Commons Sitting of 12 July 1887

MINUTES.
NEW WRIT ISSUED—For Lambeth Borough (Brixton Division), v. Ernest Baggallay, esquire, Steward or Bailiff of Her Majesty's Manor of Northstead in the County of York.
NEW MEMBER SWORN—Thomas Bedford Bolitho, for Western or St. Ives Division, Cornwall.
PRIVATE BILL (by Order)—Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to— Belfast Main Drainage.
PUBLIC BILLS—Ordered—First Reading—Metropolitan Police * [321].
Second Reading—Irish Land Law [308] [Second Wight], debate adjourned; Prison (Officers' Superannuation) (Scotland) * [233]; Sheriff's (Consolidation)* [262].
Report of Select Committee—Public Parks and Works (Metropolis) [No. 219].
Considered as amended—Criminal Law (Scotland) Procedure (No. 2)* [196]; Truck* [299], Further Proceeding deferred.
PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS—Second Reading—Local Government (Ireland) (Dublin, &c,)* [312].
Report—Elementary Education Confirmation (Christchurch)* [296]; Education Department Confirmation (London) * [298].

PRIVATE BUSINESS.
  BELFAST MAIN DRAINAGE BILL (by Order).

    LORDS' AMENDMENTS. [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [20th June], "That the Amendments made by The Lords to the Belfast Main Drainage Bill, be now taken into consideration."
    Question again proposed.
    Debate resumed.
    MR. EWART: Before this Bill is finally disposed of, I will, with the permission of the House, make a few remarks as to the position of the promoters. A great deal of misapprehension exists as to their actions and intention. It has been stated, here and elsewhere, that they were opposed to the extension of the municipal franchise in Ireland; but than this nothing can be more incorrect, and the reverse of that is the truth of the matter. May I recall to the memory of the House the fact that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Armagh (Sir James Corry), early in the Session, introduced a Bill for the assimilation of the municipal franchise in Ireland to that existing in England? That was a general Bill extending to all the boroughs of Ireland. That Bill met with opposition in a quarter from which the House might well be surprised to find it come; it was blocked by hon. Members below the Gangway on the other side.
    MR. SEXTON: I would warn the hon. Member that these remarks of his may lead to prolonged debate if he continues thorn.
    MR. EWART: I will not occupy the time of the House at length; but, in justice to myself and the promoters of the Bill, I feel bound to give some explanation why we to-day agree to these Amendments to this measure.
    MR. SPEAKER: I do not think a general review of the history of the Bill will be in Order.
    Message to attend the Lords' Commissioners;—
    The House went; and being returned;—
    MR. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to several Bills.

  BELFAST MAIN DRAINAGE BILL
  (by Order).
  MR. EWARTresumed: It was my wish to say a few words in explanation and justification of the action of the promoters of this Bill; but in deference to an appeal made to me, and the feeling that seems to indicate that no such statement is required, I will content myself by saying that the promoters of the Bill will take every means to have the Amendments which were settled yesterday in the Franchise Bill carried out in the House of Lords.
  MR. SEXTON: I understand that the hon. Baronet the Member for Mid Armagh has undertaken to give a public engagement to a similar effect.
  SIR JAMES CORRY: I may say that we have agreed with the hon. Member as to Amendments and the Franchise Bill in "another place," and every expedition will be used to carry out this understanding.
  MR. SEXTON: With the assurance that the promoters will exert their influence in "another place," to have the matter definitely closed upon the understanding arrived at, I assent to the Lords' Amendments.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Lords' Amendments considered.
  MR. SEXTON: I just wish to say that it was the introduction of Amendments in "another place" last year that led to all the trouble in reference to this Bill. This House inserted a clause extending the municipal franchise in Belfast to householders, and the House of Lords struck out the clause on the unreasonable plea that the Examiner on Standing Orders found that the clause was not in the original advertisement issued by the promoters. But it was impossible that it could be; the promoters had no intention of inserting a Franchise Clause, and not only so, but they opposed it when it was inserted, and struggled against it. As I have already said, the Examiner mistook his function, and the Committee on Standing Orders fortified him in his error; and the House of Lords, I con-
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  ceive, acted unconstitutionally by denying the right of this House to insert any clause in any Bill at its discretion. Standing Orders are for the protection of the public interest against promoters of Private Bills; but no standing Order of the other House can cancel the right of this House to insert any Amendment in a Bill. If this matter had not been brought to a settlement—an amicable settlement—I should have felt it my duty to contest this action of the House of Lords on Constitutional grounds, and to press the House to restore the clause excluded by the Lords; but I am happy to say the Lords have seen fit to avoid the necessity for a further discussion of the Constitutional question, and I am relieved from further argument in reference to this Bill. Both Houses have now agreed to a Public Bill by which the municipal franchise is extended to all householders and ratepayers of Belfast, and this franchise will be made applicable to the Register for the present year. The Bill prescribes that the whole of the Town Council shall go out of office next November, and until the new franchise has been exercised there will be no action taken, and no liabilities incurred upon the scheme now before us in this Bill. I am satisfied with that. I believe the House has wisely and effectually protected the householders and ratepayers of Belfast from any action by the existing Council in reference to this Bill. The Council never consulted the ratepayers, never gave them an opportunity of forming an opinion. It is an effete body; it has no representative character or moral authority, and has disgraced itself by its stealthy action in reference to this Bill. I certainly should never have assented to this Bill if power had remained in the hands of this Council; but the Council is tied hand and foot, it is placed in a straight waistcoat, and there is nothing left for it but to await its dying moment with no power over this scheme. In view of the pledge that has been given, in view of our having arrived at a decisive agreement, there remaining, I think, only one word in dispute, I make no attempt to further delay the passage of this Bill. Though the Belfast Main Drainage Bill is an old friend of mine, I part with it without regret, and I am sure I may add that the House is not sorry to see "the last of it. I would beg hon. Gentlemen oppo-

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  site to believe that my opposition was directed by an imperative sense of public duty; and they will admit that though there were times when it was attended with some inconvenience, my opposition has been justified by the practical test of success.
  Lords' Amendments agreed to.
  MR. EWART: In view of what has taken place, it is not my intention to move the clause of which I have given Notice.

QUESTIONS.

  FISHERY BOARD (SCOTLAND)—LOANS TO FISHERMEN UNDER THE CROFTERS' ACT.
  DR. CLARK(for Dr. R. MACDONALD)asked the Lord Advocate, How many applications have been made to the Scotch Fishery Board, under the Crofters' Act, for boats and gear; how many applications have been granted; if few or none, why they have not been granted; and, seeing that the fishing season in the North is rapidly passing by, whether pressure can be brought on the said Board to expedite their decisions, in order to save men, who have stayed at home all the season (in hopes of getting boats and nets, but unsuccessfully), from starvation and bankruptcy during the coming winter season?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H.A. MACDONALD): Up to the present date 236 applications for loans have been received by the Board. No loans have as yet been granted by the Board. The Board lost no time in issuing forms of application, &c, to all those who have expressed a desire for a loan; but in consequence of misapprehension as to the terms on which loans can be obtained, and the great local difficulties experienced in making necessary examination and Reports, time has been unavoidably occupied in obtaining Reports from the officers of the Board. These Reports, however, have been within the last few days coming in in greater numbers, so that the Board will be enabled to proceed. The Secretary for Scotland is in correspondence with the Board, and every endeavour will be made to expedite their decisions.
  DR. CLARKasked, if the Government still intended to continue the present restriction on loans—that was
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  to require the men to provide one-third before granting any loan?
  MR. J. H. A. MACDONALDasked that Notice of the Question should be given.

  ARMY—PROMOTIONS IN THE ROYAL ARTILLERY.
  CAPTAIN COTTONasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether his attention has been called to the fact that there has been no promotion to the ranks of Lieutenant Colonel or Major in the Royal Artillery during the present year (Indian lists excepted); and, whether any steps are to be taken to remedy the stagnation in these and other ranks of the same regiment?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. E. STANHOPE): On account of reductions in the establishment of Lieutenant Colonels and Majors in the Royal Artillery, there has not been any recent promotions to these ranks. The subject of how these reductions shall take effect has been under my consideration and that of the Treasury; but I hope it will shortly be settled.

  LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—LEITRIM ASSIZES—ARREST OF JOHN MELLEY.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the following report of certain proceedings at the Leitrim Assizes, reported in The Freeman's Journal of the 7th instant:—
  "At the conclusion of the Assizes, Mr. Taylor, B.L., applied to his Lordship for the discharge of John Melley, of Bundoran, a witness for the defence in the case of Johnston and others, who were charged with White-boyism near Kinlough, on the night of the 16th June last. Melley was arrested without a warrant or any legal process;
  "The Chief Baron pronounced the arrest unconstitutional and illegal without a warrant, and ordered Melley's discharge;" and, under what circumstances Melley was arrested, and on what charge, and by whom?
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel KING-HARMAN)(who replied) said: John Melley was produced as a witness for the defence in the case of six men who were on trial at the Leitrim Assizes on the charge of having, with others not identified, attacked the house

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  of a man, and brutally assaulted him and his two sisters. Melley was at once recognized in Court by the assaulted man as one of the persons present when the outrage took place. The Head Constable subsequently ordered his arrest. The Judge, in ordering the police to discharge Melley, stated, that the arrest without a warrant was merely an error of judgment. A warrant for Melley's arrest has since been issued.
  MR. MAURICE HEALY: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has not answered the Question whether the Judge denounced the arrest as unconstitutional and illegal?
  COLONEL KING-HARMAN: My information is that what the Judge said was that the arrest without a warrant was merely an error of judgment.
  MR. MAURICE HEALY: Do I understand the right hon. and gallant Gentleman to say that the Judge made no such statement as that alleged in The Freeman's Journal report—namely, that the arrest was unconstitutional and illegal?
  COLONEL KING-HARMAN: I have given you the answer, and I believe it is correct.
  MR. MAURICE HEALY: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman make further inquiries into the matter?
  [No reply.]
  MR. CONWAY: I wish to ask the right hon. and gallant Gentleman, whether he will do what my hon. Friend asks him—whether he will undertake to make a further inquiry into this matter, and obtain additional particulars?
  COLONEL KING-HARMANintimated that he would institute further inquiries.

  LUNATIC ASYLUMS (IRELAND)—APPOINTMENT OF A PRESBYTERIAN CHAPLAIN TO THE CORK ASYLUM.
  MR. MAURICE HEALYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether the Rev. Matthew Kerr was recently appointed Presbyterian Chaplain to the Cork Lunatic Asylum at a salary of £ 12 a-year; whether the Lord Lieutenant has refused to sanction the appointment on the grounds of the fewness of the Presbyterian inmates; what provision is intended to be made for the religious instruction of the Presbyterian inmates;
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  what number of inmates professing a particular creed are necessary to obtain the sanction of His Excellancy to the appointment of a chaplain for them; whether he is aware that in many Irish workhouses where the Protestant inmates do not amount to half-a-dozen, chaplains of that faith are appointed with the sanction of the Local Government Board; and, whether there is any difference in practice on this point between workhouses and lunatic asylums; and, if so, why?
  HE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel KING-HARMAN)(who replied)said, that objection was first taken to the appointment; but the matter was now under re-consideration.
  MR. MAURICE HEALY: When will the final decision be given in the matter?
  COLONEL KING-HARMAN: As soon as possible.

  THE MAGISTRACY (IRELAND)—DR. HARTY, CORONER, KINGSTOWN.
  MR. P. M'DONALDasked Mr. Attorney General for Ireland, Whether complaints have reached him that in the case of an inquest on the body of a man named Patrick Rogan, who was found drowned in Kingstown Harbour on the afternoon of Friday the 1st instant, the Coroner, Dr. Harty, did not attend to hold the inquest till 3 o'clock in the afternoon of the 4th, although he had issued his precept to have the jury summoned for 2 o'clock; whether his attention has been drawn to the rider appended by the jury to their verdict, in which they express their opinion that the inquest should have been held on Saturday the 2nd instant, and attaching blame to the Coroner for not holding it on that date, as they considered it wrong to have kept the body of deceased so many days without interment in this hot weather; whether Dr. Harty refused to take the verdict from the jury with the rider reflecting on himself, and threatened to lock them up till they had found a verdict without the rider; whether it was found that the Coroner had neglected to take notes of the evidence given by the witnesses at the inquest; whether complaints have reached him that it has been customary for Dr. Harty to keep juries waiting for a considerable time alter the hour at

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  which they have been summoned before he attends to hold the inquest; and, whether, in face of these alleged neglects of duty on the part of the Coroner, it is the intention of the Lord Chancellor for Ireland to take any steps in the matter?
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDEsaid, he also wished to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman, Whether he was aware that at a meeting of the Kingstown Town Commissioners the Chairman commented strongly on the matter; that the medical officer had stated he was powerless to have the body removed until the Coroner had held an inquest; and that the Council had ordered their executive sanitary officer to prepare a Report of the case for the Government?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON), in reply, said, he was not able to reply to the Question of the hon. Baronet. He would point out that the office of Coroner was an elective office, and that the Lord Chancellor, as such, had no control over him, and that he should be removed by a judicial decision. He trusted, however, that the effect of the Question would be to induce the Coroner to give no further cause of complaint.
  MR. W. J. CORBET: I wish to ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman, whether he is aware that this is the same Coroner who threatened to lock up a jury at the Criminal Lunatic Asylum, Dundrum, unless they returned a particular verdict?
  MR. GIBSON: I really am not aware at all.

  ADMIRALTY—SHIPBUILDING—THE ROYAL DOCKYARDS.
  MR. PULESTONasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether it has been definitely determined to build two of the five new cruisers by contract, so that prices may check one another; whether the new arrangements and appointments in the Admiralty and the Dockyards were ostensibly made to secure the more effective supervision; whether it is found now that these are ineffective, or that work cannot be as well and as cheaply done in the Dockyards as in private yards; whether, when the original estimate for ships built in the Dockyards is exceeded, it is owing to changes made during construction; and,
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  whether, if the accounts of ships built in the Dockyards were kept in the same manner as the accounts kept for those built in private yards, it could be shown that the actual cost of the former is not so great as that of the latter?
  THE FIRST LORD (Lord GEOEGE HAMILTON): Two of the five new cruisers will be built by contract. The new arrangements made for supervision of work in the Dockyards have secured good results, as is shown by the fact that for the first time for many years past there was no Supplementary Dockyard Vote for the past year. The excess over estimates for ships built in Dockyards has not always been due to changes made during construction; but under the present arrangements we believe that instead of ships' estimates for building being exceeded they will be built within the estimates. I am not conversant with the methods of account kept for ships built in private yards; but I imagine they include depreciation of plant, which is not charged in Dockyard-built ships. The present Board of Admiralty are of opinion that the Dockyards should build the great bulk of the ships required for the Navy; and this year out of 13 ships of different types 11 have been, or will be, laid down in the Dockyards.

  POST OFFICE (IRELAND)—COMMUNICATION BETWEEN SKIBBEREEN AND BALTIMORE.
  MR. MAURICE HEALY(for Dr. KENNY)asked the Postmaster General, Whether the mail car between Skibbereen and Baltimore has been discontinued, and a rural messenger substituted, who has to walk 19 miles a day, taking letters and parcels to and from Old Court Creagh, Loughine, Baltimore, Sherkin Island, and Cape Clear Island; whether he is aware that a piscatorial school is to be opened on the 18th August next at Baltimore, the existence of which is likely to add considerably to the postal work; what the difference in cost as between the mail car and a rural messenger is; and, whether, under the circumstances, he will consider the advisability of continuing the mail car at any rate till the end of the year?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES): The

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  Skibbereen and Baltimore Mail Car, which runs during the fishing season, has not yet been discontinued. The postman's walk is 16½ miles in length, performed on week days only. There is no foot-post on Sundays. He carries letters and parcels for the places named. A school in connection with the fishery is, I understand, about to be opened at Baltimore; but I cannot say to what extent it will affect the correspondence for that place. The difference in cost between a service by mail car throughout the year and a service by rural messenger would be the entire cost of the mail car—say, £60 or £70 a-year; so it would be necessary to retain the rural messenger to perform the road delivery. As I promised the hon. Member for West Cork (Mr. Gilhooly), who put a Question to me on the subject in May last, I will cause further accounts of letters to be taken at the end of the fishing season, with a view to reconsidering this matter.
  MR. MAURICE HEALY: The fishing season will end on the 16th of July; and will the right hon. Gentleman have the car continued until hs has ascertained the result of the inquiries he proposes to institute?
  MR. RAIKESThat is my intention, Sir.

  BOARD OF WORKS (IRELAND)—REMOVAL OF THE LOO ROCK, BALTIMORE HARBOUR.
  MR. GILHOOLYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, When the Board of Works proposes to commence the removal of the Loo Rock at the entrance to Baltimore Harbour, in accordance with the promise given, the weather now being extremely favourable?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON)(who replied) said, he was not aware that any promise was given to remove the rock in question. The original plan was to erect a beacon or perch upon it; but, after consultation with the representatives of the inhabitants, the Commissioners of Public Works had decided to place a buoy in the neighbourhood of the rock, and were now only waiting the consent of the Commissioners of Irish Lights in order to carry out the revised plan.

  PALACE OF WESTMINSTER—AN UNVENTILATED CELLAR UNDER THE HOUSE OF COMMONS.
  MR. BOND(for Colonel HAMBRO)asked, the First Commissioner of Works, If he is aware that there is a cellar in the House of Commons, the superficial area of which is 18 feet by 12, into which no natural light or fresh air can enter, or foul or heated air from the gas (which is always burning) can escape, except through the doorway, which opens into a passage lit with gas, and is 19 yards from the external atmosphere, and that in this cellar, the temperature of which is seldom below 80 degrees, three men in the employment of the House have to work at a dirty and laborious occupation on an average of 15 hours a-day throughout the Session; and, if he will take immediate steps to have this cellar closed as a workroom?
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER (Mr. PLUNKET): The cellar to which my attention has been called is really a scullery used in connection with the Kitchen and the Members' Dining Room, and is in a convenient position for that purpose. I have myself inquired into its sanitary condition; and while I found that the drainage had been quite recently renewed and was in an excellent condition, the ventilation was, undoubtedly, in a bad state. There was, however, an air shaft from the ceiling which had not been used for some time. This shaft has now been put in use, with the result that a considerable current of air is now passing through the room.

  WALES—THE TITHE AGITATION—THE DISTURBANCES AT LLANGWM— THE TRIAL OF THE RIOTERS.
  MR. BOWEN ROWLANDSasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to a paragraph in The Daily News of Friday, 8th July, which states that—
  "The trial of prisoners charged with being concerned in the Llangwm Riots was resumed yesterday at Ruthin.…The wife of one of the defendants having died, permission for him to go home was asked; but as the prosecution opposed it the Bench could not permit him so to do. The defendant afterwards fainted;"
  whether the prosecution has been instituted or is being conducted by or on

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  behalf of the Government; and, whether the Government will in any case inquire into the truth of the above statement; and, if found to be true, take any action in the matter?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I have obtained a Report from the Clerk to the Justices on this matter. He informs me that, after some discussion in Court, he advised the Justices that, according to Statute, the accused must be present in Court when the depositions were taken. The Justices thereupon, after expressing their sympathy with the defendant, declined to let him go home, as it would be illegal to take the case in his absence. The case was then proceeded with for about two hours, when the defendant had a slight fainting fit. He was immediately removed, and proper remedies having been applied he returned into Court, and during the remainder of the sitting was accommodated with a seat on the Bench near a window. Subsequently the Court agreed to adjourn over Monday to enable the defendant to attend the funeral of his wife, and accordingly on Friday evening the Court was adjourned. The defendant then came forward and said he desired to thank the Bench for the consideration they had shown towards him and for their kind expressions of sympathy. The prosecution was instituted, and is being conducted, by the Solicitor to the Treasury.
  MR. BOWEN ROWLANDSsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had hardly answered the Question which he put— whether the Justices had declined to adjourn? He wanted to know why they did not postpone taking the depositions until the defendant had an opportunity of going home, and of recovering from the shock, and making arrangements with regard to his wife's funeral?
  MR. MATTHEWSsaid, that the answer which he had just given showed that although the Justices did not adjourn at once, they adjourned after two or three hours, and for several days, to enable the defendant to go home.
  MR. T. E. ELLISinquired, how it was that the Court did not adjourn, especially in view of the fact that the defendant had only three days' notice of the trial?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am not able to answer that Question.

  HARBOURS (IRELAND)—THE FLOATING DOCK AT LIMERICK.
  MR. H. J. GILLasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether he is aware that great injury has been sustained by the Floating Dock at Limerick owing to the subsidence of the dock wall; whether, in 1864, only 10 years after the completion of the works, a portion of the river wall fell out, and had to be re-built by the Board of Works, at a cost of about £2,790; whether other portions of the dock and river wall are now in great danger of falling in, and thereby causing much inconvenience to the trade, as well as loss to the revenue, of the Port of Limerick; whether those dock works were built by the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, under their sole supervision, and upon their design; had the Limerick Harbour Commissioners any control over the construction of the works; will he inquire whether the subsidence of the dock wall was the result of the original defective construction of the works, or of what other cause; in case the Limerick Harbour Commissioners should be unable to undertake the construction of the works, from want of funds or other causes, will the Treasury, or the Board of Works, be prepared to supply funds to repair and restore the works, if it should appear that such necessity has arisen from their defective construction originally; whether, in view of the fact that the Limerick Harbour Commissioners have paid up all their liabilities to the Treasury in respect of advances for those works, on the assumption of their stability and permanent character, the Harbour Commissioners will now be called upon to defray the cost of the restoration of the works; and, will any assurance be given, on behalf of the above named Public Departments, that some immediate action will be taken towards the restoration of the works, and the prevention of further damage to other parts of the docks?
  THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON): It is impossible, within the limits of an answer to a Question, to deal with the points raised by the hon. Member. Briefly stated, the connection of the Government with the Port of Limerick has been as follows:—In 1824 a loan of £60,000 was made for the

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  construction of a bridge and tidal basin. In 1831 a further sum of £70,000 was advanced for the completion and improvement of these works. In 1846 a Receiver, on behalf of the Board of Works, was in receipt of the revenues of the Port; but the Government of the day consented, in deference to strong local representations, to spend £54,000 on the dock referred to in the Question of the hon. Member. Up to 1867 £179,384 had been spent on the Port, entirely from National Funds, and the annual charge amounted to between £6,000 and £7,000. In that year the Government made remissions amounting to £169,919, of which £114,248 was principal and £55,671 interest, leaving a debt on the Port of £59,414, and reducing the annual charge from £6,000 or £7,000 to £2,014. Since 1867 the Harbour Commissioners have been in charge of the Port, and I am not prepared to go behind the arrangement then made.

  INLAND NAVIGATION AND DRAINAGE (IRELAND)—LOUGH CORRIB DRAINAGE DISTRICTS.
  MR. PINKERTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If he is aware that several meetings of ratepayers or the Lough Corrib (County Galway) drainage districts have been held, to protest against the neglect of the Drainage Trustees, in allowing the main drains to become silted up, thereby causing serious injury to the property of occupiers and owners of land by frequent flooding; if, at the Land Commission Court held in Galway, evidence was given by 37 tenants to the effect that for several years their property, including crops and live stock, had been destroyed, and that, in consequence, they had been reduced to poverty; if he is aware that Memorials have been forwarded from those meetings of ratepayers to the Lord Lieutenant, asking him to urge upon the Commissioners of Public Works the necessity of sending a properly qualified engineer down to examine and report; if the Commissioners, when so requested, refused to do so unless they first received a deposit of £30, which sum they promised to refund if the Commissioners carried out the work; and what steps, if any, he
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  intends to take in order that these poor people may obtain relief?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON), in reply, said, that the facts were as stated in the Question. The Memorialists stated themselves to be ratepayers, lessees, and occupiers under the 5th section of the Drainage Maintenance Act. The Commissioners of Public Works, after receiving a Memorial, may appoint an engineer to inspect and report on the state of the works, and furnish estimates and specifications. By the 9th section they may require the applicants to pay, or secure themselves in, a sum sufficient to defray preliminary expenses. When the Report of the engineer was received the Board called upon the Trustees to show cause why the Board should not proceed with the works; and if they failed to show cause, the Board proceeded to carry out the works, and the sum lodged for preliminary expenses was refunded to the persons who lodged it, as the preliminary expenses become part of the cost of the work, which, on the completion of the work, becomes a charge on the district. The Board hoped to be able to carry out the inspection in this case for £20; and they informed the Memorialists that they could not undertake an inspection unless the amount was lodged, for without a lodgment no funds were available for the purpose of making an inspection.

  PRISONS (ENGLAND AND WALES)—ALLEGED ILL-TREATMENT OF A LUNATIC IN STAFFORD COUNTY GAOL.
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If his attention has been called to the alleged ill-treatment of a lunatic named Jones, in the Stafford County Gaol; and whether any, and what, steps are being taken to inquire into the matter?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): Yes, Sir; a letter was received at the Home Office late last night from Mr. Hunt, the lunatic's solicitor, alleging ill-treatment. The complaint has been referred to the Governor of the Gaol for immediate report, the result of which I shall be happy to communicate to the hon. Member.

  WAR OFFICE—THE ROYAL JUBILEE REVIEW AT ALDERSHOT.
  MR. CONYBEARE(for Mr. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM)asked the Secretary of State for War, If he would produce a copy of the Regimental Orders of each regiment and battalion at Aldershot on the evening previous to the review; and, if not, if he would state the hour at which the different battalions were ordered to fall in on the private parade grounds; and, if all the regiments had water bottles, and all the battalions water carts, or only some of them?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. E. STANHOPE): I cannot undertake to produce the Regimental Orders asked for, as I do not think it would be in the interests of discipline. The manner in which reviews at Aldershot are conducted, and the arrangements about water-carts, water-bottles, and other details, are matters which are left—and I think very properly left—to the Military Authorities on the spot. Until I see reason to believe that they failed in the exercise of the power thus entrusted to them, I do not propose to institute what is practically an inquiry into the manner in which they perform their duty. The House generally may be glad to learn that, as I am informed, not a single man fell out during the march past at Aldershot.

  EVICTIONS (IRELAND)— GWEEDORE, CO. DONEGAL.
  MR. O'HEAasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If an application has been made to the authorities for military and police to assist in carrying out a series of evictions on the estate of Captain Hill, at Gweedore, County Donegal; if his attention has been called to an article which appeared in The Londonderry Sentinel of the 9th June—
  "But, in addition to the execution of the 60 ejectment decrees, the procedure in connection with which will be the putting out of the inmates and furniture and the securing up of the doors, opportunity will be taken to execute some 37 warrants in cases where tenants have been re-instated as caretakers, and have failed to redeem within the stipulated period of six months. In these instances the houses will be pulled down and final possession taken over by the agent on behalf of the landlord;"
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  and, in what capacity has Colonel Stewart been sent to Gweedore, or has his presence there any connection with these "contemplated evictions?"
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel KING-HARMAN)(who replied)said, the hon. Member had favoured him with a copy of the newspaper referred to. He did not know on what evidence the statement in the paper had been made. He understood, however, that the Sheriff had told the County Inspector of Constabulary that it was possible he would make application for military and police protection in this case for some day not yet fixed. Gweedore was made the headquarters of a Resident Magistrate, and Colonel Stewart, as one of the Resident Magistrates, had been sent there.
  MR. O'HEAasked, if the right hon. and gallant Gentleman would say whether it was in expectation of the evictions that Colonel Stewart was sent to Gweedore?
  COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, Colonel Stewart was not sent in consequence of expected evictions; but because the whole of the district had been in a disturbed state for some time.

