HC Deb 20 March 1883 vol 277 cc949-62
DR. CAMERON

, in rising to call attention to the prevailing distress among the crofters and cottars in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland, said, he was naturally very much averse to trespassing on the House at that moment; but he had, he regretted to say, received accounts regarding the state of destitution in Scotland of so deplorable a character that he felt he would not be doing his duty if he allowed the Motion for adjournment to pass without calling attention to the question. Only about an hour ago he had received the following telegram from Mr. J. Nicol, City Chamberlain, Glasgow, the Secretary to the Committee who were devoting themselves to the relief of this destitution— Parish minister, Lochinver, Sutherland, reports death of a man on 16th from starvation, and says we shall soon have more deaths if we get no help. This is the first application from Lochinver to Glasgow Committee. The Lord Provost has directed me to telegraph clergymen to succour the famishing. This matter had greatly exercised the minds of a number of benevolent people in Scotland, who had been endeavouring to deal with it, and only the other day he had received a packet of letters from all parts of Scotland, addressed to the Glasgow Relief Committee, calling attention to the terrible nature of the destitution that existed, and begging for assistance. He would not have troubled the House with these, but that a good deal of incredulity had been expressed as to the extremity and extent of the destitution. On March 12, the Rev. J. Finlayson, Free Church Manse, Cohjaci, by Ullapool, wrote to Mr. James Nicol— After careful inquiry, I find that there are no fewer than 45 families in need of immediate relief for food. Some of these families are ten and eight in number, but others as few as three or four. Many of them have no workers to fish, should fish he got, which it is not. I hope your committee will kindly send us some aid. An average of 20s. or 30s. each family would he a great help. We cannot get anything of what was given to Ullapool; it is all too little for the destitute there itself. There are besides 125 families needing seed, corn, and potatoes. They are promised a little help from the Duke of Sutherland in the way of giving work for a short time in extending roads in the district, but the most necessitous cannot in the least be benefited by that, as they have no workers. Besides, many of them may starve before anything can be done by the Duke, and it is questionable whether he will give any help. Here was another letter from Mr. J. M'Millan, Free Church minister, Ullapool, who wrote on March 14— The committee estimate that the least we would require, at our present rate even, is £20 per week for near three months, till their land is tilled and they get off to the fishing. They must be supported during the time they are engaged in planting and sowing their fields, or starvation must be the result. We had no conception that the people were so needy until we actually came face to face with their condition. In another letter, on the 1st of March, the same gentleman said— As the result of the conference which took place, it was discovered that about 50 families were suffering from want at the present moment, and needed immediate relief, and that in a few weeks or months more it might be up to hundreds unless something were done to avert and meet it. On the 10th of March, Mr. R. Mackenlar, Chairman of the School Board of Harris, wrote to Mr. James Nicol— If Dr. Cameron's Seeds Bill does not pass I look with great alarm to the future. Next year, and in all probability many more years, must be equally trying to the great majority of our people; £30 a-week would only give 2½ stones of meal (5s. worth) to each of 120 families. I am confident this is under what the last few days' experience warrants me to give. The Rev. Donald Maclean, Established Church Manse, Harris, wrote— I beg to bring to your notice the case of about 20 families in my parish and neighbourhood who are actually in a state of great starvation. He had also a letter which he had received from Rev. A. Davidson, Free Manse, Harris, on the 9th of March, who wrote— I have had occasion lately to be extensively among my people, which afforded me an opportunity of knowing their state. Some said the destitution was not greater in 1846, the year of the potato famine, than in this year. All parties agree that potato seed would be the best help that could be sent to the people. At present, there are 200 or 220 families in my district that would require help. I understand that the grain crop, oats and barley, was as much a failure with many of them as the potatoes were. What could be done for grain seeds I do not know, and I am painfully informed that there are some families quite destitute and without food. The Earl of Dunmore has given some work at the Home Farm to those who were in arrear of rent, very useful in itself, but confined to a certain class, and far from meeting a want that I may say extended to all parties. From Skye worst accounts come. A local committee had been formed to deal with the destitution, and they reported that there were 785 families in a state of very great distress, which was likely to rapidly increase, although many of the landlords had attempted to deal with it. Mr. Macdonald, the agent of some of the principal landlords in the Island, and Secretary to the Skye Destitution Committee, Portree, wrote on March 12— The proprietors, I can vouch, are doing