GENERAL POWERS.

HC Deb 30 June 1882 vol 271 cc938-1024

Clause 17 (Description of "district" and provision as to raising charge).

MR. HEALY moved, as an Amendment, in page 8, line 32, to leave out the word "townland." The clause, as it stood, provided that— For the purpose of the provisions of this Act with respect to additional constabulary in any district, and compensation in cases of murder, maiming, or injury, the expression 'district' means any county, barony, townland, or parish or part or parts thereof respectively. He (Mr. Healy) thought that a town-land in Ireland was much too small a portion of a county upon which to levy a charge for compensation. There were about 60,000 townlands in Ireland, and if the townland were made the district upon which compensation was to be levied where a murder had been committed, or maiming or injury inflicted, it would be quite impossible for the inhabitants of the locality to bear the burden. He quite saw what the point of the Government was—namely, that the people of the locality should bear the burden, and that no one else should be called upon to bear it; but that was precisely where the case of the Government broke down. If the people were too poor to pay the penalty, it would be useless to call upon them to do so. If the Government wanted this power of levying, it could not be very material, either to them or to the persons who were to receive the compensation, whether it came out of the townland, or the barony, or the county at large. The money was given as a solatium for wounded feelings, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department told them last night, and it could not be material, where it came from. Power was given in the clause to levy the compensation on any county, barony, townland, or parish, "or any part or parts thereof," so that if the clause passed as it now stood, the entire fine of perhaps £2,000 or £3,000 might, in the end, fall on two or three individuals. The action of the Government was quite inconsistent and absurd, and the Irish Members asked that the area of a compensation which was admitted to be intended as a solatium should really be imposed upon a larger portion of a district than a townland or a "part thereof."

Amendment proposed, in page 8, line 32, to leave out the word "townland."—(Mr. Healy.)

Question proposed, "That the word 'townland' stand part of the Clause."

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

wished to point out that the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), who had moved the Amendment, had fallen into the error of assuming that the clause would only come into operation in cases of murder. He appeared to forget that it applied to the minor offences of maiming and injury; and it was not desirable to impose limits upon the power of defining the area of taxation. Although it was true that the word "townland" did not occur in the Act of 1870, it was inserted in that of 1871, by which the Act of 1870 was expressly amended. He opposed the Amendment because, after full consideration, it had been found necessary to give power for the restriction of the area so far as was deemed necessary.

MR. SEXTON

protested against the argument of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland—that because this word was contained in a former Act of Parliament it ought necessarily to be contained in this clause. Parliament, like individuals, sometimes gathered wisdom with age. And he would ask what was meant by repealing Acts of Parliament unless that was so? As the hon. and learned Gentleman pointed out, the clause was to apply not merely to murder, but to cases of maiming and injury, and on that ground the hon. and learned Gentleman contended that the Lord Lieutenant should have the power of imposing a tax on a small territorial limit. He (Mr. Sexton) wanted to point out that even if the Amendment were adopted by the Government, the Lord Lieutenant would still have this power, because, although the word "townland" was struck out, the words "part or parts thereof" would remain, and the Lord Lieutenant would be able to place a levy on a part of a parish. He (Mr. Sexton) thought that the Amendment of his hon. Friend (Mr. Healy) proceeded upon a principle that ought to receive respectful attention from the Committee and the Government; and care should be taken by Parliament—not merely by the Executive of Ireland—that the area was not made so small as to inflict ruin upon individuals. If, unfortunately, in the future, as in the past, murders were to occur among the higher classes in Ireland, of course the levies would be proportionately large; and there could be no reasonable object for retaining in the clause so simple an area as the townland, unless the purpose of the clause was to inflict ruin upon humble and helpless persons already struggling against the burden of rack rents. What did the Government mean by this clause? The more they enlarged the area of compensation, and lightened the burden of the tax, the more willing the people would be to pay it. If, in any case under the clause, the levy became so burdensome upon the people that they were unable to pay it, what would follow? The people, finding themselves unable to pay it, would refuse to pay it; and out of this incapacity to pay would arise a conflict between the people and the Government, and out of that conflict would arise violence. There would, therefore, be a continuation of that want of peace and tranquillity which they all so much deplored. It was very sad that it was only from that part of the House that Amendments having regard to the peace and tranquillity of Ireland were proposed, and that the Government, from a superstitious desire to protect the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant, should go out of their way to lay down provisions which could not be carried into effect.

MR. O'SULLIVAN

was surprised that the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland should refuse to accept the Amendment, which, in his (Mr. O'Sullivan's) opinion, was a very reasonable one. He knew many townlands in Ireland which had not more than two or three tenants upon them, and the adoption of the clause as it stood would mean the ruin of those people, as they could not possibly pay a heavy fine. He thought it would be better for the Government to substitute an electoral division; but to out down the area to a townland would make the district so small that the whole tax would fall upon a few individuals. Besides, if any persons wished to do an injury to a neighbour, against whom they had a spite, they had an actual encouragement under this clause to go into a small townland and commit a murder, in order that the penalty might fall upon the person they disliked. He, therefore, thought that the clause was more calculated to give encouragement to crime, under certain circumstances, than to act as a deterrent. He trusted the Government would reconsider their decision in the matter. The adoption of the Amendment would not interfere with the power of the Lord Lieutenant to place the compensation upon the barony; but it was absurd to reduce the area to a townland, and thus to enable the wealthy persons residing in a barony to escape altogether.

MR. TREVELYAN

pointed out that the Committee had discussed this question for a great many hours yesterday, and if he had spoken once upon the point, he had done so at least four or five times, and he had argued on every occasion in favour of the Lord Lieutenant retaining absolute elasticity in this clause. It was no new policy. Under the Act of 1870, as amended by the Westmeath Act, the "townland" or "part thereof," was chargeable for murder, or maiming; and, under the original Peace Preservation Act of 1848, any district defined by the Lord Lieutenant became chargeable for extra police. If they took together the two Amendments of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), the first of which was to leave out "townland," and the next to leave out "or part or parts thereof respectively," the smallest area on which the compensation could be levied would be the barony. Now, with regard to the barony, it was very much too large an area. He held in his hands a Return, giving a list of certain baronies in Ireland, and he found that there were many which possessed a very high valuation. In one case the valuation was £250,000, or a quarter of a million. [Mr. HEALY: Where are they?] He would read them. The value of the Barony of Rathdown was upwards of £250,000; that of Barrymore, in the county of Cork, was £250,000; there was another of £230,000; and the valuation of the Barony of Clanwilliam, in the county of Tipperary, was £215,000. It was obvious, therefore, that there were baronies in Ireland of very large value, and to confine the clause to a barony would be to make it no punish- ment at all, in addition to making the fine fall to a very great extent upon the innocent. The object of having this clause was that, on the one hand, the Lord Lieutenant should have power to take into account the concentration of complicity in crime and the responsibility for crime in an area of a certain size, whatever that size might be; while, on the other hand, it preserved elasticity in other respects, so as to make it a punishment, not what the hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) was anxious to make it—namely, an instrument for the ruin of the locality, but to enable the Lord Lieutenant to retain the elasticity of the clause. He (Mr. Trevelyan) had gone carefully through the Returns of numerous instances in which fines had been levied previously under similar Acts, and he found that in a great majority of cases they were levied on a comparatively small district. But, at the same time, the fines so levied were of such a character that the notion of ruining the district was quite untenable. Of course, he admitted that there might have been abuses; but, in the hands in which the working of the Act would now be placed, he hoped and believed that no serious abuse would take place.

MR. DILLON

said, he wished to direct the attention of the Committee to the last sentence which fell from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. They had now the very unfortunate admission from the right hon. Gentleman that there had been abuses. He (Mr. Dillon) would not say anything as to what he thought of Lord Spencer and the Government of Ireland; but he would ask if it was safe to predict in whose hands the carrying out of this Act would be placed? There was something sublime in the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman so confidently talked of the hands in which the working of the Act would be left. He (Mr. Dillon) wondered whether, if it was placed in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman sitting on the Front Opposition Bench (Mr. J. Lowther), the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be of opinion that the abuses he had mentioned would not be likely to be repeated? What security could the right hon. Gentleman give the Committee that the administration of the Act would not be placed in the hands of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for North Lin- colnshire? He (Mr. Dillon) could not understand what ground the Government had for resisting the Amendment. He would state frankly that he was against the power of levying a fine upon a townland, or upon a parish. He thought the smallest area ought to be the barony. He admitted that a parish would be better than a townland, because it was larger; but the least it ought to be was a barony. What were the objects of the clause? One was to create a public opinion against the commission of crime, and the second was the compensation of sufferers from crime. Then, would it not be more desirable to create a public opinion throughout the whole extent of the barony, than to confine it to the narrow limit of a townland? He joined issue at once with the statement of the Chief Secretary for Ireland that a small fine laid on an individual would not have the same effect in creating a dislike against a certain thing as a heavy fine. When they went beyond a certain point they hit men savagely, and by no means produced the effect they desired. Men who were able to pay a fine of this nature would feel its annoyance very much. They all knew that a tax of £5 or £6 upon a farmer tolerably well off would irritate and annoy him; but if they made it a tax of £100, they put the question beyond the feeling of injury, and made the man upon whom it was imposed a revengeful and, perhaps, a desperate man. It would, therefore, be much better to levy the charge upon the barony than upon the townland. There was one argument which had been advanced in the course of the discussion that was most absurd—namely, the anxiety that the tax should not fall upon the innocent. The Committee had been told ad nauseam that these outrages were invariably committed by strangers. They had passed a horrible clause for clearing away all strangers, and now the Government turned round and told them that if they went outside a very limited area they would be sure to impose a fine upon innocent people. The hon. Member for the County of Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry), who seemed to be practically acquainted with all the murders which occurred in the West of Ireland, assured the Committee from personal knowledge that the poor people of the locality had had nothing to do with the murders, but that they were committed by wealthy strangers, who were the agents of secret societies from a distance. If that were so, why levy upon a small locality a frightful fine for the acts of bad strangers? The hon. Member for Galway assured the Committee yesterday that no outrages were committed by poor men. If they had a man who was not poor, and not an inhabitant of the locality, committing crimes, what object was there in levying an enormous fine upon the poor inhabitants of a locality, in order to punish these rich strangers? Of course, ninety-nine hundredths of the tax would fall upon innocent men. That they all admitted. The question was not, however, whether it was to fall upon innocent or guilty men, but whether they were to make the clause of such a character, and to distribute the fine over such an area, that although it might be an annoyance and a great grievance, it should not inflict utter ruin upon those who had to pay it. He did not pretend to be acquainted with the plan of campaign pursued by "Captain Moonlight," because he had been removed from the scene during the time that individual was at large in Ireland; but those who were acquainted with the country during the time "Captain Moonlight" performed his operations stated that while he (Mr. Dillon) was not on the war-path, the gang always went to a district in which they were unknown. It was in that way that the outrages upon which the heaviest fines would be levied upon a district would be committed. Suppose a man went from a distant part of Ireland and committed a crime in a poor district, in such a case the clause would leave it to the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant to levy on that poor district a heavy fine for an outrage which, probably, the people living in the district had nothing to do with at all. Clauses of this kind would convince the people, as he had more than once pointed out to the Government, that law and order were their enemy. That would be a grave difficulty to contend with, if they once allowed the people to get hold of the idea that law and order were opposed to them, and that the more law there was the more they were to be taxed unjustly, and made to suffer for acts they had not committed. In such a state of circumstances, all the Coercion Acts they could pass would be perfectly fruitless, so far as the preservation of law and order were concerned. If they did not make it apparent that the provisions of the Bill were drawn in a spirit of justice, they would be altogether ineffectual. The Government had their own opinion as to the operations of "Captain Moonlight;" but if the clause remained in its present shape, the outrages of "Captain Moonlight" would be more frequent and more severe in their character. He would, therefore, earnestly urge upon the Government that all the objects they had set before themselves in this clause could be fully and equally well, from their point of view, achieved by making the levy upon the barony instead of upon the townland, while the dangers he had pointed out, and which were real and serious dangers, would enormously increase the difficulty of the task of governing Ireland. Indeed, under the clause, the difficulty of that task would be so greatly increased that he did not envy the Chief Secretary for Ireland in the discharge of the responsible duties he had undertaken.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, he was most anxious to contribute towards the limitation of discussion upon the present clause, and with that view he would venture to say one word in regard to the observations which had been made by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and which had been taken up by the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon). He (Mr. J. Lowther) did not quite know the sense in which the Chief Secretary for Ireland meant his observations to be directed, when he proceeded to pass a somewhat hackneyed encomium upon the Irish Executive, and went on to add that instances of the abuse of powers similar to those now under consideration had occurred under previous Administrations.

MR. TREVELYAN

I said nothing about previous Administrations.

MR. J. LOWTHER

Then what did the right hon. Gentleman say?

MR. TREVELYAN

I referred to the working of the Grand Jury Act, under which heavy fines have been levied upon limited districts.

MR. J. LOWTHER

In what cases?

MR. TREVELYAN

If the right hon. Gentleman will go on I will explain by-and-bye.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, he had understood the observations of the right hon. Gentleman to apply solely to cases of fines imposed by the action of the Executive similar to those which would come into effect under this clause. He did not understand the right hon. Gentleman to refer to fines levied by the Grand Juries, with which this clause had nothing to do. Certainly, the clause now under discussion referred to a power to be given to the Executive of levying a charge, and he thought it would be more in Order if the right hon. Gentleman and other Members of the Committee would confine their observations to the four corners of the clause.

MR. SYNAN

And yourself also.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, that, notwithstanding the uncalled-for interruption of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan), he should do so. He had understood the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon), and also the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, to refer to the previous abuse of powers which the Committee were asked to confer upon the Government by this clause, and he only wished to say that the reference of the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) showed that, in the opinion of that hon. Member also, the observations of the Chief Secretary had a personal significance, because the hon. Member had referred specifically to his (Mr. J. Lowther's) administration of the Peace Preservation Act. The same matter was also referred to by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) the other day. He had no wish to detain the Committee by "harking back" upon any old stories. He had, however, simply risen to say that any single act he had performed in the administration of Ireland he was prepared, on due Notice and at the proper time, to defend; and if Her Majesty's Government or any other Member of the House wished to call any of his public acts in question, he should be glad to meet them on that ground. In the meantime, he acquitted the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland of having made any personal charge against him; but in the interests of the public time, instead of making general observations, he thought it would be better for the Government to confine themselves to a defence of their own acts.

MR. TREVELYAN

said, he was obliged to the right hon. Gentleman op- posite (Mr. J. Lowther) for his lecture. The right hon. Gentleman had lectured him upon two points, in regard to both of which it appeared to him (Mr. Trevelyan) that he was innocent. In the first place, the right hon. Gentleman accused him of having travelled away from the discussion of the Amendment. Now, the Amendment was put on the Paper by an hon. Member who knew very well what he was about, in order to guard against the possibility of a ruinous fine being laid upon a district, and he (Mr. Trevelyan) had been discussing the question whether a ruinous fine would be laid upon a district under this clause. The question of the pressing nature of the fine was the very question to which the Amendment was directed. The other point upon which the right hon. Gentleman lectured him was that he (the Chief Secretary for Ireland) had referred to previous Administrations, and not confined his remarks to the present Government. The right hon. Gentleman said that he (the Chief Secretary for Ireland) was always praising the Irish Government; but his laudation consisted simply in this—there were certain points upon which he asked the Committee to have confidence in the Irish Government. He begged them to extend that confidence to the Government; and if, in doing so, it was to be understood that he was passing an indirect encomium upon the Irish Government in the present state of Irish affairs, it was an encomium which he was obliged to pass. He simply meant that the Irish Government asked the House of Commons to trust them. The right hon. Gentleman opposite said the Government ought to confine themselves to defending the acts of their own Administration, and that they should not comment upon those of a previous Administration. Now, the right hon. Gentleman had been Chief Secretary for Ireland, and he knew that the cases of compensation for murder and maiming and injury, under previous Acts, were not cases that were dealt with by the Executive, but by the Grand Juries. Surely the right hon. Gentleman did not require that a Successor in his Office should teach him that? As to abuses, he had only put it that there might have been abuses; and, after all, that was an extremely mild criticism. He could assure the right hon. Gentleman that if he would examine the Returns, he would find that some very heavy fines indeed, in comparison with the size of the district, had been levied under previous Acts. In one case, compensation was awarded to a townland to the extent of 10s. 6d. in the pound. [Mr. J. LOWTHER: By the Chief Secretary?] He had not stated anything of the kind. In this clause, the Government proposed to take over what had hitherto been the powers vested in the Grand Jury Act; and what he said was that the abuses which had existed under the old system would not be allowed to exist again. He found there was another case in which payment was made by six instalments, the aggregate amount of which was £1 13s. 9d. upon every pound of value. These were the sort of fines which he thought the Lord Lieutenant would in future prevent; and the only encomium he had passed upon the Government was in saying that he believed they possessed the confidence of the people, and would be able to carry out the intentions with which they had introduced the Bill.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

believed the way in which the fines would be assessed by the Lord Lieutenant would be much more discriminating than by the Grand Juries. It was necessary, in the present state of Ireland, that he (Mr. Mitchell Henry) should not allow what the hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) had stated in reference to the murders that were taking place in that country to pass altogether without notice. He (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had never volunteered any opinion as to the persons by whom the murders had been committed. [Mr. HEALY: Yes, you did.] The hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) was always ready to interrupt him most unfairly and most irregularly. He (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had never expressed any opinion as to the class of persons by whom these murders were committed; but the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Parnell) had stated a short time ago that certain murders in Ireland were committed by the farmers' sons.

