CLASS II.—SALARIES AND EXPENSES OF CIVIL DEPARTMENTS.

HC Deb 23 February 1882 vol 266 cc1417-82

(8.) £2,300, Foreign Office.

(9.) £6,300, Colonial Office.

MR. BIGGAR

said, the increase upon this Vote seemed to him to be a very large one. The sum appeared to have been expended entirely in telegrams. He thought that a sum of £6,000 for telegrams, even in South Africa, was a very large amount. Things were very much more threatening last year in South Africa, and a similar expenditure was not required. He wished to know what the explanation of the increase was.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

said, the hon. Member was no doubt aware that a Royal Commission had been appointed for the purpose of undertaking certain negotiations in South Africa, owing to the disputes between the Transvaal and ourselves. During those negotiations it was found necessary to telegraph very frequently between the Colonial Office and the Commissioners, and telegraphing from here to South Africa was not a very cheap matter.

Vote agreed to.

(10.) £2,300, Civil Service Commission.

(11.) £215, Friendly Societies Registry.

(12.) £5,140, Local Government Board.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he wished to call attention to one item under sub-head "D" which stated that a further sum of £2,400 was required On account of additions to the salaries of Tour Law Medical Officers in certain cases, on account of the appointment of some additional Poor Law Medical Officer, and also in consequence of the largely increased expenditure for drugs occasioned by the small-pox epidemic. He believed that the Local Government Board charged so much for these things in England, and he wanted to know whether the ratepayers in Ireland would get a similar grant with regard to similar charges?

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

replied in the affirmative.

MR. BIGGAR

wished to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland whether this Vote would apply to the Bill introduced the other night which dealt with rates and payments?

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

said, the Bill referred to had relation to superannuations, and not to salaries.

Vote agreed to.

(13.) £19,600, Stationery and Printing.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

said, he thought he had some right to complain of the conduct of the Government in bringing forward this Estimate before the House was in possession of the Appropriation Accounts of last year. Without the information which those Accounts embodied, it was perfectly impossible for the Committee to form any reasonable opinion as to the accuracy of the reasons adduced in these Supplementary Estimates for the voting of the further sums required. Now it struck him that the Public Accounts Committee was utterly unrepresented in the present Committee of Supply, except by the noble Lord the Financial Secretary himself. He gathered that in point of fact the Public Accounts Committee had not yet had an opportunity of forming an opinion; and some years ago a Committee, including the noble Lord, made strong representations in one of their Reports as to the desirability of the information furnished to the Committee being laid before Parliament before these Votes were produced at the beginning of the Session. But the fact was that the House had not had that information. This Vote would illustrate what he meant. Last year a considerable amount of discussion arose as to sums asked for in connection with the Stationery Services, and two or three points especially were dealt with, not only in regard to the printing of the House of Commons generally, but also in regard to the confidential printing of the Foreign Office, and one or two other Departments. At that time the noble Lord told them that the Government had Under consideration some very important alterations in the existing system, which alterations were to bring about a considerable reduction of expense. It would now appear not only that the expenditure had not been reduced, but that the Government were under the necessity of asking for £19,600 more than had originally been asked for. He should feel obliged if the noble Lord would account, if possible, for the delay in issuing the Accounts, and when he did so, perhaps he would also explain what steps the Government had taken to give effect to their promise of last year, and how the matters connected with the Government printing now stood.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

said, he thought the hon. Member was mistaken as to the Public Accounts Committee. It had been recommended that a Committee of the House of Commons should make an examination of the public expenditure on printing, &c.; but the Public Accounts Committee had nothing whatever to do with the Estimates. He trusted the hon. Gentleman would use his influence with some of his Colleagues, and enable them to appoint the Committee of Public Accounts at an early date, so that the accounts might be placed before the House at an early period.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

said, it was not the appointment of the Public Accounts Committee he referred to, but the Appropriation Accounts, which ought to have been issued to Members.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

said, that with respect to the Appropriation Account that was a matter which did not lie with the Treasury; but he would inquire into the subject. He believed that it was not usual to present the Accounts until towards the end of the month; but he would inquire at what date the Accounts could be presented. He was not surprised that this Vote had attracted the attention of the hon. Member. The steady increase of the Vote was most unsatisfactory. There was a very large increase in spite of the strenuous exertions which had been made by the present Controller of the Office. He believed that one great reason for the increase was the mass of Correspondence which in all the Offices was steadily increasing, and which it was impossible to prevent. Over and over again, he had himself been struck by the enormous increase in the Correspondence of the various Offices within the last few years; but, as regarded the business itself, the contracts were on more favourable terms than they used to be, and he believed that the Department was conducted as economically as possible. The expenditure, however, did not depend upon the Controller of the Stationery Office, who had to meet the demands of the Public Offices. He (Lord Frederick Cavendish) had been asked last year if he could not provide more information as to the expenditure of the different Offices in respect of stationery; and he was happy to say that he would shortly be able to present a Report to the House showing the expenditure of the different Offices. A Joint Committee of the two Houses of Parliament had been appointed to see whether any changes for the better could not be effected. That Committee issued a very valuable Report last year, and recommended that certain changes should be made. He had already given Notice of certain Resolutions with respect to Parliamentary printing; and he hoped, if the House adopted them, that they would lead to greater economy for the future.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

asked the noble Lord for further information respecting the Foreign Office printing.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

said, it was not an easy matter to check the Foreign Office printing. It was quite true that a high price was paid for it; but hon. Members must recollect that it was of importance that the utmost caution should be exercised. With respect to the documents printed by the Foreign Office, there was good reason for extra payment. The whole of the documents of the Foreign Office were of a confidential nature; and it was a matter of extreme importance, as regarded all our foreign relations, that their confidential character should be preserved. The consequences which might arise from any breach of confidence in that Department made it well worth while to pay something additional for the expense of printing. He could, however, assure the hon. Member that this matter should not be lost sight of, and that the Stationery Office and the Government would do all in their power to curtail the expenditure. At the same time, he thought it would be bad economy to incur any risk of those confidential documents getting out.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

said, he did not at all underrate the importance of the confidential printing of the Foreign Office; but it did appear to him strange that certain confidential printing for other Departments as well as the Foreign Office should be performed at a cost of 40 per cent less than that of the Foreign Office. He failed to see that where the work was of an equally confidential character it should be paid for at a different rate.

Vote agreed to.

(14.) £850, Works and Public Buildings Office.

CAPTAIN AYLMER

said, the explanation given as to the effect of these Votes was generally easily understood, and perfectly satisfactory; but it did appear to him that this Vote was of a very improper nature, and unless the explanation was entirely satisfactory he should feel inclined to oppose it altogether. It stated at the end of the Vote that it was The amount of special gratuities to two of the Surveyors on the Establishment in respect of the erection from their designs, and under their superintendence, of certain large Public Buildings. He understood that to mean that two men, who were paid year by year certain salaries for doing certain work, because in one year the work was a little heavier than in another, they were to receive an extra amount of salary. It was certainly an absurdity on the face of it that a Surveyor on the Establishment, getting an annual salary for his services, should, if he did a little extra work, receive a gratuity in addition. In all probability the work of a Surveyor in one year was very light, and, if in another year it became a little heavier, he ought to be required to take the good and the bad together.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

stated that these payments were made in accordance with the recommendation of a Committee of Inquiry in 1876. It had been the general custom in case of very important works to employ a special architect, who received a commission of 5 per cent. The hon. and gallant Member for Maidstone shook his head.

CAPTAIN AYLMER

I shook it because I disputed the principle, not the fact.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

Instead of that principle the Committee recommended that, wherever it was possible, one of the Surveyors of the Board of Works should be intrusted with the responsibility of the construction of these buildings, and since that system had been carried out it had answered very well. For the extra responsibility thrown upon them they received a small gratuity. In the course of the present year three important buildings had been completed, namely:—Bow Street Police Court, the Savings Banks Office in Queen Victoria Street, and the Liverpool County Court. These works had been erected under the supervision of the Surveyor of the Board of Works, and the Committee decided that the gentlemen who had been thus employed should receive a small gratuity, which amounted to a sum infinitely smaller than the sum which would have been paid to an architect if an architect had been employed; and, in addition, the work had been better done.

MR. METGE

said, this was a question which interested an Irish Member to a certain extent, because a ease of a similar character had occurred in Dublin the other day. It seemed to him, from the explanation given by the noble Lord, that the custom used to be to employ an experienced architect in cases of this nature, whereas the plan now adopted was to employ the ordinary Surveyor connected with the Public Office, and to give him a gratuity instead of having a more experienced man. Now, in this case it seemed to him that the cost would amount very much to the same thing without having the services of so experienced a man.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

said, he could assure the hon. Member that the Liverpool County Court and the other buildings cost £91,000, and that 5 per cent upon that sum would have been £4,550, instead of which these Surveyors received £600 for this particular work.

MR. DICK-PEDDIE

said, that he did not object to the employment of the Surveyor of the Board of Works instead of an architect, in the circumstances which were explained by the noble Lord; but he thought that as it was known when the Estimate was prepared that the Surveyor of the Board of Works was to be employed, the Estimate should have included the remuneration to be given him for the extra work he had to perform.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

remarked, that there was a little difficulty in foreseeing at what time the items would come into payment; and they were, therefore, not charged as the work was going on, but only when it was completed.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

said, he quite agreed with the desirability of giving some little gratuity to public servants for extra or good work done. It, however, required to be exercised with great care; but he thought the noble Lord ought to include in the Vote the names of the persons who had deserved well of the public. Not only should their names be given, but the amount of remuneration received under each head should be fully stated. He thought such a public proceeding would afford great encouragement to public servants, and do good. Under all the circumstances, he certainly would not think of objecting to the Vote.

CAPTAIN AYLMER

said, he had no desire to divide the Committee upon the Vote; but he would like the noble Lord to say that the principle should be avoided in future as far as possible. He thought that if gentlemen were employed in the Public Departments, they ought to receive a commensurate salary for the services they rendered, and should not be led to look forward to gratuities. The salary should cover all the work the public servants had to do. Nothing could be more injurious than holding out the hope that the House of Commons might be induced hereafter to vote an extra sum. The work must certainly be done in the time which ought to be devoted to the public service, and for which a salary was paid, and the principle of paying an extra gratuity for devoting that time to other work was altogether wrong. Nothing could be worse than to lead architects or surveyors to suppose that they were to receive a certain commission or gratuity, according to the extent and value of the work recommended to be done. The principle was a very bad one indeed, and the cost of buildings would run to a far higher figure than if it were provided for and carried out by salaried officers connected with the Department—not paid by commission or gratuity, but by salary only. If the noble Lord would not give an undertaking that some arrangement would be made in future, either to raise the salaries to a commensurate sum, or to employ persons who were not already salaried servants, he should feel it his duty to divide the Committee.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

said, the Government had acted entirely upon the recommendation of the Committee of 1876. It was the belief of the Committee that the plan they recommended would lead to economy. The Government adopted the recommenda- tion of the Committee in good faith; and he believed, from what he had heard, that the arrangement worked well. He should be happy, however, if it were the wish of the non. and gallant Member, to inquire into the matter; but he would not like to take upon himself the responsibility of altering the arrangement which had been made, after full inquiry, in 1876.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

asked if he was correct in understanding from the noble Lord that the building of the Liverpool County Court was completed?

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

replied in the affirmative.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

said, he was glad the noble Lord had mentioned that fact, because the mention of it had induced him to turn back to the Estimates of last Session, and there he found that the original Estimate for the total cost of the Liverpool County Court was £32,000. Under this arrangement, which the noble Lord said had worked so well, he found that, instead of the work being done for £.32,000, £40,000 had actually been spent; and, therefore, the country had had to pay £8,000 more than was originally asked for, and this was only one of the things which the Surveyor had had in hand.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

said, that, if he was not mistaken, the item referred to included some other things besides the cost of building.

Vote agreed to.

(15.) £286, Fishery Board, Scotland.

(16.) Motion made, and Question, proposed, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £20, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 18S2, fur the Salaries of the Officers and Attendants of the Household of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland and other Expenses.

MR. REDMOND

said, he wished to avail himself of this opportunity of protesting, in the only way in which it was possible for him to protest, against the establishment of the Lord Lieutenant and Viceroy of Ireland. If he could protest against this establishment in no other way, he intended to protest by dividing" the Committee against it. Last Session he had taken the opportunity of expressing an opinion that the establishment of the Viceroy in Ireland was the centre of demoralization in that country. He was quite sure that in that sentiment he would be echoed by most of the Members from Ireland, with the exception, perhaps, of a few hon. Gentlemen who represented certain interests in Dublin, and who were desirous of maintaining the Viceroyalty from selfish motives—namely, the desire to keep up an institution which, in some way or other, they looked upon as assisting the trade and commerce of that city. He was sure, however, that a great difference of opinion might exist upon that point; and those who had strong feelings in regard to the mode in which Irish affairs were conducted and who viewed the proceedings of the Executive with distrust, must take that opportunity of protesting against the maintenance of the present system of government in that country. When the whole question came on upon the regular Estimates in Supply, there would be a better opportunity of going into details and showing the reasons why the Irish Members protested against this Vote. On the present occasion, it was not necessary to go at length into such arguments, beyond simply stating that the Irish Members protested against the Vote, because it afforded the means of keeping up an establishment which they altogether objected to. For that reason he intended to divide the Committee against the Vote.