their very utmost, but local resources are quite inadequate, and a great part of the ground in Skye will be left unsown this year. The Rev. D. Mackinnon, minister of Strath, Chairman of the Portree Destitution Meeting, wrote on March 6— The people are without exception almost entirely without seed corn and potatoes, and unless these can be supplied in some way next year will find them in a worse position than they are now. I believe if a loan could be had to buy seed corn and potatoes, to sell to the people, nine-tenths of them would repay the money before the end of the summer. I believe it would take £600 at the very least to supply my own parishioners, and I feel confident that not £5 of the money would be lost. Mr. MacDonald, Free Church Manse, Kilmuir, on the 8th of March, told a similar story— The civil parish has a population of over 2,500–460 families in all. Of that number 150 families are in extreme destitution, now needing immediate relief. Many of our crofters who tried to reserve some little corn for seed are now obliged to use that seed in order to keep their families alive. This will not last long, and I quite expect that in a few weeks half of the families in this parish will be without food, without any way of procuring food, and without seed to put into the ground, unless largo supplies shall come to them from without. From Lewis the reports were still worse. Mr. Mackay, Chamberlain, the agent for the entire Island, so far back as January, published an appeal to the country. A local relief committee was started, and Mr. Mackay and a banker from Storno-way, went as a deputation to Glasgow and Edinburgh to collect subscriptions, and the consequence of their visit was the formation of the local relief committees in those cities. Mr. Mackay asserted that the state of matters threatened to become worse than in 1846. His last letter, dated March 8, to the Glasgow Committee, stated that there were upwards of 12,000 persons above the pauper class in a state of great destitution in Lewis, and in the next few months they were likely to be augmented by 5,000 more. A clergyman, the Rev. Angus Maclver, Uig, Stornoway, wrote on the 9th March to the Lord Provost of Glasgow— My parish is the extreme western part of the island, some parts of it upwards of 40 miles from Stornoway, where the people have been supplied with meal hitherto. I gave lines to some 13 or 14 heads of families lately. Many of them, I believe, were at the time facing starvation. Some 12 of them trudged away 30 miles to Stornoway to get food for their families. They left on Monday morning, and only returned on Friday morning, without getting anything for themselves or their families, walking in the streets of Stornoway the most of the time with very little food. There were only two out of the 14 who had got any supplies before. Mr. W. Mackay wrote to Mr. Nicol, on March 1— It may be said that 12,310 above the pauper class are in want, and this number will be increased by 5,000 before the next harvest. At a meeting of the Stornoway Destitution Committee, held on Tuesday last, it was found that after providing for the payment of 196 tons of potatoes purchased for seed, our funds were reduced to £570, which will almost be all exhausted by the end of next week. Here was another appeal from the Island of Boveray, North Uist— We, the undersigned, and residing here, have formed ourselves into a committee on behalf of 12 very destitute families on the island. They are chiefly cottars, and have lived hitherto partly by fishing and partly by the produce of some patches of land kindly given them by the crofters; but owing to the failure of potatoes and loss of corn crop by the heavy gale of 1st October last, and owing to the coast being so wild that they cannot begin the fishing sooner than April, some of them are now without food for themselves and families, without credit, and without seed of any kind to sow their lands. There are 10 more families who will be short of seed. When he (Dr. Cameron) moved in the matter before, and endeavoured to obtain the sanction of the House to a Bill allowing advances to be made to these destitute people for the purchase of seed, he was told that there would be no necessity for seed, at all events, in Sutherlandshire, because the Duke would see that nothing went wrong there. He was not going to blame the Duke of Sutherland in the smallest degree, be- cause it was not to be expected that a private proprietor could do everything that was necessary in the state of things now existing in the country. As a matter of fact, Mr. Alexander Fraser, Sub-Convener of the Edinburgh Committee, writing fron Grosvenor Crescent, Edinburgh, to Mr. Nichol, on the 10thMarch, sida— As requested by the committee, last Wednesday I called upon Mr. MacDonald, and ascertained from him that the Duke of Sutherland declined to supply the crofters on his property with seed potatoes either on credit, or at a reduced price for what they could pay. He thought it necessary to give the House his authority for what he said, and that must be his excuse for the iteration of these details. The next extract he had was from the Rev. Norman N. Mackay, Convener of the General Committee for the relief of destitution in Asseynt and Stoer, Lochniver, who, on the 8th March, wrote— The Duke of Sutherland is the proprietor of Stoer and Asseynt, and he his unlikely to do anything as to seed for any excepting crofters who have the prospect of being able to pay him at the next rent time. I sent a petition from some of the