Commons Sitting of 28 May 1883

MINUTES.
SUPPLY—considered in Committee CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES—Class I.—PUBLIC "WORKS AND BUILDINGS, Votes 15 to 18a. Resolutions [May 24] reported.
PRIVATE BILL (by Order)—Withdrawn—Dudley, Sedgley, and Wolverhampton Tramways*.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Registry of Deeds (Ireland)* [202].
Committee—Constabulary and Police (Ireland) (Pay and Pensions) [171] R.P.
Considered as amended—Pier and Harbour Provisional Orders* [147].
Third Reading—Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Orders* [153]; Poor Law Conferences* [187], and passed.

QUESTIONS.

  INDIA—CEYLON—PRIVILEGE OF FRANKING LETTERS—THE BISHOP OF COLOMBO.
  MR. H. H. FOWLERasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the Governor of Ceylon has in compliance with the Despatch of the Earl of Derby of the 26th January, 1883, republished a list of the Government officers in Ceylon having the privilege of franking letters and omitting there from the name of the Bishop of Colombo; and, if not, if he will inform the House why the directions of the Secretary of State for the Colonies have been disregarded; and, whether it is the intention of the Secretary of State to allow any further delay in carrying out his instructions?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: The new list of the Government officers in Ceylon having the privilege of franking was published and issued at Colombo on the 20th of April.

  IRELAND—STATE-AIDED EMIGRATION.
  MR. MOOREasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he can state how far the recommendations of the Local Government Board, as stated in their Letter of the 18th November, 1882, addressed to the Irish Government, have been carried out as to the limiting of each party of emigrants to a number not exceeding fifteen families in each ship, and as to the emigration of whole families at a time, and the appointment of suitable agents, male and female, at the ports of embarkation and reception; and, if he will cause weekly Returns to be prepared, showing the rate at which the people are being assisted to emigrate, and the districts from which they come?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the hon. Member quotes from a letter written in the earlier stages of the proceedings. Later experience showed that it was neither practicable nor necessary to limit each party of emigrants, as proposed, to 15 families. Shipping Companies sent their vessels out of the ordinary route to enable emigrants to embark conveniently, and it could not be expected that they would do this for the conveyance of small parties. The contemplated necessity for the limitation of numbers has been obviated, in consequence of the arrangements made that no persons should be allowed to go to the United States except those who could show that they had there friends in a position to assist them. The other proposed arrangements—namely, as to emigration by families and the appointment of agents—have been carried out. I am informed that it would be very inconvenient to have weekly Returns prepared as suggested, as the time of all persons engaged in the emigration work is fully occupied, and they find it difficult to keep pace with the duties already devolving on them. I have, however, numerical Returns prepared, which will show the state of the case up to the present time.

  INDIA—CRIMINAL PROCEDURE AMENDMENT BILL.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTEasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the telegraphic account of the proceedings of the Legislative Council of Calcutta on "Mr. Ilbert's Bill," which was furnished to the Eng-
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  lish Press through Mr. Reuter's agency, was authorised and its transmission directed by the Government of India; whether the expense of transmission was defrayed out of the revenues of India; and, whether, if it was so authorised, there will be any objection to lay it upon the Table of the House, so that it may be compared with any fuller reports since received?
  SIR HERBERT MAXWELLasked the Under Secretary of State for India, Whether the summary of the Debate in the Legislative Council on Mr. Ilbert's Native Jurisdiction Bill, which was telegraphed by Reuter's Agency on 12th March, was supplied to the Agency and its transmission paid for by the Indian Government; whether several or most of the speeches in opposition to the Bill, including those of General Wilson and the Lieutenant Governor, were either entirely omitted or inadequately reported, while those made in support of the Bill were reported at much greater length; whether Reuter's Agent at Calcutta, who sent it, now states that the report "was sent on account of Government as an exposition of their views;" and, whether he will cause to be printed and laid upon the Table of the House an inadequate and impartial report of the Debate in question?
  MR. J. K. CROSS: Sir, reference having been made to the Viceroy, he has replied that the telegraphic account of the debate of March 9 on the Jurisdiction Bill was authorized, and its transmission paid for by the Government of India, in the same manner as the telegraphic summary of the Budget Statement. There is no objection to laying a copy of the telegram on the Table. The full Report of the debate has been received, and will be presented to-day. Perhaps the hon. Baronet the Member for Wigtonshire will accept this as an answer to his Question also.

  POOR LAW—CASE OF WILLIAM DAVIS.
  MR. LEWISasked the President of the Local Government Board, Whether he has been made aware of the circumstances under which a pauper of the name of William Davis, with his wife and three children, were removed from Plymouth Union to that of Londonderry, which place he left fourteen years ago; whether it is true that he had resided at Plymouth ten years continuously, and at

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  the time of his removal was engaged in weekly service, earning 22 s. a-week, and was the holder of a tenement furnishd by himself; that about the 1st of May he was ordered to proceed to Ireland; that a few days afterwards, owing to his refusal to leave Plymouth, his wife and children were forcibly seized by policemen and placed on board ship for Dublin; that the pretence or ground for such proceedings was that during two or three months absence of Davis from work, in hospital owing to ill health early in this year, the wife was allowed out-door relief of 4s. 6d. per week; that this man had a pension as a retired gunner in the Royal Artillery, in which he served fourteen and a-half years, and had a good character and possessed two good conduct badges; whether the Plymouth guardians could not have recouped themselves the small amount of relief expended on this family by applying for repayment out of Davis's pension; whether the conduct of the Plymouth magistrates and guardians was legal; and, whether he will take any steps open to him to prevent a renewal of such proceedings under the present Law?
  SIR CHARLES W. DILKE,in reply, said, he wrote a letter on the subject, and had received an answer only a few hours ago. On a comparison of the question and answer some legal points had arisen which would require consideration; and, therefore, he would request the hon. Gentleman to be so good as to give a little further time before requiring a definite answer.

  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY—SUB-INSPECTOR SMITH.
  MR. LEWISasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether an official inquiry into the alleged misconduct of Mr. Sub-Inspector Smith, of Moville, has recently been held; and, whether the result of that inquiry has been entirely favourable to that officer, and goes to prove that he has been attempted to be injured on account of the faithful performance of his duty in the preservation of la wand order, and in the suppression of illegal proceedings?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the charges against Sub-Inspector Smith were contained in anonymous letters. He, however, courted the fullest inquiry with regard to them; and they were searchingly
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  investigated by a Court of Inquiry which was sitting with reference to the discipline of the station. By the finding of the Court Mr. Smith was exonerated in the fullest and most emphatic terms.

  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY—SUICIDE OF SUB-CONSTABLE COLEMAN.
  MR. BIGGARasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Under what circumstances did an Irish policeman named Coleman meet his death, on the 18th April 1883?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, Sub-Constable Coleman, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, committed suicide by cutting his throat with his own razor on the morning of the 18th of April. It does not appear that any reason can be assigned. During the previous month he had been somewhat silent and desponding; but nothing was observed in his conduct to lead his comrades to believe that he was insane.

  TREATY OF BERLIN—ARTICLE X.—THE VARNA RAILWAY CLAIMS.
  MR. DIXON-HARTLANDasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If he will state if any, and, if so, what steps are being taken by Her Majesty's Government with the view of carrying out Article X. of the Treaty of Berlin, by which the Bulgarian Government was substituted for the Ottoman Government in the liability to pay to the Varna Railway Company the annual subsidy of three and a-half millions of francs (£140,000), and which sum, guaranteed by Turkey in the original concession, is now nearly five years in arrear, and amounts to about £670,000; and, if he will state why the only Article of the Treaty of Berlin directly affecting British subjects is so long allowed to remain in abeyance?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Sir, Her Majesty's Government have repeatedly urged on the Bulgarian Government the necessity of coming to some definite arrangement with a view to a settlement of these outstanding claims. They are at present awaiting the reply of that Government to a proposal which Her Majesty's Agent at Sofia was instructed to make on the 14th of March last, that the whole question involving the interpretation of Article X. of the Treaty of Berlin should be referred to the signatory Powers of that

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  Treaty, and settled in conference by their Representatives at Constantinople. Mr. Lascelles has also been instructed to press that some payment on account should be made at once to the Varna Railway Company. Some delay has been caused by recent Ministerial changes at Sofia.
  MR. DIXON - HARTLANDasked whether the noble Lord was aware that a similar answer had been given nearly six months ago; and whether the Government would press the payment of the money to the suffering bondholders, who were nearly starved out, owing to the way in which they had been treated?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEsaid, that he was fully aware of that; but there were great difficulties in the way of the Foreign Office. Would the hon. Gentleman put the Question again?
  MR. DIXON - HARTLANDasked, how soon should he repeat the Question?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEsaid, he would communicate with the hon. Gentleman.

  PARLIAMENT—ALLEGED CANDIDATURE OF MR. SUB-COMMISSIONER WYLIE.
  MR. LONGasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he has heard that Mr. Wylie, a legal Sub-Commissioner under the Land Act, intends to stand at the next Election for an Ulster County, in which he was recently employed in the judicial reduction of rents; and, whether he will at once ascertain the accuracy of this report, and take steps to prevent or discourage such a grave judicial scandal?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, I have in my hand a copy of a letter written by Mr. Wylie to Mr. Commissioner Litton, in which he denies in the most absolute and emphatic terms that there is or ever was any foundation whatever for the rumour referred to in this Question. He expresses himself warmly at it being supposed that he would be capable of making use of his judicial position to further such an object. The noble Lord the Member for Liverpool (Lord Claud Hamilton) and the hon. and gallant Member for the County of Dublin (Colonel King-Harman) will probably think this a sufficient answer to the Questions on the same subject which stand on the Paper in their names. I
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  think it is only fair to Mr. Wylie to add that this disavowal was quite spontaneous on his part, and was received from him several days before Notice of these Questions was given; but, as the report appeared in the newspapers, no one can wonder at the Question having been put.
  MR. GIBSONsaid, that, though the answer was satisfactory, he bogged to give Notice that in Committee on the Corrupt Practices Bill he should move a provision to make such a thing as that referred to in the Question impossible.

  PARLIAMENT—PRIVILEGE—PETITIONS—FRAUDULENT SIGNATURES.
  MR. MONKasked the Chairman of the Select Committee on Public Petitions, Whether, considering that the Committee have reported to the House in their tenth Report of this Session that, in the case of no less than twenty-eight Petitions on various subjects, many of the signatures are in the same handwriting, the Committee will take the facts into their further consideration, with a view to the suggestion of some means for preventing for the future such breaches of the Orders of the House?
  SIR CHARLES FORSTER: Sir, in answer to the Question of my hon. Friend, I regret to state that not only in the 10th, but also in previous Reports during the present Session, the Committee on Public Petitions have been obliged to notice serious irregularities in connection with the signatures to the Petitions. The Report to which he more specially refers contains upwards of 30 cases where the signatures are in the same handwriting, with other informalities, such as signatures on slips of paper attached afterwards to the Petition. Such facts, no doubt, constitute a breach of the Orders of the House, which, according to our invariable practice, have been set forth in our Reports. But in answer to the further Question of my hon. Friend as to—
  "Whether the Committee will take these facts into further consideration, with a view to preventing for the future such breaches of the Orders of the House?"
  I have to state that, in the opinion of the Committee, this is a Question rather for the House than for us. Our special function is to examine the Petitions to see if the Standing Orders have been

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  complied with, and to report to the House any infraction thereof. There, properly speaking, our duty ends, though we are always ready to follow any direction of the House on the subject. I may here remind my hon. Friend that in the Session of 1879, in response to the general feeling of the House, on behalf of the Committee I proposed and carried a new Standing Order, providing that those names only should be counted as to which the addresses of the parties signing were given. This Order has been rigorously followed, though it has not hitherto answered all our expectations in correcting these irregularities. Then, again, the House has not un-frequently vindicated its privileges, on the Report of the Committee as to these tainted Petitions, by discharging the Order for their lying on the Table, while in more serious cases the offenders have been visited by severe penal treatment. Such an instance occurred in the first year of my Office as Chairman of the Committee, now nearly 20 years ago. I refer to the well-known Azim Jah Petition, where a deliberate system of fraud and forgery was proved, parties having been hired to get up Petitions by a payment of so much per sheet, and where, after full investigation, the offenders were committed to Newgate for the remainder of the Session. Certainly, if the ancient Constitutional right of Petition is not to fall into contempt, some further safeguards are required to suppress these practices. This would necessitate a revision of the Standing Orders. Looking to the period of the Session, the state of Public Business, and to the fact that the pressure of Petitions is over for the present, we think that further action had better be deferred till next Session. My hon. Friend has, however, done good service by calling attention to the subject; and we will take care, meanwhile, that full publicity is given to the Rules and Standing Orders of the House with respect to Petitions, so that all Petition-mongers may be warned as to the risks to which they expose themselves when they attempt in any way to contravene them.

  PRISONS (IRELAND)—LIMERICK GAOL.
  MR. SYNANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, "Whether, notwithstanding that the Roman Catholics in the County Limerick
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  Gaol are 90 per cent. of the inmates, the governor, chief warder, schoolmaster, and other high officials are all Protestant; and, whether, in consequence of the resignation of the governor, a remedy will be applied to that inequality?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the General Prisons Board inform me that of the 18 officers in Limerick Male Prison, 10 are Roman Catholics; and of the three principal officers—namely, the Governor, chief warder, and clerk, the two former are Protestants. It is impossible to appoint a chief warder who is a Roman Catholic; and I know very well the reason why. [Cries of "Why?"] The reason is, because there is no available officer for that position who is disposable from any other prison. A Governor has not yet been appointed; but I think it will be difficult to make arrangements by which the office can be given to a Roman Catholic.
  MR. SYNAN: Can a Catholic schoolmaster be appointed?
  MR. TREVELYAN: The answer I have received does not mention the schoolmaster.
  MR. O'KELLY: Can the right hon. Gentleman inform the House why there are no officers disposable for promotion to the position of chief warder?
  MR. TREVELYAN: The reason is that the prisons ranking as first class are not very numerous in Ireland; and, consequently, the officers available for the position of chief warder are not very numerous either.
  MR. HARRINGTON: Might I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether Limerick is a first-class prison at all?
  MR. TREVELYAN: It has been made a first-class prison.

  THE MAGISTRACY (IRELAND)—MR. M'FARLANE.
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If the Lord Chancellor has come to any decision in the case of Mr. M'Farlane, the magistrate against whom a verdict was recently had for blowing up his neighbour's premises with dynamite?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the transaction referred to took place about three years ago. The action against Captain M'Farlane was for assault and trespass. The acts complained of were done in the

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  assertion of a right of way through the plaintiff's ground, in the course of which Captain M'Farlane blew down a portion of a wall and the pier of a gate, which he alleged obstructed his right of way. The jury found that no assault was committed by Captain M'Farlane. They also found that the right of way existed, but that it was not substantially obstructed by the pier and wall referred to, and they gave a verdict for the plaintiff, with £100 damages. Nothing transpired in the hearing of the case to warrant the Lord Chancellor in withdrawing the Commission of the Peace from Captain M'Farlane.

  CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) ACTS—FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE—THE METROPOLITAN CATTLE MARKET.
  SIR SYDNEY WATERLOWasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Whether, seeing that the season has now arrived when the Metropolitan Cattle Market is generally largely attended by buyers from the South Coast watering places, and in view of the largely increased supply of live stock now coming from Canada (probably more than in any former year), it is not possible to place that market upon the same footing as the other large cattle markets in Liverpool, Manchester, Wakefield, &c.?
  MR. DODSON: Sir, I am sorry to say, in the present unfortunate prevalence of foot-and-mouth disease in the country, the Privy Council do not deem it expedient to remove the restriction on the movement of cattle out of the Metropolis which have been exposed in the Metropolitan Cattle Market. It has happened that on each occasion when the restrictions have been modified, and animals have been allowed to be removed, though only for the purpose of slaughter, and then only by licence, that diseased animals have been moved into the country.

  CHILI AND PERU—TREATY OF PEACE.
  MR. JOSEPH COWENasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If he can furnish the House with any information respecting the Treaty alleged to have been completed between the Governments of Peru and Chili?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Sir, Her Majesty's Government have reason to believe that the news which has recently appeared of the conclusion of a Convention between the Chilian Government and General Iglesias is correct; but they have no official intelligence. As, however, the authority of General Iglesias is not undisputed, it would be premature to assume that the Convention will lead to the restoration of peace between Chili and Peru.

  BOROUGH BOUNDARY COMMISSION (IRELAND)—THE REPORT.
  MR. KENNYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, When it is proposed to give effect to the recommendations of the Borough Boundary Commissioners (Ireland), as embodied in their Report issued last Session?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, I can give no pledge on this subject. Having regard to the intricacy of the interests involved, the pressure of Public Business has been too great to allow the matter being taken up this year; but the Government hope to be able to consider it carefully before next Session.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)-BELFAST WORKHOUSE.
  MR. KENNYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If it is true that recently a female officer in the Infirmary Department of the Belfast Workhouse was detected in the act of concealing a pauper wardsman of that institution in her bedroom for immoral purposes; if so, whether, on the matter being reported to the guardians by the master, they took any steps to reprimand the female in question, or to discontinue her services; and, whether he, as a member of the Local Government Board, will undertake to have the system adopted by some unions, of employing pauper labour, discontinued, in order to prevent a repetition of such scandals, and, in this particular instance, undertake to have the officer referred to disqualified from holding any position of emolument under the Poor Law Board?
  MR. TEEVELYAN: Sir, it is the case that a few weeks ago a pauper inmate of Belfast Workhouse was found secreted in the room of one of the nurses,

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  who at once left the employment of the Guardians and sent in her resignation. The woman having resigned, nothing further can be done; but her conduct has been noted in case she should seek employment again in the Belfast or any other Union. The Local Government Board do not think that the employment of paupers as wardsmen and wards-women can be wholly discontinued, especially in large workhouses like Belfast; and the fact of one irregularity having occurred would not justify a change in the management of workhouses, which would entail a large expenditure in the salaries of additional subordinate officers.

  CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) ACTS—FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE—THE ORDERS IN COUNCIL.
  MR. HENEAGEasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Whether he will lay upon the Table of the House, a Copy of the Case on which a legal opinion was taken by the Privy Council as to the powers of the Government under the Act to prohibit the importation of cattle from Foreign Countries where there is reason to believe foot and mouth disease exists, and which was mentioned by Lord Carlingford in his reply to the deputation from the Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture?
  MR. JAMES HOWARDasked the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, "Whether the Privy Council is prepared to lay down any rule of action in respect of the powers vested in the Department by the Act of 1878 for prohibiting the importation of live animals from Countries where contagious diseases prevail; for instance, whether the Privy Council will put in force its powers after one cargo of animals has been landed affected with foot and mouth disease; and, if not so prepared, whether he will state how many diseased cargoes will be admitted before the Department takes the same action as it did in prohibiting importation from Portugal, Spain, and France?
  MR. CHAPLINsaid, he should also like to ask the right hon. Gentleman, Whether it is not the case that the Privy Council had undoubtedly power, under Section 35 of the Act of Henry VIII., by General or Special Order, as they may see fit, to prohibit the landing of
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  animals from any specified country whatever?
  MR. DODSON: Certainly, Sir; in answer to the first Question, I have to say that no case was stated by the Privy Council. The legal opinion referred to by Lord Carling ford to the deputation was the opinion of the Lord Chancellor, whom he had consulted. The Lord Chancellor repeated that opinion on April 16, and it will be found in the Reports of the Proceedings of the House of Lords. The existence of a power to prohibit importation from time to time from specified countries in the case of any contagious disease exists has not been doubted. That power, indeed, has been exercised against France; and I may inform the hon. Member that although France, in consequence of the action taken by the Privy Council, has recently informed us that she has adopted stringent precautionary regulations, we are about to renew that prohibition—at all events, until we see these measures fairly established and in working order. Prohibition is enforced against the importation of cattle from Germany; and we are now in communication with the German Government respecting the importation of sheep from that country. In answer to the Question of the hon. Member for Bedfordshire (Mr. J. Howard), I have to say that the Privy Council have no power to lay down one General Rule prohibiting or regulating the importation of animals from all countries in which contagious disease prevails. The powers conferred by Section 35 of the Act have been exercised from time to time as regards specified foreign countries and parts of foreign countries; and, as I have just shown, the Privy Council propose to exercise those powers as circumstances may render necessary. I should wish to add, for the assurance of hon. Members interested, that after the recent attack of foot-and-mouth disease, which entailed such heavy losses on the country, the Privy Council are more than ever alive to the necessity of proceeding with vigilance and determination in this matter.

  STATE OF IRELAND—POLICE PROTECTION AT RATHFALAND, CO. CLARE.
  MR. KENNYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he will state why the police hut erected and the constables stationed for

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  upwards of nine months, at Rathfaland, Newmarket on Fergus, county Clare, have not yet been removed; if Mr. Denis O'Neill, for whose protection they were provided, has repeatedly declared to the authorities that he requires no such protection, and requested their removal as a useless and heavy burden upon a peaceable locality; if it is a fact that not only this district but also the surrounding places have been free from serious crime within the time which has elapsed since the erection of said hut; and if, bearing in mind the peaceful character of the neighbourhood and the cordial feelings which exist between Mr. O'Neill and the inhabitants of the locality, immediate orders will be given to remove both hut and police?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, it is the case that Mr. O'Neill states that the police at Rathfaland are not required for his protection. However, they do not appear to be there for that special object. I am informed that they are stationed there for the general preservation of the peace of the district, and that their presence is considered necessary to secure a continuance of the peaceable conditions now prevailing. The hon. Member is mistaken in supposing that the cost is charged upon the locality.

  JAMAICA AND THE LEEWARD ISLANDS—THE COMMISSION OF INQUIRY.
  CAPTAIN PRICEasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, What is the composition of the Commission of Inquiry which, as has been stated, was examining into the question of free representation in the Island of Jamaica; and, what are its instructions, when did it commence its labours, and when may its Report be expected?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Sir, the Commission of Inquiry consisted of Colonel Crossman, R.E., and Mr. Baden-Powell as Commissioners, with Mr. Harris, of the Colonial Office, as Secretary. Under their instructions they were to inquire into the public revenues, expenditure, debts, and liabilities of the Islands of Jamaica, Grenada, St. Vincent, Tobago, St. Lucia, and of the Leeward Islands. They commenced their work on the 6th of January in Jamaica. They have recently arrived home, and it is anticipated that their Report will be completed before the end of next month.

  EGYPT—TOULBA PASHA.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether a Petition has been forwarded to him by the Governor of Ceylon from Toulba Pasha, praying Her Majesty's Government to change the place of residence assigned to him by Her Majesty's Government, in accordance with his parole given to Lord Dufferin in December last; and, whether Her Majesty's Government intends to grant the request?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Sir, the Petition has been received, and it was proposed to Toulba that he should proceed to the Cape of Good Hope under the same conditions as those under which he resides in Ceylon. Her Majesty's Government have, however, been informed by telegram that Toulba has declined the offer; but they have not yet received the Governor's despatch stating the reasons for Toulba's refusal.

  PREVENTION OF CRIME (IRELAND) ACT, 1882—SEC. 12—CASE OF JOHN O'CONNOR.
  MR. HARRINGTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether Mr. John O'Connor, who had recently been imprisoned in Cork for refusing, at the secret inquiry, to give evidence outside the scope of the offence set forth in the summons, was on a few days after his release arrested in Tralee, where he had been on commercial business, and whether he was again on the following day arrested in Listowel; whether the policeman who arrested him in the latter place alleged that Mr. O'Connor was a suspicious stranger, and whether Mr. O'Connor pointed out that he was in the habit of visiting the town for the past eight years, while the constable in question was only a short while in the locality; whether the police on each of these occasions insisted upon searching Mr. O'Connor's trunks, and so spoiled two of his business days; and, whether the Government will give Mr. O'Connor any compensation for this loss of his time?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, Mr. O'Connor was arrested at Tralee, and again at Listowel. He was searched. The only luggage searched was a small hand bag. He had no trunks with him. He was in custody 40 minutes on one occasion and 20 minutes on the other. It does not,

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  therefore, seem probable that two business days were spoilt. The arrest at Listowel was under the 12th section of the Prevention of Crime Act, which relates to suspicious strangers. Mr. O'Connor has been, I believe, in the habit of visiting most of the towns in Kerry; but he was not known to the Sub-Inspector at Listowel, who has been stationed there for the past six months.

  THE IRISH LAND COMMISSION—KERRY SUB-COMMISSION.
  MR. HARRINGTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether it is true that cases listed for hearing before the Kerry Sub-Land Commission so far back as November, 1881, by tenants on the Crosbie Estate, have not yet been heard; whether those cases stood on the list in January last as numbers 74, 75, 76, 77, and 78, but at the recent sitting of the Commission, held in the present month, were placed back on the list to numbers 106, 107, 108, 109, and 110, and consequently did not come on for hearing; whether he can explain why those cases were placed so far back on the list as not to come before the Commission; whether it is true that, in some of those cases, the rent was increased as late as 1880, and whether this increased rent is still demanded; and, if so, whether, in the event of those tenants failing to pay any time before their cases are heard, they are liable to lose their holdings?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the Land Commissioners inform me that no cases listed for hearing before the Kerry Sub-Commission so far back as 1881 remain unheard, but that there are cases which were lodged at that time still undisposed of. The facts as to the adjournment and re-numbering of certain cases are as stated, the reason of the change in the numbers being that all the earlier cases on the April list were cases adjourned from previous sittings. No cases were taken out of their turn. The Commissioners cannot say whether the rent in any of these cases had been raised in 1880, as the cases have not yet been investigated. The tenants are liable for the old rent until judicial rents are fixed.
  MR. HARRINGTON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether Mr. Crosbie on the last occasion, by having his name changed, succeeded in getting his cases postponed?
  MR. TREVELYAN: I have no objection to inquire into the matter.

  SALE OF CROWN LANDS (IRELAND)—MARYBOROUGH HEATH.
  MR. GORST (for Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been drawn to the following paragraph in the "Leinster Gazette:"—
  "The Authorities have apparently conceived the notion of selling the great Heath of Maryborough. They have, through the Inland Revenue Department, instituted inquiries as to the probability of the adjoining owners and occupiers becoming purchasers if the common were to be offered in small lots;"
  and, if there is any foundation for the statement contained in the above paragraph; and, if so, whether the Crown is prepared to show a title to Maryborough Heath?
  MR. COURTNEY: I have to say, Sir, that the Crown has not conceived the notion of selling Mary borough Heath, neither has it instituted inquiries as to the probability of the adjoining owners and occupiers becoming purchasers.

  EGYPT—HASSAN BEY SADYK.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Hassan Bey Sadyk, whose appointment as Governor of Sanaar is announced in the Egyptian Gazette, is the same person who was under the orders of Omar Pacha Tufti, the Governor of Alexandria, on June 11th, when the massacre in that town occurred; and, if so, whether he has ever been placed on his trial?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Sir, Hassan Bey Sadyk was Sub-Prefect of Police at Alexandria on the 11th of June last. Sir Edward Malet informs Lord Granville that no charge has been made against Sadyk, and that he has, consequently, not been put upon his trial.

  EGYPT (RE-ORGANIZATION)—REFORM OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE.
  MR. GORST (for Lord RANDOLPH CHURCHILL)asked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Her Majesty's Government are taking any steps to remedy the Criminal Procedure in Egypt, under which an accused

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  man is not allowed to bring witnesses for the defence before the Court, nor even to appear himself; and if, in the meantime, any measures are being taken to ensure fair trials throughout Egypt pending the institution of the New Law Courts?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Sir, the procedure adopted in Egypt in criminal cases is that of the French Code; and I have already pointed out that this Code does not prevent the prisoner bringing witnesses for his defence before the Court, or appearing himself at the trial. The laws, however, relating to criminal procedure in the Native Courts of Egypt are undergoing revision at the present time; and the services of Sir Benson Maxwell have been engaged by the Egyptian Government to assist them in this task.
  MR. GORSTasked if the noble Lord meant it to be understood that the political prisoners now to be tried would be tried under the law of the French Code?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEsaid, that they would have the fullest power to call witnesses at the trial. The objections made the other day only applied to what was known as the "instruction," as distinct from the trial itself.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONasked the noble Lord whether Mr. Mark Napier had not complained that prisoners would not be allowed to call witnesses?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICEsaid, that he did not think that Mr. Mark Napier's statement was so carefully written as it might be, if he might say so of a man of known ability. He did not think that Mr. Napier intended to imply that the prisoners would be prevented from calling witnesses at the trial.