  WALES—THE TITHE AGITATION THE DISTURBANCES AT LLANGWM—TRIAL OF THE RIOTERS AT RUTHIN.
  MR. OSBORNE MORGANasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether it is the fact that the 31 persons accused of taking part in the disturbances at Llangwm were summoned to the Petty Sessions at Ruthin (which is 18 miles distant from Llangwm, and not connected with it by any public conveyance) instead of Cerrig-y-Druidion (which is close to Llangwm), because the magistrates could not be forced to sit together at the latter place; whether the difficulty in making aquorum at Cerrig-y-Druidion arises from a personal quarrel between the four Justices of the Peace resident in that Petty Sessional Division, or some of them; and, whether (if the fact be so), he will draw the attention of the Lord Chancellor to the hardship inflicted upon these 31 defendants (most of whom are very poor men) and their witnesses by their having to proceed on foot over so great a distance to answer a charge

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  which might have been preferred against them close to their own homes?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): As already stated to the House on May 12, in answer to the hon. Member for Merionethshire (Mr. T. E. Ellis), whatever difficulty there may be in making a quorum of the Bench at Cerrig-y-Druidion arises not from a personal quarrel between the Justices, but from the paucity of their number. The issuing of summonses in the Llangwm case from Ruthin instead of Cerrig-y-Druidion was not due to any such difficulty in making a quorum at Cerrig-y-Druidion; but was determined upon by those in charge of the prosecution, principally on the ground that at Cerrig-y-Druidion there was no proper Court accommodation for the numerous defendants and witnesses.

  HEREDITARY REVENUE OF THE CROWN—THE RECEIVER.
  MR. HANBURYasked the Secretary to the Treasury, What is the total annual cost of the Office of the Receiver of Hereditary Revenue; whether he performs any other duty than that of such Receiver; and, what has been the annual amount received by him during the last five years in respect of such Hereditary Revenue only?
  THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON): The total annual cost of the Office is £445 (£300 salary of Receiver, and £145 Office expenses). He also collects some fines which are not part of the Hereditary Revenue—such as fines under the Merchant Shipping Act and the Explosives Act. The amount received by him during the last five years in respect of Hereditary Revenue only has been £7,821, averaging £1,504 per annum. His other civil receipts have amounted in the five years to £12,322.

  ADMIRALTY—DEVONPORT AND OTHER DOCKYARDS—DISCHARGE OF WORKMEN.
  MR. CONYBEAREasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether it is the fact that, on Saturday, 30 shipwrights were discharged from and left Devonport Dockyard; that the same number of mechanics were given notice to quit a week hence; and that an average of about 30 men,
  512
  mostly all shipwrights, will be discharged from the yard each week for the next two months; what is the total number of mechanics, shipwrights, and other Dockyard men who have been discharged from the Devonport and other Dockyards respectively, since the month of November last, when these discharges commenced; whether it is contemplated to continue these discharges, and to what extent; whether the Admiralty contemplate reducing the strength of the employés in other Departments; and, whether the Admiralty have, at the same time, dispensed with the services, or cut down the salaries, of any, and which, of the superior officials connected with the said Dockyard?
  THE FIRST LORD (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON): The number of men in the Dockyards was last year largely in excess of the requirements of the Service, and we have had imposed upon us the unpleasant duty of discharging the redundant number of hired men, who ought in past years to have been discharged at the completion of the work for which they were engaged, and we must continue these reductions until the numbers are adjusted to the work to be done. The salaries of nearly the whole of the superior officials were fixed when the numbers of men employed were much lower than they are present; and these officers, as well as the shipwrights and other employés on the establishment, are, in contradistinction to the hired men, entitled to continuous employment.

  STATE OF IRELAND—CHARGE OF MR. JUSTICE O'BRIEN AT CLARE ASSIZES.
  MR. J. E. ELLISasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether it is the fact that Mr. Justice O'Brien, when presiding at the current Clare Assizes, said—
  "The criminal business you will have to deal with at the present Assizes, in performance of your duty as Grand Jurors, consists of but very few cases."
  THECHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): If the hon. Member wishes for more information about Mr. Justice O'Brien's Charge, I am bound to oblige him; and I will read the two lines contained in his Question with so much of the context as is necessary to understand them—

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  "The criminal business you will have to deal with at the present Assizes, in performance of your duty as Grand Jurors, consists of but very few cases, those of any moment among those few being cases which, by reason of their having been committed in the presence of the constabulary, did not require any sympathy on the part of the community to make them answerable for the actual offences of any kind that have been committed since last Assizes. The cases that will be laid before you constitute but a very trifling amount. Indeed, from all the accounts that I have received as to the state of this county in the interval since last Assizes, on which occasion it became my duty to take a survey of its condition in reference to the maintenance of the law and public order, all these accounts concur in representing that no kind of improvement whatsoever has been made in the county. The information that I have been able to collect of various kinds, consisting in the communications of official persons whose duty it is to take part in the administration of the law, or actual reports of offences committed, and other information I have received—those, I regret to say, lead me to the inevitable conclusion that this County of Clare possesses the bad distinction of being the worst part of Ireland in respect of social disturbance and disorder; and to the further conclusion, not less inevitable, that this County of Clare is worse at present than at any time before, oven as to actual crime, compared with the corresponding period last year."
  MR. J. E. ELLISasked, whether the calendar of crime did not show a decided improvement?
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, he had not checked the account given by the Judge with the actual figures in the calendar.
  MR. M. J. KENNY: I should like the right hon. Gentleman to say if Judge O'Brien himself examined the Return laid before the House of outrages in Clare for the past three months; and whether he is aware that the Charge was made in a constituency where Judge O'Brien was defeated as a Home Rule candidate?
  MR. CONYBEARE: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether the outrages perpetrated at Bodyke were in the Return laid before Judge O'Brien?
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, he had been unable to dissect the statistics or the information upon which Mr. Justice O'Brien administered the law—administered justice. It was for the House and the public to judge.

  PRISONS (SCOTLAND)—SALARY OF MEDICAL OFFICERS OF GLASGOW.
  MR. CALDWELLasked the Secretary to the
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  Treasury, Whether his attention has been called to the small sum paid to the Medical Officer of Glasgow (Duke Street) Prison as compared with the sums paid to the Medical Officers of Liverpool, Wakefield, and Strangeways Prisons; and, whether he is prepared to place Glasgow on a more equal position with similar prisons in England?
  THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON), in reply, said, that his attention had been called to this question both by the hon. Member and by other hon. Members; but he could not admit the justice of the suggestion made by the hon. Member in the Question. The surgeon referred to was on the highest scale allowed to medical officers in Scottish prisons; and quite recently the Treasury allowed him to have the maximum of his scale two years before it would have been due in the ordinary course. He might add, what perhaps the hon. Member was aware of, that this question was still under consideration. It was, for the moment, out of the hands of the Treasury, and in the hands of the Scottish Office; but he should not neglect the matter.
  MR. CALDWELL: Is there any reason why the scale of Prison Medical Officers' salaries should be different in Scotland from what they are in England?
  MR. JACKSONsaid, he was afraid he could not answer a Question of that sort off-hand. What he had to deal with was, as far as possible, to see that the scale already fixed was adhered to, unless there was some good reason stated for departing from it.

  THE JUBILEE DAY IN LONDON—MEDALS FOR THE METROPOLITAN POLICE.
  MR. PICKERSGILLasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the medals which it is proposed to bestow on the Metropolitan Police are to be provided at the public expense; and, if so, whether he will reconsider the matter, with a view to make a more suitable acknowledgment of the services of the police on the 21st June last?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): The cost of the medals will be provided out of the Metropolitan Police Fund. It is

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  not my intention to reconsider the matter, the Chief Commissioner being of opinion that the grant of a day's pay and three days' extra holiday on full pay, in addition to these commemorative medals, would be appreciated by the Force as a recognition of their services; and the available funds at the disposal of the Commissioners do not admit of a larger recognition, even if that were desirable.

  WAR OFFICE (ORDNANCE DEPARTMENT)—CONTRACT FOR HIDES.
  COLONEL HUGHES-HALLETTasked the Surveyor General of the Ordnance, Whether the hides returned to Messrs. Ross, re-dressed by them and now supposed to be fit for reissue, were reported in the first instance as having been damaged, if not virtually destroyed, by the action of chemicals in the process of tanning; and, if so, if any amount of re-dressing could possibly make them really serviceable, or otherwise than "worthless," as reported by the Inspector General of Cavalry?
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY, WAR DEPARTMENT (Mr. BRODRICK)(who replied)said: The Colonel commanding the 2nd Dragoons suggested that one hide had been destroyed by chemicals in the process of tanning; but this statement proves to be incorrect, and the hides have been found in thoroughly serviceable condition.

  PUBLIC WORKS AND IMPROVEMENTS (IRELAND) —ALLOCATION OF THE GOVERNMENT SUBVENTION OF £50,000.
  MR. W. A. MACDONALDasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Between what objects and in what proportions it is proposed to allocate the sum of £50,000, granted by the Chancellor of the Exchequer for purposes of Irish improvement?
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel KING-HARMAN)(who replied)said: The Government propose to devote the larger part of this sum to drainage works of a character that can be carried out without the necessity of waiting for preliminary legislation, £12,000 being allocated to works on the Shannon, £6,000 to the Bann, and £5,000 to the Barrow. This is exclusive
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  of £7,000 for preliminary inquiries, with a view to the preparation of a general scheme and legislation next Session for the Barrow and elsewhere, making a total of £30,000 for drainage purposes. It is also proposed to devote £5,000 to the completion of works undertaken by the Piers and Roads Commission for the relief of distress last year in the Counties of Galway and Mayo; £5,000, to be administered through the Royal Dublin Society, as prizes for the purpose of promoting improvement in the breed of horses and cattle; £5,000 as a grant to the Industrial Fisheries School at Baltimore; £1,000 for the establishment of a technical school in connection with the Donegal Industrial Fund; and £750 for the enlargement of the Munster Dairy School. Some minor questions and rival claims remain to be settled; but it is hoped that the estimate for the whole sum will be ready to be submitted to the House within a few days.
  MR. HAYDENasked, what was the nature of the proposed works on the Shannon?
  COLONEL KING-HARMANsaid, they were arterial drainage works.
  MR. HAYDEN: Will they not have the effect of saving the Government an annual charge?
  COLONEL KING-HARMAN: If the hon. Gentleman will put the Question on the Paper, I will be able to understand it.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman say if he understands this Question —How soon is it intended to commence the drainage works on the Bann?
  COLONEL KING-HARMAN: As soon as possible.
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the statement of the Parliamentary Under Secretary as to the allocation of the £50,000 was prepared under his guidance and under the sanction of the Treasury; and upon what principle the different sums had been arrived at; and under whose directions and whose approval?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEST)asked the hon. Gentleman to put the Question down on the Paper. He imagined the natural time to discuss the matter would be when the Estimate was brought up.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman stated a month ago that he himself would give this information to the House.

  THE METROPOLITAN POLICE FORCE—HELMETS AND CLOTHING FOR SUMMER WEAR.
  MR. QUILTERasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the Government will consider the desirability of supplying to the police a helmet of a lighter colour, and something in the nature of a blouse for wear on duty during the summer months?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I stated, in reply to a Question in September last, that the Chief Commissioner was in favour of the present system of clothing, thinking that in our variable climate there is more danger from wet and cold than from excessive heat. The Chief Commissioner is still of this opinion; and, accordingly, I am not prepared to advise any alteration in the dress of the police.
  MR. QUILTER: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, whether he is aware that such arrangements as I have suggested have been made in other parts of the Kingdom with satisfactory results?
  MR. MATTHEWS: No; I am not aware of that fact.

  INLAND NAVIGATION AND DRAINAGE (IRELAND)—THE RIVER BARROW.
  MR. W. A. MACDONALDasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been called to the following important Resolution passed by the Mountmellick Board of Guardians on the 25th June:—
  "That this Board, having considered the Report on nuisances stated to exist in Portarlington, and having evidence produced to prove the impossibility of carrying out any system of drainage while the bed of the River Barrow remains higher than the existing drains, earnestly press on the Executive the need of taking steps to have the Barrow drainage undertaken forthwith, before an outbreak of disease occurs in some of the towns affected by its present pestilential condition;''
  whether, in view of this Resolution, the works will be commenced at once; and, whether the £5,000 promised for this purpose will be spent on the actual
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  drainage of the river, instead of being swallowed up in a preliminary inquiry?
  THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY (Colonel KING-HARMAN)(who replied)said, this Resolution did not appear to have been received by the Irish Government; but they had received one from the Maryborough Guardians in somewhat similar terms, passed on the 11th June. There would be no unnecessary delay in commencing the works; and, as he had already stated, the £5,000 would be expended on the works, and the expenses of the preliminary inquiry in connection with the general scheme would be otherwise provided for.

  EGYPT—THE ANGLO-EGYPTIAN CONVENTION—SIR HENRY DRUMMOND WOLFF.
  MR. BRYCEasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether Sir H. Drummond Wolff is still in Constantinople; and, if so, how long it is intended that he shall remain there waiting the ratification of the Convention by the Ottoman Government?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON): His Imperial Majesty was unable to receive Sir H. Drummond Wolff previous to his intended departure last week from Constantinople, and named Friday, the 15th, for his final audience. It is not intended that Sir H. Drummond Wolff's departure shall be delayed longer.
  MR. BRYCE: My right hon. Friend says "it is not intended;" I must ask him, whether the House is to understand that Friday next will finally and positively terminate the unparalleled and undignified position in which Her Majesty's Government have placed this country?
  SIR JAMES FERGUSSON: No, Sir; I cannot give any such positive undertaking; but I can undertake to say that when the House is fully in possession of what has taken place, as it will be in a few days, by the Papers being placed in the hands of hon. Members, they will not be of opinion that either the dignity or the interests of this country have been compromised in any way.
  MR. BRYCE: I shall have to repeat this Question so long as the present condition of thing lasts.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSON: Can the right hon. Gentleman state what Sir H. Drummond Wolff is doing now?
  [No reply.]

  THE JUBILEE WEEK—THE METROPOLITAN FIRE BRIGADE.
  MR. O. V. MORGANasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether the men in the Metropolitan Fire Brigade will, as in the case of the Metropolitan Police, receive any special gratuity for their extraordinary services during the Jubilee week?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I am informed by the Metropolitan Board of Works that the men of the Brigade were kept at their stations for two or three days in the week of the Jubilee; but, happily, no fire of unusual magnitude occurred. There was not, therefore, as in the case of the police, any call for such extra exertions on the part of the firemen as to justify a special gratuity being given to them.

  WALES—THE TITHE AGITATION—DISTURBANCES AT LLANGWM—TRIAL OF THE RIOTERS AT RUTHIN.
  MR. T. E. ELLISasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether he is aware that the Justices at the Special Sessions at Ruthin affirmed, on Friday, 8th July, that they had no power to authorize the payment to the defendants and their witnesses in the Llangwm tithes trials of the expenses consequent on the trial being held at Ruthin instead of in their own Petty Sessional Division of Cerrig-y-Druidion; and, whether the Treasury will undertake to pay the expenses necessitated by the change in the place of trial? He also wished to know, why the Public Prosecutor had instituted this trial after a general inquiry had been promised; and whether it was usual or regular to change the place of trial at the instance of the prosecution?
  MR. KENYONasked, whether it was not the case that Cerrig-y-Druidion was a long distance from any railway communication; and whether it was not the fact that all the witnesses and people concerned in this trial could be far more easily accommodated at Ruthin?
  MR. BOWEN ROWLANDSasked whether it was not the case that some of the prisoners would have to go 20 miles from their homes to Ruthin?
  THE SECETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): In answer to the Question on the Paper, I am not aware whether the Justices made the statement suggested by the hon. Member; but I am advised that they had no power to authorize the payment of the expenses of the defendants. They can give a certificate on which payment of the expenses of the defendants' witnesses are afterwards paid. The Treasury have no power under the Statutes to pay the expenses of the defendants before the Justices, and there is no precedent for their doing so. In answer to the further question put to me by the hon. Member, the inquiry that is going to take place about the tithe rent-charge disturbances in North Wales cannot possibly supersede or take the place of a prosecution on a criminal charge brought against a number of defendants under the ordinary Criminal Law. The place of trial has not been changed, being still within the jurisdiction of the magistrate. I am not able to state where all the prisoners live. They are, I think, 31 in number, and many of them live at considerable distances from any Court House. The accommodation at Cerrig-y-Druidion is totally insufficient and inadequate for the number of persons concerned.
  In reply to Mr. PULESTON (Devonport),
  MR. MATTHEWSsaid, that no final appointment had yet been made of Sub-Commissioners or Secretary to the Commission of Inquiry.

  IMMIGRATION OF FOREIGN PAUPERS.
  MR. AGG-GARDNERasked the First Lord of the Treasury, If it is the intention of Her Majesty's Government, as stated in The Evening News, to endeavour to restrict by legislative action the increasing importation of foreign paupers into this country; and, if so, how soon a measure dealing with this pressing question will be introduced?
  MR. PICKERSGILLasked, whether the Government had any information to lead them to

  521
  suppose that the importation was increasing?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W, H. SMITH): I must ask the hon. Member to give Notice of the last Question. The question of restricting the importation of foreign paupers is under the consideration of the Government. It is a question of much difficulty; and I am unable to fix a time when it will be possible to legislate upon it.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Are the Government going to take any steps to prevent the exportation of native paupers to America?
  [No reply.]

  METROPOLITAN POLICE REGULATION ACT—THE METROPOLITAN MAGISTRATES.
  MR. CONYBEAREasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether Mr. Newton was one of the magistrates who took part in the conference of Metropolitan magistrates; and whether, prior to that meeting, any case had come before Mr. Newton's Court by which the illegality of the interpretation of the law as agreed upon at such conference had been brought under Mr. Newton's notice; whether the Metropolitan magistrates have similarly met and agreed to act upon any special interpretation of the law in reference to the right of public meeting in the open spaces of the Metropolis, and the action of the police in protecting the promoters of such meetings from disturbers of the peace; and, whether he will call the attention of the Lord Chancellor to the matter?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): Mr. Newton, the police magistrate at Marlborough Street Court, stated that he could not say positively whether he took part in a conference of Metropolitan magistrates on the 25th of November last; but his impression was that he was not present. In 1884 his attention was called to an alleged illegality in acting on the uncorroborated evidence of a police-constable; but the conclusion come to by the magistrates in 1883 —and again adhered to in November last—was that there was no illegality in acting on the evidence of a police-constable, uncorroborated by any other
  522
  witness. The Metropolitan magistrates had never, at any conference or otherwise, agreed to act upon any special interpretation of the law in reference to the right of public meeting in the open spaces of the Metropolis, or the action of the police in protecting the promoters of such meetings from disturbers of the peace.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—THE NEW RULES OF PROCEDURE.
  MR. F. S. STEVENSONasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether it is the intention of the Government to enable the House to deal with the arrears of Business, particularly with the remaining Rules of Procedure, in an Autumn Session?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): It is impossible for Her Majesty's Government to make at this period any statement with regard to arrears of Business which may exist at the end of this Session.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE.
  In reply to Mr. SHAW LEFEVRE (Bradford, Central),
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH)said, that it was proposed to-morrow to proceed with the Estimates as they stood on the Paper.

  EVICTIONS (IRELAND)—EVICTIONS ON THE BROOKE ESTATE, COOLGREANY, CO. WEXFORD.
  MR. DILLON: I wish to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware that during the evictions now going on in Wexford, on the Brooke estate, a house was burned to the ground on yesterday, before the Sheriff had taken possession of it; and whether the bailiff who burned that house on the previous day was deliberately proceeding to throw the women from the top window of a house until the police rushed in and rescued the women?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): No, Sir; I have no information at all on the subject. If the hon. Member will put down the Question on the Paper I will answer it to-morrow.

  LICENSED PREMISES (EARLIER CLOSING) (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSONasked the hon. Member for Glasgow (Dr. Cameron), Whether there was any doubt about his proceeding with the Licensed Premises (Earlier Closing) (Scotland) Bill that night?
  DR. CAMERONsaid, before he answered the Question he wished to ask the Leader of the House whether, considering the fact that on Friday last he gave way in proceeding with the Bill for the convenience of the House, the right hon. Gentleman would, if he again postponed the Bill that night, grant him similar facilities for proceeding with it to those he had granted the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) in proceeding with the Bill which he had in charge?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH)said, it was quite obvious that if the Government endeavoured to facilitate the progress of Bills in charge of private Members, they would expose themselves to great difficulties. He could only appeal to the hon. Gentleman not to bring this measure on at an hour which would expose the House to the inconvenience of sitting up to a late period. He was sure he would feel that the conduct of Public Business was not satisfactory at 3, 4, and 5 o'clock in the morning. He would endeavour to do his best to find an opportunity for considering the Bill, if the hon. Member, on his part, would endeavour to seize such opportunities as would offer themselves to him.
  DR. CAMERONsaid, he would undertake not to proceed that night with the Bill at a late hour if the right hon. Gentleman would give him the facilities he asked for.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he could not give the hon. Member any absolute pledge. Certainly he would endeavour to meet the hon. Gentleman as far as he possibly could.
  DR. CAMERON: On that understanding I may say if the Bill comes on at an unreasonable hour I shall not go on with it.

  BURMAH (UPPER)—THE RUBY MINES.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Sir JOHN GORST) : I will, Sir, take the opportunity of amplifying an explanation which I gave to the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Bradlaugh) a few nights ago on the subject of the Ruby Mines in Burmah. I have since received a telegram from the Viceroy of India to the following effect:—
  "I find that the statement that Streeter's people are not at work on the mines requires qualification, for Crosthwaite—Chief Commissioner in Burmah—has just informed us that he had authorized his Deputy Commissioner to permit persons who wished to dig for rubies to do so, under the old system, and without use of machinery, as provisional means of enhancing revenue, until final decision can be arrived at in regard to the disposition of the mines, and that a written permit had been issued to Streeter's son, as it might have been to any other similar applicant. Crosthwaite adds that he considers this an ordinary act of the local executive, and not of sufficient importance to be reported to the Government of India. It is quite a distinct matter from leasing of Crown monopoly right, on which action is suspended pending your decision."
  MR. BRADLAUGH: In consequence of the statement of the hon. Gentleman, which he would not call an amplification, but rather a contradiction of the previous answer, asked on what conditions the permission to Messrs. Streeter had been granted; at what date the permit was issued; how it was possible that Streeters were working the mine if it were true, as previously stated, that no contract whatever had yet been entered into with reference to the working of the mines; and how the now admitted fact that the representatives of Streeters were actually at work was consistent with the former denial?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member must put Notice of that Question on the Paper in the usual way.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: It is in consequence of the communication from the hon. Gentleman—
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must give Notice of the Question.
  MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, that he would then ask the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, whether he would, in view of the absolutely contradictory answers given during the last 12 months from time to time with reference to the Burmah Ruby Mines, take care that the Papers dating back to February, 1886, were laid on the Table forthwith, so that the House

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  might form its own opinion on the whole case.
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH)said, there would be no delay in laying the Papers on the Table as soon as the decision of the Secretary of State had been taken on the question of which he had only now been informed.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: Then I will put the Question on the Paper for Friday?

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  IRISH LAND LAW BILL [Lords]. [BILL 308.]
  (Mr. A. J. Balfour.)
  IRISH LAND LAW BILL [Lords]. [BILL 308.]