crofters to His Grace three weeks ago, beseeching him to give them seed on credit, and supported the prayer of the petition by a letter from myself. On the 20th February, the factor, to whom I had also written, wrote saying—'The Duke is unwilling to give seed or meal, but the ground officer will tell the people that they can get work.' The ground officer last week informed the people that they could now get work at the Buckie Railway, and took a list of all the tenants who wished him to supply them with seed and the quantity required, warning them that if the Duke would give seed, it must be paid for with next rent, the price to be very high, potatoes not less than 10s. the barrel. To go to Buckie at present would be to leave their ground untilled this year, as they could not make their expenses before the spring work begins. No cottars were put on the ground officer's list, and the poorest of the crofters asked, some for no seed, and others for very little, fearing that they would be unable to pay at rent time, and would thus be liable to be deprived of their land. The families mentioned at the beginning of this statement are also the poorest of the crofters, who asked ground officer for less seed than they needed or none at all, knowing they could not pay him, and the cottars who got bits of land from the crofters to plant potatoes in. As to food, I am sorry to say we had to add 10 yesterday to the list we made a month ago of those likely to be in want of food. I hope a month will pass before we require to supply much food; but to be safe we would need to have the power. Here was something further about Sutherland. This was an extract from a letter from Mr. James Macdonald, of Edinburgh, to Mr. Alexander Fraser— It would be necessary to sell at least £450 worth of seed potatoes to the crofters in the parishes of Durness, Tongue, and Farr, on the North Coast of Sutherland, and a like quantity would be required for Assynt and Eddrachilles, on the West Coast. If your committee could grant £250, Mr. Mackay thinks the quantity named might be purchased at once, and re-sold to the people for cash at 25 per cent below cost. Local committees would be formed, who would decide the rates at which the different crofters were to pay. Some might be able to pay full cost, while others could not do more than pay 50 per cent. His practical reason for bringing this matter before the House was very plain. He might mention that when, in the beginning of last month, he brought forward his proposal to make advances to the crofters for the purpose of purchasing seed, the first difficulty he encountered was that the Government had no official information on a point which was a matter of public notoriety in Scotland. He at once communicated with the Lord Provost of Glasgow, who was Chairman of the Glasgow Belief Committee, and an ex-officio member of the Board of Supervision, and the result was that he and the Lord Provost of Edinburgh, who was also an ex-officio member of the Board, went to the next meeting of the Board, and urged that steps should be taken to obtain information not merely as to the number of paupers, but of persons above the pauper class who were in a state of destitution. This appeared to be quite a novel proposal to the Board of Supervision. But he (Dr. Cameron) did not find fault with the Board, because it consisted principally of legal gentlemen, who had to decide disputes on legal points, and they could not be blamed if, adhering strictly to their functions, they had not got this information. The Lord Provosts of Glasgow and Edinburgh, thoughex-officio members of the Board, almost never attended the meetings; but, on this occasion, they attended and pointed out that it would not look well to the country if it came out that the Board stuck so slavishly to the letter of its duties that it would not inquire into this matter. As a result of the remonstrances of these gentlemen, the Board agreed to consult the Government as to whether they might not ask their Inspectors to send in Reports on the subject. The Government, of course, agreed to that, and he believed that, without waiting for any request, they had sent instructions for Reports to be furnished by the Inspectors. As he had said, he did not want to find fault with the Board of Supervision; but he mentioned the matter to demonstrate that the Government must not rely upon the Board for the collection of information at such a critical period. He was not going to say what should be done; but he thought in the case of Scotland, and in the face of such destitution actually merging on famine, and causing death by starvation, the Government should take some exceptional means at once for inquiring and informing themselves on the spot as to what was going on, and not rely on reports from the Board of Supervision upon a subject which was not strictly within its province. The only other suggestion he had to make was that the Government should consider their responsibility in this crisis in the case of Scotland to be precisely what it would be in the ease of any other part of the Kingdom. They should send down to the distressed districts and ascertain what the state of matters was, and do whatever might be necessary to avert starvation, and to stop the threatened increase of destitution; and he was sure that if they should somewhat exceed the literal interpretation of their powers, if they came to the House, the House would not hesitate to indemnify them on account of any steps they might feel themselves called upon to take.

