COMMITTEE. ADJOURNED DEBATE.

HC Deb 28 April 1887 vol 314 cc251-303

[THIRD NIGHT.]

Order read for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [26th April], "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair," for Committee on the Bill.

And which Amendment was, To leave out from the word "That" to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "this House declines to proceed further with a measure for strengthening the Criminal Law against combinations of tenants until it has before it the full measure for their relief against excessive rents in the shape in which it may pass the other House of Parliament,"—(Mr. Robert Reid,) —instead thereof.

Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."

Debate resumed.

MR. E. BECKETT (York, N. R., Whitby)

said, he was aware that to interpose in a debate already protracted beyond the limits of fair discussion could not be justified without some special reason. He thought that the House would admit that special reason was provided in the information bearing on certain passages of great importance which had lately occurred in the House, and to which he proposed to refer. He might say that the Amendment before the House might have been dictated by the Chicago Convention. He would ask hon. Members opposite whether they would make the maintenance of law dependent on remedial measures in all cases? Supposing that bread riots broke out in the streets of London, that the streets were torn up and barricades erected, where they to wait until their grievances were inquired into before the rioters were suppressed? When the Socialist riots broke out in London, and they were not immediately suppressed, the then Home Secretary received a considerable amount of blame for not having foreseen and prevented them, and he took precautions to prevent their recurrence. It was obvious that these riots must be suppressed without delay, and the grievances which were then complained of had not been redressed until this day, although they were, he maintained, quite as serious in their character as the Irish grievances which were complained of. The Amendment, if carried, would be a piece of class legislation, and it aimed at protecting one class, the tenants of Ireland; but the other classes subject to the tyrannies of the National League would be absolutely at the mercy of that organization. An hon. Member opposite had said: Supposing the positions were reversed, how would the inhabitants of this country like to live under the Crimes Act? That argument could be made to act both ways. The National League viewed the system of intimidation in Ireland with complacency, because they wore the authors and not the victims of it; but if the positions were reversed, and if hon. Members in the House were subjected to the outrages perpetrated in Ireland, they would be the first to cry out against the National League and demand its immediate suppression. No one could deny that intimidation existed in Ireland, and that Boycotting was prevalent. Hon. Gentlemen opposite, and especially the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. John Morley), had asserted that Boycotting could not be put down. If they had followed the course of politics in America, they would know that Boycotting had been imported into America from Ireland among other things from that country which the Americans did not like. It had been taken cognizance of by the American tribunals, and a judgment was recently given in the highest Court in America which denounced Boycotting very plainly. Judge Brown, of the United States Circuit Court, asserted— That all combinations and associations designed to coerce men to become members, or to interfere with, obstruct, vex, or annoy them because they are not members, and all associations designed to interfere with the perfect freedom of employers in the proper management of their business, or to dictate the terms upon which their business shall be conducted by threats of injury or loss by interference with their property or traffic, &c., are illegal combinations, and all acts done in furtherance of such intentions and accompanied by damage are actionable. That seemed to be broad and full, but the most significant part of the decision was probably the sentence which stated that— The acts mentioned are not only illegal, rendering the defendants liable in damages, but also misdemeanours at Common Law as well as by Section 168 of the Penal Code of New York State. That was to say, the power to enforce the right which every individual possessed to lab our where and when he would, and to conduct his business without let or hindrance, and to enjoy his property free from loss or interference from others, was a part of the great unwritten law which was the heritage of all civilized people. What was Boycotting but interference with the rights of others; and how were they to deal with that interference? The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. John Morley) said, with reference to such interference— Where ways of living interfere with the lawful rights of others it is necessary to force the dissidents, however strong may be their conscientious sentiments. That was what the Government proposed to do. America had acted on the principle thus laid down, and had very swiftly, sharply, and sternly repressed Boycotting; and, as a consequence, it had almost ceased there. What the Americans had done, we in Ireland could do; and that, in his opinion, was a sufficient answer to those who maintained that Boycotting could not be put down by law. Boycotting was inflicted in most cases for the payment of rent. The action of the National League had stripped rent of its moral sanction. The National League never punished a man for not paying his rent; it visited all its pains and penalties on those who paid their rents. The pages of the Report of the Cowper Commission teemed with evidence to that effect. Mr. Kavanagh said— To prevent the payment of rent is the first and most important principle in the policy of the League, because it is the shortest and most direct course to bring landlords and tenants into collision. It was objected that this Bill was permanent. But it need not be permanent unless Ireland chose. At any moment she could shake herself free from its shackles, and stand from under its incubus. Having done its work, the Bill would be removed into the background, and it was hoped that the sense of its perpetual presence would have a good effect. It differed from all previous Coercion Bills in that it had the forms and nature of law. Not many people had seen the handcuffs, the felon's cell, or the gallows; but the knowledge that they existed went a long way to deter people from doing wrong. In the same way, it was hoped that that Bill would prevent people committing outrages which the Bill was destined to punish. Even if the Bill was permanent, it was directed against an organization which sought to be permanent, and which sought to establish its rule by resting it upon the pillars of disorder and disaffection. No attempt to improve Ireland would be effectual until the League was put down. He was supported in that contention by the authority of The Irish World, which said, on January 20, 1886 — Just now 'law and order' in Ireland—that is, landlordism and police rule—are having a pretty rough time of it. 'Legal obligations,' in other words rent paying, cannot be said to be very much attended to. A cable despatch tells us that three-fourths of the Irish farmers are refusing to pay even judicial rents, hence the danger to 'law and order,' and the absolute need, from a British point of view, of stamping out the League. It was said that the League had better be left alone, because it was using its influence to restrain outrages. But that was just where the danger lay. If the Land League could restrain outrages if could also create them. If it could put down crime it could also keep up crime. If crime expanded and contracted at the orders of the League, it showed the League had power to go outside the Constitution—a power which could not co-exist with the authority of that House, and which ought to be taken from them. The House was aware that charges of a very serious nature had been made against hon. Gentlemen opposite. Those charges had been stigmatized by the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) as false and most criminal in character. He was not going to question the denial which had been given by the hon. Member for Cork— For Brutus is an honourable man; So are they all—all honourable men. But the evidence on which the charges rested had not been disproved; and, therefore, we were compelled to have some faith in them, and there was a growing conviction of their truth. So far, the serious charges made by The Times had only been met by a denial from the hon. Member for Cork. Therefore, it was important to inquire what that denial was worth. Against charges supported by evidence there was only the word of the hon. Member for Cork, and therefore the value of his word became of the most enormous importance. His credibility affected not only the fate of that Bill, but the whole fate of the movement. He proposed to refer to some things which had occurred in the career of the hon. Member for Cork in 1883, in America, in order to test his credibility.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

I do not know whether it is worth while to call the hon. Member to Order; but I wish to ask whether he is in Order in entering upon an argument to prove that a denial made by another hon. Member is not worthy of credence?

MR. SPEAKER

It would not be competent for the hon. Member to call in question the denial of the hon. Member for Cork; but, as I understood the hon. Member, he accented that denial.

MR. T. M. HEALY (Longford, N.)

No, no!

MR. E. BECKETT

said, he had expressly accepted the denial of the hon. Member for Cork. In 1880 the hon. Member for Cork went to America to organize the movement which had resulted in the Chicago Convention, and he and his Colleagues were severely criticized by the American papers, and notably by The New York Herald, for attempting to stop relief flowing to the Irish people through any channel that was not consulted by them. That paper denounced their conduct, and then correspondence fastened on the hon. Members the charge of refusing relief, out of funds subscribed in America, to persons in Ireland merely because they had paid their rent. On February 1, 1880, The New York Herald published a letter from its Dublin correspondent, stating that— At a meeting of the Balla Tenants' Defence Association, held on Sunday, January 18, 1880, for the purposes of considering some cases of destitution in the neighbourhood and granting relief among the applicants, were some tenant farmers, occupiers of holdings of from five to ten acres, who wore in a state of great misery. The president of the association, Mr. J. A. Walsh, having learned that some of these men had paid rent, proposed that no relief should be given to any man who had paid rent, and this was carried by a majority. The Balla Association was formed under the direct auspices of the hon. Member for Cork in November, 1879, and affiliated with the Land League of Mr. Davitt. The hon. Member for Cork, who was in Washington when the letter from Dublin was published in The New York Herald of February 1, wrote to that journal on February 3, 1880, in these terms— I have received no information as to the occurrence alleged by your correspondent at Balla, and am not disposed to believe that any such resolution has been passed by the local committee. Balla, however, has recently been the scene of a very cruel eviction, and it is just possible that the local committee, in a fit of exasperation, may have taken some steps calculated to give colour to the accusation made against them. I have cabled for information, and will let you have it as soon as possible. On February 4 the hon. Member for Cork sent from Washington to The New York Herald a communication received by him from the executive committee in Dublin declaring that— No such resolution had been passed at Balla or elsewhere, and denying that relief had been refused to rent-paying tenants. The New York Herald published this on February 7, with the following editorial comments— We have found Mr. Parnell not over-careful as to the accuracy of all he says against those he may regard as adversaries. Considerations of the un trust worthiness of the information received by Mr. Parnell prevent our accepting as final the denial he has received from Ireland of the account of the proceedings of the Balla Committee, as hitherto reported by our correspondent. Our correspondent's statement was impartial and without prejudice. On February 8, 1880, The New York Herald published a despatch, dated Dublin, February 7, from its correspondent, to this effect— The report of the meeting of the Balla Tenants' Defence Association is entirely correct. Messrs. Egan and O'Sullivan and Biggar were not present. The Herald's informant, who is the correspondent of the Dublin Times and Freeman's Journal, was present, and took part in the meeting. Both The Times and The Freeman's Journal of January 20 say that about 100 almost starving heads of families attended the meeting and made application for relief, as it was understood that some money had been received by the League. Mr. J. A. Walsh, the president, being-informed that rent had been paid by many of the applicants, proposed that no relief should be granted them. This was carried by a majority. The report was published in newspapers throughout the kingdom from January 20, and has remained uncontradicted to the present moment. That showed that The Times was not the only paper which found it necessary and easy to maintain important assertions in face of the denial of the hon. Member for Cork. There was another passage he would like to quote to the House. In an interview published in The New York Herald on January 2, 1880, the day after his arrival in America, the hon. Member for Cork used this language— In 1847 the Queen of England was the only Sovereign in Europe who gave nothing out of her private purse to the starving Irish. The Czar of Russia gave, and so did the Sultan of Turkey, but the Queen gave nothing. This extraordinary slander upon the Queen reached England, and was publicly contradicted by the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill), who stated that Her Majesty had contributed £2,000 in 1847 to the relief of the starving Irish. This communication was cabled to America and published in The New York Herald, where it elicited from the hon. Member for Cork, not a frank avowal of the gross injustice he had done to Her Majesty, but a letter so remarkable that he would quote it verbally, and leave it to the judgment of the House and country. On Monday, February 20, 1880, the hon. Member for Cork published this letter— In reference to Lord Randolph Churchill's contradiction of my statement, that the Queen gave nothing to relieve the sufferers from the famine in 1847, I find that I might have gone still further, and have said with perfect accuracy not only that she gave nothing, but that she actually intercepted £6,000 of the donation which the Sultan desired to contribute to the Famine Fund. In 1S47 the Sultan had offered a donation of £10,000, but the English Ambassador at Constantinople was directed by Her Majesty to inform him that her contribution was to be limited to £2,000, and that the Sultan should not, in good taste, give more than Her Majesty. Hence the net result to the Famine Fund by the Queen's action was a loss of £6,000. In that letter the hon. Member for Cork betrayed his knowledge of the fact that the Queen had given £2,000. Instead of confessing his error he aggravated the original falsehood of which he had been guilty, and imparted to it a most malignant character by piling on the top of it the monstrous concoction just read to the House.

MR. T. M. HEALY

rose to Order. He wished to ask if the hon. Gentleman was justified in saying "he had aggravated the falsehood of which he had been guilty," referring to the hon. Member for Cork?