    SECOND READING. [ADJOURNED DEBATE.] [SECOND NIGHT.]
    Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Amendment proposed to Question [11th July], "That the Bill be now read a second time."
    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, taking into view the circumstances set forth in the Report of the Royal Commission of 1886 on the Land Acts of 1881 and 1885, and the recommendations of that Commission, is of opinion that no Bill for amending the Laws relating to Land in Ireland can be satisfactory which shall not provide, not only for entitling leaseholders to the benefits of the Land Act of 1881, but also for affording such means for the revision of the judicial rents under that Act, as will meet the exigencies created by the heavy fall in agricultural values since the passing of the Act,"—(Mr. Campbell-Bannerman,)
    —instead thereof.
    Question again proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
    Debate resumed.
    MR. DILLONsaid, the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain), in his speech of yesterday, addressed very pointedly to the Irish Members who sat below the Gangway a question to the following effect—he asked us whether we were prepared to say that in the present condition of this Bill we would reject it with contempt? Sir, although I do not undertake to answer for the whole of my Friends, so far as I go personally, I have not the slightest difficulty in replying to that question. I say that, with the exception of the 1st clause, that I most unquestionably would reject the
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    Bill with contempt as a measure of relief, and I believe that in making that statement I am expressing the view not alone of that portion of the farming population of Ireland who sympathize with us politically, but that I am also expressing the view of the body of farmers in the North of Ireland who do not at present sympathize with our political views.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: No, no!
    MR. DILLON: The hon. Member for South Tyrone can express himself on the matter shortly; but I shall take the opportunity of visiting his constituency, and taking their opinion on it. I accept, Mr. Speaker, the 1st clause; but even with regard to that portion of the Bill, although undeniably and admittedly in its present shape it would confer upon a large and important class of tenants in Ireland very great benefits, it is so marred and mutilated by restrictions and drawbacks that even in the case of the 1st clause the grace of the concession is almost entirely destroyed. Now, Sir, I am aware that there are in this measure two or three clauses which would appear to grant some benefit to the tenantry of Ireland. The 2nd clause and the 6th clause are of that character; but looking at the Bill as a whole, and accepting the supposition which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham asked us in his question, I have not the slightest hesitation in repeating the reply that I gave to him last night, and saying that apart from the 1st clause I do reject that measure with contempt, as inadequate and utterly worthless to the tenantry of Ireland, and I think I shall be able to prove, notwithstanding the contradiction of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, that I am supported in this view of this Bill, not by the Nationalist Party alone, but by the body by whose votes certain Gentlemen have been enabled to sit in this House, and profess themselves to be Representatives of the tenants, when in reality they represent the interests of the landlords. I have here an extract from an article written upon this Bill by The Londonderry Standard, a journal which more than any other paper in Ireland represents the independent opinion of the Presbyterian farmers of the North of Ireland; and what does that paper say, writing

    527
    upon the 6th of July, in reference to the present measure? It says, after recounting the misfortunes and grievances of the tenantry of Ireland—
    "This new Land Bill in its present shape will accentuate these evils, and should it pass into law, the last state of the tenant farmers will be considerably worse than the first."
    This is the view of The Londonderry Standard, and I challenge the hon. Member for South Tyrone, when he proceeds to enlighten the House to-day, to deny the fact that the readers of The Londonderry Standard are the Liberal Presbyterian farmers of Ulster whom, to my regret, we have not succeeded in converting to our views in political matters. But The Londonderry Standard goes on to say—
    "It will not pass into law. The Liberals and Liberal Unionists will not run the danger of having such odium cast upon them by not opposing it with all their power and throwing it like an unclean thing out of the House."
    These are not the words of Nationalists—they are the deliberate and written opinions of a journal which is entitled, as I have already stated, to speak more authoritatively on behalf of the Northern farmers of Ireland than any other newspaper in Ireland. Towards the close of his speech the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham asked me this question. He said—
    "What measure has ever been introduced by English statesmen professing to offer amelioration to the condition of the people of Ireland which has not been met by the Representatives of Ireland with contempt?"
    Sir, I reply to that question by pointing to the 8th of April of last year, when, for the first time, an English statesman really understood the Irish Question, and really offered a full measure of amelioration to the Irish people; and was that measure met with contempt by the Representatives of Ireland? But, suppose that I lay aside the case of the 8th of April of last year, I utterly deny that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham has made out his case. Was the Bill of 1870 met by the Representatives of Ireland, miserably inadequate as it proved to be, with contempt? It was not. It was met with criticism, in which the Irish Members were proved to be right and the English Ministers wrong. Was the Land Bill of 1881 met with contempt? It was met with adverse criticism; and I ask every in-
    528
    telligent Member on both sides of this House whether time has not justified us in the criticisms we made on that Bill then. What were the points on which we found fault with the Bill of 1881? We complained of the exclusion of leaseholders, and the fixing of rents on the tenants' improvements. We complained of charging the judicial rents from the date of the hearing of the case, instead of from the date of the application. We complained of the exclusion of town parks. And, finally, we stated that the measure could not, in our opinion, be a final settlement of the Irish Land Question; and that we considered no measure could be looked upon with any degree of hope as a final settlement of that question which did not provide some machinery by which the occupier could become the owner of his farm. Let the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, or any other hon. Member of the House, stand up and point to a single one of the criticisms which we made from these Benches —I had not the opportunity myself of making any, for I was in another place —and let him say that time has not justified us in every one of those criticisms; and here we have this House wasting their time year after year in attempting, often too late, to bring relief to the suffering people of Ireland by successive Bills, dragged out of the Government inch by inch, to enact the very list of things which we asked them to do in 1881, and which they did not do from insufficiency of knowledge, and from the fatal habit which has been abandoned by the Liberal Party, but is still strong in the present Government and their supporters—namely, that they will take suggestions and advice from every quarter except from the Representatives of the people of Ireland. I deny the statement that we have met in the past the attempts of English statesmen with contempt. We have met them with criticism, and, as I have pointed out already, our criticisms have always, on every point, been fully and amply justified. We stated that the Bill of 1881 could not be regarded as a final settlement of the Irish Land Question. What is the commonplace language of the Government to-day? Did we not listen here last night to the statement made on behalf of the Government that they regarded this, the fourth Bill within

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    six years, as merely a temporary expedient to tide them over a few months until they introduce a Bill which will be the final and ultimate settlement, but which I say will be the ultimate settlement on one condition, and one condition alone—namely, that it carries out the policy we recommended in the year 1881. Now, Sir, I come to the general character of the speech which was delivered by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. As I listened to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman, urging his Amendments to the Bill upon the attention of the Government, I was reminded of a story which I heard in my nursery days of men named Brown, Jones, and Robinson, who in their travels abroad were brought to see a certain famous horse, supposed to be the horse of William Tell; but when they proceeded to examine it they found that the legs, head, and a portion of the body had been put on, all the rest of the horse being genuine. This would be very much the position of the Government Bill after the Amendments of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham. Now, what I want to ask is this—it would be for the advantage of the House, and it is necessary to continue the debate with any degree of usefulness—that some prominent Member of the Government should now stand up and inform us whether we are from this hour to debate the second reading of the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, because the two Bills are absolutely different and absolutely inconsistent Bills, and I find myself in this difficulty—that while I am prepared to reject with scorn and contempt the Bill of the Government, and while I am confident that my constituents, aye, and the constituents of the hon. Member for South Tyrone—notwithstanding his continued denials— would support me in any such course, still, if the Amendments which were suggested by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham would be accepted by the Government, I should find myself face to face with a totally different Bill, and should be obliged to reconsider my position. I do not think I am making an unfair demand when I ask that before this debate proceeds any further the Government should toll us frankly and straightforwardly which Bill we are
    530
    debating the second reading of. When they have made that statement "we shall be in a position to know what attitude to adopt towards the Bill, and the discussion can then go on with some degree of usefulness. What were the alterations suggested by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham? One was, as I understood him, an extension of the leaseholders' clause to such an extent as would make it certainly much more acceptable to the tenants of Ireland, and, as far as I could follow him, would make it entirely satisfactory. Then he proposed to abandon the very kernel and essence of the Bill, and throw it away altogether, and to substitute for it some measure which, as far as I could understand his speech, was to be on lines which we have always endeavoured to lay down. How can we proceed to debate the Bill, which professes to be a measure for preventing harsh evictions, when, with regard to the provisions which are pointed to deal with the prevention of evictions, we are utterly in the dark as to what those provisions will ultimately be? Sir, if the right hon. Member for West Birmingham and his Friends are sincere and honest when they say they will press upon the Government certain alterations in the character of this Bill, we know perfectly well that the Government are powerless to resist them. Was that speech to be followed up by action, or was it not? Did the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham mean that he would compel the Government to introduce these Amendments and changes, as he can, or did he mean the speech for the country, and not for the House? If he chooses to follow up his speech by action, his action would be irresistible, because he can dictate terms to the Government, which only exists by the toleration of his Party. I want to know whether the right hon. Member for West Birmingham means to alter this Bill, or does not mean to alter it, and whether his speech was in earnest or merely for the country? I must confess the impression conveyed to my mind— and I regret it for the sake of the Irish tenants—was of the latter character, because my experience of Parliamentary tactics leads me to this conclusion—that when you want to amend the measure you ought not to begin by informing the Government that in

    531
    its present shape it is a large and generous one, and when I heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham emphatically state that even if no change was introduced he would do nothing to embarrass the Government, and that he considered the measure in its present state large and generous, I must confess it appeared to me a direct invitation to the Government to resist change and maintain the Bill as it stood. Surely the right hon. Member for West Birmingham is far too old a bird in Parliament to believe that a Government can be got to alter a Bill merely by argument. We are entitled to ask whether the four Leaders of the Unionist Party intend to amend this Bill or not—they are the dictators, and they ought to speak out. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham found fault with the late Chief Secretary for not being impartial; but the right hon. Gentleman was himself on many points grossly partial. The right hon. Gentleman, in asking what was the grievance of Ireland in that matter, stated a fallacy; and this fallacy has been so frequently stated, and comprises such a monstrous misstatement, that I think it desirable and necessary that it should never be allowed to pass uncontradicted. He is a man of vast ability, and no doubt he is much my master on the subject of the manufacturing industries; but on agricultural matters he displays an extraordinary amount of ignorance. The right hon. Gentleman said that the grievance of Ireland amounted to this— that upon the evidence of the Cowper Commission there had been a fall of prices of such a character as justified a fall of 18 per cent in rents. A more monstrous misstatement of the case could hardly be conceived. There had been a fall of agricultural prices of close upon, if not fully, 20 per cent all round; and anybody at all acquainted with agriculture must know that a fall of less than 20 per cent in prices in innumerable instances meant the wiping out of all profits whatever. A fall of that extent in the gross value of produce not only obliterated rent, but made the whole business of the farmer a losing one. Dividing the loss caused by the fall of prices between the landlord and tenant, the lowest estimate that I have heard put upon it by practical farmers is that it is equal to a reduction of 40
    532
    per cent in the rent. That condition of things has been going on for two years, and Irish tenants are being reduced to beggary. I have referred to the terrible evictions on the Bodyke estate. The notoriousl and agent, Captain Hamilton, has proceeded against unfortunate tenants not only by way of ejectment, but, to use the figurative language of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham, he has entered both by the front door and the back door at the same time; because he has resorted both to process of ejectment and also of fieri facias. The right hon. Gentleman, however, declared that the whole question at issue was one of 18 per cent. The question really at issue in Ireland is this and nothing less, and hon. Members ought to remember it in dealing with this Bill, under which probably over half the entire population of the country are to be dragged down, in spite of their utmost efforts and industry, into a condition of pauperism, and are to find relief in the Bankruptcy Clauses. Anybody who knows anything about farming knows that no greater misfortune can be inflicted on a country than to fasten on the soil men who are unable to cultivate the soil. If you are to give relief to the farming population it must come before their capital is all gone, and before they are reduced to such a condition as to be almost a curse instead of a blessing to their country. What is the history of this Bill? It is based on the Report of a Commission. We heard from the right hon. Member for Birmingham an eloquent passage in his speech in which he repudiated the idea that England was to be governed by Commissions. Quite so—I do not want her to be; but what we are entitled to ask is that when a Commission consisting of Lords and landlords has inquired into the condition of the Irish farmer, any departure you think right to make from the recommendations of that Commission should be in the direction of benefit to the farmers who are suffering. Is it to be expected that the farmers will be satisfied with a measure which makes a marked departure from the recommendations of the Commission in the direction of further benefiting not tenant, but the landlord? But another feature of the Bill which renders it suspicious is its place of origin. No sane man could ever have expected a Bill for

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    the benefit of the Irish tenant to originate in the House of Lords; it certainly would have been welcomed in Ireland as one of the most extraordinary phenomena in modern politics if a measure originating in the House of Lords conferred any substantial benefit upon the tenants. He had seen an admirable résumé of the provisions of the Bill and its relation to the Report of the Commission. It is there said that the Government seem to have been struck with the hardship of evictions and the impression they had made on the public, and they felt the necessity of doing something. It was asked whether it would not be better to make the rents just, and to leave the power of getting them alone, than to adopt the other plan of leaving the rents too high. It was also alleged that, without the Bankruptcy Clauses, the Bill did simply nothing so far as the tenants are concerned; but it is added by the speaker that he did not wish to see the Bill opposed, although it certainly did not carry out the recommendations of the Commission. The speaker of the words which I have quoted is Earl Cowper. But what is the history of the inception and hatching of this Bill? I have read some remarks of Lord Salisbury apologizing for the Bill, and stating that the Government have "invited comments on the measure, advice, and Amendments." But where does he invite them from? The noble Lord says from all quarters. Yes; from all quarters except from Irishmen. He had to deal with a Bill to apply to Irishmen alone, and everyone was welcome to make suggestions, to propose Amendments, and to give opinions, except those who had the interest of the Irish tenants most at heart. We are in a position to state that no advice, no Amendment, no opinion, and no information was sought amongst our ranks; and, certainly, I think it is hardly a wise proceeding on the part of the Government, who are departing from the recommendations of a great Commission like the Cowper Commission, and who are introducing a Bill in a very suspicious way, in a very hostile way, purporting to remedy the grievances of the Irish tenants, to carefully abstain seeking any advice or suggestion from the men who represent the interests of the Irish. I shall now refer to the clauses of the
    534
    Bill. The 1st clause is good as far as it goes, except that, while giving something to one class of Irish tenants, so strong is the greed of the landlords, they cannot resist the temptation to put their hands into the pockets of another class of tenants, robbing them and compelling them to break leases, so that they might plunder the tenants of their possessions. I do not know whether the one class of tenants will accept this Bill on these terms, or whether they will wait a little while for a more complete measure. As to Clause 2, I think there is little to say against it. It makes a concession which ought to have been, made seven years ago. It is now all too late, and it is a little ambiguous; but otherwise it is the most unobjectionable clause in the Bill. I now come to Clause 4, and of which I can only say that it is an infamous and atrocious attempt to take away from the tenants of Ireland their last few remaining protections—protections which have caused this Bill to be introduced by drawing public attention to the matter. The Government propose to deal with tenants under the Coercion Act, and this clause is a clause to make eviction easy and to enable iniquity to be done in the dark, and it is characteristic of the Tory Party. To that clause we must give the most determined and resolute opposition, Clause 6, dealing with town parks, would relieve a few farmers; but the great mass of the grievance which is suffered by those excluded by the excepting clause of the Act of 1881 is left untouched—in fact, the provision is little better than a sham and a delusion. Clause 21 is most dishonest, and the Irish Members will have to resist it to the very utmost of their ability. What does it amount to? It amounts to a premium upon eviction. The man who is a rack-renter and public enemy will be allowed to shift from his shoulders his portion of the public burden, and share it among his neighbours who had acted the part of honest and decent men. It has been stated by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary—but it is not in the Bill—that it is intended to confine this to cases under £4. That will lessen the evil, but it does not affect the principle, which is an iniquity. I shall await with astonishment to hear by what arguments the Government are going to support this clause. I pass on to Clauses

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    19 and 20, which, provide for the alteration of the Courts of Appeal. Clauses 19 and 20 must receive from these Benches the most determined opposition. They are clauses which would destroy such confidence as is felt in Ireland in the administration of the Land Court. With the present Government in power, and with the sample we have of the use they make of the power of appointment, I have no hesitation in saying that if they persist in introducing Clauses 19 and 20 they will create something like a rebellion against the Land Court in Ireland, and all confidence in it will be lost. I come to the proposal of the Chief Secretary for Ireland for the relief of glebe tenants. We might have hoped that the case of the glebe tenants, which was being supported by all sections in this House, would have received at the hands of the Government a more kindly and generous consideration. We know that they purchased their holdings at fully double what they were worth— we know that they paid for them a rack-price; we know that they paid that price under the terrible threat that if they did not buy their holdings at the price laid down by the valuator, who swore before a Committee of this House that his instructions were to value high if he could; we know that they purchased under the terrible threat that if they did not buy their holdings at the valuation of the Commissioners their land would be sold over their heads to the worst class of Irish landlords—namely, the land-jobbers, who buy in order to raise the rent. What is the condition of these men at present? They are men who, it has been admitted by everybody, are the very models of industry, self-sacrifice, and honest payment; and the small extent of arrears due by these men was admitted in this House as an astonishing fact, in view of all the circumstances of the cases. Now they have broken down under their terrible load, and the wonder is that they have managed to keep so long in their farms. I had a letter from Ulster the other night, which describes how men lately fled to America in the night in despair, from the overwhelming burden of their debt—men who had fought and struggled against hope to meet their liabilities, and who were obliged to fly in that humiliating way in order to escape their difficulties. I got a letter a few days
    536
    ago from a Protestant in Ulster, who described a scene that he saw at a hiring fair the other day, which really ought to excite the compassion of every man in this House. He saw a friend of his, a Rathfriland farmer, who had 15 acres of land and 11 children—the two eldest boys were in England, and sending home their wages—he saw him standing in the hiring fair with his two daughters, the younger being nine years old, trying to hire them to some man in order to meet his instalment, and he told my friend that he had borrowed £100, his share of the purchase money, at 5 per cent interest, from a money-lender on his note of hand, without any other security, and that note was renewed last year, proving the confidence of the money-lender that he would pay if he could. All I want to say with regard to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary's proposal for the relief of these men is this—that it would be far better to leave them alone than to make such proposals as were made last night. You cannot do a more foolish thing than bring half relief to a farmer—you waste your money, and he becomes worse than he was before. Better let him go into the workhouse, and let some other person take his land. What you should do is either to make up your mind to give him such relief as will enable him to carry on and make him solvent or to let him alone. Therefore, I ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to consider the resolutions and statements which will reach him in a few days, and to see whether he cannot alter his proposals. We have it on the authority of Lord Cowper that this Bill does absolutely nothing for the tenant, except what it does by the Bankruptcy Clause. The difficulty again arises, are we dealing with the Bankruptcy Clauses or are we not? Is it waste of time to be talking about the Bankruptcy Clauses? Does the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham mean to kill the Bankruptcy Clauses or does he not? I think that is a question which we should have considered before we proceed further with this debate. The effects of the Bankruptcy Clauses were correctly summed up by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Burghs (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman), when he said that the tenant would go into the

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    bankruptcy proceedings an insolvent and come out a beggar. Anybody who studied this Act and understood farming would see clearly that no man could hope to escape from the clutches of the Bankruptcy Clauses of this Act and be possessed of a single shilling. They are a new and a most irrepressible and tremendous engine for evicting the people and putting the landlords in possession of their land. They are so framed that no man can escape them; and after 18 months of misery are over the Bankruptcy Court comes and puts the landlord into possession of the tenant's land by means which are denied to him by the law at present. It was a very curious and instructive fact that the very first resource which the Irish landlords fell back upon when they were confronted with the combination which is now known as the Plan of Campaign was the Bankruptcy Court; but they found that they were stopped at the door of the Bankruptcy Court. The Law of Bankruptcy did not apply to farmers in Ireland; and now we have a Relief Bill for the Irish tenants to furnish the landlords with the very weapon by which they thought they could suppress the Plan of Campaign with, but which, to their disappointment, they found that the law did not furnish them with. The Bankruptcy Clauses are only really a new method of evicting Irish tenants. Before I explain the effect of this part of the Bill, I invite the particular attention of the House to page 17, lines 23 to 35, as a magnificent specimen of the moral tone of the framers of the Bill. I ask you to remember that this provision was introduced into the Bill in the Upper House on the Motion of a noble Lord—
    "The rent of a holding held by a debtor, due at the time of the adjudication, not exceeding the amount of one year's rent, shall be a first charge upon the assets of such debtor, and the landlord or other person to whom the rent is due may prove in the bankruptcy or composition for the surplus due over and above such year's rent as aforesaid. In proceedings in bankruptcy under this Act, the Official Assignee attached to each Court shall for all purposes be the assignee of the estate and effects of every person adjudicated bankrupt by the Court, and there shall be no creditor's assignee."
    Did anybody ever hear of such a proposition? The very men who supplied the tenant with meat and clothing to cover his nakedness were to be barred out from all remedy. The banks that
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    had advanced the money to pay the landlord when the tenant was threatened with eviction were to be swindled—they were to have no representation at the adjudication—
    "For the purpose of accepting an offer of composition after bankruptcy, the Official Assignee may do all things which may be done by the statutory majority in number and value of the creditors."
    Was there ever such a proposition laid before a deliberative Assembly? The only relief which can be hoped for by the tenant under this Bankruptcy Clause is that if he and his landlord be so base as to go by a collusive proceeding into Court, the Official Assignee can accept, if he likes, 7s. in the pound, just in order to make up the year's rent. Then in walks the landlord, and takes the year's rent, and all the rest of the creditors are left without a shilling, without the right of being represented. I heard a noted expression from the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) last night. The noble Lord said it was necessary that the tenants should be freed, not only from their debts due to the landlord, but from their other debts also; but they had taken particular good care that they will not be clear of their other debts. The landlord was first to have his year's rent, and then to start again as a rent-exacting machine. I say that this is a scandalous dishonesty, which was inserted on the Motion of a noble Lord in the Upper House, and it is a good example of the high moral tone and honesty of character possessed by the men who are never tired of denouncing us as robbers. More than half the debts of the tenants were due to the fact that they had continued on the ruinous course of borrowing as long as credit existed in order to meet the excessive demands of landlords instead of making a struggle for liberty. I reject with contempt on behalf of the Irish tenants this delusive Bill, the Bankruptcy Clauses of which, according to Lord Cowper himself, are dishonest in their inception, and calculated to ruin the credit of the people of Ireland. This is the policy of the clause—a policy which, I say, if it is attempted to be honestly administered, means a fresh engine of oppression and extermination for the people of Ireland—if it be dishonestly administered, if the tenant gets any

    539
    benefit out of the clause, it can only be by entering into a dishonest compact with his landlord to swindle and defraud every other creditor. That being the case, I have not the slightest fear, so far as my constituency goes, or as regards that portion of the tenantry of Ulster who are now wavering in the balance—I have not the slightest fear in taking up this attitude on the Bill; and I at once invite the hon. Member for South Tyrone to give the House the benefit of his opinion.
    Mr. T. W. RUSSELLand Mr. SHAW LEFEVRErose together, but Mr. SPEAKER called on.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL,who said, that he could not say that he regretted that an interjection, properly and legitimately made by him, had brought down upon his head the wrath of the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) when he promised to visit South Tyrone. But about 12 months ago half the Irish Parliamentary Party were in South Tyrone, with the result that he was there in that House in spite of all their efforts to prevent it. The more the hon. Member and his Friends visited that spot the more would he like it; but he must say that South Tyrone of late was one of those places which they most religiously objected to visit. They had been told that the Ulster tenants were opposed to the Land Bill of the Government, and The Londonderry Standard was quoted in support of that view. He remembered that when the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) introduced his Tenants' Relief Bill last year he made a great deal out of the demands of the Ulster Tenants' Defence Association. Well, a committee of that body met a few days ago in the town of Belfast. That meeting was attended by representative farmers of Ulster, and they passed a resolution calling upon himself and the hon. Member for South Derry (Mr. Lea) to oppose the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman), and to do what they could to amend the Bill; and they passed that resolution on the ground that, although they could not approve of the Bill as a whole, there was so much good contained in it that they could not take the responsibility of rejecting it. He (Mr. T. W. Russell) congratulated the House that
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    they had got rid of the Crimes Bill, and that now they were able, in consequence, to get alongside the Land Question, which had a passionate interest for all classes of the Irish people. He had no hesitation in saying that the proceedings of the House on that Bill would be the touchstone by which the Irish people would judge, not only their individual Representatives, but the competency of that House to legislate for Ireland. But that was not to be wondered at when it was remembered that agriculture was almost, except in Ulster, the one great industry of the country. He, however, occupied a difficult position with regard to the Bill; and the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) had charged him last night with the misfortune of being a Scotchman.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I never said that it was a misfortune.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Well, I thought that was the character of the observation.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: No; I said it was rather your good fortune.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, he could tell the hon. Member this—that he had lived more years in Ireland than he (Mr. T. M. Healy) had lived altogether; and until the hon. and learned Member and his Friends sot up their despotism in Dublin, Scotchman as he was, he should continue to represent those who had sent him to that House, regardless of what the hon. and learned Member might think. But, coming to the Government Bill, which they had to consider on that occasion, he thought that the Government were between the devil of landlordism on the one hand and the deep sea of agrarian socialism on the other. He, for one, did not wish to discredit the Government. ["Hear, hear!"] He made no secret of that, because, if that were done, it might complicate the solution of the Irish Question. He had received two sets of instructions from his constituents. He was sent to the House of Commons to oppose the Separatist proposals of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), and at the same time to do the best he could for the Irish tenant farmer. He, therefore, did not wish to discredit the Government in what he considered they were trying to do—make a fair, an honest, and a resolute attempt to settle the Land Question. He had been

    541
    accused by the hon. Member for East Mayo of holding a brief for the landlords; but nothing could be farther removed from the fact.
    MR. DILLON: I spoke of the landlords of South Tyrone only.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, that in that case there must be 3,500 of them about the place. If he held a brief at all, it was for the Protestant tenant farmers of South Tyrone, and for the large number of Presbyterian farmers who had made Ulster what it was. These men believed in the Union; but it must be a Union for the benefit of the whole Irish people, and not for the benefit of a handful of unreasonable landlords. They were quite willing to pay a fair rent; but it must be a rent accruing from the produce of the soil, and not a rent designed to meet the necessities of cases in which, owing to the extravagance of their ancestors, the present landlords were so involved that they were not masters of their own actions, and had not the power to do what, in happier circumstances, they might be willing to do. He did not look on this Bill as being a final settlement of the Land Question in Ireland—in the same way, in fact, as the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian once looked on the Land Act of 1881. If he did he should know what to do with it. But his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) expressly said that this Bill was only a Bill to amend the Land Act of 1881. Now, that Act did, in the main, three things. It gave the Irish tenants fixity of tenure; it gave them a tribunal to fix a fair rent, and legalized, though it did not create, the tenant's interest in the soil, and made it saleable in the market. But hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, by walking out of the House on the second reading of that Bill, imperilled those three great provisions, because they did not come up to what they thought right. In the first place, the present measure dealt with the case of the leaseholders, upon 150,000 of whom the Act of 1881 had closed the door. During the debate on that Bill the leaseholder was almost as important a person as was the compound householder during the debates on the Reform Bill. But the Act deliberately closed the door on the leaseholders, although passionate appeals were made
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    on their behalf. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian steeled his heart against them, on the ground that there was a peculiar sanction to a contract under seal for a specified number of years, as contrasted with an ordinary contract from year to year. Ever since the Act passed, however, the exclusion of the leaseholders from its provisions had been a cause of disturbance and friction in Ireland. This Bill professed to open the door to these men. Did it do what it professed to do? He regretted that in framing this part of the Bill the Government, in an evil hour, turned their eyes upon and had followed the Bill of the hon. Member for Cork, which that hon. Member introduced last Session; and whatever could be said against the present proposals could equally, and with the same force, have been said against the proposals of the hon. Member. The least, however, which he (Mr. T. W, Russell) desired to say about its provisions on this head was, that he did not think the House should compel any leaseholder to become a present tenant, instead of merely giving him the option of going into Court and becoming such. He ought not to be compelled to resort to the Court against his will. Many a leaseholder, having regard to the advantages which their leases conferred on them, might not wish to sacrifice them even for the sake of obtaining a reduction of rent. Then he thought that the Bill was defective both in principle and in structure, inasmuch as it shut out both perpetuity leases and leases for a longer period than for 60 years after the passing of the Land Act of 1881. Between 1860 and 1876 there were years of great prosperity in Ulster, during which the landlords raised the rents; and to prevent such recurrent rent additions the tenants obtained perpetuity leases, paying, in many cases, heavy fines for the privilege. The result was that now they were most heavily weighted. But the operation of this Bill was limited to leases which would expire in 60 years. Why, he should like to know, were tenants who had leases for a longer period to be denied the benefits of the measure? There was also a most insidious and objectionable clause, which insisted that a leaseholder, to take advantage of the Bill, must be in bonâ fide occupation of his holding, while, by recent decisions, this might

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    be questioned if he had let part of his holding as an allotment or a garden. He objected, moreover, that the worst part of the clause to which he was referring was the Proviso directing the Court to disallow an application for a judicial rent, if there were improvements on the holding which had been made by the landlord, and the value of which amounted to four times the yearly rent of the holding. That was an absurd provision, and one for which there was not the least ground or justification, having regard to the fact that, in many cases, the landlord had borrowed the money with which to make the improvements at 3½ per cent from the Board of Works, and would have charged the tenants a much larger percentage on the money so borrowed—in some cases as much as 10 per cent. The clause ought not to be modified by such conditions. If the House was ready to extend benefits to the leaseholders, let not the gift be accompanied by any ungracious limitations. With regard to town parks, the argument of the tenant was this. Admitting that the value of land in the neighbourhood of a town was enhanced, he asked—"Why should not the Land Court fix a fair rent, keeping in view the fact of the increased value?" Provision, therefore, ought to be made in the Bill for enabling the tenants of town parks to go into the Land Court to have fair rents fixed. So far he had, he thought, gone very much, with hon. Members below the Gangway; but he feared he must part company with them when he came to Clause 4, enabling a notice to be served on the tenant and constituting him a caretaker, instead of actual eviction. The part of the Bill which dealt with this subject had been described by the hon. Member for East Mayo as being eviction made easy. Now, he would be willing to do almost anything to stop unjust or harsh evictions, and that very feeling induced him to support this 4th clause. They had heard a good deal about evictions, and he had taken the trouble to analyze the Eviction Returns for the first six months of the year 1886. There were 2,007 cases in that period, and as to 1,233 of these he had obtained the facts. No doubt, every man in that House thought at the time that in every one of these 1,233 cases a family was turned out of home upon the roadside. Nothing
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    could be further from the truth. He found that 191 of them were were not agricultural evictions at all, but evictions from houses in towns or villages; 21 were evictions from town parks, on which there were no buildings; 141 were evictions where the tenant did not reside on the land: and out of the remainder, 878 in number, the tenants in 250 cases were reinstated as tenants, and in 371 were put back as caretakers, with power to redeem within six months. Now, as matters stood, it was necessary that these latter families should be actually turned out by the Sheriff before they could be re-admitted as caretakers. Under the Bill that would not be the case. The clause would prevent all these needless evictions, for, by the serving of a legal notice on a tenant who was in arrear with his rent, he would become a caretaker. The clause would, no doubt, put an end to certain political theatricals; but it would keep people in their holdings. It would, he believed, prevent one-fourth of the actual evictions that now took place, and confine the extreme remedy of eviction to the worst and most hopeless cases, He, therefore, had come to the conclusion that the clause ought to be supported, and he should accordingly support it. No one found serious fault with the Purchase Clauses of the Bill; but it was said that enough was not done for the purchasers of glebe lands, with whom he had the warmest sympathy, and who were originally not allowed to come under Lord Ashbourne's Act unless they paid their arrears, which some were unable to do. The Chief Secretary for Ireland had explained that it was intended they should by the Bill come in Lord Ashbourne's Act on paying half their arrears. [Mr. DILLON: They cannot pay half.] Although the hon. Member for East Mayo desired that those who were in arrear should be placed in the same position as those who were not in arrear at all, there were many objections to such a proposal, and he could not think that it would be right to take a course which would positively hold out a premium upon falling into arrears. The question, however, was surrounded by difficulties, and he was prepared to make allowances; but he was not prepared to repudiate the clause. The same might be said of the Bright purchasers under the Act of 1870. Would hon. Members vote against

