Commons Sitting of 26 November 1888

MINUTES.
SELECT COMMITTEE—Parliamentary Papers Distribution, appointed and nominated.
PUBLIC BILLS—Committee—Land Purchase (Ireland) [385]—B.P.
Withdrawn—Court of Session and Bill Chamber (Scotland) Clerks * [269]; Presumption of Life (Scotland) * [326].

QUESTIONS

  A PUBLIC TRUSTEE—LEGISLATION.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENTasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, If the promised Government Bill for the constitution of a Public Trustee is in preparation; and if, having regard to the urgent need in the public interest for the formation of such a self-supporting office, hope may be entertained that it will be assigned a favourable position in the legislative programme for next Session?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): No, Sir. No such Bill is at present in preparation; and in view of the great body of legislative work before the Government I cannot promise that such a measure will be brought forward next Session. Personally, I am very favourably disposed to the suggestion of the hon. Member, and I do not wish to say anything to discourage his idea. But I can give no pledge on behalf of the Government.

  WEST INDIES-ISLAND OF DOMINICA—EXPENDITURE ON PUBLIC WORKS.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDEasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, Who is responsible for the proper application of the sum of £20,000 recently raised to improve the means of communication of the Island of Dominica; if there is any truth in the statement that the money is being wasted; if it is a fact that a Mr. Robins, recently sent to Dominica as an engineer, is paid £500 a-year, instead of £350 a-year paid his predecessor; and, if so, what is the reason for this increase of salary; what Mr. Robins' qualifications are; and whether he has as yet submitted any plans or specifications for
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  roads or bridges; if it is also a fact that, in addition to this engineer, a Mr. Rankin has been appointed clerk of works at a salary of £150 a-year; and, if so, what his exact occupation is; if it is true that these two gentlemen are in the habit of ordering most expensive stores, which are put down to extras, and charged to the Public Works Account; and whether there is any, and, if so, what, check upon their expenditure under this head; and, if it is also true that the Government quarters at Mona Bruce are being repaired, rebuilt, and redecorated for Mr. Robins and his family; that a Government store has been opened, and a storekeeper appointed, in a building rented by Mr. Robins' directions; and that large orders for materials and supplies have been made out by him; and, if so, who is responsible for this expenditure, and out of what fund is it to be met?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): The Governor of the Leeward Islands, the President of Dominica, and the engineer in charge of the works are responsible for the application of the £20,000 raised for the improvement of the means of communication in Dominica, and the Secretary of State has no reason to believe that the money is being wasted. Mr. Robins' engagement is a special and temporary one at £500 a-year; and he has had no predecessor. He is an experienced engineer, who has been employed by the Governments of various Colonies; and, doubtless, his plans and specifications have been submitted to the Colonial Government. He is provided with a house. The requisite stores have been ordered by the Colonial Government, and are, doubtless, charged to the Island Public Works account. The expenditure must be authorized by the Governor or the President of the Island. Orders have been made out by Mr. Robins and approved by the Governor. The Governor is responsible for the expenditure, which is to be met out of the proposed loan.

  WEST INDIES-ISLAND OF ST. LUCIA—SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDEasked the Secretary of State for the Colonies, If it is true that in the Island of St. Lucia there is only school

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  accommodation for 6½ per cent of the population, and that the teaching staff is utterly inadequate to the requirements of the public; if it is also true that the inhabitants of St. Lucia have repeatedly asked for more schools and more teaching, and that they have offered voluntarily to tax themselves to provide education for their children; and, if so, why the Government have not acceded to their repeated requests; and, whether there is any likelihood of their doing so?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): It appears to be substantially true that there is school accommodation in St. Lucia for only about 7 per cent of the population, and that the staff is inadequate for the teaching of all the children of school age. The Secretary of State is not aware that the inhabitants have repeatedly asked for more schools, or have offered to tax themselves to provide education for their children. The question of making better provision for elementary education in St. Lucia is under the consideration of the Governor of the Windward Islands, and he will be asked for an early Report.

  IRELAND-QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY-PROFESSOR PYE.
  MR. PINKERTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been directed to the trial of a Petition of Right in the Court of Exchequer in Ireland on the 14th and 19th of November, where it was found by the Court that the petitioner, Professor Pye, of Queen's College, Galway, had by the dissolution of the Queen's University, in which he had held an office, lost certain fees to the extent of £300 a-year, being nearly one-half his total income; whether he has considered the statement of Baron Dowse, in giving judgment for the Crown, that the Act dissolving the University should have contained provisions dealing with this loss; and, whether, as the Act was passed by the Legislature on the understanding that no financial injury should be inflicted on any office-holder by its operation, Government will propose legislation or submit an Estimate with a view to carry out the suggestion of the learned Judge?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied) said: The attention of the Irish Government has been called to the trial alluded to; also to the representations of Professor Pye as to the extent of his losses, and the statement of Baron Dowse in giving judgment. No application has since been made by Professor Pye; but on its receipt the matter will be carefully considered.

  CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES—THE ANGLO-AMERICAN FISHERIES TREATY.
  MR. GOURLEYasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, When Her Majesty's Government intend placing upon the Table of the House all Correspondence relative to the Anglo-American Fisheries Treaty, recently arranged by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain); whether, seeing that the United States Senate has rejected the Treaty, it is the intention of the Government to negotiate for a new Commission, and, in the meantime, owing to the divergence of legal opinion relative to the meaning of the Treaty of 1818, it is intended to suspend enforcing its provisions, as interpreted by the Government of Canada; and, whether he considers that the modus vivendi under the Treaty is still in force?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON): Her Majesty's Government do not propose to publish the Papers, or to make any statement on the subject at present. The modus vivendi is still in operation.

  ROYAL IRISH CONSTABULARY—"CRIME SPECIAL BRANCH"—SERGEANT JOHN O'BRIEN.
  MR. W. ABRAHAMasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether Sergeant John O'Brien, of Cappamore, has been appointed a Special Sergeant "Crime Special Branch," County Limerick; what extra pay and allowances will he receive; has any examination into his fitness been held, and by whom; why has he been appointed, without competition, over the heads of 100 sergeants in Limerick City and County, many of whom possess superior qualifications;

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  and, is this the same Sergeant John O'Brien who, while stationed at Glin in 1886, was guilty of a serious violation of Police Regulations, for which he was reprimanded and removed from his station; and, if so, was this promotion made with the sanction of the Chief Secretary.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied) said: The Constabulary authorities report that it is the case that Sergeant John O'Brien has been assigned the duties mentioned in the Question. He receives 1s. 6d. per day extra pay; no allowance attaches to the appointment. He had not to undergo a special examination, nor is there a competitive examination for an appointment of this nature. This sergeant was transferred from Glin some two years ago for a breach of the Regulations of the Force. His appointment did not come before the Chief Secretary for sanction, inasmuch as his sanction was not required. Sergeant O'Brien has always borne an excellent character; and his officers, who have a high opinion of him, consider him well qualified to carry out the duties now assigned to him.
  MR. W. ABRAHAMasked, whether it would tend to maintain the discipline in the Force if a man who had been reprimanded for a breach of the Regulations should afterwards be promoted over the heads of other men?
  MR. MADDENsaid, he did not think that a slight breach of discipline should for ever debar a deserving officer from promotion.

  INLAND NAVIGATION AND DRAINAGE (IRELAND)—RIVER BANN TRUSTEES.
  MR. PINKERTONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If his attention was directed to a meeting of the Bann Drainage Trustees, held on Friday, November 9, in the Imperial Hotel, Belfast, where, after the routine business was disposed of, the Engineer submitted his Report and Estimate for maintenance of works in 1889, and the Board directed an assessment for a rate of £1,000; is he aware how many of the above Board are agents, and do not pay any of this assessment; how much of this assessment will be expended to pay officials, and how much for the
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  maintenance of the works; and, what amount has been assessed for the last five years on the owners and occupiers of lands from the weir at Movanagher to the Cutts at Coleraine?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOB IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied) said: I am not aware of any official records which would furnish a reply to the Question. If, however, the hon. Member desires to repeat it, and will be so good as to give some five or six days' notice, I shall make further inquiry; and, if necessary, cause a copy of the Question to be sent to the Secretary of the Bann Drainage Trustees, inviting them to make any observations they may wish in to regard to it.

  LAND COMMISSION (IRELAND)—FAIR RENTS—NEW RULE RESPECTING MAPS.
  MR. M'CARTANasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he is aware of the new Rule of the Land Commission, whereby every tenant applying to have a fair rent fixed, and the Poor Law valuation of whose farm is upwards of £5, is obliged to lodge with the Sub-Commission an ordnance map of his farm with the farm coloured thereon; whether directions have been given to the Sub-Commissioners to dismiss every fair rent application made by such a tenant where the map has not been lodged prior to the hearing; whether, for the last seven years, such an obligation was only imposed where the valuation exceeded £30; whether he knows of the general dissatisfaction which the extension of this rule has caused among the small farmers who are unable to bear this additional expense in making their applications; and, if he will suggest to the Land Commission the desirability of withdrawing this rule, which presses so severely on poor farmers?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOB IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied) said: The Land Commissioners report that their present Rule requires the ordnance map showing the boundaries of the holding to be lodged in every case of an originating notice where the valuation is £5 or upwards, and that the former limit was £30. They state, however,

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  that it is not the fact that, in the absence of a map, the case is over dismissed. It is only adjourned. The Commissioners are aware that there is some dissatisfaction with the Rule, as it at present exists, and they are considering how its provisions can be in some degree modified.
  In reply to a further question by Mr. M'CARTAN,
  MR. MADDENsaid, he was not aware of the details in regard to the cost to which tenants were put in procuring these maps.

  SUPPLY—CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES—EXPENSES OF PUBLIC DEPARTMENTS.
  MR. JENNINGSasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether the Estimates upon which Supply is voted by the House of Commons accurately represent the actual staff and expenses of the various Public Departments; whether there has been a material reduction under Vote 3, Class III., since the Estimates for 1888–9 were laid upon the Table; whether the number of Masters of the Supreme Court has been reduced during the past 12 months, and whether all the Masters have been in daily attendance throughout that period; whether the number of clerks in the Central Office of the Supreme Court is 77, and not 84, as shown in the Estimates, and whether it is true that the scale of salaries for all these clerks is from £100 to £600 a-year; whether the office of Pursebearer to the Lord Chancellor has been abolished, or is merely being carried on under another name with the same salary; and why, if material changes have been made in the Vote, the House was not informed of the fact when the amount was asked for on the 13th instant?
  THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON): The Estimate upon which Supply is voted represents accurately the staff and costs of a Department up to the middle of January, when the Estimate goes to the printer. It is, of course, impossible to foresee what retirements may take place during the course of the following year. The alterations in the staff of the Supreme Court since the Estimate was laid on the Table in March last have not been so material as to call
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  for a departure from the usual practice. In the Central Office the number of Masters has recently been reduced by retirement from 16 to 15, and the number of clerks from 84 to 77. In accordance with the recommendations of the Committee, 1887, the vacancies thus caused and the three next which may occur among the clerks will not be filled up. The scale of salary for the clerks is that recommended by the Committee—namely, from £100 to £600 a-year; but there are three clerks in receipt of £700, in consequence of rights acquired before the Committee's inquiry and Report. The attendance of the Masters during the full office hours is at present the subject of inquiry by the Lord Chancellor. There is no separate office of Pursebearer. The duties have been assigned without an increase of salary to the office of the Lord Chancellor's Clerk of the Chamber, an office declared to be necessary by the Royal Commission of 1874. The economy effected will be apparent by comparing the Estimates of 1884–5 with those of the following year, when the change was made:—1884–5, Gentleman of the Chamber, £400, with an allowance for discharging duties of Pursebearer £100, and Sealer, £50—total, £550; 1885–6, Pursebearer and Clerk of the Chamber, £400. Pull particulars of the changes and economies effected in the Lord Chancellor's Department by the re organization which then took place will appear in the Correspondence between the Lord Chancellor and the Treasury, which has been moved for by the right hon. Member for South Edinburgh (Mr. Childers).
  MR. JENNINGSasked when the alterations were made; and whether it was not a fact that on the day the House voted £400 under the head of Purse-bearer to the Lord Chancellor the office had been abolished?
  MR. JACKSON: I do not admit it is the fact that the House voted £400 under the name of Pursebearer; because, if you will look at the Estimates, you will see it is for the Pursebearer and for the Clerk to the Chamber. If I might venture to criticize the wording of it, I think, when the change was made, it would have been better if the duties of Clerk to the Chamber had been put first. Putting the office of Pursebearer first has given rather undue prominence to it.
  MR. JENNINGS: When were these changes made? When was the number of clerks reduced?
  MR. JACKSON: I cannot give the precise dates; but I may remind the House that when this Vote was under discussion I stated that redundant clerks had been called upon to retire; I was not aware at that moment, but I believed, that four of them had actually retired. Of course, I cannot know what changes take place in various Departments from day to day; but I meant to convey to the Committee that the Government intended to give effect to the recommendations of the Committee, and I stated distinctly that as vacancies occurred they would not be filled up.

  ARMY—RIFLE RANGE AT CASTLE-COMER, CO. KILKENNY.
  MR. MARUMasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether Her Majesty's Government has yet decided upon taking the rifle range at Castlecomer, in the County of Kilkenny, for military practice; whether the Military Authorities, upon examination, have fully approved of the projected range; and, whether the Local Committee have in every way facilitated the acquisition of the same, and further have expressed themselves as prepared to remove the difficulties, if any, that may present themselves to the Authorities; and, if so, what is the cause of the delay in carrying out the project?
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY, WAR DEPARTMENT (Mr. BRODRICK)(who replied) said: The range at Castlecomer offers many advantages over the ranges now available, and the War Department would be glad to acquire it. But, notwithstanding the help afforded by some gentlemen of the locality, it has been found impracticable to come to terms with several of the occupiers whose land would be required or rights interfered with.

  PRISONS (IRELAND)-DISCHARGE OF A WARDER FROM KILKENNY PRISON.
  MR. MARUMasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether his attention has been directed to certain proceedings of the General Prisons' Board, Dublin Castle, in relation to the
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  threatened dismissal of Thomas Nolan, Warder, from his service in Her Majesty's Prison, Kilkenny; what is the charge, or breach of discipline, proved against the warder; whether he is aware that the Board's Minute of November 13, based upon a Report of Captain Hill, calling for the warder's resignation, is not regarded as satisfactory in the interests of justice by the local Visiting Justices of Kilkenny; and, whether, in view of the same, and having regard to the good character of the warder, and the difficulty, under present circumstances, of his being able to procure employment from the public upon dismissal, he will direct a further and independent inquiry to be instituted by the local Justices, or otherwise, as to the facts and circumstances of the case?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied) said: The warder referred to was called on to resign, owing to a gross breach of discipline in removing a prisoner from his proper class, and for making a misstatement of facts. These circumstances, taken with his previous unsatisfactory record, rendered his further retention in the Public Service undesirable, and he was accordingly given the option of resignation or dismissal. The Government see no ground for calling for further inquiry into the matter.
  MR. MARUMstated, that in consequence of the unsatisfactory nature of this answer, he would call attention to the matter on the discussion of the Estimates.

  VALUATION OFFICE (IRELAND)—STAFF AND ACCOUNTS.
  MR. O'DOHERTYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether a separate account is kept at the Valuation Office of every sum received for (a) certificates of valuation, (b) ordnance maps, and (c) colouring and marking farms on such maps; whether any, and what, allowances, over and above their regular salaries, are made to clerks in the Office in respect of (a) or (b); and, whether any persons are, or have been, employed in addition to the staff in respect of these matters, and on what terms?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN) (who replied) said: The Commissioner of Valuation reports that the reply to the inquiry in the first paragraph is in the affirmative. No allowances over and above their regular salaries are allowed to the clerks in the Office for those duties. Up to the present no addition has been made to the staff in respect of the recent increase of work for the Land Commission Department; but an application for additional assistance is now before the Treasury.

  NAVY—ENGINEER DEPARTMENT OF THE ROYAL NAVY.
  MR. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSENasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether, as owing to the large use of steam power and machinery on board ship the duties and responsibilities of the Engineer Department of the Royal Navy have of late years enormously increased, and as the officers of this Department are still far behind every other class of commissioned officers (except accountants) in the matter of rank, and behind every other class in the matter of pay, he will take steps to remedy this grievance, and to place these officers on an equal footing in these respects to those of any other branch of the Navy?
  THE FIRST LORD (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON): The question of the pay and position of the officers of the Engineer Branch of the Navy has, from time to time, received the careful consideration of the Admiralty; and so late as in February, 1886, an Order in Council was obtained defining and re-adjusting the relative ranks of the officers of Her Majesty's Service, based on the recommendation of a Committee specially appointed to consider the question. I am not disposed to disturb this settlement.

