LAND LAW (IRELAND)—OPERATION OF THE ACT.—RESOLUTION.

HC Deb 27 February 1882 vol 266 cc1729-98

[FIRST NIGHT.]

MR. GLADSTONE

Sir, I thank the House for having accorded to Her Majesty's Government permission to submit a Resolution which it thinks most important for the welfare of the country by a decisive majority, and in opposition to a remarkable combination. The Resolution is, Sir— That Parliamentary inquiry, at the present time, into the working of the Irish Land Act tends to defeat the operation of that Act, and must be injurious to the interests of good government in Ireland. Now, I am not at all surprised, and I do not complain, that it should be the favourite practice of some to represent this Motion as a Motion having for its aim and purpose a censure upon the House of Lords. Hon. Gentlemen who so view it must be perfectly aware that opposite and contradictory declarations of policy are constantly made by the two Houses of Parliament—that is to say, constantly I mean, in the long review of history they have been made from time to time, and not infrequently. It is, however, no part of our object, could we escape from the inference hon. Gentlemen opposite wish to draw for themselves, to pass a censure upon the House of Lords. In the first place, it is not the office of one House of Parliament to censure another; and, in the second place, there is no question of a Privilege invaded in the present case, nor any question as to a conflict of jurisdiction. No one doubts for a moment that the House of Lords is competent to appoint a Committee, if it thinks fit to do so, to inquire into the operation of any of our laws. To do so may be an error of policy of the gravest character; but it is no invasion of our jurisdiction, and it is not as an invasion of our jurisdiction that it is taken up by the Government. In the same way, Sir, we are not here for the purpose of defending the Land Act. We have been threatened just now with a promised exposure of all its defects; but I do not know that we should be at all inclined to enter into a contest at the present moment with those who may give even the most inflamed and exaggerated account of those defects. Our position is this—that it is the law of the land, and that at the present moment Parliamentary inquiry into its administration, which is essentially at this point, and almost exclusively at this moment, a judicial administration, is adverse to the first purposes of government and the highest ends of society. That is the question before us, entirely apart from any discussion which may be raised here upon the merits or defects of the Land Act itself. And, again, Sir, there have been what I may call a sort of semi-grateful acknowledgments from one or two hon. Gentlemen opposite to the Government for having afforded in this week an opportunity for a full discussion of the administration of the Act in Ireland. It is not for me to say what the liberty of debate may allow; the scope given them is undoubtedly wide; but it is no part of our intention to offer any such opportunity at all, nor have we the slightest intention on this occasion to defend the administration of government in Ireland. We are not to be drawn aside from a purpose which, in our view, is of vital importance, which is specific, which marks out a clear field of debate and a well-defined field of debate, and which ought, we think, to arrive early at its conclusion. We are not to be drawn aside from such a purpose into vague and general discussion, with regard to which we know not when it would end; and all that we can know is that it would unnecessarily interfere with the progress of the Business of this House, and tend to draw off the public attention from a matter which we think to be of vital importance. Therefore, Sir, we are not here to defend the Act; we are not here to censure the House of Lords. We are here to ask the House of Commons to pass a Vote of Confidence of the highest importance. We ask it of the House of Commons, because that House is our natural and legitimate resort; we draw from it our strength; our very existence depends upon its confidence. When a heavy blow is struck at our existence, or at the interests confided to our charge, this is the place to which we come to restore to us the strength necessary for the honourable administration of the trust of government. We are, then, acting according to precedent; we are acting according to principle. The only question is whether the occasion for our thus acting is an adequate occasion; and, in our opinion, this is an occasion, not only of great gravity, but one that I cannot call anything less than an occasion of extreme necessity. Now, Sir, I think I have heard from an hon. Member whose high integrity always commands the respectful attention of this House—I mean the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate)—I have heard from the hon. Member something new, that though his experience in this House has been a lengthened one, that during that long experience, and during, I suppose, his research into history—because, long as his experience is, the experience of the House of Commons is longer still—he is not aware of any instance in which a proceeding analogous to this proceeding has been taken. Well, Sir, I think that I can contrive, without much effort, to enlarge the historical resources of the hon. Gentleman. The truth is, Sir, as I have stated briefly a few minutes ago, that these conflicts of opinion between the House of Commons and the House of Lords are far from being uncommon. If it is thought necessary in one House to make a declaration of policy striking at some course of action on the part of the Executive Government, or some general system of Administration, the other House of Parliament, having a different view, passes some Resolution arising directly out of the previous decision, and directly intended to contravene it. Such was the case, for example, in the China War in 1857, when the House of Lords, having supported the Government of that day, in the House of Commons a Motion was immediately made for the purpose of neutralizing and defeating the effect of that support, which Resolution was carried by the House of Commons. Such, exactly, was the character of the Motion of Mr. Roebuck in 1850, when, conversely, the House of Lords had pronounced censure upon the foreign policy of Lord Palmerston in the Government of Lord John Russell, and Mr. Roebuck brought forward his Motion in this House, which was intended to rehabilitate—if that word is a legitimate one to' use—to rehabilitate the foreign policy and the position of Lord Palmerston, and he succeeded in carrying his Motion in contradiction of the House of Lords. Another Motion of the same kind, I think, was in 1863 or 1864, in relation to the Danish War; but in truth, Sir, precedents of this kind of contradictory declarations, where the proceedings of the House that acts second has a direct, an avowed, and undisguised reference to the proceedings of the House that acted first—these are so common that I should, perhaps, almost ask an apology of the House for making reference to them in connection with this debate. But, Sir, there are points yet to be brought out, which I will endeavour to explain by reference to other cases of conflict yet more direct. In 1839 the House of Lords appointed a Committee to inquire into the administration of the Irish Government since 1835, and the Motion for that purpose was not an attack upon the opera- tion of any particular law. It was not a Motion which threatened immediately great and vital public interests, but only the general political necessity of maintaining the Administration of the Party that was in power. Nothing further was aimed at by it than to discredit the Executive Government. But, notwithstanding, immediately after that Motion a counter Motion was made in this House in support of the Executive Government, and Lord John Russell laid down the doctrine—which I think was a sound and a necessary Constitutional doctrine—he said—"The House of Lords has brought an arraignment against the Executive Government. That is a blow to the Executive Government. It weakens the Executive, it deprives it not only of dignity and of repute, but of efficiency and of power. We seek to obtain a restoration of the strength that has been taken from us by the act of the House of Lords in coming here and asking for an opposite Vote from the House of Commons" Now, I cannot conceive, Sir, a stronger precedent than that for the course that is now taken, excepting, indeed, in this respect, that what was then in question was the fate of the Executive Government alone. Sir, I know not if the fate of the Executive Government alone had been in question here we should have thought it necessary to ask the House to interrupt. We should carefully have considered, in the first instance, whether the blow was sufficiently heavy to admit such a recourse to the aid of the House of Commons, and possibly we might have determined in the negative. But, Sir, I will give another instance which I conceive to be a true precedent for the Motion that I am now making, when it was not the fate of the Executive Government or a particular policy of Administration that was at stake, but when the whole social system of the country was threatened, as the House of Commons thought, by a Vote of the House of Lords; and instantly the remedy was applied. I go back for my precedent to the year 1851—on the 10th of October, I think it was. On Friday, the 7th October, or you may call it on the morning of Saturday, the 8th October—and I well recollect that debate, through the whole of which I was present, though, of course, without deliberative force—the House of Lords rejected, by a majority of 41, the Reform Bill proposed by the Government of Lord Grey. The Government of Lord Grey, and their supporters in the House of Commons, saw in that rejection a blow aimed, not purposely perhaps, but yet directly and effectually aimed, at the interests of good government throughout the country. The state of the public mind, as associated with the Reform Bill, was such that Lord Grey's Government felt they could not venture to be responsible for carrying on the government of the country unless they could obtain from the House of Commons a remedy for the Vote of the House of Lords, not by reversing it, not by divesting it of its Constitutional operation, but by giving to the country at large that solemn assurance which, when it proceeds from this House after full deliberation, never is distrusted—that the House would be faithful to the interests that had been committed to its charge, and never would desist from its labours until those interests had been rescued from peril and placed in security. Now, Sir, mark the circumstances. On Saturday morning, at 6 o'clock I think it was, or thereabouts, the decision of the House of Lords was taken. There was no Sitting of the House of Commons before Monday; but on Monday, the 10th of October, without previous Notice, all other Business being put aside for the purpose by general consent, without any opposition from the Leaders of the Opposition or from others, the House of Commons was invited to consider the following Resolution, which I suppose you may term a censure of the House of Lords:— That while this House deeply laments the recent fate of a Bill for reforming the Representation"—[a pretty distinct reference to what had taken place]—"in favour of which the opinion of the country stands unequivocally pronounced, and which has been matured by discussions the most anxious and laborious, it feels called upon to re-assert its firm adherence to the principle and leading provisions of that great measure;"—[it then goes on to say]—"and to express its unabated confidence in the integrity, perseverance, and ability of those Ministers who, in introducing and conducting it, have so well consulted the best interests of the country."—[3 Hansard, viii. 385.] On that same evening on which the debate came forward without Notice the question was decided, and the Resolution of Lord Ebrington was carried by a majority of 131, or within 2 of the number given to us by the House upon the division that has just been taken. And there was no denial of the right or title of the House of Lords, on the competency of the House of Lords, to cast out the Reform Bill, any more than there is now a denial of its competency to appoint a Committee of Inquiry. There was no allegation that there had been a trespass upon the province of the House of Commons, any more than there is any such allegation now. No, Sir; but a great act of national impolicy had been committed, which might have led forward to national disaster, and the House of Commons felt that it was here that the central and chief responsibility rested. It is not another Assembly, however important, however venerable, however respectable it may be, however distinguished by its long traditions—it is not that Assembly that can decide the greatest issues of the national fortunes, or can bear the enormous responsibilities of political crises when they arise. It is you, the Representatives of the people, upon whom in every crisis really the burden must lie; and if there be disaster, if the interests of the country be fatally compromised, you cannot shift that responsibility from yourselves upon those whom we are accustomed to refer to under the name of "another place." The nation will expect from you the maintenance of its fortunes and the custody of its interests, and it is in order that you should rise to the level of that great duty that I appeal to you upon this occasion. Well now, Sir, what do we call upon the House to assert? A large part of the terms of the Motion of Lord Ebrington that I have referred to is strictly applicable to this case. We believe that the measure it is sought to impair is a measure in favour of which the opinion of the country stands unequivocally pronounced. We believe it was matured by discussion of the most anxious and laborious character, and I think that to the accuracy and moderation of that statement I might call some competent witnesses even from the other side; and, Sir, "that the House is ready to express firm adherence to its principle and leading provisions" is, I believe, as true now as it was in 1831. And what do we ask the House to assert? Is there anything of exaggeration, anything of inflammation or extravagance, is there anything rhetorical or declama- tory in the terms we invite you to adopt? No, Sir; we have endeavoured to cast aside the fascinations of imagination, and we ask you only to say, if you believe it, that this Parliamentary inquiry tends to defeat the operation of the Act, and must be injurious to the interests of good government in Ireland. Sir, we have had some little light thrown upon this subject by the speech delivered to-night by the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin.) We are told by some that this inquiry is not to give effect to a foregone conclusion against the Act. What a pity, Sir, then, it was that the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire was allowed to make himself the organ of the Party, and to bring about the division which has just taken place. He complimented us on our wisdom in avoiding inquiry, for he says—"You know that your Act will be shattered in its influence; you know your Act is gone, if once it is inquired into." That, Sir, is a guarantee of the impartiality with which—according to the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire—the Committee of the House of Lords is to set about its inquiry. But then, Sir, the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire did not stand alone in his assertions. I must do credit to the regular Constitutional Opposition in saying that they maintained a tolerably unbroken silence during most of that remarkable speech; but the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire was sustained and cheered in his task by vigorous cheering from a certain quarter of the Opposition; and he welcomed those cheers, and turned to bestow his testimony, his favourable testimony, on the persons from whom they proceeded, as the true organs of the people of Ireland. The meaning of those cheers was an utter condemnation of the Land Act, which, as has not been disguised in the speeches of various Members representing Irish constituencies, is what they are pleased to call "a dismal failure." Yes; but then observe the position in which you place yourselves, and in which you place the Committee of the House of Lords as far as in you lies. It is, that that Committee is appointed for the condemnation of the Land Act in conformity with the views of those who have already described it as "a dismal failure." I entreat the House to allow me briefly to convey to their minds, as fairly as I can, an oppo- site view of the Land Act—its functions, its destinies, its possible results. I ask the House to go back with me to the language almost of despair in which the Queen's Speech of 1881 opened the Session of Parliament. I ask the House, after having gone through that Speech—which I need not specifically quote, because its general character is fresh in the minds of all—I ask them, then, to go forward with me through the laborious experience of the last Session, through the 58 nights of debate on the Land Bill, and to the period when the appointments of Commissioners and Sub-Commissioners had been made, and when their proceedings were about practically to commence. Sir, it was then that we were called upon to witness a new and powerful and menacing development of the great conspiracy against law and order and property in Ireland. It was then that we were bound to confess to ourselves—and blind, indeed, we must have been if we had attempted to conceal it—that the effort which was being made, and which was being made not without chances of success, was to bring about that universal denial of the obligations and the rights of property which the Duke of Wellington had long ago pointed out in solemn and formal words as marking the stage at which Government would be paralyzed, and no power at its command would enable it to meet the disaffection of a united nation. That was the crisis which we had before us in the beginning of October last. What were the means we had in our hand to meet it with? We had the Coercion Act. Does anybody suppose that the operation of that Act would have been made co-extensive with the evil which we had to confront? Does anybody suppose—I am afraid there are some who still suppose—that in the Coercion Act there is latent some remedial process; but we, at least, are not under that dismal superstition. We have always declared that the Act had no legitimate purpose, and could have none, except for a moment to clear the ground and to leave a space on which you might found, with a prospect of their free operation, your remedial measure. We had the power of government in Ireland; and what is the power of government in Ireland? It is a mechanical force, which, unless it has other moral forces behind it, cannot conquer. Had we been speaking of England, you might have told us that we had large reserves of energy throughout all classes of the community. Had we those large reserves of energy in Ireland? Was it upon the moral power or the social power of the landlord class in Ireland that we were to fall back, and to hope that from that source could be derived the strength which was necessary to cope with and put down this tremendous conspiracy? No, Sir; at the time we well knew that there were in Ireland but two living powers. One of them was the Land League, and the other was the Land Act. A desperate conflict it was obvious must occur between them. The question was, which was to be the victor? Yes, Sir; between the Land League and the Land Act. We have had to-night from agents of the Land League, as we had throughout the discussion of the Land Bill, a significant exhibition of their desire to defeat that Bill if they could—["No, no!"]—or, if they could not defeat it, to discredit it. Do not let it be supposed for a moment that I charge that responsibility on Irish Members in general. Do not let it be supposed that I charge it on all Irish Members who sit in that quarter of the House, for I know there are some of them who were roused, even during the debates on the Land Bill last year, into indignant protestations of an irrepressible patriotism against the proceedings of some of their Colleagues. But there were, and there are, in that quarter of the House deadly enemies of the Land Act. No wonder. Why are they its enemies? Because they are working for one purpose, and that their own purpose, and the Land Act is working for a purpose directly opposite. The Land Act is working, as we believe, for the purposes of social order and stability. They are working for purposes which may, perhaps, seem to them to be sufficient and legitimate, but which we are compelled to consider directly the reverse. That was the situation of things in Ireland in October last. We knew, of course, we could not expect to obtain from the Party opposite, which was associated directly with the interests of land in Ireland, a recognition of our real objects, or an approval of the means we were employing in order to attain them. But these were the facts of the case—There was this great measure, and there was the double opposition which it had to confront—a double opposition which was constantly represented in the debates of last year, and which has been again represented in the division to-night. Now, Sir, what is the effect of such a Motion as has been carried in the Lords for an inquiry into the judicial administration of the Land Act? Remember that we had consented to withdraw—

SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE

The word "judicial" is not in the Motion.

