HC Deb 10 February 1882 vol 266 cc388-470

ADJOURNED DEBATE. [FOURTH NIGHT.]

Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [7th February].—[See page 133.]

Amendment proposed, At the end thereof, to add the words:—"Humbly to assure Your Majesty that this House regards with grave concern the action of the Executive in Ireland, whereby the liberties of Members of this House have been outraged, and the performance of their constitutional duties rendered impossible; whereby hundreds of Your Majesty's subjects in Ireland are detained in prison without trial or the right of Habeas Corpus, many of them on the alleged suspicion of offences for which, even if duly tried and found guilty, they could not have been subjected to punishment as severe as that which they have already undergone; whereby the lawful organisation of the Irish tenantry has been arbitrarily suppressed at a most critical moment, when its maintenance was essential to the due protection of their legal rights, while the organisation of the Irish landlords against those rights has been encouraged and supported; whereby ladies engaged in the work of public charity have been threatened, harassed, and imprisoned under obsolete statutes and on nominal pretexts; whereby the liberty of the Press has been illegally interfered with, the right of free speech, of public meeting, and of lawful constitutional agitation has been abrogated; whereby innocent persons have been killed and wounded by the armed forces of the Crown; whereby the verdicts of coroners' juries, incriminating the agents of the Executive, have been disregarded; whereby large districts of the Country have been placed under a system of quasi-martial Law; whereby rewards have been offered by the Government for secret information as to crimes to be committed, tending to the demoralisation of the people and the creation of perjured evidence against innocent persons; which action generally has caused in the minds of the people of Ireland a profound distrust of the execution of the Law; and humbly to assure Your Majesty that an immediate abandonment of all coercive measures, and the establishment of constitutional government in Ireland, with full recognition of the rights and liberties of the Irish people, are essentially necessary for the peace and prosperity of that realm and of the United Kingdom."—(Mr. Justin M'Carthy.)

Question again proposed, '' That those words be there added."

Debate resumed.

MR. REDMOND

said, there could be no question as to the gravity of the situation in Ireland, and, though he knew the opinions he entertained were unpopular in that House, he felt bound to take part in this discussion, that he might protest against some of the charges made by the Chief Secretary against his imprisoned Colleagues and himself. These charges were not only unfounded, but he believed them to be maliciously untrue. An indictment of a very grave character had been brought against the Government by the hon. Member for Longford. That indictment was precise in its terms, and it had not been answered in more than one or two particulars by the long speech of the Chief Se- cretary for Ireland, in which he sought to prove that the arrest of Mr. Parnell and his Colleagues was justifiable, and the suppression of the Land League necessary. The right hon. Gentleman attempted to prove that on two grounds—first, that these Gentlemen had been guilty of intimidation; and, secondly, that they had been guilty of treasonable practices. How did he attempt to prove that Mr. Parnell and his Colleagues had been guilty of intimidation? Why, he attempted to prove it by saying that a man dare not take a farm from which another had been evicted, and that, because that was the case, it must have been carried out by terrorism. That he entirely denied. If that was the ground for arresting the hon. Member for the City of Cork and his brethren, they ought to have been arrested two years ago. From the very beginning of this movement the members of the Land League pledged and bound themselves not to take a farm from which one of their number had been evicted, and a state of things was fostered by the League which made it impossible for anyone to break this pledge. The right hon. Gentleman dwelt much on the assertion that one dare not take a farm from which another had been evicted. That was quite true; but why? It was because the public opinion created and fostered by the Land League held such conduct to be disgraceful, unpatriotic, and contrary to the good of the nation. Any man who was guilty of that conduct was marked out, not for outrage, not for intimidation, but for "Boycotting" in the form of exclusive dealing, which the right hon. Gentleman admitted last night to be legal. The proof which the Chief Secretary put forward last night of intimidation having been carried out was contained in certain placards which he read to the House. The right hon. Gentleman had been making a round of Ireland, collecting anonymous placards from every dead wall he could find. No doubt, some of these placards were reprehensible; but upon what principle of justice or law could he make the hon. Member for the City of Cork and the Land League responsible for every anonymous placard that was published? It was nothing less than absurd for the right hon. Gentleman to rise in his place to read these placards, and then to say that this was justification for the suppression of the Land League. The Irish Members asked for the date of these placards, and found that they had been posted months after the arrest of Mr. Parnell, the suppression of the Land League, and the removal of the restraining influences of those Leaders and their organization upon the people. The other argument on which the Chief Secretary had based his justification for the arrest of Mr. Parnell and his Colleagues was that they had been guilty of treasonable practices. He listened very attentively to what the Chief Secretary had to say on this point, because he could not forget the dark hints which had been thrown out by the Home Secretary at the end of last Session as to the treasonable practices in which he tried to make us believe even Members of this House had been directly engaged. Upon what were these charges grounded? On two or three sentences taken out of speeches The only excuse given for the arrest of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) was a single sentence in a speech in which, under the enthusiasm of a torchlight procession at Dublin, he was reported to have said that Ireland had for a moment broken away from the Lion and the Unicorn. As to the arrest of Mr. Parnell and the other of his Col leagues, he confessed that, although he had listened very carefully to the Chief Secretary, he was utterly unable to imagine upon what ground they had been arrested. In fact, the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was a great relief to his (Mr. Redmond's) mind. It was, he thought, the weakest speech ever made on that question. Last year, when introducing the Coercion Bill, the right hon. Gentleman had a much stronger case than the one he had yesterday. Yesterday the right hon. Gentleman had to prove that the pledges he had given as to the administration of that Bill had been fulfilled, that in no instance had the law been strained against individuals, and that coercion had been successful. When the right hon. Gentleman spoke of the Land League being an instrument of intimidation in preventing tenants from going into the Land Court, did he not know that landlords intimidated their tenants from going into that Court? He held in his hand a letter from the agent of the Earl of Rosse, which showed that when a ten- ant, whose rent was £27, and his valuation £26, was about to go into Court, his landlord informed him that his rent was to be increased at once to £40. The manifest object of that was to intimidate the tenant from going into Court by the fear that his case would not be decided for years, and that in the meantime he would have to pay that increased rack-rent of £40. Then there was the case of the Brownstown tenants, with which they were so familiar. A number of those tenants were hopelessly in arrears of rent. They intended to apply to the Land Court. The landlord went to them and said that every man who applied to the Land Court would be evicted for the arrears. Was that not intimidation? The Prime Minister said that in October last a crisis arose in Ireland which made it absolutely necessary for the Land League either to advance or to retire. That was true; but the crisis was not created by the passing of the Land Act, but by the arrest of the Leaders of the people. The passing of the Land Act was regarded by the League as a stage of the road on which they were travelling. The objects of the League had been clearly defined, and were universally recognized. They were the abolition of landlordism and the creation of a "peasant proprietary" by means of purchase. Those objects were not attained by the Land Act as it passed; and, while it was the duty of the people to acknowledge the recognition in the Bill of principles for which generations of their forefathers had contended to take advantage of its benefits, such as they were, it was the manifest duty of the Leaders to warn them that the Bill did not provide an ultimate settlement of the question. This was done; but, at the same time, elaborate preparations were made for testing the rent-fixing clauses of the Bill. He could quote dozens of speeches from the Leaders of the League, which showed that the test cases they had proposed to bring into the Land Court were fair and honest and average cases. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had wished to test the advantages of the Act; but he never concealed his belief that the bulk of the tenants would never benefit by it, and all the experience that they had had since then went to confirm that opinion. Why were evictions increasing in many districts in such ter- rible proportions? Because the Land Act made eviction easy and respectable, and by exasperating the landlords it induced them to retaliate on the tenants. The Government's so-called "message of peace" was proving a message of ruin and destruction to thousands of of tenants. Mr. Parnell was blamed for advising the tenants to keep out of the Land Court until the test eases had been tried; but if he had really desired to defeat the Bill he would have told them to rush to the Court and paralyze it—indeed, it was paralyzed already. As the Prime Minister said, a crisis arose which made it necessary for the Land League to advance or retire. The Land League, he thought, had done right in adopting the alternative of advancing. The Chief Secretary knew the statements which he had made in his county since the arrest of Mr. Parnell, and therefore the right hon. Gentleman could not charge him with taking advantage of any Parliamentary privilege that might insure his safety. As to the "no rent" manifesto, its meaning had been deliberately and persistently misrepresented by the enemies of the people. It never was a demand that the people should pay no lent whatever. It was simply a cry to withhold rent till the landlord party and the Government came back to the path of constitutional action. The Land League from the first had for its object the purchase of the property of the landlord at a fair, full, and honest price. He believed that if the landlords had met the tenants fairly they might have obtained 20 years' purchase for their land. How many of the landlords to-day were crying out for that very proposal, on account of which Mr. Parnell was denounced as a public plunderer? Before the Session was over Parliament would have proposals made to it on the part of the landlords to do something very like what Mr. Parnell suggested. The landlords, short-sighted then as they had ever been, raised the cry of "confiscation" and of "no surrender;" but the people had learned their power, and they knew time was fighting on their side. Now, with regard to the issue of that manifesto, no doubt it was a great and important event; but it was not then heard of for the first time. It was a proposal which had before been urged upon the Irish Party by many men in America and in Ireland, a proposal which had always been resisted by Mr. Parnell and the National Party. Its adoption was forced upon them by the Government. What was the action which the Government took against them? Upon a flimsy pretext they swooped down upon the Leaders of the Land League; they arrested Mr. Parnell, Mr. Dillon, Mr. O'Kelly; they completely paralyzed the organization of the Land League; they left the tenant farmers defenceless in the Land Court, and the Leaders to choose between allowing the organization to be shattered by the Government or to raise the cry of "no rent." In such a crisis there was really no alternative; the step they took was forced upon them by the Government, who thrust the Leaders into prison, suppressed the organization of the Land League, and made Ireland a prey to coercion. But there was one weapon against which the forces of the Crown, against which 40,000 or 50,000 soldiers and policemen were powerless. It was a weapon which was not to be made use of lightly, for it could not be denied that it pressed hardly upon individuals. No one deplored that hardship more than he did. His connections and friends belonged wholly to the landlord class, and it was no personal interest, as had often been asserted against him, but love of his country alone which led him to take the course he did. No doubt, hardship had occurred in individual cases; but he asked the Government whether no hardship had been occasioned by the working of the Land Court? It was well known that the reductions made by the Land Courts had caused much suffering; but if the Laud Bill was a good Bill that could not be helped, and neither could the cases of individual suffering caused by the "no rent" manifesto. He did not pretend to so extensive a knowledge as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland; but he knew something of his own part of the country, and he believed that the Chief Secretary had been grossly misled if he supposed that anything like a general payment of rents was taking place. He had reason to believe the contrary, and he thought, and wished the people to know that he thought, that if they had any sense of their dignity they would abide by the advice given to them by their Leaders. He was well aware that men were breaking away from that advice; mean and base natures were to be found in every country, and the Irish people would be more than human if they had suffered no taint from their long subjection to English rule; but he believed in his heart that the vast majority of the Irish people were standing boldly and firmly to the advice which had been given to them. The Chief Secretary had laid much stress upon the occurrence of outrages. He would not deny that deeds had been done which humiliated every Irishman; but he asserted, and confidently asserted, that the outrages had been grossly and maliciously exaggerated. But it should be remembered outrages as numerous and as horrible in character were taking place in England, and they denied to England the right to judge them in the matter. But to show how exaggerated were the accounts of outrages committed in Ireland, he would give one or two instances which were reported to have taken place near the borough he represented (New Ross). One farmer who had paid his rent was said to have been waylaid as he was driving home, seized, and beaten to death. Another was fired at as he was returning, but escaped unhurt. The local papers denied these reports; but though he searched them carefully, not one word of denial had been found in the papers which had printed them. He could not acquit the Chief Secretary of exaggerating these outrages. But he had a more serious charge to prefer against him—that of creating outrage. Did the right hon. Gentleman remember the Circular issued to the police—the Circular which suggested that they should make friends of the people, talk with them, and endeavour to gain information from them of any outrages which were about to be committed, and offering rewards from £20 to as much as £100 for such information? Now, he asked any can did and fair minded man in that House whether a Circular of that kind must not necessarily tend to the creation of outrages? How was it possible that Circulars of that kind could be issued throughout Ireland and in the hands of policemen, who went about the country seeking whom they could find to give them information of outrages, without outrages being created? They had one instance of that. There was a man in the West of Ireland, named Donoghue, who came forward to prove the sending of a threatening notice. By some strange proceeding suspicion was created, and inquiries were made into the character of Donoghue. He would like to know by what extraordinary change the Crown came to be so particular about their witnesses? In Donoghue's house they found a facsimile of the threatening notice in his own handwriting, and he was sent to trial for perjury. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: Hear, hear!] The right hon. Gentleman said "Hear, hear!" but did he know that the evidence of this man had previously convicted several individuals for outrages of this kind? He would like to know how much money Donoghue had received from the Government for these prosecutions? He would like to know how much money had been paid by the Government in Ireland within the last year to men who gave information of outrages? He wished to refer to another point—the alleged responsibility of the Land League for outrages. The House remembered one man whose voice was heard above all others deprecating outrages, who raised his voice and begged and prayed of the Irish people not to stain their hands with innocent blood. In the midst of his career, when preaching against outrages, he was seized upon by the Government and sent to prison, not as a "suspect," where he would have been treated comparatively leniently, but actually sent back to a convict cell. That was small encouragement to Irish agitators to take the part of the Government, and assist in the suppression of outrages. The right hon. Gentleman complained that the Land League organization had not used its influence against the committal of outrages; but the right hon. Gentleman had suppressed the Land League. Did the right hon. Gentleman mean to say that the local branches of the League, which were headed in nearly every instance by the clergy, were not restraining influences? He was bound to say that the action of the right hon. Gentleman, although he at one time gave promise of a great future, had carved for himself a name in Ireland which would live in execration as long as the names of England or Ireland were known. About the Coercion Act he wanted to say that the pledges given by the right hon. Gentleman had been broken over and over again. That Act had been enforced cruelly, without just cause, and with direct personal malice. He would like to ask the House whether Mr. Parnell, Mr. John Dillon, or his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had been guilty of planning, perpetrating, or inciting others to the commission of outrages? There was no man in that House who would say so; and if any man did say so, he should find it difficult to restrain himself, and not stigmatize such a statement as a falsehood. The right hon. Gentleman had said that the best would be done to prevent hardship and suffering to the imprisoned "suspects" as was consistent with their safe custody; and he wanted to know whether it was absolutely necessary for their safe custody that they should be prevented shaking hands with their friends? Surely there was sufficient pain and humiliation upon the prisoner and his visitors when they were obliged to meet under these circumstances at all. Recently he had visited a friend at Naas Gaol who was confined under the Coercion Act. They were separated from each other by a double wall, in which there was a grating composed of huge wooden bars. They were three feet apart. He, with a natural sympathy for his friend, stretched out his hand to shake hands with him, when a warder, with the utmost insolence, came between them. He thrust the warder aside and shook hands with his friend. He was afterwards informed by the Governor that he had made the rule himself, and that it was not in force in any other prison in Ireland. If that was done with the authority of the right hon. Gentleman, he charged him with the deliberate violation of the pledge he gave in that House that nothing should be done to the prisoners except what was necessary for their safe custody. Since the sitting of the House he had heard that the Government considered a young brother of his, who was only 20 years of age, a sufficiently dangerous person to accord him the honour of arrest. He had been sent to the farthest gaol from Wexford—a gaol, moreover, in which few, if any, other "suspects'' were detained, and where he would be deprived of the possibility of association with persons of his own class. This, he mentioned, was evidence of private malice on the part of the right hon. Gentleman; and he did not know how to express his feeling of contempt for the manner in which he had broken his pledges.

MR. MACARTNEY

I rise to Order. I wish to know whether the hon. Member is in Order in the expression he has used?

