Commons Sitting of 6 March 1882

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—London Parochial Charities and Parochial Charities (London), nominated.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee—Resolutions [March 3] reported.
PRIVATE BILLS (by Order)—Second Reading—Accrington Branch Canal *; Rugby Gas *
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Arklow Harbour * [90]; Places of Worship Sites* [97].
Third Reading—Consolidated Fund (No. 1) ✶, and passed. [New Title.]

QUESTIONS.

  LUNATIC ASYLUMS (IRELAND)—COUNTY OF DERRY LUNATIC ASYLUM.
  MR. LEWISasked, Whether there have very recently been eleven governors of the County of Derry Lunatic Asylum appointed by the Lord Lieutenant; whether there were more than two vacancies in the existing number of governors when such appointments were made; whether all such, persons so appointed were of the same political party, and the large majority of them prominent supporters of the Irish Solicitor General in the recent contest for Derry County; and, whether Her Majesty's Government will explain to the House what was the necessity and object of

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  such a large number of persons of one political complexion being appointed at this time?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER), in reply, said, it was the fact that 11 Governors of the County of Derry Lunatic Asylum had been recently appointed by the Lord Lieutenant. There was no prescribed number of Governors; but owing to deaths, resignations, and non-attendance, it became necessary to make new appointments. The 11 gentlemen recently appointed were Liberals, and the majority of them supported him (the Solicitor General for Ireland) in the recent election, as they had supported Liberal candidates on former occasions. Their qualifications were unquestionable, and the Board at present consisted of 24 Conservatives and 16 Liberals. There was no emolument connected with the office.
  MR. LEWISasked, what was the necessity and object of such a large number of persons of one political complexion being appointed at this time?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)thought he had already answered the Question. On account of resignations and non-attendance, it was found necessary to re-inforce the Board. There had previously been much dissatisfaction with the constitution of the Board, which, in a county mainly Liberal, had consisted of 24 Conservatives and 5 Liberals.

  STATE OF IRELAND—ALLEGED ASSAULT ON MR. BOYLAN.
  MR. REDMONDasked, Whether the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland has received a letter from Mr. Boylan, of Edenderry, King's County, respecting the assault alleged to have been committed upon him on the 16th of January last by Captain L'Estrange, E.M.; and, whether he intends to take any steps to afford protection to Mr. Boylan in the discharge of his important duties as schoolmaster, and to mark his sense of disapproval of the conduct of Captain L'Estrange, E.M., or to order an independent inquiry into the occurrence on the occasion in question?
  THE ATTOENEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): Sir, the Chief Secretary for Ireland has received Mr. Boylan's letter, and the matter is under his consideration.

  CHILI—MURDER OF DR. MACLEAN.
  MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSHasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, What steps have been taken towards obtaining compensation to the representatives of Dr. William Maclean, Physician to the British Minister, from the Government of Chili, for the murder of Dr. Maclean by Chilian troops at Chorilles, Peru, and within the Minister's residence, on 13th January 1881?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, Her Majesty's Minister in Chili has been instructed to bring this case to the notice of the Chilian Government, who have promised that an inquiry shall be instituted. The relatives of Dr. Maclean have been informed that the case will be duly considered with the other British claims against the Chilian Government.

  CENTRAL AFRICA—DISTRICT OF LAKE NYASSA.
  SIR JOHN KENNAWAYasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Foreign Office have any information of the reported intention of the Portuguese Government to occupy the district adjoining Lake Nyassa, in which the Blantyre Mission is situate; and, whether such occupation has the approval of Her Majesty's Government, as being a step likely to diminish the Slave Trade as now carried on by Portuguese subjects on the coast of Mozambique?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, the report mentioned by the hon. Baronet reached Her Majesty's Government from Zanzibar; but they have been since positively assured by the Portuguese Government that it is without foundation.

  COMMERCIAL TREATY WITH SPAIN— NEGOTIATIONS.
  MR. O'SHEAasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's Government are in a position to give the House any information as to the negotiation of a commercial treaty between this Country and Spain?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Negotiations, Sir, are taking place between this country and Spain; but I cannot at present say more.

  PROTECTION OF PERSON AND PROPERTY (IRELAND) ACT, 1881— ARRESTS UNDER THE ACT.
  DR. COMMINSasked, Whether Michael Gibbons, Patrick Gibbons, and John L. Gannon, arrested in the county Roscommon, on the 7th of May 1881, as suspects of assembling for the purpose of disturbing the public peace, are still detained, although Thomas Gibbons, arrested at the same time and on the same charge, has been long since liberated; whether there is any, and what, difference, between his (Thomas Gibbons') case and theirs; and whether it is a fact that no agrarian crime or outrage of any kind has been, cither for many months before or since, committed in the district in which these men lived?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): Sir, Michael and Patrick Gibbons and John L. Gannon are still detained. Thomas Gibbons was discharged principally on account of his age. With regard to the latter part of the Question, in this district agrarian and other outrages have been committed both before and since the arrests. On the 6th of January last a mob of 50 persons attacked a police patrol and succeeded in carrying off one of their rifles.
  DR. COMMINSasked, Whether the alleged intimidating persons from paying rent, assigned as the cause of the arrest of John P. Hayden and George F. Fannon in Roscommon on the 8th ultimo, consisted in their canvassing the ratepayers in favour of the re-election as Poor Law Guardians of Roscommon Union, of two candidates, Messrs. Nond and Burke, at present imprisoned suspects; whether the arrest was made between twelve and one o'clock in the morning, although the warrants had been laying some time with the police authorities; whether the prisons of Monaghan and Omagh, to which they were removed, were the two prisons farthest removed from Roscommon and the most inconvenient of access; whether the authorities were aware, when removing Mr. Hayden to the latter, that the Governor had only a few days before died of fever, produced by its bad sanitary condition; and, whether the Government are aware that Mr. Hayden has been acting for his brother, Mr. Luke P. Hayden, the
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  editor and proprietor of the "Roscommon Messenger," who has for nearly five months been imprisoned as a suspect in Gal way Prison, and that the detention of both brothers under the circumstances practically precludes them from. taking any part in the management of the paper?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): Sir, in reply to the first inquiry in this Question, I must remind the hon. Member that it has been repeatedly announced in this House, and for very obvious reasons, that the circumstances causing arrest will not be stated; and I fear I am infringing on that principle in even saying that these persons were not arrested for the cause suggested in this inquiry. As to the other inquiries in the Question, the arrests were made at about midnight, in order to avoid excitement and as the train left in an hour afterwards. The warrants were not for some time lying with the police; they were dated the 7th of February, and the unfortunate death of the Governor of Omagh Prison did not occur until the following day. Monaghan and Omagh Prisons are not the most remote from Roscommon, nor the most inconvenient of access. I am informed that the Government were aware that Mr. John Hayden is brother of Mr. Luke Hayden and acting for him in reference to the paper referred to.
  MR. REDMONDasked, If it is a fact that Mr. Francis Campbell, on making application in the ordinary way to visit some of the suspects in Armagh. Gaol, on the 16th February last, was refused admission and informed that no one living either in the county of Armagh or of Tyrone would be allowed in; and, if so, whether the authorities of the Gaol were acting in accordance with his instructions?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): Sir, the facts are as stated in the Question. The reason was that small-pox of a very virulent character was prevalent in the district; and the medical officer, with the view of protecting the prisoners from the danger of infection, deemed it necessary, with the sanction of the prison authorities, to give directions that, until further order, no person residing in the district should be admitted into the prison.
  MR. LEAMYinquired if the right lion, and learned Gentleman meant to say that small-pox existed in the entire of the two counties?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): Unhappily, it exists both in the counties of Armagh and Tyrone; but I am unable to say in what portions.

  CUSTOMS—THE NEW WAREHOUSING SCHEME.
  LORD CLAUD HAMILTONasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Whether, in introducing the new warehousing scheme for the Customs, the Government intend to abolish the existing clerical establishments, and to offer the clerks situations as officers of the Outdoor Department; whether the acceptance of those situations will involve longer hours of attendance than those the clerks have hitherto been required to give; whether the pay and prospects of clerks placed on the new outdoor classification would not be inferior to their pay and prospects on the clerical classifications; and, what course the Government propose to take with respect to clerks who may be unable or unwilling to accept a transfer to the Outdoor Department?
  SIR TREVOR LAWRENCEalso asked, Whether the Government propose to use the full powers, conferred by Clause 7 of the Superannuation Act of 1859, to grant two-thirds of their salary and emoluments to Customs clerks disestablished by the proposed changes in the warehousing system; also, what steps the Government have taken to find suitable employment in other branches of the Civil Service for the Customs clerks, whose situations are to be abolished by the new warehousing scheme?
  SIR HENRY PEEKalso asked, Whether it is proposed by the Treasury to insist upon the clerks in the warehousing departments of the Customs either accepting employment in the Outdoor Department or retiring upon pensions; and, whether a sufficient number of Indoor situations could not be found for clerks unable to accept the Outdoor employment, if fair terms of retirement were offered to the whole of the Customs' service?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: Sir, it may save the time of the House
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  that I should answer the Questions of the two hon. Members for Mid Surrey at the same time as that of the noble Lord. The Treasury is endeavouring to effect the important object of the entire assimilation of the warehousing systems of the two Revenue Departments with as little injury as possible to any of the individuals concerned. With this object they have directed the Board of Customs, as a preliminary, to take steps for ascertaining which of the clerks in the Warehousing Departments of the Customs would desire to retire upon the ordinary abolition terms of Section 7 of the Superannuation Act of 1859, and which of them would desire to be transferred to the Outdoor Service. The offers of retirement will have to be considered, subject to the condition that they are reconcilable with the good of the service and with due regard to economy. I may here observe that although, under the new system, the duties of the Warehousing Department, now performed at the Custom House, will be performed at the warehouses, those duties will continue to be largely of a clerical character. Many of the present clerks will, therefore, be well fitted for the clerical work in the Outdoor Service which will be required under the new system. Personal allowances will be made to officers so transferred when the salaries of their new posts are less than those of which they are now in receipt. The Government has, moreover, not lost sight of the possibility of allowing room to be made in other departments of the Customs for warehousing clerks displaced by the change, provided that clerks of corresponding rank in those departments are willing to take the terms of retirement offered to the warehousing clerks. By these various means it is hoped to provide for the great majority of the clerks in question; and, until we have learned how far they are efficacious, it is not desirable to consider the question of finding employment in other Departments of the Civil Service. In reply to the second part of the Question of the noble Lord, I have to state that the hours of attendance will, in fact, begin somewhat earlier than is now required, but that the same attendance might, as far as terms of service go, be required now; and, as regards the third part, so far as relates to the prospects, it would

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  be difficult to say whether the gain or the loss would, on the whole, be the greater.

  LUNATIC ASYLUMS (IRELAND).
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether, considering the very unsatisfactory arrangements at present existing for the care, maintenance, and medical treatment of insane persons who are detained in private houses in Ireland, under the Acts 5 and 6 Vic. c. 123, and 38 and 39 Vic. c. 67, and the admitted evils connected therewith, he will advise Her Majesty's Government to bring in a Bill to abolish altogether the system of lunatic asylums kept by private individuals for personal gain in Ireland, and to substitute instead a system of self-supporting institutions under the management and control of paid officers, whose only pecuniary interest in them would be the salaries attached to their respective offices?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): Sir, this is a question of policy which should be addressed to a Cabinet Minister, and not to the Attorney General for Ireland.

  CUSTOMS—COFFEE AND CHICORY.
  SIR JOHN HAY (for Mr. HUBBARD)asked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether any and what reply has been given by the Lords Commissioners of Her Majesty's Treasury to a Memorial from the merchants interested in the coffee trade, presented on the 6th February last, urging the withdrawal of a Treasury Minute, dated on the 20th January, which purported to sanction the importation, under a duty of 2d. per pound, of coffee or chicory, roasted and ground, and of any other vegetable matter, however worthless, mixed, without any restriction upon the proportion, with coffee or chicory; and, whether he will lay upon the Table of the House, to be printed, a Copy of the Memorial, with the signatures appended, and of the reply returned to the memorialists?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH, in reply, said, that the Treasury Order simply permitted the importation of a mixture of chicory and coffee, while it was now allowable to import coffee by itself, and chicory by itself. No alteration whatever had been made with regard to the sale of the mixture which
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  had of late been permissible by law. The question of the advisability of allowing the sale was one that related rather to the Adulteration Acts than to the Customs tariff. There was no objection to laying the Correspondence on the Table, if the hon. Gentleman moved for it.

  ARMY—MILITIA OFFICERS.
  MR. O'SHEAasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether Militia officers are ineligible for the classes of instruction in field works and surveying at Chatham; and, if so, whether any exception has been made to this rule?
  MR. CHILDERS: I find, Sir, that in 1877, my Predecessor, Viscount Cranbrook, stated, in reply to a Question from my hon. Friend the Member for Frome (Mr. H. Samuelson), that he-could not give leave to officers of Militia Infantry to study at Chatham. This rule has been observed, except in the case of one or two officers actually residing at Chatham. I see no reason to extend this permission further.

  EDUCATION DEPARTMENT—SCIENCE AND ART IN EAST LONDON.
  MR. BRYCEasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether it is the intention of the Science and Art Department to take steps to carry out the promise to establish a Science and Art School in connection with the East London Museum at Bethnal Green, which was given by the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education, by a letter written at their direction, and dated December 12th, 1870, which appears among the Parliamentary Papers of the Session of 1872?
  MR.MUNDELLA: Sir, I have looked into the Correspondence to which the hon. Member refers, and I find that there was an understanding 12 years ago that part of the buildings of the Bethnal Green Museum should be devoted to a Science and Art School. But since then the whole of the premises have been required for the purposes of the Museum. The subject was considered by the late Government in 1874 and 1879, and they did not feel themselves justified in establishing such schools on other than the ordinary conditions. I cannot see how we can fairly be called upon to establish and maintain

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  Science and Art Schools at the East End of London on any other conditions than those which are applied to the Provinces.

  THE NEW COURTS OF JUSTICE.
  SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSasked the First Commissioner of Works, Whether he is able to inform the House when the Royal Courts of Justice will be fully opened?
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE, in reply, said, that the builders would complete their work by Easter; but after that there would still be a good deal of work to do. He thought the Courts would be fully opened about midsummer, before the Summer Circuit.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) ACT, 1881— LEASE DUTY ON AGREEMENTS.
  MR. GIBSONasked the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Whether the Commissioners of Inland Revenue claim the ordinary ad valorem lease duty on agreements, under the Irish Land Act, made out of Court between landlords and tenants, and known as originating notice "No. 33;" whether such claim has been disapproved of by the Land Commission; and, whether this penalizing of voluntary agreements, made between landlords and tenants under the Irish Land Act, has been sanctioned by the Treasury?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: Sir, the Board of Inland Revenue did not raise this question of their own motion; but it is one upon which depends the legal validity of the agreements, which are not binding unless properly stamped. I understand that the point was, in fact, raised by the Land Commission. A case has been submitted to the Irish Law Officers, and an early opinion is expected. It is not a matter in which the Treasury has any discretion; but it must be decided according to the interpretation put upon the Stamp Acts.

  THE VATICAN—DIPLOMATIC INTERCOURSE—MR. ERRINGTON.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Mr. Errington is still residing at Rome as the medium of information between Her Majesty's Go-
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  vernment and the Papal See under Lord Granville's letter of confidence; if so, how long Mr. Errington is to remain at Rome in this capacity; and, whether Her Majesty's Government still persist in refusing to place on record in the Foreign Office, in accordance with constitutional practice, the communications on public affairs between Her Majesty's Secretary of State and Mr. Errington?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE: Sir, I have no further information to give to the House on this subject, having on four occasions fully stated the views of Her Majesty's Government. In regard to the latter part of the Question, as to whether Mr. Errington is still at Rome, Lord Granville has no information that he has left that city, neither has he any wish that he should. The length of Mr. Errington's stay depends entirely upon himself.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFgave Notice that he would take an opportunity of calling attention to the subject.

  NAVY—ARMAMENTS—THE NEW SIXINCH GUN.
  LORD HENRY LENNOXasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether it is true that several of the new six-inch guns, forming the first instalment of breech-loading guns for the Royal Navy, have been, on trial, found defective; and, whether it is possible to take effectual precautions against the recurrence of such failures?
  LORD EUSTACE CECILasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether there is any truth in the report that several of the heavy six-inch breech-loading guns supplied for the Royal Navy by contract have broken down under proof trial, whilst those supplied by the Royal Gun Factories at Woolwich have in no instance failed; and, if so, whether it is in contemplation to limit, as far as possible, the manufacture of guns by contract?
  MR. CHILDERS: Sir, in reply to the two Questions put to me by the two noble Lords, I have to state that it is not the case that any of the Navy six-inch breech-loading guns supplied for the Navy by contract have broken down. The first instalment of these guns, 14 in number, have passed proof, and have been received into the service. In the second instalment, there were a few which exhibited external defects, but

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  none of an unusual character, or likely to involve their rejection. These defects sometimes occur in guns made at Woolwich. The worst case of defect has been already remedied, and the gun has been re-proved satisfactorily. I see no reason to make any change in the policy of obtaining some of these guns by contract.

  RELIGIOUS DISSENSIONS (GIBRALTAR) —DR. CANILLA.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the Roman Catholic church at Gibraltar has been broken open by the Governor's orders, with the view of installing Dr. Canilla as vicar apostolic, against the wishes of the Roman Catholic population?
  MR. COURTNEY: Sir, some months since Dr. Canilla was appointed by the Pope Vicar Apostolic of Gibraltar; but it soon appeared that the choice was not generally popular. Among the laity a claim was raised to resist the exercise by Dr. Canilla of his functions, especially in the church of Santa Maria Coronada, on the ground that they were entitled by immemorial right to administer, through their representatives, the temporalities of the Catholic communion in Gibraltar. Without pronouncing any opinion on that claim generally, it can in no case extend to the church of Santa Maria Coronada, the property of which, as we are advised, has always been, and remains, vested in the Crown, by which it has been simply assigned during pleasure for the purposes of Catholic worship. Dr. Canilla having, under these circumstances, applied to the civil authority to be protected from molestation in proceeding to the church of Santa Maria Coronada, and while performing Divine offices there, steps were taken which may, perhaps, best be given in the words of a telegram from the Governor—
  "March 2.—Canilla fixed noon for entry into the church. Arrangements made accordingly. Great agitation this morning. Crowd assembled in the church at 6 a.m., when opened for early service, and barricaded it. Cordon of strong pickets closed ail the streets leading to the church, and cleared the intermediate space. Crowd expelled from the church in 40 minutes. Three arrests made. Route of Canilla guarded by picket, which kept the crowd at a distance. He came under escort to the church, and after service was escorted home. Protection to church and Canilla continues. Quiet restored."
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  Since the proceedings of Thursday order has not been disturbed in Gibraltar.

  ARKLOW HARBOUR BILL.
  GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURasked the Junior Lord of the Treasury, If Government will lay the Papers relating to Arklow Harbour upon the Table before the proposed Bill is read a second time?
  MR. HERBERT GLADSTONE, in reply, said, that the Government had no objection to lay on the Table a selection of the Papers, which would fully show the circumstances under which they thought it necessary to carry out the original scheme for the improvement of the Harbour.

  FLINT COUNTY (POLICE FORCE)—PROTECTION TO THE PERSON OF THE PRIME MINISTER.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the Correspondence which has passed between himself and the Court of Quarter Sessions of the county of Flint, in reference to the payment of the extraordinary expenses incurred by them in providing additional constables to protect the First Lord of the Treasury; and, whether he will state the number of warnings, respecting the necessity of protecting public servants, which he has caused to be addressed to other local authorities?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, I should be happy to give the hon. Member any Papers I possibly can. The communications from the Flint Court of Quarter Sessions will be given if the hon. Member moves for them; but the police communications cannot be given.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON: The number of men?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I could not do that; the subject is of a confidential nature.

  FRIENDLY SOCIETIES—REPORT OF THE REGISTRAR GENERAL, 1880.
  MR. J. HOLLONDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, When the Report of the Registrar General of Friendly Societies for 1880 will be issued?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: Sir, there has been unavoidable delay, mostly due to the printer, in bringing out the second part of the Report for 1879; and, according to the Rules of the House, the Report for 1880 cannot appear until the previous one is completed. As soon as this has been done, Part 1 for 1880, which is already prepared, will be presented.

  ALKALI ACT, 1881.
  SIR E. ASSHETON CROSSasked the President of the Local Government Board, What steps have been taken to give effect to the provisions of "The Alkali Act, 1881?"
  MR. DODSON: Sir, after the passing of the Act, the Local Government Board applied to the various sanitary authorities throughout the Kingdom for a return of the works in their respective districts and upon the receipt of these Returns the Board gave notice to the manufacturers to make the necessary application for registration. A considerable number of applications have been received, and certificates of registration issued; but the period for registration will not be completed before the end of the present month. In the meantime the Board have appointed four additional sub-inspectors, and arranged as to the districts for inspection, and the work of inspection will now be proceeded with as rapidly as possible.

  PARTNERSHIPS BILL, 1880—LEGISLATION.
  MR. MONKasked the honourable Member for Liverpool, Whether, considering that the Partnerships Bill was read a second time in a previous Session without opposition, he is prepared to remove the opposing Notice which he has placed against the Second Reading of that measure?
  MR. WHITLEY, in reply, said, that the Bill which the hon. Member had introduced contained several exceptional provisions affecting the mercantile and commercial community, and his object in giving the Notice was to obtain for it full consideration. He could not see, because the Bill was read a second time at the fag-end of a Session, when it could not be fully considered, why he should withdraw his opposition to it.

  CROWN RENTS (IRELAND).
  CAPTAIN AYLMERasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether instructions have been given to Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, by the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, to proceed against any of the landowners of Ireland, whose rents have been withheld by their tenants, for the amount of Crown or quit rent due by them?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: Sir, in cases where the persons liable have pleaded inability to pay, or have tendered a portion of the arrears due on account of quit rent to the Crown in Ireland, the time for payment has been extended. But where no satisfactory excuse has been given, or the Crown's claim is disputed, legal proceedings are being taken for recovery of the amount due.

  UNION OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION (IRELAND) BILL.
  MR. CALLANasked the Junior Member for Leeds, Whether he purposes to meet the objections of the Irish Members to certain of the provisions of the Union Officers' Superannuation (Ireland) Bill, which takes away from the Poor Law Guardians the right of granting superannuation allowances in certain cases, and confers it on the Local Government Board, in order to re-introduce it in an amended form?
  MR. HERBERT GLADSTONE, in reply, said, the Government would not move to discharge the Order for the Second Reading of the Bill; but in Committee they would propose clauses with the object of leaving the power to grant retiring allowances in the hands of Boards of Guardians, and which would give to all Union officers the right of appeal to the Local Government Board.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) ACT, 1881— TOWN PARKS, &c.
  MR. MARUMasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he is in a position to state the result of his promised consideration of the "Town Parks" question under "The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1881," with a view to legislation; and, if so, what steps may be taken there in; and, whether the Government is prepared to propose legislation during the present Session to encourage the planting of timber trees in Ireland by statutory termors under the same Act,

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  in reference to which important subject provisions were frequently brought forward by Irish Members during the passage through the House of that measure?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, that some legislation might be desirable with regard to town parks; but he was obliged to say that, viewing the present condition of affairs, and the pressure on the time of the House of Commons, he did not think the period had arrived when the Government should ask Parliament to entertain that subject. As for the latter part of the Question, he was not aware that there were any grounds for proceeding as the hon. Member proposed.

  ENGLAND AND FRANCE—THE CHANNEL TUNNEL SCHEME.
  MR. SEELYasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether the Government would cause a Report to be made to this House, either by a Commission or a Committee of this House, as to the improvements that could be made in the passage by sea between England and France (particularly after the harbours at present in course of construction at Calais and Boulogne are completed), in order that, when this House has to consider the advantages and disadvantages of the proposed tunnel under the Channel, the comparison may be made, not between the passage by the proposed tunnel and the sea passage as it is at present, but as it would be after it was so improved?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, what I would say is that it will be, perhaps, a very important matter for the House, as well as for the Government, to consider when the subject is ripe for determining by what form effectual inquiry shall be made into the whole of this subject. I doubt, however, very much whether it would be expedient, and certainly the Government are not prepared to recommend, that at the present moment, in anticipation of the regular and complete inquiry which must come, a partial inquiry should be instituted as to the proposal made by my hon. Friend.

  LAW AND POLICE (METROPOLIS)— PERSONAL SECURITY ON THE THAMES EMBANKMENT.
  MR. ALDERMAN W. LAWRENCEgave Notice that next Thursday he would ask
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  the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention had been drawn to the remarks of Mr. Justice Hawkins in the late trial for the manslaughter of an unfortunate young man on the Thames Embankment, without any provocation whatever? Mr. Justice Hawkins said that it was to him perfectly astounding that a brutal and sanguinary outrage of this kind—[Cries of "Order!" and cheers]—should have been committed on the Thames Embankment, and should have occupied so long a time in its committal without a single policeman being present. [Renewed cries of "Order! " and cheers.] Mr. Justice Hawkins, in passing sentence on the prisoner Galliers of 10 years' penal servitude, said that he could scarcely have believed that so much ruffianly lawlessness prevailed in the streets of the City, or that it could have been allowed to run its course unchecked. [Cries of "Order!" and "Hear, hear!"]
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Sir, as there is a good deal of interest taken in this subject, I may as well answer the Question at once. I do not propose to go into the remarks of Mr. Justice Hawkins, and it would not be proper to make any remarks upon them. As there seems to have been a considerable amount of public alarm created in regard to the matter, and as I think it is always much better to take too much rather than too little precaution on such occasions, I have given instructions that the police shall be strengthened on the Thames Embankment. At the same time, I must be allowed to say that, in my opinion, I certainly ought to do nothing to encourage what I believe to be an unfounded apprehension. I must also be allowed to state, after making the most careful inquiry into the subject, that since this very atrocious outrage on the 18th of December, the Thames Embankment has been singularly free from any disquiet or disorder of the kind.

  IRISH LAND COMMISSION—RETURN OF JUDGMENTS.
  SIR HERVEY BRUCEasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, When the Return of the number of cases that had come before the Land Courts under the Land Act would be laid before the House?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): I believe the Return has been ordered to be printed.
  SIR HERVEY BRUCE: It was referred to by the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland on Thursday.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): Yes; it has been laid on the Table, and, I believe, ordered to be printed. I understand that the printing is going on at this moment.

  IRISH LAND COMMISSION—THE SECRETARY—EXPLANATION.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, that, with the indulgence of the House, he might be permitted to make a personal explanation in reference to a matter on which he had unwittingly hurt the feelings of a very worthy public servant, Mr. Godley, the Secretary of the Land Commission. He (the Attorney General for Ireland) was reported in The Irish Times to have stated on Friday in the House that Mr. Godley was sharply reprimanded by the Land Commission, who, at the same time, informed him they did not consider the circumstances were such as to justify his removal. He (the Attorney General for Ireland) was also reported in another paper to have said that Mr. Godley was reprimanded in strong terms. He believed he said simply—at all events he had intended to say—that he was reprimanded. Mr. Godley, writing to him (the Attorney General for Ireland) on the matter said—
  "That if the Land Commissioners had adopted the tone in respect to him which he (the Attorney General for Ireland) had represented them to adopt, he (Mr. Godley) certainly should not and could not with any feeling of self-respect have retained for a single day his position as Secretary."
  The facts were that the Commissioners, undoubtedly, expressed disapproval. He (the Attorney General for Ireland) had used the term reprimanded; but they said that, in any expression of disapproval of their Secretary, they were unanimous in feeling that they entertained a deep sense of the value of his services and of the importance of retaining them, and they refused his resignation upon public grounds. Mr. Godley wrote to him (the Attorney General for
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  Ireland), and stated that he spontaneously offered his resignation to save embarrassment to the Commissioners, to whom he was loyally attached; but they refused it, and placed on record the opinion he (the Attorney General for Ireland) had already cited. The learned Judge at the head of the Land Commissioners was in Cork at the time, and not in Belfast, as he (the Attorney General for Ireland) had supposed; and that learned Judge now explained that what he desired to express was the minimum of blame with the maximum of appreciation of Mr. Godley's value. The learned Judge added—
  "I sincerely trust, in justice to Mr. Godley, and in compliance with the requisition of the Land Commissioners, you will see your way to set this right, for Mr. Godley naturally feels it very acutely."
  In conclusion, he would thank the House for listening to his explanation.
  MR. LEWISasked, if the Government had any objection to the production of the Correspondence quoted by the right hon. and learned Gentleman?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): This is not a Correspondence at all; it is a private letter addressed to myself, and not one in which the Government are at all concerned.
  MR. LEWIS: Are there any letters or papers or minutes of the Land Commissioners relating to the subject which the Government will produce?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON): I have no knowledge of any Correspondence besides the private letter, the substance of which, by the indulgence of the House, I have already put before them.
  MR. LEWISgave Notice that at the earliest possible moment he would draw the attention of the House to the subject, and to the statement which the Attorney General for Ireland had made for the purpose of exculpating himself and the Commissioners.

MOTIONS.