MR. DILLON

wished to ask, further, whether the hon. Member opposite was in Order in attributing to the hon. Member for Cork that he had been guilty of a monstrous falsehood? The hon. Member opposite had been arguing for the last 20 minutes, in the teeth of the Speaker's ruling, that the hon. Member for Cork was capable of, and had frequently been convicted of, falsehood, with the object of showing that his statement in the House last week was false.

MR. SPEAKER

I must remind the hon. Member that to attribute falsehood to another hon. Member of this House is unparliamentary. The hon. Member is entitled to enter into an argument founded upon facts and to draw inferences from those facts; but he must not directly accuse an hon. Member of falsehood.

MR. SHIRLEY (Yorkshire, W.R. Doncaster)

Sir, I wish to take your opinion on another point. May I ask whether the hon. Gentleman, in discussing details of the proceedings of the hon. Member for Cork in America, is speaking relevantly to the particular question before the House?

MR. SPEAKER

I have not thought proper to interfere, up to this point, with the hon. Member; but if he accuses any hon. Member of falsehood I have no doubt that he will withdraw the expression, and he ought to withdraw it.

MR. E. BECKETT

said, that he had not directly accused the hon. Member for Cork of falsehood. He had merely left the House to draw their own inferences from certain facts. [Cries of "Order!" and "Withdraw!"]

MR. T. M. HEALY

The word, distinctly, was "falsehood."

MR. SPEAKER

I must ask the hon. Member to withdraw the expression that he used of another hon. Member—that he wa3 guilty of falsehood. I have already said that the hon. Member is entitled to use arguments and to draw such inferences from facts as he chooses; but his observations must be couched in Parliamentary form and expressed in Parliamentary language [Cries of "Withdraw!"

MR. E. BECKETT

said, he understood that he used the word ''concoction." [Cries of "No, no!" and "Falsehood."] If he had used the word falsehood with regard to the hon. Member for Cork he asked leave to withdraw it; he meant concoction. What was the essence of the charge which had been made against the hon. Member for Cork by The Times? The charge was that the Parnell movement was a foreign conspiracy, invented by felons and traitors, fed by foreign funds, and carried on by a systematic combination of agitation, terrorism, and murder, and that the Irish Party had, through certain of its accredited Members, been in constant touch and sympathy with the Queen's enemies. That charge, taken as a whole and in detail, could not be refuted by hon. Members opposite; certainly it had not been refuted. The Irish World of January 30 stated plainly that Ireland's mission was not to promote the union of the two countries, but to destroy the Pirate Empire—referring to the British Empire, and to strive to accomplish that end in and out of that House—to play a double game, which should be more or less Constitutional in that House and illegal out of it. This double character was plainly revealed in The Times letter. This had been confessed by the hon. Member for Cork in words which were published the day after his arrival in New York, and which had never been repudiated or disavowed by him. The hon. Member for Cork had been accompanied on Board the Scythia by the hon. Member for East Mayo and the authorized correspondent of The New York Herald. On the day after their arrival at New York, in January, 1880, The New York Herald contained an account setting forth the hon. Member's views of the situation in Ireland and his own proposed action. The hon. Member for Cork said— A true revolutionary movement in Ireland should, in my opinion, partake of both a Constitutional and an illegal character. It should be both an open and a secret organization, using the Constitution for its own purposes, but also taking advantage of its secret combinations. Accepting the hon. Member's denial of the authorship of the letter which had appeared in The Times, he left it to the House to judge whether precisely such a letter might not have been written in precisely such circumstances by a man adopting the views and methods which had been avowed by the hon. Member for Cork. When asked if Mr. Davitt, who had accompanied him from Dublin to Queens-town, was not a leader of the Fenians, the hon. Member for Cork replied that he did not believe him to be a leader or to have control of the organization. By that statement the hon. Member for Cork betrayed a knowledge of Fenianism rather extraordinary in the face of his declaration the other night, when the hon. Member said— I said it was absolutely untrue to say that the Irish National League or the Parliamentary Party had ever had any communication whatever, direct or indirect, with the Fenian organization in America or this country. I further said I did not know who the leaders of the Fenian organization of this country or America were. It would be strange if the hon. Member for Cork, who was the first President of the Land League, had not some knowledge of the Fenian organization and the Fenian leaders, considering that the Land League was started by a Fenian, and that it had been mainly supported by Fenian funds. The Fenians at first looked coldly upon the movement. It was accepted by a certain section of that body with the reservation that the tem- porary support rendered by them to a Constitutional movement should not in any way be considered a surrender of the ultimate appeal to physical force. But the Fenians would not give their sup-port for nothing1, and if the Constitutional movement failed, the Nationalists were pledged beforehand to Fenian methods, and Fenian methods were criminal methods. In the same conversation, the hon. Member for Cork, when asked if he was a Fenian, said—'' No; I could not belong to an illegal society." Certainly he could not. He understood this so well that he excused the Fenians for their distrust of previous Parliamentary Leaders. The hon. Member for Cork, in reference to this subject, said— The leaders of the Fenian movement do not believe in Constitutional action, because it has always been used in the past for the selfish purposes of its leaders. There was a strong objection by the Fenians to our Parliamentary action for the same reason. And, indeed, if we look at the action of the Irish Parliamentary Party since the Union, there is ample justification for the views of the physical force party. The Irish Party admitted that Sheridan acted as their agent, their tried and trusted agent, one of the leading spirits of the Land League, and yet they contended that they know nothing against him. The hon. Member for East Mayo, referring to a speech Sheridan made on the 1st of August, 1880, had said— Mr. Sheridan was known to the people, and had long association with the physical force party.

MR. DILLON (Mayo, E.)

said, he was glad of the opportunity for making a correction. What he had said was that Sheridan was known to have been associated at one time with the physical force party, but that at the meeting referred to Sheridan said— I have now joined a Constitutional movement, and if that Constitutional movement fails I shall return to my own ways. The Irish Nationalist Party, however, hoped that Mr. Sheridan would have no occasion to return to his old ways.

MR. E. BECKETT

said, that, according to the statement of the hon. Member for East Mayo, Mr. Sheridan had never abjured the physical force party.

MR. DILLON

He did.

MR. E. BECKETT

said, that Mr. Sheridan had stated that he was always ready to return to the physical force party. [Cries of "No!"] At all events, the National League did not appear to regard his former connection with the physical force party as a disqualification. [Irish MEMBERS: Certainly not.] Perhaps it was rather a recommendation in their eyes. How curiously that sentiment coincided with the sentiment in The Times letter. What was the physical force party? They were men who believed in the use of all the destructive machinery of modern science, and in illegal as being better—that was, being more effectual—than legal methods for accomplishing their objects. The hon. Member for East Mayo, referring to the man who sent S5 for bread and $20 for lead, said—"These were men who belonged to the physical force party in America, as most of our people there did." It was people of this way of thinking who supplied the funds of the National League. The truth was that the people of England must recognize the fact that they were face to face, not with the Irish people, but with the Irish in America, who were the real masters and paymasters of those Irish Representatives who came into that House to shout and to interrupt the Business of the country, but who were mere puppets in the hands of foreigners. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"]

MR. SPEAKER

The hon. Member describes hon. Members as coming here for purposes of interruption. This is not a Parliamentary expression, and I ask the hon. Member to withdraw it.

MR. E. BECKETT

said, he would withdraw the expression. The real strength and power of this movement existed across the Atlantic. As Lord Beaconsfield some time ago said—"The movement is not in London or in Dublin, but it is in New York." Remedial measures were useless until we had convinced the Irish Party in America that their throats were idle, their efforts useless, their money thrown away, and that England refused to bow to their yoke. The whole character of the movement was reflected in its leaders. The hon. Member for Cork was not an Irishman, but an Irish-American. He had marked himself out from all previous Parliamentary Leaders, and his movement was marked out from all previous Parliamentary movements, and we must recognize the true character of this movement if we were to be prepared to overcome the National League and its criminal organization in Ireland. He would only add, in conclusion, that he had endea- voured to show two aspects of the character of the hon. Member for Cork— first, that his word could not be relied on; and, secondly, that he had given countenance and support to illegal methods and to the physical force party; and he now left the matter to the judgment of the House.

MR. J. NOLAN (Louth, N.)

said, he thought the attack which the hon. Member for the Whitby Division of York had just made on the hon. Member for Cork might be passed over with the contempt it deserved. The hon. Member for Cork had, in his place in that House, denied in unmistakable terms the calumnies which had been uttered against him, and that ought to be sufficient for hon. Members. He thought the hon. Member had made a great mistake in directing attention to the conduct of the landlords of Ireland, who were not ashamed during the famine years to take from the starving tenants the money which was sent for their relief from across the Atlantic. That money, subscribed at that time by the generous-hearted people of England and by other parts of the world, was diverted by the dominant class in Ireland from the objects for which it was given; and while the unfortunate tenants were perishing of hunger by the wayside, the members of that class were growing fat and rich on that money. As to the hon. Member's reference to the physical force party of some years ago, and his effort to trace a connection between the utterance of that party and the action of the Nationalist Party at the present time, he thought the House would agree that they were altogether out of date. The action taken by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) had effected a considerable change in the opinions and sentiments of the great majority of the people who had a few years ago looked forward to physical force as the only remedy for the evils of Ireland. Very strong and just grounds had been shown for rejecting the Bill. The Government had utterly failed to show any case for urgency; it had been proved that crime was not abnormal in Ireland, and serious doubts had been thrown on the accuracy of even the few statistics which the Government had laid before the House. Apart from the justice of the case, the Bill ought to be rejected on the ground of experience alone, for it was an indisputable and important fact that coercion in Ireland had always failed in the past. He asserted that the Government had not only ignored the recommendations of the Royal Commission which they had appointed to consider the social condition of Ireland, but this Bill was in direct opposition to those recommendations. The feeling in Ireland, not confined to any particular Party, was very strong against the passing of this Bill. The majority of the Irish Members in that House had often been attacked; but he would say of the minority that they were simply the Representatives of the landlord class, who from first to last had been at the bottom of all the difficulties between the people of Ireland and of England. The Irish landlords had been spoken of in that discussion on the other side as the very props of the British Government in Ireland.; but if, in America, there were at the present moment a very large body of Irishmen bitterly opposed to the British Government, it was only because they had been driven there by the bad landlords of their native country. The same landocracy had in former times driven large numbers of Irishmen to seek service in the Armies of Spain, Austria, and France, in whose ranks they had been brought to fight against the armed forces of Great Britain. He could quote authorities to show that the way in which the landlords had treated the people in Ireland within living memory was nothing new. In 1718, an English Churchman, the Bishop of Derry, after a journey through the country, gave a deplorable picture of the extreme wretchedness of the people under their rack-renting landlords. Lord Clare, who was certainly not a Nationalist, said that in his time the lower orders in Munster were in a state of oppression not to be equalled in any other part of the world. Since the Union, other impartial witnesses had testified to the extortionate character of the Irish landlords and the misery which their rapacity inflicted on the people. He would appeal to the Government to pause before proceeding with this drastic Bill, which the people of Ireland believed to be aimed at their Constitutional liberties. The measure, if passed into law, would only increase the difficulties of the Government; and it would be met, not by armed resistance, but by passive resistance, which the Government would find as difficult to overcome.