MR. PARNELL

denied that he had said that the farmers' sons had committed the murders. He had expressed no opinion of that kind, nor did he believe that the farmers' sons were the criminals. In point of fact, he had not spoken upon this clause at all.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, he had not stated that the hon. Member had made the assertion on that occasion; but the hon. Member spoke on the subject about a fortnight ago, and he would by-and-bye submit to the House, from the pages of Hansard, the words of the hon. Member.

MR. PARNELL

called upon the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) to produce the words he referred to. [Cries of "Order!"] The hon. Member had brought a serious accusation against him. The hon. Member said that he (Mr. Parnell) had stated a short time ago—although the hon. Member now amended that assertion by saying that he (Mr. Parnell) had stated it a fortnight ago—that these murders had been committed by farmers' sons. He (Mr. Parnell) denied that assertion, and he called upon the hon. Member to verify his statement.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the discussion was getting very irregular. The hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) would have an opportunity of replying by-and-bye.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, the debate would certainly not be facilitated by these interruptions. The statement to which he referred was made by the hon. Member a short time ago, when he was attempting to account for these murders. The words of the hon. Member were recorded in the pages of Hansard, and he would produce them presently. The hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) yesterday expressed his opinion that these murders were committed by poor starving peasants. He (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had expressed his belief, in exoneration of the poor starving peasants of the West of Ireland, that they were not the persons who committed these murders. He would now distinctly state his belief that the crimes themselves were committed by hired assassins, who were brought into the district by the secret societies. That was the way in which these murders were committed, not by farmers' sons, but by hired assassins. So low were men sunk in Ireland that persons were to be found to commit murder as a profession for the receipt of small sums of money. Having now said that, he would go out of the House and verify his assertion by producing Hansard.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he must point out to the Committee that they were drifting into a general discussion, instead of confining themselves to the simple Amendment, that the word "townland" stand part of the clause.

MR. MOORE

said, the blot in the Bill was that it placed these fines upon a particular district without making any investigation into the facts of the case. Personally, he considered the question of the amount of the fines as important as the justice of imposing them upon particular persons. If men committed a crime, they deserved to pay for it; but the question they had to look to was not the amount of the fines, but the way in which they could bring the penalty home to the right persons. That was the real question. Under the Bill they took power to inflict the fine as they chose. No public investigation was allowed, but the Lord Lieutenant was obliged to act upon the private report of some person or other. Until that blot was removed from the Bill, the Lord Lieutenant could strike out any number of places he liked, and impose a fine, without investigation, upon a very restricted area. No area would be too small, no number of persons too few, to place the tax upon, so long as that power existed without investigation, and without a public inquiry in open Court. He thought the Committee ought to object most strongly to these small areas being placed in the Bill. So far as the Grand Juries were concerned, there was a great deal of fairness and justice in the way in which they administered the law. He had often sat on a jury when the law had been administered. Every person in the district had the fullest right to traverse the presentment, and the result was that the tax was rarely levied, except upon those who had been aiding and abetting in the crime, or in concealing it, and to a great extent substantial justice was done. It was now proposed to take power to place this taxation on an area, no matter how small it was, and how few persons were living within it, without any investigation, and without any inquiry as to the necessity of the employment of additional police. The result of that might be that if a man were insolvent, and utterly unable to pay his way, if he happened to be living upon a farm, and wished to ruin his neighbours, all he had to do was to burn his own house, destroy his own property, and then go off to the police declaring that he was a ruined man, and asking for compensation from the Government. Without the slightest inquiry into his claim, a heavy tax would then be levied upon the district.

MR. SEXTON

wished to state two or three facts which presented a conclusive case in favour of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy). His hon. Friend proposed to exclude the area of the townland, leaving the tax to be imposed upon the area of the barony. Now, there were 32 counties in Ireland, with 2,340 parishes, 325 baronies, and 3,488 electoral divisions. Each electoral division would, therefore, average about the 100th part of an Irish county, as against the 80th in the case of parishes, and one-tenth in the case of baronies; and the Committee would do well to consider whether the 100th part of an Irish county was too large upon which to levy, and to leave the painful impression that would be produced by the operation of this clause. But did the Committee know what was meant by a townland? There were some 60,958 townlands in Ireland, and the number of holdings was only 544,000, so that the startling fact appeared that the average number of holdings in an Irish townland was nine. Then, what in the world could be meant by imposing upon a single townland a heavy fine for murder, except the ruin of the nine inhabitants of that townland? He took it that the levy of £1,000 would be comparatively a small levy for a murder. He knew of much larger sums having been levied; but he would take the sum of £1,000, which he knew would be considered by a Grand Jury, or by the Lord Lieutenant, a very moderate sum for such a crime. It would amount, therefore, to more than £100 upon each of the tenant farmers of the townland. The Government might impose such a penalty, but they would never get it, because it was practically impossible for the farmers to pay it. There were some 60,000 townlands in Ireland, and the valuation, according to Mr. Thorn's Directory, which was considered a work of great accuracy and value, was £13,715,943. That gave an average value for an Irish townland of £225. Then let the Government consider for a moment what would be the effect of levying a tax for maiming and murder upon an average rateable value of £225. In no case of murder would the levy be less than £500; and what would be the practical effect of levying a tax of £500 upon a townland the rateable value of which was only £225? In other words, the levy would amount to double the rent. They all knew that in Ireland at present, not merely in the poor districts, but all over the wide extent of the country, the people were struggling miserably and desperately to pay the rack-rents which the slow and limping Land Court, established by the Government, had not yet been able to attack. Then, would the right hon. Gentleman tell him with what hope for the future, and with what feeling—except the fear of conflict with the Government—they could bring these unfortunate people to meet the demand which might be made upon them by the Lord Lieutenant? He hoped that his hon. Friend (Mr. Healy) would persevere with his Amendment.

MR. O'SULLIVAN

joined in the appeal to Her Majesty's Government to reconsider the clause, and suggested that "electoral divisions" should be substituted for "townland" as the district in which to levy these fines. The average value of an electoral division was from £6,000 to £8,000, and that ought to be an area small enough, unless the object was to ruin the families on whom the fine was imposed. As his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) said, in many of these townlands there were not more than from eight to ten tenants, and if it were ever sought to impose a tax of £1,000, or even of £500, upon so limited a number of persons, the result would be certain ruin to them. He did not see why the Government should persevere in retaining the word "townland," and he trusted that if they would not extend the limitation to the barony, they would, at least, accept the electoral division.

MR. LEAMY

thought that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in refusing the Amendment, had not borne in mind the Amendment which stood a little lower down in the name of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and which followed up the power taken by the Lord Lieutenant in a former section of exempting portions of a district or of a townland from the imposition of the fine. As the clause at present stood, the Lord Lieutenant had power to impose a double charge—one for the cost of extra police, and the other in the shape of compensa- tion for murder, maiming, or injury. It was almost certain, therefore, that in any district in which compensation was levied for murder extra police would be employed, and consequently there would be a double charge. But, if the clause remained unaltered, the Lord Lieutenant would have power, first of all, to impose a fine upon a townland, containing, perhaps, no more than nine houses; and he would then have power to exempt, say, three of those holdings. He thought that was far too great a discretion to give to the Lord Lieutenant, and he trusted that if the clause was passed as it stood, in any levy that might be made hereafter the Lord Lieutenant would bear in mind the opinion which had been expressed by the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who told them that, although the word "townland" was to be found in the Act of 1871, the fine would be imposed so as to avoid inflicting excessive hardship upon any particular individual or locality. It was hard to point out any single evil of this kind in the Bill for which the right hon. Gentleman could not produce a precedent in former years. Of course, Irish Members knew very well that you could always find something in former Acts that would give countenance to these measures of consolidation of former penalties. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had shown an unanswerable case, founded upon the statistics which he had quoted to the Committee, against the retention of "townland" in this clause, unless the Government wished to ruin innocent people. It would be impossible for the Lord Lieutenant to levy such an amount of compensation as £1,000 upon a townland, and, therefore, he appealed to the Chief Secretary to agree to the Amendment before the Committee.

MR. DILLON

asked whether the Government were going to frame any provision for exempting from this tax tenants in Ireland who were in arrear with their rent?

THE CHAIRMAN

called the attention of the hon. Member (Mr. Dillon) to the fact that the Amendment before the Committee was simply a proposal for the omission from the clause of the word "townland."

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, on the 15th of May, the first night of the debate on the introduction of the Arrears pf Rent (Ireland) Bill, the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) said, in his (Mr. Mitchell Henry's) hearing, in the course of an explanation with reference to agrarian outrages, that he believed they were committed by the small farmers with the intention of terrifying the larger farmers from paying their rent. The third day after, the "Lieutenant" of the hon. Gentleman—the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy)—rose and, correcting the ton. and gallant Member for Cork County (Colonel Colthurst), who had referred to the statement of the hon. Member (Mr. Parnell), said the hon. Member for the City of Cork had stated that the outrages were promoted by the sons of the small farmers. The Committee would perceive from this that he (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had a complete recollection of what the hon. Gentleman had stated with reference to these outrages.

MR. PARNELL

asked the hon. Member for Galway to read what he did say.

DR. COMMINS

said, it was clear that these charges could not be collected by the poor rate collectors or the county rate collectors. The only possible way open to the Lord Lieutenant would be the mode of collection which was to be found in the 4th sub-section of the previous clause.

THE CHAIRMAN

pointed out that the question before the Committee had no relation to the collection of the charge; it was simply as to whether the word "townland" should be omitted from the clause.

DR. COMMINS

said, he was showing that without the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) collection of the charge would be impossible, unless the Lord Lieutenant assessed a lump sum upon every individual within the district.

MR. CARTWRIGHT

intervened for a moment in the discussion for the purpose of saying that he understood the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell) to deny the accuracy of the words attributed to him by the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry).

MR. LABOUCHERE

rose to Order. Had this anything to do with the discussion of the Amendment before the Committee?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, unless the hon. Member for Oxfordshire (Mr. Cartwright) were about to apply the remarks he had made to the question before the Committee, they would not be in Order. He would point out that the Committee were travelling altogether beyond the question of omitting the word "townland," to which their arguments must be strictly confined.

MR. HEALY

said, he had been accused on the previous evening of having brought the Committee down to a low level.

MR. WARTON

rose to Order. The remarks of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) had no reference to the subject of townlands.

MR. HEALY

said, this was a brutalizing clause, and the arguments necessary to rebut the statement of the Government in its support must unavoidably bring the Committee down to a low level. The Government proposed that a money compensation should be levied in the case of murders and other outrages in Ireland, and now they were about to reduce the area on which the charge would be levied to that of a single townland. The policy of the Government in this matter would necessitate his using some more observations which would be of use to right hon. Gentlemen who, like the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), had not the courage to attack the Government in their foreign policy.

MR. WARTON

again rose to Order. Were the remarks of the hon. Member (Mr. Healy) relevant to the question before the Committee?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he must find out what the argument of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) was before he could tell whether his remarks were relevant or not.

MR. HEALY

observed, that he was about to say that the Government had stated that compensation must be levied on a small district, for fear that if they made it larger they would include a great many innocent persons. He was most desirous of having the word "townland" omitted from the clause. If persons desired to kill a man without having to pay for it, they would wait until they got him outside the townland. That might seem a shocking idea; but it was necessary to use a brutal argument against a brutalizing clause. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland said that no townland would be called upon to pay more than it could afford to pay. Well, then, all the people had to do was to commit a sufficient number of crimes in order to prove their incapacity. If one murder was compensated for at £1,000, 10 murders would cost £10,000. It would be impossible for a townland to pay any such sum. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members seemed to object to his argument; but he must again point out that in dealing with a matter of this kind, it was necessary to fight the Government with the weapons they themselves made use of. The arguments of the Government on the clause admitted of no other form of reply. The subject before them was murder, and by a prolonged discussion of that the feelings of the Committee became naturally agitated. But it was also a question of extra police; and here, again, without the smallest investigation on the part of the Lord Lieutenant, the whole charge was to be levied upon the unfortunate townland. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had referred to several baronies rated at large sums of money. But they were situated in the most fertile parts of the country. The right hon. Gentleman should have taken the baronies where murder was committed, and then he would have been able to inform the Committee that the crime was committed in poverty-stricken areas. It was perfectly futile for the Government to levy fines upon small areas of that kind. If they wanted to give a solatium to the persons interested, let them levy the amount upon the whole of Ireland. So far from preventing crime, the result of the Government policy would be to harden the people of the locality; and, in that way, they would be doing harm, and not good. He would remind the Committee that Mr. Bourke, although he lived in the county of Mayo, where he carried on the operations which brought upon him the dislike of the people, was shot in the county of Galway.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

trusted that, as an act of courtesy, the Committee would allow him to resume, as he had now Hansard in his hand.

THE CHAIRMAN

I trust the hon. Member is not going on with that matter again.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, having made a distinct allegation as to an important statement by a Member of that House (Mr. Parnell), and having received a direct contradiction from that hon. Member, he wished to be informed whether, by the courtesy and indulgence of the Committee, he (Mr. Mitchell Henry) might read from the statement of the hon. Member, which he held in his hand, in order to show that the hon. Member was wrong in his denial?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the hon. Member would be in Order if he simply read the extract without entering into any discussion upon the subject.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

said, certainly; he merely wished to read the words of the hon. Member.

MR. PARNELL

Before the hon. Member makes his explanation, I think the Committee are entitled to hear what the allegation is.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

On the 15th of May the hon. Member gave the House an expression of his opinion as to the persons committing these murders.

MR. PARNELL

remarked that the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had received permission to make an explanation with regard to an allegation made some time since, and which allegation he (Mr. Parnell) contradicted. He thought it proper that the hon. Gentleman should state what the allegation was, for he had not heard it.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he had informed the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) that he could read the passage in question.

MR. MITCHELL HENRY

The hon. Member said— In his belief the persons who were taking part in these 'Moonlight' outrages.…. were the smaller tenantry on the estates who were unable to pay their rent, and who were attempting to intimidate or coerce the larger tenantry who were able to pay, in order that they might not be evicted after the landlords had obtained the hulk of their rents from the larger tenants."—[3 Hansard, cclxix. 793.] On the 18th of May the hon. and gallant Member for the County of Cork (Colonel Colthurst) said, speaking of the statement of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), that that hon. Gentleman had said that these murders had, in his belief, been committed by the smaller tenants, upon which the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) immediately corrected him, by saying that the hon. Member (Mr. Parnell) had said they were not com- mitted by the smaller tenants, but by the sons of the small farmers.

MR. PARNELL

said, the hon. Member (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had read a full and correct description of what he did say—namely, that the "Moonlight" outrages were committed by the smaller tenants, who were unable to pay their rents, and who sought to intimidate in this way the larger tenants. His (Mr. Parnell's) correction of the hon. Member was perfectly substantiated by the passage which had been read. But the Committee had been discussing the murders committed in Galway, and these were of an entirely different character to the "Moonlight" outrages to which he had referred. Everyone who studied the course of events in Ireland knew perfectly well that the character of the outrages there changed.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the hon. Member had risen for the purpose of making a personal explanation; and that having been made, the Committee would now proceed to consider the Amendment before them.

MR. PARNELL

wished to point out that, while not objecting to the right hon. Gentleman's ruling, he had not been permitted to give his personal explanation, and, therefore, he should sit down. He was proceeding to give it when the Chairman interposed.

MR. GILL

said, with reference to the word "townland," he would submit to the Government and to the Committee that it should be taken out of the Bill, because he (Mr. Gill) believed that it had been introduced into the clause by a mistake on the part of the draftsman. He would venture to give the Committee his reasons for that opinion. If hon. Members would look to the words of the sub-section they would see that they appeared to proceed in a descending scale, the largest area being given first, and so on. Now, in the present arrangement of the first sub-section of this clause, some of the descriptions of the areas stood in their correct relative positions to others; but that was not the case with all of them. For instance, "county" was correctly placed; "barony" was so also, and then came "townland," which was put into its position after the word "barony," as if it represented a larger area than "parish," which followed it. Now, he (Mr. Gill) would point out to the Committee that the word "parish" should follow the word "barony" to make this descending scale, which the draftsman had in his mind, complete. The draftsman was evidently under the impression that "townland" meant a larger area than "parish;" whereas, if he had known the real facts of the ease, he would have placed it in its proper relative position after the word "parish." That might, perhaps, be a reason, from the Government point of view, why "townland" should stand in its present position in the clause; but he would point out that there were in Ireland 1,000 parishes, and 60,000 townlands. It was, therefore, correct to say that a parish was equivalent to 60 of these townlands. The small area of the latter was very well known in Ireland, and it was often said of a farmer there that he farmed an entire townland. He thought he had given a very strong reason why the word "townland" should be taken out. This was a matter worthy of consideration on the part of the Government, because it might happen that if the authorities had power to levy a fine upon a townland, in some cases the entire fine would fall upon one or two farms, whereas by spreading it over a larger area like a parish, it would make the fine very much less upon the individuals concerned.

THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)

reminded the Committee, in reply to the argument of the hon. and learned Member for Roscommon (Dr. Commins), that during the last 46 years the Grand Juries had been, and were still, exercising the power of levying compensation for malicious injury upon townland areas. The words of the Act of the 6 & 7 Will. IV. being "barony, parish, district, or townland," and that Act was still in force. It was not to be supposed that in every case compensation would be assessed on the townland alone, as cases would occur where it would be necessary to extend it to the larger area. The Government, however, should be empowered to regard townlands as the unit. There were many cases in which the townlands were small and poor; but others were large and wealthy, and afforded every element for providing proper compensation. Another reason which appeared to him to be conclusive on the point of retaining this word in the clause was that outrage might have its centre in a townland which was at the border of a barony, and might be the result of a combination of persons in two, or three, or four different parishes. Now, unless "townland" were allowed to remain in the clause, the compensation in such a case might have to be assessed not on one barony, but on two or more, as the case might be, whereas the guilty area might consist of a very small portion of each. That seemed to him to be a reason for assessing compensation on townlands; but the intention was to leave it to the Lord Lieutenant to consider whether it should be so levied, if the facts of the case rendered it necessary. He had known cases in which £2,500 had been awarded as compensation for malicious injury to property. That sum, of course, was not likely to be assessed by the Lord Lieutenant on one or two townlands. It would, however, depend upon the circumstances of each case. But there were cases numerous in practice where outrages not so grave in their character were the cause of awards, probably amounting, on an average, to £20; and in such cases as those, where it could be clearly shown that disaffection existed in one particular townland, there appeared to be no reason that he could see why the amount should not be levied upon the townland exclusively. These being the facts of the case, he appealed to the Committee not to occupy more time in discussing the Amendment, but to give the Executive the power of doing justice—a power which would absolutely be taken from them if the Amendment were carried.

MR. O'KELLY

said, the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Porter) had, in saying that this power had been already exercised in Ireland, stated the very reason why Irish Members objected to its being continued to be used under the Bill. It was because they knew that this power had been exercised by Grand Juries maliciously and unfairly, and because they feared that it would be so exercised in the future, that they were strenuously opposed to its introduction into this clause. The hon. and learned Gentleman had stated that in some cases townlands would include every element of disorder. The meaning of that was, probably, that when this clause came to be applied the compensation would be put upon townlands in which certain men happened to reside. Everyone knew that there were some townlands inhabited by one man only, and that there were others inhabited by three, four, or five persons, and that in the districts where crimes were actually committed there were two sorts of townlands; the one inhabited by the rich and the other by the poor. Now, if this provision were maintained, the result would be that the magistrates who had interest at the Castle at Dublin would put upon the poor townlands all the fines; while, at the same time, they exempted their own property. This would work a great injustice among many poor townlands; there would be hundreds of men punished in this manner, who would be as innocent of the crime which might happen to have been committed there as any landlord in Ireland. Now, if these innocent men were to share in the responsibility of crimes of which they were innocent, the rich ought also to share in that responsibility; because, in most cases, it happened that one of their class had provoked the crime in the district. These were the grounds upon which Irish Members resisted this part of the clause, and the grounds upon which they pressed the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) upon the attention of the Government. With regard to the discretion which the Lord Lieutenant was supposed to exercise in matters of this kind, the phrase sounded very well in that House; but hon. Members upon those Benches were perfectly aware that it meant nothing at all—it simply implied that the people at Dublin Castle would do what certain local personages told them was good for the preservation of law and order.

SIR JOSEPH M'KENNA

said, there appeared to be some confusion in the minds of the Committee as to the nature of an Irish townland. He was inclined to believe that, in the minds of many hon. Members, this had been mixed up with their idea of an English township; but he would point out that the latter term implied a far more extensive and important district than the former. He could very well see that if great caution was not exercised in dealing with this matter, an immense amount of injury might be done by reducing the area of fine so low as to include only a single town- land. There were certain townlands in Ireland of which the population amounted to about 100 persons, most of whom were poor people, some of them being tenants and others labourers. He did not believe that the power of selection of area for contribution would be exercised in any inconsiderate spirit by the Lord Lieutenant; but those who represented Irish constituencies ought to take care that while this power was given to the Lord Lieutenant, as little damage as possible could be done by the manner in which it was exercised.

MR. BIGGAR

said, that some of the arguments advanced on behalf of the Government appeared to him to be perfectly untenable. The argument of the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Porter), in defence of the retention of the word "townland" in the clause, was quite contrary to general experience, which was that no one appeared to know, either in or out of the locality, who it was that committed these crimes. That being so, it appeared to him that the contention of the hon. and learned Gentleman fell to the ground. It was a well-known fact that in many cases where claims were made on account of malicious injuries alleged to have been sustained, no malicious injury had been done at all. Such cases were occurring almost every day in Ireland. Anyone who experienced the slightest damage to his property at once went and made a claim on the ground that he had suffered malicious injury. This protection, therefore, given by the clause meant that the Lord Lieutenant would probably ruin the inhabitants or the ratepayers in townlands for the purpose of compensating persons who were suffering, not from the effect of injury done to them by others, but from the consequences of their own negligence. Let the Committee remember that the average valuation of these townlands was £235, and that some of them were valued at so low a sum as £100. It was perfectly consistent with their experience of the amount of compensation which might be awarded that, under the conditions of this clause, a sum equivalent to 10 years' rental of a particular townland might be levied against its inhabitants. As he understood this fine, it was not a charge upon the owner, but upon the tenant. If the Committee were amenable to reason, he thought they should agree to the proposal for omitting this word "townland" from the clause, for, in point of fact, no argument had been urged against the Amendment. The imposition of fines upon these small areas would very likely punish a number of people who were entirely innocent, while the persons who rendered the clause necessary would be placed beyond its reach and would probably escape altogether.

MR. SEXTON

pointed out that the average number of agricultural holdings in a townland was nine; the average valuation being £229. Now, it might be supposed that in cases of murder, maiming, or injury, no sum less than £100 would be levied by way of compensation under the clause; but, in such cases, he asked what would be the use of levying that sum on a place where the valuation amounted to only £229? Again, a moderate addition to the police force in a district would cost another £300 a-year. This would be more than the whole rental, and he was bound to say that if the Government believed that they could get not only these sums, but the rent also, out of such districts, they were reposing themselves in a fool's paradise.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, if the Government insisted on retaining the power to ruin townlands, it was clear that this Bill was going to be worked as an adjunct to Mr. Kavanagh's Land Corporation scheme; because, if they took such an area, and placed a fine upon it, it would insure the ruin of the whole population; they would be simply using the law to throw the farmers into the hands of Kavanagh and Company as much as possible. Was it conceivable that a case of outrage, or a case of refusal to give evidence, could be so exactly explained to the Lord Lieutenant that he would be actually able to limit and fix the responsibility upon some eight or nine heads of families, and upon such a trifling area as that of a single town-land? He (Mr. O'Donnell) said that such a pretension was absurd. On the other hand, how would the thing be worked? The Lord Lieutenant would simply act on the reports of the local magistrates, who, in too many cases, in the future as in the past, it was to be feared would be actuated by their own feelings towards their tenants. If disturbances or injuries took place, or any murder were committed in that district, there would be persons on the spot, magistrates of the class who were chosen to serve on coroner's juries, and these would be relied upon to give sufficient information. Magistrates of that class would direct the action of the Lord Lieutenant, and the Lord Lieutenant, who, it was not to be supposed, would be more intelligent under a Liberal Administration than under a Conservative Administration, would be able to make use of the clause—and would make use of it, doubtless—to carry out what would be nothing else than the local malice of irresponsible individuals. The idea that the Lord Lieutenant would be able to distinguish between the information supplied by trustworthy and non-trustworthy persons in distant parts of Ireland was perfectly ridiculous. If the Government really meant to create a public opinion adverse to crime, even if founded on sordid motives, they would not use, surely, such a miserable area for their purposes as a townland? What earthly effect would the opinion of a solitary townland produce in the midst of the disturbed condition of an entire county or of every county in Ireland? The very supposition was absurd and idiotic. If the Government wanted to appeal to the sordid motives of the people, and to make the appeal sufficiently strong to produce any result at all, it was perfectly absurd to talk of appealing to the public opinion of a miserable and starving townland of half-a-dozen families, and trying to create an impression that would be favourable to the Government of Ireland upon the basis of a £200 valuation. He said that this Amendment was absolutely necessary, if there were anything bonâ fide about the proposal of the Government to create public opinion adverse to crime. The very means chosen by the Government to carry out their object upon the basis of a townland showed that they were only legislating in the very wantonness of provocation and petty persecution.

MR. CALLAN

thought that perhaps some compromise might be arrived at in this matter by substituting "Petty Sessions district" for the word "town-land." It was perfectly clear that the draftsman looked upon a townland in Ireland as something larger than a parish. This was alone sufficient to show the impropriety of an English draftsman being allowed to draw an Irish Bill of this importance. It would have been better to submit the matter to the Irish Law Officers of the Crown. He hoped the Government, at any rate, even if they did not accept the Amendment before the Committee, or the suggestion of compromise which he had made, would, at least, place the word "townland" after "parish," in order to make common sense of the clause.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 228; Noes 38: Majority 190.—(Div. List, No. 199.) [5.0 P.M.

MR. DILLON

, who had an Amendment upon the Paper, in page 8, line 32, to omit the words "or parish," said, that he would not persist in it.

MR. HEALY moved, as an Amendment, in page 8, line 32, to leave out the words "or part or parts thereof respectively." The hon. Member said that he deliberately charged the Government with Obstruction, and thought that he should be able to prove his case. They had been fighting to leave out the word "townland," but the Government declined to accept that Amendment, although they still retained the words "part or parts thereof." The Committee had been for two hours wrangling for the word "townland," when actually the Government had got already in the Bill sufficient power to restrict the area in any way they chose. He challenged them to deny the truth of that statement. Did the Government really mean to split up a townland into smaller parts? It was impossible for them to do so, because a townland was part of a barony, and a barony was part of the county. In point of fact, the Government had got into a complete muddle in drafting the Bill. He should like to know who the draftsman was. He was told that it was the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for England (Sir Henry James). ["No!"] He was glad to find that that accusation was not correct. It was unnecessary, however, that he should do more now than submit the Amendment to the Committee.

Amendment proposed, in page 8, line 32, to leave out the words "or part or parts thereof respectively."—(Mr. Healy.)

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

MR. GIBSON

wished to draw attention to the fact that the author of the last Amendment (Mr. Healy) had stated that they had been two hours discussing an Amendment which was not worth fighting for.

MR. HEALY

said, that the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite (Mr. Gibson) had misunderstood his meaning. What he intended to convey was that they had been engaged in a discussion for two hours upon an Amendment which the Government might have accepted, because they had practically got the power already. It was quite evident that the very courteous Representative for the University of Dublin had not heard what he (Mr. Healy) had said.

MR. TREVELYAN

said, that the object of the Government was sufficiently obvious. The Bill was drafted in order to express the intentions of Parliament, and the nearest words which could express that intention had been adopted. If the townland or parish were considered to be superfluous cases, they might be included in the words "part or parts thereof," and then the barony itself would be superfluous, because they might be taken to mean part or parts of a county. If the argument of the hon. Member (Mr. Healy) were to apply, it would not be necessary to insert either "county" or "barony," because they could merely say "Ireland, or part or parts thereof." The object of the Government was, as far as possible, to indicate the nature of the district upon which these fines for claims were to be levied. In the case of a fine of £20 for injury done, it would be obviously absurd to levy the compensation on an entire barony, and it was necessary that there should be a power to levy it upon the small area to which the Government thought it ought to apply.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, that it was obvious what the intention of the Government was, and it was quite unnecessary for the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to enter into an explanation. They could reduce a county to a barony, and a barony to a parish, a parish to a townland, and a townland to the holdings of a few individuals. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) very much regretted the absence of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department. [Mr. HEALY: No, no!] It was always unpleasing to him (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) to miss the absence of a dear familiar face, even if it was that of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman had been present, he would have said to him what he would now say to the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for England, that the retention of these words was a distinct breach of the undertaking which had been given on the part of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. When he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) proposed the Amendment in Clause 15, with regard to the levying for extra Constabulary, in the 3rd subsection of that clause, the object of which Amendment was to take out of the clause the words limiting its operation, the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Sir William Harcourt), when accepting it, remarked that it would be obviously unfair that the Government should be able to minimize the area on which the fine was to be levied. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) was not aware at the time, although the right hon. and learned Gentleman was perfectly aware of it, that this concession in Clause 15 was taken back again by Clause 17. When he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) challenged the right hon. and learned Gentleman with the fact that the concluding words of Sub-section 3 of the 15th clause actually gave back the power which he consented to omit, the right hon. and learned Gentleman stood up, and, with the air of ingenuousness he could histrionically assume, said that he did not intend to take away with one hand what he gave with the other. But, in the face of that fact, it was found that in the 1st section of the present clause the very words of limitation that the right hon. and learned Gentleman consented to take out of Sub-Section 3 of Clause 15 were retained. He contended that that was a gross instance of disingenuousness on the part of the right hon. And learned Gentleman. He thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman might have at least had the decency to be in his place, and release himself from the pledge he had twice solemnly made to the Committee.

DR. COMMINS

said, that the argument used by the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Porter), with regard to the last Amendment, was an irrefragable argument for ac- cepting the present Amendment. The hon. and learned Gentleman had referred back to the Grand Jury Act, in order to show that hitherto these fines had been assessed upon townlands, and therefore argued that, in apportioning the charge of culpability, they must retain the same unit. The words now objected to were either useless or mischievous, presuming the statement of the hon. and learned Gentleman to be correct. They were utterly useless in their application to a county or barony, because, if the townland was the limit of taxation, they could not have part or parts of a barony made up by townlands. The clause would be unintelligible, unless it was the object of the Government to assess the fines on some other method than was now known, and to make it a tax on individuals residing within geographical lines. Of course, he admitted that the argument of the Government was good in retaining townlands, supposing that their object was to break up the townland, and slice off a portion of it. But such power might be used in the most oppressive manner, and would render this clause more oppressive than any measure known in the country since the days that the Poll Tax was imposed. If it was intended to work the Act in such a way that one individual should pay so much, and another should pay so much, without any regard to their paying capacity, or the chance of their being able to get it, well and good; but, unless that was the object, and it was really intended to make the Act an Act of individual oppression, it was absolutely necessary that the Amendment should be adopted.

MR. SYNAN

asked the Government if it was necessary for their purposes, and for the purposes of the Bill, to retain these words? Surely the denominations of areas mentioned in the Bill were sufficiently small. Of course "part or parts thereof" would extend over all denominations; but, if they wanted a survey, they could not have a portion of a barony unless they selected a parish or a townland. That surely could not be the object of the Government. They could not desire a more minute subdivision, unless they wanted to have very small areas of taxation, which could only be done by a new survey. His hon. Friend the Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) had some foundation for his charge that the Government were obstructing their own Bill. "Part or parts thereof" could not be extended to a townland. They could not have part of a townland made an area of taxation, unless the Government had already come to the conclusion that a very small portion of a townland was to be made an area of taxation under the Bill, and that it was their object to impose the charge of the fine upon a few houses. If that were so, what was there to prevent their placing the tax upon an individual, and if they did that, he would like to know what would become of the Bill in its administration in Ireland? He had taken very little part in the discussions on the Bill; but he could not help raising this objection most strongly.

MR. DILLON

said, that in discussing the question of outrage, they had been told over and over again that a great deal of security against the abuse of power would rest in the fact that the administration of the Act would be in the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant. But in Clause 15 they had no such security, because it would be practically left entirely in the hands of the subordinates of the Lord Lieutenant. It would be impossible for him to do anything but take the report blindfold as to what district he was to charge with his fines. It was unfortunately quite possible to tax a portion of a townland, for the thing had been done in the past. The best portion of the land in the hands of the landlord had been omitted, while the poor bog portions, in the hands of a few tenants, had been heavily taxed under this clause. The man who owned the best portions of the land would be exempted; while the people on the bog or mountain side would be made to pay, and all the taxes would be consequently thrown upon those poor people. If there were any doubt on this point, he would ask the Committee so to fix the tax that it would not be possible to impose it upon a single townland. Take the case of a townland of 20 acres; 10 of them might be in the hands of the landlord, and the rest in the occupancy of very poor tenants, and by the clause, as it now stood, which gave the Lord Lieutenant power to impose the entire fine upon the part or parts of a townland, the entire charge might be thrown upon the poorer portion. That was why he objected to the clause so strongly. He knew of a dis- trict in which there had been no violence, or outrage, or disturbance of any kind whatever. In that district it was possible that the local landlord might propose to issue a number of writs of ejectment. He would then get the police to inform the authorities that there was reason to expect a disturbance, because he would know from experience that there was a danger of disturbance when he was about to evict by wholesale a considerable number of tenants. The authorities, having received such an intimation, would send down an extra force of police; no disturbance having, up to that time, taken place. The taxation for the maintenance of the Constabulary Force would be thrown on the district, and, although such district had nothing whatever to do with the cause of the disturbance, nevertheless the farm and the property of the man—the local landlord—who really created the disturbance, or the anticipation of disturbance, by proceeding with evictions which, according to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, were in some instances unjust and cruel, and, perhaps, some few selected tenants would be exempted from the tax, and the total charge thrown upon a few individuals. A case of this kind had occurred a short time ago under his own notice—namely, that in anticipation of a disturbance in the mind of a landlord, founded upon the fact that he was going to evict a number of his tenants, an application was made for an extra Constabulary force. He believed that the operation of the clause would place the Government in an extremely unpleasant and awkward position, and he thought that some security ought to be given that if the landlord was going to disturb a district by carrying out evictions, there should be no power to throw additional taxation upon the poor inhabitants of the locality.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, that the Secretary of State for the Home Department had distinctly accepted the principle of his Amendment, and had followed it up by a distinct statement that he did not intend to take away with one hand what he gave with the other. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) wished to know if that pledge was not violated by the retention of the words "part or parts thereof," because the 17th clause ruled the 15th, and, in reality, the limit of the area on which the taxes were to be imposed by Clause 16 for the employment of additional constables was fixed in Clause 17. He, therefore, charged the Government, who had heard the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and had given their tacit assent to it, with a distinct breach of the undertaking that had been given to them, having insisted upon the insertion of these words. He invited the Government to give an answer to these accusations, and defend their conduct if they possibly could.