MR. LEAMY

said, the Viceroyalty of Ireland was, and had always been, nothing else than a cause of demoralization. He knew many Irishmen who seemed to think that the fact of there being a Viceroy in Ireland was, to some extent, a proof that the Irish were a distinct nation; but he, for one, was quite prepared to dispense with proof of that character, and he should feel it his duty to oppose the Vote on division.

MR. R. POWER

also protested against the Viceregal system. At an earlier period of the Session he had asked leave to introduce a Bill into that House which had for its object the abolition of the Office of Viceroy; but hon. Members would recollect that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland thought it the right course to pursue to commence Obstruction by opposing the introduction of the measure. It had always appeared to him a curious thing, and a matter of wonder, that, even on the supposition that there should be a Lord Lieutenant in Ireland and a Tice-regal Court, the duties of the position should be discharged by an Englishman. He should think that an Irishman would be more proper to fill the Office of Lord Lieutenant than an Englishman. It would be quite intelligible if the Government were to send over to Ireland an Irishman who understood the condition and wants of the country, and who sympathized with the people in their feelings and aspirations. He could understand an appointment of that kind perfectly well. But he could never understand on what principle the Lord Lieutenants of Ireland were selected under the present system. As a rule, they had hitherto been men who were either little known in Ireland or unqualified for the discharge of such duties as were connected with the Office. They were, moreover, men who brought over with them to the country all the prejudices, and, without saying it offensively, he would add, all the narrowness of mind which they possessed as Englishmen. They were on their installation at the Castle of Dublin surrounded by a class of permanent officials, who, whether there was a Liberal or Tory Government in Office, were the persons who actually ruled the destinies of the country; while, as far as he could discern, the duties of the Lord Lieutenant himself consisted in giving a few dinners and balls to the citizens of Dublin, which latter were naturally grateful in view of future entertainments. But what was the feeling throughout the country? He maintained that outside the City of Dublin the Viceroyalty was one of the most unpopular institutions in Ireland. His hon. Colleague the Member for Water-ford (Mr. Leamy) had informed the Committee that there were certain Irishmen who held that the mere fact of there being a Viceroy of Ireland marked the people as belonging to a separate and distinct nation. That might be a correct view of the relations between England and Ireland, so far as it went; but he should be sorry to think that it was the only thing which marked the national distinction which existed. He and his hon. Friends opposed the present Vote on principle, because they felt that the Viceregal institution in Ireland tended to create a miserable, servile, and cringing spirit amongst certain portions of the people; and they opposed it, moreover, on the ground that the people of Ireland did not wish to have a Viceregal Court maintained there. Not only did the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland receive £20,000 a-year for the performance of his duties, but he (Mr. R. Power) observed in the Estimates that the sum of £7,270 was also paid to him for the salaries and expenses of his household. The few remarks upon this subject which he and his hon. Friends had felt it their duty to make were to be regarded as merely by way of protest, because opportunities would present themselves later on in the Session for discussing this question more fully, and in a manner more suited to its importance. On the present occasion, he thought the convenience of the Committee would be best consulted by simply taking a division against the Vote.

GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOUR

pointed out that twice during the last 50 years it had been proposed to abolish the Office of Viceroy of Ireland. On both those occasions the proposal came from a Scotchman; but never during the time referred to had any Irishman come forward to propose the abolition of the Office. On the contrary, when these Motions were brought forward they were opposed by the Representatives of the Irish people. When any hon. Member opposite brought forward a Motion to abolish the Office of Viceroy, he promised to support him, because he believed the Office to be the bane of Ireland; and he trusted that the proposal would meet with success.

CAPTAIN AYLMER

said, he hoped the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. Redmond) would not press his opposition to a division. He could assure the hon. Member that no one in that House was more opposed to the Office of Viceroy of Ireland than he was, and it was his intention fully to discuss the question when the Vote for the year came forward; but upon the present Vote he should abstain from offering any opposition.

MR. METGE

pointed out that the objections taken by Irish Members on the present occasion were not to the Vote itself, but to the principle involved in it. The hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for Kincardine (Sir George Balfour), in charging Irish Members with not having supported the Motions which had been brought forward for the abolition of the Office of Viceroy of Ireland, had forgotten the material circumstance that, at the time when those Motions were made, Ireland could not be said to be represented in that House. But the hon. and gallant Member would have no cause to make the same remark again, because he assured him that so long as Irishmen were allowed to speak from those Benches this Estimate would be contested. He quite agreed with the remark of the hon. and gallant Member that the Office of Viceroy was the bane of Ireland. Nevertheless, there were many advanced Irishmen who said—"Why not leave the unfortunate Lord Lieutenant alone, for, after all, he spends some money in Ireland?" For his part, however, he regarded the money spent by the Lord Lieutenant in Ireland as a curse to the country. He was willing to admit that Chief Secretary after Chief Secretary went over to Ireland, as did the right hon. Gentleman who at present filled that Office, with honest intentions. But in what quarter did they seek the information necessary for their guidance? It was obtained from the hotbed of the worst form of Toryism in the country—Dublin Castle—and was enmeshed and involved in class prejudice and Party idiosyncrasy. From that centre Ireland was governed, and not only did the present Chief Secretary for Ireland, but all those who preceded him in that Office, derive their information through the medium of the officials at Dublin Castle. It was upon these grounds that Irish Members now opposed the Vote—not because of the amount asked for, which was in itself trivial, but in order to show that, on every occasion, they intended to protest against the Office of Viceroy as coutrary to the national feeling of Ireland.

MR. THOROLD ROGERS

said, he thought it was rather too much to assert that a certain number of Gentlemen on the opposite Benches alone represented the Irish people, because there were many hon. Members on that side of the House who had a voice in the representation of Ireland. It was worth while, on the part of the hon. Member for Meath (Mr. Metge), to observe that if he would study the history of the Irish people he would find, whatever might he the vices of the Office, that the first Viceroy who recommended the institution of an Irish Parliament was Lord Chester- field, to whom Ireland was indebted for the events of 1782 more than anyone else. Moreover, he would find that Lord Fitzwilliam was the first person who, as Viceroy, recommended the emancipation of Irish Catholics.

DR. LYONS

observed, that, although the subject of the Vote was one on which a good deal was to be said, he did not consider that the present occasion was a proper one for its discussion. When the proper time arrived he would be in a position to show that the feeling of the country was in favour of the retention of the Viceroyalty.

MR. LEAMY

admitted the subject of this Vote was one which had been very much debated, and on which a good deal was to be said, and that different opinions with regard to it were held by Gentlemen who, generally speaking, entertained the same political views as him self; for, as he had already stated, there were some who thought that the mere fact that the Office of Viceroy existed in Ireland was an indication to the people of England that the Irish people were a distinct nation. But, holding the views which he held with regard to that Office, he felt bound to seize every opportunity of recording his vote in favour of its abolition. As to the remark of the hon. and learned Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers),that it was too much to assort that a certain number of Gentlemen on these Benches alone represented the Irish people, he would remind the Committee that within the last few days Ireland had given a very significant proof that, at any rate, if hon. Members on these Benches were not the sole Representatives of the people of Ireland, the people whom they did represent would shortly become the dominant Party in Irish politics. He referred to the return by an Irish constituency as their Representative of a man whom the English Government had thought fit to send to the Convict Prison at Portland. That circumstance was, he thought, sufficient to show that the public opinion of his country was going beyond the views of hon. Members near him, and that men even more advanced than they would be the future Representatives of Ireland. The hon. and learned Professor the Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers) had referred to the initiative taken in certain political matters by two of the former Viceroys of Ireland, in reply to which he would only say that the mere fact that one or two men who had filled the Viceregal Office might have been friends of Irish independence did not of itself make that Office necessary to Irish freedom.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

remarked, that the hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers) was nothing if not historical. He was willing to admit that Lord Chesterfield was, perhaps, the best Viceroy ever sent over from England to Ireland; but he would like to ask the hon. Member how many of Lord Chesterfield's views were carried out, and of what use to Ireland were his abilities? Why, he had been of no more use to Ireland than the right hon. Gentleman who had recently been gent there. And then with regard to Lord Fitzwilliam, the hon. Member would know that he was recalled on account of his suggestions, and that his recall was one of the causes that led to the Rebellion of 1798. The truth was that the Office of Viceroy was of no manner of use in serving the country, while it did some negative harm by creating a false public opinion and a spirit of flunkeyism. The City of Dublin had been well described by an Englishman as the capital of flunkeyism; and, as a matter of fact, the Office conferred but a mock distinction, while the Court which surrounded it was merely a sham. He would not detain the Committee at greater length on that occasion, but he looked forward to the time when the question of the Irish Viceroyalty would be fully debated in the House of Commons; and even now he hoped his hon. Friend the Member for New Ross (Mr. Redmond) would persevere and carry his opposition to a division, for although the amount of the money was small, he was glad that it had been the means of enabling his hon. Colleagues to protest against the principle involved in the Vote.

MR. FINIGAN

rose to oppose the Vote. He had not addressed the House during the present Session upon any subject connected with Irish affairs; but he felt himself compelled, by the circumstances of the case, to protest in the strongest manner against one single sovereign, or, indeed, a single penny, being paid to the so-called Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. That official was certainly not a Lord Lieutenant in a representative sense, and all the his- torical reminiscences which the learned Professor sitting upon the Whig Benches opposite could bring forward in that House in favour of ancient and forgotten Lord Lieutenants was of no use, and had no application whatever in the present discussion upon a matter of expenditure in Ireland. The Lord Lieutenancy was a complete farce. It was one of those things which were commonly known as a fraud upon the people. He assured hon. Members that, however much it might be objected to in certain circles, the Irish Members sitting on the Opposition Benches represented the Irish nation. If the landlords of Ireland and the officials at Dublin Castle were left out of the question it would be found that those Members were the real and actual Representatives of the people of Ireland. They objected, and they appealed to other hon. Members to object, to the payment of a large salary to a man who had really nothing to do with the government of Ireland as far as regarded its welfare. He spent his time and money, or rather the money which he received from England, in giving nice little semi-official parties, and in entertaining all the would - be aristocracy of Irish landlordism and society. He sincerely trusted the Committee would oppose the payment of any money derived from English taxation to that personage called the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, whose Office in Ireland was simply a mockery and a delusion, and whose presence there was a sham. He would be very sorry that any amount drawn from the pockets of the people of England should be expended in keeping up such a mockery in the City of Dublin as the Lord Lieutenancy, surrounded by its circle of official hacks. He was not prepared to deny that the Lord Lieutenant was a very able man. With 50,000 troops at his command his position very much resembled that of a Turkish Pasha; but as to his being a Governor in the proper sense of the term, or interesting himself in the Government of Ireland, no such argument could be supported either in theory or in fact. He hoped that the learned Professor (Mr. Thorold Rogers), who had never expressed any friendly feeling towards Ireland, or, as far as he knew, said anything in favour of Irish, nationality, would re-read the history of the Irish people, with a view to making his historical references more applicable and somewhat correct.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 104; Noes 12: Majority 92.—Div. List, No. 22.)

(17.) Motion made and Question proposed, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £900, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1882, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland in Dublin and London, and Subordinate Departments.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

said, as the present Vote was almost a corollary to that which preceded it, the opposition offered to it by Irish Members would be consequential. The Office of Chief Secretary was one which would follow that of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if the latter were abolished, as he hoped it soon would be. The abolition of the Chief Secretaryship and the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland was a proposition which had over and over again been put forward in the House of Commons within the last 50 years. It was made in 1824 by Mr. Hume, who again brought it forward in 1830, and in 1850 Lord John Russell introduced a Bill for the abolition of these Offices, upon which occasion every one of the then Conservative Chief Secretaries for Ireland voted in favour of the measure. He had forgotten the names of those Gentlemen; but there were six of them in existence at the time, and all of them were in favour of the abolition of the Office. They proceeded merely on the question of principle which was then before them. But at the present day Irish Members had very much stronger and more pressing reasons which induced them to oppose not only the Office of Chief Secretary itself, but its present occupier, and to desire its complete abolition. If the English people were wise they would, he thought, insist upon the present holder of the Office being relegated to some post in their own country, where he would not be able to accomplish the amount of harm which he had been doing in Ireland. He was sure he was not exaggerating when he said that there had never been a statesman since the time of Castlereagh who had helped to make the British connection so hateful to the people of Ireland as it had now become under the present Chief Secretary; and the amount of animosity, hatred, and irreconcilable opposition that the right hon. Gentleman had caused in the minds of the great majority of the Irish people towards the British connection was such as would require many years to wipe away. But it had been said by some that the present Chief Secretary for Ireland entered upon his Office with the very best intentions. He did not seek to judge of the intentions of any man, and it was perfectly impossible to fathom the mind of the Chief Secretary for Ireland; but the right hon. Gentleman must and would be judged according to his acts, and it was a fact that not only had he assumed, in the discharge of the more painful and more important duties of his Office, a bearing towards the Irish people which had excited an amount of enmity and opposition, but in his dealings with deputations that had waited upon him in connection with subjects of very great importance to the different sections of people in Ireland, his bearing had been so flippant and off-handed that the members of the deputations often retired disgusted and indignant. But supposing that the Chief Secretary had merely carried out the commands of his Colleagues—because, of course, the Lord lieutenant was a man of no authority; not being a Member of the Cabinet he was obliged to refer to it in all cases, and it was hardly possible to discover whether the Chief Secretary was superior or subordinate to him. The right hon. Gentleman had signed a number of warrants for the committal to prison of a number of innocent men in Ireland under circumstances of such a character that, were there nothing else against him than the way in which that power had been exercised, it would in itself be quite sufficient to justify Irish Members in opposing everything in the shape of a Vote of public money for any purpose connected with the Chief Secretary's Department. The way in which those warrants had been issued; the character of the men who had been arrested; the mode in which the arrests had been made; and the monstrously unjustifiable proceedings that had been taken under the Coercion Act in connection with those warrants, were such as must necessarily breed in 500 cen- tres throughout Ireland, where before there had existed the most patriotic ardour, the most rebellious feelings against the Crown and the Administration. That was part of the Chief Secretary's work. He might, perhaps, be thought to speak on this subject with a certain amount of personal feeling, because it had been alleged that a warrant had been issued for his own arrest. He had never seen the warrant, and he was not aware of his own knowledge that it was in existence; but he had been told that he was charged with being reasonably suspected of treasonable practices. He did not know anything about that; but he was sure that if a warrant had been signed charging him with treasonable practices, that warrant was a lie, and nothing would ever induce him to believe that anyone could sign it without knowing that it was a lie. Therefore, knowing that many men as innocent as himself of treasonable practices had been arrested in Ireland under warrants of the same character, and believing that a large number of persons had been so deprived of their liberty without the least colour or ground of justification, he said, under those circumstances, it would be impossible for him ever to assent, as a Member of that House, to the voting of public money in respect of any Office with which such a man as the Chief Secretary was connected. He therefore trusted his hon. Friends would accompany him into the Lobby in opposition to the Vote.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