  CRIMINAL LAW (IRELAND)—FEES TO COUNSEL.
  MR. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ira-land, Whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a Return specifying the fees paid to each of the Counsel for the Crown for their services at the late Commission in Green Street, together with the fees paid to Counsel assigned for the prisoners; and, whether he will furnish a Return of the sums paid or intended to be paid to Crown witnesses
  952
  in Ireland, in respect of trials at the last five Commissions in Green Street?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, I find, on inquiry at the English Public Offices, that it has not been a custom to give returns of the fees paid to counsel; and the Government cannot consent to do it in this case. A Return of the sums paid to witnesses cannot be granted.
  MR. O'BRIEN: Will the right hon. Gentleman adhere to his determination when I tell him that, according to good information I have received, the fees paid to the Attorney General for Ireland were a retainer of £1,200 and a refresher of £150?
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked if the Chief Secretary would admit or deny the statement in the newspapers that day that one informer, named Farrell, had received no less than £1,000?
  [No replies were given to these Questions.]

  STATE OF IRELAND—THE CONSTABULARY.
  MR. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether buckshot ammunition has been supplied to a man named Michael Fitzgerald by Constable Egan, of Longhill station, county Limerick, at the public expense; and, whether licences for fowling pieces to protect their crops are refused to the surrounding farmers?
  MR. TREVELYAN: I am informed that there is no foundation for the statements made in this Question.
  MR. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, to state the result of his inquiries respecting the statement that policemen were employed in ploughing an evicted farm on the estate of Mr. Desmond Fitzgerald at Tullyglass, county Limerick, and whether such employment has his sanction?
  MR. TREVELYAN: I am informed that no policemen have been employed in this case. Perhaps the hon. Member has definite information that he would give me?

  PAPAL SEE—DIPLOMATIC COMMUNICATIONS WITH THE VATICAN—MR. ERRINGTON.
  MR. JOSEPH COWENasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, If Lord Granville has written a

  953
  letter to Mr. Errington, expressing satis faction at the success of his representations to the Vatican respecting the state; of affairs in Ireland?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: No, Sir; no such letter has been written. I am asked by Lord Granville to add that, in answer to the Question put to me by the hon. Member on Thursday, I was directed by him to state that he had sent no letter of congratulation to Home. By that Lord Granville meant to convey that he had sent no letter of congratulation to Mr. Errington, who is in Rome, or to anybody else. He wished me to express his regret that, from the fact of the answer having been more comprehensive than the Question, any trouble should have been given to the House.
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFF: I wish to ask the noble Lord, whether any Correspondence has taken place on public affairs connected with the Vatican between Lord Granville and Mr. Errington; and, if so, whether such Correspondence has been deposited in the official archives of the Department, or whether it is of a private character, and has not been deposited in the official archives for the information of future Secretaries of State? If the noble Lord cannot answer the Question now I will give Notice of it.
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: I will ask my hon. Friend to give Notice of the Question.

  NATIONAL EDUCATION (IRELAND)—MODEL SCHOOLS.
  MR. LEWISasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether any communications, in the nature of advice or instructions, has passed between the Lords of the Treasury and the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, as to the future application of that portion of the Vote in Supply for National Education hitherto used in support of model schools, and suggesting less expenditure thereon in future, in order to have funds to carry out certain intended arrangements for separate denominational training of teachers; and, if so, whether he will lay upon the Table a Copy of any such communications?
  MR. TREVELYAN: It is the case, Sir, that the Treasury, in a letter to the Commissioners of National Education, threw out a suggestion that one source
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  of economy might be the gradual conversion of the model schools into national schools. The Commissioners, having considered this suggestion, passed a Resolution to the effect that, in their opinion, it would be highly injudicious to interfere with so important an element in the national system of education as the model schools, and that it would tend to embarrass the inauguration of the proposed training colleges.
  MR. LEWIS: Am I to understand that the Government have an objection to lay on the Table a Copy of the communication?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Yes, Sir; I think it would be extremely inconvenient to lay on the Table Correspondence between the Treasury and other Public Departments.
  MR. LEWIS: I beg to give Notice, in view of the widespread interest on this subject in Ireland, that I shall move for a Copy of this Correspondence.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: May I ask whether the new training colleges will be treated like the Marlborough Street Schools?
  MR. TREVELYAN: The subsidy paid to training colleges in Ireland will be of precisely the same terms as the subsidy paid in England and Scotland. I believe the money will be paid out of this year's Votes.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: My Question was not whether new training colleges would be treated like training colleges in England and Scotland; but whether they would be treated in the same way as the existing training colleges in Dublin?
  MR. TREVELYAN: I think the hon. Gentleman had better ask the Question somewhat in detail. I do not know whether he refers to Lancaster Buildings.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNOR: I will put the Question on the Paper.

  ARMY (INDIA)—THE INDIAN MEDICAL SERVICE—JUNIOR MEDICAL OFFICERS.
  MR. LEAMYasked the Under Secretary of State for India, If his attention has been called to the grave cause for dissatisfaction given to the junior members of the Indian Medical Service by the enormous per centage of them at present on "unemployed pay"; if the

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  "unemployed pay" of a surgeon in the Indian Medical Service, namely 286. 10 rupees per month, is not the lowest scale of pay awarded to any commissioned or covenanted officer in the Indian service; and, if the Government intend to take any; and, if so, what steps to remove this grievance, and to fulfil the terms of the printed conditions upon which men have been induced to enter the service?
  MR. J. K. CROSS: The attention of the Secretary of State has been called to the exceptionally large number of junior medical officers in India, drawing what is called unemployed pay. This is due partly to the unusually small number of medical officers at present absent from India on furlough; partly to the largo number of young officers admitted to the Service consequent on the Afghan War; and partly to the recent reduction of 22 Native regiments, with the consequent reduction of the medical staff attached to regiments. The unemployed pay of a surgeon in the Indian Medical Service is not the lowest awarded to any covenanted or commissioned officer in the Indian Service. An unemployed lieutenant would draw 256 rupees a-month; while an unemployed surgeon, if under five years' service, would draw 286 rupees; or, if over five years' service, 304 rupees a-month. The present difficulty is being met by a large decrease in the number of appointments, there having been 18 for last year and 13 for this; as compared with 39 and 49 for the two preceding years. The published conditions under which officers accept employment in the Indian Medical Service are accurately fulfilled.

  PROSECUTION OF OFFENCES ACT, 1879—THE DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC PROSECUTIONS—THE REGULATIONS.
  SIR HENRY HOLLANDasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a Copy of the Regulations prescribed for the Director of Public Prosecutions under "The Prosecution of Offences Act, 1879?"
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I believe, Sir, that the Papers were presented in 1880; but I am afraid, by some oversight, they were not printed.
  MR. GORST: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman undertake that the
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  Vote for the Public Prosecutor shall not be taken until the information required is given?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTwas understood to say that the House should be supplied with the information required.

  METROPOLIS—OBSTRUCTIONS IN MAIN THOROUGHFARES.
  MR. GREGORYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Who is responsible for the present state of the centre of London, and for the inhabitants being deprived of the use of the main thoroughfares at a time of year when they are more required?
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I am afraid, Sir, I can give no other answer than that the responsibility rests with the present system of the government of London.

  NAVY—EXAMINATION OF NAVAL CADETS (THE "BRITANNIA").
  MR. GORSTasked the Secretary to the Admiralty, Whether any examination of the cadets on board H.M.S. "Britannia" has been held during the past year; and, whether the Reports of the Examiners can be laid upon the Table before the Vote for the "Britannia" is asked for?
  MR. CAMPBELL - BANNERMAN: Sir, the cadets on board the Britannia are examined twice a-year; and the examinations in non-professional subjects are conducted by men of position in the Universities. It does not seem desirable that the Reports of the Examiners should be laid on the Table, as, if this practice was followed, there might be less disposition on the part of those gentlemen to give to the Board of Admiralty the benefit of their full and frank opinion on the subjects submitted to them.
  MR. GORSTgave Notice that when the Vote relating to this matter was brought forward he should oppose it.

  EGYPT—QUARANTINE.
  BARON HENRY DE WORMSasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether it is the fact that vessels from Bombay have lately been put in quarantine by the Anglo-Egyptian authorities, although these vessels have clean bills of health and have no illness on board?
  LORD EDMOND FITZMAURICE: Sir, the International Quarantine Board referred to by the hon. Member is not Anglo-Egyptian, but is composed of the delegates of the different nations interested. In consequence of the complaints received from various shipping firms in this country, Sir Edward Malet was instructed to protest against the detention of ships bound to ports of the United Kingdom with clean bills of health, and they are now allowed to pass through the Canal without delay. The general question of quarantine in Egypt is receiving the earnest attention of tier Majesty's Government.

  ARMY (INDIA)—THE INDIAN ESTABLISHMENT.
  LORD EUSTACE CECILasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether there is any truth in the report that has appeared in the newspapers to the effect that, as the number of men required to complete the Indian Establishment is 9,000 men, it is proposed to offer a bounty of £10 to time-expired men as an inducement to extend their service for 12 years with the colours; and, whether it is further proposed to extend the same terms to time-expired men at home, and to reduce the standard of the Guards from 5ft. 8in. to 5ft. 7in. and the chest measurement from 35in. to 34in.?
  SIR ARTHUR HAYTER: Sir, in the absence, through illness, which I much regret, of the Secretary of State for War, perhaps I may be allowed to answer the Questions of the noble Lord. The number required to complete the Indian Establishment is not 9,000, but under 5,000. Communications are taking place between the War Office and the India Office as to the expediency of offering a bounty as an inducement to men of between four and six years' service, now serving in India, to extend their Colour service at once to 10 years. In reply to the noble Lord's second Question, I may say that it is not proposed to extend the same terms to time-expired men at home. In reply to the third Question of the noble Lord, I have to say that the standard height for the Foot Guards has been already reduced from 5 feet 8 inches to 5 feet 7 inches; and the alteration of the chest measurement applies only to gunners of the Royal Artillery.
  LORD EUSTACE CECILasked if it was intended by the Secretary of State for War to make any general statement on recruiting, and if the statements in newspaper reports were founded on facts?
  SIR ARTHUR HAYTERsaid, that in the course of the Army Estimates the Secretary of State for War would, no doubt, make a general statement upon recruiting. He was unable to answer any Questions as to newspaper reports without dates, as he did not know to what the noble Lord alluded.
  LORD EUSTACE CECILinquired whether time-expired men in India had been offered a bounty of £5 to rejoin for another term with the Colours, and had refused?
  SIR ARTHUR HAYTERasked for Notice of the Question.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked whether the Indian bounty was to be a temporary remedy; and whether it was intended to take any other steps to remedy the shortcomings of the short service system?
  SIR ARTHUR HAYTER,in reply, said, that, so far as he understood the purport of the Question, he had already answered it, by saying that further communications were still pending between the War Office and the India Office on this subject.

  METROPOLIS—THE COAL AND WINE DUTIES—APPLICATION FOR RENEWAL.
  MR. FIRTHasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, before acceding to any suggestion for the renewal of the Coal and Wine dues, he will consult the opinion of the inhabitants of the Metropolis who have no direct representation in any authority now dealing with these funds, and who are unwilling to sanction the re-grant to authorities not under their own control of taxes producing several hundred thousand pounds sterling per annum?
  MR. SLAGGasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether Her Majesty's Government, before giving an answer to the application for an extension of the London Coal and Wine Duties, will take into consideration the claims for exclusion from future taxation of the manufacturers and consumers of coal in the towns and places in the "outer area" of the Metropolis, who though taxed are

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  not represented in the application of the tax; and, whether he will receive a deputation from those important interests?
  LORD GEORGE HAMILTONasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If he is aware that, when the Coal and Wine Duties were prolonged in 1867 for the purpose of providing moneys for improvements in the Metropolis, a compromise was agreed to by those residing outside the area of the Metropolitan Board of Works, yet liable to the Coal and Wine Duties, by which the Duties were extended one year in order to free the bridges of Staines, Hampton, and Kew, and thus in some way compensate the outer circle of coal and wine consumers for the payment of taxes from which they otherwise derive no direct benefit; and, if he will take into his consideration that any attempt to overthrow the compromise and understanding thus arrived at must result in imposing heavy taxation upon communities who are neither represented by the authority taxing them, nor benefited by the taxation imposed?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS): Sir, my right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Treasury has asked me to answer these Questions. We lately received a deputation from the Metropolitan Board and the Corporation of the City of London on the subject of the renewal of the Coal and Wine Duties when they expire in 1889. Some points were raised by the deputation into which we shall have to inquire; but I may say, in general terms, that the suggestion appears to us to be altogether premature, and that if the Coal and Wine Duties should be renewed—as to which we have grave doubts—even in a restricted form, such renewal could only follow a decision by Parliament to allow the construction by the local authority of the Metropolis of some very costly communication between the districts North and South of the Thames, below London Bridge, such as has lately been under discussion. Until then, we do not think that the extension of the Coal and Wine Dues could be even considered. The question of the area within which these dues should be leviable would have to be seriously considered at the same time; and full opportunity will be given to those interested to make known their views.

  METROPOLITAN IMPROVEMENTS—COMMUNICATIONS ACROSS THE THAMES.
  MR. RITCHIEasked, Whether the Government would not consider the propriety of giving some decision as to their views, in order that the works below London Bridge should either be proceeded with or abandoned?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. CHILDERS)said, that would be putting the cart before the horse. Parliament would have first to decide whether those extensive works should be undertaken; and then it would be for the Government to say whether they would advise Parliament to assist the local authorities in the particular way proposed.
  MR. RITCHIEgave Notice that on the earliest opportunity he would move that, in the opinion of the House, increased facilities of communication between the North and South of the Thames East of London Bridge were urgently required.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—AGRICULTURAL HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  SIR HERBERT MAXWELLasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he will direct such arrangements as will enable the Agricultural Holdings (Scotland) Bill to be taken pari passu with the Agricultural Holdings (England) Bill, or at least such as will prevent a measure of such importance being relegated to a late period of the Session, when the attendance of Members is sparse and their energies exhausted?
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I cannot undertake that the Scottish Bill should go pari passu with the English Bill; and I think the hon. Member hardly expects that. But, undoubtedly, we shall take the best means in our power—as we place the two substantially on the same footing—to bring it forward at an early date, and to insure its having a full discussion.

  POOR LAW (IRELAND)—LIMERICK BOARD OF GUARDIANS—STATE-AIDED EMIGRATION.
  MR. O'BRIENasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to a report in the "Cork Herald," May 24th, of a meeting of the Limerick Board

  961
  of Guardians, in which the following passages occur:—
  "Several guardians expressed themselves to the effect that in the Union district there was, owing to excessive emigration, a great paucity of labourers, and only the old and infirm seemed inclined to remain in the country. The chairman said the emigration from Ireland had assumed such vast proportions that every five out of seven one met now in a village were either old or infirm…Mr. M'Inerney. There are forty labourers required in my district for drainage, and other works but we can't get a man. Colonel Westropp. In my district it is the same. It is impossible to get a labourer;"
  and, whether, in view of the alleged decrease of the labouring population in the most fertile districts of Ireland, the Government will persist in the policy of subsidising emigration and disregarding the demand for legislation to improve the condition of the remaining industrial population?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the Limerick Union has not received any grants from Government for the purpose of assisting emigration. Such emigration as has taken place has been spontaneous, and not promoted by public funds. There is no reason to believe that, in the county of Limerick generally, there is any deficiency of labouring men. No general increase in agricultural wages has occurred, such as must have followed such a deficiency, if it existed. There may be particular places where there is a scarcity of labour; but such a scarcity, in parts of a county circumstanced as Limerick is, would afford no reasonable ground for discontinuing the assistance to emigration in other less favoured districts in Ireland, where the population is much too large, and where the emigration is a very great advantage.

  WEST INDIES (JAMAICA)—EXPORTS AND IMPORTS, 1851 TO 1882.
  CAPTAIN PRICEasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, If he will lay upon the Table of the House a Return showing the total Exports and Imports of the Island of Jamaica from 1851 to the present date?
  MR. EVELYN ASHLEY: Sir, the hon. and gallant Member will find in full detail the information which he seeks in the Statistical Abstract of the Colonial and other Possessions of the United Kingdom, which is annually laid on the Table.

  ARMY—LIEUTENANT GENERAL WILBY.
  CAPTAIN PRICEasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether compensation will be granted to Lieutenant General Wilby, C.B. for removal from the command of the Forces in Ceylon, two years before the completion of the five years for which he had been appointed, he being then only sixty-two years of age?
  SIR ARTHUR HAYTER (for the Marquess of HARTINGTON): In reply to the hon. and gallant Member for Devon-port, I have to say that a Royal Warrant is under consideration, which will provide compensation for any net loss sustained by removal from a Staff appointment on account of age, as in the case referred to.

  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (CORRUPT AND ILLEGAL PRACTICES) BILL.
  SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSasked the First Lord of the Treasury, When it is proposed to take the Second Reading of the Parliamentary Elections (Corrupt and Illegal Practices) Bill, which was ordered to be printed on the 16th February?
  MR. GLADSTONE: I am afraid, Sir, I cannot undertake to answer this Question to-day; but I will do so tomorrow.
  MR. LEWISgave Notice that he would ask whether it was the intention of the Government to bring in a Bill during the present Session to deal with what were known as "the peccant boroughs?"

  SOUTH AFRICA—HER MAJESTY'S DOMINIONS—POLICY OF THE GOVERNMENT.

    NOTICE OF MOTION.
    SIR MICHAEL HICKS-BEACH: In view of the events that have occurred, and are still occurring, not merely in the Transvaal and Bechuanaland, but also in Zululand, Basutoland, and other parts of South Africa, forming part of, or adjacent to Her Majesty's Dominions, and the statements that have been made by the Government, and the manner in which Questions on the subject have been replied to in this House, I beg to give Notice that I will take the earliest opportunity of moving—
    "That this House will immediately resolve itself into Committee with the view of taking

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    into consideration the condition of Her Majesty's South African Dominions, and the territories adjacent thereto."
    I will also ask the Prime Minister if he can afford me facilities for bringing forward this Motion?
    Afterwards,
    MR. GORSTgave Notice that, in the event of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury fixing a day for the discussion of the large question of the policy of Her Majesty's Government in South Africa, he should move that the Order of the Day for the debate on the minor matter of Bechuanaland be discharged.

  PARLIAMENT—BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—THE "COUNT-OUT" ON FRIDAY, MAY 26.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister a Question as to the Business to-night; and, at the same time, I wish to call attention to what took place at the Sitting of the House on Friday last. At the beginning of Business on Friday last, I asked the right hon. Gentleman what Business was to be taken, and drew his attention to the fact that no Notice had been given to take effective Supply; and, therefore, presumed that other Business would be taken. I was informed that the Government intended to proceed with the Poor Relief (Ireland) Bill; in fact, that they were very anxious to go on with that measure. We proceeded with the discussion of the first Motion that had been given Notice of on the Motion to go into Committee of Supply. That was disposed of at an early hour, and there was reason to suppose that there would have been ample time for the consideration of other Business. The House was, however, counted out; and, as far as I am able to understand, no effort was made on the part of the Government to keep a House. In view of the many innuendoes and suggestions that are thrown out about Obstruction, it is just as well that attention should be drawn to this subject.
  MR. GLADSTONE: Sir, I do not quite understand the right hon. Gentleman's mode of proceeding. I suppose I must understand his remarks as being in the nature of a Question, and that I must myself cast them into the form of a
  964
  Question, though they were rather in the nature of a charge.
  SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: I meant to ask what Business was to be taken to-night.
  MR. GLADSTONE: The right hon. Gentleman did what he seldom does—he forgot the object for which he rose. With regard to the Business of this evening, we propose to go on with Supply, and then to proceed with the Irish Constabulary Bill. I understood the right hon. Gentleman to ask whether any efforts were made to keep a House on Friday. What happened was this:—At 8 o'clock I rose to address the House on the subject of Armenia. The House was counted immediately after my rising, and the number present was, I think, a little over 40, of whom 18 were Members of the Government—not, I think, a bad proportion; of the remaining 24 or 25, two belonged to the Opposition; the other 23 being on this side of the House. Under these circumstances, I think that is a tolerable indication that efforts were made by the Government, and that it was their misfortune, not their fault, if the House was counted. I admit that I myself left the House at half-past 8. I was not, therefore, in the final count; but I understand that the number of Members present in the final count was 35, of whom 16 were Members of the Government. We regretted the count very much. We set up Supply a second time immediately. The reason why we did not put down effective Supply was, because we were under a strong impression that the Motion of the hon. Member for the City of Dublin (Dr. Lyons) would be discussed for nearly the whole evening.
  MR. RITCHIEasked whether they were to understand that the promise of the Government to keep a House was limited to the attendance of the Members of the Government only, or were they to understand that the Government had no power to obtain 40 supporters when they desired to keep a House?
  MR. JOSEPH COWENasked if it would be possible to record the names of Members present when the House was counted out. If that were done, he thought it would be found that soma Gentlemen who were very fond of talking about Obstruction were very often absent when the House was counted.
  MR. GLADSTONE: As to the question of printing the names, that is a matter which depends upon the machinery of the House, and not on the will of the Government. With regard to the Question put by the hon. Member for the Tower Hamlets (Mr. Ritchie), I do not understand that the engagement of the Government is confined to official Members; but the hon. Gentleman must know that my noble Friend near me (Lord Richard Grosvenor) is able to bring stronger pressure to bear on official than on non-official Members. My noble Friend reported to me on Friday night that, from the strong feeling of the independent Members, as they are called, he should have the greatest possible difficulty in keeping a House.
  MR. GORSTwished to point out that the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government had forgotten to answer the Question which the Leader of the Opposition forgot to put.
  MR. GLADSTONE: The hon. and learned Gentleman has evidently forgotten to listen to my reply.

  PREVENTION OF CRIME (IRELAND) ACT, 1882—SEIZURE OF THE "KERRY SENTINEL."
  MR. PARNELLwished to ask the Chief Secretary for Ireland, Whether he could give any information to the House as to the suppression by the police of Mr. Harrington's newspaper, the "Kerry Sentinel," and the seizure of the printing press and other plant connected with the establishment?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, this being the case of a judicial inquiry still pending, it is not possible to say very much with regard to it; but I think I can say enough to answer the natural inquiry of the hon. Member. On Sunday, the 20th of May, certain notices were posted about Tralee of a nature which I do not think it necessary for me to bring before the House; but they were notices of a most serious and improper nature—I might really apply to them much stronger epithets—and, if I read only a sentence or two from them, they would, I am sure, excite a feeling in the House of something like horror. [Cries of "Read!"] I do not wish to raise a debate on any judicial question—at all events, on any points upon which hon. Members who raised this question are aggrieved; but the notice was treasonable,
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  and something very like murderous in its nature. This notice was, as the authorities believed, printed in the office which published The Kerry Sentinel. That office was searched, and the press and types which, in the opinion of the Government, were the instruments by which this notice was printed, were seized under the 14th section of the Prevention of Crime Act. That section ordains that arms, ammunition, papers, documents, instruments, or articles suspected to be used, or to be intended to be used, for the purpose of, or in connection with, any secret association existing for criminal purposes when seized shall be forfeited to Her Majesty. The Government Advisers were clearly of opinion that under this section the press and type with which they believed the notice to have been printed might be seized. It must be remembered I am not speaking now of this notice, as re-printed in The Kerry Sentinel, in common with a great many other newspapers; but as to the notice itself, with regard to its being afterwards posted in the neighbourhood of Tralee, having been printed by this press, an operation which, in the opinion of the Government, constituted nothing less than a crime. For this crime they intend to proceed against individuals; and if these individuals are convicted of having printed and posted this notice, I believe it is undoubted they will be guilty of a very serious crime in the eyes of the law. The district is one which is in a very critical condition. A very serious attempt at murder was perpetrated in the county within less than 48 hours before; and a document of the nature of that which was posted about Tralee constitutes a crime of a very serious description indeed. I wish it clearly to be understood that it is on suspicion of having printed this document for the purpose of being posted about, and not because The Kerry Sentinel re-printed it as several other papers had done, that this seizure has taken place.
  MR. PARNELL: The right hon. Gentleman has explained very clearly, and at considerable length, the way in which the Government have thought themselves justified in using a particular section of the Crimes Act, the use of which, I venture to think, was not at all contemplated at the time the Act was passed. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman

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  whether, in the event of guilt not being-brought home to any person in the employment of Mr. Harrington, his printing press will be restored, and compensation rendered to him by the Government for this destruction of his means of livelihood?
  MR. TREVELYAN: The Government will undoubtedly feel it their duty, in that contingency, to give the matter their grave consideration.
  MR. HARRINGTON: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the warrant was not issued so far back as the 9th of April, although he now pretends it was issued on the day of the seizure?
  MR. TREVELYAN: Sir, the warrant was issued on the day to which the hon. Member refers. It was a perfectly regular warrant used for a perfectly regular purpose.
  MR. HARRINGTON: In consequence of the nature of the answer, and of the extraordinary charge which has been made against me as proprietor of the paper, The Kerry Sentinel, perhaps the House will listen to a few words of personal explanation from me. I recognize, Sir, as well as the right hon. Gentleman, the gravity of the notice which has been posted about the town of Tralee, and I agree fully with him in condemning it as monstrous. [Cries of "Order!"]
  MR. SPEAKER: I must point out to the hon. Member that if he enters into debatable matter he will be doing that which is irregular.
  MR. HARRINGTON: I admit fully, Sir, that the position of the right hon. Gentleman so far has been right; and I have no desire whatever to contest the description which he has given of the notice in question. I will go a little further, and say the notice was not only of a scandalous character, but that it was in itself perfectly absurd, and contained evidence that it could not have been printed at my office. [Cries of "Order!"]
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is not in Order in these remarks. If the hon. Member desires to bring forward the matter, he can do so in the form of a substantive Motion with Notice.
  MR. HARRINGTON: I think there is sufficient sense of fair play in the House to allow me to make my explanation. I desire to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of drawing attention to the seizure of The Kerry
  968
  Sentinel, which I claim to be a matter of public importance.
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member should bring up in writing, the definite matter of urgent public importance which he desires to bring under the notice of the House.
  MR. HARRINGTON,accordingly, having stated the matter in writing, asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House for the purpose of discussing a matter of urgent public importance—namely, the seizure of The Kerry Sentinel newsnaper at Tralee.
  MR. SPEAKER: Is it the pleasure of the House that the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) be now heard?
  Some negative voices having been, raised—
  MR. SPEAKERcalled on those hon. Gentlemen who supported the Motion to rise in their places.
  And less than 40 Members having risen—
  MR. SPEAKERdeclared that the Question could not accordingly be put.
  MR. CALLAN: I beg to ask you, Mr. Speaker, whether those hon. Members who wish to hear the hon. Member for Westmeath cannot now divide the House on the Motion?
  MR. SPEAKER: In answer to the hon. Member for Louth, I have to say that the Standing Order upon this matter terminates with these words—
  "Unless, if fewer than forty Members and not less than ten shall thereupon rise in their places, the House shall, on a Division, upon Question put forthwith, determine whether such Motion shall he made."
  Therefore, if ten Members think proper to rise in their places, the matter may be determined upon Question put forthwith by a Vote of the House.
  A Division being claimed, and 10 Members having risen—
  Motion made, and Question put, "That such Motion for Adjournment be now made."—(Mr. Harrington.)
  The House divided:—Ayes 137; Noes 135: Majority 2.—(Div. List, No. 100.)
  MR. HARRINGTON: Sir, I am deeply grateful for being afforded this opportunity of making the explanation which, if the House had permitted me, I should have made earlier, so that it might now have been at its ordinary