MR. GLADSTONE

I know that. I am going to argue it. I am not referring to it as a quotation, but I am going to argue that that is the purpose of the Motion. Remember that you are all witnesses of our offer, and the rejection of our offer. ["No, no!"] You are all witnesses to our official and responsible declaration—"Contrive by any way you like formally to exclude from the inquiry the judicial administration of the Act, and to every other form of the inquiry we will waive the serious objections we entertain." That was the offer made on the first occasion by Lord Granville, and rejected, and which I have repeatedly made to-night, not, perhaps, for the first time, in terms yet more explicit and determined. Well, Sir, we have been told, and, no doubt, shall be told again, that these are idle and unfounded alarms, and that there is no danger to the Land Act. I must say with regard to the Motion of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) that it appears to me to take a fair and legitimate advantage of what has been done. I should hardly expect him to vote against an inquiry—not, at any rate, until he has first tried to extend it. But he is prepared to move an inquiry in the sense of increasing the pressure of the Act upon rents, just as the House of Lords is making an inquiry for the purpose of diminishing the pressure. But let us consider what will be the effect of this inquiry. It is an inquiry into the proceedings of a judicial body—an inquiry by a Committee of the House of Lords into the proceedings of a judicial body—and, as far as we can gather, it will be the duty—indeed, I do not know how the Committee will escape the duty—to summon before it a smaller or a larger number of the judicial agents by whom the Act is now being administered. Have they considered what kind of rebuff they may possibly receive when they ask a Judge under the Land Act what were the considerations which moved him to deliver this or that judgment? Sir, I believe there is upon record a case in which a Committee of the House of Lords made a similar attempt, and met with a reply famous for evermore within, the precincts of the distinguished Profession of which the person making it was a member. In the case of Knollys, Chief Justice Holt delivered a judgment which the House of Lords disapproved, as they seem to disapprove some of the judgments of Mr. Justice O'Hagan. I beg the pardon of the House—the case is even worse than I supposed. From the inaccuracy of my memorandum, I presumed that it was a Committee of the House of Lords which received the rebuff. On reference I find that it is the House of Lords itself. Chief Justice Holt was summoned by the House of Lords and asked the reason for his decision. I may inform the House that it was a case in which the Privileges of the House of Lords were attacked, and therefore there was greater apology for tampering with the judicial independence of Chief Justice Holt than there would be with the judicial independence of Mr. Justice O'Hagan. When Chief Justice Holt was asked his reason for his decision, he replied in these memorable words— I hold an authority independent of yours; I gave my reasons for the judgment in that place in which I have sworn to administer justice. By the House of Lords I look to he protected and not to be arraigned, and I will not assign the reasons upon which I founded my judgment. Well, Sir, what is the case in these judicial proceedings? In so far as they differ from other judicial proceedings they differ in this respect—that Parliament has deliberately sought to fence them, if possible, against all interference. From the decisions of the Land Court there is no absolute appeal whatever except on questions of law. [Mr. NEWDEGATE: Hear, hear!] That is the view of judicial independence by which Parliament was governed. Even on questions of law—[Mr. NEWDEGATE: Hear, hear!]—it is in the power of the Commissioners to refuse an appeal. [Mr. NEWDEGATE: Hear, hear! j I am delighted to be assured of the constant concurrence of the hon. Gentleman in all things which I am feebly endeavouring to express; but still I must also be content to postpone the enjoyment of the pleasure until he has the opportunity for expressing his concurrence from his place. Even on questions of law, the Commission is not absolutely bound to allow an appeal. If it declares that, in its judgment, the grounds are frivolous and vexatious, it may refuse appeal on questions of law. In fact, there is no appeal whatever, except by the permission of the Commission. The regular course of appeal you have suspended in this case. Had you not interposed those barriers the cases might have gone to the highest Court in Ireland, and might then have gone to the House of Lords, and the House of Lords might have dealt with it judicially; but you have elaborately provided for the total exclusion of the House of Lords in its judicial capacity from touching those matters. And now, having excluded itself in its judicial capacity, it appoints a Committee, on the composition of which I make no remark, but presumably not distinguished by the absence of prejudice and bias—["Oh, oh!"]—to examine these very subjects from which, in its highest character, the House of Lords is excluded. I do not wish to convey any special imputation as to the character of the Committee. ["Oh, oh!"] No; but I am not going to recede from what I have said. A Committee, composed almost wholly of landlords, and largely of Irish landlords, is going to examine the working of the havoc the Courts have been making with Irish rents; and I say I am justified in stating that such a Committee is not presumedly distinguished by an absence of prejudice or bias on the particular matter. Such, Sir, is the character of those who are now liable to be brought before the House of Lords and have questions put to them similar to that addressed to Chief Justice Holt, whose reply I have read? Although we are sometimes accused of too hasty legislation, Parliament has, with remarkable care, not only excluded these appeals, but has covered them with a wide legislative declaration; the whole of the proceedings of the Commissioners—and the Commissioners are allowed and empowered to give to the Sub - Commissioners throughout the country, subject only to an appeal to themselves, the same authority—are covered by the same statutory declara- tion. In Clause 48 of the Irish Land Act, in the last paragraph of sub-section 3, these words are used— The Land Commission shall have all such, powers, rights, and privileges as are vested in the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice in Ireland as may be necessary for carrying out its purposes, and proceedings before the Land Commission shall in law be deemed to be judicial proceedings before a Court of record. Now, I say it is not expedient, that it is not in the view of this House tolerable—so far as we have the power by our protest to weaken the injurious action—that it is not tolerable, taking into view the whole case of Ireland, that these relations of landlord and tenant, through the medium of judicial inquiry, shall be overhauled by the promiscuous inquiries of a Committee such as that I have described. I cannot exclude from myself the possibility of painful and indecorous collision between the authority of the House of Lords and the authority of those judicial persons. I give my opinion. I have no knowledge of the facts, and I have not sought to obtain them. Such is the effect that may happen on the one side; but, on the other side, this Committee has the most direct unavoidable tendency to weaken the hands of the Commissioners. Will you deny that every inquiry into the proceedings of a Court, whiletheseproceedings—or others analogous to them—are going on, must necessarily have that effect? It is impossible that it can be otherwise. How has this proposed inquiry acted upon the landlords of Ireland? The first effect that I have heard is that it has led more than one landlord, who had been contemplating an arrangement with his tenants, to write to his agent for the purpose of arresting his orders, and I must say it appears to me that this has been a perfectly natural operation upon the mind of the landlord. I understand the objections of those who say that the Act is a failure, and can never satisfy the just claims of the tenant; but this I know—that there are thousands and tens of thousands in Ireland who, though many of them believe that the Act falls short of their just claims, yet are determined to adhere to it to the effect that it should not be impaired; and I, for my part, am not willing to be responsible for the results that would already have been produced on the minds and temper of the Irish people, had they been allowed, even for eight-and-forty hours, to believe that Her Majesty's Government or the House of Commons would view with indifference the deplorable and ill-omened measure that has been adopted. In our opinion, what we think to be the confidence of the Irish people in the Land Act, and what I believe the majority of Irish Members with us think to be the confidence of the Irish people in the Land Act. would have been fatally impaired had we allowed it for a moment to be supposed that we at least were going to tolerate any interference with its operations. I know it has been said that this inquiry shall not be directed to abridgment of the privileges of the tenant; but how do I know that there is nothing in which it will be necessary to defend these privileges against the encroachment of the Committee. The avowed object of the Committee is known to be to show that something in the nature of property is unjustly taken from the landlord, in order to be unjustly handed of r to the tenant. That is undoubtedly so, and I am not going, with the view that we take of the account of the Act and its provisions, to be responsible for allowing the people of Ireland to suppose that we shall be parties to the opening of the question. Well, Sir, I said just now there were but two living powers in Ireland in this great and terrible struggle. We entered into it with a firm determination to use every power in our hands for the purpose of maintaining or restoring tranquillity, order, and confidence in Ireland. I am thankful to say that some small beginnings have been made in the performance of that great work. But we have no strength to spare. We cannot afford to witness with indifference the invasion of our means, and the weakening of our resources. We have nothing to throw away. As I have said, it is not an Executive Government that can maintain the existing state of things in Ireland; it is not an educated class; it is not a body of landlords. We have heard much, on different occasions in this House—and once or twice the phrase has been repeated within the last few weeks and days; we have heard much of the "English garrison" in Ireland. Well, Sir; but what is that English garrison—if the odious phrase must be repeated? Of what is it composed? Whence does it draw its vitality and its strength? It does not draw its strength and vitality from pompous titles and long rent rolls. It draws almost the whole of its vitality in Ireland from the support of the Northern population of Ireland, and at this moment you are impairing that. The whole Northern population is ready to go against you, almost to a man, if you allow them for a moment to suppose that you are about to tolerate the tampering with the Land Act. And what, Sir, I should like to know, is the strength or efficacy of any English garrison, or what ought to be its strength or efficacy, when there shall be no large section, even, of the population to which it can appeal for hearty co-operation and support? I think, Sir, I have said enough.—I do not say to convince hon. Gentlemen opposite—but to show that, in our view, this matter is a most profoundly grave and serious matter; that the question is about the first foundations of social order. I own I do not believe hon. Gentlemen sitting on the other side of the House have ever yet taken a true measure of Irish difficulties—[Mr. ASH-MEAD-BARTLETT: Oh, oh!]—or know how deep lies the seat of them. No; I do not believe it, not even of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Eye. [Laughter.] The subject is too grave for laughter, and I am sorry that I was drawn aside for a moment by the conspicuous method which the hon. Member adopts for the conveyance of his sentiments. The gravity of the question is such as can hardly be described. We are seeking to put an end to the odious war of classes, and to build firmly and deeply the foundations of social order. We do not believe it possible to attain that end except through the medium of popular contentment; and we are persuaded that concessions, according to the measure of reason and justice, such as have been offered, speaking generally, by the Land Act, are concessions which will bring about, not in a moment, but by a sure and gradual process, the restoration of that contentment. It is upon these terms, and these terms alone, that we can afford to be responsible for, or to employ the repulsive means to which we are obliged to submit for securing the first conditions of peace, and putting an end to the reign of intimidation in Ireland, by the use of powers alien to the ordi- nary letter, and alien to the essential spirit of the law. We cannot for a day be responsible for the government of Ireland, except with the free use of the weapons that the Legislature has been pleased to intrust to our hands. We know very well that we cannot turn to the House of Lords and ask the House of Lords to undertake the government of Ireland. Our hopes for it are bound up in the operation of the Land Act—the fruit of so many labours, of so great efforts from so many quarters, brought about by so much concession, by so much moderation, by so much abatement of extreme views, by so much courage in confronting the possibilities of popular prejudice. The result we deem precious to the country. Upon it we build, upon it we suspend our hopes; and we will be no parties, for a day or for an hour, to any proceeding by which these hopes can be substantially impaired. The right hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the Resolution of which he had given Notice.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That Parliamentary inquiry, at the present time, into the working of the Irish Laud Act tends to defeat the operation of that Act, and must be injurious to the interests of good government in Ireland."—[Mr. Gladstone.)