  NAVY—RECOVERY OF A TORPEDO-SALVAGE.
  MR. GILHOOLYasked the First Lord of the Admiralty, Whether it is a fact that Daniel Mahoney and two comrade fishermen did, at great personal peril, in Dunmanus Bay, County Cork, recover a torpedo, the property of Her Majesty's Government; whether they did restore same to Coastguard authorities at Schull, subject to the usual demand
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  for salvage; whether the value of the torpedo is £500; whether the usual salvage awarded by the Court of Admiralty is sometimes one-half, and never less than one-tenth, of the value of the property saved; and, whether these men have received half or a reasonable amount of the value of the torpedo in question; and, if not, what reason can be assigned for deviating from the usual practice of awarding salvage?
  THE FIRST LORD (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON): The fishermen in question found the torpedo floating, and towed it about four miles to a place of safety, from whence it was handed over to the Coastguard. The torpedo not being loaded, there was no peril attaching to this service. The value of the torpedo is £340. The Admiralty Court occasionally awards salvage as high as one-half of the value of the property salved; but it is not correct to say that less than one-tenth is never awarded. The present case is, however, one of recovery of wreck and not of salvage, and is, therefore, not one for the Admiralty Court to deal with. The Admiralty, in these and similar cases, award such remuneration as the circumstances of the case justify. In this case an award of £1 per man was considered adequate.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) ACT, 1887—REDEMPTION OF TITHE RENT-CHARGE.
  MR. MURPHYasked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Whether an Order was made by the Irish Land Commission, under section 15, sub-section 2, of "The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887," reducing the terms payable by landowners for redemption of tithe rent-charge from 22½ years, as fixed by "The Irish Church Act, 1869," to 20 years' purchase; whether the Commissioners of the Treasury have assented to such an order; by what sum would the Irish Church surplus be reduced under such an arrangement on transactions already entered into; and, what is the estimated reduction of the surplus if sales of land representing the £5,000,000 contemplated by the Land Purchase Bill now before the House should be carried out?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN): The Land Commissioners report that no Order has been made

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  reducing the terms of redemption of tithe rent-charge; but that they applied to the Treasury in November, 1887, for the requisite consent that on sales under Lord Ashbourne's Act of land liable to tithe rent-charge, payable to the Land Commissioners and ordered to be redeemed, such redemption might be carried out at 20 years' purchase of the charge, less such sum in the pound as the payer of such tithe rent-charge was entitled to deduct for poor rate on an average of live years prior to December, 1887. If this suggestion were carried out it is estimated that £11,445 would be the total loss up to the present time. It is not possible to calculate the prospective loss to the Church Surplus as estimated in 1869 on the assumption that the redemption price of tithe rent-charge was reduced by two-and-a-half years' purchase in the case of lands which may be hereafter sold under Lord Ashbourne's Act, inasmuch as it cannot be told what lands will be sold. Some lands are not now liable to tithe rent-charge; while on other lands the charge varies considerably in amount.
  MR. MURPHYasked if the Treasury had consented?
  MR. MADDEN: No, Sir; the application has been made, but no arrangement has been come to yet.

  PUBLIC BUSINESS—THE IRISH DRAINAGE BILLS.
  MR. MURPHYasked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Whether any expenses are now being incurred in relation to the abandoned Irish Drainage Bills; and, if so, out of what Vote are they being paid; whether there has been a very general condemnation by competent authorities of the proposed method of effecting the drainage of the Barrow; and, will the Government reconsider the whole question before proceeding further with these projects?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN): The Government having decided to re-introduce the Irish Drainage Bills next Session, expenses continue to be incurred in relation to them, which are being met partly out of the Vote for Public Works and Industries (Ireland) (Drainage Works and Surveys) and partly out of the Vote for Law Charges (England) (Parliamentary Agency). It
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  is not the fact that there has been a general condemnation by competent authorities of the proposed method of effecting the drainage of the Barrow. The Government do not see any ground to reconsider their decision to bring again before Parliament for its consideration the proposals already made by them in the matter.

  CYPRUS (FINANCE, &c.)—REDUCTION OF ESTIMATES.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether the Elective Council of Cyprus, after duly considering the Estimates presented to them by the Government, have reduced the same by several thousands of pounds; and, whether the votes of the Elective Council have been overruled by Her Majesty's Orders in Council?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): The Estimates were so reduced by £7,962. As these reductions could not be carried out summarily without injury to the Island and its credit, and breach of faith to some public servants, the greater part of the amount has been sanctioned by Order in Council under the powers reserved to the Crown by the Constitution Order in Council. And it is hoped that a corresponding reduction may be effected in a less objectionable way, as explained in pages 174 to 180 of Blue Book C, 5,523.

  CYPRUS (FINANCE, &c.)—ADMINISTRATIVE DIFFICULTIES.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTONasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether it is true that the administration of Cyprus is a matter of increasing difficulty, owing to the financial condition of the Island and the heavy tribute payable to the Porte; and, whether any steps have been taken either to commute the Turkish tribute, or to relieve Cyprus of a burden from which she derives no benefit?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): My answer to the first part of the hon. Member's Question is, Yes. But the hon. Member will bear in mind that the tribute payable

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  to the Porte results from an International agreement, and is not in our power to alter. In stating this I also answer the second part of the hon. Member's Question as to relieving Cyprus from the burden of the tribute. The annual sum of £92,000 must be paid to the Porte. Whether it may be possible to arrive at a financial arrangement for the commutation of the tribute is a question with regard to which I am not able at present to give a definite answer.

  LAW AND JUSTICE—PENTON STREET BOARD SCHOOL—ASSAULT ON THE SCHOOLMISTRESS.
  MR. KELLYasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Whether his attention has been called to a case, heard before Mr. Lushington, at the Clerkenwell Police Court, on the 15th instant, in which it was proved that the head mistress of the Penton Street Board School, Pentonville, had, in the discharge of her duty, kept a child in school, and that an elder sister of this child, who had been sent to bring her little sister home, had knocked the mistress down, when the latter had ordered the child to go back to the corner into which she had been sent, and in which case Mr. Lushington, though informed that, by the Rules of the School Board, the mistress could only have punished the child by keeping her in, gave it as his opinion that the mistress had no right to detain the child when the mother had sent for it, and that the mistress had not been so grievously assaulted as she had sworn to have been the case, and had decided to do no more in the case than require the defendant's mother to become surety in £5 for the defendant's keeping the peace for six months; whether he is aware that such is not the first case in which Mr. Lushington has treated complaints of a similar character by board school teachers; and, whether he can give the House any assurance that he will at an early date introduce some measure for the better protection of all Government certificated and fully qualified teachers in public elementary schools?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I have received a Report from Mr. Lushington on the case from the Penton Street
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  School, in which he informs me that, in his opinion, it was at least doubtful whether the schoolmistress was within her legal rights in insisting that the child should not be taken home upon the mother's order. The defendant was 14 years of age, but did not look so old; and the magistrate felt a difficulty in deciding what punishment would be suitable for so young a female culprit. He considered, on the whole, that the another's recognizance for her good behaviour would be the most appropriate determination of the matter. I have no reason to believe that the law presses hardly on school teachers, and I think it can be left to the discretion of the magistrates to protect them in the exercise of their duty; but I shall be happy to consider any suggestions of my hon. Friend.
  MR. KELLYasked whether the defendant did not knock the schoolmistress down?
  MR. MATTHEWSsaid, that he was not informed on that point, but would inquire.

  THE CIVIL SERVICE-PERMANENT OFFICIALS HOLDING PLACES OF PROFIT.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he has taken, or proposes to take, steps to deal with the question of allowing permanent Civil Servants, entitled to pensions, to hold places of profit outside the Government service, in the direction recommended by the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, Second Report, paragraphs 98 and 100; whether, meantime, anything has been done to abate abuses of this kind, in contravention of previous rulings of the Treasury, when the holders of important offices are Directors of many Companies which hold meetings in the day time, and when Directorships are held by higher officers whose example may guide their juniors; whether the Comptroller of the Treasury and the Receiver General of Inland Revenue still hold the Directorships attributed to them in the Directory of Directors—namely Sir Rivers Wilson, Director of the Alliance Assurance Company; Sir Alfred Slade, Director of the Union Steamship Company and Director of the Cadogan Estate Company; whether the opinion of the latter case

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  expressed by the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year was brought to Sir Alfred Slade's notice, and whether it had any effect; whether the Treasury has yet solved the question raised by their letter to the Home Office, of April 6, 1878, quoted by the Royal Commissioners, as follows:—
  "The mention of the whole time, however' involves a definition of office hours, which, of course, this extra sort of service tends to limit to the extremest point;"
  and, whether the practice enforced by Her Majesty's present Government is that a permanent Civil Servant is bound to give his whole available time to the State whenever required, or is only bound to render a certain number of hours' service and entitled to make money in other ways in all the rest of his time?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN), in reply, said, that the Government had not yet had time to come to any Cabinet decision on the very important recommendation of the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments with regard to the question of allowing permanent Civil Servants, entitled to pensions, to hold places of profit outside the Government service; but, in the meantime, the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer were about to issue a Circular to Heads of Departments begging them to intimate to those serving under them that, pending the final decision on this matter by Her Majesty's Government, they should not accept any public Directorships. It was true that, as stated in the Question, the Comptroller of the National Debt Office and the Receiver General of the Inland Revenue still held the Directorships attributed to them—namely, Sir Rivers Wilson in the Alliance Assurance Company, and Sir Alfred Slade in the Union Steamship Company and in the Cadogan Estate Company—but he must demur to any two members of the Civil Service being specially selected for mention in this way while others were in precisely the same position. The reference to Sir Rivers Wilson was peculiarly unfair, as he consulted the Chancellor of the Exchequer of the day nine years ago, and obtained his sanction to accepting this Directorship. With regard to the
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  general question, he was still of opinion that it was undesirable that gentlemen high in the Civil Service should hold these Directorships; but it ought to be borne in mind that the case with regard to all members of the Civil Service was not the same. There was a class whose regular hours were from 10 to 4 o'clock or 5 o'clock; and it would clearly be wrong to prohibit members of this class from devoting their evenings to other work which would not prejudice the service of the State. Other members of the Civil Service who filled responsible positions did not consider themselves bound to any particular number of hours, and when it was necessary they worked till 7 or 8 o'clock. It was, therefore, difficult to lay clown any absolute rule on this point.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLfurther asked if it was not the fact that the existing Rules of the Civil Service demanded from officials entitled to a pension their whole time; and whether the gentlemen he had referred to could be, therefore, entitled to pensions?
  MR. GOSCHENsaid, the answer to that Question would necessitate a definition of what "whole time" was. That was very difficult. In the case of the two responsible officials named, their attendance, as Directors, twice a week, might well be set off against the large number of additional hours they gave at other times. Still, he must repeat that his own opinion was distinctly in the direction of prohibiting members of the Civil Service, especially those in responsible positions, from accepting Directorships in Public Companies.

  BANK OF ENGLAND—LOCAL LOANS STOCK.
  MR. LABOUCHEREasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, What is the amount of the Local Loan Stock held by the Bank of England?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): I am not aware of the amount of the different kinds of securities held by the Bank of England; nor if I were aware should I think that it was open to me to make the information public.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Is any excessive amount held by the Bank of England?
  MR. GOSCHEN: I presume not in the opinion of the Directors of the Bank.

  INLAND REVENUE—STAMP DUTY ON BILLS, POSTERS, &c.
  MR. BYRON REEDasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether his attention has been called to the propriety and expediency of levying a Stamp Duty upon bills, posters, placards, and such like mural advertisements; and, whether he will consider the desirability of substituting such an impost for the proposed tax upon wheels?
  MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCKalso asked, Whether the right hon. Gentleman will consider the expediency of levying a small tax upon advertisement posters, according to a principle which has been in force in several Foreign States for many years past?
  MR. CAUSTON: Before the Chancellor of the Exchequer answers that Question, may I ask whether it is in the knowledge of the Government that the Conservative candidate for Holborn has pledged himself to vote against the Van and Wheel Tax?
  THE CHANCELLOR, OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): The latter Question is rather an improper one. In reply to the Questions which are on the Paper, I may say that numerous suggestions have been made to me to impose such a tax as that which is suggested by the hon. Member; and I do not say there are not arguments to be used in favour of such a tax: but I must frankly add that the difficulties of persuading the public to accept new taxation are such as not to encourage me to adopt any of those suggestions.

  PIERS AND HARBOURS (IRELAND)—GREYSTONES HARBOUR.
  MR. W. J. CORBETasked the Secretary to the Treasury, If he is aware that the Harbour at Grey-stones is being filled up with shingle so rapidly that there is every prospect of its being filled up completely in a short time; whether it is a fact that many unavailing attempts have been made to get a groin built to the north, to stop
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  the travel of the shingle; whether his attention has been called to the evidence given before the Royal Commissioners in 1887, in which the harbour, as designed, is described as a "trap to catch the shingle;" and, what steps the Government propose to take under the circumstances?
  THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON), in reply, said, he was informed that a great increase in the accumulation of shingle at Greystones Harbour had recently taken place; but that it was not so great as to threaten to completely fill up the harbour in a very short time. He understood that the Board of Works was about to submit some proposals to the Treasury for remedying this state of things.

  MAURITIUS—ACTION AGAINST MR. PICKERSGILL, H.M. CONSUL AT MADAGASCAR.
  MR. BRADLAUGHasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether an action was recently pending in the Supreme Court of Mauritius by Thomas Wilkinson against Mr. Pickersgill, Her Majesty's Consul at Madagascar, for acts alleged to have been done in his Consular capacity; what has been the result of that action; whether, under the judgment of the Supreme Court or otherwise, any and what moneys have been paid by the Acting Consul at Tamatave to the solicitor of Thomas Wilkinson; whether such payments will be included in a Supplementary Estimate; and, whether the Government will lay upon the Table the Papers relating to this case?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES EERGUSSON): The action in question was tried before the Supreme Court of Mauritius in 1885. It was brought against Her Majesty's Consul for acts done in his judicial capacity. The Supreme Court decided that, on technical grounds, the plaintiff was entitled to judgment, and awarded nominal damages with costs. These costs amounted to about £250, which was paid, and is provided for in the Accounts of 1887–8. No Supplementary Vote will be required on account of it. It is considered unnecessary to lay upon the Table Papers relating to this case.

  AUSTRALIA—QUEENSLAND—APPOINTMENT OF GOVERNOR-SIR HENRY A. BLAKE.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATONasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether he is yet in a position to inform the House what decision has been come to regarding the appointment of Sir Henry Blake as Governor of Queensland; whether he has received particulars of the Resolutions unanimously passed by the Parliament of New South Wales on the question of the appointment of Colonial Governors; and, if he will communicate to the House a copy of the Resolutions moved by Sir Henry Parkes, the Prime Minister, and of any telegraphic despatch on the subject received from Lord Carrington, Governor of New South Wales?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): I regret that I am not in a position to make any further statement at present with regard to the Governorship of Queensland. Her Majesty's Government have received by telegram the copy of an Address to Her Majesty from the Legislative Assembly, not the Parliament, of New South Wales. I think it is hardly convenient to communicate to the House the telegraphic Correspondence on this subject as it is received; but I hope it may be possible soon to present Papers to the House.

  GERMAN EMPIRE—GREAT INCREASE OF THE NAVY.
  LORD CHARLES BERESFORDasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether he can inform the House if the Government have received information, corresponding with that given in The Times of November 23, as to the intention of the German Government to increase their maritime defence by building 28 men-of-war at a cost of about £6,000,000, 13 of which vessels are to be iron-clad battle-ships?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON): No, Sir; we have received no official information on the subject. I have, however, seen a fuller report of the proposals in the Imperial Budget, which says that the expenditure
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  in question is to be spread over a period of 10 years, and the construction to be gradual.

  CUSTOMS AND INLAND REVENUE—THE NEW WINE DUTIES.
  MR. CHILDERSasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether the arrangements for levying the new duty on sparkling wine are working in a satisfactory manner?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): From the Revenue point of view, the working of the Act is completely satisfactory. Taking the first four months after the modification of the extra duty, by which it was restricted to sparkling wines, I find that the yield of the extra duty was £47,700. At this rate the yield for the whole year would be £143,000, as against my estimate of £125,000. There has, of course, been a certain amount of friction in the working of the Act, and some complaints about the manner in which it has been administered by the Customs authorities, though, considering the difficult task intrusted to them, I consider that those authorities have discharged their duty in a manner which does them credit. I may give, as an instance of the kind of friction which arises, that a firm which advertised a certain wine at 80 s. a-dozen, and described it as "the highest class champagne shipped, the best cuvées of the best vintages only," yet claimed to pay the lower rate of duty, on the ground that they bought the wine for less than 30 s. a-dozen. Without disputing the accuracy of their statement, the Customs were of opinion that this was not the kind of wine for which the lower rate of duty conceded to cheap wines was intended. I think the House will agree with me that the firm in question may well pay 5s. tax out of the 50 s. a dozen profit which, on their own showing, they make. Speaking generally, I may say that, though numerous disputes have arisen, they affect only a small proportion of the sparkling wines imported; and that the friction is not greater than was to be expected before the trade became familiar with the principle of the new duty. Nothing which has yet occurred leads me to think that it will necessary to withdraw the concession by which sparkling wines of under 30 s.

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  a dozen are admitted at the lower rate of duty.
  MR. SYDNEY BUXTON: Will the Chancellor of the Exchequer kindly give the name of the firm to which he has referred?
  MR. GOSOHEN: No; I am afraid that to do so would increase the friction.

  JAMAICA—IMPORTATION OF COOLIES.
  MR. BURTasked the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies, Whether any applications are now being made for the sanction of Her Majesty's Government to a renewal of the importation of coolies into the Island of Jamaica; and, if so, whether it is proposed that a portion of the cost of such an importation shall be defrayed from the general taxation of the Island?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Baron HENRY DE WORMS): The question of the resumption of the importation of coolies into Jamaica has been considered by the Legislative Council of the Colony; and a Resolution has been passed in favour of allowing it to be resumed, on condition that the whole expense is borne by the employers to whom the immigrants are indentured.