  PARLIAMENTARY OATH—MR. BRADLAUGH—RESOLUTION.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I am anxious, Sir, to put two Questions to you on a matter of Privilege. In the

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  first place, I wish to know, whether the House has been made acquainted with the return made to the Writ issued for a new Member for the Borough of Northampton. In the second place, I wish to know, whether the Resolution at which this House arrived on the 7th of February, respecting Mr. Bradlaugh's not being permitted to go through the form of taking the Oath, is still binding upon Mr. Bradlaugh, in the event of his coming up to the Table and offering to take the Oath?
  MR. SPEAKER: With respect to the first Question of the right hon. Gentleman, I have to say that the certificate of the return of Mr. Bradlaugh for the Borough of Northampton has been communicated to this House in the usual way, and is now on the Table of the House. With respect to the second Question of the right hon. Gentleman, I have to say that I have considered very carefully the operation of the Resolution of the 7th of February as it affects Mr. Bradlaugh, and that I have come to the conclusion that that Resolution applied to Mr. Bradlaugh personally as Member for Northampton. When Mr. Bradlaugh ceased to be Member for Northampton, that Resolution, in my opinion, ceased to be operative; and although he has now been again returned as Member for Northampton, I cannot consider that that Resolution has revived, or is now in force.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Then, Mr. Speaker, as the Resolution to which I have referred, and which you have alluded to in your answer, was a Resolution that was adopted by this House, after full consideration, and by a very large majority, I apprehend that if Mr. Bradlaugh should now present himself again to take the Oath, it would be thought right to raise again the question as to permitting him to take the Oath, and the House would have that again submitted to it. But, as we are all aware, Mr. Bradlaugh, or any other Member who is returned, may elect his own time for coming to take his seat. He may do so either at the beginning of the Business, or at the end of the Business. If he should elect to come forward at the end of the night's Business, which may be at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, it would be difficult to really take the sense of the House—which would then be thin and exhausted—upon what must
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  be regarded as a question of great importance, I have, therefore, thought it would be right, as Mr. Bradlaugh has not presented himself to-night, that I should take the earliest opportunity of submitting to the House a Motion which will have the effect of reviving or reaffirming the Resolution that was adopted on the 7th of February.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I rise to Order. I wish to ask you, Sir, whether it is open to any hon. Gentleman, before an elected Member has come to the Table to take the Oath, to call for the Writ, and to base any Motion upon that Writ? I ask you this particularly in regard to the Motion which the right hon. Gentleman has shadowed out, because I believe that the only Motions which have yet been put in such cases are Motions for a new Writ, the elected Member being disqualified by Statute from taking his seat.
  MR. SPEAKER: As I understand the Motion indicated by the right hon. Gentleman, it affects the right of a Member of this House to take his seat, and it, is intended by it to renew a Resolution which the House arrived at during the present Session; and as it is one which concerns the Privileges of this House, I consider that the right hon. Gentleman is within his right.
  MR. DILLWYN: I rise to Order. I wish to ask, Sir, if any hon. Member is in Order in rising to propose a Resolution on a question of this sort, and thereby interposing and preventing the House passing to its ordinary Business?
  MR. SPEAKER: I thought I had clearly stated, in reply to the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), that the right hon. Gentleman is within his rights.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I make the Motion as a matter of Privilege. What I propose to move is to this effect—
  "That this House, having ascertained that Mr. Bradlaugh has been re-elected for the Borough of Northampton, doth re-affirm the Resolution made on the 7th of February last, and doth hereby direct that Mr. Bradlaugh be not permitted to go through the form of taking the Oath prescribed by the Statutes 29 Vic. c. 19, and 31 and 32 Vic. c. 72."
  The Resolution at which the House arrived on that occasion was substantially the same as that at which it arrived last Session upon Mr. Bradlaugh's second election for Northampton; and now that

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  he has been elected for the third time, I ask the House to pass a similar Resolution, for it does not in any degree alter the position of the House of Commons in regard to the question of taking the Oath. The ground upon which the great majority of the House objected to Mr. Bradlaugh going through the form of taking the Oath remains exactly the same—namely, that we consider that we are parties to the taking of the Oath, and that we consider that the taking of the Oath by Mr. Bradlaugh in the circumstances known to the House is in the nature of a profanation of that Oath. I need not on this occasion go into the arguments which have been repeated so often, and of the nature of which the House is fully aware, and I should only be fatiguing the House were I to do so on this occasion. I shall, therefore, content myself, Mr. Speaker, with placing this Motion in your hands.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That this House, having ascertained that Mr. Bradlaugh has been re-elected for the Borough of Northampton, doth re-affirm the Resolution made on the 7th of February last, and doth hereby direct that Mr. Bradlaugh be not permitted to go through the form of taking the Oath prescribed by the Statutes 29 Vic. e. 19, and 31 and 32 Vic. c. 72."—(Sir Stafford Northcote.)
  MR. MARJORIBANKS: It is only, Sir, because I believe there is a very general consensus of opinion in the House that this matter of Mr. Bradlaugh's election can only be dealt with by legislation that I venture to submit to the House for its favourable consideration an Amendment to the Resolution moved by the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. The Amendment is—
  "That it is desirable that the provisions of the 29 Vic. c. 19, and 31 and 32 Vic. c. 72, should be so far modified as to permit every elected Member of this House to take the Oath or to make the Affirmation prescribed under those Statutes at his own option."
  Now, Sir, I am bound to confess that I am what many of my Friends near me will consider somewhat unsound on the Bradlaugh Question. I am one of that very large section of this House who regard Mr. Bradlaugh's actions and opinions with something very like disgust. I do think Mr. Bradlaugh had a very strong position in regard to the House; but I think he has again and again
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  thrown away the strength of the position. He has repeatedly brought forward the weak part of his argument, and has by his action done all he could to excite prejudice and hostility, both among hon. Members and among the outside public, against him. Mr. Bradlaugh has attempted to take the Oath, first by force, and then by unworthy—I may almost say childish—manœuvres——
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I rise to Order. I wish to ask whether the word "unworthy," applied to a Member of this House, is in Order?
  MR. SPEAKER: I did not catch the context, and I am not prepared to give a positive statement in the matter.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: The hon. Member (Mr. Marjoribanks) has described the conduct of Mr. Bradlaugh as unworthy. [Cries of "No!"] Well, he said that he had been guilty of an unworthy manŒuvre.
  MR. SPEAKER: I am not, under the circumstances, prepared to interpose in the matter.
  MR. MARJORIBANKS: The result of Mr. Bradlaugh's action has been—first, that the opposition to his taking the Oath has been grounded more upon personal dislike of Mr. Bradlaugh—[Cries of "No, no!"]—I assert that most distinctly—dislike of Mr. Bradlaugh rather than on the consideration of any broad principle of what is right or expedient for the good of the country; and, secondly, it has resulted in the exclusion of Mr. Bradlaugh from a seat in the House by an un-English Resolution, and on the very uncommon grounds—first, because he did not comply with a religious test; and, secondly, because he was prevented from complying with that religious test. The arguments as to the legality or the illegality of the action of the House of Commons have been urged, I may almost say, ad nauseam, and I will not enter into these arguments; but the experience of the last two years must, I may say, have proved that the House is, either legally or illegally, perfectly competent to exclude, and can exclude, and. that it will go on excluding Mr. Bradlaugh, until some change is made in the regulations under which Members of the House take their seats. We may deplore the fact that Mr. Bradlaugh has been elected. We may deplore the fact that so many

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  of a large constituency like Northampton so far identify themselves with Mr. Bradlaugh as to think he is the only proper Representative of them in this House; but surely, if that is the case, he ought to be allowed to take his seat, for it is far better that expression of these opinions should be given in this House, and find their natural outlet in this House. I find that a Paper was presented to the House a day or two ago in regard to the practice of foreign States in this matter. I see in that Paper that in Belgium and Italy there is an Oath required, but there is no invocation of the Deity. The Members swear that they will be faithful to the Constitution. Then in Prance and Germany neither Oath nor Affirmation is required, and in the United States and Holland Oath or Affirmation is optional. ["Agreed, agreed!"] I do not wish to enter into any long speech in moving this Amendment; and I do entreat this House, remembering that the honour of the House has so often and so greatly been compromised, to give favourable consideration to this Amendment.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "it is desirable that the provisions of the 29 Vie. c. 19, and 31 and 32 Vic. c. 72, should be so modified as to permit every elected Member of this House to take the Oath or to make the Affirmation prescribed under those Statutes at his own option,"—(Mr. Marjoribanks,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I prefer the Amendment of my hon. Friend (Mr. Marjoribanks) to the reasons which he gave for it. I think he was carried away by his own eloquence when he asserted that Mr. Bradlaugh has been guilty of unworthy manœuvres. You have ruled, Sir, that the phrase is Parliamentary; and, therefore, I do not complain of it having been used; but, at the same time, I must say that Mr. Bradlaugh has not had recourse to any unworthy manœuvres. Mr. Bradlaugh's view of his position has been entirely supported by the Prime Minister and by the Law Officers of the Crown. Therefore, if the reflection of my hon. Friend can be made at Mr. Bradlaugh, it can also be made against the Prime Minister and
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  the Law Officers of the Crown. I am sorry to have again to repeat what Mr. Bradlaugh's view of his position is; but either hon. Members will not understand, or will persist in shutting their ears on the subject. Mr. Bradlaugh's contention has always been this—that he derives his right to go up to the Table of this House and take the Oath from the fact of his election, that he has a statutory duty to perform in doing so, and that this House is violating the Law and the Constitution in preventing him from doing that duty. I say, therefore, with all respect for the House, that if there are brawlers in this matter, Mr. Bradlaugh is not the brawler. I am sorry I must trouble hon. Gentlemen opposite by reading some extracts from a few speeches. I know that is a form of eloquence to which they object, but I really stand here defending the Constitution of this country. And not only so, but I am also defending the rights both of the electors of Northampton and the right of every elector in the country to choose whom they will to represent them. Well, hon. Gentlemen will remember that a former House of Commons put itself in opposition to the people. I allude to the case of Mr. Wilkes. We all know how that ended; but when I am told that a Resolution of this House is superior to the Law of the land, I claim to read some observations made by men who are recognized as almost, I may say, the fathers of the Constitution. In the debate with regard to Mr. Wilkes—[Cries of"Reading!"] Well, yes; I am going to read some extracts. They are not very long. In that debate Edmund Burke said—
  "The right to incapacitate is not to he trusted with this House. The Constitution has not given it to us, because it would end in the destruction of the House."
  Mr. Wedderburn, in the same debate, said—
  "Precedents there are none to support the proposal that the House has the power to declare the law with regard to the qualification of Members."
  Mr. Wedderburn further said—
  "No man who is by any right eligible can be rendered ineligible by any ordinance, by anything less than an Act of Parliament."
  Mr. Grenville said—
  "If a Resolution of the House is in the teeth of an Act of Parliament, it is in the teeth of

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  the law. Where is the Gentleman who will rise up, and tell me that it is law? "
  Mr. Grenville did not live in the present day—
  "If a Resolution goes against the principle of the law, it is null and void."
  Mr. Cavendish said—
  "I lay it down as a principle that no Resolution of the House can make a minority a majority, and I do, from my soul, abhor, detest, and abjure as unconstitutional and illegal that damnable doctrine and proposition that a Resolution of the House of Commons can make, alter, suspend, abrogate, or annihilate the law of the land. If it can, Sir, of what use are your Statute books? They are useless, if a Resolution can supersede them."
  Now, Sir, I gather from the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman that it forbids Mr. Bradlaugh to go through the form prescribed by the Statute of taking the Oath. The Statute prescribes that Mr. Bradlaugh shall take the Oath as denned by the Standing Orders of the House. The Standing Orders simply state that Mr. Bradlaugh—and I do not think any lawyer will controvert it—has a statutory right to go to the Table of the House and take the Oath. The contention of the right hon. Gentleman, as I understand it, is that the House has the right to interfere, and by Resolution forbid him from exercising his statutory right. I apprehend, however, that the extracts I have read are perfectly germane to the question, because those extracts lay down incontrovertibly, constitutionally, and legally, that one Estate of the Realm, be it this House or the other, has got no right to prevent anyone from fulfilling what may be his statutory rights or his statutory obligations. I am surprised at the right hon. Gentleman coming forward with this Resolution before Mr. Bradlaugh came to the Table. As I understand, the right hon. Gentleman does so because it would be wearisome to come down so early as the hour of Prayers.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Oh! no, no. I referred to waiting till the end of the Business.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Oh, very well; it is wearisome at the end of the Business. That is pretty much the same thing, and I trust it will be always wearisome to any hon. or right hon. Gentleman in this House who attempt to interfere with the rights of the people. The right hon. Gentleman could not
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  point to any single precedent for the course he is pursuing. He adopts a new course, which many hon. Gentleman on this side of the House think unconstitutional, simply to save him the little trouble of remaining until the end of the Business. I apprehend I am perfectly right in saying that I am upon the firm basis of the Constitution in resisting this unconstitutional Resolution of the Leader of the Conservative Party. Let me ask what is the distinction between a Resolution like this and absolutely disqualifying a Gentleman from sitting in this House? It will be remembered that on the day Mr. Bradlaugh was expelled, the hon. Member for the City of Dublin (Dr. Lyons) brought forward a Resolution that Mr. Bradlaugh should be disqualified from again sitting in Parliament; the hon. and learned Member for Launceston (Sir Hardinge Giffard) got up, and, after paying a compliment to the Parliament which turned out Mr. Wilkes, asserted that he was not prepared to go so far and that, and that he would not accept the proposition that this House had got the right to disfranchise any individual from his right of sitting in the House, if he were a duly elected Member. But I ask if there is any distinction between the two? Would it not have been more fair to Mr. Bradlaugh and my constituents had hon. Gentlemen supported that Resolution, rather than allow Mr. Bradlaugh to be re-elected by the constituents of Northampton, and then, before he comes to the Table, declare that he is not a fit and proper person to go through the form that is necessary for him to do to take his seat in this House? I will only say this at the end—the House of Commons has before now come in conflict with the people, and the House of Commons always has had, I thank Heaven, to succumb to the people. Let not the right hon. Gentleman and his Friends suppose that Mr. Bradlaugh is supported only by the constituents of Northampton. Hon. Gentlemen are surprised at Mr. Bradlaugh's popularity in this country. They say how can it be that a man who advocates what, I agree, are objectionable opinions with regard to religion can become popular? But let right hon. and hon. Gentleman understand this, that he has become popular notwithstanding his advocacy of those objectionable opinions with regard to religion; and that he has

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  become popular mainly by the course adopted by hon. Gentlemen opposite. They are doing their best to make Mr. Bradlaugh a martyr; and I say Mr. Bradlaugh was not only supported by the Radicals of Northampton, but I am strictly within the truth in stating that during the recent election, I suppose 200 or 300 telegrams were received from political clubs in all parts of the country, urging the electors of Northampton to stand to their man. Whether Mr. Bradlaugh is to be elected once again, or a dozen times again, lean only say he will be elected and re-elected as long as he maintains the principle which the people consider their right—that of sending the man they choose to represent them. I would only say this further in regard to the Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend. It may be objected by hon. Gentlemen opposite that it would leave it open to Mr. Bradlaugh again to come to the Table. I will only say that I will engage on the part of Mr. Brad-laugh—[Cries of "Oh, oh!"] Well, I do not think hon. Gentlemen will say that Mr. Bradlaugh has ever violated his word to come into this House; and I will engage for him that, provided the Amendment passes, and provided a Bill is brought in, and proceeds with reasonable speed—["Oh, oh!"]—I mean two months—provided that Bill is prosecuted with fair and reasonable speed, Mr. Bradlaugh, until a decision has been come to by a majority, will not present himself at that Table.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, the right hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Stafford Northcote), in submitting this Motion, has set us, or at any rate me, an excellent example in avoiding a re-statement of the arguments he used on a former occasion—arguments with which we are perfectly familiar. On the same ground, I purpose taking the same course, and it shall only be in the briefest words, to explain the reasons which would govern me in supporting the Amendment which has just been moved. Sir, that Amendment expresses the judgment of the House, to the effect that there ought to be legislation upon this subject, and it proposes to place the expression of that judgment in lieu of the Motion which has been submitted by the right hon. Baronet to-day. I am bound to say that in supporting the Amendment, I do so in reliance upon Mr.
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  Bradlaugh, without any knowledge of the matter, but in reliance upon his forbearance and respect for this House, at least to this extent, that were legislation adopted—I think I am justified in making it as an inference from the speech that has just been made—we should have nothing to fear from Mr. Bradlaugh in regard to a possible repetition of scenes which we all regret.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will permit me to explain. I want to get this clear. What I said was, provided this be followed by legislation.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am speaking within the limits of the assurance laid down in the statement made by the hon. Gentleman himself in his speech. I do not mean for ever, but I meant with reference to such language as he used. But with regard to the Motion before us, I observe, unfortunately, that it is a distinct step in advance. Previous Motions against Mr. Bradlaugh have been consequent upon attempts made by Mr. Bradlaugh to do certain acts, and they may in that sense be termed defensive. But it is obvious that this Motion has no reference to any express or apparent intention or act of Mr. Bradlaugh. It is founded upon expectation that he will do an act; it is not founded upon any act he has done, or attempted to do. In that sense, Sir, the Motion is a step in advance, and I cannot help saying, to me it appears a step less against Mr. Bradlaugh and more against the constituency than the steps which we have heretofore adopted. In truth, Sir, it comes perilously near to a Vote of Personal Disqualification; and I am bound to say, without in the slightest degree, Sir, contesting your decision as to the power to make a Motion of that kind, I really know not to what Motions, founded upon the appearance of actions in this House, it may not form a possible precedent. Therefore my objections, which I need not re-state, if they told against the previous Resolution, tell with much greater force against the Motion that is now made. On the other hand, I consider that from my point of view—be it what it may, whether it be the same as that which Mr. Bradlaugh and others are as competent to judge as myself—from my point of view I offer a concession not, perhaps, to be valued or acknowledged in voting for the Amendment

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  now before us, because so far as I am able to understand the case, the law does not require to be changed for the purpose of relieving us from this difficulty. I approve of a change of the law, but I do not regard a change in the law as a necessity for disposing of the present case. Yet I am quite willing to vote for it, and I am quite willing to vote for it on two grounds—in the first place, that I am extremely glad—for I hold that we have no title whatever to dispose of the question, which is a question for the conscience of Mr. Bradlaugh as to the propriety of his conduct in taking the Oath—yet I am extremely glad that we are to be relieved from the position in which we are now placed, that he may be prevented taking the Oath. And, further, I am also glad to think that the proposal to legislate on this subject, while it affords authentic declaration of the intention of the House, may afford to many hon. Gentlemen who have heretofore voted for repressive measures against Mr. Bradlaugh, a means of escaping from—["No, no!"]—a means of escaping from what I think many of them, or some among them, at least, must feel to be an increasingly painful position. Those are the grounds, Sir, on which I shall give my vote in favour of the Amendment of my hon. Friend; and I do trust that the House may be disposed to adopt that Amendment rather than to prolong a struggle which it is in the power of the House to prolong, and which it may succeed in prolonging for a considerable time, but which can only have one end, and that end adverse to the views which are now prevailing in the House.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Sir, I desire to take notice of one expression of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, which I think is calculated to give a wrong impression as to the course of action which I have adopted. He says this is a distinct step in advance, and that we are not taking a defensive, but that we are assuming a sort of offensive attitude. Now, Sir, that I entirely deny. We have had Mr. Bradlaugh's statement, and that has always been perfectly consistent, made upon several occasions on which he has come to this House for the purpose of taking the Oath. He has always told us that he did not come of his own choice, but that he came in obedience to what he considered
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  to be a duty imposed upon him by law. That has always been advocated by Mr. Bradlaugh, and has been repeated by the hon. Gentleman his Colleague tonight. We are therefore perfectly certain there is nothing that can have changed Mr. Bradlaugh's views in that matter, and we are perfectly certain, therefore, that it will be in Mr. Bradlaugh's view that he will come to the Table and propose to take the Oath. Well, then, Sir, the hon. Gentleman the other Member for Northampton says—"You propose to come and take this precautionary step, because you do not wish to have the trouble of a struggle occuring late at night." That is not the point, I must be excused for saying, which I pressed on the House. As a matter of fact, at the end of Business it almost invariably happens, and the whole House know it perfectly well, that you have a thin attendance of Members; and this being an important question, and one upon which the judgment of the House ought, I contend, to be pronounced when the House is full, and when Members attend to the Business, I proposed that it should be taken now, rather than wait. Sir, it seems to me that you might be placed in a very difficult position if Mr. Bradlaugh chose to make his appearance without your having any instructions on the subject, and if the view of the House is the same as it was previously at the beginning of the Session, which I think it is, it ought to be re-affirmed, so that you might have that to guide you which you would have had had it not been for this reelection. The Prime Minister says that my action is now much more directed against the constituency than against Mr. Bradlaugh himself. Sir, I deny that it is directed against the constituency. We do not dispute the right of the constituency to return Mr. Bradlaugh. If we did dispute that right, undoubtedly there would be a case for Mr. Corbett, who was the other candidate, to claim the seat. But no such question is raised. What we do object to is to a certain step being taken which is necessary to enable Mr. Bradlaugh to take his seat. Is that an unusual or unprecedented case? It is precisely the case of Baron Rothschild and Mr. Salomons. We never contested the right of the City of London to elect Baron Rothschild; nor did we contest the right of

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  the constituency to elect Mr. Salomons. Baron Rothschild took the Oath, subject to a certain modification in its words, and the House refused to allow that taking of the Oath with that modification of words to be regarded as equivalent to a taking of the Oath as required by law. Our contention is that Mr. Bradlaugh cannot take the Oath without a modification of its spirit and meaning, and that is the contention, whether we are right or wrong, we have always made. We therefore say that as Baron Rothschild was re-elected, I believe, some five or six times before he ever obtained the right of sitting in this House, similarly Mr. Bradlaugh has been re-elected more than once, and we are still in a position in which we may refuse, and ought to refuse, to allow him to go through the form of taking the Oath, when, as we hold, he is incapable of doing so according to law. With regard to the Amendment, that is a question which is entirely apart from the personal question of Mr. Bradlaugh sitting. It is a question which ought to be argued independently of that consideration when it is brought forward. If a Bill is to be brought forward for the alteration of the law, let us see that Bill, and then discuss it. Otherwise, I decline to be a party to pledging the House to a Resolution in favour of such a Bill before we have received it, and also in connection with the particular case before us.
  MR. HUSSEY VIVIAN: I approach this question from an entirely different point of view from that of my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister. I should support the Resolution of the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) if it stood alone; but I also intend to support the Amendment proposed by my hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire (Mr. Marjoribanks). I disagree entirely with the arguments used by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), who said that the House was not within its rights in prohibiting and preventing the other Member for Northampton from coming to the Table and taking the Oath. We have done so because we believe he is incapable of fulfilling the conditions imposed by the Statute, and that is our justification for the course we have pursued. I have voted against Mr. Bradlaugh being permitted to take the
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  Oath on previous occasions, because I could not be a party to sitting by and seeing that which, in my conscience, I believe to be profanation; and so often as this question comes before the House, if it unfortunately does come again, I shall vote in the same sense. But the Amendment is of an entirely different nature. I suppose there can be very few Members—probably none—on my side of the House who would disagree with the opinion that the time had long gone by when any religious test ought to be imposed on any Member who sought to take his seat in this House. On the other hand, I believe there are very few, if any, hon. Members on the opposite side of the House who would assert such an opinion broadly. The time for such tests has long since passed. Hon. Members opposite may feel, as I do, very reluctant to do anything which can in any way clash with the votes which they have given; and while they may taunt Liberal Members that this Amendment is really a Bradlaugh Relief Amendment, I shall not fear any such taunt, for the simple reason that I am asserting a broad, sound Liberal principle, that religious tests ought not to stand between Members who are elected, and who seek to take their seats, and it is upon that ground, and that alone, that I shall support the Amendment.
  MR. CHAPLIN: Sir, I think it must have escaped the attention of the hon. Member who has just sat down (Mr. Hussey Vivian), that there is one conclusive argument against the acceptance of the Amendment—namely, that in that case the Resolution of my right hon. Friend the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote) will be negatived this night. Then, supposing the proposal for legislation were entertained, and that legislation were introduced, and that the decision of the House was given hostilely, what would be the next thing that would happen? Mr. Bradlaugh, I presume, would walk up to the Table in the exercise of the right he claims, and demand to take the Oath. The Resolution of my right hon. Friend having been negatived, it would be contrary to the Rules to propose it again in the present Session. It is all very well. This is a very ingenious little trap; but I do not think the majority of the House of Commons are at all likely to walk into it. I entirely agree with my right

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  hon. Friend the Loader of the Opposition that the two questions are entirely distinct. Let us pass this Resolution in the first place, forbidding Mr. Bradlaugh to take the Oath; then, if right hon. Gentlemen opposite should, think fit to introduce legislation after, let them bring in the Bill, submit it to the House, and I have very little doubt in my own mind what will be its conclusion upon the matter.
  MR. GOSCHEN: I confess I do not like the spirit in which the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down (Mr. Chaplin) has approached the question. We have not got to think of what the hon. Member calls "ingenious little traps," but how the House of Commons can be rescued from a great difficulty, which I hope everyone who is mindful of the dignity of the House of Commons would wish to solve. In what position does the Motion of the Leader of the Opposition, who is in this matter the Leader of the majority, as we have been told, leave this House? Does it relieve it? No; it leaves it precisely in the same position as it was left last year after his Motion was carried, with the possibility of the same scenes being re-enacted, and with the necessity of the House remaining, if I may use the term, in a kind of state of siege, defending itself against the entrance of Mr. Bradlaugh by such means as he may employ. Is that a position in which the House of Commons wishes to remain; and is it not the duty of everyone in this House to endeavour to settle and get rid of the question which was so difficult, and which has not, I may add, increased the credit of the House of Commons? Whatever view we may take of Mr. Bradlaugh taking the Oath, whether it has been legal, or whether it has not been legal, we may, at least, hope to find an issue from the difficulty; because I refuse to believe what has been repeatedly asserted—that it is convenient to the Conservative Party to keep this question open. I do not believe that for the sake of keeping up a kind of belief that on this side of the House there is a kind of protection of Mr. Bradlaugh's doctrines, that for the sake of keeping up that belief, they would seek to see continued scenes which have not increased the credit of the House. I think we may fairly appeal to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition—who
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  on this question has the majority—to come forward on this occasion and give us some hopes that he will assist in the settlement, and the final settlement, of this question. We expected that he and his Followers would, at least, speak warmly and hopefully of carrying out legislation which is to put an end to the scandal which exists. What course did the right hon. Gentleman take? He said he would judge when he should see the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman and those who support him do not pledge themselves to any Bill when they accept this Resolution. The principle is simple enough. We all know it, though we attempt to disguise it—it is that every Member elected may make an Affirmation or Oath at his option. Is not that simple? Is it difficult to conceive the clauses by which that plain and simple principle may be embodied in a Bill'? I think it would be worthier of the Party opposite if they would give up the attempt to embitter the opposition to Mr. Bradlaugh, and assist not only this side of the House, but the work the House has to do. If the Resolution of the right hon. Gentleman opposite is carried to-night we may be in the same position again. We rest the case mainly on this, that we must get rid of the scenes here, and in support of that I shall vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Berwickshire, and I hope there will be many, even on the Opposition side of the House, who will be ready to follow in that course.
  MR. E. STANHOPEsaid, he wished to remind the House that last year they occupied a very different position from that in which they would now be placed if the Amendment were carried. Last year the Speaker was armed by a Resolution of the House with power to prevent a scandal which would shock so much the religious feeling of the country. If, however, his right hon. Friend's Resolution were now rejected, and the Amendment agreed to, the House would be placed entirely at the mercy of Mr. Bradlaugh. As far as he could understand the matter, there would be nothing except an abstract Resolution between the House and that profanation which they all deprecated. He was willing to accept the pledge given by Mr. Bradlaugh through his brother Member for Northampton; but let hon. Members consider what it was.