After a pause, Mr. SPEAKER proceeded to put the Question, when—

MR. GIBSON

said: Sir, I readily confess it would be a source of satisfaction if I could have avoided following the right hon. Gentleman immediately at a time when so many hon. Members must be more agreeably engaged elsewhere; but I cannot permit what would be the accident of a division to follow immediately upon the remarkable speech just delivered by the Prime Minister without any statement being made from this side of the House, or some reasons being given which may induce the House to think that there were matters which might well be taken into account other than those stated by the right hon. Gentleman to influence their decision. One reflection which passed through my mind during the speech of the right hon. Gentleman was this—Why were not these arguments presented in some measure in "another place?" Bearing in mind the wide area the right hon. Gentleman necessarily covered in his speech—referring to the Land Act and its benefits, to the state of Ireland and its disorder—I could not help also asking myself this question—Was it wise or necessary to move this Resolution in this House at the present time? Also, bearing in mind the crisis, bearing in mind the state of Business, bearing in mind what I may call, to express my meaning, the present muddle of Business, is such a Motion as the present the best way of expressing the wishes and the convictions of the Government? What has been the Government action in the House of Lords? It is not competent for me to quote what has occurred in the debates of that Assembly; but the House of Lords, as the right hon. Gentleman fully conceded, acted in the exercise of their Constitutional rights; and they did not, as the right hon. Gentleman assumed nearly all through his speech, resolve upon an inquiry hostile to the Land Act with the object of condemning it. There is not a syllable of such condemnation or hostile intention in the Reference; and it is reasonable, fair, and quite within their Constitutional rights, to inquire into the operation of an Act admittedly of the most exceptional, peculiar, and drastic character ever passed. Bear in mind that the right hon. Gentleman himself recently described the measure as so exceptional and extraordinary as only to be justified by the special circumstances of the case. Is it, then, unreasonable, it being admittedly within their Constitutional rights, after over four months' full and thorough operation, when its administration can be thoroughly and fairly gauged, that the other House should resolve upon such an inquiry? Remember what occurred. Ample Notice was given in the House of Lords of the Motion for a Committee; there was no surprise; the Notice was upon the Journals of the House; the course proposed to be taken was indicated in a speech in the debate on the Address; but until the Motion for the Committee was moved, there was not a single word of warning; not a single suggestion was made in either House that inconvenience to Public Business would result from the carrying of the Motion. So the first step is this—clear and ample Notice is given, and there is absolute silence in both Houses on the part of the Government as to any inconvenience that may result. What is the next step? It is to be presumed that the Government are capably well served in the House of Lords, where they have Colleagues who are in the Cabinet. When the Motion was made, why, if the sentiments just now announced by the Prime Minister were deliberately entertained by the Government, was not an Amendment moved or suggested in the House of Lords? Why were not the reasons now given urged against the Motion in the House of Lords? On the contrary, is it not a matter of notoriety that in the most distinct Government utterance there was no suggestion of an Amendment, or of the possibility of compromise on this question? Was any intimation whatever given anywhere in the progress of that debate of these wonderful expressions which have just now been used by the right hon. Gentleman in reference to the effect on the condition of Ireland of that Motion being carried? Not a solitary intimation of anything of the kind. I had the privilege of hearing that debate, and I had the pleasure of reading it afterwards; and I say distinctly that the whole Motion was discussed on this issue—that expediency was urged on the one side and inexpediency on the other; hut the element of danger to social order and national safety, or anything of that kind, was never suggested from beginning to end of the debate. The Prime Minister tells us his present Motion is to be supported by grave reasons having relation to the first necessities of society. I venture to say most positively that that argument never was hinted at by anyone save by the Prime Minister himself in this House, when the right hon. Gentleman came down last Monday and gave Notice of the Motion which he has just made. I ask hon. Members whether that proceeding was not a thorough surprise to hon. Gentlemen on both sides of the House? I am satisfied that surprise was just as much the feeling on the other side of the House as on this. We hear that to-day a novel expedient in Liberal tactics has been adopted for the first time for some years, a meeting of the Liberal Party having been summoned by the Prime Minister, and that the result of it has been to restore union in the Party for the purposes of this discussion, and possibly also to secure a discreet silence from hon. Gentlemen opposite. Either the statement made on Monday last for the first time, and now emphasized by the Prime Minister, was an after-thought, or it was deliberately withheld from the House of Lords. The last is not a proposition that I should feel justified in putting; and, therefore, I prefer to hold that the Government did not think of any of those terrible consequences which they now seek to frighten the House of Commons with until the matter had passed in the House of Lords. I wish to quote a passage from the speech of Sir Robert Peel in the debate of 1839—a most important debate, and one which is, I think, the real precedent to be applied in the present case. Sir Robert Peel said— If either in the language of the Resolution of the House of Lords or in the period at which it fixed the inquiry …. you apprehended an implied Vote of Censure, why not have moved an Amendment in the terms of this Motion in the House of Lords—a legitimate and proper course—instead of letting it pass without moving an Amendment and then availing yourselves of it as a pretext for collision with the House of Lords?"—[3 Hansard, xlvii. 53.] Is not every syllable of that speech of Sir Robert Peel—a great historical speech—applicable to the present Motion? Why was not an Amendment moved in the House of Lords? Why were the topics which are now urged held in reserve to be used as a pretext for an attack on the House of Lords? The Committee was only nominated in the House of Lords on Friday, and on that occasion the Minister of the Crown, speaking on behalf of the Government, spoke only at the close of the debate. He moved neither an adjournment, nor an Instruction, nor a limitation, nor an exclusion from the work of the Committee; he allowed the whole thing to go without suggesting any kind of Amendment. I ask—Is the method of the Government the wisest way in which they can effect their own purpose? The right hon. Gentleman says that his object is to dissociate himself, on the part of the Government, from the action of the House of Lords, and to show to those who are administering the Land Act that they have the Ministers and the House of Commons behind them. Surely they have already intimated that pretty plainly by their Colleagues refusing to serve on the Committee of the House of Lords; and they might have supplemented that, if they chose, by the strongest speech from their strongest Colleague, or, adopting an expedient, legitimate, and thoroughly known in this House, they might have put up some much-respected private Member on their own side to ask whether they approved the action of the House of Lords. Then to that question the Prime Minister might have made as long a reply as he pleased, disapproving the action of the other House, and assuring those who administer the Land Act, and those who look to it, that they have the House of Commons behind them. That obvious and legitimate expedient would have terminated the incident in a quarter of an hour, thus averting a rupture with the other House of Parliament, and also avoiding the consumption of a considerable amount of the public time. Again, an hon. Friend of mine (Mr. Fitz-patrick) has given Notice of his intention to draw the attention of the House to-morrow to the operation of the Land Act. The Prime Minister might have taken that opportunity of making as long a speech as he chose, and have argued against the action of the House of Lords. More than that, he could have moved on that Motion an Amendment that would have enabled him to urge in substance whatever he thought expedient, without introducing words which involved an attack on the House of Lords. The right hon. Gentleman has gone at considerable length into precedents. I do not intend to follow him in detail, but will only make one or two remarks. The precedent which the right hon. Gentleman seemed to think had most weight was certainly not a precedent that struck my mind as entitled to any particular weight at all, the circumstances being so entirely different. He commenced with the very ill-omened precedent in reference to the war with China. It is very true that the House of Commons acted as he said on that occasion; but I do not think that the country afterwards approved of the action which had thus been taken. The right hon. Gentleman also referred to Viscount Ebrington's Motion on the rejection of the Reform Bill; and he appeared to rest on that precedent as one that was his guiding star in these entire proceedings. But where is the analogy between the two cases? A Bill that had been discussed for a considerable length of time in the House of Commons was rejected by the House of Lords; and after that rejection it was thought expedient to come back and affirm that the House of Commons would stand to its convictions, and would at an early opportunity re-introduce that legislation. Had the House of Lords last Session, in the exercise of their discretion, thrown out the Land Bill, then there might have been an analogy. But where is the possible analogy between that case and the present one, the House of Lords having not only passed the Land Bill, but passed it after Amendments, which your own responsible Colleague in the House of Lords said added to the chances of the improved working of the Bill? What were the other precedents cited by the right hon. Gentleman? Not a single one of them is in point. He passed rapidly by the precedent of 1839. That is a remarkable precedent, because it throws a good deal of light on what the Government has not done in this case. There the House of Lords had appointed a Committee to inquire into the state of Ireland. What did Lord John Russell do? He did not, in the Resolution that he moved in the House of Commons, say or suggest anything against the action of the House of Lords; but he did what I think the right hon. Gentleman would not venture now to do—namely, submit a Motion declaring that his measures have tended to the peace, happiness, and good government of Ireland. In April, 1839, Sir Robert Peel moved an Amendment which, after a lengthened Preamble setting out his reasons, contained these words—which ought not to be lost sight of in this discussion— It is not fitting that this House should adopt a proceeding which has the appearance of calling in question the undoubted right of the House of Lords to inquire into the state of Ireland."—[3 Hansard, xlvii. 70.] The Motion was carried in the House of Commons in 1839 by a majority of 20. Obviously, the right hon. Gentleman did not like to dwell upon that, because I find, on looking at the Division List, that the right hon. Gentleman affirmed the proposition of Sir Robert Peel. The right hon. Gentleman cannot be right both times. I am. inclined to think that he was right then. The other precedent to which he refers is the Don Pacifico debate. Mr. Roebuck, an independent Member of this House, brought forward a proposition, not against the House of Lords, but approving the principles which had hitherto regulated the foreign policy of the Government. His Motion was care-fully and cautiously worded, so as not at all to interfere with the House of Lords, but only to affirm the House's approval of the foreign policy of the Government. I do not think it necessary to go into further examination of the precedents cited by the right hon. Gentleman; but I desire to mention one which I think he might well have adduced. It is one that happened in very recent times—namely, in 1872, when Lord Lifford, in the House of Lords, early in that year, about 18 months after the passing of the Land Act of 1870, moved for an inquiry into the operation of that Act. That is a perfectly germane precedent. It is a question of degree whether the inquiry should come 18 months or six months after the passing of the Act. That Motion was encountered in the House of Lords exactly as the one made the other day has been. The one side argued that it was expedient to inquire into the working of an Act of an exceptional character; the other side pointed out the inexpediency and the inconvenience of such a course. Nevertheless, the inquiry proceeded; several Judges of the County Courts and of the Superior Courts were examined; the working of the Act of 1870 was not interfered with in any particular; and the Report was one of the most cautious and moderate documents ever presented to either House of Parliament. We are told that this Resolution is not to be regarded as a Vote of Censure on the House of Lords. If it is not one, it appears to an ordinary man about as good an imitation of a Vote of Censure as could well be imagined. It is an attempt to discredit, if not to censure, the House of Lords. I should have liked to have analyzed the speech of the Prime Minister more at my leisure than I have been able to do before replying. That speech shows a change of front. The right hon. Gentleman makes a whole mass of admissions—so much so that if the admissions he has just made are to be considered as true, it is impossible for his Motion to be carried. His Motion is that Parliamentary inquiry at the present time into the working of the Irish Land Act tends to defeat the operation of that Act and must be injurious to the interests of good government in Ireland. But the right hon. Gentleman now admits that he recognizes the fact that there are a vast number of topics which might fairly and legitimately be inquired into. [Mr. GLADSTONE: No!] It is very hard to use language which commands the distinct approval of the right hon. Gentleman; but he is prepared, at any rate, to waive his objections to several subjects: he will admit that an inquiry into the working of the Bright Clauses, possibly into that of the Reclamation Clauses, possibly also into the manner in which the Sub-Commissioners were appointed might be usefully conceded. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: No!] Do I understand the Home Secretary to say that he does not desire to meet the charges which have been brought against the Government and freely published in the Press as to the method which the Government have pursued in making these appointments? Will he, under those circumstances, endeavour to narrow down the question to such an extent, and exclude any inquiry whatever into the judicial administration of the Land Act? The Motion, however, of the Lords does not say a syllable about the judicial administration of the Act. It is not mentioned either in the Motion of the Prime Minister. It has appeared before Parliament for the first time in his speech. That, then, must be an after-thought. I admit that I should not approve of an inquiry which would favour interference with the independence of its judicial administration; but the names of the Committee proposed in "another place" are a sufficient guarantee against any such occurrence. Those names number among them several Cabinet Ministers, an ex-Lord Chancellor, an existing Judge of great experience; and it is quite clear that their inquiry would be conducted in such a manner as not in any way to damage the working of the Act itself. The Government deliberately refused to have any of its Members upon the Committee. If the Colleagues of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had been placed on the Committee, they could have readily vindicated the Government at every stage, if necessary, and could have entered their protest whenever they thought fit to take exception to any part of the proceedings. They could have had the whole matter, from their point of view, put before the Committee and the country in a most authoritative way; but this opportunity they have avoided by declining to serve on the Committee. In that respect they have acted very differently from their Colleagues in 1872. Now, what is meant by the judicial administration of the Land Act? It is a new phrase which the Government, apparently, did not think of when they framed this Motion. What did it mean to include and what to exclude? Would it exclude an inquiry into the operation of the Land Act or the results of the decisions under it? [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: Yes.] Would it exclude the consideration of what is to be done, or only what has been done? Would it exclude the question of what compensation was to be given, in any shape or form, by either advances made to owners, as suggested in the Press, or by increased facilities under the Bright Clauses being given? Would it exclude all consideration of the rules which had been determined with respect to the subject of costs? That was a general rule liable to variation, was that intended to be excluded? [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: Yes.] Would the words in question prevent inquiry into the way in which visits were made to land, in every case, by those who were intrusted with the administration of the Act? [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: Yes.] Was all inquiry into whether there were any general principles upon which the Sub-Commissioners acted to be excluded':' [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: Certainly.] I find that Professor Baldwin says in one passage of a recent judgment in an Ulster case— I now say, in the presence of my colleagues, that the principles on which we have proceeded were put down before we turned a sod. We have not stated these principles anywhere. Is that to be excluded? [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: Certainly.] And the question of the value of the tenant right declared by the Sub-Commissioners also? I do not desire to go into particulars; but I would instance a case in which the rent was reduced from £114 to £100, and the tenant right valued at £1,200; whereas the maximum valuation under the late Act would have been £250. Or would it be legitimate to inquire into the way in which appeals are being heard?—that obviously comes within the words of the Prime Minister's Motion. There is an absolute block in the primary and the appellate business now. There is not a chance of disposing of the work for many years unless some relief is afforded. There is not a prospect of the cases now entered being worked off in any reasonable time, or of the Court overreaching the work before it. Is it not vital for the Act itself to inquire into the best way of dealing with this block? Then there is the vast expense of working the Land Act. Is not that a legitimate subject of inquiry? That expense, I am told by a competent authority, will be, year by year, about £100,000. Is not that an enormous burden to put upon the taxpayers of the country? When the Commissioners were framing their rules they, being desirous to lure tenants into the Court, made the forms facile, and placed the charge for stamps so low that they practically invited the tenants to come in without paying anything worth speaking of. A tenant farmer pays 1s. for his originating notice, and for that small payment he gets a Court which will fix his rent for a term of 15 years, renewable for ever, a substantial reduction of rent, and all the other immense advantages offered to him by the Land Act. Surely the nation has a right to inquire whether the expense of the Land Act shall be entirely borne by the Imperial Exchequer, or whether those who have the benefit of it should not contribute more. "The judicial administration of the Land Act" are words so vague as to include what, it must be admitted, should not be included; whereas the reasons given by the Prime Minister, and the reasons indicated recently in the Press, apply only to the expediency of not interfering with the independence of the judicial administration of the Land Act. The Prime Minister rather invited this side of the House to assail the Land Act; but I am not going to do anything of the kind. I criticized the Land Act last Session all through its progress firmly, and I hope not unfairly; and I always stated that, once it became law, I should do nothing to interfere with its successful working. I have done nothing, and I mean to do nothing, to interfere with its successful working. This inquiry will not, I believe, do so; and I find it very hard to believe that the Prime Minister, with his vast capacity, really does entertain any idea of the kind. How was the Land Bill presented to us last year from the point of view of landlord and tenant alike? The Bright Clauses, which would enable peasant proprietors to be created, were put forward as the great object of land legislation—the permanent thing to be sought, the permanent good to be accomplished—and I think the Secretary of State for India used the words that the other clauses were to be a kind of modus vivendi until the real end was attained. When, from time to time, inconvenience and injustice to the landlord were pointed out from the framing of some sections of the Act, it was always replied—"This Act will not affect all rents. It is only intended to affect the classes of rent, not very numerous in Ireland, but still existent there, that were unjust and unreasonable." That was the general statement made on the Government side with reference to the Tenure Clauses; and those landlords who might not be satisfied with the working of those clauses were informed that matters had been so adjusted by the Government, and such increased facilities given under the Bright Clauses, that landlords who did not like to remain on could very readily sell. Those were, practically, the whole of the arguments used in support of the Bill. I do not pause to consider whether the administration of the Land Act has been just or unjust, whether the reduction of rent has been reasonable or unreasonable. All I now say is that the effect of the Land Act has been largely to reduce rents, not in a few exceptional cases, but all round, and to upset the balance presented between one part of the Bill and another when the whole question was under review last year. The fair rent and tenure clauses have, practically, killed the other parts of the Bill. Surely it is not unfair to ask for an examination of the whole working of the Land Act, in order to see whether the pendulum cannot be re-adjusted so as to swing with greater precision and force. The inquiry will do a great deal if, without undoing a single advantage obtained by the tenant, it causes Parliament to seriously and justly consider whether it should not re-examine the Bright Clauses, and the conditions under which they regulate advances, in order to see if those clauses cannot be so re-arranged as to establish the balance originated by Parliament and put out of gear by the unexpected working of the Tenure Clauses? The most common justice demands such an examination. Not one shilling need be lost to the ratepayers—not one farthing's damage need be done to the tenant by such a process. But that end cannot be attained if the inquiry is mutilated, if you exclude one great fact from examination—namely, what has been done under the Tenure Clauses. The almost complete killing of the Bright Clauses by he Tenure Clauses was never contemplated when the Bill was before Parliament. It was thought and assumed all through the debate that they would have a vast operation. The Prime Minister estimated £10,000,000 as the figure which would be required to carry on their operation during the first few years after the passing of the Act. Then in the month of February—the very month in which I am speaking—he would be prepared, he said, to make a further proposal to Parliament, if necessary. So startling, so unexpected has been the working of the Act that I believe there is absolutely no application under the Bright Clauses. Certainly a few thousands of pounds would cover them all. It was suggested last Session that there would be no purchase of land except under the Statute; but the Prime Minister said he did not believe that at all. The invincible logic of facts shows that that belief of the Prime Minister's was absolutely fallacious. If I wanted proof of the fact I should find it in the pamphlet lately published by Mr. Fottrell—a pamphlet which was in some particulars an able one, the work of a man who had considerable knowledge of his subject. Mr. Fottrell, with rather more cynical frankness than I should myself, perhaps, venture to employ, says— The landlord who is wise will remember that he has now no probable purchaser but his tenant. The purchasing public will for each estate be practically limited to the tenants upon it; the landlords must sell to them or not at all. That is now the position of matters. And what inducement has the tenant now to buy when he can go into Court and get a tenure for ever and a substantial reduction of rent? The absolute unsaleability of land was strikingly shown a short time ago in the Landed Estates Court, Dublin. On the 12th of this month, some land in the county of Meath—such as used to go for 30 or 35 years' purchase—the best land in the whole of Ireland, was put up, but found no bidder. There were no bids from the public, and there were none from the tenants, for the reason already indicated, and the sale was adjourned. The same thing happened in the case of an estate in Mayo. Much has been said by the Prime Minister about the Assistant Commissioners. I have never indulged in any rash and unmeasured abuse of those gentlemen. They are not to be blamed for accepting posts placed at their disposal by the Government. It is the Government who are to blame if they have appointed gentlemen open to criticism. The Government had the most absolute control over the conditions and the salaries of the appointments; and if they have fixed such conditions that they could not obtain men who command confidence, they, and not the men, are to blame. Now, I pass one broad criticism upon all the appointments that have been made recently—upon 24 out of the 36; they are only held for 12 months. Is it possible to have a firm, independent, and impartial tribunal, composed of men who feel that the breath of their official nostrils depends absolutely upon the favour of the Government? I do not say that these men may not be of blameless honour and integrity in their private life; but they must administer their functions with all the infirmity of judicial instability—an evil recognized all through our Constitution. In the Revolution of 1688, one of the greatest reforms effected was to give a permanent tenure of office to the higher Judges, instead of keeping them dependent upon the pleasure of the Crown. And yet you expect the landlords of Ireland to be satisfied with, and public opinion to acquiesce in, the decisions of gentlemen who, if they do not please the Government in every particular, can be quietly left out of the re-appointments at the end of the 12 months' duration of their office without having any right to complain. I say that the position of those gentlemen is unconstitutional; that it is unfair to the public and to the suitors. Let me, in order to illustrate my argument, just remind the House of what took place during the late Londonderry Election. The manner in which the Assistant Commissioners discharged their functions was relied upon by the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland as a great topic and argument to be used against a change of Government But surely the status and the tenure of office of a Judge should not be turned into a weapon to be used in political warfare. The hon. and learned Gentleman having indicated in more speeches than one that those men had only a tenure of office for a year, and that, in his opinion, the reductions in the rents had not yet been carried far enough, he went on to remark that if a change of Government occurred, the men who would be appointed in their places would be more open to criticism from the tenants' point of view than they were. I am entitled to make that criticism upon the conduct of the Government, and to say that it would be most beneficial if any inquiry by any Committee of either House of Parliament would tend to secure the further independence of the Sub-Commissioners in the exercise of their judicial functions. I have asked whether the Government Motion is the wisest that could have been made at this juncture? In my opinion, it is the very worst that could have been brought forward under the circumstances. The reasons which have been put forward by the Government themselves in support are really inconsistent with it, and the debate which they have inaugurated is calculated to make confusion worse confounded. The Prime Minister, most of all, must have known, when he brought forward this Motion, that he was inaugurating a Parliamentary inquiry into the working of the Land Act more strict and more searching than any that could be conducted by the Committee of the House of Lords. It is idle for the Prime Minister to endeavour to excuse himself in the eyes of public opinion by saying that he has framed his Motion within well-defined limits. Never was a Motion more deliberately calculated to excite strong criticism from all around. It actually challenges the Opposition Benches to say all they can with reference to the administration of the Land Act, and it challenges those on this side of the House below the Gangway to express their opinion on the condition of Ireland also. It is, therefore, a Motion calculated to give rise to indefinite, protracted, and unlimited discussion. But if the Motion is indefinite in its scope, the speech of the Prime Minister did not diminish that scope. The matters to which I have directed attention are so plain and so obvious that I cannot but think that the Prime Minister must have had them in his mind when he framed his Motion. They have been pointed out over and over again in the Press, and I have no doubt but that they must have been referred to frequently in private conversations with the Prime Minister, or else why did he resort to the meeting that was held to-day? What occurred at that meeting? I am sure I do not know. We shall, however, all know very soon through the organs of public opinion every word that was uttered at it. Therefore, I will not speculate upon what occurred there. But what effect will this Motion have? The House of Lords, in appointing a Committee to inquire into the working of the Land Act, have merely exercised their Constitutional right; and an inquiry of that kind, conducted as it will be by capable and experienced men, can do no harm, and may do a great deal of good. I should like to test the right hon. Gentleman's action against the House of Lords by putting this case. How would the right hon. Gentleman like a discussion to take place in the House of Lords on his own words with reference to Home Rule? Supposing the House of Lords had brought before it a Motion couched in these terms—"That the words used by the Prime Minister with reference to Home Rule are calculated to lead to unfounded and exaggerated hopes of Home Rule, are injurious to the best interests of good government in Ireland, and are prejudicial to the state of all society there." Would not such a Resolution express what is the opinion of the vast majority of educated people in this country, and what, if for once a Vote could be taken by ballot in this House, would be the opinion of the vast majority of this House? ["No!"] Oh, I say, if the Vote in this House could be taken by ballot. After the meeting of to-day we are to have no speeches from those Benches—it is only the voices that are to be given to the Prime Minister. There are many other topics in the Prime Minister's speech which call for observation; but I feel that I have already occupied for too long a time the attention of this House, and I cannot deal with them on this occasion. I ask, however, in conclusion, what good can possibly result from this Motion of the Prime Minister? Can it check or stay the action of the Committee of the House of Lords? May it not have a confusing effect upon the whole conduct of Business in this House? It is very easy to start a Motion, to say hard things of your political opponents, and to get the enthusiastic cheers of your now united Party; but you cannot confine and limit the debate upon that Motion. At a period of the Session when the Business of the House is already getting into confusion, and when there is great pressure upon the time of the House, the Prime Minister has deliberately embarked us in a new and endless Party discussion which cannot help to the better administration of the Land Act, and may tend to create further disturbance in Ireland. I shall give such a Motion no countenance whatever; and I trust that the vast majority of this House, at all events on this side, and some on the other side, will acquiesce in my view, when I move, as I do now, the Previous Question.