MR. WARTON

said, that the Secretary of State for the Home Department was not liable to the charge which had been brought against him. [Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: Then what was it he did say?] He had paid great attention to the progress of the Bill, and it was not correct to say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department, in discussing the 3rd sub-section of the 15th clause, had given the pledge ascribed to him. That was shown upon the 4th Amendment on the Paper which stood in the name of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The 2nd sub-section of the clause provided that, Any charge in respect of such additional constabulary, or any sum for such compensation as aforesaid, which is for the time being a charge payable by any district, shall be applotted rateably upon all rateable hereditaments in the district. And after these words the right hon. and learned Gentleman proposed to insert these words—"Other than those exempted by the Lord Lieutenant in pursuance of this Act." That was a very different thing from providing what the districts were which were to be made chargeable, which was all the 1st subsection of the clause did.

MR. HEALY

said, that the remarks just made by the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton) proved the correctness of the statement of his hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor). The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department must have intended to leave out the words "part or parts thereof," because he had placed upon the Paper, as his hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bridport had pointed out, another Amendment in reference to the areas to be exempted by the Lord Lieutenant. Surely they did not want three pieces of surplus age in the Bill; and the right hon. and learned Gentleman must clearly have intended to leave out the words now objected to, because, in the 3rd sub-section of the 15th clause, he agreed to omit the words "Any limited portion of that district as the Lord Lieutenant may order;" and, following that up, he must have intended to omit the words "part or parts thereof," because, if they were not omitted, the Lord Lieutenant would not have the power to exempt certain districts, and there would be no use in recording the Amendment "other than those exempted by the Lord Lieutenant in pursuance of this Act." Under the circumstances, he trusted that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would reconsider his determination with regard to the Amendment.

MR. J. LOWTHER

said, that, with regard the alleged promise on the part of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, he had distinctly called the attention of the right hon. and learned Gentleman to the interpretation which was placed upon it by hon. Members below the Gang way, and which he thought was an entirely dangerous and erroneous one. Whereupon the right hon. and learned Gentleman said that he only agreed to the words being omitted, because he felt them to be unnecessary, and he thought that the words of the clause would still place in the hands of the Government the power they intended to obtain. They had now been discussing over and over again the very point which was discussed on Clause 15—namely, the power to exempt districts, which the Committee had already decided.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

said, that the Secretary of State for the Home Department had distinctly said that he meant to retain the power of exemption, and to retain the affirmative power of subdividing the districts, which was a very different thing. A district might be divided in one of two ways. They could sub-divide a district affirmatively, or negatively. By the exemption power, the former had been given up; but the latter power the Secretary of Sate for the Home Department insisted upon retaining. The right hon. and learned Gentleman retained that power by the Amendment which stood in his name, and which said—"In the districts other than those exempted by the Lord Lieutenant in pursuance of this Act." Secondly, the right hon. and learned Gentleman retained the negative power of exclusion, which he meant to reserve to himself, while he gave the affirmative power of sub-division in the previous clause. He would ask the Committee to say what the two clauses were, taken together. Sub-section 3 of Clause 15 regulated the power of the Lord Lieutenant with regard to assessing the district for additional Constabulary, and Clause 17 regulated the size of the district to be assessed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, in language as distinct as language could be, using the expression that he was not going to take away with one hand what he gave with the other, said that he would not retain the power of sub-dividing a district. Therefore, he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) contended that the Government were guilty of a gross breach of faith, for they had retained words which the right hon. and learned Gentleman had distinctly promised to give up.

MR. TREVELYAN

said, that the Government kept the promise of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, so far as the omission of the line in the 3rd sub-section of the clause was concerned. He had listened to the discussion which took place; but it was idle for anyone to pretend to give the exact words made use of, and without having taken them down. The general impression in his mind, however, was that the Secretary of State for the Home Department said that the words were superfluous, because he would be able to limit the chargeable district by the process of exemption, without being bound by the boundary of a townland. The district might be made up by cutting off any part of a townland the Lord Lieutenant chose, so as to make up the additional district in which the additional Constabulary might be quartered; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman did not in any way forego the right of making up the district in any way he chose. Then with regard to the 1st subsection of the present clause, if the words "part or parts thereof respectively" were left out, it was true that by the power of exemption in Clause 15, as far as the additional Constabulary were concerned, there would be the power to exempt even a part of a district in which the Constabu- lary were quartered. But they were words, however, which it was absolutely necessary to retain in the case of compensation for murder, maiming, or injury. They did not in the least degree strengthen the powers of the Government with regard to the charge for additional Constabulary in any district. When the Committee came to the Amendment of his right hon. and learned Friend, he (Mr. Trevelyan) would be able to explain the reason for that Amendment; but the words "part or parts thereof respectively" were not in the least affected by his right hon. and learned Friend having left out that small portion of Subsection 3 of Clause 15 which he considered for the moment to be superfluous.

MR. SEXTON

, said, that, apart from the question raised by his hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) of the engagement he understood the Secretary of State for the Home Department to have made, he (Mr. Sexton) wished to point out, in a very few words, the sort of new principle raised by the retention of the words dealt with by the Amendment in connection with reference to the remainder of the clause. The general principle of clause was that the tax should be levied on one area, but when they came to the power of exempting "part or parts thereof," that principle was altogether left behind. Instead of proceeding upon the principle of punishing every crime committed, they gave the clause the salient character of vindictiveness and persecution. There was no use in arguing with the Government on the point, because they said that the Lord Lieutenant must have discretion, which meant that he was to be allowed to take action which might be vindictive, and which might tend to persecution. He contended that the retention of these words, as far as their retention would enable the Government to levy upon a part of a townland, would make the power of the clause impracticable, and such as could not be carried out. It had been already pointed out that the total average of rateable value of a townland in Ireland was £225. It had also been pointed out that the smallest levy likely to be made would be £100, and that it would be nearly half of the value of the townland. The tax might be made still more oppressive, because it was impossible that a smaller force than five constables would be quartered in any district, and that would involve the levying of a much larger amount than the actual rent of the townland; and if they went below the townland, and endeavoured to levy the charge for the subsistence of five policemen for a year upon a part of a townland, they would reduce the clause to an absurdity. The people were paying rack rents already, and in those cases in which the Court had not yet been able to adjudicate they would continue to pay rack rents. It would therefore be absolutely impossible to collect a levy of that kind; and, in point of fact, the retention of these words would defeat the two objects the Government said that they had before them in introducing this clause—namely, first, to give compensation; and, secondly, to give a lesson to the people that they must maintain the law.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, that his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had reminded the Committee that the Chief Secretary for Ireland was always throwing them back upon the unfettered discretion of the Lord Lieutenant. He (Mr. O'Donnell) could not but regret that that House and the Committee, and the people of Ireland, were to be left to nothing but the unfettered discretion of the Lord Lieutenant, and that the most reasonable Amendments proposed by the Irish Members were to be on this account rejected. If the administration of that law was to be left to the unfettered discretion of the Lord Lieutenant, why had they not brought in a short Bill to enable the Lord Lieutenant for three years to do whatever he liked. That would be a great saving of the time of the House, and the struggle, which they had been told was now approaching, would have been rendered unnecessary. He thought that a very neat Bill might have been constructed, on this principle—"An Act to enable His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant to do whatever he pleases for the next three years." Such a declaration might have been put into the Preamble, in order to show that there was at least one nation left in Europe which Great Britain was not afraid to trample upon. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland said that the object of the Government was to place in the Bill the terms which were required to express the intentions of Parliament. It would, therefore, seem that the Government had already made up their mind what would be the intention of Parliament before the Bill was brought into the House. He was, however, unable to follow that argument in reference to such superfluous provisions. He (Mr. O'Donnell) had been much struck by one of the defences—which seemed to him to be the main ground of defence—put forward by the Chief Secretary for Ireland for the rejection of the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy). The right hon. Gentleman said that there was a class of fines regulated and marked out by their Amendment. For instance, there was a small class of fines, which must only be applied to very small districts. In fact, it seemed to be intended that if a fine was very small, it should be only applied to individual houses, because such fine would not be felt over a large district. Now, that was introducing a principle which he thought had never before been made use of, and it was a principle which ought not to commend itself to the Committee. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, in order to make his meaning clear, quoted this instance. He took a case of compensation to a man to the amount of £20, who might have been severely beaten, and said that it would be nonsense to levy that over a large district, and therefore it must be apportioned over a very limited area. Then the object of the right hon. Gentleman, in this Bill, which was to place Ireland on the side of law and order, was not to obtain compensation for a man who had been injured, but to make the sting of the law felt by some limited number of Irish individuals—no matter who they were, so long as the crop provided was small enough—to be made miserable by the exaction. In fact, the right hon. Gentleman's principles seemed to be in accord with that of the Government, which was not the support of law and order, but the establishment of a raw somewhere. If that was the ground upon which the Government refused to accept the Amendment of his hon. Friend, it was the ground which ought to be rejected by the Committee, and the opposition to the Amendment ought to be rejected at the same time. What could be more unfair—what could be more fundamentally unlawful, whether technically legal or not, than declaring that they were to apportion the compensation, not with a view merely of the amount of injury, and not with a view even to the general amount of lawlessness existing amongst persons who were sympathizing with crime, but with the view of having so small a number of victims affected? But, whether they were innocent or guilty, they should certainly smart from the administration of the law. Let them take the example which had been quoted by the right hon. Gentleman himself. A man had been severely beaten, bruised upon the head, and otherwise seriously wounded, with sticks, &c. It would be on the cards, and, in point of fact, almost absolutely certain, that the man was unpopular throughout the whole of the barony, and that this cruel assault upon him had been committed, so to speak, with the approbation of the whole of the barony. Then the whole of the barony, even in the eyes of the right hon. Gentleman, must be equally guilty, and the fine for compensation for the man's injuries ought to be levied on the whole of the barony. "But, no," said the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, "if £20, which is the amount of injury the man has sustained, be levied on the whole of the barony, although the whole barony is equally guilty, the punishment would be inappreciable. Therefore, I must make a further division, and select some five or six miserable families and come down upon them, in order that some half-a-dozen Irish Members may smart under the administration, of the law." That was an illustration of the way in which the Act would be administered, and which he did not think it required many words to characterize. If they made the operation of the clause too retrospective, if they made the raw smart too keenly and overlooked and confined the surface, they might totally fail in attaining the object which their vindictive conception of the law recommended to them. They had made the area of fines so small as to make life a positive burden out of that restricted area. What was to keep these miserable creatures, overwhelmed with their fines, fastened to that particular area of ground? He would point out to the Government that even with the view to the efficiency of their own law, it would be far better for them to keep a large area, because, after all, the population of a country-side could not desert that large area; but, in the case quoted by his hon. Friend the Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton), they had imposed upon the townland, or part of a townland, a crushing fine that would be far more than even the crushing laws now exacted from that townland. They might drive the occupiers of a townland, or that portion of the townland, or part of the parish, to quit the place which they had rendered uninhabitable, and then what was to become of their power of exacting fines? He defied them to make up a personal contingent upon the individuals; he defied them to fix it upon persons whom they drove from spot to spot. They would be too poor for any process of the Crown to make them pay the fine. They would drive them to quit the townland; to quit the parish; to quit a miserable roof, a house; the raw they sought to create would be created at the expense of the ground landlord. If they drove the occupiers by their merciless fines from the soil, they would have to go without the fine for compensation altogether. Of course, the object of the Government was to secure the Orange class in Ireland the power of exempting the Orange garrisons which were to be found throughout Ireland. This was a clause which was directed against the mass of Irish individuals. If the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) was rejected, wherever, in any townland, there were persons who were brought out by the local Tory Associations, persons who belonged to the Clientèle, and the Estate Office, persons who were under the protection of the Emergency Society, no matter how able they were to bear the burden which fell upon their neighbour, they would be exempted. Two magistrates could always be got, in any part of Ireland, to swear to the goodness and loyalty of any individuals of this class; but, if there was any respectable farmer of the ordinary type of Irishmen, even if a rare magistrate could be found to bear witness to his loyalty, even if the parish priest came forward as to his loyalty and good feeling in the parish, there would be no exemption in his case. Therefore, he (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) thought that it was most desirable that they should deprive the Lord Lieutenant of all power of exemption, because he was satisfied that it was only one class of the population which would be exempted, and that the mass of the nation would go unexempted, and, after all, the cruelty of the clause would be carefully reserved for those individuals who were not protected by the local magistrates. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had pointed out that, in reality, they were giving up the principle of area altogether, that they were fining down the town area to such a vanishing point as this—that, in point of fact, they were giving the Lord Lieutenant the power of taxation and of fining individuals; and they were enabling the local magistrates, who were the hereditary enemies of the Irish people, to pick out in every district those individuals who were held to be most obnoxious, and enable them to complete their ruin. On every occasion he would continue to protest against the doctrine of the Government that they should trust to the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant. No doubt, the Lord Lieutenant was a well-intentioned man, like any of the 600 and odd Members of that Legislature. The Lord Lieutenant was an intelligent man, probably as intelligent as any Member of the House; but there were no sufficient guarantees that when the Act had to be enforced in Tipperary, Donegal, or any other county in Ireland, that the Lord Lieutenant, instead of acting on his own judgment, would not be compelled to be guided by the advice of constables and sub-constables, Sub-Inspectors and magistrates; and it was only that class of evidence, and no other, which would suit the views of the local magistrates, that would be forthcoming. He declined to place so extensive a power of terrorism in the hands of local tyrants, and, therefore, should vote for the Amendment.

THE CHAIRMAN

observed, that the hon. Member had spoken at great length, and in the first part of his speech had kept himself within the Amendment; but he was now going altogether beyond it.

MR. O'DONNELL

, resuming, said, the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) was an Amendment for the protection of individuals, because it proposed to deprive the Government of the power of imposing fines on part or parts of "townlands," which would, perhaps, comprise no more than two or three houses. He (Mr. O'Donnell) said that the adoption of the Amendment would provide individuals with a better security than would be afforded by the sham investigation which would take place under the Bill. By retaining the word "townland," the Government placed every individual farmer who made himself obnoxious to the local tyrants entirely at the mercy of his enemies; and to refer Irish Members to the goodwill and intelligence of the Lord Lieutenant, far away in Dublin Castle, who saw and heard entirely by the eyes and ears of local agents, in permanent hostility to the people of Ireland, was simply no guarantee whatever.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he rose for the purpose of supporting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy). The clause as it stood enabled the Lord Lieutenant to divide and sub-divide even so small an area as an Irish "townland," and the object of the Amendment was to prevent this indefinite sub-division of districts in the clause. Now, in dealing with this question, he (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) proposed to proceed on an entirely contrary principle. He thought it was desirable not to enable the Lord Lieutenant to narrow the area of that fine down, until it fell, perhaps, upon a couple of farms. That principle appeared to him to be highly objectionable; and, for his own part, he preferred the opposite principle of extending the area over which the fine might be levied. For instance, he would rather that the whole of the "townland" were taxed than a portion of it; that a barony should pay, instead of a parish; and instead of a parish, he would very much prefer the whole county. Again, instead of the county, he would prefer that all Ireland should be charged; and instead of Ireland being charged he would prefer very much that Great Britain should be made to pay; because he laid the blame of all the trouble which existed in Ireland upon the misconduct of the British Government. What was the object of allowing the Lord Lieutenant to divide and sub-divide the smallest area that might be proclaimed under this Bill? Was it to enable him to exempt favourites and certain persons, and to bring the whole crushing severity of the clause down upon the heads of a few persons? He contended that the persons who would be exempted by this power of division and sub-division were, in many cases, the very people who, above all others, ought to bear the charge; and the way he proved it was this. The increased police force which would be sent into the district would be sent there because of the apprehensions of crime and disturbance, or because of the actual existence of crime and disturbance. Now, he asked, what class of men was there in Ireland more capable of creating disturbance in these districts, parishes, townlands, and counties of Ireland than the Irish landlords, with their land agents and bailiffs, as well as the other agents of the present system of landlordism. Every one of those men would, under the clause as it stood, be assuredly exempted by the Lord Lieutenant from the scope of this measure. There was no class of men in Ireland who, as was perfectly well known, had done so much to create terror, disorganization, disturbance, and crime as rack-renting and merciless landlords. ["Oh, oh!"] Hon. Members cried "Oh!" but would it be argued that there were no such persons in Ireland as rack-renting landlords—landlords who had exacted unjust rents, and had been carrying out unjust evictions?

