Commons Sitting of 25 June 1884

MINUTES.
PRIVATE BILLS (by Order) — Considered as amended—London, Chatham, and Dover Railway (Further Powers) *; Plymouth, Devonport, and District Tramways.*
PUBLIC BILLS—Second Reading — Cemeteries [21], debate adjourned.
Committee — Report — Licensing Act (1872) Amendment * [248].
Report—Tramways (Ireland) Provisional Order* [233]; Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (Labourers Act) (No. 7) * [235]; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 4) * [212]; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 7) * [241]; Local Government Provisional Orders (No. 8) * [242]; Local Government Provisional Order [(Poor Law) (No. 14)* [243]; Local Government Provisional Order (Poor Law) (No. 15) * [246].
Considered as amended—Local Government (Ireland) Provisional Order (Labourers Act) (No. 4) [202].
Third Reading— Local Government Provisional Orders (Poor Law) (No. 11) * [213], and passed.
Withdrawn—Copyright (Works of Fine Art and Photographs) * [183].

PRIVATE BUSINESS.

  PARLIAMENT — PRIVATE BUSINESS —ESTATE BILLS—NEW STANDING ORDER.—RESOLUTION.
  MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD, in moving the following new Standing Order:—
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  "Estate Bills—188B, That in the case of any Estate Bill, the Committee on the Bill shall report specially to the House if the Bill contains provisions extending either the term or the area of any Settlement of Land, and the Report of the Committee shall be printed and circulated with the Votes,"
  said, the terms of the proposed Standing Order which stood in his name were very plain and simple; but it would not be respectful to the House if he did not explain the object he had in view in proposing it, which, however, he would be able to do in very few words. He certainly would not have presumed to propose a new Standing Order if he had not been encouraged to do so by the Prime Minister. The House would be aware that in every Session there were a certain number of Bills introduced dealing with private estates. Those Bills always arrived somewhat late in the House of Commons, because, owing to immemorial custom, such Bills were first introduced in the House of Lords. He did not suggest that there should be any interference with that custom. It appeared to have grown out of the judicial functions of the House of Lords. The Lords had at all times had the power of consulting Her Majesty's Judges on matters of law, and these Bills, dealing with settlements, long leases, and limited ownership of land, were often of so complicated and difficult a character that their due examination required the highest legal attainments. If an Estate Bill had not been settled in the Court of Chancery, on petition to the House of Lords on the first reading it was referred to two of the Judges in rotation, not being Peers of Parliament, for examination and report. If an Estate Bill were introduced first into the House of Commons, it would be referred in the same way to two of the Judges, after a first reading in the House of Lords. There was, therefore, some advantage in the custom by which these Bills were first introduced in the other House of Parliament. When they came to the House of Commons, the House knew that two of the Judges had reported that the allegations contained in the Preamble of such Bills had been satisfactorily established, and that the provisions of the Bill were proper for carrying into effect the purposes of the measure, so far as the opinion of two of the learned Judges was concerned. These Bills were rarely opposed, and the exa-

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  mination by the Judges was extremely useful in securing that Parliament should act with legality—at least with legality—towards the various parties. It was at this point that he had ventured to interfere, not in disapproval of the procedure upon Estate Bills, but in order to secure that the duty of Parliament, which was much larger than the duty of the examining Judges, should be as far as possible fulfilled. The Judges had only to see that the law was observed, and that the private rights of parties in these Bills were not unduly extended. The Judges had no concern whatever with the public interests in land. It was their high function to be interpreters of the law; but the Legislature, which composed both Houses of Parliament, had the much higher function of making the law. This House was now in exactly the same condition as the other House, in having no Report whatever in regard to questions affecting the public interest which might be involved in the introduction of one of these Bills. For instance, a settlement of land might be proposed to Parliament, which might include the land of half a county, and might be placed in hands which, from pecuniary embarrassment or some other cause, would not be the best, having regard to the improvement of the soil. But the House of Commons would not have one word on such a subject before it from Her Majesty's Judges; and the House, which, next to the rights and liberties of the people, was most of all concerned in the improvement of the soil, might, through some inadvertence, be guilty of neglect of duty in reference to one of these measures. Many hon. Members were of opinion that the settlement of land was opposed to simplicity of transfer, and might, in certain instances, be unfavourable to improvement. Lord Cairns himself was certainly of that opinion, because, in the Settled Lands Act, he had proposed that the life tenant should, with certain small limitations, have the power of selling any part of his estate with a view to the improvement of the remainder of his property. All of them, he was sure, would agree that when the House allowed a new or an extended settlement of land, they ought to know what they were doing. That was all he asked the House to agree to in submitting this Standing Order—namely
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  that they should receive certain information upon points in regard to which it was not the duty of the examining Judges to report to the House of Lords. The Judges to whom these Bills were submitted had nothing whatever to do with the improvement of land. They had no concern whatever in the public interest in land; but the House of Commons had. He would only say, before resuming his seat, that there was a Committee of the House of Lords appointed in the year 1873, to report upon the improvement of the soil and the Land Laws generally, and he had been informed that the Report of that Committee was drawn up by Lord Salisbury. There was one remarkable sentence contained in it to which he wished to draw the attention of the House. It was this—
  "The case for Parliamentary consideration lies in this—that the improvement of land in its effect upon the price of food and upon the dwellings of the poor is a matter of public interest."
  The Standing Order which he proposed asked only for such information as he respectfully submitted it was right that the House should obtain as plainly and simply as possible. He made the proposal with confidence that it would be accepted by Her Majesty's Government after the assurance of support which he understood he had received; and he was not without strong hope that, if it should be the pleasure of hon. Members, he would have the high honour of placing to-day among the Standing Orders of the House a perpetual record and acknowledgment of its sense of the public interest in land. He begged to propose the Standing Order which appeared in his name on the Paper.
  MR. CRAIG SELLAR, in seconding the Motion, said, the reasons why this proposal should be accepted, and be made a Standing Order of the House, had been so clearly explained by his hon. Friend that he felt hardly justified in trespassing upon the House, even for a few minutes, in urging anything in addition to what his hon. Friend had stated; but while his hon. Friend and he had the same object—namely, that they should give some formality to, and have some check upon, the proceedings of Committees in regard to Bills relating to settled estates in land, in the case of unopposed Bills, he was not certain that the motives which actuated his

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  hon. Friend and those which actuated him were identical. His hon. Friend had stated that he desired that there should be a distinction made between Private Bills dealing with estates in land and Private Bills dealing with other matters. No doubt, as his hon. Friend had shown, there was a distinction made in the other House of Parliament. In that House it was provided that a Report should be made by two of the Judges upon all Estate Bills. The Judges were to report whether, assuming the Preamble was proved, they were satisfied that the Bill was a reasonable one, and calculated to carry out the intended objects; and they were further to report to the House of Lords what Amendments, if any, they had to suggest. In the House of Commons they treated Bills of this nature with somewhat less respect. They were, he might say, for the most part family Bills—Bills which dealt with estates connected with families. They were arranged outside the House, and, as a rule, were unopposed; and, undoubtedly, unless due supervision were exercised over them, some objectionable provision might be allowed to slip through Committee. The object of his hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Mr. Arthur Arnold) was to secure that these Bills should be marked in a particular manner, because they dealt with land; whereas he (Mr. Craig Sellar) desired that they should be marked in a particular manner, but for an entirely different reason. His hon. Friend had admitted candidly what was in his mind, and he (Mr. Craig Sellar) would admit just as candidly and frankly what his motive was. He supported the proposal, because he had no abiding confidence in the existing system by which legislation upon Private Bills was carried on in that House. There was not that amount of publicity which ought to prevail with regard to these Bills, especially when they were unopposed. The House delegated its functions to its Committees, and the Committees, to a large extent, delegated their functions to the Chairman of the Committee. That fact threw upon the Chairman a very grave responsibility, and particularly so in regard to measures which dealt with any question relating to land. He was of opinion that this was a responsibility which should not be thrown upon one
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  man, however eminent he might be, but that it should be shared, to a large extent, by the House itself. He believed a Committee did well, in many instances, to delegate their duties to the Chairman of Committees; and certainly there would not be much objection if the Chairman of Committees was an ordinary official. But he thought the House would agree with him that the Chairman of Committees in that House was not an ordinary official. He was two or three important officials rolled into one. He was the hardest worked man in the House; and, however willing, able, and devoted to his duty a Chairman of Committees might be—and he was sure the House would agree with him that no more able, more willing, or more devoted official could occupy that position than the hon. Gentleman the Member for Rochester (Sir Arthur Otway)—no man, however willing, able, and devoted he might be, was capable of discharging the enormous mass of public duties which fell upon the Chairman of Committees. He would ask the House to consider for a moment what those duties were. From 2 o'clock until 7 he must be at the Table of the House whenever the House was in Committee; and, again, from 9 o'clock until probably 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning he was again to be found presiding over their deliberations, with his mind in a state of tension owing to the watchful care he was compelled to exercise over the complicated details of the clauses of Public Bills, or the intricacies of Supply. The next morning it was necessary that he should be down to the House by noon, in order to conduct the proceedings of the House in reference to unopposed Private Bills, and to wade through the clauses of a general mass of Private Bills that were placed before him. Was it possible that any man could discharge such duties with all the care which the House had a right to expect? No doubt, the Chairman of Committees had a most able staff of officials to assist him; but it was a very small staff—very much too small considering the large amount of Bills presented to Parliament. What supervision did the House exercise over this branch of Private Bill legislation? How was it to know that any Estate Bill, or any unopposed Bill, was before the House at all? Under such circumstances, it was impossible for

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  the House to exercise any due or proper supervision over this branch of legislation. He believed that the time was not far off when a thorough and radical reform of the whole system of Private Bill legislation must take place. Indeed, it would appear, from recent discussions, that the time was nearly ripe now; and if he was in Order in referring to a recent debate in "another place," which only took place a few days ago, it would seem to be in contemplation to effect great reforms in that branch of the Legislature. No portion of the proposition submitted to the House of Lords was received with such acclamation in that august Assembly as the proposal for adopting new principles in dealing with Private Bill legislation in that House. It was perfectly true that the number of Estate Bills introduced into Parliament was limited. He held in his hand a list of those which had been introduced since 1873; and although they had apparently increased since 1873, the number was still only small. It amounted to about five, on the average, in a year. Some years there had been as many as nine, in some years seven, and in others only two; but the average was about five in each year. If the system of requiring Reports to be furnished should be once established, even in this small class of Private Bill legislation, it would help, and greatly help, the solution of the larger question of Private Bill legislation generally, which, he believed, not only in the House of Commons, but in the other House of Parliament, was nearly ripe, and for which the public out-of-doors had long been sincerely anxious. On that account he had much pleasure in seconding the proposal of his hon. Friend the Member for Salford.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That in the case of any Estate Bill, the Committee on the Bill shall report specially to the House if the Bill contains provisions extending either the term or the area of any Settlement of Land, and the Report of the Committee shall be printed and circulated with the Votes."—(Mr. Arthur Arnold.)
  SIR ARTHUR OTWAY: I do not rise for the purpose of following my hon. Friend the Member for the Haddington Burghs (Mr. Craig Sellar) in any of the observations he has made, and which, no doubt, are of considerable importance, in regard to Private Bill legisla-
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  tion. Nor will it be expected that I should enter into the general question of the settlement of land, which has been raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford (Mr. Arthur Arnold). I will only say, with regard to the Standing Order itself, which has been proposed by my hon. Friend, that I think it will be a valuable addition. There is no doubt whatever that great responsibility would be cast upon any Member of the House who occupies the position I do if it were not for the protection afforded me by the knowledge that these Estate Bills have been thoroughly investigated by two of Her Majesty's Judges before they reached me. If it were not for that fact, I could not undertake to give my sanction to these Bills without a much more elaborate investigation than the time and opportunities I have at my disposal would allow me to devote to them. I wish my hon. Friend the Member for Salford to put his mind at rest in regard to these Bills, which have already been passed, if he supposes that they have not been very carefully and thoroughly considered. In the first place, it is not unimportant to remember that all of them, when they are introduced in the House of Lords, undergo a careful investigation at the hands of one of the most experienced public servants of the country—Lord Redesdale, the Chairman of Committees in that House, assisted by able counsel. That noble Lord has had a very long experience; and when the Bills come down to me, they have already received the sanction of his high authority. When they reach me, I give them as careful an investigation, and devote to them as much time as circumstances will allow, and I have the assistance of two most able men in the process—a gentleman who gives me his services in the position of secretary, a gentleman of considerable knowledge and some 30 years' experience—and I have, in addition, the assistance of the counsel to Mr. Speaker, of whom it is quite unnecessary for me to say one word in praise. The House, therefore, may be pretty well satisfied that these Estate Bills do receive very careful investigation. However, as they do treat of important matters, and contain the important proposals to which my hon. Friend the Member for Salford has referred—involving probably questions of entail and disentail, I agree with him