  SUGAR BOUNTIES (INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE).
  MR. PICTONasked the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Whether the Sugar Bounties Convention has any binding effect whatever previous to the exchange of ratifications, which is fixed by Article XI. for "the 1st August, 1890, or sooner if possible;" whether there is any probability of the latter alternative (of an earlier ratification) being realized; and, whether, meanwhile, each of the Powers represented by the signatories is free, both in honour and in International Law, to withdraw from the Convention?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE (Sir JAMES FERGUSSON): The Sugar Bounties Convention has no binding effect whatever without ratification. As regards the second inquiry, no opinion can at present be expressed. As regards the third, unless special circumstances intervene, contracting States ought to proceed to ratification; but there are many instances in which Treaties have
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  been signed but not ratified. In the present case legislation will be necessary in order to give effect to the Convention; and, therefore, when a measure is submitted to Parliament for that purpose, an opportunity will be afforded for discussion.

  PROCLAIMED MEETINGS (IRELAND)—KILKENNY, NEW ROSS, &c.
  THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON)asked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Why public meetings announced to be held on Friday last in Kilkenny, New Ross, and other places in Ireland, were prohibited by Proclamation; why, although the meetings had been announced for weeks, and extensive preparations were made in many districts, the Proclamations were not promulgated until the date of meeting; whether meetings for the same purpose have been held annually in many places in Ireland during the last 20 years without any incident prejudicial to public peace and order, and without interference by the Government; and, why the course of repression has now been adopted?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied) said: In answer to the Questions of the hon. Member, I have to say that the Proclamations referred to in the first and second paragraphs of the Question were issued in each case as soon as possible after the Government had received definite information that the meeting would be held. As regards the action of Government during the last 20 years with regard to such meetings, I have to say that there does not appear to have been any uniform line of action adopted by the present Government or by its Predecessors in Office, who sometimes allowed the demonstrations to take place and sometimes prohibited them. The meetings referred to in the Question were prohibited because the Government were advised that they were illegal in their character, and because they believed that it was for the public benefit that they should not be held.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he should like to press the Government on this point. These meetings had been held every year since 1867, and had never resulted in any breach of the peace. Under

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  what law did the Government prohibit them on this occasion?
  MR. MADDEN: I endeavoured to convey in my answer the fact that they were prohibited because they were illegal under the Common Law.
  MR. SEXTON: In what sense illegal? I shall have to ask leave to move the Adjournment unless I receive a proper answer.
  MR. MADDEN: They were illegal because held for an illegal purpose.
  MR. SEXTON: What is that purpose?
  MR. MADDEN: That purpose, Sir, was to commemorate, or to celebrate and recommend to the public, the action of certain persons who had suffered for an offence against the law of the land. A public demonstration of such a character is an illegal meeting at Common Law.
  MR. SEXTON: If it is illegal now, why did Conservative and Liberal Governments, for the last 20 years, allow it to take place in Ireland without even a word of opposition?
  MR. MADDEN: These meetings have been, from time to time, forbidden by both Conservative and Liberal Governments.
  MR. CONYBEAREasked whether a similar meeting in this country would be illegal at Common Law; whether they had not frequently been held, and had never been put down?
  MR. MADDEN: It is not my duty to answer for this country; but this I may say—that the Common Law is the same in both countries.
  MR. W. A. MACDONALDinquired whether an exactly similar meeting had not been allowed to take place in Dublin yesterday, although, according to the statement of the Solicitor General, it was illegal?
  MR. MADDEN: The hon. Member must give Notice of Question as to any particular meeting.
  MR. SEXTON: If some were permitted and others prohibited, is it because there is one Common Law in Dublin and another everywhere else?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Solicitor General whether these meetings were not intended to celebrate the murder of a policeman at Manchester?
  MR. MADDEN: Yes, Sir.

  THE MAGISTRACY (IRELAND)-MR. W. S. BIRD, J.P., GO. CORK.
  MR. GILHOOLYasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, At what Petty Sessions district Mr. William S. Bird, a Justice of the Peace for the County of Cork, elected to attend when he was appointed to the Commission of the Peace?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL TOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied) said: I am informed that it appears from the Papers in the Lord Chancellor's Secretary's Office that Mr. Bird's customary or appointed Petty Sessions districts are Bantry, Carrickbue, and Reenmneen.

  PIERS AND HARBOURS (IRELAND)—BALLYCOTTON PIER.
  MR. LANEasked the Secretary to the Treasury, Whether he will give instructions to Mr. J. Wolfe Barry to report to the Treasury upon the present condition of Ballycotton Pier, and specifically whether the original plan and specifications adopted by the Board of Works, and contracted for by the Messrs. Martin, were adhered to in the construction of the pier; and, if not, whether the alterations made are, in his opinion, better calculated to secure the stability of the structure; whether the samples of the stuff used in the hearting of the pier, which have been sent him from the holes made in the pier, are the same materials specified in the original contract; and, is the concrete, which has now split in the pavement, face, and north side of the pier head (specimens of which have been sent him by his representative), the concrete ordered by original specifications?
  THE SECRETARY (Mr. JACKSON), in reply, said, that the form of reference to Mr. W. Barry would not preclude him from dealing with any point he might think important as regarded the construction and condition of Ballycotton Pier; and he (Mr. Jackson) did not wish to fetter his discretion by suggesting to him points to be dealt with in, or omitted from, his Report. He might say, however, that the Board of Works were instructed to furnish all and every information which might be necessary for Mr. Barry to possess, and that that had been done.
  MR. LANEasked, whether the hon. Gentleman would take steps to have the Report ready before the Irish Estimates came on?
  MR. JACKSONsaid, it would be impossible to undertake to do anything of the kind.
  MR. LANEsaid, he would then have to ask that the Vote for the Irish Board of Works be postponed until the Irish Members saw Mr. Barry's Report.
  MR. JACKSONsaid, he hoped it would not be necessary to do anything of the kind.

  LAW AND JUSTICE (IRELAND)—IMRISONMENT OF MR. SHEEHAN, M.P.
  DR. CAMERONasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether
  "The offence of using threatening and abusive language to District Inspector Rodgers, Royal Irish Constabulary, while in the discharge of his duty,"
  for which Mr. Cecil Roche, R.M., on the 16th instant, reported to Mr. Speaker he had ordered Mr. Sheehan, a Member of this House, to be imprisoned for one calendar month, consisted solely, as alleged in the report of an appeal to the Dublin Exchequer Division on the case in The Times of the 20th instant, in Mr. Sheehan's having used to the Inspector, who was searching his house, the words "Oh, you wretched!" and then shouted "Boo for Balfour"?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied) said: The hon. Member for East Kerry was convicted under the ordinary law by a full Bench of Magistrates, consisting of two Resident Magistrates and four local Justices of the Peace, all of whom were unanimous in their decision. This decision was affirmed on appeal before the Exchequer Division of the High Court of Justice. The words addressed by him to the District Inspector are not accurately represented in the Question. The streets were full of numbers of people, it being a fair night; some of them were more or less under the influence of drink, and the crowd, which had hitherto been peaceable, became excited and turbulent through the hon. Member's action. The order of the magistrates was that he should find bail for his good behaviour. This he refused
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  to do, electing the alternative of one month's imprisonment.
  DR. CAMERONpointed out that the words, "Oh, you wretched!" printed in the Question, should have been "Oh, you wretch!" Was this the inaccuracy to which the hon. and learned Gentleman referred?
  MR. MADDENsaid, there were additional words used by Mr. Sheehan. He had told the police officer that "ho might fare worse."
  MR. FLYNNsaid, he had been present in Court at the trial, and he would ask the hon. and learned Gentleman was not the expression used by Mr. Sheehan, "You may go farther and faro worse"; and whether two witnesses swore that be did not use the expression, "Oh, you wretch!" He also asked whether Mr. Sheehan had not been summarily arrested and taken to Tralee Gaol, bail being refused pending the trial?
  MR. MADDENasked for Notice of the Question.
  THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON)asked whether the expression for using which Mr. Sheehan had been convicted—namely, "Boo for Balfour!"—was held to be threatening and abusive in respect of Rodgers?
  MR. MADDEN: No, Sir; but that is only a portion of the language which he used.
  MR. CONYBEARE: Under what Statute is it laid down that the expression, "You may go farther and fare worse," is illegal?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!

  INLAND REVENUE—PRODUCTION OF THE VAN AND WHEEL TAX.
  MR. J. M. MACLEAN(for Mr. MACLURE)asked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Whether he can give an estimate of the amount which would be produced by the Van and Wheel Tax in England, and also state how much will be received by the various county boroughs, and how much by each of the separate counties independently of the county boroughs?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): The estimate of the produce of the Van Tax, after the ex eruptions which have been made, is

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  £180,000 a-year for England and Wales. I cannot give the exact distribution, but without pledging myself to an exact estimate the figures may be given approximately as follows:—London, £37,400; the county boroughs, £60,000; the counties in England and Wales, £82,600.

  IRISH LAND COMMISSION—SUB-COMMISSION AT WATERFORD.
  MR. P. J. POWERasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, considering the great number of applications to have fair rents fixed made by farmers in the Waterford Union, When a Sub-Commission will visit Waterford?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOB IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied) said: The Land Commissioners report that a Sub-Commission will sit in County Waterford early in the ensuing year.

  LAW AND POLICE—NOMINAL ENTRIES IN THE "POLICE GAZETTE."
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAMasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department, If he is aware that the original organ of the Criminal Investigation Department (The Police Gazette) appears to be sometimes used as a means of depriving the relations of those who have been convicted of offences of employment by referring to them by name; and, if he will order this practice to be discontinued?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): I have made inquiry, and the Commissioner of Police informs me that he is not aware that such use is ever made of The Police Gazette as the Question assumes. Were any instance of its being used in such a manner brought to his notice he would order a strict investigation. The Gazette is a confidential document, intended for circulation exclusively among the police; and its purpose is not to give information concerning convicted offenders or their relations, but to furnish such information respecting fugitives from justice as will lead to their apprehension.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE (SIR CHARLES WARREN).
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAMasked the Secretary of
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  State for the Home Department, If he can state why the Police Rules of Wednesday night last were signed by Sir Charles Warren, seeing that he is no longer Commissioner? The hon. Gentleman also asked, whether it was true that Mr. Monro had been appointed Commissioner of Police?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): Although Sir Charles Warren has sent in his resignation of the office of Commissioner of Police, he has not yet been relieved from the responsibility of the office; and, therefore, properly continues to discharge its functions. No successor has yet been appointed to Sir Charles Warren?

  INLAND NAVIGATION AND DRAINAGE (IRELAND)—THE RIVER BANN.
  MR. LEAasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, If the Government will consent to the appointment of a Select Committee, at the earliest possible time next Session, to inquire into the question of the Bann Drainage, and the best means of meeting the difficulty?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied) said: I apprehend the course will be that the Bill will be introduced next Session; and when read a second time it will, in the ordinary course, be referred to a Select Committee as a Hybrid Bill.
  MR. FLYNNasked, would there be any opportunity afforded to Irish Members to express any opinion during the second reading of that Bill?
  MR. CONYBEAREasked, would the Representatives of the British taxpayer be afforded a similar opportunity without being closured?
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked whether, between then and the introduction of the Bill, the Government would take steps to ascertain the local feeling, and also the feeling of Irish Members generally, on this Bill; and whether they would also see if some better system of voting on the question could be devised than the property tax?
  MR. MADDENsaid, the Government would gladly receive any suggestions from any quarter with the view to the

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  possible improvement and development of the scheme.

  PURCHASE OF LAND (IRELAND) ACT, 1885—ADVANCES AND APPLICA-TIONS.
  MR. SHAW LEFEVREasked the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Whether he will state what has been the number of advances to tenants for the purchase of their holdings under the Land Purchase Act, in sums of £100 and under; of from £100 to £200; £200 to £500; £500 to £1,000; and £1,000 to £2,000 respectively?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)(who replied)said, that the time since the Question was placed on the Paper had been too short to enable him to obtain the necessary information, and he was not, therefore, in a position to answer it.
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: Will the information be here by to-morrow?
  MR. MADDEN: I hope so.

  EDUCATION DEPARTMENT—THE CODE OF 1889—THE WELSH LANGUAGE.
  MR. D. A. THOMASasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether he can give an assurance that the Education Code of 1889 will carry out the unanimous recommendations of the Royal Commission on Elementary Education in England and Wales; that in Wales permission should be given to take up the Welsh language as a specific subject; to adopt an optional scheme to take the place of English as a class subject, founded on the principle of substituting a graduated system of translation from Welsh to English for the present requirements in English grammar; to teach Welsh along with English as a class subject; and to include Welsh among the languages in which candidates for Queen's Scholarships and for certificates of merit may be examined?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT (Sir WILLIAM HART DYKE): Welsh has been accepted as a specific subject for the last two years, with the result that in 1887 192 scholars in 12 schools were examined, and in the year just passed 369 scholars in 16 schools.
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  The other points to which the hon. Member refers will receive most careful attention in connection with any changes made in the Code.

  EDUCATION DEPARTMENT—TRAINING OF TEACHERS, WALES-COLLEGES OF ABERYSTWITH, CARDIFF, AND BANGOR.
  MR. T. E. ELLISasked the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education, Whether the recommendation unanimously made by all the Members of the Royal Commission on Education, that the State-aided University Colleges of Aberyst-with, Cardiff, and Bangor, should be utilized for the training of teachers, can be adopted at an early date; and whether he will enter into communication with the Councils of the three Colleges as to their readiness to form educational faculties, and make other arrangements necessary for the effective carrying out of the recommendation of the Commissioners?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT (Sir WILLIAM HART DYKE): The recommendations of the Royal Commission on this head are under consideration; and though disposed to view with favour some experiment in the direction indicated, there are many difficulties, financial and otherwise, that have to be approached, and the Department have not yet had time to deal with them.

  LAND LAW (IRELAND) ACT, 1887—PAYMENT OF ARREARS—EXTENT OF TERMS.
  MR. TUITEasked Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Whether he will afford any information to the House, by a Return or otherwise, as to the number of cases tried at the late sittings of the County Courts in Ireland, in which the presiding Judges availed themselves of the power vested in them by Section 30 of the Land Act of 1887, to extend the period of payment of arrears of rent and costs over one year from the date of decree, in conformity with the following decision of the Superior Courts, delivered previous to the sitting by Mr. Justice Morris, and concurred in by Mr. Justice O'Brien and Mr. Justice Gibson, in a case stated from the Assizes of the County of Londonderry by Mr. Justice Andrews:—

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  "The Court has the power to extend time of payment beyond one year from date of decree and to stay execution in meantime, and that if default is made in complying with the order for payment the decree may he executed in the prescribed form. He thought such was the translation of section 30 of the Land Act of 1887. It was admitted that the Superior Courts had power to extend payments over 20 years if necessary and reasonable. He thought it most unreasonable if this were not to apply to Civil Bill Courts, because in 99 cases out of 100 ejectments are brought in Civil Bill Courts" (Law Times Report, 3rd November, 1888).
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN): I find that there will be no difficulty in giving a Return of the nature in question if the hon. Member desires to move for it. I would suggest, however, that it should date from the commencement of the Act.

  POST OFFICE-CONTRACT FOR POST-CARDS.
  MR. R. POWERasked Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, "Whether he will lay upon the Table the Correspondence which contains the offer of Messrs. De la Rue, in connection with their proposal for an extension of their contract, leading up to a reduction in the price of postcards, in order that the House may be in a position to form an opinion as to whether there are exceptional reasons for accepting that offer which may outweigh the advantages likely to arise from competition and from short contracts; whether there is any truth in the rumour that the reduced prices offered by Messrs. De la Rue practically correspond with those which Mr. Purcell, the Controller of Stamps, indicated in his evidence before the Select Committee on Revenue Estimates would be fair and reasonable; whether it is a fact that, at the present moment, post cards are being turned out at Somerset House which, as retailed by stationers at 6½d and 7d. per dozen, compete with practically similar postcards for which, owing to the Inland Revenue contract, the Postmaster General is compelled to charge as much as 8d. per dozen; and, whether he will consider the advisability of putting an end to this arrangement?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN): My answer to the hon. Member's first Question is in the
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  affirmative. With regard to his second Question, I am Dot aware whether the reduced prices of Messrs. De la Rue correspond with those indicated by Mr. Purcell. I have not compared the two, nor would it be easy to do so, as Mr. Purcell's calculations were based on the cost of existing materials; whereas Messrs. De la Rue's offer includes a change in the material of the stout postcard. The answer to the third Question is in the affirmative. As to the fourth, I have not yet had time to confer with the Postmaster General on the subject.

  LAW AND JUSTICE—APPOINTMENT OF A COUNTY COURT JUDGE (MR. MACONOCHIE).
  MR. LABOUCHEREasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether a Mr. Maconochie has just been appointed a County Court Judge by the Lord Chancellor; whether the gentleman is either nearly or quite 70 years old; and, whether he has practised before any Court during the last 20 years; and, if so, when?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER): In reply to the hon. Member, I have to state that the answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. The Lord Chancellor believes that Mr. Maconochie's age is 65. As to the third paragraph, the Lord Chancellor has no information on the point, Mr. Maconochie not being personally known to him. He was appointed on the testimony which was borne to his fitness for the office by the highest judicial and professional authorities. Mr. Maconochie has been for many years Recorder of Winchester, and for the last 12 years has frequently sat as Deputy County Court Judge.