MR. WHITBREAD

said, that, though he did not, in the circumstances, altogether quarrel with the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) for bringing the question under the notice of the House, he must point out that it was extremely inconvenient, not with regard to Public Business only, but because it had launched upon them an extraordinary budget of reports, which no one had any time or opportunity to verify, or even to examine. He knew that the hon. Member was engaged, with others, in a very merciful effort to relieve distress in the Highlands of Scotland; but he was surprised and pained at hearing him announce that a death from starvation had occurred in the parish of Lochinver, in Sutherland. Where the hon. Member for Glasgow got that information from he could not say; but he understood that he got it from the Rev. Mr. Mackay.

DR. CAMERON

The information came to me within the last hour. It is from the parish minister of Lochinver, Sutherlandshire, and is as follows:— Reports death of man on 16th from starvation, and says we shall soon have more deaths, if we get no help. This is the first application from Lochinver to Glasgow Committee. The Lord Provost has directed me to telegraph to succour the famishing. Kindly inform the Lord Mayor that the Lord Provost thanks him for opening a fund.

MR. WHITBREAD

said, there was no doubt that the information emanated from Mr. Mackay. Only last week he (Mr. Whitbread) received a letter from Mr. Mackay, giving an account of the destitution in the parish of Lochinver. It seemed to him (Mr. Whitbread) that Mr. Mackay, and those acting with him, were taking the most prudent, active, and energetic stops to cope with the distress. It was a very large parish of 120,000 acres, and Mr. Mackay had established committees in several different parts of the parish, and the result of the information so collected he gave to him in that letter. He said there were 300 crofters; of these, 100 were able to pay for their seed, 150 were able to obtain seed on credit, and 50 were unable either to pay or get it on credit. The steps which the Duke of Sutherland had taken were far beyond those which the hon. Member seemed to imagine. The Duke had tried, first, to find work on the railway for those who could go to it; and, besides that, he had offered to supply on credit, to all crofters who could take it, seed at a price which was not at all unreasonable for good seed. There was nothing to show, or to lead anyone to suppose for a moment, that the Duke wished to charge the crofters more for the seed than it had cost him.

DR. CAMERON

said, what he read was that the Sub-Convener of the Edinburgh Committee stated that the Duke of Sutherland declined to supply seed potatoes, either on credit or at a reduced price.

MR. WHITBREAD

replied, that his information came direct from the spot—from Mr. Mackay. He had known that gentleman for many years, and thought he was to be relied upon in every way as being as good an adviser on such a matter as anyone could have; and in his letter he distinctly stated that the Duke of Sutherland did offer seed on credit to all who would have it, and that the only persons who could not obtain it were the 50 poor crofters already alluded to as being too poor to burden themselves with debt. The parish of Lochinver was one of the most thickly populated parishes in Sutherland, and, as far as he knew of it, he did not think the distress was beyond what could be coped with by private enterprise, and with the assistance so generously given by the society which the hon. Member for Glasgow was connected with. It did not seem to him to be of such magnitude as to call strongly for the interposition of that House. He believed that if the people would set about to meet that distress, as they would in other parts of the world, the amount required was not very great; and he might say further that the letters he received from Lochinver last week said there were only two families actually in want of food, and did not give him the least idea that there was anything like actual starvation existing.