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  that it is desirable the attention of the House should be called to the circumstances of all Bills of such a character by such a Report as that which my hon. Friend suggests in his proposed Standing Order. Indeed, I know of no better form of bringing the provisions of Bills dealing with the settlement of land before the House. Therefore, I have much pleasure in supporting the proposal of my hon. Friend. I will only add one word in regard to the observations of the hon. Member for the Haddington Burghs. Certainly, the labour imposed upon the Chairman of Committees is, no doubt, sufficient for any one man to undertake; but it is not quite so onerous as my hon. Friend supposes. Private Business is not undertaken by the Chairman every day. If it were, it would be perfectly impossible for any one man to preside at this Table, and conduct the Private Business of the House at the same time; but the duties of the Chairman in connection with Private Bills are limited to two days a-week.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  188B. Resolved, That in the-case of any Estate Bill, the Committee on the Bill shall report specially to the House if the Bill contains provisions extending either the term or the area of any Settlement of Land, and the Report of the Committee shall be printed and circulated with the Votes.
  Ordered, That the said Resolution be a Standing Order of the House.

PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (LABOURERS' ACT) (No. 4) BILL.— [BILL 202.]
  (Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Mr. Trevelyan.)
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) PROVISIONAL ORDER (LABOURERS' ACT) (No. 4) BILL.— [BILL 202.]

    CONSIDERATION.
    Bill, as amended, considered.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR, in moving, in page 7, line 20, to insert the words, "3 [Cooleen] 10, 11, and 12," said, the Bill which the House was now asked to consider was one of very considerable importance, because it was the first Bill under the provisions of the Labourers' (Ireland) Act, passed last year, which had been tested, and which had not come before the House in a purely formal and unpretentious manner. The Amendment which he had put upon the Paper
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    was practically a traverse of the decision of the Committee which had considered the Bill. He need hardly say that this was a course which he had not taken without very considerable hesitation, particularly as the Committee which had considered the Bill was presided over by such a staunch friend of popular rights as the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson). But as many representations had been made to him on the subject by the gentlemen belonging to the locality to which the Bill applied, and after a careful perusal of the evidence, he had come to the conclusion that he had no course open to him except to oppose the decision which had been arrived at by the Committee. In order to explain the nature of the case to Members of the House generally it would be necessary for him to make a few observations upon the Labourers (Ireland) Act of last year. As everybody knew, under that Act it was necessary that representations should be made to the Board of Guardians by no less than 12 ratepayers as to the necessity for the erection of labourers' cottages, and this representation having undergone investigation before it could be accepted the Board of Guardians were enabled then to prepare a scheme. The matter was next brought before the Local Government Board, who made a Provisional Order for the erection of the dwellings, which Provisional Order was brought forward for the sanction of the House of Commons by an Act of Parliament. These formalities were gone through in the district for which this Bill was promoted. There was a scheme of some largeness proposed for the division of Kilmore, in the Poor Law Union of Nenagh, county Tipperary, and it was proposed by the Guardians to erect 14 new cottages under the provisions of the Act. He assured the House that it was not out of the "lightness of their hearts" that the Guardians of the Nenagh Union decided to erect these cottages, nor was it in any way with a desire to embarrass or annoy the landlord. The erection of these 14 cottages had been decided upon because the medical and sanitary officers, of the district had reported to the Guardians that the houses occupied by the labourers were utterly unfit for human habitation. He wished to dwell particularly on this fact, for a moment, for this reason—that it proved the case of

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    the promoters of the Bill that there was an urgent necessity for increased accommodation for the labourers of the district. Lord Dunally, who opposed the Bill, had argued that emigration had so thinned the population of the district that there was not a necessity for these cottages; and he further stated that for that and other reasons he had himself dismissed a considerable number of his own labourers, and that, as a matter of fact, instead of there being more labourers than houses, there were more houses than labourers. However, the medical officer of the district reported that there was a necessity for the erection of 14 additional cottages in order to afford habitable and sanitary accommodation for the labourers of the district; and in support of this point he might quote a passage from the evidence of Mr. Bourke, the Local Government Board Inspector, an officer whose impartiality in the matter he did not believe would be questioned. Mr. Bourke was asked this question by a Member of the Committee—
    "What is your opinion about this district; do you think there is a necessity for cottages; I want your opinion?"
    The witness replied—
    "I have not the slightest doubt that the present accommodation of the great majority of the labourers is such as no one would tolerate."
    He thought that evidence of the Inspector of the Local Government Board, taken in conjunction with the Report of the medical and sanitary officer of the district, showed that the Board of Guardians had a perfectly just right to propose some additional accommodation for the labourers. The scheme was accordingly prepared on the 6th of November, 1883, for the erection of 14 cottages; and on the 16th of February, 1884, there was an inquiry held by the Local Government Board, under the supervision of Mr. Bourke, and the result of it was that on the 10th of May the Local Government Board announced their decision to reject six of the cottages, and to allow the remaining eight to remain. This fact showed that the Local Government Board, as might have been anticipated, had made a thorough, searching, and honest inquiry into the matter. The Local Government Board did not pass the scheme in its entirety; but they had exercised a very close discrimination,
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    and had actually struck out nearly one-half of the cottages proposed. But that fact to his mind, and he thought in the judgment of the House, confirmed the necessity for the remaining eight. The three cottages which were the subject of the present Bill had been approved of by the Local Government Board, and were to be erected at Cooleen, on the property of Lord Dunally. Lord Dunally, against whom he desired to offer no observations, as his whole complaint was simply directed to the unreasonable nature of the opposition—Lord Dunally from the first expressed a determined hostility to the erection of any additional cottages in this district at all. He thought it would readily be gathered from the statements which Lord Dunally had made from time to time on every occasion when the question was raised, that in his opinion there was no necessity for erecting additional cottages at all. Lord Dunally had been asked by the Guardians, who were in no way desirous of acting in opposition to him, to send his bailiff in order that they might confer with him as to the selection of the site that would be the best, so far as the property was concerned, for the erection of the cottages; but he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) understood that Lord Dunally refused this offer on the part of the Board of Guardians. He refused to send his bailiff to confer with the Guardians, and left it to the Board themselves to select a proper site. There was another point which he wished to bring before the notice of the House. The local inquiry held by Mr. Bourke was attended by Lord Dunally. Lord Dunally made objections to the scheme. He objected to four out of the 14 proposed new cottages as being likely to injure his property. Those four were rejected. He offered no evidence in regard to the other three, such as he alleged in his Petition against the Bill; and, as a matter of fact, his hostility to those cottages arose long after the decision of the Local Government Board was arrived at. It was most unfortunate that a nobleman, or anybody else, should put a Board of Guardians like this to serious expense, when every single farthing spent must necessarily fall upon the ratepayers of the district. He thought that Lord Dunally ought to have displayed more fixedness of purpose in such a matter. Why did he not object

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    to the four cottages when the question was brought before the Local Government Board? Surely he knew that he might expect full justice at the hands of Mr. Bourke and the Local Government Board; because, as a matter of fact, the four cottages to which Lord Dunally objected as being inconvenient so far as the position of the property was concerned, had been rejected by the Local Government Board. He did not wish to give expression to any opinion as to the action of this nobleman in the matter which would in the smallest degree prejudice the case in the eyes of any Member of the House; but he would merely state that he thought Lord Dunally might have given full expression to his views while the inquiry was taking place. The inclusion of the three cottages at Cooleen could only be put down to the neglect of Lord Dunally, who ought to have raised his objection at the proper time. A further point was this. Lord Dunally now tools; up this position—that he did not object to the erection of three additional cottages, but that he objected to their erection on this particular piece of ground. Now, in the first place, he would point out that it was not until the 9th of April, 1884, or two months after the inquiry before Mr. Bourke, on the part of the Local Government Board, was concluded, that Lord Dunally offered his alternative scheme. This was the second occasion on which he should be able to show that Lord Dunally had made an unreasonable delay in putting forward his demands upon the Board of Guardians. In the first place, he did not object to the erection of these three cottages at the proper moment—namely, while the inquiry of the Local Government Board was proceeding; and, secondly, he did not propose his alternative scheme until two months after the inquiry was concluded. And then what was the offer which was made by Lord Dunally? It was this—"I have three cottages vacant in the same townland. They are now uninhabited, and have fallen into a dilapidated state on account of there being no persons to occupy them. I am quite ready to give these up to the Guardians." But Lord Dunally ought to have known from his legal advisers that the Board of Guardians had no authority, under the Labourers' Act of last year, to accept his proposals. Able as he was, the learned
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    counsel who represented the Guardians before the Committee, he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) did not think he had made himself sufficiently upon clear this point to them—namely, that the Labourers' Act of last year contemplated the erection of new cottages, but did not contemplate the purchase of existing cottages. As a matter of fact, the Supplementary Bill which had been proposed by the Irish Members last year to amend the Labourers' Act, but which was rejected by the Government, contained a Proviso giving powers to Boards of Guardians to purchase and repair existing and dilapidated cottages, instead of incurring the expense of erecting new ones; but no such Proviso was to be found in the existing Act. He trusted that he had made this point sufficiently clear to the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), who presided over the Committee —namely, that the offer of Lord Dunally to give up these three cottages was an offer which the Board of Guardians were legally precluded from accepting.
    SIR WILFRID LAWSONremarked that the Board of Guardians were not precluded from taking the land on which the cottages stood.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he was not sure whether the Guardians had the right to take the land upon which these dilapidated cottages stood. As a matter of fact, the cottages which Lord Dunally wished the Guardians to accept had not the necessary plot of land attached to them; and he had declined to give it with them. The first occasion upon which he had offered to do so, was during the inquiry before the Committee of the House of Commons. The original offer was not an offer of land, but of three dilapidated cottages, which the Board of Guardians were precluded from accepting by the provisions of the enactment of last year. The next step was the inquiry before the Committee of the House of Commons; and when the Committee of the House of Commons met for the first time, this offer was made which the hon. Baronet seemed to regard as a reason why the proposition made by the Board of Guardians should be refused. He thought this was the third instance in which he had shown that Lord Dunally was guilty of unreasonable delay. He must say that the very essence of the provisions of the