  THE CIVIL SERVICE—PERMANENT OFFICIALS HOLDING PLACES OF PROFIT-MR. H. G. CAMPBELL.
  MR. LABOUCHEREasked Mr. Attorney General, Whether he is aware that the Taxing Master, H. G. Campbell, is Chairman of the Bahia and San Francisco Railway Company, and Director of the Law Eire and Law Life Insurance Companies, of the Trust and Agency Company of Australia, and of the Trust and Loan Company of Canada; whether other Taxing Masters

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  are Directors of various Companies; what are the official hours of attendance of these gentlemen as Taxing Masters; and, whether, during these hours of attendance, they attend the Boards of the various Companies of which they are Directors?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir RICHARD WEBSTER): I am informed by Mr. Campbell that he is not a Taxing Master. He held the office of Associate to the Lord Chief Justice of England; and by the Act of 1879, on the abolition of that office, Mr. Campbell became a Master—but not a Taxing Master—of the Supreme Court under special provisions as to the performance of certain duties. Mr. Campbell informs me that he is a Director of the Companies named by the hon. Member; but that he has never allowed his position as Director in any way to interfere with the due and complete discharge of his official duties. It has not been possible for me, in the time which has elapsed since the Question first appeared upon the Paper, to obtain the necessary information in relation to the other parts of the Question, as there are between 30 and 40 officials from whom information has to be obtained. I am, however, informed that before the Question appeared upon the Paper the Lord Chancellor directed an inquiry to be made as to whether there were any instances of any of the Masters attending Board meetings during the hours of attendance. As soon as I have obtained complete information I will communicate with the hon. Member.
  MR. LABOUCHEREasked the hon. and learned Gentleman to ascertain Master Campbell's official hours, and whether any of the Companies met during those official hours?
  [No reply.]

  ROYAL COLLEGE OF SURGEONS OF ENGLAND—THE SUPPLEMENTAL CHARTER.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILLasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether he will lay upon the Table a copy of the statements made by the deputation of the Members of the Royal College of Surgeons of England to the Lord President of the Council on November 11, 1887, upon the subject of
  154
  the Supplemental Charter since granted to the said College, and of all documents and correspondence relating thereto lodged in the Privy Council Office, including the Petition to Her Majesty signed by 4,665 members of the College?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH), in reply, said, that if his noble Friend would move for the document in question the Government would be glad to give it.

  UNITED STATES—APPOINTMENT OF A NEW MINISTER TO WASHINGTON.
  MR. GOURLEYasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether Her Majesty's Government intend appointing a new Minister to the Government of the United States at Washington on the departure of Lord Sackville, or not until the President Elect enters upon the duties of his office?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): The Government are unable at present to make any statement as to the appointment of a new Minister to the United States.

  CIVIL ESTABLISHMENTS—SECOND REPORT OF THE ROYAL COMMISSION-CLAUSE 123.
  MR. KELLYasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether it is intended to give effect to the recommendation contained in Clause 123 of the Second Report of the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments, in which the Commissioners expressed a hope that steps might without delay be taken to carry out the recommendation made in paragraph 31 of their First Report, and repeated in the Second, to the effect—"That the hours of service in all Offices for all classes should be fixed at 7;" and, whether there is any objection to the immediate application of the recommendation in the case of the clerks of the Lower Division, seeing that provision has already been made for the salaries of such clerks under such altered conditions by the Order in Council of 1876?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): The

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  general approval of the Government of the seven-hour system has already been expressed, and they will give effect to the principle whenever and as opportunity occurs; but the introduction of seven hours means in most cases a corresponding reduction of staff, and, therefore, the case of each Office must be considered by itself. The Government are not aware that any of the Public Departments are suffering from a deficiency of clerks; but the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Civil Establishments will receive careful consideration.

  LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART-NATIONAL SCIENCE COLLECTIONS, SOUTH KENSINGTON.
  SIR HENRY ROSCOEasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether, in view of his promise that the recommendations of the Inter-Departmental Committee on the Housing of the National Science and other Collections at South Kensington should receive the attention of the Government, and that a statement should be made to the House without unreasonable delay, he is now prepared to carry out that promise, and to make a statement on the subject?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): In answer to the hon. Member for Manchester, I have to inform him that shortly before the holidays the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I spent a morning at South Kensington, where we met the Vice President of the Council and the permanent officers of the Department, with a view to satisfy ourselves as to the necessity for further accommodation; and the conclusion we came to was to invite the assistance of some gentlemen well known in the scientific world to go through the Collections at South Kensington, with the view of ascertaining whether space may not be gained by the disposal of useless or unimportant articles or duplicates. As that Committee will be requested to meet at once, the Government propose to await its Report before arriving at any final determination as to the extension of building recommended by the Departmental Committee. I should say that the hon. Gentleman called my attention to Reports of previous Committees; but it appears that no Committee has yet
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  sat with a view to going through the Collections for the purpose of excluding useless or duplicate specimens.
  MR. MUNDELLAasked whether the right hon. Gentleman had informed himself of the fact that in 1883 and 1884 Committees of Experts examined into the "whole question of the housing of the various Collections, and the sifting out of articles which were redundant or useless?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: No doubt the Committees in question did report in favour of additional accommodation for South Kensington; but the Government are not satisfied that they did go through the Collections for the purpose of sifting them, and they are satisfied there are some things which could be got rid of with advantage.

  THE SPECIAL COMMISSION-MEMBERS OF PARLIAMENT (CHARGES AND ALLEGATIONS)—SERGEANT MEEHAN.
  MR. W. A. MACDONALDasked the First Lord of the Treasury, Whether his attention has been called to the evidence given on Wednesday before the Special Commission by Sergeant Meehan, of the Royal Irish Constabulary, who stated on cross-examination that he had come to London without a subpoena, and in consequence of a telegram received from Mr. Rogers, his District Inspector; and, whether, in view of the declaration made by him, that the Government maintained a position of impartiality and neutrality as between the parties appearing before the Commission, this proceeding on the part of an officer of police, who is under the direct control of the Executive, has been sanctioned by the Government?
  THE FIRST LORD (Mr. W. H. SMITH): I am informed that the police sergeant named was directed to proceed to London in consequence of a telegram announcing that a subpoena had been issued for his attendance before the Special Commission, and awaited his arrival. There was nothing in this proceeding which was inconsistent with the expressed views of the Government as to their attitude in the matter. Precisely the same course would be followed on a similar application on behalf of any of the other parties to the cause.
  THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON): I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if this sergeant was directed by the telegram from his superior officer to report himself at the office of Mr. Soames; whether the office of Mr. Soames constituted a Department of the Irish Police in London; and, whether he will lay on the Table of the House a Return—in time for the Irish Estimates—of the names, rank, and pay of the public servants brought from Ireland and kept in London at the instance of The Times, showing the dates of their departure from Ireland and the periods of their detention?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I have no information beyond that which I have given to the House; therefore, I cannot reply to the Question of the hon. Member. It is obviously impossible for us to produce a Return of the officers who acted under subpoena under formal process issued by a capable authority.
  MR. SEXTON: I wish to ask, as a matter of Constabulary Rule, if the absence of every policeman—of every grade—is not reported immediately to the Inspector General, who has, therefore, in his hands material to give the Returns?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: The hon. Member must be aware that I have no personal knowledge of the Rules of the Constabulary in Ireland.
  MR. W. A. MACDONALD: Will the right hon. Gentleman kindly state why the subpoena was not served on the police officer in Ireland?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: The hon. Gentleman must be aware that I cannot tell anything of the kind.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it would not be regular and more fitting that the subpoena should be served by the solicitor in this ease, and not by officers of the Royal Irish Constabulary; and whether, as the Attorney General is counsel in this case, he would not see that such a course, which is the proper course, should be pursued?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: The right hon. Gentleman must be aware that I have no personal knowledge on the matter. No doubt any suggestion coming from the right hon. Gentleman will he duly considered by the Attorney General.

  CRIMINAL LAW—THE EDLINGHAM BURGLARY.
  MR. MILVAINasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department the following Question, of which he had given private Notice:—Whether the men Egdell and Richardson, who recently confessed to the commission of the crime of burglary at Edlingham in 1879, were on Saturday convicted and sentenced; whether he would now advise Her Majesty to extend her free pardon to the men Brannaghan and Murphy, now released on licence, who were in 1879 convicted and sentenced in respect of the same offence; whether he would take into his consideration what sum of money ought to be offered to Brannaghan and Murphy by the State as some reparation for nearly 10 years' penal servitude which they had undergone for an offence which they never committed; whether he had determined to take any, and if any what, proceedings against the police upon whose testimony Brannaghan and Murphy were convicted?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. MATTHEWS): Yes, Sir; I am informed that the two men who recently confessed to having committed a burglary in 1879 were on Saturday convicted and sentenced; and I shall accordingly advise Her Majesty to extend a free pardon to the men Brannaghan and Murphy, who were convicted in 1879 of this offence, and who have been released on licence. I am now considering what recommendation I shall make to the Treasury on the subject of compensation. I propose to refer the Question which my hon. Friend asks affecting the police to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
  MR. MILVAIN: On this day week, I intend to ask whether a free pardon has been granted to those men, and what sum of money has been offered to them?
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  MR. T. M. HEALYasked whether the right hon. Gentleman could inform the House why the two men had on Saturday been sentenced to only five years' penal servitude, while the men convicted in 1879 had been condemned to penal servitude for life?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I gather from the reports I have seen that the men

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  who were sentenced on Saturday last pleaded guilty to burglary only, and not to the counts charging them with shooting with intent to murder and shooting with intent to do grievous bodily harm, of which more serious offences the two men sentenced in 1879 were found guilty. That probably accounts for the difference in the sentences.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTasked the Home Secretary whether he would consider the propriety of instituting an inquiry into the cases in which innocent men were unjustly convicted, with a view to ascertaining the causes which led to such convictions? He had had occasion of recent years to consider the matter, and he thought it desirable some such inquiry should be made.
  MR. MATTHEWSsaid, he should be happy to consider the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman. The materials had been in a disjointed shape before him more than once.
  MR. MILVAINasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that frequent Petitions were sent to the Home Office on this matter during the time the present Opposition were in Office, and that no reply was made to them?
  MR. MATTHEWSsaid, he was not in a position to state whether that was so or not.
  MR. PICTONasked, whether the right hon. Gentleman would consider some change in the law which would devise some other mode of releasing innocent men than by a pardon for offences they had never committed.
  [No reply.]

  PUBLIC MEETINGS (METROPOLIS)—THE WHITE LION STREET MEETING.
  In reply to Mr. JAMES STUART (Shoreditch, Hoxton),
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS)said: The hon. Member put the Question he has just asked in my hands about five minutes ago; but this morning I received from him private Notice of another and a different Question, the answer to which I have brought with me. The hon. Member asks me whether I am aware
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  that on Friday evening an orderly public meeting held in support of Earl Compton's candidature for the Holborn Division, at the corner of White Lion Street, was dispersed by the police; whether the ground for this dispersal was that the meeting was said to cause an obstruction; whether any complaint of obstruction has been made to the police, and, if so, by whom; whether I am aware that meetings have been previously held at the same place without interference; whether I am aware that Holborn is very badly provided with public Halls; whether I have considered the difficulties likely to arise if at the time of a contested election bonâ fide political meetings are interfered with by the police, acting under the direct control of the Executive Government; and whether I will instruct the police not to interfere with such meetings at such at a time, even although they do cause some obstruction of the traffic. In reply to the hon. Gentleman, I have to say that I have made inquiry, and am informed by the police that a meeting did take place in Seven Dials on the evening of the 23rd. The Inspector of Police, seeing that the whole thoroughfare was blocked and the traffic was impeded, acting on his own discretion, requested the people to leave. He was not aware that the meeting was in support of Earl Compton's candidature, and saw none of his agents there at the time. I am informed that meetings have not taken place at this particular spot, at which the crowd stood across a route of omnibus traffic; but at a point further down White Lion Street, where no appreciable obstruction has been caused, and where the meeting in question would not have been interfered with. I am informed that Holborn is badly provided with public halls; and I am aware of the difficulties that are likely to arise under these circumstances during an election. The standing instructions given to the police are not to interfere with meetings unless in cases of disorder, obstruction, or danger to the public peace; and if those who desire to hold meetings would endeavour to co-operate with the police in the performance of their difficult duties, and to select convenient places, I feel sure they will have no reason to complain of the intervention of the police.

  THE INQUEST AT MITCHELSTOWN ON THE LATE MR. JOHN MANDEVILLE—MR. BALFOUR'S SPEECH AT GLASGOW.
  MR. W. O'BRIEN: I do not know whether the Chief Secretary is sufficiently recovered to answer a Question; but, if so, I would like to ask him a question which has been accidentally dropped off the Paper to-day, and which appeared several days last week. The Question is, Whether, in view of the grave charges made by him at Glasgow against Members of this House, in their capacity as such Members, in connection with the inquest on the body of the late Mr. John Mandeville, he will exert his influence with the First Lord of the Treasury to obtain special facilities for the early and adequate discussion of the same?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR), in reply, said, he was not aware of the particular passages to which the hon. Member alluded; but he did criticize two hon. members in that speech, though not, so far as he was aware, in their capacity as Members of Parliament. However, he was extremely anxious that the Irish Estimates should come on at an early date; because nobody was more desirous than he was that full opportunity should be given to hon. Members to ventilate whatever views they might have on the subject of Ireland.
  MR. W. O'BRIENasked the right hon. Gentleman to consider that a discussion on the Irish Estimates, in which all sorts of topics were huddled together, did not afford a proper opportunity for such a close and consecutive treatment of the question as alone would enable the House to judge between the Chief Secretary and Irish Members.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he could not agree that the Irish Estimates were an inappropriate occasion for such a discussion. It was more possible to carry on a close and reasoned discussion upon the Estimates, when a Minister had more than one opportunity to speak than, perhaps, any other occasion; and it rested, after all, with hon. Members from Ireland themselves whether they would keep the discussion to one subject, or allow it to wander into all sorts of topics.

  CRIMINAL LAW AND PROCEDURE (IRELAND) ACT, 1887—PROSECUTION OF IRISH MEMBERS.
  THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON), referring to a statement of the First Lord of the Treasury as to the course of Public Business, in which he promised to consider whether seven Irish Members should not be prevented, by reason of summonses issued or threatened against them, from the discharge of their Parliamentary duties in connection with the Irish Estimates, asked the Chief Secretary whether he was aware that summonses had been served on several already, ordering them to appear in Ireland on Monday next, the first day on which the Irish Estimates were to be discussed, and what steps he would take?
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman is he aware of the fact that Mr. Cecil Roche at Tralee to-day refused any adjournment in the case of the hon. Member for Kerry (Mr. E. Harrington), and ordered a warrant to issue for his arrest?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR), said, he was personally anxious that those hon. Members should be able to be present at the discussion of the Estimates, and he would see what could be done in the matter; but, of course, it was impossible to interfere beyond a certain point with the ordinary course of the administration of justice.

  SCOTCH CROFTERS' EMIGRATION.
  DR. CAMERONasked the Lord Advocate, If he would state the names of the members of the Board constituted under the Government Crofter Emigration Scheme to represent the Imperial Government, the Canadian Government, the private subscribers, and the important Land Companies respectively, and the dates at which they were severally appointed?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON): These appointments are not yet completed; but the names proposed are the Secretary for Scotland, to represent the Imperial Government; the High Commissioner for Canada, to represent the Canadian

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  Government; the Lord Provost of Glasgow, the private subscribers; and Mr. Peacock Edwards, the Land Companies. I am informed that they will be appointed under one warrant and will bear the same date.

  EGYPT—REINFORCEMENTS OF [BRITISH TROOPS AT SUAKIN.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked the Secretary of State for War, Whether there was any truth in the report that appeared in all the newspapers this morning that it was intended to employ British troops to fight at Suakin?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE (Mr. E. STANHOPE): In case the officer commanding the Division at Suakin should deem it necessary that the native troops should be supported by British troops, Her Majesty's Government would certainly sanction their employment.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL: Am I to understand that the discretion is to be vested in an officer in the service of the Egyptian Government?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: No doubt the duty of the troops will be limited to the object of the Expedition—namely, driving the rebels out of the positions they now occupy. Her Majesty's Government are in communication with the officer commanding the troops in Egypt.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLasked, whether it was not the case that the troops to be employed were not under the officer commanding the British troops in Egypt; and whether the discretion to use them had not been vested in an officer of the Egyptian Government?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: Communications are going on between Her Majesty's Government and the General Officer commanding the troops, and on the result of those communications any future action will depend.
  MR. LABOUCHEREinquired whether the right hon. Gentleman was aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, in an early part of the Session, gave a distinct pledge that no British troops should be employed at Suakin?
  [No reply.]