MR. MACFARLANE

said, he believed that the distress was spread over a much wider area than the parts referred to by the hon. Member for Bedford (Mr. Whitbread). He did not understand the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) to make a charge against anyone of neglecting these poor people; but he simply desired to call the special attention of the Government to the extent of the distress, and to call upon the Government to make special effort to relieve that distress. He (Mr. Macfarlane) hoped, this subject having been brought before the authorities, that steps would be taken to ascertain the facts as to the amount of distress, and relieve that distress. There was one other subject which he wished to bring before the attention of the Secretary of State for the Home Department, and that had reference to the Royal Commission which was announced yesterday. He (Mr. Macfarlane) had received telegrams expressing something not far short of consternation at the constitution of that Commission. Neither he, nor any of those who communicated with him, wished to say a word against any of the Gentlemen appointed on the Commission, except this, that they did not fairly represent the classes who were most deeply interested in this question. It was certainly right and proper that a certain number of landlords should represent their own interests on that Com- mission; but they should also have Gentlemen upon it in whom there was confidence, and who were thoroughly impartial. He had intended to ballot today for the opportunity of bringing forward a Motion, praying Her Majesty to appoint one or two additional Commissioners, specially to represent the crofter class. What he feared was, that the result of the labours of the Commission as appointed would be unsatisfactory to those most deeply concerned. It would not be satisfactory to the landlords, if the Commission was discredited in advance; and if the people were impressed, however wrongly, with the opinion that it would not fairly go into the question, the object of the Commission would not be obtained. He wanted to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman, if it was too late to add even one special representative of the crofter class, to give these people the assurance that their case would be thoroughly investigated from their own point of view. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman would not make that addition, he (Mr. Macfarlane) was certain the result of the work of the Commission would be a fiasco. Let the right hon. Gentleman put on any partizan landlord that he liked; but, at the same time, let him put on a partizan from the other side to counteract him. He regretted that the name of Mr. Mackenzie, of Inverness, who was a great authority on this subject, had not been put on the Commission, as he would have given complete confidence to the class for whom he (Mr. Macfarlane) spoke.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he very much regretted that the hon. Member for Carlow County (Mr. Macfarlane), at the commencement of a Commission which was intended to satisfy all Parties, had attempted to discredit that Commission. He thought the remarks which the hon. Gentleman had made were entirely without foundation. Nobody could have taken greater pains than he (Sir William Harcourt) had to form that Commission of impartial persons, who would fully and adequately represent all the interests concerned. It certainly had never been his desire to put violent partizans upon the Commission to decide upon the matter. He had endeavoured to avoid that course; and his principal desire was to obtain persons who should adequately represent the interests, and, he might say, enjoy the confidence also, of the crofters. He had accordingly applied to those persons who, he thought, was entitled to that confidence. He received their advice on the subject, and went beyond the advice they gave him in the number of persons to represent their interests on the Commission. Several names were sent to him, and he selected from them, giving a larger proportion than that asked for. When he applied to one of those Gentlemen whom the hon. Gentleman had described as a partizan landlord—

MR. MACFARLANE

said, what he stated was that he should not object even to a partizan landlord. He never said there was one on the Commission.

SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT

said, he selected two Gentlemen who were well known, and whom he considered would adequately represent the counties of Inverness and Eoss—Mr. Cameron, of Lochiel, and Sir Kenneth Mackenzie. The latter expressed a wish that there should be nobody of the landlord class on the Commission; but he (Sir William Harcourt) said that was an idea which he could not entertain. How was this Commission constituted? It was constituted of two Gentlemen who represented not merely the landlord interest, but something more than that. There were also three Gentlemen who were specially selected in the interest of the crofters. These Gentlemen spoke the Gaelic language, and were intimately connected with the crofter interest themselves—Professor Mackinnon, Professor of Gaelic; Sheriff Nicolson, of Kirkcudbridgeshire; and his hon. Friend the Member for Inverness Burghs (Mr. Fraser-Mackintosh), who had been the formost man in taking up this question in a moderate spirit, and not in connection with any revolutionary idea. That was the constitution of the Commission—three Gentlemen who must be considered as specially representing the crofters, and two connected with the landlord interest. Then he had also selected a Nobleman who had no special connection with the question, but who was a man of great experience, and who had taken an important part in the affairs of India. He also occupied a high rank in his own country (Scotland), and he did not think there was anyone who could be considered a more impartial man to preside over the Commission. He believed the House was of opinion that the Commission was fairly constituted, and that it would be able to remedy the grievances complained of. He hoped the attempt of the hon. Member to discredit the Commission would not be successful either in that House, or in Scotland. With reference to the matter brought forward by the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron), he begged to assure him—and he thought the hon. Member was already aware of the fact—that the Government were extremely conscious of the gravity of this subject. The Government were very carefully watching it.; but in dealing with it, everyone must know that if the Government were to step in too prematurely, they would only aggravate the evil. Therefore, it was absolutely necessary to watch and to see what could be done, in the first instance, by those whose duty it was to relieve the distress. The land itself was responsible for the sustenance of the poor, and he would do everything—and he thought that was probably one of the intentions of his hon. Friend—to make known to the public the extent of this distress in order to stimulate and encourage private benevolence. Those were the two sources that unquestionably should be resorted to in the first instance; and it would be the duty of the Government, aided by the Board of Supervision and their officers, after they had made inquiries as to the condition of the distressed districts, to watch very carefully, and to see that if those means were not sufficient, the people should not be allowed to suffer to any extreme extent. He thought that was probably the declaration which his hon. Friend desired to obtain from the Government, and he gave it him in all sincerity.

