order to make a fair comparison, they had to compare relatively the duties of the respective Navies. The duties and responsibilities of our Navy were vastly greater than those of France. In the first place, we had a great length of coast to protect; we had an enormous trade and commerce—he believed double the trade of that of all the rest of the world; we had our numerous Colonies, and, as had already been stated during the debate, we were really dependent for our daily bread upon the regular arrival of ships in this country from abroad. Now, when they considered such enormous responsibilities he thought our Navy did not compare favourably with that of France. There was no doubt of this—that both France and Italy were at present contending for that naval supremacy which for so many years we had maintained. We had far greater interests at stake. It was necessary to our national existence. It made our Colonies, it created our commerce. We could never risk the loss of that naval supremacy. If we lost an engagement on land we could recover our prestige; but if we once met with a naval disaster we should sustain a loss which would be irreparable. If that were so it would never do to risk the loss of our naval supremacy; if we did lose that supremacy we should lose our position amongst foreign countries; we should risk the relinquishment of our Colonies and the annihilation of our commerce. He had in his hand a statement of the Navy Estimates for the last few years. They were asked this year for a Vote of£10,484,000. The apparent decrease in last year's Estimates was£462,000; but the actual decrease was£221,000. The Admiralty took credit for the extra receipts, amounting to£240,000. That was a great novelty. The extra receipts were for old stores, ships,&c.; they were formerly paid into the Exchequer, and now they were to be treated as Appropriations in Aid of Parliamentary grants. He was not sure that that was

  1079
  a good arrangement; but it certainly did enable the present Admiralty to submit to the Committee reduced Estimates. He had no doubt that if they were in power two or three years they would leave very few old ships and stores for the benefit of their successors. If they were going to take the benefit of the extra receipts they ought to have expended them as extraordinary expenditure. Few people were aware of what a comparatively small sum was expended out of the whole Navy Vote upon our Effective Services. Out of the£10,484,000 they had to deduct£2,070,000 for the Non-Effective purposes. They therefore only voted£8,414,000 for the Navy proper. Then they had to deduct the cost of transport, which was£ 120,000, so that only allowed an Expenditure on the Effective Services of£8,294,000. His hon. Friend the Secretary to the Admiralty (Mr. Tre-velyan) took credit to himself for making a great many improvements, and yet for not materially increasing the Vote. Of course, that was very creditable to a certain extent. It was the hon. Gentleman's desire to make both ends meet and balance his accounts; but he (Sir Massey Lopes) did not think they should deal with the Navy in that commercial sort of way. They must first of all secure efficiency, and if they could combine that with economy so much the better. But it would not do to risk our naval supremacy if it was only a question of his hon. Friend asking them for a larger Vote. We were expending now upon our Navy considerably less than we expended 20 years ago. He had in his hand an account of the Expenditure of the Navy for the last 20 years; and, notwithstanding the costly improvements which had been made during that time, he found we were spending less money than we did at that period. Let them compare the Expenditure in the year 1860–1 with the years 1870–1 and 1880–1; and he could not go beyond that, because, as his hon. Friend knew, the Audit of the Naval Accounts had not yet been furnished for a later year. He would only deal with the Effective and Non-Effective Votes, because, in making the comparison, he had excluded all extraordinary expenditure. He found that in 1860–1 we expended a total of£12,029,000; in the year 1870–1 we only expended a total of£9,670,000; in the year 1880–1
  1080
  we expended a total of£10,115,000. Now, he found that the Effective Vote in 1860–1 was£10,736,000, and in 1870–1 it was£7,957,000; but he need not remind the House that it was during that year that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Pontefract (Mr. Childers) was in Office, and that was the lowest Naval Expenditure we ever had. At that time we had only 12,000 men in the Dockyards, instead of 16,000 as at present. He found that the difference between the Effective Vote of 1860–1 and that of 1880–1 was as much as£1,680,000, and that we had got an increase in our Non-Effective Vote in the 20 years of£766,000, which really amounted to the cost of one of our largest ironclads—the Inflexible, for instance. It was scarcely credible that in 1880–1 we were only spending£100 more in our Effective Vote than we did in 1870–1—the year of our lowest Naval Expenditure. One thing was quite certain—that if we were to put our Navy in the same relative position in which it was some 10 or 20 years ago we should be obliged to spend more money. There was no doubt, as had been stated, that the cost of maintaining the Navy had a great tendency to increase; but then they must bear in mind that our wealth and our population was increasing in a corresponding degree. He thought that if there was any probability of France, or any other country, competing with us for naval supremacy, he was quite certain that if his hon. Friend (Mr. Trevelyan) were to make application to the House of Commons and. the country for a large Vote it would be cheerfully given. He would like to say a word with reference to our guns. He was always under the impression that the weak point of our Navy was our guns. He was glad to hear his hon. Friend convey a somewhat different impression. He was certainly under the impression that France, in the matter of guns, was in a better position than England; and they had the authority of Sir William Armstrong—one of the greatest authorities on such a subject—that, weight for weight, the naval ordnance of the French was superior to that of this country. He was glad to hear a remark in reference to the system of the Navy going to the Army for its guns. The system of making the Admiralty dependent on the War Office for guns was most anomalous and unbusi-

  1081
  nesslike. Other countries like Russia, the United States, and France, had their own naval ordnance manufactories; while Germany, Austria, and Italy went to private firms. He did not see why the English Navy could not do the same; the Navy could not order a gun without the intervention of the War Office—it had no control, and, therefore, no responsibility. It ought to be in a position to give occasional orders to private firms, just as it did in the case of the building of ships. If we did not make some real effort to increase our Navy we should find that of France, if not superior, at any rate equal to it. Any Government would incur enormous responsibility if it ever allowed France, or any other country, to be in such a position as to be able to compete with us for naval supremacy.
  LORD HENRY LENNOXsaid, he was so perfectly satisfied with the discussion that had taken place that he begged leave to withdraw his Motion, and to thank the House for the attention it had given to the subject.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Motion, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," by leave, withdrawn.
  Committee deferred till To-morrow.

MOTIONS.

  WATER PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. ASHELY, Bill for confirming certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under "The Gas and Waterworks Facilities Act, 1870," relating to Calne Water, Cromer Water, Denbigh Water, and Kenilworth Water, ordered to be brought in by Mr. ASHELY and Mr. CJAMBERLIAN.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 135.]

  GAS PROVISIONAL ORDERS BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. ASHLEY, Bill for confirming certain Provisional Orders made by the Board of Trade under "The Gas and Waterworks Facilities Act, 1870," relating to Brecon Gas, High Wycombe Gas, Kettering Gas, Portsea Gas, Bedditch Gas, Salisbury Gas, and Sheffield Gas, ordered to be brought in by Mr. ASHELY and Mr. CHAMBERLIAN.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 136.]

  TURNPIKE ACTS CONTINUANCE ACT, 1881, COMMITTEE.
  Ordered, That it be a further Instruction to the Committee to take into consideration the
  1082
  several Acts relating to the Shrewsbury and Holyhead Turnpike Road, and to report to the House whether such Acts should be scheduled in the annual Turnpike Continuance Bill of the present year with a view to the repeal of the said Acts after a stated date.—(Mr. Hibbert.)

  CANALS.
  Select Committee appointed, "to inquire into the condition and the position of the Canals and internal navigation of the Country, to report thereupon, and to make such recommendations as may appear necessary."—(Mr. Salt.)
  House adjourned at One o'clock.