GENERAL POWERS.

HC Deb 28 June 1882 vol 271 cc675-757

Clause 15 (Additional Constabulary force).

Amendment proposed, in page 7, line 39, to leave out the words "or by any limited portion of that district."—(Mr. T. P. O'Connor.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, that, as he had said last night, he was prepared to assent to the omission of the words "or by any limited portion of that district" in this sub-section of the clause, because he thought that the matter was covered by the words which followed.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, he did not quite understand what it was the right hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to obtain by the Amendment. He did not know whether the Committee thoroughly understood the way in which a provision of this kind was worked? He himself had had some experience, when filling the Office of Chief Secretary for Ireland, of the working of a provision of this kind—perhaps more experience than any other Member in the House at the present moment. The course pursued was this. When the Irish Government satisfied themselves that there was a particular district in which it was desirable to employ an additional force of constables owing to the prevalance of crime and outrage, the charge for the additional expense incurred in consequence was levied upon that district; but it was within the power of the Lord Lieutenant, if he ascertained by the means at the disposal of the Government that there were persons in the district who were well affected towards the Government, and who had assisted the Government in the preservation of life and property, to exempt such persons from the burden of the cost. He presumed that the present clause was taken from the Acts of 1870 and 1875. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT dissented.] Then if it had not been taken from those Acts it ought to have been. At any rate, the same principle was followed, and the object he (Mr. Lowther) aimed at was to enable the Government to exempt individuals who were well affected to the cause of order as well as to exempt a certain portion of the locality which might not have been implicated in the outrages and crimes for which an additional Constabulary force was employed.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he thought it would save time if he pointed out to the right hon. Gentleman that that question would arise upon another part of the clause.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, that if he understood the right hon. and learned Gentleman simply to admit that the words he proposed to strike out were only to be struck out on the ground of surplusage, then that would be a different matter; but he had rather understood him to desire to omit the words because he thought that in principle they were objectionable. Now, that was a question of great importance to the protection of life and property in a disturbed district. The principle hitherto acted on had been to exempt individuals and particular localities which, in the opinion of the Government, did not deserve punishment, and which had afforded assistance to the Executive authorities in the maintenance of law and order. Take the case of a man who had been placed under the system of what was called "Boycotting," or who might have sustained actual outrage. If the tax were levied upon the entire district, it would include the unfortunate person upon whom the outrage had been committed, and persons who had openly or covertly sympathized with the perpetrators of outrage would have the satisfaction of seeing a tax imposed upon the victim as well as upon themselves. He trusted that the Government did not propose, by accepting this Amendment, to include in the payment of the tax persons who had afforded evidence of zeal in the cause of law and order. If they did, he thought the clause would become a source of mischief rather than of advantage. Was he to understand from the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the omission of these words would, in no shape or form, affect the discretion of the Executive Government in giving exemption from payment of the tax?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he was prepared to abide by the statement he had made last night. He thought the best course would be to make the charge in the first instance upon the district in which the constables were employed; but he thought there ought to be a power of exemption specified in the clause. At the present moment all he proposed was that the charge primâ facie should fall upon all persons in the district where the additional Constabulary were employed, reserving to the Executive the power of exemption by another part of the clause.

MR. O'KELLY

thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman must be aware that the power of exemption was a power which might be scandalously abused in the working of the Act. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther) had made a very disingenuous speech. As the right hon. Gentleman put the case, the power of exemption was simply to be exercised in the case of persons who had been "Boycotted," and who were especially the objects of protection, and whose lives and property were in danger. Now, it was not for that purpose that the right hon. Gentleman desired this provision, but really for the purpose of enabling the Lord Lieutenant to exempt specified areas in order that the gentry of the district might do as they had hitherto done—namely, get themselves exempted from the operation of the clause and throw the whole burden of payment upon the most poor and wretched of the inhabitants of the county. That was the course which had always been pursued by Dublin Castle. With regard to the statement just made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary, that the charge would be placed upon the district where the protection of the additional Constabulary was required, he thought they ought to have some guarantee from the Government that the district would be of a certain width, and that there should not be a case similar to some which had occurred under the old law, where the fine was placed on such a restricted area as practically to amount to the confiscation of the property of the whole of the people within the district. It might easily be conceived that if this power were unrestricted it might be most tyrannically used. It certainly had been tyrannically used in the past, and therefore the Government ought to give the Committee some guarantee that they would take measures to prevent such a use of the power in future.

MR. MACFARLANE

asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary, if he would explain what substantial difference there was between the power of charging any limited area and the power of exempting any limited area, because it followed that if certain places were exempted, the places not exempted would be the limit of the area charged. He therefore did not see that the omission of these words would make the slightest difference in the effect of the clause. The clause provided that— The whole, or such part of the whole, as the Lord Lieutenant may order; and then it went on to provide that— The Lord Lieutenant may exempt from charge any specified portion of the area declared to be chargeable, or any specified rateable property in such area. He therefore could not see that the omission of the words— Or by any limited portion of that district as the Lord Lieutenant may order, made any substantial difference whatever. The Lord Lieutenant would have power to charge the whole district; but then, by the last part of the clause, he would have power to exempt first one part and then another until he reduced the area to what he conceived to be right; and, therefore, he had full power to confine the charge to any part of the district he chose.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he was willing to take either one course or the other—either to leave the words out or to retain them—but in his opinion the omission of the words would make a difference; and if hon. Gentlemen opposite thought they would not make a difference, why should they object to the omission of the words? He had already said that, first of all, there was to be a charge on the general district, and he declined to be drawn into a discussion as to the question of exemption, which would more properly come on afterwards. He considered that the power of exemption must be given, and when they came to that particular point he would state what the view of the Government was with regard to it. The proposal of the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) to omit these words was quite consistent with the view the Government took, that they should reserve to the Lord Lieutenant the power of exempting certain areas. It would, however, be quite irregular to discuss that question until they came to that part of the clause which made provision for exemptions; and he hoped, in the interest of time, the Committee would be allowed now to dispose of the present Amendment, and then go on to discuss the question of exemption.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, he had not drawn attention to the matter with any idea of attaching undue importance to matters of detail. This was a question upon which he confessed he thought very strongly. He remembered a case in which an outrage was committed in a particular townland. A force of police constables was sent down with a view of overawing the persons in that townland, and affording some security for life and property within its boundary. It so happened that there was no place suitable for the erection of a police hut within that townland, and places that were available could not be obtained because the persons to whom they belonged declined to afford facilities to the authorities for the erection of a hut. The result was that they had to put up a hut in an adjoining townland, and the question might arise in such a case as to the persons upon whom the expense was to be charged. It was certain that the cost ought not, in such a case as the one he had just cited, to be placed upon the townland in which the police hut was erected, because there was an absence of crime there, and it was only erected in that townland on account of the refusal of the people of the townland where it ought to have been erected to give facilities for its erection. On similar grounds he thought that where it was found necessary to employ an additional Constabulary force for the prevention of crime and outrage, the expense of that force should not be thrown upon the district in which the people had made themselves prominent for their support of law and order. He hoped he should not be misunderstood, but if the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had had occasion to administer the law in cases of this kind, he would have found it of the utmost importance that the hands of the Executive should be left free.

MR. WARTON

said, he rose to express a hope that, if the Home Secretary was in a frame of mind that would enable him to do either one or the other, he would keep the words in the clause. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was good-natured enough last night to offer to withdraw the words, but his concession was not received in a corresponding spirit by hon. Members below the Gangway; and he (Mr. Warton) would respectfully suggest that he should now reconsider his decision and consent to retain the words. It seemed to be assumed last night that the words, "or by any limited portion of that district as the Lord Lieutenant may order," were in some way equivalent to the remaining words of the section, and only a different way of stating the same thing. The words in question were that— The Lord Lieutenant may exempt from charge any specified portion of the area declared to be chargeable, or any specified rateable property in such area. He thought the clause as it was drawn only gave a proper discretion to the Lord Lieutenant, but it would be quite proper to change the word "district" to "area." In the first part of the clause it was provided that the Lord Lieutenant might order a charge to be made payable by a district or any part of a district; and when he ordered any district or part of a district to be charged, whatever part he ordered to be charged would become the area. It seemed to him that the words they were now considering enabled the Lord Lieutenant to limit the district; and the following words enabled him, after having limited the district, to make a further limitation in that limited portion of the district, which limited portion became the area. He therefore thought that if the Committee wanted to strike out these words they would be limiting the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant.

MR. MARUM

said, that before the words were omitted he should like to know what was the real intention of the Government in the matter? The charge was first to be put upon the entire district, and then, the Lord Lieutenant was to have power of limiting the charge of a portion of the district. Now, suppose that a fine of £100 was levied upon a district, and that then a limitation was made which exempted a portion of the district from payment of part of that sum of £100, how was the exempted portion of the payment to be obtained? Would the Government pay it themselves? He wanted to know whether the effect of the strict reading of the Amendment would be that the exempted portion of a district would remain clear of charge, and that the entire rate would be levied upon the unexempted portion; in point of fact, what he was anxious to get at was, who was to pay the exempted portion? Was it to fall through altogether, or was the sum chargeable to be re-assessed and put altogether upon the non-exempted portion of the district?

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he believed that this provision was a very wise and proper one, if it were only properly worked. It was quite right that the innocent should not be punished for the misconduct of the guilty. He considered that the concession made by the Government last night took away all the objection which had been urged against the clause. The clauses in the Acts already existing had worked very unfairly, because for years many of the counties had not employed the number of police to which they were entitled. He understood that, under the present clause, nothing was to be charged except the extra number of men beyond the number which ought to be by law in the county. If any portion of the county was disturbed, it was the business of the Executive to so apportion the police force of the county as to make it applicable to the particularly disturbed area, and in that case there would be no additional charge whatever. He wished to know if he was right in that assumption, and that there would be no charge for extra police until the force the county was entitled to possess had been exceeded? As he understood the concession made last night, it would work in this way. No charge would be made for extra police in any district until the full amount of police was already in the county, and all contingencies were allowed for. As Her Majesty's Government remained silent, he gathered that he was correct in that assumption. Then that force could be drafted into any area in which an extra force was necessary. There might be a riot or something of that kind, and, as was the case in this country, a large force of police would be taken there, but no additional charge would be made upon the county. The objection which was made to this provision was that hitherto these exemptions had been unfairly worked, and especially under the administration of the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. J. Lowther). He would tell the Committee what had happened. He was sorry to detain the Committee; but this was an important matter of principle, and ought to be thoroughly understood. Some years ago, a disused police-station in his district was re-established. Because the county had been so peaceable, and no crime had existed in it for years, the Government had actually withdrawn every policeman, and left a large district, nearly 70 miles square, altogether bare. There was some talk about the magistrates not having done their duty; but the magistrates represented, over and over again, to the Government that the old police barrack ought to be reestablished, and eventually the Government did re-establish it; but they placed the cost as a charge upon an area. Those were the sort of things that were objected to; but he thought the concession made by the Government last night would remove the objection. He believed that, as a general rule, the police force allotted by law to different counties was ample for all purposes in regard to the preservation of law and order; and if there were a disturbance in any particular district a larger force from the county police could be drafted into that district. That was the proper mode of administering the law. At the same time, it was not at all desirable that a charge should be made upon the innocent as well as the guilty for such a purpose; but if, over and above the strength of the county force, it was necessary to supply an extra force in a particular district, then it was only fair that those who were really supposed to be guilty should pay for the force employed. He supported the Amendment because he believed that the concession made by the Government took the sting out of the clause.

MR. PLUNKET

said, he was not sure that the words proposed to be omitted carried out the principle of the concession made last night. He quite agreed with his right hon. Friend the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. J. Lowther); but he could not help thinking, with the particular purposes in view, the clause, as proposed to be amended by the Home Secretary, would answer all purposes. The difficulty of his right hon. Friend was that it might be necessary to impose a charge on a different part of the townland to that in which the police huts were situated. The words, however, of the clause did not apply to the places where the police were billeted, but only to the locality in which they were employed; and he thought the omission of the words included in the Amendment would render the clause rather more favourable to the people of the locality than the way in which it at present stood in the Bill. The only difference would be this—that whereas they might employ the police for a considerable district—and it would be perfectly well known that a considerable part of the district was free from all imputation of crime—the Lord Lieutenant would, in the first place, impose the charge upon the entire district; and then, as far as he could, would take steps for exempting innocent people. As the clause stood, innocent people might be brought under it. It had been clearly expressed, however, that that was not the policy of the Government; but they only desired to provide that where it became necessary to use a police force in excess of the county force in certain districts, the whole district should, in the first instance, be required to bear the cost. He thought there should be a power given to the Lord Lieutenant to exempt those portions of the district which were free from crime from any share in the payment of the additional Constabulary Force employed.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had reverted again to a matter which formed the subject of a good deal of correspondence between the hon. Member and himself (Mr. J. Lowther), as well as of discussion in that House several years ago. He would not detain the Committee by re-opening the question now; but he took exception to the observation of the hon. Member that he himself (Mr. J. Lowther) had unfairly administered a clause similar to the present one contained in the previous Act. The hon. Member had forgotten to say that the disused barrack, which was taken advantage of by the authorities for the purpose of a police station, was so employed at the request of the hon. Member himself. [Mr. MITCHELL HENRY: Of magistrates.] The hon. Member was correct. It was at the request of the magistrates, of whom the hon. Member formed a distinguished element. The hon. Member supported the magistrates in their correspondence with the Government, and in their interviews with him (Mr. J. Lowther), and also in the discussion which took place in that House. The fact was that this disused barrack was taken advantage of for the purpose of quartering the police sent into the district at the request of the magistrates; and the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) said the Irish Government was guilty of injustice to the ratepayers, because the ratepayers were charged with an additional cost. If he (Mr. J. Lowther) remembered rightly, this particular case would not have come under a section like this at all, because he thought it was a charge imposed upon the general county rate. The hon. Member would correct him if he was wrong. That was a very different thing from a charge imposed under a punitive section of this kind, and it was a fair case for charging the hon. Member (Mr. Mitchell Henry) and his neighbours with the expense, in common with the general ratepayers of the county. That was his recollection of the matter. At any rate, it had nothing to do with this Amendment, which dealt with a very different matter. The hon. Member complained that the county of Galway had not at the time the additional force was sent their full quota of police, as settled by Act of Parliament. His contention was that before an extra charge of any kind was levied upon a county, or upon a small district within that county, the full quota of police should be made out. He thought there was a good deal to be said for that contention; but the hon. Member would remember the circumstances of the case. The county of Galway had, until certain pernicious teachings were brought before the peaceable inhabitants, been happily, to a great extent, exempt from agrarian crime, and on consideration of that fact, the Government withdrew some of the police from the neighbourhood, and sent them to other parts of Ireland, where their presence was more urgently needed. But in the course of time circumstances led to that step being retraced, and the hon. Member must now be painfully familiar, as well as the rest of the Committee, with the fact that agrarian crimes had been constantly perpetrated in that district. The question now before the Committee was a very different one, and he thought his right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Plunket), who had offered some valuable suggestions on the subject, had scarcely failed to gather what he (Mr. J. Lowther) meant. He had referred to a case in which a police hut was erected in a townland in which outrages had not been committed; it was erected solely because it was the only place in which facilities were afforded for the erection of the hut. He might mention another case, in which outrages and murder had been committed, and. it was found necessary to send a police force for the special protection of persons residing in a particular townland, although there was reason to believe that the perpetrators of the outrages were resident in another townland. In that case the course pursued was to charge the cost of the force not on that townland where the police was sent for the purpose of protection, but on the townland in which the sympathies of the inhabitants were in favour of those who had committed the outrages. If the clause were to be interpreted in the way some hon. Members were inclined to interpret it after the omission of these words, it would become the duty of the Government, although they might exempt A or B on the ground of having made themselves prominent in the cause of law and order, to charge the expense of the extra police force upon the townland in which the police hut was erected. His right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Plunket) had failed to catch his point, which was that the cost of the extra police force should be charged only upon those places where the perpetrators of outrages, or those who harboured the criminals, resided. There would be no use in sending a police force to such places, but it was necessary to send them to protect the caretakers of "Boycotted" land. He thought the Committee would see that, in spirit at any rate, these words could be retained, even if, as a matter of draft, it was not considered necessary to retain them. He had no objection, if the Home Secretary was satisfied, to their being struck out; but he wished it to be distinctly understood that he attached considerable importance to the principle involved in this provision.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