MR. R. G. WEBSTER (St. Pancras, E.)

said, he believed that to the vacillating policy which was followed in Ireland during the years 1880–5 we owed the exceptional circumstances of the present day. The only remedy which the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian had ever conceived was an alteration of the laws affecting landlords and tenants; but the sequel had shown that both the Acts of 1870 and 1881 had been gigantic failures. He would remind the House that even before the Union it was found necessary by the Parliament on College Green to pass repressive measures to control the Irish people. The policy of the present Government, if they were but allowed to restore law and order in Ireland, would be the same as that of Lord Beaconsfield after the suppression of the Fenian insurrection by the Duke of Abercorn—namely, a policy directed to the development of the resources of the country. That the Bill before the House was imperatively needed he had no doubt. Crimes had increased in Ireland, juries refused to return verdicts, and the Judges, most of whom had been appointed by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian himself, had almost unanimously described the prevalent lawlessness as unprecedented. They had heard a great deal in that House about Irish landlords. He would like to tell Irish Nationalist Members that, in consequence of their action in Ireland he, sitting on a London Board of Guardians, had had to relieve the wives of Irish landlords, in the district of St. George's Hanover Square, from absolute starvation. He thanked God he was not an Irish landlord. If people in London did not pay their rents they had to suffer eviction; and he saw no reason why, if they would not pay rent in Ireland, they should not be evicted. Speaking as the result of long experience of the Metropolis, he could assure the House that there was no sympathy amongst any class with the operations of the League; but that, on the contrary, there was a very prevalent desire that the laws of the Queen should be rehabilitated in Ireland. He believed also that the people of England hoped that the Government would do everything in their power to support law and order in Ireland. Personally, he would not object to the provisions of the Bill being applied to the whole of the United Kingdom, because they would not affect law-abiding subjects. The Bill, if it became law, would, in his opinion, put a stop to the fearful condition of things which now existed, and would leave room for measures of useful legislation which would promote industry and benefit all classes of people alike in Ireland; and, order being restored, the country would become prosperous and happy.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR (Liverpool, Scotland)

said, he was sorry that the inhabitants of London had had the burden thrown upon them of relieving Irish landlords; but he was not sorry that the people in the Hanover Square district had had to pay out of their pockets something towards the relief of aristocratic paupers. There were two classes of paupers in England. Some of these were the friends of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down, belonging to the landlord class; but there were several thousand paupers belonging to the Irish tenant class, who had been driven out of Ireland owing to the land laws, which the Party on the Ministerial side of the House had supported, and who had been a burden to the English taxpayers. Pauperism in England was the strongest proof of the folly of the policy of the Conservative Party. With regard to the Amendment, he wished to say that he thought the complaints as to the debate being prolonged were rather unjust. He proposed to lay before the House several reasons why it appeared to him that they had not debated this Bill at one hour's length more than they were justified in doing by the circumstances of the case. In the first place, he must say that it was a new doctrine, even on the part of the Tory Party, that debates on repressive legislation should be confined within narrow limits. Sir Robert Peel, the greatest Leader the Tory Party over had, laid down more than once in speeches proposing repressive legislation, that it was a thing that should be resorted to only in the last extremity, after long delay, and that a full, and ample, and prolonged amount of discussion was justified upon such questions. Furthermore, he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) thought the Government themselves had supplied them with the strongest and most unanswerable argument in favour of their debating the present Bill at considerable length, and he would go farther—he thought the debate on even the present stage had been largely justified, in fact had been made absolutely necessary, by the conduct and by the words of the Government themselves. He was going to make allusion to a speech which had always been referred to by more than one speaker in this House—the words were used in "another place," and he would tell the House when he had read them the orator by whom they were used. In the speech to which he referred it was declared that in Ireland there was not only combined resistance to rent; but there was, also, combined eviction on a wholesale scale. It was said that one of the results of this combined and wholesale eviction was to drive the tenants of Ireland to the verge of madness, and it was further declared that, in consequence of the wholesale eviction on the one hand and wholesale resistance to rent on the other, there was a state of war in Ireland to which the Government had determined to put an end. Well, that was as dark and portentous a picture of the state of Ireland as could be drawn by any Member on these Benches. They have the statement that there was wholesale eviction, and that there was an approach almost to civil war, and that the tenantry of Ireland was driven to the verge of madness. What did that statement imply? If that were a correct picture of the state of Ireland— and nobody could doubt the correctness of the picture—it was clear that some great and even gigantic remedy was required to put an end to such a state of things. The state of things was extreme. The remedy for that state of things must be extreme also. This speech spoke of two Bills—the Bill now before the House and a Bill which had been introduced in "another place," and the speaker used these remarkable words with regard to these Bills— We consider these two Bills as sister Bills. They are the complement of each other. Here these two Bills were put in direct association, in extreme and close interdependence, and that was the position they take up. He said that this Bill and another Bill to which he would only refer very casually were inter-dependent, and that he had a right to keep these Bills so to speak neck and neck, so that one might not leave the House until the other was ready to accompany it or to almost immediately follow it. The Amendment declared that the House declined to proceed further with the measure for strengthening the Criminal Law against combinations of tenants until it had before it the full measure for their relief against excessive rents in the shape in which it might pass the other House of Parliament. He submitted that the speech from which he had quoted was the strongest argument in favour of the contention expressed in this Amendment, because it imposed upon the House in the face of a terrible state of things the solemn duty of saying whether the Government had provided a sufficient remedy. The Bill ought not to be allowed to leave the House until the remedial measure had been made to assume a form in which it would be effectual. They had the coercive measure in all its full details; but the remedial measure was not in a happy state, as in a certain portion of it the Government had announced their willingness to accept Amendments. The Bill was, in fact a blank sheet of paper on which the friends and foes of the Bill were invited to write their record. Most of its provisions were protested against on all sides, or have yet to be filled in by the Opposition and the Ministers of the Crown. The Coercion Bill was a hostage to this House for the remedial Bill. They were asked to part with the hostage before they had received the consideration, and the Government must think them rather more ingenuous and confiding people than they were if they supposed that without protest they would give them the powers they asked for before they had the least conception what the remedial measure was going to be. They were justified also in prolonging that debate on account of the circumstances which had attended the introduction and further stages of the Bill. The House had absolutely no information before it when the discussion began, and information was throughout doled out with a grudging and procrastinating hand. The Leader of the Opposition was promised statistics, but neither on the first nor on the second reading were they vouchsafed, and there were some details which had been asked for but were still not forthcoming. The Home Secretary had brought forward a striking argument and made a great impression by referring to statistics which he had written before him, and which he stated discovered an enormous increase in crime. But the House was not in possession of those statistics until yesterday morning, some time after the second reading had been carried. This conduct of the Government was in striking contrast to the procedure of Mr. Forster in 1881, who at the outset gave the House the fullest details, even to the minutest and most potty particulars. They would therefore be justified in continuing the present discussion till they had extracted every single fact and circumstance on which the Government rested their case. With the exception of the Chief Secretary's speeches the debate had been practically all on one side. He had that day read through every one of the Chief Secretary's speeches. The right hon. Gentleman had an elegant literary style, so that a perusal of his speeches was not altogether an unmitigated evil. The right hon. Gentleman had produced only four cases on behalf of his contention that trial by jury had broken down, and none of these cases supported the case of the Government. One was an assault in Roscommon, the case of Clark the maltster. Although it was stated that there was a miscarriage of justice in that case, the statement rested only on the authority of the Crown Solicitor, the notorious Bolton, and was contradicted by the evidence of a barrister present at the trial, who said that the evidence was extremely confused. Then there was the case of Fitzgerald and Donovan, which had nothing to do with political or agrarian questions, and was only such a mishap as might happen in England. Then there was the alleged assault upon a woman who was proved to be a disreputable person. And the only accusation brought against the National League was that of illegal action on the part of a branch in Sligo, which was immediately dissolved. The cases brought forward in support of the Bill were bogus cases which had all beer, shattered, and not one of which had stood the test of examination. Then as to the charges of the Judges, upon which the Chief Secretary relied for the first and second reading of the Bill. The right hon. Gentleman had quoted the charge of Mr. Justice Lawson as to the state of the County of Mayo to the effect that it approached as nearly to rebellion as anything short of civil war could do. But what were the statistics of crime in Mayo, a county with 230,000 inhabitants? During the last quarter the outrages were 12 in all, of which seven were threatening letters, and not one of the remaining five was of a serious character. Of murder, manslaughter, firing at the person, conspiracy to murder, assault on the police, assault on bailiff's and process-servers there were none, and that was in a county where the condition of things was stated to be little short of civil war. He thought that English officials would be delighted if they could point to such a state of things among a similar population in England. He did not blame the Chief Secretary for his inaccuracies. The right hon. Gentleman was a Scotchman, perhaps he was never in Ireland till he went over to take the oaths of Office, and when talking of Irish affairs he was as much astray as he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) would probably be in the intricacies of the theology of the right hon. Gentleman's native land. But the difference between them was this—the Chief Secretary had the arrogance of his ignorance, whereas he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) had the modesty of his. The right hon. Gentleman grow worse every day, and in time his primordial ignorance would be transformed into invincible ignorance. The right hon. Gentleman also founded the argument for his Bill upon previous Coercion Acts which had been passed by the Liberal Party; but the position of the Liberal Party now was not approval of past Coercion Acts or satisfaction at their results. In fact, their experience of the evil consequences of coercion in the past was the strongest argument against a policy of coercion for the future. The Chief Secretary had spoken of the Coercion Bill of 1886, and said that there was but a small amount of agrarian crime at that time. But was not the right hon. Gentleman aware that at that time a large proportion of the people of Ireland were in a state of almost open rebellion, many of them had arms in their hands, and there were risings in various parts of the country? Then the right hon. Gentleman referred to the Coercion Bill of 1870. But the whole case of the Go- vernment then was that there was a great increase, a recrudescence, of crime as compared with former years. The other night the right hon. Gentleman attacked the remedial legislation of the Liberal Party; but if it had not been for that legislation Ireland would now be in open rebellion, as it was in 1866. Again, the right hon. Gentleman said that after 1860 Ireland was free from crime. That circumstance was due, however, partly to the terrible emigration, and partly to the fact that between 1860 and 1865 there was a large amount of political crime, because the Fenian organization was at work. Such was the glorious state of things which the right hon. Gentleman spoke of as the blessed harvest that came of the legislation of 1860. He never entered upon the subject of Irish crime without a feeling of humiliation and also of exasperation, because he thought Ireland was treated in a manner in which no other country in the world was treated. Supposing that he had a ubiquitous police, most of whose time was spent in docketing and ticketing and summing up every single offence committed in this country, what a terrible and grim total might he not present of the crime of the people of England! Many of the crimes enumerated in Mr. Forster's Blue Book were of a trivial character. One of the so-called crimes consisted of a small wooden gate, the property of a nobleman, being taken off its hinges and broken. In another case several panes of glass were maliciously broken in the windows of an unoccupied house, and in a third a barrel of coal-tar was maliciously spilt. If he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) went among the docks in the Scotland. Division of Liverpool, where his own constituents lived, and enumerated crime in that way, Liverpool could be represented as a little hell upon earth. But this was the way in which the totals of crime were made out in Ireland, in order to blacken the character of his country. The statistics recently produced were the strongest evidence against the case of the Government. When the Home Secretary last addressed the House in support of this Bill he made the first successful speech he had delivered in the House. No doubt the right hon. Gentleman would make many other successful speeches, for he knew of no man who was better qualified than the right hon. Gentleman to talk on every side of a political question. The Home Secretary produced an effect on the House by quoting the statistics of crime in the first quarter of the present year. The right hon. Gentleman stated that the number of agrarian crimes was 241 in that quarter, whereas in the last quarter of 1866 the number was 166. But the right hon. Gentleman made a false and unfair comparison, as he ought to have compared the figures for the first quarter of this year with those for the corresponding quarter of last year. The number of crimes in Ireland during the first quarter of the present year was 241, and in the corresponding quarter of last year 256, showing a decrease in the more recent period. In the second quarter of last year the number was 297, and in the third quarter 306. Only in the last three months of 1886 were there fewer crimes than in the quarter just passed, the number being 166, and that was because the late Chief Secretary and the Plan of Campaign were both compelling the suspension of evictions. It was said that there was no connection between evictions and crime; but the truth was that evictions were dogged by crime. During the September quarter of last year there were 306 crimes, and the number of persons evicted was 5,685. There were only 166 crimes in the December quarter, and it was because the persons evicted had decreased to 3,669. In the first three months of the current year the increase of the number of evicted persons to 5,190 was accompanied by an increase of crimes to 241. He was not going to read the noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington) a lecture upon good taste, although from his adoption of anonymous slanders lately he might stand in need of such a lecture, but at all events he ought to consult with his brother Leaders of the Tory Party for the purpose of maintaining something like harmony between his and their views with regard to the object of this Bill. Sometimes it was said that the object of the measure was to put down crime, but did the Chief Secretary in using that expression mean by crime murder or the wilful upsetting of a pot of coal-tar? Again, it was said that the Bill was intended to put a stop to certain combinations—that was to say, it was to prevent tenants from defending themselves against their landlords. The Leader of that House had declared that the object of the Bill was to put an end to the sufferings of the Irish tenantry, who were being ground down and coerced by the National League. But the National League was a voluntary association. [Cries of "No."] If it was not a voluntary association why did the Government propose to put it down by force? The National League was the creation of and the emanation from the Irish people, and, according to the evidence of the Governments own witnesses, was looked upon by the Irish tenantry as their salvation. The noble Lord the Member for Rossendale had declared that the Bill was not levelled against political combinations, but the fact was that it was aimed at putting down the Irish Party in that House. The noble Lord himself had said that until that Party was put down it would be impossible for the Conservative Party, or the Liberal Unionist Party, or any other Party, to work out a solution of the Irish difficulty by providing for self-government in Ireland. It was clearly the object of the Tory Party to obtain the power of inflicting six months' imprisonment upon their political opponents. The noble Lord had admitted that from 1880 to 1885 he had been in conflict with the Irish Nationalist Party in that House, with the result that the Irish Party had increased from 45 in number to 86. When he heard the noble Lord promulgating his exploded nostrums and his defeated and discredited policy it reminded him of the observation, "With how little wisdom is the world governed!" One effect of the Bill was to confound persuasion with intimidation. He desired to call attention to the emigration which had taken place within the last four weeks, which showed that the policy of the Government was already having its disastrous results. During that period 9,236 persons had left Ireland, and the number was increasing. The reason was that the Government, between threatened eviction and threatened coercion, were making Ireland intolerable to the Irish people. He would show the House the genesis of the dynamite party. In 1863 The Times wrote— Eighty thousand persona—chiefly young men and women—have left Ireland, mostly for ever. They have gone with money in their pockets, with strong limbs and stout hearts, and they have left behind the aged and the weak. They left with tears in their eyes and curses for the Government in their hearts. The Saturday Review, commenting on that emigration, said of a letter addressed to the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) by Archbishop John of Tuam—" He sighs for the departing items of assassination and murder;" and again, "'Ireland,' he said, 'is relapsing into a desert tenanted by lowing herds instead of howling assassins." Here those people were all grouped together as howling assassins. That was the language used by leading English journals, and it was little wonder that those men when they reached America listened willingly to the malignant counsels of the dynamite party. The same policy was being pursued now. Instead of seeing any progress they saw reaction; instead of advance they saw a going back to the very worst features of the perfectly infernal period of suffering. The roads in Ireland were thick with crowds of Irishmen and Irishwomen leaving the shores of Ireland for ever. If these men and women thought that the present Government and the present policy represented the English people and represented English opinion, he should tremble for the future of those Irishmen and Irishwomen when they landed in America; but he called upon the Liberal Party, he called upon the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian, and upon the masses of the English people, to stand between the Government and the Irish people, to continue protesting against the policy that already was producing such disastrous results, and tell these people that if they left Ireland in tears, and by the policy of the Government, they left in spite of the efforts of the Liberal Party, and in spite of the efforts of the English people. He asked the Liberal Party and the English people to extend to the Irish people their sympathy and assistance, and in that way he hoped that, even out of the suffering and terrors of the present time, there might not come the old harvest of hate, but a new and better epoch of sympathy and attachment between the people of England and the people of Ireland.