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  It amounted to this—that if the House would kindly adopt the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman below the Gangway, Mr. Bradlaugh would undertake not to come up and try to take the Oath for a certain time. [An hon. MEMBER: An uncertain time.] His brother Member for Northampton said be might wait two months; but he would not pledge himself to any particular time—it might be two months, it might be less.
  MR. LABOUCHERE, interposing, expressed a hope that he might be allowed to explain. He did not say that he assumed that the Amendment would be followed by legislation. Of course, that legislation could not take place in a day or in a week. The hon. Member, as well as everyone else in the House, knew perfectly well what he meant when he said that Mr. Bradlaugh would not come to that Table if a Bill were prosecuted. He said it might be two months or three months. He would also say that Mr. Bradlaugh would, under those circumstances, give the fullest notice to the House before he came up to the Table.
  MR. E. STANHOPEsaid, he quite accepted what the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) had just said. He understood that Mr. Bradlaugh was not to be bound as to time; but let hon. Members see in what position that placed the House. They had no promise of a Bill to follow this abstract Resolution. The Prime Minister, who had done a great deal undoubtedly to endeavour to get Mr. Bradlaugh into the House of Commons, had not said a word about bringing in a Bill. And supposing a private Member were to bring in a Bill, did anybody suppose he would have the slightest chance of passing it? They all knew perfectly well that he would not, and therefore the House would be put into this position. At any moment Mr. Bradlaugh might say—"You are not advancing with the Bill as fast as I like, and I will come down to the House of Commons and try to take the Oath; for you have barred yourselves from trying to stop me by passing the Amendment."
  MR. WHITBREADsaid, that in the early stages of this question more than one right hon. Member on the Front Opposition Bench took the view that legislation was the proper mode of deal-
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  ing with the difficulty. He hoped they were in the same mind still. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire, in a speech on a former occasion, dwelt at considerable length on this point. He (Mr. Whit-bread) hoped the right hon. Baronet was of that opinion still; if not, his second thoughts would be much worse than his first thoughts. It was but reasonable to suppose that the majority which carried the Amendment, if it were carried, would be ready to carry on legislation on the question. From whom would opposition come to such legislation? It was not to be feared from that side of the House. If hon. Gentlemen opposite feared a profanation of the Oath, and the Amendment were to pass, all they had to do was to meet the other side fairly and to abstain from obstructing the Bill. He did not wish them to abstain from expressing their opinions, but only asked that there should be no undue obstruction. If they would meet them fairly and take a division on the Bill, at a reasonable time, on its merits, and be satisfied with the decision of the majority, whatever it might be, they need fear no profanation of the Oath. But was it really the profanation of the Oath that they did fear? They had admitted over and over again that should Mr. Bradlaugh be returned at the General Election, they could not prevent him going up amongst the first Members and taking the Oath at the Table. Was it, then, really the profanation of the Oath that they cared for; or was it that some astute Party managers thought they had got a good question, and that they would like to keep the question alive? They on his (Mr. Whitbread's) side of the House thought Mr. Bradlaugh had a right to go to the Table and take the Oath; but they offered a way out of the difficulty, a way recommended by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire—the only way which they saw of avoiding profanation, because if a General Election came, he (Mr. Whitbread) thought it was reasonable to expect that Mr. Bradlaugh would be again returned, and then he would come to the Table, and before the Members present would take the Oath in a manner very like a profanation of it. They offered them a way out of the

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  difficulty—namely, by the introduction of a Bill to deal with it. If the Conservative Party would only not prevent legislation, a Bill could be passed without any undue waste of time, and the profanation of the Oath would not take place. He wished to remind the House of these facts, because hon. Members opposite had not treated them in so temperate a manner as they did on the first occasion, when they offered to assent to legislation on the subject.
  SIR E. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he regretted very much that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon should have attempted to introduction to this debate any question of Party, either on one side or the other. ["Oh!"] It was, he thought, hardly worthy of the right hon. Gentleman to say that the Conservatives wished to keep this question open for Party purposes. This was a matter which most deeply affected not only every Member of that House, but the religious feelings of millions of people of all Parties and of all creeds. He declined to speak of the matter as a Party question, inasmuch as it was one which had moved the hearts and feelings of many religious people in the country. The hon. Member who had just spoken (Mr. Whitbread) had alluded to a speech of his made a long time ago on this subject, when it came before him for the first time as a Member of the Select Committee. That Committee almost unanimously decided that it was absolutely impossible by law for Mr. Bradlaugh to make the Affirmation which the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster desired him to make. Upon the other question as to whether he should be permitted to take the Oath, the Committee upon that point also were unanimous in holding that such a taking of the Oath would not be a taking the Oath at all within the meaning of the Act, but would be an act of profanation. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster thought that there was only one thing to be done—namely, to allow Mr. Bradlaugh to take the Oath. For his own part, he had ventured to suggest that as Mr. Bradlaugh could not make an Affirmation, neither was he to be allowed, under the circumstances, to take the Oath, and that if the Government desired to get him into the House, their only method of getting rid of the difficulty was to introduce legislation on the
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  subject. That opinion he had always held, and expressed; he said so now, and all the more strongly because he had never concealed the fact that he objected to such legislation all the more earnestly because it was introduced for the express purpose of letting in Mr. Bradlaugh. Hon. and right hon. Gentlemen would remember perfectly well how great a difference there was in doing things for one particular purpose and in doing them for the advance of the general principle, and he did not see how the Amendment would have any real effect, because the moment the Bill was introduced, he was quite certain it would be so attacked and tied and bound up with the case of Mr. Bradlaugh, that it would have no chance of passing, and many Members who would be quite ready to support the general principle would vote against it. The hon. and learned Attorney General had made a speech on the subject and had promised to introduce a Bill—[The ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir Henry James): No, no.]—but they had never seen anything of it, and it appeared to him that they were in absolutely the same condition at that moment as they were at the beginning of the Session. The Amendment must be considered as a Motion for allowing Mr. Bradlaugh, whenever he chose, to go through the form of taking the Oath, and either the Government must help him in that, or they must come to the Resolution that they came to before. He should certainly vote for the original Motion proposed by his right hon. Friend (Sir Stafford Northcote), because it appeared to him that the Amendment was simply brought forward as a loophole by which certain scruples might be explained away, and hon. Members prevented from voting in accordance with conscience.
  MR. WALTERsaid, that when the question was first brought before the notice of the House, he ventured to express an opinion that the matter would never be settled until an Act was passed substituting a simple Affirmation for an Oath. Various opinions were expressed as to the advisability of adopting alternative systems enabling Members either to take the Oath, or to make Affirmation. For his own part, he thought considerable objection existed to such a course, which would tend to divide Members into two classes—into those who considered the Oath was the proper form

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  to take, and those to whom the Affirmation was the proper form. Now, he objected to such a course. He had certainly said before that nothing would induce him to consent to Mr. Bradlaugh's taking the Oath; he had twice voted against it, and he should always continue to act in the same manner, because he held such an Oath to be no Oath at all, considering the known opinions of the hon. Member for Northampton. The proposal of the Leader of the Opposition was an operative proposal, and was necessary for the present crisis; but the Amendment had no operative effect at all, it was simply an abstract Resolution. He should be perfectly ready tomorrow to vote for a Resolution framed in the spirit of the Amendment of the hon. Member for Berwickshire (Mr. Marjoribanks), because it carried out his view; but he did not think the House could make a sort of bargain with Mr. Bradlaugh, of which his Colleague was to be the guarantee. Such a course was unbecoming the dignity of the House. He should like to know why the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister, whose opinions on the subject they knew, had not bestirred himself sooner in the matter? He (Mr. Walter) was not insensible of the difficulties the right hon. Gentleman had to encounter; but he believed that there were many hon. Gentlemen opposite who, in their consciences, thought there was only one way out of the difficulty, which was to be found in the introduction of an optional test, or by simply substituting an Affirmation for the Oath. There was a great deal to be said against promissory oaths altogether. They were entirely different to those administered in Courts of Justice. A declaration of allegiance to the Sovereign required no Oath whatever to confirm it, for the penalty of breaking it would be not perjury, but treason. If it were necessary to impose a test of any kind whatever, tacking it on to a declaration of allegiance to the Crown was not the proper means of doing it. He should support the Leader of the Opposition; but, at the same time, he was perfectly prepared to vote for any well-considered proposal for the purpose of substituting a simple Affirmation for an Oath.
  MR. NEWDEGATEsaid, he would not detain the House for more than a very few minutes. No one would accuse
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  him of being, or having been, guided by Party feeling on this subject. He wished to call attention to a letter, written by Mr. Bradlaugh, in order to show what was the position, with which the House had to deal, in Mr. Bradlaugh's estimation. This letter was addressed to the Editor of The Daily News on the 14th of February last, and was as follows:—
  "With reference to your paragraph in today's issue, will you allow me to say that I have not this Session made, nor have I promised to make, nor do I intend to make, any communication to the Serjeant at Arms, with reference to my action in fulfilling the duty imposed on me by law as one of the Members for the Borough of Northampton. I reserve to myself the right at any moment, consistent with statute, and with the Standing Orders and Rules and Orders of the House, to claim to take my seat, though I shall probably select an occasion which seems to mo least injurious to Public Business."
  Now, that was the formal and public declaration of Mr. Bradlaugh, who, he (Mr. Newdegate) must say, had been perfectly consistent. Mr. Bradlaugh held that that House was acting illegally, and he defied the House with the sanction of the constituency of Northampton. He (Mr. Newdegate) was sorry that that one constituency of Northampton had undertaken to defy the House, and to set its knowledge of law above the knowledge of the Court of Appeal in this country; for the Court of Appeal had declared that Mr. Bradlaugh was liable to a penalty of £500 for the first vote he had given in the House. Mr. Bradlaugh's audacity in raising the question of the legality of the action of the House was, indeed, surpassing. Mr. Bradlaugh, as an avowed Atheist, had not taken, and could not take, the Oath of Allegiance according to the Statute. That Oath was intended to be binding upon every Member of the House before he could fulfil the duties of his position. Hon. Members spoke as if there were no limits to the Constitution—no limits, that was to say, by statute. This was somewhat surprising. They might as well declare that a woman, an alien, a clergyman, or even a Cardinal, might sit in the House, when the fact was that all these were excluded by the authority of the Statute Law, as was Mr. Bradlaugh. Some hon. Members, whose wise moderation he generally admired, had on this occasion disappointed him (Mr. Newdegate). But the

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  hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter) had pointed out that Mr. Bradlaugh wished to proclaim to the country that the House of Commons dared not uphold the law of its own Constitution against the will of a single constituency. Was that the position which the House of Commons wished to assume, or have ascribed to it? It might be right that the House should consider the subject with a view to legislation; but with regard to the proposal of the sitting Member for Northampton, that Mr. Bradlaugh should, by agreement with the House, consent to abstain from his misconduct—that he should not obtrude himself upon this House, or violate its Orders, or defy or insult the Speaker, upon condition that the House should proceed thus under penalty to legislate at the dictation of the constituency of Northampton, was, to his (Mr. Newdegate's) mind, intolerable. Was that a position which the House of Commons was prepared to occupy? He (Mr. Newdegate) had read to the House the published declaration of Mr. Bradlaugh himself, and he must say that the present offer of the hon. Member for Northampton was so qualified, that it simply meant that Mr. Bradlaugh would subject the House of Commons to renewed indignities unless it proceeded under a sense of such penalty to deal with this subject in the way of legislation. But if the House were to consent, how could this House answer for the conduct of the House of Lords? The House of Lords knew that the Oaths were the very foundation of order in this House. If the necessity for taking the Oath of Allegiance were to be abrogated, any Member might deny the existence of God and found a Motion upon it; any Member might deny the right of Her Majesty to the Throne; any Member might deny the right to the succession of the Prince of Wales. All this was precluded, because each of those proposals was distinctly contrary to the Oaths of Members. It was the duty of the right hon. Gentleman the Speaker, if any such proposal were made in the House, to rise at once from the Chair and to state that the proposal must be withdrawn, that the debate thereon must cease, and the speech thereon be held to have been unspoken, because the whole was contrary to the Oaths of Members.
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  There must, then, be some limits to the action of Parliament, and the limits he had described were assigned in the reign of Queen Elizabeth as the condition of this House being admitted to a share of the Imperial power. The object of Mr. Bradlaugh was to strike down the distinction between a Parliament and a Convention, which was an Assembly under no obligations. In the United States of America they resorted to Conventions, when there was a difference between the two Houses of Congress, or between Congress and the Supreme Court; but under what condition? That one question only should be decided by each Convention, and that afterwards Congress should immediately resume its functions within the limits assigned to it. This country was asked to go further in the direction of unrestrained Democracy, and in favour of absolute Atheism, than the Great Republic of the United States had consented to in its own case.
  MR. MITCHELL HENRYsaid, he had voted from the very first against allowing Mr. Bradlaugh to take the Oath, and had done so, as had other hon. Members, simply in order that a profane and improper act might not be committed. He begged to say that in the course he had adopted he was not actuated by Party spirit, and he protested against any hon. Gentleman on the other side saying or insinuating that votes given by hon. Members on this side were given from any other motive than that which ought to be respected in the eyes of all. Further, he must remind the House that this matter was represented in another light out-of-doors. The constituencies out-of-doors were persistently told by the hon. Gentleman who dared to come to the Table to take the Oath, that his exclusion was designed to prevent his bringing forward his Motion for a reform of the Pension List. That he also branded as a calumny, and there could be no real credence of it in the heart of the man who made it. Mr. Bradlaugh himself did not believe it. He knew perfectly well that the only ground against him was the religious ground, and his (Mr. Mitchell Henry's) opinion had always gone in that direction. In the present difficulty it would be most inconvenient and undignified for the House to make a bargain with Mr. Bradlaugh. Personally

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  he had always thought it a great hardship that only three classes of persons, Quakers, Moravians, and Separatists, should be allowed to affirm. An alteration of the law was the true solution of the question. Not only now, but for all future time, and he could not understand why it was that when this difficulty arose first a measure of that kind was not introduced. The question could then have been fought out as a matter of principle, and not have been brought into the condition it was in now. Nor did he understand why, if he voted for this Amendment, he should be stultifying the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition. He had one more remark to make. The House had put no disability on Mr. Bradlaugh; it was Mr. Bradlaugh who had attempted to impose a disability upon the Members of the House. His conduct in pretending at the Table that he could not conscientiously take the Oath, and then, when he found inconvenience arise, coming and saying, "Oh, I will take it," was as repugnant to his fellow-Atheists, as to any hon. Member of the House. Mr. Holyoake was as good an Atheist as Mr. Bradlaugh, and he had expressed his disgust and disapprobation of the conduct of the hon. Member for Northampton. He said it showed most clearly that his objections were not really conscientious. They knew nothing officially about Mr. Bradlaugh until he had refused to take the Oath, giving as his reason that it was not binding on his conscience. But for that statement, Mr. Bradlaugh might have taken his seat unchallenged long ago; but it was impossible now to accede to the request that no judicial cognizance should be taken of a piece of information that had been forced upon the House. Mr. Bradlaugh's object was to exhibit to the people out-of-doors his own disbelief in the existence of God and the insincerity of the religious feeling of the House, which, rather than be inconvenienced and embarrassed, would, he imagined, at his approach save itself all trouble by permitting the Oath to be profaned. If the House of Commons allowed him to go to the Table and take the Oath, they would afford him the strongest argument that could be given to prove to his disciples that there was no reality in their belief in a Superior Being. For that reason he should never vote for any course that would result in the Oath
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  being taken by Mr. Bradlaugh. He would not allow Mr. Bradlaugh, if he could help it, to take the Oath; but, at the same time, he would cheerfully, readily, and heartily promote such a reform of the law as would relieve the consciences of all men who did not desire to swear, and permit them to express their allegiance to the Crown by making an Affirmation, which would be equally binding upon them as the Oath itself.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, he presumed that if the Resolution excluding Mr. Bradlaugh were rejected, it could not be moved again this Session, while the acceptance of the Amendment would be a mere Platonic method of changing the law as to Affirmations. Mr. Bradlaugh had offered, by the mouth of his Colleague and Ambassador, to give the House a reasonable time to pass an Act abolishing the Oath; but it must be remembered, in the first place, that that House could not alone pass an Act abolishing the Oath. Such an Act must be passed first by that House, then by the House of Lords, and must finally receive the sanction of the Sovereign. It was proposed by the Mover of the Amendment that unless not only that House, but the House of Lords and the Sovereign, removed all obstacles in the path of Mr. Bradlaugh's profanation of the Oath within what might seem a reasonable time to Mr. Bradlaugh, Mr. Bradlaugh would come up to the Table, would insist upon taking the Oath—taking the name of God in vain, and profaning a solemn religious declaration to the scandal of all religious men throughout this country. Was it to be left to Mr. Bradlaugh to decide whether a reasonable time had elapsed for the House of Lords and for the Sovereign to remove the obstacles to his doing that which would enable him to further his atheistic propaganda? The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) had plainly stated that point of the case. Mr. Bradlaugh had never ceased to assert his intention of making that House a platform for the spread of Atheism; and he had received encouragement from the Premier himself, who had promised Mr. Bradlaugh that if he would but wait a reasonable time the Oath should be abolished. What stronger proof of the mockery of Christianity, of the falsehood and hollowness of Christian men's profession of their faith, could be laid before

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  the ignorant masses of this country than the proof the Premier proposed to place in the hands of Mr. Bradlaugh? He was surprised to hear from the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread) such an argument as that which he had addressed to the House. He stated the question in all its nakedness and all its deformity, for he said that if they wanted to stop the profanation of the Oath, they must make haste to pass an Act for the relief of Mr. Bradlaugh. Such an argument was really a menace. An Act of such a nature would, in the opinion of many, be removing the last vestiges of the religious foundation of the Constitution, and ought not to be proposed without an appeal to the wishes of the country at large. The hon. Member said that if the House hesitated to pass such an Act, the very profanation they dreaded would be inflicted upon them. A more unworthy argument than that was never addressed to any Assembly, and he was surprised that the hon. Member had been so carried away by his allegiance to the Premier as to suggest that if the House desired to save the Oath from profanation they must abolish the Oath altogether. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ripon (Mr. Goschen) had been supposed to be somewhat independent of his Party; but he regretted to find that he also was wanting in principle, for he had insinuated again and again that Party motives were at the bottom of the resistance to Mr. Bradlaugh. He (Mr. O'Donnell) did not admire the intelligence of those hon. Members who believed that statement of the case. But, coming to the Premier's statement itself, it was summed up in his recommendation that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Berwickshire (Mr. Marjoribanks) should be accepted as "an escape." An escape from a difficulty entirely recommended itself to the mind of the Premier; it was so characteristic of the right hon. Gentleman. He was never satisfied with the two plain courses of either saying "Yes" or "No;" but he must find a third course out of a difficulty, and in the present instance he had tried to find an escape for his Followers. His proposal for abolishing the freedom of Parliament by his contemplated Rules of Procedure was not unworthy of his proposal to abolish the Oath. How long was the discussion on
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  the Rules of Procedure to be continued? Suppose Mr. Bradlaugh thought they were taking an unreasonable time with the discussion of the Rules, then was the Premier to stand up and adjure them to make haste with the Rules of Procedure, in order to allow him to bring in a Bill to prevent the profanation of the Oath? If there were an honest purpose behind the policy which was sought to be pressed upon the House, the Amendment would not be proposed as a substitute, but as a rider and in addition to the Resolution. If that course were taken, both the dignity of the House of Commons and the sacredness of the Oath would be protected, for they would be asked to vote in the first place, pending legislation, that Mr. Bradlaugh was incapable of taking the Oath, which he declared to be an idle form. That would be an honest policy. It would prevent the profanation of the Oath, and give expression to the wish of those who thought that the Oath ought to be abolished and Affirmations substituted. But, instead of that honest policy, they were asked to disarm the House as against Mr. Bradlaugh. The Amendment was one with no practical object, except that of legitimatizing the contingent profanation of the Oath under the protection of the good offices and the benediction of the Premier of Great Britain.
  MR. MONTAGUE GUESTsaid, that, as one of those who had voted consistently against Mr. Bradlaugh taking the Oath, he felt it his duty to give the reason which would induce him now to vote for the Amendment. His opinion was that it would be best that every Member returned to the House should be allowed to take the Oath or to affirm, at his discretion, and he should vote for the Amendment upon the understanding that the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister gave his assurance that Her Majesty's Government would bring in a Bill to give this option. [Mr. GLADSTONE dissented.] At all events, it was right and proper that a Member should be able to do what the Amendment proposed, and if it were carried he understood that it would be the duty of the Government to give effect to it. They knew perfectly well that if any private Member attempted to bring in a measure of this kind, there would be little chance of his carrying it; but, on the other hand, if the

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  Government took the course he proposed, he believed they should find a solution of the difficulty. If, therefore, the Government would give the assurance he wished for, he should be delighted to vote for the Amendment. If this course were not taken by the Government, Mr. Bradlaugh might come at any time and do what he had already done, thereby profaning the Oath.
  SIR HARDINGE GIFFARDsaid, he desired to take the ruling of the Chair on the Question whether the Amendment was in Order? The Resolution of his right hon. Friend (Sir Stafford North-cote) dealt with a Question of Privilege, and it would prevent Mr. Bradlaugh, under certain circumstances, which, of course, it was not necessary then to recapitulate, coming to the Table and taking the Oath. The Amendment, he submitted, had no relation to the Resolution, for it did not refer to Privilege at all, but it committed the House to an abstract Resolution as to the necessity for, and propriety of, legislation upon the subject. He was recently witness to a ruling of the Speaker which seemed exactly in point. There was a Motion to issue a Writ for the county of Meath upon the ground that the person elected was not qualified to sit. To that it was sought to move an Amendment for an Address to the Crown, the effect of which would have been that a free pardon should be given to the person elected, and so remove all disability arising from previous conviction. The Speaker held that, in the circumstances, the Amendment was out of Order, and could not be put. He submitted that this Amendment, in the form it had taken, that of giving the go-by to a Question of Privilege, was out of Order and ought not be put.
  MR. SPEAKER: The Resolution of the right hon. Baronet is to the effect that Mr. Bradlaugh be not permitted to go through the form of taking the Oath prescribed by the Statutes 29 Vict. c. 19, and 31 & 32 Vict. c. 72; and the hon. Member for Berwickshire proposes an Amendment that those particular Statutes shall be amended in the direction indicated by this Amendment. I am bound to say that, in my judgment, the Amendment is consequently quite relevant to the Resolution. It is true, as stated by the hon. and learned Gentleman, that on a former occasion, when
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  it was proposed to issue a new Writ for the county of Meath, an Amendment was offered to the effect that Michael Davitt should receive a free pardon, and I did not consider that that Amendment was relevant to the Motion before the House. In this case the relevancy seems to me clear and complete; but on that occasion it did not appear to me that the proposed Amendment was relevant. Therefore, I am bound to advise that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Berwickshire is in Order.
  EARL PERCYsaid, he rose merely for the purpose of obtaining a clear understanding from the Prime Minister upon the question raised by the hon. Member for Wareham (Mr. Montague Guest). The time when the House was in a difficulty was the time when it should take the greatest care what it did in its anxiety to get out of it. The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) had made a proposal to the House which, clearly understood, meant that a Bill should be introduced by the Government to abolish the Oath, or that a Bill should be introduced for that purpose by a private Member, and every facility be given by the Government to that private Member to enable him to pass his Bill. It was notorious that a Bill of the kind referred to would meet with strong opposition in some quarters of the House, and that it would have very little chance of passing unless it was a Government Bill or secured Government time. The Prime Minister would be misleading the House if he were to induce the House to vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Berwickshire and did not intend to adopt one of those alternatives. He was surprised to hear the Attorney General say that the Opposition prevented the introduction of a Bill last Session, because the Opposition could not have done that if the Motion had been brought on before half-past 12 o'clock; but the fact that it was not threw considerable doubt on the bonâ fides of the Government, who brought on the Motion only when they knew the minority could stop it. He asked the Prime Minister whether they intended either to bring in a Bill or to give up Government time to a private Member's Bill?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I might, Sir, perhaps, refuse to answer a question such as that put by the noble Lord in

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  connection with insinuations of want of bonâ fides. I do not feel myself bound to answer any question put in such a way. But as the question has been put in a very different manner by another hon. Member, it is right that I should explain what I stated. I gave no intimation either one way or the other upon the subject, but simply spoke in favour of the principle of such legislation. If the House should be pleased to adopt the Amendment of my hon. Friend, then, undoubtedly, it would be the duty of the Government to consider what would be the best course to take, and whether a measure brought in by the Government would be the best mode of facilitating legislation. It would be the duty of the Government, in good faith, to address itself to the question, and to arrive at such a decision as might, in its opinion, be most likely to attain the end desired by the majority.
  MR. MELDONsaid, the question before the House was one of such great importance that he did not wish to give a silent vote upon it. The House should clearly understand what its position would be if the Resolution of the right hon. Baronet opposite was negatived. He therefore wished to ask, whether, if the Resolution were negatived, there would be any power of preventing Mr. Bradlaugh presenting himself before a measure had been carried? As to the Amendment itself, there were only two arguments that he desired to address to the House. The first was that Members who had voted against the admission of Mr. Bradlaugh previously, and now voted for the Amendment, would be in a peculiar position. The misfortune was that a vote for the Amendment was ostentatiously a vote in favour of Mr. Bradlaugh, from which nothing could whitewash a Member in the eyes of the outside public; and yet there had been numerous occasions when such a Motion might have been brought forward and such a construction could not have been put upon it. There was another argument of much greater weight. If the Amendment was carried, it appeared to him that it would be a direct negative to the Resolution which the House had hitherto adopted. What was the legislation which the Amendment advocated? It was that Mr. Bradlaugh, or any other Member, had a right under present circumstances to go to the Table, and at his
  222
  option either take the Oath or make a Declaration. Therefore, if Mr. Bradlaugh chose to come to the Table, and was willing to take the Oath, there would be no power in the House to prevent the profanation of the Oath. The proposed amendment of the law would, he conceived, in no sense make any difference. He, therefore, asked Mr. Speaker what would be the effect of negativing the Resolution, and whether, in the event of the Amendment being carried, the same Resolution could be moved again during the present Session?
  SIR EDWARD REEDsaid, that before that question was answered, he wished to ask whether, if the Amendment was carried, they should negative the Resolution?
  MR. SPEAKER: In answer to the question of the hon. and learned Member for Kildare (Mr. Meldon), I have to say that it is true that no Motion which is substantially the same as one which has been already negatived can again be made in the same Session. The House will know how to meet any situation that may arise without transgressing its own Rules.
  MR. LEWIS(who rose amid loud cries of "Divide!") said, he would only stand in the way of a division for a few moments. He wished it to be distinctly understood that as far as the Speaker's ruling could be interpreted by the House—["Oh!"]—Gentlemen on his side of the House took the ruling from the Chair in the way in which it was given—namely, that the Speaker thought that some plan could be devised by that (the Opposition) side of the House if the occasion arose to repeat that Resolution in some other form. After all, the real question which remained to be decided was this—would the House practically permit Mr. Bradlaugh to take the Oath or would it not? It was perfectly plain that if Mr. Bradlaugh was not satisfied with the expedition of the proposed legislation, he might a month or two hence present himself to the House, and there would then be all sorts of objections made to any Resolution that might be made similar to that now proposed by the right hon. Baronet. Anyone who voted in favour of the Amendment must be understood by his constituents and the country as voting in favour of the admission of Mr. Bradlaugh, and upon no other question whatever.
  MR. CALLANsaid, he rose to a point of Order. He wished to put a question to the Speaker, in order to prevent any mistake on the part of hon. Members. If the Amendment were resolved in the affirmative—that was, if the House resolved that the words of the Motion of the Leader of the Opposition should not stand part of the Question, and the Amendment was then put as a substantive Motion and carried—he asked whether, if Mr. Bradlaugh came to the Table on any future occasion and a Motion similar in terms or similar substantially in intention to prevent Mr. Bradlaugh from taking the Oath were brought forward by an hon. Member, the Speaker would accept such Motion and rule it to be in Order?
  MR. SPEAKER: I would assure the hon. Member most respectfully that I have quite enough to do to deal with points of Order as they arise; and I must decline to answer questions anticipating points of Order that may be hypothetically raised.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 257; Noes 242: Majority 15.—(Div. List, No. 37.)
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolved, That this House, having ascertained that Mr. Bradlaugh has been re-elected for the Borough of Northampton, doth re-affirm the Resolution made on the 7th of February last, and doth hereby direct that Mr. Bradlaugh be not permitted to go through the form of taking the Oath prescribed by the Statutes 29 Vic. c. 19, and 31 and 32 Vic. c. 72.
  MR. MARJORIBANKS: I beg to give Notice that to-morrow I shall ask leave to bring in a Bill to amend the law with regard to Parliamentary Oaths.
  MR. O'DONNELL: I beg to give Notice that I will oppose any Bill not brought in by the Government on that question.

  ATTEMPT UPON THE LIFE OF HER MAJESTY.

    ADDRESS TO HER MAJESTY.
    Message from The Lords,—That they have agreed to an Address to be presented to Her Majesty, to which they desire the concurrence of this House.
    Address to Her Majesty,—That the Message of The Lords, communicating
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    the Address of their Lordships to be presented to Her Majesty, be now taken into Consideration:—And the same was read as followeth:—
    "Most Gracious Sovereign,
    "We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal Subjects, the Lords Spiritual and Temporal
    of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled, beg leave humbly to express to Your Majesty our horror and indignation at the reckless and wicked attempt made on Thursday last against Your Majesty's sacred Person, and our heartfelt congratulations to Your Majesty and the Country on Your Majesty's happy preservation from danger; and humbly to assure Your Majesty that we make it our earnest prayer to Almighty God that, as He has long preserved to us the blessings that we enjoy under Your Majesty's beneficent Government, He will continue to watch over a Life so highly prized by Your Majesty's loyal subjects."
    MR. GLADSTONE: I rise, Sir, to move that this House do concur in the humble Address to Her Majesty which has been read; and in doing so, the House having heard the terms of the Address, which I believe will command universal concurrence, it is not necessary for me to add more than a very few words. It is always a subject of pain for us to hear that the honoured life of Her Majesty has been exposed to danger, but that pain is deepened into horror when we learn that this danger has been brought into existence by the wilful and wanton act of one of Her Majesty's subjects. It is a grievous and a painful thought, somewhat, however, mitigated by this remarkable consideration—that whereas in other countries similar execrable attempts have at least been made by men of average, or more than average, sense and intelligence, and whereas there the real, or at any rate the supposed, cause has been private grievances or public mischief, in this country, in the case of Her Majesty, they have been wholly dissociated from grievances, wholly dissociated from discontent, and upon no occasion has any man of average sense and average intelligence been found to raise his hand against the life of Her Majesty. On each occasion of the kind morbid minds, combined with the narrowest range of mental gifts, have been the apparent cause by which persons have been tempted to seek a notoriety denied to them in every legitimate walk of life. Sir, Her Majesty has deeply felt that sentiment of thankful-

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    ness which even overpowers and overshadows the sentiment of pain on this occasion. She has felt it, not only for herself, but for those other lives which were wickedly and recklessly exposed, even with a more absolute want of cause or pretext than might be said to be the case in the instance of Her Majesty. The Princess Beatrice, we are rejoiced to learn, has shown on this occasion remarkable courage, together with an entire forgetfulness of herself from her absorption in the attempt upon the life of her illustrious Mother. It would not have been according to usage, and it would, perhaps, have formed an inconvenient precedent, had we proposed to Parliament to include in this Address reference to any other life than that of the Queen. But I am sure that the sentiment which is experienced by Her Majesty of joy at the deliverance of others from the danger is likewise one that finds its place in the minds of every one of us. Well, Sir, having expressed our horror and indignation at the attempt upon the life of Her Majesty, we must all rejoice to see the testimonies which that nefarious attempt has brought forth from every quarter of the globe. Not from this country alone, and not from Her Majesty's subjects alone, but from every nation of civilized mankind there has been conveyed to Her Majesty the expression of the very same feelings with which we ourselves are animated. It is now for us to give formal and authentic utterance to these feelings in the shape of this Address—an Address which, I behave, could not, even if it were couched in the most florid terms, go beyond the real and sincere sentiments of every Member in the House. We shall thus convey to Her Majesty, in a solemn and authentic form, the assurance which, in one sense, indeed, She does not need, for She is well aware of the feelings which govern us in this matter; but which will, at least, form a public record of the price that is set by the whole of Her subjects represented in the Commons' House of Parliament upon the continuance of Her Majesty's precious life and of Her beneficent reign—a reign already prolonged beyond that of any other Queen in this country, but destined, as all of us must hope, to still count many happy years of prosperity and blessing to the nation. I beg to move, "That this House do concur in
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    the Address which has been adopted by the House of Lords."
    SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: Sir, I am quite sure it is unnecessary for me to add any words to those which have fallen from the Prime Minister expressing our concurrence in this Address. It is now 40 years since this House was called upon to address Her Majesty in somewhat similar language, and those 40 years having strengthened Her hold upon the affection and gratitude of her people, the feelings which animated our Predecessors animate us even more strongly still. We all know with what incredulous surprise we heard in the first instance the other night the news of an attack upon Her Majesty; with what anxiety we learnt that it had been of a character to endanger Her precious life, and with what relief and thankfulness we received the news that no injury had actually been sustained. I am sure we all feel with the Prime Minister additional cause for thankfulness that the Princess Beatrice should have shared in the escape of the Queen from this great danger. One so justly loved and admired as Her Royal Highness deserves, and will receive, our deepest sympathy. But it is especially to Her Majesty's escape that we turn our thoughts. We cannot but feel that She, who has always been so prompt in the expression of her sympathy for others, has a claim upon our sympathy independently even of considerations of loyalty; and when my right hon. Friend speaks of the expressions of sympathy that have come from every part of the civilized world, we cannot but feel that it would indeed be surprising if a Sovereign who has commanded so much of the respect and admiration, and even the affection, of foreign nations, and who has never been slow to express her sympathy with any misfortune that may have befallen other nations with whom we are in alliance—it would be strange indeed if She had not received this assurance from us. I will say nothing more, except that I cordially echo and support the Resolution now submitted to the House.
    Then the said Address being read a second time;
    Resolved, Nemine Contradicente, That this House doth agree with The Lords in the said Address to be presented to Her Majesty.
    And the blank therein was filled up with the words "and Commons."
    Ordered, That a Message be sent to The Lords, to acquaint their Lordships that this House hath agreed to the Address to which The Lords desired the concurrence of this House, and have filled up the blank with the words "and Commons;" and that the Clerk do carry the said Message.