thought it somewhat unfortunate that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther), and other Gentlemen who had taken part in the discussion, had not stopped as late in the morning as other hon. Members had, [Mr. J. LOWTHER: I was here until half-past 12.] The right hon. Gentleman said that he stopped there until half-past 12; but if he had remained a little later he would have discovered that a very lively time was going on up to half-past 1 in the morning, when the question was discussed at considerable length. They had now been more than half-an-hour engaged in a conversation in which the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. Lowther), who had not listened to the debate last night had taken the chief part, and other hon. Members who were also absent last night were now engaging in a personal controversy upon a subject which had nothing to do with the clause whatever. The only thing that was required to make the absurdity complete was that the hon. Member for Paisley (Mr. W. Holms), who was now sitting opposite, should get up and continue the course of obstruction and irrelevancy hitherto adopted by English Members. The matter between the Irish Members and the Home Secretary was not a matter of words, but a matter of principle. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had listened attentively to everything that had taken place on the clause, and he was at a loss to reconcile what he understood to be a definite and clear undertaking by right hon. and learned Gentleman, and the concessions which he had made. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, last night, when he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) brought forward the Amendment as it at present stood, said it would be impossible to confine the payment of this money to a single street, or single townland; but he said that it would not be unfair to minimize as far as possible the number of persons in an area on whom the charge would be thrown, so as to render the payment oppressive and penal. If he correctly represented the undertaking of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, he believed the Home Secretary regarded that as a fair and honest objection to the clause, and if the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not contradict him now, he should take it for granted that he assented to his representation. The right hon. and learned Gentleman having agreed to make this concession, how had he met it? He said that he would accept the Amendment which he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had moved, and leave out the words, "or by any limited portion of that district;" but in the next breath the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that the words which immediately followed, and which absolutely left the clause exactly as it stood, would be retained. He asked the right hon. and learned Gentleman how he proposed to carry out his undertaking to remove this objectionable part of the clause, if he retained the same objection in principle to another part of the clause?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he must really ask the Committee to proceed to dispose of the Amendment. He deprecated these collateral discussions. He had expressed his desire and willingness to accept the Amendment, and he would not go into a discussion upon an Amendment which he had agreed to accept.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

rose, when—

THE CHAIRMAN

said, that if the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) rose to continue the discussion upon the point he had raised, it was not within the Amendment and was irregular. The discussion of the Committee must be limited to the Amendment before them.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he would confine himself to the discussion of the Amendment before the Committee—namely, whether the Government was or was not to have a power to charge the cost of the police of its own option upon a particular locality. The point was, whether the Executive Government was or was not to have power to charge the cost of additional Constabulary upon the entire district or upon a portion of it. If they agreed to that they had a right to examine how that power had been exercised in the past, and he had been prepared to show that when the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. J. Lowther) had the administration of a clause similar to the present one, the mode in which it was worked was exceedingly objectionable.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he thought it was explained that that was done under a county rate, and not under a charge of this kind.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

begged the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. It was not done under a county rate. He was going to show that the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. J. Lowther) had forgotten all the circumstances, and had given an entirely erroneous account of them. It was not done under a county rate at all. [Cries of "Question!"] That was the Question.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, he had only spoken from recollection, but the question really had nothing to do with the matter before the Committee.

MR. M'COAN

asked if there was any Question before the Committee at all? The Amendment had been proposed and accepted by the Government, and he should like to know whether there was really any matter for discussion before the Committee?

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he would congratulate the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) on his anxiety to close the debate.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, the hon. Member for the County of Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had grossly, and he might almost say intentionally, misrepresented what he had said. He was not anxious for the close of the debate, and he had been there on the discussion of every clause of the Bill, while the hon. Member opposite had been constantly away. Perhaps he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had taken an undue share in the discussion of the clauses of the Bill; but he certainly objected to the hon. Member for the County of Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) coming down there and attracting personal controversies into the matter.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

asked that the Committee should be allowed to conduct Business in a businesslike way. He protested against these interruptions. If any hon. Member had an objection to the Amendment, of course, he had a right to speak, but if not, let the Committee decide the question.

MR. O'KELLY

said, he rose to a point of Order.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir William Harcourt) was in possession of the Committee.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, that they had before them an Amendment to omit certain words from the clause. He had accepted that Amendment, but if anybody thought it was better to leave the words in he was entitled to address the Committee upon that point; but if he did not object to them, then let the Committee come to a decision at once. He did not understand that the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) wished to object to the omission of these words, because it was, in point of fact, his own proposition. If the hon. Member for the County of Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) objected, he could understand the course he was taking. If hon. Members desired to retain the words let the Question be put, but if not, let them get on with the discussion of the rest of the Bill.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he had no objection to the omission of these words. Reasons had been given from the other side of the House why they should be retained, and he thought it was necessary for him to show how similar words had been used which were contained in existing Acts. He knew the zeal of the right hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, and the wonderful patience he had displayed. He thought the Committee would see that in point of principle the omission of these words would make no difference at all, but would leave the clause exactly as it stood. He had pointed out that the clause of the Act of 1870 had been unfairly worked, and he hoped the Government would guard against a similar unfair working of it again.

MR. W. HOLMS

said, he rose for the purpose of referring to what had been said by the hon. Member for Galway opposite (Mr. T. P. O'Connor).

THE CHAIRMAN

asked if the hon. Gentleman was about to speak to the Amendment?

MR. W. HOLMS

replied that he was not.

Question put, and negatived.

MR. REDMOND,

in moving in page 7, line 40, to leave out the words— And the Lord Lieutenant may exempt from charge any specified portion of an area declared to he chargeable, or any specified rateable property in any such area, said, that his object in moving this Amendment was to take away from the Lord Lieutenant the power of exempting certain districts from being chargeable to the amount levied upon the entire district. Of course, this Amendment raised to a considerable extent the same point they had already been discussing; but he thought it was very important that this power should be taken from the Lord Lieutenant. If it were vested in him it would be absolutely within his power to ruin any individual man he chose. He could order a payment to be levied upon a district, and he could then proceed to exempt one part of it after another until it was cut down to a single holding, or perhaps a single individual farm, or an individual man. By that means the Executive Government would be able absolutely to use this portion of the Bill as an engine of tyranny of the very worst kind. He begged to move the Amendment which stood in his name on the Paper.

Amendment proposed, in page 7, line 40, leave out from the word "order" to end of Clause.—(Mr. Redmond.)

Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, the proper time had now come for discussing the question of exemptions, and he wished to speak quite frankly upon it to hon. Gentlemen opposite. He could foresee that there might be instances—although he hoped they would be fewer than they had been—where additional Constabulary might be necessary, either in consequence of the perpetration of outrage and crime, or from a reasonable apprehension of such outrage and crime being about to be committed. It might be that the whole of the district might be regarded as responsible for the outrage and crime, and in that case the whole charge would fall upon the entire district; but it was quite easy to conceive another state of things—namely, that the provision of extra Constabulary was made necessary within the district by a portion of that district becoming, in point of fact, the aggressor upon another portion of the district; and the police might be wanted, not only to repress the promotion of crime and outrage in a portion of the district, but to defend the victims of outrage and crime in another portion of the district. Therefore, it would be the duty of the Government, while in the first place charging for the additional Constabulary they might send upon the whole district, to exempt that portion of the district who were not the promoters, but the victims of outrage and crime. That was the view of the Government of the working of this clause. It was necessary to reply to the suggestion that the Lord Lieutenant was likely to use the clause oppressively and vindictively for the purpose of ruining individuals.

MR. REDMOND

said, he had only stated that it might be so used.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, the suggestion that the Lord Lieutenant might, or would do it, was a suggestion which he did not think the Committee would entertain. It had been said over and over again that the Bill was founded on a necessity of placing confidence in the Executive of Ireland to administer it justly and fairly. He repudiated that if such a district as he had pointed out existed in which a portion was not the authors or promoters of crime, but the victims of crime and outrage, it was right and just that the police necessary for its protection should not be charged upon that particular portion of the district, but that the whole of the penalty or additional burden should fall on that portion of the district which was the author and the promoter of the crime. That was the spirit and the intention of this exemption, and he thought it was entirely consistent with the whole object of the clause. It was certainly one which the Government must retain. An hon. Member had asked him what was to be done with the residue of the charge which was remitted from the exempted districts? His view was clearly that the residue of the charge should fall upon the other parts of the district; and if the words were not clear enough to make that evident, they must be made so. At any rate, that was the intention of the Government. All the reasons which induced them, to exempt a portion of the district in which the people were the sufferers and not the agents of crime would induce them to place the charge upon those on whom, in justice, it ought to fall.

MR. DILLON

said, he thought the Amendment was one of great importance. The right hon. and learned Gentleman who had charge of the Bill confined himself to pointing out that it might be desirable and necessary for the Government to exempt certain portions of a district which had been sufferers from the crime and not the aggressors; but he entirely passed over the question of the privilege being used in a manner that might be oppressive. The right hon. Gentleman on the Front Opposition Bench stated that it was not right to exempt individuals, because that would be against the spirit of the Act. The right hon. Gentleman then went on to say that power should be placed in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant to exempt individuals who were well known to be on the side of law and order. He had taken down the right hon. Gentleman's words at the time, and those were the very words the right hon. Gentleman used. Therefore, the right hon. Gentleman looked at this power as a power not to exempt districts, but individuals. They knew very well that that was the way in which the power had always been used in Ireland. It was not a question of exempting districts and areas, but of exempting individuals. When this power was brought into force, every magistrate's farm, every landlord's farm, every landlord's estate, and every individual who had placed himself at the disposal of Her Majesty's Government—they had the authority of the late Chief Secretary for saying—would be entirely exempted, because they had acted on the side of law and order, and were believed to be innocent in the opinion of the authorities; and the tax would, consequently, become neither more or less than a tremendous engine for ruining every man who had anything to do with the Land League. It placed an immense power in the hands of the local magis- trate, because of necessity it would be upon the recommendation of the local magistrate that these exemptions would be put in force. The Home Secretary said that the police would be employed wherever crime and outrage occurred, or where there was reasonable apprehension that crime and outrage might occur. In view of these considerations, what did the clause amount to? It amounted to this and nothing else—that an engine would be placed in the hands of every local magistrate in a district by which he would be able to ruin every Land Leaguer in that district. Wherever there was a district in which a certain number of people had made themselves prominent on the side of the tenants, the landlords and the magistrates, who were generally landlords themselves, could by the operation of this clause financially ruin every Land Leaguer in the locality. The people of Ireland were being brought face to face now with a combination, which, whatever the Government might say to the contrary, was a combination for the purpose of exterminating the people of Ireland. He saw that Mr. Kavanagh was attempting to explain that away; but they all knew very well what it meant. This clause would be used to punish people who entered into a combination to save their homes, and that was all it was wanted for. Every man who belonged to the land combination of Ireland would be exempted—his farms would be exempted—while every man who belonged to any association for the defence of the Irish farmers would be taxed, and taxed heavily, under the clause. Taking the Home Secretary at his own words, the right hon. Gentleman said that the clause would be brought into operation in a district where there was any reasonable ground to suspect that crime and outrage might break out. How would that act? He would mention to the Committee a case which was brought under his own notice, which bore strictly upon the propriety of passing this Amendment. He knew a large and populous district where no crime or outrage had occurred for years; he did not think that a single case of outrage had taken place. There was a Resident Magistrate in charge of that district; but one of the Bashi-Bazouks in the shape of a special Resident Magistrate was let loose upon the district, and he at once took it into his head that the locality was threatened with crime and outrage. The Resident Magistrate in charge of the district remonstrated to the Castle authorities, and said there was no danger of crime or outrage at all, but that any influx of military and police would be likely to cause disturbance. The new Resident Magistrate, who lived 30 or 40 miles away, was not of this opinion, and his first exploit was to gallop into the town and order a number of children, who were playing airs with a fife and drum band, to be marched off to the Petty Sessions on a charge of obstructing the police. This man overrode the decision of the local Resident Magistrate, and he got the police and military poured into the district, notwithstanding that the Executive Government had the opinion of a responsible magistrate, who had lived in the district and had charge of it for two years, that this influx of police and military was likely to cause crime and disorder. What would be the result of passing this clause? The clause would be the means, under the representations of the local landlords, of placing a fearful penal tax upon the inhabitants of the district; and there could be no doubt in the world that in that way it would give rise to crime and outrage of every kind. The people would become savage, under the feeling that they had been attacked because they were peaceable. They would take a prejudiced view of the matter, and crime and outrage would inevitably result. His view and his fear was that the power of exemption was intended to be used for the purpose of exempting individuals who, to use the words of the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. J. Lowther), were known to be on the side of law and order, which he (Mr. Dillon) interpreted to mean were known to be friendly to the land combination of Ireland. Not only did he gather this from the statement of the late Chief Secretary for Ireland, but also from the remarks which fell from one of the right hon. and learned Members for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket), who was notoriously the mouthpiece of the Irish landlords. The right hon. and learned Member said that this would be a power to exempt persons who were well known to be on the side of law and order—that was to say, that every person who was known and believed not to be in sympa- thy with the Land League would be exempted from the operation of the tax, while every man who was in sympathy with the Land League would be made to pay for that sympathy. He thought it would be a cruel injustice to enable the Executive to tax, without any check, an individual in a particular locality; but it was by the knowledge that every individual who was known on the side of law and order, or, in other words, who had never been a Land Leaguer—it was by the knowledge that he would be exempted from the tax that the Bill was to be judged as offering a direct incentive to landlords and magistrates to be reckless in getting the service of this additional police force. They could well afford to employ an extra police force when they had the knowledge that the expense would not fall upon themselves, and that there would not be the slightest check to the reckless use of their power. If they were to have this clause—if they were to have an enormous force of constables to protect the landlords in the exercise of what they called their rights, they should, at all events, pay their fair share of the expense, and not throw the whole of it upon the poor people. If the power now contained in the clause were sanctioned by the Committee, he knew perfectly well that it would be exercised in order to exempt any lists of individuals which the landlord class would send up to the Lord Lieutenant. How could Lord Spencer know anything about the individuals who were well known to be on the side of law and order in the district? Probably the representations made to him would apply to a place which he had never seen in his life, and probably never would see. The Lord Lieutenant would be bound to take the list sent to him by the local magistrates, and he would exempt those whom the local magistrates directed him to exempt. The result would be that, whenever any opposition was afforded by the people to the operations of the new land combination, which looked to this Crime Bill for assistance in carrying out its objects, that district would be placed under the clause, and every man who protected the people who were placed under severe and stringent laws would be represented as a man opposed to the preservation of law and order, and would be taxed in the heaviest and most ruinous manner.

MR. SYNAN

said, that if the power was to be used against individuals in the manner pointed out by his hon. Friends on that side of the House, he was not surprised that they should give it every resistance in their power. If the Government were to use it only in the sense stated to the Committee by the Home Secretary, and no qualifying words were introduced in the clause, he should certainly join them in any opposition they were prepared to offer. He was sorry that the Home Secretary was not in his place, but in the presence of the Chief Secretary he would state what the law and practice of Ireland were in similar cases under the Grand Jury system. When presentments were made by the Grand Jury for outrages similar to those which would form the ground for sending additional constables into a district under the clause, they always excepted the land of the person upon whom the outrage was committed. If that were the object of this clause, why not introduce words into it specifying that in its operation the land of persons who were the victims of outrage would be exempted? That would take away all the power of the Bashi-Bazouks to whom his hon. Friend the Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) had referred, of taxing certain individuals and exempting others; and unless some power of that kind was introduced, assimilating the operation of the clause to the general law of Ireland, his hon. Friends had a right to resist the adoption of the clause to the utmost, and to repeat that opposition on every opportunity. The Government had no justification for not qualifying the operation of the clause in the direction he had stated, and in the sense in which it had been commended to the Committee by the Home Secretary. He hoped the Chief Secretary would use the ingenuity of his hon. and learned Friends the Law Advisers of Ireland, to qualify the operation of the clause in the way in which the Home Secretary had stated to the Committee he was prepared to qualify it; and, in that case, he presumed that his hon. Friends would offer no opposition to it.