THE CHANCELLOR OF THE DUCHY OF LANCASTER (Lord JOHN MAN- NERS) (Leicestershire, E.)

The hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) has at some length passed in review the recent debates upon this Bill, and he has been good enough to criticize all that has passed. When he concluded his eloquent speech, and appealed to the Liberal Party to adopt a course of policy which would put an end to the great emigration which is going on in Ireland, which emigration he described as having originated with the Land Act of 1860, I could not help remembering that the Land Act of 1860, to which he attributed so much of the recent, and even the present, miseries of Ireland, was an act of the Liberal Party. And when he called to mind that in the present year thousands of people are emigrating from Ireland, I could not help calling to mind that the Land Act under which they are emigrating was also an Act of the Liberal Party. It strikes me as not a little remarkable that the two great instances which the hon. Gentleman brought forward as the real causes of emigration from Ireland must both be attributed to the action not of hon. Gentleman on this side of the House, but of the great Liberal Party to whom he addressed his impassioned appeal. But I will do justice to the hon. Gentleman, he made an attempt to do what many hon. Gentlemen who have preceded him in debate have not attempted to do—namely, to do-fend the Amendment which we are now discussing. It is most remarkable that until the hon. Gentleman's speech no attempt—no serious attempt—has been made to vindicate this Amendment, which I do not hesitate to say is one of the most extraordinary, one of the most exceptional, and one of the most unjustifiable Amendments with which a Government measure was ever encountered. It is open to more objections than any Amendment I can remember. It is— That this House declines to proceed further with a measure for strengthening the Criminal Law against combinations of tenants until it has before it the full measure for their relief against excessive rents in the shape in which it may pass the other House of Parliament. Well, Sir, one would imagine from this Amendment that the Bill against which it is directed is a Bill for strengthening the Criminal Law against combinations of tenants. [Sir WILLIAM HARCOURT: "Hear, hear!"] The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby ironically cheers that. What does the title say? That it is— A Bill to make better provision for the prevention and punishment of crime in Ireland, and for other purposes relating thereto. The Amendment entirely overlooks the main portion of the objects of the Bill, and gives a totally different construction to its very title. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dumfries (Mr. E. T. Reid), in vindicating his extraordinary Amendment, stated that it has been alleged in "another place" that this measure and the measure now before the other House of Parliament are a complement one of the other— that they are, in fact, sister Bills—and he contended, therefore, that it is as impossible, as it would be unwise, for this House to part with this Bill until it has the other Bill from the House of Lords. Suppose the House of Lords accepted the view of the hon. Gentleman that one Bill is dependent upon the other. Suppose the House of Lords were to say these Bills are complements one of the other, and we will pass a Resolution that we will not send the Bill now in the House of Lords to the House of Commons until we have received the Bill now in the House of Commons What would be the position of Parliament?—a complete deadlock. Yet that is a. natural conclusion to be drawn from the Amendment itself, and from the support it has received from the hon. Gentleman opposite; and I am bound to say that, in my opinion, the House of Lords, if they were to pass such a Resolution, would have a great deal more to say for themselves than the House of Commons would have if it accepted this extraordinary Amendment. And for this reason, pass what measures you may for improving the condition of land tenure in Ireland, pass any remedial measures you please, until you have restored peace, tranquillity, order, and legality in Ireland, every one of your remedial measures must fail. Well, my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) has distinctly declared that until the Bill to which reference has been made has come down from the House of Lords he would take care that this Bill did not leave this House, so that if that is really the object which the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dumfries and those who agree with him have in view, their object is attained. "Why, therefore, should this long debate have taken place, why should impassioned appeals be made to the great Liberal Party, and why should the retrospect of all previous failures of Irish remedial legislation have occupied our time to-night? Then the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool complained very much, about statistics. The statistics which have been given are statistics exactly in the same form as those given by our Predecessors in Office. We have followed precisely the course adopted by them, with, perhaps, one exception. In 1882, when the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby proposed the most drastic and the most Draconian measure upon the question of crime ever introduced into this House, he produced no statistics at all. We have followed previous precedents, and we have produced statistics, as soon as they were furnished to us, to the House, and that is my answer to the complaint of the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool. Again, the hon. Gentleman made a very elaborate attack upon the noble Marquess the Member for Rosendale (the Marquess of Hartington). I believe there is no Member of this House who can defend himself better than the noble Marquess, and therefore I have no intention of attempting that work of supererogation. But I notice that the hon. Gentleman complains that the noble Marquess has said this is a Bill to put down crime, and not to interfere with the combinations of tenants. I entirely agree with the noble Marquess that this is a Bill to prevent crime in the first instance, if it be possible, to detect crime in the second instance, if the first object is not attained, and to punish crime in the third place. These are the main objects of the Bill. If there be criminal conspiracies, why then criminal conspiracies will come under the purview of the measure. What struck me as very extraordinary was that the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool seemed to assume all through his speech that because the Bill is directed against criminal conspiracies, it is there- fore directed against the political organization to which he belongs. Well, Sir, there is an old saying very well known, "If the cap fits it is not our fault." It is the hon. Gentleman who has fitted the cap on his own head.

MR. T. P. O'CONNOR

I am very sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but I should like to say that what I said was that the Bill was directed against combinations and especially against the National League. I said so on the authority of a letter written by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith).