  PURCHASE OF LAND (IRELAND) ACT, 1885—OWNERS OF ESTATES.
  MR. T. M. HEALYinquired, When the House would be in possession of the names of the gentlemen who had had money allotted to them under the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act; and whether the £280,000 which had been allotted to the Duke of Abercorn was paid out of the original £5,000,000, or whether it was to be paid out of the coming £5,000,000?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)replied that the names of the owners of estates had not hitherto been given for the purposes of a Return, though he was willing to supply them if they were ordered by the House.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman tell us now whether the Duke of Abercorn has got the £280,000?
  MR. MADDEN: I have no official knowledge, but I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the statement which has been made to the effect that the transaction is a completed one, from which it will follow that the money has been allocated out of the original fund.

MOTION.

  SITTINGS OF THE HOUSE (EXEMPTION FROM THE STANDING ORDER).
  Motion made, and Question put,
  "That the proceedings on the Land Purchase (Ireland) Bill, if under discussion at Twelve o'clock this night, be not interrupted under the Standing Order, Sittings of the House."—(Mr. W. H. Smith.)
  The House divided:—Ayes 207; Noes 135: Majority 72.—(Div. List, No. 304.)

ORDER OF THE DAY.

  LAND PURCHASE (IRELAND) BILL.
  (Mr. Arthur Balfour, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Mr. Secretary Matthews.)
  [BILL 385.] COMMITTEE.
  [Progress 23 rd November.]
  Bill considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1 (Increase of limit of advances by Irish Land Commission, and provision therefor).
  MR. PARNELL, in moving to add at the end of the clause the following words—
  "Provided, that no money shall he advanced for the purchase of more than one holding in the occupation of any one tenant if such holding he of the rateable value of not less than £20 per annum,"
  said, the Amendment was intended to provide as much as possible for the useful distribution of the sum of money which Parliament intended to allocate under the Bill. He had always held that the necessary dimensions of the purchase question awaiting solution by Parliament were not nearly so large as was generally supposed. He considered that beyond providing the tenant with the holding upon which his house stood, and beyond making his homestead secure, it was not requisite that the State should interfere. He did not see upon what grounds they could ask the State to advance large sums of money for the purpose of enabling a tenant who had two, three, four, five, or six holdings to become the owner of those holdings to any extent. If they would look at the question of land purchase from the point of view he invited them to look at it, it became narrowed down to the necessity of securing that the holding on which the tenant lived should be his, and there was no claim and no argument in favour of extending the principle of purchase beyond the limit suggested by reasons of State. And what were those reasons? Parliament, in olden times, before there was any land agitation in Ireland, never thought of making the tenant the owner of his holding. It was one of the great misfortunes in the history of the relations between England and Ireland that the crisis following the years 1846, 1847, and 1848, which brought so many estates into the Landed Estates Court, was not utilized for the purpose of making the tenants of those estates the owners of their holdings. But agitation commenced, and now they had the Tory Party assisting the State to provide sums of money for the purpose of converting the tenants into the owners of their holdings. But the necessity did not go further, from the point of view of practical experience, than that the tenant should own the land upon which he lived; and it was not desirable to extend the principle beyond what was absolutely necessary.
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  From the point of view of those who desired to see land purchase carried out as much as possible, it was desirable not to limit the number of owners but to go in the direction of creating a bonâ fide peasant proprietary by making the money reach as far as they possibly could. One of the objections he had heard against the Bill was that it proceeded upon a haphazard plan. It enabled money to be spent upon holdings upon which it was not necessary to spend it, and holdings where expenditure was necessary were not touched. It was for this reason, among others, that he had always advocated compulsory purchase; because, under a compulsory scheme, the State would be able to say what holdings it was desirable, from economical and political points of view, to purchase. It was not necessary to compel the State to advance money where it was not desirable that purchase should take place. When they came to a case in which it was not desirable that the holding should be purchased, it became more than ever necessary for Parliament, if it would not give the Commissioners power to decide what holdings should be purchased, to say at least that the Commissioners should have power to decide what holdings should not be purchased. It was a well known fact that the tenants of Ireland might be roughly divided into two classes—those who had far too much land, and those who had too little. The majority, of course, had too little land; and he might cite, as a proof of that, the congested districts in the West of Ireland, where disturbances had taken place during the Land agitation. He came now to the class of tenants which he desired to guard against in this Bill; and he would describe them as tenants who, to use a familiar Irish term, had "too much land under them," which they were neither fitted by capital, skill, or industry to make useful to them. Everybody practically acquainted with the rural economics of Ireland knew that many of the holdings they saw throughout the country, as they travelled through it, were holdings used by the tenants of other holdings as "draw farms." Such holdings were absolutely neglected, because the tenants had not sufficient capital to enable them to cultivate them. If they could be brought into cultivation, one of the gravest questions in dealing with

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  the masses in Ireland might be greatly helped. "What he wished to guard against in the first place was this. He wished to provide that the money voted under this Bill should be spent, as far as possible, in the creation of a genuine bonâ fide peasant proprietary, and in securing that the tenant who lived on his land should have the opportunity of making it his own property. But when they came to the case of "draw farms" on which the tenant did not live—farms which he scarcely cultivated, or did not cultivate at all, but in reference to which he was perfectly well able, and would be much better able if this Bill passed, to make his own by purchase; for he was perfectly well able to make his own bargain with his landlord in nine cases out of 10. Then, he maintained, there was no occasion that the beneficence of Parliament and of the English taxpayers should step in, and no case had been made out for the expenditure of large sums of money to enable the tenants or occupiers of such farms to become their own landlords. If the Committee adopted his view in this respect, be believed they might go half as far again under the present circumstances. It might be said that it would be a hardship for the landlord to have still to collect the rent from isolated farms scattered here and there over the country, but he submitted that if that was a hardship at all it was a small one, and as Parliament was doing so much for the Irish landlords in granting these millions of money, it might be fairly called upon, where they sold at their own option, and were not obliged to sell if they did not like to do so, to face this still smaller hardship of collecting their rent from small holdings. Prom this point of view he thought it was right that the Amendment should be passed, and he had every confidence in commending it to the favourable consideration of the Committee.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 1, at the end of the Clause, to add the words, "Provided that no money shall be advanced for the purchase of more than one holding in the occupation of any one tenant if such holding he of the rateable value of not less than £20 per annum."—(Mr. Parnell.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOURE)168
  said, that the hon. Member had avowed his preference for a system of compulsory purchase, and he had stated to the Committee truly that under such a system the State would be able to effect the compulsory transfer of the fee simple from the landlord to the tenant in precisely those cases in which it would, in the opinion of the State, be most necessary to make the transfer. He (Mr. A. J. Balfour) quite admitted, whatever might be said for or against compulsory purchase—and there was a great deal to be said on both sides—that it would no doubt have the advantage to which he had alluded. But the whole framework of this Bill was founded upon the voluntary plan, and because it was so founded, and because, he thought, that the Amendment would to a great extent interfere with the smooth working of any voluntary plan, he would ask the Committee not to accept the Amendment proposed by the hon. Member in a very able and moderate speech. The hon. Gentleman had told them in a large number of cases the tenants with several holdings had not sufficient capital to work them, that in consequence the holdings were neglected, and that they were not a class whom the State or the Country should specially desire to favour by lending money on favourable terms, in order to induce them to purchase. But the hon. Member bad omitted to consider that many of these men—probably the larger number of them—were really among the flower of the Irish farmers; they were men who had generally succeeded in their occupation; who had accumulated money and invested it for the benefit of their children, and by the possession of those various holdings they had proved themselves to be competent, energetic, and thrifty farmers. It would, he thought, be a serious misfortune to exclude that class from the advantages of the measure. Nobody could contemplate the course of land legislation in Ireland during the last few years without seeing that some of the very gravest difficulties with which they had to contend arose from the fact that their measures left out of account some small nucleus or class of tenants who did not benefit by their proceedings, and who, for that reason, afterwards became centres of dissatisfaction and discontent. That limitation might

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  perhaps have been necessary in the past; but, at all events, let them not repeat it when it was unnecessary. Let them not arbitrarily introduce a limit which might excite a kind of agitation against that Bill, which he should be sorry to see spread in any part of Ireland. Another practical objection to the Amendment which he asked the Committee to consider was this, that in many cases it was an enormous convenience, not so much to landlords as to the tenants in the first instance, and to incumbrancers in the second place, if any estate could be sold as a whole. That was a cheaper and a better process, but an estate could only be bought by the Land Commission if four-fifths of the tenants in number and value combined in a request that the purchase should be effected. If, therefore, an Amendment of that kind were adopted, the power of purchasing estates en bloc by the Land Commission would become almost a dead letter, and one of the most useful provisions of the Act of 1885 would lose all its virtue. Under these circumstances he earnestly asked the Committee not to insert this limitation in the Bill, which would probably not have any material effect in making the £5,000,000 go any further, while it would certainly interfere with the sale of many estates which would otherwise be dealt with as a whole. Much as he desired to see this £5,000,000 used in as economical a manner as possible, he could not consent to the proposed limitation.
  THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON)said, he was sorry in respect of this matter, as in the case of others which had arisen in the course of these debates, to complain, and complain strongly, of the insufficiency of the information which had been placed in the hands of hon. Members. Since that morning he had been afforded the opportunity of a cursory examination of the Blue Book containing the last annual Report of the Commission. But while the Blue Book gave them information as to the number of applications for purchase which had been made, and the number which had been granted, it afforded no information as to the number of individual tenants who had applied. There was no information whatever to enable them to discover how far plurality of purchase had been allowed by the Commissioners
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  —or, in other words, how far individuals had been allowed to purchase more than one holding. He wished to know whether it was not possible to supply that information?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURwas understood to say that he would make inquiry and see whether the information asked for by the hon. Member could not be supplied.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he thanked the right hon. Gentleman. It would be most important, if possible, to have the information. He did not think there was any force, whatever, in either of the two reasons which had been advanced by the right hon. Gentleman in opposition to the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Cork. The right hon. Gentleman was of opinion that it would be better for a tenant to be in possession of two farms because he might thereby be able to make provision for his younger children; but surely a peasant proprietor who had only one farm was in an infinitely better position to make provision for his children than the man who was unable to purchase any farm at all. He asked the Committee to look at the inequality which the proposition of the right hon. Gentleman would establish. He would allow a man to obtain one or two or even three farms in order that he might be in a position to make provision for his younger children, while, on the other side of the road, there might be a tenant who was unable to make provision either for his elder children, his younger children, or himself, and yet he must continue to occupy the one farm alone. Therefore, public policy, even as interpreted by the right hon. Gentleman, was in favour of the Amendment. The hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland (Mr. Madden) had taken pride to himself, in the course of the debate, for the number of small holdings which had been created, and had told them that the greater portion of the £5,000,000 already voted had been applied to the purchase of small holdings. But if they allowed a man to purchase more than one farm they would initiate a system which would tend to create a new class of small landlords. As a rule, a man who bought two or three small farms was not likely to occupy them, probably he would hold one as proprietor and let the others. The object of the proceeding in which

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  the Committee were now engaged was certainly not to replace the Irish landlords by smaller landlords. The smaller the landlord became, the more sordid would be the nature of his transactions and the greater the evil. Instead of replacing larger landlords by smaller ones what was wanted was that they should replace rent-receiving landlords, large or small, by cultivating proprietors. He hoped they were not prepared to ignore that principle by allowing plurality of purchase. It would almost seem that right hon. Gentlemen opposite had made up their minds that they were going out of office very soon, and that it might be a long time before they came back again, they were so anxious to do all they could to foster the principle of large landed proprietors. The second reason given by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for opposing the Amendment was that unless they allowed plurality of purchase it would be impossible or difficult for the Land Commission to buy whole estates. He doubted whether the right hon. Gentleman could have inquired into the facts of the case or could have examined the Records of the Commission upon this question. How many entire estates had the Commission purchased during the last three years? The number was 12. Twelve throughout the whole of Ireland, and even those estates were very small seeing that the purchase money represented only £70,000. It was, therefore, evident that the Land Commission seldom purchased an entire estate for re-sale, and, consequently, any argument based upon the purchase of whole estates by the Land Commission was an argument of no force; and there was nothing whatever in the argument of the right hon. Gentleman that the Land Commission must not be debarred from purchasing whole estates, or otherwise the integrity of an estate might be prejudicially affected. The right hon. Gentleman said the Amendment left out the thrifty class. It did nothing of the kind. They were desirous that thrifty men should buy their farms, and thus secure an independent home of their own, as that would ensure the stability and secure the harmony and order of society, but they did not want them to add field to field and farm to farm, as that would tend to create a class of small rent-receiving landlords. There was another reason why he
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  thought the Government, from their point of view, ought to adopt the Amendment of his hon. Friend. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland boasted that a great number of small holdings had been created under the operation of Lord Ashbourne's Act. They had been told, in various forms, in the course of the debates that the Ashbourne Act was the competitor of the National League. In the language of the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh (Colonel Saunderson) the Ashbourne Act would "knock the bottom out of the National League," and it was said that most of the tenant farmers, since they became proprietors of their holdings, had given up The Freeman's Journal, and had ceased to subscribe to the funds of the League. Personally, he preferred that a tenant should be able to improve his position, even if, after purchasing his holding, he ceased to be a member of the National League or to take in The Freeman's Journal. There had never been the slightest desire to maintain the National League to the injury of the Irish tenants, and if a tenant on becoming a purchaser was willing to abandon his position in connection with the National League by all means let him do so. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] Yes; certainly. He could only repeat that he should prefer to see the tenant improve his position, even if after the improvement he left the League, rather than he should remain in it and suffer in his position. What he objected to was the plurality of purchase. Instead of one man being allowed to purchase three farms, three men ought to be allowed to purchase them. He was astonished that the Government could not see the force of his argument, because if his suggestion was carried out, instead of taking away one man from the National League they would take three. He was quite willing, in that way, to lose them as members of the League. So, also, was his hon. Friend the Member for Cork, notwithstanding the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary that every man who became a purchaser and left the League became a loyal supporter of the Tory Party. Surely that was no reason, even from the Government point of view, why the Amendment should be rejected.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, the Amendment only referred to the status quo which existed in the Act of 1885, before it was altered by the Amendment Act of 1887. He might add that the provision which effected the alteration passed through the House without amendment and without debate, and, indeed, without any notice having been taken of it. The second section of the original Act was construed to mean that a man should not be allowed to purchase a holding upon which he was non-resident. But this Government slipped into the Act of 1887, in Section 14, Sub-section 3, a provision that any person in occupation of, and paying rent for, the holding, held under a contract of tenancy, should have power of redemption and purchase. It was quite evident, therefore, that the Land Commission construed the Act of 1885 to mean that only occupying tenants should become purchasers. His hon. Friend's Amendment simply proposed to revert to what was the original meaning of Lord Ashbourne's Act, and he thought it was only reasonable that the Government should accept the Amendment, and go back to the original position. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had that night made one of the most important admissions which had been extracted from him since his occupation of his present Office—namely, the admission he had made in reference to mistakes in the previous policy of the Government in excluding certain portions of the tenants from the benefits of Irish legislation. The Irish Members had always pressed the case of these tenants; but when last year they succeeded in placing them in the position of town park holders, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary refused, when his own Amendments were refused, to insist upon them. All the right hon. Gentleman was now asked to do was to revert to the original provisions of the Ashbourne Act. For his own part, he did not see that the Land Commission would be at all able to apportion and allot this money properly, unless some attention was given to the suggestion he had made at the close of the debate the other night. He thought it would be admitted that it was more desirable to make some persons tenant proprietors than others. It would be admitted, further, in the words of the Ashbourne
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  Act itself, that occupying tenants had most claim to this £5,000,000 sterling. If, however, the Land Commissioners adopted the improper principle of "first come, first served," merely because a particular claimant put in a claim for money on a Monday, although a great deal better tenant presented himself on Tuesday, they would, in his opinion, be adopting a principle which would defeat the good intentions of Parliament. If the Ashbourne Act was to be carried out, his hon. Friend's Amendment would have considerable weight, and would prevent the Commissioners from adopting the principle of "first come, first served." He would suggest that the Commissioners, before sanctioning advances, should wait for a period of three or four months after the passing of the Bill, and, instead of adopting the "first come, first served" principle, should advance the money, on adequate security, to resident tenants—or, in the words of Lord Ashbourne's Act, to occupying tenants resident on their holdings. Before they scattered their money about, because some man happened to have got into his own hands some three or four different holdings—certainly a man who least desired State aid—they ought to be told what steps the Commissioners would take to give effect to the provision relating to occupying tenants which was contained in the Ashbourne Act of 1885, and drop the pernicious principle of "first come, first served." If the Commissioners would wait until they got in a reasonable number of applications, they would have a complete purview of the work before them, and be able to decide upon the merits of each case.
  MR. ESSLEMONTsaid, he was anxious to say a word or two upon this Amendment from the point of view of a Scotch Representative. He believed there was not a Scotch agriculturist—and there were many of them in Aberdeenshire—who would not readily buy his holding on the terms offered under the Ashbourne Act, especially if he could obtain it for from 17 to 20 years' purchase. Scottish agriculturists, who were called upon to vote £10,000,000 to Ireland, on conditions they could not obtain for themselves, were entitled to ask that the credit of the State should not be used except on behalf of those tenants in Ireland who were in strictly

