§ MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether his attention has been called to the following passage in the report of Mr. Phipps, Her Majesty's Consul General at Pesth (Commercial, C. 3,552, p. 257)—
A subject in connection with agriculture which remains to be referred to is the excessive emigration from Hungary of late years. In 1881 the number of emigrants, principally from the northern provinces, was no less than 11,000. In the same year a sum of 500,000 florins was 1573 sent back to the mother country by Hungarian emigrants in America, a fact calculated to extend the movement. A Government Commission has therefore been deliberating as to the means for arresting a movement so injurious to the progress of an agricultural country, and to its taxpaying capacity. One of the principal measures adopted, and likely to be promoted on a large scale, is the encouragement by Government of the colonisation of State land, especially by the inhabitants of the less productive provinces, or of those which have suffered by the contantly recurring inundations. These colonists will be endowed with schools and churches gratis; they will receive land from the State by paying merely an amortisation quota on its own cost, and will for fifteen years bo exonerated from the payment of taxes;whether he is aware that the emigration from Ireland in the year 1881 was 78,417, or seven times as great as that from Hungary, though the population was only one-third of that of Hungary; and, whether the Government will consider the desirability of arresting the movement by encouraging the colonisation by the inhabitants of the less productive districts, of lands to be acquired by the State and transferred to the colonists on payment, within a statutory term of fifteen years, of an amortisation quota?
MR. GLADSTONEI believe the citation and the statement of facts in the first two paragraphs of this Question are correctly given. In answer to the Question contained in the last paragraph, I have to say that the State has shown every disposition to encourage what is termed migration upon principles which are economically sound by offering the premium or facility which is afforded by loans of public money at low rates of interest. But I am not prepared to say that we can propose a plan for the acquisition of land by the State in order to transfer it in the manner suggested by the hon. Member.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he should like to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland a Question arising out of the Prime Minister's answer. It was, whether he had noticed in the Irish newspapers complaint of a want of labourers in some parts of Ireland in consequence of the excessive emigration encouraged by the Government? He wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman particularly with regard to the town of Galway, which he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) represented, and. from which he had received more than one complaint, that it was impossible to get labourers there.
§ MR. TREVELYANI have not noticed those complaints; but I had it brought to my knowledge by private persons, and likewise by paragraphs in the newspapers, that in some of the districts where it is said there is great distress labour is scarce, and the people are exceptionally well paid.
§ MR. T. P. O'CONNORThe Chief Secretary says he has received representations from certain districts, to the effect that labour is scarce where it is said distress existed. Now, as this assertion impugns the statement of several leading ecclesiastics and laymen in Galway, I think the right hon. Gentleman should be more precise as to the districts in which labour is highly paid, And in which distress exists notwithstanding.
§ MR. TREVELYANWith regard to Galway I have not heard, that I remember, any special intimation with regard to the districts from which emigration is now being conducted (I should say the congested districts). I have not had, generally speaking, any information on this point; but I should say there is nothing but great distress in those districts. It is the case that in some districts, which I should be unwilling to specify without looking at the newspaper paragraphs, but at all events in three districts I have seen it stated in the newspapers and in private letters, that, though it was said there was considerable distress, labour was in demand, and was, for that part of the country, very well paid.
MR. O'BRIENAs the reply of the right hon. Gentleman may have very serious effects in stopping the subscriptions which have been keeping the people alive in Ireland, may I ask him whether his observations apply to those districts in Donegal from which appeals are now being made for aid for the people?
§ MR. TREVELYANThe districts of which I have had account were certainly none of them north of Mayo.