COLONEL NOLAN

said, he thought it was reasonable that the Lord Lieutenant should have power to exempt a particular portion of a district from the penalty imposed by the clause, when it could be shown that that part of the dis- trict had been affected by the outrage committed; but if the Lord Lieutenant was to have absolute power to exempt all persons who were on the side of law and order, it was absolutely necessary that some qualification should be inserted in the clause. Suppose a farmer came up to him and complained of the heavy burdens he had to bear in the shape of taxation, he should feel inclined to agree with him; but he should feel bound to point out that everybody else had to bear the burden. But in a case like this, which might arise under the operation of this clause, suppose he were asked who were those who were not on the side of law and order, he might find it very difficult to answer the question, and he knew that gross injustice might be done by leaving it in the power of the magistrates to say who were, and who were not, on the side of law and order. It would be the most odious revival of class privileges, and he therefore thought the Law Officers of the Crown ought to do something to qualify the operation of the clause. Some persons in Ireland, in defining who were on the side of law and order, might go as far as this. Perhaps one-third or two-thirds of the men of the landlord class, who would practically have the carrying out of this clause—the magistrates and the upper classes of the country—would say that those who supported the present Prime Minister were persons who were not on the side of law and order. Some of them would even use stronger words. Of course, the Lord Lieutenant and the Resident Magistrates of the official class would not be included in that category, and would be probably inclined to support a Liberal Administration; but the majority of the local magistrates were Conservative landlords, and they strongly objected to the policy of the present Ministry, and would certainly regard all those who supported the Prime Minister as being opposed to law and order. He hoped the Government would be content to insert in the clause some such qualification as that which, had been suggested by the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan). As a general rule, the object of the Government could be effected by grouping together a number of townlands and constituting them the district which should be called upon to bear the extra cost. He did not think it was desirable to intrust to the Lord Lieutenant this arbitrary and dangerous power.

DR. COMMINS

said, the reason given for the clause was that the Government had to deal with unknown persons who disturbed law and order in particular districts. But surely the Government did not mean that the hedge tramps, or people of that kind, disturbed law and order. The Preamble of the Bill said that the individuals aimed at as disturbing law and order were persons whose faces, and whose whereabouts, were unknown, and whom the Government could not convict or bring within the operation of the Criminal Law. He would like to know what the Government expected to do by this provision? They gave certain powers to the Lord Lieutenant, to be exercised according to his discretion, which might be applied to the ruin of particular districts or individuals—in short, the whole Bill was a Bill for enabling a conspiracy to be established in Dublin Castle against the people of Ireland at the instigation of persons who were concealed, and did their work in the dark. Did the Government suppose that if a certain district happened to have crime or outrage committed within it, and if it was the interest of "Captain Moonlight" to shift the murders, that he was not capable of crossing the boundary and escaping from the police into a district 15 or 20 miles away. These people were very light of foot, and could make their movements very much quicker than the preservers of law and order. So far from preventing crime, the clause would probably operate for the multiplication and distribution of crime throughout Ireland. Did the Government suppose, as the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) had put it, that "Captain Moonlight" was such a disinterested individual that he would not have an equivalent for what he had to pay, by shifting his appointments to other districts? It would be much better to accept the Amendment than to give power to a person behind the scenes to work ruin by confiscation on a man that he desired to injure. The clause would offer an inducement to everyone who had a private grudge to satisfy to produce one of those threatening letters, or bring forward the case of cutting off the ear of a donkey, or any of those things which were magnified into outrages in that House, and to refer the acts to some of these unknown persons, and the result would be both the multiplication of crimes and the extension of area. Some such restriction as that suggested by the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) was, at any rate, necessary—namely, that if there were to be exemptions they should rest on such grounds as the public conscience would approve.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, if the real meaning of the clause were adhered to he should be in favour of it. It was, of course, unjust that a man on whose farm a murder had been committed should have to pay for the additional police sent into the district; but it would be a complete straining of the meaning of the clause that every little area of property that he happened to hold elsewhere in the country should also be exempted. His objection to that effect being given to the clause was that it would give rise to a great amount of jobbery in this way. A person would go to the Castle at Dublin, have an interview with the Under Secretary, and tell him he must be exempted because he was a supporter of law and order. The thing had been done constantly, and he could conceive nothing more corrupt and abominable. He trusted the Government would agree to the simple proposal that only the property on which the injury was inflicted should be exempted, and if that were done he believed the clause would pass immediately.

MR. MARUM

said, he thought that the discussion which had taken place showed the soundness of his view that the Grand Jury should assess in these matters. As an instance of the advantage of that plan, he mentioned that the Peace Preservation Act gave power to levy compensation for maiming and other injuries, either on the district where the offence was committed, or on the whole county, at the discretion of the Grand Jury. A case having occurred in which the sum of £1,000 was awarded as compensation to a gentleman who lost an eye, the Grand Jury levied the amount upon the whole county, thereby showing a sound discretion in view of the large amount of the sum awarded. Therefore he contended that there should be representation for the taxation now proposed, even if it were faulty, and he considered this view was justified by the observations of hon. Members who had taken part in the present discussion.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he hoped the Committee would understand that if this power of exempting certain portions of districts were left in the Bill, it would enable the Lord Lieutenant to bring down the whole penalty inflicted by the clause with the crushing effect of a Nasmyth hammer upon a small area. He might so work it as to bring ruin upon a couple of families or upon a single individual. And who would these persons probably be? They would be persons who, by their public spirit and action, had rendered themselves obnoxious to the local landlords. There were in every district in Ireland, happily, some families and individuals who were active in public affairs, and who took a strong interest in national politics. These men were detested by the local magnates and magistrates, whose anxious desire was to clear them off the district in which they lived. This Bill, then, provided them with the means whereby they could accomplish their darling object. An hon. Member had said that the men who had supported the present Government might be punished by the agency of this measure, and he had no doubt that the men who made themselves prominent in Ireland in securing the return of Members of that House who represented the views entertained on those Benches would be made to feel it. Another important objection to the clause, and also an argument in favour of the Amendment to limit its stringency, was that, inasmuch as it imposed new pecuniary burdens on the people, it would go far to undo the good effects which might have resulted in Ireland from the Land Act of last year. Because, what was the use of enabling the poor tenant farmers in Ireland to get their rents reduced to a fair level if the Government proceeded to impose upon them the heavy taxation which the Act allowed? It was of no use to fix moderate judicial rents if the balance was to be made up again to the old rack-renting standard, by the agency of this measure, and the same might be said with regard to the proposed legislation on arrears of rent in Ireland. Let the Committee remember that the burden of this expense would fall on the poorest districts in Ireland, because it was a well-known fact that where poverty was greatest disturbance was also greatest. In those poor rack-rented districts there was both discontent and disturbance, and yet it was upon them that the Government were about to lay the taxation proposed in this measure. He could see no chance of the people being able to stand under it—on the contrary, there seemed to him to be nothing in prospect for them but eviction and ruin; and the result would be simply to assist Mr. Kavanagh, who to-day renewed in Ireland the treason of his ancestor, Demod Mac Murrough, against the Irish people. The argument of the Government, that the clause would operate as a punishment to the district, appeared to him a very strange one, because that punishment would undoubtedly fall upon the innocent and guilty alike. The Government would not be able to lay their hands on the perpetrators of outrages in Ireland by means of this clause; nevertheless, the people who had no hand in those outrages would be compelled to pay the fine levied on account of them. But they were told that sympathy existed within the districts with the people who committed the crimes there. He would not deny that there might be some sympathizers with certain forms of crime in Ireland, which, in the popular mind, amounted to acts of vengeance on the oppressors of the people; but, if that were so, he asked where would the Government draw the line? If they levied the tax upon a portion of the district, how could they be sure that this sympathy with crime did not extend to the whole district? It would not be easy for the Government to map out the districts in which sympathy with such crime existed, and say it went so far, and no farther. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: Hear, hear!] The Home Secretary cheered that remark—then why did he not carry out the idea which it contained, and make this tax universal?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he must point out that the hon. Member was speaking to the clause, and not to the Amendment before the Committee, which was that when a district had been brought under the clause the Lord Lieutenant should have power to exempt a specified portion of the area of that district.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he was endeavouring to bring down his observations to that point. The imposition of this tax, although it might pauperize the people, would not produce the effect which the right hon. Gentleman admitted he had in view. This clause would not produce the individuals who committed crime in Ireland, nor would it diminish the prevalence of that crime. It would rather tend in the opposite direction, because it must extend and make universal the sympathy which existed with certain forms of agrarian crime. It always happened that a revulsion in the public mind followed tyrannical action of this kind on the part of a Government. As he had said before, the small tenantry of Ireland were poor enough, and their poverty was the cause of all the trouble in Ireland and in that House. That was universally admitted; and yet the Government came forward with this brutal legislation to make them still poorer than they were, and said it would have the good effect of preventing crime, and punishing it when it occurred. He challenged that assertion altogether. He repeated that the effect would be to pauperize the people, but to do them no good whatever.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the hon. Member was still continuing to discuss the whole clause, and not the Amendment before the Committee.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he was arguing that the imposition of this taxation upon a limited area would produce bad effects.

THE CHAIRMAN

pointed out that the question of the district had already been settled. The Question before the Committee was as to whether the Lord Lieutenant should be empowered to take any specified portion of the area out of the operation of the clause.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he was arguing that no such power ought to be left to the Lord Lieutenant, because under the last part of the clause he would be enabled to bring down the whole force of this fine upon a small area, and so crush particular families and individuals upon the advice of the local magistrates and policemen. He argued that it would be more just to extend the area to the whole country, because all the trouble existing in Ireland was the result of British misrule.

MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHY

said, he hoped the Government would state whether they meant to keep the clause as it stood or carry out what he supposed to be the understanding arrived at last night. The impression last night was that the difference between the Government and hon. Members on those Benches was only as to terms; but it was now clear that the Government had entirely changed their position. The right hon. and learned Gentleman told the Committee that the Government desired to have the power of taxing certain disloyal places, and, of course, of exempting certain places on the side of law and order. Well, that was distinctly a tax such as might be imposed by an army of invasion in a foreign country—a tax which punished by a money fine one set of persons supposed to be against you, and rewarded another set of persons whom you believed to be in your favour. That was the meaning of the clause as expressed by the hon. Gentleman, and in that sense the clause would be used in Ireland. It was all very well to say that Lord Spencer was not the man to do any injustice. But the clause began by saying that the extra police were to be sent to a district— When it appears to the Lord Lieutenant from time to time that by reason of the existence or apprehension of crime and outrage in any district, the numbers of constabulary ordinarily employed there are not sufficient; and, therefore, some one of the local magistrates or landlords had only to say that he was afraid there were going to be outrages in the district, and the police force would be increased, and this tax imposed on all persons believed by any local authority not to be in favour of law and order. Now, nothing could be more dangerous than such a principle; which would not convert disloyal into loyal persons, but which would very easily convert those who were loyally inclined to disloyalty.

MR. P. MARTIN

said, it seemed to him that the Amendment before the Committee was right and just. If an arbitrary power to exempt certain areas was given in the wide and general terms proposed by the clause in the Bill, it might, if enforced, inflict great hardship and injustice on tenant farmers. As the clause stood at present, at his own will and discretion, and without any opportunity for those so taxed to challenge his decision, the Lord Lieutenant might impose on the residents, within a very limited area, a charge so heavy that it would be worse than the rack- rents hitherto imposed upon them. It would be impossible for the poor people who lived there to pay it, and the result would be that all their goods and implements of husbandry would be sold. It was well known that under the old law the tax for extra police amounted, in many instances, to 8s. and 9s. in the pound. How, he asked, was a tenant paying, perhaps, £5 or £6 a-year rent, to pay this crushing tax? He trusted the Government would not answer by the old and oft-repeated argument that the present Lord Lieutenant would not make an unjust use of the powers of this clause. He was happy to say that the evidence of the Lord Lieutenant himself was against this power being conferred upon him. In a very strong speech which the noble Lord delivered in the House of Lords last year, he alluded to the principle of exempting these limited areas in contradistinction to the country at large.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, it was not a question of district that the Committee had before them, but as to whether the Lord Lieutenant should be empowered to exempt a specified area in the district.

MR. P. MARTIN

said he was about to contend that Lord Spencer's objection to the principle of taxing a district applied with much greater force now than when the question was one of exempting portions of districts. Under the old law it was the district which was exempted; under this Bill it was a particular property or a particular area in the district which might be exempted from this tax, the remainder of the tax being in consequence thrown with crushing weight upon the rest of the district. If, according to the speech of Lord Spencer, on the 6th of January, the tax should be equally distributed over the country, how much more ought the Committee to refuse to say that the entire tax should be imposed on one townland, which would give rise to evictions worse than those of the present time which the Government described as appalling?

COLONEL BARNE

said, he hoped the Government would not give way on this point of the clause. He considered the clause as one of the most valuable in the Bill, and he believed its provisions would have more effect in putting a stop to crime in Ireland than any others which were proposed. By this clause an appeal was made to the pockets of the people of Ireland, who, like the English, were very much affected by appeals of the kind. The hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) said that it would affect the Land Leaguers, and that it was aimed at outrages. The hon. Member, therefore, placed the Land League and outrages in the same category. [Mr. DILLON: I said nothing of the kind.] He had certainly understood the hon. Member to say that the Land Leaguers were the men who would have to pay this fine; but if he had not said so, he, of course, withdrew the observation made. Then the hon. Member who had just addressed the Committee said the fine would not make men loyal. That might be admitted; but when a large force of police was sent to a district, and the disloyal persons there were made to pay for it, those persons would probably endeavour to get rid of the police by keeping the district quiet. It was perfectly well known that the disloyal men in Ireland were able to stop these outrages, and he maintained that the imposition of a fine was the best way to make them do so. One hon. Gentleman had argued that both the loyal and the disloyal inhabitants of the district ought to be made to pay the tax; but could there be a greater absurdity? On such a principle as that, a man who had been shot at would have to contribute towards the penalty imposed for the act of shooting at himself. He hoped the Government would adhere to the view they had stated to the Committee.

MR. TREVELYAN

said, in justice to the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), he must express his opinion that the hon. Gentleman's meaning had been misunderstood by the hon. and gallant Member who had just addressed the Committee. The hon. Member for Tipperary was at the time arguing strongly on the clause, and he said that under certain circumstances it might be worked against the Land League; he was endeavouring to show with perfect legitimacy that the clause might be used for political purposes, and that the area might be so reduced as to include within it only people who were connected with the Land League. The hon. Member said if you gave the Lord Lieutenant power to exempt certain areas, those areas, being coincident with property in the occupation of certain of the wealthier classes, you would be creating an incentive to those classes to have this charge imposed. Now, the Government had steadily resisted every Amendment which would have given to the wealthy classes the power of initiating any movement in connection with this Act, and they were determined to allow the initiative in this matter to be in no sense a matter of recommendation on the part of any private individual in the district. On this matter the Government did not intend to yield to the wishes, prejudices, or apprehensions of any classes or individuals. The hon. Member then went on to say that if this serious tax were imposed on a limited portion of the district it would have a tendency to make the people become savage from a sense of injustice. Now, the experience of this species of legislation in the past was that it had not rendered them savage, but that it had quickly repressed crime, and accustomed the people to a better state of things. The general effect of the information he had obtained was that taxes of this kind had had a good effect in the prevention of outrage, and the restoration of tranquillity in disturbed districts. Even when this tax could not be levied on a special district, the tradition with regard to it was so strong that in one case the mere erection of a police hut in the district, and the expense which it was supposed could be levied, had had the effect of checking outrage. And so, with regard to this power, he believed there were people in Ireland who, when they got the protection which it was calculated to afford, would regard it with far from hostile feelings. Take the case of the poor girl that occurred the other day. He could not believe that the people in whose midst that crime was committed, and who were liable to further outrages, would not prefer to pay an increased amount of taxation, even if there were exemptions by order of the Lord Lieutenant, which further increased their liability to payment, in order to be protected from such outrages. Moreover, he was of opinion that if the district were thoroughly freed from outrages for a certain period, the inhabitants would become so delighted with their new sense of security, that no better means than this tax could be devised for bringing back the whole district into the ways of peace. But it was argued that this power of exempting portions of a district from the tax was too great to be put into the hands of the Lord Lieutenant, although, whenever that question was mooted, the hon. Member, who happened to be speaking generally, said that if the Lord Lieutenant or himself (Mr. Trevelyan) were to undertake the duty of going down to the district concerned and ascertaining who were to be exempted, he would be quite disposed to trust to them. Now, in arguing in that manner, hon. Members were striking at the root of all administrative government whatsoever, because what was the position of the Lord Lieutenant? He was at the head of an enormous hierarchy of officials of all sorts ["Hear, hear!"] Hon. Members opposite cheered that remark; but if you had to keep a country in the paths of law and order, you must have all sorts of officials; and, therefore, if you said that, no matter what was the personal character and ability of the man at the head of that great hierarchy, you could not trust his exercise of such a power as this, you struck at the root of all civilized government. The hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) said, that these exemptions would be made on the advice of one of those Bashi-Bazouks, who were now let loose in certain districts in the shape of special magistrates. He thought that a statement of that kind, coming as it did from an hon. Member having so great an experience of the effect which such statements were likely to produce, was much to be regretted. For his own part, he was always very sorry when one of those sentences escaped the lips of the hon. Member for Tipperary, which were not only unjust in themselves, but tended to damage the confidence which the Irish people ought to have in the Executive Government. It was quite true that the Lord Lieutenant must depend on the officers of the district in order to know whether exemption should be made with regard to any portion of it; but the Lord Lieutenant, if he were capable of discharging the duties of his Office, would choose his instruments with a due regard to the amount of confidence to be placed in them; he would distinguish between the sorts of information given to him, and if he were not satisfied he would obtain further information. If, under these circumstances, it was contended that Ireland would not be properly governed, he said upon that contention that no country could be governed according to the principles of civilization. But hon. Members also said that Grand Juries in the old days had exempted men of their own political opinions and of their own class; and, therefore, they thought that the Lord Lieutenant would, although unwittingly, act in a similar manner. On that point he would only express his own opinion, and what he believed to be the opinion of the great majority of persons who had regarded the matter with attention—namely, that since what might be called the bad days in Ireland, there had been an improvement in every branch of the Public Service. Since those days public opinion had been brought to bear on it in a manner which had now rendered such acts of partiality and oppression as were committed 90, 60, or even 30 years ago, absolutely impossible. With regard to the exemptions, he was not willing to enter into details further than to say that Clause 16 was directed against the grosser forms of crime, such as murder, and in cases of that kind there would be what might be called a natural exception to exemption, for the amount of compensation would be so large that it would matter very little to the people who should receive it, whether they were called upon to pay their quota or not. There would be another natural exemption under Clause 15, which was directed against general intimidation and a general state of disturbance in a district which acted to the great detriment of individuals by driving tenants off their lands, and causing rents to be withheld. He could quite imagine the Lord Lieutenant wishing that a man who had all his tenants driven off his land should be exempted from the tax. With regard to the question whether the Lord Lieutenant would use the clause for the purpose of favouring any particular political Party, or doing anything even more odious than that, such as ruining an individual under the pretext of exemption, he could only give the suggestion an indignant denial. More he could not say. The clause had been introduced for the purpose of bringing, as far as possible, the people in disturbed districts back into the ways of peace and quiet, by means of general punishment for the general protection; and the Lord Lieutenant, he felt sure, would see, after this punishment had been imposed, and had done its work, that it ceased to operate at the earliest possible date.