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    Labourers' Act wag that the proceedings nnder it should be conducted as economically as possible, as the ratepayers were to be taxed for the erection of these cottages; and opinion was united in Ireland as to the fact that one shilling a-week was as much as an agricultural labourer could afford to pay for a residence. It would, therefore, be seen that it was most important the cost of their erection should minimized as much as possible. If unnecessary expense were placed in the way of carrying out the provisions of the Act, the Act itself was rendered as nugatory as if it had never received the sanction of the two Houses of Parliament. Now, what did the Committee of the House of Commons do? He had made no reflection upon Lord Dunally, still less did he feel called upon to make any reflection upon the Committee; but he must express his astonishment that the very first appearance of anything like weakness where popular rights were concerned should have come from a man like the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), who had stood up so manfully, and almost alone, even against his Party, to protest against the proceedings of Her Majesty's Government in Egypt. Surely, after the determination which the hon. Baronet had displayed on that occasion he ought to have been able to hold his own against three or four Members of his own Committee. The hon. Baronet would, he was certain, make better fighting were the case one for the rights of the Egyptian people; and, therefore, taking the matter as it stood, he might be pardoned for suggesting that the hon. Baronet had been a little "weak-kneed" upon this occasion. He should have thought, however, that the hon. Baronet would have taken his stand for the labourer's cottages at Cooleen just as firmly as he had for the rights of the Egyptian people and Arabi Pasha. What had the Committee done? They threw out the scheme for the erection of these three cottages, and allowed the substitution for it of an undertaking by Lord Dunally, that he would provide a site for three cottages in another place. Now, the site which had been put forward by Lord Dunally was a site which he had reason to believe, if it had been originally selected by the Board of Guardians, would have been just as bitterly opposed by his Lordship
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    as was the present site at Cooleen; and Lord Dunally would have had a far more reasonable ground for objecting to it than he had now, at the eleventh hour, for objecting to the site chosen by the Guardians; because, as a matter of fact, the reason why the site proposed in the Bill had been selected was from an apprehension that if the other site were chosen, it would bring about hostility to the proposals of the Guardians on the part of Lord Dunally-—a result which the Guardians were most anxious to avoid. He would call the attention of the House to the evidence of one of the Guardians, Mr. Joseph Ryan, at page 13 of the Report, Question 181. Mr. Ryan was asked whether some of the cottages offered by Lord Dunally, and the reply was—
    "The three that Lord Dunally offered have no accommodation with them, because that is the part where his Lordship made a large field, taken from the tenants of the adjoining land behind the house; where Lord Dunally is giving these houses, the land was taken from them, and the tenants were compensated. This land is nearly attached to the demesne lands; and that is the reason that the houses were not put on his land, because we considered that it was adjacent to his Lordship's demesne. This other place, where the houses are to be situate, is outside."
    In other words, the Board of Guardians were anxious to obey the letter and spirit of the Act, one of the distinct provisions of which, moved by the late Attorney General for Ireland, and accepted by the House, was, that cottages should not be erected in such a manner as to interfere with the demesne of the landlord. It was the desire of the Board of Guardians to respect the provisions of the Act of Parliament, and the susceptibilities of Lord Dunally which induced them not to select the site which Lord Dunally now insisted upon them taking. Well, what was now the position? Lord Dunally had given an undertaking that he would provide an alternative site, after putting the Board of Guardians to all this expense and delay most unnecessarily. He would make no comment whatever upon the terms of the undertaking; but he hoped the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) would get up and tell the House that it would be distinctly binding upon Lord Dunally. There was a very considerable legal difficulty also in the way of carrying out

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    the undertaking; and if the learned Solicitor General for Ireland took part in the discussion he hoped the hon. and learned Gentleman would relieve the minds of the Nenagh Board of Guardians by telling them whether the acceptance of this alternative scheme would not mean a delay of 12 months in the erection of these cottages? He believed that the interpretation of the Act was that whereas the Local Government Board could accept a site for the erection of cottages, and could exclude cottages from the scheme submitted to them, they were precluded from adding or including cottages that were not in the scheme. Now, the cottages proposed by Lord Dunally were not included in the scheme brought before the Local Government Board, and therefore the offer of his Lordship could not be brought within the terms of the Act. If that apprehension were not correct, he hoped that all doubt upon the matter would be removed by the learned Solicitor General for Ireland. He feared, however, that the responsibility would rest with the Chairman and the Members of the Committee of having postponed for a full 12 months the erection of these cottages, which was most urgently and cryingly demanded by the labourers in this district. He now came to his last point. Looking at the matter in this light he regretted that he felt forced to describe the position which the Committee had taken up as distinctly iniquitous. What was the decision of the Committee? He had proved conclusively that all the delay in the matter was due to Lord Dunally—that Lord Dunally had objected to have these cottages provided at all; that there was a delay of two months before he made his alternative proposal; that when it was made it was made in such a manner that the Board of Guardians were precluded legally from accepting it, because the proposal was to supply dilapidated houses, and not land; and, lastly, that unnecessary delay was occasioned by not submitting an alternative offer of houses and land until the Bill was before a Committee of the House of Commons. What had been the result of all this? The result was that the Board of Guardians had been put to an expense nearly amounting to £200, whilst the entire rateable value of the division was only about £3,800; so that the House would
    1296
    therefore see that the action of Lord Dunally had put the ratepayers to the expense of nearly 1s. in the pound upon the rateable value. And with what result? Now, 1s. in the pound was the maximum which the Guardians had the right or were able to expend in the erection of cottages; so that, as a matter of fact, Lord Dunally had actually put a burden upon the Guardians of expenses for needless litigation, which he was afraid would make it extremely difficult to carry out the scheme at all in this division; because the expenses already incurred were very nearly equal to the full maximum the Board of Guardians were entitled to spend in the erection of these cottages. He believed he had proved that the conduct of Lord Dunally had been most unreasonable and most unfair—that he had interposed unreasonable delay, and brought forward frivolous objections, and had put the Board of Guardians to large and unnecessary expense. He felt bound to tell the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle that, in the face of all these facts, it would, he believed, be most unjust to compel the Guardians to pay one single penny of the costs. Lord Dunally ought to be called upon to pay the whole of them. It was for the purpose of calling attention to these facts that he had put the Amendment which he now moved upon the Notice Paper; and he begged to move the insertion of words which would have the effect of reinstating the three cottages which had received the approval of the Local Government Board, and which he thought the Select Committee had unreasonably and unfairly excluded.
    Amendment proposed, in page 7, line 20, to insert the words, "3 [Cooleen] 10, 11, and 12."—(Mr. T. P. O'Connor.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    SIR WILFRID LAWSONsaid, there were two or three legal points raised by the hon. Gentleman opposite, which he had no doubt the Solicitor General for Ireland would be able to deal with better than he could. But as he had acted as Chairman of the Committee to whom the Bill was referred, it was necessary that he should make a short statement before any of those legal matters were gone into. He was very much obliged to the hon. Member for having given

    1297
    him formal Notice that he intended to raise a discussion, so that an opportunity might be afforded to him of explaining. He could assure the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) that he and his fellow Members of the Committee had entered upon the inquiry with a full desire that equal justice should be done to all parties, As regarded himself, he might add that he was always ready to act justly towards Lord Dunally, or the Egyptians, or the Irish, or anyone else. He had treated the question entirely upon its merits. Perhaps his best course in dealing with the remarks of the hon. Member would be to read a short statement of what really did occur before the Committee which he had drawn up, and which was an answer to the speech of the hon. Member. It gave a complete account of the whole thing as far as he understood it. The hon. Member had moved what virtually amounted to a reversal of the decision of the Committee, who were unanimous. The object of the Provisional Order was to take compulsorily, for the erection of three labourers' cottages, land belonging to Lord Dunally. Lord Dunally opposed it on the ground of irreparable damage to his property by severance and otherwise, and of there being on his property already three cottages, unoccupied and available, which he had offered for sale to the sanitary authority. At the conclusion of the promoter's case, Lord Dunally's counsel, on behalf of his client, proposed to give an undertaking again to offer these sites, to put the cottages in repair, and to add further land not exceeding half an acre to each, provided the sites to be taken by the Order were abandoned. The promoters had not proved their case to the satisfaction of the Committee, in the face of what appeared to them, and probably would also appear to most people, so reasonable an offer. The Committee, therefore, decided for the Petitioner—Lord Dunally—on the understanding that he should, on the application of the sanitary authority, provide other sites to be approved by the Local Government Board. The authorized agents for the Order — Messrs. Holmes and Co.—were in no way parties to the motion. In the opinion of the Committee, the objects of the Labourers' (Ireland) Act, 1883, would be as effectively carried out by agreement between
    1298
    the parties, under the above-mentioned undertaking, as it would have been by the compulsory taking of the Petitioner's land under the Order. That was exactly the state of the case. He had told the House that the Committee had endeavoured to settle the question on its merits, and he believed they had done so. What they had heard from the hon. Member was only one side of the case; the Committee heard both sides. His hon. Friend talked about popular rights, and about his having always been in favour of them, and so forth. His hon. Friend added that he did not know what it was that took place in the Committee which had induced him to alter those opinions. He would tell his hon. Friend, as a matter of fact, the Committee were perfectly unanimous in their decision. There was one other point which he would refer to. the hon. Member said that the Board of Guardians would have to draw up another scheme, which might occasion a further delay of 12 months, in providing these labourers cottages. Of course, he saw that there would be a difficulty in the matter; but he should be very sorry if that were the case, and he hoped his hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General for Ireland would be able to inform the House that that would not be the case. The Committee had done all they could in the matter, and he hoped Lord Dunally would now proceed to carry out his undertaking for the benefit of the cottagers.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORinquired what would be done with regard to the costs?
    SIR WILFRID LAWSONsaid, he would not go into the question of costs. He presumed that the costs would follow the decision of the Committee in the matter, and they had given their verdict strictly in accordance with the evidence laid before them. If the House were of opinion that they deserved a Vote of Censure, it was quite right that they should pass one. Personally, he had no very ardent desire to act as Chairman of one of these Committees again.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)said, he merely wished to explain to the hon. Member for Galway (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) the action of the Local Government Board in the matter. That there was ample necessity for the erection of these cottages had been proved at the inquiry; and, therefore, the Provisional