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    the second reading of a Bill with all these generous proposals in it? He should judge them by their action on the second reading. Probably there would be a solemn march out, but that theatrical display would not be very effective. The question of appeals next demanded attention. With regard to this point, he quite agreed with the hon. Member for East Mayo, and he would remind the Government that the delay in hearing appeals was very serious to the tenant. What was going to be the policy of the Government in regard to the constitution of the second Court of Appeal? Would the Government name the new Commissioners in the Bill? It was not to be denied that recent appointments in connection with the Land Courts had filled the tenants with fear and dread. If the Government were going to set up a new Court, then he implored them to take the appointments into their own hands, not leaving them to the underlings of Dublin Castle, who were fit to wreck the best Government in the world. Anew Court should have for its head a man of experience, and to preserve continuity no better head could be had than Mr. Litton. He hoped that these appointments would be dealt with by the Cabinet, and that the names of the Commissioners would be inserted in the Bill. He separated Clause 22 entirely from the Bankruptcy Clauses, and regarded it as very admirable so far as it went. It provided that when a tenant was in arrear, and an ejectment process was served on him, he might go into the County Court, and if he could convince the County Court Judge that he had got into difficulties through no fault of his own, then the Judge was given power to do one of three things—give him time, arrange the instalments to be paid, or, with the consent of the landlord, effect a composition. This clause in itself was quite sufficient to prevent unjust evictions. But the Bill did not provide against what was almost as great an evil; for while it closed the front door, it left open the back door, and here it was that the harsh and unjust landlord would find an entrance. He appreciated the difficulties the Government found. They proposed that where a Judge considered that a tenant was unduly weighted, the landlord should not have his usual right of eviction. But a landlord need not proceed by way of eviction,
    546
    if the debt were £20; he could get an ordinary decree for debt from a County Court Judge; and remove that by certiorari to a Superior Court, and then proceed by writ of fieri facias. The Sheriff would go down, would seize and sell everything on the farm, and leave the tenant ruined and helpless, though still in his holding, and without the means of cultivating it. If the debt was so unjust that the right of the landlord was to be fettered, so that he could not evict in certain cases where the tenant was in difficulties through no fault of his own, why should he be allowed in those same cases to proceed by writ of fi. fa. to sell up his tenant's goods? He hoped something would be done to prevent this. The County Court should have the same power to arrest a writ of fieri facias as the Bill would give them to arrest an eviction. To the Bankruptcy Clauses he had the greatest possible objection, and nothing would persuade him to vote for them. In view of the demoralized condition of Ireland, they were most dangerous in principle, and might be used as a legal "Plan of Campaign." His great objection to that part of the Bill was, that while it did good to the man who was brought to the wall, it did absolutely nothing for the solvent tenant; and those whom he represented were not insolvent, though they were over-rented, for the Report of the Royal Commission proved that they were in that condition. Was it an answer to the solvent tenant, to say that though he was over-rented, that he had made a contract for 15 years and must abide by it? It was the State that had blundered in making the term so long. Nor could the case of these men be settled by the promise of a Land Purchase Bill of which they at present knew nothing. They could not live on promises. Was it an answer to admit the injustice, and promise a remedy by a scheme of purchase? The shrewd Ulster tenants take this as they take the advice—"Live horse, and you will get grass." Nor was it an answer to say that the case of these tenants would be met by reductions from the landlords. It was an answer, he thought, in the South and West of Ireland, where the landlords had given abatements, and where intimidation had done its work; and he thought it was a scandal that this should be the case. Ulster was precisely the Province where those deductions had not

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    been made. Many of the landlords could make reductions, though many of them, no doubt, were not really the owners of their properties. Ulster would get no benefit from the Bill, because it was solvent. He thought that neither the Government, nor the House, had the right to say to them—"You have a just case; go on till you are ruined, then we will relieve you; and when you have been made a bankrupt, you will go on again on the old round like a horse in the bark mill." He could be no party to that. This brought him to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman), regarding which the Ulster Tenants' Defence Committee had written to him. That Resolution would do nothing for them; but it would wreck the Bill, which, would do something. At the worst, what would the Bill do? It would admit a certain number of leaseholders. It changed the rules of procedure, by which the judicial rent was payable from the day judgment was given, to the gale day next to the service of the originating notice. It gave some concessions as regards town parks. It improved Lord Ashbourne's Purchase Act, and it did a good deal for the Bright purchasers and the glebe land purchasers; and, in his opinion, it erected a barrier against unjust evictions. With these things in it, he, as representing South Tyrone, could not and would not take the responsibility of not voting for the second reading. The main question with him was this—was the Government open to reasonable Amendments? If so, the Bill could be made a great boon to the tenant farmers of Ireland, and he could not throw away all this for any empty Resolution. With regard to the position in Ulster, the Government had had no more unflinching supporter of the Crimes Bill than he had been. It was the least that the Government could do to restore the sovereignty of law. The Government had now got their power to deal with the combinations to which the Cowper Commission had referred, and to enforce the law. It was their absolute duty to see that the law was scrupulously just. He wished to point out that this Land Question was at the root of the whole Irish trouble. The history of Ireland showed that no mere political movement had ever prospered in Ireland. That was to be seen
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    in the cases of O'Connell, of the Young Ireland Party, the Fenian movement, and that headed by Mr. Butt, and even the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) had not ventured to hoist the National flag until he had founded the Land League. A Bill such as this was no settlement of the Land Question; it did not pretend to be a settlement of it. He Mr. T. W. Russell) believed that there was no solution of it save in the abolition of the dual ownership, which many people thought the Act of 1881 had created, but which, in fact, it had only legalized. He was a strong supporter of the Union, and he could conceive no greater calamity to Ireland than that the Union should be dissolved or impaired; but he was the true Unionist who pointed out the dangers ahead. The Government and the Party which took up and radically settled this great Irish Land Question might laugh to scorn all the efforts of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen who talked about maintaining the Union by a process of dissolving it. They might as well talk about strengthening the marriage tie by a decree of judicial separation. The Ulster tenants were a patient race, but patience did not last for ever. In Ireland the land was the life. Let them not drive the Ulster tenants to despair. If they did, they might depend upon it that there were plenty of men ready to go to Ulster as well as the hon. Member for East Mayo, and, like Job's wife, to whisper into the ears of the Ulster tenants, not "curse God and die," but curse England and live.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. GIBSON)said, he did not think it would be necessary for him to waste the attention of hon. Members by discussing seriously the Amendment which had been moved on the previous day by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling District (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman). Not one word had been stated that evening in support of that Amendment by the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), and, as far as he (Mr. Gibson) could gather from the admission of the right hon. Gentleman on the previous night, it had never been intended to be seriously argued, and the right hon. Gentleman distinctly stated that he submitted no plan. Her Majesty's Government had now to deal with

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    a situation of considerable difficulty in Ireland, and they had devised, with as much care as they could, a measure which would amend imminent difficulties and mischiefs which were obvious in the administration of the Irish Land Act. It was remarkable that in the Bill introduced last autumn by the hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) there had been no proposition whatever put forward by him —although he had stated that the time was one of a crisis affecting the safety and prosperity of Irish tenants—that there should be any general revision of rents. The hon. Member had felt that it was necessary to deal with the immediate question of evictions, because he had been well aware that a general revision of rents would be idle for the purpose of meeting unfair or unjust evictions. It had been pointed out by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain) that it was a principle in the mind of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothan (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) that there should be no general revision of rents when he had introduced his Land Purchase Bill in 1886. Not only had the right hon. Gentleman laid it down as a cardinal principle of the Bill that the normal rate of purchase should be 20 years' purchase on the judicial rent, but he had distinctly provided in the 51st section of his Bill that no action of the Irish Legislature should prejudice or impair the obligations come to under judicial decision. The result of that Bill would have been that no alteration could have been made in the judicial rents once they had been fixed by the Court. That was the position of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, and it had apparently been the fixed policy of the right hon. Gentleman's Government down to the time he had gone out of Office, and if there had been any change this Amendment would have been moved by the right hon. Gentleman who had last been Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. John Morley), and who up to last autumn had been in a position to know the condition of the Irish tenants. Now, the question was an immediate and pressing one. What the Government offered was not a reconstruction of the Land Act of 1881, but a means by which admitted and urgent difficulties could be dealt with, and which would be recognized as show-
    550
    ing an earnest and a sincere intention on the part of the Government to deal fairly and justly with the Irish tenants. He felt much sympathy with the object and language of the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Tyrone, who had just sat down. However much he might disagree with some of the views which the hon. Gentleman had expressed, it was plain from the language of the hon. Member that he was perfectly alive to the hollowness and insincerity of the Amendment, and was determined not to abandon the generous and reasonable proposals of the Government in order to deprive his constituents of benefits which they most assuredly would reap if this measure passed into law. Now, as to the 1st section of the Bill, which included the leaseholders, the question was what form the admission of the leaseholders to the benefits of the Act should take. Were all the leases in Ireland for the purpose of this Act to come to an end at a given period of time? The Government, looking to the provisions of the Bill brought in last autumn by the hon. Member for Cork, thought his solution was perhaps the best—namely, to accelerate the expiration of the leases coming within the Act of 1881, and at a given time, to which landlord and tenant could both look forward, say that these leases were determined for the purposes of this Act. But it was essential that the House should understand that the determination of a lease was practically only a formal expression, because all the obligations of the lease bound both landlord and tenant after its termination in exactly the same way as before the lease had run out. The position of the yearly tenant after his lease had expired under Section 21 of the right hon. Gentleman's Act was that he was bound by all the provisions of the lease, but he had got rights which he did not have when his lease was in force—the right to perpetuity of tenure, the right to have the rent fixed, and the right of free sale. The right hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) declared that the effect of the drafting of the Bill was such as to leave every tenant who held under a lease at the mercy of his landlord who wanted to raise the rent, but he did not appear to have read the Bill, because it distinctly provided that if consideration had been given for the lease, in such a case it

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    should be impossible for the landlord to break the lease. He could quite understand that it would be a hardship if there was a beneficial lease that that lease should be in the power of the landlord; but the provision of the Bill was a more generous and equitable provision than was to be found in the Bill of the hon. Member for Cork. The hon. Gentleman had made some observations with regard to perpetuity grants. Now, the drafting of the Bill in this regard was an amplification of the Act of the right hon. Gentleman. Where leases were then in existence which would come to an end within 60 years after the passing of the Act, at their expiration the tenant would be entitled to the status of a present tenant, with all the great boons which the right hon. Gentleman conferred. The Government had amplified and extended that principle, but they had not altered the class of tenants to which that legislation extended, and under the Bill of the hon. Member for Cork there was no extension beyond the class that came under the scope of the the Act of 1881. Accordingly, the Government had followed that principle. Now, the first section was the only one which the hon. Member for East Mayo had marked with his approval. But he thought the hon. Member could hardly have been in earnest. Was the House aware that the second clause, which enabled the judicial rent to be dated not from the gale day following the decision of the Court, but from the gale day following the application, was one which was included in a Bill of the hon. Member for Cork, although then rejected by the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian? That was a great boon worth many thousands of pounds to the Irish tenants, and one that would be appreciated in the North as well as in the South. He was surprised that the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) did not name one single provision of the Bill which met with his approval, and made no reference whatever to Section 2, which he must have known was a boon, and though the right hon. Gentleman announced that he would only make a fair and candid criticism, yet he did not lapse one moment into the forgetfulness of saying the smallest word of the faintest praise. The second clause, as he said, represented a benefit of large mercantile value. At the pre-
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    sent moment there were about 500,000 tenants in Ireland; 100,000 were leaseholders; 200,000 had had judicial rents fixed, leaving 200,000 who had had no judicial rents fixed at all. A large number of these 200,000 tenants would get the benefit of this clause, and that fact that they had not yet come into Court alone ought to supply a strong argument to show that the Irish landlords were not the rapacious and unreasonable body they were sometimes represented to be. The section relating to ejectment had been denounced, not only by the hon. Member for East Mayo, who said it was an infamous and atrocious proposal, but he gathered that the right hon. Member for the Stirling district also joined in the condemnation of it. It was a merciful provision to the tenant and to the landlord. It gave each an opportunity during the six months of redemption of coming to terms, and prevented it being necessary for the Sheriff to resort to the last dire extremity. What was the law on this subject in Ireland? When an ejectment was brought for nonpayment of rent the tenancy was not forfeited until the judgment was actually executed by process of law, and the period of equitable redemption in the tenancy did not begin to run until that execution. The result was that landlords had to resort to two evictions, the first for the purpose of causing the expiration of the tenancy and making the period of redemption begin to run; and the second eviction, when the caretaker was put out. Statistics had been quoted by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) which showed that of these preliminary evictions not more than a fourth or a fifth were consummated by ultimate eviction in the long run. It was the intention of the Government by this measure to save the tenants from the hardships and risks to which they were exposed, from the danger of quarrel and of settlement being impossible, by this preliminary eviction, and to enable the landlord to serve his notice on the premises to determine the tenancy. He called attention to the circumstance that the Government in this provision had mercifully enlarged the recommendations of the Cowper Commission. The next provision was that dealing with town parks. He thought the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Rus-

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    sell) could not have given sufficient attention to the provisions of this section. What was the existing law? It was that a holding which was held by a person living in a town for acccommodation purposes should not be the subject of fixed rent under Act of Parliament. The Government, however, were aware that in many cases those town-park holdings were really in their essence and character not accommodation lands of the ordinary town-park character, but in the nature of agricultural holdings. Without laying down a hard and fast line, therefore, the Government had proposed that where the holding was in its ordinary character an agricultural one it should become subject to the provisions of the Land Act of 1881 and constitute a present tenancy. Then, as to the Purchase Clauses of the Bill. The hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) stated that no one opposed those clauses. He, however, distinctly caught the right hon. Member for Stirling District saying that he was always opposed to Purchase Clauses, and would oppose these.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: No, no. I raised no objection to the Purchase Clauses at all. I referred to any further extension of Lord Ashbourne's Act.
    MR. GIBSONasked whether he was to understand that the right hon. Gentleman had not considered the Purchases Clauses of the Bill, or whether he had not formed an opinion as to supporting them or not? The right hon. Gentleman appeared to decline to express an opinion in one way or another at present. But he called attention to the fact that in "another place" a suggestion was made as to not continuing those clauses in the Bill, and a representation was made by a noble Lord to the effect that those with whom he acted would probably offer no opposition to those clauses. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman might have had some communication with that noble Lord.
    MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I do not wish to alarm the right hon. and learned Gentleman; but I must mention that the noble Lord to whom he refers said that he could only speak for himself, and as to his own expectations, and was not able to bind any one else.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, the expectation of the noble Lord was of great efficacy, speaking, as he did, from his high position. The next provision was that of appeal. The Government recognized the great importance of having a strong and efficient Court of Appeal. The matter, however, would no doubt be fully discussed in Committee. The hon. Member for East Mayo referred to the provisions dealing with the remission of local rates. He was unable to understand what the hon. Member meant when he said that it was a premium on evictions. He could not understand how a provision which limited the landlord's right to a case where the land could not be let in consequence of intimidation was assumed to be a case in which the landlord was in possession of the holding from which the tenant had been unjustly and harshly evicted. The next provision was that of equitable jurisdiction. There could be no doubt that, broadly speaking, there were two classes of tenants in the community—the class of tenants who were solvent, but who might have grievances, and who occupied a hard position, and tenants who were wholly unable to pay not only the landlord but their other creditors. The view of the Government was that, in an individual case of hardship it should be competent for the Court to intervene between the solvent tenant and the landlord, who had, perhaps, harshly enforced his legal rights, so as to give a stay of execution to the tenant. That was a very large concession, which he was not aware had previously been found in any Government measure, and there was no doubt that the views of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham and of the hon. Member for South Tyrone were perfectly well founded when they said that such a provision was a complete answer to the possibility of capricious eviction on the part of any landlord. But it had been said that this was only the front door, and the back door remained open—that a landlord, if he chose, might get a writ of fieri facias. That was no doubt a possibility, but he would call attention to one or two circumstances in order to show that wise landlords rarely resorted to this particular expedient. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] He knew that it had been resorted to in some cases, but, as a rule, it was not resorted to by any landlord

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    who had a wise counsellor. A wise landlord would not usually resort to this method of execution, because if a tenancy had been mortgaged, settled, or had outstanding interests attached, no execution against the man who was paying the rent would be effective in enabling the landlord to acquire that interest; and, as he had seen again and again, ejectments which had been brought failed because the interests could not be legally seized under a writ of fieri facias. The method of recovery in Ireland was the statutory remedy. But there were difficulties in the landlord's way. If a landlord brought an action for rent in a superior court against the small tenant under £20, he must pay the attorney and all law costs himself, the result being that the landlords did not care to go to this luxury at their own expense. These and other circumstances made the enforcement of this remedy rare. Still, he admitted that it was legally possible for the thing to occur, and the House had to consider and suggest an expedient by which such a difficulty could be avoided. He had heard a most thoughtful speech in the other House from the late Lord Chancellor, but that noble and learned Lord offered no solution of the difficulty. It was hard to see where they were to draw the line. Was the landlord to look on while an execution creditor swooped down and carried off everything from the farm? If the writ of fieri facias on the part of the landlord was suspended, what was the landlord to do? The tenant might be making away with his crops; he might give them away to favoured creditors.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: There was a provision of the kind in the Act of 1881, and you threw it out in the House of Lords.
    MR. GIBSONsaid, he did not know to what provision the hon. Member referred. No doubt by the Statute of Anne, where a Sheriff seized in execution and a year's rent was due, he had to make a provision for a year's rent. That was the law of both countries; but he was calling attention to the fact that they would be making a sharp and marked distinction between the landlord and other creditors by adopting the suggestion which had been thrown out. The matter appeared to him to be one of enormous difficulty, and he would have been glad if the right hon. Gentleman
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    opposite had been good enough to indicate what should be the particular mode of obviating the difficulty without flagrant and manifest injustice. By that section as it stood they dealt with the difficulty which existed in some parts of Ireland, and was recognized in previous legislation; and he did not think there was any precedent in the Act of 1870 or in other legislation which altered the position of the landlord as compared with that of other creditors. He next came to the bankruptcy section, as to which the House had heard a good deal of criticism. The right hon. Member for the Stirling Burghs seemed to think that the provision of the Bill that a reasonable rent might be fixed by the Bankruptcy Court during the 18 months placed the Government in a dilemma as to the reasonableness or fairness of the judicial rent which had been previously fixed, In constructing his dilemma, however, the right hon. Gentleman did not sufficiently consider that they were dealing with proceedings in the Court of Bankruptcy to which the landlord was a consenting party. The tenant, under the Bill, to get into the Bankruptcy Court must go as a free agent and with the sanction of the landlord, who was subject to a penalty if his refusal was unreasonable. While the tenant was in the Bankruptcy Court, relieved of the claims of the other creditors who were each trying to pull some of his assets from him, it was the intention of the clause that during that period the landlord and all the other creditors should make as it were a common subscription together. The landlord allowed his land to be used for the 18 months by permission of the Court, and the rent which the tenant was to pay was not that which he would pay under ordinary circumstances, but such as he could be fairly expected to pay under the particular circumstances without injustice to the landlord and without undue preference to any other of the creditors. The right hon. Member for Stirling said that the clause "was saturated with the spirit of exclusiveness and reeked with the worst spirit of landlordism." Why did the right hon. Gentleman say that of a clause which was probably more disliked by landlords than any other clause in the Bill? The right hon. Gentleman said there was no provision that the landlord should be made a bankrupt.

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    The suggestion seemed to be that where the tenant could not pay his debts, and became a bankrupt, it was a hardship to him if the landlord did not assume the same mantle and accompany him into the Bankruptcy Court as a kind of twin. The hon. Member for East Mayo had referred to the arrears of rent on the holding being made a first charge to the extent of one year, and said the intention of that was to plunder the creditors for the benefit of the landlord. The existing Law of Bankruptcy was that every landlord was entitled to a distraint to the extent of six months' rent; but inasmuch as the landlord was to be put out from his power of bringing any action of ejectment, and was to be tied up during that period altogether, the Government thought it fair that the landlord, who might have many years of arrears due to him, should receive that small consideration to which the hon. Member objected. When the hon. Member for East Mayo said that creditors were deprived of all remedy, he forgot that all the creditors in bankruptcy were entitled to an equal right of proof, except in so far as a preferential right of proof was given to any particular creditor. In conclusion, that Bill was not put forward by the Government as a re-construction of the Act of 1881; but as a generous attempt to meet a real difficulty which all honest and candid men in that House must admit to exist. Last Session the hon. Member for Cork introduced a Bill proposing a stay of execution against tenants whose rents were judicially fixed before 1884. What they now proposed under that provision was that, in cases where there might be a harsh eviction, whether the rents were judicial rents or not, the Court should have a power to intervene. That would be a great benefit to tenants in difficulties, and he hoped that the House would come to the conclusion that the Amendment of the right hon. Member for the Stirling District was an illusory Amendment, not supported by any real plan or intelligible proposition, and that it would be an unwise and a dangerous thing to throw away the real advantages of that Bill, in order to satisfy the views of the right hon. Gentleman.
    MR. MAHONYsaid, he expected the hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) would have given the House some information
    558
    as to the intentions of the Government. The importance of the hon. Gentleman's reticence could only be fully realized by a consideration of what the position of the Government really was. It was well known that they were in Office, and that they were not in power. They occupied the Ministerial Benches by the votes of hon. Gentlemen sitting on the opposite side of the House; and, in view of the fact that the Bill had been subjected to the most hostile criticism by two of their supporters on that side of the House, the seriousness of the hon. and learned Gentleman's silence as to the intention of the Government could hardly be over-estimated. In introducing this Bill, he believed the Government were actuated all through as men who were enemies to the principle of the Act which they now proposed to amend. That spirit seemed to him to animate every proposal they made. The great principle of the Act of 1885 could only be defended on the ground that freedom of contract between landlord and tenant in Ireland had never existed. The only reason he could see for admitting leaseholders to the benefits of the Act of 1881 was that they were not free to contract at the time of taking over their leases. They took their leases, in many cases, to avoid the evils which were pressing strongly upon them, and of which subsequent legislation relieved other tenants in Ireland to a certain extent. They were, in many instances, forced into their leases because they held under extra harsh landlords. There was no possible argument to justify them in allowing landlords to break those leases which the tenants did not want to have broken, because there could be no pretence that the landlords had been coerced into granting the leases. The Bankruptcy Clauses, as they stood at present, were a mere sham, and they had been so described in the Upper House by Lord Fitzgerald. The Times newspaper, that eminently fair and judicial journal, in its report of Lord Fitzgerald's speech, had entirely omitted the words "merest sham," which only appeared in The Daily News. But he had Lord Fitzgerald's own authority for saying that he used the word sham. As regards the written notice substituted in the action for ejectment, that was a clause rendering evictions easy and unjust—evictions were always easy enough. The land-

    559
    lords would serve their notice by post on the day they got the decree, and this would, of course, shorten the time for redemption quite as much as the recommendation of the Commissioners. To argue on the basis that tenants were re-admitted as caretakers was quite erroneous, because they had no record of what happened—those caretakers at the end of the six months' period of redemption. It was conceded all round that the judicial rents were too high, and last night the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour) told them that if the Irish landlords would take his advice they would make reductions on the judicial rents. With reference to middlemen, he would ask what was to become of middlemen whose rents to the landlords just equalled the judicial rents of their tenants? They could not make a reduction to their tenants without loss, and yet under this Bill they could not surrender. However, as middlemen were practically landlords, he had no doubt this matter would be carefully attended to by the House. The provisions for the remission of rates to landlords were very peculiar in a Bill which was brought forward with such professions as this Bill, for it was certainly a novel way of relieving over-rented tenants to throw upon them the burden of extra rates. With regard to the jurisdiction of the County Court, it was pretty certain that the County Court Judge would not be unfriendly to the Irish landlords. The hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland, who was the adviser of the Government on this matter, had assured the House that the power of fieri facias was not much used by the landlords now. Would the House believe that the Returns showed that this power in the year 1886 was used in no less than 6,580 cases. The Commission had reported that the price and produce combined had fallen 18 per cent, but in reality they had fallen a great deal more, because, in the first place, they based their calculation, on a rate of produce which existed only in the mind of the Registrar General, and because they took their estimate of prices from the only source available to them—namely, the Irish Farmers' Gazette. This gave the prices of the great towns—Belfast, Cork, and Dublin—and these were different from the prices in
    560
    the country, and besides it was the best produce which was sent to the great towns. But even taking the fall in prices as 20 per cent, and he believed it to be much more, it was ludicrous to say that a 20 per cent fall could be met by a 20 per cent reduction—as a matter of fact it could not be met by less than a 50 per cent reduction. There was great danger of the whole Bill being strangled by a hostile Court of Appeal. He admitted that the Land Commissioners were giving effect to a certain extent to the fall in prices, even now the rents were not being fixed low enough, and those who rested their hopes upon the present action of the Land Commissioners would find their hope very delusive indeed. The Government ought to adopt the recommendation of their own Commissioners, and reduce the term of years during which the judicial rents should run from 15 to five years. The Commissioners themselves said that the term of 15 years was too long for the poorer class of tenant. If a term of 15 years were fixed the fluctuations in prices would naturally be allowed for; but the Commissioners never allowed for the present depression, though they did make allowance for good years which would enable a tenant to tide over bad years, and they fixed the rents believing that things would improve. Instead of prices rising, they had gone down far below what the Commissioners believed to be the bottom of the fall. When the Act of 1881 was before the House, it was distinctly stated in the House that it was the intention of the Government that no rent should be charged on tenants' improvements. The right hon. Gentleman opposite knew that that had been overridden by the Courts in Ireland, and he wished to ask him if he would introduce some provision into this Bill to secure that to the tenant. Lord Salisbury told them last Session that any scheme of land purchase would be based on the present judicial rents; but now the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary admitted that any scheme of purchase must be based on what were fair rents at the time of the purchase. If the Government were in earnest in their promise to bring in a Bill next Session to carry out a scheme of land purchase based on fair rents at the time, there was no reason why they should not at once set to work to revise