THE CHAIRMAN

said, that the hon. Member must not discuss the whole question of rent in Ireland upon this Amendment.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he had not the slightest intention of discussing that question; but he was arguing that the use which the Lord Lieutenant would be enabled to make of this power of sub-division of townlands would be to bring the levying of this fine for the increase of the Constabulary down upon the Irish tenants, to the exclusion of Irish landlords. He was arguing that the very men who ought to bear the charge were the landlords, their agents, and their sub-agents. He considered this argument to be a very reasonable one as applied to the Amendment before the Committee. He was not going into the question of the conduct of the landlords; but he thought he might be permitted to point out that the greatest originators of disturbance in Ireland ought not to be exempted from the payment of the fine in question. ["Order, order!"]

MR. MAGNIAC

rose to Order. The principle of exemption had been sanctioned by Clause 15, and he submitted that the hon. Member was not right in again discussing it.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he had understood the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) to be arguing that the originators of the disturbances in Ireland would, unless the Amendment were adopted, be exempted from the payment of fines. So far the hon. Member was not out of Order; but he (the Chairman) was obliged to watch the length to which that argument might be carried.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, under the supervision of the Chairman, he should do his best to confine his arguments to the question before the Committee. He certainly endeavoured to avoid placing himself out of Order, and although he might not always have been successful in that direction, he had always endeavoured to keep within the limits of the rules of debate in Committee. The Lord Lieutenant would be enabled under the clause, as he had already pointed out, to sub-divide even the small area of a townland. Let the Committee suppose the case of a proclaimed district which included not one, but several townlands. Supposing a landlord to be murdered there; he contended that the Lord Lieutenant would assuredly exempt the property of the landlord, his agents, and sub-agents throughout the whole district; and although the trouble in that district might have arisen from the hardships and injustice inflicted on the unfortunate tenantry, the framers and originators of that trouble would escape scot free, and the unhappy victims would be still further victimized, by this measure. But it was said that the Lord Lieutenant would carefully scrutinize these matters, in order to see that no injustice was done. Irish Members had been told over and over again, in the course of the discussions upon this Bill, that everything was to be subject to the will and pleasure of His Excellency the Lord Lieutenant, and it was not absolutely unreasonable to expect that before long a measure would be passed by that House to the effect that for three years no one should be born, married, or allowed to die in Ireland without the gracious permission of His Excellency.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) was going altogether beyond the question. It was his (the Chairman's) duty to ask him to keep strictly to the Amendment before the Committee. That was the second time he had warned the hon. Member.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, his observations were merely in illustration of his contention that, under this clause, the Lord Lieutenant would be able to impose a fine upon whomsoever he pleased. Notwithstanding the expectations which had been held out of an improved condition of things being created in Ireland when the present Bill came into operation, they would still be met with the principle of reasonable suspicion. ["Order, order!"]

THE CHAIRMAN

said, he did not think the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) was intentionally disregarding the authority of the Chair; but he must point out to him that he was going altogether beyond the Amendment before the Committee.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, that, in that case, he would conclude his observations by explaining that he was arguing that the Lord Lieutenant, in exercising the power conferred upon him by this clause of imposing fines upon districts which, however small, would be acting upon the principle of reasonable suspicion.

MR. LEAMY

said, as the Government appeared to have made up their minds to reject the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), he would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, whether he intended to move the Amendment standing in the name of the Secretary of State for the Home Department; because, if the Amendment before the Committee were not agreed to, the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman would be altogether unnecessary. Hon. Members who were inclined to support the Government in opposing the omission of these words would see, if they looked to Sub-section 2 of the clause, that the charges for the extra police and compensation were to be— Applotted rateably upon all rateable hereditaments in the district, and shall be payable by the owners thereof. Was it the intention of the Secretary of State for the Home Department to take power to enable the Lord Lieutenant to exempt certain of these hereditaments; because, if so, it would be in the power of the Lord Lieutenant to do what his (Mr. Leamy's) hon. Friends had said he would be forced to do by his Advisers in certain districts—namely, to impose this charge, by way of penalty, upon individuals, and not so much by way of penalties on the district. This would seem to be another of those attacks upon Constitutional principles with which the House had become familiar since the Liberal Government had occupied the Treasury Bench. Last year they claimed the right of imprisoning men upon suspicion, and they contended that that was done by way of detention, and not by way of punishment. Now, the proposal was to bring down the entire fines leviable under this Bill upon the head of one or a few individuals. It was that power which the Amendment before the Committee proposed to limit. If you give to the Lord Lieutenant the power to impose the charge upon two or three individuals in the district, as would unquestionably be the case, if he were allowed to impose the charge upon a "townland" where the average number of houses was not more than nine, and of which he might exempt eight, it followed that you gave him the power to compel single individuals to pay the whole tax levied by way of compensation, and for the extra police. He would go further, and say, if it were actually within the knowledge of the Lord Lieutenant that there was one man in a townland who was really responsible for the disturbed condition of that townland, or who was a person who promoted any outrage there, in consequence of which compensation might be claimed, it would, of course, be unfair on the part of the Lord Lieutenant to compel the seven or eight other inhabitants in the townland to pay for compensation rendered necessary by the action of that particular individual. Therefore, it would come to pass that the action of the Lord Lieutenant must rest upon suspicion. If the Government refused to limit the power of the Lord Lieutenant to exempt certain persons, were they to understand that he was to exercise that power of his mere will, and without any reference to the facts of the case—that the persons in the townland were entirely disconnected with the crime, or were the per- sons who suffered from the crime? The Lord Lieutenant must, of course, exercise his judgment; and it would result that he might impose a fine on people who were perfectly innocent, and, consequently, he would be acting, as he said before, upon suspicion. He wished the Committee to understand that last year the Government imprisoned on suspicion, and that now they were fining on suspicion. The hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) had pointed out that if the Government really intended to stand by their words, they might as well have consented to the Amendment which they had opposed; and he (Mr. Leamy) affirmed that if the Government now proposed to retain the words, there was no necessity whatever for the appearance of the Amendment of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department on the Notice Paper. The Committee were placed in a position of some difficulty, owing to the absence of the Secretary of State for the Home Department. He supposed, even if the present Amendment met with the acceptance of Her Majesty's Government, and the Amendment of the Secretary of State for the Home Department were forced upon the Committee, that they would have just as much power as they had now without it. If the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would only carefully examine these words and the Amendment standing in the name of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and fully estimate the power to be left to the Lord Lieutenant, he (Mr. Leamy) could not help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman would at once agree to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford. The great difficulty of Irish Members was that the Government would scarcely listen to the Amendments which came from them of a reasonable character. Even when they did accept one of their Amendments, it was very much the same; for the Government, having made up their minds that all proposals coming from those Benches were unreasonable, still left everything to the discretion of the Lord Lieutenant. They had heard from the Secretary of State for the Home Department that the object of the Government was that the clause should have elasticity; and the way they secured that object was by re- jecting the Amendments of Irish Members. But he (Mr. Leamy) had always understood that penal Statutes should be interpreted very strictly; but the penal Statute they were now being asked to pass was of such a kind that it might be made to embrace within its provisions everything that the Executive Government in Ireland wished. It gave power to the Lord Lieutenant both to punish individuals and to impose a penalty on a whole district. He did not know, if these words were retained, and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland refused to accept any compromise, whether he intended to move the Amendment in the name of the Secretary of State for the Home Department; but, if so, he (Mr. Leamy) should be glad to be informed what was the difference between the power which he would have under the clause and the power which he would receive supposing the Amendment of the Secretary of State for the Home Department were agreed to.

MR. BIGGAR

said, it appeared to him that the Government were doing the very thing for which they blamed Irish Members. Their policy seemed to be to waste as much time as possible. Had they adopted a different course, he believed that the Bill would have passed several days ago. His own experience of the conduct of the Government during the time the Bill had been in Committee was that they had agreed to those Amendments only which were of minor importance, and resisted all those that were of great importance, however reasonable in their nature.

THE CHAIRMAN

pointed out that the policy of the Government was not the Question before the Committee.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he was aware of that; but his intention was to show that the Amendment before the Committee was of so reasonable a nature that it ought to have been accepted by the Government; and, further, that its acceptance would have resulted in a great saving of time. He should be sorry to infringe the Rules of Committee by going beyond the strict limits of discussion. As the clause stood, it was clear that two or three persons in a district might be made liable for a large sum of money, although, having no locus slandi before the Commission that would investigate the claims, they would have no opportunity of saying anything in their own defence. Thus a number of people, who might be able to prove that they were perfectly innocent, might become liable for the payment of a heavy tax, without having any opportunity afforded them of making clear their innocence. They knew, with regard to the charge for extra police, that there was no means of appealing to the Lord Lieutenant in a legitimate way. Everything must be done by communications through deputations, or in some other of the peculiar ways of bringing pressure to bear upon the Irish Executive. And the same remarks applied to the charge for compensation for alleged outrages that would be levied upon the unfortunate people he had referred to as having no opportunity afforded them of saying anything in their own defence. The result of this would be that many questions would have to be asked in that House, as was the case in connection with the "suspects" detained in prison, and difficulties would arise with regard to these fines of a similar character to those which had heaped themselves upon the head of the late Chief Secretary for Ireland. In view of the many difficulties which he (Mr. Biggar) could foresee as resulting from the operation of the clause in its present form, he recommended the Government to agree to the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy). If that Amendment were not adopted, the result must be an endless amount of trouble to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and a considerable waste of time during future Sessions of Parliament. He repeated, that many questions would be asked which, if the replies were unsatisfactory, would be followed by Motions for Adjournment, Votes of Censure, and Motions for Returns—in short, all sorts of difficulties would arise if the clause were forced through the Committee in its present form. The Government ought, in dealing with Ireland in its present condition, to have brought in a Bill which could be administered impartially, and which did not place undue responsibility on the Lord Lieutenant; but, instead of that, Parliament was called on to pass a Bill which gave a tremendous amount of room for dishonesty on the part of officials. It appeared to him that the Government were acting injudiciously with regard to the present Session, and contrary to their own interests in the next Session—if they should then be in Office.

MR. GILL

said, Irish Members were contending against the power of subdividing the ridiculously small area of a townland or parish. If that power remained in the clause, it would be a temptation to interested persons to recommend the Lord Lieutenant to levy the fine upon those areas; but if the principle of sub-division were not applied to parishes or townlands, no one, he might say, would have the impudence to make such a recommendation. He suggested to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland a compromise, which would in no way weaken the effect of the clause—namely, to leave out the words "townland or parish or part or parts thereof respectively," and to substitute for them, "any part or parts of a county."

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the Committee had already agreed that the words "townland or parish" stand part of the clause. The question was as to whether the words "or part or parts thereof respectively" should be struck out.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 206; Noes 35: Majority 171.—(Div. List, No. 200.) [6.35 P.M.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, an Amendment had been handed to him by the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) limiting the application of the clause to townlands containing not less than 100 unexempted occupiers. As that was simply a repetition of an Amendment against which the Committee had already decided, it could not be put.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, there were many townlands in Ireland which contained a large number of inhabitants, and the object of his Amendment was to limit the application of the clause to townlands of that class. There was nothing in the Bill, as yet passed by the Committee, to extend the operation of the police and compensation clauses to the smaller townlands alone; and, therefore, he submitted that the Amendment might be put.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the Committee had already decided against an Amendment as to which the hon. Member's proposal was simply a repetition.

MR. O'DONNELL

I rise to a point of Order.

THE CHAIRMAN

The point of Order is already settled.

MR. O'DONNELL

Can I move a Proviso?

THE CHAIRMAN

Not contradictory of what has been already passed by the Committee.

MR. O'DONNELL

Will you allow me to move to limit the application of the clause to townlands of not less than five unexempted occupiers?

THE CHAIRMAN

The Committee have already decided that any townland, whatever its size may be, shall come within the operation of the Bill, and nothing contrary to that can now be put.

Amendment proposed, In page 8, line 37, after the word "district," insert "other than those exempted by the Lord Lieutenant in pursuance of this Act."—(Mr. Trevelyan.)

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

MR. HEALY

said, he understood, a few minutes ago, that when this Amendment was reached, the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be prepared to make a statement as to the reasons which induced the Government to propose the addition of these words. The Government, after giving the Lord Lieutenant power to applot these charges upon any county, barony, townland, or parish, or part or parts thereof respectively, now proposed to give an additional power of exemption. He (Mr. Healy) ventured to say that, under the circumstances, the words of the Amendment just moved were entirely superfluous, and he should vote against them.

MR. MARUM

said, he had taken exception to the 15th clause, seeing that under it the charge could be made on the entire district; and he had asked, in view of the power of exemption given to the Lord Lieutenant in the last subsection, what would become of the claim between the exempted and non-exempted portions. The Secretary of State for the Home Department said he would put down this Amendment to carry out, in logical sequence, the words of the 15th clause. He objected at the time, and still objected to that clause; but he would point out that the Amendment merely carried out the intention of the clause.

MR. TREVELYAN

said, the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) was right in challenging him to an explanation of the meaning of the words in Sub-section 3, Clause 15. It might be doubtful in the minds of some whether or not the whole of the charge could be levied on the district; and, in order to make this quite certain, the present words were proposed to be introduced in the 2nd sub-section of the clause under notice.

MR. BIGGAR

said, it seemed to him that the explanation of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland made the matter rather worse than it was before. The Government, first of all, proposed to levy a certain charge upon the unfortunate ratepayers of a district, and then they said, "We will exempt certain persons in that district." By that course they were favouring the most deadly enemies of order and the most dangerous class in the Irish community. He (Mr. Biggar) said that advisedly, knowing, as he did, a good deal of Irish society. The Government were encouraging a class of dangerous rowdies, who would give them and future Governments an amount of trouble which had never yet been given by any class of agitators in Ireland.

THE CHAIRMAN

pointed out that the hon. Member was not speaking to the Amendment.

MR. SYNAN

said, he was obtuse enough not to see the necessity of introducing the words of the Amendment into the clause. There was a necessity for the exemption in Clause 15, because, by the Amendment there adopted, the Committee shut out the power of distributing the district into parts: But, in this clause, power was taken to cut up the district into parts; and, that being so, what was the necessity for the Amendment unless the Government wanted to exempt the parts they had cut up?

THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES)

hoped the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. Synan) would excuse him for saying that he (the Attorney General) did not understand his argument. The Amendment was necessary to carry out the 15th clause in its present form. It was absolutely essential to the working of the clause. The Committee would see that by Clause 15 the Lord Lieutenant might exempt from charge any specified portion of the area de- clared to be chargeable; whereas, unless the words of the Amendment were introduced, the 2nd sub-section of the clause under notice would say— Any charge in respect of such additional constabulary, or any sum for such compensation as aforesaid, which is for the time being a charge payable by any district shall be applotted rateably upon all rateable hereditaments in the district; and it would be clear that you could not give effect to the 3rd sub-section of Clause 15. The Committee could not go back on that part of the Bill; and, therefore, as had been suggested by the hon. Member for Kilkenny (Mr. Marum), the Secretary of State for the Home Department proposed to insert the words contained in his Amendment.

DR. COMMINS

said, the Amendment before the Committee did not at all carry out the idea of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy). The clause provided that a district might be made up in such a way that the Act would apply to any part or parts of a townland, parish, barony, or county; and then it went on to say in Sub-section (2) that— Any charge in respect of such additional constabulary, or any sum for such compensation as aforesaid, which is for the time being a charge payable by any district shall be applotted rateably upon all rateable hereditaments in the district, and shall be payable by the occupiers thereof. Now, the Government proposed to add words to give the Lord Lieutenant power to exempt any district. But that was entirely inconsistent with the suggestion of the hon. Member for Wexford, and it was, moreover, inconsistent with what the Government had given the Committee to understand to be their object proposing the Amendment.

And it being ten minutes before Seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to report Progress; Committee to sit again this day.

The House suspended its Sitting at Seven of the clock.

The House resumed its Sitting at Nine of the clock.

Amendment proposed, In page 8, line 37, after the word "district," to insert the words "other than those exempted by the Lord Lieutenant in pursuance of this Act."—(Mr. Trevelyan.)

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

DR. COMMINS

said, he thought the Amendment would fail to carry out the object of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, because power was already reserved to make an inclosure upon an imaginary line, including all the rateable hereditaments liable to be rated in order to pay these charges. That being so, the addition of these words would throw the clause into confusion, and therefore would be useless. The Bill provided that— Rateable hereditaments other than those exempted by the Lord Lieutenant in pursuance of this Act, and that meant that the Lord Lieutenant should have power to exempt individuals within a circumscribed district. If that power was not already given, the Amendment would not carry out the object of excluding those which were already excluded by the imaginary line which might cut up a district, or townland, or barony. The natural construction of the clause with this Amendment would be that, in addition to the exclusion implied by the drawing of this line, there was also a power to exclude hereditaments within the line—a power of favouritism. If particular individuals were exempted by that construction, individuals in the district would be reserved, and the power would be exercised, because certain individuals in the district would undoubtedly bring pressure to bear on the Lord Lieutenant to obtain exemption. For instance, a landlord having a residence in a district, and desiring to be protected, would at once claim exemption under this section; and if he did, the very fact of his being exempted would more than neutralize any good effect the taxation might produce. It would be an additional cause of hatred and jealousy on the part of the people, who would believe that he had been earwigging the authorities at Dublin Castle, and that it was through his intervention that the tax was levied on the district in the first instance, seeing that he was able to get exempted. In that way the people, instead of becoming policemen to protect the landlord as well as themselves, would probably watch him closely, in order to make him leave the district, and would then take means to insure his not returning. It would confer a power of making individual exemptions, which must act mischie- viously and contrarily to the entire policy of the Act.