MR. SPEAKER

not interposing,

MR. REDMOND

said, allowance must be made for natural feelings, and it was not easy, in the heat of the moment, to choose terms to describe the gaolers of your friends and relatives. It was stated last year by the right hon. Gentleman that the prisoners would be allowed to follow their avocations; but the doctors who were in prison had not been permitted to see their patients, and that was not a fulfilment of the pledge that had been given. The right hon. Gentleman completely evaded a difficult question, and that was the imprisonment of ladies engaged in the work of charity. Towards the Ladies' Land League and the Prisoners' Aid Society the Executive collectively had been guilty of the conduct of bullies and cowards. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to dissent from the opinion that these ladies had been engaged in a work of charity. As a people, we had always rendered our tribute of admiration to noble women who tended the wounded, the sick, and the afflicted. The mission of these ladies had been to save the victims of landlordism from what the Prime Minister had described as sentences of starvation and death. And these ladies, many of them of high position, leaving luxurious homes to live among their people, had not been arrested under the Coercion Act, which would have secured them comparatively mild treatment, but they had been dragged on flimsy charges before magistrates, and, as if they were common malefactors or bad characters, ordered to give bail to be of good behaviour. Preferring to go to prison, they had in almost every case been committed for less than a month in order to prevent the possibility of appeal. The right hon. Gentleman had been beaten in the struggle with them. Instead of being scared, they had shown an attitude of firmness; and by going to prison they had rendered it imperative that no man should be overawed by threats of imprisonment. He would state his conviction, that when the history of these transactions came to be written, and when the Irish people would be able to look dispassionately upon them, the name of many of those ladies would live in the veneration of the people when that of the right hon. Gentleman was muttered with a curse. The right hon. Gentleman could hardly pretend that the one article which he had quoted was a sufficient excuse for the suppression of the paper United Ireland. And the question arose whether the Government had the power to seize and suppress any paper in England of an immoral and blasphemous character; and, if they had, why they did not do it? The fail-inference from the facts was that the chief offence of the suppressed paper was that it was opposed to the Government. History justified the opinion expressed by the late Prince Consort, in a letter relating to the rising of 1848, that leaders of movements might be sacrificed and the movements themselves apparently suppressed, but they would continue to live in the spirit of the people. And so this movement could not be checked by halting remedial measures or by brutal coercion; it could be met only by giving fair play to the national aspirations of the people. As the President of the Board of Trade had said, either the present policy must be pursued to the end, or the Irish people must be allowed to govern themselves; these were, indeed, the alternatives that were before the English people, and the sooner they were recognized the better. Until England recognized that what Grattan struggled for in 1782, and Parnell, Dillon, and Davitt were struggling for to-day, was the only goal at which the Irish people would be satisfied, there could be no prospect of peace and prosperity for Ireland.

MR. GIBSON

It was inevitable, in the circumstances of the case, that there should be a prolonged Irish debate upon the Address; and it was only fair, wise, and expedient that the House should accord to the speakers in that debate a full and considerate hearing. It was incumbent upon the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to make a full and clear statement respecting his administration of the affairs of Ireland; and if it was incumbent upon him to make that statement, it was simply justice on the part of the House and the country to accord to him a fair and patient hearing, bearing in mind the great weight of responsibility he has had upon his shoulders, and bearing in mind also the criticisms from all sides so freely directed against his administration of affairs. The right hon. Gentleman has not, I am bound to say, shrunk from recognizing the obligation that lay upon him, and that obligation is plain and distinct. The responsibility which has devolved on the right hon. Gentleman almost ever since he has been in Office has been very great; it has been recognized by the country and declared over and over again by himself; and that responsibility arises from two causes—first, his having to cope with a state of facts in Ireland very critical and exceptional; and, secondly, from the fact that never in the history of the country has a Minister intrusted with the administration of Irish affairs been so lavishly intrusted by Parliament with all that he asked for. Everything that this Government has asked for in the shape of protective and coercive measures has been granted to them at their desire. When they said they desired to supplement those measures by remedial measures, a remedial measure of the most drastic and exceptional character that the Statute Book can show was passed into law. Therefore, it is obvious that a special measure of responsibility, for both these reasons, presses on the Government at the present time. Explanation had been asked for by public opinion upon, at least, three points. In the first place, was the action of the Government in Ireland necessary and defensible? In the second place, if that action had been taken earlier, would it have been more preventive and more effective? In the third place, was there any satisfactory excuse for the delay which occurred? Necessarily—quite necessarily—the right hon. Gentleman took up for a considerable time the attention of the House last night. In my opinion he did not speak one second too long. I think that the House, notwithstanding the speech made on the introduction of this Amendment, and notwithstanding the able speech delivered just now by the hon. Member for New Ross, I think the great majority of the House, and the vast preponderance of the opinion of the country, are satisfied of this—that the abundant extracts made by the right hon. Gentleman from speeches, and the painful record of outrages which he disclosed, have, after making every conceivable allowance for exaggeration, proved ten times over the necessity for the vigorous action that has been lately taken by the Government. They proved that in the month of October things had arrived at such a pass that if nothing was done there would have been, practically, no Government in the country. If the Land League and those in command and direction of its affairs—whether they were the avowed Leaders or the un-avowed Leaders—had not been put down, the Government itself would have been put down by them. A long Amendment has been placed upon the Paper in the name of the hon. Member for the County of Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy). That hon. Member, who is a very able and capable Gentleman, skimmed rather rapidly over his long indictment. Some of the points he did not mention at all, others only very lightly; and, therefore, the position of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, when he rose to speak, was to deal not only with the speech of the hon. Member for Longford, but also, by anticipation, with many other topics. That speech has been just now supplemented by a speech which I have already characterized. Many of the topics in that speech were met by anticipation by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, and, no doubt, others will be dealt with later on by the Law Officers of the Crown. Now, even admitting that there may be exaggeration here and there, I think the House will be satisfied that it does not displace the substance of the case. I shall have to comment on the other matters which have been referred to in detail; but I think there is one thing which I ought to note now as to the remarks in reference to the prosecution of the newspapers, on which I think the right hon. Gentleman was misunderstood. I could not gather from what the Chief Secretary said that proceedings had been actually instituted; but that, as that was a question which might come before the Courts of Law, he abstained from going into the matter.

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)

Notice of action has been served.

MR. GIBSON

As to the observations which have just been made on the Ladies' Land League, I believe the hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment did not refer to the question at all; and, it being a very delicate subject, I am disposed to leave it to the Law Officers. [A laugh.] I know that if I had any Executive responsibility, I should approach the consideration of that question with all the tact and resolution I could possibly bring to bear on the matter. But I may say this, in passing, on the subject. The tenants of a friend of mine in the South of Ireland, whose tenants for generations had lived happily under the family, were induced to oppose him on the grounds that their costs would be paid by the Land League. Those costs were paid last September to the extent of £900. The Land League was proclaimed on the 20th of October last, and in December a cheque for the costs, amounting to £700, was paid by the person who is Secretary or Treasurer of the Ladies' Land League. I state the circumstances as they have been stated to me, and they seem to indicate a very direct connection between the Land League proper and the Ladies' Land League. The position of the Irish Executive under the Protection Act passed last year was this. Parliament being satisfied that a case had been made out, the Government were trusted with the great powers conferred upon them by the Protection Act. That being so, we must assume that all through the Government have acted under a sense of their distinct Executive responsibility; and, in the absence of any proof to the contrary, we are bound to assume that they have acted on sufficient grounds. As loyal men, we are, in my opinion, bound to believe that, and to accept the actions of the Executive, in the absence of proof to the contrary, as being within the powers of the law. We see nothing either in the Press or in Parliament to induce us to think there has been a violation of those powers. The speech we listened to last night from the right hon. Gentleman supplies proof over and over again of the necessity of the vigorous action taken by the Irish Executive. It was absolutely necessary for the right hon. Gentleman to make out his case by apt quotation. I accept that statement as proving the necessity for the present action of the Government, and I shall proceed to criticize what appears to me to be worthy of observation in the right hon. Gentleman's remarks. The statement of the right hon. Gentleman proves not only his case; it proves more than his case. It proves too much. It proves that the Executive might have acted long before they did in taking preventive action more effective and less drastic than the present. What is the language of the right hon. Gentleman in reference to this matter? What the Chief Secretary says is this—"It was a long time before we found out the true meaning of the speeches." Well, when the right hon. Gentleman was reading the extracts last night it occurred to me that it did not require any time at all to put the readiest and the aptest meaning on those speeches. Then the right hon. Gentleman says—"I take blame to myself that I did not see the full meaning of the speeches earlier."

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I am sure the right hon. and learned Gentleman does not wish to misinterpret what I said. The speeches I quoted were the speeches upon which we almost immediately took action. What I stated was that we had taken time to know what was the real meaning and intention of the speeches which were made before. The speeches which I actually quoted the Government almost immediately took action upon.