MR. SEXTON

said, it was, of course, a just reflection upon the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland that, although he rose to oppose an Amendment which declared property should not be exempted from this taxation, one might study closely every word of the Bill and not find a single argument in favour of the exemption proposed in the last sentence of the clause. The right hon. Gentleman had said the art of government in Ireland had considerably improved; but the question for him (Mr. Sexton) and his hon. Friends, in looking forward to the future of the Irish people, was not whether government in Ireland now, as compared with government in the past, had been improved, but whether the Government still stood in need of improvement, and how much it stood in need of, and how they could bring an improvement about. He always listened to a speech from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary with a sincere desire to perceive and to welcome in it any recognition of the rights of the people. The Chief Secretary for Ireland blamed the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) for applying the term "Bashi-Bazouk" to some of the Superintendent Resident Magistrates, and the right hon. Gentleman talked in a strain of extraordinary want of knowledge of the subject when he spoke of the great confidence the people of Ireland ought to have in the Superintendent Special Magistrates. It was perfectly absurd to talk of such confidence. The right hon. Gentleman must be aware that one of those "Bashi-Bazouks" was Mr. Clifford Lloyd, and that the Resident Magistrates of Limerick and Glare had actually gone to Dublin Castle to protest against his appointment, or against his continuing any longer amongst them. If the course of Mr. Clifford Lloyd was such that even his own subordinates could not have confidence in him, upon what ground could it be contended that the people of Ireland, over whom he was sent as a slave-driver and as a tyrant, could have any confidence in him? He (Mr. Sexton) greatly regretted that the right hon. Gentleman, in referring to the past effect of legislation, such as that contained in the present clause, did not for a moment apply himself in a spirit of exact inquiry of the past effect of such legislation. The right hon. Gentleman had all the records of Dublin Castle at his disposal. He could search all the police reports for many years past. He could have recourse to all the Papers connected with this and every branch of the Administration; and if it were a fact, as the right hon. Gentleman would lead the Committee to infer, that legislation of this kind had in the past led to the suppression of crime and to the restoration of peace and tranquillity in a district where such legislation had been put in force, he wanted to know why the right hon. Gentleman did not go beyond the region of generality and adduce some facts in support of his contention? What would have been easier than for the right hon. Gentleman to have cited the case of a district which in past years had been subjected to an impost of this character, and what would have been easier for him to have shown, if he could, that the impost of this police tax upon any particular district was accompanied by a decrease in crime? When, however, the Representative of the Government stood up in that House and said that this legislation had produced good in the past, but distinctly forbore from giving the Committee any argument, the Committee were entitled to assume that such legislation had never at any time been successful. The right hon. Gentleman dwelt for a moment on the personal character of Lord Spencer. These persistent references to the personal character of Lord Spencer must be regarded as nothing short of a minor species of mental aberration. The Committee were led to believe that Lord Spencer would not and could not do anything which was tyrannical or unjust; but what security had they that Lord Spencer would actually be at Dublin Castle next year? Viceroys, like other men, were subjected to the ordinary instability of human life; and not only so, but they were subject to a second liability—namely, the ordinary instability of the Government. He hoped Lord Spencer's service might be long exercised in the public field of English politics, because, as an Englishman, he was a very patriotic man. Suppose, however, that this Government were thrown out either this year or next—and such a thing was not impossible—they would have probably a very different man as Viceroy of Ireland. He hoped, therefore, that, once and for all, they would have done with those references to the personal character of Lord Spencer. The general tendency now was to expect that this Coercion Bill—this mitrailleuse of repression—which had been carefully advised by all the Law Officers of the Crown, would speedily pass out of the hands of the present Administration into the hands of the Administration at present represented on the Front Opposition Bench by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Plunket). A Tory Administration would probably find a Coercion Bill ready for their hands, and he would compliment them upon the skill and success which had accompanied their efforts to support the Liberal Party in that House in passing this Bill. If the Committee were to consider properly what the Amendment proposed, they might consider for a moment what was the theory upon which this police tax was based. The theory was an absurd one—it was this, that residence in the vicinity of the place where crime had been committed necessarily implied guilty knowledge of such crime. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of Ireland knew that such a contention was absurd. Last night he mentioned that in a certain townland 11 poor families were placed under the ruinous tax of £100 for police, simply because, as it afterwards turned out, a man had come from 11 miles away, and while in the townland had distinguished himself by biting off a bailiff's ear. The Government flew to the conclusion that the people of this townland knew all about the offence, and, therefore, called upon each family to pay £9. There was also the case of Mrs. Lea, who owned property in King's County, but who lived at Rathgar. Two men came up from her property at King's County and murdered her at her home. Now, the operation of this clause would simply be this—that the people of Rathgar, a Conservative, suburb of Dublin, inhabited chiefly by Castle officials and half-pay officers, would have to pay a tax for the murder of this woman, simply because those men came up from the King's County and committed the crime. Suppose he admitted that the theory was a sound one; suppose he said that residence in a district implied a guilty knowledge of crime, why, then, should not a tax levied in pursuance of that theory be levied equally upon every one of the residents in the district? Why should one section of the people be thought to have a guilty knowledge and another section to have no such knowledge? It followed, with all the force of genealogical corollary, that everyone should be equally liable, and that the tax should be levied on all, or upon none. He would point to one or two grave results that would follow if this exemption was carried out. They all knew that the Lord Lieutenant had power to send as many police as he liked to a district, and charge them on as few people in the district as he liked; he might even charge them on one house if he liked to do so. He (Mr. Sexton) wished the Committee to take this into their consideration. The tenant farmers of Ireland had lately passed through a period of famine and a time of distress, and if they were subject to a crushing impost for the maintenance of extra police, and if they saw a landlord, or an agent, or a bailiff, or a rent-warner, or any other man in the district, singled out by the Executive for exemption from this tax while they were subjected to it, and, possibly, ruined by it, what would be the first effect on their minds? The effect would be a feeling of resentment and exasperation. He knew pretty well how it would work. If the poor people of Ireland found that they were to be beggared and ruined by the payment for extra police, while some prosperous landlord, or agent, or bailiff, was exempt from the operation of the tax, the immediate effect would be that the people would say that the exempted man had procured the imposition of the tax. The people would say that these men knew what they were about, and that they had used their influence at Dublin Castle to get the Lord Lieutenant to impose the tax and exempt them. The immediate effect would be quite contrary to the one in the minds of the Government, which he took to be the restoration of peace and tranquillity in Ireland. He could not imagine any other result than that there would be violence, certainly dangerous to the public peace. The second effect would be to stimulate evictions. He supposed the Prime Minister would admit that the new organization of landlords was an organization for stimulating evictions. What would be the effect of this clause? The effect would be that the people whose pockets had been emptied for the payment of rack-rents to landlords—for rack-rents would be imposed for years to come, inasmuch as the people would be unable to get their cases heard in the Land Court—would find themselves subject to a second payment to the State. It was not enough that the people should be beggared by the territorial class; but they were to find themselves subject to a tax for extra police. When the next gale-day came round it would be found that the money they might have had to satisfy the demands of the landlord had gone to satisfy the demands of the State. The landlord would thereupon proceed to evict. He thought he had shown pretty plainly that the State, by plundering the tenant, would render them unable to pay their rents, and that the State would be responsible morally, and if it were possible for the State to be criminally responsible, it would be criminally responsible also for the severance of many poor Irish people from their homes. There was another consequence, and it was this—the Government must be aware that the landlord had the first claim, that the laws of this country had secured to the landlord priority of claim upon the produce of the tenant. The landlord had several methods of recovering his rent, and the Government could not come in for this tax before the landlord had got his rent. Now, one effect of the recent movement in Ireland had been to drive home to the people a sense of the moral justification of refusing to pay debts which they thought were unjustly demanded. Suppose the people in any district applied that principle to this tax; suppose the few shillings they had left were only enough to get food, for themselves and families, and thus satisfy the first obligation of man; suppose they said, "We won't pay this tax," and it was quite possible that many in a district would say so, the State had no legal power to turn out the people like the landlords had; but they would, no doubt, collect this iniquitous tax at the point of the bayonets of their soldiers and police. He thought he had shown two serious consequences which might follow from this proceeding, and he had now pointed out a third. A Tory Government might face such difficulty with equanimity; but he could not think that a Liberal Government could, and he would recommend the Government to reconsider this clause, especially as the Chief Secretary for Ireland, though he had lately referred to the past benefits of such legislation, had not given a single instance in which this legislation had proved successful.

MR. R. POWER

said, he was very sorry the Government had not seen their way to modify this clause in some way or other. The more he looked at the clause the more he was convinced it would very materially help to stimulate evictions in Ireland. He was also convinced that it would tend to pauperize the people. It had been calculated that every extra policeman placed in a district in Ireland cost £35 a-year. It might, to a certain extent, find out the guilty, but he thought it was far more likely to punish a great number of innocent people who had nothing at all to do with crime in the district. The Chief Secretary for Ireland said that the Lord Lieutenant intended to select those under him whom he could trust to carry out this clause. But the Lord Lieutenant did not select them at all; he simply took them as he found them. He simply took the officers under the late Lord Lieutenant and the Lord Lieutenant before him, and the present Lord Lieutenant got his information just in the same way as his Predecessor got it. The Chief Secretary for Ireland also said that he did not intend to leave the initiative with the magistrates in a local district. He (Mr. R. Power) was very glad to hear this, because he was afraid that if the local magistrates had that immense power they would in a great many cases abuse it. Local magistrates in Ireland, for one reason' or another, had not got the confidence of the people; and it would be unwise if, under this clause, local magistrates were allowed to take the initiative in these proceedings. A great deal of discontent and angry feeling would be excited in the country. A most extraordinary statement was made by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, a statement which he (Mr. R. Power) was very sorry indeed to hear him make; because it must be admitted that the right hon. Gentleman was a very favourable contrast indeed to his Predecessor; and, as far as he and his hon. Friends were concerned, they were anxious to show very fair play towards the right hon. Gentleman, and not in any way endeavour to embarrass or harass him in his Office. The right hon. Gentleman, however, had said that this system of police taxation had succeeded in the past, and that it had helped in a very great degree towards the detection of crime, and towards making disturbed and disloyal districts become peaceful and prosperous. Now, he was afraid the right hon. Gentleman did not look into statistics on that point. If he had done so he would find that it had had an exactly reverse effect, and that the police tax had not brought peace and quietness to a district, and had not succeeded in the detection of crime, but that it had, on the contrary, a most disturbing influence wherever it had been applied. He would invite the Committee to read the evidence of Captain Talbot—a gentleman who was certainly not very friendly, or supposed to be friendly, towards the Irish people—given before a Select Committee of that House. Captain Talbot was asked what was his opinion of the working of this tax, and he said— I am sorry to say that it has totally failed to do any good, in my opinion. In what had it failed Captain Talbot was asked, and his answer was— It has failed in producing evidence, in stopping crime, and the only good I know it does is this—it enables you to have a larger body of police at your disposal for patrol and other police duties. In answer to another question Captain Talbot said— Certainly, it acts as a punishment. Many of the inhabitants have to pay very heavily, but it is a punishment which falls perhaps more severely upon those who are innocent than upon those who are guilty. It does not touch the guilty at all, because they are not able to pay; the guilty are generally servants, boys, or persons brought from a neighbouring county. Another magistrate was also examined by the Select Committee, and he gave as his opinion that this tax pressed most unequally on the community. He (Mr. R. Power) could quote plenty of evidence tending in a like direction, but he did not wish to detain the Committee any longer. He would, however, ask what was the use of appointing Select Committees to inquire into the state of Ireland if evidence such as that he had just quoted was altogether disregarded?

COLONEL COLTHURST

said, the evidence which had just been read to the Committee by the hon. Member (Mr. R. Power) was all the more important when it was recollected that Captain Talbot was at present Chief Commissioner of Police in Dublin, and was, no doubt, a very competent authority upon the subject. Notwithstanding such evidence, if he (Colonel Colthurst) believed that this clause or this police tax would be effectual, either in preventing or in detecting crime when committed, he would support it, notwithstanding the injustice which it was certain to inflict upon individuals. They had had experience during the last six years of a similar tax, and it had neither been effectual in detecting nor in preventing crime. If he believed the observation of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) that outrages were committed by the sons of small farmers to intimidate others from paying their rent, he should say that such a clause as this, and such power as was sought to be conferred by this clause, would perhaps be effectual in preventing outrages being committed. But he had previously said that such an observation was a libel upon the people of Ireland—at any rate, upon his constituents. Believing as he did that outrages were committed in Ireland by the agents of secret organizations, by men who were paid to commit outrages, by men who were supported in prison when arrested on account of their crime, he failed to see the justice of inflicting a heavy pecuniary fine, which must amount to ruin in certain cases, upon a certain number of small and poor occupiers in a locality. He did not deny that in certain localities there was sympathy with crime; but, taking the country as a whole, he was certainly inclined to make such a denial. He admitted that there was terror in the country, and that that terror was so great that it would neutralize any possible effect that the clause would have. Life was dearer to people than money; and people would not give evidence, and thus subject themselves to the foul deeds of secret organizations. No one in Ireland knew whether he was or was not condemned by one or other of those secret societies; and he (Colonel Colthurst) hoped this Bill would get at the root of the evil by making the people reflect that if they intimidated the poor people they would be liable to six months' imprisonment with hard labour. It was to the Intimidation Clauses that he looked for a remedy of the present evils of Ireland; and, therefore, he felt bound to oppose in every way those subsequent clauses.

THE CHAIRMAN

Before the Committee proceeds, I must point out that the discussion for some time has not been upon the Amendment, but upon the clause itself.