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  necessitous circumstances. He did not believe that the Scotch agriculturists had any jealous feeling towards the agriculturists of the Sister Island, and if strong claims were shown for the aid of the State they would not be unwilling to interpose their own position as an integral part of the United Kingdom on behalf of the Irish tenants. But he submitted that they ought not to be called upon to pledge their credit for the well-to-do tenants of Ireland, and to confer upon them privileges which were denied to themselves. Therefore they ought not to be asked to give the necessary security for this advance of £10,000,000 without being assured by Her Majesty's Government that the money would only be given to those whose necessitous circumstances entitled them to ask for such an advance. What could he say to his Aberdeenshire constituents to satisfy them that he had done right in asking them to become security for the well-to-do farmers of Ireland in obtaining advances of the public money at a low rate of interest? At any rate the advances ought to be restricted to necessitous eases. The land was an exact quantity and ought to be distributed among as many tenants as possible. But although it might be desirable to increase the number of the holders of land, the money of the State ought not to be used in enabling tenants to buy farms of 300 or 400 acres, especially when the Scotch agriculturists, who contributed a considerable portion of the money, were unable to obtain money on any terms for the purchase of the small holdings on which they live. He claimed the support of the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) on this point. He understood that the noble Lord was to be invited to contest a constituency in which he (Mr. Esslemont) was interested.
  LORD RANDOLPH CHURCHILL: In order to save the time of the Committee, I may tell the hon. Member that I have received no such invitation.
  MR. ESSLEMONTsaid, he was very sorry to hear it, being prepared to give the noble Lord a hearty reception. He would, however, warn the noble Lord that if he did go down to Scotland he ought to be provided with a fair and reasonable answer to the questions which
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  were certain to be put to him on this head—namely, whether the Scotch agriculturists wore to be called upon to give security for the advance of money to Irish tenants to enable them to purchase two or three farms while they were unable to obtain money on any conditions whatever for the purchase of their own farms from the Imperial Exchequer?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN)said, that two or three matters had been brought forward in the coarse of the discussion upon which he should like to say a word. The hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) had referred to a clause in the Act of 1887, which he contended amounted to a departure from the Act of 1885. The impression of the hon. and learned Gentleman was not quite correct. The Policy of Lord Ashbourne's Act was in no respect altered by the legislation of last year. The primary object of the Ashbourne Act, no doubt, was to enable the occupying tenant to become the owner of his holding, and the object of the Amendment introduced into the Act of 1887 was not to interfere with the preference given by the Act of 1885 to occupying tenants, but to enable the Land Commissioners to dispense with formal devolution of title and the tenants' interest in certain cases. That was the object of the Amendment, and that alone. It did not at all interfere with the section of the Act of 1885, to which the hon. and learned Gentleman had referred, but the occupying tenant still had the preference. He concurred that the primary object was to enable the occupying tenant to become the owner of his holding; but that object would be best carried out by not laying down a hard and fast rule, that in no circumstances should the tenant of a holding, covered by the Amendment, become the purchaser of any adjoining holding. He was informed that cases of purchase by tenants not in occupation were not numerous. There were, however, some instances in which a man was in possession of what was substantially one entire farm, but which technically consisted of several holdings, and why should he be prevented from becoming the owner of the entire farm? It must be remembered that there were very stringent provisions in

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  the Act of 1885 against sub-letting, by which it was impossible for a tenant purchaser to constitute himself into a landlord. That, he thought, was a complete answer to the mischief which was present to the mind of hon. Members opposite. The hon. and learned Member said that he (Mr. Madden) had asserted that the effect of Lord Ashbourne's Act had been largely to enable small tenants to become the owners of their holdings. It was true that he had said so. He had divided the holdings into various classes, small holdings which were very numerous; moderate sized holdings at a rental of from £10 to £30, of which there was a larger number; and large holdings; and he had added that the working of the Act had been in the direction of creating peasant proprietors. His right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary had pointed out that the purchase of any large estate would be seriously impeded by the adoption of the Amendment, and the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) replied to that argument that very few entire estates had been purchased by the Land Commission. That was quite true, but although that was one of the cases in which the Amendment would have a detrimental operation, it was not the only one. There were not only cases of purchase by the Land Commissioners for the purpose of re-sale to the tenants. There were, in addition, a large number of cases in which the landlord had sold, or been anxious to sell, an entire estate. It appeared to him that substantially the Act had operated in the direction the hon. Member desired, and it would be difficult to extend its operation in that direction by laying down a hard and fast line.
  MR.ILLINGWORTHsaid, the Blue Book—which had at last found its way into the hands of hon. Members—placed them for the first time in a position to examine the case presented by the Government. The Act of 1885 was regarded as an experiment, and it was the apparent intention of the Government to enlarge the scope of that experiment without supplying the House of Commons with information by which it was possible to judge whether the experiment, as far as it had gone, had been a success. The hon. Member for Cork had hit the right nail on the head when he characterized the scheme as
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  altogether a haphazard one. He felt certain that the House of Commons would not have allowed it to have proceeded as far as it had gone unchallenged, if it had been known outside the Government that the Commissioners would have been allowed to carry out such schemes as they now found from the Blue Book had been the rule. He wished to draw the attention of the Committee to one or two considerations in regard to the number of tenancies, but not the number of tenants, which would make the case worse, because the information supplied by the Government was confined to the number of tenancies. The average area of a holding was 40 acres, and the average rental £33. He did not see why the people of this country were to be landed in an enormous loan for the scheme of this kind for Ireland alone. According to the view of his hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeen, upon some future day they were likely to have a similar claim from the Scotch agriculturists, who would object to have the credit of the country so largely mortgaged that the chance of any other part of the kingdom obtaining aid would be very small indeed. These facts, he thought, proved the necessity for the limitation proposed by the hon. Member for Cork. If £5,000,000 had been squandered, it was very desirable that a second £5,000,000 should not be treated in the same manner. If the intention of Parliament was really to assuage the suffering and remove the disaffection and political discontent of Ireland, then the poor ought to have had the first consideration. But the very opposite had been the case. Take the case of Ulster. During last year 80,000 acres had been dealt with, and the number of tenancies were 2,300, representing an average in the case of each tenancy of nearly 40 acres. For his own part, he was more than ever convinced that what was in the mind of the Government in originating the scheme was the relief of the landlord class and not of the tenants, and, in the second place, the facts shown in the Return proved that neither the Government nor the Commission had sought to reach the lowest depth of poverty in Ireland from which the great majority of tenants was suffering. He did not know what might be in the mind of the Government now, but he trusted

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  that the majority of the poor tenants would be reached. Nevertheless, as far as the present scheme went, there was nothing on the face of the Return to show that any substantial good had as yet been done to the majority of the Irish tenants. His own opinion was that it was a scheme which had been manipulated in the interests of Ulster primarily, where the landlord pressure had been greatest. Now the Committee had been made acquainted with the mode in which the Act had been administered, the security asked for by the Amendment on behalf of the mass of the tenants became absolutely necessary, and it was in the highest degree desirable that the Commissioners should be prevented in future from taking the line they had hitherto taken. Unfortunately, precedents had been established which made it almost impossible to do anything like justice to other parts of Ireland, still less to give consideration to claims from other parts of the United Kingdom. For his own part, he thought that if the Committee had seen reason to limit the further progress of the experiment to a loan of another £1,500,000 the Government would have been saved from falling into a serious mistake.
  MR. MURPHYsaid, he failed to see that either the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary or the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland had given any substantial reason why the Government should resist the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork. He thought that they had carefully suppressed their real reasons for opposing the Amendment, which was that where a man was holding, perhaps, three or four farms in a certain locality, it might be necessary for the landlord to hold on to a certain portion of the estate after he had sold the rest of it, and, consequently, he would not be able to march off, as an hon. Friend near him had said, with the whole of the "swag." Personally he preferred to have large landlords to small ones, and he entirely denied that a farmer who resided on one holding and had three or four other holdings scattered about, could be any improvement on the existing class of landlords. A considerable number of men who had taken these farms did not work them
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  themselves at all, but stocked them with cattle and let them out to dairymen, who took them at so much per cow. That was a cheap way of getting rid of all the responsibility of working the farm. But was it a system on which this country ought to expend its taxes in promoting? If the Bill was to pass, he did not see why Parliament should not provide assistance for every speculator out of the taxes, as the men against whom this Amendment was directed were mere speculators in land and not bonâ fide peasant occupiers. He saw but one reason for the measure—namely, that it was a scheme to enable the landlords to get out of the country, while he would prefer to see them obliged to hold on to such portions of their estates as this Amendment would exempt from the provisions of the Purchase Act, and so give them some tie to keep them in the country. It would be far better than that a new landlord owning three or four farms should be created.
  MR. LEAsaid, he could not agree with his hon. Friend the Member for West Bradford (Mr. Illingworth). The Ulster tenants had always taken advantage of Acts of Parliament intended for their benefit because of their confidence in the Imperial Parliament. The applications for fair rents under the Act of 1881 were more numerous from Ulster than from any other part of Ireland. As regarded the particular Amendment, he had some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman the Member for Cork, and he should be sorry to see this Grant consumed by men holding two or three farms. But he doubted the wisdom of putting a limitation into the Act, and the Amendment would have such little operation that it was hardly worth while putting it into the Bill.
  MR. W. O'BRIENsaid, the hon. Member who had just addressed the Committee said that the Ulster tenants had always distinguished themselves by their acceptance of any legislation on the part of the House of Commons that was intended for their benefit. That was quite true, and in enormous numbers they swarmed into the Land Court the moment the Land Act was passed. They were, however, the first to discover the blunder they had made, and ever since they had been

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  groaning under the rents they had been in such a hurry to have fixed. From the Blue Book just printed, they would appear to have been bitten again by the purchases under the Land Purchase Act of 1885, because he found that the rate of purchase in Ulster was a decimal over 18 years, while the rate in Munster, where the tenants were not so eager to take these things at a rush, was only 16 years' purchase. It would probably turn out that, in the long run, there was some wisdom in waiting. In discussing the Amendment, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had used a very remarkable expression in the course of his speech. He had said that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork would be prejudicial to the "flower of the smaller tenantry of Ireland." He was rather afraid that the expression was only the right hon. Gentleman's picturesque way of describing what in Ireland were known as "land grabbers." He thought that the speech of the right hon. Gentleman contained an admission that the Act did operate unquestionably, to a large extent, as a bonus to land grabbers. Of the agricultural tenants, in Ulster at least one-fourth held duplicate or triplicate tenancies—that was to say, that there were two or three farms in the holding of one man, and that one man was very frequently a professional land grabber. Out of the 8,000 sales under the Act of 1885, it would be found that from 1,500 to 2,000 of the purchases were made by the holders of two, three, and four farms. And this would very naturally happen, because what the Commissioners had to look to was the security for the loan much more than the class of tenants who were to have the land, and the land grabber who had accumulated several farms in his hands, and who had acquired means by trade in neighbouring towns and not by cultivating the land, would be considered far better security than the cultivating tenant. Those were the men who obtained the loans very much in preference to the poorer tenants. But was it that class of men that this Act was intended to benefit? They might as well take a prosperous shopkeeper in one of the principal streets of London, and buy up his shop in order to present him with the fee-simple of it. As far as he could gather from the administration of the
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  Act, there was no guarantee that the State might not be buying half-a-dozen farms for the same man. Very often this class of man had four or five different farms on the same estate, and the Land Commission had no means of ascertaining how many farms were in the occupation of a particular tenant. There was another disadvantage which this system of buying up all the land of the large farmers had—namely, that it increased the difficulty of establishing a peasant proprietary in Ireland. He believed that £50,000,000 or £60,000,000, properly expended, would buy out all the small agricultural holdings which could by possibility be called peasant properties. The remainder of the Irish tenants could fairly well take care of themselves, at all events, as to the purchase-money; but the difficulty of the system was that the Land Commissioners naturally had their eye first on the security of the British taxpayer. Consequently, the State did all it could for those who were well off already, and did nothing for those who were unable to do anything for themselves. At the last Election they were told that £200,000,000 would be necessary to buy out the Irish landlords. Why, one quarter of the money, if properly expended, would answer every good purpose. He should certainly vote for the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Cork, and he did not think the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland had disturbed the contention of the hon. and learned Member for North Longford that the Amendment simply carried out the principle of the Act of 1885. Although he took a different view in some respects from the hon. Member for Cork as to the effects of the present system, he thought the Bill was a Bill for encouraging land grabbing.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he thought that if it was desired to arouse a strong Conservative feeling in Ireland by the creation of an Irish peasant proprietary, it would be absolutely necessary to make some such limitation of the Bill as was proposed by the Amendment.
  ADMIRAL FIELDsaid, he felt unable to give a silent vote upon this Amendment. He had the honour to represent an agricultural constituency who took great interest in

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  these debates, and, although he intended to support the Government and vote against the Amendment, he wanted to hear something from the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland in answer to the observations of the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy). Many of his friends had been much exercised by the way in which the Act had been worked for the benefit of Ulster tenants who were already prosperous and on good terms with their landlords. He agreed with the hon. Member who spoke last that the Act was introduced with the best intentions; the desire being, if possible, to assist the occupying tenants in purchasing their holdings. He did not believe it was ever intended, or indeed that it was ever thought of, that it should be a measure to apply mainly to Ulster. He said that there must be enormous difficulty in prescribing the operation of the Act and to say what portion of the fund should be spent in one part of the country and what in another. He wished to know if it was not possible that some proper instructions might be given to the Land Commissioners so that a months' delay should elapse before any scheme of purchase was sanctioned. In the meantime, advertisements for applications made might be inserted in the local papers. He knew the difficulty of laying down a hard and fast line, but precautions should be taken not to allot the money unduly to particular localities. He, therefore, though it was the duty of hon. Members on that side of the House not to sit silent but to tell the Government what their view of the matter was. The hon. and learned Solicitor General had made no reply to the remarks of the hon. and learned Member for North Longford. He thought they were worthy of some reply, and he would therefore ask if it were not possible to frame some instruction of the kind he had suggested?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he thought a considerable part of the discussion really dealt with the Amendment disposed of on Friday night rather than the Amendment now before the Committee. With regard to what had fallen from his hon. and gallant Friend (Admiral Field) it would seem that he desired that the money should be more evenly spread over the whole of Ireland. That object was a natural and desirable one, but,
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  unfortunately, it was impossible to provide any machinery to carry it into effect. The number of pluralists did not, he thought, exceed 100. The essence of the voluntary system was that those should come into it who desired to come—"first come, first served." No doubt, if he had the power he would allocate the money according to his views as to the necessities of the case, and he should probably spend more money in certain districts than in others—such, for instance, as grazing districts. If they had a compulsory system they could allocate the money to their own views of the public needs, but they could not have a voluntary system, and, at the same time, the advantages of a compulsory system. He had given his best consideration to the matter, and he could find no method by which the suggestion of his hon. and gallant Friend could be carried out—that was where equalization could be arrived at—consistently with the voluntary system.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, that some of the remarks of the hon. and gallant Member for Eastbourne (Admiral Field) were directed to an Amendment which had been moved on Friday night. The right hon. Gentleman in reply to the speech of the hon. and gallant Admiral had pointed out that which must be admitted, that even if the money were equally divided between the four Provinces of Ireland there would still be an inequality when they took into consideration the population. Would the right hon. Gentleman be willing to accept an Amendment by which the money should be allocated in accordance with the gross valuation of agricultural land and the population? He should be glad to know whether a proposal of that kind would receive the attention of the Government. On Friday night there were many objections heard; one was that it would be unfair to ask one Province to wait for the money if another Province was not prepared to receive it. The right hon. Gentleman had painted graphically the eagerness of the tenants to have the money, and therefore they might take the gross value of holdings in the different Provinces, and allot the money in different instalments, say one-fourth at a time.
  SIR JOHN COLOMBrose to Order. He wished to know if it was in Order for the

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  hon. Member to discuss an Amendment that was disposed of on Friday night, and which was entirely different from the Amendment now before the Committee.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, the discussion was certainly becoming irregular. He had been willing to allow the discussion, but it was now desirable to place some limit upon it.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he had been only following the course of the discussion as it had proceeded. He had handed in to the Chair an Amendment which he should personally move, and which, if adopted, would not hamper the discretion of the Commissioners, but would get rid of the vicious principle which was embodied in the clause as it stood. If they were to take each case as it came up, and deal with it at once, he was afraid that although the case might benefit one, there would be many others that would be left out. He therefore proposed to provide that the Land Commissioners, while sanctioning advances to the tenants, should have regard to expediency and to relative urgency of the particular applications.
  MR. DILLONsaid, he would not object to allow the discussion to proceed on these lines if it wore considered relevant, but he wanted to know what was the result of the meditations of the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, who promised on Friday night that he would consider some means of carrying out the suggestions that were made on that occasion.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, he would like to have some reply to the point he had raised. The principle of the Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Cork was that preference should be given to occupying tenants; and there was a provision in Lord Ashbourne's Act which provided that the occupying tenant should have first claim. That, however, was inconsistent with the principle now urged by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. How could they give a preference to the residential tenants unless they waited to see what applications were made. He was much obliged to the hon. and gallant Admiral opposite for reinforcing the argument he had used, and he now wished to ask the Government in what way was it proposed that the Land Commission should give effect to the second section of Lord Ashbourne's
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  Act? It would be impossible to give effect to it, unless they waited for two months or a quarter, until all the applications were sent in, and then allow the applications in accordance with the spirit of Lord Ashbourne's Act. The Land Commission had now told the Government what the principle was upon which they proceeded, and he thought the Government might find that it was becoming a very serious matter. He would give an illustration which came under his own notice that day. An advertisement had recently been issued by a firm of solicitors in Dublin, Messrs. Dudgeon and Emerson, who were the agents of the Emergency Association in Ireland, and was printed in one of the Ulster papers. He could not give the exact words of the advertisement, but they amounted to this—"Farmers wanted for Ulster; none but Protestants need apply." An hon. Friend had handed the advertisement to him, and the precise words were these—
  "Vacant farms. Important to Protestant farmers and their sons. There are several vacant farms to let in the County of Louth and Meath, in close proximity to good markets. None but Protestants need apply. Signed Dudgeon and Emerson."
  If anyone had read the book in Ireland published by the late A. M. Sullivan, and become aware of what happened in the fifties he would be able to guess what might happen in the present case. Mr. Sullivan showed that on Lord Lorton's estate, when a score of Protestants were imported they were shot down in the most abominable manner, and, unless the Government would tell the Committee on what principle they were going to proceed, and whether this was a Bill intended to plant resident tenants on the soil or to bring in importations from other districts, where they were already increasing in some localities, it would be impossible to know what the real object was. He complained that they were not receiving from the Government that reasonable information which they were entitled to expect. The Amendment of his hon. Friend the Member for Cork was distinctly on the lines of Lord Ashbourne's own Act, and, unless the Government were promoting the Bill from a political point of view in order to benfit land grabbers, and to benefit persons who belonged to their own Party, they would accept some such Amendment