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    Order was made. Lord Dunally had opposed this Provisional Order before the Committee, and he had succeeded in having three cottages struck out. He was not going into the question, as between Lord Dunally and the Nenagh Board of Guardians, whether Lord Dunally was right or not; but, merely looking at the facts of the case as stated by the hon. Member for Galway, it certainly appeared that the noble Lord was a little late in his proceedings. But, as far as the House were concerned, they must now deal with the existing facts of the case. The first question was as to whether they should reverse or support the action of the Committee. He apprehended that it would be unusual, if not altogether contrary to all precedent, to interfere with the decision of the Committee, and it would have the effect of delaying the Bill, which would have to be recommitted, and would practically prevent it from passing this year, having regard to the Standing Orders of the House of Lords. The Committee appeared to have been unanimous in their decision, and they were presided over by the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson), in whom, at all events, the hon. Member appeared to place great confidence. He did not think the future confidence of the hon. Member in the hon. Baronet would be at all shaken by anything which had occurred in the Committee. He was perfectly sure that they had acted with complete impartiality, and that they had devoted careful attention to the evidence submitted to them. He was, therefore, unable to support the Motion of the hon. Member; first, on account of the delay it would involve in the carrying out of any scheme; and, secondly, because it would endanger the passing of the Bill altogether; and there were other parts of the scheme of the Local Government Board which were not objected to. As to the costs of promoting the Bill, he felt sure that they would be made as light as possible.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORasked whether the Standing Orders of the House of Lords insisted on the passing of the Bill by a particular date?
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. WALKER)replied that, to the best of his recollection, the Bill must be read a second time by the 27th of June; but he was informed that
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    sometimes the Standing Orders were dispensed with. But, with the opposition of Lord Dunally, if the Bill were recommitted, it was most improbable that anything further would be done in the matter this year. So far as Lord Dunally was concerned, he had undertaken to provide other sites which were to receive the approval of the Local Government Board. That undertaking had been formally given, and there was no danger that it would not be observed. As to the mode in which it was to be carried out, this was a case in which the sites for cottages were to be taken, not by compulsory powers, but by agreement. The 16th section of the Labourers' Act enabled the sanitary authority to purchase land for the erection of cottages by agreement. It was quite true that there were existing cottages on the land proposed to be given; but the Board of Guardians could not be in any worse position in consequence of finding cottages there already. They would be taken as sites, and positive benefit would be derived from the fact that there were cottages on them, seeing that the Guardians would have so much more material available at hand. Therefore, under the circumstances of the case, he could not support the Motion of the hon. Member; and he would suggest to the hon. Gentleman that he ought to be satisfied with the discussion which had taken place. So far as Lord Dunally was concerned, he did not believe that he would fail to carry out the undertaking, and thereby incur the responsibility of forcing legal action under the compulsory powers of the Act. He was further convinced that the work would be carried out in the cheapest possible form, and that the Local Government Board would give every aid they could to the Board of Guardians, both by legal machinery and otherwise.
    MR. BERESFORD, as a Member of the Committee, desired to say a few words. In this case there was submitted to the Committee a Petition of Lord Dunally against the decision of the Nenagh Board of Guardians to select certain sites to which he entertained a particular objection. Lord Dunally showed to the Committee that the sites which were proposed by the Nenagh Board of Guardians were sites that would be most inconvenient to him, while, on the other hand, there were

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    sites he was perfectly ready to give. Objection was, however, taken to them by the Board of Guardians because there were some old houses upon them. One of the principal witnesses—Mr. Joseph Ryan, a Poor Law Guardian for Kilmore —said the reason why the site now proposed was not originally selected was that the land attached to it was demesne land, and they considered that it might be disadvantageous to Lord Dunally's demesne to select it; yet Lord Dunally had himself offered that very site, and surely the opinion of so good a judge as Mr. Joseph Ryan as to the convenience of it might wisely be taken. Then, again, the convenience of the House of Lords in considering the Bill should also be consulted. On the other hand, it was proposed to take the necessary land from Lord Duually's stock farm, and Lord Dunally was of opinion that the stock farm would be irreparably injured by the erection of these labourers' cottages. As to the insinuation that pressure had been put either upon the Chairman or the Committee, he was in a position to deny it absolutely; and he would confirm the statement of the Chairman that the decision of the Committee was perfectly unanimous.
    MR. HARRINGTONsaid, that, notwithstanding the remarks which had just been made by the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. Beresford) in justification of the conduct of Lord Dunally, he did not think there was much to be said in defence of the extraordinary course pursued by the Committee in rejecting these three cottages from the scheme which had received the sanction of the Local Government Board. Moreover, they had rejected them upon an undertaking from Lord Dunally to do that which the Board of Guardians repeatedly gave him the opportunity of doing, but which he had persistently declined to do. Though Lord Dunally had deceived the Board of Guardians, and refused to give them assistance in carrying out the scheme, and had declined until the last moment to give notice, yet the Committee of the House of Commons had not thrown on him any part of the burden of the cost. That, he thought, was a most extraordinary confession to have to make in the House. He did not mean to say that the hon. Baronet and the Committee had not arrived at their conclusion to the best of their judgment; but
    1302
    judgment was usually founded on reasons, and the hon. Baronet had not specified the reason in this case. It was very unfortunate, considering all the difficulties with which the Labourers' Act was surrounded, considering the many defects in the Act itself, and the recent refusal of the House to remedy them, that a Committee of this House, knowing very well the strength of the landowners and the weakness of the representation of the labourers in the House, should have taken the course they had taken. He would put it to the common sense of the House whether, if plain Joseph Ryan had come before the Committee offering such evidence as that of Lord Dunally, the same course would have been taken with regard to him? Some people were all their lives fond of the aristocracy. He did not know how far the accusation might lie against the hon. Baronet; but it was evident that some Members of his Committee dearly loved a Lord. The Solicitor General for Ireland had said the cottages were on the land, but that the Guardians would be in no worse position for the offer made to them by Lord Dunally. That was not the case. The Guardians would be in a worse position than they would have been if their scheme had been approved of by the Committee. Lord Dunally offered them cottages which were on the land at the present time; but they would not accept those cottages, as it would have been necessary to build them up anew, in order that they might come within the provisions of the Act. He would draw the attention of hon. Gentlemen to this fact. If they were treating for the purchase of a plot of land, would it not make a difference in the price whether cottages were on it or not? Of course; therefore the Board of Guardians was in a worse position than it should be. Lord Dunally simply wanted to get compensation for cottages which were lying idle on the land—cottages from which he had turned away labourers without giving them compensation. He desired the Nenagh Union to pay compensation for the cottages instead of building additional ones, and so to remove the eyesore from the land. He would invite the attention of his hon. Friend (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) to the fact that it was better, now that the scheme was brought forward, and it was necessary

    1303
    to make a protest against it, that they should altogether oppose this stage of the Bill, so that the measure might be re-committed. The Committee should be shown that in giving their decisions they had had a right to consult justice. Lord Dunally had done everything in his power to thwart the working of the Labourers' Act. He had opposed the erection of four labourers' cottages on his land, and the Local Government Board had given way to him. The three under discussion he had not opposed at first. It was not until two months after the Local Government Board made their inquiry that he gave notice of his opposition. He had made no alternative offer to the Guardians as to the selection of other sites. The Guardians had shown by their evidence that he had made no alternative offer. If he had, and it had been reasonable, they would have agreed to it. But the opportunity of agreeing to anything of the kind had not been offered to them. It was only when great expense had been heaped on the Guardians, and they had been dragged before the Committee, that Lord Dunally had offered them this alternative scheme, and yet the Committee arranged that no portion of the expense of the proceeding would be cast on him. The Irish Members had a right to complain, not alone of the action of the Committee in this respect, but of the inaction of the Government. He thought the Irish Party, seeing that they were so deeply interested in this question, should have been represented on the Committee. He trusted his hon. Friend would persevere in his opposition, because he would rather see the scheme thrown out altogether than see it set up as a precedent that a noble Lord in Ireland could offer all the opposition he liked to the carrying out of a scheme, could take unfair advantage of the Act, and, at the last moment, get a Select Committee to accept an alternative scheme, which was to give him compensation for worthless property. The noble Lord had made an excellent bargain, for which the Board of Guardians would have to pay dearly.
    MR. EVANS WILLIAMSrose to say that the Committee was absolutely unanimous. They listened to the matters brought before them carefully, and for a long time, and, after taking a great
    1304
    deal of evidence, came not only to the conclusion set forth in the Bill, but that the promoters and Lord Dunally should each pay their own costs.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNORwished to say just one word to explain the course he was about to take. He was placed in a difficulty. The Solicitor General for Ireland told him that even if he succeeded—which he had not the slightest chance of doing—in carrying his proposal, the only effect would be to seriously imperil the success of the entire Bill. Under the entire scheme there were 79 cottages altogether. If he persisted, therefore, in his endeavour to obtain the three which had been disallowed—the success of which endeavour was extremely doubtful—ho should be imperilling the 76 which had been allowed. He did not wish to do that. He had not had an opportunity of consulting the Board of Guardians in question, as it would not meet until to-morrow. On his own responsibility, therefore, he would withdraw his Amendment, leaving with the Guardians, who met to-morrow, the opportunity of pressing opposition to the matter in another place if they thought proper.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    Bill to be read the third time Tomorrow.

NOTICE OF MOTION.
  EGYPT (TERMS OF THE AGREEMENT WITH FRANCE)—VOTE OF CENSURE.

    NOTICE OF MOTION.
    SIR STAFFORD NORTHCOTE: In the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth (Mr. T. Bruce), and on his behalf, I desire to give this Notice —that he will on the earliest opportunity he can obtain move the following Resolution: —
    "That the terms of the agreement between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of France, as indicated in the Correspondence recently presented to Parliament, are not such as, in the opinion of this House, would lead to the establishment of tranquillity and good government in Egypt or justify the assumption by this country of any responsibility by way of loan or guarantee in the settlement of Egyptian finances."

    1305
    I also beg to give Notice that I will tomorrow ask the Prime Minister what arrangement he can make to give an opportunity for the discussion of this matter?
    MR. ARTHUR ARNOLD: I beg to give Notice that on the Motion of the hon. Member for Portsmouth I shall move, as an Amendment, to leave out all the words after the word "That," in order to add these words—
    "This House withholds its opinion upon the result of negotiations with France until it has been placed in possession of the proposals to be submitted to the Conference of the Powers of Europe upon the financial affairs of Egypt."

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  CMETERIES BILL.— [BILL 21.]
  (Mr. Richard, Mr. Henry H. Fowler, Mr. Illingworth, Mr. Caine, Mr. Woodall.)
  CMETERIES BILL.— [BILL 21.]