MR. GIBSON

Of course, I accept at once any correction of the right hon. Gentleman; but, at the same time, I feel tolerably strong on this question, for I had the privilege of hearing the right hon. Gentleman's speech last night, and I also read with great interest The Times report of the speech, and made from it the extract I am now reading. The sentence I last read is this—"I take blame to myself that I did not see the full meaning of the speeches earlier." I imagine the right hon. Gentleman referred to some speeches in respect of which he had not acted for a very considerable time. I am disposed myself to entirely acquit the right hon. Gentleman's sagacity. I think he does his intelligence, which is very great, considerable injustice; I did not see any difficulty whatever in apprehending the meaning of those speeches; and, considering that the right hon. Gentleman commented upon them last night without the slightest obscurity, I would say that his sagacity and intelligence were perfectly clear, but that he had not quite made up his mind for a considerable time as to how he would apply his intelligence in reference to particular matters. The right hon. Gentleman's explanation why he did nothing, and tried to do nothing, practically, against the Land League till October is conveyed in words which I will not attempt to paraphrase. The right hon. Gentleman said— We had to see that it was proved to us by experience, by facts, that the Land League was an intimidating organization, and we had that proof abundantly. That is why we acted at last, and it is also the reason why we did not act earlier. There can be no shadow of doubt, at all events, that that sentence contains the neatest and clearest proposition on the part of the Irish Executive why they did act when they did, and why they did not act before. In other words, they tell us that until October—the 20th of October—when the Land League was proclaimed to be an illegal confederacy, they had no proof to the satisfaction of the right hon. Gentleman that the Land League was an intimidating organization. Well, the right hon. Gentleman is a trusted and honoured Member of the Cabinet; and that being the statement applicable to the 20th of October, I read the following extract, dated January 6, 1881, from the Speech from the Throne, which describes the then existing position of the Land League— An extended system of terror has thus bean established, in various parts of the country, which has paralysed alike the exorcise of private rights and the performance of civil duties. Proposals will be immediately submitted to you for entrusting me with additional powers, necessary in my judgment not only for the vindication of order and public law, but likewise to secure, on behalf of my subjects, protection for life and property, and personal liberty of action. If the Ministry who advised Her Majesty to address Parliament in these words in January, 1881, did not then consider the Land League to be an "intimidating organization," I do not quite apprehend what is the meaning applied by the right hon. Gentleman to the word "intimidate." But the matter does not rest there, because there was the lengthy trial in December, 1880, and January, 1881, which we have not forgotten, called the State trial of "the Queen v. Parnell and others." That is the case in which, at great length, a powerful statement was made by my Friend the then Attorney General (Mr. Law) and the present Lord Chancellor of Ireland; and some of the most effective and powerful passages of that remarkable performance were those in which he described the terrorism which prevailed in the country owing to the action of the Land League and its Leaders, and there were some counts of the indictment which relied upon "Boycotting," a perfectly common and open occurrence at that time. That matter came, as I have said, before the Court on that occasion; there was the full Court of Queen's Bench in Dublin, and the record and the indictment before the Court. There were the statements of the Attorney General, the propositions of the Law Officers and of higher officials—that being a prosecution instituted not merely by the Irish Executive and the Irish Law Officers, but being a Cabinet prosecution. On that occasion Mr. Justice Fitzgerald, speaking in the name and with the authority of the Queen's Bench, said— If upon the evidence it appeared that the object of the Land League was to crush and drive out the landlords, and for that purpose to incite the tenants not to pay rent and to retake farms from which they had been evicted, and to prohibit others from taking farms, to frustrate the operation of the Queen's writ, and to carry out those objects on pain of social excommunication, or what was called 'Boycotting,' I have no hesitation in declaring from this Bench that the Irish Land League was an illegal confederacy. It is too clear for argument; the mere statement must carry conviction to every mind. On that occasion Mr. Law, the then Attorney General, conducted the prosecution, and stated there, in developing the history of the Land League, that it was not only an illegal and intimidating, but a disloyal organization, and that the farmer was merely a cat's-paw in the whole business. But the matter does not rest there, because I find in a Return dated January 16, 1881-—I suppose to corroborate and bear out the paragraph in the Queen's Speech which I have read—that as the Land League meetings, as held in the counties and provinces of Ireland, increased in number the number of outrages increased. Thus, in February there were 18 meetings and 8 outrages; in September the meetings were 32, the outrages 167; in October the meetings were 77, the outrages 168. Well, in December the meetings reached their maximum, 190, and the agrarian outrages were 867. Thus, the Government themselves, by their most authoritative utterances, show how outrages correspond with meetings, and that intimidation was one of the strongest weapons employed. I ask the right hon. Gentleman why, in the month of January, 1881, was not a proclamation issued, mentioning the character of the Land League, and warning well-disposed subjects of the Crown not to take part in it? I respect the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that you cannot make illegality or law by proclamation. But the object of a proclamation is this. To warn subjects what the law is, and if they pursue certain courses dangerous consequences may follow upon their action. Now, I ask, that being the legal effect of a proclamation, why was not that proclamation issued before October last? Why was not that proclamation issued in the month of January previously, when the Returns I have referred to were laid before Parliament? The effect of that might have been this. It is, no doubt, a matter of speculation, but a matter of very obvious speculation—almost as clear as that two and two make four; but that proclamation, if issued then, might have induced many a man to re-consider his position; it might have checked many persons who would weakly be drawn into evil courses. I admit that at that time the Government only had Common Law powers. But it cannot be too clearly known that the proclamation of the 20th of October last was issued under the executive powers of the Common Law, and not in the slightest degree deriving force from exceptional laws. It required no exceptional law at any time during the history of this country for a proclamation to be issued by the Executive Government. Next, passing from January, 1881, I will refer to the time, say March, 1881, when the Protection Act and the Arms Act were going through Parliament. I well remember both what the right hon. Gentleman. the Chief Secretary and the Home Secretary, who had charge of the Arms Act, said at that time—namely, that the ordinary powers of the law were defective. I recollect the impressive statement of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, the Chief Secretary, of the terrorism exercised in the villages and counties of Ireland, a statement in which I do not think there was exaggeration. The Home Secretary stated that the Land League was really Fenianism. The Lord President of the Council (Earl Spencer) stated that it was connected with sedition and rebellion. That being the case, and the Act of Parliament being passed, with such a clear representation of the objects of the Land League and the state of the country, why was there then no proclamation? There might have been some ground for delay in the month of January, in order to see the effect of the protective measures, and whether it would be necessary to issue a proclamation. But where is the justification for not doing so in the month of March, to warn well-disposed people against becoming members of the Land League? I ask also, and with more force, why were not the Protection Acts applied with more vigour at first? The figures which were supplied to us yesterday on the subject of the imprisoned "suspects" are very instructive on this point. At present there are 463 men in custody. In the first month of which there was a Return there were only 35; but those 35 men were all obscure and unknown—mere hewers of wood and drawers of water. We know a good deal about those who are now in prison. Why were these Acts at first used in such a hesitating, half-hearted way against humble men? Unquestionably that was not the way in which we were told they would be administered, or in which they could be administered efficiently. I do not say anything about the class of prisoners arrested; but Parliament was given to understand that a strong Act of Parliament was necessary, and that it would be administered with real effect, and therefore with vigour. I am bound to say—and I think there are many hon. Members who will agree with me in saying—this Act was not so administered. The right hon. Gentleman hardly touched on the matter at all; but the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister said—"it was necessary to proceed with caution after judicial inquiry." Well, I suppose they did proceed with caution; but they have now got some of the leading men of the country arrested, and as many as 20 were arrested only the other day in one night. I do not say that was unnecessary; but I do be- lieve that had 60, or 70, or 100 men—men who were known and who were in command of the organization—been arrested when the Act passed, affairs would have been very different at the present from what they are. I have never hesitated to say in public over and over again that, had the first administration of the Act been what Parliament intended—had its powers been vigorously used at the commencement—it would have been the kindest and best thing for the country. By this time the country would have been in a far better state than it is now, and far more quiet. What are the figures in support of my statement? The figures that have been distributed are most instructive. In January, 1881, the number of agrarian outrages reported was 448. Parliament then met. Parliament proceeded in the next month to enact that measure, and the fact was thoroughly well known in every town and village in Ireland. What was the result? The mere knowledge that these measures were in progress and about to become law reduced the number to 170 in February. In the month of March the Bill became law. The outrages in that month were reduced to 151, the very lowest figures for the year. The very month the Act became law there was a pause. The people expected that the strong and vigorous powers which had been given would be strongly and vigorously used, and that terrorism would be put down as a result of the power Par-ment had placed in the hands of the Executive. I have heard the matter discussed and debated by some of the most capable men in Ireland—men who had most intimate acquaintance with the country—and I have never heard a second opinion upon this question—that if these powers had been used at once and vigorously it would have been the kindest, best, and most merciful thing that could have been done. But the golden opportunity was allowed to pass. The people paused; they withdrew from outrages, which became little more than half their former number; but after tea days—a fortnight—three weeks going by without anything being done—at the end of the month a few unknown men—hewers of wood and drawers of water—were arrested. The people then came to the conclusion that the Government would not or could not use the Acts. What was the result? In the month of April the outrages had doubled the number of the previous month, and reached 308. From this things went on with steady increase to 373,416, and 511, the present figure. I think these figures contain within themselves a very remarkable argument; and therefore I am not satisfied with the statement made by the right hon. Gentleman. Whatever might have been his intention, or however anxious he might have been to administer Acts for the best interests of the country, I cannot arrive at the conclusion that it was done in the wisest and most statesmanlike way. I pass to another and later date. The right hon. Gentleman called attention to the speeches of Mr. Parnell at the Tyrone Election. He quoted from one speech which was made immediately after Parliament rose for the Recess, and considerably before the 20th of October last. After reading passages from one of those speeches, which I need not repeat, the right hon. Gentleman committed himself to this strong observation—"Directly I read the speech I confess I gave up all hope of a quiet winter." That being the state of affairs, why did he not warn the people by proclamation? Why did he not then take some of the vigorous action referred to? On the contrary, in some inexplicable way, a month after he says he had "given up all hope," he actually releases a considerable number of' "suspects,'' some of whom have not shown by their conduct any lively sense of gratitude for that attention. The Land League, as far as I can see, was allowed to develop, and nothing effective was done to check its development. The Land League Convention of September last has been referred to by some, and some speeches have been cited. I will not cite any; but all I can say is that some of the occurrences at that Convention clearly amounted to sedition. At all events, some members were guilty of sedition, and there is no doubt that the Land League was an illegal and intimidative organization. But, in spite of all that was occurring, matters were allowed to go on, and hardly a single thing was done until the 20th of October. It is true that a proclamation was issued pointing out the illegality of "Boycotting;" but that was only two or three days before the issue of the proclamation declaring the Land League to be illegal. Matters went on then until a remarkable and what I think an unfortunate day arrived—that is, the 20th of October last. On that day the proclamation of the Land League was made, that being the very day that the Land Court opened. If the officer of the Court had, like some other functionaries, proclaimed "the Land League is dead, long live the Land Court," he would have acted in accordance with historical precedents. I think it will be found on examination into the period I am discussing that the Land Act colours everything. The Executive in their action, the Ministers in their views and hopes, all are intimately biassed and coloured by the Land Act. Practically, the Government had staked their all on it. The Prime Minister had staked a great deal of his reputation and fame on it. I believe that the other Members of the Government did not know much about it. But, to a certain extent, the reputation of the Ministry was involved in the one Act of last Session. No human being, I suppose, excepting perhaps the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, could doubt that the Land League was one of the most powerful influences in the production of that Act. More than that, could anyone doubt that if we were discussing in this House the Land Act of last year—and I put it to every hon. Gentleman who may have used arguments against me on this matter—if we had been discussing this remarkable question with Ireland quiet; the Land League put down; with no outrages and no criminal agitation—has any man in this House a doubt that many of its clauses would not have been inserted? However, the Chief Secretary says that the Bill was due to the justice that always appears so eloquently in the perorations of the Prime Minister. But the Prime Minister himself, when he was making his speech on the Address, was a great deal more cautious in his language than the right hon. Gentleman. He said—"The Land Act was only warranted by the special circumstances of the case." That is very different from what the right hon. Gentleman suggested. I should myself say that the one excuse for the passing of the Land Act in its present form, and the way in which it was carried, would have been—what has not yet appeared—its success. I have myself done nothing to interfere with that success. It is now the law of the land. I am of opinion that it should be fairly administered and accepted by the tenants, and that they are entitled to every legitimate benefit, and their landlords are entitled to every fair consideration. But it must be remembered how the Act coloured the acts of the Executive; that when the Act was in Parliament we were constantly reminded that the time was one of great difficulty; that it was better to get judicial rents than none; and that we were between the Scylla of the Land League and the Charybdis of the Land Act. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright), "who has no particular affection for the landlords, pointed out in a letter he wrote last year that the state of the country was such that the landlords were fleeing for their lives. I call to mind that all the time the Land Act was under discussion the powers of the Common Law and the exceptional laws might have been in full operation. They could have been applied with vigour, and with certainly greater effect than they were in the month of April. The very month the Land Act was introduced the agrarian outrages in Ireland doubled, and it was found that the figure of increase went on with hardly any fluctuation till the 20th of October. We have it now upon the authoritative statement of the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain) himself, as we had it before from the inexorable logic of facts, that until the 20th of October the Government, as an act of policy, did not resolutely apply themselves to put down the Land League. They did not, although they had the judgment in "the Queen v. Parnell," although they had the Queen's Speech, although they had the statement made in Parliament on the passing of the Protection Act, although all this time the Land League was disturbing the peace of the country, ruining the landlords who had rights under the existing laws. With outrages increasing, and "Boycotting" in full operation, I ask, why was the Land League not put down before? The Chief Secretary has given no answer to that, but has applied himself with great effect to show that at the time he did take action it was absolutely necessary. That is all he admits. He, in effect, admits—"If we had not put down the Land League the Land League would have put down the Government." I have shown that the state of facts would have justified and, in fact, demanded that the Government should have taken action in the matter long before they did attempt to put down the Land League. The Prime Minister makes the observation that the Land Act brought about a crisis as regarded the Land League. That is a very true observation and a very forcible remark; but why did it bring about a crisis? It was because the Government elected that it should do so. The Government selected the occasion for bringing about the crisis—they selected the 20th of October for bringing it on. My argument is that at any time you could have brought it on, whether in January, in March, or September, and that you did not do so. The Prime Minister pointed out that in October, when they issued the "no rent" manifesto, the Land League had become something that no Ministry could have permitted to exist for a moment. I fully admit the force of the right hon. Gentleman's assertion, because no human being could justify that manifesto, and I am not surprised that, in speaking on this Amendment, no hon. Member has said anything in particular about it. The Home Rule Members have referred to it in a very cautious way, and have said that it was only intended to remain in force until the "suspects" were released. By that manifesto the tenant farmers of Ireland were advised, on the grounds of honour and patriotism, not to pay their rent until the "suspects" were released; but I have no doubt that they might have easily been persuaded that honour and patriotism required that they should not pay their rents for another 12 months. Where is the difference between telling a debtor or tenant that he may pay what he likes and that he should pay nothing? I am at a loss to see it. It was the open and distinct preaching of the Land League, announced over and over again, as stated in count after count of the indictment in the case of the "Queen v. Parnell," that the tenants should not pay their lawful debts, but were to pay what they liked instead of their lawful debts. What is the difference in principle of honesty or dishonesty between that and telling the tenant to pay nothing? The advice would be equally dishonest, and the weapons for carrying out that advice would be exactly the same in either case. There would be the same midnight terrorism, the same social ostracism applied equally to the tenant who violated the order to pay a fair rent and less than the contract rent, as there would be to support the ''no rent" programme. But then the Prime Minister said that the Land League was driven to desperation. Of course it was, because the Government elected that it should be driven to desperation. My argument has been all through—why did not the Government drive the Land League to desperation long before? I have, time after time, demonstrated by documents which bind the Government by their authority that they considered the Land League an illegal and intimidating association which was interfering with the liberty of the subject and preventing the administration of the law. Why were not they driven to desperation until the 20th of October, just when the Land Act came into operation? It is very hard to say what was the reason such a course was not adopted. We are left to speculation on the matter, and I do not like to speculate on any matters. The right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Chamberlain) has been a source of much comfort to us during the Recess by the great frankness with which he has spoken, and if I presumed to speculate how he came to deliver a certain speech, I would say that it was from a disposition to crow before he was out of the wood. He spoke on the 26th of October—the proclamation putting down the Land League was on the 20th. He must have been consoling himself with the thought that he had killed the Land League when he went on to make the speech he did on that occasion. I do not know whether there is a revised edition of the speech. My version was procured from the ordinary journals, with the commentaries and correspondence with which the public are familiar. The right hon. Gentleman said— To have stifled agitation at suet a time would have been to have prevented reform. I am inclined to ask, in a respectful way, what does that mean? because the only reform that could have been referred to at that time was the Land Act. I am inclined to think that the best way of arriving at the right hon. Gentleman's meaning is to read in the words "the Land League" and "the Land Act," and then the right hon. Gentleman's speech would read thus— To have stifled the Land League at that time would have been to have prevented the passing of the Land Act. I am aware that the right hon. Gentleman has, in the correspondence to which I have referred, stated that on this question he thinks he is at one with the Duke of Argyll; but, still, that is a sentence which seems to me to be perfectly clear and distinct as I have read it. Beading it in connection with the context, I do not see that any possible qualification can be grafted on these words. He said further— Had the agitation of the Land League been then suppressed the tenants of Ireland would have had no organization to fall hack upon. Now, bearing in mind that this was a speech delivered on the 26th of October, that the organization of the Land League was not suppressed until the very day that the Land Court was opened, I ask what is the meaning that nine persons out of every ten would put upon the words of the right hon. Gentleman? I think myself, as a matter of opinion, that it is wiser and more prudent in dealing with a country like Ireland to be a little cautious in making statements of that kind; and if I might presume even to a higher authority to make a similar observation, I would venture to suggest that some words uttered last night by the Prime Minister in reference to Home rule are open to some little criticism of a modest character. I notice that certain organs which are usually credited with some knowledge of the views of the Government say that the Prime Minister was misunderstood. That is the fate of a great many people in going through life. I do not know whether the Prime Minister was misunderstood or not; but I know what he said. I read that part of his speech with much attention, and it occurred to me to be a speech that meant anything or nothing. It might mean a good deal or it might mean very little. It was a speech of a telescopic character, which was capable of being either pulled out or shut up at will. Whether it was intended to be read by those who were in favour of local government in the sense that would satisfy the English, the Scotch, and the Welsh people, or whether it was intended to be read by those sagacious, intelligent, and clever Irish, who read between the lines and think whatever they like, is quite another thing. I should say, speaking with all humility, that the Prime Minister is on velvet in the matter, because if any person asserts that it is a speech in favour of Home Rule, the right hon. Gentleman may say—"No, I never said a word in favour of Home Rule; I merely said that it was a matter to be reserved for future consideration." Whereas, on the other hand, he might point to the words he used, and say that he intended that any proposition in favour of Home Rule should be considered in a broad and generous spirit. The words that the right hon. Gentleman used were— Until they devise some plan for separating these classes of subjects I do not see how we are to arrive at any effective judgment upon the merits of their proposal. I myself take an elevated view of things; but I have heard some gentlemen, who take a more mundane and humble view of the matter, say there are rumours of Dissolution in the air, and these statements are thrown out to be interpreted in various ways. I pass from the subject. I do not profess to understand it. I have read the speech with great closeness and attention, and, no doubt, the right hon. Gentleman, if he reads any of the newspapers, will have noticed that it has attracted a legitimate amount of attention. One word upon the Land Commissioners—I will not detain the House very much longer. The Land Commissioners are, of course, entitled to be spoken of with that respect which is due to officials appointed by Parliament as well as selected by the Government. I think that it was an unfortunate thing that the Commissioners did not open their Court with quiet dignity like all other Courts. Instead of that, before opening the Court at all, they issued an appeal to all the tenants of Ireland, telling them of the fine things they would get if only they would go into the Court; and they issued another notice, calling on them to take advantage of the Act at the earliest possible moment. I should like to know what would be thought of any other Court which appealed, not to all the classes of suitors—not to the whole people—but picked out one particular class, and appealed to them as the party for whom the Act was intended. The Act has inflicted grave injustice in its administration. The Commissioners take credit to themselves for having no pleadings in their Court. I do not want pleadings in a technical sense, but in the Land Act of 1870 there was this machinery. When a man under that Act made a claim for compensation for improvements, he was bound, as common sense dictated, and as was required by rules, to serve some few weeks in advance a statement of the particulars of his demand, in order that he might not fall into exaggeration at the moment. That was common sense. What happened in the new Land Court—not in a claim for a few pounds by a man who was going away, but in a business which was to take away the landlord's property for ever, or, at least, for the 15 years? A tenant suitor was allowed without giving a single inkling of his case, or a single particular, to go into Court, and say whatever passed through his head at the moment. The landlord may not know how to meet the case, for he has no idea of what it is to be. I do not think you can say that the absence of all rules requiring the giving in advance of some particulars is a reasonable way of administering the Act on the part of the Head Commissioners. I blame the Head Commissioners for not themselves inaugurating the Act of Parliament. Parliament did not trust the Assistant Commissioners, but the Head Commissioners. They were appointed by Parliament, and it was reasonable for Parliament to expect that they would, at the outset, administer the Act themselves, instead of sending a body of gentlemen over the country, unknown to Parliament, the creation of the Executive, and that without in the slightest degree setting an example to guide their proceedings. Now, there is one matter that has been referred to—I mean the Londonderry Election. I shall only make a brief allusion to it. There is no one who is more pleased than I am to see my hoc. and learned Friend the Solicitor General for Ireland in this House, and I am gratified, in common with our Profession generally, to see him occupy his present position. But still, in the performance of my duty, I must make a short comment upon the matter without any offence to my hon. and learned Friend. That election, as far as I can find out—and I have read extracts from many speeches—was conducted from beginning to end by the Solicitor General and his friends, not by pointing out the merits of the Land Act, as stated by the Prime Minister; that would be quite fair; not by pointing out the operation of its clauses; but it was by pointing out how it was administered by the Government. It was pointed out that the present Government had the selection of the powerful hands that could administer it; and it was pointed out further, which is a fact open to observation, that these later Assistant Commissioners had absolutely no stability of tenure; that they were called into existence by the Government for a single year; and if, at the end of the year, they were not found to give satisfaction, if they did not come up to the views and wishes of the Government, those gentlemen could be quietly dropped out and find A. B. and C. D. appointed in their places. The Solicitor General pointed out this circumstance, that these men were dependent upon the Government of the day for their appointments. I ask this question—Is that a circumstance which can leave these men independent and impartial? I shall read one passage from one of the speeches of my hon. and learned Friend at Cookstown, on November 26. He said— ''He did not say that the administration of the Act was perfect, for he had seen decisions in which he did not concur and of which he did not approve. He had seen in some cases where the Sub-Commissioners reduced the rents it appeared to him they had not reduced them sufficiently. But what were they to do? They could not control that, and they could only take care that proper and efficient persons were appointed under the Act, and if these persons went astray in point of law there was an appeal. I ask if the fair meaning of these sentences to the people to whom they were addressed was not this:—"I am of opinion that the reductions of rent, large as they are"—and samples of the reduction were sown broadcast through the county—"are not large enough. Many of the Sub-Commissioners are appointed only for a year. I am a Member of the Irish Executive, and I shall take care, as a Member of the Irish Executive"—[Mr. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: That is how the people took it.]—"that proper persons shall be appointed." I say that is the construction which might readily be put on these words in the country. [An hon. MEMBER: It was put.] That is the only extract I shall read, and I do not want to go more into detail. I regret that these topics were introduced into the election. I think it was very unfortunate, and I very strongly feel that it is open to grave observation. The Prime Minister said the most competent, the most experienced, and the most impartial men were selected as Assistant Commissioners. I may say that is the view of the Government. Has the Government not got the selection of the conditions and the salary of the appointments? And how could they expect to get most competent, experienced, and impartial men for the exercise of these grave judicial duties at a tenure of office for 12 months and a bulk sum of £ 1,000? The Chief Secretary said he appointed men who would inspire confidence. Is it confidence in one side only? Did the right hon. Gentleman insist on selecting men who would be really impartial as between landlord and tenant? [Mr. W. E. FORSTER: Yes.] Will the right hon. Gentleman say, in this House, that he believes there are five men in the list who do not look more to the tenant than, to the landlord? [Mr. W. E. FORSTER was understood to say "Yes."] I venture to say he cannot, and that he will not. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Yes.] I am really very much surprised the Prime Minister should say so. However, I have stated a proposition which is very widely believed, that many of the appointments that were made of Assistant Commissioners were of a strongly partizan character. I should like to know, to select two recent names, why Mr. Morrison and Mr. Weir were appointed? Mr. Morrison had taken the chair at a meeting of the Solicitor General's electoral compaign. He is a man who had given the strongest evidence that could be given against the landlords and for the tenants. He has identified himself with the canvass for the Solicitor General, and he has been appointed since that election. Who is Mr. Weir? Why was he appointed? Was he appointed because he was the most competent, most experienced, and most impartial man for the exercise of the great judicial duties on a tenure of 12 months? He is a gentleman who has or had a very respectable shop in Cooks- town. He has no land—simply a small piece of town park. But he was an active agent of Mr. Litton; he was an active agent of the present Member for Tyrone (Mr. Dickson); and he was very active on the side of the Solicitor General in Derry. [Mr. O'DONNELL: Bribery.] I now ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland can he state, in the face of Parliament, that that appointment was made not knowing that Mr. Weir was a person who had a strong bias in favour of particular views; and can he suggest that this man was appointed as coming within the Prime Minister's description of "most competent, experienced, and impartial?" The Prime Minister says we have not yet had full experience of the Land Act; and that is very true; but we have had considerable experience. I am not going into any cases specially; but I wish to point generally to the class of decisions reducing old rents. The Bessborough Commission, which we were told by the right hon. Gentleman was the foundation of the Land Act, assumed that rents which had been standing for 15 or 20 years would not be changed by the Act. I make the right hon. Gentleman a present of his 15 or 20 years; and I say now that rents which have been standing for 50 or 60 years have been changed by the Land Act. The landlords have met this Bill in a thoroughly fair and reasonable spirit. They have not only passed resolutions, but have circulated among their tenants statements showing the benefits conferred by the Act. They have given voluntary reductions, they have met their tenants fairly, and their agents with good nature have done exactly the same. I am afraid that sometimes valuators have been deterred by fear from supporting their employers' interests. This Act of Parliament is, in fact, being administered in many places in an atmosphere of terror. What did I read in a paper a few days since? At Kilrush, on January 4, a Mr. Dalton stated to the Court that he was unable to get a valuator, and he could not value himself. The right hon. Gentleman, I think, is aware of the fact that Kilrush is the centre of a district where there is terror. The landlords have to submit to having their cases litigated in counties where there is this terror. Now, we have never been told upon what principles the Assistant Commis- sioners have been acting. It is true that Mr. Baldwin has stated that they had certain principles before them; but he forbore to enumerate them. In the absence of any such statement we have to guess, and most people in Ireland have guessed, that the principles on which they are going are two—to bring the rents as near Griffith's valuation as possible, or wherever that standard is not deemed suitable to take 25 per cent off. There are only a few decimals separating the decisions of all these Sub-Commissions, and, having regard to the law of averages, and to the doctrine of chances, in the absence of any common principle or understanding—of course, I will not say common instructions—something very like a miracle must guide the Sub-Commissioners in their deliberations. The Prime Minister seems to be of the opinion that nothing was said in this House about old rents not being interfered with. The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Mr. John Bright) had uttered the following words in reference to Clause 8 of the Land Act:— My view of the operation of that clause is that, in reality, the rents in Ireland will, for the most part, in nine cases out of ten, he fixed very much as they are now. It does not follow that there will be no difference in rents. Increases which are harsh and unjust will no longer take place. Well, the Prime Minister says that was a mere opinion; but it was the opinion of a Cabinet Minister, uttered for the purpose of inducing the House to look favourably upon the clause. It was presented to the House as an influence or an incitement to accept the clause. Then comes the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who said, while the Bill was still a Bill— I think this measure will be justified by what will happen, and I think its final result, within a few years, will be that the landowners of Ireland, small and large, will be better off than they are at this moment. I do not pretend to penetrate into the recesses of the right hon. Gentleman's mind; but unquestionably anyone listening to that would assume that the landlords of Ireland would not have their rents substantially reduced. The right hon. Gentleman, when the Bill was before the House, never made any statement to alter the impression produced by those words. But what did he say last night?— It will, as I believe, turn out that the rents were higher in Ireland than many in the House expected. The information I got many years ago during the Famine, and which I have tried since to check, made me believe that the rents in Ireland were high. Why, I ask, did not the right hon. Gentleman make that statement before the Bill became law? He heard Minister after Minister utter opinions as to the probable effect of the measure; and he heard its opponents say over and over again that the landlords did not, as a rule, exact the full amount that they might exact, and that the rents were not high. The right hon. Gentleman allows these statements to be made in his presence, and he allows the Bill to become law, yet retains in his mind this fact which he says he has known for years. It would have been fairer and better for the right hon. Gentleman's own reputation had he stated then frankly to the House of Commons what he said last night; and, hearing the statements I have referred to, I think it would have been reasonable and fair to have made the statement he has now made then, and not when it is too late. The Government, in the Speech from the Throne and in the speech of the Prime Minister, have recorded their hope that in the state of Ireland there will shortly be an improvement, and I do not desire to dissent in any way from the expression of that hope. I quite recognize that in Ireland a bountiful harvest is an immense factor in the question of prosperity and tranquillity, and we have had such a harvest. I am glad, also, to see from an analysis of the figures that there has been some slight improvement as regards terrorism. The Winter Assizes also seem to show that, to some extent, there has been a movement in the direction of law and order; but until we have the results of the Spring Assizes before us it would not be wise to base too great a reliance upon that. I was glad to hear from the Chief Secretary that, according to his two last confidential Reports, there are marked signs of improvement. I am bound, however, to say that my own experience is not that the payment of rent has been generally re-established. I believe there has been a return to the practice of paying rent in some places; but in others the state of affairs is very bad—worse, indeed, than previously.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I am sorry to interrupt; but I ought to say that when I spoke of confidential Reports I was speaking much more of the last than the one before.