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  as that of his hon. Friend. What was the principle on which the money was to be allocated according to Lord Ashbourne's Act? It was that preference should be given to occupying tenants. The Government were now asking for a further sum of £5,000,000, and it was essential that they should tell the Committee whether they were going to allocate it in accordance with the provisions of the Ashbourne Act or not.
  MR. GILLsaid, that the Amendment went to the root of the chief danger arising under the Bill, which was that while removing one class of landlord they would create another and a worse class, whose influence had not been found salutary either in France or the United States. Both the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had expressed their belief that it would be desirable to guard against the danger of removing one class of landlords and creating another class in their stead, instead of creating peasant proprietors. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary opposed the Amendment chiefly on the ground that it created the principle of selection, that it gave the Land Commission power to select one particular class of tenants who were to receive the benefit of the Act. The right hon. Gentleman said that that was opposed to the voluntary principle on which Lord Ashbourne's Act was based. Now, he denied that the Act was based on a voluntary principle, because the tenant had no option in the matter. He was entirely deprived of the power of initiation; he had no initiation in the matter, but, so far as the landlord was concerned, it was voluntary, and he could avail himself of its provisions as |he pleased. The tenant, on the contrary, could not stir until the landlord chose to give him leave, so that in that respect the argument of the Chief Secretary that the Bill proposed to establish voluntary purchase was perfectly absurd. But if the Bill was a voluntary Bill, whether they limited the discretion of the Land Commision or insisted on their exercising discretion, it would not at all affect the question; because, whether the system was voluntary or compulsory its object was to benefit chiefly the poorer class of tenants in Ireland; and to create a proprietary peasantry, but not a new system of landlords. The right
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  hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary told the Committee that plurality of purchase, even if allowed, would only affect a small portion of the Irish peasants, and the right hon. Gentleman had volunteered the information that among the purchasers under the Act there had only been 200 pluralists. He wished to know how the right hon. Gentleman knew that? The Return which had been submitted to the House gave them no information on that point, and he should like to know how the right hon. Gentleman had ascertained the fact. If the right hon. Gentleman did know it for a fact, why did he not let the House know it also? In the absence of official information upon an important point of that nature, he refused to accept the statement of the right hon. Gentleman. He believed that the great majority of purchases effected under the Act had been effected by a class of men that it was not intended to benefit at all. That was proved by the only figures which had been supplied to them to guide them as to the mode in which the money had been advanced. They were told that the average purchase-money in each case was £33, and the average acreage over 40. That pointed to holdings in Ireland far exceeding in extent those held by the tenants whom they were anxious to constitute the peasant proprietors of the country. Therefore it was evident that the statements of the right hon. Gentleman was not borne out by the facts. Both the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary and the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland had stated that the adoption of the Amendment would prevent the purchase of whole estates in Ireland by the Land Commission. But it had been pointed out by the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton), in the very damaging commentary he had made upon that statement, that out of the whole number of purchases affected under the Act there were only 12 in which entire estates had been bought, and those only represented a total of £70,000 out of the £5,000,000 already granted by Parliament. It was, therefore, apparent that the great bulk of the properties purchased under the Act had been purchased by individuals, and not by the purchasers of entire estates. The hon. and learned Solicitor General said the Land Commission had power to prevent sub-letting, and the hon. and learned

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  Gentleman argued that the Act operated against anything like the creation of a petty landlord class but he (Mr. Gill) wished to point out to the Committee that the consent of the Commission was only a temporary matter, and could only be withheld so long as the instalments of the purchase-money were unpaid. The moment the purchase was absolutely effected, the consent of the Commissioners became unnecessary, and the new proprietor could do what he pleased with the holding. He maintained that the adoption of the Amendment was essential in order to prevent the vital and sanitary principle of Lord Ashbourne's Act from being wrecked by the creation of a new class of landlords. The Amendment touched the root of the chief danger, and, as he had pointed out, the experience of other countries, such as France and the Western States of America, showed that great evils might be introduced by the creation of a class of petty landlords. In many districts of America, owing to the grant of large tracts of land, a landlord class had been rapidly springing up, and the Legislature of Illinois within the last 18 months had had to pass a most drastic Act against the system which would render null and void all contracts in future by which one man attempted to obtain possession of several holdings. He maintained that the creation of petty landlordism in Ireland was the danger they had to guard against, and, in his opinion, they could only be guarded against by some such limitation as that which was proposed in the Amendment. The Amendment, whether it was likely to be effective or ineffective, was well worthy the careful consideration of the Committee. It had not yet been shown that the adoption of the Amendment would contravene any real principle of the Bill, or that it was not in fact the best expedient they could devise at the present moment for checking these evils which would prevent the creation of a peasant proprietary. He hoped that with the view of preventing the creation of the system of petty landlords the Government and all sides of the House would devote to the Amendment a far larger amount of attention than it had yet received.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURTsaid, the Amendment was evidently one of the very highest importance in the
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  consideration of the Bill. It was perfectly plain that there was nothing in the Bill to prevent its provisions from being used for extensive land speculations. There was nothing whatever so far as he knew in the Bill to prevent a man from going on at the expense of the English taxpayer, and purchasing holdings with the intention of reselling them at a profit. He knew nothing from the operation of the Act that would prevent it from being used for extensive land speculations, or if they liked to call it so, land grabbing purposes. There was another purpose for which it might also be used, especially in the North of Ireland—namely, for dealing with land not with the knowledge of the Commissioners who did not go behind the arrangements for purchasing soil, but by making arrangements with the owner and the proposed buyer. Supposing that the landlords in the North of Ireland, with a view of getting hold of the land for their own purposes, acted on the principle of the notice which had been read by the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy)—namely, that "none but Protestants need apply," the whole of the money granted under the Ashbourne Act might be used for the odious purpose of bringing about an exclusively Protestant ownership and occupation to the exclusion of Roman Catholics. Were they to write this notice over the door of the Land Commission,—"None but Protestants need apply?" They might draw some conclusions that that had been the principle upon which the Act had been worked more or less. He would not say that it was the intention of the Commissioners, but only that it was the effect of the working of the Act, because it had been shown that in Ulster the larger part of the money had been used; and it would now appear that upon one estate, the Massereene, which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had held up as a model estate in Ireland, a circular had been issued offering land for occupation with the intimation that none but Protestants need apply! If such a circular had been issued by the Irish Members they would all have been put in prison. It was boycotting and exclusive dealing with a vengeance. It was boycotting the whole Catholic population. It was the Unionist doctrine;

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  it was the doctrine the noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington) went to Belfast to preach, and Messrs. Dudgeon and Emerson—who issued the circular—were the solicitors to the Loyal and Patriotic Union. So far as the application for the £5,000,000 already advanced, the Protestants of Ulster had already got the lion's share of it. What was to prevent some large Protestant landlord from taking advantage of the new £5,000,000 and the terms now offered by the Exchequer, and then to take care that none but Protestants should take part in the arrangements. What security was there that the Orange landlords would not work the Act upon this principle? It was quite possible. They could make their own bargains; and if they brought the person with whom they make the bargain before the Commissioners, the Commissioners had no right to inquire into the facts of the case. He wished to know what security there was that Messrs. Dudgeon and Emerson would not work the fund on this principle behind the backs of the Commissioners, on the basis that no Roman Catholics need apply, and with the object of establishing a Protestant settlement in different parts of Ireland. He knew something of the nature of the transactions which were already going on in the County of Down at this moment, and the Government ought to be called upon to show what security there was to guard against contracts being made without the knowledge of the Commissioners, on the principle that none but Protestants need apply. He knew that he should not have the support of the Liberal Unionists in this matter, but in the name of what used to be the Liberal Party he felt bound to enter his protest against any such scheme which meant the re-establishment of the bitter and mischievous principles of the old ascendancy, and if attempted to be carried out would mean Civil War. Hon. Members were there to resist any such scheme, and to take security that the money of the British taxpayer, if granted at all, should be properly applied.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had given rein to his vivid imagination, and had indulged in a kind of nightmare. There was not the least basis for the misapprehensions of
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  the right hon. Gentleman that the Act was to be used for the purpose of planting Protestants on the lands which were formerly held by Roman Catholics. The right hon. Gentleman complained of more money having been given to Ulster under the Ashbourne Act than to any other Province. But that fact by no means supported his suggestion; because Ulster was just that part of Ireland where the tenants were already Protestants. A wilder piece of argument than the apprehension that the money was to be spent in replacing Catholics by Protestant tenants was never put before the House of Commons. With reference to the argument of the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) thought the hon. and learned Member had asked a question which it was very proper to ask. He had called attention to Sub-section 2 of the original Act of 1885, which directed the Commissioners to give a preference to the applications for the purchase of holdings to tenants who were resident upon their holdings. That Sub-section was still in force, and was not repealed by the amended Act of last year. The Land Commissioners were still directed to give a preference to those tenants who were resident on their holdings. As a matter of fact there had never been a case yet where a tenant who was resident upon the holding, had been deprived of the advantages of Lord Ashbourne's Act because the money had been advanced to a tenant who was not resident. The Commissioners had kept this Sub-section in view, and had never refused the application of a tenant in bonâ fide occupation of a farm in order to give the money to a tenant who was not in bonâ fide occupation of it. What they had done in the past he had no doubt they would do in the future. He would inform the Committee, if they were unaware of the fact, and he did not think they knew it, that in the directions given by the Land Commissioners to their valuers was one directing them to find out this very fact:—Whether the tenant who wished to purchase was a tenant in occupation of the holding? he trusted that the Committee would not accept the Amendment, and thereby lay down a hard and fast rule which might prevent, and certainly would prevent,

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  the sale of an estate en bloc. He was quite ready to communicate with the Commissioners with the view not to give money to pluralist tenants except in a case where the refusal would prevent the sale of an estate en bloc. He thought if the Commissioners carried out this view the general feeling of the Committee would be satisfied, and in a far more satisfactory way than by laying down a rule which might impair the working of the scheme.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had told them he would communicate with the Commissioners; by what right had the right hon. Gentleman to give the Commissioners any directions?
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, the phrase was an unfortunate one; he simply meant that he would call the attention of the Commissioners to what had taken place in the House that evening with regard to the matter.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had blurted out what would happen—namely, that the Commissioners would be directed to give persons in certain cases a preference. It was for this reason that hon. Members on that side of the House had asked that the Commissioners should be made perfectly independent of the Government. How could full effect be given to Lord Ashbourne's Act unless some months were allowed to elapse before some money was advanced. The Land Commissioners had no means of inquiring into these matters. All they had to do was to send down a valuator and direct him to make a report, and the valuator's report must be before the Commissioners before they were able to judge whether the tenant resident on the holding was in the holding or not. The right hon. Gentleman now told them that he intended to enter into communication with the Commissioners, which might influence their decisions.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, it was exactly the reverse. What he said was that he had no power whatever of influencing the Commissioners.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had intimated that he would call the attention of the Commissioners to what had taken place in that House. Now, the Commissioners had to give a legal construction to the words of an Act of Parliament, and it was a
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  most un-Constitutional doctrine that any statement was to be read by the light of a debate of Parliament. An Act of Parliament must be read strictly in accordance with its letter, and there was no other rule of construction whatever. They were told now that the right hon. Gentleman would call the attention of the Commissioners to the discussion that had taken place in that House. He should like to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it was his (Mr. T. M. Healy's) speech he would call attention to, or that of the hon. and gallant Admiral opposite (Admiral Field), or those of the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) and the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh (Colonel Saunderson). Any more gross departure from constitutional principles had never been suggested than that in regard to two gentlemen who were absolutely at the mercy of the Treasury, and who might be dismissed the moment their term of office expired, and who, in the Bill that was brought in last Session, were described as "those persons." Mr. Lynch and Mr. John George M'Carthy should be communicated with before giving their decisions to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. No doubt the Commissioners would read the speech of the right hon. Gentleman and understand what his desire was; but he hoped they would act by the written law, not by the private instructions of the right hon. Gentleman. Would the communication of the right hon. Gentleman to those gentlemen be published, or would it be in the nature of a private letter? Was it intended that a billet doux should be sent in regard to the Duke of Abercorn's purchase, and were his wishes to be preferred over those of any other person because he happened to be the brother of a Cabinet Minister? Were the Government in the habit of making private communications of this nature to independent Departments? Unless the Commissioners were prepared to wait for a certain period of time and then act upon defined and definite principles, what security would there be that they would be able to judge properly of applications that were sent in, and to consider which ought to be granted? The House was entitled to know upon what principle this money was to be allocated.

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  If it was to be on the principle of first come first served, great injustice would be done. The right hon. Gentleman had referred to what he termed the nightmare conjured up by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt), but he (Mr. T. M. Healy) had received the best information from Ireland that landlords were attempting to set up bogus tenancies on vacant evicted farms, and endeavouring to sell under this scheme.
  MR. MACARTNEY: On what estate?
  MR. T. M. HEALY: On Lord Lansdowne's estate, and on the Coolgreany estate. Unless the Amendment were accepted, there would be no security that some great scheme might be carried out for placing Protestant tenantry on vacant farms. They were laying up a reservoir filled with combustibles.
  An HON. MEMBER: How can a reservoir be filled with combustibles?
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, he maintained that his expression was perfectly sound and correct. They were laying up for themselves, and they reminded him very much of the anecdote of Sheridan, who, whenever he signed a bill for six months, in order to stave off the payment of a debt, always said, "Thank God, that is done with." That was exactly what Her Majesty's Government were doing; the Land Commission were not to act even in accordance with the original provisions of Lord Ashbourne's Act, but they were to be guided by the private instructions of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. He should be glad to have from the Government some distinct declaration as to the manner in which these applications were to be dealt with by the Commissioners.
  MR. P. J. POWERsaid, it was most unsatisfactory that further information had not been given to the House of Commons in reference to this important Bill. It was only at the last moment that a Return had been placed in their hands, and on examining it he found that it was the most unsatisfactory one that could have been possibly produced. He was afraid that unless the Amendment were adopted the Bill would have the effect of introducing into Ireland the worst class of landlords they could possibly have. The hon. and learned Solicitor General for
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  Ireland (Mr. Madden) had said that there was a Sub-section in Lord Ashbourne's Act which made that impossible because no sub-letting could take place. In a purely agricultural country like Ireland it would be very difficult to prevent sub-letting, and reasons had already been placed before the Committee which explained how it was that Lord Ashbourne's Act in all cases failed to operate. There was a large class of farms that were filled by men who were non-residents. They were well to do, but would not take the trouble to farm the land, but let it out to tenants as dairy farms at so much per cow. The men so accepted as tenants were the most undesirable class of tenants that any country could have. They did little or nothing for the land. They lived as a rule in towns, and they let out the holdings of which they had acquired possession on certain terms to dairymen. He ventured to say that any man, no matter what his political views were, who went to Ireland and passed through the Midland Counties, would find that all the good grazing land there was held by non-resident farmers. There were immense tracts of country giving no employment whatever; only a single herdsman was employed here and there, and they were the most undesirable class of men any country could wish to have. Yet within half a mile of them would be found many roofless houses that once formed the happy homes of the people, while in the immediate vicinity of the land might be discovered the rotten mud cabins into which the poor tenants had been driven. Those pluralist tenants gave no employment whatever, they were indifferent to the interests of the country, and even from an economical point of view it would be found in most cases they are not solvent. Was it the wish of the Committee that these men should avail themselves of the money proposed to be advanced by the State with a view of creating a peasant proprietary, or did they wish the real tillers of the soil to be converted into peasant proprietors? He maintained that, unless the Amendment of his hon. Friend, or some other Amendment like it, were adopted, the Bill would have the directly opposite effect to that which was intended. Men of the class he had described would obtain advances in preference to those persons