    561
    the judicial rents which they admitted were unfair. There were many hundred tenants in Ireland suffering under a rent which it was impossible for them to pay, but the Government did not interfere to relieve these people, but only consented to deal with a few questions where the landlords had pushed their rights to such dire extremes that the tenants were reduced to a state of bankruptcy; in fact, the only clauses of the Bill which made any pretence of giving a remedy to the tenant were the equitable jurisdiction and the Bankruptcy Clauses of the Bill, which, in their present shape, were a mere sham. The Government might find a sufficient number of men in that House to support their policy; but the recent elections at Spalding and Coventry showed that their action was not approved of by the country.
    MR. ELTONsaid, that the ground had now been pretty well cleared for the discussion of the Bill. The House had had speeches of many different kinds, one of which, the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Division (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman), who proposed the Amendment, he was very glad to hear, for this reason—that if there was nothing more to be said against it, the Bill, he thought, was tolerably secure. Whether it was from his native caution, or from the merits of the case, the right hon. Gentleman took care not to fire very damaging shots against a measure which he wished to wound, but not to kill. From Ministers the House had statements which more clearly revealed the real nature and scope of the Bill than had been done before. Then there was the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain), which was full of the most striking suggestions. The right hon. Gentleman's speech was marked by a tone of too general benevolence. He had a reform to suggest for every evil, and his mode of dealing with the subject perhaps too closely resembled that of an Eastern Cadi. The right hon. Gentleman who moved the Amendment gave the House a good deal of criticism on every clause of the Bill; but what it all came to was this—that the Government ought to have done something quite different. With regard to frequent revision of rents, to carry out such a
    562
    policy would be to sanctify the system of dual ownership. It might have been an extremely good thing to legalize the tenant-right interest in 1881; but, of course, the fixing of it for a certain term of years was sure to lead to the difficulties which had come to pass. This must be regarded as a step towards a plan by which dual ownership would pass away, and single ownership would be established by means of a purchase scheme. Dual ownership, he was convinced, was not a good thing as a permanent system. It was a bad thing in itself, except where the rent was very small. It was only tolerable when the rent was in the nature of a ground-rent or small charge. It might be said that we had been accustomed to dual ownership in England for many generations; but, on the other hand, it should be remembered that it had been disliked, and that efforts had been made to abolish it. In his opinion, a continual revision of rents would be most inconvenient and irritable, and even an automatic change must lead to the idea that the rent would be a tribute rather than the result of a contract. The Bill contained a great number of provisions dealing with a large number of subjects, and he thought that it was intended to prepare the way for purchase by defining and ascertaining the state of the tenants, and to make it clear, more than the Act of 1881 did, what were the interests of the owner and the tenant in the land. The Bill should prevent any dispossession of the tenant until the Arrears Bill was brought in. In that case, if what he considered was the principle of Clause 22 was carried out, the Bankruptcy Clauses would not be wanted at all, because all cases would be met except those of undeserving tenants. With regard to Section 4 of the Bill, he thought that those who were engaged in the administration of Ireland were right in attempting to reduce those horrors which had made their blood run cold. The Government, in his opinion, had made an honest and strenuous effort to avert those horrors. He thought that the right hon. Gentleman who had proposed the Amendment had spoken somewhat coldly and cynically of the efforts of the Government to do away with the evils which surrounded evictions. At all events, he conceived that it was the duty of the

    563
    Government to do all that in them lay to put down the occurrence of the terrible events which had taken place in the wholesale evictions of which they had heard. They had been told that this clause would reduce the number of evictions by one-half, and that was something. All he asked was that this Bill should be received as a contribution which all parties would try to make into something good. He was sure that it would not be received in an irreconcilable way. After all, the speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) had not been so very irreconcilable, since he had found that everything in the Bill had been advised at some previous period by himself and his Party. At the same time, whether or not there might be practical details in it which could be altered in Committee, he did not believe that the House, after considering it, would refuse to assent to the proposition that this was an honest attempt to deal with the difficulty, not from any base motives which might have been suggested, but with an anxiety to do justice between all parties, and in a generous spirit to do all in their power to prevent those unfortunate events occurring again. With regard to the question of the charges on estates, which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham had wished to be abated proportionally, he thought that those family charges and other charges on landlords pressed very hard in Ireland, as they did in England, upon people whose rents were depressed below the margin of subsistence; but were they to put an Incumbered Estates Bill into what was really a Provisional Arrears Bill? Let them think what tremendous principles were involved. Suppose some of a family had alienated their charges on a property. A very large proportion of family charges were assigned to other people for money. Were they going to reduce charges in the hands of solicitors and Insurance Companies? That would be a very large undertaking to put into an Arrears Bill. On the other hand, it would be hard and obviously unfair to reduce them only when they were in the family. Then, again, what was there that was sacred in a charge held by relations as compared with an ordinary mortgagee's charge? Why should not the usurer be cut down too? He thought
    564
    that these questions were too large to be treated in what was merely an Arrears Bill, which was to act until the Purchase Bill came down. With regard to the surrender of his estate by the middleman, he thought that it was guarded in every way by the provisions of the clause. All Parties were agreed that the leaseholder ought to be admitted to the benefits of the Act of 1881, and ought to obtain the immediate enjoyment of the rights of a statutory tenant, which at present he had only in reversion at the end of his lease. There was no use in saying that this right ought to have been given in 1881, and little advantage in the minute criticism which had been passed upon this part of the Bill. With respect to improvements, there was a disposition on the part of some of the witnesses before the Commission to treat them as though they constituted a sort of separate interest from the land. This seemed to be the point of view of the Proviso to the 1st clause, according to which the Court was to disallow an application by a leaseholder for a judicial rent in cases where the landlord or his predecessors had made improvements, the unexhausted value of which was four times the rent of the holding. In cases of main or arterial drainage, he had sometimes heard this view expressed. But his view was that the general rule should be followed, that the accessory follows the principal, and that, as the leaseholders were to be enfranchised, no condition of this kind should be attached to their enfranchisement.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, that no Bill ever introduced into the House had been mauled as this Bill had been. It had been riddled with shot from stem to stern, and had not received any commendation from any quarter except the Ministerial Bench. Hostile criticism had not been confined to the opponents of the Government. Of the able and exhaustive speeches made against the Bill, two of the most damaging had been made by his right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Joseph Chamberlain) and the hon. and learned Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell). Though both Gentlemen promised to vote in favour of the Government, both were unsparing in their criticism of the details of the Bill, and

    565
    there was scarcely a clause of the Bill of which they were able unreservedly to approve. The most damaging speech against the Bill was that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, more especially when the House considered his close relations with the Government, and the fact that he had been generally credited with the authorship of one portion of the Bill. Under these circumstances, they might certainly have expected that when the right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland rose to speak on behalf of the Government, he would be prepared to announce some concessions to the almost unanimous expression of opinion against the Bill. But in the course of his speech there was no promise of amendment on the part of the Government, and no concession of any kind. He asked the Liberal Unionists what would have been the effect upon the Government if they had promised to vote for the Amendment instead of against it? Would it not have had the effect of bringing the Government to its bearings upon this subject? The answer to the course they had taken was that no concession had been made, and this fact justified his right hon. Friend the Member for the Stirling Burghs (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) in the Amendment he now placed before the House. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham made a severe and, as he thought, a rather unfair attack upon his right hon. Friend. He told him that his object was to defeat and destroy the Bill, and throw matters in Ireland into greater confusion, and deprive the Irish tenants of any remedy for a year, or two years, or a longer period to come. He was quite sure that that description of the right hon. Gentleman's object was wholly incorrect; there was nothing that hon. Members on his side of the House would not do to alleviate the condition of the Irish tenantry; and if the Government would but consent to amend the measure they would receive cordial assistance in making it a real remedy for the existing state of things. Having had some experience of measures of this kind, it was his conviction that, with the exception of the clauses relating to leaseholders, the other main portions of the Bill were nugatory and inefficacious for their purpose. They would do more harm than good. They were not worth
    566
    the paper they were written upon. They furnished no real remedy for the evil which existed. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, although giving the Government Bill a general support, confirmed in effect the criticisms of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Burghs (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman). They all admitted the value of the clause relating to leaseholders so far as it went. But it was hampered by restrictions which might easily be removed. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham, referring to the clause relating to ejectments, had pointed out that although the Bill provided a remedy in one direction against unjust eviction it left the door open for the landlord in another direction. From the intimations they had received from Ireland, it appeared that a bad class of landlords would take advantage of the alternative process which the Bill permitted and would treat their tenants in the future as they had in the past. The right hon. and learned Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) practically admitted the force of the argument. His only answer to it was that landlords in the past had not often availed themselves of these processes, on account of the responsibility they involved. The right hon. and learned Attorney General had asked Gentlemen on the Opposition side of the House to find a remedy. It was not for the Opposition to provide remedies for the defects they pointed out, and which were admitted by the Government. But the alternative proposal set forth in the Amendment before the House to a large extent provided a remedy. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham also admitted that the Bankruptcy Clauses would not meet the case of the solvent tenant, and that the fall in agricultural prices had rendered the rents judicially fixed unfair and unreasonable. The right hon. Gentleman suggested that where landlords have been unable or unwilling to make remissions the tenants should have the power to apply to the Land Court for temporary remission. That suggestion was rather vague and hazy. He should prefer the adoption of the recommendation of the Cowper Commission upon this point, believing that to allow too frequent application to the Court for temporary remissions would be unwise. The right

    567
    hon. Member for West Birmingham had argued that much of the existing difficulty was caused by the embarrassments of landlords, who had heavy charges and mortgages upon their property, and who were in consequence unable to grant remissions. This, no doubt, was the explanation of the unwillingness of some landlords to make reductions; but it was no real answer to the complaints of the tenants. The tenants were either entitled to remissions in consequence of their peculiar position as co-proprietors, or they were not. If they were, the embarrassed position of landlords could not affect their right. As to the Bankruptcy Clauses, the Government could not do better than take the advice of the right hon. Gentleman and abandon them. He could not refrain from saying that never before had such foolish— aye, idiotic proposals been laid before Parliament. They would not benefit a single tenant in Ireland, and be of use only to landlords. Any tenant who took advantage of them would emerge from the Bankruptcy Court a beggar. Under the circumstances, therefore, the advice of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham to drop this part of the Bill was good. The Bill, as amended according to the suggestion of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham would be a totally different measure. It would, indeed, be difficult to recognize it, for almost every clause would have undergone a change in accordance with the spirit of the Amendment of the right hon. Member for the Stirling Burghs. He desired to know whether the right hon. Gentleman proposed to follow up his advice by action? They had also a right to know from the Liberal Unionists whether the Amendments suggested by the right hon. Member represented their views as well as his. Was the right hon. Member prepared to stand by his proposals? Was he prepared to insist upon them; or was he going to do what he had done on previous occasions—namely, speak in one sense and vote in another, for fear of defeating the Government? If the Government elected to stand or fall by their Bills, his right hon. Friend would not be able to insist upon any of his Amendments without the risk of turning out the Government, and this he was not prepared to do. It was to be regretted that the right hon. Gentle-
    568
    man did not produce these proposals last autumn when the hon. Member for Cork was pressing upon the Government of the day the necessity of finding some remedy for the state of affairs which was likely to arise in Ireland during the winter. It was a pity his right hon. Friend did not, in concert with the Liberal Party, seek to devise a remedy in the direction he now proposed. If he had done so there need have been no evictions, no Plan of Campaign, and he ventured to think there would have been no Coercion Bill this year. It was also remarkable that the right hon. Gentleman should not have made a better bargain with the Government in return for his supporting against his natural instincts their Coercion Bill. But there was a fundamental error running through the whole of the right hon. Gentleman's speech. If he had given free scope to what he could not but think was the instinct of his own mind—namely, against coercion, he would have placed the Government in a position in which they would have been compelled to give him better terms in order to muzzle him. There was another error running through the speech of the right hon. Gentleman—namely, that he hoped to settle the Irish Land Question without consultation with the Irish Members. He thought that was an unstatesmanlike and an unwise method of approaching this question; but it was a similar attitude to that taken up by the noble Marquess the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington) in regard to Home Rule. The attempt to legislate on either the Land Question or on that of local government without concert with the Irish Members would only lead to further difficulties. His right hon. Friend twitted the Irish Members with the action they took on the Bill of 1881, and he (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) considered at that time that the Irish Members were unnecessarily hostile in their criticism; but now, looking back at this period, with the knowledge that he had subsequently acquired, he had long felt that it was a great mistake on the part of the Government of that day, and of which he was a Member, not to have come to terms at that time with the Irish Members. Their failure to do so was the main defect of the Irish Bill of 1881, and he was free to confess that if the criticisms of the Irish Members

    569
    had been more respected, many of the mistakes of the Bill would have been avoided. Most of the hostile criticism of the Irish Members had turned out to be correct, with, the result that further legislation was now required. If the Government of the day attempted to settle this question without concert or consultation with the Irish Members, they would fall into the same difficulty. It had been said that this measure was only a stopgap in view of a coming scheme of land purchase. But bearing in mind the storm of opposition raised to the last land purchase scheme of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone), he did not think that the prospects of any sweeping scheme for converting the tenants of Ireland into owners were very bright. He was himself opposed to any universal measure of this kind. This Bill could not really be regarded as a stopgap. It was a Bill which provided the tenants with the only remedy they would have for the next three or four years at least. But the great objection that was entertained to this Bill was that it did nothing whatever for the struggling and industrious solvent tenant, who was called upon to pay too high a rent. No explanation of this had been given in this House, but the proceedings in the other House threw some light on the subject. Lord Salisbury never opened his mouth on this subject without showing how greatly he misconceived the meaning of the Land Act of 1881. Lord Salisbury defended the Government for not dealing with the case of the solvent tenants on the ground that these tenants were bound by contract to their landlord, and he went on to denounce the Land Act as establishing dual ownership in land. But since the Land Act of 1881 established dual ownership, it abrogated the old relation of contract between landlord and tenant. The system of judicial rents was not a necessary incident of dual ownership, because dual ownership was created in cases in which tenants did not apply to the Land Court. It was a misnomer now to speak of the two parties as landlord and tenant; they were not such in the English sense of the term, but they were co-owners, each possessing a distinct interest in the land, and they ought to be called co-proprietors. Under the Act of
    570
    1881 the Land Commissioners had fixed 180,000 judicial rents, making an average reduction of 18 per cent. It was claimed that many of the rents so fixed had ceased to be just owing to the fall in prices, and in the Report of the Cowper Commission there was overwhelming proof that the average values of produce had fallen in the last three years no less than 18 per cent; and, in addition, that there had been a great deterioration in the value of the land of Ireland since 1879, owing to a succession of wet seasons. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham was mistaken in supposing that later reductions were not more than from 10 to 14 per cent. The average reduction of the last three years, as compared with previous years, was no less than 30 per cent; and this was shown by comparing the rents in both cases with Griffith's valuation. In view of that depreciation, was it fair that the whole loss should fall on one of the co-owners—that the tenant should bear the whole of this great depreciation in values? As the condition had completely changed since 1881 it was not only fair and right, but it was in accordance with the principle of the Act of 1881 that judicial rents should be revised. The case might be illustrated in this way—Suppose two tenants—A and B—of adjoining farms of the same size and value, A holding under a rack-renting landlord, and B holding at a fair rent 26 per cent less than A; and suppose that three years ago A went to the Land Court and had his rent reduced to B's level; it was not thus necessary for B to go into the Land Court, for his rent was a moderate one; but now, when prices are gone down and when the Land Court is making much larger reductions, B goes into Court and obtains a reduction of his rent 30 per cent lower than A's judicial rent. How is it possible to defend the difference which now again exists between the rent of A and B. Leaseholders would get reductions of 30 per cent more than those who had their rents fixed more than three years ago; and such inequalities must give rise to the gravest dissatisfaction. Unless such cases were dealt with by a general rule there could not be contentment, and the measure must fail. He, therefore, implored the Government to reconsider this part of their scheme. There was no remedy

    571
    under the Bill for the inequality until a man was on the verge of bankruptcy, and the equity clauses would not give satisfaction or work justly. Arrears were to be spread over future years, and this would revive the worst practice of the worst landlords in Ireland—namely, that of allowing arrears of rent to accumulate round the necks of tenants until they were reduced to the position of slaves. Instead of reducing rents, landlords would point to these clauses of the Bill as indicating the course they ought to pursue; tenants would be encumbered with arrears until there was no recourse but bankruptcy; and then it would be said the Bill provided a remedy. He hoped that some Member of the Government would be able to get up and say that they were willing to make a concession in the direction pointed out in the Amendment. If the Government were prepared to do so, he did not think his right hon. Friend would proceed further with his Amendment, and all Parties would endeavour to make the best of the Bill. He reminded the Government that they had fallen far short of the recommendations of the Commission. The recommendations urged upon the Government were made by a Commission of their own selection, and no Member of which represented the National Party of Ireland. The Members were warm supporters of the Government, and would scarcely have reported as they had done unless they had reasons to suppose that their recommendations would be acceptable to the Government. He ventured, the suggestion that these recommendations were in accordance with the wishes and feelings of the right hon. Baronet the late Chief Secretary for Ireland (Sir Michael Hicks-Beach) who, while expressing his objections to the Bill of the hon. Member for Cork last year, showed some sympathy with its object, and during the winter used his best efforts to induce landlords to reduce their rents, and had indicated that the Government were prepared with large proposals. He (Mr. Shaw Lefevre) regretted the causes of the right hon. Gentleman's resignation, and could not forbear expressing his opinion that perhaps there might have been another cause for his resignation than his unfortunate illness. At all events, it was quite certain that since his resignation a change had come over the policy
    572
    of the Government. They had never heard from the right hon. Gentleman the present Chief Secretary any single recommendation to the landlords to be lenient, and until last night there never escaped from his lips a single word of sympathy with the suffering Irish tenants.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): You are entirely in error.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVREsaid, he was very happy to hear that correction, but the right hon. Gentleman had never exhibited the same standard of good feeling towards the Irish tenants as his Predecessor had done. On the other hand, he had thrown himself with great zest into the policy of coercion. The House had now before them the whole policy of the Government with regard to Ireland—on the one hand a Coercion Bill, the most severe and the most stringent ever passed in this country. [Cries of "No, no!"] Well, he had studied every one of the Coercion Acts since the Union, and he said, without hesitation, that this Bill was the most stringent of any that had ever been passed in this respect. It was aimed chiefly at combination among tenants, and he did not believe any previous Acts had gone that length. The hon. and learned Attorney General had said that this Bill was directed only against crime, but in the end of the debate on Friday night the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen) had let the cat out of the bag, and had told the House that the Bill was directed against combinations. They had now a supplement of that policy in the Bill before the House, which, he ventured to say, was insufficient for its purpose, unworthy in its workings, and would not give satisfaction to the tenants of Ireland. Looking at the policy as a whole, he said it was an unwise policy. It would aggravate the evils it was intended to cure, and it would widen the gulf between landlords and tenants, which it should have been the wise policy of the present Government to bridge over and efface.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Sir JOHN GORST)said, he trusted the right hon. Member for Central Bradford (Mr. Shaw-Lefevre) would allow a humble Member of the Government to thank him for the assistance he had promised to

    573
    give them, and to express a hope that it would be of a more effective character than he had given by his speech on the second reading. He (Sir John Gorst) did not complain so much of the criticisms of the right hon. Gentleman, because he had scarcely said anything which had not been urged already; but he did complain of the joy which the right hon. Gentleman had expressed because, as he said, the Bill had received such a mauling and had been riddled by shot from stem to stern. The Government had a right to complain of the way in which the right hon. Gentleman reviewed the remarks of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain), apparently for the purpose of showing that, while he agreed in all that the right hon. Member for West Birmingham had said, he disagreed with him in this—that he had made up his mind not to vote for the Amendment, and so wreck the Bill upon the second reading. The Government had also a right to complain that the right hon. Gentleman, after dragging in the Crimes Bill and endeavouring to persuade the House that that Bill and the Bill before the House disclosed the whole policy of the Government, had omitted all reference to the Purchase Bill which had been repeatedly stated by the Government to be the supplement of their other measures. He (Sir John Gorst) thought the Government had some right to the candid and generous support not only of the right hon. Gentleman, but of his late Colleagues, with the single exception of the former Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. John Morley), because the Government were engaged in endeavouring to alleviate some of the evil consequences of the land legislation of 1870 and 1881. The right hon. Gentleman pointed out the evils and anomalies inseparable from the fixing of judicial rents for a term of years which had directly arisen from that legislation, and he (Sir John Gorst) thought an attempt to meet some of the evil consequences which we should have to deal with for some years to come, many of which had not been foreseen, deserved, on the part of those who were desirous of the good of their country and not of Party advantage, a candid consideration. But he would like to turn aside from the speech just delivered, which he regarded as merely one of those political Party utterances which officials
    574
    and ex-officials had to make from time to time in that House, and to consider for a short time two remarkable speeches which those who were present in the earlier part of the evening had the advantage of hearing from two Gentlemen each of whom professed to represent the farmers of Ireland—the Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) and the Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell). The speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo was one of those speeches calculated to make every Englishman who was sincerely desirous of redressing the grievances of the Irish tenants despair. He (Sir John Gorst) could not understand, after such a speech, how the right hon. Member for Central Bradford could seriously urge that Her Majesty's Government ought to take the Representatives of Ireland, who sat below the Gangway, into their confidence, and endeavour to pass any measure which would satisfy them. He might be very simple; but he always thought that the hon. Member for East Mayo represented the Irish tenants, with a sincere desire to benefit their condition, and not, like some of his Colleagues, with a desire to make capital out of the difficulties of their condition and to embarrass the Government of the day. [Parnellite cries of "Withdraw!"] He did not withdraw his statement, although, perhaps, his idea might be due to perversity of mind, or to his being too prone to suspicion. The hon. Member, though he stated in the course of his speech that this Bill contained moat of the propositions which in 1881 had been unsuccessfully proposed by those who were now his Colleagues, denounced the Bill root and branch, and stated that he was prepared to take the responsibility of voting with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Burghs, and destroy the measure on the second reading. There was one clause which the hon. Member ventured to except from the universal condemnation, and that was the 1st clause, extending the benefit of the Land Act to leaseholders. He (Sir John Gorst) could not understand how the hon. Member could reconcile to himself the desire to see the benefits of that clause extended to the leaseholders of Ireland, with the vote which he was about to give, which would deprive the leaseholders of the benefit of that clause for 12 months to come. The hon. Mem-

    575
    ber also forgot to add Clause 2, because it was another of the propositions which the hon. Member and his Colleagues had urged on the House of Commons in 1881, and which, at least, deserved as great an amount of approbation from those who represented the tenants of Ireland as Clause 1. But it was quite evident, from the speech of the hon. Member, that, whatever might have been the motives which animated that speech, be was determined to see no good in any of the suggestions which emanated from the Government. Instead of advocating the second reading of the Bill, and endeavouring to improve it in Committee, by adding those parts which were lacking, it was evident that the hon. Member was determined to oppose the Bill and denounce it in every clause. He (Sir John Gorst) was particularly struck with the hon. Member's observations regarding Clause 4, which substituted a written notice for the execution of an ejectment. That clause certainly did away with a considerable amount of suffering, and he should have thought that a proposal of that kind did not deserve the epithet of "infamous" applied to it by the hon. Member. Then the hon. Member for East Mayo dealt with Clause 6. As far as he could make out from attention to the debates, and from a perusal of the Bill, there was no difference in principle between the hon. Member for East Mayo, the hon. Member for South Tyrone, and the Government on the question of town parks. It was a question of definition and of detail which ought not to be imported into a debate on the second reading. As to Clause 22 giving the County Court power to stay evictions, he thought the hon. Member for East Mayo might at least have apmitted that, as far as the clause went, it was beneficial and was conceived in the interests of the tenant; certainly it did not deserve the general denunciation with which he treated the Bill. The hon. Member also stated that the relief which was given to the glebe tenants was inadequate; but he thought the criticism of that clause by the hon. Member for South Tyrone was, at least, more sensible, and he should hope that the hon. Gentleman represented more truly the feeling of the Irish tenants. He could not help noticing that when the hon. Member for East Mayo spoke of
    576
    the Bankruptcy Clauses, he gave the House to understand that they were framed in the interests of the landlords. It was rather singular, however, that the same clauses should have been objected to by the hon. Member for South Tyrone on a different ground. The hon. Member for South Tyrone thought that they would prove too strong a temptation for the insolvent tenant; that they were so advantageous to him and so disadvantageous to the community at large, that it was a pity to hold out such a temptation to him But turning from the speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo to the speech of the other Representative of the Irish tenants, he did not think it would be said that the hon. Member for South Tyrone indulged in any unreasonable eulogy of the Government Bill. There was this difference in the two speeches to be noted. The hon. Member for South Tyrone made the speech of a man who was desirous of helping the Government to frame a very satisfactory measure. The hon. Member had made a large number of able and most important criticisms on the provisions of the Bill. He (Sir John Gorst), however, did not understand the hon. Member for South Tyrone to have any rooted objection to the principle of the Bill, or any objection to it which would justify him in destroying the measure on the second reading; and, therefore, the answer which could be given to the whole of his observations was that, when the Bill was in Committee, the various points which he had brought forward could be fairly considered, and Amendments carrying out his views could be framed either by the hon. Member himself, or by others, and the House would then be able to decide whether any of those Amendments were so capable of being carried into effect as to deserve insertion in the Bill. [Laughter.] He did not understand the derision of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, who was a Member of the Government which began, in 1881, a revolution in the land system of Ireland of which they had not yet seen the end. That measure, he (Sir John Gorst) thought, was passed by the Government of the day, not only without making provision for the consequences of the revolution which they initiated, but even without foreseeing a great many of those consequences. They had changed that single ownership of

    577
    land, which had been the system of Great Britain and Ireland for many years, into a system of dual ownership; and they never seemed to have considered or provided for all the difficulties and complications which had arisen, and which would arise in future years, from that change. An attempt was to be made by the Government next year to undo the effect of the legislation of 1881 in that direction, by restoring the single ownership of land. [Laughter.] The hon. Member laughed, and he (Sir John Gorst) dared say that such an attempt might not succeed; but, whether it succeeded or not the dual ownership of land would continue in Ireland for very many years to come; for it would not be until a great many yearly instalments of money had been paid, if they ever were paid, that the dual ownership of land would end. What he wanted to point out was, that the existence of that dual ownership of land entailed a considerable number of difficulties and complications which were not provided for, but which would have to be provided for by legislation from year to year. There was nothing impossible in dual ownership of land. Single ownership was what they were accustomed to in this country; but dual ownership prevailed in many other communities and States and was found more advantageous than single ownership. Over a great part of India the ownership of land was dual; and the cultivators of the soil were very much in the same position as the tenants of Ireland were in now. They had rents fixed for considerable periods, and the landlord was the State itself. But in that case, an immense amount of legislation and an infinite number of provisions had to be made in order to enable that system to work equitably. The State fixed the rents, and not only so, but from time to time, when the tenants were unable to pay it, had to make considerable remissions from those rents to enable them to keep themselves on the land; and it was probable that the House, if the dual ownership of land in Ireland continued to prevail, would have to engage in a great deal of agrarian legislation which it had not yet dreamt of, and would have to consider many matters which had hitherto been strange to it. Although the proposal of the Government with reference to what were called the Bank-
    578
    ruptcy Clauses of that Bill had been received by thoughtless persons with a considerable amount of derision, there was in existence in India and at work for many years past in the Deccan, a system which bore a most singular resemblance to the clauses of that Bill. The condition of the ryots in the Deccan was very similar to that of the Irish tenants at the present moment. They were unable to pay their rents, and had fallen into the hands of the money lenders, and many of them were on the verge of bankruptcy. An Act was passed temporarily, which had been renewed from time to time, which gave the Courts much greater power than was given to the Courts by this Bill. It gave the Courts, among other things, power to call upon all the creditors of the tenants for accounts; it gave power to suspend all process so as to give the tenant time to pay his debts; it gave power to reduce the amount of the tenant's indebtedness by enforcing a composition on all the creditors; and, finally it gave that very power which had been made an object of derision that evening—namely, to put in a trustee to carry on the farm for a time for the benefit of all concerned. And that Act had now been at work for many years and it had saved thousands of tenants from the evictions to which they would otherwise have been subjected. The Government had been taunted with not having stated, on the second reading of this Bill, what modifications they were prepared to assent to; and the hon. Member for East Mayo had challenged them to say whether it was the Bill which had been introduced that was to be read a second time, or the Bill which had been shadowed out by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham. There could be but one answer to that question. The House could only read a second time the Bill which the Government had introduced. The forms of the House would not allow of any other course being taken; and it seemed to him quite unreasonable to ask the Government, oven before any definite Amendments had been put upon the Paper, to say whether they were ready to adopt them or not. All that the Government could do was that they would be prepared to consider favourably any Amendments which were suggested to them by Members of the House who were sincere in their support of the Bill.