Previous Question proposed, "That the Original Question be now put."—(Mr. Gibson.)

VISCOUNT LYMINGTON

asked the indulgence of the House to address a few words on the Motion, as one who was directly and very materially interested in the cause of property and order in Ireland. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) challenged the Prime Minister to prove the utility of this Motion; but on his (Viscount Lymington's) side of the House they had some right to challenge the utility of a Committee which, with equal ease and equal facility, was formed in the other House, and was really the cause of this debate. He earnestly trusted that the debate would not lapse into a discursive and absolutely unprofitable discussion upon the question of the Irish Land Act, and that hon. Members opposite would not re-open a debate upon principles and a legislative policy to which, after the most protracted and deliberate discussion, Parliament, and in this respect the other branch of the Legislature, had given its unanimous consent only a few months ago. During the debate on the Address he had listened, in conjunction with many other Members on that side of the House, with the most respectful attention to the eloquent speeches addressed to the House by Members on the other side of the House, and he could not fail to be sensible to the beautiful and touching speech in which the senior Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket) had pleaded the cause of the landlords of Ireland. But, eloquent as those speeches were, they were characterized by a singular want of appreciation of the position of public affairs in Ireland, and especially of the truest interests of property and order. It was not likely that any practical conclusion would be arrived at—any conclusion which would carry conviction and be accepted by the people of this country in regard to the administration of the Land Act—from the discussion of matters of so eminently delicate a character as the adjudication of rents, matters in which opinions should not be expressed unless they were based upon facts so clear that they could not be disputed in debates in this House, conducted as the practical experience of the past had shown them to be either in a Party spirit, or in a spirit of special pleading carried on between the several Law and ex-Law Officers of the Crown across the Table. The adjudication of rents by the Assistant Commissioners could not at present be satisfactorily discussed by the House, and he should therefore avoid any reference to that or to any irrevelant topics outside the immediate question of the expediency of the Committee appointed by the House of Lords. The objections which the Prime Minister had urged against the inquiry were conclusive to his mind, and he thought it highly inexpedient for any Branch of the Legislature not to accept the solemn declaration made by the Executive through the Prime Minister regarding the effects which the action of that Committee would be likely to produce. He (Viscount Lymington) was fully prepared to admit that the simple question of the conduct of the Sub-Commissioners and of their decisions, and the mode of their decisions, was one which had no right to be estimated from any political or any other standpoint than that of strict justice. But the Committee of the other House, even if there were no general objections to its appointment, did not even pretend to confine itself to this matter. It was to inquire not only into the working of recent legislation in Ireland, but as to its effect upon the condition of the country. What did that mean, unless it meant a re-examination into those principles of polity and of legislation which were supported in this House by a majority of the Conservative county Members for Ireland and accepted without a division in "another place?" The House of Lords was as responsible for the passing of the Land Act as any Member on that side of the House. ["No, no!"] Hon. Members opposite seemed to question that. If they did question it they really were calling in question that which the Conservative Party had been the last to question—the independent right of the other House. Or did they mean to imply that that measure was only agreed to in a spirit of sullen fear and dislike, and was now to be reviewed by persons acting in the double capacity of accusers and judges in the very cases which they had themselves prejudged? Ireland had too long been the battle-ground of Party politics; but if ever there were an occasion on which it was consonant with the truest and highest principles of public policy to support the Executive in that country it was now. Speaking for himself, he would say that if the Irish Executive were selected from Members on the other side of the House he would give them in such a crisis his entire support. As one interested in the cause of law and order in Ireland, he viewed with alarm the effect which an inquiry, such as the House of Lords had decided to undertake, would have upon the people of that country. In the first place, that Committee constituted in itself an assertion of a want of confidence in the Executive. He would like to ask what single recommendation it had for popular support or for the confidence of impartial persons? It was not a representative Committee of the House of Lords, but composed entirely of malcontents with the present Government. Still loss was it a representative Committee of impartial men of knowledge and distinction, whose Report would carry weight and conviction. What could be more absurd than for a Committee, of which eight Members were Irish landowners, to attempt to pass in review matters and questions in which they themselves were directly and personally interested? The only practical effect that it would have would be to weaken the authority of the Executive. All who wished well for the success of the Land Act desired it to be administered in a fair and impartial manner; and if the impression strengthened and the feeling in the future became more general that injustice was being done in Ireland, he for one would gladly support a Parliamentary inquiry, but not under such circumstances as at present existed. They who supported the Land Bill in Parliament and who were anxious to secure for it a fair trial could not consent to one Branch of the Legislature reviewing the principles upon which it was founded a few months after they had been agreed to. In any Parliamentary inquiry into the administration of the Land Act by the Sub-Commissioners he did not think that the public, or that reasonable opinion among the tenant-farmers of Ireland would be satisfied unless that Committee was composed, not of a particular class, every member of which had expressed a certain class of views in regard to tenant-right, but also of persons of integrity and position who were representatives of reasonable Irish opinion. As he said previously, he would so far admit that if the opinion strengthened that the Assistant Commissioners were acting with partiality, he would not object to a Parliamentary inquiry into their proceedings; but that body of men, to be effective, must be differently composed to that now appointed by the House of Lords. But he could not conceive that anything would be more likely to prejudice the moral effect of a representative Committee, worthy of public confidence, than the institution of a Committee similar to the one now appointed by the House of Lords, which only represented the landlords, and was without the confidence of a large minority of the House by whom it was appointed. Connected with the landed interest in Ireland, and apart from the practical objections which he had alleged against the institution of this Committee, he could not adequately describe the deplorable results which he believed it would have upon the influence of the landowners themselves. The landlords of Ireland were not a numerous body, and at the present moment they were face to face with what the Prime Minister had eloquently described as one of the most gigantic conspiracies of modern times, not only against law and order, but against their just and lawful rights. Against that conspiracy the Government were engaged in a fierce and bitter contest; and he would ask the House if the course the landlords were at present pursuing was not in an eminent degree unwise and contrary to the interests of Conservatism and property in Ireland? It was one of the most deplorable and melancholy incidents in this crisis that, instead of supporting an Executive which was risking much support and much popularity on their behalf in endeavouring to maintain their just rights, they should afford to the people of Ireland the spectacle not of a body of impartial and independent men, but of men who, at the time of one of the greatest and most serious crises in the history of Ireland, were unable to rise beyond the most common feelings of class interest and political animosity.