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    MR. RICHARD: This is the same Bill as I brought forward last Session of Parliament. It was then received, at least in the first instance, with considerable favour by the House. The Home Secretary approved of the principle of the Bill, and supported the second reading. It was also discussed in a friendly spirit by some hon. Members on the other side—the hon. Gentleman, the Member for Stafford (Mr. Salt), and the hon. Member for Liverpool (Mr. Whitley). But when it was on the eve of passing the second reading, there was a sudden invasion of hon. Members on the other side; and, after an unsuccessful attempt to adjourn the debate, it was talked out by the allied forces of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope), and the hon. Gentleman the Member for Dungarvan (Mr. O'Donnell). I was not without hope, from a reply I received to a Question I asked of my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary towards the end of last Session, that the Government would take up the matter, for undoubtedly it is a question that urgently demands legislation, and is likely, while it remains unsettled, to occasion serious and increasing embarrassments to the Home Office itself. The Bill deals mainly with two points. One
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    relates to certain obligations which now rest upon Burial Boards, in providing new cemeteries. These obligations are to divide cemeteries into consecrated and unconsecrated parts, to erect a chapel for each, to apply to the Bishop for consecration, and to pay the cost; and, in the event of the refusal of the Bishop to consecrate, to apply to the Archbishop for a licence in lieu thereof. It cannot be denied that there is in the country a great and growing opposition to this system. It adds greatly to the costs of cemeteries, and ratepayers object to what they deem a waste of public money. It imposes on burial authorities needless trouble, and sometimes involves them in great perplexity, and often leads to controversies and conflicts of a very undesirable character in various localities. It proclaims, as it were, by outward visible symbols, differences which separate men in life, but might surely be forgotten at the grave. Many members of the Church of England share the repugnance to perpetuate these distinctions after death. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for South-West Lancashire (Sir R. Assheton Cross) has repeatedly and strongly expressed in this House his feelings on the subject. Last year I quoted the words of the late Archbishop of Canterbury to the same effect. The Bishop of Ely has again and again declared his opinion on the subject in his charges and in speeches at Diocesan Conferences. "I do not recede," he said on one of those occasions—
    "From the opinion that in our future cemeteries there should be no division of ground into consecrated and unconsecrated, but that the whole cemetery having been legally secured in perpetuity for burial purposes, the Church should be content to adopt the principle that the grave, in whatsoever part it may be dug, is sufficiently consecrated by the words of prayer said beside it."
    The Bishop of Manchester, speaking at Royton in 1879, said—
    "The Chairman of the Local Board has expressed a hope to me that the time might come when it will not be necessary to have lines of demarcation in the cemeteries—one plot of land being set apart for the Church of England, another for the Nonconformists, and another for the Roman Catholics, and it will not be necessary to build on each plot a special chapel. I entirely agree with that hope, and have never concealed my feelings upon the subject. I am certain that the Church of England becomes stronger, and more in the confidence and affection of the people by being tolerant and large-hearted, and comprehensive and open-handed,

    1307
    than by being exclusive and narrow, and bigoted and anathematising. Therefore, I do hope the day will come when Churchmen, Nonconformists, and Roman Catholics may at last agree to use the same building set apart for the holy purpose of reading a service over the dead."
    The Bishop of Exeter, in his visitation charge in 1882, referring to the probability of further alteration in the Burial Laws, said—
    "It would be necessary, in providing for the future, to do away with the distinction between consecrated and unconsecrated ground. It would not be possible in the future to compel the erection in cemeteries of separate chapels for the service of the Church of England. Nor could he say it would be desirable. The very existence of the two chapels in a cemetery was a scandal and a reproach."
    It affords me great pleasure to cite these liberal sentiments from Bishops of the Church of England—sentiments which, in my opinion, reflect infinite credit on their Christian spirit. I should like to say a few words on the question of consecration. I do not wish to speak disrespectfully, far less in scorn, of any form or observance around which, in the estimation of any body of my countrymen, a religious sentiment gathers. To me, and to many others who have been brought up in a different school, though I hope not less earnest in our religious convictions, the meaning and value of the ceremony are somewhat inexplicable. No mortal man surely believes that the destiny of the departed spirit depends, in any manner or degree, upon the kind of ground in which his body has been interred. In that case, what becomes of the thousands that are drowned at sea, and what became of the noble army of martyrs, many of whom perished at the stake? But, undoubtedly, there are many excellent men, earnest and devout Christians, who do, in some way, derive comfort from the thought that the bodies of themselves and their friends should be deposited in ground over which a certain religious form has been recited. Far be it from me to speak with levity or ridicule of such feelings. All we ask is that those who believe in consecration should have it performed on their own initiative, and at their own expense; that it should be simply an ecclesiastical proceeding, and carry with it no legal consequences. There is, therefore, power given in my Bill to consecrate a cemetery, or part of a cemetery, if there are those who wish it, only that it should
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    confer upon them no privileges, and impose upon others no disqualification. The other point dealt with in the Bill relates to the rights now possessed and exercised by the clergy and other officials to receive in the consecrated parts of cemeteries the same fees as they had in churchyards before those were closed. I dare say there are many Members of this House who are are not aware of this extraordinary arrangement. I will, therefore, briefly explain its character and origin. It is now some 50 years ago since attention began to be called to the over-crowded condition of churchyards in London and other towns, as a matter that very nearly concerned the health of the population. Acts were passed authorizing the formation of cemeteries in the neighbourhood of large towns. But during the discussion on this question there was a great outcry as to the loss that would be sustained by clergymen by this cessation of the fees they had been accustomed to receive for burials, and for the right to erect stones and monuments. And it was found necessary, as a condition of passing the Acts, to insert a clause giving compensation to the clergy for the loss of their fees. I am told by my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for East Aberdeenshire (Sir Alexander Gordon) that in a Bill introduced by the Conservative Government in 1852, for the creation of parochial cemeteries, there was no such provision in the Bill in its original, form, but was inserted as it passed through Parliament. The compensation varies in different cemeteries, from 1s. 6d. in Kensal Green to 10 s. in Brompton. The Cemeteries Company provide the ground, the labour, and the service required, and are wholly independent of the parochial clergy. Before the formation of cemeteries, parishioners were sometimes buried elsewhere than in the parish churchyard; but it had never occurred to clergymen to claim a fee for the body so interred. But when the cemeteries were formed they succeeded in getting their claim recognized. At Brompton this principle seems to be carried to an extreme, for the fees of 10 s. are payable to every clergyman within 10 miles round the cemetery, and this for no service performed; for the Company, or, I believe, in this case, the Government, provide two chaplains at £250 a-year each to perform the service. And I am told that many in-

    1309
    cumbents now receive those fees who minister in churches which have never had any burial-grounds attached to them; district churches built since burial within the Metropolitan area has been prohibited; so that they are receiving compensation for the loss of fees which they never received. These fees are, moreover, in perpetuity. We have often known instances where obsolete or useless offices have been abolished, and the existing; occupants of those offices have received compensation. But who ever heard of that compensation being continued to their heirs or successors in perpetuity? My Bill proposes to abolish these compensation fees, except as regards the present incumbents. I think it is impossible to justify the retention of these fees, and I venture respectfully to appeal to members of the Church of England whether they think it really can serve the interests of that Church to retain these invidious and unjust privileges for the clergy? Will not the inevitable effect be to fret and irritate men's minds at a moment when their feelings are peculiarly susceptible, and so to create a prejudice, not only against the individual clergymen who compel them to pay what they cannot but feel to be an unjust, and sometimes an extortionate exaction, but against the whole class to which they belong? I really hardly know, even now, what are the objections to this Bill, though I had the advantage of listening; to a long debate on the subject when I brought my Bill in last year. There were some 20 speeches, great and small, made against the measure during that discussion. I have read the report lately; but, on careful examination of those speeches, I am bound to say that the proportion of argument to words in them is very much like Sir John FalStaff's proportion of bread to sack. One of the reasons assigned for opposing the Bill was that it had been sprung upon the House by surprise. That it had come on unexpectedly on that day was true enough, for there were two other Bills before it on the Paper. But to say that the Bill itself was a surprise was too absurd. It had been before the House during the whole Session of 1882; but I had been so unfortunate at the ballot at the commencement of the Session that I failed to secure a day. Then it was introduced on the first day of the
    1310
    Session of 1883, and was in the hands of Members almost immediately afterwards. One of the strongest objections arose from an unguarded concession, or semi-concession, which I had made to my hon. Friend the Member for Kendal (Mr. Cropper), that I would be willing to reconsider and modify one or two minor points in the Bill to which he referred. I have heard this done a hundred times in this House on the introduction of a Bill, without its being made a ground for the rejection of the whole measure. But in stress of argument of a more forcible or plausible kind, this was turned to account against me, and then I was told that the Bill was a different Bill. Well, I shall not fall into that snare to-day. I will not listen to the siren voice of my hon. Friend the Member for Kendal. The Bill must stand on its merits, and any objections of detail must be discussed in Committee. But the real gist of the opposition seemed to consist in the cry of "The Church in Danger." Now, I should not like to belong to a Church which is always in danger. Several hon. Gentlemen intimated that by my Bill I was making an attack upon the Church. I do not know whether hon. Gentlemen opposite will accept a disclaimer from me. But I can give them a positive and very sincere assurance that nothing1 was further from my thought in introducing this measure than to injure the Church of England. And my strong conviction is that if it were passed, far from injuring, it would benefit the Church. Everything that helps to remove invidious preferences, and privileges calculated to provoke resentment and hostility among classes not otherwise ill-disposed to the Church, must tend, not to weaken, but to strengthen the Church. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving the second reading of the Bill.
    MR. RATHBONE, in seconding the Motion, said, it would almost seem as if the Bill ought to come from the Church of England, and not from the Nonconformists. One of the great weaknesses of the Church of England had been the maintenance of this injurious subject of dispute between the Church and Nonconformity. That was especially the case in Wales. The people of Wales had a very strong reverence for precedent, and everything that was historical in their nation; and it was owing to the mistakes

    1311
    of the Church of England that Nonconformity had become so powerful in Wales. What he would say to the Church was, that two things were perfectly clear: first, that the Church of England and all other sects had quite enough to do in this generation in fighting their avowed enemies; and, secondly, that if they expected to work together for the common good, they ought to banish every irritating injustice which separated the different sections of the religious Bodies. Some hon. Members were often referred to as political Nonconformists. A greater benefit could not be conferred on political Nonconformists if such existed, than by maintaining this injustice. It gave them the greatest lever power they had, and if the Church of England was wise it would not leave them a single injustice or grievance to bless themselves with.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Richard.)
    MR. BERESFORD HOPE: Mr. Speaker, in rising to move that this Bill be read a second time this day three months, I must present my especial thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvonshire (Mr. Rathbone) for his services in seconding the Bill of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Merthyr (Mr. Richard). I own that if I had only to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr I should have found the Bill—I will not say a difficult Bill to grapple with—but one of those which take a little trouble to thrash out and reduce to specimens. The speech of the hon. Mover belongs to that style of Parliamentary eloquence of which he is a very good master, one which wraps up a very stern and determined purpose and intention in some rambling language of flabby kindness. That is a difficult form of speech to deal with. But my hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvonshire, with the cool chivalry of his character, breaks through constraint, and tells us bluntly that we Churchmen ought to have brought in this Bill ourselves, because it removes one of the injurious subjects of dispute. Why, everything that any man wants to get from anybody else is demanded as an injurious subject of dispute. A cottage to an Irish labourer, or a piece of land to a dynamiter, or the concession of a loan to a speculator—
    1312
    everything that a man wants to get and does not get, and does not quite see his way to get, is an injurious subject of dispute. I thank the hon. Gentleman for so neatly summing up the policy of the Party which he and the hon. Member for Merthyr so very ably and so very loyally to their cause represent. The hon. Member for Merthyr has told us that this is an illustration of the Church always being- in danger. The Church, I believe, is not, and never was and never will be, in danger through its own action; but I believe that the Church, like every other institution, may be endangered by the fussiness, wrong-headedness, and insincerity of sham friends, lukewarm supporters, and concealed enemies. Now this policy—I mean the injurious subject of dispute policy—is the policy of the Liberation Society, a Society which is engaged in an ingenious and mealy-mouthed conspiracy against the Church of England, and which calls itself a Society to liberate religion from State control. As to this Liberation Society, I am going to say a thing which I am afraid may be rude and un-Parliamentary. The hon. Member for Merthyr would not refuse to be compared with the lion, and the hon. Member for Carnarvonshire would not object to be compared with the antelope; but there is a certain animal of such marvellous and pronounced intellect, that an article in a former number of The Quaterly Review was devoted to the glorification of that intellect. That animal is a rodent of small size, given to live in cellars, and fond of cheese, and that sort of thing. It is a monosyllabic animal, and it represents very accurately the policy of the Liberation Society. The Liberation Party for years have been banded and pledged together to destroy the Church of England by perpetual nibbling. They coyly plead that they only want to tackle it in its Establishmentarian aspect; but when I see that those who are leagued against the Established Church of England represent Calvinists, Agnostics, and all sorts of forms and shades of belief, or the absence of belief, I do not believe they are only banded together against the establishment of the Church of England, and not against its doctrine also. This Liberation Society, following the instincts and line of operation of that most intelligent rodent, is always nibbling away at something or