    579
    They must, however, be suspicious regarding Amendments suggested by those who had previously announced their intention to destroy the Bill if they possibly could. The principles of the Bill had been very clearly enunciated by the Government. It was a temporary measure, which was intended to afford relief to the class of leaseholders who suffered hardships under the Act of 1881. It was also intended to check harsh and cruel evictions, and it was intended to provide for the interval before the introduction of a measure which, it was hoped, would solve those difficulties which a judicial rent had failed to meet. He put it to hon. Gentlemen opposite who had passed the Act of 1881, whether it was generous to meet such a Bill in a Party spirit like that which had been displayed by the right hon. Member for the Stirling Burghs and the Member for East Mayo. He was convinced that it would be more in accordance with a calm and philosophical spirit, if they passed this measure and relieved the Irish tenants from suffering.
    MR. CHILDERS: I confess I was genuinely alarmed during a portion of the speech of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down (Sir John Gorst), lest you, Mr. Speaker, should call him to Order for travelling into a very interesting description of a Bill which is not before the House, but which, he said, would probably come before us next year. The hon. Gentleman, however, relieved us from that fear, when he suddenly reverted to a defence of the Bill, or, at least, the Bankruptcy Clauses of the Bill before us, basing his justification of them on his Indian experience, and especially on certain legislation which is known as the Deccan land legislation. He told us that the particular provision he wished to justify bore a remarkable likeness to some of the provisions of this Deccan land legislation. I think the hon. Gentleman has a little let the cat out of the bag as to the Bankruptcy Clauses of this Bill, which, perhaps, under his advice has been copied from what he describes as the Deccan land legislation. But, Sir, the real difficulty in discussing what the hon. Gentleman has called the principles of this Bill is the very remarkable manner in which the measure has come before Parliament. I do not think that upon any occasion
    580
    a measure has been proposed to Parliament which has gone through, before its first discussion in this House, the number of changes to which this Bill has been subjected. It was brought in in the House of Lords early in the present Session—in fulfilment of the promise made last year before the appointment of the Royal Commission. The Bill as then introduced in the House of Lords we had an opportunity of seeing, and the country also had an opportunity of seeing, and I think anyone who remembers the outcry at that time will bear me out when I say that from landlord and from, tenant the original Bill met with almost universal opposition. Well, Sir, what happened then? The Bill was read a second time in the House of Lords, and was committed pro formâ, and, after committal the Bill emerged under the authority of Her Majesty's Government totally differing from the first edition. We then had an interesting discussion in the other House on the Bill as altered, and when it came from the final Committee stage in the House of Lords it was again entirely altered. Many of its provisions were either entirely struck out, or changed. As it passed the Committee, the measure was not like the first Bill or the second Bill, but was in many respects an entirely new measure. Finally, on Report, the Bill was materially changed again, and it has come down to this House as a fourth Bill, not in the least like the first, very little like the second, in many respects differing from the third; but it is presented to us as the deliberate view Her Majesty's Government take of the solution of this great problem, with regard to which they had not in the least made up their minds in March, as to which they had adopted several material changes between the month of March and the month of June, and which the House is now told it is to accept as expressing the principles—to use the word of the hon. Gentleman who has just spoken—of the Government on this most important subject. Sir, it must have occurred to everybody to ask those who offer a Bill of this kind, dealing with these important interests, and which has been so frequently changed during the last two or three months—it must have occurred to everybody to ask whether it is safe even now to accept what we have to discuss

    581
    as the final view of Her Majesty's Government. It certainly is not, in many respects, because yesterday we heard from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland of two more Amendments which it is proposed to introduce into the Bill, greatly altering its construction. Therefore, as I said before, are we to take this Bill as a final and determined proposal of Her Majesty's Government, or is it put on the Table, subject to very great amendment, still open for discussion? And what is, I think, more important, may we expect to have soon the judgment of Her Majesty's Goment on the main questions which have already been discussed for two days in the House, and which I think raise almost throughout the Bill questions of the greatest importance? Now, Sir, will the House allow me to refer to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) yesterday? That speech, no one could call a speech hostile to the Government. It was a very carefully delivered speech, and following it very closely and studiously, as I did from first to last, I could not help observing the anxiety which was shown on the faces of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite as to the extent of the criticism which my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham was offering, and as to the extent to which they would have to yield or not to yield to that criticism. Sir, I may, perhaps, be allowed to point out to the House what were, not the suggestions, for they were far more than that, but what were the criticisms which my right hon. Friend offered on the Bill, and in what respects he invited the House to alter its provisions. Sir, there were no less than six important changes which my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham said he should require to be made in the Bill in Committee, and without which alterations, he spoke of the Bill as an altogether imperfect and unsatisfactory measure; and. the question which we are entitled to ask the Government is this—will they state to the House on Thursday, when it is understood that this debate is to come to a close—will they state to the House, before the second reading of the Bill is taken, in what way they have received the criticisms of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birming-
    582
    ham, and whether we may or may not expect that the changes which he has so strongly urged on the House will be incorporated in the Bill? Now, Sir, I will venture to re-state to the House, in the words of my right hon. Friend, and not in my own words, what it is that he thinks the Bill should contain which it does not contain now, and what should be omitted from the Bill which it does now contain. I will pass by the smaller criticisms of my right hon. Friend, and will apply myself only to the large points as to which he endeavoured last night strongly to impress his opinion upon the House and the Government. I will take the points in the order not of the Bill, but of the statement of my right hon. Friend; and I will again say that it appears to me that the Government are bound—I do not say to-night, but before this debate closes—to state clearly to the House how it is proposed to meet the criticisms of my right hon. Friend—to state whether they will, or will not, make the changes in the Bill which he has urged upon them. In the first place, my right hon. Friend put it very clearly to the House that the relief which it is proposed to give to Irish tenants who are not in a position, owing to the fall of prices, or for other reasons beyond their control, to continue under the obligation s which they have been under as to rent, that the relief which is proposed to be given in the Bill is altogether inadequate, and that a very much larger relief should be given, and that, too, to classes of tenants who are altogether unprovided for in the structure of the Bill. My right hon. Friend impressed on the House—and no one reading the Bill can fail to see that he was right— that nobody can be relieved under the provisions of the Bill as it stands unless he first has failed to pay his rent; and, next, unless proceedings have been taken against him to bring about his eviction from his holding. What my right hon. Friend pointed out was this—that those who have so failed to pay their rents are only a fraction of those who are unable to pay their present rents out of their earnings, and that as much regard, or even more regard, ought to be had to those tenants who have paid their rents, and who have done so perhaps at great sacrifice, who may have been obliged to spend their little capital in the strict ful-

    583
    filment of their pecuniary obligations, and who, therefore, will practically, perhaps, he unable in the future to carry on their business—that far more regard is due to them than to those who have at once refused to pay their rents, and who have been brought under the operations of actions through the Courts, and for whom the 22nd; 23rd, 24th, and 25th clauses provide. Sir, my right hon. Friend insisted upon that, saying—I quote his exact words—that, in his opinion, relief should be given by way of reduction of rent to solvent tenants who are paying rents which are not now fair, and who are unable to obtain reasonable abatements. These are more deserving of the sympathy of the House than any other class of tenants. They should have the liberty of going, too, into Court, and of having their position reviewed. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland (Mr. Gibson) will, I feel certain, confirm what I say, when I state that no relief is offered to solvent tenants under the present Bill—that the only tenants to whom relief is offered are those who are not solvent and who have been brought under the operation of the Law of Ejectment. We have heard to-night from the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, and from the hon. Gentleman who last spoke (Sir John Gorst), a good deal about the proposals which have been made during the debate; but I wish to point out to the House that this most crucial and important proposal of my right hon. Friend has not been alluded to by the hon. and learned Gentleman (Mr. Gibson), or the hon. Gentleman who last spoke. Therefore, I hold that it is absolutely necessary, in order to the efficient carrying on of this debate, that, considering the important speech of my right hon. Friend, and the care with which this part of it was elaborated—for he repeated these points two or three times in the course of his address—I say it is absolutely necessary that Her Majesty's Government should reply to the speech of my right hon. Friend, and particularly upon this point, before the debate closes. It has been absolutely unnoticed, and, considering the official position of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland, I think that it ought to have been noticed by
    584
    him; but he made no reference to it whatever. Well, now I will take the second proposal of my right hon. Friend. My right hon. Friend, in the second place, said that, in his opinion, relief should be given to landlords who are suffering from the burden of family charges created under the former land system. Well, to that also not a single word in the shape of reply has been given by either of the Members of the Government who have addressed us. It is a subject which is very much treated of in the Report of the Royal Commission. It is referred to at great length in the evidence, and it is referred to also in the Report itself. It is a subject on which the Government cannot pretend that they do not understand the arguments which have been adduced why such relief should be extended to the landowner. But the Government have treated this proposal of my right hon. Friend with precisely the same silence with which they treated his former proposal. Now I go to his third point. My right hon. Friend, in reference to the 1st clause, said that perpetuity tenants should have the right of going into Court for relief. Well, I cannot say that the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland entirely passed by that proposal; but he distinctly negatived it. He gave reasons that were satisfactory, to his mind, why no such relief should be given. He did not argue the matter at any length, but merely passed it by lightly, refraining, however, from submitting to the House any proposal on the subject. My right hon. Friend then took a fourth objection to a very important clause in the Bill. He objected strongly to the Proviso under which tenants under lease can receive no relief if the improvements of the landlord have been unexhausted to the extent of four times the rent. To that my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham attached great importance, and he pressed it on the Government as an Amendment that ought to be admitted; but here again we have absolute silence on the part of one Member of the Government, whilst on the part of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland we have it contended that no such concession can be made, but only because leases on this condition had been granted on the English—not on the Irish system.

    585
    Then the fifth proposal of my right hon. Friend was one of very great importance indeed. It has been referred to by everyone who has spoken; and it is the question of the front door and the back door. I think I shall not be misunderstood when I use these words, as the simile has been used and accepted on both sides of the House. My right hon. Friend pressed upon the Government this principle—that the same relief should be given to tenants sued for rent and liable to lose their holdings under fi. fa. as is given where notice of ejectment has been served. Now to this proposal the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General for Ireland did not offer quite such an absolute negative as he did to the other proposal; but he put this question—"Show us how the thing is to be done?" I think he said— "Formulate, if you can, an Amendment which will carry out that proposal." He could not dispute the justice of the proposal, because it is evident that if the landlord has two ways of ousting his tenant from his holding, and only one way is barred by this Bill, it leaves the other untouched, and if eventually only one way is closed, the harsh landlord, who up to that time has availed himself of that way, will have no hesitation in adopting the other. He may have adopted the former method simply because it was more convenient, and may be content to adopt the less convenient one when he finds that it is absolutely necessary. What is the reply of the hon. and learned Gentleman? "Oh," he said, "what have you to suggest as the method of carrying out what I consider to be virtually an impracticable proposal?" Now, what are the words at the beginning of the 22nd clause? They are—
    "In any proceedings for the recovery of a holding to which this section applies, for the non-payment of rent, if the Court in which the proceedings are pending is satisfied by the evidence before it that the tenant of the holding is unable to satisfy by an immediate payment in full the landlord's claim for arrears of rent for which the proceedings are brought and for costs, and that such inability does not arise from his own conduct, act, or default, and there is reasonable ground for believing that, having regard to the interests of both the landlord and tenant, an extension of time to pay ought to be granted, the Court may put a stay upon the execution of the judgment of the Court for such time as the Court thinks reasonable."
    I suggest to the Attorney General that
    586
    the best method of carrying out my right hon. Friend's suggestion would be to leave out in the first line of the section the words "for the recovery of a holding," and to make the necessary consequential Amendments later on. The clause, if these words were left out, would run—"In any proceedings to which this section applies for the nonpayment of rent, &c." You have only to give the same facilities for putting a stay on the proceedings in an action for debt followed by fi. fa., as is proposed for putting a stay on the execution of judgment for eviction. Therefore, if the right hon. and learned Gentleman really and seriously asks us to suggest a manner in which this can be carried out, I would say to him at once omit the words—"For the recovery of a holding." I do not think it would be impracticable to do this, and upon this point I have consulted a lawyer who has great experience in these matters, and who agrees with me that such a provision would be perfectly easy to work. If that is so, it seems to me that the difficulty is solved. If the Government have any difficulty about these words, they will be able to raise it in Committee. That is the fifth proposal of my right hon. Friend. Now I come to the sixth. My right hon. Friend, in spite of his sympathy with the Law of Bankruptcy—a sympathy that is very natural, considering that his was the successful task of remodelling bankruptcy in this country—after well weighing the effect in Ireland of making bankruptcy the only door through which a tenant can pass to obtain relief from the payment of his rent, came to the conclusion that the Bankruptcy Clauses should be omitted altogether. He said if they were so omitted, and if relief were given in the way he suggested, where the tenants were solvent, and had not been subjected to legal proceedings, and had not become insolvent, the problem would be solved. Now, my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham, whose authority in this matter and whose weight with the Government are very great—because without him just now they would be in a very poor plight—is not the only Member who during this debate has taken exception to these provisions of the Bill. Almost exactly the same provisions have been taken exception to, and almost exactly the

    587
    same omissions have been suggested by the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell), who made a most powerful speech, with some of which I did not agree, but with the greater part of whose criticism of the various points of this Bill I most heartily agree. The hon. Member took five out of the six objections of my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham. He omitted one of least importance; but out of the six objections I have just explained to the House the hon. Member for South Tyrone raised five, almost in the same words, and using almost the same language, as my right hon. Friend. Now, neither the hon. Member for South Tyrone nor the right hon. Member for West Birmingham have been acting with us during the present Parliament, and therefore I can quote them with perfect impartiality; but what I want to insist on, and to urge upon the House, is that it is the duty of Her Majesty's Government to give us promptly, before this debate closes, an answer to these six objections of my right hon. Friend, and these five objections of the hon. Member for South Tyrone. I trust they will do that; they will, if they desire the country to see what are their real proposals. If they leave the matter alone, and if we go into Committee without knowing what the opinion of the Government is, except on small points of detail—and I will not allude to any of these, for though they may be of importance, they are still, relatively speaking, only small points—I say if they do not tell us what is their view upon these large questions, then, Sir, the second reading of the Bill will be a mockery. It will really express nothing. It will say—"Yes; we have changed our minds three or four times; and our strongest Friends have pressed further changes upon us, and we decline altogether to say whether we accept these changes, or whether we decline them." Under those circumstances, I can, therefore, only say that this debate will be altogether inconsequential, and that the country will not be satisfied as to the proposals of the Government. My right hon. Friend the Member for the Stirling Burghs (Mr. Campbell-Bannerman) has brought forward a Motion perfectly sound in itself, but as to which we shall have great difficulty in knowing in what position Her Majesty's Go-
    588
    vernment is placed, unless they will frankly and simply answer these six questions. I can only say that if they do answer these six questions in a manner satisfactory to the objects of those who have put them, the strongest arguments against the second reading of the Bill will have fallen to the ground. No one, Sir, can accuse me of having put these matters to Her Majesty's Government in a factious or a Party way. I am strictly and literally adopting the arguments, and almost the words, of two important supporters of Her Majesty's Government in pointing out the faults of the Bill; and that being so, I trust I shall not be met by any statement to the effect that I have treated the matter in an unfair spirit to Her Majesty's Government. If the Government decline to meet these simple questions in the spirit which we are entitled to expect from them, I hold that there will have taken place a circumstance of great misfortune—a want of attention to those Parliamentary Rules which are perfectly well understood in Debate—and that the progress of this Bill is not likely to be as satisfactory as either side of the House could wish.
    Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"—(Lord Randolph Churchill,)—put, and agreed to.
    Debate further adjourned till Thursday.

  DISTRESSED UNIONS (IRELAND) [SALARY, ADVANCES, &c.]

    RESOLUTION. [ADJOURNED DEBATE.]
    Order read for resuming adjourned Debate on Question [11th July], "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution:"—
    "That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of the salary, remuneration, and allowances of any Commissioners that may be appointed in pursuance of any Act of the present Session, to make better provision for the administration of the Acts relating to the relief of the destitute poor in certain parts of Ireland, to authorise the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland to make loans, and the Treasury to make a free grant, to the Board of Guardians or Commissioners of any dissolved or altered Union under the provisions of the said Act."
    Question again proposed.
    Debate resumed.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: There must be some misunderstanding about this. It was understood that the Resolution would be taken on the same day as the Distressed Unions Bill, and therefore it has not been blocked. I maintain that it cannot be proceeded with until we go on with the Bill, and I should like the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury to explain how it is that this Order is now being taken?
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH): I would point out to the hon. and learned Member that unless the Resolution is taken first, the Bill cannot be proceeded with. No harm can possibly be done by taking this Resolution now, because if the Bill is not proceeded with this Resolution will fall to the ground.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Very well.
    Resolution agreed to.

  PRISON(OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION) (SCOTLAND) BILL.— [BILL 233.]
  (The Lord Advocate, Mr. Solicitor General for Scotland, Sir Herbert Maxwell.)
  PRISON(OFFICERS' SUPERANNUATION) (SCOTLAND) BILL.— [BILL 233.]

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD), in moving that the Bill be now read a second time, said: This Bill is for a very simple purpose. Before the year 1877, there wore a large number of local prisons in Scotland under separate management in different counties, and when these prisons were abolished, arrangements were made for the superannuation of the officers. It has been found highly inconvenient, where two or more Local Authorities have had to pay a share of the pensions of these officers, that the amounts should be annually collected separately. The object, and the one object of this Bill, is to enable the authorities to commute the amounts of the annual payments they require to make. I think I need say no more in recommending this Bill to the House.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. J. E. A. Macdonald.)
    MR. T. M. HEALY: The position of Scotland in the matter of the superannuation of prison officers is somewhat remarkable, and I wish to know why an exceptional position is taken up as to that country, and why, when a Bill is pending for Ireland, Her Majesty's Government, in that measure, should propose to deal with the subject in an entirely different way? I do not say that the Government are not dealing with this Scotch question in an admirable manner; but I complain that so far as Ireland is concerned, the Government propose to abolish the Richmond Prison without consulting the Dublin Corporation, and to throw upon them the whole burden of the charge. Of course it would be irrelevant, and I do not intend to discuss the Irish Question; but I think it is a remarkable thing that this Bill has been brought in to deal with the Scotch question in such a very different manner from the way it is proposed to deal with the Irish Question. As I understand it, the proposal affecting Ireland is that an entire block of buildings shall be done away with, and that the Dublin Corporation shall pay the expenses of commuting the superannuation allowances and other expenses, without any consideration being given to this Local Authority. The proposal in the present Bill seems to me to be of an entirely different character. It seems to show that, in dealing with a Scotch question, the Government are willing to give the Local Authorities some consideration. I think that is a proper thing to do. We have asked for that in our case, but have never got it, nor have the Government ever said that they will consult the Local Authorities before doing away with the block of buildings I have referred to.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

  SHERIFFS (CONSOLIDATION) BILL. [Lords.]
  (Mr. Solicitor General.)
  SHERIFFS (CONSOLIDATION) BILL. [Lords.]

    [BILL 262.] SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir EDWARD CLARKE): I ask the House to agree to the second reading of this Consolidation Bill, the object of which is to gather into one Statute a number of provisions that are now

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    scattered over the Statute Book in a great many Acts of Parliament, and which are, of course, very inconvenient for the purpose of reference. If there were any objection to the Bill, I should not now seek to go on with the second reading. I have not heard of any objection, and I therefore trust that the House will allow the measure to be read a second time. I will not put down the Committee stage for a week, so that if in the meantime any objection is raised, I may know the nature of such objection, and may endeavour to meet it.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Why does not this Bill apply to Ireland?
    SIR. EDWARD CLARKE: I will deal with that question upon the Motion to go into Committee if the hon. and learned Gentleman desires it.
    MR. CHANCE: What change in the law does the measure effect?
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. Solicitor General.)
    MR. T. M. HEALY: This matter has evidently come upon the hon. and learned Member himself by surprise; for, judging from his manner of moving it, he does not appear to have been able to give the smallest study to its provisions. I have gone over the Bill with great curiosity. It was delivered to me with some documents relating to friendly societies. It seems a very admirable Bill, and I am not prepared to oppose the second reading. It involves an important change in the law. I do not rise in opposition to the second reading; but I do desire to have some information. The Bill deals with a subject of even more antiquity then the question of Coroner's Law, or than any other proposal for codification possibly can do. As I say, I believe it to be a desirable Bill; but I fail to see why, when we are simply dealing with a matter of construction and arrangement, you should leave Ireland out of this codification and improvement of the law. Now, as the Irish Office has very little to do, except to answer Questions—a function which is so admirably performed by the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Colonel King-Harman)—I think we have a right to ask that they should go into this matter, and should extend
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    this Bill to our country. It will not extend to Ireland as it is now drafted, because a great many provisions differing from Irish Law could not be made to apply. I do maintain, however, that the law affecting the Sheriffs is in our country in the same state of entanglement as it seems to be in Scotland, and ought to be elucidated. I will give the Government a very substantial reason for doing this, and it is that whenever you in England come into conflict with the Sheriffs, you do so upon a question of debt; but that, so far as Ireland is concerned, it is not only in matters of debt that you come into conflict with the Sheriff, but also as regards the land struggle in that country; there is not a day, there is hardly an hour in which in some form or other you are not brought into collision with this official. Anyone who possesses any sort of knowledge upon this matter knows that there are actions pending with the Sheriffs in almost every county, and the only wonder is that there are not a great many more. I appeal to the two legal Representatives of England in this matter. Certainly, no Conservative Government was ever represented by two Gentlemen more courteous or better informed, or more capable of discharging their duty. We would submit to them that when passing measures of this kind for their country, they should remember that it is their constant boast that they are dealing with a united Kingdom. If we are a united Kingdom, surely Irish law should be taken into consideration when such measures as this are before the House. The Irish Law Officers, I venture to say, would only be too glad to look into this matter, and give the Government the benefit of their advice. What I complain of is this, that while in England you have what I may call a scientific study of ancient laws, with a desire to codify and improve them, the Irish Law Officers apply themselves to nothing but the development, of the criminal side of the law against the people, with no desire whatever to make any improvement in that law, and to prevent friction and anything of that kind, which, in a well-ordered community, should be the first duty of the governing body of the country, and especially of the Executive officers, who have the most onerous duties cast upon them to attend to.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER): I cannot, of course, discuss with the hon. Member at this moment whether or not any particular Bills should be passed for Ireland. This is a Bill to consolidate the law with regard to Sheriffs in Scotland. Of course, I agree that it is desirable to assimilate the law of Ireland to that of England and Scotland; I am quite sure that the Irish Law Officers will be willing to promote that object, and when I am appealed to on the subject I shall be quite ready to give my cooperation.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Bill read a second time and committed for Tuesday next.

  CRIMINAL LAW (SCOTLAND) PROCEDURE (No. 2) BILL.— [BILL 19(5.]
  (The Lord Advocate, Mr. Secretary Matthews, Mr. Solicitor General for Scotland.)
  CRIMINAL LAW (SCOTLAND) PROCEDURE (No. 2) BILL.— [BILL 19(5.]