SIR HENRY HOLLAND

desired, in a very few words, to state the reason why he should vote for the Previous Question moved by the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson). He could not bring himself to believe that this was a question of paramount urgency, in spite of the eloquent speech of the Prime Minister. It was assumed that the appointment of this Committee in the Lords was premature. Well, was it to be wondered at if Irish landlords, aye, and for the matter of that, English landlords, and all persons owning property, should view with anxiety the working of the Land Act, and the present state of things? Members on this side of the House opposed that Act on three grounds, and were justified by the result in that opposition. They opposed it, first, on the ground that it would lead to great litigation. This was strongly denied by the Government; but what was the fact? Thousands of cases had been lodged in the Courts, which it would take years to dispose of. They opposed it, secondly, on the ground of confiscation. What did they find? The Sub-Commissioners, acting, probably, conscientiously, but with a distinct bias in favour of the tenants, had made a general reduction of rents varying from 15 to 25 per cent. And the third ground upon which the Act was opposed was that it would not tend to secure that peace in Ireland which was desired as much by Members on this side of the House as on the other side. He need hardly ask whether that peace had been secured. No one would say that it had. Was it then to be wondered at, when the hopes held out by the Government proved thus fallacious, that those who felt alarmed and wronged should bestir themselves? He must, with reference to the reduction of rent, express his astonishment at one point which had not been mentioned to the House. The Government constantly during the passing of the Bill stated that they did not expect any large reductions, as bad and rack-renting landlords were but few in number. But a few nights ago the Chief Secretary of the Lord Lieutenant stated that from his experience in 1848—the time of the Potato Famine—and since, he was satisfied that rents all over the country were much too high, and must be reduced. Why did he not get up last year and state this belief, which was in direct contradiction to the statements of his Colleagues, and which would have materially affected the debate? But, if the Committee was premature, there was no danger, he (Sir Henry Holland) contended, to the working of the Act, if the Committee was composed of men of sense, alive to the difficulties of the case. Hard language had been used by the Prime Minister and the noble Lord who had just sat down; but it was sufficient to read the names of the Members of the Committee to see that such charges of unfairness and partiality were unfounded. Was it reasonable to suppose that all the Commissioners and Sub-Commissioners would be summoned before the Committee, and that thus the legal proceedings would be stopped? The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister cut the ground under his feet when he proved—and he (Sir Henry Holland) did not dispute it, so far as the Chief Commissioners were concerned—that if these Judges were called upon to state the reasons of their judgments, they would follow the great example of Chief Justice Holt, and decline to do so. If this were so, of what value was the great concession he made—that if the Committee would give up inquiry into the judicial working of the Land Courts, he would not oppose it? There could be no objection to the Committee inquiring into the result of the decisions of the Court and reporting upon it, so as to raise the question if the landlords were entitled to compensation. There could be no objection to the Committee inquiring into the working of many other clauses of the Land Act, and other questions which had been referred to by the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin. If any danger was to be anticipated from the appointment of the Committee, it would already have shown itself. But Ireland had not been excited by the action of the House of Lords, and no hostility to the Land Act or doubts concerning it had been raised. No case of paramount urgency had yet arisen, and if it arose at all, it would only arise when the Committee had been some time at work. The disadvantage of the premature appointment of the Committee, if it was premature, would be found in the fact that their Report could not have as much value and weight as if it had been based upon a longer working of the Act. For these reasons, he (Sir Henry Holland) should oppose the Resolution of the Prime Minister.

MR. BRAND

said, the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down based his objections to the Resolution on the ground that the Act had not brought satisfaction to Ireland; but who could expect any very appreciable results from a measure which had not been in operation more than four months? In 1872 a Committee was moved for by Lord Ripon in the House of Lords to inquire into the judicial proceedings of the Act of 1870; but that was 18 months after that Act had been launched. Of 80,000 cases now pending, only 1,400 had been adjudicated upon. No appeals had been made, and yet the right hon. Gentleman called for a full and thorough working of the Act. With reference to the statement of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gibson), that no language had been used by the Ministers of the Crown in the House of Lords equal in strength to the language of the Prime Minister when objecting to the action of the House of Lords, he said that he had distinctly understood the Members of the Government in the other House to oppose the appointment of the Committee, on the ground that the Resolution, if agreed to, would be equivalent to an arraignment of the Judges appointed by the Crown to administer the Land Act. He challenged Members on the opposite Benches to adduce a single precedent of a Committee being appointed to inquire into the operation of an Act of Parliament which had only been working for four months. He could understand the objection to the Motion on the ground that it might bring about a collision with the House of Lords; but he could not admit the reasonableness of the plea that the House of Commons had no right to interfere with the other House in respect to the appointment of Select Committees. The doctrine that the House had no right of that kind was unconstitutional, and if carried out would paralyze the action of any Government opposed by a hostile majority in the Upper Chamber. By the appointment of this Committee the House of Lords had endeavoured to usurp the functions of the Executive Government. The Amendment moved in 1839 by Sir Robert Peel to Lord John Russell's Vote of Censure on the House of Lords stated— That it is not fitting that this House should adopt a proceeding which has the appearance of calling in question the undoubted right of the House of Lords to inquire into the state of Ireland in respect to crime and outrage, more especially when the exercise of that right by the House of Lords does not interfere with any previous proceeding or Resolution of the House of Commons, nor with the progress of any legislative measure assented to by the House of Commons."—[3 Hansard, xlvii. 76–77.] He contended that it was clear from the terms of that Amendment that so eminent a Conservative statesman as Sir Robert Peel would not have sanctioned the policy of the other House in appointing a Committee to institute an inquiry concerning an Act of Parliament only recently passed by the Legislature. What, he asked, was the purpose for which the Committee had been appointed? "Was it to inquire into the administration of the Act itself? If so, the Commissioners and Sub-Commissioners would have to give evidence, and attempts would be made to get those gentlemen to commit themselves in cross-examination. The Committee, however, might very probably be met by a refusal on the part of the officials in question to answer the questions put to them. Had the Committee been appointed for the purpose of damaging the Act? If so, the House of Lords had resolved upon an exceedingly dangerous course. A Statesman of eminence in the ranks of the Conservative Party (Lord Salisbury) had said that the intention was that the Committee should inquire into the ap- pointments that had been made. No one would think that this was reasonable or just. For this purpose it would be necessary to call as a witness the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant. Was it likely that any Minister of the Crown would submit to a cross-examination by a hostile Committee upon his exercise of patronage? The proper course was to bring forward any case of alleged abuse of patronage, and propose a Vote of Censure on the Government. He knew nothing about the administration of the Act beyond ex-parte statements in "another place" and in the Press, and from the published particulars as to reductions of rent. The data for an inquiry did not yet exist. A sufficient number of cases had not been adjudicated upon to enable them to judge of the Act. The question, then, was this—Was the Government justified in this Motion? He was not prejudiced in favour of the Land Act. But it was the law of the land, and hon. Gentlemen who prided themselves on being staunch supporters of the Constitution should, of all men, recognize it as such. Even if the case for an inquiry were ten times stronger than it was he would still say that Irish landlords, in their own interests, not to speak of the interests of their country, ought to have waited for a course of time to have elapsed which would have enabled them to take a more extended view of the operations of the Act. If there was a case for compensation or restitution to any class, their ease would only be stronger after the lapse of time, and it was more than childish to put in a claim to compensation at a time when it was impossible for them to prove that claim. He desired to say nothing in detraction of the other House. He, however, perceived of late, with deep regret, that when a Liberal Government was in power, the action of the other House was to hamper legislative measures and obstruct them. The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) sometimes gave a Notice with reference to the House of Lords which caused amusement. Hitherto that House of Lords had inspired confidence in their public spirit; but if their recent action were repeated—if, when the Minister of the Crown made an appeal to them to help him in endeavouring to crush a treasonable and immoral conspiracy, instead of supporting him, the House of Lords took action to embarrass the Executive—then he was afraid that the Motion of the hon. Member for Northampton would acquire a significance which it did not at present possess. The Irish Members opposite, he warned Conservative Members, were very astute in the course they were pursuing in opposing this Motion, because they saw, or thought they saw, in the action of the House of Lords that the landlords were only constructing a rope with which to hang themselves. He had no doubt as to the vote he should give. He should give it in support of the Government. He cast the responsibility of the situation on the other House; and he was convinced if the Government had bowed to the decision of the Lords they would have destroyed all confidence in the Land Act by the tenants, and would have plunged Ireland into an even worse condition of anarchy and disorder than it had been in during the last few months.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

said, his hon. Friend who had just spoken had exceeded the zeal even of the Prime Minister against the House of Lords. His hon. Friend had uttered the most gloomy vaticinations against that august Body if it presumed to do that which the Prime Minister had reminded them it had always been in the habit of doing. It appeared to him that, if the House of Lords could not venture to exercise the simplest rights which belonged to it, it would hardly be worth preserving or abolishing. His hon. Friend said the House of Lords was responsible for the conflict which was described as a great national calamity. But how could the House of Lords foresee that the Government would take this strange and reckless course? The Prime Minister said the House of Lords meant to interfere with the judicial proceedings of the Land Commission in Ireland. That was very vague. Did it mean that the House of Lords meant to revise the decisions of the Commissioners? Nothing could possibly be more absurd. It had been said that the House of Lords was going to constitute itself a final Court of Appeal. They had no power to do that, nor was there any reason to think that they had the wish. The Prime Minister said that his chief objection to the action of the House of Lords lay in this—that our rule in Ireland depended upon the English garrison, that the strength of the English garrison lay in Ulster, and that if Ulster thought that the Land Act was menaced its loyalty would be shaken and English rule in Ireland would be seriously imperilled. But how could the Committee of the House of Lords interfere with the Act? They had no legislative power. Their power was confined to examining the operation of the Act; and unless—which the Government would hardly anticipate—their examination led to revelations of so extraordinary a character that the Government and the House were convinced that some alteration was required, it was impossible that the Committee of the House of Lords should endanger the existence of the Land Act in its present shape. It was supposed that the action of the House of Lords would alarm tenants who had already had 20 or 30 per cent of their landlords' property handed over to them, or those other tenants who counted on a similar present. But the Committee of the House of Lords had no power to stop the action of the Land Commissioners. If the evidence showed that the Act was worked upon wrong principles, and that the tenants received that which the Legislature never intended to give them, the effect might be either some measure of compensation to the landlords, or some great extension of the Purchase Clauses which would practically lead to the same result. But that would in no way imperil what tenants had already secured or what they had any reasonable expectation of securing. If the Prime Minister were now in the House, he would like to ask him whether the disappointment of the tenants with the working of the Act would render our power in Ireland insecure, and if Ulster alone was what we had to depend on, did not that show the futility of establishing a Court of Appeal in Ireland? For would it not be fatal to peace and order in that country if the Court of Appeal did not take the same view as the Sub-Commissioners? Was not that an admission on the part of the Prime Minister that the Court of Appeal was merely to register the decrees of the subordinate Court? His hon. Friend who had last spoken defied anyone to find a precedent for a Committee of Inquiry into the working of an Act only four months in operation. He was not acquainted with any such precedent; but neither did he know of any Act like the one in question. If the action of the House of Lords was without precedent, the law into whose operation they were about to inquire stood without precedent on the Statute Book. The majority of Acts of Parliament proceeded upon established principles, and were carried out by men appointed by the direct action of Parliament. But the principles upon which the Land Act was founded were entirely novel, and the application of those principles was handed over to gentlemen of whom Parliament knew nothing. He had heard it said that by the Act of last year Government were doing something analogous to what had been done in France, Prussia, and other places subsequent to the French Revolution—that they were destroying the feudal system. But, so far from that being the case, the Government by what they had done were returning to a semi-feudal state of things which in the rest of Europe had been abolished. They had established a double ownership, which it was the greatest pride of Prussian statesmanship to have abolished, and they had deliberately turned back the course of civilization by substituting status for contract. At the same time they had borrowed Socialistic doctrines, by substituting State action for competition in determining the value of property. So that the Act was a strange and incongruous combination of feudalism and Socialism. What he wanted to point out was that an Act so exceptional might legitimately require the most minute and detailed examination at every stage of its operation. It was not right that they should leave an Act of so strange a description to be carried out in detail by gentlemen who held their position practically at the will of the Government for the time being. There was a strong primâ facie case for inquiry into what the Prime Minister called "the judicial action of the Land Court," and that was derived from the fact that the results of their judicial action had not been foreseen, either by Parliament which passed the Bill or by the Government who proposed it. It was this that gave rise to the suspicion that the action of the Courts had been administrative rather than judicial, and had been designed rather to pacify the country than to do justice between landlord and tenant. It had been alleged as a ground of confidence in the Land Courts that their decisions showed a remarkable uniformity, inasmuch as, taken one with another, they lowered rents between 25 and 30 per cent, or, as one hon. Member had expressed it, their decisions hovered over Griffith's valuation like a will-o'-the-wisp over a marsh. Supposing a Criminal Court were to decide every case that came before it by giving 10 years' penal servitude to the accused, there would, no doubt, be great uniformity, but a uniformity which hardly proved that it acted on judicial principles. Then it was argued that they should wait until the Act had been in operation some years. But it would be then too late to inquire. If any good was to be done, inquiry must be made at once. Among the many objections to the action of the House of Lords none had produced more effect than the assertion that the House of Lords was a House of Landlords, and therefore the decisions come to by the Committee would be suspected. No one had urged that objection with more vigour than the noble Lord the Member for Barnstaple (Viscount Lymington). Yet the noble Lord the Member for Barnstaple had told the House that he was himself very deeply interested in Irish land; and so, as was well known, was the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India; but no one would suppose that that circumstance vitiated the opinion held by either of those noble Lords on Irish affairs. It was not unreasonable, then, to claim a like fairmindedness for the Members of the other House. And, for that matter, if it were thought impossible for an interested person to give a fair decision, might not a doubt be entertained as to the advice given on this subject by the Government? There were those who urged that the Government had a great deal to lose by the inquiry. The Prime Minister repudiated that suggestion; but many persons believed it, and the best way of discrediting that belief was to acquiesce in the appointment of the Committee. So far, however, from doing that, all the Members of the Government in the other House had refused to serve on the Committee, and in the House of Commons the Prime Minister had given the Commissioners a sufficiently broad hint as to the sort of answer they should make if they were summoned before the Committee. Now, considering the primâ facie case against the working of the Act, and the fact that the Government had told Parliament that it would not lower rents—["Hear, hear!" and "No, no!"]—he was in the recollection of the House—this dilemma presented itself'—either the Government gave totally wrong advice to Parliament, having very imperfect information as to the state of Ireland, or else the Commissioners were not working the Act on the principles expected by the Government. One or other of those propositions was inevitably true. Then, again, the Government, in the course they had taken, had laid themselves open to one of two charges—either the Prime Minister, when he announced his Resolution, was acting under the impulse of some sudden gust of temper, or in the conflict between the Land Court and the Land League there had been some moves in the game that would not bear inspection. ["Oh, oh!"] He did not assert that as a fact; he merely asserted that the conduct of the Government in refusing this inquiry favoured that supposition. At any rate, considering how much the Government were sacrificing the Business which they were pledged to carry, and how little result must come out of this unprovoked contest they had entered into with the House of Lords, he feared that public opinion in the country would be driven to the belief that there was more in the background than the Government cared to expose to the full light of criticism.