MR. SYNAN

asked, what was a district under this section? It was either a parish, or a townland, or a barony, or a county; but for his purpose he would take a parish. Suppose that parish contained 50 holdings, and a part of it was made a district under this clause, 25 holdings might become the district; and suppose there was a charge of £500 upon that district of 25 holdings, the other 25 would be actually exempted. Suppose that 10 of the 25 upon whom the charge was levied were exempted, then a certain proportion of the £500 would have to be given up.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, this was really renewing a discussion which occupied some hours on the 15th clause. The question was whether there should be a power of exemption or not. He had stated, as clearly as he could, that there was to be a power to charge a district, whether it was large or small. There might be in that district, whether large or small, some necessity for providing additional police, and, as the portion which required the extra police might not be the promoter of crime, but the sufferer from crime, it was proper, therefore, when the district or parish had been defined, that the charge for the extra police should be thrown upon that portion which had caused the necessity. In the first instance, the clause provided that the charge should be on the whole district, with the exception of that portion of the district which was regarded as the sufferer, and not as the promoter of the crime. This Amendment was strictly consequential upon that. The charge was made, for example, upon a barony, of which two-thirds was so disturbed that additional police were required, not only in the two-thirds which caused the disturbance, but in the other one-third, which but for the action of the two-thirds would have been tranquil. What was the justice of such a case? In his opinion, the justice of the case was that while the whole charge was placed on the whole barony, the one-third which was the sufferer by, and not the cause of the mischief, should be exempted from the charge, and the share of that one-third exempted should be charged on the two-thirds, as well as their own proportion. The purpose of this Amendment was simply to carry out that arrangement, and it seemed to him to discuss the matter any further was simply to go back on a discussion which had been already disposed of.

MR. BIGGAR

said, if the whole thing was settled by the former Amendment, he did not see the use of bringing in these new words. If the contention of the Home Secretary was correct there was no real necessity for this addition, for the right hon. and learned Gentleman said the whole question was settled some days ago, and therefore it was no use proposing this Amendment. He did not, however, think the Home Secretary had correctly stated the effect of the former provision in the Bill, for, as the right hon. and learned Gentleman said, if there was an exemption the money charged on one part would have to be defrayed by the other portions. He held that it would be necessary to re-cast some of the Bill.

MR. MARUM

explained that this Amendment arose from the 15th clause and was logically carrying out that clause.

MR. BYRNE

said, he thought that if there was anything fair in the Bill it was that clause which the Home Secretary seemed to desire to omit. The clause seemed to him to be fair, as it provided that any charge for additional Constabulary or for compensation should be charged in proportion to the rateable value. That appeared to be fair, but the Amendment seemed not only bad, but really not an Amendment at all, because if it was fair that any district or county should pay, all parts should pay share and share alike. That principle was acknowledged to be fair in all money transactions, but the clause provided for exemptions by the Lord Lieutenant. The Lord Lieutenant might be able to exempt 19 out of 20 people and throw the whole cost upon the 20th person. He saw no reason why any portion should be exempted from paying its share of the expense.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Member seems to have forgotten that the exemptions are already decided on Clause 15. This is a new point.

MR. BYRNE

said, he understood this Amendment was on Clause 17.

THE CHAIRMAN

Clause 17 is merely a clause by which the Lord Lieutenant has power to exempt if he considers it necessary.

MR. BYRNE

said, he was not referring to Clause 15 at all, but only to the provision that the Lord Lieutenant should be empowered to vary the method of levying the charge. He did not find fault with the levying, because that was agreed to; but he was now speaking of the way in which it was sought to levy the charge unfairly on one section of the community in a district. He did not desire to say anything but what he believed to be honest and fair, but this was a very serious matter. If one gentleman had to pay 20-twentieths and the other 19 were exempted, that was distinct favouritism by the Lord Lieutenant. The Lord Lieutenant must depend in the main on the officials for his ground of exemption, and that he considered contrary to the principles of the English Constitution, and he wished to be satisfied upon this Bill in the same manner as if he were discussing an English Bill. The Amendment was unfair, because one man might have to pay the whole charge, and it was also open to abuse.

MR. LEAMY

understood that by Clause 15 the Lord Lieutenant was empowered to exempt any specified portion of an area declared to be chargeable with the police tax. The Amendment of the Home Secretary dealt not only with the police tax, but also with compensation for murder and outrage, and consequently he held that, the question whether or not the Lord Lieutenant should have power to exempt was a new question. He intended to oppose the Amendment as a protest against giving the Lord Lieutenant power of exempting any specified district. The Home Secretary had stated that murders were committed by persons not known to the police and brought from a distance. That being so—compensation being conceded—it was unfair for the Lord Lieutenant to exempt a large class from the charge upon the district. He was quite willing to admit that the present Chief Secretary would do his best to insure the charge being levied equitably. But still there was a power to exempt with regard to the police tax. The view taken by right hon. Gentlemen who were lately in Office in Ireland was perfectly well-known, and they might be in Office again before this Bill expired, and knowing that the Lord Lieutenant must depend altogether on persons acquainted with the localities, this power of exemption might be un- fairly applied. It was on that account that he and his hon. Friends opposed exemption with regard to the police tax.

MR. O'DONNELL

denied that this Amendment was consequential to Clause 15. It was not consequential, and it was not even an extension of the principle of that clause. It was the establishment of a new power relating to an entirely new and different class of acts. The Home Secretary had argued that two-thirds of a district might be disturbed, and that it was only fair that the remaining third should be exempted from the charge for police necessitated by the disturbed parts of the district. There was no difficulty at all about the fact when there was a disturbance in two-thirds of a district and not in the remaining third, and if the Lord Lieutenant made a mistake he would be corrected by the entire neighbourhood. In this clause the Government proposed an extension to which he strongly objected. A crime might have been committed, and whether the offender had been detected or not the district was liable for compensation. He could understand that innocent and guilty alike should be liable for that compensation, for if a charge was being levied in a neighbourhood in which certain persons were reasonably suspected the whole district must suffer. Therefore, if there was to be this general justice or injustice done, it should be done equally all round; if a portion of an area was found guilty, let the whole area suffer for it. But when the Committee was asked to give special facilities for carrying out the theory of the Government, that the Lord Lieutenant might select individuals and exempt them from the payment of compensation, that was enabling the Lord Lieutenant to pass an opinion, not upon compensation, upon which there could be no mistake, but upon the internal dispositions and consciences of certain individuals, about whom he knew no more than he did about private persons in any other country. There was enormous difference between Clause 15, which dealt with open disturbance, and fictitious facts, which it was admitted would be created by this present clause, enabling the Lord Lieutenant to say such and such a man were loyal, and ought to be exempted, and such and such men, not being loyal, ought not to be exempted. Clause 15 was a clause which might be legitimately defended, but Clause 17 was not. How could any man in that House know the disposition of a man in another part of the House? Yet hon. Members had as much opportunity of understanding the inclinations of others as the Lord Lieutenant had with regard to persons in a particular district. He therefore, objected to providing machinery for carrying out a judgment formed by the Lord Lieutenant 100 miles away as to the loyal or disloyal state of mind of poor farmers. That proposal was importing into the clause the most hateful characteristics. This Bill professed to substitute a guarantee of facts and proofs for the suspicion which previously existed, and therefore he had a right to object to the objectionable principle of suspicion being foisted into the Bill by this clause. If the Lord Lieutenant exempted a man from payment, he could only exempt him because he had a high opinion of his disposition, and could only make that man's neighbours pay because he suspected them. That was a principle of fining upon suspicion and on principle. He protested against the Amendment, because it was calculated to facilitate the working of an unfair and unjust principle. That was his theoretical objection to the Amendment, knowing the state of Ireland as he did, and knowing how this power had worked in times past, and how it might be worked in the future, and knowing the agents whom the Lord Lieutenant must depend upon. He protested against this power of creating a privileged class in Ireland from the point of view of the prevention of crime. He warned the Government that they were offering temptations to crime, and to the creation of false reports of crime, by introducing this theory of exemption in connection with compensation. Any man who wanted to make sure of an exemption might pretend that he had been fired at, or that some other outrage had been committed upon him. Scores of cases of that kind had occurred during the last 18 months in which fictitious maimings and mutilations of cattle were reported. There were at present three or four men in prison waiting trial on charges of pretending that graves had been dug, and their lives threatened. Men would do that sort of thing in order to appear to be worthy persons, and so they would get off scot free, and be put on the privileged list of Dublin Castle if the Government carried out this theory.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

also opposed the Amendment. The effect of it, he said, was to enable the Lord Lieutenant to concentrate the taxes of a district upon a certain holding, or a certain individual. When the Home Secretary wished to get legislation against strangers into the Bill, he alleged that most of the crimes were done by strangers from a distance, and upon that representation he obtained the legislation he desired, so that his point was gained; but now he had apparently forgotten all about the strangers, and wanted to make a small district and a few individuals, or even a single individual, responsible for deeds perpetrated by strangers. It might be said that, although strangers were imported into these districts to commit crime, yet they were imported and paid by the districts. That might be said, but there was no evidence or proof in support of the statement, and there was good reason to suppose that the contrary was the fact.

THE CHAIRMAN

I do not see that the hon. Member is speaking at all to the Question.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he was going to argue that the responsibility for these deeds ought not to rest upon individuals, or upon small districts.

THE CHAIRMAN

This is not a question of levying on a district; that was settled long ago. It is simply a question whether a certain power shall be put into the clause which is already given in Clause 15, enabling the Lord Lieutenant to exempt certain persons.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he only wished to say that his idea was that the whole question of exemption was raised by this Amendment.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

rose to Order, and said, he was, he believed, correct in saying that the question of exemption was decided by the 15th clause, and the only question here was as to the fund which was to pay for the exempted parts. If a lump sum was raised on the whole district, and a certain portion of the district was exempted from the whole payment, somebody else must bear the charge which otherwise would have been borne by the exempted portions, and the only question was, who was to bear that charge? That was the distinct and sole question. Originally he had struck out certain words in Clause 15 to meet the views of hon. Members opposite, and if he had not done so this Amendment would not have been necessary. This Amendment was really consequential to that clause through the words he struck out—namely, "any portion of the district which the Lord Lieutenant may order." Those words having been struck out, it was necessary to provide for the money not paid by the exempted persons. Who was that charge to fall upon? It must fall on the portion of the district not exempted, and this Amendment was, as he had said, only consequential on Clause 15, in consequence of his having omitted the words referred to.

MR. LEAMY

observed, that the Home Secretary had said that he rose to Order.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he had risen to Order, and he must say that the discussion for the last half-hour was on a question of which, he thought, hon. Members did not understand the bearings.

MR. O'KELLY

said, he thought the Amendment dealt with the whole question of exemption, because it raised the question of individual exemptions.

THE CHAIRMAN

The exemption is already provided for in Clause 15.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

asked whether this Amendment did not provide that the tax should fall upon some persons within the district; and said, if that was so, he should argue that it ought not to be so. That was the argument he wished to make clear.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

again rose to Order, and said this clause did not determine that question at all. Clause 15 had determined that the charge should fall on the districts, and this clause only determined how it should be applotted. The question as to whether the charge was to fall on the district was settled already.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, that this was a question of applotment within the prescribed district. Did not that mean the exemption of certain persons?

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

No.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

argued that this was a question of applotment, and, in all probability, it would, do great in- justice if, as had been alleged, the crimes were not only the work of strangers, but of secret societies. The secret society, if it existed, might have head-quarters in London, Paris, Dublin, New York, or Liverpool.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Gentleman must keep strictly to the Amendment, and not go over the whole Bill.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he thought he was keeping strictly to the Amendment, and all he desired was that the Committee should clearly understand his view on this matter. He wished to argue that these deeds, being, as alleged by the Government, the work in many cases of secret societies, it was possible that a whole district might be innocent of any complicity with the crime for which it was to be taxed.

THE CHAIRMAN

The hon. Gentleman must see that he is now discussing the question of districts, which has been settled long ago. That is not the question at all.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

added, that he simply meant to refer to such portions of a district as were to be made the subject of an applotment.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he thought there seemed to be some confusion upon this matter. The discussion raised two questions. It was settled by Clause 15 that, in the first instance, a sum of money should be levied on a particular district, which the ratepayers should pay in proportion to their rateable valuation. Then another issue came in—namely, an issue of exemption. One or more holdings in the particular district were, in the first instance, exempted from the payment of any tax; and then came an issue raised by this Amendment; how was the money from which those holdings were exempted to be provided? He submitted that that gave an opportunity of raising the whole question as to why the districts should be taxed.

THE CHAIRMAN

I have already ruled that the general question is settled by Clause 15, and cannot be discussed upon this Amendment.

MR. BIGGAR

said, he did not wish to raise that question; but he was referring to the people who would have to pay the charge from which certain other persons were exempted. It seemed to him perfectly unreasonable that those unfortunate persons should have to pay twice over for injuries with which it was possible they had nothing to do. In the first instance, a certain fixed sum was imposed upon them; but now it was proposed, without any further reason, that they should be made to pay a second sum, because certain other persons were exempted. Under conditions of this kind, the proper thing would be to pay for those exempted out of the general taxation of the country.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 98; Noes 29: Majority 69.—(Div. List, No. 201.) [10.0 P.M.

MR. HEALY moved to exempt cottier tenants rated under £4 from the operation of this clause. He did not think the Government could expect these miserable cottiers, who had the greatest possible difficulty to eke out an existence, to pay this extra taxation. Even the sum of 10s. would represent the difference between misery and comfort with these people. The object of the Bill, as he understood it, was to put down crime and aid in the pacification of the country. How could the Government expect to pacify the country by exasperating still further these unfortunate cottier tenants? He supposed there were 70,000 or 80,000 tenants in Ireland rated under £4, and surely it could not be said that these were men who would, as a rule, take part in crime. Many of them had not even a gun, and the Government alleged that the crimes now committed in Ireland were committed by strangers, and not by persons living in the district. How could cottier tenants rated under £4 a-year get the money to import strangers from elsewhere to commit these murders? A man rated under £4 or £5 a-year had land of four or five acres. He lived chiefly upon potatoes, he did not get meat, even on Christmas Day; and his family generally occupied a cottage which consisted of one room only. To place such a tax upon such men would work the greatest injustice. If this tax were proposed in Bulgaria, that House would resound with protestations against the actions of the Bashi-Bazouks who were grinding down the unfortunate people. He would tell the Government that the people of Ireland, no doubt, like the Bulgarians, had human souls to feel and bodies to suffer.

Amendment proposed, In page 8, line 37, after the word "and," to insert the words "when the annual valuation of the premises rated shall exceed four pounds."—(Mr. Healy.)

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

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, this was another example of Amendments which clearly could have no other object but to defeat the clause. These clauses were intended to give a pecuniary interest in the district to aid in the detection of crime, and then it was proposed to exempt a whole class of people who might be, some of them, the very persons whom they would wish to bring this pressure to bear upon. The hon. Gentleman had said that people rated under £4 could not buy guns. Unfortunately, it was known that in these days it was the business of some men to supply other people with guns. The hon. Member had said that these cottier tenants had not the money to import strangers into the district to commit crimes. No; strangers were imported at their own expense; but there were people who covered those strangers, and who enabled them to commit crime with impunity. It was against this immunity of crime that these clauses were directed. This Amendment would entirely defeat the object of the clause, and therefore he could not accept it.

MR. HEALY

said, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had stated that the object of the clause was to give the people of the district a pecuniary interest to aid in the detection of crime. He wished the right hon. and learned Gentleman would stick to that statement, but unfortunately he would not; because when they were arguing other clauses they found that whether crime were detected or not the people were to be punished. When it was yesterday suggested that where crime had been detected people should be exempted from this charge, the right hon. and learned Gentleman rejected the proposal with scorn. There was not an Amendment which was proposed that the Home Secretary had not a different argument for, and every argument was inconsistent with the one that had been used previously. Of course, it was not the business of the Committee to consider the arguments of the right hon. and learned Gentleman; the Committee was now downstairs in the Smoking Room.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the hon. Gentleman must speak to the Amendment.

MR. HEALY

said, he was pointing out why the Amendments proposed by himself and his hon. Friends were not accepted. With regard to the statement that persons could not buy guns, the right hon. and learned Gentleman had said there were persons who supplied them. If there were, had the Government not got a clause to give the police a day and night search, and if strangers came into the country was there not an Alien Act? The Home Secretary told them that strangers came into the district at their own expense. Was there not a clause providing that anybody found in the district during the day could be seized and bound over to keep the peace; and anybody found in the district at night could be seized by a police official and sent to prison for a considerable time? These were the arguments of the Home Secretary, and he (Mr. Healy) had shown the Committee that such arguments rested upon no foundation whatever. It was unjust and unreasonable to expect these cottier tenants to pay this blood tax, which would be as useless as it was infamous.