    CONSIDERATION.
    Bill, as amended, considered.
    MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSH: In the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) I beg to move the Amendment standing in his name.
    MR. SPEAKER: It is not competent to move a clause standing in the name of another hon. Member.
    MR. HUNTER: I beg to move that the Debate be now adjourned.
    Dr. CAMERONat this point entering the House—
    MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member's clause has been reached in his absence; but perhaps the House will now allow it to be moved.
    DR. CAMERON: The reasons in favour of the clause which I rise to move were explained on going into Committee on the Bill. At present, the position of an untried prisoner in Scotland is much harder than it is in this country, and it is to remove in some degree the distinction that I propose the clause standing in my name. One of the witnesses who came before the Royal Commission was the right hon. and learned Gentleman the present Lord Advocate (Mr. J. H. A. Macdonald), and the right hon. and learned Gentleman gave the strongest evidence in favour of a
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    change in the law such as is now proposed. The right hon. and learned Gentleman at the last stage of the Bill, however, argued against my proposal; but it seemed to me that in his argument he only showed that, like Hudibras, he could "on every hand confute, change hands, and still confute." I am bound to say that the arguments which he used on the Front Bench are quite different from those used by him before the Royal Commission. Every objection was urged when the question was before the Royal Commission, against the proposal which he made, that prisoners should have access to their agents and other assistance of the kind; but the right hon. and learned Gentleman at the time met every one of those arguments with the most perfect success. I ask the right hon. and learned Gentleman to carry out what were then, and what I believe are still, his opinions on this matter. The right hon. and learned Gentleman now says that he must be guided by public opinion, and that this is not ripe for the change which I propose in the law. But I deny that altogether. I say that public opinion is as ripe with reference to this proposal as it ever was for any Bill ever brought before the House of Commons. The right hon. and learned Gentleman is carrying out his opinion on the question of procedure reform in Scotland, on which he is perfectly competent to pronounce an opinion, and I ask him to carry out in favour of prisoners and in the interests of justice another alteration of the law, the justice of which he has himself defended and himself acknowledged. Now, the right hon. and learned Gentleman proposed when the Bill was last before the House to introduce a clause giving untried prisoners in Scotland under Statute the right which they possess under the present rules; but I suppose he has found it difficult to embody in a clause provisions such as he spoke of. It was on hearing that proposal that I did not move this clause in Committee, and it is because the right hon. and learned Gentleman has not put down his Amendment that I move my clause on the Report stage. As a matter of fact, it carries out, very much better than the clause referred to, the opinions expressed by the right hon. and learned Gentleman before the Royal Commission; it carries out literally what he proposed. The right hon. and

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    learned Gentleman argued in favour of the principle before the Royal Commission, and he said that there was no reason why the prisoner should not have at his elbow legal assistance at the time of emitting his declaration. I remind the House that in Scotland a prisoner may be arrested and kept in prison for a week before committed, during the whole of which time he may be refused access to his friends and legal adviser, and that he would be subject to an examination the result of which can be adduced against him to prove his guilt, but which cannot be used in his favour if it contains anything to his advantage. The clause which I propose has for its object to remedy these hardships, and I now propose that it be inserted in the Bill.
    New Clause,—
    (Prisoners before committal to be allowed access to law agents.)
    "Where any person has been arrested on any criminal charge, such person shall be entitled immediately upon such arrest to obtain the advice and assistance of any properly qualified law agent, whom he may employ, and such law agent shall also be entitled to be present, when such accused person is being examined by, or is emitting any declaration, before the Sheriff, or other magistrate,"—(Dr. Cameron,)
    —brought up, and read the first time.
    Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
    MR. A. R. D. ELLIOTT: I rise to say a few words in support of the Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Dr. Cameron). I have always thought that the Scotch procedure, although satisfactory to the Scotch people, is extremely hard upon the prisoner, as between the arrest and the committal the accused person has no opportunity of consulting his legal adviser. I think that it would be considered intolerable in England that such a state of things should exist. The English law assumes a man to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty, and I cannot understand why that view should not also be taken in Scotland. In addition to what has been said by my hon. Friend, I should like to point out that, when evidence was taken before the Royal Commission, a Scotch Judge gave it as his opinion that it was unfair in itself, though required by the ends of justice, to deny an accused per-
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    son access to his friends or law agent until he has been before the magistrate. In that opinion the other Judges agreed. I do not want to weary the House at this hour with further arguments in support of the contention that, in the interests of right and justice, a person when once arrested should be allowed to consult his friends and legal adviser. I think that words ought to be inserted to include advocates as well as law agents. As I have said, our procedure is much harder in this respect than it is in England and Ireland, and I do not think that the ends of justice require that such inequalities should exist.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD): My hon. Friend the Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) seems to have more confidence in my judgment when I was a young man than he has now. I can assure him that the Royal Commissioners, who had before them those very able and telling arguments, to which my hon. Friend has referred, were totally unconvinced by them and absolutely refused to accept them. I was then a very young man; but am now not quite so confident in my opinion as I was at that time. If I believed that public opinion was with us I should be in favour of this clause; but I would call the attention of my hon. Friend to this, that I have proposed to give the prisoner the power of using the declaration as evidence of the statement he made when first charged with the offence, which to an innocent person will be a most valuable thing, and which he could but have if the statement were made by the advice of the law agent. I think my hon. Friend can very well recognize that, if this Amendment be passed at all, it cannot be passed in the form in which it stands. I shall be extremely moderate in my opposition to the clause, holding the views which I do on the subject; and if my hon. Friend presses the Amendment, I, for one, must feel that I cannot properly resist his proposal. I hope he will recognize that, in accepting the clause, there will be need on my part to take care, by the addition of words, that there shall be no difficulty about it elsewhere.
    MR. CHANCE: I merely intervene to tell the hon. Member (Dr. Cameron) that the Representa-

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    tives of Irish constituencies had several Amendments on the Paper to carry out this principle in the Coercion Bill for Ireland. Our endeavours were, however, defeated, and we have now in the Irish Coercion Bill a principle which this House will not tolerate with reference to Scotland.
    MR. ASHER: I think my right hon. and learned Friend the Lord Advocate has exercised a wise discretion in practically assenting to this clause, though I believe he underestimates the amount of feeling in Scotland on the subject, because I have no doubt the general opinion is that it is somewhat hard for a prisoner to be excluded so long from professional advice as is the case under the present system in Scotland. The present rule was originally intended in the interest of the prisoner. The declaration which is taken from the prisoner has undoubtedly been regarded as a privilege to him. What happens is that the prisoner is taken before the magistrate and duly warned that he is not under any obligation to answer questions, and that if he does answer his statement may be used against him. Of course, the statement may be of advantage to the prisoner by enabling the Public Prosecutor to see if there has been a mistake in the charge, and where that is the case bringing about the discharge of the prisoner without further inquiry. That, I think, undoubtedly constitutes an advantage to the prisoner; but on the other hand, I am bound to say that it is a great hardship for him to be excluded from professional advice for so long a period as obtains under the present system. I think the advantage the prisoner will derive from having professional advice is greater than that which he derives under the present system, and therefore I trust the right hon. and learned Gentleman will allow the clause to be added to the Bill.
    MR. CALDWELL: Under the present system the prisoner may be seven days in prison, and be committed to trial before he can receive advice from the law agent. I would, therefore, point out to the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate that in framing an addition to this clause it would be useful also to confirm to the prisoner the right of giving bail, because the object of the seven days'
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    imprisonment before he can see his law agent was to give to the prosecution ample time to discover the facts of the case.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause read a second time, and added to the Bill.
    DR. CAMERONwho had given Notice of the following Clause:—
    (Bail to be competent before committal for trial.)
    "Any person accused of a crime which is by law bailable shall be entitled immediately upon his apprehension to apply to the court, by whose warrant he has been arrested, for and obtain liberation on his finding caution in common form to appear at any diet or diets which the court may fix for taking his declaration, and also for his appearing and answering to any criminal charge which may be made against him: Provided always, That due notice shall be given to the accused and his cautioner at the domicile for citation, as set forth on the bail bond on which he is liberated, of all diets appointed by the court either for taking the declaration of the accused or for the trial of the charge which may be made against him;"
    said: The next clause which I propose for the acceptance of the Committee has for its object to allow the prisoner the right of being bailed before he is committed to trial. At the present time a prisoner may be kept for seven days in gaol, and during which time, and until he has been committed for trial, he cannot be bailed. Now, it appears to me that, before there is such evidence as will justify his committal, he should be at least in as good a position as he is placed in by the law if a sufficient amount of evidence is given against him to justify his committal for trial. The right hon. and learned Lord Advocate says he intends to deal with the whole question of bail in a short measure. I will not deny that the law of Scotland on the subject of bail is such as demands a revision; but such as it is it confers important rights on prisoners. Bail in Scotland is not a matter at the option of the magistrate; it is a convenience which the prisoner is entitled to demand of right, and the rates of bail are fixed so as to meet the condition of men belonging to various classes of society. Now, Sir, it may be said that the subject of bail requires revision, and that this is not a time to extend the privilege to uncommitted prisoners. I cannot admit that argument. It appears to me that

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    whatever the state of the Law of Bail in Scotland is, its condition is such that it has been allowed to go on for many years past without complaint; and it appears to me that uncommitted prisoners should enjoy at least as many safeguards for their liberty and convenience as prisoners who have been committed. I simply ask this House to place uncommitted prisoners in the matter of bail in the same position as committed prisoners, and that when the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Lord Advocate comes to effect a general revision of the law on the subject, he will place the Law of Bail in Scotland in a position satisfactory to himself. When he does so, the law will be equally satisfactory in the case of uncommitted and committed prisoners. We are told that a prisoner getting out upon bail will make it his business to destroy evidence which may be brought against him, if it is possible; but I would point out that any prisoner who gets out on bail may do that. There can be no more difficulty in compelling a prisoner who has been admitted to bail to re-appear for his examination than there can be to compel a prisoner to come up for trial. Without elaborating the subject at this hour of the night, I must say I can see no sound reason, in fact, quite the contrary, why an uncommitted prisoner in the matter of bail should be in a worse position than one who has been committed. I therefore beg to move this new clause: "Bail to be competent before committal for trial."
    Clause (Bail to be competent before committal for trial,)—(Dr. Cameron,) brought up, and read the first time.
    Question proposed, "That the said Clause be read a second time."
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H A. MACDONALD): If the hon. Gentleman would consent to add these words—"Provided always, That the Court shall be entitled in its discretion to refuse bail until the person accused has been committed for trial," I should have no objection to the clause. I would remind the hon. Member that in this country magistrates frequently refuse bail on representation being made by the prosecutor. It is done, of course, to prevent evidence being destroyed, or witnesses being got out of the way.
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    Such a course obviously is calculated to defeat the ends of justice altogether.
    DR. CAMERON: I understand that what the right hon. and learned Gentleman says is the practice in England; therefore I will accept his proposal.
    MR. CHANCE: I am sorry to intervene in this matter; but I wish to point out that in this country, in preliminary proceedings for misdemeanour, the magistrates have no right to detain persons in custody when represented by counsel or solicitor if application is made for bail. I understand that the statement of the law by the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate is that a man is absolutely of right entitled to bail on committal for such offences as misdemeanour, but is not entitled to it before his guilt has been primâ facie admitted by the Bench of Magistrates. I hope this Amendment will not be admitted without having a clear statement as to what is the law of England and Ireland on this subject.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    MR. J. H. A. MACDONALD: I now move my Amendment.
    Amendment proposed,
    To add at the end of the proposed new Clause— "Provided always that the Court shall he entitled in its discretion to refuse bail until a person accused has been committed for trial."—(Mr. J. H. A. Macdonald.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
    DR. CAMERON: There seems to be some difference of opinion as to what is the law of England in the matter. Perhaps the right hon. and learned Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) will give some information upon the point.
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir EDWARD CLARKE): I understand the law of this country to be, that if a man is arrested and brought before the magistrates, they may decline to accept bail, if they choose.
    MR. CHANCE: If he is charged with misdemeanour?
    SIR EDWARD CLARKE: Yes.
    MR. CHANCE: When he is committed for trial for misdemeanour, he is entitled to have bail.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, agreed to, and added to the Bill.
    DR. CAMERON: The next Amendment I have upon the Paper I do not intend to move, namely—
    "At the trial of any person accused of any crime aggravated by such person having been previously convicted of a crime which may competently be libelled as an aggravation, it shall not be competent for the prosecutor to prove such previous conviction until the jury shall have returned a verdict convicting the accused of the crime or crimes with which he is charged, but upon such verdict being returned, the prosecutor shall then be entitled to put in, and, if necessary, prove, the conviction or convictions libelled by way of aggravation."
    Clause 3 (Procedure on resignation, death, or removal of Lord Advocate).
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD): I beg to move in page 2, lines 28 and 29, to leave out "appoint his deputies without having first taken the oaths of office," and insert—
    " Take the oaths of office before any Secretary of State or any Lord Commissioner of Justiciary."
    Amendment agreed to.
    Clause 15 ("Money" to include coin, bank notes, &c, &c).
    MR. CALDWELL: I beg to move in page 5, line 4, to leave out "post office orders or postal orders." The Amendment refers to that part of the clause dealing with money or bank notes which may be mentioned in the indictment. An addition was made to the Bill in Committee of these words which I propose to leave out. It seems to me that it would hardly be a proper thing to describe as money post office orders or postal orders. It seems to me that where a man is indicted for having stolen a certain amount of money, current coin only should be implied, and that if post office orders or postal orders have been the subject of theft the fact should be expressly stated. I do not think we should introduce under the direct term money articles which are not properly known as money, and which, if stolen, the prosecutor ought specifically to describe.
    Amendment proposed, in page 5, line 4, leave out "post office orders and postal orders."—(Mr. Caldwell.)
    Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause,"
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD): I am not particularly wedded to these words in the clause. I put them in the other day on the suggestion of an hon. Member, and it is now suggested by another hon. Member that they should be struck out. No doubt, in a strict way of speaking, post office orders and postal orders are not correctly described as money, but they might be very easily understood as coming under that description.
    DR. CAMERON: These words were put in by me at the suggestion of one of the legal societies. It seemed to me that it would be a convenience to have these words inserted; but it is not a matter of very great importance. I do not, however, see that a prisoner would gain anything by the adoption of this Amendment.
    Question put, and negatived.
    On the Motion of Mr. CALDWELL, Amendment made, page 5, line 7, by leaving out "post office orders and postal orders."
    Clause 17 (Petitions for warrants and arrest thereon).
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD): As consequent upon leaving out Clause 11, I beg to move in page 5, line 21, to leave out "fifteen and sixteen," and insert, "and fifteen."
    Amendment proposed, in page 5, line 21, to leave out the words "fifteen and sixteen," and insert the words "and fifteen."—(Mr. J. H. A. Macdonald.)
    Question, "That the words 'fifteen and sixteen' stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.
    Question, "That the words 'and fifteen' be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
    MR. CALDWELL: I beg to move, in line 22 of this clause, to leave out from "and" to the end of the clause. I understand that the Lord Advocate accepts this Amendment.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE: Agreed.
    Amendment proposed, in page 5, line 22, to leave out from "and" to the end of Clause."—(Mr. Caldwell.)
    Question, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause," put, and negatived.
    Clause 18 (Declarations and previous convictions).
    MR. CALDWELL: I beg to move the Amendment which stands next on the Paper in my name. I understand that the Lord Advocate objects to the first part of the proposal—namely, to the words—
    "Where a judicial declaration has been omitted by an accused, it shall be competent for the accused to found upon that declaration as part of his defence."
    I will leave those words out, and will move to insert the following after the word "used" in line 35—
    "Previous convictions against an accused shall not he laid before the jury, nor shall reference he made thereto in presence of the jury before the verdict is returned; but nothing herein contained shall prevent the Public Prosecutor from laying before the jury evidence of such previous convictions where by the existing law, it is competent to lead evidence of such previous convictions in support of the substantive crime charged."
    In Scotland it is competent where a prisoner is charged with any crime, to prove before the jury that the prisoner has been previously convicted of the same or a similar crime. The effect of that in Scotland, of course, is simply this—that a prisoner's character may be known to be bad by the jury, so far as one of the most important allegations against him is concerned. If a prisoner has once been convicted of a crime, it is almost impossible for him to escape if he is again charged, whatever the character of the offence. We think that the practice in England is more correct, and that crime should be proved upon its merits without reference to the character of the prisoner. It is a fact that those cases of conviction which I have observed where the evidence has been particularly ineffective have been almost invariably cases where the person charged was a reputed thief. If the Amendment is accepted by the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate I will say no more.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD): I have no objection to this; but I should prefer that it should not be put in here, but that it should be inserted before Clause 64.
    MR. CALDWELL: Then I will move it before Clause 64.
    Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. CALDWELL: I now move to leave out Clause 30.
    Clause 30 (Procedure where accused desires to plead guilty).
    Amendment proposed, in page 9, to leave out Clause 30.—(Mr. Caldwell)
    Question proposed, "That the Clause proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD): The object of this clause is to meet the case of certain prisoners who know that they have no defence. They may be prepared for a verdict of guilty, and they know that if that verdict is not taken, they may be kept for three or four weeks whilst a case is being prepared against them— they know that that period will not be taken into account in the sentence which they will receive. The object of the clause will be effected on the application of the prisoner's counsel. I hope the hon. Gentleman will withdraw his Amendment.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Clause 33 (Certain objections only competent at first diet).
    MR. CALDWELL: I beg to move the addition of the following Proviso:—
    "But no unreasonable delay shall be allowed to take place between the time of the accused pleading guilty, and his being brought up for sentence."
    Amendment proposed,
    In page 10, atend, add,—" But no unreasonable delay shall be allowed to take place between the time of the accused pleading guilty and his being brought up for sentence."—(Mr. Caldwell.)
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
    THE LORD ADVOCATE: Agreed.
    Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
    Clause 34 (Supplementary lists of witnesses).
    MR. CALDWELL: The next Amendment is one

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    which I shall feel bound to insist upon. It is to leave out Clause 34 in page 10. According to the law of Scotland at present, when an indictment is served, the Crown is bound to serve with it a list of the witnesses. I move to omit this clause, and I think the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate will consent.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD): Agreed.
    Question, "That Clause 34 stand part of the Bill," put, and negatived.
    Clause 36 (Written notice of special defence).
    On the Motion of The LORD ADVOCATE, the following Amendment made:—In page 11, line 28, after "diet" insert—
    "Or unless cause be shown to the satisfaction of the Court for a special defence, not having been lodged till a later day, which must in any case not be more than two clear days before the second diet."—(Mr. J. H. A. Macdonald.)
    Clause 39 (Notice of peremptory challenge six days before trial).
    MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSH: I beg to move to leave out the clause. This is an important Amendment. The object of the clause is to do away with the right of challenging juries at bar—a custom which has existed in Scotland from time immemorial—and I cannot understand why the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate desires to curtail the privileges of the accused. In place of giving my own opinion upon this matter, I refer the Committee to a report of the Faculty of Advocates, who may be taken as the defenders of all that is right and proper in legal matters in Scotland, whether civil or criminal, in which they hold that the challenge of jurors should still continue to remain as at present.
    Amendment proposed, in page 12, to leave out Clause 39.—(Mr. Mackintosh.)
    Question proposed "That Clause 39 stand part of the Bill."
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. H. A. MACDONALD): The solo object of this clause is to save a large number of jurymen from being unnecessarily brought from long distances as they sometimes are—it is to relieve them by enabling them to escape being called.
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    It may be objected to by some people, but there are a great many of our country people by whom it will be received with a great deal of satisfaction. The only body that has said a word against it is a body the Members of which are not liable to serve on juries.
    MR. ASHER: I think there is some misapprehension on the part of many persons as to the effect of this clause. It is described as a clause that would take away the right of challenge, but that is not the case. It will require the prisoner's agent to intimate his objection to a particular juror a short time before the trial, and the result will be that that particular juror will not be required to attend. The right of challenge in Scotland, as everyone knows, is a right that is rarely exercised. On those occasions, when in consequence of popular excitement, or for other causes, it would be desirable to exercise the right there would be no difficulty whatever in getting information as to who are on the panel and intimating the challenge in the manner proposed by this clause. Desiring to see the right of challenge preserved to a prisoner, I cannot share the feelings of some persons upon this matter.
    MR. CALDWELL: I can quite understand how Lord Advocates, present, past, or future, may wish to have the procedure as to challenge curtailed as much as possible, for they are in the position of prosecutors. The hon. Member for Inverness-shire (Mr. Fraser-Mackintosh) has drawn attention to a report of the Faculty of Advocates in which they unanimously disapprove of the curtailment of the right of challenge in the case of prisoners. At present, the prisoner may challenge the jury when the jury are being put into the box. That is the present law, but also according to the present law he is bound to give notice nine days before the trial takes place. It is a matter of importance whether the prisoner should exercise the right nine days before the day of trial or not. In addition to the view of the Faculty of Advocates I may say that the Sheriffs have petitioned in connection with this matter, and they of course are the local justices in Scotland. They say that the periods are too short, and that the present system of challenge should be retained, because in some particular

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    instances the accused might otherwise suffer. Here you have on the one hand a certain section asking for a clause which shall limit the rights of prisoners in the case of challenge, and, on the other hand, you have the Faculty of Advocates, who are an unbiased body, and who are in favour of retaining the existing law. Here you have independent authorities saying "leave the challenge as at present," and I would point out to the Committee that, according to the law as it now stands, the prisoner may challenge the jury on the day of the trial if he has given notice nine days before the trial, but that under the present Bill there must be a notice of six days. That is a most important difference.
    DR. CAMERON: When this clause came up before the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate made a concession by reducing the number of days for which notice of the challenge was necessary. He reduced it by three days. That would very much mitigate the inconvenience. There is no doubt a great inconvenience to jurors in being summoned when they are not wanted. That must be apparent; but, at the same time, I would not minimize the advantage of the right of challenge to a prisoner. In one important case in the West of Scotland the right of challenge was exercised to my knowledge with very great advantage recently. It is not always possible for the prisoner to exercise the right of challenge within a short period when he is brought up from the country, because he may not in a very short period be able to arrange for his defence. It is true that a prisoner in Scotland is entitled to a gratuitous defence, but a defence of that kind is often of a very perfunctory character, and in many cases the defence of a prisoner is not arranged until the last moment. If my hon. Friend goes to a Division on this Amendment I should certainly support him.
    MR. DONALD CRAWFORD: When this clause was in Committee I advocated the restriction of the period of six days to three, and that having been ultimately agreed to I should certainly have been disposed to adhere to the arrangement then made. Since then, however, it has been strongly represented to me by people who are entitled to speak on the subject that we
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    really are taking away an important privilege from prisoners. As a matter of fact, the state of things is exactly as my hon. Friend the Member for the College Division of Glasgow (Dr. Cameron) has stated—that is to say, that the defence of a prisoner is frequently only arranged at the last moment. The prisoner may not have the advantage of legal advice until perhaps the very day of the trial, and I think that the experience of everyone who has any acquaintance either with civil or criminal trials is that the consideration whether a juror is to be challenged or not usually arise at the very last moment, and sometimes it may be a matter of very considerable consequence. For that reason I should be very glad if my right hon. and learned Friend would reconsider this point. I sympathize very much with him in his desire to diminish the burden at present imposed upon jurors, and I hope he will adhere to all the provisions in that direction. Still, however, I think we are taking away a valuable right, which at certain times might be of great consequence to a prisoner.
    MR. ANDERSON: I am bound to say that I look upon every Amendment proposed—every Amendment of the Criminal Law—proposed by a Member of the Unionist Party with suspicion in view of the course they have taken in connection with the Irish Coercion Bill. But I am bound to say that to-night I find that two or three hon. Members of that distinguished Party have entirely turned over a new leaf and seem to be anxious to bring about a reform of criminal procedure in favour of the prisoner. I am very glad to see that that change has taken place, and I trust it will go on developing until these hon. Members become once more real Members of the Liberal Party. I am bound to say that when I see the attitude of hon. Members on the Front Opposition Bench I am also filled with suspicion, because I am told by an old Parliamentary hand that they are generally wrong. I have great respect for the opinion of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for the Elgin Burghs (Mr. Asher); but giving full weight to that respect whilst listening to his arguments, I must say I think the objections to this clause are so great that I cannot but wonder at anyone in this House having any doubt upon the

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    point. It is all very well for the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate to put the matter as a question of the convenience of jurors. That is not the question. The important question is the right of challenge, and anyone who has had experience of trials knows that very often the right is not exercised until the moment before the prisoner is put upon his trial. I tell the House that the proposal that the right of challenge is to be put on the footing of six days' notice by post to be sent by some agent six days before the trial is, to my mind, one of the most extraordinary things which have ever been proposed. And to say that this is a proper hour of the night at which to discuss such a question is to advance a proposition I do not agree with. This seems to me to be a most important question, involving as it does the right of challenge; and I hope the Committee will support the Amendment of the hon. Member for Inverness-shire (Mr. Fraser-Mackintosh). I am satisfied that if the clause is permitted to stand it will have an important effect in limiting the right of challenge.
    MR. A. R. D. ELLIOT: I would point out to the hon. Member who has just sat down that a good many of us have been trying to improve the criminal procedure in Scotland long before the hon. Member had a seat in this House. Hon. Members do not seem to observe that what we are dealing with is the right of peremptory challenge only. Everyone who reads the clause to the end will see that a prisoner has a right of challenge as before for cause shown, when persons come up to be balloted for on the jury. Hon. Gentlemen who have spoken represent the views of large places like Glasgow; but I can say from my own knowledge that in small places the burden thrown on jurymen is considerable, and is very much complained of. We, who are interested in keeping up the popularity of jury trials without unnecessary injustice to the accused, must see that no greater burden is imposed upon jurors than is necessary. I therefore take the right hon. and learned Lord Advocate's view of the matter.
    THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH): I have no wish to intervene in the discussion of this measure; but there has been an understanding
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    entered into that the Truck Bill should be taken to-night, and as there is every probability of the question now before the House occupying a considerable amount of time, I am under the necessity of moving that the further consideration of the present measure be postponed. It would not be reasonable for us to postpone the Truck Bill after having entered into an understanding that it should be taken now. Are hon. Gentlemen prepared to come to a decision upon the matter now under discussion?
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I would give the right hon. Gentleman warning that some of us have a very strong feeling upon this matter, and that we wish to discuss it.
    MR. W. H. SMITH: Then I move the adjournment of the debate.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Debate be now adjourned."— (Mr. W. H. Smith.)
    DR. CAMERON: It would be much more convenient if we could divide upon the clause before going on with the Truck Bill.
    MR. W. H. SMITH: So far as I am concerned, I should be very ready to agree to a Division being taken upon the point now under discussion; but hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway declare that they want to discuss the point further.
    DR. CLARK: Some of us certainly desire to discuss the question further, particularly those of us who are interested in the Northern Counties of Scotland.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Debate adjourned till Thursday.

    TRUCK BILL.— [BILL 299.]
    (Mr. Bradlauffh, Mr. Warmington, Mr. John Ellis, Mr. Arthur Williams, Mr. Howard Vincent, Mr. Esslemont.)