  969
  Business. In the most emphatic manner I wish to agree in the condemnation which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland made of the threatening notice posted up on the pillars in the town of Tralee; and I wish furthermore to state that, were I in my place as editor and proprietor of The Kerry Sentinel, and if the right hon. Gentleman, or any representative of his, believing that that document emanated from my office, applied to me for the necessary facilities to find out its author, I should, in the fullest possible manner, have placed every facility in his way, and would have been deeply grateful to the authorities if, having found the guilty persons in my office, they weeded them out. But the course which the authorities have taken is a very unusual, and, towards me, a very harsh and unprecedented course. Without any communication whatever with me, or with my brother, who conducts my business, or my foreman, 50 policemen entered my office, acting under a warrant signed six weeks before this threatening notice was issued. They seized not only the printed copies of my newspaper, but the type. They arrested the foreman, they turned out of the office every employé I had, and sent throughout the Three Kingdoms, if not over the world, the statement that I was responsible for this scandalous document. I think in no civilized country in the world except Ireland could such things occur. I do not believe that any person who knows me would concur in the infamous allegation that I or any person belonging to me could be responsible for the issue of this infamous document. I will not offend the House by reading it; but I might be permitted to read two sentences which will show that the document was a decoy, issued for the purpose of injuring me, or some other equally innocent individual, by an enemy, and not by one who agreed in the so-called sentiments expressed therein. The notice in question states that a meeting of "Invincibles" would be held in a particular street in the town, naming the street and the part of the street, and it says—"Secret drillings are going on there." Does the right hon. Gentleman affect to believe, or do the police, who moved, I presume, under his instructions, believe, that any sane man, however criminal, and desirous of attacking the Government in Ireland,
  970
  would issue a bonâ fide notice calling a meeting of "Invincibles" at a particular place, post it on the pillars of a public building, and thus reveal the place of meeting to the police? On the face of it this notice is absurd. The police, when they originally moved under the warrant, saw the document in type in the newspaper, in which they must have seen, too, that the editor wrote condemning it. It has been said that the notice must have been printed in Tralee, because its size corresponded with the width of the columns of the local newspapers. But anyone acquainted with the technicalities of a printing office knows that type can be set up to any width. The Government, I believe, seized my paper because they saw this document in the news columns; and when they perceived their mistake, although they returned the type first, yet, true to that instinct by which they persecuted every man in Ireland on whom they lay hands, they determined not to retrace their steps, and so they again seized and carried off everything there. Perhaps I am speaking more strongly than I ought; but I must say that these proceedings by the police are not to the credit of the right hon. Gentleman. It would have been wiser and more creditable to the right hon. Gentleman, and it would have better tended to advance good government in Ireland, had the right hon. Gentleman investigated the facts, and visited on the police who acted in this manner what censure they deserved. This seizure took place on Tuesday last. On Wednesday the police surrendered to my representative in the office the type they had seized; but they went to my writing office and took away all my letters, account books, and library. For what? Simply because someone has been wicked enough, and foolish enough—criminal enough, if you will—to issue such a notice. Even if the contention of the right hon. Gentleman were correct, and that without my cognizance, or that of my representative, the document was printed in my office, as might have been done by the merest boy in the office, is it because I had an unfaithful person in my employment that the representatives of Her Majesty's Government should come into my office and seize everything absolutely which belonged to me, carry away my property, and blacken my character, which is

  971
  dearer to me than anything else? I beg to move the Adjournment of the House.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Harrington.)
  MR. TREVELYAN: I am bound to state that the observations of the hon. Member have, to a considerable extent, disappointed the expectations which I personally, and those who had supported the hon. Member's Motion, had formed of the hon. Member's intention in rising to address the House. The suspicions of the authorities may have been erroneous—that I do not deny—but, at all events, the case is a very doubtful one, and I had thought that it had been the intention of the hon. Member to make a personal explanation in reference to this subject. It was in that belief that I and others had supported the hon. Member's Motion. The hon. Member, however, has certainly gone very much further than that in entering into a matter which is still before the Courts of Justice. I expected from the hon. Member nothing more than an assurance that he, as a Member of Parliament, disapproved strongly of this Notice, and that he knew nothing of the matter. Had the hon. Member stopped there it was an explanation which he might fairly have been permitted to make, and I should not have regretted the vote I had given in favour of his Motion.
  MR. HARRINGTON: I can assure the House that I did not intend to do more than the right hon. Gentleman has indicated. And I may say that if there is to be a judicial investigation of the matter, I shall willingly place myself at the right hon. Gentleman's disposal at any moment.
  MR. TREVELYAN: As the hon. Gentleman's intention coincided with our expectation of what he would have said when he stood up, I hope he and his Friends will now allow this debate to close, and the Business of the House to be proceeded with. The hon. Member has been permitted to say what as a Member of Parliament he might be fairly expected to say; and any prolongation of the discussion would be quite unnecessary and uncalled for.
  MR. PARNELL: I think my hon. Friend could not have done anything less than he has done as regards the
  972
  nature and extent of the remarks which he made to the House. It was right that he should have expressed his abhorrence of the notice in question, his belief that nobody connected with his office had had anything to do with its publication, and his entire want of any knowledge as regards the publication of the criminal document. But it was also right that my hon. Friend—and I cannot help thinking that the House, in allowing him permission, acted to some extent from this point of view—should have an opportunity which is afforded by the Rules of the House of protesting against an act of the Executive which is entirely unprecedented even in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman has informed us that a prosecution is going to follow; but if we are to go by precedents in cases of this kind in Ireland, the only prosecution which can purge the Government from the consequences of their action will be a successful prosecution of my hon. Friend himself. No newspaper has ever up till now been seized in Ireland without its seizure being followed by a successful prosecution of the owner to test the legality of that seizure. We have not been told whether any person is to be prosecuted at all; we have not heard from the Irish Executive if there is any person charged by the local police authorities with being implicated in the publication of this most objectionable notice. The right hon. Gentleman only informed the House that a judicial inquiry was going on. Is my hon. Friend to lose his means of livelihood because the Government desires to make a judicial inquiry? Cannot the Government make a judicial inquiry without seizing the printing presses, the types, and the library of my hon. Friend—without practically suppressing his newspaper, without practically destroying his property—property that it has taken years of his life, in his humble position as a country journalist, to acquire? Cannot the Government do everything necessary to find out the authors of this infamous document without destroying the means of livelihood of my hon. Friend, and without doing that which renders freedom of the Press in Ireland a perfect farce? Now, the Government, in passing the Prevention of Crime Act, gave a material concession with regard to the Press Clauses. The

  973
  Press Clauses, as they originally stood, gave the Lord Lieutenant power to suppress any newspaper he pleased by putting the editor of such newspaper under rule of bail. Subsequently it was conceded that the Lord Lieutenant should issue a warrant, and give upon that warrant some detail of the offensive passages. This Press Clause was not considered sufficient in the present case. If the action of the Government was legal, and, no doubt, so extraordinary are the clauses of the Crimes Act that they can be used in most extraordinary directions; but if the action of the Government was legal, it is possible for them to seize the printing press and destroy the machinery of any newspaper they please without going to the trouble of observing the provisions of the Statute enacted by Parliament for the purpose of curbing newspapers. Now, I wish to point out the section of the Act under which the Government acted in this case; and I think it must have astonished the right hon. Gentleman himself to hear that the police authorities had availed of this particular section. It is Section 14, and states that from time to time, and so forth—
  "The Lord Lieutenant should have power to seize in any proclaimed district any arms, ammunition, papers, documents, instruments, or articles suspected to be used or intended to he used for the purposes of or in connection with secret societies or secret associations."
  Now, would anybody in his senses have supposed that these powers were to be used for the suppression of newspapers? Seizing type and destroying the means of livelihood of members of the community. When this Bill—the Crimes Bill—was introduced into this House, the Home Secretary said this provision was to be used for the purpose of discovering the machinery of murder—the crape masks, the pistols, the daggers, and the other weapons of crime. We were told nothing then about printing presses or about public newspapers. Now, I would ask the Chief Secretary, I would ask any Member of the Irish Government in the exercise of common sense, in the exercise of ordinary judgment, which, indeed, I must say seems to be conspicuously absent from the Government of Ireland at the present time, to examine this document and say whether he thinks the members of any criminal secret organization would have
  974
  printed and published such a notice as this? Why, Sir, the place in which the conspirators were to meet was published for the information of the police by these "Invincible" conspirators. The locality indicated for the meeting was the very one in which the foreman printer of the newspaper lived; and is it likely, if the paper was implicated in the publication, that they would throw suspicion on the foreman printer by assigning the locality in which he lived as the one in which these alleged illegal drills were to take place? The whole case is thoroughly preposterous. But since it is to be the subject of a judicial inquiry, I will not discuss it—I would prefer to base my contention upon the unprecedented action of the Executive, under a section of the Crimes Act, for a purpose for which it was never intended to be used when the Act was being passed. In conclusion, I submit that my hon. Friend has fairly made out his case against the Irish Executive, and that the Irish authorities have grossly abused in this instance the powers intrusted to them by Parliament for a very different purpose.
  MR. BRODRICKasked the House to take note of the purpose for which this Motion had been made, and the language which had been made use of, and of the action which the Government had thought right to take in supporting the Motion for Adjournment. They had had assurances from time to time that under the New Rules the Adjournment of the House would not be moved except upon a matter of urgent public importance. Under that name they had had dragged before the House a private explanation—an explanation which was said to be legitimate by the Government; they had had an attack on various clauses of the Crimes Act—["No!"]—a distinct attack on the police in Ireland, and one of the most malicious papers in the South of Ireland advertised throughout the length and breadth of the country. ["Oh!"] It seemed to him——
  MR. HARRINGTONrose to Order, and wished to know if the hon. Gentleman was in Order in speaking of a newspaper which he had never read as a most malicious newspaper?
  MR. SPEAKERcalled upon the hon. Member for West Surrey to proceed.
  MR. BRODRICK,proceeding accordingly, declared that it was an abuse of

  975
  the Forms and Privileges of the House that they should be called upon to discuss at length and prejudge a judicial matter such as this was to be. If the regular Opposition had taken such a course upon so trivial a matter—for the hon. Gentleman would have had an opportunity of vindicating himself in the ordinary course—they would have been charged with being guilty of the grossest Obstruction? He submitted whether it was desirable that this precedent should be set almost at the beginning of the New Rules——
  SIR JOSEPH M'KENNAasked whether it was in Order for the hon. Gentleman to put such questions to the House, and virtually to ask the House to reverse the decision which it had come to?
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member is quite in Order.
  MR. BRODRICKonly wished further to say that the Government had assisted the House to stultify itself by proceeding to pass, upon a Division, a Motion which less than 40 Members in the House had risen to support being brought forward.
  MR. GLADSTONEsaid, he did not agree with the concluding words of the hon. Member who had just sat down, because it was quite plain that the House did intend, by the closing words of the Standing Order, to reserve to itself such power of deciding whether, upon a particular occasion, although 40 Members might not rise in support of the Motion, it might not still be proper to give to an hon. Member the power of speaking upon the Adjournment. But, speaking generally of the speech of the hon. Gentleman, he rose for the purpose of saying that he did not at all complain of the criticism of the hon. Gentleman upon the action of the Government in this matter. His right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary and himself had formed the best judgment they could in a case arising suddenly, one which at the moment they thought doubtful, but a case in which they thought they were best upholding the general spirit and feeling of the House by removing that doubt as far as they could. That was the whole motive that actuated his right hon. Friend and himself. Undoubtedly, when the hon. Member for Westmeath (Mr. Harrington) rose in his place to speak, he, for one, distinctly understood him to say that he did not rise for any contro-
  976
  versial purpose, and that he did not intend to make a charge against the Executive Government, or against anyone. They inferred, whether rightly or wrongly, that his purpose was to disclaim, on his own part, imputations which might have grown up out of certain recent circumstances, and which he deemed injurious to his character. The exact nature of the language which the hon. Member used did not allow the Speaker to recognize the matter as within the limits of personal explanation, and the hon. Member thereupon pleaded that he ought to be allowed to speak on the Adjournment of the House. He must admit, with the hon. Gentleman opposite, that he had been somewhat disappointed in the result of the course they took; and he would go so far to meet the hon. Gentleman who had just animadverted upon their proceedings as to say that perhaps they should be very cautious indeed upon a future occasion. For, undoubtedly, he thought the speech of the hon. Member for the City of Cork (Mr. Parnell), although he had nothing to complain of at all in his finding fault with the Government, contained nothing which justified or warranted a Motion for Adjournment. With regard to what had been stated by the hon. Member for the City of Cork, he might appeal to those who thought with him, and expressed the hope that they, considering the position by which the power of making such a speech was required, would not, if he might use the expression without any disrespect, abuse the power which they had obtained. As to the hon. Member for Westmeath, he made no animadversions upon him, because his intention was to limit himself to an explanation. He (Mr. Gladstone) admitted that they had acted injudiciously on this point, whether rightly or wrongly he knew not; but they had acted in conformity with the very general course which the House was always inclined to pursue in a personal matter, and even to strain a point on behalf of individual Members to enable them to place before the House any matter that affected their personal character. It was only in the interests of general equity that he, like his right hon. Friend, asked that the debate should not be continued.
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, that if the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister had thought that the

  977
  explanation of the hon. Member for Westmeath was to be a personal explanation he might have made a personal appeal to the House, and it would have been at once regarded, because the House never rejected an appeal of that land, but was always most anxious and willing to listen to a personal explanation. But this case was entirely different. No one was louder in his cries of "No!" than the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister.
  MR. GLADSTONE: I beg pardon, Sir. That statement is entirely without foundation.
  SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, that if he was wrong he was exceedingly sorry; but that was his full belief. At any rate, the right hon. Gentleman did not rise in his place as he should have done. It was an afterthought—after the Speaker had stated that the Question would be put—which induced the right hon. Gentleman to change his mind and his opinion. But he wanted to go further than that; and he appealed to the Speaker, and also to the right hon. Gentleman himself whether, when the New Rules were under discussion, it was stated that there might be some particular case at some particular time when 10 Members standing up should have the opportunity of dividing the House—not to be heard, but simply to divide, to place on record what their views and opinions were with regard to those particular circumstances. That, he believed, was the understanding of the House at the time, and not that after 40 Members had not been found, 10 Members standing up should have the full opportunity of getting as many Members as they could to support them, and reversing the decision which the House had originally come to. If the Leader of the House led them into the position they were then in, he did not know where such a course might end.
  MR. JOSEPH COWENsaid, he would admit the justice and wisdom of the request that the question should not be further debated. It should be clearly recollected, however, that the hon. Member for Westmeath, was a new Member, and that he was not familiar with the Forms of the House. He (Mr. Joseph Cowen) thought, in justice to his hon. Friend the Member for Westmeath, it should be stated that he had not at first any intention of entering into the dis-
  978
  cussion of a question that was under judicial investigation. All he wished to do was to make a personal explanation. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had stated the Executive believed that from the office of The Kerry Sentinel had been issued a publication inciting, not merely to treasonable offences, but to murder. This was a terrible suspicion for any Member of Parliament to labour under; and his hon. Friend desired to state that he was the proprietor of the newspaper at whose office it was supposed these bills had been printed, but that he knew nothing of their publication; that he wag in London when they appeared; that he had no sympathy with the announcement; and that, as far as he was able, he would assist the Government in detecting those who had been instrumental in giving publicity to the incriminated placard. This was a fair and candid statement; and if the House had permitted the hon. Member to make it, he would have done so in a few minutes, and the matter would have ended there. But the House, in a very unusual way, refuse to accord him the privilege it accorded on all other occasions to Members who, when their personal honour was at stake, asked for an opportunity for explanation. It was from the refusal of this privilege that the Adjournment was moved; and during the discussion his hon. Friend had entered at more length than he originally intended into the case which so nearly concerned his interest and reputation. But it should be remembered that he was a new Member of the House, and not versed in its Forms as older Members were; and some allowance should be made if he had gone beyond the limits that custom assigned for such remarks. All must admit the frankness and candour with which he had denied all knowledge of, and repudiated all sympathy with, the offending publication. It should be recollected, also, that in this controversy he had everything at stake. The Government suspected that an objectionable publication had issued from his office. They had not commenced proceedings in the ordinary way against him for such publication. They would have done that in this country, and it was a fair way. If the Messrs. Harrington had broken the law, by all means let them suffer for it; but to punish them before they were convicted was a strange description of

  979
  justice. And that was what the Government had done. On suspicion that the circular had come from The Kerry Sentinel office, everything in the office had been seized by the police—presses, paper, type, books, furniture—and most of them conveyed to Dublin. And all this was done before it was proved that the hon. Member or his relatives had been guilty of the offence that the Executive suspected them of. The savings of a lifetime were at issue. It might be a matter of amusement to some hon. Members, but it was ruin to his hon. Friend. He and his brothers had honourably built up a prosperous business, and they now saw, by the action of the Irish Executive, their property scattered and the savings of years destroyed. The circular itself, apart from being criminal, was absurd; and it was unreasonable to suppose that any sensible and responsible man would sanction its publication. It was quite possible to suppose that it might have been done by an enemy of his hon. Friend. He had rivals in Tralee, and someone might have got into his office surreptitiously and used his type for the purpose of printing such a document. But it would be unfair to hold him responsible for that. Not long ago a very offensive item of intelligence was published in The Times. It was grossly indecent, and there was little doubt it was done maliciously. No one would hold the hon. Member for Berkshire (Mr. Walter) responsible for the publication of such matter. Someone with an evil design had availed himself of the facilities of The Times office to annoy the proprietors. It was quite as likely in Ireland, where Party passions ran so high, that some political rival had entered the office of The Kerry Sentined and used the type there with similar designs and for like ends. They could not accuse his hon. Friend of it, as he was in London, and they had his repudiation of the act. There were numerous newspaper proprietors in the House of Commons; and was it reasonable to hold them criminally responsible for the action of persons in their office who might seek to damage them by publishing illegal or offensive matter? Everyone knew that in England such a course would not be pursued. Yet in Ireland they did it, and did it without question. As far as his knowledge went, there was no case in this century in the United
  980
  Kingdom where a newspaper proprietor had been used so harshly and unjustly as his hon. Friend had been; and it was natural that he should avail himself of the opportunity the Motion for Adjournment afforded to put his case before the House and the country.
  COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, he would not have spoken on the subject but for a remark made by the hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Cowen). If the question had simply been whether the newspaper belonging to the hon. Member for Westmeath had printed a certain notice in regard to the "Invisibles," he should have left the matter alone; but when this newspaper was held up as one that was being conducted on principles of extreme peace and order, and when it was implied that on this solitary occasion some enemy found his way into the office and printed a few objectionable passages, he felt compelled to say that he could go much further, and could produce to the House a column and-a-half published in the paper on the 8th of May, which would fully justify any Government in seizing it.
  MR. STAVELEY HILLdesired, as the only Member present on that side of the House who rose to support the hon. Member for Westmeath, to say that he thought the hon. Member was entitled, under the circumstances, to make an explanation, and he was very glad the Government supported him.
  MR. LABOUCHEREwished to ask a question of the Attorney General for Ireland, as he understood it was supposed in this case that a placard which appeared on the walls had been printed in the office of The Kerry Sentined. It was customary among proprietors of country newspapers that they also carried on a general printing business in their offices. Well, in this particular case, not only was the type seized because it was supposed that this type might also have printed The Kerry Sentinel, but a further step took place—the actual issue of the newspaper itself was seized. What he wished to ask the Attorney General for Ireland then—because it was very important that they should understand what the law was in those matters—was whether, if the printer who printed a placard or any other document happened to be a newspaper proprietor, not only the presses

  981
  and type might be seized in accordance with the law as it now stood in Ireland, but also the actual issues of the newspaper itself.
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, the question the hon. Member had put to him was one in respect to an alleged matter of fact about which he had not the information the hon. Member appeared to possess. He was not aware whether the issue of the paper referred to had been seized or not. If the issue of a paper containing those atrocious publications was seized, he thought that seizure perfectly justified, whether the printing presses were used for printing other things or not.
  MR. HARRINGTONsaid, that with the permission of the House he would withdraw his Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  SUPPLY.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House will immediately resolve itself into the Committee of Supply."—(Mr. Gladstone.)
  SIR H. DRUMMOND WOLFFsaid, he wished to draw attention to the grave inconvenience caused by the Government not keeping a House on last Friday night. The Prime Minister that evening, in answer to the right hon. Baronet the Member for North Devon (Sir Stafford Northcote), had tried to throw the responsibility on the Opposition side of the House. But the right hon. Gentleman must see that they were not bound to keep a House to pass Government measures. He should have thought that it would have been a good opportunity, when the Conservative Benches were empty, for the Government to pass some of the pernicious measures which they wished to palm off upon the country. He trusted that they would not hear again of "veiled Obstruction."
  MR. GORSTwished to urge upon the Government the advisability of putting Supply on the Paper on Friday nights. He was quite certain that if there had been Votes of Supply to be discussed on Friday night some progress would have been made. He hoped the Government would adopt the practice of always putting Supply on the Paper on Fridays.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
  SUPPLY—considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)

  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.

    CLASS I.—PUBLIC WORKS AND BUILDINGS.
    (1.) £10,726, to complete the sum for the Natural History Museum.
    (2.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £7,193, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1884, for maintaining certain Harbours, &c. under the Board of Trade."
    GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, he was very glad to see that this year there was a distinct reduction of expenditure under this Vote. These harbour questions were, however, likely to be complicated; for, instead of the Harbour Department of the Board of Trade being entrusted with the management of all harbours since they had been removed from the control of the Admiralty and handed over to the Board of Trade, the Home Office was now about to undertake the management of these harbours of refuge proposed to be formed by convicts at Dover, Filey, and Peterhead. On a matter of this kind he thought it was out of all question that a Department having so little technical knowledge as was possessed by the Home Office should be in a position to involve the country in a large, possibly an enormous, expenditure for harbours of refuge. He, therefore, strongly objected to any expense being incurred in reference to Dover or any other harbour, because, in his view, that port ought to pay its own expenses; and if national interests required the construction of costly harbours of refuge, the nation ought to have complete plans and a carefully-prepared Estimate, with a scheme of management, laid before Parliament. There were some harbours, however, which were not so happily situated as far as self-sustaining capacity was concerned; and, therefore, he was not able to see why the funds to be spent on the harbours of refuge should not be spared

    983
    in order to make the commercial harbours what they ought to be. He hoped that while, on the one hand, a stride had been taken in the direction of reform and economy in regard to harbours, a mistaken economy would not be allowed to interfere with expenditure which, in the long run, was the truest economy in improving the commercial harbours of the country.
    SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTwished the hon. Member the Secretary to the Treasury to say, when he rose to answer the question of the hon. and gallant Gentleman who had just sat down (Sir George Balfour), whether the Government had made up their minds, or had considered even, whether they intended to lay out any money at all on Dover Harbour? The question of Dover Harbour was discussed at length in the House last year, when there was a Private Bill in reference to it before the House. The question which the House had then to consider was whether it was wise or prudent to allow a Bill of that kind to pass at the instance of a private Company of promoters, in preference to taking a matter of the kind into their own hands. He should certainly have thought that it would have been not only wiser, but more in accordance with the habits of statesmen, to have taken a matter of the kind into their own hands, and so dealt with it as that the harbour could have been made suitable not only for commercial ships, but for large vessels of war suitable for national defence, such as a Government ought to make provision for in a harbour like Dover, regarded in the light of its geographical position relatively to the Continent of Europe. The President of the Board of Trade, some time back, made a long statement in the House on this subject; and, in the course of that statement, he said that no definite conclusion had yet been come to with reference to the intentions of the Government. He could not help thinking that it was time some definite conclusion was not only formed, but formulated.
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, the large question of making Dover Harbour or not making it was still under the consideration of the Government; and no conclusion had as yet been arrived at on the subject. Therefore it was that he was not in a position to make a statement to the Committee on the subject.
    984
    A statement of the kind which was apparently wished for by the hon. and gallant Gentleman might be possible when the Committee reached Class III. of the Estimates, which related to convict labour; but it certainly could not be made until then. It was not unlikely that a large harbour of the kind to which he had alluded would be made at Dover, or, at any rate, that Parliament would be asked to vote funds necessary for the purpose; but, until that time came, it was necessary to maintain the existing harbour and quay, and the cost of this alone was that which the Vote now proposed was intended to cover. With regard to the other questions which had been raised by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, there were many matters which had yet to be decided upon by the Government; but he could assure the Committee that no one of them had been lost sight of for a moment.
    SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTasked whether he was right in supposing, from what had been said by the hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury, that the question involved in the Dover Harbour business was to arise on the Vote for providing the amount uecessary for the maintenance of Convict Establishments?
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, there was a Vote of the kind which would be brought forward, and upon which the Dover Harbour question could be most properly discussed.
    GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURsaid, he could not allow the remark of the Financial Secretary as to the intention of the Government to take the discussion on the proposed harbour of refuge at Dover on an obscure Vote for £ 10,000, or the Convict Vote to pass, without making known this fact—that an undertaking had been given by the Government that the question of the immense outlay for constructing a large harbour of refuge at Dover should be fully discussed, or that an ample opportunity should be given to hon. Members who wished to fully discuss it in a proper and formal way. He should, therefore, feel it his duty to protest against the supposition that such opportunity was given by bringing the question forward on the Convict Vote for the sum necessary to pay the charges for Convict Establishments.
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, he thought the occasion would be ample for the purpose.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he thought the course proposed by the Government, of taking the discussion in reference to Dover Harbour on the Convict Establishments Vote, was a most unfair one, and was not only unfair, but amounted to an absolute violation of the promise given by the Government, that the matter should be discussed at a time when a full attendance of Members might be present in the House.
    MR. RYLANDSsaid, this was a matter of very considerable, he might say serious, importance, and one which, judging from experience, might involve the expenditure of very large sums of money. It would, therefore, be unfair, on the part of the Government, to ask Parliament to agree to the Vote without having had previously a sufficient time for deliberation and discussion on the subject. He understood that such opportunity would be afforded when the Votes in Class III. were reached; and he hoped the Government would take the occasion to give to the Committee much fuller information than it had at present on the subject.
    MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, before the Vote was agreed to, he wished to express a very strong hope that the Government would lay more Papers on the Table with reference to this matter. As far as he had been able to understand the matter at present, the Vote in Class III., to which reference had been made, would, practically, commit Parliament to the making of a harbour of refuge in Dover—a difficult and complicated business, in which there was so much involved that too much care could not be taken before a responsibility of the kind was undertaken. It was, in the first place, important that there should be a proper understanding with the existing harbour authorities at Dover. Long and difficult negotiations had already taken place with regard to the making at Dover of harbours, not only of refuge, but of defence; and this had been found to be a very difficult and complicated matter—so difficult and complicated, in fact, that successive Governments had taken it up, and been compelled to lay it down again. He, therefore, thought it extremely desirable that the Committee should have the fullest oppor-
    986
    tunity of considering the information which the Government had been able to obtain, as well as the conclusion at which they had arrived. The expenditure involved would not certainly be less than £1,000,000; and he did not think the Committee should be asked to assent to such an expenditure upon the mere statements of Gentlemen so distinguished as either the President of the Board of Trade or the Secretary to the Treasury. To do this would be to involve the country in an expenditure which might turn out to be both hasty and ill-judged.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he wished to know whether the Convict Establishment, which he understood it was intended to create at Dover, was intended to be for the reception of convicts from the whole of the Three Kingdoms?
    SIR GEORGE ELLIOTsaid, that five or six years ago a Select Committee of the House expended a great deal of time on the subject of Dover Harbour, or, rather, the making of a harbour there. He was himself a Member of that Committee; and he remembered that after having had before them, as witnesses, a number of gentlemen pre-eminent on questions of that kind, the conclusion at which the Committee arrived was that the amount of £600,000, which was stated in the Bill as being sufficient for the completion of the scheme, was altogether inadequate—a harbour at Dover being necessary, not only for commercial, but for military and naval purposes. He did not rise to oppose the present Vote—although he thought the amount asked for should have been atleast £1,000,000; but rather for the purpose of protesting against a Vote of the kind being passed in Committee of the House in a slipshod way. There was one other suggestion which he would make, and it was this—a Joint Committee of both Houses was now sitting in reference to the proposal to tunnel the Channel between France and this country. It was, of course, impossible for him, or for anybody else, to say what the result would be of the deliberations of that Committee, who were giving great attention to the matters which had been entrusted to them; but he thought it might be wise to wait for the Report of the Channel Tunnel Committee before coming to any definite conclusion as far as the harbour was concerned.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, this particular Vote only seemed to involve the expenditure of a very small sum of money; but the total amount which had been expended on harbours was something very much larger than many Members of the Committee seemed to think or to know. On Holyhead Harbour, for instance, there had been spent—by the Admiralty, the Board of Trade, and the Treasury—no less than £1,902,000, and the expenditure was still going on. At Dover there had been spent more than £867,000, and large sums had been spent in other places. These items, or many of them, could not be traced, unless hon. Members had the patience to go through Parliamentary Papers of a voluminous character. Harwich Harbour, too, had had large sums spent upon it; and, in his view, it was a harbour which did not in any way justify the spending of public money upon it. The Harbour Commissioners could not even pay the interest on the loans which were made to them; and he would, therefore, move to reduce the Vote by £430, set down in the Estimate for Harwich Harbour.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £6,763, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1884, for maintaining certain Harbours, &c. under the Board of Trade."—(Mr. Arthur O'Connor.)
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, he thought the Committee would scarcely assent to the reduction which was proposed, inasmuch as the amount was necessary to pay the interest on the loan made by the Public Works Loans Commissioners.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORpointed out that the loss on account of Harwich Harbour, instead of diminishing, went on increasing; and he saw no reason why a harbour, which was practically worthless as a commercial speculation, should be maintained out of the public funds.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 19; Noes 120: Majority 101.—(Div. List, No. 101.)
    Original Question again proposed.
    GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURwished to express his thanks to the right
    988
    hon. Gentleman the late First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. W. H. Smith) for the correct view he had taken of the question of Dover Harbour. In 1873 the Liberal Government proposed to expend a sum of £10,000 on the construction of new works in connection with Dover Harbour. Their proposal was resisted by the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands), and it was only carried by a majority of 2; and at a later date he himself (Sir George Balfour) and the late hon. Member for Aberdeen (Mr. Leith) almost succeeded in outvoting the Government on the subject. A change of Government took place in 1874, and the late Conservative Government took more wise steps than their Predecessors. They appointed a Select Committee to inquire into the subject, and anybody who had read the Report of the proceedings of that Committee would find that the practical result of the investigation was the condemnation of the proceedings previously taken by the Liberal Government. He believed he was correct in stating that if the present scheme of the Government were to be carried out in a way to fulfil all the conditions formerly laid down by the Admiralty as regarded the area and depth of water being sufficient for a fleet of war ships, the cost of the proposed harbour of refuge at Dover would be very little short of £5,000,000. He therefore wished the country to be aware of the full responsibility which might be thrown upon them, seeing that the smallest area of six fathoms of depth could not be less than 1,000 acres, and that that space could not be obtained at a less cost than £5,000 per acre He again thanked the right hon. Gentleman opposite for what he had stated. He quite adopted the view of the right hon. Gentleman, and he hoped the Government would be able to deal with the question in a practical and statesmanlike manner. If any hon. Member desired to have a thorough knowledge of the question, he would ask him to read the Report of the proceedings of the Select Committee of 1875, and also the views expressed at a later date by Lord Beaconsfield in regard to a Motion made upon the subject by Lord Granville.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, it appeared to him that the increase in the Vote for Dover Harbour was a very large increase. He wished to know if the hon.