MR. GIBSON

If the payments of rents were voluntary payments, if they were made in deference to good feeling, it would be more hopeful; but, unfortunately, the payments have to be got by process and judgment. I admit, however, that we are bound to pay very great attention and respect to what falls from the Chief Secretary, and I am not disposed to review his statements in that matter in a critical spirit. The first glance at the Returns of outrages does not suggest much ground for hope or improvement, inasmuch as we find that there were 448 agrarian outrages in January, 1881, and 479 in January, 1882. The general outrages in January, 1881, numbered 747, while in January, 1882, they were 811. But analyzing the nature of these offences, and going into particulars, there are grounds for saying that mitigating circumstances exist. I admit before everything that if the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister is justified in his statement that the Land League is not only confronted, but broken, that this result is so great, although it may not be yet very apparent, that it is entitled to rank very high as a sign of improvement. The Land League appears unquestionably to have been—if not killed altogether, to have descended to a lower groove, with lower agents. At first it adopted a kind of disguise in its representations. Its command was—"Thou shalt pretend to be honest;" but lately it has said—"Thou shalt steal." What Ireland wants above everything else is peace and good government, and that is the reason that I am particularly disposed to regret the possible construction that may be placed upon the speech of the Prime Minister last night. Now, that the Government are trying to kill one dangerous agitation in Ireland—that of the Land League—by words that are susceptible of various meanings, possibly to call another agitation into new life would be one of the worst disasters that could happen to the country. Surely, if by the language used by the Prime Minister these men are led on to an agitation which may, as many agitations have done, result in sedition, in rebellion, and subsequent civil war, the responsibility of the Prime Minister is of the very gravest kind. Most unquestionably, as pointed out last night by my right hon. and learned Friend and Colleague (Mr. Plunket), the effect of the words of the Prime Minister, whether intended or not, was to excite a hope never intended to be satisfied. It may get to be very serious. I take no desponding view of the future of Ireland. I protest, and have always protested, against any despair on this question. I shall vote, without hesitation, against the Amendment of the hon. Member for Longford; and I believe in my heart that if the affairs of the country be administered with sympathy, and with justice, with firmness, and with courage, we shall yet see a happy, a prosperous, and a tranquil Ireland.

MAJOR O'BELRNE

said, that recently he went down to the counties of Roscommon and Leitrim to watch the operation of the Land Act, and to see how the Sub-Commissioners performed their duties. He found them extremely painstaking, and gave themselves a great deal of trouble about the matters brought before them, and had a fair knowledge of their work. One member of the Sub-Commission, however, he was informed, knew nothing whatever about the work, remained perfectly silent in Court, and was quite useless. He should say that, so far as he saw, a large proportion of the Commissioners had no knowledge whatever of agricultural matters, being taken haphazard by the Chief Secretary on the recommendation of Members of Parliament, which was no recommendation to anyone who knew anything. They valued farms in six or seven hours that a practised valuer would take six or seven days to value. Such helter-skelter work as that could not be satisfactory either to the landlord or the tenant. It was most unjust to all parties concerned, and must lead to such a number of appeals as would overpower the Court. The Chief Secretary wrote a letter to the papers some days ago saying that these Sub-Commissioners received no instructions as to how they were to act. That letter most people in Ireland disbelieved. Of course, the Chief Secretary might not have given them any instructions; but from the consistent manner in which, the rents had been reduced to the Ordnance valuation by them in all parts of the country, it was clear that they were acting upon a suggestion of the Central Commission. The Prime Minister had said that the Land League were carrying out a policy of public plunder. The Land League, at any rate, was straightforward and fair. Mr. Parnell said at the outset that the landlords would be only wise if they took Ordnance valuation at 20 years' purchase for the farms. He thoroughly agreed in that, and was very sorry that the proposal of the Land League was not carried out. The way in which this Land Act was worked was thoroughly dishonest and unfair to the landlords. He hoped that it would collapse and come to a deadlock, for he did not believe in any useful reform which inflicted gross injustice on any class of people. With regard to the Coercion Acts, he thought that a good many hon. Members would agree with him that if the Chief Secretary only knew his own mind for two days running, which he did not, and had shown a little more resolution and determination in applying the ordinary law of the land before coercion was introduced, it would have been amply sufficient to meet any difficulty they had to encounter in Ireland. From first to last the Irish Executive had been feeble, vacillating, irresolute, and thoroughly incompetent, their conduct had caused the greatest disgust in Ireland, and the sooner a clean sweep was made of them the better.

MR. DALY

said, he wished to give his opinion of the Land Act, not as a landlord or a tenant, but as one who was anxious for the prosperity of Ireland. He was one of those who, though not inclined to take a pessimist view of most things, intended to support the Amendment, because he could not agree with the statement in the Address which thanked Her Majesty for informing them that the condition of Ireland exhibited signs of improvement and that justice had been administered. Both those statements were, in his opinion, inaccurate. The Premier seemed to rely upon two means for promoting loyalty in Ireland—first, the Land Act, which was to influence the people of Ireland by making them prosperous; and, secondly, repressive measures. When he voted for the Land Act—as he did from first to last—he had no conception of the many points in which it was incomplete. The first objectionable feature in the Land Act was the delay. It was impossible, under the existing circumstances of the administration of the Act, for its benefits to be obtained in any reasonable length of time. The staff of Sub-Com- missioners was ridiculously inadequate. The great defect was that there was no provision that relief should be afforded to a tenant from the time of his originating notice. At present, owing to the small number of Sub-Commissioners and the number of applications, a man was debarred from relief for a long time until his case was reached. He hoped the Government would consider whether such an amendment could not be made as would enable relief to be granted from the date of the originating notice. On the question of the arrears of rent he thought some amendment was also required. He had heard the Prime Minister say the other night that the reductions of rent effected up to the present averaged 232 per cent. Now, he had spoken to many land valuers on the subject of a fair average reduction, and the almost unanimous opinion was that there ought to be nothing less than a reduction of 30 per cent. In considering the question of arrears it ought to be borne in mind that the tenant had been paying a great deal more than the capital sum of the arrears. As a trader, he had frequently been compelled by law under the composition and liquidation clauses of the Bankruptcy Act to take a small part of his claim and yet to give a receipt in full. Frequently the men who had thus taken advantage of the Act afterwards rose to a better position than himself. He did not see why there should be such an exceeding tenderness with the landlord over the business man, and why the State should not compel the landlord to accept a portion of his claim as payment in full. With regard to leases, he thought that great discontent was now caused by permitting them to remain in existence in some cases. He did not think that any consideration was due to the landlords, for their conduct had been selfish and dishonest. He was suprised to hear approval of their conduct from Ministers of the Crown, when, to his own knowledge, they had been the most grinding, thirsting, rapacious, and dishonest body of men in Ireland. They had been more unreasonable than the most unreasonable of the tenants. They did not recognize the inevitable; they did not recognize that the tenure of land was a question that should be settled either by the Government or by a revolution; they did not recognize that in this 19th century the state of things which existed long ago would not now be tolerated. He believed that the bulk of the people of Ireland were inclined to do their duty, and that the disturbing element must be attributed to the conduct of the landlords. Having made these observations on the Land Question, he would now refer to the Act passed under the title of the Protection of Life and Property Act, commonly called the Coercion Ant. A more singular spectacle was never presented by a country subject to a so-called Constitutional Government than was presented by Ireland to-day. It was divided into seven districts, presided over by five Governors, who were more like the Satraps of an Eastern Empire than magistrates holding office under a Constitutional Government. The whole country was a network of spies and informers-Even the sanctity of private life was not respected. Letters addressed to persons suspected of national proclivities were intercepted and opened. He held in his hand a letter enclosed in an envelope, addressed by a child in a convent at Norwich to her sister, resident in Cork. It had contained pictures such as one child would send to another. Her sister was living with her father in Cork, who held a leading position there. That letter had been broken open, and when it reached its destination it was found to contain, instead of pictures, a gentleman's bank-book. What he wanted to deduce from that incident was this—that the amount of business involved in opening letters must have been great indeed to have given rise to such a mistake. It was a lamentable state of things, and no improvement could be expected from a Government which would lend itself to such practices. The Speech of Her Majesty stated that justice was administered with great rapidity. The Prime Minister also mentioned that justice had revived in Ireland. It was true it had revived, but it had revived in a very melancholy form. He would not say it had revived in the shape of packed juries, because that would be an insult to those who composed them; but it had revived by a system of carefully selected juries. He would refer to an instance which had come under his own observation. At the Cork Winter Assizes 200 men were empanelled to serve as jurymen under heavy penalties. They were men in business, and were required to attend in Court at a time most inconvenient to them on that account. When they did so man after man, as his name was drawn from the ballot-box, was objected to and told to stand aside; and he saw men standing there who were thus branded as perjurers, and not to be trusted to give a verdict according to their conscience, simply because they were men of national and patriotic sentiments, and Catholics, while the first Protestant who presented himself was told to go into the box. He (Mr. Daly) had no interest in promoting disturbance in Ireland—he should be glad to go back to the former days of prosperity; but he felt convinced that that conduct towards the jurymen of Cork would never be forgotten, and that it would always be remembered how they had boon treated by a Constitutional Government. lie would yield to no man in condemnation and abhorrence of those wicked and cowardly outrages which had disgraced the country; but he felt satisfied that if that insult had not been offered to the citizens of Cork the verdicts would have gone a different way. Then there was the injustice of the sentences passed in many cases. There was a ease of a man named Habernon, who had been found guilty of an assault; he was sentenced to imprisonment for five years—a sentence quite incommensurate with his offence, which, anywhere else, would have been punished by a sentence of 12 months' imprisonment. With reference to "Boycotting," he maintained that the system was first originated by the landlords, who, if refused by a trader for a vote at an election, passed the word round not to deal with him. If unaccompanied by violence or intimidation, he looked upon "Boycotting" as a perfectly fair weapon to be used by the farmers in their struggle against the landlords. His experience in Parliament had been very short; but he had entered it as a thorough and sincere Liberal, and in the belief that the present Government was one which possessed the highest power for good, and would work better than any other. But, unfortunately, they commenced their career with the imposition of a Coercion Act; and he sat in his place night after night, and saw with what evident disinclination many hon. Members below the Ministerial Gangway supported the Government in that measure; and they had only assented to it upon the assurances of the Government that it was absolutely necessary, and also that when passed it would be sparingly and mercifully applied. He maintained that in the operation of the Irish Coercion Act every one of those hon. Members had a right to feel grievously disappointed. The whole system of government now pursued in Ireland ought to make every English and Scotch Liberal blush for shame. The Government had been halting between two stools—they had been trying to please everybody, they had been too tender to the landlord class, and they had accepted too readily the over-coloured accounts given of the state of things in Ireland by the English newspapers. In Ireland the condition of things was grievous. Was it not true that the liberties of Members of the House had been outraged; that hundreds of Her Majesty's subjects in Ireland were detained in prison without trial or the right of Habeas Corpus; that the liberties of the Press, the right of free speech, of public meeting, and of lawful constitutional agitation no longer existed in that country; and that an effort had been made by the Government further to demoralize the Irish people by the issue to the police of a Circular desiring them to procure secret information under the inducement of rewards, coupled with the concealment of the names of the persons giving such information? Believing firmly that this indictment against the Government was true, he must vote for the Amendment.