MR. GIVAN

said, he held that Ireland at the present moment was only just recovering from the injurious effects of the landlords' meeting in Dublin to protest against the operation of the Act. That meeting was presided over by a Nobleman who, unfortunately, had a prominent place on the Committee of the other House, the mere composition of which, in spite of the ingenious remarks of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson), made it clear that its object was to inquire into the conduct of the Commissioners, the basis of their judgments, and the causes of the reductions they had made. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had stated that there were other legitimate subjects of inquiry, as, for example, waste lands and the Bright Clauses of the Land Act; but he had pronounced against an inquiry into the judicial functions of the Commissioners. [Mr. GIBSON: The judicial independence of the Commissioners.] The whole gist of the right hon. and learned Gentleman's argument was that he was not in favour of an inquiry into the judicial acts of the Commissioners. However, taking into account the meeting in Dublin and the speech of the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite, no one could deny that the tenants of Ireland had good cause for alarm. In Ulster the action of the other House had excited much apprehension, and the newspapers of that Province gave full expression to the protests of the tenants, and their fears of the ill effects that the inquiry would produce on the minds of the people. In his opinion—and he had had an opportunity of sitting in the Courts of the Sub-Commissioners, and of conferring with tenant farmers both at public meetings and privately—there was no doubt that if the Land Act died the hope of Ireland at the present moment would be gone. It was said to be a failure. Why was it a failure? Because it had met with direct opposition from those who. for their own selfish purposes, wished to keep up an agitation which was ruining their country, and because it had not met with that sympathy on the part of owners of property in Ireland which it ought to have met with. He had no hesitation in saying that if there was no counteracting influence to this state of things, the difficulties of the Irish Executive would be seriously increased. The Motion of the Prime Minister was necessary at the present time to correct the effects which had resulted from the unwise and reprehensible conduct of the other House of Parliament.

SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOT

said, he was struck with the remark of the Prime Minister that it was no part of the duty of that House to censure the other House of Parliament, and yet the right hon. Gentleman proceeded to demolish that statement by showing that this House ought to censure the other House. He himself was not one of those Members who looked lightly upon a collision between the two Houses, and he relied on the Leader of this House, while vindicating the character of this House, not infringing on the privileges of the other. He thought the right hon. Gentleman might have prevented that collision if he had chosen to do so. He had not attempted to prevent it, but had placed it in its hardest and gravest aspects before the country. The right hon. Gentleman had adopted the singular course—for with him. it was a singular course, as it was not his practice to do so—of calling his followers together to consider the subject. [Ministerial cheers.] He perfectly understood those cheers. The question the right hon. Gentleman laid before his followers was the rallying question of the conduct of the House of Lords, the only question that could rally the Party opposite. That was the reason why the right hon. Gentleman had called his followers together, and for that reason his followers had given their absolute adhesion to the course now taken by the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman had taunted the Opposition with an unholy alliance. There was no unholy alliance. He, for one. did not know by what accident the Speaker called upon two Gentlemen sitting below the Gangway on the Opposition side to act as Tellers in the Division; but he did know that the Member who challenged was his hon. Friend (Mr. Chaplin), the Member for Mid Lincolnshire. The Leader of the Opposition, thinking that the outwork was worthless to maintain, had withdrawn a certain portion of his forces, and many others had advisedly retired into the citadel. Let Gentlemen opposite only assault the citadel, and they would soon find that it was made of different materials from those which composed the worthless outwork. After stating that it was no part of the business of that House to assault the House of Lords, the right hon. Gentleman proceeded to make a violent attack upon it. Not one of the instances quoted by the Prime Minister was analagous to the circumstances of the present case. He was not going to advocate the proposition that the course the House of Lords had taken was the most prudent course, still they were perfectly within their right. He would, however, recommend the Prime Minister to consider whether this debate, which would inevitably excite stronger feelings as it proceeded, would not be far more injurious to the state of Ireland than anything the House of Lords had done. But this was not the only occasion on which the right hon. Gentleman had endeavoured to excite public feeling against the House of Lords. The House would recollect that in 1870, when the Army Purchase Bill was rejected by the House of Lords, the right hon. Gentleman, contrary to his express promises, got Her Majesty to sign the Royal Warrant for the Abolition of Purchase, thus using the Queen's authority against the House of Lords. What could they expect of the right hon. Gentleman who had done that in the past, and who was now doing all in his power to excite the country against the House of Lords? The right hon. Gentleman knew that was a good cry for certain portions of his followers. He asserted deliberately, and he believed it to be true, that the course taken by the right hon. Gentleman was the most unfortunate that had ever been taken in the annals of Parliament. It was all very well to come down and say that the proceedings of the House of Lords' Committee would be mischievous to the working of the Land Act; but this House could not prevent the Committee from sitting. In his opinion, serious mischief had been done by not bringing the two Houses together, so that they might arrive at some satisfactory solution of the difficulty. He laid the blame on the right hon.. Gentleman or on another Member of the Cabinet. The right hon. Gentleman had complained most justly of what was taking place in Ireland, yet though he had long been aware of the present state of things he had delayed taking steps to remedy the mischief. He had no hesitation in saying he thought that this was a most unfortunate position in which they were placed, and that they were wasting their time in a barren discussion. It was true the Prime Minister had spoken of the paramount importance of the question now at issue; but the right hon. Gentleman had only made a speech to rally those who were sitting behind him, and not one which would convince him that he was wrong in voting against the right hon. Gentleman's Motion.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, it was with a good deal of mental confusion that he endeavoured to approach the ambiguous problem before the House. He had heard some references to "an unholy alliance." If that meant a union between the Conservatives and the Irish Parliamentary Party, such an alliance would certainly not be formed for the mere purpose of pushing forward such an inoffensive Motion as one for the Previous Question. He was singularly interested in observing the remarkable manner in which Conservative indignation approached a climax, and then went off before reaching it. They had had a foretaste this evening of a dashing advance to the front suddenly changing into an equally rapid retreat to the rear. Formidable Amendments were placed on the Paper against the mere proposition for postponing the Orders of the Day; but the moment the test came there was found to be no backbone on the Conservative Front Bench, and the formidable Resolutions of the Opposition evaporated into something very like a "skedaddle." Devoted as the Opposition were to the defence of the Constitution, and convinced as they were of the iniquitous intentions of the Head of the Government, yet they had not ventured to propose a direct negative, but tried to get out of the difficulty by a side door on the Previous Question. He dared say Her Majesty's Government would be disposed to return a certain meed of thanks to the Leaders of the Conservative Party, who would thus prevent the direct raising of the Irish Agrarian Question. With or without the concurrence of their followers, the Conservative Leaders had prevented the Irish Party from bringing forward in a straight forward way their objections to the action of the Government. Nevertheless, while disclaiming all moral responsibility for the expedient of the Previous Question, the Irish Members on that side of the House felt that they would not be doing their duty to their constituents or to the constituents of hon. Members at the other side of the House, but who would be the constituents of their Party after the next General Election, if they did not take advantage of the important opportunity afforded by this debate to state their reasons for thinking that there should be a complete, a searching, and an immediate inquiry into the working of the Land Act in Ireland. Hon. Members who were elected on Home Rule principles, who now supported Her Majesty's Government, had assured the Ministry that there was no desire in Ireland for any inquiry into the working of the Land Act, and that the Act was held in the highest admiration by the Irish people. He could not but think of the famous picture of the French painter, when he heard the loud acclamations of the Member for Cork County and his Friends, in honour of Her Majesty's Government. The real point in this discussion was that it was not directed against the Irish Party, but was a cheap and probably an efficacious plan for obtaining a vote of pseudo confidence in Her Majesty's Government in that House. The sole object of the Motion of the Prime Minister and the sole object of this debate was simply to cast a certain halo of apparent success around a Ministry which had failed in all its undertakings. What had occurred in the House was, he believed, rehearsed in Downing Street this afternoon. The great "confidence trick" was rehearsed there. He met a rejoicing Liberal coming from the great meeting of the Party, who exclaimed with delight—" Well, the Premier has done the right thing at last. I wish he had done it before. It is all right now; he has taken us into his confidence." "What has he told you?" he inquired of the hon. Member, who replied—" Oh, he told us that he intends to go on with his Motion against the House of Lords." This, which was well known before, he believed was the sum total of the confidence poured by the Premier into the bosoms of his faithful followers. He believed that 40 minutes were taken up with an adjuration to the Party to be frank and candid in their criticisms of the Ministry, and in a few minutes more the Party had vanished in a burst of joy at the confidence reposed in them by the Prime Minister. The great point now was success, and he quite agreed with the hon. and gallant Member who preceded him in saying that a Motion against the House of Lords was quite an admirable sort of thing to tickle the ears of the groundlings. Nobody alleged that the Prime Minister was about to follow the lead of the hon. Member for Northampton and move the abolition of the House of Lords; but he entirely agreed with the remark that had been made on that side of the House, that this was an admirable sort of Motion with which to tickle the ears of the groundlings. It enabled the right hon. Gentleman to assume his favourite attitude of "Ajax defying the lightning," and served to direct attention away from the failures of Her Majesty's Government. At every stump hustings during the Recess every Liberal Member would be enabled to call attention to the proud position of Her Majesty's Government with reference to the House of Lords. The Motion would not hurt the House of Lords, it would not hurt anyone; it would only cover the failures of the Government. The Prime Minister had twitted a Member of the Conservative Opposition for provoking applause from a certain quarter of the House, by which he supposed was intended the Irish Parliamentary quarter. Doubtless the Irish Party were a "certain quarter;" but if the right hon. Gentleman ventured upon the experiment of a Dissolution, they would come back with a certain three-quarters of the Irish Parliamentary Representatives. He could not regard the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman as a serious one, but he also looked upon the action of the House of Lords with perfect indifference. The condition of affairs in Ireland was as much beyond the efforts of the House of Lords as of Her Majesty's Government. The Irish people had presented their ultimatum, and had not the slightest intention to withdraw. On the terms alone of purchasing out the landlords and the establishment of a peasant proprietary would the Irish Agrarian Question be solved. The Government might indulge in the recreation of coercion; but any experiments they might try during the few remaining months of their short existence he regarded with perfect indifference. The Irish people had suffered to a certain extent; but there were still Irishmen enough in Ireland to witness the funeral of the Liberal Party. "With regard to the Land Act, the Bright Clauses, in which alone lay the true solution of this question, had been inoperative and staved by Liberal liberality. It would be far better for both landlord and tenant that the tenant should have facilities to buy his holding, and the landlord inducements to sell. As to reclamation, that had not been touched. The Arrears Clause also was an entire nullity. It was dead. About £500 had been furnished by the Treasury towards alleviating the enormous burdens of millions of pounds of arrears that were lying upon the Irish tenants at the present moment. With regard to the provisions with respect to unjust leases, he was sorry to say that, under the interpretation of the Land Commissioners, the number of unjust leases that had been broken, or were likely to be broken, were excessively few indeed. In fact, it seemed to be the ease that, except where a lease contained something abnormally, monstrously, and utterly unjust, the clause against vicious leases was of no avail whatever in Ireland. In the case of Lord Kenmare a lease had been set aside; but then the Commissioners took jurisdiction because something was stated in the lease contrary to fact. The unfortunate tenant was forced to take an injurious lease on exorbitant terms on the penalty, among other things, that if he broke any of the conditions, in the first place, that, if he did not take the lease, he would be evicted; and, secondly, that if he did not carry out the provisions he was to acknowledge his holding to be worth twice what it was really worth. A case had just come before the Land Commission which was one of the test cases for the selection of which Mr. Parnell was thrown into prison, and the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) was compelled to cross the sea for a season. It was the case of a tenant of Lord Kenmare, and it was a monstrous case of landlord cruelty. The facts proved in the case were a comment on the Premier's fair play in denouncing in his Leeds speech the policy of selecting such cases. No doubt the provisions of the Act relating to the fixing of fair rents were a comparative success, when compared with other provisions of the Act. The other parts of the Act were not working at all; they were stillborn failures. And why was this one part of the Act a success? Because, in the teeth of the solemn declarations of the Premier, there had been reductions of rent which reached the average of 25 per cent. But these were against the engagements of the Premier to Parliament on the faith of which the Act was passed. If the engagements had been carried out in the decisions of the Sub-Commissioners, the Fair Rent Clauses would have been as stillborn as every other part of the Act. Why had the rents generally been reduced 25 percent? Because the Sub-Commissioners obeyed the directions, not of the right hon. Gentleman, but of the right hon. Gentleman's master in Ireland, who was under look and bar within the walls of Kilmainham; because Mr. Parnell spoke of reducing them 75 per cent. If Mr. Parnell had spoken of reducing them 25 per cent, the reductions would have been about 5 per cent. The speech of the Premier showed that this was not a question between the two Houses, or between two principles, but that it was one between two personal protagonists—the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian and the hon. Member for the City of Cork; it was between them that the real struggle lay. The Prime Minister said it was between the Land Act and the Land League. It was fortunate for the Land League that it had nothing more formidable to oppose than the Land Act, and the longer that was so the more certain was the success of the Land League. To avert this the Government must go beyond their present limits and adopt other principles, and that would not be exceedingly difficult when they were imbued with the necessities of political progress. They must go far beyond any declarations made in that House if they were to combat the Land League at all on equal terms. He was not without hope that the Government would adopt the suggestion. Last year they spoke not of 25 per cent reduction; this year they denounced the House of Lords because it continued to entertain the opinions they held six months ago. In a little time 50 per cent reduction would present no more moral obstacles to advancing statesmen than 25 per cent did. This confidence in their latent capacity for progress was well-founded. [Cries of" Divide!"] Unfortunately, he was not invited to the meeting of the Liberal Party that day, and therefore he was not so overwhelmed with the Premier's confidence as those who cried "Divide!" The Premier referred in tones of triumph to the 70,000 tenants who had invested their property in the cost of applications to the Land Court. But most of them would spend as much in treating a friend as they had invested in the Act, for the 70,000 applications could be made at the cost of a shilling each. Fewer than 1,400 cases of dispute between landlord and tenant had received even a first hearing by the Courts under the Land Act; and even assuming that all those 1,400 tenants were satisfied with the decisions in their cases, how was the Act likely to conciliate or pacify the 400,000 or 500,000 tenant farmers who were prevented by the block in the Land Courts from obtaining access to that tribunal? Every decision cutting down rents 25 to 30 per cent was tantamount to a solemn declaration to the great mass of the tenants outside the Court that in all probability if their cases could only be heard they would have their rents similarly reduced. That could hardly operate as an inducement to them to pay their unreduced rents in the meantime. The fundamental principle of the "no rent" manifesto was that a large portion of the existing rents belonged, not to the landlord, but to the tenant; and the decisions of the Land Commissioners, as far as they went, constituted the strongest confirmation of that theory. The action of the Commissioners in reducing rents supported the proposition that the existing rents were tenant robbery, and that the tenants were justified during the suspension of the Constitution and pending their inability to get from the Courts the relief to which they were entitled in refusing to pay their rack-rents. If the Land Act could succeed it could be quoted as another instance of the constructive genius of the Prime Minister; but, as it was not going to succeed, the only resource left to the right hon. Gentleman was to suppress inquiry into its operation. The Land Act threatened three-fourths of the Irish landlords with ruin and an enormous number of the remaining fourth with severe loss; but the Chief Secretary for Ireland offered to help the landlords to evict their tenantry before that limping, halting Act could come up to hurt them. The First Commissioner of Works, a former friend of Ireland, had actually gone so far as to call on the landlords to act vigorously on their existing rights and turn out their tenants wholesale, and they would be supported by the Government. He would read to the House a few instances of men having large families holding farms whose rentals ranged from £9 upwards, while the valuation was in, nearly all cases less than one-half, who had been cast out with their families upon the roadside because they had not paid accumulative arrears of rack rents. If the Land Act could have applied to any cases it would have applied to them, and their rents would have been reduced; but before the advantages of that Act could reach them they were driven from their homes and lost all benefit they might have received from it. He could multiply cases; but it was present to the knowledge and conscience of the House that the Land Act did not preserve tenants from arrears, and there were 100,000 to 150,000 tenant farmers suffering from the same grievance, whose only remedy lay in close combination, and in agreeing that nobody should take a farm from which another had been unjustly evicted. They asked for an inquiry into the working of the Land Act. If this inquiry was not granted—if the Prime Minister posed in his most infallible attitude, and absolutely refused any consideration in the case of the Irish people, whom his Land Act really did not affect—they must be thrown back more desperately and more resolutely than ever on their own resources. The Bright Clauses did not work, probably because the working of them entailed some expenditure, and the greatest Finance Minister of this or any other age hesitated to set them in motion for fear of disturbing his financial arrangements. The Prime Minister's financial reputation reminded him of those precious porcelain vases, which, unlike ordinary earthenware, were not made for every-day use; and the result was that the Arrear Clauses were not worked and would shortly be interred, and yet the Government came forward and told them that the Land Act enjoyed the confidence of the Irish people, and that nothing but this unholy confederacy of coroneted conspirators could disturb the delightful relations that existed between Her Majesty's Government and the people of Ireland. If the followers of the right hon. Gentleman opposite could listen without a smile to such an astounding assertion as that, he could count upon a species of support that placed him beyond the reach of criticism. He had a majority, a majority which seemed to have taken to its very soul one of Mr. Parnell's most famous doctrines—"Keep a firm grip of your holdings." When the right hon. Gentleman threatened his followers, who spent so much in many ways at the last Election to obtain a seat in that House, with a sudden return to their constituents, what became of argument and logic, what became even of public ridicule itself? They would keep a firm grip of their holdings, and they would follow the dispensers of their destinies into any Lobby.

MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON

said, he thought the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) need not complain of the Motion before the House, because he must well know that any hon. Member who was able to propose a Motion upon which an Irish Member found it impossible to introduce anything that suited his purpose must be very clever indeed. The hon. Member had shown that the Motion for the Previous Question, at any rate, had not prevented him from entering very fully into the merits of the Irish Question. There had been six speeches delivered on the opposite side of the House, and three of them had been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister himself. He regretted very much that more hon. Gentlemen opposite had not joined in the debate. Was it possible that they had been ordered, not only to be speechless, but to sit in their places during the whole discussion on the Previous Question? Besides the speeches of the Prime Minister, there had been two speeches delivered on the other side of the House, which were intelligent, moderate, and, no doubt, gratifying to the House, because they had the additional merit of not being too long. He referred to the speeches of the noble Lord the Member for Barnstaple (Viscount Lymington) and the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Brand). But he thought the right hon. Gentleman in the Chair must almost have shivered in his seat when he heard the hon. Member for Stroud describing the rope that was being prepared to hang the House of Lords as a rope which was long enough to hang with their Lordships all heirs apparent and heirs-at-law to Peerages. These speeches, he (Mr. Leighton) repeated, were intelligent. He was unable to say the same of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, for he was obliged to confess, with much regret, that he had been unable to understand it. If it were legal to do so, he would not mind making a bet that if he were to ask any two hon. Members on the opposite side of the House what that speech meant, each would give him a different answer. The right hon. Gentleman first spoke with moderation, and he seemed to describe some sort of compromise which, he was prepared to offer. That compromise, as far as he (Mr. Leighton) understood it, was that in the event of judicial action of the Commissioners being excluded from the inquiry of the Committee, he would then have no objection to the Committee. But the right hon. Gentleman went on to explain that it was impossible to exclude the judicial action of the Land Commission, and then called upon the House to witness that he had made an offer of a compromise which had been rejected. He defied any hon. Member to explain what the right hon. Gentlemen really meant. They must all of them wait until they could read the inspired comments on the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in the newspapers to-morrow; and even then he believed they would fail to find out what compromise he offered, or whether he proposed any compromise at all. For his own part, he thought there would be no difficulty in excluding the judicial action of the Commissioners from the inquiry of the Committee. There were plenty of other matters which might be brought within the scope of the consideration of the Committee—such as the question of Emigration, the Peasant Proprietary Clauses, and, above all, the questions that were connected with the appointment of the Commissioners themselves. Many hon. Members would like to know how they were appointed; they would like to be informed whether any persons who had been asked to serve as Commissioners had declined; and, if so, why they had declined. They would further like to know what instructions the Commissioners had received. They must have received some instructions, because it was impossible to appoint Commissioners without giving them some instructions. There must, therefore, have been instructions, either verbal or written, and it was desirable to know what those instructions were. Was anything told to the Commissioners in their private interview with the Chief Secretary; and, if so, what was it? The first objection of the right hon. Gentleman to the inquiry was that it was an inquiry into the law of the land. But was not every inquiry that was instituted an inquiry into the operation of the law of the land? Did they ever make an inquiry "upstairs" that was not an inquiry into the law of the land? Whenever the working of any particular measure became intolerable there was an inquiry into it. The second objection was that the objects of the inquiry of the Committee were vague. But what could be more vague than the discussion which had now been thrust upon the House of Commons by the Prime Minister? How long was it to go on. Into what minute accusations and counter-accusations was it to enter? The very reasons which induced the Prime Minister to object to the appointment of the Lords' Committee were surely the very reasons which should have prevented him from plunging the House at that particular moment into a discussion of this sort. Now, the weight of authority which a vote of the majority in the House of Commons carried with it depended upon the confidence with which that majority were regarded in the country, and they all knew that they were daily losing the confidence of the country. The House of Commons would have very little intrinsic importance of its own unless it enjoyed the confidence of the country. During the whole of the two last Sessions of the last Parliament the right hon. Gentleman himself was continually attacking both the Government and the House of Commons, because, in his opinion, they had lost the confidence of the country. There could be very little doubt that the present Parliament was losing the confidence of the country. ["No!"] All the facts went to show that it had lost, and was continuing to lose, the support of the constituencies. The Government had certainly already lost the confidence of the Irish Party. ["Oh!"] It was all very well for hon. Members opposite to endeavour to make out that they did not care; but there could be no doubt it was very disagreeable to those who sat on the Front Bench to feel that they had lost the votes of the Irish Members. So far as the present Parliament was concerned the expression of its opinion ought to depend on something more than the mere words of the Prime Minister; and if the confidence of the country in the Government had been shaken, was it not a reason why confidence in the Land Act should be shaken? The right hon. Gentleman had intimated clearly enough that he was running the Land Act against the Land League. What did that mean? Why, that he was trying to underbid the Land League by wholesale reductions of rent by the Land Commissioners. The Lords' Committee, of which the right hon. Gentleman complained so much, was composed largely of old Colleagues of his own. An eminent Member of the Committee was a noble Duke, who was an old Colleague of the right hon. Gentleman in a former Ministry. Therefore the Committee, as it stood, should, at all events, enjoy the confidence of the right hon. Gentleman. The Land Act had failed to produce popular contentment; it had failed to satisfy the farmers; it had failed to reassure the capitalists and the tradesmen; and it had failed to give security to the landlords. If it had failed in all of those respects, was it not reasonable that there should be an inquiry into the manner in which it was being worked? Sooner or later there must be inquiry; and he saw no reason why it should not be undertaken at once. Inquiry there must be, whether the Government and the Liberal majority desired it or not. The right hon. Gentleman himself had plunged them into an inquiry under circumstances which made the discussion necessarily vague and discursive. The right hon. Gentleman said that the Land Act was carried by moderation, and was the grand result of political heroism. But others knew too well that the Land Act was carried by violence and pressure, and, if the expression was not un-Parliamentary, he would add by fraud.

MR. STAVELEY HILL

said, he did not propose to detain the House for more than a few minutes; but he wished to supplement the story which had been told by the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister of Lord Chief Justice Holt. The right hon. Gentleman had related an anecdote of the House of Lords having summoned Lord Chief Justice Holt before them, and then called upon him to explain his reasons for having given a certain decision, the object being to show that the Lords were taught a lesson for obtruding themselves upon the province and authority of other people. But the right hon. Gentleman might also have told another story, with which the House of Commons itself ought to be rather better acquainted. In the House of Lords, Lord Chief Justice Holt was taken to task for not having ad- mitted the plea of a celebrated murderer, and he told the Lords that if they would ask him the question in the proper way, he was ready to answer it. But what was the course the Chief Justice took in reference to the House of Commons—a very short time indeed afterwards? The House of Commons attempted to interfere with Lord Chief Justice Holt in the great election case of the Aylesbury men—"Ashby v. White and Others"—and the Speaker went down to the Court of Queen's Bench in his full-bottomed wig, and with his Sergeant and mace, and ordered the Lord Chief Justice to appear before him at the Bar of the House. The Lord Chief Justice addressed him thus—"Begone, Mr. Speaker. Be back in your Chair within five minutes, or I will lay you by the heels in Newgate."