    989
    Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury was able to offer any explanation upon the subject? He was sure the Committee would be glad to receive any information the hon. Gentleman could give. In particular, he wished to know why the resident engineer at Dover Harbour received so large a salary as £650 a-year?
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, he had no special information to give upon this point; but he believed that the salary of the resident engineer at Dover had been paid for many years, and he was informed that it was not more than adequate for the services rendered.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, that £650 a-year in the shape of salary, and £600 for allowances, might not be more than sufficient compensation for a man of the ability of the engineer of Dover Harbour; but, at the same time, why did not the Government remove that gentleman to some other place, where his abilities would be of more value, and send a cheaper man to Dover Harbour? That all this money should be spent upon a small jetty at Dover seemed to him to be most extravagant.
    MR. MOLLOYsaid, he wished to call the attention of the Committee to the question of the over-loading of the boats which made the passage across the Channel between Dover and Calais. He wanted to know if it was not the duty of the harbour master to report all cases of the over-loading of passenger vessels between France and England, which he believed to be constantly occurring? There was also most inadequate provision made for securing the safety of the passengers in the event of an accident. He had asked a Question upon this point some time ago, and he was told that an inquiry would be made and instructions given to the proper authorities to watch over the matter, and that a statement would be made to the House upon the subject. What it apappeared to him might reasonably be done was this. The harbour master, although his attention had been called to the matter on several occasions, bad not, as far as he knew, made any Report to the authorities in regard to this overloading, and in regard to the want of lifeboats and other apparatus for the saving of life in case of accident. He was able to speak upon the matter from personal experience. Last year he went
    990
    over from this country to Paris, and the boat at Dover was loaded with Indian mails under the very eyes of the English harbour master. The mail packages were so extensive that they blocked up the entire space on deck up to the captain's bridge.
    THE CHAIRMANwished to point out to the hon. Member that there was no officer of this kind—in fact, there was no harbour master at all at the time the hon. Member was now alluding to.
    MR. MOLLOYsaid, there might not have been a harbour master; but there was certainly a pier master, who superintended the loading of the mails. He was unable to say whether the officer was traffic superintendent or pier master; but, at any rate, there was an officer told off to superintend the loading of the mails, and he (Mr. Molloy) would take the present opportunity of telling them what the experience was which he derived upon the occasion he was referring to, in regard to the overloading of the packets. Before this particular boat left Dover Harbour, the mail packets were piled up in the centre of the dock, so as to fill up the whole intervening space between the two paddle boxes, and it was utterly impossible for anyone to pass for the space of two hours, and even the sailors themselves had to climb over the paddle boxes when they wanted to pass from one end of the vessel to the other. He believed that an officer was paid a high salary to look after the mails and the safety of the passengers; but on that very occasion considerable difficulty was experienced in crossing over the Channel, in consequence of the manner in which the mail packets were accumulated and carried. There were also a large number of ships crossing the Channel in different directions at the time, and it required considerable attention on the part of the captain to avoid a collision. He did not mean to say that any collision actually occurred—only that it required great attention to avoid an accident. Had a collision occurred, it would have been utterly impossible for the great majority of the passengers to have been saved. He was quite positive that the number of passengers carried on that occasion far exceeded the number for which the boat was licensed. The cabin was full, all the couches were full, the upper couches also were full; and there

    991
    was a great crowd of passengers on deck. Indeed, the vessel was choked up so much by the mails, that there was really not elbow room for the passengers, and they were obliged to stand packed up like herrings in a box, instead of enjoying the comfort which ought to be given to passengers crossing the Channel. It seemed to him that the only way of drawing attention to these matters effectually was for an hon. Member to make himself a little disagreeable. If that were not done, no attention was ever paid to his complaints. The hon. Gentleman the Secretary to the Treasury would get up and give a smooth answer. He would say the matter should be looked into, and he would give some kind of an explanation which really meant nothing, and nothing whatever would be none unless the hon. Member complaining made himself disagreeable. Under those circumstances, he begged to move the reduction of the Vote by the sum of £200, which was the salary, he believed, of the harbour master.
    THE CHAIRMANasked the hon. Member whether he meant the salary of the pier master, or that of the traffic superintendent?
    MR. MOLLOY: The traffic superintendent.
    THE CHAIRMANsaid, there was no salary for a traffic superintendent included in the Vote.
    MR. MOLLOY: Then the resident engineer or the actual officer in charge. He would move the reduction of the whole Vote by the sum of £150.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £7,043, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1884, for maintaining certain Harbours, &c. under the Board of Trade."—(Mr. Molloy.)
    MR. J. HOLMSsaid, he could hardly think that the hon. Gentleman would persist with a Motion for the reduction of the Vote. He thought the Committee were indebted to the hon. Member for drawing attention to the subject of overloading. This Vote, however, was for building and maintenance, and not for the personnel of the Harbour. He confessed that it was most desirable to be made perfectly clear that nothing in the shape of over-loading occurred. He would take care to communicate with
    992
    the proper authorities, and see that their attention was called to the matter. He fully admitted the serious evil to which the hon. Member had called attention.
    SIR EDWARD J. REEDsaid, he was under the impression that the Vote included an allowance to a traffic manager for conducting the business of the two Railway Companies.
    MR. J. HOLMSsaid, that was a misapprehension.
    SIR EDWARD J. REEDsaid, it was stated in a foot note that an allowance was included for the traffic managers. The Estimates were certainly not clear upon the point. They generally appeared to include an allowance for a traffic superintendent, but not a salary for a traffic manager. He should, however, like to know what was the object of having a resident engineer at Dover at all? It was quite true that Dover Pier often seemed to require more or less repairing, owing to the nature of its construction; but the remedy for that would be to construct it properly, and then it would not be necessary to keep an engineer permanently on the spot looking out for accidents. He wished to know what wore the services of the engineer for which they had to pay the sum? He should also like to be told why some better arrangements could not be made to place the Harbour under the control of Parliament, or some responsible authority? He thought the present mode of dealing with the question—namely, the voting of money to be subsequently repaid by the Railway Companies—involved an unnecessary waste of the time of the Committee.
    MR. J. HOLMSsaid, that the engineer was appointed at Dover Harbour to superintend the works which became necessary in consequence of the storm of 1877. That storm led to a considerable amount of new work becoming necessary, and an engineer had been employed there since. The Committee would observe that the Vote was increased by something that had happened at the bar.
    MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he was glad that the hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. Holms) had returned to his place, because when a question was put to the Secretary to the Treasury some time ago, in reference to the salary paid to the engineer, it was quite impossible,

    993
    from the answer the hon. Gentleman gave, that he could have been properly informed in regard to all the details of the matter. It appeared that the Committee were in the strange position of being required to pay an official at Dover Harbour for the purpose of attending, among other things, to the loading of passenger boats; but that, notwithstanding, those passenger boats were habitually over-loaded. Recollecting the line the Board of Trade had recently taken, and the letter which the President of the Board of Trade had written accusing the shipowners of recklessly sacrificing human lives in the pursuit of unholy gain, it was rather remarkable to find that the Board of Trade themselves had special superintendents for whom they asked the Committee to vote salaries, but that, nevertheless, they were open to the same charge in an aggravated form.
    MR. MOLLOYsaid, he had been asked by the hon. Member (Mr. J. Holms) not to press the Amendment. He would be perfectly ready to withdraw it if he got a satisfactory statement from the Government; but the statement just made was exactly the same as that which was made by the President of the Board of Trade at the commencement of the Session. For the last four years attention had been called to the subject, and nothing had been done. Letter after letter had appeared in the newspapers; and now to-night, in order to get the Vote through, the hon. Member, in answer to the complaints that were made, said—"I will see about it, and I will write a letter." He (Mr. Molloy) had no confidence in promises of that kind. If the hon. Gentleman would promise the Committee that he would not only write a letter, but see that the evil was remedied, that would be a different thing. As to writing a letter in order to ascertain what the facts were, he did not see what better information the hon. Gentleman could desire than that which he (Mr. Molloy) had already given to him from his own personal experience. He had no wish to put the Committee to the trouble of a division; but unless the hon. Gentleman would make a clear and definite promise, he should certainly divide.
    MR. J. HOLMSsaid, he thought that an inquiry ought to be made into the allegations of the hon. Member, and he
    994
    would undertake to make a full inquiry.
    MR. MOLLOYsaid, that was only a repetition of the answer that had been given. The hon. Member promised to make inquiry into the facts which he (Mr. Molloy) had stated. But what was the use of making such an inquiry when he (Mr. Molloy) assured the hon. Gentleman that his statement simply referred to a state of things which he had seen on board one of these ships?
    MR. RAMSAYsaid, the Committee were asked to vote a sum of money for the payment of the salary of an engineer who had really nothing to do. In the first place, they were called upon to expend a sum of money upon Dover Harbour, and then to pay an engineer for seeing that it was expended. He failed to see that the engineer would have any professional work; and he, therefore, thought that it was not desirable that they should pay a salary of £650 a-year for the services of this gentleman. The hon. Gentleman below him (Mr. J. Holms) might be able to explain why they were asked to vote this sum of money as a salary to an engineer; but he (Mr. Ramsay) saw nothing in the Estimate itself which showed what this sum of £650 a-year was to be voted for, seeing that the Government asked for a very insignificant sum to be expended upon the harbour.
    MR. O'DONNELLsaid, it seemed to him that the Treasury had gone back entirely from the position they had at first taken up. In the first place, when the hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Molloy) pointed out this blemish, the hon. Gentleman (Mr. J. Holms) said the Government were very much indebted to his hon. Friend for having called attention to the matter. They had now, however, reconsidered their position, and they wanted to make more inquiry into the facts of the case. Surely, that was a distinctly retrograde movement. When the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) called attention to the engineer's salary, the only explanation that could be given by the Secretary to the Treasury was that the salary they were asked to pay this year had really been paid for some years back, and he did not know why it should not be paid for some years to come. That was all the explanation that was given to the Committee on the subject. His hon. Friend

    995
    proposed a reduction of the Vote; but he (Mr. O'Donnell) thought the Vote ought to be postponed altogether until the Treasury Bench were able to know something about it. In that event, they might have a much better guarantee for reform. If there were a division, there might or might not be a majority in favour of it. He thought it was most likely that those who were in favour of the Motion of his hon. Friend would be in a minority, but nearly a quarter of an hour would be spent in taking a division. The Government would, no doubt, gain the Vote; but the country would not get any reform. He thought it would be better to postpone the Vote until a future day, so as to enable the Government to give the Committee information as to the nature of the duties of the traffic superintendant, and in that ease the House would be able to proceed with the matter in a business-like manner. The course they were now asked to take was simply like throwing out a sort of Will-of-the-Wisp to lure them from the path of reform. If an inquiry were instituted, he presumed that an officer of the Government would be taken down to Dover Pier at some time when the packets were not over-crowded, and then they would be told that the hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Molloy) was labouring under an entire hallucination; and next year they would find the Secretary to the Treasury stating that the salary was paid for a number of years past, and he failed to see why it should not continue to be paid for a considerable number of years to come. Certainly, the best way to enable the Treasury to become acquainted with the matter would be to postpone the Vote until they could communicate with Dover and ascertain what the real facts of the case were. In that case Her Majesty's Government would be able to enter upon a path of reform with full information on the subject in their possession.
    SIR ANDREW LUSKsubmitted that the Committee had discussed this Vote long enough. ["No!"] He did not think there would be any advantage derived from continuing the discussion. In regard to the question of the resident engineer, he wished to point out that the harbour of Dover had cost a great deal of money to the country in various ways, and it was necessary that there should be an engineer to judge what
    996
    its condition was. To bring the question nearer home, he would ask Irish Members what they would say if there was no engineer at Kingston Harbour, or at Holyhead? What would be said if there was no engineer to look after the works in Plymouth Harbour? He was of opinion that it was their duty to maintain a resident engineer at all these places. Then, again, as to the question of the over-loading of the mail packets. He had nothing to do with the service; but he had crossed the Channel several times, and he was able to say, from experience, that the service was well and ably performed, allowance being made for the difficulty of crossing. He would ask if any accident of consequence had happened to any of the boats engaged in that service? He did not think they could be told of any accident of a serious character. They ought, therefore, to give praise to those who performed the service, especially when they remembered that it was conducted in a chopping cross sea; that the harbour which they had to make was a very small one; and that altogether the service was a most difficult one to perform well. He would ask any hon. Member to go back for the last 10 years and point to any serious accident that had happened. It was all very well to bring charges that were without foundation. If there was any fault to find it was that they had not a better harbour, and that was a fault which attached to the country itself. So far as the pier master was concerned, the country did not pay for his services, but the Railway Companies paid for the maintenance of the roads across the pier. All he asked was that hon. Members should not find fault unnecessarily and without occasion.
    SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, he had no wish to find fault with the pier master, or any other gentleman who performed that work; but he should like to know in what condition this harbour and works on the pier now were? He saw in the Vote that the amount formerly asked for repairing damages was asked for no longer, so that he might fairly presume that the repairs had been completed. The question he wished to ask was, whether the pier was actually completed, or whether the works originally contemplated were still going on? He did not say any-

    997
    thing as to the engineer's salary, because, in regard to works such as those at Dover Harbour, he imagined that a resident engineer would always be necessary, in order to see that damage was not done, and to superintend the necessary repairs. All he wished to know was whether the contemplated enlargement of last year was still going on, or whether the works were terminated?
    MR. J. HOLMSreplied, that the estimated cost of the repairs which it had been necessary to make was £41,000. They had actually been completed at a cost of £22,828; and he did not think there was any prospect of a further demand being made upon the Exchequer.
    MR. GILESremarked, that Dover Pier was practically finished, and he thought it was necessary to have a resident engineer. The work had cost about £2,000,000. ["No!"] He believed he was correct in saying that the actual cost was £1,900,000. ["No!"] At all events, the cost amounted to a very large sum of money. They could never foretell when they were going to have a storm; and it was always desirable, when a storm did come, that there should be an engineer on the spot to be able to look after anything that might happen. He hoped the Committee would not agree to dispense with the services of an officer of that kind, when experience had proved that the services of a resident engineer were absolutely necessary.
    GENERAL SIR GEORGE BALFOURobserved, that the War Office had incurred very large expenses in connection with the fortified works at the end of the pier at Dover; but a resident engineer would have nothing to do with works of that kind. The expenses for the Dover Pier batteries were charged in the Army Estimates, and the officer whose salary was now in question had no control over them whatever. In regard to the repairs which had been spoken of in connection with the pier, they were very ordinary repairs, and involved work of a very simple kind, and needed because of the damage done to the parapet of the pier by the storm of a few years ago. He believed that the works had been washed away owing to improper design in laying out the pier, so as to expose it to the direct instead of the oblique action of the waves. If the pier had been properly laid out, as the
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    experienced engineers of the Mediterranean so carefully planned their breakwaters, the force of the waves would not have been sufficiently strong to have damaged the works. He had long been of opinion that the services of a resident engineer, at a salary of £650, were not necessary. He had no wish to find fault with the individual himself. Reference had been made to the works at Holyhead, but the superintendent employed there only received £350 a-year, and at Kingston Harbour he believed the person in charge of the engineering works was paid £3 3s. a-week; both of these being sums very much below that received by the resident engineer at Dover Harbour. He, therefore, thought that his hon. Friend opposite (Mr. Molloy) was quite right in objecting to this salary being paid to the traffic superintendent at Dover.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, he thought the explanation which had been given in regard to the employment of these engineers was very unsatisfactory. The hon. Member for Finsbury (Sir Andrew Lusk) spoke of the works at Kingston and Holyhead. In regard to Holyhead, he did not find any charge for the salary of an engineer there, although the work at Holyhead was much larger than that which had been performed at Dover. In the one case, however, there was no permanent charge for an engineer, while in the other there was a charge of £650 a-year. He believed that, strictly speaking, the question which had been raised in regard to this particular Vote did not specially refer to the engineer at all. It referred rather to the traffic superintendent, and the pier superintendent. It seemed to him a remarkable arrangement that an officer employed to superintend the steamboats should be paid by the Government, and should also be paid by the Steamboat and Railway Companies. He thought that any superintendent employed at the instance of the Government should be altogether independent of the people who conducted the traffic, and that he should not be in their pay at all. They might just as well ask the Railway and Steamboat Companies to superintend their own work, and make a Report to the Government as to whether the work was well and properly done, as to employ a superintendent at all under such circumstances. So long as they continued the

    999
    present system he was afraid they would have Reports in all cases that the vessels were not over-loaded, although it was a well-known fact that they were. There was another observation he wished to make in regard to what he had himself seen. He had had the experience of several Sessions in that House in regard to Secretaries to the Treasury, and the manner in which they explained the different Votes which came before the House. He specially remembered two Secretaries who were always prepared to give very full and accurate information with regard to the Votes—namely, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) and the late lamented Lord Frederick Cavendish. But since thon—and the present Secretary to the Treasury was no exception—the hon. Gentlemen who had filled that Office had displayed considerable ingenuity and skill in not giving the information which the Committee desired. He rather suspected that the Government knew a great deal more than they were inclined to tell; and he would suggest to hon. Gentlemen opposite that when a question was asked in future they should give as much information as they could to the Committee. Such a course would be more satisfactory to the Committee, and would probably enable the Business to go on with more rapidity.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 16; Noes 82: Majority 66.—(Div. List, No. 102.)
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    (3.) £136,880, to complete the sum for Rates on Government Property.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked for an explanation in regard to this Vote. It seemed that there was a decrease upon the Customs property included in the Vote. Would the Government explain how that reduction had been brought about?
    MR. COURTNEYsaid, that he was unable at present to explain the cause of the reduction; but he would make inquiries, and give the information to the hon. Member. He thought it might, in a large measure, be duo to the changes in the Customs and Inland Revenue Establishments, which rendered certain
    1000
    buildings no longer useful, and, as a general rule, they had been disposed of.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORasked if the hon. Gentleman would be able to give an answer upon the Report stage of Supply?
    MK. COURTNEY: Yes.
    Vote agreed to.
    (4.) £7,500, to complete the sum for the Metropolitan Fire Brigade.
    SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, that upon this Vote he was anxious to make a few observations in regard to the condition of the security at present afforded to the Metropolis against fire. He did not propose to detain the Committee at any length with the few words he desired to say; but it was necessary, at all events, to show that he had some reason for stopping the Business of the Committee upon this Vote; He did not desire to move a reduction of the Vote, and his reason for not taking that course was that he thought, in all probability, his argument would tend to show that a larger amount, if there was to be any contribution at all from the State, ought to be contributed in aid of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. The experience he had derived from the investigation which took place a few years ago by a Committee of the House, of which he was Chairman, afforded sufficient evidence to show that this great City was not protected from fire in the way in which it ought to be, looking at the value of the property involved, and the amount of life annually lost from the effects of fire. In making this assertion he wished, first of all, to say that he did not mean for one moment to east the slightest imputation upon the existing Fire Brigade. They were a body of men who had done their work in the most able and most gallant manner possible. His whole contention was that they were over-taxed in that work, and that London was not sufficiently protected, either in the number of firemen or the amount of the appliances placed at their disposal. They had only to recollect the amount of property at stake. Only two years ago the value of all the property in London was estimated at £1,620,000,000. All this property was intrusted to the Metropolitan Fire Brigade to protect from the ravages of fire. In 1882 the serious fires recorded in London amounted to 164, while the

    1001
    slight fires numbered 1,762, making a total of 1,926 fires in that year alone. There were in the same year 36 lives lost and 175 endangered, which was more than the average of the five previous years. In the five years previous to 1882, 129 lives were lost and 794 were endangered. He merely mentioned these facts to show that the amount of danger from fire was hardly sufficiently realized, and that people did not estimate what was going on in their midst. The annual loss, both of life and property, was certainly something which ought to make them reflect seriously whether the means available for dealing with fires were sufficient, and whether the sum contributed by the State towards the maintenance of the Fire Brigade was adequate. As far back as 1876, Captain Shaw, who was the able head of the Fire Brigade of the Metropolis, stated before the Select Committee that to give a fair security against fire in the Metropolis he should require 169 stations, 200 fire-escapes, 330 engines, and 931 men, and he put the cost of a Brigade of these dimensions at something like £120,000 a-year. Now, what was actually the force at the disposal of the Fire Brigade last year, recollecting what Captain Shaw said was absolutely necessary to afford security? The force in 1882, instead of amounting to 167 stations, amounted to 70; there were only 124 fire-escapes instead of 200; 159 engines instead of 330, and only 736 men instead of the 931 which Captain Shaw considered necessary. When they remembered that in the protection of life and property from fire the great thing was to arrest its progress at the earliest possible period, he thought the Committee would see that this question of stations in the Metropolis was one of the most important items they had to consider. If they could multiply the stations largely, and distribute them well over the Metropolis, the probability was that engines might be brought to bear upon a fire at such an early period as to reduce the damage to very slight dimensions, and many of them, instead of being serious, would be numbered in the list of slight fires, many of them being extinguished by buckets of water, instead of requiring the aid of fireengines at all. This and other questions, especially that of the number of men at the disposal of the Metropolitan
    1002
    Fire Brigate, weighed very strongly upon the Committee in giving their decision. It was shown conclusively that nearly the whole Brigade was swallowed up by by one large fire. That happened at the fire at the Pantechnicon. Captain Shaw stated, alluding to that fire, that he was not prepared to say what might have happened if another great fire had broken out in the Metropolis at the same time. Large fires were constantly occurring now, and there was considerable danger of their getting entirely beyond the power of the present Fire Brigade. It was a question, therefore, that might well be considered, whether the present appliances for extinguishing fires were not upon so limited a scale as to be a source of danger hereafter? As he had said, there was the danger of a large part of the Force being swallowed up by one serious fire; but there was also another danger which arose from the constant overworking of the men, and which prevented the Brigade from being maintained in an efficient condition. The Select Committee, in 1877, had it put before them, over and over again, that men had been worked from 92 up to as many as 120 consecutive hours. One witness stated that he had not been in bed for four days and three nights, but that he had been compelled to he down in his clothes, and was liable to be called up again at any moment. The whole tendency of the Evidence went to show that, unless the whole force of the men was largely increased, the work imposed upon them was of so severe a character that it was utterly impossible for them to keep pace with it. The Metropolitan Board of Works was at present the authority which had the direction of the Fire Brigade, and was that a body which could in a proper manner carry out the duties intrusted to them? They could only do it at a cost which was enormous. Even for the limited security which they at present gave against fire the Metropolitan Board of Works spent something like £120,000 a-year in keeping up the Fire Brigade; and if they were to enlarge the Force, it must necessarily cost an enormous sum to build a sufficient number of stations for the whole of the Metropolis simply for giving London that protection which it was fairly entitled to. He thought the Committee which formerly sat upon this question, and the Committee which sat in 1877

    1003
    and 1878, had come to a right conclusion when they reported that the Fire Brigade, instead of being attached to the Metropolitan Board of Works, ought to be a branch of the Police Force of the Metropolis, and for this reason:—The Police Force of the Metropolis had 158 stations, which could be, without difficulty and at a very small expense, united to the 70 existing Fire Brigade stations; and in that case they would have at once an additional number of stations actually larger than they were told was necessary for providing a fairly efficient Force. But, beyond that, they had the advantage at the present moment of 339 other standpoints scattered over the Metropolis at which constables were permanently placed, or at which they could be at a slight cost permanently placed. Captain Shaw admitted that appliances for the extinguishing of fire might be placed at these standpoints; that the police constables would avail themselves of the appliances so placed, and would use them at fires in a way which would tend to render the application of the larger material of the Brigade unnecessary. They would be able, by employing the police, to have a certain addition of 158 stations and 339 other points where appliances for the protection of the Metropolis from fire could be placed, and from which they might be used; and he believed, if that were done, they would be able to bring a fire so completely under control as to diminish very largely the number of serious fires which were constantly occurring in London. Beyond that, it must be remembered that in case of an emergency they would at once get over the difficulty now experienced owing to the limited number of men who formed the Fire Brigade, because the reserves of the police would be called in aid, and in any great emergency there would be additional men available. The only objection which seemed to taken by the police authorities of the Metropolis—Colonel Henderson and Colonel Fraser—was that there would be a divided responsibility. Now, there was great danger of something of that kind occurring; but the difficulty might be avoided by making the Brigade a branch of the Police Force under the Commissioners of Police. He was certain that the only real remedy for the complaints made in regard to efficient protection from fire was that they should take away the con-
    1004
    trol of the Brigade from the Metropolitan Board of Works, not because that Body had not administered it to the best of the abilities they possessed—that was to say, their power of raising money from the rates—but because, by the transfer, they would get the efficiency they required and deemed to be necessary for the protection of London from fire, and they would get it at a cost which would be infinitesimal. They would, furthermore, provide that the work should be done in a way which should secure the complete efficiency of the Brigade. The Metropolitan Board of Works would have at once to build 99 stations, and to add 355 men to their present Force, in order to bring it up to the strength they required by the system which they themselves suggested; whereas the Commissioners of Police would have at their command the full strength of the Metropolitan Police, and all the men that were necessary. He had no wish to delay the Committee at any length, and he did not want to go, as he might have felt disposed to do upon a Motion, into a number of arguments which might be brought forward in support of his view of the matter. He had no wish to delay the progress of Supply on a question of this sort, beyond bringing it before the Committee. He had endeavoured, first of all, to show the value of the property, which was enormous, and also the amount of life which was at present annually sacrificed. Secondly, he had endeavoured to show, in regard to the efficiency of the existing Fire Brigade, that they were now attempting to protect the Metropolis from fires with a much smaller force than Captain Shaw admitted some years ago to be necessary. Further, he had shown that by making this transfer they would secure a force greater even than Captain Shaw had contemplated; that they would get ample security for the protection of the Metropolis, and that they would obtain it without incurring any extravagant cost. There was another advantage he might mention which would be derived from the transfer of the Fire Brigade to the Police. That advantage was this. The police area throughout the Metropolis was a far wider one than that of the Metropolitan Board of Works. By the transfer of the Brigade to the Police the operation of the Brigade would therefore