LORD JOHN MANNERS

Any letter which the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury has written will, I am sure, contain nothing but good sense. But to return to the phraseology of the Bill, I find "criminal" always inserted as the adjective before the substantive "conspiracy," and that constitutes the whole difference between us. If the hon. Gentleman thinks that combinations of tenants to do lawful things in. a lawful manner are to be crushed under this Bill, he labours under a very great mistake. If combinations are formed to carry out illegal objects in a criminal manner, no doubt this Bill will, as we hope, tend very materially to cheek and to put down illegal and criminal combinations of that kind. These are the two portions of the Bill. The Amendment takes one of them, twisting it in a most extraordinary manner, and entirely omits all reference to the other, which is the putting down of crime and outrage. Now, Sir, in a former debate the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), whom I have the pleasure to see before me, stated that in order to justify the introduction of a measure of this kind it was necessary to show that there was an exceptional state of crime and outrage in the country, and he did me the honour to quote some observations of mine delivered in the month of June last. I do not blame him for doing so; but the right hon. Gentleman extracted one very short sentence, and without regard to the context fixed his own construction upon it. What I really said was this:— We are told, if you do not accept these schemes, you must fall back upon a permanent system of what is called coercion, and I think that among the many wise sayings of old Samuel Johnson there was no saying wiser than that in which he advised his friends to clear their minds of cant. Let us on this subject of coercion clear our minds of cant, and lot us see what it means. What does coercion in this sense mean? It moans the repression by exceptional measures of exceptional crime and exceptional outrage, and therefore if there be no exceptional crime and no exceptional outrage, there will be no exceptional repressive legislation. That was my statement; and now we say that there in exceptional crime, exceptional outrage, exceptional disorganization of the whole social machine in Ireland, and, therefore, we produce this exceptional legislation. But if that is not justification enough, I will most respectfully refer the right hon. Gentleman to a speech he delivered just three months before these observations of mine were made. The right hon. Gentleman was trying to make out a case for the great political revolution which he was endeavouring, but endeavouring in vain, to make this House accept, and amongst the other reasons he assigned, I find this. Speaking on the 8th of April of last year, the right hon. Gentleman said— In the first place, with certain exceptions for the case of winter juries, it is impossible to depend in Ireland upon the finding of a jury in a case of agrarian crime according to the facts as they are viewed by the Government, by the Judges, and by the public, I think, at large. That is a most serious mischief, passing down deep into the very groundwork of civil society. …. Finally, Sir, it is not to be denied that there is great interference in Ireland with individual liberty in the shape of intimidation."—(3 Hansard [304], 1040.) Then he referred to the lapse of the Crimes Act, and added— The return to the ordinary law, I am afraid, cannot be said to have succeeded. Almost immediately after the lapse of the Crimes Act Boycotting increased fourfold. Since that time it has been about stationary; but in October it had increased fourfold, compared with what it was in the month of May."—(Ibid 1043.) Then we have the right hon. Gentleman, just 12 months ago, announcing that the groundwork of Irish society was undermined, that there were exceptional outrages; and so despondent was he as to the social condition of Ireland, that he appealed to the House of Commons to virtually repeal the Union in order to get to the bottom of the terrible state of things which existed, according to him, in Ireland in April of last year. Well, but what do our ridiculed statistics show? They show that in the year 1886 there were at least 100 more cases of agrarian crime than there were in 1885, the period of crime to which the right hon. Gentleman must have been referring when he gave that melancholy description of the state of Ireland in April last. Therefore, Sir, I say that, according to the facts, figures, and statements which have been placed before the House by my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour), our case is proved by the admissions of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian; and if I were a counsel addressing a learned Judge and jury, I would probably resume my seat with the quotation I have made from the right hon. Gentleman's speech, and say, "My Lord and gentlemen, our case is before you." Now, I notice that Lord Cowper's Commission has been constantly cited during these debates, and great importance is attached by hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to any recommendation of the Commissioners which they think will sustain them in their opposition to this just and necessary measure. I observe, however, that Lord Cowper's Commission, after they have recommended a variety of measures which they think would tend to the amelioration of the condition of Ireland, conclude with this remarkable paragraph: But while recommending certain changes in the law which circumstances have rendered necessary for the present relief of the tenants, it is right that we should also press, in the interest of all classes, the maintenance of law and order, which has in several parts of the country been grievously outraged. In the absence of that security which ought to be enjoyed in every civilized community, capital is discouraged, enterprise and industry are checked, and it is impossible that any country can thrive or any healing measures be devised which will add much to its prosperity. Those are the concluding parts of that portion of the Report of Lord Cowper's Commission which deals with the remedial proposals for Ireland, and I think that the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), who has dilated with such unction on the emigration which is now setting in from the shores of that unhappy country, ascribing the whole of it to the action of the ruined landlords of Ireland, might ask himself this question. Do none of these poor people leave their native homes in consequence of the paralysis of industry, the flying away of capital, the loss of employment occa- sioned by the ruin of landlords, the entire absence of all industrial enterprize, the shutting up of many sources of employment, which heretofore were open to them? Can he or any man deny that many of these sources of mischief are owing to the action of that very body to which it is his pride to belong? No, Sir; unless capital can be induced again to visit Ireland, until industry can reap its just reward, until employment of various kinds can again be found for the great masses of the Irish people, until new sources of industry can be opened to Ireland's sons, until those latent industrial resources which Ireland undoubtedly possesses, but which, as it seems to me, since the days of Lord George Bentinck have attracted very little attention in this House, are cultivated and developed, I hear that whatever laws relating to land in Ireland are passed, emigration will continue, but it will not be the fault of the pauperized and ruined landlords of Ireland. Now, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Brightside Division of Sheffield (Mr. Mundella) favoured us on Tuesday night with a very solemn warning upon the condition of Ireland. He warned us that there was a great movement in the United States of America, that even respectable people had joined it, and I think he went so far as to say he himself was personally acquainted with an Episcopal clergyman who did not at all approve of this measure. I must say, I think this Episcopal clergyman of the United States would probably be devoting his energies and his intellect to more useful purposes, if he were to attend to the affairs of the United States, than in informing the right hon. Gentleman what his views are of a measure which he probably has never seen, and which, if he had seen, most unquestionably he would not understand. I do not at all like, I confess, to hear right hon. Gentlemen who have held high Office, referring in this House in the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman did to what he is pleased to call the opinion of the respectable people of the United States. I think the respectable people of every country had much better attend to the affairs of their own country and let us, poor benighted Englishmen, manage the concerns of that great Empire which we have inherited from a long line of an- cestors, and which we hope to hand down unimpaired to a remote posterity. Well, now, I will ask right hon. Gentlemen opposite to think for a moment what views the respectable people of the United States would have taken, if when they were in the midst some years back of their severe secession struggle, if the Mayors, Councilmen, and even Episcopal clergymen of England had come together and passed resolutions denouncing the conduct of one or other of the great parties in the United States. [An hon. MEMBER: We did.] Yes; but the only one of any weight who expressed an opinion on the subject, was the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian.

MR. W. E. GLADSTONE (Edinburgh, Mid Lothian)

The noble Lord is imputing to me that of which he has never informed himself. He is probably not aware that my statement on that subject has been published in America itself, and I received from the American Government itself a most satisfactory letter in regard to it.

LORD JOHN MANNERS

Precisely so; that shows that what I stated was strictly correct. The right hon. Gentleman expressed an opinion, it was published in America, and he received a letter in regard to it. [Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE: What opinion?] An opinion with reference to the formation, not only of an Army and Navy, but of a Nation, by Jefferson Davis. Well, now, Sir, we are told very often that the tale of crime in Ireland is not sufficient to justify the Bill we have introduced. It is said there have only been 12 or 13 murders in the last 15 months. If there had been a few more murders and a few more violent outrages, why, then something might be said— according to the opinion of hon. Gentlemen opposite—for a Bill of this nature. That is not the view Her Majesty's Government take on this great and important question. They think that it is much better to interfere while crime—though very serious and though advancing—has not reached the height it did in 1880, before the right hon. Gentleman opposite introduced his repression Bill. We think it infinitely better to bring forward a measure now when, critical as is the condition of many counties in Ireland, deep, according to the right hon. Gentleman, as is the disorganization which is prevalent in Ireland, there is still time to hope we may, by a combination of remedial measures of this sort, and remedial measures of another sort, clear away the organized terrorism, intimidation, Boycotting, and crime which have made the lives of peaceable, honest, loyal, and law-abiding citizens almost intolerable. That is my answer to the plea for further delay. I say that the Government did try—when they came into Office last year—to rule Ireland and administer her affairs without any exceptional legislation. I admit, with the right hon. Gentleman, that the attempt has failed; and admitting the failure of that attempt, what was the plain and bounden duty of the Government? Surely it was, as soon as they had satisfied themselves that that attempt had failed, to come forward and produce to the House of Commons that measure which they thought essential for the restoration of peace, tranquillity, order, and happiness to Ireland. We recognize the enormous difficulties which we have to face in the attempt we are making. We see opposite to us the late trusted Ministers of the Crown arrayed in opposition to a measure to restore peace and tranquillity to Ireland. We are aware of the immense weight which attaches to their opinion. We know the enormous obstacles which stand in our way; but, Sir, we know this—we know that we are discharging a plain and simple duty. We know that we have the support of this House of Commons, which, as the right hon. Gentleman was kind enough to point out in one of his numerous letters, is the product of universal household suffrage; we know by the large Majorities which have sent this Bill forward from one stage to another that we enjoy the confidence of the House in respect to this measure, and we are firmly convinced that behind this House of Commons—so recently in touch with the householders of this country—we have the support of the vast majority of the people of England. Having put our hands to the plough, we do not intend to draw them back until this House shall have finally decided upon, as we hope in the affirmative, this measure for the restoration of law and order, peace and happiness in Ireland, and we confidently appeal to the hon. Members of this Imperial Parliament to sustain and encourage us in our determination and resolve.

MR. JOHN MORLEY (Newcastle-on-Tyne)

Mr. Speaker, the noble Lord (Lord John Manners) who has just sat down has reproached us on this side of the House with having regard to the opinions that are held in foreign countries as to the policy which the Government are now pursuing. I can remember very well that, in the last Parliament, the noble Lord and his Friends were constantly taxing Her Majesty's then Government with their disregard of the opinion of foreign countries, and showing how they were sacrificing the name and reputation of Parliament and the country in the eyes of civilized Europe. And then, Sir, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether he considers the opinion of Canada the opinion of a foreign country. It cannot have escaped the noble Lord's attention that the Legislature of Canada has, within the last few hours, voted something like four to one in condemnation of the policy which Her Majesty's present Government are pursuing towards Ireland. But the noble Lord has pronounced this Amendment to be one of the most extraordinary that he has ever, during his prolonged Parliamentary experience, come into contact with. He read the Amendment, and the point with which he found fault was that the Amendment describes the measure now before the House as a measure for strengthening the Criminal Law against combinations of tenants. But, Sir, we have a very good authority for that description of the measure in a passage from a speech quoted only a few minutes ago by the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor). It was the Prime Minister himself who, not very long since, said—" We have offered to the other House "—that is, the House of Commons—"a measure in order to put a stop to certain combinations," which is the very allegation made in this Amendment. I fail, therefore, to see why the noble Lord should, on that ground, find the Amendment so extraordinary. Well, then the noble Lord went on to ask why, if we have a right to insist upon seeing what is called the sister measure to this Coercion Bill, the other House of Parliament might not, with equal reason, insist upon see- ing our Coercion Bill, before they part with their so-called remedial measure? Why, the answer to that is a very obvious one. We are very doubtful, in this House, in what shape, with what efficacy, your so-called remedial measure will come down from "another place;" they have no doubt in what shape you will send up your Coercion Bill. We have no security that we shall get a Land Bill after our heart; but they have very good reason to expect that they will get a Coercion Bill after their heart. This is my answer to that point raised by the noble Lord. The noble Lord dwelt at great length upon the flying away of capital from Ireland, and one among the other objects which he ascribed to the present measure was, he said, the keeping of capital in Ireland. I do not believe there is any subject upon which grosser fallacies are current than upon this matter of capital; we have very good evidence, and the Irish landlords know that they have had only too much English capital. I think we shall find that this is so, if we consider what the amounts of the Irish mortgages during the last fifty or more years have been. Experts say it is almost impossible to measure the sum; but Mr. Giffen has done all he could to find out the amount, and he puts it at £50,000,000, or about one-third of the value of Irish rents. Well, take that for one fact, and take the other fact which I ventured to bring before the notice of the House when I spoke on the Motion of Urgency made by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith)—namely, that, according to the evidence of Mr. Hussey, the Irish landlords have not control of more than one-fifth of their revenue, the other four-fifths going away in no small proportion to the mortgagees. Has capital done them so much good that they need seek more? What you need in Ireland is not to prevent capital flying away—you do not want more capital on these terms; what you want is not to prevent capital flying away, but to prevent labour flying away. This is a Bill which will end—my hon. Friend the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool has shown that it is already operating—in the direction of driving away the thus and sinews of Ireland, which would do much more for that country than English capital. The noble Lord taxed us, as I think the right hon. and learned Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews) did at an earlier stage of the Bill, with great inconsistency, because the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), when he introduced the Home Rule Bill last year, described the condition of Ireland as profoundly unsatisfactory, indeed, as leaving almost everything to be desired. We are now asked how it is that, having, a year ago, taken what the noble Lord has spoken of as so melancholy a view of the state of social order in Ireland, we now resist their measure for dealing with social disorder. We do not deny for a moment now, any more than we did a year ago, that the state of social order in Ireland is profoundly unsatisfactory; but we say it is; not unsatisfactory in the way and under the conditions which can be measured by criminal statistics. What we said was, and what we still say, is, that you must go deeper than a mere attempt to suppress the symptoms; you must get to the root of the malady. Our measure may, or may not, have been the right way of getting at the root of the malady; but what we say of your present measure is, that it is not an attempt to go to the root of this deplorable state of affairs. By way of illustrating the social disorder in the county, you assert that jurors will not convict because they are intimidated by the National League. [Hear, hear!"] You say "hear, hear," and you argue that, if Parliament will allow you to suppress the National League, intimidation will cease, and jurors will give verdicts. There was a Committee of the House of Lords, referred to by the First Commissioner of Works (Mr. Plunket) the other night, and I am surprised that it has not been referred to more often in the course of these debates—Lord Lansdowne's Committee on Irish Jury Laws, in 1881. I will only read one very short passage. It is from the evidence of a certain Mr. Kelly, Queen's County, who was chairman of County Clare, and he, in answer to a question put to him by Lord Lansdowne, or Lord Cairns—I forget now which—says— The class from which jurors are taken in Ireland are perfectly convinced that the way to put a stop to offences connected with the land is not by punishment; they are perfectly convinced that the proper mode of putting an end to such offences is that the landlord should not take proceedings calculated to provoke them. The verdict of 'not guilty' does not mean that the man is not guilty of the act, but that he should not be punished for it. They do not appreciate their real duty as jurors; they think their duty is to decide, not whether the accused did the act, but whether he ought to be punished for it. Of course, I am not going, for a moment —hon. Gentlemen opposite will not suspect me of it—to sympathize with that view, or defend it; but unimpeachable) evidence of this kind, of which I think I can give the House dozens of other instances, 'does show that the malady, which we all admit, does not arise from intimidation, but from a wide-spread popular sympathy with the offenders. Now, Sir, I turn from the noble Lord's (Lord John Manner's) speech to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour), in answer to the hon. and learned Mover of the Amendment (Mr. Reid). The right hon. Gentleman complained that the debate had been too long already, and he deprecated this discussion. Sir, I have not taken part in the debates on the Bill since the Bill was introduced; and, therefore, I hope I shall escape the lash of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. H. Smith) and his Secretary. I maintain that the Government have themselves to thank for the prolongation of this debate. What I mean by that is that, in the first instance, they presented their case—I say this with all respect to the Chief Secretary— in so slovenly, so loose, and so un business like a manner that we had, as the hon. Gentleman the Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) has said, to extort information from them step by step and day by day. Why, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary gave us scarcely any figures at all when he introduced the Bill. I think none whatever. Then it was felt that was rather strong, and the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews), two or three nights afterwards, got up and gave us figures, but they were figures from a Return which was not before the House. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Holmes) also based a very plausible argument, as to the condition of Kerry, upon Returns which were not before the House. It was impossible for us satisfactorily to discuss the proposals of the Government, supported by these arguments, until we were able for ourselves to gauge and to test the statements on which these proposals were founded. The case of statistics has, as is admitted now by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, broken down.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I never admitted that it had broken down.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