MR. FITZPATRICK

said, he desired to approach the Irish Question, not from the position of a landowner, but from that of a British citizen and taxpayer and of a loyal subject. He was disheartened and almost humiliated at the cavalier and jejune manner in which Ireland had been noticed in the Address. Was the country in such a state that nothing could be said about it; or was it either because of the ignorance which prevailed upon the Treasury Bench of all Irish affairs, or else because that country, even in her death-throes, was being utilized as a Party battle-ground for English, politicans? The Government had been slowly drifting from bad to worse. The Prime Minister, when he started his political campaign, declared, he believed in one of his Mid Lothian speeches, that there was in Ireland a feeling of comfort and satisfaction hitherto unknown in that country. Then came the time when the Land League rose into power, and after a certain interval had elapsed the leaders of that organization were put upon their trial, and that trial, as everyone expected, proved abortive. Then came the demand by the Government for the Coercion Act, which was eventually brought in. But, even after that Act was passed, he must thoroughly concur with the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) in saying that it was with a velvet hand that it was at first applied. Now, however, it required 40,000 men to keep the country in a state of quiet. The Executive were obliged to retain in prison 500 men, and thus Ireland had been subjected to a policy which he might describe as one of whipping and kissing alternately. When he considered the way in which Ireland had been treated, he was reminded forcibly of the case of a man who had gone blind, and who started on his travels with the assistance of a little dog, both, of them feeling very much at sea. The Chief Secretary, if he might say so, was like that little dog. Well, the poor man attempted to cross the road, and sometimes he succeeded and sometimes he got a fall, and that, he thought, was the way in which the Chief Secretary had proceeded in administering the affairs of Ireland. It would be wise on the part of the right hon. Gentleman if he would at once, or as soon as possible, now that he had placed himself in this false position, endeavour to extricate himself as speedily as he could. The Attorney General, in 1880, had delivered a remarkable Charge, declaring participation in the Land League movement almost, if not quite, within the Criminal Law. And yet a responsible Minister of the Crown, in a speech made by him at Liverpool, said, or rather used words which implied that he gave, if not an actual, yet a qualified support to an organization which his own Attorney General declared criminal. In 1880 the Attorney General for Ireland distinctly stated in a most conscientious and honest Charge which he delivered during the State Trials that a certain organization called the Land League was an illegal conspiracy, and that all who joined or approved this, or who joined for the purposes that he named, would be accessories to a criminal offence or criminals themselves; and yet a Member of the Government at Liverpool, in 1881, used words which to all unbiassed minds conveyed the impression that he gave a qualified, if not an actual, approval of the objects of that organization. Further, during the trial, the Attorney General quoted a very remarkable sentence of the speech of Mr. Boyton, in which he said, "The people are bound to bring down the rents" and make the land "cheap enough for the Government to buy." Very soon after this statement, that hitherto uncontemplated measure, the Land Act, was brought in, carrying out in its operation the first part of the programme—"the reduction of rents." We were told that it would only be applied to rack-rented estates; but soon after it had begun to work and was reducing the value of rentals universally, a very able letter from the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) pointed out that the object of the Government was "a revolution on the cheap." That statement had never been challenged or contradicted. Finally, to put the pinnacle on the temple, there was issued quite lately a pamphlet, purporting to be official, in which these ominous words occurred— The landlord who is wise will remember he has no probable purchasers but his tenants. The purchasing public will for each estate be limited to the tenants upon it. The landlord must sell to them or not at all. This compulsory sale to one person was enforced by the Land Act of 1881. Then, on page 9 of the same pamphlet, the "revolution on the cheap" theory was carried out in these words— Of course, if the rent to which the tenant is liable be an exorbitant rent, he would have no interest in his holding, and he could not obtain the advance of more than two-thirds from the Commission; but we presume that where an estate is to be sold in the Landed Estates Court, the tenants, if their rents be really exorbitant, will before the sale apply to the Land Commission to have a fair rent fixed. That meant that the value of the farm must be first depreciated, and then sold to the only possible purchaser, the tenant. This paragraph ended by these words— Until it is brought about (that is, the en forced sale), it is idle to expect permanent peace, stability, and respect for the rights of property in Ireland. That was a covered threat, and was meant as such. Now all these were curious and instructive statements, and, taken in connection with the other speeches, formed, in his opinion, a very strong chain of evidence that the Government had throughout connived at a vast scheme to reduce the value of land in Ireland, in order that it might be eventually bought at the lowest possible rate by the present occupiers. He would not say that was so. He would, however, maintain that the Government were on the horns of this dilemma, and that they were culpable, whichever might have been their line of policy. He did not see how Government could extricate itself from the crux in which it had been placed by the speeches and actions of responsible men. He did not intend to weary the House by making a long speech, or by quoting the number of outrages and examining into the increase or decrease of these atrocities. They saw that the Chief Secretary himself only had a hope that they were decreasing, and he (Mr. Fitzpatrick) was afraid hope had told the usual flattering tale. No one would welcome a change for the good more than he should. No one more earnestly desired to see peace and prosperity return to his native land than he did; but until there had been a permanent steady improvement, he did not consider Government was justified in dangling these ephemeral changes in the state of Ireland before the eyes of the nation as actual signs of better days. They were told there were bright spots on the horizon, and that the dawn of peace and tranquillity was breaking. If there was a dawn at all, it was a lurid and a red one, and he knew that all who had intimate intercourse with the people predicted a more acute crisis in the disease of anarchy. In spite of the Chief Secretary's optimism, he (Mr. Fitzpatrick) was afraid the state of things in Ireland was not improving. The other day a tenant farmer in his county told him he had not paid his rent, and did not intend to pay. No power on earth, the man said, would make him pay until the sheriff's agents were seizing his cattle. If he did so before that event occurred his life would not be safe—he would be shot either on the roads or in the streets of the village. In fact, he would not be safe even in his house; but would meet the fate of the Czar of Russia, who was blown up even while surrounded by his guards. That illustrated clearly the state the county had come to. As a matter of fact, most of the farmers were too frightened to pay any debts at all, and some were so emboldened by impunity and the impotence of Government that they would never pay. Charges of listlessness had been preferred against the landlord; but there wore two reasons why they were obliged to assume a, so to speak, negative attitude. One was because the words, the exhortations, of the Ministry had up to a month ago restrained them from action; and, secondly, because the delays which were inevitable in the present unsatisfactory state of the Law of Recovery of Kent prohibited their moving earlier or more rapidly. The words were used in 1880 by the Prime Minister when he stated that "an eviction was equivalent to a sentence of death;" and the Chief Secretary, after the Compensation for Disturbance Bill, implored the landlords not to enforce their rights. The Prime Minister again, in 1881, stated that "he acquitted them, and stated they had not exacted their full legal rights." Now, how could the landlords of Ireland be blamed for not having actively and rigidly enforced the Law of Eviction which they were told was equivalent to death? And yet so rapid had been the changes of front in this kaleidoscopic Ministry that 12 months after that statement landlords were urged to evict wholesale, county by county, and district by district, and were stigmatized as listless and cowardly for not doing so. These hints appeared daily almost in December from inspired sources, and were couched in distinct semi-official language. If the whole state of land tenure and recovery of rent had been changed, and an ejectment meant no longer a death-warrant, the Government ought to have said so, and ought to have explained to those landlords who still clung to the old relations between tenant and landowner that the sentimental semi-feudal days were gone by, never to return. Every class in Ireland would then realize the new departure, and pos- sibly the active exercise of legal rights might bring back a consciousness to the minds of the people that there were such things as law and order. But what he was most concerned with was that the House should understand the danger of increased and heavy taxation into which the laissez-aller attitude of the Government had brought the nation at large. They were warned on all sides in 1880 of the perils before them. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) said, in one of his speeches in that year, referring to the Boycott expedition, "every pound of potatoes, every turnip, would cost the Government 1s.," and another gentleman of importance stated— We will so organize the counties as that they will want extra police in every county in Ireland. Did the Government, on these warnings, take any measures? Did they do anything at that time? No; the ordinary law was supposed to be sufficiently effectual. What was the result? That now, a little more than 12 months afterwards, instead of the ordinary law, we had a Coercion Act, stringent, but even now incapable of dealing with the vast organization that had sprung up. We had 40,000 soldiers where 16,000 was the ordinary establishment. They had to be hurried here and there, the cost of their victualling and conveyance was enormous; while, owing to the short-service system and the huge number of recruits and invalids, the force itself had to be augmented weekly with regiments of tried men, Guards and Marines. We had then about 4,000 extra police, extra magistrates, and officials, while last, but not least, we had that gigantic babe, the Land Act, the offspring of that loose young person, Miss Land League. Its nurses, he was told on good authority, cost the country roughly £100,000 a-month, making £1,200,000 a-year; and as, apparently, those most interested in its health and welfare were to pay nothing, he could, therefore, only conclude that the unfortunate British taxpayer would have to recoup the Exchequer all the costs of the nurture. He had spoken so far of the past and the present, and would now speak of the possible future. That all this waste of money, this misery, and anarchy, owed its origin, in a great extent, to the want of knowledge or indecision of the Ministry there could be little doubt; but what was to be the outcome? Were we to go blundering on at haphazard, with a vast organization having the disruption of the Empire as the ultimate object always increasing in power, and never checked, only mollified for a minute by having some sop thrust into its maw? To illustrate the objects of the organization, he would quote the heading of a paragraph in The Irish World of January 28, a paper regularly sold in Ireland— Irish Democracy.—Events that mark the rising spirit of the people.—A year of wonderful progress.—Privilege after privilege of the territorial aristocracy swept away.—March of ideas going bravely on.—Law a perfect mockery of justice.—The nation at the mercy of an ass in a lion's skin. And then it finished by saying what the new year promised. It promised a great deal—among other things, an Irish Re-public based on ideas prevalent in America at this moment. Now, he was not going to give any opinion on the ultimate issue of the land war; but as long as he paid taxes, remained the subject of a Constitutional Kingdom, and was a unit in the social life of this country, he and his fellows were entitled to protection by the State from rebellion and sedition. Had those principles been carried out by the present Government? He maintained not. Was there any hope of their being able to carry them out? Apparently not, as no mention was made of the initiation of any scheme to place matters in Ireland on a better footing, or to check in any way the spread of this awful disease of anarchy and Communism. They were told there was light showing here and there; that convictions were obtained, and that rents were being paid. The light could only be distinguished by an official eye; the convictions were obtained in a commercial centre much damaged by the present agitation, the juries being composed of tradesmen, not of agriculturists; and rents were being paid at the point of the bayonet. But there was a still greater danger in the future. The whole labouring population of Ireland had been during the winter, was now, and would be, to a large extent, unemployed. They had received no share of the landlords' goods. They knew they could get nothing out of the tenant farmers, and that the Land Act—that "piece of bad law and bad policy," as it was called by an American Republican paper—had rendered it almost impossible for anyone except the present occupier to obtain freehold, or even temporary possession of land. The labourers must emigrate or starve. The ruined squires could no longer employ them; the penurious tenant farmers would not. They had no means to go to America. They must come to the large towns in Scotland and England, where they would largely increase the poor rates, glut the market with cheap and unskilled labour, and eventually endanger the whole social organization by their enforced expatriation, and the fact that they had no true position in the body politic. Englishmen had thrown over all the old principles of political economy; and as they had suffered in the past year and were suffering in the present, so would their fault—he had almost said crime—come directly home to them in the immediate future. All men in Ireland were tottering on the verge of ruin—squires, tradesmen, artizans, and labourers; he alone who hold a grip of the harvest was flourishing. To serve him and save themselves Her Majesty's Government had steeped his land in misery; but the ruin would eventually come on their own heads. England would not care to go on suffering in pocket and in reputation; but before long she would awake to a consciousness of how she had been juggled by those who should have been the first to study the interests, the honour, and the prosperity of their fellow-subjects.

MR. O'SHEA

said, that, while acknowledging with admiration and gratitude the efforts which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had made for the relief of the people in the terrible years of famine, he still felt bound to criticize some portion of his policy. He very much regretted that the right hon. Gentleman should have spurned the advice which he (Mr. O'Shea) and some other hon. Members had given him on the passing of the Land Act to let out the "suspects." He could have done it with safety, because if he had wanted them again he would have known where to find them. If the right hon. Gentleman had done that, in his opinion, he would have done more to cut the ground from beneath the feet of those who did not wish to see the Land Question settled in Ireland by its passing, and who were striving against its acceptance by the people, than anything else. Hon. Friends of his, Conservatives as well as Liberals, thought that would have been the best course to pursue. He also held that the Irish Executive was guilty in not insisting on the strictest discipline on the part of the police, and on every occasion. While the police were marching through the streets of Limerick, for instance, during the riots, one of them turned round, fired, and shot a girl without orders. That man had never been found, and, he believed, had not been looked for, by the police authorities. He was l0th to introduce personal complaints into the debate; but he wished to call attention to what had occurred in September last at Miltown Malbay, when a force of constabulary came into collision with the people. Evictions were being carried out in that place, and the inhabitants had to complain that the county inspector, Mr. Smyth, instead of keeping his temper, excited the people in a very reprehensible manner by brandishing his revolver and telling "the cowardly dogs" to come on. Although he (Mr. O'Shea) had asked for his removal to a quieter district, this inspector, who had shown such a lamentable want of presence of mind, was kept in County Clare, where he and the resident magistrate, Captain M'Ternan, a very efficient officer, were on such terms as wore actually prejudicial to the peace of the county. How greatly the peace of the county had been disturbed was evident from the atrocious outrage of the day before yesterday, which made him unwilling to say much on this subject; but it was true, nevertheless, that many of the crimes had been reported in an exaggerated form, as when, for instance, a landlord had been fired at with blank cartridge only. Captain M'Ternan lately fined a policeman for breaking a prisoner's head with a stick, and the county inspector threatened him with Mr. Clifford Lloyd. They all knew in County Clare that Mr. Clifford Lloyd was the chief adviser of the Chief Secretary. He (Mr. O'Shea) considered that the extraordinary confidence which the right hon. Gentleman placed in him was nothing short of infatuation. The effect of appointing him over the old resident magistrates had caused an immense amount of jealousy, the effect of which was to destroy the esprit de corps among them. And, besides, Mr. Clifford Lloyd had his peculiarities. He was a man of ability, no doubt; but he was also a man much given to show, and when a Land League hunt had to be put down would take an imposing force of all the three arms to do the work of a few constabulary. In his opinion, a force of constabulary should always be used instead of troops. Then, again, his sentences on offenders were extraordinarily severe. He had sentenced Miss M'Cormack to three months' imprisonment; and he (Mr. O'Shea) thought one month might have met the justice of the case. A murder had been committed—a frightful murder, certainly—and Mr. Lloyd had caused the arrest on suspicion of 17 of the inhabitants of Miltown Mal-bay, amongst them being some of the most respectable men in the town, who had no more connection with the crime than any Member of the House. He feared, however, that it was useless to discuss the conduct of a gentleman in whom the Government reposed such implicit confidence.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, that if he had simply consulted his own wishes, so far as private and irresponsible Members of Her Majesty's Opposition were concerned, he should have been very well content to allow the collective criticism they had to bring forward against Her Majesty's Government to end with the speech of his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dublin University (Mr. Gibson)—a speech in which the policy of the Government had been exhaustively criticized and forcibly condemned. As, however, the debate seemed likely to continue for some time longer, he might, perhaps, be excused for offering a few interlocutory remarks on points that had not been so completely and fully disposed of by the right hon. and learned Gentleman. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) had listened last night to the lengthy and interesting and, from a certain point of view, the most able and ingenious speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. His only regret was that, with so much ability and experience as was exhibited in that speech, he had been so signally unsuccessful in the government of Ireland. The action of Her Majesty's Go- vernment in Ireland during the Recess might be viewed from three points of aspect. The first view, which he did not think anyone had yet touched on, was the constitutional one—whether the action of Her Majesty's Government, in enforcing the law and preserving order in Ireland, had been within the lines of the Constitution? When Her Majesty's Government came down to the House last Session to ask for extra powers with which to deal with disorder in Ireland, they contented themselves with asking for the simple power of arrest. That was all they wanted. They invited them to say whether they would like to deal with the Press, and have the powers of the old Curfew Law, or those contained in old Peace Preservation Acts; but no, all they wanted was the power of arrest. Now, he found they had acted, in three leading ways, far beyond the power of arrest which they claimed from the House, and, in his opinion, quite outside the constitutional precedents of this country. He took, in the first place, the celebrated proclamation of the 20th October, which proclaimed the Land League to be an illegal association. He found no fault with that proclamation. It was perfectly in the power of the Crown to proclaim anybody to be illegal; but that proclamation had in no sense the force of law, and the mere fact of its being proclaimed did not make any body of men illegal. And under that proclamation the Government had acted in a very peculiar manner, for they had dispersed not only great public meetings of the Land League, which had been called together by advertisement, but meetings of a few persons in a private house for the despatch of the business of the League. If the individuals composing the meetings which had been so dispersed had been at once brought before a magistrate and prosecuted, the action of the Government would have been fairly constitutional; but, as far as he could make out from the public journals, that course was never taken. On hardly any occasion had the parties who had been dispersed been brought before the magistrates. For a Government to enter a private house and to disperse by force the individuals there assembled for the purposes of business, and not to prosecute them before the magistrates, was an exceptional and dangerous precedent, in spite of the answer that the party injured had a right of action for damages against the Government. Another point on which he desired information, and in which he believed the Government had exceeded their power, was that of the additions they had made to the Royal Irish Constabulary. He had no official and, therefore, authentic information upon the point, and if not right in what he was going to advance, he could be contradicted. In the absence, therefore, of the authentic information to which he had referred, he assumed the accuracy of the announcements contained in the public journals in November and December, that the force was to be increased by 1,000 men, because it was not contradicted at the time; and, if it were not contradicted now, he should assume it was true.