    CONSIDERATION.
    Bill, as amended, considered.
    MR. CHANCE: I rise to move that this Bill be re-committed. There are a number of Amendments upon the Paper, some of which are of a complicated character; and I assume that their discussion in Committee will be more satisfactory than it can be before the whole House, inasmuch as it will be less formal and less searching. Another reason for the Motion I am

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    about to make is that the Bill, when in Committee, was so much altered as to be absolutely unintelligible to anyone before it was reprinted; and it is on that account that the clauses now on the Paper were not proposed in Committee.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be re-committed."— (Mr. Chance.)
    MR. READLAUGH: I trust the hon. Member will not persist in his Motion to re-commit the Bill, which can only be fatal to the measure. The House has been very indulgent with the Bill; we have had it before us morning after morning. Under the circumstances I hope he will not press his Motion, which I shall feel bound to resist.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER): There are three or four reasons, in my opinion, why the Bill ought not to be re-committed. In the first place, there is a clause proposed by an hon. Member to deal with the whole question of the payment of wages. That subject has already been discussed in Committee, and I think that if we were again to deal with that matter in Committee it would be impossible to pass the Bill through the House. There are also two other clauses relating to contracts, all of which I think can very well be disposed of on the Consideration. I trust the hon. Member will not think it necessary to press his Motion for re-committal of the Bill.
    SIR JOSEPH PEASE: I would also add my request to that of the hon. and learned Attorney General that the hon. Member will not Dress for the re-committal of the Bill.
    MR. CHANCE: I think the sense of the House is against me on this Motion; and, therefore, as I have no desire to waste time, I ask leave to withdraw my Motion.
    Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
    MR. SEXTON: I do not know whether the words of the hon. and learned Attorney General were intended to have reference to the clause standing in my name; but I may mention that my clause relates only to the weekly payment of wages. I propose this Amendment on account of the
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    dangerous strike which occurred in Belfast. As a rule, wages in Ireland are paid weekly; but that is not the case with all employers in Belfast. This custom has produced great excitement and social danger, which reached such a pass that none of us could tell at what moment it might break out into an actual riot. I was appealed to for advice in the circumstances, and I gave it that the men should return to work, and petition Parliament in the belief that they would get redress. Now they have petitioned this House, and have stated that they are obliged, in consequence of the practice at Belfast, each fortnight to resort to credit, by which they are subject to loss; they have also pointed out that if the employers paid them weekly it would not throw upon them any additional cost for clerks; they ask that their wages should be paid weekly, as other labourers and artizans are paid in Ireland; and I have reason to fear that if they are exasperated by refusal of their demands they may resort again to strike, from which danger might result. My own opinion on the subject may be gathered from the Amendment I have placed upon the Paper. From the other Amendments on the Paper, and from what I am informed by the hon. Member for East Belfast (Mr. De Cobain), whom I have consulted, and other hon. Gentlemen, I claim that there is unity of feeling in Ireland on the subject of weekly payment of wages; so much so, that I shall be surprised if any one Member for Ireland raises any objection to this proposal. I claim that you should consider the wishes of Irish Members in this respect, and give them the same effect as they would have if we had a Parliament of our own, in which the principle I advocate would undoubtedly be adopted. I asked the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland (Mr. A. J. Balfour), a few days ago, whether the clause would be accepted in the event of there being a general agreement with regard to it; and the right hon. Gentleman, with his accustomed ingenuity, informed me that, if my facts were proved and there was unanimity, it would have its effect upon the opinion of the Government. For my own part, I should have no objection to the payment of the bulk of the wages in a week and the balance at the end of a fortnight.
    New Clause:—In page 1, after Clause 2, insert the following Clause: —
    (Weekly payment of wages in Ireland.)
    "Where a workman is employed in Ireland for wages calculated by time, the period of the payment of such wages shall be weekly,"—(Mr. Sexton,)
    —brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I venture to think that, whatever hon. Members below the Gangway represent in this House, they have very little claim to be Representatives of the commerce of Ireland; but I wish to put the case from a commercial point of view. I have studied this question of strikes in Belfast, and have looked at both sides of the controversy. I think, on consideration, the House will admit that the shipbuilding trade in Belfast is sufficiently handicapped, without having an additional burden cast upon it. Shipbuilders in Belfast have to import all their iron and coal, and pay freight, which does not fall upon English and Scotch shipbuilders. The hon. Member proposes that wages should be paid weekly. The present practice is to pay the wages fortnightly; there is what is called a blind Monday and a pay Monday, and I can assure the House that the returns for the blind Monday show a very much less number of absentees than the Monday on which wages are paid. I hope the House will not agree to the Amendment of the hon. Member.
    MR. BRADLAUGH: When this Bill was originally drawn it did not regard the time for payment of wages, my notion of a Truck Bill being that it should provide simply for the payment of wages in cash. I have no wish to oppose the clause proposed by the hon. Member (Mr. Sexton), especially as it is generally supported by Irish Members, and the objections to weekly payments have solely related to England and Wales; but I do not consider that it comes within the limits of a Truck Act to legislate on this matter.
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER): I agree that, strictly speaking, the question of weekly, fortnightly, or other pay is not directly connected with the question of truck. The principle of legislation in respect of truck, as we understand it,
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    is the due payment of wages in money without deduction of any kind. When it was pointed out that an evil existed with regard to the time of payment, I did my best to frame a clause to meet the case. But I found the greatest difficulty in my way. There are upon the question of pay four or five different clauses bearing on the question to be considered, and I point out to the hon. Member (Mr. Sexton) that his clause only refers to a part of a great question. Of course, if the House feels that it is in a position to deal with this isolated matter of the employment of workmen or payment of wages by time in Ireland, I shall offer no objection. If hon. Members can agree upon a clause to be put into the Bill, well and good; but, otherwise, I think the result would be that the Bill would not become law. We hope, however, that both England and Ireland will gain the advantage of the work that has already been done, and I appeal to the hon. Member not to press this clause, unless he feels that he can satisfy the House that they ought to deal with the particular point which it involves. Of course, the question is much narrowed in the clause by its limitation to Ireland; but I think, notwithstanding that, it would be wiser to reserve even that part of the subject to a better opportunity, and that we should endeavour to pass the Bill as it now stands, without reference to the question of wages.
    MR. CHANCE: I am afraid the Attorney General has forgotten the title of the Bill which we are now discussing. It is a Bill not only to amend, but to extend the law relating to truck. It is clearly the object of the Bill that the workman should get his wages put into his hands in the way that will most benefit him. By the deferring of his wages the workman is forced to get credit, and he can only get credit at certain places, which are probably connected with the works at which he is employed, and in that way the object of the Act is defeated. We, on these Benches, have been told that we have very little claim to represent the commerce of Ireland; but I may remark that the hon. Gentleman who says that represents but a small agricultural constituency, whereas the Mover of this Amendment is the Representative of the great commercial constituency of Belfast. I myself happen to know some-

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    thing about the shipbuilding trade, and about Belfast, where it is largely carried on. The hon. Gentleman does not seem to be aware that there are at present nine vessels of over 3,000 tons building there, and that the yard has always plenty to do. The hon. Member has told us that there is a great difference between the attendance of workmen as between the blind Monday and the pay Monday. I think the only logical conclusion that can be drawn from the argument of the hon. Member is, that it would be better not to pay the workman any money at all. The definition of "workman" in the Bill is, that it includes any workman as defined by the Employers and Workmen's Act of 1875; and I would point out to the House that an agricultural labourer or servant is not a workman within that definition; and I defy the Attorney General, or any other Member of this House, to get up and say that the definition of the term "workman" in this Bill, or the Truck Act, would include agricultural labourers. The definition only includes men who do manual labour. The workmen in Belfast are paid wages calculated by time, and the case of the opponents of the clause is that it would be impossible to pay the men every seven days. I think we are entitled to ask the opponents of the clause to give a single example of workmen being paid in Ireland, except at Belfast, at a greater interval than a week. I also defy the opponents of the clause to point out a single case, except that of this shipbuilding yard in Belfast, where fortnightly payment exists, and where this clause would work any harm. That being so, and the Representatives of Ireland being unanimous upon the point—I believe there is only one Representative, and that of an agricultural constituency, who opposes this clause—why should we not be entitled to have our way? There is another reason. It is a simple reason, but still an important one; and it is this—6,000 Orange workmen have been out on strike. They have a considerable grievance, and nothing could be more satisfactory to them, especially at this period of July, than that a message should go from this House to the effect that their reasonable claim is to be dealt with fairly and squarely. I have no doubt that if such a message as the adoption of this clause were sent, we should hear
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    little of rioting by these men during the coming week. I hope all these circumstances will be considered, and that for the sake of fair play and justice the House will agree to the clause.
    THE PARLIAMENTARY UNDER SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Colonel KING-HARMAN): I should like to say a very few words in. contradiction of the statement that the Irish Members are unanimous in favour of the clause.
    MR. SEXTON: You are not an Irish Member.
    COLONEL KING-HARMAN: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will allow me to finish my sentence. The hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Armagh (Sir James Corry), who has more knowledge, perhaps, of the shipbuilding interest and of the commercial aspect of Belfast than any other Member, is most distinctly opposed to the adoption of this clause.
    MR. SEXTON: He pays his own workmen weekly.
    COLONEL KING-HARMAN: That may be so. The hon. Member for East Belfast (Mr. Do Cobain) is also in favour of the rejection of the clause. I only quote the opinion of two Members, who certainly have more knowledge, or quite as much, of the commercial concerns of Ireland as anyone else, to prove that the Irish Representatives are not unanimous in favour of the views of the hon. Gentleman.
    MR. SEXTON: The right hon. and gallant Gentleman has stated that the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Belfast (Mr. De Cobain) is opposed to my clause. As a matter of fact, the hon. Member for East Belfast has an Amendment upon the Paper, providing that workmen in Ireland, engaged by time, shall be paid weekly.
    Sin JOSEPH PEASE: The hon. and learned Attorney General opposes the discussion of the clause, or opposes the discussion of the wage question at all, in order to simplify the Bill, and to secure its enactment. Now, with regard to the question of wages I have had a good deal of experience, and certainly my own view is very much in favour of the payment of weekly wages. At the same time, such payment is not universal. It is universal in Ireland except in one or two cases. Are we going to pass this clause in order to force one or two firms, who have good reasons

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    of their own for paying fortnightly, into the plan which is followed by everyone else? I am afraid that if once we get into the question of the payment of wages we shall quash my hon. Friend's Bill altogether. I have a clause which relates to the question of the payment of wages and the credit to be given; but I am quite prepared, if it is the wish of the House and of the Government, to withdraw the clause altogether. Let me point out that the question of fortnightly wages is not so much one of credit; because as soon as a man gets a sovereign there is no question of credit at all. The advantage of weekly wages is that, generally speaking, it is better for a man to have less money in his hands every week than to have double the amount in his hands every fortnight. I doubt whether it is proper to discuss this question upon this Bill. I am very much afraid that the question would lead to endless discussion, and that my hon. Friend's Bill would, in consequence, go to the wall.
    MR. P. M'DONALD: As an employer of labour, I desire to say it is almost the universal practice for the employers of labour in Ireland to pay their employés weekly. In almost every trade with which I am connected that is the practice. My own firm adheres to that rule, and, moreover, pay their employés on the Friday, instead of on the Saturday. In no case has it been found that an employésuffered by receiving his wages on the Friday. I think it would be exceedingly wrong that there should be any departure from the present system of payment. I believe that the departure from that system would lead to the demoralization of the people and of the poor workers of Ireland; for if they are obliged to wait for their wages for a fortnight and then get a lump sum, they will spend their earnings in a manner which will, perhaps, not be beneficial to their households. I consider it would lead to the general welfare of the poor workers of Ireland that they should be paid weekly; and, therefore, I strongly and firmly support the Amendment of my hon. Friend (Mr. Sexton).
    MR. TOMLINSON: I desire to urge upon the consideration of the House one point which is of great importance. The subject-matter of the Bill is not the period for paying wages, but solely the mode of paying them.
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    The whole scope of the Bill is to perfect the law and place heavy penalties upon those who pay wages in any other way than in the current coin of the realm. This clause is an attempt to control the making of contracts as between employers and employed. The question is one full of difficulty, and we are not in a position to deal with it. We have no evidence before us to show how it will work in different cases. I think it is very desirable that, in general, wages should be paid weekly; but in a great many cases weekly wages may be impracticable. I think that the wisest course would be to leave the whole question of the period of payment over until next Session, and then let a Bill be brought in, or let a Select Committee be appointed to take evidence and see what fair restrictions may be imposed. If a Bill is brought in, then let that Bill be referred to a Select Committee. I think it is clear we can only deal with the question effectively by taking evidence in regard to it. Certainly, if the House desires that this Bill should be passed during the present Session, it is as well that such questions as these should not be raised upon it.
    MR. SINCLAIR: I have had some experience in connection with general business in Belfast; and I have built ships with Messrs. Harland and Woolf, whose shipbuilding works have been referred to. We have always paid wages weekly, and I have a very strong feeling in favour of that principle generally. But if there is another practice elsewhere, there generally is a good reason for it. The reason I believe why Messrs. Harland and Woolf pay fortnightly and not weekly is that the bulk of the wages they have to pay is calculated upon piecework. Now, piecework cannot be touched by the clause of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton). The clause would have the effect of bringing about two different systems of payment in the one establishment. There is no doubt whatever that there has been good reason for fortnightly payment in the past, and I believe we would do injury to this business which has been established in Belfast, and which is now being conducted under great difficulties there, if we ventured to interfere by legislative action with the method of payment which has been adopted by the enterprizing and able

    619
    men at the head of this establishment. I hope the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) will not press this clause, simply for the reason that he will be interfering with one of the few new industries that have been established in Ireland, and which has done something in the midst of the decay of so many other Irish industries to improve, enlarge, and advance its prosperity.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: My hon. Friend (Mr. Sexton) is quite unable to accept the suggestion that he should withdraw his clause. There was a strike in Belfast, which developed into a disturbance of the public peace. There were no less than 6,000 men thrown out of work, and those men appealed to my hon. Friend for his advice. His advice to them was that they should state their case to the House, and he thought that it would receive the careful attention of hon. Members. The men returned to their work; but the consideration upon which they did return was that my hon. Friend would bring their case before the House, and press it upon the consideration of hon. Gentlemen. Under these circumstances, my hon. Friend would be guilty of nothing short of a breach of faith with these men if he did not press this matter upon the House. So far as the withdrawal of the Amendment is concerned, I think I have given a reason by which my hon. Friend is entirely precluded from withdrawing it. Now, I must express my gratitude for the manner in which the Attorney General (Sir Richard Webster) discussed this matter. So far as I understood his observations, they came to this—that if there was a strong and particularly unanimous opinion on the part of Irish Members in favour of this proposal, he would not persist in any opposition to it. The right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary (Mr. Matthews) replied practically to the same effect, as he said that if there was unanimity amongst the Irish Members on this question the Government would favourably consider it. That in Parliamentary phraseology means, of course, that they would accede to our demand.
    SIR RICHARD WEBSTER: What I said was that if the House considered it right to deal with this question I would offer no opposition; but I added that I certainly did not think it desir-
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    able to deal with this matter upon this Bill.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I do not think, after all, that my interpretation of the hon. and learned Gentleman's observations was very unfair. Now, the right hon. and gallant Gentleman the Member for the Isle of Thanet (Colonel King-Harman) quoted the opinion of two Irish Members in opposition to the clause; but, strange to say, one of those Irish Members, as my hon. Friend (Mr. Sexton) pointed out, adopts the practice which my hon. Friend wishes to make universal. Now, as to the second Irish Member, the statement of his opinion by the hon. and gallant Gentleman was traversed by the fact that he has actually placed upon the Paper an Amendment to the very effect of the Amendment of my hon. Friend.
    COLONEL KING-HARMAN: May I be allowed to explain. I meant to mention the hon. Member for North Belfast, and not East Belfast. It was a slip of the tongue.
    MR. SEXTON: But the hon. Member for North Belfast pays his men weekly.
    COLONEL KING-HARMAN: I am well aware of that, but the hon. Member informs me that he is against weekly payment being made compulsory.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I think there is, practically, unanimity amongst the Irish Members on this point. I attach, no importance whatever to the opposition of the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell). The pretensions of that hon. Gentleman are getting a little too large. Why, he is not content to stand, as he did this evening, as a mighty minotaur, threatening both the Government and the Irish Party; but now he, the Representative of a rural constituency, opposes the wishes of the workers in town, and I have no doubt he imagines he adorns everything he touches; but I wish he would leave some slice of Irish affairs outside the Scotch purview of his perfervid eloquence. Another objection has been raised by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Falkirk (Mr. Sinclair); but his objection is more tenable. The hon. Gentleman has some acquaintance with the matter, while the hon. Member for South Tyrone is absolutely ignorant with regard to it; but I think, on consideration, the hon. Member (Mr. Sinclair) will find his objection cannot be

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    sustained. The hon. Gentleman is, no doubt, well acquainted with the practice in the yard of Messrs. Laird Brothers. The objection of the hon. Member is, that there are two classes of labour in this shipbuilding yard at Belfast; that one class of men is paid by piece and the other class by time; and that if we pass the proposal of my hon Friend we shall have two systems of payment. I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman is aware of the fact that in the yard of Messrs. Laird Brothers there are the two classes of workers and two systems of payment. In fact, I understand that wages are paid weekly in the case of time employment, and fortnightly in the case of piece employment, in most of the shipyards of the country. For all these reasons I hope the House will accept the clause of my hon. Friend.
    THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. FORWOOD): I cannot allow this question to pass without a few words. This clause means an interference with engagements made by one firm, and one firm only. We are proposing to deal with this firm without giving them any notice, or any opportunity of being heard through any Member of the House. That firm employs a large number of men—I believe something like 6,000. They have recently opened large engineering works. They have to compete in the manufacture of their engines with engineers in Glasgow, with firms who pay the men in their employ by the fortnight. Why should Messrs. Harland and Woolf, because they live in Belfast, be interfered with, and made to pay their employés in a different manner to their competitors? It is true that in other firms the lower class of workmen—those, for instance, who are paid a guinea a-week—get their money sooner; but the men who receive 35 s. and 40 s. a-week get their pay fortnightly. The clause says that the period of payment for such wages shall be weekly. I wish to say that it is impossible for the proprietors of any large works to prepare a pay sheet for 6,000 men, and pay them the very day after the wages are due. If this were passed, it seems to me that it would produce confusion.
    An hon. MEMBER: As a Member of the Admiralty, will the hon. Gentleman
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    say what is the practice in the Government Service?
    MR. FORWOOD: In the Dockyards they pay their staff weekly. The books are made up on the Tuesday, and the men are paid on the Friday following.
    MR. MOLLOY: I presume, as the hon. Member read the whole of his speech, we may take it that his statement has been sent to him by Messrs. Harland and Woolf to be read.
    MR. FORWOOD: I had not a word of notes in connection with this subject.
    MR. MOLLOY: Then I was mistaken. I was probably led into the mistake by the fact that the hon. Gentleman kept his eyes on the paper. It seems to me that this is a matter of Messrs. Harland and Woolf against the whole of Ireland. Though the hon. and learned Gentleman the Attorney General said that some other persons were in a similar position to Messrs. Harland and Woolf, he, personally, was not in favour of it. Well, the Irish Members are willing to agree to anything that is generally satisfactory, and will not do any injury to anyone. Therefore, if the Attorney General does not speak in a positive manner, as representing the Government, the House, I trust, will be willing to accept the Amendment of my hon. Friend. However much we may prefer to have this clause for other people than those referred to, we may rest assured that it will not prejudicially affect other firms. It will do no harm whatever; it will not affect anything in England; and, that being so, the matter becomes purely one of Irish legislation. We have shown that it is the practice throughout the whole length and breadth of Ireland to pay weekly. Hon. Members who object to it cannot point to any but a single case in Ireland where fortnightly payments are made. Well now, Sir, the shipbuilding yards on the Tyne and elsewhere pay weekly wages; and I will point out to the House the danger of refusing the Amendment of my hon. Friend, and I do it seriously. I quite admit, as has been said by the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, that this trade has developed very largely in Ireland, and that it is a very important factor in the commercial prospects of the country. As surely as this Amendment is refused

    623
    will those men go on strike again, and from information which has been supplied to me I am convinced that if they do the strike will be much more serious than hon. Gentlemen seem to consider. In the first place, the Government will have to meet with the excitement and anger of people who will think that they have been tricked by this House. They may be wrong; but they certainly clearly understood that the answer of the right hon. Gentleman the Home Secretary upon this subject, some time ago, was an answer favourable to their position. That being so, these 6,000 men will look upon it that they have been tricked by the Home Secretary. That is the frame of mind in which they will enter on a strike again. I would ask what was the result of strikes in Ireland informer times? Why, the result of strikes has been to drive away the whole of the trade from the country—it has been driven away, and it has never come back. If you refuse this Amendment—which you have it, on the authority of the hon. Gentleman in charge of the Bill, does not affect or injure anyone in the least degree—and when you have it from the hon. Gentleman that he does not object to it, if the House does not, and when you have proof from the good-natured silence of hon. Gentlemen generally that the House is content to follow the system pointed out by my hon. Friend, I say that by resisting this Amendment you will be placing in jeopardy one of the best industries in Ireland, and will be bringing about strikes of a character such as you have never had before in that country. What pains me more than anything else is that you are putting in jeopardy this trade —that you are incurring a possibility of absolute loss to this trade in Ireland, which will be an injury ten times as great as any which could be effected by the introduction of such an Amendment as that proposed.
    COLONEL GUNTER: I would ask hon. Gentlemen opposite if they have no agricultural labourers in Ireland? Because what I understand is, that it would be easy to accept this Amendment if it only applied to Belfast. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in England, for agricultural purposes, men are very frequently hired by the year and paid yearly wages? I should like to ask the hon. Member if
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    there are no men in the same category in Ireland who will be passed over if we adopt this Amendment?
    MR. MURPHY: The hon. Member asks if there are labourers employed by the year in Ireland, and I answer him that there are labourers so employed in that country, employed by the year and by the quarter. This discussion is continued as if the matter in hand related only to Belfast; but my opinion is that it relates to the whole of Ireland. I rise just for the moment to speak on behalf of the working classes throughout the whole of Ireland. The custom of paying weekly wages is not altogether universal throughout the rest of Ireland, although the hon. Member for the Birr Division of King's County (Mr. Molloy) seems to suppose so. In works in which I myself have been engaged—railway and public works—the custom is to pay fortnightly, rather than weekly, sometimes to the great advantage of the working classes. The reason I interpose in this debate at this late hour is that I desire to point out that I employ sometimes from 1,000 to 2,000 men in districts extending over 30 or 40 miles, and that I experience no difficulty in paying my men by the week. I wish to say this as representing an industrial constituency, and as having had such experience.
    COLONEL HILL: I will not detain the House one moment; but I desire to say a word in favour of the Amendment. As an employer of labour, connected with the shipbuilding industry which has been so frequently referred to, I wish to express approval of the system of paying men, not only in Ireland, but all over England, weekly wages. So far as the shipbuilding trade is concerned, there can be no possible difficulty in paying the men by the week. The practice of my firm for many years has been to make up the men's wages on the Thursday evening, and pay them on the Friday. I attach great importance to the men being paid on Friday, so as to give their wives an opportunity of going to market on the Saturday, which they cannot enjoy if the men are paid late on Saturday evening. I venture to express a hope that this system of weekly payment will be obtained throughout the whole of the United Kingdom. I think a man should receive his wages as soon after he has earned them as possible.
    MR. SEXTON: As a matter of fact, I do not think the agricultural labourer would come under this Amendment at all. ["Yes, yes!"] Well, it does not matter. I know that domestic servants and agricultural labourers are paid at longer intervals than once a week, and I did not wish to interfere with those persons. I shall be glad to alter the word "workman" in my Amendment by inserting "mechanic" or "artizan."
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 121; Noes 69: Majority 52.—(Div. List, No. 296.) [2.20 A.M.]
    Clause read a second time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be added to the Bill."
    Amendment proposed, in the said proposed Clause, to insert after "workman" the words "other than servants or husbandmen."
    Question, to insert those words, put, and agreed to.
    Clause, as amended, agreed, to, and added to the Bill.
    SIR JOSEPH PEASEmoved to insert a new clause, in lieu of Clause 3.
    New Clause:—
    (Wages of workmen.)
    "The wages of a workman, whether he be paid according to the work done, or according to the time during which he is employed, shall accrue due and be payable as follows (that is to say):—

    "(a.) The wages shall accrue due fortnightly, or at such less intervals of time as may he provided by the contract;

    "(b.) The wages shall, save as hereinafter mentioned, be payable and paid fortnightly, or within seven days after the end of the fortnight in which they accrue due, or at such less intervals of time as may he provided by the contract;

    "(c.) In the case of wages that are not paid within the week in which they accrue due, it shall be lawful for any workman, during the first six weeks of his employment, to obtain, at the end of each week in which there would otherwise be no payment due to him, a fair and reasonable sum as subsistence money, such sum being equal to at least fifty per centum of the sum it is estimated will have accrued to him during such week;

    "(d.) Nothing herein contained shall apply to the payment of money due to any workman employed in or about any slate quarry, slate mine, or metallic mine, not being a stratified ironstone mine where the con-
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    tract is for periodical settlements, dependent on the work performed or the quantity obtained, provided that such settlements are made within quarterly periods, and fair and reasonable advances of subsistence money are contracted to be made from time to time to the workmen, such payments having relation to the work that it is estimated such workmen will have performed;

    "(e.) Where wages which have accrued due, but are not yet payable, are paid in advance, no profit, discount, or interest shall be charged on such advance;

    "(1,) The employer shall comply with this section, and shall rot take any profit, or discount, or interest, or make any charge or deduction whatever, or impose any condition for or in respect of any payment of part of wages required to be made by this section;
    "(2.) Every contract made in contravention of this section shall, so far as it is so in contravention, be illegal and void, and the workman may recover his wages under such contract as if the illegal portion thereof had been made in conformity with this section;
    "(3.) Every employer who, by himself or his agent, acts in contravention of this section, shall be liable to the penalties imposed by section nine of the principal Act, as if he had been guilty of such an offence as in that section mentioned,"
    —(Sir Joseph Pease,)—brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
    THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER): I would make an appeal to the hon. Baronet not to press this Amendment, the discussion of which would occupy much time.
    MR. BRADLAUGH: I shall be obliged to ask the House to negative the proposal of the hon. Baronet, because the acceptance of the Amendment would really wreck the Bill.
    MR. T. E. ELLIS: The quarrymen of North Wales are deeply interested in this question of more frequent and regular payment of wages, and look to this House for treatment of the question without delay; so I trust it will be dealt with next Session.
    MR. CHANCE: I trust the hon. Baronet will allow the clause to be withdrawn. It is a very long and complicated clause, and I know that several clauses that will be ruled out of Order were on the Paper when this clause was put down.
    MR. TOMLINSON: I trust that the clause will be dealt with by the House, and that this Bill will not be encumbered with it.
    SIR JOSEPH PEASE: This clause was on the Paper the whole time during which the Bill has been before us, and it was only because the Bill came on at an unreasonable hour, and in my absence, that the Amendment was passed over. I replaced it, however, on the Paper the moment I found that the question of wages was to be considered on Report. I beg to point out that the clause is well drawn, and after much conference with the representatives of both labour and capital, and deals with the subject completely. I do object, at so late an hour as this, to deal with questions affecting labour and capital; but if we are to do so, then I shall feel it my duty to press my Amendment.
    DR. CLARK: The Committee has fixed weekly wages in Ireland, and I think it would be unfair to prevent the same rule applying in Scotland; because if we are to have quarterly and monthly payments as hitherto, a great many of the evils now existing will continue.
    MR. CONYBEARE: I shall be glad to know whether the Government would be prepared to deal with this question next Session?
    MR. FENWICK: If the Government will deal with this question next Session, I, for one, will join in the appeal to the hon. Baronet to withdraw his Amendment in favour of one which I have placed on the Paper, and which I have every reason to believe will meet the wishes of the working classes in England and Scotland. My proposal is that where wages are calculated by time the period for payment shall not exceed two weeks.
    Question put, and negatived.
    Mr. CREMER: I rise to move the clause which I have placed on the Paper to exempt workmen from payment to provident funds which is frequently required of them by their employers; and I trust the House will see the desirability of relieving them in this respect. I think I am justified in saying that, at the present time, the majority of workmen have made provision for sickness and
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    death in the various societies which have developed in recent years. But it is frequently the case that workmen when they are hired are called upon by their employers to subscribe to other funds than those to which they have subscribed for, perhaps, a long series of years. I think the House will consider this a great hardship in the case of men who are liable to be discharged at a moment's notice and cut off from any further participation in the funds towards which they have been compelled to subscribe, and without receiving a farthing in the way of compensation. In order to remove this hardship and injustice, and to prevent a considerable number of workmen from being compelled to pay twice over, I trust the House will accept the clause I am about to move.
    New Clause: —
    (Exemptions from payment to provident funds)
    "It shall not be lawful for any employer or his agent to make it a condition of the hiring of any workman, who has at the period of hiring made provision against sickness or death in any trade union, friendly, or other society, that he shall be liable to deductions from his wages for contributions towards any provident or any other fund from which such workman will not be entitled to derive any benefit after he has ceased to remain in that employment, or to make any such deductions from his wages during any period of his hiring,"
    —(Mr. Cremer,)—brought up, and read the first time.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the said Clause be now read a second time."
    MR. BRADLAUGH: I must ask the House to object to this Amendment, which, if it were agreed to, would ruin permanent relief funds. The evidence taken on this subject is before the House in the Report of the Committee on the Employers' Liability Bill. I trust the hon. Member will not proceed to a Division on the clause.
    Question put.
    The House divided:—Ayes 30; Noes 103: Majority 73.—(Div. List, No. 297.) [2.40 A.M.]
    Motion made, and Question, "That the Debate be now adjourned,"—(Mr. Attorney General,)—put, and agreed to.
    Further Proceeding on Consideration, as amended, deferred till Thursday.

  MOTION.

    METROPOLITAN POLICE BILL.
    On Motion of Mr. Secretary Matthews, Bill for further amending the enactments relating to Offices, Stations, and Buildings for the Metropolitan Police Force, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary Matthews and Mr. Stuart-Wortley.
    Bill presented, and read the first time. [Bill 321.]
    House adjourned at ten minutes before Three o'clock.