    1313
    other, and then it makes up its pious mouth, and it tells us—"We are only striking at an injurious subject of dispute. Get rid of that and all will be peace and happiness and prosperity hereafter." But as soon as one injurious subject of dispute is got rid of another, punctual to time, springs up for the benefit of the Liberation Society. Some years ago we heard that compulsory church rates were the stone of offence. ["Oh, oh!"] Well, if you are so very ungrateful for their abolition, I am heartily sorry they were abolished. We made you a present of compulsory church rates. I myself scandalized some of my Church friends by my readiness to do so. But the result was that the Liberation Society came forward the very year after with still more inflated and malignant charges against the Church. Mr. Spurgeon, Dr. Landels, Dr. R. W. Dale, and others entered into a kind of competitive slanging match against the Church of England; and the charges they made were not only unfounded, but abusive and vindictive. Well, as I have said, the compulsory church rates were got rid of, and yet the crop of injurious subjects of dispute remained. The Universities were thrown open, the Irish Church was thrown to the monsters of the deep, and, ultimately, in the year 1880, the present Government, by the agency of my right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Osborne Morgan), who had himself, after he had been crying in the wilderness, with very uncertain support from his friends, and fighting the battle year after year, carried the repeal of the existing Burial Laws as the mouthpiece of the Government; and then we heard that at last the great grievance was removed—["No !"]—and that hereafter Church and Dissent might work together in peace and in harmony. And I must call my right hon. and learned Friend (Mr. Osborne Morgan), and every other candid man, to witness that after our great defeat and collapse—it was a defeat and collapse, and I should be foolish to deny it — we Churchmen, both laymen in Parliament and clergymen in the country, did submit with great good humour and great political candour to the new and, of course to us, unpleasant state of things. Of course, there were exceptions. Amongst the 15,000 clergymen of the Church of England there must be some unpolitic, unwise, and hot-
    1314
    headed men; but the number of cases in which anything like a grievance could be brought up was simply infinitesimal. Such as it was, however, it enabled the Liberation Society to pose themselves like ancient Christian martyrs. But the ink of the Royal Assent was hardly dry on the Burials Bill before the Liberation Party came forward with its new injurious subject of dispute; and in spite of all that we Churchmen had yielded, in spite of our admirable behaviour on the occasion, they tried to tear up the understanding and sow again the seeds of ill-will.
    But what, Sir, was the real state of the case? We know very well that the burials grievance was a very simple one, and that the actual law or custom—it was partly law and partly custom—was one of those old things that existed in England, and in which, happily, a tradition far older and more sacred than the mere letter of the law prevailed. The old law and custom only saw one possible class of persons in the land; those who, being citizens, were also Churchmen; and as everyone who was a citizen and a Churchman must belong to some parish or other, he had a right to be buried in the churchyard of the parish. Well, but how was he to be buried there? The old custom of England recognized a National Church, both before and after the Reformation. Various as may have been the changes at the Reformation, this was one point on which the continuity was rigidly kept up. The old custom, besides recognizing a National Church, recognized a national form of burial, and that form of burial was at the disposal of the representatives of any deceased parishioner. The deceased parishioner might have been a man who had in life repudiated that form; in which case that form, of burial was not enforced over him. The Church said— "We are very sorry for you; here is the form, there is the grave; the grave is yours, the form may be yours; if not, you must be buried without the form." That was the old state of things. The grievance grew up with the growth and toleration of other forms of religion. Alongside of the old churchyards a new series of graveyards have been created by the legislation, I may say, mainly during the present century, which witnessed the recognition of a variety of sects in the land. In these cemeteries

    1315
    a portion was laid out for that which was still the national religion and still the religion of the majority of the people, and other portions were laid out for the interment of those who belonged to other forms of religion. That was the state of things recognized in 1880, and I must say that the temper of men who, after such a concession, after such a change, after such a revolution as that of 1880, and after the way in which the Church bore itself, now try to tear up the compact, is one for which I have no respect, or sympathy, or understanding. What is the present Bill before the House? My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr, whose goodness and candour no man can doubt, has just assured us that it is not his wish to injure the Church. All I can say is, I am very sorry my hon. Friend has fallen into such bad company; his goodness and his candour have been dreadfully played on. He comes here to-day, he tells us, as the advocate of those who do not wish to do harm to the Church. My hon. Friend the Member for Carnarvonshire is a judicious bottle holder, for he says all we wish to do is to get rid of an injurious subject of dispute. I was reading one of the evening papers last night, and I came across a very amusing article in it, by a gentleman who I think calls himself "An Apostle of St. Giles." The writer was speaking of burglars, one of whom said—"Any man of our confraternity who tries to do injury or harm is not a brother—is not one of us." Now these burglars are like the Liberation Party, who have been distilling their leprous ointment into the ears of the hon. Member for Merthyr, for they are gentlemen who will come up to us smiling, take our jewellery and loose cash out of our pockets, and say they are only removing an injurious subject of dispute.
    My hon. Friend the Member for Merthyr has given us a Bill which I must say has a gleam of sunlight about it. There is one extremely amusing provision in it; there is a stroke of audacious wit in it which I think the hon. Baronet the Member for Carlisle (Sir Wilfrid Lawson) would hardly be guilty of. It is this. The cemeteries are not to be consecrated compulsorily; but nothing in this Act shall prevent, and no cemetery authority shall prevent, the consecration of a ceme-
    1316
    tery, or any part thereof, or any building therein, by the Bishop of the diocese after everything which makes consecration valuable, everything that makes it real, has been swept away. I have heard many odd permissions in my life; but I never heard a permission so absolutely grotesque as this, unless it be the permission given this Session to General Gordon to leave Khartoum. This question of consecration is one which it is so easy to make a mock of that I must say a little about it. The hon. Member for Merthyr talks of the toleration and large-heartedness of certain Bishops, and he says he knows that some people do attach great importance to the act of consecration. Yet he follows this up by a sneer which he must know to be baseless; he does not, forsooth, suppose consecration affects the destinies of the departed spirit. He would more wisely have refrained from making such a remark. An imputation of that sort, though dressed up as a sham negation, is only one of those jests that return to the author. The more modern great Christian Bodies, of which that to which the hon. Member for Merthyr belongs is one, perhaps attach a more literal value to the Mosaie Code than either the Church of England or the Church of Rome, and in their eyes the first day of the week is hedged in by even stricter provisions than it is with those Churches. Our Dissenting friends' reverence for the Sabbath is a feeling which others may think exaggerated in certain details. But yet they would have a real grievance if Parliament trampled on their feelings. The same considerations hold good as to the older Churches and consecration. May not a man, whatever be his belief as to Orders, to succession, to ceremonies, to liturgies, claim that his belief in the efficacy of consecration ought to be as much respected as a Dissenter's reverence for the Sabbath? I contend, therefore, that we ought not to be deprived of consecration, neither ought our Roman Catholic fellow-Christians, who value consecration just as much as we do. The Church of Rome being less elastic in various arrangements than the Church of England, would feel the hardship resulting from the abolition of consecration as one which would operate upon them even more hardly than we might feel it. Last year the hon. Member for Dungarvan (Mr.

    1317
    O'Donnell) made an admirable speech on this subject. It is not always I agree with the hon. Member for Dungarvan; but I did agree with the speech to which I refer, arid I trust that to-day he or some other Roman Catholic will see fit to show that the grievance we have in this matter is also the grievance of Roman Catholics. I will not go into the burial fees part of my hon. Friend's Bill. I may have a good deal to say about that at some future time; but I am so convinced that the Bill breaks down in its early part, breaks down on its broad principle, that I oppose it, irrespective of its monetary arrangements. I think it is a mischievous, a provocative, and an aggressive violation of the concordat of four years ago, it only tends to irreverence, it is only one more contribution to the cause of anti-religion and anti-Christianity, and, taught as I have been by the various dodges of the Liberation rodents during the last 20 years, I do not think it will dispose of the injurious subjects of dispute. I beg to move that the Bill be read a second time this day three months.
    MR. DAVENPORTseconded the Amendment. He objected to the Bill because it was of a mischievous character and entirely unnecessary. They had been assured that the Act of 1880 settled the whole question; and he submitted that the Conservatives and the clergy had a right to complain of any Bill which re-opened it. Unfortunately, the assurances of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen on the Ministerial side of the House upon that point were worthless. The Bill now before the House would have the effect of imposing a new, and, he thought, unnecessary rate upon the country parishes. They all knew that when a country churchyard became overcrowded, two or three wealthy parishioners or a landowner gave a portion of land to be added to the churchyard. In that way the wants of the parish were supplied without cost to the parishioners, or without any charge being made upon the rates. If, however, this Bill became law, there would be an end to anything of that sort, and some body would have to be created to impose a rate whenever a churchyard needed extending. He thought that, this being an unnecessary rate, it was a rate that was wrong and ought not to be
    1318
    levied. The hon. Member for Carnarvonshire (Mr. Rathbone) had pointed out that the existence of this grievance against the Church of England was a weapon that could be used against the Conservative candidates at the next Election. He would venture to suggest to him that the Conservatives felt that the passing of a measure which imposed an unnecessary rate, and a rate which was wrong in principle, would be putting a powerful and useful weapon in the hands of the Conservatives. As to consecration, whatever might be thought about that, this was not a proper time for going into the question; and he merely wished to make the one practical remark that it had the effect of preserving for large towns many open spaces which would not otherwise be preserved. That was, no doubt, one of the smallest considerations; but he thought the House would do well to consider it. He opposed the measure, therefore, because it was a violation of the understanding entered into between the Nonconformists and Churchmen, and accepted by the country generally at the time of the passing of the Burials Act of 1880; because, from the operation of that Act, any legislation was now entirely unnecessary; because it disregarded the feelings of a vast number of the people of the country in regard to the consecration of cemeteries, and because it increased unnecessarily the rates and burdens of the people.
    Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months." — (Mr. Beresford Hope.)
    Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
    MR. H. H. FOWLERsaid, he would congratulate the House on the fact that the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down had approached the subject-matter before the House in a different strain from that adopted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope.) He had heard many extraordinary speeches in that House, but none that could rival that of the right hon. Gentleman. The language the right hon. Gentleman had permitted himself to indulge in in respect to the Nonconformist Party and their leaders was such that