also opposed the Vote. He observed there was a sum of £900 under this Estimate which represented a charge of about £2 for each of the warrants issued against "suspects" in Ireland. He would like to know from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, before the present discussion came to an end, whether there was any truth in the allegation that he had sent blank warrants for the arrest of "suspects" to Mr. Clifford Lloyd, or other magistrates in Ireland. He felt it his duty to oppose this Vote as a protest against the conduct of the Chief Secretary for Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman had in prison at the present time, under the operation of the Coercion Act, a number of gentlemen, of whom he might say that he believed them to be as innocent of treasonable practices as was the hon. Member who had just spoken, and who had spoken the truth. The hon. Member for Queen's County had spoken the truth in denying that he had been guilty of treasonable practices, and who would venture to contradict him, or come forward and prove his guilt? He challenged the Government to do this; and it was well known that if the hon. Member for Queen's County were guilty of treasonable practices, he could be arrested, as any man could be in England, as well as in Ireland. But how had the charges of treasonable practices been made out against the gentlemen who were in prison? He had listened the other night with considerable interest to the best excuse the Government were able to make for them. They admitted that there was nothing in the text of the speeches of those gentlemen that could justify their arrest; but, said the Attorney General for Ireland—"You must read between the lines;" and the Chief Secretary, alluding to a sentence or two that had been spoken, said—"It looks innocent enough, but we must see what is meant by it." And it was upon his own forced and unreasonable construction of the language employed that he sought to arrest gentlemen on what he called reasonable suspicion, and keep them many months in gaol. Against such a procedure as that Irish Members were bound to protest. They were bound, to the utmost of their ability, to refuse to pay salaries to gentlemen who did this atrocious work in Ireland. Throughout the whole of the discussions which had taken place upon the subject of these arrests, he had heard no defence of the policy and action of the Government that would pass muster in any fair and impartial Assembly, although the so-called defence which had been put forward in that House had passed with a number of hon. Members, who were bound to the Government by Party ties. The policy of the Government might be consistent with the feelings of Liberal Gentlemen, but it was not so with the feelings of Irish Members; nor was it consistent with what was fair and just to the people of the country. Irish Members were compelled by a sense of duty to oppose this, and all such Votes, to the full extent of their power; and he should, therefore, cordially support his hon. Friend the Member for Queen's County in his opposition to the Motion,

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I merely rise for the purpose of making two explanations, or, rather, of contradicting two statements. There is absolutely no foundation for the statement that blank warrants have been issued. The hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Sullivan) seems to be under the impression that this Vote is for an increase of salary to the Chief Secretary. That is not the ease.

MR. REDMOND

said, the Irish Members on those Benches felt it their duty to offer opposition to this Vote for two reasons, perfectly distinct from each other. The first of these was that they desired to enter a protest against the system under which Chief Secretaries for Ireland were appointed at all; and that reason was in itself, to his mind, entirely sufficient. But there was also the ground for opposition alluded to by the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. A. O'Connor)—namely, that every one of his hon. Colleagues had cause to believe that in the conduct of his duties in Ireland the present Chief Secretary—of course, when he spoke of him he spoke of his subordinates in Office also—had been guilty of gross negligence on matters of the very gravest importance. The hon. Member for Southwark (Mr. Thorold Rogers) mentioned a suspicion in his mind that Irish Members on those Benches did not represent the Irish people. He (Mr. Redmond) would like to appeal, if he could, from the hon. Member for Southwark to other hon. Members in that House, who probably knew at least as much as the learned Professor about Ireland and its people, because he was convinced that there was not an Irishman on the opposite Benches who would deny that the Party with whom he had the honour to act did represent the overwhelming majority of the people of Ireland. Was not the election for the County of Meath evidence of the force of the opinions which they represented in that House?

THE CHAIRMAN

I must remind the hon. Member for New Ross that we are discussing a Vote for the Department of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and not the state of political feeling in Ireland.

MR. REDMOND

said he was endeavouring to combat the idea that the Irish Members, in making these protests, did not represent the opinion of the people of Ireland. If he was out of Order in that course he would desist.

THE CHAIRMAN

I have already reminded the hon. Member that the Vote is for the Chief Secretary, and does not refer to the recent election.

MR. REDMOND

said, he would pass from that matter, merely observing that they had had strong evidence within the last few days——

MR. THOROLD ROGERS

rose to Order, and asked whether the authority of the Chair was to be disregarded?

THE CHAIRMAN

I have not yet heard what it is the hon. Member intends to say.

MR. REDMOND

said, he was about to say, when he was interrupted, that he would pass from that line with the single remark that there had been evidence within the last few days that the course they were taking in opposing the Vote for the Chief Secretary was a line of action supported by public opinion in Ireland. That was a statement which he thought he was in Order in making; and he thought if hon. Members opposite would be a little patient, and not interrupt other hon. Members, they would expedite the progress of Business. The first reason for protesting against this Vote was a desire to protest against a system utterly rotten and unsound—a system of government, whereby the men who were responsible for the government of Ireland were in no sense responsible to the people of Ireland; a system whereby the right hon. Gentleman who governed Ireland was in no sense responsible in the slightest degree to the people; a system whereby the people were ruled, not in accordance with their wishes, which was the correct definition of representative government, but in direct opposition to their wishes and to the wishes of their elected Representatives in Parliament. That was one reason why they objected to this Vote. The other reason for objecting was that they had evidence, which they could adduce, that the right hon. Gentleman, in the administration of half his duties in Ireland—namely, the carrying out of the Coercion Act, had been guilty of gross neglect, and of gross violations of the pledges he solemnly gave in that House. There were many things in connection with the administration of the Coercion Act which could be alluded to as reasons why the Irish Members could not countenance any extra Vote for the Chief Secretary or his subordinates. Mention had been made of the issue of warrants. Less than three weeks ago a warrant was issued for the arrest of his (Mr. Redmond's) brother. A copy of that warrant had been sent to him, and in that warrant his brother was described as "Redmond "—without any initials—"of Liverpool"—a place where he had never been. Was not that an evidence that the right hon. Gentleman had been guilty of a gross violation of the pledge he and his Colleagues gave, that they would investigate every individual case? In Common Law he had no doubt that warrant would be utterly invalid, and he believed that if he chose to have a motion made in the Court of Queen's Bench for a writ of habeas corpus he could have his brother released. Of course, his brother would be re-arrested under a good warrant; but he would rather his brother should rot in prison than take advantage of any such technicality. [A laugh.] The hon. Member (Mr. Thorold Rogers) might laugh, and no doubt it was consistent with the hon. Member's ideas of decency to laugh at such a matter; but he would tell the hon. Member, and other English Members, that the Irish people had as great a contempt for their laughs as it was possible to have. They cared nothing for these jeers and laughs, and the only effect of them was to intensify that feeling of disaffection which was spreading in Ireland, and which the Chief Secretary and his officials had been working to deepen and strengthen. This case of his brother's was one matter connected with the issue of warrants, and he was certain there were many other cases of equally gross negligence; and he would like the right hon. Gentleman, or someone else on the Treasury Bench, to give some explanation of the issue of a warrant for taking away a man's liberty, in which the man was described in that vague way—without any initials, and as of Liverpool, where he never had been. Then there were other matters. He believed the right hon. Gentleman was responsible for the issue of these warrants. [Mr. W. E. FORSTER assented.] He was glad to know that was the case, for he was anxious to keep in Order, if possible. A number of his friends in the county of Wexford had been arrested under war- rants issued by the right hon. Gentleman, and he would mention, as one instance, the case of a highly respectable gentleman, named Ennis, who lived 10 miles from the nearest railway-station. His house was surrounded, at 10 o'clock one night, by policemen; after a delay of only a few moments, he was put on an outside car and driven about along country roads and bye lanes from one station to another, until half-past 7 the following morning. The reason alleged for this, when he protested, was that some demonstration of public sympathy or enthusiasm might arise if it were known where he was. Why the police did not arrest him an hour before there was a train and take him straight to the station, he (Mr. Redmond) could not tell; but, instead of that, he was driven about on an outside car, on a cold, wet night, till half-past 7 in the morning, and received no food until half-past 1 o'clock, when he was lodged in Kilmainham Gaol. Was not that a brutal exercise of arbitrary power? The obvious answer of the right hon. Gentleman would be that he was not responsible for these details; but these were details which closely touched the friends of the victims of this barbarous administration of the Coercion Act, and the right hon. Gentleman was the only person in the House who was responsible for the execution of these warrants. Then there were other things. A few days ago, he asked a Question in the House with reference to the release of a gentleman named Mahon, of New Ross. Why, although that gentleman was unconditionally released from Kilmainham Prison, the Sub-Inspector of New Ross had called upon him and told him that unless he left the country within a week he would be re-arrested? He had been released because his life was in danger; because the doctor of the gaol, Dr. Carte, and Dr. Kenny had united in a Report that prolonged imprisonment would almost certainly sacrifice his life. He was released; but his health continued bad, for he was not suffering from some temporary ailment, but from lung disease, and he was as ill three weeks after his release as when he was released. He took no part in the proceedings of the Land League, although, in the discharge of his duties as a reporter to a Wexford newspaper, he attended certain Laud League meetings, sheriffs' sales, and evictions. Yet, for earning his livelihood in the only possible way, the right hon. Gentleman had stated that he had been guilty of action in connection with the Land League. That was a cruel and wanton act, and the effect had been this—his ailment having been intensified by imprisonment, his friends told him when he left Kilmainham Gaol that he should leave that climate. He made arrangements for starting for Australia on the 9th of March; but, although this was known to the police—for a clergyman in the place had told them—he was told that unless he left the country at once he would be re-arrested. The result of that was that he was obliged to leave Wexford hurriedly, without time to make his preparations, for he was liable at any moment to re-arrest, which, to him, would have meant the grave. He (Mr. Redmond) had no desire to raise trivial matters in the House, or to carp at the right hon. Gentleman; but he was there to express his conviction—a conviction which he knew was shared by his constituents—that there never had been a Chief Secretary who had done more harm to the English connection with Ireland than the present Chief Secretary. [Dissent.] Did hon. Members who dissented from that sentiment imagine for one moment that the 500 men who had been arrested would come out of prison more loyal than when they went in? Did they imagine that the friend sand relatives of those men would be more loyal to the British connection after seeing honourable and upright men dragged away like felons and lodged in prison cells? The right hon. Gentleman had not only done harm to the British connection; but, although it was a matter scarcely worth referring to, he had utterly ruined his own reputation. ["Oh!"] Hon. Members probably objected to that statement, because they thought the right hon. Gentleman never had a reputation to destroy. He was under the impression, when the right hon. Gentleman went to take the reins of power in Ireland, that he had a reputation as a fair-minded, honest, and capable statesman. He now had the reputation, so far as the Irish people were concerned—and he (Mr. Redmond; cared not so much for the opinion of the majority of that House—of a dishonest politician.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member has no right to impute dishonesty to any Member of this House.

MR. REDMOND

said, he would, of course, withdraw the expression; but what he meant by dishonesty was the violation of pledges given to the House. In that sense he was regarded as a dishonest politician; he was regarded, moreover, as an unjust man who had taken advantage of power which had been placed in his hands for mean and petty purposes, and had used that power in an arbitrary and cruel manner; and, so far as Ireland was concerned, he had proved himself an utterly incapable man. No Chief Secretary of Ireland had ever brought the country into such an inextricable state of confusion as the right hon. Gentleman had. So long as the right hon. Gentleman left the Land League alone, the League had in no way created any confusion. He had read a few minutes ago a quotation from the right hon. Gentleman's speech on the second reading of the Coercion Act, in which he said the effect of the Act was being felt in Ireland before it was passed, and that the outrages were diminishing because the Act was coming into play, and the Leaders of the Land League were using all the power they possessed to put down outrage. Those were the words the right hon. Gentleman used; and if outrages had since taken place, and the hatred of England had been intensified, that was all to be laid at the door of the right hon. Gentleman, who was a weak, dishonest, incapable statesman.

THE CHAIRMAN

I have already informed the hon. Member that the application of the word "dishonest" to a Member of this House is un-Parliamentary. I call upon him to withdraw it.