MR. O'SHAUGHNESSY

said, he would endeavor to confine himself to the Amendment before the Committee, which he understood to be that the Lord Lieutenant should be deprived of powers conferred upon him by the clause of exempting certain individuals from the charge for extra police. He strongly supported that Amendment; and he supported it for the following reasons. The Chief Secretary for Ireland pointed out that Irish Members were fond of saying that if the Bill were left to the administration of the Lord Lieutenant or Chief Secretary for Ireland they would have some confidence in its administration. What Irish Members objected to was that the administration, practically, in such a matter as this, was left, not merely in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant or Chief Secretary for Ireland, but in the hands of subordinates. Without at all for one moment using strong language about the subordinates who might have to advise the authorities with regard to carrying out the provision contained in this section, he was bound to say that the fact of so important a matter as this being left in the hands of subordinates was, to his mind, one of the great reasons for the adoption of the Amendment. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had said that the Government had done their best not to leave the initiation of anything in the hands of any particular class of the community; but, unfortunately, by the appointments which had been made, and in consequence of the class of men who would administer this law in some of the disturbed districts, it was distinctly class legislation which was to be dreaded. He would not use strong language about Mr. Clifford Lloyd, but he was the man who had been applied to under circumstances which had led to the proclamation of the city of Limerick, and to the imposition upon it of a much larger police force than usual. By the fact that the administration laid in the hands of such gentlemen as this proved it was practically class administration, because those gentlemen were taken from one class—from one extreme section of the people—from the landlord class, with whom their sympathies ran. What was the result of giving such power as this to the Lord Lieutenant, when the Lord Lieutenant was to exercise his power upon the advice of such men? The result was that there must be a tendency to lean to the section of thought and tradition to which such men as Mr. Clifford Lloyd belonged. Suppose a person belonging to the landlord class was, at one and the same time, an owner and occupier—and that was a very common thing in the constituency to which he (Mr. O'Shaughnessy) belonged—there would be a tendency to exempt him from the operation of this clause. He would not now go into the question of justice or propriety or tact of Mr. Clifford Lloyd, but he would say there must be a constant tendency on the part of that gentleman to endeavor to get exemption for the landlord class. Under this clause there would be the greatest possible room for jobbery. The Chief Secretary had said it was desirable that loyal people should be exempted. Let them see how this applied. It was well understood that the persons whom it was proposed to tax under this clause were the tenants, and not the landlords. Everyone knew that, for many months past, the classes who had been attacked, the classes who had been made the victims of outrage, were the very tenants who had paid their rent, and had respected law and order; and it was these very people whom it was now proposed to tax under this clause. He thought that if the Amendment were accepted the Lord Lieutenant would be relieved from a dangerous and very delicate responsibility. The power conferred by the clause could not fail to be abused; it could not fail, at the very least, to create jealousy; and, therefore, he hoped the Government would accept the Amendment before the Committee.

MR. LEAMY

said, that a short time ago the Chief Secretary for Ireland referred to a statement made by the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) to the effect that this Bill would be used for the purpose of punishing political opponents in Ireland, and the right hon. Gentleman said he would deal with that question. He sat down, however, without making any further reference to it. He (Mr. Leamy) thought he could show that there was very great danger of this Bill being used for political purposes. The Chief Secretary for Ireland could not understand that the Bill would be used unjustly by Lord Spencer; but the Chief Secretary for Ireland at once pointed out that Lord Spencer would simply be in the hands of the officers of the different districts, and that the Lord Lieutenant would have to depend upon those officers as to whether or not a particular district should be exempted from the operation of this Act. Let the Committee bear in mind that the Lord Lieutenant had the power to impose extra police upon any district in which there was an apprehension of crime. It was known very well that this apprehension of crime would arise in the mind of the Lord Lieutenant, or in the minds of the officers who reported to him, from statements made to one or other of them by the local police or the local magistracy, and the Committee had been told that the Lord Lieutenant would so exercise the power of exemption as to free what was called the loyal classes, or the well-affected classes, of a district from the burden of paying this tax. It was also very well known that during the last two years, or during the Land League agitation, the people of Ireland had practically been divided into two classes—namely, those who were for the Land League and those who were against it. It had been said recently that all men who were against the Land League were on the side of law and order, while all those who were favorable to the Land League were opposed to law and order. It would, therefore, be the people who sympathized with the Land League who would have to pay this police tax, while those who had always shown themselves enemies of the Land League would be considered well-affected classes, and would be exempted from the payment of the tax. Now, this power of throwing a police tax upon every small district would become all the more serious, when it was borne in mind that by the very next section the Lord Lieutenant would also have power to throw on a very small district the burden of compensation. For instance, in a district where a murder had been committed the Lord Lieutenant would have power to levy compensation for that murder; he would have power to make the very poorest people in a district pay for murder or any other injury done in the district, and at the same time have power to send down an extra body of police, whose expenses could be charged to the district. There would, therefore, be a double charge upon the district, and everybody must know that the result of such great charges as these would be to cripple the resources of many unfortunate tenants. It would be very much more honest of the Government to declare at once that everyone belonging to the Land League would have to bear this exceptional burden, and that any man who was not a Land Leaguer would be free from it. When it was borne in mind that the Lord Lieutenant would have power, if this tax were not paid by the people on whom it was levied, to send down men to seize the goods and chattels of the people, it would be seen it would be positively within the power of the Lord Lieutenant to ruin the people of a district. The Irish Members knew how such power had been used before. A hon. and gallant Gentleman, speaking a short time ago, thought this was a very good clause, because its probable effect would be to induce the people of a district to keep the district peaceable and quiet, so that an extra police force should not be sent there. That might be very well if police were only to be sent whenever crime was committed; but it must be remembered that police could be sent if crime was only apprehended. How did this apprehension come about? Why, it came about by statements that were made by people of the district, and consequently if there were a number of men in a district who were opposed to the Land League, and who knew that because of that they would always be looked upon as friends of law and order, and would therefore be exempted from the tax, they would, under this section, make a statement to the Lord Lieutenant or the Resident Magistrate that they appre- hended that crime would take place. It would thus be seen that a very small class in any particular district would have the power of subjecting another class to a very large impost. It was because the Irish Members knew that in this way the clause would be unfairly worked that they so strenuously opposed it.

MR. DILLON

said that in the course of this debate no speech in support of the Amendment had been made by any of the Liberal Members opposite. He had supposed that hon. Gentlemen who called themselves Radicals would have certainly supported an Amendment of this kind. Failing any support from the Radical Members, he turned with pleasure to the speech of the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who rose to oppose the Amendment, but who, in fact, succeeded in delivering one of the strongest speeches in favor of it. The right hon. Gentleman had said that no man whose property or person was in danger could reasonably object to pay such a tax as this, and he felt perfectly certain that every farmer or even, poor person in Ireland would rather pay this tax than this present state of things should continue. It was his contention that if any person considered his property in danger he would willingly pay this tax. Therefore, the Chief Secretary, in the speech he delivered under the impression that he was opposing the Amendment, strongly supported it. The Chief Secretary went on that line of argument which they had listened to very often in that House. He began by making a personal attack upon himself (Mr. Dillon). The right hon. Gentleman had said that he (Mr. Dillon) had used rather strong language with regard to the Resident Magistrates. He (Mr. Dillon) always endeavored not to use strong language except when he felt strongly, and he did feel strongly on the question of Resident Magistrates. That question bore directly upon the Amendment. The Chief Secretary for Ireland talked about an official hierarchy, and he had said that if the House was not prepared to believe that the man at the head of this official hierarchy would not have sufficient intelligence to choose his instruments, no civilized government could be carried on anywhere. That was an argument always made use of in favor of the Napoleonic form of go- vernment—namely, that every country should be governed by an official hierarchy with the aid of a benevolent despotism. He had always understood that the theory of English government was the very reverse. Let them take the Chief Secretary for Ireland on his own words. He said let them trust the Lord Lieutenant to select instruments who would be thoroughly trustworthy. Would he dismiss the instruments who brought disgrace to his Predecessor? Would he dismiss the instruments that had made the administration of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) a disgrace to the Government, and a disgrace to a portion of the history of Ireland? Would he dismiss the special magistrates who were the selected instruments of the late Chief Secretary for Ireland, who he (Mr. Dillon) ventured to say had contributed materially to the ruin and disgrace of the right hon. Member for Bradford? If the Lord Lieutenant would do this, he would establish some right to select his own instruments. This might appear to be a little divergence from the point of the Amendment; but he was simply replying to an argument of the Chief Secretary, which the Chairman had allowed to be in Order. He (Mr. Dillon) submitted that his remarks were pertinent to the question, because it was not what might be done, or what might not be done; but it was impossibility for the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, or the Chief Secretary for Ireland, to know anything about the merits of the persons proposed to be exempted. It was absolutely necessary for those officials to trust to the advice of other men. He would ask again, would the Lord Lieutenant take the instruments chosen by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster)? Would he dismiss the instruments in the shape of special magistrates who concocted with Mr. Kavanagh the Land Corporation of Ireland?

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out that the hon. Gentleman is now traveling from the Amendment.

MR. DILLON

said, he respectfully submitted that he was strictly in Order.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member has been going much beyond the Amendment, and I must request him to confine his remarks strictly to the Amendment.

MR. DILLON

said he would endeavor to do so. The Amendment was whether the Lord Lieutenant should have power to exempt a certain area from the operation of the clause. They knew from experience what a certain area meant. It might mean, if the word was left undefined, the farms of a few individuals or the demesne of individuals. He was trying to prove that the power to exempt certain individuals from the operation of this clause was a most invidious one, and one open to the very grossest possible abuse. He begged to direct the Committee's attention to the fact that the Chief Secretary for Ireland had not attempted to deny that the power would be open to the greatest possible abuse. The Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary for Ireland might have the very best intentions, but it was quite impossible that they could exercise their discretion in this matter. He would ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland whether he was aware of certain facts which had come to his (Mr. Dillon's) knowledge, clearly showing the abuse which might arise under this clause? Only this morning he had received a letter stating that Mr. Samuel Hussey, a local magistrate, had declared his intention to keep certain individuals, now in prison, in prison until the expiration of the Coercion Act. Mr. Hussey had expressed that determination because the men were leading Land Leaguers. The Chief Secretary for Ireland said the Lord Lieutenant and himself were resolved not to allow any person in the locality to take the initiative in the imposition of this tax; but who was to take the initiative? If it was not the people who knew the district, then, in the name of common sense, who was to take the initiative? The tax must be levied upon the report of somebody who knew the district. He submitted that the position of the Lord Lieutenant and Chief Secretary for Ireland was a very absurd one. There was another case which might arise, and which was one of the cases against which he was anxious to protect the people of any particular locality. He was sorry to hear the news that Lord Hawarden, in his (Mr. Dillon's) own county (Tipperary), had got ejectments against an entire parish, having a rent-roll of £8,000 a-year. The tenants in that parish were men paying from £100 to £200 a-year. They were most respectable men, but Lord Hawarden wanted to simply depopulate the parish, and when he had done it disturbance might very reasonably be anticipated. And what he (Mr. Dillon) wanted to know was, if the Government quartered extra police in the county, would they exempt the man who brought this misfortune upon the people by his unreasonable and outrageous conduct, would they exempt from the payment of this tax the man who was now evicting tenants because they would not pay rents which the Land Court had declared to be 25 per cent in excess of what they ought to be? Some of the tenants of Lord Hawarden had gone into the Land Court, and it had been shown that their rents were really in excess of what they ought to be by as much as 25 per cent. Because Lord Hawarden still wished to exact rack-rents would he be exempted from the payment of this tax if extra police were sent down there? That was a question, possibly, which the Chief Secretary would have to adjudicate upon within the next month. The right hon. Gentleman would, no doubt, very shortly have to consider whether Lord Cloncurry and Lord Hawarden, who, on account of their infamous action, had brought the people on their estates to a state of desperation, should be exempted from any consequent taxation. If his hon. Friends would take his advice, they would continue this discussion until it was shown that this clause would not be employed as an instrument by the Land Corporation to exterminate the people.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he must appeal to the Committee to conclude the discussion on the Amendment. He did not deny that the Amendment was one that there ought to be a fair amount of discussion upon, but he would point out that they had devoted something like two hours to its consideration last night. [Mr. SEXTON: The Amendment was proposed to-day.] The same subject was under consideration last night. He was in the recollection of the Committee when he said that this subject was really considered last night. In fact, one Irish Member had reproached hon. Gentlemen for not having been present that night when the matter was discussed. The Committee had devoted three hours to the subject to-day, and he thought it was now fully time that the discussion should be brought to a close. Every view upon the matter seemed to be freely and fully stated, and he thought that if the Bill was intended to be fairly dealt with in point of discussion, the time had now arrived when a division ought to be taken.

MR. HEALY

said, the Home Secretary had not attempted to answer the argument of his hon. Friend. It was all very well of the Government to sit still while the clause was under consideration; but that was not the view of the Irish Members as to what they ought to do. If the Government sat in stolidity, and did not answer a single argument, it would be necessary to have the discussion. The point of his hon. Friend was that Lord Hawarden was to be relieved of taxation, and that was a point worthy of the attention of the Government. On the 12th of July there was a celebration, and he wanted to know whether, under this provision, the Government intended to charge the localities for the extra police required to keep the peace between Orangemen and Catholics, or did they intend to exempt particular portions of the districts? Was it to be an arrangement that, if there were riots on the 12th of July, or during other Orange anniversaries, the charge of the extra police was to fall upon certain of the inhabitants, and that the Orangemen, whose anniversaries had been the cause of the extra police being required, were to be exempted? Those were questions deserving the attention of the Government. In the first place, the policy of exemption was a bad one. The Government had styled the 4th clause the "Boycotting" Clause; but he should apply that epithet to the 15th clause, for it was a provision which would exclude a certain class of people, and that was simply "Boycotting" by the Government. The Government, having condemned "Boycotting" in other quarters, now adopted it themselves. A certain portion of the community was to be "Boycotted" by being taxed. The question would arise why certain people were to be exempted, and that would occasion soreness; for everybody knew that a man who supported the Government was looked upon almost as a traitor, and the fact of his exemption would increase the ground of suspicion. If that suspicion was justified by exemption from taxation, nothing could save such a man from suspicion; and exemption from taxation would, in itself, be sufficient to create contention and discontent in the district. Everybody knew what was likely to be felt and manifested in such a case, and those whom the Government officials favored would be disfavored by the population at large. That was inevitable, and was one of the deplorable results of this particular clause. It was said that the Lord Lieutenant was a man of benevolent intentions, and would use this clause to the best of his ability. That might be very true in regard to the Lord Lieutenant, and also the Chief Secretary for Ireland; but the Committee would remember that the right hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) set out with the best declared intentions, and succeeded in earning the hatred of the Dublin Evening Mail, when he urged the landlords to be moderate. The present Chief Secretary for Ireland had recently denounced the landlords, but in a short time was obliged to withdraw his epithet of "cruel," because of the denunciations hurled at him. As time went on, the present Chief Secretary for Ireland would become as hardened as the right hon. Member for Bradford, between the hammer and the anvil, the nether and upper millstones. Both the landlords and the tenants would denounce him, and when he attempted to discriminate he would be told that his efforts had not given satisfaction; and, eventually, finding that he had given satisfaction to nobody, he would simply please himself. That was the inevitable result of officialism in Ireland. But he was inclined to think that the people would themselves cut the Gordian knot, and take a trenchant view of favoritism in regard to taxation. Under this provision the Lord Lieutenant might assess the amount of taxation on a locality, and if there was found to be a black sheep in that locality, who was said to cause trouble to the police, the entire charge of the extra police might be charged upon that individual. What would follow? The man was obliged to pay his rent, and then he was told he must pay the taxes; if he said he could not pay the rent, because of the heavy taxation, he must be turned on to the road, or refuse to pay his landlord. He must refuse either to pay the State or else his landlord. Which would he do? What occurred in the tithe war? The people refused to pay tithes. In this case, the landlord was to have power to turn a man on to the road if he did not pay his rent. But when the tenants struck against tithes, the landlord had no such power, and all he could do was to sell the tithes to the tenants; and, as nobody would buy them, the State was at its wits-end. Under this provision the tenants would consider that they had been unjustly treated, and would fall back on what was recommended by Mr. Cobden, many of whose maxims and theories had lately fallen into disfavor. What did that Gentleman say in regard to the imposition of taxes which he considered unjust and illegal? He (Mr. Healy) found in the journal which was favored by the Government—namely, The Pall Mall Gazette, a letter from a correspondent who said— I have no wish to defend the 'no rent' manifesto; but illegal courses have entered into the minds of agitators of better repute than Mr. Parnell. Reading a recent Memoir of Mr. Cobden, I find him writing of the Anti-Corn Law League in these words—'I find a little difficulty in advising the course the League should henceforth pursue. That course depends very much on the spirit of the people who are acting with us. If they were all of my temper in the matter we should very soon bring it to an issue. I presume that, however, your friends are not up to the mark for a general fiscal revolt, and I know of no other plan of peaceful resistance. He (Mr. Healy) would like to ask the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who was a Colleague of Mr. Cobden, whether his views were as much changed on the subject which occupied attention when he was associated with Mr. Cobden in resisting the Corn Laws and the Alien Act as they were on matters connected with the Alien Act at the present time? Suppose the people followed the recommendation of Mr. Cobden, and went in for a fiscal revolt against this taxation, what where the Government going to do? A general fiscal rebellion against this particular tax was much easier to carry out than a rebellion against wrong—

MR. CARTWRIGHT

rose to Order, and asked whether the line of argument which the hon. Member was now pursuing was not altogether outside the Amendment, and a deliberate contempt of the Chairman's previous ruling?