QUESTION.

  IRISH LAND COMMISSION—RETURN OF JUDGMENTS.
  MR. LEWISinquired of the Prime Minister, When he believed the Return as to the business of the Land Court would be in the hands of Members? It was a matter of the most serious importance, now that the debate on the Land Act was about to be resumed. Would the right hon. Gentleman take steps to have these Returns in the hands of hon. Members before Thursday night?
  MR. GLADSTONE, in reply, said, the Return was in the hands of the printers. It was not voluminous, and he was at a loss to understand why its appearance should have been so long delayed.

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

    ADJOURNED DEBATE. [THIRD NIGHT.]
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [27th February], that the Question then proposed,
    "That Parliamentary inquiry, at the present time, into the working of the Irish Land Act tends to defeat the operation of that Act, and must be injurious to the interests of good government in Ireland,"—(Mr. Gladstone,)
    —be now put.
    Previous Question again proposed, "That the Original Question be now put."—(Mr. Gibson.)
    Debate resumed.
    MR. CHARLES RUSSELLsaid, he would ask the permission of the House to state the grounds upon which he intended to vote for the Motion of the Prime Minister and against the pro-
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    position of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson). He desired at the outset to point out a misconception as to the character of the Prime Minister's Resolution, which appeared more than once during the course of the debate. It was not a question of conflict between the two Houses of Parliament. It was not a case in which the House of Lords was infringing upon the domains belonging exclusively to the House of Commons; neither was it a case in which the Commons were seeking to infringe upon any domain of the House of Lords. It was a case in which the Lords had an undoubted right to inquire into the matters proposed. But the Executive Government of the country, upon their responsibility, had come to the conclusion that in the present condition of things such an inquiry would be prejudicial and injurious to the public interests, and in the discharge of their duty they (as was their equally undoubted right) asked that Assembly—the Representative House of Parliament—to endorse their disapproval of the inquiry, as calculated to lead to injurious results. In "another place" a noble and learned Lord likened the conduct of those who had pressed this inquiry to that of children who, having planted flowers in the ground, proceeded in a few days to pluck them up by the roots in order to see whether they were growing. He (Mr. Charles Russell) might be permitted to say that they seemed him to be mischievous children who were seeking to pull up flowers they had not planted, and which it was shrewdly suspected they did not desire to take root. In judging of the probable scope and effect of this inquiry it seemed to him to be essential to look to the language of its advocates in and out of Parliament. It seemed to be lost sight of that the agitation for the inquiry dated from a great meeting of landlords held in Dublin at the beginning of the present year. At that meeting the Land Commission was abused in language neither dignified nor just. Fault was found with the social status of the Sub-Commissioners, protests were made against their decisions, and resolutions were passed declaring against further reductions of rent, and crying out for compensation. The logical outcome of arguments like these would be a Resolu-

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    tion asking for a repeal of the Land Act. In fact, such a Resolution was submitted to the meeting, but not carried. How was the discussion carried on by the Representatives of the landlord class in the House? A right hon. Gentleman who lately filled a responsible Office in connection with the Irish administration did not think it unworthy of his position to apply to the Land Act of 1881, passed after such protracted discussion in that House, and assented to by the other House of Parliament and by the Sovereign, language describing it as confiscation and robbery. The hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin) likewise strongly abused the Act, and if his arguments pointed to anything, they pointed to a repeal of the measure altogether. The senior Member for the University of Dublin, feeling the cogency of the arguments addressed to the House by the Prime Minister, attempted to put the question upon a much lower platform. He, in fact, said they desired to make no attack on the judicial administration of the Act; but he pointed out that there were many matters which could be properly inquired into without touching that question. He (Mr. Charles Russell) begged leave to point out that that was not the object indicated in the speeches of those who advocated the inquiry in "another place." But it very soon became apparent that the cautious limits within which his right hon. and learned Friend desired to keep the discussion were outstepped by other Gentlemen on the opposite side of the House. That the object which he described was not the real object of the inquiry appeared notably in the speeches of the hon. Member for Coleraine (Sir Hervey Bruce) and the hon. Member for West Surrey (Mr. Brodrick), but still more notably in the speech of his Colleague the junior Member for the University of Dublin. If the inquiry was to be a real inquiry, directed to the objects of its promoters, the arguments of the Government against its impolicy were strengthened tenfold; and if it was not to be a real inquiry, but the harmless and innocent thing described by his right hon. Friend opposite, it was clear that it could not satisfy the objections of those who projected it, and it would be more becoming and dignified for the House of Lords to yield to what, he had no doubt, would be the emphatic expression of the opinion of the House
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    of Commons, that such an inquiry would be impolitic and obnoxious. He did not think it was within the competence of the Committee to give any assurance like that contained in the letter of the ex-Lord Chancellor, that they would not inquire into the decisions of the Sub-Commissioners. The Committee was merely deputed by the House of Lords to make the inquiry, and if an assurance was to be given which would be regarded as authoritative and binding, it should be by a Resolution of the House of Lords itself; but though the Committee had given an assurance that they would not re-hear cases already tried, which was not in their power, they were still at liberty to inquire into the grounds and facts of the decisions, which would have a very injurious effect on the minds of the people of Ireland. These might be matters proper to be inquired into; but an inquiry regarding them could not take place without materially weakening the status and the independence of the Commissioners. As showing the alarm with which the proposed inquiry was viewed in Ulster, whose people had evinced the strongest desire to avail themselves of the benefits of the Act, he read the Resolution lately adopted by a meeting of the tenant farmers of Tyrone protesting against the inquiry in the strongest manner, and a telegram from a gentleman in Antrim, who stood as tenant farmers' candidate at the last election, stating that if the Act was to have any effect, confidence in it must be restored by the House of Commons. It seemed to him that the Commissioners had been very unfairly treated in the discussion that had taken place in the House. He had probably watched their decisions as carefully as any man, and had addressed tenants' meetings since they had been given; and at those meetings he had carefully avoided expressing any opinion as to the judicial action of those gentlemen, and for the reason that it was impossible for any man, however desirous of being fair-minded, to give judgment in a case as to which he had not before him all the facts. He desired to point out that the course that had been adopted in criticizing the action of these Commissioners was without parallel. They were a judicial body appointed to administer an Act of Parliament; and if they did not administer that Act with a due regard

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    to the intention of the Legislature when passing it, the Act itself provided the proper remedy for the Constitutional review of their decisions—namely, the Court of Appeal. He held it was unjust to the Commissioners, and unworthy of those who made these criticisms upon them, to treat them as they had been treated in those discussions. He was of opinion himself that if the Commissioners erred at all it had not been in favour of the tenants, but in favour of the landlords. It was said this inquiry was necessary, because the Act had falsified the promise by which it was obtained. It was said that the responsible Ministers of the Crown had expressed the view that it would not be followed by a large reduction of rent. This line of argument seemed to him to be extremely curious. The Act was passed for the relief of the tenants; and if responsible Ministers of the Crown had expressed such a view, all he could say was that it was only another proof that Ministers in that House, whether they were Ministers in esse or Ministers in posse, had a great deal still to learn about the condition of Ireland and how to deal with it. He had objections to any inquiry at all at this time; but he had special objections to an inquiry by the House of Lords, because he had no faith in their impartiality. He did not desire for one moment to suggest that any Member of that House would knowingly yield himself to an unfair bias, but because the occasions were few on which men could lift themselves above class interests and class prejudices. When he looked at what had been the persistent and consistent action of the House of Lords in reference to this question it was an amazement to him how the Irish Members opposite, of whose intelligence he had a high opinion, how they could hope that an inquiry by the House of Lords could redound to the benefit of the tenant. What had the history of the Lords been in relation to this question? They opposed the Land Act of 1870, although their opposition did not go to the extent of throwing out the Bill; but they took from it a valuable provision with which it had left the Commons. In 1872 they appointed a, Committee to inquire into the Act; and that inquiry, as anyone who took any interest in the history of this question must have known, either
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    had, or was supposed to have, a prejudicial effect in paralyzing the action of the County Court Judges in administering the Act and in minimizing the advantages it bestowed upon the tenants. Could any hon. Member forget their action in 1880 in regard to the Limitation of Costs Bill, brought in by the hon. Member for the County of Longford (Mr. Errington)? That small measure of protection for the Irish tenant passed the Commons, and the House of Lords did not thing it unworthy of their dignity and position to scout it, and it had never been passed since. There was another and more important Bill to which he should refer. It was the Compensation for Disturbance Bill. That unquestionably was an Act of exceptional legislation, based upon principles which should only be invoked upon rare and exceptional occasions. The House of Lords threw out that Bill after the Government had said in this House that it was necessary for the protection of the Irish tenant. That conduct of the House of Lords was, in his judgment, the strongest justification, and one of the strongest sustainments, of the action of the Land League. It would have been a generous act on the part of the House of Lords to have given that mild protection to the Irish tenant thought by the Commons to be so needed. Taking this to be the history of the House of Lords in reference to this question, could the Irish people look with other than distrust upon any inquiry initiated by them? There was another matter with regard to which he desired to say a word. That was as to this cry for compensation. He might, at least, express the hope that this cry would not play the part that had been played by another question, that of "Fair Trade," which was a fruitful theme for platform speeches outside the House, but which had found very weak and inarticulate expression in the House. He hoped this question would be formulated with precision and brought to an early decision. It had possessed the minds of Irish landlords and prevented them from arranging with their tenants outside the Court, as they imagined that by doing so they would be prejudicing their position, or prejudicing themselves as to some question of compensation. Compensation for what? Compensation by whom? Was it compensation for being, by Act of

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    Parliament, prevented from continuing a system of rack-renting? Was it compensation for being deprived of the right to confiscate the property of the tenants? In connection with this question he might mention an agreement voluntarily arrived at in the West of Ireland between some tenants and their landlord, where the rent under which they had struggled for existence for years and years had been reduced 50 per cent. Nature had not been kind to the place. It was upon the shore facing the Atlantic. The climate was not propitious. The people paid their rents by toiling in England and Scotland during the harvesting operations. Out of their holdings they could not do it. Of late years the labour market had been closed to them; and in view of such a case as this, he asked whether a claim for restitution might not be based upon juster grounds than this claim for compensation of the landlords? Upon the principles of compensation now proposed, the greater the rack rent to which a landlord had subjected his tenant the more he would get, whilst the fairer had been his rent the less. He wished to refer to the conjunction that had taken place on the other side of the House with reference to this Motion. It was a strange conjunction, arrived at by a diametrically opposite course of reasoning. Hon. Members above the Gangway said that this inquiry was absolutely necessary, if the ruin of the Irish landlords was to be averted. Hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway said that the inquiry was absolutely necessary, because the Land Act was perfectly worthless to the tenants. It was perfectly clear that both of these propositions could not be proved; and neither proposition, on being examined, would be found to be true. He believed that this Land Act did contain elements of great good to the Irish people and to the Irish tenant class, if they could secure them. He was of opinion that there had been gross exaggeration with respect to the decisions of the Commissioners; he did not mean wilful misrepresentation, but misrepresentation arising from a mistaken idea of what had occurred. It had been said that they proceeded upon a stereotyped plan of reducing rent. Nothing of the kind. In some cases they had small reductions, in some cases large reductions, in some very large reductions, in others they had made no
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    reduction at all. He might quote an instance from the property of the representatives of a deceased proprietor in the County Antrim. That gentleman purchased the estate at a price which paid 5 per cent on the existing rental. Within 20 years, notwithstanding that neither he nor any of his predecessors expended 1d. on improvements, even the dwelling-houses and farm-buildings having been erected by the tenants, the rents were all nearly doubled. These tenants, the Commissioners asserted, could not pay those increased rents out of the produce of the soil. The reductions of rent made by the judicial action of the Courts were less than the reductions made out of Court between the landlords and tenants themselves. On the Montgomery Estate, near Bally Bay, in the County Monaghan, the agent, Mr. Reeves, met the tenants, and, after inquiring into each case on the merits, allowed reductions varying from 25 to 50 per cent, to commence from September last. The tenants were so delighted that they chaired Mr. Reeves from the hotel to the railway station. From a Return which he had taken the trouble to calculate he found that the reductions made, either by what he would call the compulsory decisions of the Courts, or by the mutual consents which received the sanction of the Courts, amounted to only 25·65 per cent. Those reductions made out of Court varied between 3 per cent and 58·35 per cent. The general average of those reductions was 36 per cent, as against only 23 per cent on the cases judicially decided by the Sub-Commissioners. This was a complete answer to the exaggerations of those who spoke about the "sweeping reductions of the Sub-Commissioners." This demand for an inquiry resolved itself, he believed, into an attack, upon the administration of the Act by the Sub-Commissioners. Its administration, strange to say, by the County Court Judges bad not been attacked, although the reductions made by them averaged more than the reductions by the Sub-Commissioners. [Mr. SEXTON: How was it with the County Court in Mayo?] He was not at that moment able to speak of Mayo; but he believed his statement of the average to be thoroughly accurate. He was not aware of a single instance in which rent had been judicially reduced where the laud-lord or his witnesses came forward to

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    maintain that the existing rents were fair. [An hon. MEMBER: Mr. Bence Jones.] He (Mr. Charles Russell) thought Mr. Bence Jones was no exception; indeed, he thought Mr. Bence Jones applied himself to ventilating his opinions in English newspapers, rather than to maintain, before the Sub-Comsioners, that his rents were reasonable. He felt bound to ask, were the Irish landlords the only landlords who had suffered from reduced rents? He had lately read, in The Mark Lane Express, returns from 16 counties in England showing the rents of new lettings, and the rents at which those farms were held previously. The figures showed an average reduction of 30 per cent. Surely, in face of this fact, there was no foundation for the statements so rashly made outside that House that the reductions of the Sub-Commissioners had been unreasonable. Turning to his hon. Friends from Ireland below the Gangway he asked, how could they justify their statement that the Land Act had done no good? Was security against arbitrary and capricious eviction on the notice to quit no benefit to the Irish tenants? He said sincerely he had too much respect for the intelligence of those hon. Members to believe that they for one moment thought the Land Act was no good; and the strange alliance they had formed in opposition to the Prime Minister's Resolution found its reason—he would not say its justification—on some other ground, that other ground he believed to be implacable hostility to the Government. He himself believed the Land Act contained elements of future good to the Irish tenants. For much of this good he looked to a wise and liberal application of the Bright Clauses. His right hon. and learned Friend the Member for the University of Dublin (Mr. Gibson) spoke of the failure of the Bright Clauses, and contended this was one matter for inquiry. The great, though not the only, difficulty existing about the application of those clauses was the question of price. The landlords would be perfectly willing to sell at so many years' purchase on existing rack-rents. The tenants would be willing to buy at so many years' purchase of the new judicial rents. Until these differences were settled the Bright Clauses could not work and be thoroughly successful. He desired to
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    call attention to what he believed to be the real and crucial difficulty in this whole matter, and that was the question of arrears. This question had not been adequately dealt with by the Act, and he said so when the Act was being passed. The mass of accumulated arrears was lying like a nightmare on the breast of the country. He did not doubt the existence of dishonest refusal to pay rents in many cases in Ireland. He regretted to be obliged to admit also that a certain amount of demoralization existed over the country; but, nevertheless, the fact remained that a great mass of the Irish tenants could not pay, and ought not to be expected to pay, the arrears of the present rent. But while he held those strong views he said no inquiry was necessary into the matter of arrears, because no delay could be brooked by the tenants, and the Government by this time ought to have sufficient materials for dealing with the question. Another weakness of the Act arose from the fact that, even in the most sanguine view of progress, years must elapse before the 70,000 cases now in Court could be settled. What would be the result? The Act contained no provision by which the reduction of rent could be made retrospective, and the man who had not got a reduction now must go on paying presumably unjust rents for one, two, three, four, five years, until a decision was arrived at. The landlords had not loyally sought to have effect given to the Act. Cases had been communicated to him in which landlords, when tenants went into the Land Court, resorted to a counter-move by issuing writs from the Superior Courts for the recovery of arrears. By proceeding in the Superior Courts and getting judgment of fieri facias those landlords were entitled, for the arrears of what the tenant believed to be unjust rents, to sell the tenant's interest and deprive him of all benefit under the Land Act. And so this career of extermination went on; and, further, the manufacture of future tenants went on from day to day and from month to month. He submitted, as strongly and as earnestly as he could, that this was a matter which ought to be dealt with by the Government, if they desired to remove that friction which now existed as to the relation between landlord and tenant, if they wished to give their Land Act scope and full effect.

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    There certainly would be some risk of loss to the Treasury; but, on the other hand, it would have a compensating effect. It would be a pacifying agency. In the interest of the tenants, in the interests of landlords, many of whom he admitted had been hard pressed and sorely tried in the crisis through which they were passing, but, above all, in the interest of the peace of the community, he said this was a question that ought to be dealt with. He ventured to refer to a speech made on this very question by the late First Lord of the Admiralty, upon the discussion of the Bill in Committee, in which he did not hesitate to to say and declare that, in his view, in order to give this Land Act fair play there ought to be a "clean sheet." The question should be dealt with as if a national bankruptcy had taken place. As regarded the small tenants, there should be a composition of arrears spread over a number of years, making it a charge on the tenant, the State taking some risk in the matter. That would be a scheme which would receive support on both sides of the House, and a scheme which would be just to the landlord and the tenant. He (Mr. Charles Russell) desired to point out the unreasonableness of the impatience with regard to Ireland which had possessed the English mind, because all at once there was not instantaneous peace and universal pacification on the passing of the Land Act. He wished to convey that that feeling of impatience was un-just and unreasonable, because, however quick the administration under it might be, however just and liberal its interpretation, the effect of the Act must be a matter of slow and gradual progress; and at the present time, in view of the figures he had just laid before the House, it was perfectly obvious that but a very small portion of the people of Ireland had been touched by these provisions, and unless this question of arrears were dealt with, a very large class of them would be, practically, debarred from its provisions altogether. He very much doubted whether the Irish landlords had realized the serious crisis through which they were passing, and the obligations which that crisis had placed upon them. He desired to make no attack. He desired to make no imputation that could be avoided; but he said that the history of Irish landlordism had not been creditable
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    to the Irish landlords. There was probably on the face of the earth no parallel of a small class gathering into their hands, as the Irish landlords had gathered into theirs, the dignities, the power, the fixed property of the country. Their power for good or for evil was enormous; and he feared, speaking of them as a class—but he admitted the existence of many exceptions—he feared it must be said of them, and history would record judgment against them, that they had not used their power well, but misused it. He did say that to a large extent the misuse of their powers—so enormous, so uncontrolled—a misuse which, so long to its shame be it said, had been sanctioned by the Legislature and public opinion, was the condition of Ireland to be attributed to-day. In the face of the existing crisis, what was their attitude?—they still stood by their rights, opposing all reform. They called aloud to the Executive to give the full weight of the Executive power to carry out their civil rights; and, without offence he said it, they did not content themselves by inveighing against those who had sought to reform the law, but proclaimed, as it were, from the housetops their own loyalty. He did not doubt their loyalty; but the safety of the community rested not upon the loyalty of the few, but on the loyalty of the people—a loyalty resting on the assured foundation of the content of the people from a sense of benefits received. It was because he felt that this Act was intended to give the Irish people some stake in the country, some interest bound up with the interests of peace and order, that he was opposed to an interference, however slight, with its beneficent operations. The great bulk of the Irish people had little to lose. To the great bulk of them the law had shown only its stern visage; and it was hardly too much to say that the embodiment of the law to them, and the embodiment of the glories of this great Constitution, were too often but the landlord's agent and bailiff, and the posse comitatus of the evicting sheriff. It was because he believed that this Land Act was calculated to do good that he asked the House to join in this Resolution, which was an expression of condemnation of the proposed inquiry at this time by the House of Lords. He looked upon this inquiry as calculated to awaken distrust in the Irish mind, not to strengthen,

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    but to weaken the operation of the Act. He regarded it as inopportune, as premature, as likely to be injurious in its consequences; and he believed it would be looked upon by the bulk of the Irish people as an attempt by the landlord class to minimize the benefits of the Act, and as an attempt to exercise a baneful terrorism upon those who were charged with its administration.
    LORD CLAUD HAMILTONobserved, that the hon. and learned Member who had just spoken said that the safety of a country did not depend on the loyalty only of a few, or of a small class, but upon the loyalty of the whole people. In those words he most cordially agreed with the hon. and learned Member; but the House would have observed that, throughout this debate, those hon. Members who spoke on behalf of Ireland had alluded to only a portion of the population of Ireland; and in the course of this debate he had not hoard one word said, so far as his memory served him, of any other class than those of the tenants and the landlords. The tenants and landlords of Ireland, taken together, formed only a moiety of the population of Ireland. If the Government went on in its course of legislation, founded on unsound principles, without making any attempt to cure any of the principles on which that legislation had been administered, they would find that they had to reckon not only with tenant farmers, but with the labourers, both in the towns and in the country. The hon. and learned Member gave an historical resume of what had taken place in Ireland during the autumn; and he said this Committee of the House of Lords dated from the time of the landlords' meeting in Dublin. He (Lord Claud Hamilton) was not at that meeting; but he had seen many gentlemen who were there. He had carefully read, over and over again, the report of the proceedings and of the speeches delivered at that meeting; and he ventured to say that, in the whole of the present century, no meeting of men who had been robbed of their private rights for the supposed benefit of the community at large had been conducted with so much moderation, and in a spirit of so much fairness. With the exception of one speech, the whole tone of those speeches was one of the greatest moderation possible for men suffering under great wrong. The hon.
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    and learned Member criticized some observations which had fallen during the past two years from his right hon. Friend the Member for North Lincolnshire (Mr. J. Lowther). He was bound to say that on some occasions his right hon. Friend had spoken in a very outspoken manner; but from the introduction by the Prime Minister of his Land Bill in 1870, his right hon. Friend had been entirely consistent in his views regarding that measure and all kindred legislation connected with Ireland, and though some Members might occasionally doubt the wisdom of such outspoken observations in large assemblies, he gave his right hon. Friend credit for consistency in the expression of his views. The hon. and learned Member, he thought, was inaccurate in stating that the inquiry into this Act dated from the time of the landlords' meeting. What really took place? It would be in the recollection of the House that, at the close of the debate on the Land Bill last Session, the Conservatives in that and the other House strongly pressed the Government to announce the names of the gentlemen whom they intended to appoint as Chief Commissioners to administer that Bill. They all felt that it was essential to the interests of all classes in Ireland that the Act should be administered with perfect fairness and integrity; and it was, therefore, necessary, before finally agreeing to the passing of the Act, that they should know who the three gentlemen to whom that office was to be intrusted were. It was believed, on the whole, that the names of those three gentlemen were entitled to the confidence of the landlords, the tenantry, and all classes in Ireland. But what occurred after their appointment? The Land Act had been in operation for two months without almost any participation in the proceedings by the Head Commissioners. They had instead Sub-Commissioners, giving decisions all over the country according to their own ideas, and not based upon reasons or principles, laid down by the gentlemen whose appointment had been sanctioned by Parliament. Those who contested the Act in the beginning then felt that they had been deceived; and it was not with regard to the Head Commissioners, but with regard to the action of their subordinates, that the House of Lords projected this inquiry. The whole object of the Com-

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    mittee of the House of Lords was to ascertain the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, as to the general principles on which the Land Act was administered in Ireland. He quite admitted that the House of Lords adopted a very unusual course; but it should be remembered that the legislation they proposed to inquire into was unparalleled in history. The First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, who were the prime movers in this legislation, had not such a knowledge of the Irish people as would justify their recommending the adoption of such a measure as the Land Act to the House of Commons. The two right hon. Gentlemen between them had lived some 140 years, and both resided within a few hours' distance of Ireland, yet they had not spent six months in the country which they now were turning upside - down by their legislation. He could not believe in the sincerity of legislators when they failed to make themselves acquainted with the character of the people for whom they made laws. The Irish legislation of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had been condemned by many eminent statesmen, and notably by Lord Grey—a wise and experienced statesman, who had warned the right hon. Gentleman prior to his accession to Office of the result of his policy. But what did the right hon. Gentleman say? He said these were the apprehensions of an old woman.
    MR. GLADSTONE: Where did I say that?
    LORD CLAUD HAMILTON: Mid Lothian.
    MR. GLADSTONE: Never.
    LORD CLAUD HAMILTON: The words were "merely apprehensions of an old woman."
    MR. GLADSTONE: Never.
    LORD CLAUD HAMILTONsaid, he would bring the speech down, and show it to the right hon. Gentleman to-morrow evening. Of course, as the right hon. Gentleman had denied, he could not proceed with it then. The right hon. Gentleman had referred at Knowsley to the refusal of the Corporation of Dublin to confer the freedom of the city on Mr. Parnell and Mr. Dillon; and he had no doubt that the right hon. Gentleman at that moment entirely believed what he said. [Mr. GLADSTONE: And I do so
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    still.] The Dublin Corporation was not a "focus," and never had been a "focus," of real public opinion in Ireland very luckily. There was, shortly afterwards, a fresh municipal election in Dublin; and this focus of national public opinion, with two months' experience of the working of the Land Act, at its very first meeting after the election, passed, by a considerable majority, a vote giving "the freedom of the city" to Mr. Parnell and to Mr. Dillon, and so, he thought, had once more convinced the right hon. Gentleman that his knowledge of the Irish people was extremely superficial indeed. Hon. Members for Ireland sitting below the Gangway on that side of the House represented the opinions of the South and South-West of Ireland, and the Government was every day playing into the hands of those hon. Gentlemen. Every single pound that was unjustly reduced from the rent of a landlord was so much in the hands of those hon. Gentlemen. They were playing their game in an able and judicious manner, and that he confessed, although he absolutely dissented from their views in almost every particular. What was the effect of the Land Act? It had produced a fearful amount of litigation; every man's hand was at his neighbour's throat, and tenants who had hitherto lived in amity with their landlords were now forcing them to incur law expenses through the instrumentality of the local solicitor. Rents would be reduced throughout Ireland, and landlords would, consequently, be compelled to leave the country, after discharging those who were now employed upon their estates. He believed, also, that the country would suffer from a widespread demoralization, and that tenants would soon cease to be particular about the truth of their statements when striving to obtain a reduction of rent. Already the Chairman of Quarter Sessions in Monaghan had stated in Court that the value put upon their holdings by some tenants desirous of having their rents judicially fixed was so high as to shock and horrify him. The hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O' Donnell) had recently made some personal allusions to him in the House, with reference to the management of an estate belonging to his noble Relative (the Duke of Abercorn). He had since ascertained that the hon. Member had made those allusions in no offensive spirit; and, although the hon.