MR. W. B. FORSTER

The noble Lord must not make assertions, and, because I do not rise to contradict them, assume that they are true.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, the addition to the force was announced in every public journal, and advertisements were issued inviting volunteers from the Army Reserve. He merely wished to know whether he was wrong in assuming it was correctly announced, for, if the information were not correct, it was easy to say "No;" and he would then leave that part of the question. As the Government did not say "No," he concluded that they had, on their own responsibility, increased the police force by 1,000 men. It must be remembered that every year a Vote was taken in the House for this quasi-military force, the number of which was distinctly limited, although in a liberal manner. If it was in the power of the Government to increase it, without the sanction of Parliament, by 1,000 men, why not by 10,000 men? It was an expenditure of public money without the sanction of Parliament. He would recommend the point to the consideration of those hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway who were distinguished by their almost extravagant attachment to the principles of liberty. The Royal Irish Constabulary was a quasi-military force, and if it was in the power of the Government to increase it without obtaining the consent of Parliament, they could also increase the Army by 10,000 men. On this point he wished for the opinion of the Law Officers of the Crown. Did they consider that the Government had kept within the lines of the Constitution by making the increase without the consent of Parliament? The third point he would allude to was the seizure of United Ireland. The Chief Secretary for Ireland last night denounced the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) because he was a shareholder in United Ireland. But was the right hon. Gentleman in a position to denounce such a shareholder; for whom did he appoint to be solicitor to the Land Commission? Mr. George Fottrell, who was employed—and he (Lord Randolph Churchill) had it on the best authority—by the hon. Member for the City of Cork, now in Kilmainham, to negotiate the purchase of United Ireland. This was the man whom the Chief Secretary went out of his way to select as being the man fitted by his antecedents to be confidential adviser to an Executive Department of the Government, he having been in every way the confidential adviser of the Land League. ["No, no!"] What! Not the confidential adviser to the Land League? [Mr. CALLAN: Yes.] Well, he would ask the attention of hon. Gentlemen to a letter which he held in his hand, which was from a gentleman whose conversion from the cause of Nationalism caused him to be received with the warmest enthusiasm by the Supporters of the Government—he alluded to Mr. Richard Pigott. ["Oh, oh!"] He knew hon. Members did not think much of him; but there was no Radical paper which was not enthusiastic about him when he wrote this letter. What did he say about Mr. George Fottrell? In a letter to Mr. Patrick Egan, he said— I have, in anticipation of the decision of the meeting, put the matter into the hands of the confidential solicitor of the Land League. A day or two afterwards he wrote— Mr. Fottrell advised that the mortgage should be drawn so as to give the power of foreclosure. This showed that Mr. Fottrell was thus acting for the League, and that entirely made out his case. ["No, no !"] Then Mr. Pigott was not to be relied on. ["Hear, hear!"] He was arguing, not with the hon. Members for Ireland behind him, but with the Supporters of the Government, who rejoiced over the conversion of Mr. Pigott, and who were prepared to back all his statements against the Land League as absolutely gospel truth. His letter contained the description of Mr. Fottrell, which had not been contradicted, as confidential solicitor to the Land League; and Mr. Fottrell, who negotiated the purchase of United Ireland for Mr. Parnell, was the man whom the Government had thought fit to appoint solicitor to the Land Commission. Therefore, they could not with propriety denounce a shareholder in United Ireland.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

The noble Lord is conveying the impression that I was aware of it. I was not aware of anything of the kind. [An hon. MEMBER: You ought to have been.]

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

asked what was the position? Here was a point of the greatest importance, on which the whole legal action of the Land Commission depended. Mr. Fottrell had acted as confidential solicitor to the Land League; he had negotiated the purchase of United Ireland for Mr. Parnell; and the Chief Secretary for Ireland did not know anything about it.

MR. GILL

Perhaps the noble Lord is not aware that there were three solicitors to the Land League.

LORD RANDODPH CHURCHILL

said, he was not aware of it. What an extraordinary way of filling up posts under the Crown ! The Government seized the impression of United Ireland on the ground that it was a "no rent" manifesto. He hoped the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland would state the ground on which it was seized. How could it be told what was going to be in it before it was published? He wished to know whether Government considered that they had acted legally in suppressing United Ireland. He made no charge against them for proceeding in that way—he merely asked for information as to whether the action taken by the Government was within the law. It was an action against the Press which, as far as he knew, was without precedent. The right hon. Gentleman quoted some passages from the paper, and seemed to attach importance to them; but they appeared to be nothing but trash. The paper had been seized in Liverpool, and he wanted to know under what Act it had been done? He was prepared, when the time came, to support the Government in establishing a Press censorship in Ireland; but his point was that when the Government asked Parliament for powers last year they did not ask for powers against the Press He maintained that, knowing what the state of Ireland was, it was their duty to have foreseen that they might have to use powers of this kind against the Press, which always, from an English point of view, had a tendency towards sedition; and they ought not to have hesitated to ask Parliament to give them the necessary powers to deal with it, so that they might have kept themselves within the law, for Parliament would have given them any power they had asked for. ["Oh, oh !"] There was no doubt that Parliament would have given the Government anything they asked. [Laughter.] At any rate, as far as the Tory Party was concerned, they might have asked for anything at that time. ["Hear, hear !"] Hon. Members opposite might cheer in an ironical way, but he did not observe last year any great independence on their part. On the contrary, he thought their conduct was of a perfectly slavish and servile character. These points as to the action of the Government against the Land League having been raised, it was highly important that Parliament should know the views of the Government on the matter. There was no harm whatever in Members of the House of Commons being even hypercritical when the Constitution of the country was in question. It also appeared to him that if the Government entertained any doubt that the action had been beyond the law, and that they were liable to suits for the recovery of damages, it was then their duty to apply to Parliament for an Act of Indemnity. If not, the intellect and imagination of hon. Members opposite below the Gangway would show them the danger of establishing a precedent of this kind, which might be used with fatal effect against those who supported it. The Government ought to apply for an Act of Indemnity, even on the ground of economy. He recollected a very eminent suit that went on for a great many years in Ireland, in which the noble Marquess opposite (the Marquess of Hartington), then Chief Secretary for Ireland, was defendant, and in which the question raised was whether the Government had acted outside their powers in dispersing a meeting in the Phoenix Park. The suit lasted a long time, and cost an enormous sum of money; so that, on mere economical grounds, it appeared to him that the Government should apply for a Bill of Indemnity. He maintained that the Government might now have laid themselves open to many suits for the recovery of damages, and therefore he wanted to know whether they were going to apply to Parliament for an Act of Indemnity? He now came to the uses which Her Majesty's Government had made of the Coercion Act; and he would preface his remarks by a most interesting passage from a speech delivered by the Prime Minister on the second reading of the measure on the 28th of January-last year. The Prime Minister said— I stand upon the words of the legislation we propose, and I say that they do not in the slightest degree justify the suspicion that we are interfering with the liberty of discussion. I will go further. We are not attempting to interfere with the license of discussion. There is no interference here with the liberty to propose the most subversive and revolutionary changes. There is no interference here with the right of associating in the furtherance of those changes, provided the furtherance is by peaceful means. There is no interference here with whatever right hon. Gentlemen may think they possess to recommend, and to bring about, not only changes of the law, but in certain cases breaches of positive contract. I am not stating these things as a matter of boast; I am stating them as a matter of fact. I must say it appears to me that it is a very liberal state of law which permits hon. Gentlemen to meet together to break a contract into which they have entered."—[3 Hansard, cclvii. 1686℃7.] By this profession, when introducing the Coercion Acts, the Government wished to diminish the alarm felt by the Members from Ireland; and the only—and the natural—construction to be put upon these words was that the advice given by individual members of the Land League to tenant farmers not to pay their rents would not be interfered with by the Government. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Hear, hear !] This went on, undoubtedly, until a short time after the Land Act passed into law. Parliament, no doubt, thought the object of the Government in asking for coercive powers was their anxiety to restore order in Ireland. ''If you pass this Bill," said the Chief Secretary for Ireland, "you will cause an immense diminution of crime." But Parliament was altogether mistaken. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary having got the Coercion Act, put it in his pocket and preserved it for use until it should really be wanted by him. The right hon. Gentleman arrested between 35 and 40 obscure people; but there was no intention of further enforcing the Act at that time. The outrages steadily increased month by month up to January last, although the right hon. Gentleman had pledged himself to Parliament that the Coercion Act should cause an immense diminution of crime. There was no previous instance of a Coercion Act not having caused at first a decrease of crime. ["Oh, oh!"] He challenged any hon. Member to mention one. It remained for this Coercion Act to be an exception to that rule, and to actually stimulate crime. Last night, the right hon. Gentleman said the Land League was morally responsible for the increase of crime. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) was not prepared to defend the Land League; but he might ask the right hon. Gentleman whether he did not consider, if his Coercion Act was the only one that produced an increase of crime in Ireland, in the whole history of Irish Coercion Acts, the same moral responsibility for that increase did not attach to him and his Colleagues? What could have been the reasons why the Coercion Act was not put into operation at once? After considering the case carefully, he thought they could come to no other conclusion than that the Coercion Act was passed, not for the purpose of restoring order in Ireland, but for the purpose of enforcing the Prime Minister's Land Act. His right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin had hinted at, and almost stated, the reasons. Suppose it was necessary for the passing of the Land Bill into law that Ireland should be in a state of great commotion. Suppose it was necessary, in order to put the screw on, that there should be a crop of outrages in Ireland. In passing the Land Bill, the Government had to deal with the House of Lords; and, no doubt, it was extremely advantageous to the Go-Government to be able to hurl at the heads of the Lords the state of Ireland, with this frightful increase of crime, and these terrible outrages and inhumanities. They could say to the Lords—"Look at the state of Ireland, and dare to take the responsibility of rejecting the Bill." Did not hon. Members think that, if the Coercion Act had been at once put into force, Ireland would have become very rapidly and very remarkably tranquillized? In that case, the House of Lords would have examined the Land Bill far more critically, and adhered to their Amendments far more steadfastly. Last night the right hon. Gentleman said he discovered that "Boycotting" was illegal; but he did not make the discovery until after Parliament rose, and until it was applied to farmers who wanted to enter the Land Court. When applied to farmers who wanted to pay their rents, there was no suspicion in the mind of the Chief Secretary that "Boycotting" was illegal. The Government were not ready to apply their coercion simply to prevent interference with the payment of rents. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had also made a great sensation by reading apologies by individuals to the Land League Courts for having paid rent. But he did not remind the House that those apologies—he (Lord Randolph Churchill) could produce many instances two months old—were frequent enough long before the Land Act passed. Yet the right hon. Gentleman had never before drawn the attention of the House to them. Why had he not done so? It was because he wanted the farmers to go into the Land Courts. But when those apologies appeared at an earlier period in all their grotesque insolence, he never remberbered that the right hon. Gentleman had drawn attention to them. During the last Session, he (Lord Randolph Churchill) and the hon. Member for Leitrim (Mr. Tottenham) asked the right hon. Gentleman why he did not take steps to stop the circulation of The Irish World in Ireland? If the right hon. Gentleman examined Mansard, he would find his reply was that such a thing could not be done. The Irish World was then advising the farmers not to pay rent, which did not trouble the right hon. Gentleman; but, curiously enough, since the Land Act came into operation, and The Irish World had advised the farmers not to enter the Courts, the right hon. Gentleman had made heroic efforts to suppress it. Police were instructed, numbers of the journal were intercepted, and other measures taken. As he had said, while The Irish World simply advised the payment of no rents no steps were taken. Afterwards, the whole strength of the Government was put forth. What was the conclusion to draw from all this, except the reasonable one, that the Government never meant the Act to be put into operation until the Land Act passed into law? Might he ask the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland what the Government were going to do in respect of the renewal of the Act? The Government said, and boasted of it, that there was an improvement in Ireland. But how much of that improvement was owing to coercion? Where would it be, and what did they mean to do when coercion expired? There was not a word about it in the Queen's Speech. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Hear, hear!] Prom the Prime Minister's rather ironical cheers, he inferred that the right hon. Gentleman intended to renew it. If the Prime Minister thought he could accomplish that without the most vigorous protest, and that he could wrench away the expiring liberties of a whole country at the fag end of the Session, with not more than 100 Members present, he was making a very grave miscalculation. If it was the intention of Her Majesty's Government to renew that Act, it would be the duty of Her Majesty's Government to communicate the fact to the House long before the close of the Session. The administration of the Act had first been of the feeblest, and then exasperating. There was an institution in Ireland called the Ladies' Land League; in respect of that association the conduct of the Government had been most inexplicable, and he hoped some explanation would be given. The Government had evidently instructed its officers to disperse the Ladies' Land League in various parts of the country, to attend meetings in various parts, and to take down the names of those attending. But, curiously enough, in Dublin the League had held its meetings, with the attendance of the Press, with the greatest publicity, with their large subscriptions publicly announced; and, in Dublin, it had never once been interfered with by Her Majesty's Government. How did a meeting of the Ladies' Land League in Dublin differ from a meeting in Ballyragget, or elsewhere? In the West every possible meeting was dispersed. In Dublin, the centre of the whole organization, it was not interfered with. If the Ladies' Land League was illegal, why was any meeting of it permitted anywhere? If it was not illegal, how dare the Government interfere with it? These questions the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland might answer. Then their conduct with respect to United Ireland had been extraordinary. The printed copies of that journal had been seized, but the plant of the office had been left untouched, and the publication of the paper had not been interfered with. He had received a letter from a gentleman which stated, what might be news to the House, that— United Ireland is supposed to be suppressed. It is nothing of the sort. It is still printed and published in the office in Dublin. I saw a copy dated 28th January, with the Parisian imprint myself, being printed off on Saturday last at the office in Abbey Street, and the same day it was openly sold about the streets. The gentleman requested that his name should not be published, or his life would not be worth a day's purchase. He would also like some information on this account from the hon. and learned Gentleman. One day United Ireland was seized and declared illegal; next day, the Government being afraid, permitted it to be printed and sold. Then, with respect to the arrests. The Prime Minister said the Government had not arrested more than 35 or 40 men when the Act came into operation, because they had pledged themselves in the eye of God and man that there should be a judicial investigation in each case. [Mr. GLADSTONE: Not at all.] Well, when he heard the Prime Minister use that expression, "In the eye of God," he feared that the ceiling of the House might fall upon them. To call in the name of the Maker, and to give the House to understand that every arrest which had been made by the Chief Secretary for Ireland had been divinely inspired from on high, was too much. The expression was more than suited to the occasion. Were not men engaged in the printing of United Ireland, who were working for a few shillings a-day, arrested? Would the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or the Solicitor General for Ireland, get up and state that, in the eye of God and man, these wretched compositors could be reasonably suspected of a crime punishable by law? There was also the arrest of an unfortunate messenger, who carried parcels from the printing to the publish- ing office. Would the right hon. Gentleman state, in the eye of God, that the investigation into that man's case was judicial, and that he was reasonably suspected of a crime punishable by law? What would the Radical Party in that House have to say to those 35 or 40 arrests? Thirty-five persons, he repeated, were arrested when the Act came into operation. Would the right hon. hon. Gentleman say that in the eye of God and man the investigation into all these cases was judicial, and that the 35 represented all the persons who could be arrested? If that were so, the Government was open to the very grave and serious charge of having asked Parliament for a Coercion Act on insufficient grounds. Or, if not, what could be said of their arresting that small number before their Land Act passed, and their imprisoning between 400 and 500 after that great remedial measure? Was the increased number owing to their Land Act? He saw no escape from the dilemma. He was prompted to make these remarks because Her Majesty's Liberal Government had claimed almost superhuman carefulness for their administration of the Coercion Act. They were always proclaiming themselves as superior to the ordinary frailties of human nature, and he supposed they could not be expected to use a Coercion Act as similar Acts had always been used. A Coercion Act was aimed at unscrupulous persons, and from the necessities of the case must always be used unscrupulously; and what he should always protest against was the continual self-assertion on the part of Liberal Ministers he had referred to. The Prime Minister, a day or two ago, made a remarkable speech, which most of the newspapers noted as one of his greatest efforts. That speech appeared to him to be composed of several most personal attacks, a series of panegyrics, and a tissue of perorations; and behind these three veils, he concealed an uncommonly bad case. He must for one moment refer to the attack which the Prime Minister then allowed himself to make on the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lincoln (Mr. James Lowther). The right hon. Gentleman was not in the House at the time, for, in fact, the head of the great house of Lowther had died that morning. [Mr. GLADSTONE: I knew nothing about that.] The papers of the preceding day announced that the noble Earl was on the point of death, and the fact that it had occurred had been published some hours. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) was sure if he made such an attack upon an hon. Member, under similar circumstances, he would hear about it. The right hon. Gentleman had not forgotten to pass panegyrics upon the Junior Lords of the Treasury and the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. He passed a tremendous panegyric the other day upon the very Junior Lord of the Treasury by comparing him to the infant Hercules. [Mr. GLADSTONE: The infant Hercules I referred to was the Land Act.] He apologized for having mistaken the metaphor. At the time he thought it rather strange, but attributed it as the pardonable result of parental pride. The Prime Minister had also passed a tremendous panegyric on the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, in which he particularly alluded to his remarkable philanthropic qualities. All he (Lord Randolph Churchill) could say was that it was a curious thing that during the term of Office of this philanthropist, who differed so greatly and entirely from his Predecessors—that was the point of the panegyric—17,000 persons had been evicted from their homes. He would say, for Heaven's sake do not let us have constant and nauseous repetition of that kind of maudlin philanthropy, which was, apparently, the sole property and monopoly of the Liberal Party, and which guided and governed them in the minutest action, thrust upon us at the same time that we were under the most powerful coercive measures. The Prime Minister, in the speech to which he had referred, then went on to repudiate with unnecessary heat the suggestion that any "instructions were given" to the Sub-Commissioners. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) did not know what meaning would be attached to the word instructions by the Government; but would the Chief Secretary for Ireland state in the House that he had never had any interview or communication with the Sub-Commissioners before their appointment?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I saw the whole of them before their appointment.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Individually or collectively?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