Of course, I never meant to say that the right hon. Gentleman was so ingenuous as to say that the case had broken down; but what was his attitude a few nights ago? First of all, he said—"We do not base our case upon the statistical Returns of crime." Then the Homo Secretary and the Attorney General for Ireland said— "Oh! by the way, there are some statistics of crime which are of great importance." Then, two nights ago, the Chief Secretary, when the statistics were proved, in the minds of all men of impartial judgment and of experience of Irish statistics to be not in the least degree alarming, said— The Returns of agrarian offences, I must inform the House, are not complete Returns, and the Constabulary do not include in them all those offences which are connected with the disturbed state of Ireland.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I made that statement when I introduced the Bill.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

I am bound to say that I speak with reserve when I say that I doubt whether that is a correct account of the Constabulary Returns. I doubt very much—the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland can easily put me right if I am wrong—whether the Chief Secretary for Ireland is strictly right in this matter. For example, the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) said that the Curtin murder was not returned as an agrarian crime; I venture to doubt it.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I said the Return of outrages did include the attack made upon the two girls for speaking to policemen. I said I was not certain whether the Curtin case was returned. I have since inquired, and I find it was not returned as an agrarian crime.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

I spoke from memory. [Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: Hear, hear.] But, in any case, the observations of the right hon. Gentleman have diminished the effect of the particular statistics that have been given, because he said that the agrarian Returns were not complete. Well, now, just as the figures have shifted, so has the account of the objects of the Bill shifted. We are not clear, and we are less clear than ever, after the speech of the noble Lord (Lord John Manners), what is the object of this Bill. We were, first of all, told that the Bill was a Bill against crime, and we were told the other night again by the Chief Secretary, in words that have already been quoted this evening, that it is not combination that the Government desire to crush, but it is crime. [Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: Hear, hear!] The Chief Secretary adheres to that; but when it was found that no great case was being made out upon the state of crime, that ground was given up, and it was attempted to justify the proposals of the Bill on the ground of the general disturbance of the country. We were told, in so many words, that the Bill was one aimed against combinations, and now we are told that it is not aimed against combinations. [''No, no!"] Yes; we are assured first that it is, and then that it is not. I say that the House is left in a state of complete eon-fusion even now as to what the real object of the Bill is. We shall endeavour, in Amendments, to test the object of the Bill; we shall endeavour to find out, by the response which the Government give to Amendments put down to the Bill, whether they really mean to confine the operation of the Bill to the suppression of crime, or whether they mean to extend it to combinations. Sir, if the Government mean to confine the operation of the Bill to the suppression of crime, why do they incorporate the Whiteboy Acts? And, Sir, I think we have some reason to complain of the Government for not answering, in any way, the urgent request of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lothian that the clauses of the Whiteboy Acts, which they intend to incorporate in the 2nd section of the Bill, should be set out in the Bill. My right hon. Friend pressed that, and I think that if any hon. Gentleman, even on that side of the House, will take the trouble to read in the Paper laid before the House some of the provisions which it is proposed to include, he will be of opinion that the Whiteboy Clauses ought to be set out in all their naked ugliness in the body of the Bill itself. I am not going, at this hour of the night (12 o'clock), to weary the House by going through these Whiteboy Clauses; but there are one or two of them I should like to call the attention of the House to, because they show better than any vague words of Ministers used in the course of the debate what the effect and the operation of the Bill will be. Now, one of the Whiteboy Clauses is that— If anybody appears with any badge, dress, or uniform not usually worn by him or her, or assumes any political name or denomination not usually assumed by His Majesty's subjects upon lawful occasions. I do not know whether that description will or will not cover Orangemen; the hon. Member for South Belfast (Mr. Johnston) does not always wear a dress or uniform, and does not always assume a particular name and denomination not usually assumed by Her Majesty's subjects. If anyone answering to that description— Shall appear by day or night to the terror of His Majesty's subjects—[Ministerial cheers] —he shall be liable, under the Bill, to be brought before two Resident Magistrates, and to suffer six months' imprisonment. You cheer ironically the words "to the terror of His Majesty's subjects," and you argue that if people assemble to the terror of Her Majesty's subjects they ought to be amenable to punishment. I do not much differ with you upon that point; but I say of that, as I do of the argument of the noble Lord about criminal conspiracies, it is not what is to the terror of Her Majesty's subjects, it is not what is a criminal conspiracy, but it is what two Resident Magistrates shall think to be to the terror of Her Majesty's subjects or a criminal conspiracy. That is the secret of the whole Bill. It will be remembered that in the so-called Peterloo massacre the firing of the soldiers upon the multitude then assembled for a purely political object, and, as all of us in every part of the House now think, an object perfectly harmless, was held to be justifiable by the Judges, on the ground that the meeting was one calculated to conduce to the terror of His Majesty's subjects. And now there is one other clause from the many others which I should like to particularly mention— If any person shall print, or knowingly circulate, or deliver any notice, letter, or message tending to excite to a tumultuous meeting or unlawful combination, he shall he liable to be punished. That, again, is a combination plainly unlawful — a combination indubitably unlawful; and I have no doubt the offenders might very well be brought before the magistrates and punished. But here, again, the same criticism applies. It is what two Resident Magistrates shall believe and define to be an unlawful combination; and I do hope that, if these clauses are to be put into the Bill, even this House of Commons will have enough of the old spirit of English liberty and English justice left in it to strike them out. A great deal has been said about the power conferred upon Resident Magistrates by these clauses. They are to have absolute discretion in putting down meetings, and absolute discretion as to the imprisonment of editors and proprietors of disagreeable newspapers. I think the best lawyers in the House will agree that that is the effect of these clauses. Now, I wish to read one passage of a letter which, has not been noticed in this debate, but which will give Parliament an idea of the position of Resident Magistrates during the operation of a Coercion Bill. Mr. Clifford Lloyd is not a gentleman whose testimony will be suspected of being unduly hostile to the Government; but what did he write to the newspapers a little time ago? I will read a short passage from a letter of his. He said— It is this primary duty of Government— I mean the duty of keeping law and order— that the Lord Lieutenant has never been able to perform, and for this reason—that every tendency of the Castle system is to concentrate authority within its walls, and to remove from judicial officials every sense of responsibility. When the strain comes, such a system invariably breaks down. The state of confusion to be witnessed at Dublin Castle during the Land League disturbances can hardly be imagined. Telegrams came pouring in from all parts of the country announcing murders, attacks by armed parties, risings, riots, and acts of treason; and there were demands from magistrates for police and troops, and requests for instructions in reference to events which had generally passed before the instructions arrived. I have before me nine telegrams received by a Resident Magistrate during the course of one day concerning his movements on the following day with police and troops, and each of the nine telegrams contained orders in opposition to those previously issued. And Mr. Clifford Lloyd then goes on to say what Lord Cowper and Mr. Forster did to try and alter that state of things. They issued instructions to the Resident Magistrates for preserving life, securing property, and for maintaining law and administering the law. Well, you have there, therefore, evidence of two things —first of all, that the Resident Magistrates are not likely, supposing there should come troublous times in Ireland again, to have their minds in the condition for deciding nice judicial questions; and, secondly, they are not at all unlikely, in spite of the announcement —I am sure the sincere announcement —of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, to apply to Dublin Castle for instructions in reference to administering the law; and I think that, at least from the Parliamentary Under Secretary (Colonel King-Harman), they are very likely to receive them. Sir, I should like to make one or two very brief remarks upon the Chief Secretary's observations regarding the remedial measure in "another place." The right hon. Gentleman said—" Our Bill in the House of Lords shows that we wish to stay evictions." My noble Friend the Member for Hampshire (Viscount Wolmer) said, the other night, that the Liberal Unionists would not vote for this measure unless they felt sure that the Government were going to bring in a measure to stop what he called "barbarous evictions." Now, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, in answering the arguments advanced in support of the Amendment by the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Dumfries, said— It is quite true that in the last resort, if the landlord reduces the tenant to the status of a caretaker, the popular excitement connected with evictions will come off in exactly the same way at the expiry of the six months' notice as it comes off now. That is, no doubt, true; the caretaker will have to be turned out, precisely as the tenant will have to be turned out, the only difference being that the caretaker will be turned out by the landlord's bailiff and the tenant by the Sheriff. But think how the 4th clause will operate. That clause enables the landlord to substitute service of a notice for that process which is connected with so much odium, violence, and uproar at evictions. Does anyone seriously doubt that landlords finding this restraint upon evictions removed—this restraint of public danger and odium—finding that they can gain their ends without all these drawbacks, a number of eviction processes will be taken out by way of notice which would never have been undertaken if the public proceedings had had to go on as under the present system? Of course, I am quite aware that the effect may be to give you six months of peace—to give you peace during the six months while the notices are running; and this six months' peace will be convenient to you. But it will be a hollow and treacherous peace, because, at the end of the six months, you will find your last state worse than the first. The landlords will have issued a multitude of notices, and the tenants will have been lulled into a sense of comparative security, and will not have made the efforts they otherwise would have made for reasonable settlement. Therefore, I say the Government Bill shows, not, as the right hon. Gentleman thinks, that they wish to stay evictions—though I have no doubt they do wish to do that— but shows that they wish to stay evictions for six months. At the end of the six months I venture to predict you will have a greater crop than ever you have had of those violent expulsions to which the right hon. Gentleman referred rather cynically the other night. Another point the right hon. Gentleman made has been repeated several times in the course of these debates. The right hon. Gentleman said— Why do not tenants, if they are placed in circumstances of such distress, go into the Courts, as they can, and get relief under the Land Act? Why, has the right hon. Gentleman never heard of arrears—that the tenants have arrears hanging round their necks in enormous numbers, and that those arrears prevent them from going into Court and getting the relief Parliament intended them to have? If the right hon. Gentleman has read the Blue Book containing the account of the proceedings of Lord Cowper's Commission, he will have seen that a Mr. John Cunningham, of Donegal, was asked by Lord Milltown— Are they afraid to go into Court, for fear the landlord will deprive them of the right of turbary?'' And his answer was— Yes; and a good many people are afraid to go into Court, lest they should be deprived of the right of grazing. Lord Milltown again said— I have heard before now that it prevents a great number. Whereupon Mr. Cunningham said— A great number; I have seen them leave the Court in large numbers, rather than go on with their cases. I think that when the right hon. Gentleman knows more of Ireland, he will admit that is one of the poorest arguments that could possibly have been used in answer to the case put forward by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dumfries. Another point which the right hon. Gentleman made was one which has been referred to tonight by the hon. Member for the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. T. P. O'Connor), and by the noble Lord the Member for East Leicestershire (Lord John Manners), and I wish to refer to it from a point of view which has not occurred after all to either of those Gentlemen. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the Land Act of 1860. The noble Lord missed the point of our comment on the references of the Chief Secretary to the Land Act of 1860, and he said, in that spirit of recrimination which has so much marked these debates, and with so little effect—"Oh! but that Act came from the Liberal Party." I do not care whom it came from. The point is, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary expressed his approval and admiration of the Act of 1860. [Mr. A. J. BALFOUR: I never did.] Why, you said the Land Act of I860 contained principles which were accepted by all the countries in the civilized world. Surely that is an expression of approbation? I know the right hon. Gentleman does not just now think a great deal of the civilized world.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I wish to explain. I said that the Land Act of 1860 applied in Ireland the principles of land legislation which are habitually professed in all civilized countries. You have adopted a Land Act which does not follow those principles. I expressed no opinion.