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    Member was somewhat severe in his exterior, he was sure he possessed a kindly heart, and he had made those allusions on the spur of the moment, without thinking of the pain they were liable to inflict. At the commencement of this Parliament a Question was put upon the Paper in that House reflecting upon the conduct of his noble Relative; and, although the Question was entered on the Minutes, it was never put, because there was no truth in it. The tenants on the Donegal estate of his noble Relative were so much annoyed and disgusted at the imputation contained in that Question that they met together and passed a resolution eulogizing his noble Relative as a landlord. On this very property, since the passing of the Act, some 50 or 60 of these very tenants had gone into the Court to claim a reduction of rent from the landlord whom, but a short time ago, they had described, in a spontaneous resolution, as a just, superior, and model landlord. He did not blame these tenants, for they would hardly be human if, after seeing such a measure of confiscation passed by Parliament, they should abstain from having recourse to the Court, utterly regardless of whether their landlord was good, bad, or indifferent. The power of landlords was a power for good. He regretted that this power, as far as concerned Irish landlords, would soon cease to exist. Landlords at present were often represented by agents, to whom they intrusted large powers, and who took a prominent part on their employers' properties, and in promoting in the neighbourhood charitable and philanthropic movements. Soon, however, landlords would dispense with agents and conduct their business with their tenants in a strictly rigid and legal manner through the medium of attorneys. Would that conduce to a kindly feeling between the landlords of Ireland and their tenantry? Yet such must be the inevitable result of the interference of the Court between the parties. When tenants should have had their rents judicially fixed, how, when bad seasons recurred, would landlords be likely to entertain their petitions for a reduction? The landlord would feel disposed to say—"I will have my pound of flesh; I will stand upon my rights, or such of them as the Prime Minister has left me." There would be thousands of cases where the charitable feel-
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    ings of the landlords would be tied up, owing to the measure of the right hon. Gentleman. The great charities of Ireland would feel the change also. It was not to be supposed that the tenant farmers would bestow any of their remitted rent in supporting them, and they would languish in consequence. Did the Prime Minister imagine that his measure would endear their homes to Irish landlords? They had heard a good deal from the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster with regard to absenteeism. Did the right hon. Gentleman believe that the landlords would live in a country where all the enjoyments of life had been taken from them, while they had only to cross the Channel, leaving their rents to be collected by an attorney? Landlords had been treated as almost a proscribed race, and, except on the large properties, they would leave the country; and when the "garrison," as they had been termed, had been driven out, the Government would find Ireland not quite so secure an appanage of the Crown as it was now. When that came about, how would they dispose of the general business of the country? Even hon. Members below the Gangway would admit that country gentlemen discharged their county business with efficiency. Many of them were Chairmen of the Boards of Guardians in their districts; and to that fact, and to the presence of other landed proprietors and their agents, the Prime Minister was indebted for not having votes of thanks and sympathy passed to Mr. Parnell and Mr. Dillon, and other gentlemen, at a very large number of Board meetings in Ireland. Every one of those would now be turned into a little political debating society, for the purpose of discussing the separation of the two countries. The fact was, the Act conferred no benefit of any kind upon any person except the present occupier. He would read a passage from a judgment of Mr. Litton, given in Belfast, on January 18, 1882, in which he laid down the principle that a fair rent must be one on which a solvent tenant could thrive, and must be irrespective of any special value the land might have for any particular purpose to any particular tenant. Such value was to be regarded as the tenant's property solely. But the House would remember this. If

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    any landlord chose to break up an estate into farms and let it, or to let farms hitherto held under his own management, he might exact a full commercial rent for it. There would be growing up side by side two different kinds of rent; and he appealed to the House to say whether such a state of things would not create dissatisfaction. And hon. Members must not suppose that the fixing of a judicial rent would really benefit the tenantry of Ireland permanently. In proportion as the rent was reduced the tenant right would rise in value, and an incoming tenant would have to purchase it at a greatly enhanced price. Where would he get the money from? From the gombeen man; and the interest he would pay him, plus the reduced rent, would about equal the amount of rent he would have paid under the present system, with this difference—that a large portion of it would go to the hated gombeen man, who would flourish under the auspices of the right hon. Gentleman. He would like also to ask the Government how many votes they expected to secure when they had managed to get rid of the landed proprietors? Why, over the whole of Munster and Connaught he did not believe there would be a single Member returned to the next Parliament who was not in favour of Home Rule, under which there was really a strong feeling for Repeal of the Union. Leinster would be in very much the same position. As regards Ulster, the right hon. Gentleman would possibly have a certain number of supporters ready to follow meekly in whatever course he chose to lead them, always remembering he had many pleasant gifts at his disposal with which ultimately to reward them. Politics, indeed, as understood in England and Scotland, had ceased to exist in Ireland. At the Londonderry Election the Solicitor General for Ireland occupied the position of a man who had led astray a young woman, and then, to ease his conscience, proceeded to give her good advice. The hon. and learned Gentleman descended to court the votes of the people by appeals to their pockets, by flooding the districts with placards of rents reduced, and holding out hopes of still further reduction if they would vote for his return, and then in this House he proceeded to condemn in the strongest terms those who appealed to "the avarice and
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    greed" of the Irish people. The difference between these principles and those of the Land League was only one of degree. Could the House suppose that the influence of those principles would decrease in Ireland? Why, they were becoming more popular every day, and at the next General Election Ulster would join the South of Ireland in demanding an extension of the Land Act in favour of the tenants, and the Prime Minister would find it all but impossible not to accede to the demand. At first, no doubt, Parliament would reply that all had been done that could be done safely; but they would have some 80 Members speaking on behalf of the people of Ireland, asking for Home Rule, and then Parliament would have to decide whether it would give these hon. Members Home Rule, or have that House, in spite of any clôture they might venture to pass, turned into a perfect Bedlam, and all useful legislation rendered impossible. The result would be that, if the present Prime Minister was in power, he would go to the mob and would say—"You shall have your demand;" and he would be the one who would first grant Home Rule to Ireland. What did Home Rule in Ireland mean? Home Rule in Ireland, as was said by the recent convert to Liberalism (Lord Derby), meant separation in a very short time. ["No, no!"] Did they mean to tell him that they could give these Irish Gentlemen a Parliament in Dublin to manage their domestic affairs, without in a very few years their throwing off their connection with England altogether? ["No, no!" and cheers.]
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, he must invite the noble Lord to speak to the Question before the House. He was going very far indeed from the Question before the House.
    LORD CLAUD HAMILTONsaid, he was endeavouring to show that if the right hon. Gentleman allowed the Sub-Commissioners to continue in the course they were pursuing, they would inevitably drift Ireland into a state in which a demand for Home Rule would be made. He was perfectly convinced, speaking as one who had lived the better part of his time in Ireland, that, unless the Prime Minister paused in his career of so-called remedial legislation, the time was not far distant when a

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    serious attempt would be made in that House for the Repeal of the Union which they held so dear, and so necessary for the interests of this country. He believed that the future of Ireland, as far as its relations with England and Scotland were concerned, was most melancholy, and that for that state of things the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster were mainly responsible. His only hope was that these two right hon. Gentlemen might be spared long enough to drink to the dregs the cup of remorse for the misery and degradation that their misplaced policy had inflicted on Ireland, and for the fatal blow that had been dealt by them at the United Kingdom.
    MR. J. N. RICHARDSONsaid, he thought the House must congratulate the noble Lord (Lord Claud Hamilton) on one of the most outspoken, courageous, high-and-dry Tory speeches to which it had listened for a very long time. He could not profess to agree with much that had fallen from the noble Lord; but he should not follow him through many of the points of his speech, but would only allude to his statements respecting the Prime Minister, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, and the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland. The noble Lord expressed his surprise at the ignorance of Irish affairs on the part of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, after a united lifetime of 140 years. Well, he (Mr. Richardson) thought that, notwithstanding all their faults, if there were a General Election, a seat could be found for both of them somewhere in Ireland. But the noble Lord, though he told them that he had passed most of his life in Ireland, and knew all about it, sat not for an Irish, but an English constituency. Again, the noble Lord said that his (Mr. Richardson's) hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General for Ireland had appealed, during the Derry Election, to the greed and avarice of the electors, or words to this effect; but even supposing that during a heated contest his hon. and learned Friend had at times used language which was not discreet—a thing which he was by no means prepared to admit—even if he had done so, was he any worse than Sir Samuel Wilson, who praised the Land Act of 1881, said it was not good enough
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    for the tenants, and he would vote to enlarge its scope; and then, had he been elected, would have sat down among hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who said it was confiscation and robbery? He (Mr. Richardson) would have preferred being silent during the debate, and might have remained so had it not been for the remarks of the hon. Member for Wexford (Mr. Healy) the other night. The hon. Member rarely allowed a chance to pass of flinging a taunt across the floor of the House at the Ulster Members, and on this occasion he selected the one who least deserved it for his attack. The hon. Member said that the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson) had advanced greatly in his views since the late election for Tyrone. Now, if there was one man whose views on the Land Question were always advanced, it was the hon. Member for Tyrone. The contest in Tyrone convinced him (Mr. Richardson) that the welfare of the tenant farmers was not the principal motive which hon. Members opposite had at heart. No doubt, they had that interest at heart; but there was something more than that at which they were aiming, whatever that something might be. Artemus Ward said of the wives of the Mormons that they were very singular and also very plural, and so with the speeches of Irish Members opposite during the Tyrone Election. They were very plural in number, and they were very singular, inasmuch as they absolutely tried to convince the farmers that it was their interest to oppose the present hon. Member for Tyrone, one who had advocated their cause for 10 years unceasingly, and to put in his place a Gentleman (Colonel Knox), who, however personally estimable, certainly never showed himself very vigorous on behalf of Land Reform. But he (Mr. Richardson) must pass to matters more germane to the actual subject before the House, else he might be called to Order. The whole course of the debate rendered it evident to him that Her Majesty's Government had acted wisely in bringing forward the present Resolution. Various criticisms had been delivered upon the Act, with many of which he agreed; but none of them were very fierce, except that of the noble Lord. The hon. Member for Sligo (Mr. Sexton) had, in a manner with which, no fault could be found,

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    brought the subject of arrears before the House, and he agreed with many of his remarks. He also most cordially agreed with what had fallen from the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) regarding the fuller development of the Bright Clauses, and the formation of a peasantry proprietary by the rapid purchase of estates of landlords who were willing to sell: But let him point out to the House that the first essential to this end was to have rents rapidly fixed. What man would buy—whether landlord, tenant, or Land Company—unless he knew the rental he was purchasing; or what bank or insurance office would lend towards the purchase of a property on which rents were unfixed? But very different was the tone of a debate to which he had listened "elsewhere" a fortnight ago. There the tone was not one of mild criticism; but the whole gist of it was directed against the Sub-Commissioners. On that occasion a noble Lord said—"What they wanted the Committee to do was to revolutionize the working of the Land Act." No wonder such a statement, coming from such a source, should strike terror into the minds of the Ulster tenants, and lead them to fear that the Commissioners would be biassed in their decisions. Not 10 minutes ago a telegram had been placed in his hands, which read as follows:—"Decisions bad "—that was, adverse to the tenant. The Commissioners were, apparently, afraid of the landlords. [Laughter.] Eight hon. Gentlemen opposite did not often do him the honour of laughing at his remarks, and he saw no great cause for laughter, so far as they were concerned. Now, what would the effect of this be? Here were tenants who, if things had been let alone, would, perhaps, have been satisfied; but now they had got it into their heads that the Commissioners were frightened, and they would not be satisfied. There was nothing laughable there. Well, the Earl of Kilmorey, in "another place," said as follows:—
    "The Chairmen of the Sub-Commissioners were generally briefless barristers, while the Sub-Commissioners themselves were taken from all classes, the one qualification they seemed to have being the wish to reduce the rents of the landlords in Ireland."—[3 Hansard, cclvi. 939.]
    MR. GORSTrose to Order, and submitted that the hon. Member was not at
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    liberty to make quotations from recent speeches.
    MR. SPEAKERsaid, that the hon. Member was clearly out of Order.
    MR. J. N. RICHARDSONbegged pardon; but he (Mr. Richardson) could hardly think that the noble Lord was serious in making that charge, especially as in the one case tried upon his estate the rent had been increased. He (Mr. Richardson), who well knew what it was to feel nervous when addressing such an Assembly as the present, could well understand that in the heat of debate an expression might fall from even noble Lords "elsewhere," which, in calmer moments, they would not have used. He could only speak for those Sub-Commissioners with whom he was personally acquainted; but he could assure the House that among those there was no jubilant desire to reduce the rents of landlords. When the Sub-Commissioners, having put the best construction in their power on the Land Act, and having viewed the ground, found themselves compelled to reduce a rent, he was certain they did not do it with any such feeling as had been described, but with a feeling of nervous and anxious responsibility. If hon. Gentlemen and people out-of-doors would go and see some of the farms for themselves, they would not cry out so loudly about injustice. He had not been much in the actual Land Court; but he had made it his business, during the Recess, to visit a good many farms which had been adjudicated upon. He would be sorry to pose before that House as one who professed any great knowledge of land, for that would be untrue; but he had been accompanied by one who did possess such knowledge. He had been always accompanied by the land steward of a near relative—a Mr. Davies. He was an Englishman, who had been 20 years in Ireland, and had been all his life in the employment of a landlord; and when he (Mr. Richardson) and his friend had visited farms in Down and Armagh, and inspected them for themselves, he was bound in honesty to say that, in most cases, the decisions were not, certainly, unjust towards the landlord. He could give plenty of figures, but the House did not like statistics; but he would mention one as a sample of others. It was the case of Atkinson, landlord, Cullen, tenant, and would be

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    found in the Return for County Armagh, laid upon the Table. The old rent was£25 18 s.; the new judicial rent was £14. Now, that was an enormous reduction; and, before going on the farm, he would be inclined to say—"Surely the Commissioners have made too sweeping a reduction here." But when he went upon the ground and saw the place, he was compelled to admit that the rent was not too low. He saw in his place the hon. Member for Mid Lincolnshire (Mr. Chaplin), who, though they seldom agreed with him on their side of the House, was, nevertheless, a true and just English Gentleman. He would venture to say that if the hon. Gentleman, with his knowledge of agriculture, were to visit that farm of Cullen's, he would admit that the rent was not too low; and he would even allow him to bring with him, as his legal adviser, the hon. and learned Member for Bridport (Mr. Warton). It seemed to be taken for granted, because 25 per cent reduction had been made up to the present time, that, therefore, this must continue in every case. Again, they could only speak for Ulster; but there very few of the estates of the old Nobility—whose boast it was that their estates were low-rented and humanely managed—very few of these estates, such as the Marquess of Downshire's or the Marquess of Londonderry's, had yet been before the Commissioners. He was aware that there were large estates besides those owned by men of title; but it was natural to suppose that they owned the largest estates. He had counted up the cases, and out of 530 cases tried in Ulster up to the 28th January, only 33 were owned by the Nobility. He had detained the House too long, and would merely conclude by hoping that the Government would press forward with their Motion, and that it would be carried by a large majority. The tenants of Ulster were watching the present debate with the greatest anxiety; and he could emphasize the solemn declaration which the Prime Minister had made respecting the tenantry of Ulster. The Ulster farmers, loyal as they had been in the past, and loyal as he trusted they would be in the future, had had their loyalty often sorely tried by the state of the Land Laws; and they looked to that House to insure to them the benefits of the Act of 1881.
    MR. REDMONDsaid, he felt it necessary to offer a brief contribution to the debate in consequence of the manner in which the action of the Irish Party and the vote they intended to give had been misstated in various parts of the House. They had been charged with a desire to hand over to the tender mercies of a Committee of the House of Lords the interests of the tenant farmers of Ire-land. He believed no Member of the House could believe such an accusation, when it was levelled against the Party to whose exertions the Government were indebted for the passing of the Land Act. They had no desire to hand over to a Committee of the House of Lords the interests of the tenant farmers of Ireland. The attitude they took up was easily explained. The Resolution of the Prime Minister laid down the proposition that any Parliamentary inquiry into the working of the Land Act at present would be detrimental to the interest of the country, and that was a proposition against which they must protest. If they were to vote in favour of the Previous Question, it might be supposed that they were indirectly supporting the Lords' Committee, and that was an attitude they did not wish to take up. Therefore, they would take no part in the division on the Previous Question; but when the Main Question was put they would feel it to be their duty to protest by their votes against the statement that no inquiry was needed. He would sooner have an inquiry by a packed and hostile Committee than have no inquiry at all. No matter how hostile the tribunal would be, it would be possible for those who were interested on behalf of the tenants to bring forward evidence which would show incontestably what a miserable failure the Land Act had been as regarded some of its professed objects. He did not say that the Act had done no good and could do none. He quite admitted that there were in it germs capable of development into great good for the tenants; but still he and his Colleagues contended that, as matters stood at present, the great majority of tenants were shut out from the benefits of the Act, evictions were on the increase, and many hardships had not been mitigated, even in an appreciable degree. Some of the most rack-rented tenants were leaseholders, with leases made before 1870,

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    and these were deprived of all benefit. The great majority of tenant farmers in Wexford were such leaseholders; and nine-tenths of the leases were excluded from the operation of the Act, because they were forced on the tenant at the expiration of old leases, and not on tenants from year to year. The very fact of the Act leaving untouched so numerous a body of the Irish tenants brought about the state of things which was predicted by the Prime Minister when he said that if the proposal to exclude all leaseholders was carried every one of these men would become a centre of agitation in Ireland. These were some of the grounds upon which they thought an inquiry should be held into the Act. Another ground for inquiry was the increase of harsh evictions for arrears of rent. At one time the Government spoke of avoiding sentences of starvation, and deprecated their being placed in the odious position of using the power of the Executive to do injustice; but now landlords were called upon to be brave in asserting their rights, and in driving out the poor, half-starved tenants. Words like these were driving to despair the 100,000 tenants who were hopelessly involved in arrears of rent. If they went into Court and asked leave to sell their holdings, the landlord pocketed the full amount of his rent. The tenant farmer was turned out penniless, and thus the process of eviction was made easy and respectable by the Land Act. The Arrears Clause of the Land Act required immediate inquiry and amendment. Its main defects were that, in the first place, it was optional, and the landlords did not take advantage of it; and, in the next place, it provided that a year's rent must be paid by the unfortunate tenants, who, in many cases, were unable to pay a single farthing. Last year, when the Land Act was under discussion in the House, he had proposed that the arrears should be adjusted on the basis of the fair rent which was to be decided for the future; that when the arrears had been thus reduced wherever it could be proved that the tenant was unable to pay them they should be absolutely wiped out; and he had admitted that the landlords would have some claim to compensation for the loss of that part of the arrears which was just. His proposal had been received with disfavour; and it had been asked
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    whether the money for giving such compensation would not have to come out of the pockets of the taxpayers. But would it not be better for the taxpayers to have their money spent in that way than on the maintenance of an Army for carrying out harsh and unjust evictions? Another reason for inquiry into the Land Act was that its provisions were not being carried out in a proper spirit by its administrators. The clause known as Healy's Clause was a thorough provision; but it had not been carried out in a thorough spirit. He had gone through the election for the county of Derry, and he found that, in many cases, extreme dissatisfaction was felt because the Commissioners were not interpreting Healy's clause honestly and fairly. In the North of Ireland rents had been reduced by the Land Court to somewhere about Griffith's valuation; but Griffith's valuation was completed some 17 years ago, and it included the improvements made by the tenants up to that date. Therefore, the property of the tenants in their improvements up to 16 or 17 years ago was entirely confiscated. The noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Lord Claud Hamilton) had alluded to the management of the estate of his noble Relative, and had cited, as a conclusive proof that the management of that estate was satisfactory, the fact that in June, 1880, an address was presented to his noble Relative by his tenants characterizing him as a model landlord. There was hardly a landlord, he might inform the House, in the whole of Ireland, no matter how oppressive he was to his tenants, no matter how rack-rented they might have been, who could not produce from his pocket some resolution of this kind passed at some time or another by his tenants. He understood that on the St. Johnston estate of the noble Lord's noble Relative, the agent of the estate made a visit to each tenant, and requested that each of them would spend a few shillings apiece in purchasing a portrait of the noble Lord's noble Relative, which they accordingly did. Again, with regard to the St. Johnston estate, about the same time there was a relief committee established on the estate of the noble Lord's noble Relative—a proof conclusive of the poverty of the tenants. Moreover, shortly before the address was presented a number of notices to quit were served on the tenants, and the ad-

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    dress was signed by some people who thought it was simply a prayer to the landlord not to exercise his power harshly towards those tenants. Fifty per cent of those tenants were in the Land Court, and every man on the estate was more than 20 or 30 per cent over Griffith's valuation. He thought it was unfair for hon. Members to stand up in that House, and quote such addresses as serious arguments. They were told that 70,000 tenants had entered the Land Courts. But did the Government suppose that the 500,000 who did not enter the Courts were satisfied with their rents, and that they had transferred their allegiance from the men who had done so much for them in the past, and were suffering for them in the present, to the right hon. Gentleman? The daily increasing number of evictions, the daily despatch of troops to Ireland, the almost hourly arrest of respectable farmers, formed a crushing refutation of any such proposition as that. So long as the great bulk of the tenant farmers of Ireland were shut out from the benefits of the Act, so long as Healy's Clause was dishonestly interpreted by the Commissioners, so long as the Government imprisoned the leaders of the people, and suppressed the organization of the tenants, so long would confidence in the Land Act be an impossibility in Ireland. The Land League had survived the worst blows the Government could strike against it. The Leaders of the Land League, in their prison cells, were to-day more powerful than before they were arrested. Of one thing the Government might rest assured—until they had restored the Constitution of Ireland, neither their Land Act on the one side, nor their Coercion Act on the other, would be able to cajole or terrify the people of Ireland from the attitude of determination and defiance into which they had been driven.
    MR. TOTTENHAMsaid, that, before he passed to the immediate question before the House, he wished to refer to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Dundalk (Mr. Charles Russell), who spoke earlier in the evening. He must say that statements more rash and unsupported by facts and sentiments, more ungenerous to landlords, he had never listened to, either in or out of Parliament. He did not propose to inquire how the legal knowledge and the training of the hon. and learned Mem-
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    ber justified the principle that, because it was asserted that a wrong had been committed, it was better to continue the perpetration of many other wrongs in support of it rather than to inquire into, and, if necessary, to redress the one that was complained of. Looking at the mode in which the hon. and learned Member had himself conducted certain investigations in the South of Ireland previous to the commencement of last Session, he was not surprised that the hon. and learned Member should have endorsed the action of those whose procedure was so nearly allied to his own, although it was certainly not in accordance with his (Mr. Tottenham's) ideas of judicial investigation, whether by a public official or a private individual. The investigation to which he alluded had been conducted in a spirit the very reverse of impartial or judicial. The hon. Gentleman had made the extraordinary statement that no landlord or agent, whose judicial rents were being fixed, had been able to come forward and say that the existing rents were fair. A more astounding statement, or one more utterly unwarranted by the facts, was never made. The hon. Gentleman went on to say—and this he looked upon as one of the most ungenerous and indefensible statements that could be made—that the landlords of Ireland borrowed money under the Relief of Distress Acts at 1 per cent; while they charged their tenants 5 per cent. [Mr. CHARLES RUSSELL: I said some.] Whether some or many, such a statement ought not to have been made unless the person who made it was prepared to give names, dates, and particulars. Then the hon. and learned Member said that the tenants in Ireland, just as in England, had been dragged down by bad seasons; and that one good harvest among four was not sufficient to repair their losses. That might be the case; but it was a well-known fact that, whereas England had a succession of bad harvests for several years, Ireland had been blessed by two of the most bountiful harvests within the memory of this generation. The hon. and learned Member said, not only that arrears should not be paid, but that they should not be asked for. He did not understand the hon. and learned Member, when he made that observation, to suggest that the arrears ought to be paid by the Government out of the State funds. He would like to know what

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    the hon. and learned Member proposed the landlords to do in default of receiving their arrears? How did the hon. and learned Member expect landlords, who had charges and liabilities to meet, to do so if they did not get that upon which they depended for their livelihood? The hon. and learned Member had said that the landlords had met the originating notices by service of writs in the Dublin Courts. Did the hon. and learned Gentleman mean that landlords were not entitled to assert their just rights? He had also said that the landlords had misused their powers. But did he forget that the Leader of the Party to which he belonged had said that the landlords had stood their trial, and had, as a body, been acquitted; and was he going to take his stand on a different platform from his Leader? It would appear that the debate was to be conducted to the end on the footing that the bare assertion of the Prime Minister that his Resolution was expedient and equitable was sufficient for those who thought that the ruin of a few thousand families, more or less, was a trifle compared with the gratification of his wishes; and, further, although "force was no remedy" for lawlessness, the application of the principle of force in silence by a majority to arguments which they could not answer was considered a justifiable and dignified course. If any justification or apology were required for the action which had been taken in "another place" and for the present opposition to the Resolution, it was to be found in the spirit in which Her Majesty's Government had met what had been shown to be a grievance of the first magnitude, requiring immediate and impartial inquiry. The spirit of the Government had been that of burking all inquiry, and permitting the daily increasing growth of an evil and an injustice which it was wished to keep hidden from the light of day. He ventured to say, however, that the course they had adopted would neither commend itself to the wisdom of Parliament nor to the country which had permitted such blindfold legislation, and they now proposed to keep the administration of it from the healthy ventilation of public opinion. The Prime Minister had given reasons why the legislation of last Session should not now be called in question; but, in all the arguments of the right hon. Gen-
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    tleman, he failed to find any sufficient reason why Parliament should continue to permit the perpetuation and daily extension of the continued injustice and wrong which was admitted on all sides to exist, except where such admission would be inconvenient to the credit of those responsible for it. So far from impeding inquiry, the extraordinary course adopted by the Government had afforded facilities for opening up the whole question; for while inquiry was proceeding calmly in "another place," in the House of Commons, by the favour of Her Majesty's Government, hon. Members had been placed in a position to discuss their case at much greater and more convenient length than they could, under ordinary circumstances, have hoped for. The right hon. Gentleman's Resolution stated that inquiry into the working of the Act tended to defeat its operation. As loyal subjects they were prepared to submit to the Act as it was intended by Parliament; but what they sought to prevent was its continuation in its present unexpected and totally unauthorized system of administration. He presumed that the latter part of the Resolution meant that a sufficient number of landlords had not yet been immolated on the altar of sedition, and that it would be injudicious, from the Government's point of view, to stop the supply at present. There was no other way of reading between the lines of this further edition of attempted clôture, and it was one which he believed would be very generally adopted. Before he sat down, he hoped to be able to convince some of those who supported the measure last year that their confidence in the statements of its supporters had been grievously misplaced. The Act was presented to Parliament under a flourish of sentiments and principles which had only been conspicuous by their absence in its administration. The main principles put forward by the Prime Minister were that justice was to be the guide; that the Court was not to be a onesided one; that the administration would be confided to capable and experienced hands; and that no confiscation or injury to owners was intended or anticipated. He maintained that every one of those principles had been violated, and he should be able to show that justice had not been so blind as she was usually depicted; that the Court had

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    been essentially a one-sided one; that the administration had been confided to hands incompetent to exercise judicial functions; and that confiscation in the most arbitrary and universal form was the rule of procedure by these so-called judicial bodies. In the case which he had to set before the House, he desired especially to guard himself against the imputation or assumption that either he himself, or the landlords of Ireland generally, desired to assert that there were no cases in which the action of the Land Courts had been justified; on the contrary, they were fully alive to the fact that there were some cases—admitted by the Government last year to be a minority, in which what was known as rack-renting had been carried to an inexcusable and indefensible limit, and that these cases might have justly received some restrictive supervision. He had never denied that such cases existed, and he had no sympathy for the man who had exacted a rent which the land was not calculated to bear. But what he did find fault with was the indiscriminate manner in which the cry of reduction had been carried out, good and bad landlords having fared alike, and the "rule of thumb principle" having been equally applied to the rack-renter as to him who, in the words of the Prime Minister, Parliament had not a shred of title to interfere with. This was the man who was the greatest sufferer under the present administration of the Act. Having always let his land at moderate rents, he had not received the same return as his neighbours who had let at a higher rate; but he now found himself cut down in the same proportion. In addition to this, he found that his relations with his tenants had suddenly undergone a great change, and that where mutual confidence and goodwill existed before the decisions given in the flying visits of the Sub-Commissioners had raised up distrust and ill-feeling, together with a prospect of litigation and costs, which to many was, in itself, an element of grave fears and anxious consideration. He now came to the action of the Commissioners appointed by Parliament and named in the Act. Their first proceeding was to appoint as their Solicitor Mr. Fottrell, a gentleman who was notoriously connected with the Land League, and who had since culminated his exploits by the authorship of the dis-
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    graceful pamphlet which had already astounded Parliament. This was a bad start, and boded little good to those whose interests were to be reviewed by officials of such a stamp as this. Their next step was to issue a Circular, which was distributed all over Ireland, setting forth the advantages which had been given to tenants by the Act, and which was, in plain English, a most direct and pressing invitation to them to come in and avail themselves of what they would do for them. It was headed "Benefits conferred on Irish Tenant Farmers by the Land Act." He would trouble the House with one or two extracts from this remarkable document, as it bore directly upon the proposition, whether or not the Court was a one-sided one—
    "Benefits conferred on Irish Tenant Farmers by the Land Act (Ireland), 1881.
    "The New Land Law effects a great and most beneficial change in the position of Irish tenant farmers. The benefits it confers may be briefly stated as follow:—Security of tenure—Whenever a fair rent is fixed either by the Court or Commission, or by agreement, or by arbitration, the rent cannot be raised or altered for 15 years, nor can the tenant be disturbed during that period. In the last year of the 15 years the tenant can again get the rent settled, and a new term of 15 years granted, and so on. It is not, therefore, merely a term of 15 years which the tenant gets; but practically a term renewable every 15 years."
    Further on, at different points, other similar passages occur—
    "If he violates any of the other conditions, the landlord may serve notice to quit; but the Court has power to stop any proceedings on such notice to quit, allowing the landlord damages merely for any injury done him.
    "Unfair Leases.
    "Where leases have been taken by tenants since the passing of the Landlord and Tenant Act, 1870, containing unreasonable or unfair provisions, and such leases were accepted by the tenant under threat of eviction, or through the undue influence of the landlord, the tenant is entitled, at any time before the 22nd of February, 1882, to apply to the Court to be relieved from the lease, and to hold as present tenant, with all the rights and privileges of such tenant.
    "The above are some of the great advantages conferred on Irish tenant farmers by the Land Act (Ireland), 1881, which provides for all security in their holdings, the fixing of fair rents, and the right of free sale; and affords the opportunity to occupiers to become the owners in fee of their holdings.
    "It is not intended by the foregoing statement to set forth or include all the provisions of the Act; but only to afford a general view of its more important provisions.