    1319
    he would not submit to it without raising a very strong protest. The language which the right hon. Gentleman had used was language that ought not to have been applied to any religious Body. He would only say that he knew nothing which so imperilled the Church, which so aggravated the unfortunate differences and distinctions that existed, as speeches of that class and description, which trampled on the dearest and most sacred feelings of those who were opposed to the right hon. Gentleman, and which created a feeling between Nonconformists and the Church of England which would not otherwise be provoked. The right hon. Gentleman had spoken of this Bill as a violation of the compact of 1880. The Bill of 1880 was not a compact. The Conservative Party fought on that occasion to the very last. It was a fair-fought political fight; the Conservatives were fairly beaten by the sense of the House of Commons and the country, and it was no more a concession or a concordat than the repeal of the Corn Laws. He contended that this Bill was a natural, legitimate, and logical consequence of the Act of 1880, and in no way interfered with or disturbed that Act. The principle of the latter Act was that every parishioner had a right to be interred in the churchyard of his parish, and that his friends should have a right to indicate the service in which they wished his burial to be conducted. It was simply proposed to extend that principle to cemeteries. The Bill did not prohibit the consecration of cemeteries, or of any part of them, or of chapels. It was always assumed that the Dissenters wanted to do something very wicked against the Church and against consecration. He had no such sentiment or feeling. He much respected the sacred setting apart of a piece of land for such a purpose; and whether it was done in the manner adopted by the Church of England or in that adopted by the Church of Rome, the principle was one which every Christian and right-minded man would appreciate and respect. There was nothing in that Bill to interfere with consecration. All that it said was that it should not be the absolute duty of the cemetery authority administering the public funds in the control of a cemetery, to divide it into two portions, one consecrated and the other unconsecrated. But that was really
    1320
    a small part of the matter. The real gist of the complaint was that great scandal to their Christianity, the erection of two chapels in each cemetery ground; and the main object of the Bill was to prohibit the absolute necessity at present existing for the erection of those two buildings, and that, too, at the public expense. The law was as unfair to Nonconformists as it well could be. The law was that the public authority was compelled to build a chapel on the consecrated ground at the public expense; but it was not compelled to build a chapel on the unconsecrated ground, unless three-fourths of a vestry meeting and the Home Secretary otherwise determined; and, although it provided that the clergy of the Church of England might use the unconsecrated chapel, Dissenting ministers might not use the consecrated chapel, and were therefore left to perform their services in the rain and snow, without there being any provision made for them at the public expense. The Bill would do away with that invidious and unhappy state of things, and enact that the building should be available for the Church of England, the Church of Rome, Dissenters, and all who came to the cemetery to perform the religious service which they wished to associate with the burial of the dead. The part of the Bill referring to fees raised a question of a fiscal character. The rights of living incumbents would not be interfered with; but it was proposed that in future Burial Boards should be enabled to revise the fees. The Bill was a simple development of the Act of 1880, and he asked hon. Members to deal with the grievance which it sought to remedy. Did they defend the two chapels in the cemeteries? [An hon. MEMBER: Yes.] He said that was a relic of barbarism and a scandal to Christianity. But the question raised a clear and definite issue which they should decide in the Lobby. He had great pleasure in supporting the second reading of that measure.
    MR. ELTONsaid, he thought that after the discussion which took place last year there was little new that could be said on that measure. The hon. Member who spoke last had given a Roland for the Oliver which had come from the right hon. Member for the University of Cambridge (Mr. Beresford Hope); but beyond that there was little that

    1321
    was new in his speech. When they made a cemetery by Act of Parliament he admitted that Parliament was the proper authority to decide whether there should be one chapel or two; and he agreed that in regard to cemeteries which existed and were regulated only by Act of Parliament it was undesirable that there should be two chapels; and he did not think there would be anything necessarily injurious to the Church by the use of one building for different religious services. For a long time past, and perhaps now in the Crypt of St. Paul's, and certainly in the Crypt of Canterbury Cathedral, a Dissenting community, the French Huguenots, had been allowed to hold their services. Therefore, on broad principle, he thought the two chapels part of the arrangement might be given up. But he objected to the Bill because it applied not only to new cemeteries, but also to every new churchyard in a new district parish. Apparently, if the Bishop did come, he was to have the appearance of passing accidentally that way. He had no doubt that this part of the Bill was brought forward perfectly seriously now; but it must have arisen out of a joke. As to the 5th section, providing that in default of consecration the ground should become the parish burying ground, that would be all very well as a clause in a Bill for the disestablishment of the Church; but that was a question which ought to be fairly fought out on its own merits. As to the question of fees, he considered that the cases which had been brought forward were exceptional ones. It was well known that the Common Law did not allow the exaction of burial fees, and the exceptions were only certain parishes which were allowed to charge them by ancient custom, which ancient custom had to be proved. These parishes were not so common as hon. Members might suppose. The fees, as a rule, which could be imposed were not more than 5s. or 6s.; and it should be remembered that they, in all probability, formed part of the income of the clergyman, or part of the value of the advowson. If, therefore, the House wished to abolish these fees, it must take care to compensate everybody affected by their abolition. As to the chapels in statutory cemeteries, he thought that some agreement might be come to; but
    1322
    he hoped that the scheme of confusing and degrading the rite of consecration would fail entirely.
    SIR ALEXANDER GORDONsaid, it was his intention to vote for the second reading of the Bill. His only regret was that it did not go far enough, inasmuch as it only dealt with burials in parochial cemeteries near large towns, where public opinion was beginning to have effect in controlling the abuses which had gone on for two or three centuries. The Bill ignored altogether the rural parishes of the country, where the greatest abuses prevailed; for inasmuch as they were far removed from the centres of population the local clergyman often took everything upon himself. He hoped, if the Government intended to legislate on this question, that they would bring in a complete measure, applicable to the whole country, and not merely to the parochial cemeteries. He also hoped that the Government would not forget to deal with the question of mortuary fees. These mortuary fees had existed since the time of Henry VIII. Every person dying in the parish had to pay a certain sum to the rector. Strange to say, that law was still in force now in many parts of England, and in many instances created great hardship. The Government should do away with these fees entirely, as it had done in fees for baptism, which were now prohibited. Baptism was optional, but burial was not; and there was, therefore, more reason for prohibiting fees in the latter case. If the Government would only bring in a Bill to abolish these fees, and nothing else, it would be a step in the right direction. As to consecration, that was a modern innovation altogether. In early times there was nothing known of consecration, and even after the Act of Uniformity was passed it was not recognized as an authentic part of the ritual of the Church of England; and in proof of that he would point out that there was no form in the Prayer Book for the consecration of churchyards or cemeteries. Nothing was known of consecration in Scotland. In the vestry of the parish of Kensington, with which he was connected, it had been decided to remove the remnants of separation between consecrated and unconsecrated ground. Nonconformists treated consecration as a perfect nonenity; but they objected to separation of any kind be-

    1323
    tween themselves and other religious denominations. In his country a new burial ground was established in a parish where one or two members of the Parochial Board were Episcopalians, and attached importance to consecration. The Board did not wish consecration; but these gentlemen thought they would have their way, and so they got a Bishop to go to the burial ground one morning without anybody knowing anything about it. The Bishop walked round the ground, and said what he had to say. The Episcopalians thought the Board would be annoyed; but the Board said they did not care the least about it, the Bishop could come and do the same thing again next week. He believed that would be a way of dealing with this question. Let the Bishop consecrate the burial ground to any extent; but let it not affect in any way the fees of the clergy. This was really the history of consecration. It had been encouraged, because it brought money to the clergy. Hon. Gentlemen opposite who were so keen to maintain an inner and an outer circle should remember that it was quite possible that hereafter there might be other circles, and they might find themselves on the outside of their inner circle. No man dared to say on which side of the line he would lie, and the less they spoke now of such divisions the better. In old days they knew of the Cave of Machpelah, in which the friend of God was buried; and they knew of the Cave of Golgotha, wherein was laid the Son of God; but they heard nothing of consecration; and should they now pretend that the soil of the earth, as it came from the Maker's hand, was not fit to receive their poor bodies without being consecrated by the hand of man?
    MR. A. F. EGERTONwished to see everything done to conciliate the members of the Nonconformist Body that was not inconsistent with the principles upon which the Church Establishment was founded. The question of the two chapels was not new to him, for very lately it led to something like a public uproar in a neighbouring parish. It was a question he would gladly see removed from the sphere of contention; but there were other points in respect to which he objected to the Bill, and he would not be able to support it. In the first place, notwithstanding what had been said by Gentlemen opposite, it did throw obsta-
    1324
    cles in the way of consecration, and this would prevent landlords from giving land. He thought the country generally would object to the provision that the cemetery authority should not be empowered in any sense to divide a cemetery into unconsecrated ground. But he thought the prohibition to any cemetery authority to apply to the Bishop to consecrate any portion of the ground was really grotesque.
    MR. OSBORNE MORGANsaid, in the absence of the Home Secretary, it devolved upon him to express the views of the Government upon this Bill. The word "concordat" applied to the settlement of 1880 by his right hon. Friend who moved the rejection of this Bill was a most extraordinary term to apply to the termination of one of the fiercest struggles the House was ever engaged in, and a struggle conducted to the bitter end. They might as well call Waterloo a "concordat." The Bills introduced by him in 1870 and succeeding years never touched the question of cemeteries, which was the only question the Bill now before the House dealt with. His Bills dealt entirely with churchyards, and he had purposely kept the two questions distinct. There was a great difference between churchyards and cemeteries. The former were generally given by some benefactor of the Church, and were maintained at the expense of the clergy, whereas the latter were provided at the cost of the ratepayers, and were maintained at their expense. He had, therefore, held that the proper way would be to deal with churchyards and with cemeteries in two different measures. But when the Bill of 1880 was under discussion great pressure was put on the Government to remove the impassable barrier which at that time separated the consecrated and unconsecrated ground. The way, however, in which the Bill dealt with that question was not altogether satisfactory, as it gave the clergyman an unqualified right to perform his service in any part of the unconsecrated ground; but, in the case of the consecrated ground, limited the right of the Nonconformist to perform, his service at the grave side. In addition to that, it required the Nonconformist when a burial took place in the consecrated ground to pay exactly the same fee as if the clergyman had performed the service, and, consequently,