    1005
    be extended beyond the limited area of the Metropolitan Board of Works. All that area which was beyond the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Board of Works was not attended to by the Fire Brigade at present; but, by this transfer, it would be brought under the protection of the Brigade, and would obtain the same security as that which was afforded to the centre of the Metropolis. He was quite aware that he might be told that the discussion of the question was not opportune at the present moment, and that it ought to be left until the great work of reconstructing the Government of London was undertaken. But, in regard to that matter, he was quite aware, from the little experience he had had of that House, that if they waited until the measure was before the House, after having undergone the ordeal of being created in a Government Office, and then properly thought out by the House itself, they would have to wait a very long time indeed. He was also satisfied that after such a measure had been introduced, if this question should happen not to have been specially dealt with, it would stand very little chance of being satisfactorily considered. It was with that view that he was anxious to call the attention of the Committee to these points, and to suggest to the Committee and to the Government in any reconstruction or alteration of the Governing Authority of the Metropolis the Fire Brigade, at all events, ought not to be intrusted to the control of a separate body. There was already existing a Force with which it might be incorporated with advantage, and by which the security of life and property in the outlying parts of the Metropolis would also be insured. He believed that any hon. Member who studied the Evidence taken by the Select Committee in 1877 would arrive at the conclusion which he had arrived at.
    SIR JAMES M'GAREL-HOGGsaid, although he appreciated the manner in which the hon. Baronet had handled this subject, he was bound to say that on every point which he had brought before the Committee he was in the unfortunate position of entirely disagreeing with him. He would remind the Committee that on a former occasion the hon. Baronet, in speaking on an Amendment, was counted out in the midst of
    1006
    a panegyric on the Metropolitan Board of Works; and it seemed hardly consistent that he should complain of the action of the Board on the present occasion. It appeared to him that the hon. Baronet had taken a mistaken view of this subject from beginning to end. The number of deaths from fires in the Metropolis had nothing whatever to do with the question; but he would give a list of those which bad occurred during the last few years. There were 25 deaths in 1878; 32 in 1879; 33 in 1880; 40 in 1881; and 36 in 1882, which gave a total of 166 in five years, during every one of which the Metropolitan Fire Brigade, and all the appliances connected with it, were increasing. The causes that led to that number of deaths were various in their character, and showed that, in most cases, they were not preventible by any increase in the numbers or efficiency of the Brigade, but were due to accidents or carelessness, apart from any fire on the premises. Children fell into the fire, spirit lamps were upset, and explosions of gas took place, besides many other things which led to loss of life, which no Fire Brigade could prevent. The Estimate for the Brigade made by Captain Shaw in 1865 was £75,000, an amount which was afterwards cut down to £50,000. The number of men he asked for at first was 574; then it was 416; and in his third estimate it was 277. The number of engines in the first estimate was 330, in the second 140, and in the third 129. The number of stations in the first estimate was 157, in the second 125, and in the present estimate they were 57. At this moment they had 576, or two men more than Captain Shaw asked for originally; 160 engines, including four floating engines; 54 permanent stations and 12 moveable stations. The estimated expenditure of the present year was £105,116. They had also accessories of a very useful character. Since the first Motion was brought forward about the Fire Brigade, they had in use the telegraph and the telephone. They had 13 waggons for street stations, and two trollies, ladder trucks, 50 telegraph and 13 telephone wires, 13 fire alarums, and 576 firemen of all ranks. He said that these appurtenances added enormously to the efficiency of the Fire Brigade, and enabled it to cope with fires in the most prompt manner; and

    1007
    he would go farther, and assert that the Metropolitan Board and their Fire Brigade had ably and thoroughly done their duty. The percentage of serious fires had been reduced from 34, at which it unfortunately stood under the Companies, to 25 in 1866, to 11 in 1876, and to 9 in 1882. He asked the Committee what better test there could be of the efficiency of a Body charged with putting out fires, than to say they had done their work in the best possible way? He maintained that the Metropolitan Fire Brigade had done their best; and, if that were so, how could it be said that it was advisable to transfer their work from the Municipal Authority to a Government Department? It appeared to him that the present proposal was similar to one of the ideas lately brought before the House in regard to the theatres—that was to say, it was proposed to take away from the Municipal Authorities duties which properly belonged to them, which they were carrying out progressively to the best of their ability, and transfer them to a Department of the Government, the members of which, with all respect to that Department, were not the proper persons to have them, and who were wise enough to say that the Municipal Authorities could better do the work, and that if they should prove incompetent to deal with it they should go to the Government and ask for assistance. He admitted that the Committee referred to by the hon. Baronet did recommend the transfer of the Fire Brigade from the Metropolitan Board of Works to the Police; but they gave their opinion, he was bound to say, in direct opposition to that of persons fully qualified to form a correct judgment in the matter. He had no wish to take up the time of the Committee; but if hon. Members wished it, he would read to them the evidence of Sir Edmund Henderson and Colonel Fraser. Both those gentlemen agreed in the opinion that if the authorities did what his hon. Friend (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) now advocated, they would simply turn good policemen into bad firemen, and good firemen into indifferent policemen, and thus make a great hugger-mugger of the whole concern. Therefore, it was to be hoped that the Metropolitan Fire Brigade would be allowed to go on as they were; stopping fires, protecting lives, saving them in fire-escapes and in other ways,
    1008
    all over the Metropolis, and risking and losing their own lives for the public good in a manner that all must admire. The Committee had gone against all the evidence given before it except that of Captain Harris, who was in favour of the transfer of the Fire Brigade to the Police. He thought the evidence of Sir Edmund Henderson, Colonel Fraser, and Captain Shaw, the latter of whom had certainly said nothing in favour of the transfer, should have weight with hon. Members in dealing with this question. The hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) intimated that Captain Shaw had been in favour of the transfer of the Brigade to the Police; but he gave that an unqualified denial, and he had the authority of that gentleman for saying he had never made any such statement. He hoped the hon. Member would be satisfied with that denial; and, for his own part, he should remain of opinion that every witness of weight who gave evidence before the Committee was against the transfer of the Brigade to a Department of State which did not want it, and which had quite enough to do already, without undertaking additional duties that properly devolved on the Municipal Authorities.
    MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, that, after a municipal experience of 25 years, he was able to assure the hon. and gallant Baronet who had just spoken, that he agreed with every word he had used with regard to the question before the Committee. In his own town they had taken these functions out of the hands of the Police and placed them with the Fire Brigade, since which it had worked better and more economically. But he wished to go back to a question that he himself and other hon. Gentleman on those Benches had raised on several previous occasions. Why was the Consolidated Fund to pay towards the ratepayers of London a contribution which it did not pay to the ratepayers of any other town in the country? Leeds, Manchester, Liverpool, Wolverhampton, and other great centres had to keep up Fire Brigades out of their own rates. He contended that the Metropolis should defray the cost of its Fire Brigade out of its own rates, and not come upon the taxpayers of the country generally to do it for them. As he had already said, the question had been before the House and

    1009
    the constituencies throughout the country again and again; and he felt so strongly the injustice involved, that he would divide the Committee against the Vote altogether.
    MR. DIXON-HARTLANDsaid, he could quite believe that the Metropolitan Board of Works did everything they could to put a stop to fires. They were entitled to speak of the increased efficiency which resulted from the use of the telegraph and telephone. But it would certainly be more by good fortune than arrangement, that they could deal effectively with two great fires at the same time. Suppose the fire at the Pantechnicon and that at Humphrey's Wharf had taken place together, he asked whether it would have been possible to put them out at the same time? Would not one of these have been left to itself? [Sir JAMES M'GAREL-HOGG: Certainly not.] If the Metropolitan Board of Works had sufficient funds and a sufficient force at their disposal for the complete discharge of their duties, why did they now obtain the sanction of the Treasury to the introduction of a Money Bill, giving them power to tax the London Fire Offices to a large extent? In the olden times the matter rested in this way. The Fire Offices paid on their own account certain sums which they were willing to subscribe towards the putting out of fires; they also supported engines of their own, and did various other things for the same object. Now, as the Fire Brigade sent their engines to any fire that occurred, it followed that the assured were paying for the unassured; this was felt to be an anomaly, and it ended in the whole matter being put into the hands of the Metropolitan Board of Works, the Companies agreeing to pay them the money they originally paid—namely, £24,000 a-year. But why was the attempt to tax those Companies made, if the system of the Metropolitan Board of Works was above all question? Captain Shaw, in his original estimate, had proposed that the number of men should be 574—the very least that would be of use; and the hon. and gallant Baronet, 15 years after that estimate was made, spoke of it as a merit that two men had been added to the Force. Since that time he believed the Metropolis had increased in size to the extent of one-third, and it was now
    1010
    seven years ago that Captain Shaw recommended the employment of a force of 931 men. With regard to the unqualified denial of the hon. and gallant Baronet on behalf of Captain Shaw, to the effect that he had never stated that he was in favour of a transfer of the Brigade, he would refer the Committee to the evidence of Captain Shaw, given before the Select Committee—Question 1,056. He considered the hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) had done a public service that evening in bringing this matter under the notice of the Committee; and he trusted, before it was too late, that his proposal would meet with the support to which it was entitled.
    SIR CHAELES W. DILKEsaid, with reference to the point raised by the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), the contribution was not an estimate of the present time, but of the year 18G5, when the amount of £10,000 was sanctioned and fixed by Act of Parliament. The hon. Member spoke as if this sum represented the whole or, at all events, a large proportion of the expense of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade; but that was not the case. The cost of the Brigade in 1865 was £57,000; and at the present time the £10,000 in question only represented a small portion of the entire cost of £108,000. He must admit that he thought £10,000 was an exaggerated estimate for the time, when it was originally made in 1865. But it was not so now. The amount at which it was fixed in 1865 was stated to be on account of the large number and great value of the public buildings, which were scattered over a very large area of the Metropolis, and which were at that time excluded from the payment of rates. With regard to the question raised by the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson), he entirely agreed—and he spoke as representing the opinion of the Secretary of State for the Home Department—with what had fallen from the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works (Sir James M'Garel-Hogg). That hon. and gallant Member had informed the Committee that on a former occasion the hon. Baronet opposite had been counted out in the midst of a panegyric on the Metropolitan Board of Works, and had said that he had no right to complain of the Board on account of

    1011
    its action at the present time, arguing that it was unfair to entertain the proposal to hand over to a Government Department, however able, duties which properly belonged to the Municipal Authorities. He (Sir Charles W. Dilke) could not imagine a more centralizing measure than to hand over to a Government Department the control of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade. The hon. Baronet said the Police ought to be the Authority in matters relating to fires. He could only say that such was not the opinion of the Fire Authorities, the Police Authorities, or the Home Department. The hon. Baronet had quoted Captain Shaw, but that gentleman was opposed to the change, as were also the Commissioners of Police, and the Chiefs of the City Police; and it followed, therefore, that all those who best knew the working of the existing system were against the alteration which the hon. Baronet proposed to introduce. The hon. Baronet asked if the Metropolitan Board could properly discharge the duties required of it in the matter of fires? The answer to that was—"If they cannot, you ought to get a Board which can." The hon. Baronet made a point, on behalf of his view of the question, by saying that the Police area was much larger than the Metropolitan area; but that appeared rather to tell in an opposite direction. The Police area was so large that it included vast tracts of agricultural country, altogether beyond the Metropolis, and he could not think that safety in the Metropolis would be insured by sending the police engines down to the limits of the Police area. It must be remembered that the duties of the Police in relation to fires were wholly different from those of firemen. That distinction was clearly pointed out in the General Orders. The primary duty of the Police was to preserve order, and to preserve life and and property; and it was to be regretted that year by year other duties were being thrown upon them which were calculated to diminish their efficiency for the purpose they were intended to fulfil. In the matter of fires, the Police were charged with the duty of giving alarm, of rescuing life and protecting property, regulating traffic, and keeping the ground clear for the operations of the firemen. Without the aid of the Police the firemen would be altogether unable
    1012
    to operate, and it must not be understood that the Police had not already their clearly defined duties with regard to fires. Again, the men of the Fire Brigade were selected on account of certain special qualifications for the duties they had to perform. The great majority of them were sailors; they were accustomed to climbing, and were, therefore, the better able to rescue life, and do what was needful for the preservation of property at great heights; and, on the whole, they were men of a very different character to those who formed the ordinary rank and file of the Police Force. In a city with a population of 4,000,000 crowds collected at fires with extraordinary rapidity; and not only was this the result of curiosity, but amongst the persons who so collected there was often a considerable number of thieves, and a great amount of pilfering took place in consequence. There was also the danger of the crowd taking advantage of the confusion caused by the fire to break into property in the neighbourhood. If the police were held responsible for the management of the Fire Brigade, he took it that, in practice, the result would be that the Fire Brigade would be nominally under the direction of the Commissioners of Police, while, as a matter of fact, it would remain an entirely separate body; in other words, there would be a state of things similar to that which now prevailed.
    SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, the right hon. Baronet had not quite understood him. His proposal would not in any way interfere with the existing duties of the Police. He proposed that the 158 stations of the Police should be availed of, and that the reserve men at those stations should be employed in case of fire.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, the suburban reserves were, as a matter of fact, called upon already in the case of fires of sufficient magnitude to render that course necessary. He could not believe that the amalgamation of these two separate bodies—the Fire Brigade and the Police—would produce any saving, or tend to increased efficiency. There were three large towns in which the Fire Brigade and the Police were one organization. In Manchester the Brigade did not form a portion of the Police system; it was under the control of a Watch Committee, and for purposes

    1013
    of discipline it was under the Chief Constable. In Liverpool the Eire Brigade and the Police were one force. Now in Liverpool, it must be remembered, the Police Force was very much larger in proportion than it was in London; it was, indeed, larger than the Police Force and the Fire Brigade together. If, therefore, Liverpool were taken as an example, there would be no saving whatever. The Returns showed that the Liverpool system was more costly than the separate system; whether or not it was more effective, without further local information it was, of course, impossible to say. They had also the testimony of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) that the separate system had proved to be more economical as well as more effective in the town which he represented. He believed that enough had been said to show that there was great doubt as to the wisdom of the plan proposed. It was the opinion of the Government that the Metropolitan Fire Brigade was a very efficient organization; and he was not disposed to believe that any administrative improvement could be effected by the transfer of its functions to the Police. There seemed to him ample scope already for all the Police could do in the discharge of their duties, without putting further duties upon them. He thought that perhaps something more might be done in the direction of controlling fires, by keeping at the police stations such apparatus as hose, reels, buckets, folding ladders, and other appliances that could be used with effect before the arrival of the Brigade; and in that limited sense he considered that the hon. Baronet had made a valuable suggestion to the Committee, and one which ought to receive attention at the hands of the authorities. He was also of opinion that it would be wise to instruct constables in the use of the means of saving life and property, so that their aid in this respect might be available until the engines arrived on the ground. With regard to telegraph communication between the Police at distant stations and the Brigade, that was already in operation to a certain extent, and increased rapidity of communication was the result. The system was extending, and the adoption of the suggestion under this head would simply mean the continuance of what was now taking place.
    1014
    The usual complaints were not of delay in the arrival of the Brigade, but of the difficulty of getting a proper supply of water; but that was not a matter that could be dealt with by placing the Fire Brigade under the control of the Police, because it was really connected with the Metropolitan water supply. But the hon. Baronet would know that in the City a large number of fires were put out by means of the hydrant system that had been established. This work, however, was complicated, and could only be done by thoroughly trained men. The beats of policemen had often to be changed; and, as that was necessary, it was hopeless to expect them, when they took a new beat, to know the position of all the hydrants and fire-plugs at a moment's notice. He doubted whether such amateur firemen as the Police would necessarily be could be of much use in an emergency; and, on the whole, he thought that it had been shown to be desirable that the arrangements with regard to the Fire Brigade should be left in the hands of the Metropolitan Board of Works.
    SIR ANDREW LUSKsaid, the discussion had taken what he considered rather an irrelevant turn. He had been a Member of the Committee of which the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) had been Chairman, and he felt bound to confirm what had been said by the hon. and gallant Baronet the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works (Sir James M'Garel-Hogg), who probably know more about this question than any other Member of the House as to the opinion of the Members of the Committee. He wished the Committee to understand this—that, for very good reasons, no doubt, the people of London were perfectly well satisfied with the Fire Brigade. They had a good, an excellent, Fire Brigade, and it was no use to tell him anything to the contrary, because he was a Londoner, and knew something about London; and, besides that, was Chairman of one of the Metropolitan Fire Insurance Offices. He did not want to see the Fire Brigade under the Police. The Fire Insurance Offices being satisfied with the present management of the Brigade contributed between £25,000 and £30,000 towards that management. [An hon. MEMBER: £24,000.] Well, £24,000, be it so. The public in taxes

    1015
    paid £105,000, and were perfectly satisfied. If all those most interested were satisfied, why should they turn the Brigade over to the Police? It was said that if it were under the Police it would make its appearance at fires with greater rapidity; but that he absolutely denied. Did hon. Members know how rapidly it attended a fire? It was on the spot within two or throe minutes of an outbreak of fire, frequently when very little of a fire was to be seen, and it was utterly impossible to accelerate its speed. See how well the Brigade managed at the great Wood Street fire, and at the big fire at Whiteley's in Westbourne Grove! The engines were on the spot immediately after the discovery of the fire at Whiteley's; but the goods were of such a highly combustible character that, in spite of all possible efforts, the conflagration got such hold in so short a space of time that all the men could do was to prevent its spread to other buildings. At the great fire in Bermondsey the engines were rapidly on the spot; no one could find fault with the men. The hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) had a preconceived notion that the Police were the best persons to have to do with the extinguishing of fires; but he (Sir Andrew Lusk) did not understand why the hon. Baronet thought so. It had frequently been shown that a good policeman would make a bad fireman; but the hon. Baronet had a contrary notion, and adhered to it tenaciously, and endeavoured to convince those who differed from him against their will.
    SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSONsaid, the hon. Baronet would forgive him for reminding him that out of a Committee of 27 he had been in a minority of 2.
    SIR ANDREW LUSKsaid, the hon. Baronet had carried the Committee with him because the Members of it liked to defer to him as much as they could. The hon. Baronet, however, had failed to carry him (Sir Andrew Lusk) with him. The public were well served with a Fire Brigade, although hon. Members must not run away with the idea that he believed it could not be advantageously extended. If they wanted a larger Brigade let them increase its size, taxing the public for the additions. The public would pay as they did at present. He would not say they did
    1016
    not require advice gratis from hon. Members; but he would say this—that those who paid for the service of the Fire Brigade should be intrusted with the management of it. In spite of the enormous value of the property of the Government in the Metropolis—the New Law Courts, the Houses of Parliament, the Palaces and Public Offices, & c.—all that the State contributed towards the expense of the Brigade was £10,000. If they contributed according to the value of their property, the sum they would pay would not be £10,000, but £30,000. Why should not the Government be asked to contribute more than they did? He would not say the sum they contributed now was paltry; but he would certainly say that they should contribute their fair share according to the amount of their property. It was to be hoped that the answer the hon. Baronet had received from the Chairman of the Metropolitan Board of Works would be suffcient, and that he would rest satisfied, and never bring the question forward again. He would advise the Committee to go on now with the next Vote.
    MR. DICK PEDDIEsaid, he did not suppose that, after the explanation given by the President of the Local Government Board, his hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton would press his Motion to a division, The President of the Local Government Board had reminded the Committee that the payment to the support of the Metropolis was provided for in an Act of Parliament. It seemed to him that, in these circumstances, the proper course was not to refuse the Vote, but to repeal the Act; and he hoped the Government would bring in a measure to that effect when they came to be in a position to carry any measures at all. There could be no doubt that there was a growing feeling in the country against the grants made from Imperial sources for the benefit of the Metropolis, and he did not think that the reason for continuing such a payment in this case made it more defensible than other grants of a similar kind. That reason was that the Government had a good deal of property in London. But there were other proprietors in London besides the Government, and he did not see why the Government, anymore than any other proprietor, should be called on to do more than to pay the

    1017
    rate on their property. There might have been a good reason for voting a large sum towards the Fire Brigade when Government property was exempted from rates; but now that was done away with all reason for continuing the grant was gone.
    SIR ANDREW LUSKsaid, that if the money paid by the Government was not paid as a rate upon the Government buildings, his argument was wrong to a great extent. He believed, however, that it was in respect of Government buildings.
    SIR GABRIEL GOLDNEYsaid, the question was whether the contribution of £10,000 was a fair payment to enable the Brigade to meet its expenses? There was a Metropolitan rate of a halfpenny in the pound, which produced from £105,000 to £110,000, and the Eire Offices contributed £25,000. As to what had fallen from the hon. Baronet (Sir Henry Selwin-Ibbetson) with regard to the advantages of transferring the duties of the Fire Brigade to the Police, it seemed to him that the proposed change would be an unfortunate one. It must be an advantage to have specially trained men in a service of this kind. An incident occurred last year which would have convinced anyone of the truth of this statement. Captain Shaw had asked him to go down to Greenwich one Sunday to observe the efficiency of the men, and he had accepted the invitation. The men were dressed in their best clothes, and least expected to be called on duty; but on the fire bell being rung, in two minutes, less ten seconds, every one of the men was dressed, the engines were got ready, the horses were harnessed, and everything was in thorough preparation. This was enough to show the efficiency of the Brigade as at present constituted; and it would be a woful mistake, without any fault to find with the Brigade, to transfer its duties to some other Force; especially would it be a mistake to transfer them to the Police, after the able speech they had had from the President of the Local Government Board. Each body had its particular office and duties—the Police to preserve law and order, and the Fire Brigade to protect life and property from fire. The amount paid by the Government was relative to the amount of their property, and the contribution of the Fire Offices was a very fair one, considering the magnitude of
    1018
    the interest they had in the protection of property from fire. If anything, the contribution of the Fire Offices should be increased.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, that as he was the only Irish Representative in the House at the present moment, he must be allowed to say a word on this subject. The question was, what right had London, more than any other part of the United Kingdom, to a special grant? So far as he could see, it had none. He failed to understand why London should have a special grant any more than Dublin, or Belfast, or any other large town in the Three Kingdoms. As had been pointed out already, the Government Offices bore their share of local taxation, and he failed to see why local authorities should not have assistance in meeting the expenses of their fire services. The Insurance Companies, very justly, paid a portion of the expense; and if all property was insured, no doubt it would be fair for them to pay the whole. He could not join in opposing the Vote.
    Vote agreed to.
    (5.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £165,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1884, in Aid of the Cost of Maintenance of Disturnpiked and Main Roads in England and Wales during the year ended on the 25th day of March 1883."
    MR. BIDDELLsaid, he had questioned the Government on the subject of this Vote last year, and wished again to put a query to them—namely, whether the applications for the money were much less this year than last year; and whether the Estimates had been founded on the number or the amount of the applications? Also, he should like to ask whether the Government had power to distribute this money differently, for under the present system the distribution was singularly unequal, many parishes that paid very low rates being materially assisted, while all help was refused to other parishes paying very high rates. It frequently happened that in respect of roads, formerly turnpike roads, costing £20 a-mile to repair, half the amount came from the county and a quarter from the Government, leaving the amount for the parish to pay

    1019
    reduced to £5 a-mile, which was, of course, much less than the repairs cost. Before the Vote was agreed to, he should like to known something about it. He desired the Government to divide this money in a much more equitable manner than it was at present divided.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, that before they went any further, perhaps he might be allowed to correct the hon. Member who had just spoken as to the amount paid this year being smaller than last year. That was not the case. If they would look at the amount actually spent they would see that it was smaller last year than this. The increase was simply owing to a natural increase. As to the second question, whether, with the consent of the Treasury, they would be able to alter the conditions on which the grants were given, he supposed the Government could make an application to Parliament based on a different system. The hon. Member, however, had made no suggestion as to what the system should be; and it seemed to him (Sir Charles W. Dilke) that, no matter what the system was, they would have cases of individual hardship—that was to say, there would be a variation as contrasted with population or property, or any other test they liked to take, between one area and another. The system adopted last year was one of an elastic character, and seemed to him to be as good as any one that could be devised. At any rate, he had never seen nor heard of a better one. He had heard complaints of the working of the system in different counties, but had not, up to the present, seen a better system.
    MR. RAMSAYregretted that they should have to enter on a discussion of this subject at the present time, for he had expected when the present Government came into Office that they would not have adopted this system of Government grants in aid for objects which should be provided for by the respective localities. There was another view to take of this. Though the grant, on the whole, might be no more than equal to the demands made upon it, yet on the next page they found a very small amount put down for Scotland. He did not desire to discuss the Scotch Vote, but only to compare it with the £200,000—the gross amount—asked for England and Wales. The Vote for Scotland was not a seventh part of that amount, though, taken either by
    1020
    taxation, population, or area, Scotland was more than one-seventh of England. He could not, as a private Member, move to increase the Scotch Vote, and he could not now move for details as to how it was to be distributed this year. Last year he was successful in obtaining some information which, if it showed nothing else, demonstrated the impolicy of placing the management of the affairs of Scotland in the hands of those who knew nothing about the law and practice in that country. He felt it was necessary to make a protest against a Vote of this kind, and to point out that unless the grants were given equally to all parts of the Kingdom, the House was guilty of a distinct wrong in passing them. He would propose, with a view of placing the Scottish people somewhat on the same footing as the English, that instead of granting £165,000 they should vote £140,000, or a reduction of £25,000.
    Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £140,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will coma in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1884, in Aid of the Cost of Maintenance of Disturnpiked and Main Roads in England and Wales during the year ended on the 2otU day of March 1883."—(Mr. Ramsay.)
    SIR GABRIEL GOLDNEYsaid, he was not satisfied with the economical principles of the hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Ramsay), who, whilst not objecting to the Vote for England, moved its reduction because that for Scotland was not large enough. Would the President of the Local Government Board state on what principle the distribution was made? The Vote was introduced for the first time last year. It was then £250,000, but this year it was reduced to £200,000. Certainly the dismantled turnpike roads had not decreased, but, on the contrary, had very much increased, and it would be very satisfactory to the country generally to have a statement from the President of the Local Government Board as to the principle on which the Vote was distributed. He would say to the right hon. Baronet, what he believed was known to the Committee generally—namely, that one of the grievances of the present day was the enormous amount people were taxed for the maintenance of roads. These roads were channels of communi-

    1021
    cation between one part of the country and another, and a large amount of loss had been occasioned to those who held road debentures in consequence of the disturnpiking. For many years the policy of the Department had been to take these roads up, and make communications from one part of the country to another carriage free. Last year a grant in aid was proposed, and, at the fag end of the Session, £250,000 was stated as the amount they thought the Government ought to contribute for the purpose. This year the amount was reduced to £200,000; and though the statement of the President of the Local Government Board might be correct, in many instances he did not believe the knowledge of the public grant, or the principle on which it was allocated, were made known. It would be greatly to the advantage of the public, as well as satisfactory to the Committee, if the right hon. Gentleman would give some information on this subject.
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, there was a statement made last year which fully explained the matter, and there were Papers laid before the House which gave the principle of the distribution of the grant. This statement, for the convenience of the Committee and of the hon. Baronet who asked the question, he would repeat. They had to distinguish between three classes of roads—firstly, County roads; secondly, Quarter Sessions roads; and, thirdly, South Wales roads. By an Act of 1878 half the cost of all highways disturnpiked after 1870 fell upon the counties, and power was given to the counties to add main roads to the list. The sum thus paid was between £300,000 and £400,000. Last year the Government made a proposal to the House which had the effect of throwing on the Votes in Parliament half of this half, or a quarter of the whole cost of the disturnpiked highways. The grants for 1882–3 were based on the payments actually made in 1881–2. With respect to Quarter Sessions, Boroughs, and Metropolitan roads, Parliament assumed a quarter of their actual cost; and as to the third class there was a different system, Parliament assuming half the sum which since 1870 had been paid by the counties. These were the three plans—in the case of each class one system was adopted. As to the comparison
    1022
    of the amounts for last year and this year, that estimated or suggested to the House last year was £250,000, which included the sum for Scotland; but, roughly speaking, £50,000 of that might be said to have been returned. This year the amount taken was £225,000, or£200,000, exclusive of Scotland. That, he thought, answered the question put to him by the hon. Baronet.
    MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, that this Vote would be more properly entitled "a Vote for giving assistance out of the Consolidated Fund to landlords whose rents were in arrear" than "a Vote in aid of disturnpiked and main roads." He would ask the Committee for a moment to consider the principle on which turnpike roads were originally made. The great bulk of the Vote was in aid of turnpike roads in counties, and the only figures the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had given were as to the aggregate cost of turnpike roads. From time immemorial the cost of the roads in the parish had devolved upon the parish. Something like 100 years ago, there was discovered a necessity for better means of communication, and the turnpike roads were constructed by means of a turnpike trust, which was empowered to levy tolls on persons using roads until the cost of making them was defrayed. Then, and not till then, the turnpike roads formed part of the parish roads, and the cost of maintaining them was thrown on the parishes. He was not defending this system. He was willing to admit that when these trusts came to an end it was a very empirical method of dealing with the roads, to throw the cost of maintaining them on the parishes. The parishes were often very small areas, the extent of road passing through them being considerable—very disproportionate to the size of the parishes. The system adopted in this country was different from that of Ireland and the various nations of the Continent. In Ireland and other countries, the whole cost of the roads, whether they were called turnpike or parish, was thrown on the county; and that, he believed, would have been the best and wisest system to have adopted in England. What was their position now? Why, at a time of great agricultural depression—though no greater than prevailed in the mining and manufacturing