MR. REDMOND

I at once withdraw it. I only used the word in the sense I stated.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I do not rise, Sir, to make any personal defence. If my reputation cannot take care of itself I shall not attempt to sustain it. The hon. Member says no other Irish Chief Secretary has done more harm than I have. There is no Irish Secretary who ever had the task of the present Irish Secretary to perform. There is no Irish Secretary who has Lad to contend with such a number of Members of Parliament and other men of influence who are doing all that is in their power to keep up a conspiracy against law and order.

MR. ARTHURE O'CONNOR

rose to Order, and asked whether the right hon. Gentleman was in Order in charging Members of the House with combining to keep up a conspiracy against law and order?

THE CHAIRMAN

Mr. Forster.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I am quite content with my statement as to the attitude of Members of this House. That is all I wish to say with regard to the attack and remarks of the hon. Gentleman on the general question. Already in this Session this subject has been debated, and probably will be debated again; but there are two or three special remarks of the hon. Member to which I wish to allude. First, it is true—and I am sorry for it—that in the performance of what I considered to be our duty in carrying out the Act, we have had to arrest the brother of the hon. Member. The hon. Member says there is a technical mistake in the warrant as to his brother's previous residence. As to that I cannot speak; but I can say that the grounds for the arrest were most carefully considered, and I believed we should have had no justification for not making the arrest. The hon. Member alludes to two other cases. I wish to state—and I appeal to the Committee whether it is not so—that it would be impossible for me, or anyone, to be ready with answers upon cases without any Notice. No Notice was given of any Question with regard to the arrest of the person named Ennis; and my obvious answer to this case is that I know nothing of the circumstances of the arrest. I do not admit the correctness of the hon. Member's account of the matter; but if he will give Notice of a Question, and give me reasonable time to obtain information, I shall be ready to answer him. The other case is that of a man named Mahon, who, the hon. Member says, was released because his life was in danger, and who has been obliged to leave the country. It is an exaggeration to say that his life was considered to be in danger; but his health was such that we thought it desirable to release him. I do not expect hon. Members to give me credit for this assertion; but I am sure no person in my position could have listened more to statements of ill-health than I have, and if I have erred, it has been in giving too much attention to these statements. We had reason to believe that this person was returning to the course he had previously followed, and we had our idea of his ill-health somewhat shaken by the fact that he could walk seven or eight miles without any difficulty immediately after his release.

MR. REDMOND

said, he wished to read the passage in the Chief Secretary's speech to which he had alluded. On the second reading of the Protection of Person and Property (Ireland) Act the right hon. Gentleman was reported to have said— Already, I say, we see signs of a diminution in the number of outrages. The improvement at first was only slight; but the outrages are now becoming smaller in number every day. And why are they diminishing? I believe there are two reasons for it. One is that the Gentlemen at the head of the Land League are using every power they possess to put a stop to outrages."—[3 Hansard, cclvii. 1230.]

MR. LEAMY

said, he thought the Attorney General for Ireland or the Solicitor General for Ireland might inform the Committee whether or not the warrant under which the hon. Member's brother had been arrested was a defective warrant; and whether it was not the fact that instances were to be found in which men about to be apprehended on warrants which did not give their Christian names had killed those attempting to arrest them, and had been held to be justified in doing so?

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

said, the warrant was a perfectly good one for technical purposes; and he believed it contained, besides the name Redmond, the aliases Munroe and Boyd.

MR. REDMOND

denied that statement, for he had a copy of the warrant, and it did not contain those names.

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

replied that, according to his impression, those aliases were in the warrant, and those were the aliases by which the person was known.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

said, he thought he might draw the attention of the Committee away from these rather heated questions, which did not seem to him to be suitable for discussion at that moment, to some points more directly connected with the actual expenditure of money in Ireland. He observed in this Vote for the Office of the Chief Secretary a point upon which he would like to ask a question. He did not know whether the Committee and the Chief Secretary would think him hypercritical; but he wished to know whether precedent had been followed in heading this Vote—"Chief Secretary for Ireland." He did not believe that the title "Chief Secretary for Ireland "had ever before been used in a public document. The title had always been "Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant." There was much more in that than people might suppose. If it was proposed to abolish the Office of Lord Lieutenant of Ireland the title in the Vote might be correct; if not, his question was not superfluous, and he supposed the Government had some reason for making the change. Then there was an item of £900 in the Vote for additions to the staff of the Office, and for some extra expenditure which had been sanctioned by the Treasury consequent on an important increase of business. He had paid a visit to Ireland in the winter, and he was then informed on authority, which he believed to be good, that an officer of the Guards—Mr. Ross, of Bladensburg—had been appointed Military Secretary to the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. If that was so he wished to know on "what precedent such an appointment had been made, because he was prepared to maintain that never before, since the Union, had the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant required such an officer; and he was, moreover, prepared to maintain that the Office of Military Secretary to the Chief Secretary was one altogether abnormal in its character. The Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant had absolutely nothing to do with the movement of troops in Ireland. He had no control over them, and properly no relations with the Forces; and if any functionary in Ireland was to have a Military Secretary it was the Lord Lieutenant, who was at the head of the troops in Ireland. He could not conceive on what ground the Chief Secretary appointed Mr. Ross Military Secretary without first of all coming to Parliament for its sanction. It was a totally new office, and was one calculated to put aside the authority of the Lord Lieutenant in military matters; in fact, this was an attempt to treat the Lord Lieutenant as a perfect dummy or ornamental figurehead, and to set up the Office of Chief Secretary as superior to that of the Lord Lieutenant. What he wanted to know was, whether Mr. Ross, of Bladensburg, was appointed by the Chief Secretary as his Military Secretary, or something analogous to it, in order that he might act as an intermediary between him and the Commander of the Forces? If so, what position did the Chief Secretary take up with respect to the movement of troops in Ireland? Were the orders for the movement of troops conveyed from the Chief Secretary direct to the Commander of the Forces, or were they conveyed, as they only could be Constitutionally conveyed, by the order of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland? On that point the Chief Secretary was bound to give them information, because the appointment of a Military Secretary to the Chief Secretary was quite an innovation, and altogether altered the character of the Office of Chief Secretary. He also wished explanation in regard to another matter. The other day there was a letter in the newspapers, signed by a very well-known Irishman—Mr. Penrose Fitzgerald. He was well known to be an active member of the Property Defence Association; and in his letter, which had attracted a good deal of attention, he stated, as a fact, that it had been intimated to the Property Defence Association that evictions in Ireland, if they were to be carried out with the aid of the military, were to be carried out on a very large and comprehensive scale; that they were to comprise, if necessary, districts, townlands, or baronies; that groups of tenants were to be evicted, because it was not convenient for the military authorities to make great preparations and arrangements for the eviction of a single tenant here and there; that, in order to meet the great movement against the payment of rent, the Government of Ireland signified to those connected with the Property Defence Association that evictions were to be carried out on an immense scale, and that great numbers of people were to be simultaneously turned out on the roadside. The Chief Secretary ought to take the present opportunity of informing the Committee whether these statements were accurate or otherwise. In his (Lord Randolph Churchill's) opinion, evictions in Ireland ought to be judged on their merits; and he had always understood that the landlords of Ireland were anxious to evict those tenants who could but would not pay, and to spare, if possible, those tenants who could not pay on account of the distressed times. Mr. Penrose Fitzgerald alluded to a large number of evictions which were going to take place almost immediately in Donegal; and he asked what was to be done, or what preparations were being made for the actual sustenance of the 4,000 or 5,000 persons who were to be turned out on the roadside? If any intimation of the nature described by Mr. Penrose Fitzgerald, either directly or indirectly, had been given by the Government to the Property Defence Association, it was the duty of the House of Commons to criticize their conduct most severely, because nothing could be more cruel than that, for the sake of military convenience, innocent people should be punished with the guilty. If it was necessary to evict the dishonest tenant, surely it was not necessary, or even human, to evict the tenants who were honest, and who, perhaps, were only unable to pay by the circumstances of the time. He would not have drawn attention to this point merely on the strength of the letter of Mr. Penrose Fitzgerald; but he thought it right to tell the Chief Secretary that when he was in Ireland, after last Christmas Day, he found it was the talk of the Clubs—it was the talk of persons in official and in ex-official positions, and of many persons who were in a position to know perfectly well what they were talking about—that the Chief Secretary was anxious to induce the landlords of Ireland to ask him to carry out evictions on a very large scale. He did not consider he was doing the Government an ill turn in mentioning this. ["Oh!"] Hon. Members opposite were premature in that expression. Positive statements to the effect he had stated had appeared in The Standard newspaper; those statements were made by a very prominent member of the Landlords' Defence Association, and the Chief Secretary was bound to get up and say whether it was the intention of the Government not to lend assistance to landlords who wished to evict tenants who, from their know- ledge, were certainly dishonest tenants, who were able to pay but declined to do so, unless the landlords were prepared, at the same time, to evict a large number of tenants who were not dishonest, but who were only prevented from paying by the necessities of the time? The Committee was bound to take notice of the matter. He was quite prepared to admit that never had a Chief Secretary so difficult a task to perform before; but he could not help noticing that all the great panegyrics passed on the Chief Secretary by his Chief and his Colleagues were generally coupled with insinuations of a more or less vituperative character against the right hon. Gentleman's Predecessor. They were told that Ireland was being governed on strictly philanthropic principles; but he wanted to know, if statements of the kind he had quoted were made in the newspapers by Irish Gentlemen—if those statements were supported by the general assent and opinion of Dublin society—if evictions were being carried out in a manner which he could only characterize as barbarous and heartless—he wanted to know on what ground the philanthropy of the right hon. Gentleman rested? He objected to the assumptions of superhuman righteousness on the part of the Government, and especially when they were coupled with insinuations of superhuman wickedness on the part of their Predecessors. He hoped the Chief Secretary would notice the three points he had raised—the denomination of his Office, the appointment of a Military Secretary, and the support given to a wholesale system of eviction.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, that, if what the noble Lord had stated was the prevalent impression in Irish society, he was not sorry an opportunity had been afforded him of explaining matters. He understood the noble Lord to say that when he came in contact with Irish society he learned that what he had stated was the fact. No doubt, he had learned a good many things; indeed, if the noble Lord believed all he heard, he must certainly have his head full of very strange and contradictory assertions. The noble Lord stated that he was informed that he (Mr. W. E. Forster), on behalf of the Government, had led the landlords of Ireland to believe that they would encourage them to make evictions wholesale, quite irrespective of the ability of the persons to pay their rent, and quite irrespective of the honesty or dishonesty of the tenants.

LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL

Yes; that is the statement in The Standard.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, that was a statement he absolutely denied. He imagined that if such a report was prevalent it arose in this manner—that they found many evictions would take place; they found they would have to protect the civil authority in carrying out those evictions, and what he did do—he did not know he ever did it officially, though he made no secret of it—was to inform the persons who thought it necessary to proceed against their tenants that it would be much better if, after they had made up their minds to evict, they would act in concert, so that they could with the least expenditure of force support them. He thought they were perfectly justified in so acting; their action was justifiable from an economical point of view; it was justifiable in the interest of the preservation of order and of mercy. ["Oh!"] Yes, as an act of mercy. It was their duty to support the force of the law; it was also their duty to do it with the least chance of the destruction of life. That it should be done with the least chance of the destruction of life an overpowering force must accompany the sheriff; and it would be almost impossible to send an overpowering force unless there was some kind of previous arrangement as to when, and how, and where it should be sent. His action could never be interpreted to mean that they encouraged landlords to take proceedings where they did not wish; it could not mean that they encouraged the landlords to take proceedings against those whom they had better let alone; it did not mean they were to take proceedings indiscriminately against the honest and the dishonest. What his action really did mean was that if the landlords were determined to carry out evictions they must let the Executive know when and how they proposed to do it, so that if there were two or three landlords in one district one force would suffice for all the cases. That was the line they took, and they were quite justified. The noble Lord had spoken about the denomination of the Office of Chief Secretary. If lie would refer to the Estimates, he would see that a Supplementary Estimate was required to pay the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. He hoped that would satisfy the noble Lord. As to Mr. Ross, he was appointed as temporary Assistant Private Secretary. The reason why he was glad of Mr. Boss's services was this—that they were obliged to make a good deal of use of the Military Forces in Ireland. There had, no doubt, been a great deal of exaggeration about the strength of the Military Force in that country. He had seen it stated there were 50,000 troops there; some people said there were 60,000; but the force really numbered under 30,000. The Chief Secretary and the heads of the Military Department had to be constantly in communication with one another. For instance, it was necessary to send a detachment of troops to a certain place, and it was desirable they should have some means of finding out where and the quickest and most economical manner in which that detachment could be lodged. They found that the two Departments, the Commander-in-Chief's Department and the Executive Department, could work better together, and that there would be a great saving of time and money if they engaged a gentleman for a short time to conduct this communication.