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    "Any person requiring information can apply-by letter to the Secretary, Land Commission, 24, Upper Merrion Street, Dublin."
    Now, if any other Court of Law in the United Kingdom had ventured to issue such a tempting programme of the advantages offered to intending suitors, and what they could and were disposed to do for complainants generally of a certain class, he should like to know what would public opinion have thought of the tribunal which could act in such a manner? He would pass on to the opening day of the Court, which a lapsus lingua of the Court official declared be a Court of the Land League, and where the still more extraordinary Charge of Mr. Justice O'Hagan was delivered. That Charge set forth the new doctrine of "live and thrive," which the Chief Secretary for Ireland had endeavoured to show was an old and well-established maxim, and expressed surprise that anyone could object to such a just and sensible proposition. Put into plainer terms, it simply meant this—and had been so interpreted by thousands of those who had heard or read the words of the learned Judge—that the tenant was first to live, and live well, upon the farm, whether it was capable of supporting him well or not, and if he happened to have anything to spare, to let the landlord have it. That was the principle, not only on which it had been interpreted by the public, but also by some of the Sub-Commissioners. Here was an instance. In giving judgment at Castleblaney, Mr. Commissioner Kane said—
    "That the rents were not excessive or exorbitant, nor could the landlord be charged with harsh treatment."
    He went on to say—
    "That, even if they paid no rent all, the tenants could not support themselves on their holdings."
    Mr. Kane said, in effect—"The holdings have a value; they are rented already below that value; but as the tenants could not make a living out of them, even were there no rent at all, I will reduce the already insufficient payment to the landlord. At the same time, to show my splendid impartiality, I will add half-a-crown to the rent of one of the smallest of these wretched farms." If that was not a ludicrous emanation from a judicial mind, he should be glad
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    to hear what possible argument could be put forward in its defence. They started by saying the rent was not exorbitant or unfair; but, nevertheless, though the rent was a fair one, the tenant could not thrive upon it, and they forthwith proceeded to mulct and punish the landlord, and they positively gave costs against him for what? For having, in their own words, only charged the tenants a fair rent. He had only introduced this instance to drive home a case in point of the "live and thrive" doctrine, as he should have more to say in regard to the Sub-Commissioners by-and-bye. Mr. Justice O'Hagan had endeavoured to show that "live and let live," and "live and thrive," were synonymous terms; but the words could hardly convey any other meaning to the hearer than that the tenant, and he alone, was to "live and thrive," and they bore no analogy whatever to the maxim of "live and let live." But there was another curious incident in connection with it, and that was that in the semi-authorized published report, or record, of the proceedings of these Courts, these words were omitted altogether, clearly showing that Mr. O'Hagan had realized the effect of his dictum, and had directed them to be expunged from the records, so that they might not be brought up in evidence against him. With this theory of "live and thrive" for a starting point, he came to the next step taken by the Court, which was to bring forward in the most marked manner, and with the evident intention of its being taken as the base of operations by the Sub-Commissioners, the Government valuation of Ireland, better known as Griffith's. In every form of the Court, in every notice and every judgment they found this made use of, and a column set apart for its notation. This valuation, which was made 30 years ago, and which they had its author's own words for, was one-third under the fair letting value, a valuation which was based on a schedule of prices of agricultural produce, averaging 61 per cent lower than they were five years ago, and when beef was 35 s. 6d. per cwt., against 70s. now, and butter 65 s. against 120 s. 4d. He mentioned these as the two principal products of the country, which showed the greatest increase in prices. A valuation which had been condemned as unreliable by successive Royal Commis-

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    sions, and reported on by the Bessborough Commission as
    "Most thoroughly demonstrated that the Government valuation was not a trustworthy standard for the settlement of rents, and that even when it was made it was considered as below the fair letting value of the land."
    It was reported on again by the Richmond Commission in the following terms:—
    "And it was conclusively proved that the annual value, as set forth in that document, was not intended to represent, and did not represent, at the date the valuation was made, the rental value of the property."
    It was further discarded by the Prime Minister himself as of any value or guide; and in spite of all that evidence against it, it was placed by the Chief Commissioners before their subordinates as a basis for their guidance and decisions. There was too much reason to believe that Her Majesty's Government were well advised as to the probable effect of a general re-valuation on the working of their Act when they declined to have one made, as he said it was their bounden duty, in common honesty, to have done. He had the highest authority for saying that if a general re-valuation were now made the effect would be to raise the value of rateable property in Ireland by a sum of between £3,000,000 and £4,000,000. Such a course as that would, at any rate, be intelligible and straightforward, instead of thrusting down the throats of suitors and the public a State record based upon false and condemned issues. The Sub-Commissioners had stated on several occasions that they were acting on imperative rules. If so, they, of course, must be laid down by their Chiefs, who, on the other hand, said that they had given no instructions, and the Chief Secretary repudiated the idea on the part of the Government. He, however, admitted that each candidate had had a private séance with him in his private room, where he put him through his facings, and held a private competitive examination. He asked which version of the probable were they to accept, and what were the inferences to be deduced from these antagonistic statements? If they were sent out without any instructions to create precedents, and lay down rules according to their own sweet will, was it the intention of Parliament that a horde of inexperienced and incompetent subordi-
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    nates should suddenly be let loose over every Province and county of Ireland to interpret a difficult and complex Act of Parliament in a dozen different ways? Did not Parliament fully expect that a lead should be given and a definite and distinct mode of action laid down, and the first cases heard and decided by those it had specially named to administer the Act, rather than by the crowd of irresponsible agents called into existence by the Government? He held that the intentions of Parliament had been distinctly set aside, and that the faith upon which these pledges were accepted had been most undeniably violated. He now came to the appointment of the Sub-Commissioners, and in dealing with them he wished to be understood as making no charge against the personal character or integrity of any of those persons as individuals in private life; and, for aught he knew to the contrary, they might be most amiable and harmless people in their several walks of life, looking at them from a non-political standpoint. His endeavour would be to show that from their status, experience, personal proclivities, self-interest, and previous employment, many of them were wholly incapable of exercising impartially and fairly the judicial functions with which they were charged. The Prime Minister had laid down the principle that the Court should not in any case be a onesided Court; and the right hon. Gentleman stated that it had been the object of the Government to avoid what would be justly stigmatized—namely, "partizan appointments." When the House heard the case completed against many of these appointments, it would have, he thought, very little reason to hesitate as to its verdict on both these points. Taking the legal Sub-Commissioners first, he found that there were two Queen's Counsel, eight barristers, and two solicitors. Of the two Queen's Counsel neither of them had any knowledge of land, or the dealings with land. One of them had been a Chancery lawyer, with small practice; and the practice of the other had been principally conveyancing. He did not suppose it would be asserted that either of these employments gave any man, totally unconnected with practical dealings with land, any special qualifications to act as valuator, nor did he think that one or two cases, which he

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    would cite, gave a very high view of one of these gentlemen's idea of impartial justice. In a case heard at Edenderry, judgment was delivered at Maynooth, January 11, in the case of Henry Fitz-George Colley, landlord, aggregate rent of 14 farms, £861 15 s. 4d. Mr. Foley, in giving judgment, said—
    "Mr. Law, on behalf of the landlord, declined to go into evidence; we were consequently left without any evidence as to the value of the land, except what was given on behalf of the tenants. Under these circumstances, inasmuch as there is no conflict of testimony, Mr. Doyle and I are of opinion that the Sub-Commissioners are not obliged to go beyond the evidence adduced before them, and should not alter an independent valuation of the land upon their own judgment for the purpose of determining a fair rent. The judicial rent which we have fixed is accordingly based on the uncontradicted evidence of the tenants' valuators, on which, in our view of the matter, we are bound to act, and it is not to be considered as fixed upon our own opinion of the absolute value of the holdings. We feel called upon to notice the fact that, although the landlord is not resident, he seems to have always taken a great interest in the well-being of his tenantry. Sums, varying from £75 downwards, were given at 5 per cent to several of the tenants for building and other purposes; to others slates, timber, &c. were given. On the bog lands main drains were opened at the landlord's expense, and a schoolhouse built on the property. It further appeared in evidence that, though an income of from £40 to £80 a-year had been received by the landlord for the sale of turf, he voluntarily gave this up lest the bogs should be cut out, and the tenants, who are permitted to have turf free of charge, be left at any future time without that advantage. Having made inquiries as to the dwellings of labourers on the property, we have been informed that the landlord has set aside several houses, with small allotments, to workmen at low rents, and these houses are kept in repair for them free of charge. These observations, we think, are due to Mr. Colley. We fix the judicial rent as follows:—£666 2s. 6d."
    This, it would be observed, was a reduction of £201 12 s. 10 d., or nearly one-fourth of the rental. This, however, was not unanimous, and—
    "Mr. Commissioner Howlin said he dissented from his Colleagues in these cases, inasmuch as he thought they should have inspected the land, and fixed the judicial rent upon the said inspection. He did not agree in the tenant's estimate of the fair rent. He abstained, however, from giving his own idea, as he was a minority of the Court; but he wished it to be understood that he had taken no part in determining the judicial rent in these cases."
    Upon what principle of law, justice, or equity could such a decision as this be based? He thought any fair-minded man must be open to admit that the acts of
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    this impartial Judge were, at least, deserving of close and searching scrutiny, and that inquiry was imperatively necessary before such gross cases of malversation of justice were permitted further to inflame the minds and the cupidity of an excited peasantry. Of the eight barristers there was not one whose experience, standing, position, or performances at the Bar, would justify his appointment as County Court Judge, where the jurisdiction of the Judge was limited to £100; whereas in this case interests had been ruthlessly cut down and mutilated by these unsworn quasi-Judges, amounting, in one single case, to no less than upwards of £4,000. One of Colonel Gascoign's cases in County Limerick was that of a farm of 463 acres of the best land in Ireland, let at a rent of £840, and of which no complaint had been made before. It was held by a man who, it might fairly be supposed, was perfectly well able to make a bargain for himself. The tenant appealed to the new tribunal, and, by a stroke of the pen, he was cut down to £660, which sum, if capitalized at 4 per cent, was equal to a dead money loss to the landlord of £4,500 on that one farm alone; and yet it was said there was no claim for compensation. He would quote a passage from the writings of one of the Commissioners (Mr. M'Devitt), which would show whether his appointment was that of a man with an unbiassed mind—
    "The average yearly profit, and the average yearly cost, of maintaining the tenant and his family to be computed; and after deducting from the amount of profit a liberal provision for the maintenance of the tenant, and such a share of the profit as would be warranted by his interest in his holding, to allot the remainder for rent."
    And yet this was the class of impartial and judicial mind to which the interests of the landlords were given over. What would the House think of a solicitor who, in open Court, said that the Court did not care a straw for the evidence of professional or scientific witnesses. This was the statement of Mr. Commissioner MacCarthy; and an astounded and bewildered owner thereupon wrote to the Chief Commissioners to know what he was to do, and whether these opinions were endorsed by them, upon which they were obliged to repudiate, by a letter from their Secretary which appeared in the public Press, the opinions of their own

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    subordinates. The local bands serenaded this Commission at their hotel. Applause in Court, at the decisions, went unchecked; and speeches from the Chief Assistant Commissioner, as to the merits of the Act and the benefits it conferred upon the tenant, were of regular occurrence. This official did not pretend to know anything of the value of land, and he did not go out with his Colleagues when they went through the farce of paying flying visits to the farms in dispute. Coming now to the lay Sub-Commissioners, he thought a more medley crew was never misnamed "judicial or eminent persons." They consisted, among others, of: Tenant farmers—Messrs. Rice, O'Keefe, Garland, Doyle, Lynch, Morrison; Shopkeepers—Messrs. Weir, Ross; Timber merchant—Mr. Cunningham; and a Publican—Mr. Garland. Some of these appointments were such monstrous parodies on the administration of justice that it would be sufficient for his purpose to particularize one or two of them, in order to show the crying necessity for Parliament being fully informed as to the procedure which was being adopted. Mr. Rice was a farmer in the Kanturk Union, County Cork, and several of his relations held farms in the district in which he acted as Commissioner. One brother was a farmer at Conna, County Cork; one brother and one cousin were parish priests; two brothers and one cousin were local attorneys; and one cousin was a prominent speaker at Land League meetings. And to show the favour with which he was now regarded by his Land League friends, he would read an extract from The Cork Daily Herald of February 22—
    "A Peculiar Demonstration.
    "Fermoy, Monday.
    "Mr. James Rice, P. L. G., Killally, recently built a fence on the roadside on his Ballincarriga farm, near Kilworth. Soon after it was finished he was summoned at the suit of the County Surveyor, and lined a nominal penalty, on the ground that the road was encroached on. Mr. Rice's numerous friends, considering him badly treated, assembled at the place to-day, and, with several thousands of their workmen, tumbled down the fence and rebuilt one far more substantial in the place indicated by the County Surveyor. It took Mr. Rice's employés four weeks to build the first fence; but the second one, half-a-mile long, was completed in an hour."
    Yet that man, belonging essentially to the farming class, and naturally hav-
    268
    ing the same sympathies and instincts, was positively sent to adjudicate in a county full of his own relations and friends, and where his own interests also lay, and where he would be almost more than human if he did not lean exclusively to the tenants' side of the question. He should probably be told in reply—in fact, it had already been stated in argument—that one of the strongest recommendations of this gentleman was the fact of his having been a member of the Richmond Commission. That was no argument in his favour, but distinctly the reverse, as he was placed upon that Commission as the representative of the farmers' interest, and as one who would take up and bring out the points on which they might be supposed to feel strongly. And, having been there as a farmer's representative, why should he now be supposed to have changed his skin? But the constitution of this extraordinary Commission did not improve when he came to the other Assistant Commissioner, Mr. O'Keefe, who, notwithstanding the glowing eulogium passed upon him by the Chief Secretary, turned out, in addition to his other qualifications, to be also a farmer in the very district in which he acted, holding a farm himself from Colonel Bernard, within a short distance of his father's farm, which was still held by a member of his family. All his relatives were farmers in the county, and he gave judgment in the case of his father's next door neighbour. If his own landlord's cases went into Court they would be heard by him; and he had adjudicated on a case within four miles of his own farm—namely, Daniel Murphy, tenant, and Captain Morgan, landlord, rent £43, judicial rent £29, or a reduction of 32 per cent. He had been a resident in that district all his life, and the friend and associate of farmers. He (Mr. Tottenham) had stated recently that he should be perfectly prepared to substantiate what he said when he spoke of a chemist's assistant; and he submitted to the House whether a man, who had been assistant to a professor of chemistry, at a salary of £80 a-year, which lucrative office he was obliged to give up in order to obtain the more lucrative one of county and city analyst, at a salary of £100 a-year, was or was not a chemist's assistant? Having half the letters of the alphabet after his name as associate

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    or licentiate of societies of apothecaries or chemists would not alter the fact which he (Mr. Tottenham) had stated; and the House might judge for itself how far all these various diplomas and high-sounding qualifications agreed with a remuneration of £100 a-year and the possession of a small farm in the neighbourhood. He emphatically asserted that it was nothing short of an outrage upon justice, upon public decency, and the intention of Parliament, to send two men, drawn from a class with whom their sympathies and interests might naturally run, into their own native districts and county to play ducks and drakes with the property of a class whose interests in that respect were diametrically opposed. To say that such men were not necessarily partizans of the most advanced type was mere childish reasoning; but he had not done with that Commission yet. He had, as the third member of it, that distinguished conveyancing lawyer, Mr. Reeves, Q. C.; and he really must trouble the House to listen to one of his judgments, which showed how, not only in matters of valuation and fact, but also in matters of law, he allowed his two farmer Colleagues to rule him absolutely, and to influence his better judgment, if he had any. This gentleman had previously told Sir George Colthurst, who owned property in the district, that he left the valuation of rent to his Colleagues. He then proceeded to deliver this remarkable judgment in the case of Hannah Forrest, tenant, and Eliza Morgan, owner, rent of farm £300. Mr. Reeves said—
    "He had not taken part in the fixing of the rent, as he believed this was not a ease contemplated by the Act of Parliament. He did not think this was an agricultural holding of the description meant by the Act. It was worked by Mr. Forrest, on behalf of the tenant, in connection with the other lands. In his opinion, it was, to a certain extent, accommodation land, and the parties contracting were the best judges of its value. He saw no reason, however, why he should differ from the valuation which his brother Commissioners had made; but on the question of law, which was a very important one, he could not concur with them."
    The rent was therefore reduced from £300 to £225, the usual standard figure of 25 per cent off. For all practical purposes, both in regard to questions of law and fact, the Act was administered by the two lay Sub-Commissioners; and they had, therefore, this almost incredible
    270
    composition of the Court in that district—1, legal cipher, who admitted that he knew nothing about value, and would not enforce his opinion, and direct his Colleagues on the legal points before them; 2, interested tenant farmers, who, themselves and relations, held land in the district, and had a direct interest in reducing the rents. It seemed to him that further comment on these facts was superfluous, and that they were in themselves alone the strongest possible argument for negativing the Resolution which they were now discussing. But his case did not end there, and to almost every one of the Sub-Commissioners the same class of objections applied, with greater or less force. They had the case of Mr. Garland, who, up to a short time since, kept a small public-house, called the "White Cross," by the wayside, near Newtown Hamilton, in the county of Armagh, and who, it was believed, was still the actual, though not the nominal, owner. He was also a farmer, holding two farms in the same county, one under Mr. Synnott, of 63 acres, and another from Mr. Cope. He was appointed to the Commission of the Peace in opposition to the Vice Lieutenant of the county; but Lord Chancellor O'Hagan exercised his prerogative, as he had often done before, and appointed him, in spite of the Lieutenant of the county's refusal. Mr. Garland gave up the lucrative office of Coroner of the county, which was worth less than £100 a-year, to become a Commissioner; and when he was canvassing the county for the Coronership, and again in the interest of the present Members, he used the strongest partizan expressions, and made the statement freely that he had always been a tenant righter, denouncing landlordism at the same time. Take another case. Mr. Ross was a small shopkeeper in the town of Monaghan. He afterwards occupied a farm in the same county. He bought a few acres of property in the neighbourhood, on which the rents were promptly reduced—on his becoming a Commissioner—by 20 to 45 per cent. Acreage, 75 Irish, gross rental £108. The cases of two of the tenants would be sufficient to quote. A. Clarke, 45 s. per acre to 30 s. per acre; J. Hughes, £12 to £7. He could, if necessary, cite numerous other cases of equally, or more, improper appointments; but it seemed to him

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    that he had already given more than sufficient reasons for full Parliamentary inquiry into this branch of the case, and he believed that other cases would also be cited by other hon. Members in support of that view. He would now examine some of the sayings and acts of that body of eminent persons who were carrying out a judicial and impartial policy, at the expense of the class who have, or rather had, in favour of those who had not, but who now have. One of the first points to be considered was the manner in which the valuations of these farms were made. One instance would suffice. Cleary (tenant), Gascoigne (landlord): 527 acres, best land in Ireland; rent £840, judicial rent £660. This is a fair sample of the mode in which the new system of valuation by electricity is being carried out. The Commissioners in this case having occupied one hour and three-quarters valuing 527 acres—an operation which can be designated by no other name than a reductio ad absurdum, but which was of daily occurrence. In the case of John Brady, tenant, which came before the Sub-Commission sitting at Cavan; Mr. Hodder, legal member. The Commissioners delivered the following decision:—
    "In John Brady's case we consider his farm worth its present rent and more, and fix the judicial rent at £19 l9 s. 8d. for the next 15 years."
    Could anything be more inconsistent than this? If John Brady's farm was worth more than the present rent, why did not the Commissioners do their duty, and state what they considered it to be worth in addition, and fix the rent at its true value? But he now passed on to a more extraordinary case still, that of Mr. Lalor and others, decided upon by the Sub-Commissioners at Urlingford. Mr. Reardon, Chairman, in his judgment, said—
    "As far as we know, or have been informed, the rents have not been altered within the century, and they appear to have been paid with tolerable regularity, except in some rare instances and in bad years. …. There is the clearest evidence in the soil of the lands themselves that they always have been of excellent quality. Improvements, in the way of building houses, making fences, and some not very extensive draining have been proved to have been made from time to time by the tenants and their predecessors in title, and no claim to these improvements had been made by, or on behalf of, the landlords. …. Moreover, we find that
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    the tenants and the landlords were on the best of terms, and, as far as we could discover, no unpleasantness had ever occurred between them with respect to the rents paid. …. All the facts appear to point to one conclusion, and that is, that the rents on the estate are fair, and that we shall accordingly declare."
    Mr. Reardon went on to say—and this was especially worthy the attention of the House—
    "In my opinion a fair rent should be such as, having due regard to the property and interests of the landlords, an intelligent and industrious tenant can pay out of the return from the labour and capital expended on his holding, through good years and through bad, without having to apply in bad years for any abatement or reduction. …. I am satisfied the present rents are not fair rents according to my interpretation of the term. …. There is evidence that the landlords gave the tenants a substantial reduction in a bad year; and it appears to me that if they thought a reduction proper to be given to them, it is sure evidence that the present rents are too high to be paid by the tenants through bad years and good."
    Mr. Reardon concluded as follows:—
    "Making my calculation on this basis, I have come to the conclusion that the following are the fair rents that ought to be fixed."
    And then he proceeded to cut down a total existing rental of £208 7s. 10 d. to £174 19 s. 10 d, the reduction being £33 8s. In this case, also, one of the Commissioners disagreed with the decision. Mr. Seymour Mowbray said—
    "I regret I am unable to concur with my brother Commissioners in the decision they have come to. … It appears there has not been any rise of rent on this estate for generations, and the tenants have always paid their rents regularly. This I consider some proof that they were not over-rented. …. After a careful inspection of the holdings I came to the conclusion that the rents were not excessive."
    The legal Commissioner here admitted that the rents had not been altered within the century; that the landlord had made no claim in respect of improvements; that the relations of landlord and tenant were most cordial, and that the rents were fair. But he laid down the principle that the rent a tenant could pay in a bad year should be the standard for fixing the judicial rent. Could anyone imagine a greater perversion of economic law than this? There were also cases where the rents had been reduced by such a trifling amount as to be an absolute judgment on the part of the Court that the rents were fair, and that they had disturbed them out of a spirit of mere wantonness; and,

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    from a numerous list, he would give two or three cases. In Donegal a farm of 215 acres was let at a rent of £53, and the Commissioners fixed the judicial rent at £50, being a reduction of 3¾d. per acre over the area of the farm. In another case of a farm of 43 acres in Fermanagh, which was let at a rent of £22 2s. 6d. the Commissioners fixed the rent at £22, the reduction being less than ¾d. an acre. The last case of this kind he would refer to was that of a farm in Kilkenny of 30 acres, the original rent of which—£26—wasreduced by the Commissioners to £25 10s., or at the rate of 4d. per acre of area. How did these decisions tally with the statement of Mr. Law, formerly Attorney General for Ireland and now Lord Chancellor of Ireland, who, in the debates during last Session on the Land Act, said—
    "The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson) put the case of a landlord asking a pound or two too much. But could anyone suppose that the tenant would rush into Court for such a sum as a pound?"—[3 Hansard, cclx. 1401.]
    It appeared that in one of the cases he had quoted the Commissioners did not think half-a-crown too little for the tenant to rush into Court for, and they accordingly reduced the rent by three farthings an acre. Now, with regard to reductions of rents by landlords out of Court. It had been stated that settlements out of Court were being made in many instances, and it was argued that this was a proof that the rents were too high. He (Mr. Tottenham) asserted that it was a proof of nothing of the kind, and that they were the most involuntary transactions on the part of the landlord that ever took place between man and man. They had been entered into, in most cases, by those who had been starved out, who were driven to the last extremity for the means of subsistence, and who so acted at the pressing call for food for their families. This had been done in other instances by those who watched with dismay the Sub-Commissioners on the war-path against their class, and who saw that no justice would be shown them; and it had been done by others to avoid the ruinous cost which was being piled up to add to their deprivation of property. But what was the total number of such cases? He discarded for the present entirely the
    274
    Return quoted by the Solicitor General for Ireland the other night, and which they were told they might now have in a few days—that Return which had been cast on the back of the printers in default of a better reason why it was not in the hands of Members. He said it was not fair that Members of the Government should avail themselves of information and figures contained in Papers to which other Members of the House had not access for the purpose of debate. They had had the same proceeding last year, and the year before, in the debates on the Land Act and the Compensation for Disturbance Bill. On one occasion the Prime Minister, just at the close of the debate, quoted from a Return which was not in the hands of Members, and hoped it would be in their possession next day. He would therefore proceed, in the absence of any later information, on the only Returns which were before them, and which came down to the 28th January last. From those Returns he could only find that 60 cases were described as having been "settled by consent," and registered by the Courts. He thought the House would require some further reasons and explanation for the extraordinary increase in the number of such cases in last month—which were quoted the other night by the Solicitor General for Ireland as 2,180—before they accepted unreservedly the accuracy of those figures. There was another phase of this Act to which they must also look, and that was its relation to the County Courts, which were incorporated with it as a part of its machinery. The resort to these Courts more or less depended upon the proclivities of the County Chairman; and if the case of the County Mayo were taken as an instance, it would not be difficult to decide what were the views held by the Chairman on the Land Question. Of this Court Mr. Richards, Q.C., was the Judge. There were 1,800 cases for hearing in his Court. He sat from the 24th January to the 17th February, during which time he heard 286 cases, and reduced the rents all round on an average to the extent of 16 per cent. He never went to view a single farm, and there had not been 10 appeals from his decisions. And why not? Because experience showed that if the landlord appealed to the Land Commission it was

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    useless, and worse than useless; it was out of the frying pan into the fire, and only entailed additional costs, and the tenant was too well satisfied with what plunder he had got to risk further litigation. It had been stated that the first cases which had come before the Sub-; Commissioners were the very cases of rack-renting which the Act was meant to cover. He said that the cases which he had quoted had not borne out that statement. Had the opinions of the Sub-Commissioner—recorded in open Court that the rents were fair, and that all attending circumstances showed consideration on the part of the landlord, and cordial relations between him and his tenants—borne out that statement? Had the fact that, in 42 cases which had already been heard, the existing rents were so unquestionably low that they could not, in common decency, interfere, and had been confirmed by them and the applications dismissed, borne it out—or had the 12 cases in which they had increased the rent sustained this theory which the House was most disingenuously asked to accept? And how would this insinuation agree with the fact that among the antics—for they could be called by no other name—which had been committed by the Sub-Commissioners, they had in 19 cases reduced by an average of 22 per cent rents which had been fixed prior to 1840—over 40 years ago; that in 12 cases they had reduced by 19 per cent rents fixed from 30 to 40 years back—that was, between 1840 and 1850; and that in 24 cases they had reduced by 25½ per cent rents fixed from 20 to 30 years ago—that was, between 1850 and 1860? Here was a total of over 100 cases, which alone gave a flat contradiction to the assertion that only rack-rented cases had as yet been heard. There were plenty of other cases showing a smaller percentage of reduction; but he was content with those to which he had alluded. Chapter and verse for all his figures could be found by any hon. Member who would take the trouble to analyze the Blue Book of judicial rents which had been laid upon the Table of the House. A Return had recently been moved for in "another place" which, after taking several days to consider, the Government had refused to give. The object of that Return was to oblige the Sub-Commissioners to show to what amount they had valued the
    276
    tenants' improvements, which they had deducted from the rent. But, no; the deeds of this inquisition would not bear the light, and the Government declined to give any information as to the misdeeds which were being committed, and for which they were responsible and were making themselves accessories. Some of the reasons given for the reduction of rents were amusing. He would take the report of the reasons given by one or two Commissioners, out of the many remarkable utterances they had been guilty of, as the best justifications they could give for their more remarkable decisions. In a case at Loughrea Mr. MacCarthy said—
    "The landlord has recently made a considerable expenditure in drainage, under the superintendence of the Board of Works. This work has been well carried out, and tends considerably to increase the value of the holdings. No additional rent has been charged in respect of it. We observe with pleasure the cordial relations which appear to exist between landlord and tenants."
    But, notwithstanding all this, the rent of the holdings was cut down from £74 2s. 10 d. to £63 9s.—a fact which he regarded as but a small inducement to the landlord to spend money on improvements to the estate in future. The next case was even more remarkable and amusing still. In deciding with regard to certain claims at Athlone on the 13th of February last, Mr. Commissioner Roche said—
    "The Court took into consideration that this and other farms on Lord Castlemaine's property were adapted for and used as sheep farms. As a consequence of the prevalence of sheep disease for a number of years, sheep farms would naturally he depreciated in value, and the Court would fix the judicial rent at £23 6s."
    —where it had formerly been £42 3s. 10 d. The same remarks, the Court said, would apply to the farm of James Fagan, tenant, and the judicial rent would be £33, instead of, as before, £41 13 s. 10 d., and so on in the case of two other tenants. He said that nothing could be more puerile than this decision, which was in effect that, because sheep had had a disease, the land was not to be supposed suitable for anything else, and that its inherent capabilities must therefore, of necessity, have deteriorated 25 per cent for 15 years. There was a very remarkable case which was heard at Newcastle West on the 8th of December last, relating to a farm of 91 acres, in

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    the occupancy of John and Patrick Sheehy. The farm was held in 1819 by John Sheehy at a rent of £91 17 s. 6d. per annum. In 1841 a lease for 31 years at a rent of £89 12 s. was granted. After the Famine in 1856, the rent was fixed at £84, which was regularly paid until 1865, when it was further reduced to £70. In this case the Commissioners held that the several reductions of rent were evidence that the original rent was excessive, and they accordingly fixed the judicial rent at £58. So that the rent of a farm which, by the consideration of the landlord, had been three times reduced in 62 years, and which was, at the time the case came on for hearing, let at a rent more than 25 per cent lower than in the year 1819, was further reduced by the Commissioners 16 per cent upon its reduced value of £70, because they thought the original rent of 60 years ago, but which was not the present rent, might have been too high. There was a further class of decisions for which there was no sort of justification. The Sub-Commissioners had, wherever they could, given costs against the landlord. Surely, where the application of the tenant was dismissed, and the rent found by the Sub-Commissioners to be fair, they had no ground for not meting out equal justice and giving costs against the tenant. Yet such was not the practice, and in these cases, out of many others, surely their manifest injustice must appear. On the 20th February last, in the case of M. O'Kane, tenant, the Mercers' Company, landlords, Mr. Commissioner Bourke said—
    "Mr. O'Brien and I have, on the whole, come to the conclusion that the present rent is a fair rent, and gives the tenant the benefit of his improvements. We therefore fix £10 10s. as the judicial rent, to commence from the 1st November, 1881, sporting rights reserved, and each party to bear their own costs."
    He would be sorry that the words of wisdom which fell from the mouth of Mr. Davison, the timber merchant, should not be heard by the House. That gentleman said, with reference to the case just cited—
    "In this case it is my misfortune to be obliged, for the first time, to dissent from the judgment arrived at by my Colleagues. We visited and carefully inspected the holding. It is very well farmed, and it presents the appearance of great reclamation having been effected. It is naturally a very bad farm, and it is diffi-
    278
    cult to labour. It consists of bogs reclaimed from heather, and it is interspersed with steep gravelly hillocks, from which stones have been quarried and whins stubbed, and when left for a short time in grass, it has a tendency to return to its original state of whins and heather. I am of opinion that Mr. Murphy's valuation is too high and Mr. Harvey's too low. In my judgment, the fair rent of this holding is £9 10s. I am, therefore, very sorry to dissent from the judgment just delivered."
    But the action of the Sub-Commissioners was more extraordinary when they gave judgment in favour of the landlord. In a case heard at Tinahely, County Wicklow, before Mrs. Wylie, Barry, and Kenny, Mr. Stafford, tenant, the rent was raised from £19 10 s. to £24, and yet the costs were given against the landlord. This point of costs also embraced a much larger and more serious aspect than was presented by these cases. The Government were repeatedly warned last year that they were opening the door to untold litigation, and had not that turned out to be literally and absolutely true; and was it not a well-known fact that the country solicitors, and, indeed, almost every lawyer in Ireland, had their fingers in somebody's pocket in connection with land cases of some sort or another? An extract from a letter from a solicitor employed for a landlord in a Northern county would illustrate this in a practical manner. He said—
    "I had 19 cases entered at last sittings; two of them were struck out, one adjourned, and 16 heard—the average rent of the latter being £8 10 s. The expenses at that sitting, including valuations, amount to about £100."
    Which gave an average of £6 5s. for each case. He had in his hand an extract from another letter written by an agent, who said, with reference to the expenses connected with fixing fair rents in two cases in the county of Antrim—
    "We were detained four days waiting for our cases to be tried. Valuator, four days at £5 5s., £21; maps, £1; counsel's fee and consultation, £12: solicitor for brief, &c. say £8; agents' travelling and hotel expenses, £4—making a total of £46. The total rents amounted, on the two holdings, to about £100 a-year. They were under Griffith's valuation. The judicial rents have not yet been fixed."
    He would now take the case of the county of Mayo alone, where there were upwards of 8,000 applications; and, putting these at the very low figure of £4 each case on each side, they had the land at once saddled with an incubus of £64,000, in addition to the

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    other burdens which it had to bear, and that was exclusive of the cost of appeals, which was not yet known. It was useless to reply that the Commissioners had fixed a Schedule of fees, as they could not, and, as a matter of fact, had not, bound the solicitors practising in the local Courts; and it was a matter of notoriety that the solicitors made their own bargains with the tenants—payment in advance being a sine quâ non. The Kerry Schedule of fees, determined on and published by the solicitors of the county, showed that the average charge agreed upon was £2 12 s. 6d. per case, and that was exclusive of outlay for counsel's fees and every other expense. One solicitor alone had lodged 1,100 notices, which represented in round figures £2,900 as that gentleman's share of the plunder up to the present, within five months of the beginning of the administration of the Act. Another solicitor that he (Mr. Tottenham) had some personal knowledge of had within a few of 1,000 eases, which, at say £3 per case, would bring up his share of the plunder to £3,000. He was also aware of the case of another solicitor in Belfast, who had lodged between 8,000 and 9,000 cases, and it would be an easy calculation for any hon. Member to ascertain how much would fall to this gentleman's share; and, taking the whole 70,000 cases at the same average, they had the sum of £184,000 already passed into the pockets of the attorneys. That sum was exclusive of outlay, counsel's fees, valuators, witnesses, and the hundred other items which litigation of this kind occasioned. In the Cahiraveen Union 673 notices were lodged by four attorney's, and the costs came to £2,000, or thereabouts. The Commission sat for, he believed, one day, and three cases were heard, and rents reduced to the amount of £27 10 s., or three months' interest on the costs that went into the pockets of the attorneys. There was a further question, which was a very serious and important one, and that was the number of cases sent down by the Chief Commissioners at Dublin and listed for hearing at the several places where the Sub - Commissioners held their Courts. In no instance had more than 50 per cent of the cases been heard; and, in very many instances, a much smaller proportion than this had been tried. The landlords and
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    tenants made all their preparations. Each side brought down their solicitors, counsel, valuators, and witnesses, and incurred various expenses, and after hanging about four, five, or six days, were told that their cases were postponed or adjourned until next sittings. This was a subject which demanded the anxious and serious consideration of the Government, on behalf of the tenant as much as on behalf of the landlord. As an instance of the animus which existed against the landlords in Ireland, he would read to the House a document which had been served upon a noble Lord, an owner of property in a Southern county, which document he thought the House would agree was one of the most monstrous which had ever emanated from a solicitor's office. The agent wrote—
    "I send you a copy of Patrick Ryan's claim; it is well worthy of being exhibited as showing the animus as against the landlords. The solicitor who signs it is the solicitor to the Land League. Ryan holds 65a. 2r. 5p. Irish plantation measure, for which he pays £13 2s. 0d. a-year, or at the rate of 4s. an Irish acre. This man was served with a writ, and is amongst the first, unless he pays, to be dispossessed."
    The man had not paid, and the sheriff being about to obtain possession from him, this document was served from the solicitor's office:—
    "Form of a Notice of Claim for Disturbance.