THE CHAIRMAN

For a long time the hon. Member kept to the Amendment, although at great length; but he has gone beyond the Amendment, and I hope he will keep strictly to it.

MR. HEALY

said, that for the information of hon. Gentlemen like the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Cartwright), who did not follow the debates with any keenness—["Order, order!"] Well, he would say those who did follow the debates with keenness, that the Amendment now before the Committee was an Amendment against allowing the Lord Lieutenant to exempt certain favored parties, which, he argued, would be regarded as favoritism on the part of the Government, and would cause discontent, and the people not exempted might follow the recommendation of Cobden and go in for a general fiscal revolt. In all that he thought he was keeping to the Amendment, and he would urge on the Government this fact. If the people did what he apprehended they would do, the Government had not the remedy which the landlords had, because the landlords could eject people if they followed out the policy suggested by Cobden, while the State had no remedy but to sell the chattels; but nobody would buy them, and so they would be brought to a standstill in the collection of this extraordinary tax. Therefore, he thought the people of Ireland would see that very clearly—and the people of Ireland were no greater fools than the people of any other country—and they would measure the power of the Government to enforce injustice; and while John Smith was made a favorite of Mr. Clifford Lloyd and exempted, Brown, Jones, and Robinson would have to pay this tax; he ventured to think they would consider whether they could not compel the Government to levy this taxation fairly, or else they would resort to a fiscal revolt.

MR. LABOUCHERE

said it seemed to him that the wishes of the Home Secretary might be met if he would yield upon one particular point. Hon. Members opposite had pointed out that it was very possible that the very persons who were the originators of outrages—that was to say, the evictors, would be exempted. He would suggest that it would be well to take a division at once upon that Amendment, and then, perhaps, the Home Secretary could add— But in no case shall any property or portion of property belonging to a landlord who has evicted his tenants in a manner which, in the opinion of the Lord Lieutenant, is cruel and unpatriotic to the Government, be exempted.

MR. PARNELL

said, he thought he had every reason to complain that the conduct of this important Bill, touching as it did the action of the Irish people during every minute of their lives, and depriving them of every Constitutional right, should be left to a Member of the Government who had no practical acquaintance with the Government of Ireland other than that which he might have received from informers in the Home Office—and certainly their information did not result in anything more than information which could not be of a valuable character. Irish Members had every reason to complain of the conduct of this Bill through Committee, and when the Home Secretary intimated that, in his opinion, this Amendment had occupied sufficient time in discussion, all they could say was that the Home Secretary was welcome to his opinion on the subject; but they could not attach much importance to that opinion, considering that the Home Secretary was entirely without information upon the subject-matter. The Chief Secretary for Ireland would have conducted the Bill through Committee in half the time. He (Mr. Parnell) had had a Parliamentary experience of nearly eight Sessions, and he had never known any Government who had so stubbornly resisted all concession as the present Government had. This was a matter which affected the existence of a great many people in Ireland. During the administration of the late Chief Secretary for Ireland, a number of poor tenants who had been in receipt of relief during the winter of 1879–80, but upon whom a tax of this kind was placed with the result of rendering them entirely destitute, the right hon. Gentleman stated that one of his reasons for not renewing this power of placing a charge on small districts was the number of instances of injustice similar to that of the tenants in Mayo, which had come under his notice in the administration of the Act of 1875. The Irish Members wished to know upon what principle the Government intended to proceed in this matter? All the rich land was in the occupation of the landlords, and all the poor land in the hands of the tenants; consequently, when a tax of this kind was levied it fell upon the poorer class of tenants, and practical starvation resulted; because, if they failed to pay the tax, their furniture and all that they had was taken from them. Such was the result of refusing the Amendment to a clause such as this; but the Home Secretary refused to allow an hour or two for its discussion. The practical result of refusing the Amendment would probably be, as his hon. Friend had pointed out, a fiscal revolt. Experience during the tithe war, when it became impossible to collect the £1,000,000 required, justified this view. If the people should refuse, as the result of this unjust and iniquitous tax, to pay county cess, just as in 1833, when all the resources of the police and military could not enable the Government to collect the tithe rents, so, in 1882, they would be unable to collect the county cess of £1,200,000. It was ridiculous for the Government to rush blindfold into this position. The Home Secretary was acting on an absurd panic. He and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) were the two curses of the late Administration in Ireland. To the false information supplied to the Home Secretary in London and to the Castle in Dublin, by men who ought to have been cast off by a respectable and justice loving Administration in Ireland, was due the way in which the Government were acting; and the Irish had to complain that there was no Chief Secretary for Ireland in the House with full powers to act. The right hon. And. learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had not full powers; he had to write to the Lord Lieutenant for liberty to answer a question—

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member is going much beyond the question before the Committee.

MR. PARNELL

said, the Home Secretary had to write over to the Irish Government for permission to accept an Amendment even of this character; and repeatedly during the progress of this debate, when they had asked for a reasonable Amendment, they had been told that the Home Secretary must consult the Irish Government as to what he might or might or might not do. Lord Spencer was saturated with the traditions of English government in Ireland, and the people of Ireland had no hope from his Administration.

THE CHAIRMAN

I must request the hon. Member to speak to the Amendment.

MR. PARNELL

said he wished to intimate his belief that if they had a responsible Chief Secretary in the House there would be less difficulty in persuading the Government to accept Amendments of this kind. He regretted the position in which this Bill had got, and that was owing to the fact that there was a Minister in charge of the Bill who was absolutely ignorant of Irish questions, and that there was no responsible Chief Secretary in the House.

MR. METGE

said the Government were deliberately saddling themselves with a source of danger in resisting this Amendment. His hon. Friend had intimated what that danger was, and he thought the people of Ireland would be fools if they did not act upon that suggestion. They had been told, on the authority of Members of the Government, that the rents in Ireland had been reduced, and they had sent their Courts to decide questions of rent.

THE CHAIRMAN

That subject has nothing to do with the question before the Committee.

MR. METGE

said, he wished to show his reason for supporting the Amendment. His reason was that the clause would unjustly tax the people; and for that reason he wished to show that the Sub-Commission Courts were not doing their work either in regard to the reduction of rents—

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out to the hon. Member that the Committee is not discussing the whole clause, to which his observations might, perhaps, be applicable; but the Committee is discussing the exemption of certain arrears by the Lord Lieutenant.

MR. METGE

said, he felt strongly upon this subject, and wished to show why this unjust taxation should not be levied. He hoped the Government would not be so blind as to deliberately take upon and fetter themselves with a source of danger which, if acted on by the Irish people—as he believed it would be acted upon—would put them into a greater difficulty than any of the difficulties in the past.

MR. DILLON

said, he was very much inclined to move to report Progress, be- cause it appeared to him that the Government did not in the least understand what was a fair course of procedure in this matter. He would suggest that the Chief Secretary for Ireland should telegraph to the Lord Lieutenant and ask whether he might assent to this Amendment, because, as the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) had pointed out, the Home Secretary knew nothing about Ireland; and it appeared the Chief Secretary did not know whether he might agree to this Amendment or not. The right hon. Gentleman had made a speech in support of the Amendment, and then refused to agree to it.

Motion made, and Question, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again,"—(Mr. Dillon,)—put, and negatived.

Question put, "That the words 'and the' stand part of the Clause."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 191; Noes 53: Majority 138.—(Div. List, No. 187.)

MR. CALLAN,

in moving, in page 7, line 40, to leave out the words "Lord Lieutenant," and insert the words— Going judge of assize for the county in which said charge is payable, subject to the same rules as in the case of presentments sent before him from the grand jury, Said, he hoped the Government would accept this Amendment. The Lord Lieutenant was surely not expected to go into the counties and hear evidence for himself as to the justice and necessity of exempting any specified portion of a district. By this Bill a power of life and death was given to the Irish Judges, who were entrusted with a power which hitherto had been entrusted to juries; and he wished to retain in the hands of the Judges the power they at present had whenever any charge was levied on a county in Ireland. Such charge was either levied by peremptory presentment or by Grand Jury presentment, and any part of the district feeling aggrieved could go before the going Judge of Assize, either against the presentment, or to have it sent back, or to have it rejected. The object of the Amendment was to place the going Judge of Assize in the position which he at present held, so that his fiat should be necessary to any charge being imposed upon the county. In cases of this kind it was necessary that some sort of judicial in- vestigation should take place before any district in any part of Ireland should be liable to be declared chargeable with the burden of the extra Constabulary, or before any particular area of a district should be declared exempt. If a case were brought before the going Judge sitting at Assize in any county, he could take such evidence as it might be necessary to hear before deciding upon the question, and he thought that the refusal to leave the matter to the going Judge would in reality be a slur on the Irish magistrates, as well as upon the Irish Judges. He asked the Committee were they prepared to cast such a slur on those officials? There could be no difference of opinion about the matter, because it was clear that if they left it to the Lord Lieutenant he would be obliged to found his action on the reports of the police and the Resident Magistrates. He could not be expected to have the evidence put before him; he must act on the information supplied to the magistrates by a secret informer, and it would be found that he would be exposed to all sorts of applications by landlords and other interested parties to exempt certain localities from the onus of the charge, while there would be no evidence by which the public could judge as to how the Lord Lieutenant had exercised the power given to him, supposing an opportunity was desired for showing that an injustice had been done. If the Committee were inclined to adopt his Amendment, and leave it to the going Judge of Assize for the county, he (Mr. Callan) should not object if it were provided that in cases where secrecy was desired the evidence to be taken by the Judge should be given before him in Chambers; so that no one should be present but himself and the witness, whose sworn testimony he would receive. There would be no danger in doing this. Surely the police, who would be the principal witnesses in these cases, might be examined in open Court; but if the Home Secretary wished it, such evidence as it might be desired to take secretly could be given in private. But it was of no use to appeal to the right hon. and taught Gentleman the Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt), because he was hopelessly and incompetently ignorant of the material administration of Ireland. The Home Secretary could not, like Sir Boyle Roche's bird, be in two places at once. He might know something, however little, respecting English law and English practice, but he could not possibly know anything whatever of the practice of Ireland with reference to presentments sent from the Irish Grand Juries. What he (Mr. Callan) desired to secure by this Amendment was that in instead of the Lord Lieutenant being empowered to "declare the said lands chargeable," it should be left to the going Judge of Assize for the county in which the charge was payable, either in open Court or in a secret Chamber, to take such evidence as would convince his judicial mind and guide him to a just decision. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. W. M. Johnson), whom they all knew well, would, in all probability, be one of the going Judges of Assize in the course of next month. At any rate, they hoped he would be, for he well deserved the position, and would make, in his (Mr. Callan's) belief, a much more impartial administrator than any English official they might have imposed on their unfortunate country. He proposed that the question in the case under discussion should be left to the going Judge of Assize, such as the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland would be in a short time—that it should be for the Judge to decide whether there was sufficient evidence to satisfy his mind that certain property in a particular district should be exempt from the charge leviable under the clause. He therefore begged to move the insertion of the Amendment which stood in his name.

Amendment proposed, In page 7, line 40, to leave out the words "Lord Lieutenant," and insert the words "going judge of assize for the county in which said charge is payable, subject to the same rules as in the case of presentments sent before him from the grand jury."—(Mr. Callan.)

Question proposed, "That the words 'Lord Lieutenant' stand part of the Clause."

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he should have thought the hon. Member who had just sat down, the Member for Louth (Mr. Callan), and the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), had had sufficient experience to enable them to learn that any amount of personal abuse which they could level at him would have no effect. In order that censures of that kind might carry with them any weight they must proceed from persons very different from either the hon. Member who had moved the Amendment (Mr. Callan) or the hon. Member for the City of Cork. This was all he thought it necessary to say in answer to the coarse abuse and violent vituperation to which he had been subjected, and it was the only sort of notice of which he should ever think such language worthy. With regard to this particular Amendment, it would be obvious to the Committee that it was utterly impracticable. It was an Amendment proposing to make the subject of judicial inquiry that which was manifestly and necessarily a matter for the Executive Government to deal with in the manner provided by the clause.

MR. HEALY

said, he could almost sympathize with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) in his attacks on the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary, because they had been the means of wringing from the right hon. and learned Gentleman something in the nature of a qualified declaration, to say nothing of the gorgeous eloquence to which the Committee had listened, for after condemning the language of the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan), the right hon. and learned Gentleman had informed the Committee that there was to be nothing in the shape of a judicial investigation into the facts. Consequently the Committee were asked to accept a Bill of this description, suspending the Constitution in Ireland and imposing taxation without representation on the ratepayers, without the smallest attempt to give them the means of a general investigation into the circumstances under which the taxation would be levied. This was the only answer they could get from the Government to the very reasonable Amendment that had been proposed. If this answer were sufficient for the House of Commons as a justification for refusing the Amendment, he was afraid the intelligence of the House of Commons must have fallen very low. What were they told by the Government? They were told that a judicial investigation was not necessary. The fact was that the whole country was to be simply laid at the feet of one individual; and yet they were constantly being told that the British Law and Constitution still prevailed in that country. It was much better as it was under the Grand Jury system, bad as that system was, because there was an appeal in a case of a presentment made by the Grand Jury to the Judge of Assize. Any ratepayer who might feel himself dandified by the decision of the Grand Jury had an appeal to the going Judge of Assize; but under the extraordinary provision of this particular clause the Lord Lieutenant, sitting at Dublin Castle, without hearing the representations of those persons who would be affected by the taxation, but acting on the hint and suggestion of Mr. Clifford Lloyd, or men of a like stamp, was to have the sole power of deciding whether a certain portion of the community were to be rendered poor and miserable, or whether they were to be comfortable—because it was the difference between these two conditions that was meant by extra taxation, so that very often the slight difference between comfort and misery, sufficient and starvation, among the poor tenants in many parts of Ireland would, under this clause, be determined by the action of the Lord Lieutenant, without what the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary seemed to regard as the farce of a judicial investigation. It might have been expected that a lawyer like the right hon. and learned Gentleman would have been inclined to treat a judicial investigation in a different spirit to that which he had evinced; but since he had taken to the seizing of papers like The Freiheit and United Ireland, his respect for judicial procedure seemed to have been growing small by degrees and beautifully less. But he (Mr. Healy) wished to point out to the Committee that the Lord Lieutenant alone was, under the clause as it now stood to have the power of saying whether the people of Ireland were to pay the greater part of their substance in taxes. What was the Amendment? It was a proposal that one of the Judges—not the three of them, as in the case of the 1st clause of the Bill—was to be allowed to interpose between the Lord Lieutenant and the humble and unfortunate taxpayer in Ireland. This proposal, reasonable as it was, was not merely refused, but had been actually derided by the right hon. and taught Gentleman the Home Secretary. In the 1st clause of the Bill power of life and death was given to three Judges; but here, where it was proposed to give to one Judge the power of saying whether a particular district was to be taxed or not, the proposal was refused. And this was the way in which the Irish Members were treated all through the discussions on the clauses of this Bill. They were not merely met by flimsy and shallow arguments, or apologies for argument, but by expressions of actual contempt from the Ministerial portion of the House. The Government were going in for extreme measures. Let them go ahead.

THE CHAIRMAN

I must call upon the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) to keep to the Amendment before the Committee.