Individually, not collectively.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

asked if the right hon. Gentleman would say he did not have any communications with them after their appointment? ["Oh, oh !"] Would the right hon. Gentleman deny that there was a marvellous similarity in the action of the various Sub-Commissioners who had been going about Ireland? Was it not an astounding thing that they had almost always reduced the rents to about 3s. or 4s. above Griffith's valuation? The Prime Minister had eulogized the acts of these Sub-Commissioners, and had referred to them as being strictly impartial. The present was not the time for discussing the action of those Commissioners in detail; but he should like to know whether there were no instructions, verbal or written, given to them, or whether or not they were chosen from a Party which left no doubt whatever that they would not be the blind instruments of effecting a wholesale reduction of rent? He would mention a couple of cases in support of that statement. First, in the case of "Tennant v. Hussey." There it was shown that the landlord had bought the estate under the Encumbered Estates Act, and that the rent, which was £55, had not been raised since 1834. The farm was a pasture farm, the value of which had obviously increased on account of the increase in the price of dairy produce. Upon these facts the rent was reduced to £45. Another case was that of a tenant called Shannon. He held 100 acres, not one of which had he drained for 14 years. He had 10 children and was deeply involved. The rent, which had been previously reduced from £75 to £55, was further reduced by the Commissioners to £44. Facts like those needed no comment. He thought they justified his assertions, and if he chose to occupy the time of the House, he could produce 100 cases such as those he had cited. Then the Prime Minister said that the state of Ireland was improving, and based the statement, to some extent, on the course of justice at the Cork Assizes. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) was informed by a gentleman resident in the City of Cork that the convictions obtained by the Crown against parties accused in Cork were obtained altogether by 36 jurymen, and the whole jury list of Cork, owing to the extensive use of the power of challenge by the Crown, was reduced to 36 in number, and that every one of these 36 was a Protestant and a Conservative. He therefore thought they must not base too exaggerated an estimate of the state of the country on the fact. Again, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland said that rents were being largely paid. Would the right hon. Gentleman produce some facts or figures in support of that statement? If they had any they ought to lay it on the Table. Curiously enough, they still heard of the Property Defence Association asking for subscriptions through the Lord Mayor, and the Society for the Belief of Distressed Ladies was still clamouring for assistance. Would it appear that the state of Ireland was improving, when they knew that a fortnight before Parliament met four additional regiments had been sent to that country, which raised the number to 40,000 men? If the state of the country were improving the military force would certainly be diminished. The Prime Minister seemed irritated because the state of Ireland now was worse compared with its condition in 1880. Was not the state of the country clearly described in the letter of Lord Beaconsfield, in which he said that Ireland was menaced by something "more serious than pestilence or famine?" But the Prime Minister derided that statement, and now he says that he was not aware that the state of the country in 1880 was so bad as it was then represented to be. If the right hon. Gentleman had read the Reports of the magistrates and police inspectors telling the Government that they could not do without coercive powers, he must have been aware of the actual condition of the country at that time. The Prime Minister also complained because Lord Salisbury had said there was not much difference between the doctrines of the Prime Minister and those of the hon. Member for the City of Cork. That was not what the Leader of the Opposition did say. Lord Salisbury's words were that the difference between the doctrines held by the Prime Minister and those of the hon. Member for the City of Cork was only a difference of degree. That degree was an extremely small one, and it certainly was not sufficient, in this year of 1882, to justify the fact that one professor should be lodged in State apartments in Downing Street, while the other was lodged in State apartments, but of a different kind, in Kilmainham. It now turned out that the celebrated "Healy's Clause" was the production of the Prime Minister himself, and that it was susceptible of the celebrated prairie value of the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell). The Prime Minister had complained that the Tory Party had not responded to his appeal for assistance in the present state of things in Ireland. He (Lord Randolph Churchill) had noticed that when the Prime Minister was speaking on that subject, and was denouncing so eloquently the machinations of the Irish Nationalist Party, that no cheers came from the Conservative Benches. And why had they not been called forth? It was because the Prime Minister's appeal had come too late, and that, in the words of a noble Duke who had once been a Member of the present Government, but who had now deserted them, the Government had been found out. It was impossible for the Tory Party to respond to the appeal of the right hon. Gentleman when they knew what North Durham, what North Lincolnshire, what North Yorkshire, what Preston, what Stafford, and what the enlightened and cultivated borough of Westminster, where a Liberal dare not even contest a seat, knew—namely, the fatal and damning fact that up to the end of last Session the relations of Her Majesty's Government to the Irish National Land League were those of political accomplices. The hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. O'Connor Power), the other night, in an eloquent speech, appealed to the House no longer to permit Ireland to be made the plaything of Parties. All he (Lord Randolph Churchill) could say was, let the Liberal Party set the example; because the expression "stupid," which had been applied to the Conservative Party, would be quite too utterly weak to describe the nature and extent and depth of their imbecility if, with the knowledge they had had forced upon their minds of the feeling of the country on this subject, they had refrained from pressing home upon hon. Members opposite the full tide of battle, and from availing themselves of every legitimate occasion for curtailing the power and the duration of a Government so dangerous to the highest and dearest interests of the country—those of liberty, property, and law—and if they had neglected to regain that national confidence which their opponents had so unworthily and so unscrupulously enticed away from them. The right hon. Baronet who led the Opposition in that House (Sir Stafford Northcote) had counselled the Tory Party not to take issue with the Government upon the Address. He (Lord Randolph Churchill), however, reflected with satisfaction that in these early hours of the Session a crushing defeat had been inflicted upon Her Majesty's Government; and unless they recognized the truth of the maxim, that'' discretion is the better part of valour," and if they did not make a timely, if humiliating, retreat, they would, probably, unless he was greatly mistaken, within a few days, meet with another crushing defeat. But, however that might be, he knew that in the course of the Session, be it brief or be it protracted, in spite of all the denials and protestations of the Government, it would be made manifest to all that the confidence of the constituencies had been withdrawn from them, and that the hearts of the English people had been entirely turned away from them.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

Mr. Speaker—Sir, hon. Members who had an opportunity of hearing the speech of the right hon. Baronet opposite the Leader of the Opposition will readily believe me when I say that it was my earnest desire to rise for the purpose of replying to that speech the moment after it was concluded. I make no complaint whatever of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks concerning myself; on the contrary, I have to thank the right hon. Gentleman for the courteous expressions he has used towards me. But the right hon. Gentleman invited me to a defence, without quoting any utterance of mine on which he founded the charge he made against me. I certainly do not know how I am to defend myself unless I am supplied with a definite statement of the nature of the accusation made against me. I have been called upon to explain matters contained in the speeches which I made in connection with the Londonderry Election. Now, if I had been guilty of the incredible meanness which has been attributed to me in some quarters, I should feel myself unworthy of the official position which I have the honour to occupy, and of a seat in this House. Whatever construction may have been put upon separate and isolated passages taken from a large number of my speeches, no idea could have been further from my mind than the one suggested—that I desired any person of judicial position to prostitute his office for favour or for reward; and I feel assured that the House will be of opinion that they by no means substantiate the charges that have been made against me. It is true that I made use of some expressions which a noble Marquess (the Marquess of Salisbury) did me the honour to quote in "another place." It is true that I did express a warm and strong approval of the Land Act; it is true I said that the need for it had been borne in upon the Legislature by the knowledge of the existence of an excessive rental in Ireland, and it is true that I expressed a deep personal sense of the necessity for that measure. I am not here to say that that knowledge is personal to the mind of every individual Member of the House; but the Report of the Bessborough Commission found that, although in many instances, on the larger properties, the conduct of their management was considerate, excessive rents had prevailed in many parts of the country. It seemed to me that knowledge of that sort underlay the Land Act. Whether I am right or wrong, I expressed that opinion. It was my own opinion—my own sincere belief—and was not inspired by anyone, and in no degree did I speak for Her Majesty's Government. I had not actually been appointed to the Office which I hold when I commenced my canvas of the county of Londonderry. I had no communication with any Member of the Government before I went there, and I was quite unfettered. As the House is probably aware, there were three candidates. There was a Conservative candidate, there was a Nationalist candidate, and there was myself. As regards the Conservative, on this question of the Land Act, there was absolutely, as far as I know, no difference whatever between us, except that the Conservative candidate went a little further than I was prepared to go. My Conservative opponent stated openly that the Land Act was introduced in consequence of the rents of the country being too high; that it was an admirable measure, and that its only fault was that it did not go far enough, and, in one particular, that it did not confer its benefits upon leaseholders. The election lasted for about a month, and Sir Samuel Wilson was supported by the entire Conservative Party of Ireland from the beginning to the end of the contest. Throughout all that time I never heard a whisper of a suggestion that I had been guilty of any impropriety in the conduct of the election. On the last day—the day of polling—I was startled by seeing a letter in one of the London papers, charging me with having bribed the constituency by placarding throughout the county the reductions of rent that had been made by the Land Commissioners. Now, I do not think it probable that an election would be set aside in consequence of an election placard; but, as a matter of fact, I never saw the placard until it was circulated, although, of course, I am legally responsible for it. It set out some reductions of rent. If the figures were untrue, I can understand the complaint. If true, where was the unfairness in letting the people know what the operation of the Land Act had been? I am old enough to recollect when the big loaf and the little loaf were paraded at elections. If that was not unfair, I do not see wherein I acted unfairly. There was a large portion of the constituency who were advised not to have anything to do with the Act at all, on the ground that it did no good, and never would do any good. I do not think there was any harm, or anything unfair, in showing what the actual working of an Act had been in which the greatest interest was taken by the people of the country. The right hon. and learned Gentleman who represents the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) has alluded to a statement which I made on the occasion of the election—that the rents, although reduced, had not, in some instances, been reduced enough. At that time there was a case before the Commissioners on which an important question arose as to the value of improvements. The improvements on a farm had been proved to have been made by the tenant; but the valuator appointed to report to the Court on the value of the farm admitted that he had not taken the improvements into account on the ground that, as the tenant had occupied the farm for a number of years, he must have recouped himself for his expenses. That case attracted a great deal of attention; and being asked my opinion upon it, I did say that, in some instances, the rents had not been sufficiently reduced. And that is the whole foundation for the allegation that I had given out that the Sub-Commissioners had not been doing their duty. Another statement which appeared to impress the right hon. Baronet opposite was the one charging me with having asserted that some of the Sub-Commissioners were appointed only for a year, and therefore suggesting that they were bound to be of good behaviour in order that they might not be turned out afterwards. I entirely repudiate any such construction, or that I have been guilty of any attempt to bribe the Commissioners to come to decisions opposed to their convictions and sense of justice. The statement was that as the Londonderry Election was a rather important one in the North of Ireland, if it went against the Liberal Party, it might be supposed that Irish opinion in the North was against the Land Act, and if it were repudiated there, the result might be to turn the scale against the Government in other constituencies. If in consequence of this the Liberals went out, and the Conservatives came in, it would be for the electors to say whether they desired to have appointments under the Land Act made by a Government the Members of which had denounced the Act as spoliation and robbery. It was my opinion, and it is my opinion still, that in the case of new appointments there was more chance of their being made fairly by the Liberal Party than by the Conservatives. I believe the Commissioners to be men of strict integrity; and as to the legal Sub-Commissioners, every one of whom I know, and many of whom are my private friends, I am sure that more honourable, upright, and able men could not have been selected for the posts they fill. Among them great varieties of political opinion are represented. Some of them have been intimately connected with the landlord and aristocratic classes. I do not believe that a single man appointed to the Commission would be capable, for any reward that might be given to him, of deviating in the slightest degree from the strict line of professional propriety and justice. I will now leave this subject, only remarking, in conclusion, that a great desire has been shown to make political capital out of the speeches delivered in connection with my election—speeches which were very numerous, and which constitute very heavy reading. In regard to the Amendment which has been proposed, the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill), having informed the House that he intended to deliver a Constitutional argument, impeached the conduct of the Government first on the ground that the proclamation which was issued ought to have been followed by prosecutions. Well, I think the noble Lord has himself furnished an answer to that impeachment. A proclamation is one mode of administration. A proclamation is a very useful thing if people would obey it; but it must depend upon circumstances whether there is any utility in employing it. What would have been the use of issuing a proclamation unless you were in a condition to strike? There was no such opportunity at the time the noble Lord referred to. There was no such opportunity until the time when the Government resolved upon vigorous action upon the proclamation if they did issue it. The second ground upon which the noble Lord impeached the conduct of the Government was that it was unconstitutional for the Government to make an important addition to the number of the Constabulary Force without the sanction of Parliament. Now, the noble Lord is completely under a mistake in reference to that matter. No addition whatever to the Constabulary Force was made except what was authorized by Statute, and after consultation with the Law Officers of the Crown. In the next place, the noble Lord complained that the Government were guilty of unconstitutional conduct in seizing the newspaper called United Ireland. In reference to that I will only repeat what has already been said by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland, that the seizure of that paper is at present the subject of legal proceedings. Actions have not been actually commenced, but formal notices have been served; and my right hon. and learned Friend (the Attorney General for Ireland) and myself, who are advising the Crown, hope to defend the action of the Government upon legal and Constitutional grounds. With regard to the Solicitor to the Land Commission, I desire to say that Mr. Fottrell, the gentleman spoken of by the noble Lord, did act for the Land League in the purchase of United Ireland; but it was before his appointment as Solicitor to the Land Commission, and the nature of the transaction was unknown to my right hon. Friend at the time the appointment was made. The charge made against the Government by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) appears to me to be mainly this—that while the conduct of the Government was justified throughout, so far as they acted, they did not act soon enough. Of course, a charge of that sort is easily made after the result. It appears to me that if the Government had acted sooner they would have acted with precipitation, and without proper and careful attention to the duties which devolve upon them as a Government. It was not until about the month of April that the extraordinary powers came into existence. Many of the objects of the Land League were perfectly legal. It therefore would have been impossible for any Government, even with the exceptional powers which had been conferred, to have gone about the country arresting everybody on the mere ground of his being connected with the Land League. If they had done so they would have arrested many persons who had no intention of breaking the law. It was therefore necessary, before the Government acted, that they should make themselves absolutely certain, or, at least, that they should have good grounds for believing, that the individuals they were about to arrest were personally guilty of illegal conduct. If they had acted otherwise, it would have been said that their conduct was most tyrannical. And now with regard to the arrests. A number of arrests were made—some 35, I believe—in the month of April. They were not arrests of obscure persons, of mere hewers of wood and drawers of water, but of important persons connected with the Land League—persons, some of whom had been taking an active part in the agitation of Mr. Parnell. There was the well-known Nally, who has often been referred to, and Mr. Boyton, and others, who held important positions in connection with the Land League. When they were arrested it was hoped their arrest would prove sufficient. But that did not turn out to be the case, and, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) has mentioned in his analysis of the figures in the month of April, crime, so far from diminishing, positively increased. It seems to ma that that argument proves a great deal too much, for it was impossible that the entire population of Ireland could have known how the law was going to be put in force. The increase of crime, therefore, must be owing to some cause unconnected with that circumstance. But, says the right hon. and learned Gentleman—"Why was there no proclamation? You might, at least, have issued a proclamation in January or in February." Of course we might; and, of course, the proclamation would have been laughed at by the people of the country as long as they were told, with a great deal of force, that the Government could not arrest them for being members of the Land League, and that they might go on doing what they were doing without the Government having power to stop them. Hon. Members know little of Ireland if they think a mere proclamation will do much in the way of making or marring an Act. What was going on at that time? The resources of Irish America were being poured into Ireland, and without those resources this organization must have dwindled away long ago. Hon. Members opposite and others were active and vigorous in propagating the doctrine of the Land League. The Land League itself appealed to the lowest and basest of human passions. ["No, no !"] It appealed to avarice and greed. Other agitations in Ireland have had something to elevate them, something to raise them. They have had men—mistaken men—who had been guilty of even criminal courses, but who had in them some height of soul, some warmth of feeling, some elevation of idea. But this conspiracy against the law was one which appealed to the meaner part of human nature, and which, instead of touching the sentiment of nationality, addressed itself to the baser passions. The people were told that they had the landlords in their power, that they could plunder and rob them at their will, that they need pay no rent, and that in this way, by a dogged refusal to pay rent, they would, in the end, make themselves the absolute owners of that which never belonged to them. That was the teaching. Is it to be wondered at that it was followed? It was followed, and followed vigorously, and it is to that circumstance that the increase of crime is owing. It was against these forces, so terrible, so strong, so universal in their application—for there is no man who is insensible to the passion of greed—it was against these forces the Government had to marshal its power; and from that time down to the present it has been engaged in one unceasing struggle against that combination. It has been at every point encountered by all the influence and by all the wealth that American Ireland could produce, and it is not to be wondered at that the crime which owed its origin to such a source has not even yet been completely extinguished. We are asked why there was no proclamation at that time? A proclamation at that time would have been of no service. The right hon. and learned Gentleman says— It is a singular circumstance that the proclamation was delayed until the 20th October, which was the very day the Land Court was opened. I presume the inference is that the Government selected the time of the coming into operation of the Land Act for the purpose of issuing a proclamation against the Land League. As a matter of fact, the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not disguise that insinuation; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman forgot to say that if the Land Court was opened on October 20, the "no rent" manifesto—which, at any rate, was not the work of the Government—was issued on the 18th. Mr. Parnell's arrest took place on the 13th of October, Mr. Dillon's Wick-low meeting was on the 16th, the "no rent" manifesto was composed on the 18th, and on the 19th it was published. The proclamation of the Land League based itself upon the "no rent" manifesto of the 19th and was published on the 20th. Therefore, the circumstance that the Land Commissioners happened to open their Court on the 20th of October is merely a coincidence, and a circumstance that must have been absolutely unconnected with the proclamation, for no one can suppose that the Land Commissioners prepared the "no rent" manifesto. Indeed, circumstances had come to such a pitch that the Land League in itself, apart from almost every other consideration, stood before the world confessedly an illegal organization. It is true, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman has mentioned, that, in the first instance, the Land League assumed the guise of pretended honesty; and that accounts for the fact that until the disguise was thrown off it was not possible for the Government to deal with it in the strong and comprehensive way in which it was dealt with afterwards. What was done with it during the summer? The number of "suspects" had largely increased; but there was a difficulty in every individual case of proving to the satisfaction of those upon whom the duty was cast that any interference with liberty rested upon a solid foundation. The noble Lord who has just spoken (Lord Randolph Churchill) has alluded to the mode in which the Act has been used, and the duty cast upon the Chief Secretary for Ireland in making the arrests. I can only say that no one who has any knowledge of the mode in which the Act has been used, or the care which has been taken to insure that it should be only applied to proper cases—indeed, the scrupulous care which has been exercised to prevent any man from being deprived of his liberty except there were the strongest grounds for doing so—and also the solemn sense of responsibility under which every arrest has been made—would venture to make the complaint which has been made by the noble Lord. The noble Lord has intimated that, in his opinion, the Act ought to have been exercised in a different spirit. [Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: Hear, hear!] Perhaps the noble Lord means in an unscrupulous spirit? I think there are very few Members in the House who will re-echo that sentiment. My right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin has mentioned that the procedure of the Land Commissioners has been, in some respects, unsatisfactory to him; he thinks that the Commissioners ought originally to have sat themselves for the purpose of hearing cases, instead of having sent the Sub-Commissioners. That may be a matter of opinion. I venture to think that the Commissioners have taken the right course; and that, considering the large amount of business coming into the Court, it was best to get the Sub-Commissions to work as soon as possible, and to have the Courts in a position to meet the pressure of business thrown upon them. But the Government had nothing to do with the matter. It was a matter for the Commissioners themselves. They were appointed the Judges, and the moment they were appointed the Government had no more control over them than they had over the legal tribunals sitting in the Four Courts of Dublin. They were masters of their own procedure. My right hon. and learned Friend says they were to blame in providing that there should be no pleadings. Now, in reference to that complaint, I can only say that the rules were framed by the Commissioners themselves, with a scrupulous regard both to efficiency and economy. When the tenant served his originating notice he gave the landlord an intimation that he was going to the Court in order to obtain a reduction of rent, or vice versa. That is a mode of procedure which may be right or wrong; but it was a matter over which the Government had no more control than over the procedure of the Superior Courts. As regards the other proceedings in the Courts, of course they are legitimately open to public criticism. Many strong observations have been made as to the reduction of rents which has been brought about. In reference to this matter, I can only say that if the Government have discharged their duty in the first instance, as they were bound to do, by appointing fit and suitable persons to fill the posts, they are in no degree responsible for the results of those appointments. I cannot understand the repeated references which have been made to something which the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government said on the introduction of the Bill. Not having been in the House at the time, I am not able to testify to the accuracy of the language attributed to the right hon. Gentleman; but if the right hon. Gentleman did say that he did not expect the working of the Act would be largely to reduce rents, and that probably it would only apply to cases in which there had been exceptional or tyrannical conduct on the part of the landlords, how can he be responsible for the results which have been brought about, if the working of the tribunal has disclosed facts of the existence of which he was not previously aware? I have had, myself, some considerable experience, in connection with a large portion of the country, of the habits, wants, and circumstances of the people; and if others did not think that, when a fair rent came to be assessed by a fair tribunal, the rents would be considerably reduced, I certainly never shared in that idea. Attention has been drawn to the fact that a reduction of rent has taken place all over the country, averaging something between 22 and 23 per cent. That may be so; but it is only conclusive of the fact that the rents were much too high before, and it appears to me to be primâ facie evidence of the need for the Act. I believe the Commissioners need no apology; that they have been doing substantial justice; and I will give the House my reasons for arriving at that opinion. I have known many instances in which the landlords, having been served with notices, have voluntarily settled cases out of Court, and have voluntarily reduced their rents. I have known other cases in which the landlords have been in Court without evidence—not deprived of evidence by any combination to prevent testimony from being given—but instances in which the landlords, being able to produce witnesses as to valuation, nevertheless did not produce them. In some instances the landlords have been in Court with their witnesses ready, and yet have not produced them. What are the Commissioners to do under such circumstances? I have known other cases in which the landlords, after leaving the Court—and these instances are known to many hon. Gentlemen on the opposite Benches—have themselves testified to the perfect fairness with which the law has been administered in the Court, although their own rents had been largely reduced. I know of one extensive property upon which the rents have been largely reduced, and the landlord has stated that his own valuator had come within £28 of the decision of the Court. How is it that, in very many cases, the wealth and aristocracy of the country have not been able to produce men who are prepared to state in Court that the rent was only in accordance with a fair valuation of the property? There is no ground for saying that giving evidence before the Commissioners would be attended by the slightest risk; and if there was any danger, both the landlords and their witnesses would be protected by all the power of the Government. There has been no such thing as intimidation of professional witnesses. We have heard that professional witnesses are only too easily procured. If that is so, how is that in many cases no witnesses at all have been produced on the part of the landlords, and that those who have been produced have, on their own testimony, largely reduced their rents? [An hon. MEMBER: They would be shot.] I hear an hon. Member opposite say that if witnesses were called they would be shot. There is not the slightest foundation for alleging that any witness produced in this Court has been exposed to the slightest risk; and I am speaking of my own personal knowledge when I state that, on the testimony of landed proprietors themselves, the reason they have not produced witnesses is not because they are afraid of calling witnesses, but because the landlords could not get them. That is not to be wondered at. In a large portion of the country the people have no opportunity of seeking refuge in any other occupation; there are no manufactures, and therefore the competition for land has been necessarily severe and rents have been high. But it is not only in Ireland that rents have been high. We know that in England of late years rents have been largely reduced, in some cases by 50 per cent; and many farms are on hand which the landlords find it impossible to let. The statement that in Ireland 22 per cent has been taken off the rents does not appear to me to be an argument bearing upon the question. The question we are now considering is whether this Act is being fairly and honestly administered by the Government and the Commissioners; and I repeat what I said before, that after the appointments had been made by the Government upon their own responsibility, it would have been a breach of duty upon the part of Her Majesty's Ministers if they had interfered with the action of the Commissioners in any shape or form. There are only one or two other observations which occur to me in reference to the speeches which have been made by hon. members in the course of the debate. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Daly), in the very fair speech which he made, spoke upon a subject which is one of considerable importance—namely, the administration of the law in the country. He told us that, in selecting jurors at the Cork Assizes, the Crown Solicitor directed particular jurors to stand aside because they were Roman Catholics. I am informed that the question of religion had nothing to do with the question of standing by. [Mr. DALY: Nor politics?] Neither politics nor religion had anything to do with the selection of jurors. The object has always been to secure that jurors shall be free men, in a position to exercise their office and their duty unterrorized.