    1023
    districts—the agricultural interest, being disproportionately represented in the House, was in a position to come and ask for a contribution out of the Consolidated Fund towards the maintenance of county roads, whilst nothing was asked on behalf of the other interests in towns and boroughs, although those interests had to construct roads and streets at enormous cost for the benefit of the whole community. In towns and boroughs the roads had to be paid for out of the local rates. ["No, no!"] He begged pardon; the Government did not assist in the maintenance of these roads. There were a few boroughs in England with turnpike roads running through them—they were so few that he could almost count them on his fingers—which were aided; but the amount they received was so small that it was a mere bagatelle, compared with the total amount paid by the Government, and with the cost of the roads and streets in the towns. On the last occasion that this subject was brought before the House, he was challenged as to whether he could name a turnpike road running through Liverpool or Manchester, in respect of which a charge was made on the Consolidated Fund. He was not very well acquainted with these places. The town he was best acquainted with was the one he represented—namely, Wolverhampton. That town had a portion of a turnpike road running through it, and the charge upon the Consolidated Fund in respect of it was about £200; whereas the real cost of maintaining the roads of the borough was £6,000 or £7,000. Why were the ratepayers in counties, whose rates were less than those towns, to receive aid from the Consolidated Fund, whilst the heavy ratepayers of the towns, who had suffered more from commercial depression than the counties, received none? He did not advocate throwing the whole cost of the maintenance of the roads of the country on the Consolidated Fund; but why, he would ask, were they to take out of the Consolidated Fund £250,000 in order to put it in the hands of the least taxed class in the community?—because the ratepayers in the counties were taxed to nothing like the amount that ratepayers in the boroughs were taxed. This assistance to the agricultural interest was one of those sops which were thrown to Cerberus last
    1024
    year. He was sorry this sop was thrown last year, and he certainly should give the Committee an opportunity of saying whether or not it should be thrown this year.
    MR. GREGORYsaid, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton had put the roads in boroughs in the same position as the main roads in the agricultural districts. In reality, they were not in the same position. The roads, for which a contribution was asked, were links in the great chains of communication from one end of the country to the other. They were originally constructed, not for parochial purposes, but as main arteries of communication, to promote Imperial objects. On this footing they were projected and constructed; on this footing they were maintained; and on that principle the Committee was asked to make this contribution. He had had some experience of this matter. When he practised before Committees he had to deal with case after case of turnpike roads, and found that generally they wore constructed out of money advanced on the faith of tolls, many of them by the landowners. In many cases the tolls became insufficient for the maintenance of the roads, and the persons who had constructed them sustained considerable loss, the country, of course, getting the benefit of that loss. The question was whether the Government should pay for their maintenance now that the tolls had been abolished? And in considering this it was necessary, as he had said, to bear in mind that those roads were not constructed for parochial purposes. They had been constructed at the expense of private individuals for Imperial purposes, and handed over to the country, and all the country was asked to pay was the expense of repairs. He had had some experience, too, of roads through boroughs. The desire of the borough authorities had always been to throw the liability in respect of the roads further and further back—that was to say, to include as much of the main roads within the boroughs as they could. There were many instances of turnpike roads constructed at the expense of private individuals who had no connection with the borough, having become streets by the extensive borough boundary. For these, they had only to pay the cost of maintenance inside the boun-

    1025
    dary. The boroughs certainly had no right to complain of the liability they were under. All that was now asked for was a contribution towards the main arteries, which had been constructed, not for parochial or local purposes alone, but for public purposes and uses.
    MR. DUCKHAMsaid, he was sorry to hear a discussion raised on this matter. The arrangement made had been a sort of compromise, by which the Chancellor of the Exchequer, having proposed to put a tax on carriages, gave this subvention towards the turnpike roads—or towards the maintenance of the main roads of the country established under the Act of 1878. As a rule, the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) was very accurate in the views he placed before the House; but, on this occasion, he was the reverse. The main roads were not confined to the turnpike roads of the country, but extended to every market town and every borough in the Kingdom which had its own separate Quarter Sessions. [Mr. RYLANDS: You are quite mistaken.] He was not mistaken in what he was stating. If the authorities in the different counties had not put into operation the Act of 1878, it was their fault, and not his inaccurate speaking. The Act of 1878 extended the through roads of the country through every borough in the Kingdom which had a separate Quarter Sessions. [Mr. RYLANDS: You are wrong.] He begged the hon. Member's pardon. He was quite right, as the hon. Member would see if he would take the trouble to read the Act. They had it, on very high authority, that the main roads of the country had not been maintained altogether by real property, but that personal property was also liable. That was a matter he was not going to enter upon further than to make a bare allusion to it; but he was supported in his view by a speech he had had the pleasure of hearing from the Prime Minister. He (Mr. Duckham) was certainly very much surprised at the remarks the hon. Member for Wolverhampton had made, and hoped that the Committee, if it divided, would not do so according to the lines laid down by that hon. Member. The agricultural condition of this country was very different now from what it was 100 years ago. With regard to a comparison between rates paid
    1026
    by urban and suburban ratepayers, he could speak with a considerable amount of experience; and he was sure that equity required that the grant which the Committee was now called upon to make was not in excess of what should be given. If some parts of the Kingdom had not put in force the Act of 1878, the fault rested with the local authorities, and not with the Government. Those who had put the Act in force had adopted the plan of rates for the main roads. There were only a few towns which had Quarter Sessions, and he found that rates were of more advantage to the ratepayers in boroughs than to those in the counties.
    MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONsaid, he had always been of opinion that there should be some relief in a way which would relieve all the ratepayers—say, for lunacy or poor. Of course, as the hon. Member for Wolverhampton had said, this grant was nothing less than a sop to Cerberus; but he should have said that at the time, and shown that the Government, instead of dealing with this question on a bold and intelligible principle, had simply given way to agitation. It could not, however, be denied that the agitation was founded upon grievances which fell very heavily upon certain interests. The hon. Member's complaint now came quite too late, because the Government were not going to give any further assistance to the agricultural interest in lieu of the one which he would withdraw.
    MR. RYLANDSsaid, he thought that in consequence of the clamour made by the agricultural interest for some relief, the Government in a weak moment had given a certain sop to that interest. When the Government first proposed to increase the tax on carriages, such opinions were expressed from the Benches below the Gangway that the Government withdrew the proposal. There was no speaking about it in public, but private intimations were given, and if the proposal had been pressed Members on those Benches would have voted against it. Being quite unable to carry that tax, which would have been most injurious to an important branch of manufacture, the Government then proposed to give a substitute. He forgot exactly the circumstances; but the matter was brought forward very late in the Session, and adopted when everyone

    1027
    was in a scramble, and there was no opportunity to discuss the proposal of the Government. If there had been a suitable opportunity, he and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton would have opposed it ab initio. Why? Because they regarded it as one of those objectionable charges such as had been fastened from time to time on the Consolidated Fund in the interest of owners of property. It was very nice for them to dip their hands into the Consolidated Fund; but what was that Fund? It was a Fund to which the working classes of this country contributed a very large share. [An hon. MEMBBR: No, no!] No! The working classes contributed a large proportion of the Customs and Excise, and it was upon thorn that the country gentlemen were seeking to fasten burdens in order to relieve their own shoulders. He objected altogether to this Vote. He had not heard the hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Ramsay); but if his speech had been correctly represented, his Amendment was meant as a protest against the insufficiency of the grant for Scotland. He hoped that was not so; but he would very much rather join with his hon. Friend if he would withdraw his Amendment and join in voting against this Vote altogether, as that was the best way of dealing with it. If the hon. Member would withdraw and vote against the English Vote, he would vote with him upon the Scotch Vote. Then no party from England or Scotland could complain. He really believed that if this side of the House would, on this occasion, exhibit some of the independence that used to exist in the House, and which he should be glad to see again manifested, and if they would join with him and the hon. Member for Wolverhampton in resisting this Vote, he believed at the next Cabinet Meeting on Saturday the Government would congratulate themselves on the result. It was contrary to the principles of the Prime Minister to propose a substitute of this kind. He hoped his hon. Friends would assist the Government in getting out of the false position in which they had placed themselves by granting, in a weak moment, this substitute of £200,000. Hon. Members should read the Mid Lothian speeches as to the proper mode of relieving local burdens. Was it consistent with the Prime Minister's principles to give a lump sum of
    1028
    £200,000 for the relief of the counties? Not at all. If assistance was to be given it should be in a different form. He should be glad if, by rejecting this Vote, the Committee would put an end to the practice of hon. Members who constantly cried "Give, give!"
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he thought the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) was almost quite alone in his action. The hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) had promised to support the hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Ramsay) in a Motion to reduce or strike out the Vote for Scotland; but he feared the hon. Member for Falkirk would not give a willing assent to that. In answer to the hon. Members for Wolverhampton and Burnley, he could only assure the Committee that this must be looked upon as, in one souse, a temporary grant. It was a grant which was subject to revision, or to a complete change in its nature. It was subject to the general consideration of the whole financial relations of the State, and the counties and the various parties in this country, which must take place when the subject of Local Taxation was examined. He hoped and believed that the question of Local Government would come before the House for consideration at an early period; and, whenever that question was dealt with, undoubtedly it must be dealt with not as one of local government alone, but of local finances, and the relations between the local and the Imperial finances. Therefore, this matter must be looked upon as a temporary grant which must continue until these relations were revised. As to the manner in which the grant was at present distributed, the hon. Member behind him had put before the Committee the principles upon which the difference occurred between one locality and another. The rates were, of course, divisible into two great classes—namely, those for local traffic, and those for through traffic on the main lines of communication between the large towns. With respect to the first, they were specially to the advantage of the particular localities. As to the second, the principle that the cost of maintaining the main roads ought not to fall upon the particular localities through which the roads passed had been recognized since 1870. The Act of 1870 provided that the cost of maintaining these roads,

    1029
    so far as such roads were included in the highway district, should be borne by the fund of the highway district. In 1878, by the Highways Act, a further step was taken in the same direction. By that Act the cost of maintaining such roads in case of separate highway districts was transferred to the county rate, subject only to the condition that the road should be certified by the surveyor to have been maintained in a proper condition. One effect of that had, therefore, been that the roads had been maintained in a good condition, and that was a considerable result. By the same Act the county authorities were empowered to declare their roads, whether they were disturnpiked roads or not, to be main roads, and a moiety of any such road should be maintained in the same manner as a disturnpiked road under the Act of 1870. As to roads which were distinguished as main roads, they varied considerably in different parts of the country, and that was the cause of the variation of the grants, to which hon. Members had called attention. He knew that the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) had a very strong opinion upon these grants, and, generally speaking, he concurred very much with the hon. Member in his view against a system of substitutes. It was not a system of which he could approve; but, at the same time, as he had distinctly stated, the Government looked upon this as a temporary grant, and not as one which, in the long run, could be satisfactory, or which should be permanent. They regarded it as one which should continue only until the system of local taxation was dealt with.
    SIR GABRIEL GOLDNEYsaid, the argument seemed to be that parishes were bound to maintain the roads in their districts; but to show the poverty of that argument, he had only to mention that these roads were not parish roads, but main roads, constructed for through communication for the general advantage of the public in cheapness of carriage. The mails were carried as they never could have been otherwise, and Parliament had very much constructed these roads at the expense of the whole community, in order to obtain the great benefits in which the whole country participated. It was monstrous, then, that they should throw what was
    1030
    for the benefit of the whole community on the localities, and ignore all the expenses now thrown upon them without any local benefit, but with some inconvenience, for the general good. It was not merely the parishes that were interested, but every individual could, at this moment, indict a parish for the non-repair of these roads. The public had, through Parliament, sanctioned the construction of these roads; the public had had the advantage of the roads; and it was monstrous that the public should not contribute in any shape to the maintenance of the roads. Whether the allocation of part of the Government funds was to be temporary or permanent was beside the question at this moment. These great expenses had to be borne, and the whole community ought to bear a portion of them.
    MR. BUCHANANsaid, he took it that the object of the hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Ramsay) in his Amendment was to secure that this contribution to the main roads should be given in the same proportion as the subsidy to the Scotch high roads. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir Charles W. Dilke) had not taken notice of the objection raised by the hon. Member for Falkirk; and he thought the right hon. Gentleman should state upon what grounds the allocation between the two countries was made. The difference between the English and Scotch grants was as eight to one, whereas the fair ratio between the two countries would be as six or seven to one; but, however that might be, the Committee had a fair claim to some explanation from the President of the Local Government Board, or from the Lord Advocate, as to the way in which the money was allocated, and as to why a very much larger proportionate sum was given to England than to Scotland. He entirely agreed with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) in his opposition to the principle of these grants in aid, and should vote with him; but he was not sure that the Scotch Members would accept the advice of the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands).
    SIR CHARLES W. DILKEsaid, he could assure the hon. Member that he knew very little about the Scotch part of the case. When this Vote was revised last year, the control of the whole matter was placed in the hands of the Local

    1031
    Government Board. The result was that the whole country rose in insurrection on the subject; and it appeared that, of all the Public Departments, the Local Government Board was the most unpopular in Scotland; and Scotland entirely repudiated all interference by the Board in regard to this grant, and the result was that the Board had had nothing to say to the Scotch part of the case. That was the reason why he knew little of the Scotch portion of the grant for this year. Last Session the Scotch grant fell very much short of the amount expected, but the principle upon which it was distributed was precisely the same as that which had prevailed in Scotland; and he assumed that the falling off was caused by the general average in Scotland, in the same way as in England it had told against certain counties to the benefit of others. Some counties in England had come worse off than others in connection with these matters, and so he supposed Scotland had suffered in the same way.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, this Estimate was a fair specimen of the mode in which money for public purposes was voted in that House. They had heard from the hon. Member for Burnley (Mr. Rylands) that the working classes of Great Britain were taxed in order to lighten the burdens on the shoulders of the landlords; and they had had the hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Ramsay) objecting to the Vote because it was disproportionate to the amount given to Scotland. Those hon. Gentlemen argued as if England and Scotland alone contributed to the Fund from which this grant was made; but he would remind the Committee that there was a certain Island not far from these shores, the inhabitants of which also contributed to the Consolidated Fund, although they had no place whatever in the scheme of subvention. The Committee were asked by the hon. Member for Falkirk to reduce the Vote to an extent that would make it bear the same proportion to English taxation as the Scotch Vote did. Without discussing the inequality which, in the case of Scotland, the hon. Member conceived to constitute an injustice, he (Mr. A. O'Connor) asked the Committee to consider the grievous injustice involved in the Vote to the people of Ireland. When they compared the local taxation in Ireland with that in Eng-
    1032
    land, it would be found that it was not England or Scotland which should receive assistance, but Ireland. The valuation in Great Britain in 1870 was £104,000,000, and in 1880 it had risen to £135,000,000, an increase of 30 per cent; while in Ireland, in 1871, the valuation was £13,200,000, and in 1881 it stood at £13,700,000—that was to say, the value of property in Ireland that could bear taxation had increased only at the rate of 4 per cent, the increased wealth of England during the same period being more than seven and a-half times as great. But in that time the population of England had increased immensely, while in Ireland it had gone on steadily decreasing, the condition of the people having become very much worse. During the year 1871 there were in Ireland in receipt of relief under the Poor Law 282,000 persons; in 10 years that number had gone up to 590,000. So that the pauper population of Ireland had in a decade increased by almost 50 per cent, while the pauper population in England had gone down very much, in face of the greatly increased valuation of property which he had already shown. In that state of affairs it was plain that it was Ireland that required assistance from the Imperial Treasury, not Scotland or England. But when they came to the particular subject of the maintenance of roads, the inequality appeared very great, because in England, out of a total local taxation of £20,800,000, he found that the highway rate only amounted to £1,021,000; whereas in Ireland, out of a total local taxation of £3,371,000, no less than £333,000 was paid from the Grand Jury Cess. It was perfectly plain that to omit Ireland from the list of communities receiving grants from Imperial taxation, while Scotland and England were included, was most unjust. He had no wish to detain the Committee unnecessarily; and would only remark that he should vote for the Amendment of the hon. Member for Falkirk as a protest, on the part of Irish Members, against the utterly indefensible demand that the Consolidated Fund should contribute to the maintenance of English and Scotch roads, while their own community received no assistance of the kind whatever.
    COLONEL ALEXANDERsaid, he was obliged to the hon. Member for Falkirk

    1033
    (Mr. Ramsay) for the proposal he had just made, and he should certainly vote in its favour if he thought fit to divide the Committee upon it. He agreed with the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) that if it was necessary to come at all upon the Consolidated Fund for the purpose of maintaining disturnpiked roads, Scotland ought to have her full share of the grant. His own opinion was that roads were best paid for by means of tolls, because, in that case, they were kept up by those who made use of them; and therefore he regretted that in a short time every turnpike in Scotland would be done away with. That was the work of the late Conservative Government, and would never be forgiven by persons in his own county. The feeling was so strong that, under the circumstances, he was astonished to find himself there to tell the tale.
    MR. ILLINGWORTHsaid, the Vote was another illustration of the power and skill of the landed interest in the House of Commons. He was surprised that hon. Gentlemen should so easily fall into a trap designed to enhance the value of their property by the landed class, at the cost of the taxpayers of the country. It must be obvious that every relief of this kind given out of the Consolidated Fund was really a scheme for the maintenance of rents in the country. He felt this constituted a real Irish grievance, and he regretted his hon. Friend the Member for Galway (Mr. Mitchell Henry) was not there to deal with it. If Scotch Members felt it necessary to get up and propose a reduction of the Vote, on the ground that the grant to Scotland was disproportionate to that of England, how much more must Irish Members be justified in objecting to the Vote on the ground that no relief whatever was given to the Irish ratepayers, although they had to bear their full share of Imperial taxation? He was glad that the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Local Government Board had informed the Committee that the Vote was only a temporary one, and that its removal from the Estimates was awaiting the settlement of the larger question of Local Government and the re-arrangement of county finance. No harm would be done, in his opinion, if his hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk went to a division
    1034
    upon the Main Question, in order to express, on behalf of the great majority of the taxpayers and the heavily-taxed working class, their feeling against the Vote; but he hoped his hon. Friend, seeeing that the point he had raised was a very small one, would not put the Committee to the trouble of dividing on his Amendment.
    SIR E. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, the landowners were perfectly ready to bear their hereditary burdens; but when the Government placed upon them extraordinary rates for matters not originally contemplated, it was expected that some alleviation would be proposed.
    MR. HIBBERT: The Government did not propose the rates.
    SIR R. ASSHETON CROSSsaid, that, at all events, they persuaded the House of Commons to pass the Bill. A point which ought not to be overlooked was that a great number of these rates were imposed, not for local, but Imperial purposes, and therefore ought to have been borne by the Imperial Exchequer. It was useless for the hon. Member opposite to get up and say this was not the case. Whether the aid was to be given by subvention or not was of less importance than whether the purpose of the outlay was an Imperial or a local one. The burdens that were of a local character could easily be arranged for. He was acquainted with parts of Scotland in which the Roads and Bridges Act had done a great deal of good, and he was certain the time would come when the people of Scotland, as a whole, would thank the late Government for passing that Act.
    MR. CROPPERsaid, he hoped the Amendment of the hon. Member for Falkirk would not be pressed. Certainly he thought the feeling of the House, when this proposal was originally made, was that it was a fair way of meeting an acknowledged difficulty. With regard to the observations of the hon. Member for Queen's County (Mr. A. O'Connor), he wished to point out that the Irish people were free from certain assessed taxes which the people were liable for in, England, and which it was to be hoped would soon be given up for local purposes. It must be remembered that the subvention did promote efficiency in the case of the roads, because it was only given on proof that they were well kept up. He thought the discussion had been

    1035
    of use in causing it to be understood that the grant was only a temporary one.
    SIR WALTER B. BARTTELOTsaid, he desired to say a few words in answer to what had fallen from the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Illingworth). He did not intend to enter into the whole question of roads; but if there was one thing more than another which the tenant farmers required, it was an alleviation of their burdens, so far as the main roads of the country were concerned. He remembered sitting on a Committee with reference to turnpikes many years ago, and the question came before them as to the Bradford, Kirk-stall, and Leeds road, and the farmers in that district protested that it would be most unwise to abolish the turnpikes, and why? On each side of the road there were mills as thick as possible all the way along, and at the back there were tracts of agricultural land, cultivated it was true, but which, as at the present time, were not paying very well. There might be times when there was distress in our manufactures, but even then those engaged in those industries were only rated for the buildings they occupied; but the farmer, under any circumstances, would have to bear the burden of the roads, and he thought no greater case of hardship could be illustrated than the one he had referred to. He, therefore, failed to see how it could be alleged that this paltry £200,000 was going to benefit the landlords. It was the scantiest and barest possible justice; and if the President of the Local Government Board had not some more satisfactory scheme to propose in the way of giving more of the public funds to the support of the main roads, some very strong complaints would be made and great disappointment would be felt.
    MR. BIGGARcontended that the ratepayers in Ireland laboured under a greater grievance than those in Scotland in this matter of maintaining the roads out of the Consolidated Fund. But he also objected, on general grounds, that the charge on account of the disturnpiked roads was not legitimate, because those roads, which before the establishment of railways were of very great importance, were not now used to anything like the same extent as before. They were formerly used as main roads; but now they were only used by the ratepayers of the district. Such things as
    1036
    long distance journeys by road, by cart, or waggon, were now out of the question. It was the farmers who got the benefit of the abolition of turnpikes, because, although they had the almost exclusive use of the roads, these were, to a large extent, maintained by the manufactures in the various districts.
    MR. H. T. DAVENPORTsaid, if he had with him the Returns furnished to him by the President of the Local Government Board of the amount of money paid by the various highway authorities in Staffordshire, he believed they would supply a contradiction of the statement of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler) that the towns were not benefited by the Vote except to a very small extent. Of course, he did not rise to oppose the present Vote of £200,000, because he thought that, as a matter of fact, it was not large enough. He understood from the President of the Local Government Board that the whole of the £220,000 voted last year had been spent; but as he believed there was a large number of parishes entitled to payment under this head which had not yet received any money, it was only fair to suppose that if £220,000 was not enough to meet the claims of last year, the £200,000 now asked for would also be insufficient for the purpose.
    MR. RAMSAYsaid, the question raised by him was not, as the hon. Member for Bradford (Mr. Illingworth) supposed, one of minor importance. The question was, were Members for Scotland to take the means open to them of endeavouring to secure proportionate equality in the distribution of these grants when the Votes came before them? Under the circumstances, he felt it his duty to divide the Committee on his Amendment.
    MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he did not wish to put the Committee to the trouble of dividing twice, and he therefore proposed to take the decision of the Committee on the Amendment of the hon. Member for Falkirk as indicative of the view of the Committee on the Main Question.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 49; Noes 162: Majority 113.—(Div. List, No. 103.)
    Original Question put, and agreed to.
    (6.) Motion made, and Question proposed,
    "That a sum, not exceeding £20,000, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1884, in Aid of the Cost of Maintenance of Disturnpiked Roads in Scotland during the year ended Whitsuntide 1883."
    MR. RAMSAYsaid, he should like to receive information from someone connected with the Home Office as to what steps were taken to regulate the distribution of this amount. He endeavoured last year to bring under the notice of the Government the injustice done to Scotland in this matter; and he felt now that unless they got some assurance that the grant would be distributed on a different principle to that which had been adopted in the past, they would not be justified in voting the money for the maintenance of the roads in Scotland. Many of the counties of Scotland had never had turnpikes in them, and the Local Government Board had framed a Rule to the effect that none of the roads that were disturnpiked before a prescribed date should receive any part of the grant. It was understood that the grant should be given for the maintenance of disturnpiked and main roads, and these ran all through Scotland. The late Member for Haddingtonshire, Lord Elcho (the Earl of Wemyss), got the roads in his county disturnpiked; but, because that occurred before the prescribed date, the county did not get a sixpence. It was not the case that boroughs through which main roads passed had not made representations to the Local Government Board. The borough he represented (Airdrie) had done so. It had claimed to have a grant in respect of the roads that passed through it, which were maintained by its ratepayers, and not by the county, as they were wont to be. He felt that unless they obtained from some person on the Treasury Bench an explanation of the manner in which the grant was to be allocated, the Committee would do well to reject it altogether.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. B. BALFOUR)said, it had already been explained more than once that evening that when the grant was made last year it was regarded as of a temporary nature. For that reason it was administered by the Local Government
    1038
    Board. The grant went back much farther, in so far as Scotland was concerned, than it did in England; but it was true it had left out certain counties which bad anticipated the more recent legislation, and had themselves promoted Acts by which tolls were abolished. The amount actually appropriated to Scotland, he believed, was somewhere about £20,500. They were fully sensible that there was a fair case for the consideration of the grants which were left out of the allocation of last year; and, accordingly, the Vote asked for this year, and which would be administered under the direction of the Home Office, was £25,000, or £4,500 in excess of what it was last year. The hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Ramsay) would see that this left a considerable margin. He was not in a position to say in what manner the money would be disposed of; but he could assure the hon. Member that the case of these counties was under favourable consideration. It was to be hoped the hon. Member would not insist on opposing the Vote, for if he did he would be resisting the granting of the means whereby the claim he made might be satisfied. He (the Lord Advocate) hoped the Committee would not have to divide on the matter.
    MR. RAMSAYsaid, he did not think the statement which had been elicited from the Lord Advocate was at all satisfactory. The £4,500 which the Government saved from Scotland last year was justly due to those counties from which the grant had been altogether withheld. Unless, however, they could get an assurance that money would be allocated to all the counties which were not included last year, he must oppose the Vote. He did not think the ratepayers derived the benefit from these roads that it was supposed they did by hon. Gentlemen sitting on the Conservative Benches. These grants were illusory. They were allocated by gentlemen who did not know the position of the districts; and, unless they could get an assurance that this £4,500 would in future be allocated for the behoof of Scotland, he did not think it would be right to let the Vote pass. Unless he got some more definite assurance than that which he had yet received, or some more satisfactory explanation, he must resist the proposal. The original Estimate of the Government with regard to

    1039
    Scotland was for £40,000; but, instead of getting the whole of that amount, Scotland, as he understood, was put off with less than half the whole amount. He would, therefore, if it was competent for him to do so, move the postponement of the Vote until they received from the Government some definite rules for the allocation of the money. Without that, the Scotch Members could not rest satisfied that the money would be justly distributed.
    SIR HERBERT MAXWELLsaid, he was sure the hon. Member for Falkirk was right in what he had stated. Certain counties which had taken the initiative in this new system of road legislation were entirely cut off from all benefit in the Vote. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate said he would take the matter into his favourable consideration; but that was a phrase they were quite familiar with. They knew very well what "favourable consideration" meant. The right hon. and learned Gentleman was, no doubt, perfectly sincere; but hon. Members were apt to be suspicious of vague promises of this sort; and, unless they obtained a more definite assurance than they had had, that the counties which had taken the initiative in the matter would receive that consideration which was no more than their due, he should feel himself justified in going with his hon. Friend (Mr. Ramsay) in this matter.
    DR. CAMERONsaid, it seemed to him the argument of his hon. Friend (Mr. Ramsay) was rather illogical. He should have thought an hon. Gentleman representing a Scotch constituency would have admitted the truth of the proverb, "Half a loaf is better than no bread." He, like the hon. Gentleman, was against grants in aid, and should have been glad to have voted with him against the grant altogether, believing that these grants did no good, and always led to extravagance. He (Dr. Cameron) was opposed to them in principle; but if there was one thing which made them bearable, it was that they should be distributed to all parts of the Kingdom alike. If it was desired to give the Government more time to consider the subject, the proper thing to do would be to move to report Progress; at any rate, he could not go with the hon. Member in opposing the Scottish Vote after the English one had been passed.
    1040
    In addition to the complaints of some of the counties, the boroughs believed they were hardly dealt with; but, as Scotland was going to contribute its share of the grant in aid in respect of English roads, he did not see why they should hesitate to take what they could get for Scotch roads. The hon. Member, he thought, might very well move to report Progress.
    MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORsaid, the course adopted by the hon. Member for Falkirk (Mr. Ramsay) certainly astonished him. The hon. Member had proposed a reduction of the last Vote because, as he said, he wished to bring the amount voted for England into proper proportion with the amount voted for Scotland; but he had never told them he had it in his mind to move the rejection of the Scotch Vote altogether. Having done that, he (Mr. A. O'Connor) failed to see where the disproportion existed in the hon. Gentleman's mind. He had voted with the hon. Member in the last division, the object of the hon. Member being to bring the amount granted to England into fair proportion with that granted to Scotland. He would propose to do the same with the present Vote—namely, attempt to bring it down to a fair proportion with the amount voted for Ireland; and, as he found that there was to be nothing granted to Ireland, it was a fair thing to reject the Vote altogether. It would not be illogical to ask the hon. Member and his Friends to go with him into the Lobby on this matter. The objection which had been taken by the hon. Member had been answered by a Member of the Government; but no one had attempted to urge on the Irish Members, in reply to himself (Mr. A. O'Connor), that Ireland had got a single penny by the passing of the last or the present Vote. He presumed it was not from want of courtesy that he had not been answered, but from inability to find a suitable argument. In the absence of any such argument, he had no option but to insist upon the Motion of the hon. Member for Falkirk being put and voting for it.
    MR. RAMSAY: I ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
    THE CHAIRMAN: Is it the pleasure of the Committee that the Motion be withdrawn?
    Several hon. MEMBERS: No.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 202; Noes 12: Majority 190.—(Div. List, No. 104.)
    Resolutions to be reported To-morrow.
    Committee to sit again upon Wednesday.