MR. HEALY

said, if he had wandered away from the Amendment the amount of transgression on his part was very slender. In fact, up to this point he thought he had been dealing very closely with the Amendment; but having given a slight warning to the Government he should proceed. He desired to point out to the Committee that hitherto, when the people of Ireland had been exceedingly heavily taxed, they had, at least, had some remedy; but in the present instance, when it was proposed to put an exceptional power of taxation into the hands of one individual, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt) refused to allow them any remedy. On whose advice, he asked, would the Lord Lieutenant act? He would be obliged, of course, to act on the representations of the local magistrates and police, and the people were to be refused, any sort of representation before the Lord Lieutenant. There were many circumstances in Ireland in reference to which persons who thought themselves aggrieved were allowed to appear before the Privy Council and plead their own cause; but there was not a single provision in this Bill under which the already over-taxed Irish ratepayers were to be allowed any power of appeal before the Lord Lieutenant; and if any Amendment, no matter how reasonable it might be, were moved for the purpose of securing ever so small a measure of justice, it was sure to be met on the part of the Government with a refusal not only given in the most contemptuous tones, but supported by arguments of the most flimsy and unsatisfactory kind.

MR. MOORE

said, it was with great unwillingness that he ventured to intrude in this debate, because he felt, from what had already occurred, and from the manner in which the Government seemed disposed to meet any arguments that were addressed to them, that anything he might have to Say was likely to have very little weight, either on that or the other side of the House. Nevertheless, he was of opinion that Her Majesty's Government were making a great mistake with regard to this clause. It seemed to him to be a very arbitrary thing if the power proposed to be given to the Lord Lieutenant were allowed to be exercised without any right of appeal on the part of the district. The power that was asked for by this Amendment was one that already existed in regard to other matters that were brought before the Courts of Assize in Ireland, and he did not see any reason why the analogy of the existing system should not be followed in the present instance. Let them take, for example, the case of malicious injury. An act of malicious injury was committed in a certain district—say, in the case of property forming part of a townland. The townland might be only a small portion of the area of a district, and it was very unlikely that the persons inhabiting that particular townland would commit a malicious injury on themselves. In the event of a malicious injury being perpetrated in connection with that townland, the Grand Jury would have power to make a presentment; but they could only do so after a public investigation; and if the traversers, and those who might object to the presentment on the part of the public, did not think that justice had been done, they had the right to go before the Judge of Assize, and in that way only could exemptions be made. But if the Committee would allow him, he would push the argument further home. There was in the next clause power to fine a district for an outrage that might be perpetrated, and the power was so large that almost any sum might be levied on the district in which the outrage was committed. The Lord Lieutenant might send down an extra body of police, and charge the particular district to which it was despatched with the amount necessary for its maintenance; and this was substantially the same principle as that of the punish- ment which followed in the next clause—namely, the actual enforcement of a money punishment; but by that next clause they required that a public investigation should take place before the Lord Lieutenant undertook to inflict upon the district the taxation that would be necessary to carry out the punishment. He could not but think that the Government had made a great mistake in rejecting this Amendment. He had not intervened in this debate out of any wish to delay the progress of the Bill, because he felt that every day which lengthened the postponement of this measure only added to the number of unfortunate tenants who were now being evicted, and who were thus losing the right of redemption and all the other advantages they might secure under the Arrears Bill. For this reason he had been most unwilling to interpose; but he certainly did think that Her Majesty's Government, before giving power to the Lord Lieutenant to make the exemptions provided for by the clause, would have done well to have inserted a provision requiring that, in the first instance, there should be a public investigation, at which the reasons for the exemptions would be publicly stated. There was no reason in the world why the reasons should not be publicly stated which would not be equally applicable to the next clause; nor could he see the slightest reason for saying that any man who desired to be exempted from the payment of the tax should not be able to appear by himself or by a solicitor before a competent tribunal, for the purpose of claiming that exemption, and, on producing sufficient proof that he was entitled to it, obtaining a remission.

COLONEL O'BEIRNE

said, he considered what had just been stated to be perfectly true—namely, that those who ought to be exempted from the payment of the tax ought to have an opportunity of making a claim, and stating their reasons for asking to have the tax remitted before a Judge of Assize in open Court. Under the clause, as it stood, however, no such opportunity was afforded, and he might add that he was afraid Her Majesty's Government were delaying the Arrears Bill by the course they were pursuing in refusing to accept even the smallest and most reasonable Amendments to the measure now under discussion. For his own part, he had very seldom interfered in the discussion of these clauses, as he did not wish to delay the progrees of the Bill through Committee, because he approved of the Bill in the main, believing that there was an unfortunate necessity for it; but with regard to this particular clause he felt bound to say a few words. What the hon. Member for Waterford (Mr. R. Power) had stated some time ago in regard to the imposition of this special charge upon a district was perfectly true—namely, that it would cost that district £35 a-year, he (Colonel O'Beirne) thought it would probably be £40 a-year, for each extra policeman. He thought, therefore, in view of this large additional burden, Her Majesty's Government ought to afford the district an opportunity of clearing itself and obtaining exemption if it were able to bring substantial reasons before the Judge of Assize as to why the tax should be remitted. He hoped the Government would yield upon this point and accept the Amendment.

THE SOLICITOR GENEREAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

said, he thought the clause before the Committee was one that embodied a sound principle. By the Amendment it was proposed to leave to the Judge of Assize for the county in which the charge was payable the decision as to the area over which the exemption from the tax might be extended, and this was to be done, subject to the same rules as in the case of presentments sent before him from the Grand Jury. The only analogous case he was aware of under the Grand Jury system was one that was in some respects a close analogy; he referred to the case of malicious injury to property, in reference to which the Grand Jury had the power of awarding compensation, subject to an appeal to the Judge of Assize, in which case the Judge investigated the matter with the aid of a jury. It was proposed that the subject-matter of the present clause should be dealt with in a similar way, and if the Amendment were adopted by the Committee, the result would follow that in the case of any objection to the incidence of the tax under the Bill the matter would have to be submitted to the arbitrament of a jury, subject to this regulation—that the petty jury would have no power to deal with the question of the extent of area over which the whole tax was levied. At the present moment, the Grand Jury, and the Grand Jury alone, had the power of deciding on what districts the compensation for malicious injury should fall, or what portion of a district should contribute, and the Judge had no power to interfere with that matter in any way. The only point he and the petty jury decided was the question of fact as to whether a malicious injury was committed, and where this was proved they fixed the amount of compensation to be awarded. It was felt, however, that a Judge going down to a county in which he was not a resident, and with regard to which, therefore, he was probably without special information, was not the best person to form an opinion as to the matters that had necessarily to be considered and decided in regard to the area that should be taxed, or the area that should be exempted. The answer given in this debate, both last night and to-night, and repeated over and over again, was that it was considered absolutely essential that the admittedly strong and exceptional powers conferred on the Government by this clause should be administered by the Executive. This argument might be strong, and it might be weak; but it must be borne in mind that it was the argument by which the clause was supported. If the power of dealing with a claim for compensation were to be withdrawn from the Executive, he was not aware of any other tribunal to which it could properly be transferred, and certainly the one suggested by the Amendment was altogether out of the question. He remembered not long since, at the Louth Assizes, a question of this kind coming before the Judge, and the Judge of Assize declined to entertain any question as to the area of taxation, saying that that was a matter with which a Judge of Assize was peculiarly incompetent to deal. [Mr. CALLAN: That was a fishery case.] He (the Solicitor General for Ireland) believed it was a harbour case; but it was one which illustrated the argument that a Judge of Assize, having no special knowledge of a county into which he was sent, or of the district, was not the proper person to consider and determine these questions. Therefore, it appeared to him that in whatever other way this clause might be susceptible of amend- ment, he had heard no reasons that, in his mind, would render this Amendment admissible.

MR. CALLAN

said, the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Porter) had unintentionally made a mistake in speaking on his (Mr. Callan's) Amendment. The hon. and learned Gentleman had referred to a case that had occurred in the northern part of the county which he (Mr. Callan) represented (Louth). He (Mr. Callan) said it was the case of a fishery pier; but the hon. and learned Gentleman had contradicted that statement, and said it was a harbour case. It was, however, a fishing pier, although he believed the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Porter) was counsel in the case, and, therefore, ought to have known that the pier was used for the fishing boats which frequented that harbour. But with regard to the statement that had been made as to the effect of the Amendment with regard to the question being tried by a petty jury, the object of the Amendment was to substitute the going Judge of Assize for the Lord Lieutenant, and the word "traverse" was not in his Amendment. The Amendment cut away all reference to any jury, and gave the power to the going Judge of Assize instead of to the Lord Lieutenant, the reference to the Judge being subject to the same rules as in the case of presentments sent before him from the Grand Jury, which meant the same rules of taking evidence; but the Amendment might be drawn up in a more formal manner, and he should have no objection to its being put into the perfect form in which the paid officers of the Crown could draft it on the Report. But he was sorry to see that he was met in a different spirit. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had, in his grandiloquent manner, coupled him (Mr. Callan) with the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell); and although he did not always agree with the hon. Member for the City of Cork, he was proud, in the face of the Irish people, to be described as holding the same sentiments and fighting the same fight as the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Parnell) did in that House against this iniquitous Bill. He remembered on one occasion receiving a finished castigation from the Prime Minister, when the right hon. and learned Gentleman—

THE CHAIRMAN

I must ask the hon. Member for Louth to speak to the Amendment.

MR. CALLAN

said, he had referred to the point sufficiently for his purpose, and would now proceed to the salient point of his Amendment. The strong objection to this Amendment was that to which he had referred as having been taken by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland, and to meet this he (Mr. Callan) had offered to withdraw the Amendment and bring it up again in a different form on the Report. But the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland had not responded to that. If the hon. and learned Gentleman would accept the principle of the Amendment, he (Mr. Callan) should be prepared to alter the wording of it, so that the matter could be referred to the Judge of Assize to take evidence, if necessary, in camera. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary would not accept this, and the Solicitor General for Ireland, knowing what the circumstances in Ireland were, had endeavoured to mystify the Committee—the fact being that the Amendment simply proposed to give to the going Judge of Assize, without the intervention of a petty jury, the sole and absolute power which the clause in its present state gave to the Lord Lieutenant. He thought it very desirable that this power should be so transferred. It had been said that the going Judge knew nothing of the district to which he was sent. Why, in the course of the next fortnight they would find the Government pointing to the opinions of the going Judges of Assize as those of men who knew what the condition of the country really was. The Lord Lieutenant had all Ireland to govern; a Judge of Assize would only have to deal with the particular county to which he might be sent at the time; and, looking at all the circumstances of the case, he could not for the life of him see any ground for the objection taken to his Amendment. He had put in the words "subject to the same rules as in the case of presentments sent before him from the Grand Jury," and this would require that notice should be published in the newspapers of the intention to exempt pertain districts, so that if it were in- tended to make these exemptions the parties who might feel aggrieved would have such notice as would give them time to apply even to the Solicitor General for Ireland himself to defend them against the intended iniquity. The Amendment would save, wholly and entirely, the intervention of a jury in regard to the power proposed to be given to the Lord Lieutenant by the Bill.

MR. METGE

said, he thought it hard that they should be bowled over in the attempt to secure the adoption of this Amendment by the statement of the Home Secretary that it was not the policy of Her Majesty's Government to submit the functions they wished the Executive to employ to the hands of a Judge of Assize. But the arguments employed by the Representatives of the Government were not really applicable to the Amendment before the Committee. That Amendment—and he thought it could not have been more carefully worded—showed that what was desired was that when a punishment of the kind provided by the clause was intended to be inflicted on a whole district, the power should be placed in the hands of a man who really had an opportunity of knowing something about the district. If that was the case with regard to the Judge of Assize, how much more was it the case with regard to the Lord Lieutenant? The Lord Lieutenant could, in a far less degree, have knowledge of the rights and wrongs of the matter than the Judge of Assize, because the Judge was not only a man who was often well acquainted with the country and the district in which he was called upon to adjudicate, but who was also well acquainted with a great many of the people in the locality. Everyone who knew anything about this must be well aware that it would be almost impossible to point out the line of area to be charged. He had seen areas charged for malicious injury, the crime having been committed within an imaginary district line, whereas it was popularly known that the crime and the criminals, so far as they could be traced at all, belonged to an adjoining district. For that reason, where the difficulty of finding the limits of the district to which the crime might be said properly to belong were so great, they should adopt the best means in their power of getting a sound decision arrived at. With regard to the question of punishment, where a case was proved, no doubt the punishment to be inflicted on a district would be a just one; but surely it was not necessary to bring the punishment home with such tremendous rapidity that they were not able to wait until the Judge of Assize came round. The district in which a crime was committed would know full well that punishment would be sure to fall upon it. If it were merely for the purpose of giving the Executive power to inflict punishment a few weeks or a few months sooner than it might be inflicted by the Judge of Assize that the Government made their proposal, in a case of this sort, where the fine would be an extremely heavy one, the Committee should resist their action. The Committee should give the localities the extension that would be afforded to them by allowing them to try their case before the Judge of Assize. The Home Secretary had told them that to do that would interfere with the spirit of the Act in every way, taking the powers which would be conferred upon the Executive and transferring them to a judicial officer. But he would remind Radical Members opposite that in this consisted the very venom of this measure from first to last. Before the passing of the old Coercion Act they had had some words from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford (Mr. W. E. Forster) which he could hardly think the right hon. Gentleman had acted upon—namely, that the Executive would consider every case fairly and honestly before man and God, and that they would never take action without due consideration. In the present measure, however, they found that the Government had gone back from that statement. The Home Secretary put aside all these high-flown ideas of making an appeal of any kind, either to justice or to the Divinity. He would merely call the attention of Radical Members to this—that it could hardly be in consonance with their principles to uphold the decision of the Government to give to the Head of the Executive in Ireland, who could not have the evidence properly brought before him, the powers it was proposed to bestow upon him.

MR. M'COAN

said, he sincerely regretted that what he could not help but regard as a valuable Amendment should be prejudiced by the manner in which it had been introduced and supported. He need hardly say that he had no sympathy—but the reverse—with mere personal abuse of Ministers; and he would venture to say that if this Amendment had been supported with moderation, it would have commended itself to the favourable judgment of the Committee. Its object, apart from personalities and from the source whence it proceeded, was to improve the clause, and to carry out, in some degree, the intention of the previous Amendment. The main complaint that could be urged against this sub-section was that, as it stood, it admitted of abuse through the official favouritism of which they had heard so much. If either the words covered by the last Amendment had been struck out, or the suggestion of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Shaughnessy), limiting the power of the Lord Lieutenant, had been adopted, it would have been satisfactory; but, as neither had been done, the next nearest approach to improvement was that now proposed by the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan). He (Mr. M'Coan) had listened with great attention to the Solicitor General for Ireland, as he knew that the hon. and learned Gentleman spoke with perfect knowledge of the subject; but, as one of the jurymen, so to speak, who had to pronounce on the Amendment, he (Mr. M'Coan) had not been convinced by the arguments of that legal authority who had described this as "an unworkable Amendment." He (Mr. M'Coan) could see no practical difficulty whatever in giving a Judge of Assize power to adjudicate upon the equity of a claim of this kind. The Judge of Assize seemed to him a better authority to leave the decision of these cases to than the Lord Lieutenant, because he took evidence on the spot where the crime had occurred, and was a much more competent tribunal, even acting alone, without a jury, than the Lord Lieutenant sitting in Dublin Castle, and acting simply on the reports of the magistrates or police. If that were so, he saw no practical difficulty at all, but, on the contrary, every reason in justice and equity why this Amendment should be adopted. If it were agreed to, the concession would be gratefully appreciated by the Irish Members. He would venture to ask the Home Secretary to forget the petty personal vituperation which had been addressed to him, and to deal with the Amendment in a spirit of broad justice to the Irish people.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he could assure the hon. Member who had just sat down that he paid no attention whatever to the abusive language of the hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan), and that it had produced no effect whatever on his mind, and would not influence him one way or the other. He should be extremely glad if he could do anything to create more confidence in the measure; but if the hon. Member would look into the question, he would see that, like all matters dealt with in this Bill, this question must be treated in an exceptional manner. When they had proposed to deal with the far more important question of trial by jury by leaving the decision of the cases with the Lord Lieutenant, many proposals had been made to relieve the Lord Lieutenant from that responsibility by vesting the power in other persons. It had been proposed, for instance, that it should be left with the Judges; but the Government had not seen their way to adopting the suggestion, and when so grave a power as that was left in the hands of the Lord Lieutenant there could be no difficulty in leaving with him the power conferred by this clause. It seemed to him that the principle contained in the clause would be advantageous for arriving at a rapid and effective method of dealing with crime in Ireland. The clause was one to which the Government attached immense importance, and they considered, as a punitive clause, it would have great effect. It might, and he dared say it would, cause hardship to individuals. That he had always felt must be the unfortunate consequence of Bills of this description; but the responsibility for that must rest on those who had created the present state of things in Ireland—upon those who, by their speeches and their actions, had reduced Ireland to such a condition that, in the opinion of everybody, or almost everybody, a measure of this kind was necessary.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, it seemed to him that the argument in favour of the Amendment and proposed change in this clause was a very fair one. The Amendment proposed to substitute for the Lord Lieutenant, with regard to the exemption of particular areas, the Judge of Assize. The object of that was simply to enable people who were conscious of their own innocence in the matter to prove it, and thereby obtain exemption from the crushing fine that might be imposed upon them. As he had said, the apprehensions of the Lord Lieutenant might prove to be unfounded. Was there, then, anything unfair in enabling the people of a district to give evidence before some authority or other that there was no need or ground for any apprehension whatever? In like manner, would it be unfair to enable individuals who were subject to this taxation for the extra police to come before some authority and prove that they had never participated in the crime, nor in the sympathy with it. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman objected to putting the Judge of Assize in this matter in place of the Lord Lieutenant, would he enable these persons to prove their innocence before the Lord Lieutenant himself? Would he put any machinery into the Bill by which people who felt themselves aggrieved by this taxation for extra police might go before the Lord Lieutenant and state their case to him, and prove that the apprehensions, by reason of which these extra police were sent down to them, were unfounded, and that, so far as they were concerned, they had had neither participation in the crime nor sympathy with it? The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had professed to desire not to punish the innocent with the guilty under this Act, nor any other Act. Then let them take him at his word. Why not afford to innocent people, and people who were prepared to prove their innocence, some means of relief? Why not allow them to demonstrate to a Judge, or to His Excellency himself if necessary, that this taxation, so far as they were concerned, was inequitable, unjust, and unwarrantable, and could be productive of no good effect whatever? He must confess that his experience was that it was no use to put questions of this sort to the Home Secretary or the Government opposite; but, though he recognized that fact, he would still put the question, in order that it might go at least before the Committee. What objection could there be to enabling the people who alleged their innocence of participation in crime, or sympathy with it, to go before some tribunal, and thereby relieve themselves of the taxa- tion that might be imposed upon them? Whether the Home Secretary answered him or not, he would put the question to the Committee.