LORD CLAUD HAMILTON

said, he did not think his noble Friend (Lord Randolph Churchill) had been altogether fair in his criticism of the conduct of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. He did not for a moment pretend to know so much as the noble Lord on many subjects which he discussed in the House—it would be absurd for him to pretend to do so—but on one subject he must say he did know as much, and perhaps a little more, than his noble Friend, and that was on the subject of Ireland. He had resided in Ireland for a considerable time since the close of last Session, and he was in Ireland at the time mentioned by the noble Lord. He visited several parts of Ireland and mixed in various grades of society; but he was bound to say he never heard one word from any single person in Ireland imputing to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary the policy mentioned by his noble Friend. He had no doubt that at the commencement of his term of Office the right hon. Gentleman did not perform the duties of Chief Secretary in a way in which many gentlemen resident in Ireland considered he ought to have done; but for that he (Lord Claud Hamilton) never for one moment considered the right hon. Gentleman responsible. He considered, though it was a matter of course of opinion, that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government and the two right hon. Gentlemen the Members for Birmingham (Mr. Bright and Mr. Chamberlain) were responsible for preventing the right hon. Gentleman performing his duties in a proper and efficient manner. But now the right hon. Gentleman was at last attempting to perform his duties in a thorough and satisfactory manner, and endeavouring to enforce the law and sustain the rights of property, he was really surprised to see the noble Lord below the Gangway coming down to the House and adopting the attitude towards the right hon. Gentleman that he had just displayed. They all felt the right hon. Gentleman had had a most difficult and most painful duty to perform in Ireland; they who lived in Ireland deeply sympathized with him in the performance of those many painful duties; and he (Lord Claud Hamilton) would always be prepared, when he saw the right hon. Gentleman, notwithstanding the great opposition with which he was met in the House and elsewhere, striving to perform his duty to his Sovereign and his country, to give him his cordial support.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, if the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool, he thought——

LORD CLAUD HAMILTON

said, there was no doubt of it; he was the Member for Liverpool.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he believed the Home Rulers of Liverpool voted for the noble Lord. If the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool had ventured his strong contradiction of the statement of the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill), of whom he spoke in so friendly a manner, previous to the statement of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, there would have been considerably more weight in the contradiction. Unfortunately, the statement of the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool just came one speech too late, and that speech was the speech of the Chief Secretary for Ireland; for between the charge of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock and the indignant repu- diation of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, there was just as much difference as there was between a non-official and an official explanation of the same case. In all its essentials, in all its parts, the defence of the Chief Secretary confirmed the statements of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock. The noble Lord stated that he had heard plenty of confirmation in Ireland of the statements made by Mr. Penrose Fitzgerald in the columns of The Standard—namely, that the Chief Secretary for Ireland objected to furnish military escorts to single landlords engaged in limited eviction operations, but that he was quite prepared to supply an overwhelming force, if only a considerable number of landlords would combine, and, by one huge act of Cossackism, clear a whole country side. That was the statement of the Chief Secretary for Ireland himself. The only defence of this co-operative policy started by the right hon. Gentleman was that he did it for the purposes of mercy, and to prevent destruction of life, and for economy, of course; but the latter, being a stock Liberal topic, he would reserve for some general observations on Liberalism. It was the opinion of the Chief Secretary that, if they went out with a considerable force in order to protect the civil power, and to evict whole country sides, there would be less chance of resistance than if they went with a weaker force to a single eviction. Let them suppose that, instead of evictions in the wilds of Ireland, evictions were to be carried out in an English town. He asked if it would not be more conducive to the preservation of peace to pick out, as the cases naturally arose, the individuals who were considered deserving of eviction than to wait until half-a-dozen streets could be cleared out with one fell swoop? The Chief Secretary's theory that there would be less danger to life and property, less danger of fearful rioting, less heartrending scenes, by the clearance of a whole district rather than by picking out isolated cases, afforded the Committee a pretty fair specimen of the whole power of the right hon. Gentleman's intelligence. Mr. Ross, of Bladensburg, whose official designation was T.A.P.S.C.S.L.L., or Temporary Assistant Private Secretary to the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, seemed to be a sort of parallel to that Major Bond, the ornamental swearer, who was explained to be T.A.S.S.M., or Temporary Assistant Special Stipendiary Magistrate. Since the days of Alfred Smith, with whom O'Connell dealt somewhat irreverently, there had been no such creator of official nicknames as the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Putting the explanation of the Chief Secretary along with the corroborative evidence of the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool—for there could be no mistaking the corroboration contained in the tones of thorough satisfaction with which the noble Lord regarded the recent operations of the Chief Secretary—putting all those things together, they had a very fair explanation of the position of the new military assistant of the Chief Secretary. It was said in Ireland that whenever the Chief Secretary was applied to on any question, he always referred the applicant to his conscience. They had been greatly puzzled to know where his conscience was; and it now turned out it was represented by Mr. Ross, of Bladensburg, T.A.P.S.C.S.L.L. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had deserved, and had certainly obtained, the warm thanks of the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool. Now, the noble Lord was a member of a family holding, according to the English law, large estates in the county of Donegal; and he (Mr. O'Donnell) could fully understand the satisfaction of the noble Lord that at length such a Chief Secretary had been vouchsafed to landlordism in extremis, because they knew very well how the "hard-up Hamiltons" stood in Donegal. The noble Lord the Member for Liverpool had never appeared in the House in the character of a friend of Ireland; and he could assure the noble Lord that if a plébiscite were to be taken in the county of Donegal, the management of the Hamilton estate would not receive the universal suffrages of the population. If the Liberal Party were to endorse the statements of the Chief Secretary that he was influenced in his extraordinary operations by a desire to economize at whatever other risk, there could be no more lasting and permanent blot upon the reputation of the Party. He hoped there was not a single Gentleman on the Benches opposite who would prefer to vote for the increased expenditure necessary to carry out these evictions rather than have any part of the responsibility in stimulating the landlords to make a wholesale battue of miserable tenants for economical reasons; he hoped there were no hon. Gentlemen who would wish to show a saving on the Estimates at the cost of the tenants of Ireland. He fully sympathized with the protest of the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock against the manner in which a slur was sought to be cast upon the humanity and the philanthropy of previous Lord Lieutenants of Ireland. He was not bound to admire the policy of Conservative Viceroys of Ireland; but of them, at any rate, it was to be said that within his recollection no Conservative Viceroys of Ireland had declared what Lord Cowper declared at Belfast only a few months ago—namely, that the Liberal Party had practically despaired of getting at the root of disaffection in Ireland; that practically they had despaired of remedying the evils of Ireland; and that now they were bent upon driving discontent under. To cover the wretched failure of their own so-called remedial legislation, the Government had been trying to drive discontent under. Let the Chief Secretary and the Prime Minister look to the great county of Meath, and see whether they could drive discontent under. The policy of Liberalism in Ireland was a sham, and all the efforts of a dozen Chief Secretaries, with a dozen military consciences of the class introduced to their notice that night, would be utterly unable to induce the people to believe Liberalism was a reality.

MR. MACARTNEY

said, it was generally a painful thing for Irish Members to listen to debates in the House on Irish subjects. Such subjects were seldom debated calmly, and still less frequently with perfect fair play. The attack which had been made that evening, in the hearing of both sides of the Committee, upon the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was most undeserved. The humanity of the right hon. Gentleman had been assailed, and they had been told he had no conscience; they had been told he was anxious to see properties in Ireland devastated, and the tenants turned out of their holdings; they had been told he was most anxious to have an opportunity of displaying a large force of military, so as to clear a whole county or barony of its tenants. All that had been asserted upon the strength of a letter written to the newspapers. He had not read the letter, but he was astonished to hear it emanated from Mr. Penrose Fitzgerald, and that he was acting on the part of the Property Defence Association. He did not think that many Members who listened to the attack on the Chief Secretary believed in its fairness. The noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Lord Claud Hamilton) most properly reprobated the tone in which the noble Lord the Member for Woodstock (Lord Randolph Churchill) took up the cudgels for the anti-British party in Ireland, for the purpose of castigating his political opponents. He did not admire the position taken up by the noble Lord (Lord Randolph Churchill), and he should never support it. Furthermore, he should never stand up at any time in defence of the policy of Her Majesty's Government, for he did not approve of it; but he thought, if there was anyone who had endeavoured to do his best to prevent the mischief that that policy had worked, it was the right hon. Gentleman who represented the Government in Ireland. So much for what he believed was thought by most right-minded men in Ireland. He now wished to allude to a few words which fell from the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) with regard to the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool. The hon. Member made a most unwarrantable attack upon the noble Lord. Upon the tone of the attack he would make no remark; but he would say that the noble Duke, the father of the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool, held large estates, not only in the county of Donegal, but in the large county which he (Mr. Macartney) had the honour of representing; and he had never heard it even suggested by any human being that the noble Duke would require the assistance of Her Majesty's Forces to clear his estates. He did not know whether evictions on the estates were frequent; he believed not: but the noble Duke bore the character of being one of the best landlords in Ireland. His eldest son represented the county of Donegal for many years, and was only defeated by a narrow majority at the last General Election—the Marquess of Hamilton was not a Home Ruler, and therefore he was not returned. He re- gretted the personalities which had been employed by his countrymen, for he believed that if a higher tone were assumed in the debates on Irish subjects it would be more conducive to the welfare of the country.

MR. BIGGAR

said, perhaps he might be permitted to say a few words with regard to the question of the salary of the Chief Secretary.

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out to the hon. Member that it is not the question of the salary of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant that is under discussion; but the question is that a certain sum be voted for the expenses of the Chief Secretary's Office.

MR. BIGGAR

apologized for the error into which he had fallen. He had had occasion several times to make inquiries with regard to the treatment of the men imprisoned under the Protection of Person and Property Act; and he had always found that the allegations made in respect to the ill-treatment of the prisoners were contradicted by the Chief Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman declared that the majority of hon. Members believed his statements, in opposition to the correspondence he (Mr. Biggar) had brought before the House. Now, his correspondence was from friends, upon whose veracity he could implicitly depend; whereas the right hon. Gentleman sought his information from gentlemen who knew nothing about the facts, and had no means of verifying the charges made. The right hon. Gentleman sometimes was rather sharp in his attacks upon Members who sat upon the Irish Benches. On a recent occasion the right hon. Gentleman taunted him with being afraid to say in Ireland what he would say in the House of Commons. Now, there was one thing he had always tried to do—he did not know whether he had always succeeded—and that was to say in public what he dared to say in private, to say in one place what he dared to say in another. He was never afraid to meet the right hon. Gentleman on equal terms; but he was not disposed to fight him when he used loaded dice. The right hon. Gentleman had the power to put him into prison, without assigning any reason whatever; but he (Mr. Biggar) had no power to act in a similar manner towards the Chief Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman need only declare that he had been guilty of all sorts of crimes and misdemeanours to cause him to be imprisoned. The Chief Secretary professed to use the very greatest attention and care in scrutinizing the facts with regard to the political prisoners in Ireland—in regard to their committal to prison, in the first place, and, in the next place, as to how long they ought to be detained. If he was rightly informed, the right hon. Gentleman, when in Dublin, instead of properly attending to the performance of his duties, spent a great portion of his time in a certain gambling house in St. Stephen's Green, in the City of Dublin.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is now imputing a crime to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland.

MR. BIGGAR

asked if he was to understand that the Chairman ruled that it was a crime, or the imputation of crime, to say that the right hon. Gentleman frequented the St. Stephen's Green Club, in Dublin.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Gentleman said the right hon. Gentleman spent a considerable portion of his time in a gambling house.

MR. BIGGAR

who rose amidst cries of "Withdraw, withdraw!" said hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side were so very noisy that——

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Gentleman used improper language, which he must withdraw.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he did not know what he was expected to withdraw. Was he expected to withdraw—

THE CHAIRMAN

The words which the hon. Gentleman is directed to withdraw are that the right hon. Gentleman spent a considerable portion of his time in a gambling house. [Cries of "Withdraw, withdraw!"]

MR. BIGGAR

said, as soon as hon. Gentlemen on the opposite side had ceased their noise he would withdraw the expression that the St. Stephen's Green Club was a gambling house.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member did not mention the St. Stephen's Green Club; he mentioned a gambling house, which I direct him to withdraw.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he would withdraw the gambling house. What he wished to point out was this—that if the right hon. Gentleman would not spend so much time in the St. Stephen's Green Club, but perform the duties of his Office with that care which he undertook at present to do, they would not have so many cases in which a direct conflict would take place between the statements of the right hon. Gentleman and those of his (Mr. Biggar's) correspondents, whose word was as worthy of credence as that of the right hon. Gentleman himself.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he believed he, a few moments ago, used expressions which were unjust and unfair to the noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Lord Claud Hamilton). He by no means intended to say that the estates of the noble Lord's family were at all the worst managed in the county of Donegal; but, at the same time, he declined to concede they were what estates should be, and that the noble Duke and his family were entitled to be spoken of as model landlords. With regard to the nickname he applied to the noble Lord's family, that nickname was considered to be justified by the reckless magnificence with which, on many occasions, the family maintained their position in public. He was sorry if he had given any offence, and he hoped the noble Lord would accept this explanation.

LORD CLAUD HAMILTON

said, he did not wish to receive any apology whatever from the hon. Member for what he considered the exceedingly unjustifiable language he had used, not only towards himself, but also towards his noble Relative. As an ample, complete, and absolute refutation of the charges which the hon. Member had thought fit to bring against his noble Relative, he should have the pleasure, in the course of the debate which was to take place next week, of reading to the hon. Member and the House an address, dated only two years back, to his noble Relative from those very tenantry in the county of Donegal to whom the hon. Member had alluded, and in which they characterized him as "the model landlord of Ireland."

MR. O'DONNELL

said, that when he conceived that he had done an injustice to the noble Lord he had made haste to repair his error. He did not regret that he had offered an apology, though the noble Lord declined to receive it. With regard to the management of the Abercorn estates——

THE CHAIRMAN

The subject before the Committee is a Vote for the Office of Chief Secretary.