  CONSTABULARY AND POLICE (IRE-LAND) (PAY AND PENSIONS) BILL.
  (Mr. Trevelyan, Mr. Courtney, Mr. Herbert Gladstone.)
  CONSTABULARY AND POLICE (IRE-LAND) (PAY AND PENSIONS) BILL.

    [BILL 171.] COMMITTEE.
    Order for Committee read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."—(Mr. Trevelyan.)
    MR. BIGGARsaid, he desired to give Notice of opposition to this Bill, for two reasons. His first reason was, that it had previously been brought on after half-past 12, and he should object to that being done, though he should not take that objection now, as it was not yet half-past 12. His second reason was, that the Irish Police were exceedingly liberally dealt with and very well paid for the work they had to do. It was an unsound principle that members of a Public Force should receive special consideration for the performance of their duties, and especially when, as in the case of the Irish Police, they had, in some parts of Ireland, almost thrown districts into a state of mutiny. If the Government had acted rightly they would have allowed the mutineers to leave the Force and filled up their places. But even if they had thought the pay of the Police was not satisfactory they should not have almost immediately endeavoured to meet the claims of the Police. They should have waited till the Executive had had time to cool down. It was always very objectional to legislate in a state of panic, and that was especially the case in regard to the Police now. They had evidently frightened the Government; the Government had fallen down on their knees, and the result would be that for all time to come the Police would have the Government entirely at their command, when any difficulty arose to the Government. The Police were extravagantly overpaid, and this attempt to increase their pay was perfectly unreasonable. It was also preposterous to retire them when they were
    1042
    in the prime of life. No public servant should be allowed to retire until he had reached an age when he might reasonably expect to retire; but by this Bill it was open to a policeman to retire under 50 years of age, while in other Services the age for retirement was, in many cases, 65. That part of the Bill was quite indefensible, and he did not think the Government could offer any argument in favour of it. He would not ask the House to divide on the Motion to go into Committee. As it had gone through the farce of a second reading the matter deserved consideration, and he should allow the Bill to go into Committee and then discuss the different points.
    Motion agreed to.
    Bill considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Preliminary.
    Clause 1 (Short title) agreed to.

    PART I.
    Royal Irish Constabulary.
    Clause 2 (Revised salaries for men of the Royal Irish Constabulary).
    MR. CALLANsaid, he found that this clause provided that extra pay should cease after the passing of the Act. If that were agreed to, the men would be in a worse position than they now were.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, he thought no constable would be in a worse position. The utmost amount of extra pay under the Proviso was £10, and that was in the case of head constables. The constable would get only £4 extra pay a-year; and he had no doubt those men would profit to the extent of £11 by this Bill. The hon. Member might set his mind at ease upon that point.
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 3 (Right of constables to pensions).
    MR. O'BRIENasked how many men there were in the Force who would gain no present advantage under this Bill—that was the men who had not completed seven years service? It seemed to him that the Bill was, to a great extent, devised to punish these men, who were, to a large degree, the backbone of the agitation that had brought about this Bill.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, there was no doubt that a large number of the men would not receive any present ad-

    1043
    vantage under the Bill; but when it was considered who those men were, he did not think their position could be regarded as one for commisseration, but rather as one for envy, because they were men of under seven years' service—men of from 22 or 23 to 27 or 28 years of age—and, after careful examination by the Committee, the conclusion had been arrived at that those men were singularly well off, compared with other persons in their own station, and that at the age of 22 or 23 these men married and began to settle in life, and they would obtain great advantages under the Bill. At their present age their position was very desirable; and when they reached 30 years of age their position would be very much better, and would be very much improved by this Bill. The men who would gain by the Bill were the men who suffered from one defect only, and that the defect of all others most easily cured—namely, youth. The Bill was for the benefit of men who had stayed in the Force, and in benefiting them the Bill benefited the whole Service.
    MR. O'BRIENasked whether the large proportion of constables who would receive no benefit under the Bill were not also the men who had made themselves most conspicuous in the agitation? It seemed to him to be a Bill which, in the scale of pay, was very ingeniously devised, in order to make these men the scapegoats, and to draw the sting of the agitation, and break up community of feeling and sentiment among the men—giving nothing to those men who were the backbone of the agitation, and giving a handsome increase of pay to the old and hardened and more favoured ranks of the Service, in order to keep them isolated from their comrades. If he was right in his reading of the Bill, no man was to receive any increase of pay unless he had completed seven years' service—that was to say, the young men were to be made the scapegoats; the Force was to be broken up into various categories; the married men were bought off in one way, and the head constables, who did all they could to thwart the action of their younger Comrades, were to get the larger share of the advantages. It seemed to him that the younger constables were to be left out in the cold; and if they grumbled, it would be perfectly safe to dismiss them without much
    1044
    ceremony. What he wished to elicit was whether the men who were to receive nothing were not the men who had principally helped to bring this Bill about?
    MR. BIGGARsaid, this clause provided that a man might voluntarily retire from the Police after 25 years' service and receive a pension for life. He objected to that principle, and held that so long as a man was able physically to perform his duties it was undesirable that he should be allowed to retire. Anyone who had lived in Ireland knew very well that there was a considerable number of stout, active, and intelligent men who were at the present time receiving large pensions from the Constabulary, although they were thoroughly competent to perform all the duties of the Force. Ono of the great aims of these men was to retire on a pension, and then take public-houses. That was their ordinary mode of selecting careers. The age at which policemen entered the Force was between 21 to 23 years, and by this clause they would be able to retire on full pensions at 46 or 48 years of age. Those men were selected just because they were men of large physical power; they led a healthy life; they had very little to do; and they lived under the best possible conditions; so that at the time when they were to be allowed to retire they were of more value to the Service than they had been at any other time. No one could pretend that at the age of 46 or 48 a man was unfit for any of the ordinary occupations of life. If the limit were extended from 25 to 45 years' service that would be much more reasonable. One of the subsequent clauses of the Bill authorized the retirement of a policeman if he was unfit, from any physical cause, to perform his duties; but this sub-section enabled policemen to retire on full pension while still able to perform the duties.
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 12, to leave out sub-section (a).—(Mr. Biggar.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, the object of this Amendment was to strike out voluntary retirement after 25 years' service altogether. If that was done, no man could retire except on the ground

    1045
    of incapacity. The present rule as to officers and men appointed since 1868 was that they might voluntarily retire after serving 30 years. If they had been appointed before 1866, they must get a medical certificate. The Committee of Inquiry had carefully considered this question, and were in favour of the 25 years' period for retirement. This suggestion was adopted for the Bill of last year, and the principle was adopted from the principle in the Civil Service, from which a man could retire after a certain age without incapacity. These questions of retirement were extremely difficult; but, on the whole, the most practised authorities were in favour of naming an age after which a man was not likely to be efficient, and allowing him to then retire voluntarily. The period of service after which a policeman was not likely to be fully efficient was considered to be 25 years. In the Royal Navy the term was 26 years; but he thought that might be somewhat shortened. If a period was named, and then men were allowed to stay, the almost certain result would be that they would be kept on and not allowed to go until a considerably longer time had elapsed. On the other hand, the men would be discontented when they passed the age of average efficiency. Beyond that, Members of the Committee must not think that constables would be without temptation, and a very solid temptation, to remain in the Service as long as they were capable of performing the duties of the Service; because, in the first place, a man's pension would be very much less than his pay. If he retired after 25 years' service, his pension would only be 30–50ths of his pay, and the difference of two-fifths of pay, in that rank of life, was very sensible. And, in the next place, if he stayed on, not only would he earn his money for a longer time, but his pension would be considerably improved, because it would rise by additions of l–50th until he obtained two-thirds of his pay. The Government had partly adopted the recommendations of the Committee of Inquiry.
    MR. BIGGARsubmitted that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had given no substantial reason why the Amendment should not be adopted. The right hon. Gentleman simply said that, as a general rule, some
    1046
    particular time in life should be made, beyond which a man should not hold office. But he had not told them that 46 or 48 years of age was anything like a proper limit. It appeared to him (Mr. Biggar) that the limit fixed in the Bill was exceedingly low. The right hon. Gentleman had not told them why the retirement should be allowed at so early an age. As a matter of fact, if the depopulation of Ireland continued at the rate at which it had been proceeding of late, there would in future be great difficulty in getting recruits for the Police Service; but, apart from that, it seemed to him (Mr. Biggar) absurd to allow a man in the prime of life to retire from service. He should, therefore, press his Amendment.
    MR. SYNANpointed out that if the Amendment of his hon. Friend was carried there would be no limit mentioned at all, and no possibility of retirement after 30 or 40 years' service. He therefore hoped that his hon. Friend would not press the Amendment. His hon. Friend contended that the limit was too low; let him, therefore, propose to strike out the present limit, and move the insertion of one more in conformity with his views.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, his hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Synan) misapprehended the effect of the Amendment. The Amendment only provided that a man could not got a pension as long as he was able to perform the duties of his office. If a man chose a particular profession, he (Mr. Biggar) saw no reason why, as long as a man was energetic and able to perform his duties, he should consider it any grievance that he was required to continue in the Service. Hon. Members knew perfectly well that in all cases it was the easiest thing in the world to get a medical certificate, as soon as a man's capacities became at all doubtful. He did not mean to insinuate that medical certificates were given fraudulently, but that it was a matter of ease, or comparative ease, to get them.
    MR. T. A. DICKSONconsidered the system of voluntary retirement provided by the Bill a vital part of it. After 25 years' service a man should certainly have the option of voluntary retirement. He knew that the system was regarded by the police themselves as a great been; and, therefore, he hoped the Committee

    1047
    would pass the clause without amendment.
    COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, the duties of the Police were not those of ordinary Civil servants. The Police had arduous work to go through; and when one of them arrived at the age of 45, it stood to reason that he was not able to go across country as lie was at the age of 30. At such an age as 45, a man naturally found his joints stiff.
    MR. O'BRIENwould support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cavan, unless he received some assurance with regard to the pensions of a deserving body of men who had already retired from the Service—men who had served honourably in the Force at a time when, to some extent, it was a Civil Police Force, and not a Military Garrison. He hoped that those men would not be left in any worse position because they had not made campaigns with buckshot against their countrymen, or because they were not in a position to rise in mutiny. He trusted to receive some declaration from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary that might be satisfactory in respect to the class of men he referred to.
    MR. J. N. RICHARDSONsaid, he had had some conversation with members of the Force during the Whitsuntide Recess; and if he at all apprehended the feeling of the Force on this point, it was that the permission to retire at their own option, after a service of 25 years, was regarded as one of the greatest boons conferred by the Bill. Indeed, several of the men expressed to him the feeling that the permission given to them to retire was even a greater boon than larger pay or larger pension. It would, perhaps, be well for some hon. Members to be aware of the fact that men desirous of retiring had a good deal of difficulty in obtaining medical certificates; there was much going backwards and forwards to Dublin, and no end of red-tape generally. He hoped the Committee would pass the clause.
    MR. LEWISsaid, the remarks just made by the hon. Member for Mallow (Mr. O'Brien) were germane to the new clause of which he (Mr. Lewis) had given Notice. They seemed to have no bearing whatever on the matter now under discussion.
    MR. BIGGARobserved, that it had been said that this clause was very
    1048
    popular with the people. No doubt it was, because they were to be given considerable increase of pay and pension at the public expense. Hon. Members were not sent to Parliament to legislate for any particular class, but to do that which would be most beneficial for the British ratepayer. It seemed to him that to' give a pension to a man of 45 or 48 years of age was simply preposterous. A good deal was heard about retrenchment in the public funds; but if they were to multiply indefinitely the number of pensioners, the expenditure of the Kingdom would be very largely increased before many years were over.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 190; Noes 9: Majority 181.—(Div. List, No. 105.)
    MR. BIGGARproposed, in page 2, line 18, after "is," to insert "permanently." The sub-section provided that if a man had completed not less than 15 years service, and was incapacitated from the performance of his duty by infirmity of mind or body, he should be entitled to retire and receive a pension for life. The Committee would see that in that case 15 years' service was mentioned, and not 25, as in other cases. Considering that the service was fixed at so low a period, he considered that a man who was under 40 years of age, and whose incapacity was only of a temporary character, should be required to resume his duties when he had recovered. It was only proper that the Force should not lose the benefit of the man's service, simply because he had been temporarily disabled, and for this reason he moved the Amendment.
    Amendment proposed, in page 2, line 18, after the word "is," to insert the word "permanently."—(Mr. Biggar.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'permanently' be there inserted."
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, the Government duly recognized that the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) was, in his criticism of this Bill, actuated by public spirit. The Government were aiming at the same object; but they considered that there were conditions in the Bill by which they could attain it more effectually than it would be attained by the proposal of the hon. Member, The hon. Member would find that Clause 6,

    1049
    Section 1, enacted that the Inspector General must be satisfied that the incapacity was likely to be permanent before he granted a pension. He must, "yearly or otherwise, from time to time, also satisfy himself that such incapacity continues;" and if the incapacity ceased the man would either have to return to the Service or forfeit his pension. If the incapacity partially ceased the pension might be reduced. There was a defect in the Amendment as compared with the provisions of the Bill, for it was impossible to say at the time a man received an injury whether his incapacity would be permanent or not. If the Amendment was adopted, the man must either be kept on full pay or he must be dismissed with a pension. Under the provisions the Government had adopted he could neither do one or the other.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORappealed to his hon. Friend (Mr. Biggar) not to go to a division on an Amendment of this kind. He was glad to find the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary recognized the spirit in which his hon. Friend proposed the Amendment. He (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) did not quite sympathize with the "Joseph Hume" view his hon. Friend had taken of the Bill. It seemed to him that the Government, in the pensions and other rewards which they were distributing to the Police, had taken leave of that spirit of economy which he thought had always animated the Treasury. At the same time, he considered that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had shown that the precautions which were adopted by the Government in the Bill were rather better than the precautions proposed by his hon. Friend. Under the circumstances, he should be pleased if his hon. Friend would not put the Committee to the trouble of a division.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, that, after the appeal made to him by his hon. Friend, and the explanations of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, he would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment. It was well, perhaps, that he should say that he was thoroughly aware there was some provision in a subsequent part of the Bill which would more or less effect the object he had in view. He was still of opinion that when a medical man had given leave to a policeman to retire on a pension after 25 years' service, he
    1050
    should be well satisfied that the injury received was likely to be permanent. It should not be a matter in which it was only possible that the incapacity should be permanent. The right hon. Gentleman would himself see that when a man had once left the Service it would be very difficult, indeed, to get him back. Seeing that the Inspector General was required to make examination from time to time, which would have the effect of attaining the object he had in view, he would not press his Amendment.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
    MR. BIGGARsaid, that before the Question was put, he should like to propose an Amendment in "Sub-section A." It was provided that—
    "Every constable of the Royal Irish Constabulary who became a member of the force on or after the tenth day of August one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, or who shall become a member of the force after the passing of this Act, if he has completed not less than 25 years' service, shall be entitled, on the expiration of two months after he has given written notice to the Inspector General of his desire to retire, or of such less time after that notice as the Inspector General allows, to retire and receive a pension for life."
    His (Mr. Biggar's) opinion was that all policemen, whether they had joined the Force after or before the passing of the Act, should come under the provisions of the Act. As a matter of fact, all the men of the Force would get the benefit of the Act, and therefore all of them should be bound to return to the Service in pursuance of Clause 6, to which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had just referred.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I have put the Question that Clause 3 stand part of the Bill, and therefore the hon. Gentleman is not in Order in moving another Amendment.
    MR. CALLANasked for information with reference to the meaning of Subsection 6 of this clause, which provided that—
    "When any constable who became a member of the force on or after the tenth day of August one thousand eight hundred and sixty-six, or who shall become a member of the force after the passing of this Act has completed a service of twenty-five years, the Inspector General may, if he thinks fit, require him to re-

    1051
    tire upon the terms as to pension prescribed by this Act."
    This sub-section had given rise to considerable doubt in the minds of some of the persons interested, because the Act said that in computing the pension a man's length of service should be taken at 30 years. It would relieve the unfavourable impression that existed if the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland would explain in what way that subsection would act in computing the pensions of men required to retire.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, he did not quite gather, from the remarks of the hon. Gentleman, what was the point of his objection. Did the hon. Gentleman object to the compulsory retirement provided for by the sub-section? This clause was introduced for the purpose of increasing the efficiency of the Police Force; but in doing that it was necessary to preserve the vested rights of existing constables, one of which was that a man should not be retired before the age of 30 years against his own will, except on the ground of proved incapacity. The extra five years secured to the men was of very great importance to them in the computation of their pension. The Government thought it necessary to preserve to the men the full amount of pension, which would not have been paid unless this Act were passed; but it was not thought necessary to extend the principle to those who had not remained in the Service the full period.
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 4 (Pension allowances and gratuities to widows and children) agreed to.
    Clause 5 (Reckoning of service in other police forces for pension) agreed to.
    Clause 6 (Proof of incapacity for duty and return to service of pensioner on recovery from incapacity, and revision of pension) agreed to.
    Clause 7 (Forfeiture of pension or allowance).
    MR. BIGGARsaid, he thought that after the prescribed period of service, 15, 20, or 25 years, as the case might be, a constable should be allowed to receive his pension, unless any substantial charge were preferred against him and proved,
    1052
    when, of course, it would be legitimate and proper that the pension should be taken away. But, as far as he could see, there was no provision in the Bill that any official inquiry should take place as to whether the complaints which might be preferred were justified by the facts of the case. Knowing, as they did, how the law was at present administered in Ireland, Irish Members had no confidence that it would be better administered in the future; and therefore it was felt, unless the present clause were amended, the unfortunate pensioners might be left in a very difficult position. He therefore begged leave to move the omission of Sub-section (c), which provided that—
    "If the grantee refuses to give to the police all information and assistance in his power for the detection of crime, for the apprehension of criminals, and for the suppression of any disturbance of the public peace, his pension will be forfeited."
    Amendment proposed, to leave out sub-section (c).—(Mr. Biggar.)
    Question proposed, "That the words Proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. CALLANsaid, he hoped that the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland would consent to modify the sub-section, which was badly drawn and open to considerable objection. It was not desirable that such power should be taken, which would allow the Inspector General to ruin a man who had served faithfully for 30 years, and that, too, under circumstances for which pensions could not be withdrawn from a soldier serving Her Majesty in the Army. He asked why, if the Police were so loyal a body, if they had earned the approval of the whole country for the efficient manner in which they had discharged their duties, why should they be placed under a disadvantage which did not apply to a man in the Military Service? Was it to make the Police of Ireland slaves, not merely to the law which they had always obeyed, but slaves to every whipper-snapper Inspector of a district? He knew that the Proviso which it was proposed to enact had given great offence, and he thought, therefore, that it should at least undergo some modification. He should persist in his opposition to the sub-section unless the right hon. Gentle-

    1053
    man agreed to its modification, because he regarded it as altogether unnecessary, unwarrantable, and gratuitously offensive, while, at the same time, no grounds had been alleged in its defence. He would suggest the postponement of the clause; but, if that were not agreed to, he trusted the right hon. Gentleman would consent to a modification of the subsection in question.
    MR. O'KELLYsaid, he thought the Government would see that the subsection treated with great injustice a body of men who had served them faithfully and honourably for a great number of years. It seemed to him that when a policeman had done his duty and served his time in the Force, and received the pension he was entitled to as a reward for work done, he entered again into the position of a citizen. He regarded it as an offensive interference with the rights of these men that the Government should pursue them into the privacy of life, after they had quitted the service of the country, and make them practically the slaves of men who were still in the Public Service. He did not know that in any country in the world pensions to public servants were conferred under such onerous conditions as those proposed to be enacted by this Bill. The men had a right to those pensions as the result of work done—they had the same right to draw them as civilians had to draw the dividends on their money from a bank; and, in his opinion, nothing of the kind suggested by the clause could afford any justification for those pensions being forfeited. He thought the Government would be well advised if they consented to reconsider this portion of the clause.
    COLONEL COLTHURSTsaid, he hoped the Government would consent to drop the sub-section. He could not himself regard it as necessary, and it certainly had the appearance of being offensive to a deserving body of men.
    MR. TOTTENHAMsaid, he hoped the Government would retain the subsection. He could not conceive anything more objectionable than that a body of men should be in receipt of pensions from the State, and, at the same time, decline to give the Government all the assistance in their power.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, that, under any analogous circumstances, he should not have had the slightest hesitation in
    1054
    considering that a pension of this sort was essential. The principle involved was one that was recognized both in the Military and Naval Service of the country. Inasmuch as it was the duty of a soldier or a sailor to fight against a foreign enemy when called upon, so it was the duty of a policeman to fight against internal crime; and, in his opinion, that duty only ceased when his physical and mental powers incapacitated him from continuing that warfare. The provision to which hon. Members opposite objected was embodied in the Act of 1866, and in the Act of 1874, and he hoped it would remain a part of the present measure. It was also introduced into the English Bill dealing with the same subject. The subsection did not impose any duty upon retired constables which ought not to be the duty and privilege of citizens; it only formulated the Common Law duty of all persons, and imposed a penalty for disobedience in this case. For these reasons, with all respect to hon. Members, he must decline to modify the subsection.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he had, on a former occasion, appealed to his hon. Friend the Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) to withdraw an Amendment to the Bill, because it seemed to him that he was interfering with the generous intentions of the Legislature with regard to the Constabulary Force. But now he thought his hon. Friend was quite justified in the course he had taken, inasmuch at he was clearly standing up for the rights and privileges of that Body. The right hon. Gentleman had stated that a certain Proviso was introduced into an English Act, and his argument was that it ought, therefore, to be introduced into an Irish Act. But the right hon. Gentleman forgot that there was a great difference between the conditions existing in Ireland, as to the government and the control of the Police Force, and the conditions which existed in this country. The differences in this respect between England and Ireland were as great as those which existed between England and Russia. Therefore, he said, that what might be admitted in such a Bill, as applied to England, could not to be tolerated with respect to Ireland. The pension of a constable might be taken away under this sub-section, although he might have been 30 years in the Service, and have done his duty

    1055
    to his country honestly and efficiently. The sub-section provided that—
    "If the grantee refuses to give to the police all information and assistance in his power for the detection of crime, for the apprehension of criminals, and for the suppression of any disturbance of the public peace, the pension may be forfeited."
    But what were criminals in the eye of the Government? They were persons who spoke in any way against the policy of the Government of the day. His hon. Friend the Member for West Meath (Mr. Harrington) was a criminal in the eyes of the Government, because he gave advice to the people of Ireland which was distasteful to the authorities, but which, nevertheless, afterwards found its way into the columns of The Times. If such men were considered criminals at Common Law this clause might have been passed without any opposition whatever; but that was not the case, and what the present Government considered a criminal was any political opponent who had spoken unfavourably of their policy. Then with regard to the words "suppression of any disturbance of the public peace;" why, any public meeting would come under that category at which political opinions opposed to the policy of the Government might be expressed. It was for such offences as these that the sub-section, if it passed into law, would enable the pension of a constable to be taken from him. The terms of the subsection were as vague, general, and wide as they could be made, and they would include anything like political action on the part of a person who had once been a constable in the Police Force. But what was the tribunal that would decide upon these offences? The pension of the constable might be withdrawn by the Inspector General—that was to say, the Head of the Force who at the moment happened to be a portion, and, without speaking it offensively, he might say, the instrument, of the Executive, had the power to deprive every retired constable of his pension on such vague and general charges as he had described. What was the meaning and intention of this sub-section, and why did not the Attorney General for Ireland get up and enlighten the Committee upon this point? Its object was to have a privileged class of spies spread over the country—in other words, it
    1056
    was that, having given to the police a pension to which they were entitled by 30 years of hard, perilous, and loyal service, the Government wanted further to keep them as a body of spies for the detection of what he called patriotism, but which they called a criminal offence. He did not know what were the feelings of the policemen themselves with regard to this sub-section; but so far as the Bill was intended for their relief and due reward, it had his hearty approval and co-operation. Up to the present time he had only given one vote against the Bill, and he felt a certain amount of regret at having done that. But he regarded this clause with entirely different feelings, inasmuch as it would introduce into Ireland the system of the mouchard, which had been universally condemned by the public Press of this country a short time ago.
    MR. T. C. THOMPSONsaid, he thought the opposition to the sub-section on the part of hon. Gentlemen opposite was intended to show that on such occasions as were contemplated by the Bill a considerable amount of partiality might be shown. He would therefore suggest that the insertion of the words "with the approbation of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland" would obviate the difficulty, and be most agreeable to the great body of the people of this country.
    MR. O'SHAUGHNESSYsaid, he rose to point out that at the inquiry which had taken place no objection whatever was raised to this provision of the Bill. The hon. Member for Louth (Mr. Callan) asked if any question was put to the men on this subject? No question was asked on the subject, nor was any question asked upon any subject in the manner suggested by the hon. Member. The form adopted was, "Is there any other matter you wish to refer to?" But he repeated, that out of the large number of constables who consulted with their fellows not one raised a single objection to this provision.
    MR. O'KELLYwished to ask the hon. and learned Gentleman whether he thought it had ever presented itself to the minds of the constables that such a clause as this would have been introduced to the House and made into law? In his opinion, the absence of objection arose from the fact that the Police never conceived it possible that

    1057
    the Government would be so mean as to propose such a clause.
    Mr. T. A. DICKSONsaid, from no policeman in his county had he received any complaint against the provision contained in this sub-section, and he did not believe that there were a dozen policemen in all Ireland who objected to it. For his own part, he considered it only fair that pensions should be given to constables, on condition that they assisted in the prevention and detection of crime; which meant nothing more than that they should give their services to the State as ordinary citizens.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, the clause in question was, contrary to the misapprehension that seemed to prevail amongst some hon. Gentlemen, not a new one. It had been in force, without any objection being made to it, since 1866.
    MR. CALLANsaid, that the hon. Member for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson), being a faithful Member of the Government Party, and one of their servile followers——
    THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is not entitled to use that language to a Member of the House.
    MR. CALLANsaid, he withdrew the words, although he had heard them used on a former occasion without reproof. The hon. Member had stated that he sent a copy of the Bill to the members of the Constabulary in his county, and had not received a single objection to the clause. But he (Mr. Callan) held in his hand a number of letters from constables in various districts in Ireland who had addressed him on the subject. He did not intend to disclose the names of the writers, because the fact of any policeman making an objection to a Member of the House with regard to matters of discipline would certainly insure his dismissal from the Force. He only asked for a modification, not the withdrawal, of the sub-section. He would ask the Attorney General for Ireland, or the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant, to inform the Committee how the Inspector General was to get the knowledge upon which to found his judgment. Was it to be by letter of complaint addressed to him, or would it be by Court of Inquiry, and, if by the latter means, how was that Court of Inquiry to be constituted? The man had a legal right to his pension, and he was, there-
    1058
    fore, desirous of knowing how he was to be deprived of it—what tribunal was to be invested with the power of declaring that a man had forfeited his pension? Was the inquiry to be held in the district in which the constable resided; was the constable to be allowed to appear by his legal adviser; was there to be any safeguard at all of the rights of the men; or was the charge simply to rest upon one of those "reasonable suspicions" which so disgraced the late Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland when he arrested thousands of innocent men, and allowed the Phœnix Park murderers to remain at liberty? The whole of the Special Rules relating to the Police were in a Code which was kept from the knowledge of the House. He observed the Chief Secretary consulting the Code, and he asked him whether he would place in the Library of the House a copy of that document, to enable hon. Members to see how the Police Force in Ireland was governed? In conclusion, he expressed his surprise that Members from the North of Ireland had made no attempt to safeguard the interests of persons whom they professed so much to admire.
    MR. T. A. DICKSONsaid, he challenged the hon. Member for Louth to read from the letters which he had stated he had received one single objection to the sub-section.
    MR. CALLAN: I have—["Order!"] If the observation means it is not in my power, I treat the insinuation with contempt.
    COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, he had received a great many letters about this Bill, and he might say he had the confidence of the police in the matter, and yet he had heard of no objection to the clause. The men were enlisted as fit to do their duty as loyal citizens; and was it to be supposed that after 25 or 30 years' service to Her Majesty they were going to discontinue to be loyal? In this matter the Committee seemed to him to be fighting the empty air.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, they were all aware what the hon. and gallant Gentleman meant by "loyal," and his statement must make the Government feel uncomfortable. The implication was that every man in Ireland was not loyal who did not believe that the landlord had still the right to evict, and starve, and murder. The hon. Member