MR. GIBSON

said, he wished to say just one word upon this matter. It was obvious that the question of exemptions must be considered at the same time as the question of making the charges. The portion of the clause they had already passed vested in the Lord Lieutenant the power of selecting a district; and, by this Amendment, although the power of selecting a district had been vested in the Lord Lieutenant, the power of making exemptions would be vested in another official—an official who had had no voice, and who had not been consulted in the selection of the district. Practically, therefore, the Amendment, if accepted, would render the clause entirely unworkable. There was one other observation he wished to make, and it was this. It might well be that before the Judge of Assize came to sit in a district the incident might have terminated, and the necessity for making a charge for an extra police force might have passed away—there might be, practically, nothing to bring before that Judge of Assize.

MR. BIGGAR

said, it seemed to him that the Amendment was a wonderfully reasonable one. He had not had the privilege of hearing the opening speech of his hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Callan), and probably, therefore, he had missed some of the best arguments to be advanced in favour of the Amendment; but, if he understood the proposal, what it would do would be this, to hand over the power of deciding what exemptions should be made to the going Judge of Assize instead of the Lord Lieutenant, and he would have to hear the evidence in open Court. It had been alleged in some of the speeches that before the Assizes took place the need for a special police force in a district might have ceased, and that, therefore, the whole thing would lapse; but that was mixing up two different questions. The question as to the period during which the police should remain in the district, and the question of the charge for the maintenance of that force, were entirely different matters. He did not think it was alleged that the Government should apply for payment im- mediately the police were sent to a district, and, therefore, he did not think there was any weight whatever in that argument against the Amendment. The claim on account of the charge for extra police might be made every half year, and the money might be collected with the county cess. The practice would then be the same as that under the present law. What the Irish Members contended was that, with regard to the present exemption, the tribunal proposed by the Bill was one of a highly objectionable character. What was the nature of it? The tribunal to settle the question of exemption was, according to the statement of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, to be the Lord Lieutenant himself. There had been an expression of opinion in favour to the good intentions of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland; but he (Mr. Biggar) would beg leave to point out that in the early part of the term of Office of the late Chief Secretary (Mr. W. E. Forster) it was customary for hon. Members to praise the right hon. Gentleman to quite as immoderate an extent as it was now the custom to praise the present Chief Secretary for Ireland, so that in course of time they might find that the present Chief Secretary for Ireland was doing no better than his Predecessor. However, he hoped for the best. He hoped they would have reason, to be satisfied with the administration of the present Chief Secretary for Ireland, although he must point out it was a very awkward thing for hon. Members to bestow immoderate praise on an official until they had had time to form an opinion upon his real merits. As to the evidence to be given in the case of exemptions, the right hon. Gentleman told them that it was not to be given by persons connected with the locality. That was, no doubt, right, because the parties locally interested would be the very persons who would wish to get themselves exempted from the payment of the taxation. They were told that Mr. Samuel Hussey, the agent of Lord Kenmare, who was a Member of the Government, had said that he would keep three particular "suspects" in prison to the end of the Coercion Act, because they were members of the Land League. Such a man as Mr. Hussey, being the agent of a Member of the Government, would, no doubt, have immense influence with the Government. The Earl of Kenmare was not only a Member of the Administration, but rather a prominent Member of the great Liberal Party; and if persons of that kind were to be allowed to influence the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland the Irish people would be in a very unsafe position. But, even supposing that no influence was exercised upon the Lord Lieutenant by Members of the Government, or that influence was not exercised upon them in an unfair and dishonest manner, they would have the Clifford Lloyds and Major Bonds of Ireland still to exercise influence upon them. In speaking of Major Bond, he was an official who had been dismissed from the Police Force in Birmingham for wilful and corrupt perjury. They would have such gentlemen as this influencing the Lord Lieutenant in deciding against the exemption under this clause. He contended that the evidence, or information, or advice these people would supply to the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be private, and of a kind that the people would have no means of combatting or answering in a public manner, so that the real facts might be arrived at. If the Government allowed these questions of exemption to come before the Judges, the cases would be heard in open Court; they would be fully argued on both sides, and the decision arrived at would be made public, and would, of course, be subject to the influence of public opinion. But that could not be the case if the Amendment was not accepted; the only way in which the decision of the Lord Lieutenant could be reviewed would be by raising Questions in this House, and the reply they would get from the Chief Secretary for Ireland would simply be, "The Lord Lieutenant acted upon information from reliable sources—upon statements of the highest credibility and importance." They would never know upon what His Excellency founded his opinion. The Irish Members thought the Government were perfectly injudicious from their own point of view. No doubt, it was a very desirable thing, from their point of view, that they should have someone to adjudicate in a public manner on a matter of this kind, and take the responsibility from their shoulders—a responsibility that would be of an exceedingly unpleasant character.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 223; Noes 43: Majority 180.—(Div. List, No. 188.)

MR. HEALY

said, he thought it would be to the convenience of the Committee if the Government would state what Amendments remaining on the Paper they were prepared to accept. Some of these Amendments were of a character that the Government might very reasonably accept. No doubt, in making this request, he was going beyond his province in moving the next Amendment; but, at the same time, he thought it would facilitate Business if he endeavoured to elicit a statement from the Government. His proposition was to insert, after the word "area," the following Proviso:— Provided, That the charge payable by any district under the provisions of this section shall not exceed the rate of sixpence in each pound of the rateable value of such district. This seemed to him a very liberal Amendment, when it was known that the average rate of the Grand Jury cess was 1s. No doubt, it had got up to 1 s. 10 d., but the average rate was 1s. He did not think his Amendment was extravagant, but considered it was very reasonable and adequate, and he trusted the Government would be able to accept it. As he had said, there were a number of other Amendments to the clause, some of which were only of a formal character. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had a proposal with regard to publication in The Dublin Gazette, and there were some others of that sort, and it appeared to him, if they got a statement from the Government that they were willing to make concessions on these, they might easily get through the clause to-night.

Amendment proposed, In page 7, line 42, after "area," insert—"Provided, That the charge payable by any district under the provisions of this section shall not exceed the rate of sixpence in each pound of the rateable value of such district."—(Mr. Healy.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. PARNELL

said, perhaps he might be allowed to explain, as to the sub-section that stood in his name at the end of the Amendments on the clause, that he did not intend to proceed with it just now. It was in these terms— The occupier of any premises subject to any charge payable under this section, and who is liable to pay a rent in respect of the same, may deduct from such rent one-half of such charge. He proposed to defer that Amendment until they came to Clause 17, upon which it would be more suitably brought under discussion. Clause 17 gave a description of "district," and made provision as to the raising of the charge; therefore, he would be able to raise his point more satisfactorily upon that clause than upon the present.

MR. TREVELYAN

said, he should be prepared to make some concession with regard to the Amendments remaining upon this clause. This was a collective question, and he would give a collective answer. The only Amendment, however, that they were prepared to accept was that of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), which was in these words— Every order declaring a district chargeable under this section shall be published in the Dublin Gazette, and shall be laid before Parliament within fourteen days after the making thereof if Parliament be then sitting, and, if not, then within fourteen days after the next meeting of Parliament. At least, if they could not accept the whole of that Amendment, he thought it reasonable that the Lord Lieutenant should give notice of every order declaring a district chargeable. Any of the other Amendments would, if they were accepted, very seriously interfere with the efficiency of the clause, and he must, therefore, oppose them.

MR. HEALY

said, he had asked the Government, for the purpose of saving time, whether they could not accept another Amendment of the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), namely— One month at least prior to making any order charging any district or portion of a district as aforesaid, the Lord Lieutenant shall cause to be published in the Dublin Gazette, and in two other newspapers circulating in such district, notice of his intention to make such order and of its effect, and any ratepayer or ratepayers of such district may at the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner, within such period of a month, appear before the Lord Lieutenant either personally or by counsel or solicitor, and show cause against the making of such order or any portion thereof, and the Lord Lieutenant may thereupon at the expiration of such period of a month either confirm or suspect such order, or vary or otherwise modify its terms as to him shall seem just. If they could not accept the whole of the Amendment, he thought it reasonable that the Lord Lieutenant, at any rate, should be obliged to give notice of the intention to make the order. The Government surely did not mean to say that the Lord Lieutenant was not to give notice before he taxed a particular man, who might have to sell his crops or his cattle, or to get rid of some of his marketings, before he could pay the sum he was charged.

MR. SEXTON

said, he hoped the Government would reconsider their answer, at least as far as concerned the Amendment moved by the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy). If they were content to accept this Amendment, he had no doubt it would greatly improve the efficiency of the clause. What they desired was that the Irish people should not be taken by surprise. As would be seen, the Lord Lieutenant would still have complete discretion, and the efficiency of the clause would not be impaired.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, he thought the announcement of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was a very proper one. The Amendment he proposed to accept, and which he (Mr. Lowther) thought could be very reasonably accepted, was a sufficient concession to make. It would not be fair, on the part of the Committee, to insist upon the right hon. Gentleman making any further concession.

MR. TREVELYAN

said, the Committee, he believed, were really considering at this moment the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford, providing that a charge payable by any district under the provisions of this section should not exceed the rate of sixpence in each pound of the rateable value of such district. That Amendment the Government could not accept. He had given the general intentions of the Government as to this clause, and he had stated they did not wish to make it operative upon any individual. It was a general clause, for the punishment, to a certain extent, and also for the protection of a district. If the rate charged was very heavy indeed, it would no doubt amount to something very like persecution; but, hitherto, rates of this kind had not been excessive, and the Government could not consent to have their hands tied in the matter.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, he should like to put a question to the right hon. Gentleman as to the statement he had made; he had said the rate had never proved excessive. Was the right hon. Gentleman aware that in one district in Roscommon the fine was actually equal to the valuation of the farms in that district. The valuation, speaking roughly, was a very fair standard of the rating in Ireland; and, accordingly, in that particular case, the farmers were compelled to pay a sum equal to the fair rental. Would the right hon. Gentleman consider, before the Report stage, whether some words could not be introduced calculated to tie the hands of the officials so far that they would not be able to charge such an exorbitant rate as would be equal to the valuation?

MR. HEALY

said, that the right hon. Gentleman could not be aware, from his short experience of Ireland, that the average of the general poundage for the half-year was only a shilling; was it, therefore, too much for them to ask that the charge for extra police should not be more than sixpence? If the Government refused Amendments of this character, it simply meant obstinacy on their part—obstinate refusal to allow reasonable Amendments to enter into their heads at all.

Question put, and negatived.

MR. SEXTON

said, he begged to move the Amendment which stood next on the Paper in his name.

Amendment proposed, In page 7, line 42, after "area," insert "every order declaring a district chargeable under this section shall be published in the Dublin Gazette, and shall be laid before Parliament within fourteen days after the making thereof if Parliament be then sitting, and, if not, then within fourteen days after the next meeting of Parliament."—(Mr. Sexton.)

Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."

MR. TREVELYAN

said, they had already accepted an Amendment with regard to publication in The Dublin Gazette. If the present Amendment were amended by leaving in simply the words "every order shall be laid before Parliament within fourteen days after the making thereof," he would, accept it. Would the hon. Member withdraw the Amendment?

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Amendment proposed, In page 7, line 42, after "area," insert "every order shall be laid before Parliament within fourteen days after the making thereof."—(Mr. Sexton.)

Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.

MR. HEALY

said, he could move the Amendment which came next equally well on the 17th clause; therefore, he would not trouble the Committee with it.

MR. SEXTON

said, he would now move his second Amendment.

Amendment proposed, In page 7, line 42, at the end of Clause, add the following sub-section:—"One month at least prior to making any order charging any district or portion of a district as aforesaid, the Lord Lieutenant shall cause to be published in the Dublin Gazette, and in two other newspapers circulating in such district, notice of his intention to make such order and of its effect, and any ratepayer or ratepayers of such district may at the prescribed time and in the prescribed manner, within such period of a month, appear before the Lord Lieutenant either personally or by counsel or solicitor, and show cause against the making of such order or any portion thereof, and the Lord Lieutenant may thereupon at the expiration of such period of a month either confirm or suspend such order, or vary or otherwise modify its terms as to him shall seem just."—(Mr. Sexton.)

Question proposed, "That the proposed sub-section be there added."

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he could only repeat what he had said before, that it was quite plain that the efficiency of the clause might depend upon their being able to put it into operation in an emergency without delay.

MR. SEXTON

said he did not wish to put the Committee to the trouble of a division.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had said that immediate action might be necessary; and so it might be from the right hon. and learned Gentleman's point of view. Then, would he give the people affected by this transaction the right of appeal, even after action had been taken? That, he thought, was a very fair question.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, that, of course, any person who thought himself aggrieved would have power to apply to the Lord Lieutenant, and to show that there had been some error made. It was inherent in the very nature of the thing that people should be able to make such application; and it did not require any clause or Amend- ment to confer the right. The Lord Lieutenant would mate an order, and if any innocent person were injured thereby, he could appeal to the Lord Lieutenant, who would consider the application in the ordinary way.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

MR. HEALY

said, the next Amendment was in his name, as follows:— There shall he published monthly, in the Dublin Gazette, a return showing the number of additional constabulary employed pursuant to this section, the district or districts in which they are respectively employed, and a statement of the cost or approximate cost to each district resulting from such employment. He did not suppose there would be any serious objection to this proposal; when the Government had stated that they could only accept one Amendment, he was sure they had omitted to notice this one.

Amendment proposed, In page 7, line 42 at end, add the following sub-section:—"There shall be published monthly, in the Dublin Gazette, a return showing the number of additional constabulary employed pursuant to this section, the district or districts in which they are respectively employed, and a statement of the cost or approximate cost to each district resulting from such employment."—(Mr. Healy.)

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

MR. TREVELYAN

said, the Government were never afraid of publicity where it did not hurt individuals, or give rise to that kind of criticism that was injurious to the Public Service. He should have preferred not to have enlarged the Bill in this way; but his right hon. Friends around him saw no objection to granting the Amendment, therefore he would not oppose it.

Question put, and agreed to.

Question put, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."

The Committee divided:—Ayes 193; Noes 37: Majority 156.—(Div. List, No. 189.)

And it being a quarter of an hour before Six of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to report Progress; Committee to sit again To-morrow.

And it being Six of the clock, the House was adjourned without Question first put till To-morrow.