MR. O'SULLIVAN

heartily supported the Amendment, but he thought his hon. Friend (Mr. Healy) had overlooked a very strong point. In the Poor Law Act it was provided that no occupier rated under £4 should pay the poor rate. Such occupiers were not expected to pay poor rates or any improvement tax. It was certainly most unfair that they should be asked to pay towards the compensation, as it might turn out to be, of some very rich man. Why should the Committee not follow such a precedent as the Poor Law Act? That House and the country were very fond of precedent. It was well known that in some of the houses valued under £4 the people were themselves paupers. He knew of cases where the occupiers were even owners, but so destitute had been their condition that they had not been required to pay poor rates. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had told them that this Amendment could have no other object than to defeat the clause. That was a very strange view to take of the Amendment, which was proposed in order to relieve a class of people who were unable to pay. That was the solid reason for the Amendment. The greater portion of these cottier tenants were paupers, and for that reason his hon. Friend proposed to relieve them of this tax. This was a very humane Amendment, and he should like to hear from some Member of the Government what tangible reason there was for its rejection. It was reasonable, just, and fair, and he hoped that the Government would reconsider the matter and ultimately accept the Amendment.

MR. SEXTON

said, the hon. Gentleman (Mr. O'Sullivan) had pointed out that these cottiers were exempt from the imposition of those taxes which had the first claim upon every citizen; they were exempted from the tax for the maintenance of the poor. Why was this? Why had the Legislature mercifully exempted them? It was simply because these poor men, whatever might be thought of the social construction of social life in Ireland, were, indeed, nothing else but what might be called paupers. There were paupers inside the workhouses and there were the paupers outside. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had talked about giving the people a pecuniary interest in the repression of crime. That argument could only apply to men who might be able to pay the tax. If a tax were imposed on people and they were able to pay it, those people, no doubt, would have a direct interest in the repression of crime, because they would know that unless crime were repressed they would have to continue the payment of the tax. In the case of men who were not able to pay the tax, it was impossible to give them a pecuniary interest in the repression of crime. In fact, the imposition of the tax would only exasperate them in a greater degree than many of them were now exasperated. The hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) had stated that there were 70,000 or 80,000 cottier tenants in Ireland rated at under £4 a-year. His hon. Friend had certainly not overstated the number. In Ireland there were 50,613 men holding one acre of land, and there were 64,292 men who held between one acre and five, making a total of 114,000, or one-fifth of the total agricultural holders of Ireland. All these holdings were valued at under £4 a-year. What had been the immediate past, and what was the present condition, of these poor creatures? They were people who were lately saved from star- vation, partly by the charitable action of this Legislature, and partly by that of the world. This Legislature, by a curious exercise of logic, gave large sums of money to the landlords of Ireland to save these starving tenants; and there were four funds in Dublin—the Mansion House fund, the Land League fund, and two other funds, the objects of which were to save these wretched £4 holders from starvation. Hundreds of thousands of pounds were spent, yet such was the width of the area that this large sum of money was spent in nothing but Indian meal, to give these families one meal a-day. These were the people it was intended to levy this blood tax upon. Some of these people had brought their case before the Land Commission, and they had had their rents reduced by £1 or £2 a-year. Now, it did not want much to see that that reduction was a matter of great consequence to such a miserable class of men. It was a common phrase in this country that, even if these cottier tenants were rid of their rents altogether, and had their land rent free to-morrow, they would not be able to live. The hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) would say, "Send them up the country;" but the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary said that, "We know they can't live now, but we will enable them to live still better by adding half as much again to their rent." He (Mr. Sexton) could not regard the future of his country with anything but despair, for nothing was done for Ireland save that which could only be calculated to drive the people to desperation.

MR. NEWDEGATE

said, he would just remind hon. Gentlemen from Ireland that this was not a tax, but a penalty. There was great poverty in the Pontifical States; there was great poverty in Roman Catholic countries. He quite agreed that poverty ought to be considered; but in a matter of penalty he could not grant the proposition that poverty covered all sins.

MR. GILL

said, the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate) had just said that this was not a tax, but a penalty. It was certainly a very curious importation into modern ethics that people who committed no crime whatever should be punished, as a penalty was certainly something imposed for the commission of crime. The Irish Members were arguing that in a district which was taxed there might be a very large number of perfectly innocent persons who had nothing whatever to do with crime, who knew, in fact, no more about crime than the hon. Gentleman the Member for North Warwickshire himself. By this Amendment, an endeavour was being made to get this tax removed from those who would be utterly incapable of paying it. The Prime Minister had on more than one occasion said evictions were sentences of death to a large number of people. There were no clauses in this unfortunate Bill which would tend more to increase evictions in Ireland than this clause. There were many landlords in Ireland who had estates in different parts of the country. They would assume that on one of these estates there were a large number of poor tenants, and that on the same man's estate 40 or 50 miles away the tenants were of the same description. If one lot of tenants resolved to shoot the landlord they would be very likely to send men to the other estate on which to execute their decree upon him. The people who had concocted the murder would thus escape the tax, while those who could not possibly know anything about the crime would find the tax imposed upon them. If these poor people were unable to pay the tax, or if they were forced to pay it, they would not have money to pay their rents; therefore, they would be at once evicted. As he had said, there was no better plan for forcing evictions, or giving landlords the opportunity of evicting in Ireland, than this very clause, especially if the protection now sought by this Amendment was not given to the very poor tenants. The Committee heard a great deal about the Landlord Association. Would not this clause be a very powerful weapon in the hands of that Association to carry out evictions? As soon as this clause was put into operation, as soon as this tax was levied upon 40 or 50 innocent people in the district, it would give the opportunity to the landlord to evict the people; and, therefore, it would give an opportunity to the Landlords' Association to take up the land, and by that means to carry out their plan, which he (Mr. Gill) and others believed was solely that of evicting wholesale. They all remembered the revelations that had been made with regard to public Companies in England; the villainies that public Companies would resort to in order to carry out—

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the hon. Gentleman must not go beyond the Amendment.

MR. GILL

said, he was simply giving an illustration. This Amendment was to exempt certain persons from this police tax, and he was endeavouring to prove—and he thought he was quite justified in doing so—that if this tax were imposed, it would tend to increase, very largely, eviction; and it was on that account that he was arguing in favour of the Amendment. In order to bear out his argument, he wanted to prove that, by means of this Company which had started up recently, there were greater facilities for eviction in regard to these poor cottier tenants.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, in this illustration the hon. Gentleman was going much beyond the Amendment.

MR. GILL

said, he would say no more except that to these people the tax might amount to considerably more than their rent. The tax would give an enormous opportunity to the exterminators to evict the people from their holdings. With regard to what the Home Secretary said, that these people, although they could not afford to buy arms, were liberally supplied with them by others, he wanted to know what was the use of the Arms Act, which was passed last year, and which was still in operation? That argument of the Home Secretary was a very unfortunate one, for it only proved the perfect inefficiency of the Constabulary Force in Ireland.

THE CHAIRMAN

said, the hon. Gentleman could only give reasons why tenants rated under £4 a-year should be exempted from this tax. He could not go into the inefficiency, or otherwise, of the Constabulary Force in Ireland.

MR. GILL

said, that if the Chairman ruled against him be would not continue the subject; but he had always thought that in Committee they were able to answer the arguments brought forward by others; and the Home Secretary had certainly adduced the argument which he was attempting to refute.

MR. DILLON

said, he would like to ask the Home Secretary whether he had ever been in houses inhabited by Irish tenants rated under £4 a-year? The right hon. and learned Gentleman had said that he was anxious to give the poor people of Ireland a pecuniary interest in the repression of crime. Was this the way in which the Government proposed to do it? In his opinion the Amendment was in the interest of law and order, for if they levied a fine upon these poor people it would be found that they would refuse to pay it; then, what would be the consequences? An appeal would have to be made to the magistrates; a civil bill would be taken out, and when all that was done, the Government would not be nearer their money, because they would have to seize upon the property of the people. He did not know whether any Members of the Government had ever entered one of these shibbeens; if they had, they would certainly find that common decency would prevent a seizure of the few pieces of furniture they there found. As he had said, the people would refuse to pay the tax, and when the time arrived to levy the tax the district would be reduced to such an exasperated state that it would be found in open revolution against the Government. He defied the Government to levy the tax upon these people. There was only one way in which money could be squeezed out of the poor man rated under £4 a-year, and that was by evicting him out of his holding. If there was power to evict him, he might then get money together; but by a civil bill process it was impossible to get a single penny out of him. They would go to the expense of a civil bill, they would exasperate districts, and they would bring law into contempt, and not a penny would they get. It was for this reason this Amendment was proposed. As he understood it, the Government had no power to evict the people for the non-payment of this tax. Therefore, he wanted to know what was the use of obstinately sticking to the clause? He presumed that the Government would take their Constabulary and their military to compel the people to do what was impossible. They would provoke a resistance to the law, and then the Government would come forward for another Coercion Bill. It was simply impossible for men rated under £4, or even £7, or £8, or £10, to pay such a tax as was now proposed to be levied. He was not drawing on his imagination; but he was simply stating what the history of Ireland clearly showed; and he would only say, in conclusion, that this was the most unfortunate clause of the Bill. The Government would be simply deluged by applications under this clause. If a man had got a blow on the head, or had got an injury, however slight or however serious, he would immediately send in an application for compensation These applications would commence immediately the Bill became law, and civil bill processes would have to be issued wholesale. The Government would simply find themselves absolutely paralyzed, and the whole thing would be turned into ridicule. Their action would increase the discontent of the districts of Ireland, and make the law positively hateful.

DR. COMMINS

said, he did not propose to go over the arguments already used, but he would ask the Committee if this provision would be workable? Would it pay?—and that, perhaps, was one of the most pertinent questions that could be asked. He maintained that the clause would neither work nor pay, and the Government would find their anticipations would be completely disappointed. Suppose the ordinary means were adopted for collecting the tax. Those means would be of no avail, and the people would be sent to prison for a week or for a fortnight, or for a month, because they would not pay. The people would have to be supported in prison, so that the Government would be put to considerable loss, a loss which would be represented by a sum much greater than that they would realize by the tax. The Home Secretary had said that the Amendment would defeat the object of the section. What was the object of the section? There were so many interpretations of this and other sections that one was at a loss to know how to meet arguments such as those of the right hon. and learned Gentleman. The argument, however, of the Home Secretary did seem to have some point given to it by the interpretation put upon the clause by the hon. Member for North Warwickshire (Mr. Newdegate). The hon. Gentleman told them that the section was intended to enact penalties. Penalties upon whom? Why, upon people who, in the great majority of cases, must be entirely innocent. The imposition of the tax upon a person who felt he was guiltless would cause the man to revolt in his heart, and to revolt physically, if he could, against the injustice, and against the Government which enforced the tax. What was the complaint made every day? Was it not that the people of Ireland were not in sympathy with the law? How could they be supposed to be?

THE CHAIRMAN

I must point out to the hon. and learned Member that the Amendment before the Committee is to exempt persons rated at £4 and under from the operation of the clause.

DR. COMMINS

said, he was sorry if he had wandered from the Amendment. He was pointing out that the majority of the £4 holders would be entirely innocent of the crimes for which this penalty was to be imposed. These men were chiefly labourers, and it was a well-known fact they were not in a position which would be required under this clause. He supposed the tax would be enforced by distraining upon the goods of the unfortunate people, or by imprisoning them. However the law was enforced, it was quite clear the enforcement must produce more harm than good. The people would feel they were treated unjustly, and, instead of looking upon the Government as their protectors, they would regard it as anxious to grind them down in every direction. The poverty of the people was an immense evil, but a greater evil was the alienation of the people from the law. They often heard from the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary—indeed, it had become a sot argument for him on every question which arose under this Bill—that the people were alienated from the law, and that they sympathized with crime. That being so, why do anything which would increase that great evil, and particularly, why impose this very severe tax? The only effect of the tax must be to increase the poverty of the people, and it must, above all things, be to increase the alienation of the people from the law. He had no hesitation in saying that this clause was a direct violation of the sacred principles which had made England great. One of the oldest principles of the British law was that even a penalty should not be imposed so as to trench upon the means of living of the labourer. Such a principle was embodied in one of the clauses of Magna Charta. The Government might desire to pacify the people of Ireland, but they were proceeding upon a very mistaken path. He should, therefore, oppose the section in its pre- sent form, and vote for the Amendment.

MR. BYRNE

desired to support this very just and humane Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy), and to emphasize the contention of the hon. Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan). The Amendment sought to exempt the poor persons who were rated at £4 and under from the operation of this clause. Such persons were already exempted from the payment of poor rate. He believed that if it were so ordered that half of this tax should be paid by the landlord and half by the tenant the effect would be a very good one. With regard to the punishment of crime he would say at once that if the guilty persons could be detected it was right they should be brought before a proper tribunal and ordered to pay the penalty of their acts; but he could not admit it was proper to punish the people of a district for the crime a man amongst them committed. Under no circumstances ought the innocent to be punished, and, therefore, he asked the Government to accept the Amendment now under consideration. Following the precedent in the case of the poor rates, people rated under £4 ought to be entirely exempted from this charge, or the charge ought to be wholly met by the landlord.

THE CHAIRMAN

There is a subsequent Amendment to that effect.

MR. BYRNE

said, he would keep as closely to the text as he possibly could, for he had every desire to keep in Order. He would point out, in conclusion, that the Government had already introduced into the House an Arrears Bill to assist the unfortunate cottier tenants of Ireland out of their difficulties. Surely they would not add to the difficulties of these poor people by imposing upon them a charge for police.

MR. O'DONNELL

said, his hon. Friend (Mr. Byrne) had certainly called the attention of the Committee to the strange contradiction between insisting upon the imposition of a tax of this kind upon the very poorest class of the population, while actually the House had before it a proposition for helping, by a grant out of the public funds, this very class of people to pay their rents. It was admitted on all hands that the £4 cottier tenants could not even pay their ordinary rents, and yet the Government proposed to make them subject to a tax of this description. The Government ought to accept this Amendment of the Irish Party, because he remembered that only yesterday, when the hon. Member for the County of Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) declared that it was not poor people who committed the crimes throughout Ireland, there was no one in the House who gave a more emphatic assent to that statement than the Home Secretary himself. The right hon. and learned Gentleman emphatically applauded the statement that it was not the poor classes of the Irish population who were guilty of crime; and yet, when the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) proposed to except these classes from the operation of this clause, the Committee found the Government stating that unless they had the means of imposing these fines upon the very poorest classes of the population they could not rely upon the assistance of the people in the prevention and detection of crime. The Home Secretary appeared to pay respect to his emotions one day, and to carry out the policy of the Cabinet another day; and he was glad to bear testimony that occasionally the right hon. and learned Gentleman's emotions were superior to his policy. ["Oh, oh!"] No doubt the hon. Members who had expressed such impatience in considering the question of the Irish poor were not acquainted with the condition of that poor. The hon. Member for Tipperary (Mr. Dillon) had asked the Committee to consider how the payment of this tax was to be exacted from these poor cottier tenants. Very often the sticks found in the cabins of these people did not deserve the name of furniture, and if they were seized it was not very likely that the Government would be able to realize much upon them; certain it was they would not be used to furnish any Government dwelling. It was impossible to exact the payment of the tax from these people. By attempting to do so the authorities would drive the people to despair, and this very clause, which the Government claimed to be necessary for the prevention and detection of crime, would become a fertile cause of disturbance and crime. These people, whose only crime was to be poor, were to be fined because a crime had been committed in their neighbourhood. A blood tax was to be imposed upon them, though they were no more responsible for the outrages committed in their midst than the inhabitants of the Strand were responsible for the murder of the men whose corpses were found in the Thames. It had been suggested that the worth of the tax could be exacted by seizing the actual holding of the tenant. That would be of no use whatever; for if there was such a thing as a "Boycotted" holding in Ireland, just imagine what amount of "Boycotting" would be resorted to in the case of a farm from which a man had been evicted because he would not or could not pay this blood tax! There was this consideration, which he was not sure had been brought before the notice of the Committee, although it was well worthy of attontion—namely, what would be the effect on the status, position, and safety of compensated persons if they made compensation a matter of such unsparing, unscrupulous rigour? Could the persons who received this compensation out of the sweat of the poor be anything but objects of odium to the whole country-side? They would drag out of a miserable village £200 or £300, and give it to persons who, up to the moment of their receiving it, were objects of general sympathy, but who were converted by the gift into objects of detestation. If there was any truth in the contention of the Government that sordid motives were all-powerful with the Irish peasant, then how horribly sordid must be the motive which would stir up the whole country-side against these wretched people who dragged £200 or £300 out of scores of poor families still more wretched than they were? This clause would only result in infinitely worsening the Government of Ireland, and in Her Majesty's Ministers handing over to their Successors an Ireland in a condition of still greater misery than it was at present.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, the Amendment proposed that only poor farmers whose rating was quoted up to £4 should be taxed. How did the poorer tenants live? Hon. Members who represented the majority of the House did not know how, but he would give them some idea. These poor people existed in a wretched condition. They for the most part did not know the luxury of wearing shoes or stockings, but went about barefoot over the stony roads and fields, the women as well as the children, and in many cases the men also. How did these miserable families eke out the rent they paid for their miserable holdings? Crowds of them had to come over to England during the harvest season. Was it to earn a little money to enable them to put clothes on their backs and to feed their families, and to put shoes on their feet? No; but to pay the exorbitant rents demanded for their miserable holdings. Those who lived on the seashore had to eke out their wretched subsistence by going into the water up to their waists and collecting seaweed—they had to spend half their time in the stormy waters gathering weed, and even upon this, in many cases, the landlords imposed a tax. When he said these things some people might be incredulous, but he was within the knowledge of many Irish Members on both sides of the House. Her Majesty's Government were now to come in with another tax upon the peasantry. Hon. Members had heard of the last straw that broke the camel's back. This tax would be the last straw in the case of the poor Irish farmer. A half-crown, even 1s., was a large sum to him—how would he pay a fine of 8s. or 10s? But, speaking here for these poor miserable people, he spoke "to ears that did not hear," he spoke "to hearts that did not feel"—he spoke here the truth on this matter, and he saw smiles spreading over the countenances of hon. Gentlemen who had comfortable homes, and to whom the sacrifice of £50 or £100 was a matter of no consequence. These hon. Members laughed and smiled whilst he was pleading for wretched, hardworking, honest people. Let them do it, he would not trust himself to continue that part of the matter further. This, however, he would say that these poor creatures, for whom he was pleading and whose miseries were laughed at, were of human nature—they were as much of the human race as hon. Members opposite, and it was a part of human nature that injustice and oppression should breed revenge. ["Hear, hear!"] Interruptions of that kind counted for very little. If any hon. Member thought that an ironical "Hear, hear" would prevent him from pleading, even in that hostile Assembly, for the most oppressed class of his countrymen that hon. Member was greatly mistaken. This blood tax would fall with cruel force on the very poorest people of Ireland. It would help to depopulate the country. What were the Government to do when they had to collect their taxes and were face to face with a people who had no money to give them? Would they take the miserable coats from the backs of the people—would they take their miserable sticks of furniture? These things, it would be said, would have no commercial value. Very true; but they might produce a good effect if, when they were seized, they were put on exhibition at South Kensington Museum as showing—

THE CHAIRMAN

I would ask the hon. Member to have some consideration for the time of the Committee, and not to discuss matters of this kind.