MR. O'DONNELL

The noble Lord has challenged——

THE CHAIRMAN

Order, order!

MR. FINIGAN

said, he had not heard that evening any explanation whatever as to what had become of the sum of £900 now asked for. According to the Estimates, copies of which were supplied to Members of that House, this £900 was required for what was called "a great increase of business.'' Now, that was a very wide statement, and he wanted to know what this great increase of business implied—what it meant. He was not concerned in the other large sum granted for the Chief Secretary's Office—£40,000 to pay salaries, wages, and allowances—but before he could consent to this extra expenditure of £900 he must hear some satisfactory statement as to how the money was to be spent. The Chief Secretary would do well if he would explain what was meant by the words "great increase of business." The only business which he (Mr. Finigan) had noticed had increased in Ireland was the business of cruelty, the business of tyranny, the business of eviction, the use of the Army, the use of the Navy, and a system which he was not willing to pay a single penny for, because he did not believe that the money was properly or justly spent. If this £900 that had been asked for had been spent in helping coercion he should vote against it in every division that was taken. He would propose that this sum of money be not paid, and be not considered for payment, until they had some satisfactory explanation as to the very wide phrase, "a great increase of business."

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 224; Noes 14: Majority 210.—(Div. List, No. 23.)

(18.) Motion made, and Question proposed, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £2,410, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1882, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Local Government Board in Ireland, including various grants in Aid of Local Taxation.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, that the Local Government Board in Ireland was a Board which might be of the greatest possible use in promoting every kind of useful national enterprize in that country; but, unfortunately, it did exactly the reverse. Year after year Irish Members had brought forward complaints against the Board. No matter whether it was led by a Butt or a Parnell the Irish Party was practically unanimous in protesting against the action of this Department of the Public Service. The constitution of the Board rendered it highly objectionable. Last year one of its most important members was Colonel M'Kerlie.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

The Lou. Member is, I think, is speaking of the Board of Works.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, that instead of having Colonel M'Kerlie at the head of the Local Government Board they had an administrator who was about as competent as the Chief Secretary himself. The Board was entirely out of harmony with the people, and it always escaped examination, for even when it presented a claim for supplies it presented no satisfactory clue to the nature of its operations. He could only find items for salaries to medical officers, medicines, and so forth. When there was an increase of salary, of course they heard about it; but this was a fair specimen of the sort of account of its operations rendered by the Local Government Board. That which was called the "sub-head" was, practically, only a repetition of the details, and the details conveyed no more information than the sub-head. The Board possessed large powers, and claimed still further powers. It claimed extended powers over the medical officers; but there should be some guarantee that the powers of the Board over the medical officers would be used solely from the point of view of the efficiency or non-efficiency of those officers in the performance of their duties, and that the judgment of the Board would not be influenced by Party politics or Party spite. There could be no graver instance of the abuse of power by the Board than was exhibited in the case he was about to mention. There could be nothing more scandalous than that the appointment of a medical officer, whose work was solely one of humanity, should be made a Party matter, and that political vengeance should be allowed to have scope in such an appointment. The Local Government Board, under its President, the Chief Secretary—who had promised in that House that he would be careful not to use any powers in his possession for unnecessary objects, or with unnecessary harshness—finding medical officers "suspected," took advantage of that fact, and, contrary to the wishes of the Unions and the ratepayers, did all in its power to inflict permanent ruin on admirable and upright public servants, besides casting them into the bastiles of Ireland. What could be more undignified and less worthy than that the Chief Secretary should, under the Protection of Person and Property Act, lay hold of a medical officer, who was absolutely irreproachable in the discharge of the duties of his Profession, and, for political reasons, cast him into gaol, and then, having exhausted all his powers as Chief Secretary, bethink him of his powers as President of the Local Government Board, and, under those powers, complete the vengeance that he was unable to execute as director and administrator of a coercive policy? He would ask Members on both sides of the House what would they think here in England if, through a mistaken notion on the part of the Government, or through public need, a suspension of the liberties of the subject had been brought about, and the medical officer of, say, St. Pancras Union, was arrested and sent to gaol, and after he came out, with no stain on his professional character, the Home Secretary made use of other powers possessed by him to inflict professional ruin upon the unfortunate gentleman, insisting on the St. Pancras Board of Guardians dismissing him for life? That, he ventured to say, would be regarded here as an offence against liberty, and everything that ought to be regarded as inseparable from public decency. But that was what was being done by the Local Government Board acting upon the impetus, and under the authority—it was to be presumed—of its President, the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. In North Dublin Union there was a medical officer, the people's doctor, a man of distinguished philanthropy, a man whose conduct had excited general admiration, who had especially distinguished himself for the devotion with which he had visited and nursed the afflicted during a terrible small-pox epidemic. Well, this gentleman, whilst in the discharge of his duties as a citizen, incurred the suspicion of the Chief Secretary, and was cast into Kilmainham Gaol. The Board of Guardians in the North Dublin Union were prepared to appoint a substitute recommended by the imprisoned medical officer for the three, or six, or 12 months during which that officer might be incarcerated on suspicion. There was no objection to the standing of the proposed substitute, there was no objection based on the ground of the safety of the health of the poor; but the Local Government Board sent down their sealed order, and insisted on the North Dublin Union permanently dismissing their medical officer, who had been thrown into Kilmainham temporarily, without trial, on suspicion by the Chief Secretary. Hundreds of letters had been written to the public papers by patients of the poorest classes who had been attended by this eminent and self-sacrificing physician praising his actions. He (Mr. O'Donnell) had read one of these letters from a poor woman, who stated how, in the small-pox epidemic, while she was lying unattended and uncared for, and while every neighbour shrank from the dreaded task of laying a hand on her to bear her to the hospital ambulance, or from doing anything which might spread the contagion to themselves, this man himself took up the patient, covered with festering wounds, and bore her in his own arms to the ambulance. This woman, remembering the apostolic care of a doctor—for the Medical Profession was an apostolate—wrote to the newspapers, reminding the public of his services on that occasion. Hundreds of letters from all kinds of people—from Home Rulers, Nationalists, Catholics, and Protestants—had been published with regard to this doctor, and in not one was there a word said against his medical or professional character. He was universally popular—respected by political opponents as well as by political friends. However, the Local Government Board persisted in dismissing him permanently; and how could it be expected that the Irish Members would let these Votes pass even for a necessary Public Department, when they found that the powers intrusted to the Department were used by the Government to add additional harshness to the harshness and cruelty of the despotic measures administered by the Chief Secretary—to fill up the little light-holes or deficiencies that seemed to the mind of the right hon. Gentleman to exist in that code of tyranny? These were the literal facts. The Local Government Board had endeavoured to do all they could to punish Dr. Kenny for the rest of his life. Could persecution be more mean, could the administration of a Public Department be carried on in a spirit more hostile, he would nut say to Irish nationality, but to British rule in Ireland? Imagine a Public Department in the name of Her Majesty being made the instrument of a mean and petty spite. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, if the Chief Secretary had been actuated by no mean and petty spite, had the right hon. Gentleman taken care to see that he was not made the pliant instrument of the mean and petty spite of some subordinate? Dr. Kenny had been deprived of the situation he had earned—of the situation he had honoured. He had been torn from the care of the poor, who trusted in him, and had been deprived of his professional income for the months that the deliverers of Bulgaria kept him in Kilmainham, and, having liberated him—being convinced of the futility of the charge on which he was arrested—they had made use of the Local Government Board to carry out the vengeance that the Protection of Person and Property Act did not enable them to complete. It was true Dr. Kenny walked about a free man; but the Chief Secretary had done all he could to make him a poor man for the rest of his life.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I wish to say a very few words to the Committee to explain how this matter really stands. The hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) states that Dr. Kenny was arrested on political grounds. I do not admit that. Dr. Kenny was arrested for being accessory to a crime punishable by law——

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

For being "suspected" of being accessory,

MR. CALLAN

Read the thing correctly.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

I will read the warrant as it stands. Dr. Kenny was arrested on reasonable suspicion of having been guilty as an accessory to a crime punishable by law—namely, inciting others wrongfully and without legal authority to intimidate divers persons, with a view to compel them to abstain from doing a certain act which they had a legal right to do—that is to say, to pay rent lawfully due by them—such crime having been committed in a prescribed district, and tending to interfere with the maintenance of law and order. It might be said that a person arrested under a warrant issued on account of treasonable practices is arrested on political grounds. But I deny that intimidation, or being concerned in inciting other persons to intimidate, and, in fact, to commit outrages, can be described as a political offence. There was no case which I more carefully examined than this one; and, after due examination, I felt that we had no alternative but to arrest Dr. Kenny. I should have been very glad to have left him alone; but we found it impossible to do so. Of course, while in Kilmainham, Dr. Kenny was unable to perform his duties as medical officer of the Union, and the Local Government Board had to assent to some person being put in his place. We had to look at the Act of Parliament, and the Act says the Commissioners may remove any paid officer whom they shall deem unfit for or incompetent to discharge the duties of his position. Well, it seemed to me that if we did not dismiss Dr. Kenny it would be the same thing as saying that we deemed him to be a fit person to be a Government official. The case lies in a nutshell. We felt we could not consider a man whom we had thought it our duty to arrest because we believed him to be a very leading person in the incitements to intimidation a fit person to be a public officer without stultifying ourselves. On that ground we thought we had no course left but to request and, in fact, order his dismissal. The hon. Member for Dungarvan says that was permanently depriving him of employment; but that is a mistake. The only difference was between our accepting what was proposed by the Guardians and allowing the appointment of a substitute; and the course we took is this—that, in the one case, the Local Government Board would have the power of vetoing the appointment; and, in the other, the appointment cannot be made without the leave of the Board being obtained. Hon. Gentlemen may ask why Dr. Kenny was released. He was released because I thought it right to ex- tend great consideration to him. His health was not good, and I believed it safe at the moment to release him. At the time I arrested him I considered it was not safe to allow him to be at large.

MR. HEALY

said, the answer of the right hon. Gentleman was as unsatisfactory as his answers usually were. In connection with Dr. Kenny's case, he wished to know why, if that gentleman was considered unfit to remain in the Position of medical officer to a Union after arrest under the Protection of Person and Property Act, Dr. Cardiff, of Carrickbyrne, Co. Wexford, had not been considered equally unfit? Dr. Cardiff had been arrested; but he had not been dismissed from his situation of medical officer. Was it not because some hundreds of pounds had been subscribed for Dr. Kenny and a furore had been created in his favour, the ecclesiastical authorities and many others taking the matter up and speaking of him in the highest terms? Was it not that the right hon. Gentleman did not dare to dismiss Dr. Cardiff?

MR. W. E. FORSTER

The Act of Parliament under which Dr. Cardiff's case came did not require the Local Government Board to give an opinion whether or not they deemed him a fit person for the position.

MR. HEALY

said, it was quite touching to the Irish Members, who had had so much benefit of the right hon. Gentleman's disregard of the ordinary law, to see how nice he had become in his respect for the law. In one Act of Parliament he found the word "unfit," and that was sufficient for him to dismiss a medical officer who had never been proved unfit for his office. Another Act did not contain the word, and the gentleman whose case came under that Act was not dismissed. That could not be the real reason. Was it not rather because Dr. Kenny was believed to be high up in the hierarchy of the Land League? The right hon. Gentleman said that Dr. Kenny was not arrested on political grounds, because the warrant did not say so. But who had the making out of the warrants? Why, the Chief Secretary, who knew they would be challenged on political grounds, and made them out accordingly. He should like to know whether the dismissal of Dr. Kenny proceeded directly from the right hon. Gentleman or not? The Guardians approved the conduct of Dr. Kenny, and would unanimously have re-elected him; and, therefore, it was said the sealed document should be cancelled if Dr. Kenny would humbly beg to be reinstated. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary were discharged from the Cabinet, would he like to go to his right hon. Friend who discharged him with ignominy, and beg back his place in the Ministry in order to earn the salary; because that was the position in which Dr. Kenny was placed. Dr. Kenny, he was glad to say, would suffer no pecuniary loss. The Irish people had already made up to him several years' loss; and yet he was now asked to beg his reinstatement, hat in hand, from a disgraceful clique, when it was well known that no one better fitted to discharge the duties could be found. The dismissal of Dr. Kenny, he was sorry to say, was in entire keeping with the career of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. If the Local Government Board desired to reinstate, or to allow to be reinstated, this worthy and meritorious officer—and that he was a worthy and meritorious officer the Chief Secretary could not deny—let them do so unconditionally. Dr. Kenny was now released; and would the right hon. Gentleman have the generosity—would the Local Government have the generosity to cancel the sealed order?