MR. JOHN MORLEY

If that is not an expression of approbation, I should like to know what it is! And I should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether there is not a difference between the condition of landed property in other parts of the civilized world, and the way in which it has been worked in Ireland? Is there any other part of the civilized world where the main value of land has been created out of the tenants' own industry? I would approve the principle of the Act of 18G0, if it were applied in countries such as our own, where tenants have not made improvements. The point is important; because the right hon. Gentleman is the Representative of the Irish Government, and he will have something to say upon remedial legislation, on the strength of which the Liberal Unionists are going to support the Government. What is the principle of the Act of 1860? It is that the relations between landlord and tenant should be pure relations of contract, and in no sense relations of tenure. The principle of the Act is that the hiring of land is just as much a transaction founded on trade principles as the chartering of a ship, or the hiring of a street cab. ["Hear, hear!" from the Ministerial Benches.] Those Gentlemen who cheer that statement, at all events, approve the principle. Are they going, in their remedial legislation, to act upon that principle? The Act of 1860 was the climax—the high-water mark—of what I call English legislation for Ireland—I mean legislation enacted in a midnight ignorance of Irish usage, of the history of Irish land, and of the whole body of the economic and agricultural conditions of Ireland. That measure came after the Encumbered Estates Act, and the two together are proof positive of the unfitness of this Parliament to deal with the Irish Land Question, whether upon the footing of contract or on the footing of tenure. As to the years between 1860 and 1870, which the right hon. Gentleman thought were remarkably free from crime, I do not know whether they were free from crime; but whether or not, I make this remark —that they were years of incessant discontent, of growing agitation, and of increasing alarm and terror in the minds of the tenants. Therefore, if the legislation of 1860 and its principle is going to be accepted in any degree whatever by the Government, all I can say is that they will find themselves, as I think, in the most lamentable case. I should like to allude to a remark which has been made constantly in the course of these debates by all conversant with the facts, that you must settle the Land Question first, and when you settle that the political question will disappear. The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury has told us that the Government have a Purchase Bill in an advanced state of preparation. Well, Sir, I am for a Purchase Bill also, and I believe that you will have no settlement in Ireland until there has been a great increase in the number of peasant owners. But you will not get a large increase in the number of peasant owners in a hurry. It will be—I do not care what your Purchase Bill may be—a very slow process indeed, and you will not be able to deal with the real root of the evil by a Purchase Bill at all. I venture to predict, having had opportunities for talking with Irish land experts of the best and largest experience on this subject, who all agree in this—that a Purchase Bill, and the principle of purchase alone, will be absolutely ineffectual in dealing with the great problem of the congested districts. It is absolutely certain, too, that purchase and the transformation of small tenants into owners of land will not get rid of the political difficulty. Again, no Purchase Bill, unless it is a Bill of such enormous magnitude as my imagination, refuses to conceive, can do away with the necessity of lowering rents. Your purchase scheme will, undoubtedly, force down rents. Suppose two farms situated side by side, of equal value, and each rented at £100 a-year, and suppose that the landlord of one of them sells under your Bill—the tenant's rent will fall from £100 to £78 or £75. Is it in human nature that if this occurs to one man, his neighbour will be content to pay the same rent as before? It cannot be but that, if you reduce the rent of one tenant by 22 or 25 per cent, the other will not rest until he has got a similar advantage. This question of the reduction of rents is, therefore, entirely independent of the fall in prices, and depends wholly on the fact that the credit of the Imperial Exchequer has been introduced into the question, and the consequent low rate at which money can be borrowed. I honestly regret that the Government have taken the course which they have seen it their duty to take in bringing in this Bill, instead of introducing the Bills which the First Lord of the Treasury has foreshadowed, one of which he said was before the House of Lords and the other in an advanced state. If I were to judge this policy from the point of view of right hon. Gentlemen opposite, I should find it as condemnable as I should if it came from ourselves. I should go about the question in an entirely different way. You agree that the Irish tenants have grievances, and that the land system in Ireland needs to be dealt with. You have got your remedies. Why did you not bring them in two months ago, or one of them at least? Why did you not bring them in on the 21st of March, instead of introducing this disastrous and ill-omened measure? Sir, I have often been taxed with thinking more highly of the power of the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) than it deserves; but I venture to say that, if the two Bills which you have for relieving the immediate needs of the Irish tenants, if they were good Bills, had been first introduced, I do not believe the hon. Member for Cork would have been able, and I do not believe he would have been inclined, to keep back such a been from the great mass of those in Ireland who returned him and 85 other Members to this House. We do not believe that Land Bills will settle the Irish Question; but you do. We do not believe that the Irish tenants are burning to throw off the yoke of the hon. Member for Cork and the National League; but you do. If I held those opinions, the very thing I should have done would have been to press on agrarian remedies, and to abstain from coercion. Coercion will have the inevitable effect—and I believe you know it in your hearts as well as we know it — by reason of the traditions and the strongest passions in Ireland, of throwing the whole sentiment of the country against your remedial legislation, and giving new strength to what you are pleased to consider a lawless organization. I think there are many of your Irish friends who will tell you, if you ask them their real opinion, though not in debate, that the effect of this Bill must be to throw new strength of popular opinion on the side of the hon. Member for Cork and the National League. You think you can put down the National League. What did Lord Spencer say? [Cries of "Oh!" and laughter.] Yes; but Lord Spencer knows a great deal more of this matter than any of us, and I would rather take Lord Spencer's knowledge of Ireland, and of the Executive Government in Ireland, than that of the hon. Gentleman who laughs. Lord Spencer said that— The suppression of the National League might seem to be a very easy tiling to do; but it would be one of the most gigantic tasks that any statesman could undertake. The National League in three of the four Provinces was bound up with the people of the country. It had supporters in every village and every town in the country; and even in Ulster the National League existed, and returned a majority of Members for that Province. To put down the League was a herculean task for any Government. We all knew the difficulties there were when Lord Cowper and Mr. Forster tried to put down the Land League; but I will venture to say that the difficulties will be very much greater if any Government should attempt to put down by force the National League. You have gone in for a Coercion Act because you think it is the easiest thing to do. Your Purchase Bill will, perhaps, involve you in a very considerable quarrel with the British taxpayer; your Tenants' Bankruptcy Bill has already got you into very considerable trouble with your landlord friends. Measures of that kind test the resources of statesmanship. Anybody can pass a Coercion Bill. But it is not anybody who can undo the mischief which Coercion Bills have often done, and which this Coercion Bill will do more than any of the others. It is because we believe that it will do none of the good which you anticipate, and that it will do enormous and irreparable mischief at a critical moment in the relations between England and Ireland, that we protest against it, and shall continue to protest against it at every point.

Question put.

The House divided:—Ayes 341; Noes 240: Majority 101.

AYES.
Agg-Gardner, J. T.	Beadel, W. J.
Ainslie, W. G.	Beaumont, H. F.
Allsopp, hon. A.	Beckett, E. W.
Allsopp, hon. G.	Beckett, W.
Amherst, W. A. T.	Bective, Earl of
Anstruther, Colonel R. H. L.	Bentinck, Lord H. C.
	Bentinck, rt. hn. G. C.
Anstruther, H. T.	Bentinck, W. G. C.
Ashmead-Bartlett, E.	Beresford, Lord C. W. de la Poer
Baden-Powell, G. S.
Baggallay, E.	Bethell, Commander G. R.
Bailey, Sir J. R.
Baird, J. G. A.	Bickford-Smith, W.
Balfour, rt. hon. A. J.	Biddulph, M.
Balfour, G. W.	Bigwood, J.
Baring, Viscount	Birkbeck, Sir E.
Barnes, A.	Blundell, Colonel H. B. H.
Barry, A. H. Smith-
Bartley, G. C. T.	Bond, G. H.
Bates, Sir E.	Bonsor, H. C. O.
Baumann, A. A.	Boord, T. W.
Beach, W. W. B.	Borthwick, Sir A.

Bridgeman, Col. hon. F. C.	Ewart, W.
	Ewing, Sir A. O.
Bright, right hon. J.	Eyre, Colonel H.
Bristowe, T. L.	Farquharson, H. R.
Brodrick, hon. W. St. J. F.	Feilden, Lt.-Gen. R. J.
	Fellowes, W. H.
Brookfield, A. M.	Fergusson, right hon. Sir J.
Brown, A. H.
Bruce, Lord H.	Field, Admiral E.
Burdett-Coutts, W. L. Ash.-B.	Fielden, T.
	Finch, G. H.
Burghley, Lord	Finch-Hatton, hon. M. E. G.
Caldwell, J.
Campbell, Sir A.	Finlay, R. B.
Campbell, J. A.	Fisher, W. H.
Campbell, E. F. F.	Fitzgerald, R. U. P.
Chamberlain, E.	Fitzwilliam, hon. W. J. W.
Chaplin, right hon. H.
Charrington, S.	Fitz-Wygram, Gen. Sir F. W.
Churchill, rt. hn. Lord R. H. S.
	Fletcher, Sir H.
Clarke, Sir E. G.	Folkestone, right hon.Viscount
Cochrane-Baillie, hon. C. W. A. N.
	Forwood, A. B.
Coddington, W.	Fowler, Sir It. N.
Coghill, D. H.	Fraser, General C. C.
Colomb, Capt. J. C. R.	Fry, L.
Commerell, Adml. Sir J. E.	Fulton, J. F.
	Gardner, R. Richardson-
Compton, F.
Cooke, C. W. E.	Gathorne-Hardy, hon. A. E.
Corbett, A. C.
Corbett, J.	Gathorne-Hardy, hon. J. S.
Corry, Sir J. P.
Cotton, Capt. E. T. D.	Gedge, S.
Cranborne, Viscount	Gent-Davis, R.
Cross, H. S.	Gibson, J. G.
Crossley, Sir S. B.	Giles, A.
Crossman, Gen. Sir W.	Gilliat, J. S.
Cubitt, right hon. G.	Godson, A. F.
Curzon, Viscount	Goldsmid, Sir J.
Curzon, hon. G. N.	Goldsworthy, Major General W. T.
Dalrymple, C.
Davenport, H. T.	Gorst, Sir J. E.
Davenport, W. B.	Goschen, rt. hn. G. J.
Dawnay, Colonel hon. L. P.	Gray, C. W.
	Green, Sir E.
De Lisle, E. J. L. M. P.	Greenall, Sir G.
	Greene, E.
De Worms, Baron H.	Grimston, Viscount
Dickson, Major A. G.	Grotrian, F. B.
Dimsdale, Baron R.	Grove, Sir T. F.
Dixon, G.	Gunter, Colonel R.
Dixon-Hartland, F. D.	Gurdon, R. T.
Donkin, H. S.	Hall, A. W.
Dorington, Sir J. E.	Hall, C.
Dugdale, J. S.	Halsey, T. F.
Duncan, Colonel F.	Hamilton, right hon. Lord G. F.
Duncombe, A.
Dyke, right hon. Sir W. H.	Hamilton, Lord C. J.
	Hamilton, Lord E.
Eaton, H. W.	Hamilton, Col. C. E.
Ebrington, Viscount	Hamley, General Sir E. B.
Edwards-Moss, T. C.
Egerton, hon. A. J. F.	Hanbury, R. W.
Egerton, hon. A. de T.	Hankey, F. A.
Elcho, Lord	Hardcastle, E.
Elliot, hon. A. R. D.	Hardcastle, F.
Elliot, Sir G.	Hartington, Marq. of
Elliot, G. W.	Hastings, G. W.
Ellis, Sir J. W.	Heathcote, Capt. J. H. Edwards-
Elton, C. I.
Evelyn, W. J.	Heaton, J. H.