    'LANDLORD AND TENANT (IRELAND) ACT, 1870.
    "County of Tipperary.—Division of Cashel.
    "Patrick Ryan, Tenant of the Lands of Car-line, in the Barony of Lower Kilnemanagh and Parish of Donohill, Claimant.—Viscount Hawardon, of 5, Princes Gardens, South Kensington, London, Landlord of the above-named Tenant, in respect of the said land, Respondent.
    "The said tenant, Patrick Ryan, asserting that he is disturbed in the occupation of such lands, by the act of his landlord, by having been evicted for non-payment of rent not exceeding £15, and the non-payment thereof having arisen from the exorbitance of said rent, claims compensation for the loss sustained by him in quitting his holding as follows:—

    £

    s.

    d.

    Seven years' rent thereof (the holding being valued at £12 10 s. 0d. per annum), and the annual rent being £13 2s. 0d.

    91

    14

    0

    The said tenant, Patrick Ryan, also claims compensation for Improvements made on said lands by himself and by his predecessor in title—viz.:—

    281

    £

    s.

    d.

    1869

    Dwelling-house (slated) built on said lands

    250

    0

    0

    1869

    Out-offices erected on said lands

    50

    0

    0

    1850 to 1882

    Reclaiming 40 statute acres of said lands, at £20 per acre

    800

    0

    0

    1863 to 1882

    Top dressing, irrigation, and improving by manures 20 acres of said land at £2 per acre

    40

    0

    0

    1863 to 1882

    Erecting fences on said lands and removing ditches from same

    40

    0

    0

    £1,271

    14

    0

    "(Signed) P. C. M. GOUGH,
    "Solicitor for Tenant,
    "33, Upper Ormond Quay,
    "Dublin.
    "Dated this 8th day of February, 1882."
    £1,271 14 s. was claimed in respect of a holding the rent of which was only £13 2s. per annum. There were many other points on which he could enlarge; but he would stand on those he had already brought forward as sufficient for the end in view. At the commencement of his observations he said he hoped to be able to prove four points—namely, that justice had been violated; that the Courts were essentially onesided; that imcompetent and improper persons had been appointed to administer judicial functions; and that confiscation in a most arbitrary form was being carried on. He submitted that he had established his case in the absence of evidence controverting the facts he had adduced, and that if ever an inquiry into the administration of an Act of the Legislature was justified and called for, it was so in this instance. The conduct of the Government in their appointments, and the conduct of their nominees, had been called in question. The qualifications of those nominees had been distinctly impeached, and a charge had been made against the Government of conniving at and instigating the action of their official creations. A protest had been lodged in the shape of a Petition to the Queen against the present administration and carrying out of the Act. In the face of these charges, put forward in no light or irrelevant manner, but with the weight of evidence of public opinion, and the appeals of their victims in support of the demand for inquiry, was it just, was it expedient, was it decorous, for the Government to shelter themselves behind a plea of expediency,
    282
    and to endeavour to shift the responsibility of the failure of their Irish policy to the shoulders of those who warned them that their Act would be a failure, but whose representations were unheeded and thrust aside? Was it respectful to Parliament that they should continue to sit through this debate in almost absolute silence, and that they should continue to instigate, by such speeches as that of the Solicitor General on Thursday, and others in previous debates, the persons who were carrying out the Act in a manner not contemplated by the Legislature to persevere in the course which was being so loudly complained of? If considerations of high policy were involved in the general reduction of all rents in Ireland, let them, at least, come forward and say so, boldly and openly, and let them propose such measures of relief to those whose interests were directly affected, as English statesmen had hitherto considered it their duty to recommend to the honesty and fair dealing of the country. But let it not be either insinuated, or openly said, as was now the case, that they carried through Parliament a measure which they now feared to have their administration of investigated, and which, obtained under false issues and misrepresentations as to its effect, was, in its present form of interpretation, a daily-increasing wrong, and an unquestionable fraud on the intentions of the Legislature.
    MR. BUTTmoved the adjournment of the debate.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be adjourned until Tomorrow."—(Mr. Butt.)
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, the Government would not oppose the adjournment; but it was understood that another evening's discussion would terminate the debate. As the Motions on the Paper for to-morrow did not appear to be such as would occupy the whole of the evening, the Government would put down the adjourned debate amongst Tuesday's Orders.
    MR. J. LOWTHERthought the right hon. and learned Gentleman could only have taken a very hasty glance at the Order Book, when he said there were Motions down for to-morrow which would only occupy a short time. The right hon. and learned Gentleman could not have

    283
    looked at No. 1, which was followed by several Amendments, and which dealt with a subject, the importance of which, whatever might be the opinions as to the Motion, no one would gainsay. The right hon. and learned Gentleman could scarcely have been in his place when Notice was given to-night by the hon. Member for Berwickshire (Mr. Marjoribanks) of his intention, to-morrow, to ask leave to introduce a Bill dealing with the Parliamentary Oath. Of course, he did not suppose the right hon. and learned Gentleman was really serious in what he had said. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, the right hon. and learned Gentleman could scarcely have been so. He (Mr. J. Lowther) should be deceived in the right hon. and learned Gentleman if he were to hold out any hope—unless, indeed, hon. Gentlemen departed from the intention they seemed to indicate—of being able to bring the debate to a termination in another evening's discussion. The House must remember that, so far as this debate was concerned, tonight had only been a broken night. During a considerable portion of it they had had other matters intruded upon their notice. He only made these observations as he did not wish the right hon. and learned Gentleman or the House to labour under any misapprehensions on this subject.
    SIR E. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, he thought it would be very inconvenient to adjourn the debate until to-morrow, as there was no possibility of its being reached. It would be to the general convenience of the House that the debate should be adjourned to a time when they knew it was sure to come on. There were Notices of Motion on the Paper about which there might be some difference of opinion.
    MR. O'DONNELLsaid, that the other night the Business came to an untimely end because the Government did not care to keep a House for private Members; and that was surely a reason why another private Member's night should not be confiscated. If the Government put down the adjourned debate for to-morrow, hon. Gentlemen ought to take advantage of the fact that the Government were keeping a House, and have their Motions fully debated. He did not think it was right for the Government to be allowed to take a holiday whenever they wanted one, and to refuse one to private Members when those Mem-
    284
    bers desired it. He, personally, was of opinion that a great deal of Private Business would be done to - morrow night.
    Mr. CHAMBERLAINsaid, the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell) objected to the confiscation of a private Member's night. There was no intention on the part of the Government to do any such thing. It should be borne in mind that the conduct of the Government was complained of because they had not put down Government Business in anticipation of the abrupt termination to which a recent private Member's night came. Well, but now, in anticipation of only a small amount of private Member's Business to-morrow, the Government wished to put their Business on the Paper, and objection was taken to that course. There were obviously some hon. Members in the House, according to whose utterances in the House nothing that the Government could do would be right.
    MR. LEWISsaid, it would only be fair to hon. Members on the Opposition side of the House that it should be understood that no pledge was given on their behalf that the debate would conclude on Thursday night. Several hon. Members were desirous of speaking, and it would be quite time enough to deprive I them of their right when they had the clôture on Parliamentary authority. The Government first attacked the House of Lords, and then the House of Commons; and, however it might be with the former, the latter, at all events, were able to take care of themselves, and he, for one, should resist any attempt to bring the debate on the Prime Minister's Resolution to a premature termination.
    MR. STAVELEY HILLsaid, he would remind the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Chamberlain) that the noble Marquess (the Marquess of Hartington), on Tuesday last, had informed them that it was possible that the House might be counted out about 8 o'clock; and, as a matter of fact, it was counted, out at 20 minutes past.
    MR. CHAPLINsaid, he thought it would have been more convenient if the Government had put down the adjourned debate for Thursday, instead of to-morrow. As it was, it would be a great convenience if the Government would inform hon. Members after what hour they would not take the discussion to- morrow. As to the final closing of the

    285
    debate and the division, he was sure there was no desire unduly to delay them; but the Government must recognize the immense importance of the subject they had thought fit deliberately to raise, and must be aware that there were still a great many Members who desired to express their opinions upon it. He himself had been so frequently attacked from the other (the Ministerial) side of the House for a few harmless remarks he had made a night or two ago, that he should like to have an opportunity of vindicating himself. He would beg the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary (Sir William Harcourt) to reconsider the point as to the day to which the debate should be adjourned.
    MR. WARTONsaid, he should like to know whether the Government had given their supporters privately any idea as to when they really intended to take the debate? The Clerk at the Table had read the Motion, "That the Debate be adjourned until To-morrow;" and surely it was not proper for the Officer of the House to put in the day to which the debate was to be adjourned. The first Motion should be, "That the Debate be now adjourned," and the day should be moved afterwards. He (Mr. Warton) would move that the debate be adjourned until Thursday.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "To-morrow," and insert the words "Thursday next,"—(Mr. Warton,)—instead thereof.
    Question proposed, "That the word 'To-morrow' stand part of the Question."
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, hon. Members opposite were pushing the course of throwing obstacles in the way of the progress of Public Business beyond the point it had ever reached within the past few days. This, it seemed to him, made it more obvious that something must be done to facilitate the transaction of Public Business. When the Government wished to get on with the Business of the House, and to take advantage of any spare time which might be afforded them, they were met with Obstruction in this way. It was clear that something must be done to enable the Business of the country to be satisfactorily disposed of.
    SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, that the Government having decided that the
    286
    debate should be put down for to-morrow, he, having entered a protest against that course, should take no further step in the matter, and hoped his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Warton) would not persist in his Amendment. At the same time, he was bound to say that the charge of Obstruction which had been made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman who had just spoken against Members of the Opposition was most unjustified.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I only said this Amendment had been made obstructively.
    SIR E. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman's meaning evidently was that this Amendment, if it were persisted in, was one of Obstruction, and justified the adoption of the clôture. He (Sir E. Assheton Cross) thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman's observations were utterly uncalled for and utterly unjustifiable. On the other hand, the Government having said that they would put down the debate for to-morrow, hon. Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House would be following an unjustifiable course if they pressed their opposition any further.
    MR. WARTONsaid, that at the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman (Sir E. Assheton Cross) he would, of course, at once withdraw his Amendment. The Government would be responsible for all the waste of time that would be likely to occur.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    Debate further adjourned till To-morrow.

  SUPPLY.—REPORT.
  Resolutions [3rd March] reported.
  Resolution 1.
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH, said, that, in moving to postpone this Vote for the Salaries and Expenses of the Office of the Irish Land Commission, he wished to explain that the chief valuator was appointed for seven years, and not for one year, as he had previously stated.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Resolution be postponed."—(Lord Frederick Cavendish.)
  MR. LEWISsaid, he wished to make some observations with reference to the debate which had just been adjourned.
  MR. SPEAKER: The observations of the hon. Member must be relevant to the matter before the House.
  MR. LEWISsaid, he was about to refer to the Land Commission. A Return was presented to the House a week ago, which had been referred to in another debate, but which had not been circulated among Members. He could find no trace of its having been printed; and he submitted that it was a most irregular and improper proceeding for a Member of the Government to quote statistics, by which the House was bound and influenced, while the document containing those statistics had not been printed. He protested against that; and while hon. Members were reproached with obstructing Business, the conduct of the Government in this matter showed their haphazard way of doing Business, and the way in which they were prepared to dragoon the House.
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHthought the hon. Member was not justified in his remarks. These documents were presented to the House by the Government, and were then taken charge of by the House of Commons printer, who alone was responsible for their circulation. He must entirely repudiate any responsibility on the part of the Government.
  MR. R. N. FOWLERinquired whether the Printing Committee were responsible in this matter?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, the printing arrangements were conducted with the assistance of the Printing Committee.
  MR. CALLANsaid, that last year the Printing Committee never sat once, and when they did sit no record was kept of their proceedings.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not speaking to the Question before the House.
  MR. CALLANwished to refer to the fact that the Printing Committee had not yet been appointed this year. That was a matter of which he must complain.
  MR. SPEAKER: I must repeat that the hon. Member is not speaking to the matter before the House.
  MR. W. H. SMITHasked when it was proposed to take this Vote, as there
  288
  might be some discussion upon it, and it would be desirable that it should be taken at a time when that discussion could take place?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, that he would take the Vote as soon as he was able; but he thought it was the general wish that it should be taken when the Chief Secretary for Ire land was in his place.
  MR. W. H. SMITHinquired whether the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be in his place to-morrow; and, if so, would the Vote be taken before the adjourned debate on the Resolution now before the House?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, he did not propose to put the Vote down for to-morrow.
  Motion agreed to.
  Resolution postponed.
  Resolutions 2 to 5, inclusive, agreed to.
  Resolution 6.
  MR. SEXTONasked for an explanation which had been promised on this Vote of an extraordinary item of £150, which was granted to Mr. Rogers in compensation for injuries received in 1868. It had been stated that this gentleman had been injured 14 years ago, and that in consequence of his injuries he had been obliged, a year or two ago, to leave the Public Service. He wished to know how it was that 14 years had elapsed since those injuries were received, and yet compensation was not given until now; while a great many innocent people who had been injured seriously, and almost fatally, by the police were not compensated? If it should be necessary, in order to afford the noble Lord the Secretary to the Treasury an opportunity of explaining this, he would move to omit the item.
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHsaid, that last year this gentleman had suffered severely from the injuries received in 1868, and had been under constant medical advice; and he had at last been obliged to retire. Medical certificates from eminent physicians accompanied his application to the Lord Lieutenant; and he could assure the House that this had been an exceedingly hard case, the injuries having been received during the discharge of duty.
  MR. SEXTON: Has he a pension?
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISH: His regular pension.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, the noble Lord had promised to lay the Papers respecting this case upon the Table.
  LORD FREDERICK CAVENDISHreplied, that there would be no objection to presenting the Papers if moved for.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORbegged to give Notice that he would move for the Papers.
  Resolution agreed to.
  Resolution 7.
  MR. REDMONDsaid, he thought one of the items in this Vote required some explanation. If the Vote was only for the Post Office, then he would not challenge it; but if it was also for the Telegraphs he must do so.
  MR. GRAYsaid, he understood this Vote was for the Post Office, and he did not wish to delay the Report for one moment, except to direct attention to one subject which was worthy of attention. The Vote dealt with Post Office Savings' Banks, and he wished to draw the attention of the Postmaster General to the fact that, under the present law, if any depositor deposited in two Savings Banks a total sum exceeding the amount named in the Act the whole sum might be forfeited. He thought this very hard, and that the Postmaster General might look into the matter, with a view to preventing the sacrifice of the whole savings of a man's life owing to what was, after all, a technical rule which anyone might violate without knowing he was doing so.
  MR. O'DONNELLwished to receive some explanation on the subject of tampering with letters, and the extent to which that practice went on. He found that the practice had caused considerable inconvenience to persons who might not be reasonably suspected, but who held opinions somewhat different from those at present held by Her Majesty's Government. He said at present held by the Government, because one did not know what opinions they might hold next year. For instance, a lady had complained to him two days ago that letters from herself to a county in the North of Ireland appeared to have been tampered with, and the replies she received from her friends on ordinary business arrived in envelopes having
  290
  every sign of having been ransacked by inquisitive persons. Sometimes the ends were left entirely open, and the only clue the lady could get to explain this was that one of her correspondents in the North of Ireland was a member of the Ladies' Land League, or Ladies' Aid Society, and a friend in London was a member of the English Land League. Was this to be allowed as a sufficient reason for ladies' letters to be opened and pried into by English gentlemen? He also wished to know what explanation could be given of the practice that circulars suspected of being sent, say, from branches of the Prisoners' Aid Society, or to members urging subscriptions for the charitable objects of those institutions, were, on the pretence that the handwriting of the addresses was recognized, and, on similar evidence, being destroyed wholesale in the Irish Post Office? A legal authority had informed him that that deliberate destruction of circulars and similar things given into the custody of the Post Office authorities, whether by small or big officials, amounted to felony; and he was not aware that the Coercion Act, or any recent Act with regard to Ireland, expressly exempted officials from the punishment of felony. And he was not aware, if that were the case, that special exemptions of that kind were calculated to promote respect for law and order in Ireland. He made this statement on the authority of several sources—that the Post Office burned and destroyed wholesale what it considered to be documents or circulars calculated to promote some object with which Her Majesty's Government did not at present agree. As the President of the Board of Trade had explained, if it was necessary still to pass a certain Bill through the House of Lords, these circulars would be all right; but it no longer being necessary to pass a measure through the House of Lords, these circulars had become of such a character that the officials of the Post Office were destroying them wholesale. He sincerely hoped that if this was taking place it had been kept from the knowledge of the Postmaster General, because it would be a grief to all the Irish Members, who had so often fought side by side with the right hon. Gentleman against the Government of the late Lord Beaconsfield, to discover that he had any part in transactions of this

  291
  nature. He would ask, in the first place, within what safeguards, and under what warrants, and to what extent the tampering with private correspondence continued? He wished to know who were appointed to read the private correspondence of Irish Members and Irish ladies? For if the Home Secretary alone was intrusted with that function, that might explain his neglect of the Police arrangements in London which had recently been so notable; at the same time, it would be a certain consolation to the Irish Members that their correspondence was solely confided to a gentleman of his discretion. But they wanted to know whether Post Office officials of no particular standing, and with no particular guarantees, were authorized to open and ransack private correspondence? Last year he had stated that he should have no ojection to his letters being opened, on condition that the Post Office would supply sound envelopes in place of the torn envelopes. But that in itself was a matter of serious inconvenience. Members were continually receiving letters with damaged envelopes, and they did not know whom to blame if some of their contents were absent.
  MR. T. D. SULLIVANwished to know from the Postmaster General whether all the letters that were opened and read and copied were afterwards forwarded to their destination, or whether any of them were confiscated by the Post Office? That was a simple question, and he hoped it would receive a plain and direct answer. He had good reason for asking that question. Furthermore, he would like to know if due precautions were taken to insure that the contents of any of the envelopes which were opened were safely and duly put back into the envelopes from which they were taken? A few nights ago the hon. Member for Cork City (Mr. Daly) detailed the facts of a most extraordinary change or exchange of the contents of letters—it was a case in which the bank book of a gentleman was put into an envelope, posted by a little school-girl, and enclosing a number of religious pictures. He wanted to have some assurance that cheques and postage stamps and other valuables were not taken from envelopes, and that none of them were mislaid or lost in their transmission through the Post Office, under the process of letter-
  292
  opening and confiscation which was going on at present under the warrant of the Chief Secretary.
  MR. REDMONDsaid, he wished to make a suggestion with regard to the opening of letters delivered in England. It was that when letters were opened by the Government they should be delivered either opened or enclosed in a fresh envelope, and should be endorsed—"Opened by the authority of the Government." Since the opening of the present Session he had received several letters which had been opened in the most barefaced and clumsy manner, and in the fastening down very much torn and dirtied. It must be a very humiliating task to close up letters after having been opened; therefore, let the Government be straightforward in the matter—let them deliver the letters open, or, if they closed them again, let them affix some official stamp to show they had been tampered with.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, his hon. Friends had put some questions which they had a good claim to have answered. He felt extremely anxious on one point. He wished to know what the Chief Secretary conceived to be his power under his warrant—Did the right hon. Gentleman believe he had power to open a letter, and, if he thought fit, to seize it and. keep it? Did the right hon. Gentleman or any of his subordinates believe that after having copied a letter they had the right to destroy it? He believed the Government did not open as many letters as formerly; perhaps they found the correspondence too dry and uninteresting. He was occasionally troubled with questions from his constituents as to whether he had received this or that letter, so he was inclined to think the system of opening letters still remained in force. The Government had now opened letters for a whole year. Surely they ought to have discovered whether the system repaid them. Surely, if anything improper had been carried on through the medium of the Post Office, they would have at the end of a year been able to institute some criminal prosecution or other. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary, he was entitled to infer that a year's trial of this wholesale tampering with private correspondence had been of no avail. They had a right to ask the Government whether their search had been at all repaid

  293
  —whether it had proved of the slightest good from a political point of view? He was aware that the officials in the Dublin Post Office had grown so wanton that they did not even take the trouble to open some envelopes; if they thought they recognized the handwriting they did not even take the trouble to copy the letters, but threw the unopened envelopes into the fire. It occurred to him that that was villainy. He could not believe the Postmaster General was entitled to destroy a post letter, although he knew it was contended that when a letter was posted it was public property. It was not known, and never would be known, what letters had been destroyed. He would conclude, as he began, by asking whether the Chief Secretary or the Postal officials considered that, under the warrant of the Chief Secretary, they were bound to send a letter on after having copied it, or whether they considered themselves entitled to destroy it?
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, that, perhaps, the Home Secretary would now tell them—he endeavoured to get the information last Session by questions put to the Government—whether the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General received a specific warrant from the Home Secretary with regard to each letter that he opened, or whether he received a general warrant and opened all the letters addressed to the gentlemen mentioned in the warrant? The question was a very important one; but he believed it was a very moot question with lawyers whether the right hon. Gentleman the Postmaster General was not exceeding his duty, and rendering himself liable to serious consequences, if he opened a letter without having a specific warrant to do so.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I have waited until I could answer all the questions which hon. Gentlemen were anxious to put to me. There was a question put to me by my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere). I beg leave to say that in this matter the Postmaster General has no responsibility whatever. The responsibility is absolutely and entirely with the Secretary of State; it is upon him that the law has imposed the responsibility. Another question was asked as to whether, under the warrants issued in this matter, there is power to open and examine only, or
  294
  whether there is also power to detain? Now, distinctly, there is power to detain, because that is mentioned in the Statute.
  MR. SEXTON: Does "detain" mean to keep altogether?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I imagine so.
  MR. SEXTON: To destroy?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: About the legal power there is no doubt whatever.
  MR. SEXTON: Destroy?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I do not think the word "destroy" is mentioned, and I have not got the Statute with me. Well, then, there was another question put which was a very important one, and that was whether this power could be exercised by subordinate officials? I say most certainly not. The power is absolutely a power which rests upon the responsibility of the Secretary of State, and can only be exercised upon his direct authority. It is an authority which has been placed in the Secretary of State's hands solely for the public safety; and if any Secretary of State exercised such a power, except in cases in which he was satisfied in his own mind, and upon his own responsibility, that it was absolutely necessary for the safety of the State, he would be guilty of a gross breach of duty, and I would say of a gross breach of honour also. I conceive that is the position in which the law has placed this matter. I ought to say the power is with the Secretary of State in England only; in Ireland it belongs to the Irish Government. The Secretary of State has nothing whatever to do with the Post Office in Ireland. Several assertions have been made as to the mode of dealing with letters in Ireland. I must confess I know nothing of the method adopted in that country, but I cannot imagine such a thing as the burning of letters wholesale. Well, then, other questions' were asked as to how, and when, and to what extent this power is exercised? This matter was discussed last year, and I gave then the only answer that it is possible for me to give on the subject. This is a power which is given for purposes of State, and the very essence of the power is that no account can be rendered. To render an account would be to defeat the very object for which the power was granted. That was perfectly admitted, after all the discussions which took place on this subject, by

  295
  the Committee of the House of Commons appointed a good many years ago, and both Houses of Parliament, having examined into the matter, determined to continue the power which then existed. It has continued ever since, and there is no security whatever in the exercise of that power except the responsibility of the Minister to whom the power is intrusted, and if he is not fit to exercise the power upon the responsibility which is cast upon him he is not fit to occupy the position of Secretary of State.
  MR. O'DONNELL: Does the Minister open the letters himself?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I have told the hon. Member that it is upon the personal authority of the Secretary of State that the thing is done. With every respect to hon. Members, I must say I can give no further information on the subject. In my opinion, I ought not to do so; it is out of no disrespect to hon. Members that I give this answer, but it is the essence of that power that the Minister responsible should not give information beyond what I have already given.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, he must offer his sincere congratulations to the Postmaster General on the fact that upon him there did not rest any of the responsibility for all these transactions; he could hardly imagine a man of the right hon. Gentleman's high character having anything to do with business which involved such proceedings. He did not think the Home Secretary had precisely answered the questions put to him. They understood perfectly well that the whole thing was done upon the authority of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, and that he alone was responsible to the House. What they wanted to know was—Did he delegate his warrant and power to any subordinate officials? Did he, in fact, open and read all the letters himself; or did he instruct his subordinate officials to do so and report to him about them? It did not seem to him that the safety of the State would be in any way imperilled if the right hon. and learned Gentleman were to give a plain answer to that question. The Home Secretary said something about what would be the duty of a statesman and a man of honour in such a matter. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was a statesman, and he (Mr. Justin M'Carthy)
  296
  was sure he was a man of honour; but in such transactions as these they were now discussing one was led to remember the advice of Lady Teazle to Mr. Joseph Surface, when he, in a memorable conversation, made some allusion to his honour. She said—"Don't you think, Mr. Surface, we had better leave honour out of this business?" He (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman would do well to consider that advice and leave honour out of these discussions.
  MR. GORSTsaid, he really must protest against the statement made by the right hon. and learned Gentleman that the Postmaster General was not responsible at all; that he alone was responsible in the matter. He begged leave to refer the House to the section of the Act of Parliament which made it a misdemeanour
  "For any person employed in the Post Office, contrary to his duty, to open, or to procure to be opened, a post letter, or wilfully to delay or detain, or procure or suffer to be delayed or detained, any post letter."
  To do this was a misdemeanour:
  "Provided always that this did not extend to the opening, or detaining, or delaying of a post letter in obedience to the expressed warrant, in writing, under the hand of the Secretary of State."
  Therefore, the Postmaster General and the employés of the Post Office were guilty of misdemeanour, unless they opened or detained a letter in pursuance of an expressed warrant under the hand of the Secretary of State. If the Secretary of State's warrant was not given, and, if given, it did not relate to the particular letter opened, he (Mr. Gorst), with great deference to the right hon. and learned Gentleman's extraordinary learning and knowledge of law, submitted that his conception of the matter was altogether erroneous.
  MR. LEAMYsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had not given any answers at all to the questions put to him; he had not answered the question put to him by the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere), and he had not told them whether it was necessary to issue a specific warrant for the detention of a particular letter. Upon those points they were entitled to some information; and as the right hon. and learned Gentleman might not be able to speak again