DR. LYONS

desired to make some observations upon the subject which had been brought under the notice of the Committee. He had the pleasure of knowing Dr. Kenny for a great many years, having had the honour to be one of his medical teachers. He had thus had intimate relations with him from the earliest period of his career; and from personal knowledge of him, and from long observation of his conduct as a student and practitioner, as well as the private knowledge he possessed of Dr. Kenny's character, he was able to say that Dr. Kenny was a gentleman in every way most estimable, of the highest personal qualifications, and of great zeal and devotion to his professional duties. He had acquired for himself a position of great popularity from the fearless manner in which he had discharged his duty, under very trying circumstances, during the small-pox epidemic, as well as upon other occasions. Undoubtedly, Dr. Kenny stood extremely high in the estimation of the general public, as well as in the estimation of those who were best able to judge of him in the city in which he lived and practised. He (Dr. Lyons) confessed that he had heard with the greatest surprise, and with very great regret, of the arrest of Dr. Kenny on suspicion, being immediately followed by the sealed order of the Local Government Board dismissing him from Office. He was bound to admit that he came at once to the conclusion that the Government must be in possession of some facts with regard to the complicity of Dr. Kenny in the Land League agitation, that involved him in some way in moral guilt, or, in some manner, placed him in the position of a criminal, and that in this or some other way he had rendered himself legally and technically incapable of fulfilling the duties of the office to which he had been appointed. He must, therefore, say that he fully entertained that view until a few moments ago, when he found the Chief Secretary had sat down without making any assertion of that kind, or imputing anything to Dr. Kenny except that he was arrested on suspicion. He must now add that the feeling and conviction he had entertained all along that the Government had made a serious mistake—a most serious, regrettable, and lamentable mistake in its effect upon the Irish people—in allowing the dismissal of Dr. Kenny by a sealed order to have taken place, had been greatly strengthened, and was now fully confirmed. It was a matter of popular rumour that Dr. Kenny had, in contravention of the trust reposed in him, when he was allowed to pass in and out of the prison of Kilmainham and visit his friends there, carried out that too well-known document—the "no rent" manifesto. But that matter had not been referred to by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary; and he took it from the silence of the right hon. Gentleman on the subject that he fully acquitted Dr. Kenny of that charge. He (Dr. Lyons) was also able to say that although he had carefully avoided any expression of opinion upon the case of Dr. Kenny while it was sub judice, because he knew that sooner or later it must come under the consideration of Parliament, and although he had been anxious to preserve a position entirely unbiassed until the matter came under his consideration in his place in the House of Commons, he certainly had taken means to inquire if there was any foundation whatever for the allegation, He had now to say, and he said it on the authority of the President of the Irish Medical Association, who personally sought an interview with Dr. Kenny—and it might be added incidentally that this gentleman was entirely opposed in politics to the views which Dr. Kenny held—be had it on his authority that Dr. Kenny had categorically denied that he had, in any way, had anything to do with that most regrettable and, in his (Dr. Lyons') opinion, most culpable and most unfortunate document. Dr. Kenny denied the whole of that charge in the clearest and most emphatic manner. Dr. Kenny was now discharged, and discharged perfectly free of charge of any sort. He had done no act of the kind imputed to him, and nothing had occurred of which the Government were cognizant to enable them to attach any charge of criminality to him; and yet it must go forth to the world that Dr. Kenny, after having been imprisoned under the Coercion Act and released unconditionally, was deprived of the high professional appointment which he had previously held. He did not question the right of the Government to arrest Dr. Kenny; but he did question their right, after arresting a man on mere suspicion, to fix upon him this permanent disability, and this great and serious loss in his professional prospects. Undoubtedly, it was a loss which could not be repaired to a man in Dr. Kenny's position. In the City of Dublin, where medical appointments were contested with such zeal, where there was so much competition for them, and upon the acquisition of which so much of a physician's future success in life depended, it was most important that a man should not be unjustly deprived of an office so important and so responsible—one that would necessarily bring him largely before the public, and one which was a sure and certain avenue to success in such a city. He thought the Chief Secretary was hardly fully aware of the force and incidence of the sealed order under which Dr. Kenny was deprived of his office. Dr. Kenny's position was this—he might be elected to an inferior kind of office—that of medical officer to a dispensary, but he could not—and he (Dr. Lyons) wished to impress this fact upon the attention of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary—he could not, until the sealed order was withdrawn, ever again fill the position of medical officer to a Union in Ireland. Yet the position of medical officer to a Union in Ireland was the next thing to that of medical officer to one of the great clinical institutions. It was a certain avenue to future success, and if a man were cut off from the possibility of occupying that position, a personal disability was attached to him in regard to the exercise of his professional functions; and, however eminent his abilities might be, a permanent blight was cast upon his future career. In regard to the technical bearing of the words "unfit and incompetent," that formed, no doubt, to a certain extent, a legal and technical question. It was all very well to say that they were idle words; but he ventured to affirm that until this case arose there had never been an instance in which a man's fitness for an office of this kind, irrespective of the fact that he might have been found guilty of criminality by the law of his country—there never was a case in which it had been held that such words applied to anything but his competence to fulfil, and adequately to discharge, the duties of his office. He believed that that construction was a most forced one—a most ungenerous one, and a most unfair one; and he would also add that it was a most unworthy one. He regretted very much indeed that the Chief Secretary should have consented to shelter himself under a technical, strained, and forced construction of words like these. He would even very respectfully ask the careful consideration of the Prime Minister to the observations which he had ventured to address to the Committee. He believed there was a very serious question at the bottom of all this. He had the honour to represent, and perhaps somewhat to influence, the Profession to which he had the great honour to belong. The Medical Profession was a great institution in Ireland. He believed that he was justified in saying that the Liberal Party were largely indebted to the Profession of Medicine throughout Ireland. They were a body of men of the highest independence, exercising a large influence throughout the country. They were men of the most generous instincts, and they had at all times been warm supporters of Liberal Governments. For his own part, he must say that any Government that would introduce this system of visiting political sins upon medical officers upon mere suspicion only, be it observed, depriving them of emolument, and of a position which was far higher than emolument, would be taking a very dangerous course indeed. The Profession was one which prided itself upon the sustainment of its independence. It was the pride of England that her Judges were independent of all political influence; the Profession to which he had the honour to belong claimed equal independence, and he hoped the day would never come when the exercise of Government influence would be allowed to interfere with the professional position and circumstances of any individual member of the Profession of Medicine. He had heard with extreme surprise the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland describe Dr. Kenny as a Government official. The right hon. Gentleman must surely have been under some misapprehension in making that statement, because that description could, in no sense, be applied to him. He was elected to his office by the free voice of the Guardians of the North Dublin Union, and his appointment was recognized by the Local Government Board, who had the general control over the whole of the medical arrangements in Ireland. Therefore, under those circumstances, he could by no stretch of language be described as a Government official; and, so far from any argument for his dismissal being sustainable from that point of view, the Government accepted or incurred no responsibility whatever in regard to any of Dr. Kenny's opinions, or the opinions of any medical man in the service. It mattered not what were the opinions of those medical men, provided they kept themselves within the law, and provided they did not make themselves amenable to any charge of criminality. He ventured to hope that even now the Government would take this matter again into their serious consideration. He could not but feel that the Local Government Board, for the members of which he entertained the highest respect, had acted with in judicious haste; why he could not say, but he thought their action might possibly have been prompted by that kind of honourable but overstrained zeal which sometimes bubbled up on critical occasions—a desire to aid the powers that be in carrying out their views in special circumstances. He wished to lay before both the Prime Minister and the Chief Secretary for Ireland the fact that Dr. Kenny had been already very seriously punished and mulcted in a heavy pecuniary fine, in estimating which it was necessary to take into account, not so much the amount of money that a professional man lost during the time he was unable to discharge his duties, but the loss of his professional practice in the future. Therefore, under the circumstances, Dr. Kenny had been very heavily mulcted and much more severely punished than another member of the community would be under similar circumstances. He thought he had established a fair case for consideration on the part of Her Majesty's Government whether they would not, as an exercise of generosity if not of justice, call upon the Local Government Board to undo the effect of the sealed orders, and to allow the Board of Guardians of the North Dublin Union to do that which they had shown the strongest desire to do, as a just compliment to the services of Dr. Kenny—namely, to replace him in the position which he formerly occupied, with so much advantage to the poor of the city, and with so much distinction to himself and honour to his Profession. Hon. Gentlemen opposite knew that, on many occasions, he had borne the brunt of much public opinion in supporting the Government in accordance with his conscientious convictions; and perhaps he might be entitled to appeal upon this ground also to the Chief Secretary to reconsider this matter, which was one of very much more importance than the mere dismissal of an officer—it was the imposition upon him of a penalty that would operate to the end of his life. He trusted the Local Government Board might be allowed to restore Dr. Kenny to his former position, especially as no charge of a criminal character had been brought against him, and because, in his belief, he was entirely innocent of any legal or moral criminality.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had spoken upon this subject with great moderation and feeling, which was probably due to his personal and professional knowledge of Dr. Kenny. But it appeared to him that throughout his speech he had entirely mistaken the grounds upon which Dr. Kenny was arrested.

DR. LYONS

I did not question the arrest at all.

MR. W. E. FORSTER

said, the hon. Member had described the case as one which should not have been visited by any professional punishment. Now, it was an entire mistake to suppose that either Dr. Kenny or anyone else had been arrested merely on account of an opinion. The Government had reason for suspecting that Dr. Kenny was concerned in an incitement to intimidation in Ireland. The hon. Member would know that he could not give the grounds on which he was suspected; but he (Mr. W. E. Forster) could assure him that there was no case which he had examined more carefully, and he believed that at the time no arrest of the leading persons connected with the Land League organization could have been made without inconsistency had not Dr. Kenny also been arrested. The hon. Member said that no moral guilt attached to Dr. Kenny. It was not for him to charge men with moral guilt whom he had been obliged to visit with detention and hardship; but, at the same time, he was obliged to say that he did consider that there was moral guilt in a case where a man was concerned with an organization for intimidation. These being the circumstances of the case, could they, with any consistency, continue Dr. Kenny in an office which the hon. Member had said was not a Government Office, notwithstanding that it was one for which the Government were, by Act of Parliament, responsible. It was the duty of the Government to sanction the appointment, and it was their duty to cancel it in any case of necessity, and where the occupier of the office proved to be unfit. It was not merely a question of opinion one way or the other that was involved here. If Her Majesty's Government really believed that it was their duty to put an end to something which, if not stopped, would lead to outrages and intimidation throughout the country, having information before them, they would have been stultifying themselves had they allowed any person, whatever might be his professional capacities, to continue in office whom they had reason to suspect of incitement to intimidation. It was upon these grounds that Her Majesty's Government acted in the present case. He believed his hon. Friend rather over-rated the effect of the arrest upon Dr. Kenny's professional practice; but he would inquire carefully into the matter, and whether, or not that was the case, the Government had no desire to visit Dr. Kenny with any punishment that he did not deserve. They did not consider they had any right to punish people for expressions of opinion; but having reasonable suspicion in this case, they did not feel that Dr Kenny was a fit person to remain in the position which he occupied. Host certainly they would be glad to find that they were able to take away from him any disqualification; and Dr. Kenny's case should receive consideration, with the wish, on the part of the Government, of making the consequences of his acts fall upon him as lightly as possible.