Herbert, hon. S.	Maclean, J. M.
Hermon-Holge, E. T.	Maclure, J. W.
Hervey, Lord F.	M'Calmont, Captain J.
Hill, right hon. Lord A. W.	M'Garel-Hogg, Sir J. M.
Hill, Colonel E. S.	Makins, Colonel W. T.
Hill, A. S.	Malcolm, Col. J. W.
Hoare, S.	Mallock, R.
Hobhouse, H.	Manners, rt. hon. Lord J. J. R.
Holland, right hon. Sir H. T.
	March, Earl of
Holmes, rt. hon. H.	Marriott, rt. hn. W. T.
Hornby, W. H.	Maskelyne, M. H. N. Story-
Houldsworth, W. H.
Howard, J.	Matthews, rt. hn. H.
Howorth, H. H.	Maxwell, Sir H. E.
Hozier, J. H. C.	Mayne, Admiral E. C.
Hubbard, rt. hn. J. G.	Mildmay, F. B.
Hubbard, E.	Mills, hon. C. W.
Hughes, Colonel E.	Milvain, T.
Hughes-Hallett, Col. F. C.	More, R. J.
	Morrison, W.
Hulse, E. H.	Mount, W. G.
Hunt, F. S.	Mowbray, rt. hon. Sir J. P.
Hunter, Sir W. G.
Isaacs, L. H.	Mowbray, E. G. C.
Isaacson, F. W.	Mulholland, H. L.
Jackson, W. L.	Muncaster, Lord
James, rt. hon. Sir H.	Muntz, P. A.
Jarvis, A. W.	Murdoch, C. T.
Jennings, L. J.	Newark, Viscount
Johnston, W.	Noble, W.
Kelly, J. R.	Northcote, hon. H. S.
Kennaway, Sir J. H.	Norton, R.
Kenrick, W.	O'Neill, hon. R. T.
Kenyon, hon. G. T.	Parker, hon. F.
Kenyon - Slaney, Col. W.	Pearce, W.
	Telly, Sir L.
Kerans, F. H.	Penton, Captain F. T.
Kimber, H.	Pitt-Lewis, G.
King, H. S.	Plunket, right hon. D. R.
King-Harman, Colonel E. R.
	Plunkett, hon. J. W.
Knatchbull-Hugessen, H. T.	Pomfret, W. P.
	Powell, F. S.
Knightley, Sir R.	Price, Captain G. E.
Knowles, L.	Puleston, J. H.
Lafone, A.	Quilter, W. C.
Lambert, C.	Raikes, rt. hon. H. C.
Laurie, Colonel E. P.	Rankin, J.
Lawrance, J. C.	Rasch, Major F. C.
Lawrence, Sir J. J. T.	Reed, H. B.
Lawrence, W. F.	Richardson, T.
Lea, T.	Ridley, Sir M. W.
Lechmere, Sir E. A. H.	Ritchie, rt. hn. C. T.
Lees, E.	Robertson, J. P. B.
Legh, T. W.	Robertson, W. T.
Leighton, S.	Robinson, B.
Lewis, Sir C. E.	Ross, A. H.
Lewisham, right hon. Viscount	Rothschild, Baron F. J. de
Llewellyn, E. H.	Round, J.
Long, W. H.	Royden, T. B.
Low, M.	Russell, Sir G.
Lowther, hon. W.	Russell, T. W.
Lowther, J. W.	Salt, T.
Lubbock, Sir J.	Sandys, Lieut.-Col. T. M.
Lymington, Viscount
Macartney, W. G. E.	Sclater-Booth, rt. hn. G.
Macdonald, right hon. J. H. A.
	Sellar, A. C.
Mackintosh, C. F.	Selwin - Ibbetson, rt. hon. Sir H. J.
Maclean, F. W.

Selwyn, Captain C. W.	Walsh, hon. A. H. J.
Seton-Karr, H.	Waring, Colonel T.
Shaw-Stewart, M. H.	Watson, J.
Sidebotham, J. W.	Webster, Sir R. E.
Sidebottom, T. H.	Webster, R. G.
Sidebottom, W.	West, Colonel W. C.
Smith, rt. hn. W. H.	Weymouth, Viscount
Smith, A.	Wharton, J. L.
Spencer, J. E.	White, J. B.
Stanhope, rt. hon. E.	Whitley, E.
Stanley, E. J.	Whitmore, C. A.
Sutherland, T.	Wiggin, H.
Swetenham, E.	Wilson, Sir S.
Sykes, C.	Winn, hon. R.
Talbot, J. G.	Wodehouse, E. R.
Taylor, F.	Wolmer, Viscount
Temple, Sir R.	Wood, N.
Theobald, J.	Wortley, C. B. Stuart-
Thorburn, W.	Wright, H. S.
Tollemache, H. J.	Wroughton, P.
Tomlinson, W. E. M.	Yerburgh, R. A.
Tottenham, A. L.
Townsend, F.	TELLERS.
Trotter, H. J.	Douglas, A. Akers-
Tyler, Sir H. W.	Walrond, Col. W. H.
Verdin, R.

NOES.
Abraham, W. (Glam.)	Condon, T. J.
Abraham, W. (Limerick, W.)	Connolly, L.
	Conway, M.
Acland, A. H. D.	Conybeare, C. A. V.
Acland, C. T. D.	Corbet, W. J.
Allison, R. A.	Cossham, H.
Anderson, C. H.	Cox, J. R.
Asher, A.	Cozens-Hardy, H. H.
Asquith, H. H.	Craig, J.
Atherley-Jones, L.	Craven, J.
Austin, J.	Crawford, D.
Balfour, rt. hon. J. B.	Crawford, W.
Barbour, W. B.	Cremer, W. R.
Barran, J.	Crilly, D.
Biggar, J. G.	Crossley, E.
Blake, J. A.	Deasy, J.
Blake, T.	Dillon, J.
Blane, A.	Dillwyn, L. L.
Bolton, J. C.	Dodds, J.
Bolton, T. D.	Ellis, J.
Bradlaugh, C.	Ellis, J. E.
Bright, Jacob	Ellis, T. E.
Bright, W. L.	Esslemont, P.
Broadhurst, H.	Evershed, S.
Bruce, hon. R. P.	Farquharson, Dr. R.
Bryce, J.	Fenwick, C.
Buxton, S. C.	Ferguson, R. C. Munro-
Byrne, G. M.	Finucane, J.
Cameron, C.	Flower, C.
Cameron, J. M.	Flynn, J. C.
Campbell, Sir G.	Foley, P. J.
Campbell, H.	Foljambe, C. G. S.
Campbell - Bannerman, right hon. H.	Forster, Sir C.
	Forster, Sir W. B.
Carew, J. L.	Fowler, rt. hon. H. H.
Chance, P. A.	Fox, Dr. J. F.
Channing, F. A.	Fry, T.
Childers, right hon. H. C. E.	Fuller, G. P.
	Gane, J. L.
Clancy, J. J.	Gardner, H.
Cobb, H. P.	Gaskell, C. G. Milnes-
Cohen, A.	Gilhooly, J.
Coleridge, hon. B.	Gill, H. J.
Colman, J. J.	Gill, T. P.
Commins, A.	Gladstone, rt. hn.W. E.

Gladstone, H. J.	O'Brien, P.
Grey, Sir E.	O'Brien, P. J.
Haldane, R. B.	O'Connor, A.
Hanbury-Tracy, hon. F.S. A.	O'Connor, J. (Kerry)
	O'Connor, T. P.
Harcourt, rt. hn. Sir W. G.V. V.	O'Doherty, J. E.
	O'Hanlon, T.
Harrington. E.	O'Hea, P.
Harrington, T. C.	O'Kelly, J.
Hayden, L. P.	Palmer, Sir C. M.
Hayne, C. Seale-	Peacock, R.
Healy. T. M.	Pease, Sir J. W.
Holden, I.	Pease, A. E.
Hooper, J.	Pease, H. F.
Howell, G.	Pickard, B.
Hoyle, I.	Pickersgill, E. H.
Hunter, W. A.	Picton, J. A.
Illingworth, A,	Playfair, rt. hon. Sir L.
Jacoby, J. A.
James, hon. W. H.	Plowden, Sir W. C.
James, C. H.	Portman, hon. E. B.
Joicey, J.	Potter, T. B.
Jordan, J.	Powell, W.R. H.
Kay-Shuttleworth, rt. hon. Sir U. J.	Power, P. J.
	Power, R.
Kennedy, E. J.	Priestley, B.
Kenny, C. S.	Provand, A. D.
Kenny, J. E.	Pugh, D.
Kenny, M. J.	Pyne, J. D.
Kilcoursie, right hon. Viscount	Quinn, T.
	Rathbone, W.
Lacaita, C. C.	Redmond, W. H. K.
Lalor, R.	Reed, Sir E. J.
Lane, W. J.	Reid, R. T.
Lawson, H. L. W.	Rendel, S.
Leahy, J.	Richard, H.
Leake, R.	Roberts, J.
Lefevre, right. hon. G. J. S.	Roberts, J. B.
	Robertson, E.
Lockwood, F.	Roe, T.
Lyoll, L.	Roscoe, Sir H. E.
Macdonald, W. A.	Rowlands, J.
MacInnes, M.	Rowlands, W. B.
M'Arthur, A.	Rowntree, J.
M'Cartan, M.	Russell, Sir C.
M'Carthy, J.	Samuelson, Sir B.
M'Carthy, J. H.	Schwann, C. E.
M'Donald, P.	Sexton, T.
M'Donald, Dr. E.	Shaw, T.
M'Ewan, W.	Sheehan, J. D.
M'Kenna, Sir J. N.	Sheehy, D.
M'Lagan, P.	Sheil, E.
M'Laren, W. S. B.	Shirley, W. S.
Mahony, P.	Smith, S.
Maitland, W. F.	Stack, J.
Mappin, Sir F. T.	Stanhope, hon. P. J.
Marum, E. M.	Stansfeld, right hon. J.
Mason, S.
Mayne, T.	Stepney-Cowell, Sir A. K.
Menzies, R. S.
Molloy, B. C.	Stevenson, F. S.
Montagu, S.	Stuart, J.
Morgan, rt. hon. G. O.	Sullivan, D.
Morgan, O. V.	Sullivan, T. D.
Morley, rt. hon. J.	Summers, W.
Mundella, right hon. A. J.	Swinburne, Sir J.
	Talbot, C. R. M.
Murphy, W. M.	Tanner, C. K.
Neville, R.	Thomas, A.
Newnes, G.	Tuite, J.
Nolan, Colonel J. P.	Vivian, Sir H. H.
Nolan, J.	Waddy, S. D.
O'Brien, J. F. X.	Wallace, R.

Wardle, H.	Winterbotham, A. B.
Warmington, C. M.	Woodall, W.
Watt, H.	Woodhead, J.
Wayman, T.	Wright, C.
Whitbread, S.	Yeo, F. A.
Will, J. S.
Williams, A. J.	TELLERS.
Williamson, J.	Marjoribanks, rt. hon. E.
Williamson, S.
Wilson, G. H.	Morley, A.
Wilson, H. J.

Main Question put, and agreed to.

Bill considered in Committee; Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.