    1059
    for Tyrone (Mr. T. A. Dickson) said it was the duty of every loyal citizen to discover crime; but was the hon. Member so young and green that he did not know that what was understood by crime in England was one thing, and what the Government understood by crime in Ireland was another thing? If the Government meant by crime such things as were called crime in this country, and such things only, the clause would be unobjectionable. The hon. Member for Tyrone knew very well that what were considered political acts of a very good citizen for reforming the condition of the land in this country were denounced as crimes in Ireland. ["No!"] He heard some objection; but was not the reform of abuses in connection with the land the duty of every good citizen? Had not good citizens who had attempted to reform abuses in the Irish Land Law system, by speeches on platforms and judicious writing in the Press, been tried and convicted and punished as criminals? ["No, no!"] He heard exclamations of dissent from hon. Members opposite. They were not so familiar with Irish life as he (Mr. O'Connor), and he could give instances where the performance of legitimate duties in a perfectly legal manner had led to a man's being punished by the wretched, miserable pretence of Liberalism—by Gentlemen sitting on the Benches opposite and their mouthpieces on the Treasury Bench. The Treasury Bench could at that moment rejoice in the support of the county of Dublin. He congratulated them on the fact, and did not know whether they or the Party were more to be pitied for dragging themselves at the heels of this wretched and miserable clique of landlords in Ireland like a tin kettle at the tail of a mad dog. He wished to know from this Committee, assembled for the purpose of considering the condition of the policemen of Ireland, whether they had ever heard of any class of Her Majesty's servants being placed in such a position as these pensioners were to be placed in under the Bill? Was there a single class of Her Majesty's servants besides the Irish Police who had not some right of appeal when they believed they were unjustly treated? Here, however, they had the Police pensioners absolutely at the disposal of the Inspector General, without right of appeal or rehearing. Talk of the Star Chamber, was
    1060
    there ever a more monstrous system of Star Chamber inquiry, of Star Chamber punishment, than that which enabled the Inspector General for the time being—generally some wretched, docile, miserable tool of Her Majesty's Government—to deprive these poor men, after 30 years' hard service, of their pensions? This Bill, brought forward by the Government ostensibly for the purpose of giving boons to the police-constables, was really a Bill to cheat them out of all their rewards, unless they became the miserable spies of the Government in Ireland.
    MR. TOMLINSONwished to be informed what was the exact nature of the change made in the Act of 1874, under which the jurisdiction to decide this question was the Lord Lieutenant? The jurisdiction now, it seemed, was the Inspector General,
    MR. BIGGARsaid, in reply to the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Tomlinson), he wished to say that it was a distinction without a difference, as the Inspector General was merely a tool of the Lord Lieutenant. It made no material difference with whom the power rested nominally, as, no doubt, the Lord Lieutenant would always say he acted under the recommendation of the Inspector General. The two now combined to perpetrate an injustice on the policeman. It seemed to him that the argument advanced by the Attorney General for Ireland was entitled to no weight whatever. Because the Act had been in operation for 17 years it was no reason they should not change it if they had an opportunity of doing so. This was the proper time for altering the law. He thought the law was one which required amendment; therefore he would make the Motion he had proposed.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, the Attorney General for Ireland had made a great point of the fact that the Government were only following the precedents in the clause they had inserted; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman skilfully omitted that most important fact that in the Bill of 1866 it was the Lord Lieutenant who had the right of taking away a pension. Well, let them substitute the Lord Lieutenant, and that would be a slight improvement in the matter. He did not think it would be a great one; but, at any rate, it would be an improvement. The Lord Lieutenant

    1061
    might be a Member of the Cabinet—he was certainly a Member of either House of Parliament, and was a person, therefore, whose responsibility they could bring before Parliament; but this Head of the different Inspectors in the country was a person they could not reach by any means whatever. The Lord Lieutenant was not bound to approve of the conduct of the Inspector General. Suppose a constable were deprived of his pension, as it was believed unjustly, what would the Chief Secretary do if the matter were brought before the House? He would say—"What are we to do? This is not the action of the Chief Secretary, nor of the Lord Lieutenant." He (Mr. O'Connor) did not say they had done it intentionally; but they had so amended the Act that they had removed all responsibility from the person who took away the pension. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary might have been ingenuous enough to inform the Committee that this change had been made.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. PORTER)said, the subject of this Amendment was Sub-section (c), which was copied from former Acts. A question arose on a former Bill as to who was to be the authority, and the question was quite a different one from the state of things the hon. Member referred to. [Mr. T. P. O'CONNOR: Not at all.] In Clauses 3 and 4 they had recognized the position that the Inspector General was the person who was to determine these matters, and that had been done without the slightest objection on Amendment.
    MR. CALLANsaid, the Attorney General for Ireland had made matters worse, because he had stated that the sub-section of the Bill was copied exactly from the Statute in force. Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman take the Act in his hand and compare it with the Bill which he asserted was copied from it, and repeat his assertion in the face or the Committee? The right hon. and learned Gentleman probably thought he was pleading before the Nisi Prius Court in Dublin to mislead the Judges. What was the fact? The Bill said—
    "On his refusing to give to the police all information and assistance in his power for the detection of crime, for the apprehension of criminals, and for the suppression of any disturbance of the public peace;"
    1062
    whereas the Act contained the words "detection and apprehension of criminals." The passage in the Bill might be held to apply to persons attending a Land League meeting.
    MR. O'BRIENsaid, he hoped the Committee would go to a division on this Amendment. Whatever might be the feeling amongst the Police—and on that question he could not pretend to be an authority, like some hon. Members—in the interest of the Irish people the Irish Representatives were justified in protesting against this clause. The life of the Irish policeman was odious enough, and the duties which it was necessary for him to perform were odious enough, without branding him as a spy to the day of his death, as he would be branded if the clause passed in this form. If the Police were to be protected, so, too, were the people of Ireland—to be protected against these men being turned into the plastic tools and Sepoys of the Government.
    DR. LYONSsaid, that, according to the strict letter of the law, they were proposing that which it was impossible to do. They could not withdraw a pension—no such power was vested in the Inspector General. The Inspector General might report to the proper authority that such and such a pension should be withdrawn; but he could not withdraw it himself. The Government said this officer could grant a pension; but he could do nothing of the kind. He might recommend one; but it was as impossible for him to grant a pension as it was for him to withdraw one. He (Dr. Lyons) rose simply with a view of getting the clause properly and carefully drafted, so as to bear all criticism. The clause should be withdrawn, and brought up again on Report.
    COLONEL O'BEIRNEsaid, he saw this objection to the clause—that the Inspector who withdrew the pension might not be the same who granted it.
    Question put.
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 130; Noes 10: Majority 120.—(Div. List, No. 105.)
    MR. CALLANsaid, that in Subsection (d) he found that if the grantee was guilty of any misconduct, or was, in the opinion of the Inspector General, disgraced, his pension was to be forfeited. Suppose a head constable took

    1063
    a public-house—as head constables, on entering into private life, very often did—if he lost his licence, or got it endorsed, would he be liable, under this Liberal cheese-paring arrangement of the Government, to have his pension withdrawn by the Inspector General? The Inspector General was to have power to forfeit the pension of the grantee if he were guilty of conduct which was, in his opinion, disgraceful. If the grantee, for instance, attended a Land League or Home Rule meeting, that would be "disgraceful," probably; or, in the words of that celebrated modern document, "if he spoke in disrespectful terms of people in superior station." On that—without any proof beyond "reasonable suspicion," the reasonable suspicion, perhaps, of some petty officer—the man's pension was to be forfeited. It would be only fair and respectful to the Committee for the Chief Secretary to give some declaration as to how this forfeiture of pension was to be guarded. Unless some explanation were given he should move the omission of Sub-section (d) from the clause.
    Amendment proposed, in page 6, to leave out sub-section (d).—(Mr. Callan.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, the explanation of the introduction of the Inspector General into the clause was simply that power was here conferred upon him analogous to that given throughout the Bill. It was the Inspector General who had to decide whether or not a man was to be invalided, whether or not he was guilty of conduct or habits discreditable to him, and who, within certain limits, settled what amount the pension should be. It was he who, throughout the Bill, had to be responsible for the discipline of the Service. The ordinary safeguards which existed against the misconduct of any Executive officer existed against the misconduct of the Inspector General. The Inspector General was a person of exalted position in the Service—like the Commander-in-Chief in the Army—and everyone knew that there could be no very great injustice perpetrated in any Service so long as the conduct of the Executive could be called to account in Parliament. Every high officer knew perfectly well
    1064
    that when he was settling the question of the fortunes of his men, if he acted with injustice he was liable to have Questions put to the Minister who was in charge of his Department in the House of Commons, and to give an account of the manner in which he had behaved. It appeared to him to be absolutely necessary, in the case of the Police, to have a clause of this nature. This clause was not the production particularly of a Liberal and cheese-paring Administration. The Act of 1866 was passed after a Liberal Administration had been ejected; and the Act of 1874 was undoubtedly passed by a Conservative Administration. Liberals and Conservatives, happily, upon this point of the management of the great Service by which the business of the country was carried on, were very much in accord. An Act of this kind might be borrowed by a Liberal Administration without any fear of being called cheese-paring. In this matter, over all others, it was necessary to watch men after they retired from active service. It was scarcely possible to conceive any retired officer who could make a more objectionable use of the information he had obtained in the Force than a policeman. It was not necessary to say how he might use that information; but in England and France—to say nothing of Ireland—there were offices where private detectives of a more or less disreputable character might be found to do work which the Government did not intend to be done by any of their pensioned Police. In the Indian Civil Service the authorities looked most carefully after the condition of Civil servants who had retired, and who lived in India, and took care that they should not, when enjoying their pensions, use the information they had obtained while in the Service for purposes of which they could not approve. This clause had stood the test of 17 years at least, and it was one which the Government considered necessary as part of this Bill.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, it was personally disagreeable to him to have to say anything unpleasant of the Chief Secretary; but he was almost tempted to say that the right hon. Gentleman's present Office was having a debilitating effect on his otherwise vigorous mind. Otherwise, he would not have committed himself to these platitudes. He had said

    1065
    that both Parties were agreed as to the management of the Irish Force. That was quite a good thing; but he had said the Inspector General was just as much amenable to that House as any other high officer. That was a truism; because, under the present dexterous management of Offices, the Lord Lieutenant might commit any act, and then the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would screen himself by saying he was not responsible for the Lord Lieutenant. It did not much matter whether there was an Inspector General or not. Again, he had to complain of a want of candour on the part of the Government in regard to this clause. In the Act of 1876 the words were—
    "If they enter into or continue to carry on any business or employment which shall be in the opinion of the Lord Lieutenant disgraceful or injurious to the public interest."
    The right hon. Gentleman might have explained that the words "or injurious to the public interest" had been left out, but they gave a much more explicit meaning to the Act. The act of a constable must be "disgraceful or injurious to the public interest;" but under this Bill the act might simply be what appeared disgraceful to the Lord Lieutenant. If the hon. Member went to a division he would support him, in order to protest against the action of the Government upon this clause.
    MR. CALLANsaid, he was willing to withdraw if the Government would give an explanation of the mode of procedure by which the Inspector General would arrive at his decision; and whether, if he held an inquiry, the person concerned would be allowed to attend and hear the evidence, and have a legal adviser with him; or whether the Court of Inquiry would be a Star Chamber, in which the evidence would be taken behind his back, with no opportunity of being represented by counsel? Would he be permitted to meet his accuser face to face, or was it to be a mere arbitrary act on the part of the Inspector General? Would the right hon. Gentleman lay on the Table, or place in the Library, a copy of the Police Code, by which Members might see the mode in which these inquiries were to be carried on, and so be able to see how the Police were administered? If he did not receive a satisfactory explanation he must persist with his Amendment.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, he hoped the hon. Member would reconsider the question of proceeding to a division. He had made his protest and stated his objections; but the previous division was practically taken on the same principle as was involved in this matter, although the hon. Member had stated his reasons slightly more in detail upon this clause. This clause was not new. It had been familiar in the Irish Police Code for many years, and had worked without any objection on the part of the Force. He had received a large number of letters from various members of the Irish Constabulary, and they had expressed no objection to this particular clause. The hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had just pointed out that the drafting of this clause showed the advantage of close verbal criticism. This clause was less oppressive than the existing clause, because it left out one of the conditions upon which the Inspector General would deprive a man of his pension. He could understand objection being taken to giving to a Sub-Inspector, or even a County Inspector, who was a very high official, this considerable power over a pensioner; but the Inspector General was the highest officer in the Force, and it was reasonable and fair to give this power to him, and to retain it in him. In these cases of high discretion someone must always be trusted, and nothing better could be done than to trust the highest officer that could be found. Anyone who took up this 7th section, would find that in the first three lines the whole power was given to the Inspector General. They had been already passed, and therefore in the last section, which the Committee were now upon, it would be illogical and unreasonable to take out what had been placed in the Act. As this clause was not new, he hoped the hon. Member would see his way to not dividing on the question.
    MR. CALLANsaid, the Chief Secretary had not condescended—probably, and as he believed, because he did not know—to inform the Committee what procedure the Inspector General would adopt. To save time he had asked that a copy of the Police Code should be placed on the Table, so that Members might see the powers now given to the Inspector General. He did not intend to take a division on this matter, but would yield

    1067
    to the appeal of the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson). At the same time, he must express his disappointment that, although he had met the Bill with a desire to facilitate its progress, no attempt to remove objectionable portions of the measure had been made.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. CALLANasked whether the Chief Secretary would give any explanation?
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, it was out of no disrespect to the hon. Member that he had not answered his questions. He hardly imagined that the hon. Gentleman required him to enter into the process adopted in a Departmental Inquiry into the conduct of men for whom the Department was responsible, Under the Civil Service Act of 1859, no Civil servant of the Crown could get a pension, unless he obtained a certificate from the Head of his Department that he was of due ability and high character; and he did not imagine that he was expected to inform the House of Commons of the way in which that officer satisfied himself of the man's ability and character. The process of inquiry was not judicial, and could not be laid down by Act of Parliament. If these inquiries could not be made privately, no administrative Service could be carried on. As to a copy of the Code, that had been asked for more than once, and the Chief Secretary had always found it necessary to decline to lay it on the Table.
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 8 (Suspension of pension).
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he thought it would be unreasonable for the Government to ask the Committee to go on any further at that hour of the night, and he would move that Progress be reported.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. T. P. O' Connor.)
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, the period of the Session was now late, and it was many months since the Police and Constabulary were informed that their complaints should be inquired into. Eighteen months had elapsed since then; and it
    1068
    was certain that if the Committee would not now take this opportunity of going on in the extremely business-like manner in which they had been engaged, an almost indefinite period must elapse before the matter could be fully dealt with. He could not say that he had ever seen a more business-like House than the present; and it would be only under absolute pressure from the majority that the Government would consent to the Motion.
    MR. CALLANsuggested that the Chief Secretary might facilitate matters by saying that he would not go beyond the 12th clause, which dealt with the Constabulary. The Committee could then proceed until they reached Clause 12; but if the right hon. Gentleman wished to run the whole Bill through, the Committee might as well at once see whether Progress was to be reported or not.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, he thought the Chief Secretary was unreasonable, and that it would be better to go on to the 12th clause, and then report Progress.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, that all these matters were more or less relative, and it could not be said, he thought, that there had been anything like substantial opposition to this Bill. It had been before Parliament a considerable time, and there had been no Amendments except upon clauses, and those Amendments were all in the same direction, leaving out a line here and a line there. That was rather a destructive than a constructive line of Amendments. The hon. Member must see that the Amendments to the Metropolitan part of the Bill were exactly the same thing in principle as those he had put down on the Constabulary part. The hon. Member must see, with that sense of humour which everyone recognized, that when the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) made some of his ablest speeches he invariably differed from the hon. Member for Cavan. That was a matter not to be lost sight of. Tolerably substantial progress had been made, and if the Committee persevered for a little while longer they would find that they had got through the Bill in almost a miraculous way.
    COLONEL ALEXANDERsaid, that, as one who had supported the Government against hon. Members below him, he considered the proposal to report Progress perfectly reasonable; and he could

    1069
    not conceive anything more reasonable than asking the Government to state at what point they would stop. Hon. Members were told that, under the New Rules, they would be allowed to go home at reasonable hours. One of the Grand Committees must meet at 12 o'clock, and were hon. Members to go right round the clock without any sleep at all? He should support the Motion.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, that if the principle of his Amendment was the same as the right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson) had said, it would be easy to get through the Bill in a single night, for he did not intend to raise any factious opposition. He did not mean to divide over and over again on questions of the same kind, and he would attempt no Amendments which were not thoroughly justified by the facts of the case. He thought it was now a reasonable hour for adjourning the discussion, and in a single succeeding night they could easily get through the Bill.
    SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, he had been in the House all the evening, and had been as anxious to go to bed as the hon. and gallant Member opposite (Colonel Alexander); but there was business to be done, and this was important business. When they had once got possession of a subject it saved time to go right on with it, rather than to drop it and then take it up again. Therefore, as this Bill was an essential measure, and one not very complicated, he hoped the Committee would go on for some time longer.
    MR. JUSTIN M'CARTHYsaid, if the Government did not intend to keep Members there all night they might say when they would stop. That was a reasonable proposal; but the Government seemed to wish to go on until the Bill was finished.
    MR. CALLANsaid, he would make another appeal to the Chief Secretary. He was most anxious that this Bill should pass; and he thought it would have been much better if, instead of coming and interfering with the discretion of the Chief Secretary, the Home Secretary had remained away, for the Bill would have gone on much more smoothly. He and his Friends numbered 12, and were ready to try conclusions. It would not be the first time.
    THE CHAIRMAN: A Motion for reporting Progress having been made,
    1070
    the hon. Member must confine himself to that Motion.
    MR. CALLANasked whether the Chief Secretary would mention an hour at which he would stop? Besides the meeting of the Grand Committee, the Liberal Party had to meet at 11 o'clock, and for that reason it was desirable to report Progress now, in order that they might meet fresh at the Foreign Office to hear their Leader. If the right hon. Gentleman wished they could separate in half-an-hour, having settled the first part of the Bill. If not, the sooner they proceeded to war the better. He and his Friends were ready for the fray.
    MR. LEWISsaid, he had not the least desire to delay the Bill; but he doubted whether the Government would accomplish their object by persisting. The right hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson) had referred to the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) as the only Member having Amendments on the Paper; but he himself had a most important Amendment, and he should be exceedingly sorry if it could not be taken at a time of night when it could receive the serious attention of a sufficient number of Members. He was sure there had not been the smallest spirit evinced to give any unnecessary trouble to the Government, or to cause any undue delay; and he could not imagine that there would be any difficulty to going into Committee at 1 o'clock on Friday morning. If the right hon. Gentleman would agree to adjourn now there certainly would be nothing lost.
    MR. O'BRIENsaid, he was very sorry the Chief Secretary had not seen his way to meet the very moderate proposal of his hon. Friend the Member for Louth (Mr. Callan), and to meet the appeals which had been made to him from various quarters. The Government ought to be pretty well pleased, and even surprised, with the amount of progress they had already made with the Bill. It was thoroughly characteristic of the present Government that the only piece of Irish legislation this Session that they were so anxious about, and in regard to which they would not report Progress at 2 o'clock in the morning, was a Bill to keep their Police in good humour.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, the appeals that had been made came from quarters where he hardly expected them, and they likewise came from some Gentlemen,

    1071
    specially from the hon. and gallant Gentleman opposite (Colonel Alexander), who could scarcely have studied the Bill. The appeal of the Government was that questions of principle had already been, for the most part, discussed, and that the great number of the Amendments which were put down by the hon. Member for Cavan (Mr. Biggar) were principally Amendments which amounted to a desire, on his part, to bring the pay and allowances of the Police below the amount which the Government had named in the Bill, and below even the point they already enjoyed. The Government had come to the conclusion that it was not very likely that the Bill would pass, as a whole, that night, except after a sharp and sustained fight. That sharp, sustained fight, so far as he was personally concerned, he was pefectly ready to engage in. He would willingly sit up until 6 o'clock in the morning in order to let the Police in Ireland learn, in course of to-morrow morning, that this Bill had passed through Committee. There was one condition, and one condition only, on which, so far as he was individually concerned, he would consent to abstain from that conflict, and that was, that if they only passed Part I. of the Bill that night, there should be an honourable understanding that when the Bill was brought on on Thursday evening, even at a somewhat unsual time—not as early as it was brought in to-night—hon. Members would consent to sit up and see the Bill through. On that condition, providing he could induce hon. Members to take a friendly interest in the Bill, he should be willing to recommend the Committee to leave off after they had passed Part I.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, that if they resumed the reconsideration of the Bill before 1 o'clock on Thursday night, there would be no difficulty in getting through the Bill that evening. Of course, it was impossible to make any pledge, because he did not know what other hon. Members would do. Certainly, there was no Member of his Party so much opposed to the Bill as himself; and, therefore, he did not suppose that any of his hon. Friends would raise a protracted opposition to the Bill.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 9 (Punishment for obtaining pension, &c, by fraud) agreed to.
    Clause 10 (Provision as to pensions of men appointed before August 1866, 10 & 11 Vict. c. 100, s. 3).
    MR. LEWISsaid, he had only one word to say. He desired to draw the attention of the Committee to the word "not" in line 33. The new clause of which he had given Notice seemed to him in a direction different to the one now under consideration, and he objected to the provisions of the clause on the ground that it was undefined whether the Irish Constabulary were or were not, as a matter of fairness or justice, entitled to that increase of pay. He did not understand why the Government did not, when asking for the proposed increase of pay, ask also that the men should have their pensions relatively increased. They all knew that for many years the Irish Constabulary were very much underpaid, and that it was doing but a tardy act of justice in increasing their pay. He thought it was doing it in an unfortunate way to say that they should not have relative increases of pensions. It was a cognate matter, and he did not think it would be an illiberal accompaniment to the increase of pay to provide that there should be a relative increase of pension.
    MR. BIGGARsaid, he had an Amendment on Clause 9. He was aware it was now too late to move it; but he wished to point out that the object of his Amendment was to insist upon the provision that a policeman who had enlisted under the Act of 1866 should still have to undergo a medical examination before retiring on a pension.
    MR. CALLANsaid, that Section 10 did an injustice to one particular class, and he thought that he only need mention the injustice to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to cause him to at once remedy it. The men who joined before 1866 were, in law and equity, entitled, after 30 years' service, to a pension equal to their full pay. Under Section 10, however, of this Bill, they were debarred from such pension; they were debarred now of the rights they had under the Act of 1866. A head constable who joined before 1866 had, for instance, a vested interest in a pension of £101 per annum, provided, of course, that he served long enough to

    1073
    entitle him to receive that pension. Now, if this Bill passed unamended, such a man would only get £91 per annum, so that this Act would entail an absolute loss upon a head constable who joined the Force before 1866 of £10 a-year. He was sure that such a loss should not be entailed by the Bill upon any man, and he was confident that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland would agree with him that such an injustice should be remedied and guarded against.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, that the object of all legislative measures was to remedy particular grievances, and the particular grievance of the Police and Constabulary was, that all of them considered that their pay was not sufficient, and that the younger men considered that their pensions were not sufficient. He must own he had never heard that the men appointed prior to August, 1866, considered that the amount of their pension was a serious grievance, and it was what no Government could possibly for one moment admit.
    MR. CALLANsaid, the men admitted that their pension was a good one; but they said that the present Bill would in certain cases reduce it by £10 a-year.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, that arrangements had been made in the Bill to the effect that a man would always be able to choose between either the new and the old scale, according as it would be most advantageous to him. The Bill had been so arranged that Constables and Inspectors in both the Metropolitan Police and the Constabulary would be pensioned on a somewhat more liberal scale than if classes in their respective ranks had been maintained. If the scale of the hon. Member for Londonderry (Mr. Lewis) were carried out, the Government would have to give a greater number of pensions than many men expected when they came into the Service. A man appointed in August, 1866, got sufficient pension now; and certainly the Government could not consent to the proposal of the hon. Member for the sake of bringing the scale in uniformity with the arrangement of 1874. They could not consent to make any alteration.
    Clause agreed to.
    Clause 11 (The Constabulary Force Fund) agreed to.
    Clause 12 (Change of designations of certain ranks).
    MR. KENNYsaid, that the clause provided that important changes should be made in the names of the different ranks of the Police in Ireland. He found that in the first part of the Bill it was proposed to retain the name "Acting Constable;" but he could not understand what the object was in changing "Sub-Inspector" to "District Inspector," and what object there was in altering "Constables" to "Sergeants" or "Acting Sergeants." He considered that the Royal Irish Constabulary was sufficiently military in its character already without introducing still more military titles. He did not know what the opinion of the Constabulary was themselves; but he fancied the proposed change would be rather unpopular with the principal proportion of the people of Ireland, if not with the Force themselves.
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, there was no desire to turn the Constabulary into a Military Force. The desire was that "Constable" should mean the same thing in Dublin and the country, and everywhere where the language was spoken. He was told the officers and the men themselves were desirous of the change of terms. The term "Sergeant" or "Acting Sergeant" was supposed to assimilate them to other Police Forces, and not to Military Forces; and he (Mr. Trevelyan) had been informed that the term "Sergeant" was in very common use among the people in Ireland. He considered the changes were reasonable, and he was sure that they were not only acceptable to, but desired by, the Force.
    MR. KENNYasked if he was to understand that "Sub-Inspector" had been changed to "District Inspector" on the suggestion of the men themselves?
    MR. TREVELYANsaid, he was quite satisfied that the change would be acceptable to the men.
    MR. CALLANsaid, that in changing the name "Sub-Inspector" they, unfortunately, did not get rid of the men. A more incompetent set of men than the "Sub-Inspectors" could not be imagined. They were, in fact, a disgrace to the Royal Irish Constabulary. If a mode were provided by which "District Inspectors" or simple Inspectors were appointed from the ranks, it would be one

    1075
    great step towards giving to the Force that promotion which it deserved. It was high time to break down the system of appointing the higher offices in the Constabulary to sons of broken down clergymen and officers.
    Clause agreed to.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Thursday.

  LORD ALCESTER (GRANT IN LIEU OF ANNUITY).—RESOLUTION.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That it is expedient to authorise the grant of a sum of £25,000, out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, to Frederick Beauchamp Paget, Lord Alcester, Admiral in Her Majesty's Navy, in lieu of the Annuity of Two thousand pounds per annum, which was proposed to be granted to him in answer to the Message from Her Majesty on the 13th day of April last."
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONsupposed that this was a matter of form, in order that the grant to Lord Alcester might be made in the form of a lump sum instead of an annuity. He had no wish to oppose any proceedings at this stage. He, however, intended to oppose a grant of any money at all; and he presumed the best time to do that would be when they were asked to go into Committee after this Resolution had been incorporated in the Bill.
  MR. COURTNEYsaid, that that was quite the understanding.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

  LORD WOLSELEY (GRANT IN LIEU OF ANNUITY).—RESOLUTION.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That it is expedient to authorise the grant of a sum of £30,000, out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom, to Garnet Joseph, Lord Wolseley, General in Her Majesty's Army, in lieu of the Annuity of Two thousand pounds per annum, which was proposed to be granted to him in answer to the Message from Her Majesty on the 13th day of April last."
  MR. R. N. FOWLERasked the hon. Gentleman the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, if he would explain why the grant to Lord Alcester was £25,000,
  1076
  while that for Lord Wolseley was £30,000? He supposed that Lord Wolseley was to receive a larger amount, because he was a younger man than Lord Alcester.
  MR. COUETNEYbelieved that that was so.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Resolution to be reported To-morrow.

  SUPPLY.—REPORT.
  Resolutions [24th May] reported.
  Resolutions 1 and 2 agreed to.
  Resolution 3.
  MR. BIGGARdesired to say that his information with regard to the discipline of the Antrim Militia was very different to that supplied to the Government. He gained his information from a variety of persons in different regiments. The conduct of the officers, more especially the senior officers, who should show a good example, was said to be of an exceedingly lax nature. The War Office would do well to keep a more watchful eye upon the Antrim Militia, for the money expended upon that Militia had been entirely thrown away.
  Resolution agreed to.
  Remaining Resolution agreed to.

MOTION.

  REGISTRY OF DEEDS (IRELAND) BILL.
  On Motion of Dr. LYONS, Bill to amend the Law relating to the Registry of Deeds Office (Ireland), ordered to be brought in by Dr. LYONS, MR. MAURICE BROOKS, and Mr. FIND-LATER.
  Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 202.]
  House adjourned at half after Two o'clock.