MR. CALLAN

said he rose to address the Committee under circumstances of a rather peculiar character. He was neither a personal nor political friend of Dr. Kenny; and he would mention the fact that when he (Mr. Callan) was a candidate for the representation of the borough of Dundalk against the nominee and supporter, he might add the nominator to his present Office of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Dr. Kenny exerted himself to the utmost to secure the return of the hon. Member who opposed him. But although he had no personal regard for Dr. Kenny, he would not allow any person to intervene between him and the discharge of his public duty; and he was bound to say there was no one who resented more acutely than he did the outrage which had been perpetrated upon that gentleman by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. He was glad that the Prime Minister was in his place when one of the first of the misdeeds of the right hon. Gentleman was brought forward. What were the circumstances of Dr. Kenny's arrest and suspension? Dr. Kenny had been for many years medical officer to the North Dublin Union, in which capacity he had discharged his duties to the satisfaction of the Guardians and the Local Government Board. He would not detain the Committee by dwelling upon the high professional re- putation earned by this gentleman, but would refer as briefly as possible to his arrest. He believed that Dr. Kenny was suspected, or, in the words of the Statute, reasonably suspected of certain offences. Now everyone in Ireland knew right well that he was not suspected, reasonably or otherwise, of any illegal act, whatever with respect to the non-payment of rent. But in the eye of the Chief Secretary for Ireland he was Suspected of being the person who brought out of Kilmainham Prison the "no rent" manifesto. That was Dr. Kenny's offence, and for it he was dismissed by sealed order from his office of medical officer to the North Dublin Union. Now, he (Mr. Callan) recollected very well that not so long ago as 12 months, during the passage of the Coercion Act, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland declared in his place in that House that the Coercion Act was not for the purpose of preventing offences; it was to provide for the detention of offenders, but not for their punishment. But what had the right hon. Gentleman done in this case? He had punished Dr. Kenny as far as it lay in his power to do so. The opinion which he entertained with regard to the Office of Chief Secretary was that it should be filled by an Irish Gentlemen, and not by an English trader. ["Oh!"] Hon. Gentlemen opposite cried "Oh!" but would any Gentleman on those Benches rise in his place and say that the Chief Secretary for Ireland should be an English trader? If so he would resume his seat. But how had this act of the right hon. Gentleman been characterized by those who were in a position to speak of it with knowledge of the circumstances. The Archbishop of Cashel said that— Dr. Kenny had been deprived of his liberty without, as far as I can learn, any justifying cause, and a severe blow has otherwise fallen on him as a professional man. Mr. J. Burns, who voted for the freedom of the City of Dublin being conferred upon Mr. Parnell and Mr. Dillon, said— The arbitrary conduct of that contemptible knot of British officials who ordered the dismissal and arrest of Dr. Kenny has awakened Irishmen to a sense of their duty. Mr. Robert Moore wrote— The Government arrested him; they threw him into a felon's cell. They have gone further; they have done worse; they have committed a crime that cries out for vengeance; they have deprived him of his means of livelihood, Another gentleman, a medical man, wrote— The Local Government Board were not satisfied with arresting a most estimable, a most self-sacrificing and patriotic Irishman; they have still further deprived him of his position and income, for no other earthly object than financially to ruin Dr. Kenny because he dared to love his country. Would any hon. Gentleman say it was not punishment financially to ruin Dr. Kenny? Then there was a letter written by a Gentleman who the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade stated, in a speech at Birmingham, to have dissociated himself from the Irish Party because of his disapproval of their proceedings—the late Member for Meath. And what did Mr. A. M. Sullivan think of the conduct of the Chief Secretary with respect to Dr. Kenny? He said— It was a piece of Ministerial vengeance," and he continued, "I take tog-ether the arrest of Dr. Kenny on one day, and his dismissal by sealed order on the next, as one of the meanest acts of despotism I have ever known in all my reading or recollection of modern history. His arrest alone, although without legal or moral justification, would not, under present circumstances, be so very surprising. But the action of the Local Government Board, even in this reign of terror, is one of shameless tyranny. The Department rush eagerly forward, not only to dismiss him, but they issue a form of dismissal incapacitating him for life from being elected to an office under the Local Government system. Mr. Sullivan then went on to say what he (Mr. Calian) fully endorsed— Dr. Kenny made no speeches; he signed no manifesto; no indictment; no charge or allegation of legal offence that would stand five minutes' investigation in a Court of Justice could be laid against him. He begged the Committee to remember that this was a gentleman who had given his assistance in placing the present Government on the Treasury Bench. Mr. Sullivan continued— He has been struck by an ingrate coward. Seeing all this and remembering it all, and knowing my friend as I do, my heart aches to think that his recompense from the so-called governors of his country is a prison cell in Kilmainham and a sealed order, rushed with angry malignity, to destroy for ever his future official career in the service of the people. Now, he remembered last year having an interview with the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland—the only one he had ever had with him in private or public, except those which took place on the floor of the House—and upon that occasion the right hon. Gentleman confessed his ignorance of his duties as Chief Secretary in a matter relating to the sanitary officers of Ireland. Dr. Kenny was arrested on the 25th of October last year, the same day that the sealed order was printed; and on that day also an officer of the Local Government Board ostentatiously went to the workhouse and asked if Dr. Kenny was on duty, and if not, why he was not on duty. What then become of the careful consideration of the Chief Secretary to the dismissal and the circumstances surrounding the case? Without speaking invidiously, he was bound to say of the hon. Member representing the City of Dublin (Dr. Lyons) that he had, up to that evening, preserved the strictest impartiality on the subject of Dr. Kenny's arrest; and, with the exception of what they had just heard from him, he had never expressed any views in condemnation of the acts of the Government. He confessed he did not think that was the attitude which the hon. Member ought to have assumed, either as a Member of that House, or as a member of the Profession to which Dr. Kenny belonged; and he thought it would be remembered both by the members of his Profession and by his constituents. He would now pass on to the letter of Dr. Robert Macdonnell, late President of the College of Surgeons, Dublin, who wrote as follows:—

"89, Merrion Square, West,

"November 1st.

"Sir, allow me to in close a cheque for ten guineas, my subscription to the fund for Dr. Kenny. I offer it as my humble protest against an act done to a professional brother, as impolitic as it is unjust."

He would ask the attention of the Prime Minister to this letter, because it came from a member of a family who had stood by the right hon. Gentleman for upwards of half a century. The name of Macdonnell in the medical world, and in the political world, was a name regarded with respect and veneration in Ireland. What else did Dr. Macdonnell say?— I send this as my humble protest against an act as impolitic as it is unjust. I wish it to be distinctly understood that I never looked with favour on the Land League. No one knows better than Dr. Kenny himself that I never had any sympathy with its policy. Whether it be the land League or the Government that seeks to rule my country by a direct appeal to the base and selfish motives which actuate human conduct, I alike condemn it. I say there is little difference, in point of morality, between the adviser who says 'keep a grip' on what does not belong to him, or 'disregard the bargain you have made.' I condemn alike the conduct of the Land League and that of the Government, which inflicts a severe punishment upon an untried man. As I have said elsewhere, it is blunders of this kind that give life, vigour, and energy to a spirit of hostility to England. It is as one who would gladly see kindly relations established between England and Ireland that I deplore such blunders, and protest, as I have ever done, against them. That was what Dr. Macdonnell wrote; and Bishop MaCorrnack, in sending a subscription of five guineas, wrote— The Local Government Board are the State protectors of the poor; their conduct in this case is infamous, and calculated to cause dissension between the two countries. Then he had another letter which might recommend itself to the Chief Secretary. The writer of that letter was no renegade to his religion; he was no renegade to his country. What did he say? He was an Irish Quaker, and he, whose name was as respectable as that of any man who ever belonged to the Quaker community, wrote this letter—

"35, St. James's Street, Dublin,

"November 3rd.

"In closed I hand a cheque for £2, which kindly receive as a contribution to the Dr. Kenny fund;"

and then he asked that the sum should be forwarded as "a testimony against the arbitrary action of the Local Government Board" in dismissing Dr. Kenny by sealed letter. That gentleman's name was Abraham Shackleton. Next he came to the opinion of Dr. Con-way, Bishop of Ballina, who sent a subscription, although he was opposed to the Land League. Another gentleman, who sent £10, wrote on November 15— In thus subscribing it I wish it to be distinctly understood that I do so, not from any sympathy with the political principles which Dr. Kenny was reasonably suspected of having held, and the penalty of which suspicion he is now suffering; but entirely out of personal regard for him, and as my earnest protest against the high-handed tyranny of the arbitrary and unconstitutional act by which, after being deprived of his liberty on mere suspicion, he is dismissed from his appointment by the Local Government Board—an act which, for meanness and petty malice, is unprecedented. He was glad that that gentleman signed himself "A Conservative." Now, Mr. Abraham Shaekleton—who had written under a conscientious conviction, although the Chief Secretary, like all "verts," might treat his old religion with contempt—Dr. Conway, Dr. MacCormack, and the Most Rev. Dr. Croke had never, in any degree, identified themselves with the Land League; on the contrary, they had opposed it. Dr. Croke might have supported it; but his opinion, as a Christian gentleman, was entitled to respect. He (Mr. Callan) had thus given the opinions of Dr. Macdonnell, one of the most eminent physicians in Dublin, of a Bishop, a Priest, a Conservative, and a Quaker, all of whom denounced this act as a piece of mean and petty malignity. He had the honour of knowing the members of the Local Government Board in Ireland, and he was perfectly certain that not one of them had agreed to this sealed order on his own motion. Dr. McCabe was the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin; but his brother was a member of the Board, and he, at a meeting of the Guardians of the North Dublin Union, expressed his conviction that Dr. Kenny could be elected by any one of the 800 Unions in Ireland, "without that sealed order having the slightest effect." He (Mr. Callan) remembered seeing the Chief Secretary standing at the Table of the House and pledging himself that the Coercion Act would not be used for punishment, but for protection. But this sealed order was issued immediately on Dr. Kenny's arrest, and it was still in force, depriving Dr. Kenny of any similar office to that from which he was dismissed. That act on the part of the Chief Secretary was, in the opinion of the Bishop, the Priest, the Conservative, and the unconverted Quaker, a contemptible act.

MR. GLADSTONE

The hon. Member has delivered a very copious address, which in some parts took the character of an accusation against my right hon. Friend. The question before us is one of a personal grievance, and is a very fair question. Far be it from me to say that it is not a fit subject to be brought before the House of Commons; but whether it was necessary to go through the entire list of subscribers to this fund —it was, perhaps, not unnatural—and to describe in detail, and with much repetition, their characters and qualities is a matter for the hon. Member to consider. The hon. Gentleman has used his liberty in the House, and he knows what that amounts to. He has raised a question which has been raised before, and which is, undoubtedly, a material one; but I have risen with the hope of shortening the discussion by reminding hon. Members of what has already been stated in significant terms by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary. It is stated from quarters entitled to respect and to some weight of authority that the sealed order of the Local Government Board has had, and still has the effect which my right hon. Friend disclaims—which he did not intend to produce, and which he had no reason to suppose would be produced. Recognizing that, however, as a new fact in the case, my right hon. Friend has plainly stated to the Committee that he is willing to revise the case with a view to ascertaining the exact bearing of that which has been done. In those circumstances I would put it to the Committee that it is far better that my right hon. Friend, and I, who am justifiably called upon to take an interest in the matter, should have an opportunity of examining the facts in the light of the observations which have been placed before us and the Committee. That is a process which cannot occupy any lengthened period of time. If the result should be unsatisfactory to Gentlemen who have taken an interest in the subject they will have an opportunity of re-opening the debate; but the occasion may disappear under the revision, and I would suggest that it would better for us to adjourn the consideration of this matter until hon. Gentlemen opposite are put in possession of our final views.

MR. SEXTON

said, the Irish Members had no fault to find with the tone of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks, for he had treated this delicate and exasperating subject in a fair and reasonable spirit. The right hon. Gentleman had reminded them that a further opportunity would be available if it were necessary; but he (Mr. Sexton) would have been glad if the Law Officers of the Crown had not remained silent, but had informed the Committee what the effect of the sealed order was, and whether the office was still open to Dr. Kenny or not. He accepted the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman to wait for a further opportunity; but he hoped that in the meantime the Chief Secretary would consider the case in the spirit of the pledges he gave that the Coercion Act should be used not for punishment, but for prevention.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

would not have said a word except for a remark made by the Chief Secretary. The right hon. Gentleman had said Dr. Kenny was reasonably suspected of intimidating and inciting people to commit crime and outrage. He wished to say that that was a gross calumny upon Dr. Kenny, and there was no person who knew him who would not say that he was a man of kind nature and disposition. There had been a time when the Chief Secretary had a heart to feel for others' woe; but he feared recent experiences had changed that organ. Something had been heard of the right hon. Gentleman's good deeds in old times; but they knew of his bad deeds in the present time. Dr. Kenny was distinguished in his Profession for courage and humanity; and it was known that at one terrible time, when few men would face the contagious disorders in Dublin, he went into the poorest places and kindly tended the patients, with an utter disregard of his own personal safety. In one instance he took in his arms the wife of a constable when she was suffering from small-pox, and carried her to a place where she could be properly treated. He risked his life by that act, and there was not a member of that mutual admiration society who occupied the Treasury Bench more incapable of crime and outrage than Dr. Kenny. The arrest of Dr. Kenny was not one of the most sensational acts of the Government; but in all their proceedings there was nothing that so much shocked the public sense of decency and fair play as Dr. Kenny's arrest and immediate dismissal. He was glad the Government had now given an intimation that they might do something to repair this unworthy act, which had shocked people more than any act of intimidation and tyranny the Government had practised under their Coercion Act.

Question put, and agreed to

Motion made, and Question proposed, That a Supplementary sum, not exceeding £1,300, be granted to Her Majesty, to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1882, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of Public Works in Ireland.

MR. O'DONNELL moved to report Progress.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. O'Donnell.)

MR. GLADSTONE

This is a matter of very limited character, and not likely to provoke much discussion. The Committee is placed in a very difficult position, and I hope we may proceed for some time longer.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

inquired how far the right hon. Gentleman proposed to go with those Votes to-night? There wore several contentious items, such as the charges for the prosecutions in Ireland, the Constabulary expenses, and other matters which the Irish Members could not be expected to go on with now.

MR. GLADSTONE

We do not propose to take any contentious Vote of importance, and when we come to the Law Charges in Ireland we shall vote Progress.

MR. SEXTON

said, he thought the Government had no reason to complain of the progress they had already made.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, that, under ordinary circumstances, he should be disposed to agree with the hon. Members that no further important Vote should be taken; but the Government had promised an opportunity of considering the Irish policy of the Government, and he, therefore, thought it would be unreasonable to raise that to-night. This Vote did not afford the only opportunity the House would have, and he thought the right hon. Gentleman's proposal a very fair one—namely, that the Committee should go through the non-contentious matters, and when they arrived at an item which appeared to open up a subject of considerable debate they should report Progress.

MR. R. POWER

suggested that the Government should agree to postpone this Vote, and let the Committee go on with the English and Scotch Votes.

MR. HEALY

stated, that on the consideration of the Law Charges he wished to raise the question why the Government did not seize The Freiheit in England, as they had seized United Ireland. He should, therefore, oppose any further progress to-night.

MR. CALLAN

suggested that the Votes with reference to the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice, the County Courts, the Police Courts, Courts of Law and Justice, which were practically unopposed, should be taken, and Progress then be reported. That course would not obstruct, but would facilitate Business in every way.

MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR

said, he thought there was some misunderstanding as to the proposal of the Government. As he understood, the Government proposed to take the Votes as far as Vote 24 of Class III., with the exception of the Law Charges. If that was their proposal he would advise his hon. Friend to accede to it.

MR. O'DONNELL

reminded the Prime Minister that there were two contentious Votes, one of which was a charge for salaries and expenses in connection with the new system of loans to occupiers of land in Ireland. Then there was a Vote for Law Charges in England, upon which the question of the seizure or non-seizure of newspapers would be raised. With the exception of the Vote for Law Charges and that for Criminal Prosecutions in Ireland, the Government were perfectly free to proceed now, so far as the Irish Representatives were concerned. Considerable progress might be made if the Prime Minister would consent to the postponement of the Votes he had mentioned.

LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH

expressed his readiness to postpone the Votes in question.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Original Motion, by leave, withdrawn.