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  on the subject, perhaps the Attorney General for Ireland would tell them what was done by the Lord Lieutenant or the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or whoever it was who issued the warrants, to authorize the opening of letters in Ireland? His hon. Friends had stated that circulars and letters were torn in the Post Office in Dublin, and that some even were destroyed without being opened at all. The right hon. and learned Gentleman said that he knew nothing of such things, and that he did not believe them. He could well understand that the Home Secretary did not believe them; but they had a right to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman and the Postmaster General if they would take any steps to ascertain whether there was any truth whatever in the state-meats? A very grave charge had been brought against the Post Office officials, and it was due to them that some inquiry should be made. Before the debate closed, he hoped they would have some real information upon the different points now raised. The Home Secretary said that the opening and reading of letters was carried on solely under the authority of the Secretary of State; but they had a right to ask to what class of officials was the work intrusted? Was it intrusted, for instance, in the Post Office in Dublin, to the Postmaster or to some high official; or was any ordinary clerk, into whose hands a letter to or from a prominent Land Leaguer might fall, entitled to open it? It was proper, too, that they should hear something in reply to the suggestion thrown out by the hon. Member for New Ross (Mr. Redmond)—namely, that if the Government would insist upon opening letters, they ought to put an official stamp upon them, showing that they had been opened. Surely if the Government had the power to open letters, and if they exercised the power, as it was well known they did, why should they be ashamed to admit they had done so in any particular case? It was no uncommon tiling for hon. Gentlemen sitting around him to receive letters which had been opened; but they were in complete doubt as to whether they had been opened by the authority of the Secretary of State, or by some curious person in the Post Office who had no authority whatever to open them. Inasmuch as answers had not been vouchsafed to the questions put by
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  different hon. Members, he should move that the Vote be postponed until such time as the Government would condescend to afford them the information required.
  DR. COMMINSsaid, there was another point requiring elucidation. The Act provided that the opening of a letter, when done in Ireland, should be done under the warrant of the Lord Lieutenant, and he saw no person present who was capable of answering the questions which had been put, especially those concerning the secreting or destruction of letters in Ireland. The section of the Post Office Act which had not been referred to, and which section was the 26th, made it a felony for any person employed in the Post Office to embezzle, secrete, or destroy any post letter. One of the principal complaints made was that letters passing through the Post Office in Ireland were embezzled, secreted, or destroyed, and there was scarcely a person who received a large amount of correspondence in Ireland who did not constantly miss inclosures. He had had to complain that inclosures sent to him were taken out of letters; why or wherefore he could not understand. It was now said that circulars had been posted to different parts of Ireland, and that they had been destroyed in the Post Office by hundreds. Now, there was nothing in the Post Office Act, and there was no authority vested in the Lord Lieutenant, or anybody else, that could justify the destruction of any post letter or the contents of any post letter. To destroy a letter or its contents would be clearly illegal, and any warrant given to that effect would, in a Court of Law, be declared null and. void. It was only proper that inquiries should be made as to whether the complaints were or were not justified, and they ought to be told whether warrants were issued—as the Act clearly required—for each particular letter that was opened; or whether general warrants—which 100 years ago had been declared illegal—were issued, authorizing all letters to So-and-So, or all letters in the handwriting of such-and-such persons, to be opened. He thought, too, some information ought to be given as to the dissatisfaction which prevailed very largely in Ireland as to the management of the Post Office in that country. No one was present who could give the answers required. He and his hon. Friends had every reason to complain

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  that the Person to whom they looked for answers and explanations—the Person upon whom the legal responsibility rested—was not in his place to give such answers as might satisfy the justifiable curiosity of hon. Members on that side of the House, and might allay, if it were possible, the feeling in Ireland that the tampering with private correspondence was carried on most dishonourably.
  MR. SPEAKER: Do I understand the hon. Member to move the postponement of this Resolution?
  MR. LEAMY: Certainly, if I am in Order in doing so.
  MR. SPEAKER: Does any hon. Member second that Motion?
  MR. CALLANbegged to second it.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Resolution be postponed."—(Mr. Leamy.)
  MR. GILLsaid, that he also would have been prepared to second the Motion, because he felt that one or two important questions had been raised, which, for the satisfaction of the Irish public, ought to be explained by Her Majesty's Government. One of them was, whether, in the letters which had been opened, any cash remittances had been found, and what was done with cheques or notes in the event of any being discovered? Of course, if the letters were not delivered to the persons to whom they were addressed, it was impossible to deliver any cash which they might have contained. It was therefore as well to know whether any money remittances of that kind were kept by the Government towards paying the expenses of the Post Office establishment, or whether they were returned to the persons by whom they were sent? That was one point which he was of opinion ought to be answered. Another was this—Were the persons who wore employed to open these letters sworn to secrecy. If not, it might very often happen that they might talk in a jocular manner of the contents of some of these letters, informing their friends of what they had seen in them. Of course, there was nothing to prevent them from doing that unless the precaution was taken to swear them to secrecy, in the same manner as the telegraph clerks and other officials were. He trusted that he might receive an answer to these questions—What was
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  done with the money remittances found in letters which were opened at the Post Office; and were the persons employed in opening them sworn to secrecy, or were they not?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he did not know whether he would be in Order in speaking again; but with the permission of the House he desired to say a few words. The hon. Member who had just spoken must see that he could not possibly answer the sort of questions which had been put to him, because they involved, first of all, a statement or admission that any letter had been opened at all. It was exactly because he could make no statement on that subject that he was unable to answer the questions of the hon. Member. It was utterly impossible to answer questions of the character of those which had been put to him. He had no wish to deal unfairly with the House in the matter; but he must say that if this power was to be given at all and exercised for the purposes for which it was given, it was of the very essence of the power that no statement whatever should be made on the subject, even to the extent of saying whether any letter had been opened or had not been opened. It was quite plain that if he were to answer the questions of the hon. Member in any degree at all, he might next be examined as to the extent to which the power had been used, and the object for which the power was given would become utterly useless. He therefore respectfully submitted to the House that it was perfectly impossible to answer the questions which had been put, and he declined to answer the inquiry, even to the extent of admitting that any letter had been opened at all.
  SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSremarked, that certain powers to be exercised for a particular purpose had been vested in the Secretary of State in England, and, he presumed, in the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. These powers were of a most exceptional character. He must say that they were powers which he himself exercised with very great care and caution when they were intrusted to him, and he was satisfied that they were powers which neither the Secretary of State nor the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland would ever wish to exercise unless they were compelled to do so in the interests of the public. At any rate, he

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  could answer for himself at the time he filled the Office of Home Secretary. Of course, it was quite possible for any person intrusted with the power of opening letters to disclose to the public what the action taken under this power was; but it was quite another matter when it came to be a question how the responsibility had been exercised, and how the Secretary of State had acted. It was possible for things to have been missed which were of great value, and, of course, if any well-founded and specific charge of that kind were made, the Secretary of State would be bound to give an answer on the responsibility cast upon him, and in order to justify the use of that responsibility; but, at the present moment, no such specific charge was made, and it appeared to him that the Secretary of State had taken the only course open to him—namely, that of refusing to answer the questions which had been put to him.
  MR. CALLANrose to continue the debate, when——
  MR. SPEAKERinterposed, and said, the hon. Member having seconded the Motion, was not entitled to speak again.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR(who rose amid loud calls for a division) said, that, however impatient hon. Members might be to go home, they must all admit that the answer they had received to the inquiries which had been addressed to the Government were most unsatisfactory. An hon. Friend behind him (Mr. Sexton) had made an important and specific charge to the effect that in Dublin a large number of letters were not only opened and detained, but were absolutely destroyed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had declared that he accepted the whole of the responsibility, and, of course, the right hon. and learned Gentleman must do so in regard to the detention of any letter in England; but he understood that the right hon. and learned Gentleman entirely repudiated any responsibility for the action of the Post Office authorities in Ireland. At present, there was nobody in the House who directly represented the Lord Lieutenant, and nobody representing Ireland was prepared to say for that country what the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had already said in regard to England. On a previous occasion the noble Lord the Financial Secretary postponed
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  the Report, owing to the absence of the Chief Secretary for Ireland; and it appeared to him (Mr. Arthur O'Connor) that, with regard to this Vote, there was very much stronger reason for postponing the consideration of the Report than there was on the Land Commission Vote. He therefore trusted that the noble Lord the Financial Secretary would accede to the Motion of his hon. Friend the Member for Waterford (Mr. Leamy), and agree to postpone the Vote until the return of the Chief Secretary.
  MR. O'DONNELLsaid, it was admitted that the Home Secretary had certain responsibilities in the matter; but if no information was given of any kind whatever, where was the responsibility? The Irish Members did not ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman for any particular details with regard to particular letters; but they asked this much. For instance, if it was not the right hon. and learned Gentleman himself who opened the letters or ordered them to be opened, to whom did he delegate his authority, and to how many? The persons to whom the authority was delegated certainly were not responsible. The only responsibility in the matter was the responsibility to Parliament, and these unnamed subordinates, if they were delegated by the Home Secretary, certainly were not the Home Secretary himself. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman admitted that he did delegate his authority and power to certain persons, then the House would know that he was responsible for the acts of such persons; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman refused all information whatsoever, and, in fact, evaded the responsibility placed on him by the Act of Parliament. That was what the Irish Members objected to. By using the word "responsibility," the words "by his authority," and so forth, in reality he evaded all responsibility, and then he refused to allow his authority to be brought to any test. That was what the Irish Members considered to be unfair, and they were of opinion that the right hon. and learned Gentleman was not discharging the duty he owed, not only to the Members of that House, but to the public at large. They had no wish to delay the House unduly over this Vote; but it was the only course they were able to take in view of the unsatisfactory position in which the un-

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  satisfactory answers of the Home Secretary had placed the matter. All that it was in their power to do was to raise the whole question on this Resolution of the Report of the Committee of Supply. He hoped the right hon. and learned Gentleman would seriously look into the matter, and especially into the way in which he was himself affected by the exercise of the power conferred upon him by Statute. For a moment he would assume that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not in any way overstepped his power, and surely it was his duty to tell the House on what general principle he acted, and who were his representatives. Were they the postmasters of the country? Were they the police officers; or were they some of the Castle officials? The right hon. and learned Gentleman ought to have some information to give to the House upon the matter. He ought to be able to give some guarantee in regard to the manner in which the power was exercised. They had already before them the fact that letters were continually received, not only in a dilapidated and broken condition, but sometimes with their contents abstracted. Did that come under the head of "detaining letters," which the right hon. and learned Gentleman declared to be part of his powers? The Irish Members wanted to know how they were to draw a line between the official detention of their letters and the felonious purloining of the letters themselves? Unless some official information was given, it was impossible to know whether their letters were delayed and properly taken care of, or whether the contents had been filched by some subordinate of the Post Office without the authority of Her Majesty's Government. The Home Secretary was bound to tell the House, in the interests of common honesty, what precautions he had taken to prevent the opening of letters being utilized by some persons or other, for whose acts he was not responsible, in order to purloin or efface certain correspondence. That was a very plain matter, and certainly could not affect any State secret. He was asking no question about any specific letter, or whether any particular letter had been detained for such-and-such reasons; but he wished to have some general knowledge of the conditions under which the letters of the Irish Members were opened and detained.
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  The Home Secretary would not even admit that any letter had been detained. That was a deliberate attempt to escape entirely from the responsibility cast upon him by the Act of Parliament. What was to be said of a Home Secretary who was authorized by Act of Parliament to detain letters, and yet refused to say whether he detained them or not? Surely there was no object of State policy to be gained by a complete denial of that kind. The refusal to admit even that the power was exercised was an evasion of a very undignified kind. If all information was refused, he should certainly take another occasion for bringing the matter under the notice of the House by a means of distinct Resolution. The Liberal Party professed to be the denouncers of despotism in foreign parts; but, nevertheless, they sat in admiring silence while the Home Secretary tacitly admitted the exercise of tyrannical and arbitrary power, far beyond anything a foreign despot ever contemplated.
  MR. WARTONsaid, he was bound to protest against the course taken by hon. Members below the Gangway in persistently delaying the passing of this Vote. What object did they expect to gain? Did they think that any questions they could put would move the Home Secretary from the position he had taken, and a position which he (Mr. Warton) begged to say was one which the right hon. and learned Gentleman ought to take? The conduct of the right hon. and learned Gentleman was exceedingly right and proper; and if the right hon. and learned Gentleman had not thought fit to get up and decline to answer the questions put to him, he (Mr. Warton), in his humble way, should have requested him not to answer them. As it was, he was pleased with the reply of the right hon. and learned Gentleman and his firmness. There was a kind of insinuation contained in the speech of the hon. Member for Longford (Mr. Justin M'Carthy) against the Postmaster General. The hon. Member expressed regret that a man of the high character which the right hon. Gentleman formerly enjoyed should have been concerned in a matter of this kind. That appeared to be a sort of insinuation against the Postmaster General; but, although he neither believed in the Home Secretary nor in the Postmaster

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  General as politicians, he should be sorry to think they were not entitled to the highest honour for the way in which they discharged the duties of their Offices.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he thought they had made out an unanswerable case for the postponement of the Resolution. No attempt whatever had been made by any occupant of the Treasury Bench to defend the action which had taken place, nor had any information been given with respect to the practice at the Irish Post Office. Irish Members were much more concerned with that than with the English Post Office, and it was with regard to the Irish Department that the present accusation had been made—namely, that on the mere suspicion of handwriting, certain envelopes containing information had been destroyed without being opened. The right hon. Gentleman, whose responsibility for the English Office appeared to be of a most shadowy character, declined any responsibility at all for the Irish Department. The question was—Had they or had they not a right to ask questions of this kind upon a matter of public administration, and were they not entitled to receive explanations with reference to it? It was obvious that the theory of Ministerial responsibility vanished entirely, if a fact of this nature was to be passed over when explanations with regard to it were asked by the Representatives of the people and refused by one Minister because another Minister was absent. The Chief Secretary for Ireland, it would appear, had abandoned his position in that House for duties of a peripatetic character in Ireland, and the position taken up by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary in consequence was simply intolerable, when looked at from the point of view of the meaning of Ministerial responsibility. Parliament had conferred, it seemed, certain powers, and they had to be exercised by the right hon. and learned Gentleman to the best of his judgment for the public safety. It was not for him to say that the right hon. and learned Gentleman had in any way violated his duty in this respect; but he challenged him to say how the answers given to the questions which had been put to him could in any way divest him of his responsibility in the matter. They wanted to know by what class of officials in the Post Office the
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  opening and destruction of letters was effected, and on what conditions they were allowed to act? Were they upon their word of honour, or upon their oath, or what other safeguard was there to protect the public against the improper exercise of these powers? He denied that the position of any criminal, real or intended, could be affected by the questions that had been asked; and while he agreed that the rules of debate were elastic, there were still limits to ingenuity in that respect, and he could not but regard the statement of the right hon. and learned Gentleman, that he was not prepared to admit that any letter had been opened at all, as most peculiar and unsatisfactory.
  MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, that the rule that questions should not be put to an accused person because he might, in his answer, criminate himself, might be a very good one in criminal practice; but he never thought that a high official of the Government—a statesman—would shelter himself under a plea that was accorded to a prisoner at the Old Bailey. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had, however, said he could not admit, by any reply of his, that any letters had been opened at all. But supposing that letters had been opened under the warrant which they knew to exist, he asked what would become of the cheques or postage stamps that were inclosed in them? He did not think it would be below the dignity of the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary to say, if it was his duty to cause letters to be opened and detained, whether the remittances inclosed in them were detained or destroyed. It would be much better if the Government, or rather the right hon. and learned Gentleman responsible for these acts, had the courage to stamp upon letters the fact that they had been opened, and not shelter himself behind a miserable subterfuge.
  MR. WARTONwished to know whether it was in Order for the hon. Member to charge a Member of that House with sheltering himself behind a miserable subterfuge?
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is attributing an unworthy motive to a Member of the House. The expression used by him should be withdrawn.
  MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, he would withdraw any remark he had made that was out of Order. He had not attri-

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  buted to the right hon. and learned Gentleman any unworthy motive. He had only stigmatized his conduct.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not withdrawing his expression. He is repeating it.
  MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, he withdrew any expression to which Mr. Speaker objected. Passing from that point, he wished to say that he had seen letters with the words "not to be Harcourted" stamped upon them; and he thought the right hon. and learned Gentleman might save the credit of the Department if he had the courage to adopt an india-rubber stamp, with the word "Harcourted" upon it, to be used when a letter was opened.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 12; Noes. 135: Majority 123.—(Div. List. No. 38.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  MR. BIGGARsaid, it was very much to be regretted that the Chief Secretary for Ireland was absent while a question of the violation of the law was being discussed. The Attorney General for Ireland, however, might be able to give some information with regard to what had taken place in the Irish Post Office and in order to give him an opportunity of supplying this, he would move the adjournment of the debate.
  MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYseconded the Motion, for the purpose of affording the right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite an opportunity for explanation. The right hon. And learned Gentleman the Home Secretary really knew little or nothing at all of the proceedings which so much interested Irish Members. They wished to know whether the opening of letters was done under a general warrant—that was to say, was there a warrant given to open all letters, or did it only apply to certain persons whose correspondence was to be examined? He thought some light ought to be thrown upon this important subject, and, with the permission of the House, he would quote the opinion of the late Mr. Carlisle with reference to the practice of opening letters in the Post Office. Mr. Carlyle, in a letter to The Times, said—
  "It is a question vital to us that sealed letters in an English Post Office be—as we all fancied they were—respected as things sacred; that
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  opening of men's letters, a practice near of kin to picking men's pockets, and to other still viler and far fataler forms of scoundrelism, be not resorted to in England except in cases of the very last extremity. When some new 'Gunpowder Plot' may he in the wind, some double-dyed high treason, or imminent national wreck not avoidable otherwise, then let us open letters; not till then."
  MR. SPEAKER: I wish to point out to the hon. Member, that, having spoken to the Motion before the House, he is not at liberty to speak again. I must call on some other hon. Member to second the Motion.
  MR. W. J. CORBETsaid, he would second the Motion.
  Motion made, and Question proposed) "That the Debate be now adjourned."—(Mr. Biggar.)
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, hon. Members must see that he could give no other answer to the question put to him than that he had already tendered. It was obvious, therefore, that the Motion for Adjournment, on account of the absence of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, was out of place. If his right hon. Friend (Mr. W. E. Forster) were now in his place, he could give no other answer than that hon. Members had received. He (Sir William Harcourt), in regard to England, had given the only answer it was possible for him to give; and in regard to Ireland, the Chief Secretary could say no more. It could, therefore, be of no avail to persist in this Motion.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, the right hon. and learned Gentleman must see that if the Chief Secretary were here, hon. Members would be able to ask a question—and probably elicit an answer—as to whether any representation had been made to the Irish Government with regard to the numerous letters which it was distinctly alleged had been destroyed in the Dublin Post Office? That was a matter upon which it was extremely likely that the right hon. Gentleman would be able to afford them some information. That point alone was sufficient, he thought, to justify them in asking the Government to consent to the postponement of this Vote, just as on similar grounds they had consented to the postponement of other Votes.
  MR. REDMONDsaid, the Irish Members had a right to ask and to be informed by the Attorney General for Ire-

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  land whether it was legal for the Home Secretary in England, or the Chief Secretary in Ireland, to destroy private letters sent through the Post Office? No information had been given on that point; and he wanted to know before this money was voted for a Public Department, whether that Department, in certain things it was doing, was acting legally? If the Chief Secretary had power to seize and open and destroy, that power would, no doubt, extend to property. Would the Chief Secretary be equally entitled to burn a cheque or bank note as he was to burn a letter? He really thought it was due to the Irish Members and the House that the Attorney General for Ireland should accept the responsibility which devolved upon him as Representative of the Chief Secretary, in the absence of the right hon. Gentleman, and get up in his place and make some statement to the House. The Home Secretary had taken that responsibility on himself in regard to England.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. W. M. JOHNSON)said, he had been called upon so frequently, that he might be supposed to be wanting in ordinary courtesy to the House if he did not rise. What he had to say was, in the first place, that he was not the Representative of the Chief Secretary nor of the Lord Lieutenant. He represented solely the Office he had the honour to fill—namely, that of Attorney General for Ireland. He had no power to open or destroy letters in the Post Office, nor had he ever attempted to do anything of the kind, nor did he believe it ever had been done. He was not aware that there was in point of law, any power vested in anyone to destroy another person's letters. It was his duty to direct all criminal prosecutions in Ireland, and it sometimes happened in that country, as he supposed it sometimes happened in England, that letters were—to use a strong, though very proper expression—stolen. Only the day before yesterday he had directed a prosecution against a letter-carrier for having appropriated letters which did not belong to him. The premises occupied by this letter-carrier had been searched, and a very large number of letters, belonging to various people, had been found there. That was the only instance, so far as he could at the moment recollect, which had come under
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  his notice, since he was Attorney General for Ireland of letters having been stolen.
  MR. GRAYsaid, he did not think the Irish Members were to blame for the course things were now taking. This question had been raised in Committee; and it was to be expected when it was known that it would be further discussed on Report, that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would have been in his place to answer for what had taken place in Ireland, as the Home Secretary was present to answer for England. If it was not convenient for the Chief Secretary for Ireland to be here, at least it was to have been expected that he would have instructed either the Attorney General or Solicitor General for Ireland, not to tell the House what they were not aware of, but to tell the House what they were aware of, and what had been done. They had had a legal opinion from the Attorney General for Ireland that there was no justification for the destruction of letters; but the House had it from Irish Members present that they were informed, on what they believed to be good authority, that letters had been destroyed in the Dublin Post Office. He did not think negative statements from the Irish Law Officers of the Crown, that they did not know anything about letters having been destroyed, were sufficient. The right hon. and learned Gentleman, if he were a little better informed on this subject, might have to prosecute some person else beside the letter-carrier. It would be a painful duty; but, no doubt, the right hon. and learned Gentleman would discharge it with that impartiality and zeal which characterized all his actions. He (Mr. Gray) wished to know whether the Chief Secretary or the Lord Lieutenant considered themselves justified, under Act of Parliament, in intercepting and destroying newspapers; and whether large numbers of American newspapers and newspapers published elsewhere had been, and were being, intercepted and destroyed? There would surely be no breach of State secrecy in giving an answer to these questions. While the Government might have power to deal with a specific publication of a newspaper deemed to be seditious, they had no right whatever to adopt any process for the wholesale suppression of a newspaper; and the interception of all the copies of a newspaper going through the

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  post might, in Ireland, amount to the suppression of the newspaper. He believed the Government were suppressing newspapers in that way, and he should like to be informed under what Statute they were operating? No Member of the Government could plead his official position for an evasion of the Statute Law.
  MR. T. D. SULLIVANsaid, that, in the statement they had just heard from the Attorney General for Ireland, they had heard a little of the truth come out at last. They learnt that some letters—and probably amongst them were many of those about which the Irish Members had been pushing a fruitless inquiry that night—had been found in the possession of a letter-carrier. It would not be well to prejudge the case of this letter-carrier—who in all probability had not yet been brought to trial—but they had it on the authority of the Irish Attorney General that a large number of missing letters had been found at the house of a letter-carrier. He (Mr. T. D. Sullivan) was not surprised at that, and he merely looked upon it as a proof of the demoralization which was prevailing in the Department from one end to the other. There was a saying in Ireland, "Like master like man;" and the Attorney General for Ireland had only given them another glimpse of the state of the Post Office in Ireland.
  MR. LEAMYwished to know whether the section of the Act of Parliament, which had been quoted that night, empowered the Chief Secretary for Ireland to seize newspapers and detain them? That was a very simple question, to answer which there surely could be no objection.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, there was a section of the Act putting newspapers in the same category with letters.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, the Government had no other plea than "their responsibility." The Irish Members asked about arrests and detention of letters, and about telegrams and about newspapers, and the reply was always the same—that there was no security in the exercise of the powers conferred by the Statute except the "responsibility of the Minister." He was glad to hear the right hon. and learned Gentleman say that he had nothing to do with the searching and reading of letters, and he congratulated him that there wore some Departments of
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  the State still free from this defilement. The right hon. and learned Gentleman had spoken for the Chief Secretary for Ireland. Well, they all knew what sweet unanimity pervaded the present Cabinet; but they had not known that that unanimity was so complete that a Minister of the Treasury Bench could tell what was taking place in the mind of a Colleague in Ireland. He (Mr. Sexton) still hoped, however, that the Chief Secretary for Ireland would be able to tell them something useful as to the seizure and destruction of letters in Ireland. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had told them he was authorized to seize, open, and detain letters, and had added that "detain" meant to keep them altogether. He (Mr. Sexton) ventured to think that "to detain" merely meant "to delay"—though, no doubt, the right hon. and learned Gentleman was more of a lawyer than he was. He should like to hear what the Chief Secretary for Ireland had to say about this—what his view of the law was. No doubt, the Attorney General for Ireland was innocent of tampering with letters; but he was entitled to think that the Chief Secretary for Ireland was not innocent of it. The Irish Members said they believed private letters had been seized, opened, and destroyed; and they were entitled to ask that this Vote should be delayed until the Minister responsible for the affairs of Ireland gave them an answer, one way or the other, as to the series of acts committed by the Irish Executive, which, by the legal aspect they bore, the Irish Members believed to be felonies.
  DR. COMMINSwished to know what interpretation the Government put upon the provisions of the Post Office Act? According to his interpretation, there was no general power given to open letters—to open letters in batches. This should be declared by the Government, in order to restore confidence to the people of Ireland who, at present, did not feel at ease, believing, as they did, that their innocent correspondence might be opened by officials. The construction he put upon the Statute was that there must be a warrant for each and every letter opened, and that was not the practice in Ireland; they had not only their own experience, but the knowledge of nearly everyone in the country, to prove that, 12 mouths ago, it was a

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  matter of notoriety that hundreds of letters were opened by the Government. About this time of the year it was customary for Irish people having friends in England to send over pieces of shamrock to them. Letters sent to him, containing shamrock, had been opened, and the shamrock taken away. He gave this fact to the House on his own. word, and that of many other Irish Members, who had told him that in their case the same thing had been done. He had it from general report that thousands of letters had been opened in this way and their contents abstracted. The law called that a felony. If letters could only be tampered with by the Chief Secretary in Ireland and the Home Secretary in England, surely the wholesale opening of letters and the abstraction of their contents by other officials constituted a felony, punishable with penal servitude.
  MR. GILLsaid, he was glad to hear from the Attorney General for Ireland and the Home Secretary, that they admitted that the destruction of newspapers in the Post Office was illegal. The Attorney General for Ireland said there was no Statute whatever permitting the destruction of letters; and then the Home Secretary stated that there was a Statute which put newspapers in exactly the same position and category as letters. That, of course, proved, that if it was illegal to destroy letters, it was also illegal to destroy newspapers.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 12; Noes 117: Majority 105.—(Div. List, No. 39.)
  Original Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolution agreed to.
  Resolution 8.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
  MR. GRAYasked, in reference to the Post Office Telegraph Clerks, whether they were sworn to secrecy in regard to telegrams, and the disclosure of their contents? He only asked this as a general question.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, the Postmaster General had stated the other night that he had no responsibility in this matter; but that the responsibility respecting telegrams rested with the Home Secre-
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  tary. Now, he would like to know whether there was any warrant with respect to the Telegraph Department, and, if so, how it was exercised? Whether officials, on behalf of the right hon. Gentleman, periodically inspected the files of the telegrams to discover whether they contained anything that might be useful; or whether the clerks had instructions to draw attention to anything that they thought might be useful? This authority might be exercised in more than one way, and he would like to know whether the clerks were sworn to secrecy, and which of the methods he had mentioned was adopted?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: The Telegraphs Act of 1869 declares that for the purposes referred to in this debate telegrams are placed on the same footing as post letters. Therefore, everything I have said in reference to letters applies to telegrams, and telegrams are only to be dealt with under warrant from the Secretary of State, or by a Court of Law, which can order telegrams to be produced. Those are the only powers for dealing with telegrams of which I am aware.
  MR. GRAYsaid, his question was a general question, and one not dealing with the subject of warrants. He hoped the Postmaster General would inform him what security there was for the secrecy of telegrams?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir HENRY JAMES): There is a Statute providing that any clerk or other person officially in possession of a telegram is liable to imprisonment for disclosing its contents.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolution agreed to.
  Postponed Resolution to be considered upon Wednesday.

MOTIONS.

  ARKLOW HARBOUR BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE, Bill for the improvement of Arklow Harbour, ordered to be brought in by Mr. HERBERT GLADSTONE and Lord FREDERICK CAVENDISH.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 96.]

  PLACES OF WORSHIP SITES BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. SUMMERS, Bill to amend "The Places of Worship Sites Act, 1873,"

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  ordered to be brought in by Mr. SUMMERS, Mr. RICHARD, Mr. WILLIAM M'ARTHUR, and Mr. Alderman COTTON.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 97.]

  LONDON PAROCHIAL CHARITIES AND PAROCHIAL CHARITIES (LONDON).
  Ordered, That the Select Committee on the London Parochial Charities and Parochial Charities (London) Bills do consist of Eighteen Members, Twelve to be nominated by the House, and Six to be nominated by the Committee of Selection.
  Ordered, That all Petitions presented against the Bills be referred to the Select Committee on the Bills, provided such Petitions are presented three clear days before the meeting of the Committee, and that such of the Petitioners as pray to be heard by themselves, their Counsel, or Agents, be heard upon their Petitions, if they think fit, and Counsel heard in favour of the Bills against the said Petitions.
  Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records; Five to be the quorum.
  Ordered, That Mr. BRYCE, Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE, Mr. WALTER JAMES, Mr. FIRTH, Mr. HORACE DAVEY, Mr. WILLIAM LAWRENCE, Mr. CUBITT, Lord PERCY, Mr. BARING, Sir MATTHEW WHITE RIDLEY, Mr. MACFARLANE, and Mr. GORST, be Members of the Committee.—(Mr. Bryce.)
  House adjourned at Three o'clock.