    1325
    he had to pay twice over. He maintained, and nobody Lad denied, that the Burials Act of 1880, which dealt with churchyards, had been a most satisfactory piece of legislation. As to the prophecies of outrages and scandals that would take place, they had proved utterly false; and the services performed by Nonconformist ministers had been as decent, as solemn, and as reverent as those performed by clergymen of the Church of England. The only scandals that had occurred had been where clergymen had committed breaches of the law. As to the question of duplicate chapels, he would like to read to the House an extract from a speech of the Dean of Chester, delivered in the Convocation of York, on July 6, 1880. The reverend gentleman said—
    "Duplicate chapels were conspicuous everywhere about the country. Travellers from the Continent of Europe, and especially from America, were struck with them, and asked what was the reason, and the answer was—'It is the principle of the English, a principle that even in death we are to be visibly divided.' Our children were brought up in the sight of these duplicate chapels, and when they asked what was the meaning of these circumstances, their answer was—'It is the existing principle of the English that even the wounds which have been felt during lifetime cannot be healed in death.' A gentleman once said to him—' These divided cemetery chapels are the very petrification of Dissent.' If we wanted to weaken the Church of England and strengthen Nonconformity, he should say—' Perpetuate this system of burial chapels and divided cemeteries.'"
    The principle of the present Bill, as he understood it, was to leave to consecration its full effect and consequence as an ecclesiastical or religious ceremony; but, at the same time, to take away from it any force as a legal instrument. He maintained that that was the true way to solve the difficulty. More than that, he was certain that the problem could not be solved in any other way. The Government were prepared, therefore, to support the principle of the Bill. They, at the same time, held themselves free to discuss in Committee the various questions which would arise. There was the question whether the Bill should be retrospective or only prospective. He did not himself like retrospective legislation. Then there was the question of clergymen's fees, and Churchmen would agree that a more unsatisfactory way of paying the clergy of the Church of England could not be devised. The
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    Select Committee already referred to went into this subject, and the conclusion they came to was that there was no legal way of enforcing the fees if payment of them were refused. Moreover these fees were a matter, not of law, but of custom; and they differed widely, not only in different dioceses, but even in different parishes. He was informed they did not exist at all in the diocese of Salisbury. The present mode of remunerating the clergy by fees, unsatisfactory as it was, was especially unsatisfactory where the service was performed by a Nonconformist minister and the clergyman stepped in and took a fee for work which he had never done. There were other questions —such as the application of the Bill to churchyards—which might be dealt with in Committee. He earnestly hoped the Bill would not be talked out, which was a most unsatisfactory way of disposing of questions, and was becoming a perfect scandal; but that the House would decide aye or no whether the Bill should be read a second time. There was a strong feeling, indeed, in favour of the Bill, which was by no means confined to Dissenters; but was, on the contrary, shared by ratepayers, who resented the providing of these double chapels, and this division of consecrated and unconsecrated ground, as a needless and wanton charge on their pockets.
    VISCOUNT LEWISHAMalso trusted that a Division would be taken on the Bill. As a member of the Rochester Diocesan Conference, he wished to explain why he should vote against the second reading. It was said there was a considerable demand for the Bill; but no evidence had been afforded of that demand. He believed that most people were under the impression that the Burials Act was a final measure, and were it not for the discussions which had taken place in reference to this Bill, those in whose interest it was introduced would have had little knowledge of the disadvantages under which they were now supposed to be labouring. As to the abolition of fees, he did not think that was a vital point of contention; but there were other provisions of the Bill which appeared to him to stamp it as one that should be opposed. He had presented a Petition from the Rochester Diocesan Conference against the Bill. The Bill was objectionable in principle, and the 3rd clause, by which additions

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    to churchyards were to be made subject to the Burial Board, and not to the parish clergyman, was specially unjust. Gentlemen who might be disposed to grant land for the enlargement of burial grounds would be discouraged from doing so by a provision such as this. He thought the plans of tombs and monuments should be, in the first instance, submitted to the approval of the Bishop. There was no general demand for the Bill, and he hoped the House would that afternoon reject it.
    MR. CROPPERsaid, he was convinced that the Burials Act had resulted in producing harmony and getting rid, to a great extent, of those scandals which were so frequently before reported in the newspapers. That Act might be said to have settled the question of principle, and the present Bill proceeded upon the smaller ground of economy. The three great requirements in burial were—first, that it should be sanitary; secondly, economical; and, thirdly, in accordance with the sentiments of respect and reverence which we all entertained towards our dead relatives and friends. The Bill really only dealt with the economical aspect. It disposed of the questions of the division of the ground, the two chapels, the payment for consecration, and the fees payable to the clergy. There was really no question of principle involved. He was in favour of the Bill in the main; but, like the noble Lord opposite, he objected to Clause 3. He had always objected to the two chapels; but that and other questions could be dealt with in Committee. In the meantime, he hoped that the House would give the measure a second reading.
    MR. J. G. HUBBARDsaid, it was impossible to look upon the measure except as one which attacked the Established Church, and was by piecemeal action sapping her foundations. He agreed in the objections which had been expressed to fees, and thought it injurious to the interests of the Church that the clergy should be paid in that way for any of the services which they rendered to the living or the dead. With respect to consecrated ground, the suggested concession that the clergy should be entitled to use unconsecrated ground, in return for the use by Dissenters of that which is consecrated, amounted to nothing at all. The Church,
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    which was a Divine institution owning no head but its founder, and bound by no laws which that or any other similar Assembly attempted to impose upon it, had always maintained the custom, of consecration. None could deny that consecration had been of immense benefit in preserving places free from the associations of secular life for the religious purposes of the living and for the reception of the dead. Even if the Church attached no special value to the ceremony of consecration in itself, it, at any rate, prevented the perpetration of such scandals as happened some time since in the burial ground attached to Whitfield's Chapel in Tottenham Court Road, when the bones of dead Dissenters were dug up and sold to market gardeners for potting their geraniums. He therefore appealed to his Dissenting friends, as well as to those belonging to the Church, not to allow this ceremony to be interfered with. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Home Secretary had said that this was a sentiment that ought to be respected. The Bill, in its earlier and most important sections, went distinctly against the principle of consecration; and, this being so, it ought not to be adopted. So long as there was a religious Body with whom the Sovereign must be in communion it was impossible that they could have what they might call religious equality. With regard to the fees, he did not wish to impose or perpetuate upon Dissenters from the Church of England the slightest pecuniary or civil disadvantage. He was in favour of removing any and every disability which rested upon Dissenters consistently with maintaining the National Church as a part of the Constitution in harmony with the religious profession of the country. He was, however, under the impression, by reading Nonconformist publications, that there were no grievances to redress—["No, no!"]—at any rate, several eminent Nonconformist divines had so expressed themselves. The question of consecration was one upon which, in virtue of the constitution of the Church, it set a high value, and it could not be surrendered. A Bill dealing with that question, therefore, was one which they could not possibly entertain.
    MR. WOODALLsaid, he felt that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman

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    opposite (Mr. J. G. Hubbard), like so many of those which had preceded it, dealt rather with points of detail which might very properly be considered in Committee. The fact of the matter was that this Bill must in fairness be looked upon as the very natural corollary of, and accompaniment to, the Act of 1880. He had heard the economical argument urged by the hon. Member for North Staffordshire (Mr. Davenport); but he thought that he would have some difficulty in making an appeal to the constituencies against this measure on the ground of its adding any cost to the ratepayers. With reference to the double chapels, he said it was rather a hard circumstance that Burial Boards, Corporations, and other Bodies dealing with the public funds should have to erect a chapel, not only at the ratepayers' cost, but which must be in accordance with the plans submitted to the Bishop. It was satisfactory to know, in respect to this question of chapels, and as indicating the growth of public sympathy, that there had been a practical agreement with regard to the impropriety and non-necessity of the second chapel. Much had been said with regard to the importance of consecration, and the right hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Hubbard) had spoken very warmly on that subject. But he (Mr. Woodall) wished to point out that the Bill had been framed in a spirit of fairness, liberality, and sympathy with those who attached importance to that ceremony. Nothing which the Bill contained prevented it; on the contrary, there was a practical invitation to come and consecrate any portion of the ground. What the Bill did was this. After satisfying life interests, it did away with the vested interest which had been so long enjoyed, and which they thought had been so unjustly enforced, which gave fees to the clergy for services which they did not necessarily render, which gave them a right of veto upon monuments in the erection or cost of which they had not been consulted. It was, therefore, asked that the Bill should be allowed to pass, in order that those subjects might be divested of their ecclesiastical bearing, and in order that they should be treated in a spirit of common sense, and with regard to the general convenience and sanitary considerations of the day.
    MR. GREGORYsaid, the supporters of the Church of England were willing to go a considerable way in meeting the promoters of this Bill. They were willing to give up the dual chapels, and to give up anything like an invidious distinction between the consecrated and the unconsecrated portion of the ground. He had, however, a very strong objection to the provision that the cemetery authorities, whatever they might be, should not have the power of calling upon the Bishop to consecrate the ground as the Bill stood. If the Bishop entered the ground, he would be an intruder, as the proper persons to put him in motion were the cemetery authorities; nor, indeed, were there any others who could do so. He believed that there was a strong feeling amongst the people generally in favour of burials in consecrated ground, and that any measure tending to limit consecration was uncalled for, and antagonistic to the wishes and habits of all classes of the community. If the Bill was altered in this and one or two other respects he should have no objection to it.
    MR. THOMAS COLLINSsaid, he objected to a chapel of any kind being maintained. He held that it was the business of the State to provide for the decent interment on sanitary grounds of the people of the country; but they had no business, as ratepayers, to set up chapels, whether belonging to one religious denomination or another. He objected to any chapel being set up to be used at the cost of the ratepayers. Nonconformists had no right to the chapel; all they had a right to was the shelter of a shed for the purpose of conducting the burial ceremony. He protested against the principle that the ratepayer was to be compelled to provide for either one or two chapels for the purpose of permitting religious worship connected with the burial of the dead. It was the erection of those chapels which made the cemeteries so costly to the public. He considered that the proposal to appropriate the consecrated chapel at cemeteries was merely a gratuitous insult, inserted for the purpose of enabling the promoters of the measure to say that, after having obtained redress of all their grievances, they had at last succeeded in invading the Church itself. He opposed the Bill in its entirety.
    COLONEL MAKINSsaid, he disagreed with the contention that the Bill was one designed in favour of the Church of England, because, on looking at the names of those who promoted the Bill, he found them to be those of the oligarchy of the Liberation Society. He regarded the measure not so much in the character of a Bill as the battle cry of those who advocated Disestablishment. With reference to the question of dual chapels, he said that although he was willing to see them abolished, yet as long as the present difference of opinion existed between the Church of England and the Nonconformist Body, he thought, as a matter of necessity, those chapels should be in the cemeteries if they were to exist at all. He protested against the admission of Dissenting funerals to consecrated chapels, inasmuch as those places were de facto portions of the Church of England. He regarded the 4th clause of the Bill as a most objectionable one. If it were to become law, they would see that take place which was repudiated in 1880; having obtained the right by law to enter churches in cemeteries, the right would be claimed to enter churches which were otherwise situated. The question of fees was by no means personal to the clergymen, as the Bill appeared to make it, but they were attached to the office; and in some parishes the burial fees enabled the vicar to keep a third curate. While giving the hon. Member for Merthyr (Mr. Richard) credit for honesty of motive in making his proposals, he could by no means support the second reading of the Bill; for, in his opinion, it was intended as an attack on the Church.
    MR. J. G. TALBOTsaid, he thought it was very desirable to come to a Division; but there were one or two points upon which he would wish to say a few words. As to the Bill being a necessary corollary to the Act of 1880, he would observe that if it were so, it ought to be brought in by the same people. What he objected to was this nibbling kind of legislation; and he looked upon this Bill as a most uncalled-for attempt oil the part of a private Member to deal with a subject which the Government were strong enough, if they chose, to carry out themselves. With regard to the dual chapel, he had no objection to have unconsecrated buildings open
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    to the services of all sorts and conditions of men; but what he did object to was the infliction of unauthorized ministers and services upon buildings set apart for the worship of the Church of England. It was openly stated by the members of the Liberation Society that they wanted to take the buildings of the Church of England for this sort of use. That was a thing which Churchmen could never consent to. They never could consent to have their churches used for services other than those of the Church of England. It was not members of the Church, but it was Nonconformists, the clients of hon. Gentlemen opposite, who set up the dual chapel and rival places of worship to those of the Church of England; and then they asked Churchmen to give up all the principles they held dear.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 176; Noes 154: Majority 22.—(Div. List, No. 134.)
    Main Question again proposed.
    It being after a quarter of an hour before Six of the clock, the Debate stood adjourned till To-morrow.
    House adjourned at five minutes before Six o'clock.