CAPTAIN AYLMER

said, that the hon. Member who spoke last on the other side of the House—the hon. Member for Monaghan (Mr. Givan)—complained that nobody had answered the speech of the Prime Minister. Now, he (Captain Aylmer) thought that the Conservative Members had much better grounds for complaining that nobody had replied to the speech which had been given in answer to that of the Prime Minister by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson). The speech of the Prime Minister reminded him very much of a magnificent picture, in which the colours were vividly laid on by a great master, but in which, like some of Turner's pictures, the subject was very incomprehensible and difficult to make out. He agreed with the right hon. and learned Member for the University of Dublin that the Prime Minister had not adduced a single reason or argument why the House of Commons should pass a Vote of Censure upon the House of Lords. The right hon. Gentleman referred to cases in which, when the House of Lords rejected Bills which had been passed by the House of Commons, the House of Commons vindicated their opinions by bringing them in again. But that was not at all the same question as the one they were now dealing with. It was not the case of a Bill which had been rejected by the House of Lords one Session being re-introduced into the House of Commons another Session; but the question was whether it was desirable that they should pass a Vote of Censure upon the House of Lords for having, in the exercise of their undoubted right, appointed a Committee to inquire into the working of a particular Act of Parliament. A Resolution pledging the House to the principle contained in a rejected Bill, and declaring their intention to bring it in again, was a different matter altogether. The Resolution now submitted by the Prime Minister could have no effect upon the House of Lords, because, so far as that House was concerned, its action was over and finished. The Committee was already appointed, and the Resolution of the Prime Minister could only be regarded as a Vote of Censure, or as an attempt to put the drag upon the wheels of the Committee, just as they were about to be set in motion, without assigning any reason or ground why such a Vote of Censure should be passed. He maintained that if the Land Act was a good and a useful measure, it was good and useful in itself, and those who had supported it so well in its passage through the House of Commons ought not to be ashamed of an inquiry into its working. They ought to be able to bear the light of day without being desirous of burking the discussion. Were they afraid that an inquiry by a Committee of the House of Lords would show that some compensation was fairly and honestly due to the landlords? Was that the reason why the great Liberal Party wished to burke discussion and inquiry? Ought they not to be the first to come forward and say—"If compensation is fairly shown to be due, we are ready to give it?" Were they afraid that an investigation would show that some bias had been displayed in the appointment of the Sub-Commissioners, and that the question had been one in which Party feeling had been allowed to prevail? Were they apprehensive that a full inquiry would bring to light the fact that the Sub-Commissioners had entered upon the discharge of their duties with prejudged ideas and with a foregone conclusion as to what they were expected to do? If these fears were justified by the facts, he was not surprised that there was a desire not to allow the facts to be known. There was but one other alternative, and that was that the Government themselves had lost all confidence in the Land Act. They knew its shortcomings; they were aware that it did not carry out the objects for which it was passed; they knew, further, that Ireland was more troubled now than it was before the Act was passed; that the landlords were dissatisfied and the tenants discontented. All these things would be brought to the light of day by the inquiry of the Lords' Committee, and the country would then know how the strongest Government that ever sat upon the Ministerial Bench had utterly and signally failed in the work they undertook to do. The right hon. Gentleman now brought forward a Motion which could have no effect beyond bringing two Branches of the Constitution into conflict. In doing that what results could the House of Commons expect to obtain? He thought it was the first duty of statesmen to look to what the result of their action would be; and he would like to ask the right hon. Gentleman, and those who would vote with him, what the result of condemning the decision of the House of Lords would be? Did they suppose that the House of Lords would consent to give up the Committee? Certainly not; and they would have the House of Lords calling witnesses and making an inquiry which the House of Commons had condemned as inexpedient. He thought he might fairly ask some Member of the Front Ministerial Bench to get up and explain why, under such circumstances, the House of Commons was asked to pass this Resolution. He could not understand the reticence of the Government, unless it had been ordered at the Downing Street meeting that day. ["Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members opposite appeared to endorse that view; but he did not think that either the House or the country would be satisfied until they had heard from some authorized Member on the Front Bench why it was considered inexpedient at the present moment to have this inquiry. It was quite true that out of 60,000 or 70,000 cases some 1,400 only had as yet been tried; but, taking them all round, he believed the cases already heard to have been representative cases. Everything that might occur in similar cases had occurred in those which had been presented to the Commissioners, and it would be found that the 1,400 contained the groundwork of all the rest. Was it reasonable to suppose that by going on for a longer period it would be possible to obtain more material to work upon? He thought not. He maintained fearlessly that wrong was being done in Ireland at the present moment; and, if that were so, it was the duty both of the House of Commons and of the House of Lords in the most earnest manner possible to get at the truth, and, if possible, to remedy any wrong that was being committed. As he had already said, the House required an explanation upon all of these matters from Her Majesty's Ministers; and before the Prime Minister and the Government forced the House of Commons into a conflict with the other House of Parliament, they ought to be well prepared to show what the result would be, and that by passing the Resolution of the Prime Minister they would put a stop to an inquiry that was dangerous and inexpedient. He believed that the House of Lords had been actuated solely by a desire to do right, and to obtain evidence as to the injustice in the working of the Land Act. That it did work with injustice was recognized on all hands. It was harassing and worrying the tenants, and driving the landlords into beggary, ["Oh!"] Hon. Members disputed that assertion, but he held in his hand a long lawyer's bill of costs against a tenant for the expense incurred in carrying certain cases before the Commissioners. He was therefore justified in saying that the operation of the Land Act was harassing to the tenants as well as to the landlords. When they went to the Court they were not capable of stating their own case, and they were soon drawn into the hands of the lawyers. Therefore, not only were the landlords oppressed, but the tenants were harassed; and he sincerely hoped that the House of Lords would institute their inquiry, and would carry it to an honourable and beneficial conclusion.

MR. R. N. FOWLER

said, he should not have intruded himself upon the attention of the House if any hon. Gentleman had risen on the other side to reply to the speeches which had been delivered upon that side, and particularly to the very able speech which had been made by his right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson). They all understood what the silence on the Government Benches meant. They all understood that it was a specimen of the system under which legislation was to be carried on in future. There was one remark which fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister which had made a great impression upon him. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to rest his case upon the precedent of the collision between the two Houses of Parliament in the year 1831. The right hon. Gentleman said that in that year the Reform Bill was rejected by the other House of Parliament, and that on the next day Lord Ebrington came down to the House of Commons and moved the Resolution which the right hon. Gentleman read. He thought the right hon. Gentleman was mistaken as to the day, although the right hon. Gentleman said that he recollected having been present during the debate. The day following the rejection of the Reform Bill by the other House of Parliament was a Saturday, and it was not until the following Monday that Lord Ebrington moved his Resolution. But, be that as it might, the right hon. Gentleman grounded the course he proposed to take upon the present occasion upon the precedent set in 1831. There was, however, one great difference between the two cases. The Parliament which sat in 1831 was a Parliament expressly elected to pass the Reform Bill. That Reform Bill had been passed through the House of Commons by a very large majority, and, nevertheless, it was rejected by the other House of Parliament. The House of Commons, under those circumstances, were satisfied that they had the country at their back. This case, however, was entirely dissimilar. Two years ago, when the present Parliament was elected, and when the country sent so large a majority to support the right hon. Gentleman, was it upon any question affecting the state of Ireland? Why, the right hon. Gentleman himself had expressly stated, in one of his Mid Lothian speeches, that Ireland for a long course of years had not been so peaceful as it was at that time. Whatever might have been the ground on which the right hon. Gentleman attacked his (Mr. R. N. Fowler's) right hon. Friends upon the Bench below, whatever might have been the long catalogue of crimes he brought against the late Government, Ireland was certainly not a prominent one among them. On the contrary, the right hon. Gentleman admitted that Ireland was more peaceful when the present Government succeeded to Office than it had been for a long time previously. Under these circumstances, considering that the Parliament of 1831 was expressly elected to pass the Reform Bill, and considering that the present Parliament was elected with no reference whatever to Ireland, the two cases were entirely dissimilar, and therefore the analogy which the right hon. Gentleman drew fell to the ground. The noble Lord the Member for Barnstaple (Viscount Lymington), who addressed the House with considerable eloquence in the earlier part of the debate, had called on the Party who sat on that side of the House to give its support to the Executive Government. Now, he (Mr. R. N. Fowler) maintained that, when the interests of the Executive Government in Ireland were in question, hon. Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House had always given to Her Majesty's Government a loyal and disinterested support. They could not have forgotten the Sitting of 42 hours which occurred last year. He believed that on that occasion he sat up as many hours as most hon. Members in order to support the Government. Only the other day he was looking over the Division Lists during the last Session, and he found that he had voted on upwards of 130 occasions in support of Her Majesty's Government. He gave that as a specimen of what one Member on that side of the House had done; other Members had pursued a similar course, and it afforded convincing proof that those who sat on that side of the House, when the best interests of the country were at stake, and when Imperial interests were in peril, had given a loyal and disinterested support to Her Majesty's Government. But it was one thing to support the Government when they thought that the Government was maintaining the interests of the Empire—it was one thing, at such a time, to give them that support which every Government charged with the responsibility of administering the affairs of the Empire was entitled to; and it was quite another thing to follow them and support them in a policy of confiscation. They gave the Government their support when they thought that the interests of peace in Ireland were concerned; but when Her Majesty's Government violated all the principles of political economy by the Bill which they introduced last Session, they gave to it, in the same manner, their stoutest opposition. They had been told that the Land Act was "a message of peace" to Ireland. Since he had had a seat in that House he recollected several "messages of peace" to Ireland. He remembered the time when the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister took his seat upon the Treasury Bench charged with a mission, as he told them, to cut down the Upas tree of Protestant ascendancy. Well, the Upas tree of Protestant ascendancy had been cut down; and he would fearlessly ask any hon. Member on the opposite side to get up in his place and tell them that Ireland was as peaceful at this moment as it was in 1868, when Mr. Disraeli, as he was then, was at the head of the Government, and the Duke of Abercorn was Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. Since that time the right hon. Gentleman now at the head of the Government had disestablished the Irish Church. ["Hear, hear!"] He heard expressions of approval from the other side of the House; he could only say that it would be a consolation to him for the remainder of his days to feel that he had not the guilt of sacrilege upon his soul, but that on every occasion he had given his vote against the Bill for disestablishing the Irish Church. But the Protestant Church was overturned in Ireland, and in the overturning of that Church they had succeeded in alienating some of the most loyal of the Irish people. In the year 1870 the right hon. Gentleman at the head of Her Majesty's Government introduced and passed an Act dealing with the Irish Land Question, which hon. Members sitting on those Benches regarded at the time as an Act of confiscation, and which the right hon. Gentleman said would be a settlement of the whole question. But after an experience of the working of that Act extending over 11 years, the Prime Minister and his Colleagues came down to that House last Session, having arrived at the conclusion that the Act was a failure, and stated that it was necessary to introduce a Bill of a more drastic character. The Bill was carried through the House of Commons by the large majority of hon. Members who supported the Government, and it was afterwards passed in "another place." Hon. Members oppo- site might sneer at the action of the House of Lords; but he believed that in the course they took with reference to the Act of last year they were actuated by an anxious desire to do their duty in the very critical circumstances in which they were placed. The Bill passed, and what had been its result? He challenged any hon. Gentleman opposite to rise in his place and state that Ireland was as peaceable at the present moment as it was two years ago when the present Government acceded to Office. But the other House having agreed to a moderate Motion, the object of which was to inquire into the working of the Act of last year, the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister now came to the House of Commons and threw down the gauntlet of defiance to the other House. Under those circumstances, hon. Members on that side of the House had to discharge what was a very plain duty by giving their strongest opposition to the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman. They were quite conscious of being in a minority; but he reminded the occupants of the Treasury Bench that, although upon taking Office they had a majority of 178, the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman to postpone the Orders of the Day had only been supported by a majority of 133. He repeated that it was the duty of hon. Members on that side of the House to offer the strongest opposition to the Motion before the House, in order to place it beyond the power of the Government to revolutionize the country.

MR. SEXTON

begged to move the adjournment of the debate.

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

THE MARQUESS OF HARTINGTON

said, as Supply was the next Order on the Paper, and as he believed that certain explanations had to be given on the Report, it was not his intention to offer any opposition to the Motion of the hon. Member for Sligo for the adjournment of the debate. With reference to the day to which the debate should be adjourned, he did not know whether it would be of any use to appeal to hon. Members who had Notices on the Paper to give facilities for the continuance of the debate to-morrow. It was for Members who had Notices on the Paper to say whether they were willing to give way. He had only been induced to make that suggestion by a careful inspection of the Notice Paper, which led him to believe that Notices of Motion either related to matters which would not occupy much time, and could be equally well discussed on going into Committee of Supply, or else to subjects which were hardly ripe for discussion. He thought the Motion of the hon. Member for the City of London (Mr. E. N. Fowler) might not unreasonably be postponed until the Estimates were discussed; and with regard to the Motion of the hon. and learned Member for West Staffordshire (Mr. Staveley Hill), he did not know whether it was his intention to proceed with it; but he could hardly imagine that the present was an appropriate time to do so, seeing that the Papers relating to the French Treaty had not been laid upon the Table of the House. However that might be, the Motions on the Notice Paper seemed to him to be such as would neither take up much time nor create any very strong interest; and he could not help thinking that, unless his suggestion were acceded to, an untimely event might take place in the House at about half-past 8 o'clock to-morrow evening. On the other hand, the proposal to continue the debate tomorrow as early as half-past 4 o'clock would, if agreed to, effect a considerable saving of public time, and, as he believed, meet the convenience of hon. Members generally.

SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH

wished to point out that the noble Lord had omitted to refer to the Notice given early in the evening that the Motion relating to the Writ for the County of Meath would come on for discussion tomorrow as a Question of Privilege. As this would give rise to a long debate, he thought it would be hardly worth while to put down this important debate to follow it, because, in all probability, it would not be reached until the end of the evening, or, at all events, at a much later hour than the noble Lord had indicated. He was himself anxious to take part in the debate, and suggested that it should be put down for Thursday next, when there would be a certainty of its being resumed at a convenient time.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, he would join in the appeal of the noble Lord the Secretary of State for India to private Members to withdraw their Motions on the Notice Paper for to-morrow, because, if they did so, he had a very important Motion of his own, relating to drunkenness in India, which he should put in their place. There was also the important Motion of the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen), with regard to interference in the election of Members, which would come forward. For these reasons he thought there were objections to the continuance of the debate to-morrow, while he was quite certain that the effort of the Government to disqualify the hon. Member for Meath would be strongly resisted by the Irish Party. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister having eased his mind on the subject of the House of Lords, he suggested that the present debate should be adjourned until the following week, and that the debate upon the Procedure of the House should be taken up on Thursday. This arrangement would enable the Government to interlard the two debates very nicely, and might possibly be regarded as preferable to that suggested by the noble Marquess.

MR. R. N. FOWLER

said, the subject of his Motion was one on which several hon. Members wished to address the House, and on which he thought the Government ought to give explanations to the House; and he must therefore decline to give way.

MR. STAVELEY HILL

remarked, that Tuesday was the day on which the French Treaty expired; and however much he desired to oblige the Government, seeing that 12 years had elapsed since he first made the Motion on this subject, he thought he was entitled to proceed with it.

SIR CHARLES W. DILKE

pointed out that the Motion of the hon. and learned Member who had just spoken had no bearing whatever on proceedings for tomorrow in relation to the French Treaty.

MR. GORST

said, it was rather inconvenient for Members who wished to take part in the important debate on Procedure, which appeared on the Paper every day, to wait in the House simply on the chance of its being brought forward. He suggested that it should be put down for some day when there was a certainty of its being reached, instead of its being allowed to appear as the second Order every day of the week.

MR. CHILDERS

said, after the opinions which had been expressed by hon. Members opposite, the Government were willing to adjourn the debate until Thursday.

Question put, and agreed to.

Debate adjourned till Thursday.