MR. T. D. SULLIVAN

said, he should be very glad if the Committee would have some consideration for the time of the Irish Members. They felt very much the amount of time they had to spend here arguing—and vainly arguing—these questions. His contention was that these people, who were so circumstanced in the world that their rating only amounted to £4, should be relieved from the incidence of this tax.

MR. BIGGAR

said, it seemed to him that the arguments were entirely on one side with regard to this Amendment. He would ask what would be the practical result supposing the Government succeeded in levying this blood tax on these unfortunate people? Why, a great many would have to be sent to the poor-house, not only the ratepayers themselves, but their wives and families also; and in this way a substantial tax would be imposed upon the landlords of the property upon which these persons lived. He did not think the Tories would, if they knew it, like to impose this penalty upon the landlords of Ireland. The amount the landlords would have to pay would be more than all the money which would be drawn from those who were rated at under £4. If they imposed this tax upon poor people who could not afford to pay it, all they would be able to get from a man would be £1 or £2, and the dragging of that from him would drive him and his family into the poor-house, and would cost the Union £25 a-year, half of which, or £12 10s., would come out of the pockets of the landlords. It would be a bad thing for the landlord, therefore, to compel the tenants to pay this money—it would be much better for him to pay the amount himself. He (Mr. Biggar) would suggest to the Government that a much better plan than that they proposed, if they wished to punish these poor people, would be to send every man who lived in the district it was proposed to tax, and whose rating was under £4, to prison for so many days with hard labour. He put this before the Government as an alternative scheme. It would be less injurious to the landlords, as it would not prevent them from getting their rents, and would not impose a heavy tax on them for the maintenance of the destitute in the poor-house. If an Amendment of that kind had been proposed and accepted, it would have been much more satisfactory to everyone concerned. As the clause stood, a poor cottier would either be driven to the poor-house or compelled to borrow from an usurer, and the result of the latter operation would be to put a heavy permanent tax upon him and his family for the rest of their lives. These people whose rateable value was below £4 were not rated for the support of the poor, therefore it was absurd to ask them to pay this tax. There should be some argument from the Government against this Amendment, otherwise the Committee should support it.

Question put.

The Committee divided:—Ayes 33; Noes 136: Majority 103.—(Div. List, No. 202.) [11.15 P.M.

MR. SYNAN

said, he wished to insert, in page 8, line 38, after the word "thereof," the words— And such applotment shall be made by a poundage rate in the same manner as poor rates, and the tenant of any such rateable hereditament shall be entitled to deduct such poundage deduction as he is entitled by the Laws for the Relief of the Poor to make in respect of the rent of such rateable hereditaments. Her Majesty's Government had refused to exempt paupers from the tax, and this Amendment would test whether or not Her Majesty's Government and the Committee were equally willing to include landlords. This would, he thought, be a pretty good test of the objects of the Bill—it would show whether the measure was a fair and honest one for the purpose of establishing law and order in Ireland, or whether it was to be a partial Bill for the purpose of en- forcing a law against one class and not against another. He, for his own part, did not know any class who were more interested in maintaining law and order in Ireland than the landlords, and he should listen with great anxiety to hear what arguments the Government would use in favour of exempting them from taxation under this Bill. His Amendment would divide the new tax between the landlord and tenant just as the Poor Law taxation was divided between them. They had been informed all through the discussions on the clause that it was brought forward with three objects—first, to give compensation to persons who had received injury; secondly, as a preventive—to prevent crime and lay the foundation of law and order in Ireland—and in these two objects he imagined that the landlords were more interested than any other class in the country; and, thirdly, as a punitive Bill for the purpose of punishing, and, by punishing, restoring law and order in Ireland. The question, then, was as to whether the landlords were not as much interested in punishing those who committed outrage as the tenant class, who were equally blameless and harmless as themselves. The tenants would have to pay all the tax unless it could be proved to the satisfaction of the Committee, and to the satisfaction of the people of this Empire, that the majority of the tenants of Ireland did not support crime, and should not be subject to the payment of the whole of the tax. If this were a preventive clause the landlords, if they had any patriotism, should come forward and share the onus with the tenants. Had the Government produced any evidence, or attempted in any way to show that the crimes were committed by the tenant class? On the contrary, they had stated in introducing the Bill that it was not the tenants who committed the crimes, but strangers who were brought from outside, and they had drawn part of their Bill for punishing strangers. If, then, the tenants were innocent of the crimes, why should not the landlords pay equally with them—why should not the landlords be willing to do it? He confessed there was no other conclusion he could draw from the refusal of the Government to accept the Amendment—supposing they did refuse—than that they wished to stigmatize the tenants of Ireland as in combination against the law of the land. What did they do when they passed the 15th clause? They said that a police force was to be imposed on a locality when there was an apprehension of crime. Well, were not the landlords as interested in the protection that would be so afforded, and as interested in the prevention of crime as the tenants, and should they not be equally called upon to pay the extra police tax? Take the 9th clause; were not the landlords equally interested with the tenants in preventing strangers from coming into the localities and committing these crimes? If they were, on what ground could the Home Secretary exempt them from bearing their fair share of taxation under the Bill? It might be said, "The landlords are blameless in this matter;" but it was very hard to say with truth, who were blameless. Who was the man to throw the first stone in Ireland? He would give the Committee a case. Supposing that rack rents on a particular estate led to crime, and supposing that the crime spread from that locality over the whole of a county, were not the landlords more to be blamed than the tenants? Certainly they were. If, therefore, the landlords were not blameless, if they were equally to be blamed with the tenants, on what ground could the Home Secretary say that they should be exempted from paying their share of taxation? To refuse this Amendment was to say that the landlords of Ireland had no interest in maintaining law and order in that country, and that they should not bear the expense of it. He confessed it seemed to him that, when they compared these classes one with the other, the landlords ought to be the first to offer to pay, and if they were a patriotic class they would do so. Every landlord in a district, every landlord in a county, ought to join with the tenants in preventing breaches of law and order; and if they did not do so they neglected their duty, and really laid the foundation for disorder. By passing the Bill in its present form the Committee would place the tenants of Ireland on one side and the landlords on the other—they would establish two camps, and that was just the way to begin to destroy law and order. He declared that if they established two camps in Ireland, and separated the classes, instead of laying the foundation of law and order, they would be laying the foundation of lawlessness and disorder; and "The Prevention of Crimes Bill" would, in reality, be "The Encouragement of Crimes Bill."

Amendment proposed, In page 8, line 38, after the word "thereof," to insert the words "and such applotment shall be made by a poundage rate in the same manner as poor rates, and the tenant of any such rateable hereditament shall be entitled to deduct such poundage deduction as he is entitled by the Laws for the Relief of the Poor to make in respect of the rent of such rateable hereditaments."—(Mr. Synan.)

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

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, the proposal was based on a complete misapprehension of the whole object of the clause. It had been explained over and over again that the object of the clause was to call upon the residents in a district to act as mutual guarantees for the preservation of order—that if it was felt that additional constables were required in a district, the residents should pay for the condition of disorder and crime which had led to that necessity. It was the very essence of the clause that the charge should be imposed on persons resident in the district—it had nothing whatever to do with the question of who was the tenant and who was the landlord. If the landlord was an occupier he would have to pay. No landlord would be exempted as a landlord, nor would any tenant be charged as a tenant; and what the hon. Member had said, therefore, with regard to landlords and tenants, was totally beside the question. The charge was one which, from its whole character, must necessarily fall upon the occupier. If the landlord were an occupier he would pay as an occupier; if the tenant were an occupier, he would pay as an occupier. The whole thing lay in a nutshell, and it was quite obvious that this Amendment was inconsistent with the scope of the Bill.

MR. O'SULLIVAN

said, the arguments that were used for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) could be used also for this. He did not see why, when they had the power of deducting half the tax in the case of the poor rate, they should not have power to deduct half of this tax for extra police. The custom had been to divide all the rates and taxes of this kind between the landlords and tenants. Let the Committee compare the conduct of the Conservatives, when in Office, with that of the Liberals in this matter. See what the Conservatives did in 1879, when they passed the "Seeds Loan Bill." They required that the landlord, as well as the occupier, should pay his portion of the rate. Look at their conduct, again, in regard to the Public Works Loans Bill. ["Question!"] He thought that if hon. Gentlemen would listen for a moment they would see that he was making a useful comparison between the action of the late Government, which was a Conservative Government, and the present, so-called, Liberal Government—he was showing that when the Conservatives made fresh taxes they compelled the landlords to pay half of them; but that now the Liberals were making a fresh tax they compelled the occupier to pay all. The proposal of the Bill seemed to him to be most unfair and unjust, and he did not see why the landlord should not be called upon to pay as well as the occupier. On the occasion of his last visit to Ireland he met some farmers, and in conversation with them he found them, convinced that it was through the influence of the landlord party and the Freemasons that the recent murders were committed in Phœnix Park. He had argued with them about it, but had failed to convince them that they were wrong. The opinion of these people, it was obvious, would be confirmed when this blood tax was levied. If the Government said—"We will have the Bill, the whole Bill, and nothing but the Bill," the Irish Members would have to fight it out to the bitter end; but he trusted the Government would reconsider their decision, and see their way to the acceptance of the Amendment.

MR. SEXTON

said, he hoped the Government would condescend to make some reply to his hon. Friend the Member for Limerick (Mr. O'Sullivan) on the subject of residence. The Home Secretary had just said that this tax—this "blood tax," as it was popularly known in Ireland—was intended to be imposed on those who were resident in the district in which the crimes were supposed to be committed. There were tenants, as well as landlords, who would fall under the description of absentees. It was a familiar fact to anyone who, unlike the right hon. and learned Gen- tleman the Home Secretary, had some practical knowledge of Ireland, that there were in all parts of Ireland tenants who held a plurality of farms, some two, some three, and so on. They could not live on all their farms; but they would be liable to pay a tax in respect of either one if the district in which it was situated were fined. In Sligo, nearly all the landlords were constantly resident there, so that some of the tenants, who were absentees, would be fined, while the landlords, who were resident, would not be. Of the landlords of Ireland, almost everyone was resident on his estate at some period or other of the year. But, if absence from the country, or a district, was to be cited to the Committee as a reason for exemption from this tax, he might plead the case of those poor cottiers in Connaught, who every year came over to England harvesting. There were thousands and thousands of people who would be called labourers, and not tenants, in any other country in Europe but Ireland, who came over to England every year to endeavour to earn the money to pay their rent at home. If, during the absence of these people in England or Scotland, in June, July, or August, an outrage occurred in the district in which their homes were situated, under the Bill of the Home Secretary they would be liable to pay a share of the tax that would be levied. When they arrived home, the £10 or £15 they had earned by hard labour to satisfy the landlord would be drawn upon to pay the murder tax. Let the Committee hit upon some even line of policy between landlord and tenant. If the poor cottier were taxed for a murder committed during his absence in England, why should not the landlord also be taxed for what occurred in his district during his absence? He would put forward a reason for the Amendment from a Government point of view. If they thought it desirable to impose a tax of this kind they ought to be ready to take every step, and adopt every precaution, which would give them greater security for the collection of the tax. He submitted that if the tax was levied upon the occupiers only—upon a class that included many people trembling on the brink of starvation, nay, many people actually over the brink and starving—the security for the collection of the tax was very small indeed. If the Home Secretary looked to that class alone for the money leviable, he would find that many of them who were almost penniless would refuse to pay, and they would have to resort to armed force, and the result would not be healthful to peace and order, but exactly the contrary. The landlords, as compared with the cottiers, were a wealthy class, and if they were included in the clause under discussion, the security for payment would be greater, and the danger of a conflict between the tenants and the armed forces of the Government would be lessened. The tax would raise a double liability—a liability to compensate the relatives of persons murdered, and to compensate persons maimed and injured, and also to pay for the maintenance of extra police. It seemed to him that the landlords, as a class, had such a direct interest in the collection of both these taxes, that they ought, in fair play, to bear a part of the burden. Persons of the landlord class had been murdered, and, in the present state of feeling between class and class, he saw no reason to hope for a cessation of that state of things. ["Oh, oh!"] He said he saw every reason to fear—["Oh, oh!" and "Hear, hear!"] He hoped hon. Members, in accordance with their too usual practice, would not endeavour to give to his words any meaning except that which he wished to convey. He feared they had not reached the end of that state of things to which he had referred. He feared it as honestly as any man in that House, and he deplored it extremely; but how could he look forward to the future in any other spirit, when he saw that evictions were still taking place in such numbers—when the Minister responsible for the affairs of Ireland rose at the Table of the House and told them, on the evidence of the officials of the Crown, that evictions were being pressed from day to day, under circumstances which he and they were obliged to admit were circumstances of cruelty? The extra police would be used for the protection of the persons of the landlords, and of their bailiffs and followers of various degrees. He believed he was entitled to say, therefore, that the landlords should be called on to bear part of the burden, and he did not know why any such statement as that should be encountered by the deep melodramatic tones of the Home Secretary, who never seemed to be happy unless he could attach to the words of some Irish Member a meaning far from that which the hon. Member had in his mind. The landlord should be called on to pay his part of the tax, for what was the initial force at work in causing crime and outrage? It was the rigour and obstinacy with which landlords pressed for what they called their "legal rights." If they could be induced to exercise their legal rights with a little humanity and restraint, crime and outrage would diminish. If the Government would put on the landlords one-half the burden of this blood tax and extra police tax, the landlords would at once be brought to see that their interest lay in stopping eviction. The Committee had been repeatedly told that the object of the clause was to teach the people of Ireland that their pecuniary interest lay in the maintenance of peace and order in their localities. Let, them teach the landlords that, and peace and order would be maintained. Why should they confine that teaching to one class of the people? He challenged the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary to give an answer. If any lesson in law and order was to be taught in Ireland, he called on the Government to teach it boldly and impartially to every class of the Irish people. If the lesson was valuable to one class it was valuable to another, and if they were to teach it to the poor peasant starving on his five acres of rock and marsh, let them also teach it to the Marquess and the Earl drawing his £20,000 or £30,000 a-year from the country. If the poor peasant was to pay a tax out of the price of his Indian meal, at least let the rich landowner share the burden, and let him see that it was to his interest to help to preserve law and order—teach him that evictions were really the first step on the road to crime. If the Government let the people of Ireland see that the poor people were called on to bear the entire burden, and that the one class who were best able to bear the tax were shamelessly and recklessly excluded from the operation of it, what would be the moral effect? The effect would be to excite and stimulate in the breasts of those upon whom the tax was imposed a deeper hatred to the landowning class than they had at present. ["No, no!" and "Question!"] This was the question—it was the question, and he would not be interrupted. The question was whether the landlords ought or ought not to pay half the tax, and he was showing that in the interest of public order it was desirable that they should pay half. The landlords were primarily responsible for the condition of Ireland. ["No, no!"] Hon. Gentlemen said "No." Did hon. Members know what evidence had been given by Resident Magistrates of Ireland on this matter—did they join issue with the Lord Lieutenant himself? Did they know more about Ireland than the responsible Minister who represented it—the Minister who had stated at the Table of the House that evictions were taking place which were cruel? The landlords were best able to bear the tax, and they, by a cruel and shameful exercise of the rights placed in their hands—as testified by the Resident Magistrates of Ireland, and as testified by the Minister responsible for the affairs of Ireland at the Table of the House—had brought about the deplorable state of affairs in Ireland which had induced the Government to propose this Bill.