MR. ANDERSON

said, there was one point in the matter which he thought had not been entirely understood by the right hon. Gentleman who had just spoken, or by hon. Members—namely, that the Parochial Boards in Scotland had no power to assist the able-bodied poor, and that was where the grievance and difficulty lay. Under the English Poor Law that power existed, and the able-bodied poor could get relief; but in Scotland the Parochial Board had no power to give such relief. What was needed in this case was that the Government should give instructions to the Scotch Parochial Boards that they must take care that no one should starve, and that Government would indemnify them for any action they took under these circumstances. This was no new grievance; they had felt the want of such a power over and over again, and in every time of exceptional distress; and in every Amendment Bill that had been brought into the House to amend the Scotch Poor Law he had endeavoured to carry an Amendment giving Parochial Boards the power, in times of exceptional distress, either local or general, that was now withheld from them—that of relieving the able-bodied poor. Without some such power as that, cases such as the present would every now and again be occurring in Scotland.

COLONEL NOLAN

said, that he thought the present was a proper occasion for an Irish Member to call the attention of the Government to the necessity for seed potatoes that existed in certain parts of Ireland. There was no general necessity for seed; but there was no doubt that, in certain districts, seed was very badly required, and that the present was the time to meet that demand. Every question that had been raised by Scotch Members in relation to their own country equally applied to Ireland in certain districts. The second point that the Scotch Members had pointed out was, that the Duke of Sutherland was making arrangements for building a railroad, and so affording employment after the spring work was over. Some such work as that was much wanted in Ireland, where the pinch would be felt after the spring work was over; but they had no Duke of Sutherland in Ireland. A third point was that, in Ireland as in Scotland, there was no power to grant outdoor relief to able-bodied paupers, and they were exactly in the same position as the crofters of Scotland. He hoped the Government would inquire into the matter of necessity for seeds in the West of Ireland, and in any case he thought this was a proper time for an Irish Member to call attention to the question.

MR. AETHUR O'CONNOR

said, he hoped the Government would do their duty with reference to the distress in Scotland, and they would not again hear repeated the terrible state of things to which the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) had called attention. The Government said they were going to make inquiries; they were going to wait—he was afraid they were going to wait to be furnished with statistics while people were starving, where people had died of starvation. The people were walking 30 miles to and 30 miles back to get to their work and to get food; and the hon. Member for Glasgow told them that 200 Scotch families were in that condition. These people did not want seed potatoes; they wanted food, and the Government ought to have the courage of their position, and say that they would see that no person died of starvation. He hoped sincerely, in the interests of the Scotch poor, that the Government would not adopt the same course in Scotland as what they did in Ireland. The Irish poor were offered the workhouse, and nothing else; and he trusted the Government would take a more humane course in Scotland, for it would be a disgrace to the House and the country if any person was allowed to die of starvation. There was a Mace lying on the Table of the House which would sell for a good sum of money; and if the House had not any other means in that rich country to prevent people from starving, he thought they ought to sell it, and give the proceeds in relief. ["Oh, oh!" and laughter.] It would certainly be much better to do that than to allow persons to walk 30 miles to and 30 miles back in a day in search of employment which they could not find after all. He trusted, therefore, that in Ireland and Scotland the Government would not fail in its duty in relieving the distress acknowledged to exist amongst the poor.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolved, That this House, at its rising, do adjourn until Thursday the 29th of March.