MR. DALY

Will the hon. and learned Gentleman explain how it was that the coincidence occurred of 11 Catholic jurors being told to stand aside, one after another, while the first Protestant juror whose name was reached was selected?

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. POSTER)

I am unable to state anything from my own personal knowledge as to the exact state of the facts; but it may be that there was a large majority of Catholics summoned upon the jury. All that I can say is that, according to the information given to me, neither religion nor politics had anything to do with the selection. Of course, there would be an enormous majority of Catholics in the district. The hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. Redmond) has made an able speech, in the course of which he clearly indicated what are the wants and the aspirations of those whose views he represents. The hon. Member stated, what is certainly new to me, that the objects of the Land League have been totally misconceived; for those objects have been not only to create a peasant proprietary, but to create a peasant proprietary by purchase, and by purchase at 20 years' valuation.

MR. REDMOND

I never stated that. I said the objects of the Land League were the abolition of landlordism, and the creation of a peasant proprietary by purchase; but I never said that that purchase was to be at 20 years' valuation. But I said that such terms ought to be accepted by them if they were offered to them.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

Purchase in any shape or form is certainly, to me, a novel idea in connection with the Land League. The hon. Member, in another part of his speech, complained that hundreds of thousands of tenants, at the time of the passing of the Act, were hopelessly in arrear with their rent. Now, if hundreds of thousands of tenants were in arrear, where was the purchase money to come from? It certainly was not to come from the funds of the Land League, because the doctrine has all along been—"Pay for what you want for yourself, your wives, and your families; but not one farthing is to go for the payment of rent." The money sent from America was sent with an entirely different object. That object is expressed in the extract from The Irish World read by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in which the writer describes the rapturous emotion with which he had learned that the banner of "no rent" had been unfurled. The idea had been all along to hold the harvest and hold the land; and the short, sharp, and decisive way of doing it was to pay no rent. The hon. Member then stated that the outrages throughout the country which have occurred have been grossly exaggerated. It is quite possible that, in some instances, they may have been exaggerated. The hon. Gentleman has mentioned the case of a man named Donoghue, who had been a witness against certain persons on a charge of writing a threatening letter, and it turned out in the course of the investigation that he himself had fabricated letters of a similar nature. But what happened? The Crown has determined to prosecute this man, and he has been sent up for trial at the present moment. But is there no crime or outrage in the country at this moment? Is it all an invention? Are the bodies of the two unfortunate men which were only the other day raised from the bottom of Lough Mask all a dream? Is the desperate tragedy brought to light at the Cork Assizes, where the house of a woman and her children was visited at dead of night by a body of armed ruf- fians with blackened faces, and a little boy starting up in his bed and. recognizing one of the men, said, "Pat, I know you," whereupon, in an instant, a shot was fired which took effect in the arm of this little child, who was almost killed—is all that an exaggeration, or pure invention? Are all the accounts of shooting and maiming, and murder which we read simply imagination? There may be exaggeration; but far too many of the accounts we have seen and heard are not given upon mere surmise, or newspaper reports, but are based upon facts and evidence which cannot be mistaken. This is the state of things with which the Government have had to deal. It is a state of things which the Government have been dealing with to the best of their ability; and they have been loyally, honestly, and faithfully endeavouring to be fair, just, and calm in the administration of the powers intrusted to them. At the same time they have been determined to enforce, with the strong arm of the law, the preservation of law and order in Ireland. The state of things, I am glad to say, is improving; the country is not now under the control of this conspiracy to the same extent as it has been, and I venture to hope that in a short time, if the course of the Government and its motives remain unchanged, if they continue to act with an earnest desire on the one hand to preserve liberty, and on the other to preserve order, we shall again see a revival of those times of peace of which the hon. Member for New Ross has spoken. The hon. Member expressed an ardent aspiration that peace and happiness and mutual affection should exist between England and Ireland—at some time, I suppose, when the curses which he predicted against my right hon. Friend may be forgotten. However that may be, I trust that we are entering upon better times and with better prospects; and I believe, in the interest of the country, that the course which we have taken has been absolutely necessary, as well as in the interest of the misguided persons who might have been hurried into a position from which they could not otherwise have been extricated.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Plunket.)

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

said, that before the Motion for adjourning the debate was agreed to, he wished, with the permission of the House, to read a telegram which he had just received from America from his hon. Friend the Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy). Hon. Members would remember the impression produced upon the House by quotations given by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland from certain speeches said to have been delivered by his hon. Friend. The telegram which he had received was dated Boston that day, and said— Forster'ts quotations utterly inaccurate. I am cancelling engagements, and returning forthwith to contradict Forster's misrepresentations.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I am glad to hear that statement; but I may say that it was not Forster's quotation at all; it was a quotation from United Ireland.

MR. GRAY

wished to say a few words with reference to the attack made by the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) on Mr. George Fottrell, whose friendship he (Mr. Gray) enjoyed, and to correct a misapprehension under which the noble Lord clearly laboured. He was satisfied that the noble Lord was incapable of making an ungenerous, much less an unjust, attack upon an absent man, especially when that absent man was in the position, on account of a certain transaction which was the subject of a Correspondence laid upon the Table of the House, of having tendered his resignation of a post which he had filled under the Government in connection with the Land Commission, and when the whole matter was still under investigation. He was sure that the noble Lord had no wish to misrepresent the facts or to prejudice the case. The noble Lord assumed that Mr. Fottrell was the confidential solicitor to the Land League. Now, although he (Mr. Gray) was not, and never had been, connected with the Land League, he was able to state, as a matter of fact, that Mr. Fottrell was not, and never had been, confidential solicitor to the Land League. The only foundation for that charge—for it had been laid upon him in the nature of a charge—was that, being a gentleman of very considerable professional qualifications, he was employed by some persons in con- nection with the transfer of certain property in a purely professional capacity. That transaction was, no doubt, the transfer of the property of the United Ireland newspaper. But Mr. Fottrell was simply employed to carry out a transfer of property, which it was perfectly open for him to carry out in the same way as any other professional business. When the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock spoke of the matter, he (Mr. Gray) noticed that an extraordinary anxiety was manifested by the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant to explain that he was not aware that Mr. Fottrell had acted in that capacity for the gentlemen who purchased that newspaper. He (Mr. Gray) could only interpret the anxiety of the right hon. Gentleman to mean that a knowledge of the fact would have militated against Mr. Fottrell's appointment if the Government had been aware of it. He wished, therefore, to know if the right hon. Gentleman's disclaimer on the part of the Government was to be taken in that sense; and, whether he considered it any ground of accusation or condemnation against Mr. Fottrell that he had acceded to the request to carry out the transfer?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I have no right, I believe, to speak again; but if the hon. Gentleman wishes it, I will explain that what passed between myself and Mr. Fottrell was this. I asked him if he was connected with the Land League, and he said that he had been employed in one mercantile transaction in connection with it. I do not in the slightest degree blame Mr. Fottrell; but if I had been informed that that one transaction was the purchase by Mr. Parnell, and Mr. Egan, and the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy), of the newspaper called United Ireland, I should have inquired further into the matter before I sanctioned the appointment.

MR. GRAY

said, that probably between then and Monday the right hon. Gentleman would inquire whether any of the Law Officers of the Crown were concerned in the same transaction? Did they assist professionally in the transfer or not, or were they consulted on the subject or not?

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)

I certainly was not, nor, to my knowledge, was any Law Officer of the Crown, in any manner concerned in the transaction.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

And I did not.

MR. GRAY

said, he was told that Mr. Fottrell never was the confidential legal adviser of the Land League, and that, with the exception of this one transaction, he never had any connection with that body.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he had one question to put in regard to this transaction concerning United Ireland. He wished to know if it did not take place at a time when United Ireland was regarded by Her Majesty's Government as a perfectly legitimate organ of opinion? It was rather a new and a curious doctrine that professional gentlemen were to be punished for the business they transacted in connection with their Profession. He confessed that he did not at all envy the feelings of those Members of that Profession who sat in silence and did not rise to repudiate the attempted interference with the professional rights of members of their Profession.

Question put, and agreed to.

Debate adjourned till Monday next.

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