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  whom it was desirable to have upon the land, and they would be no nearer arriving at the solution of the Land Question than they were at present. Unless some Amendment on the lines of that of his hon. Friend were adopted, they would be creating a separate class of landlords worse than those who now existed, and would be excluding from the operation of the Act that class of the Irish people whom they wished to see in possession of the land.
  MR. SHEEHYsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had laid so much stress on the word preference that he was afraid the expression would imply that the Emergency men who had been put in upon evicted farms, such as those at Coolgreaney and on the Vandeleur and Massereene Estates, should be able to obtain possession of the farms upon which they were acting as Emergency men. He would like to give an illustration to the Committee. He happened to be in Ireland when Lord Guillamore made an effort to sell his estates in Kerry and Limerick early in the year.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, he wished to point out that the kind of argument the hon. Member was entering into was quite foreign to the Amendment.
  MR. SHEEHYsaid, he thought he should be able to show how his argument came in.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, that so far as the argument itself was concerned he quite understood it.
  MR. SHEEHYsaid, he only wished to show how a man, holding one farm already and having the occupation of another as caretaker, might purchase that other holding. The case he had in his mind was that of a man named Darcy, who was in occupation of two farms on Lord Guillamore's estate and also in occupation of another under the Earl of Devon. An application was made to sell those estates, and it was desired that the person in occupation should take the place of the evicted tenant. The sale, however, fell through, and Darcy was not able to continue the occupation.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, the hon. Member had evidently misunderstood his ruling. The hon. Member was altogether travelling beyond the Amendment.
  MR. SHEEHYsaid, he took it that the Amendment was proposed in order
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  to give instructions as to the purchase of land, and his impression was that what had occurred in the County of Limerick might occur elsewhere. A man, in order to take advantage of the Act, might become Emergency man for a particular landlord and then the purchaser of a holding. He contended that that would be over-riding the real spirit of the Act, and if the Bill passed without the Amendment of the hon. Member for Cork, it would be quite possible for an Emergency man to buy a holding, to go then to another holding as Emergency man and buy that, and so on indefinitely. He had heard the noble Lord the Member for the South Molton Division of Devon (Viscount Lymington) on Friday night declare himself in favour of colonizing the estates of tenants who had been evicted by Emergency men. He (Mr. Sheehy) thought that must be the object which induced the Government, at the present moment, to resist so strongly the Amendment of his hon. Friend, because if the Amendment were adopted it was only bonâ fide tenants resident on the holding that would be accepted as purchasers. He should, therefore, support the Amendment, and he believed that in so doing he was only consulting the original purpose of the Act, and preventing Emergency men from supplanting genuine tenants.
  MR. ILLING WORTHsaid, he wished to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to give an explanation of the fact that the holdings purchased in the Province of Ulster averaged 60 acres, whereas in other parts of Ireland the average was under 40 acres. Those figures would be found at page 46 of the Blue Book. He attached great importance to the question of rental and area. Taking this large average of 60 acres, with an average rental of 10 s. an acre, it certainly seemed strange that the public money should be asked for and granted for such exceptional purposes as to enable persons holding on the average 60 acres of land—if the average was 60 acres there would probably be some even holding 100 acres—to enable persons with such extensive holdings to purchase the property. He maintained that that was not the purpose of Parliament in sanctioning this legislation. If between 50,000 and 60,000 of the tenants of the smallest

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  class had been put in a position to become the owners of their holdings, they would then have made a serious attempt to grapple with the lowest class of tenants in Ireland; but it would appear, from the acknowledgment of right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench opposite, that little or nothing had been done in that direction. He was afraid the country would find in the end that those £10,000,000 had been appropriated to tenants who had no pressing necessity for becoming the owners of their holdings, and not in aid of those poor miserable tenants of from £10 to £12 a-year, whom the Act was intended to benefit. He presumed that in the end the Government would deal with that class by introducing some great scheme of emigration.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, that the real question was whether pluralists should be allowed. He noticed from The Times that one man was renting farms amounting in all to over 1,000 acres. In this case the Land Commissioners had sanctioned purchase. He asked whether, in such a case, fair discretion had been exercised by the Land Commissioners; had they given a preference to resident tenants? It seemed to him that the Land Commissioners had no right to assume that more than £5,000,000 would be granted. They had received applications for more than £5,000,000, and amongst the applications was one of the character he had named. He appealed to the Government whether, in some shape or other, they could not impose some limitation in this matter. He was very much alarmed when they were told that there was the hard and fast rule of first come first served. Were the Commissioners to be bound to serve a big man who came first, although they might know that there were many smaller men who might come afterwards? Were the Commissioners to act upon the belief that the £5,000,000 sterling was final, and must be distributed to the best advantage, or were they to accept the application of great pluralists because they happened to come first?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, his objection to the Amendment was that he believed it would result in the creation of fictitious tenants. If there were two farms near one another, a man might convert his son into a
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  tenant of one farm, and thus defeat the object of the Amendment.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, it was surprising what an amount of time was wasted in this matter through the Government not meeting the demands made on the Opposition side of the House. In the Ashbourne Act there was a section which provided that preference was to be given by the Land Commissioners to the resident tenants. That was all the Opposition wanted. What they complained of was that this preference had not been given. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary practically admitted that, for, as he said, he would meet their complaints by privately writing to the Land Commissioners and asking them to consider what had taken place in the House that night. Of course such a proceeding was utterly un-Constitutional and improper. Besides that, what would be the consequence of the right hon. Gentleman writing? He would write to the Land Commissioners—"See what happened on the 26th of November in the House of Commons." What had happened? They had protested again and again against the adoption of the system of first come first served, instead of the system laid down in the Ashbourne Act, but the Government had refused to make any alterations or to introduce any proviso in their Bill. Seeing that a Division took place in which the Government's view was adopted by the Committee, the Land Commissioners would be confirmed in their view that they ought not to give this preference, but that they ought to continue to act on the principle of first come first served, which they would make out was the desire of the right hon. Gentleman and of the House. It had been suggested again and again, during the discussion on this Amendment, that the poorer tenants were intended to be benefited. As a matter of fact it was impossible that the poorer tenants could be benefited by the Act, because the Land Commissioners were to look into the security, and the Committee had it from Mr. Caird and others that the vast majority of the small tenants in Ireland had got absolutely no economic value in their tenancies. How was it possible, then, that preference should be given to the smaller tenants? This was an Act intended for the benefit of the landlords; for the

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  benefit of Protestants; for the benefit of large farmers, who were not worse off, but very much better off, than the large farmers in England. This money was going to be divided in some mysterious way between the large tenants and the great landlords.

PRIVILEGE.

  SERVICE OF A SUMMONS IN THE OUTER LOBBY ON MR. SHEEHY, M.P.
  MR. SHEEHY: I wish, with the permission of the Chair, to call attention to a matter of Privilege. As I was leaving the House a moment ago, one of the attendants brought me a card from a person apparently in the Lobby, and when I wont out, a police constable from Ireland asked me to take a summons from him. I asked him if he had the audacity to attempt to serve a summons inside the precincts of the House, and the man said he did not think it would be out of order if I would take it from him, and he did not think he was inside the precincts of the House, being in the Lobby. I beg to move that Progress be reported, so that this grave breach of privilege can be considered.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress."—(Mr. Sheehy.)
  MR. BBADLAITGH: I think, after the intimations we had from the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House, and from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, that at any rate some influence should be used so that the summonses against the seven Members of Parliament should not be heard during the time of the discussion of the Estimates, it is really too much that the service of this summons should have been attempted in this way, and I desire, in supporting the Motion to report Progress, to record my protest against what does seem a most shabby proceeding.
  MR. HANBURY: I thoroughly endorse what has been said by the hon. Gentleman opposite (Mr. Bradlaugh). I do not in the least know who is to blame; whether it be the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, or whoever it may be. I say publicly, it is a scandal, it is a deliberate insult to the House of Commons, and especially after the promise made by the
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  right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, it is a monstrous thing that Members of this House should have summonses served upon them within the very precincts of the House itself. I say, and I speak not only for myself but for other Conservative Members of the House who feel as strongly as I do, that it is the duty of Conservatives and Liberals alike to resent this gross outrage. I hope that unless some decided and satisfactory answer is given from the Front Bench, we will take such steps and support such resolutions in the House as will at once and for ever put an end to such proceedings.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): I think my hon. Friend has spoken with a little unnecessary heat. As far as I am concerned, I never heard of the occurrence until this moment. When the hon. Member came in a moment ago and said that he had something to tell the Committee connected with an incident which had occurred in the Lobby, I confess I sat in my seat prepared to listen to one of those episodes which, unfortunately, on one or two occasions in the course of last Session, occurred between Members of the House. I had not the slightest idea that the hon. Member was served with a summons. I asked my right hon. Friend the Homo Secretary (Mr. Matthews) whether he knew anything about it, and he informed me he knew nothing about it. Therefore, I am afraid, as far as information is required from Members of this Bench, no information can be given, because no information is possessed.
  MR. AETHUE O'CONNOR: I rise to Order, Mr. Chairman. I beg to ask you whether the question before the Committee is that you should report Progress?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not know whether we are strictly in Order in discussing this matter; but I understand that Progress was moved so that we might discuss it. Now, I have said that both my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and myself had no idea that anything of the kind was taking place. The hon. Gentleman stated, and I have no doubt stated correctly according to his belief, that the notice in question was served by a member of the Irish Constabulary.
  MR. SHEEHY: He informed me that he was an Irish constable.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am surprised at that. I had thought that in these cases the more ordinary practice was that any legal documents should be placed in the hands of the Metropolitan Police, and that when any Member was to be arrested the arrest was to be made by the Metropolitan Police, and not by the Irish Constabulary. I do not know how this incident occurred at all, and my right hon. Friend the Home (Secretary is also entirely ignorant in the matter. I believe I am right in saying that we have no control over this incident at all. I have not had time to inquire, and I should like some hon. Member more learned in criminal proceeding in Ireland than myself to explain to the House how far incidents of this kind are or are not under the control of the Executive with regard to the time at which they take place. I entirely concur with my hon. Friend behind me (Mr. Banbury) that it is a grievance and an unhappy thing that such an incident should occur within the precincts of the House. In my opinion, it is a matter in which, if we can interfere, we ought to interfere. In my opinion, if there is any legal power on the part of the Government, or any Member of the Government, to see that such a thing shall not occur again, that power should be exercised. More than that the Committee will hardly expect me to say; more than that I cannot say. With regard to the particular incident that has led to this debate, I can only repeat that I am totally and absolutely ignorant of anything that has happened, except so far as the hon. Gentleman has informed us.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: What I am informed is this:—The hon. Member for South Galway (Mr. Sheehy) was addressing the House upon matters deeply interesting to his constituents and other Irishmen, when there was sent into him in this House one of the ordinary cards of visitors seeking the presence of Members. The card was addressed—"David Sheehy, Esq., M.P. Jeremiah Sullivan, R.I.C., Limerick." Therefore, a member of the Royal Irish Constabulary sent in a visitor's card to a Member of this House in order that he might serve upon that Member in the Lobby a note—[An hon. MEMBER:
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  A summons.]—a summons. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland has disavowed this proceeding as a scandal and an outrage; but I cannot understand how he can disavow his power of dealing with the matter. I know something of the position of the police—both the English police and the Irish police. Is it possible that there are to be men in London claiming to be policemen serving processes upon people for whom no one is responsible? I know perfectly well that Irish policemen have been, and probably are now, in London, but surely they are either under the authority of the English Secretary of State or under the authority of the Irish Secretary, and either or both of these authorities must be responsible for keeping the men in order and for their doing what they ought to do? The situation would otherwise be perfectly intolerable—that a man should assume the authority of a policeman, come and do what he pleases in this House, and the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Matthews) and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland say that they know nothing about it—that they have no authority to deal with the matter.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I never said that.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: The right hon. Gentleman spoke of it as extremely doubtful whether he or anyone else could interfere. I cannot understand that it is possible there should be a man exercising the authority of a constable at the door of this House, and that there should be any doubt as to who was responsible for his conduct. It is perfectly plain the Executive Government is responsible, and what we want to know is what instructions have been given and what instructions are to be given in this matter? I understand that there is considerable difficulty in discussing this matter at present. We are more or less out of Order in discussing this subject on the Motion to report Progress. Indeed, the proper course to pursue would be to report Progress, so that the Speaker might attend in order that a matter deeply affecting the dignity of this House, and I will say the character of the Executive Government, can be dealt with in a

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  proper way. In order that the Government may give such assurances in a proper way to this House, as to how this matter should be dealt with, I support the Motion that Progress should be reported, and that the Speaker should resume the Chair.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Perhaps I did not make myself perfectly clear to the right hon. Gentleman and to the Committee; I absolutely disclaimed any sort of knowledge of this matter. I did not disclaim responsibility, nor did I claim responsibility. The Committee must be perfectly aware that it would be folly on my part, off hand, without having the slightest notice, and without having any power of consulting my legal advisers, to give the Committee an authoritative estimate of the precise responsibility in this matter which rests on the Executive Government. It is a very delicate matter, on which I should certainly not like to give an opinion off hand, or without careful consultation. I do, however, emphatically give this pledge to the Committee, that if and in so far as the Executive Government for Ireland may be shown to be responsible, and if it does in any way, directly or indirectly, rest with me, I shall take care that an incident of this kind does not occur again.
  MR. ILLINGWOETH: I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby (Sir William Harcourt) has pointed out the proper way in which this question should be treated. It is quite evident that Castle rule is coming very near Home It was predicted long ago that if we abandoned Constitutional principles and Constitutional practice in Ireland, we should soon have a taste of it on this side of the water. What has happened? A deliberate trap has been laid in order to seduce a Member from his place and his duty in this House, to get him within the reach of an Irish constable. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, at the outset, disclaimed that he had any knowledge of this proceeding. Of course, we admit that he had no knowledge of the matter, but the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman has acted all the way through these melancholy Irish proceedings was the strongest possible assurance that as he acted so would his minions act. The Irish Constabulary
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  have been emboldened to take a step that no English constable would have ventured to take, and the sooner Progress is reported and the Speaker returns and this grave insult to the House is dealt with, the better it will be for the British people and the British House of Commons.
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: I rise for the purpose of saying that we, on this Bench, support the proposal that the Speaker should be called in and take the Chair in order that we may afterwards bring forward and support proposals for appointing a Committee to inquire into the circumstances of the case.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TERA-SURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH): On behalf of the Government, I at once assent to the Motion to report Progress. We are willing that Progress should be reported on the understanding that a Motion will be made to appoint a Committee. I will move a motion myself that a Committee be appointed forthwith to inquire into all the circumstances of the case, and to report to the House.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  House resumed.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: Mr. Speaker, an incident has occurred which has occasioned great regret to the House and the Government, to which I desire to call your attention. An hon. Member has been served—or rather has received a message from a person who has intimated a desire to serve him with a summons in the Lobby of this House. The Government think it is desirable that a Committee should be forthwith appointed in order to inquire into the circumstances in which this attempt to serve a summons was made within the precincts of the House, and should forthwith report to the House. The terms of the Reference which I should venture to suggest are as follows:—"That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the service—"
  Several hon. MEMBERES: It was not served.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: "The alleged attempted service—"
  MR. SEXTON: The word "alleged" is an insult.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: "The attempted service of a summons upon Mr. Sheehy, Member for South Galway, made in the outer Lobby of this House;" and the names I would suggest for this Committee are—Sir William Harcourt, Mr. John Morley, Sir Charles Russell, Mr. Parnell, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Solicitor General, the Solicitor General for Ireland, and Sir Matthew White Ridley.
  MR. DILLON: I wish to point out that there is a danger of narrowing the inquiry. The outrage did not consist alone in attempting to serve a summons, but also in the fact that an Irish constable had the audacity to send in a visitor's card to a Member of this House, and decoy him out into the Lobby, with the deliberate intention of serving him with a summons; and what we contend is that it departs very little in its nature from an attempt on the part of the constable to serve the summons actually in the House.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the alleged—"
  MR. T. M. HEALT: The word "alleged" is an insult.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, the word ought to have been struck out of the Motion.
  Word omitted.
  Motion made, and Question proposed)
  "That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the attempted service (together with the attendant circumstances) of a summons upon Mr. Sheehy, Member for South Galway, made in the Outer Lobby of the House."—(Mr. W. H. Smith.)
  THE LORD MAYOR OF DUBLIN (Mr. SEXTON): How soon is it intended that this Committee should sit? It is necessary that instant and unequivocal action should be taken, because the government of Ireland is now conducted by persons who delight in heaping personal indignities upon the Representatives of the people. It is not alone the hon. Member for South Galway who is concerned. I wish to point out that summonses are also pending against six other Members of this House, and I want to know what action this House is about to take this night and now to satisfy Mr. Jeremiah Sullivan and his 11,000 colleagues in the police force in Ireland that he has committed
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  a breach of the Privileges of this House. I would remind the House that for some time past the policy pursued towards the Irish. Members has been a policy of aggression. There was a time not long ago, when our conduct was impeached, when we were allowed at least to return to Ireland before being summoned. There was a time, a little later on, when we were allowed to go outside the precincts of the House before we were molested. But now it appears it is not enough that Irish Members who, by reason of their position as Irish Members, are deliberately selected and singled out for insult by every creature of the Irish Government—it is not enough that we should pass to and from our duties through groups and rings of pimps and spies, but that, in the actual moment of the discharge of our duties in this House to the people who sent us here, we must be disturbed, molested, and insulted by agents and creatures of the Government. I say the case is one that admits of no delay. If the Committee is to sit directly, I am satisfied, but without any delay I suggest that Constable Jeremiah Sullivan should be brought to the Bar and admonished.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: The intention of the Government undoubtedly is that the Committee should sit forthwith. We are as fully sensible as any hon. Member can be that the question should be dealt with without any delay whatever; it is our hope that the Committee will sit to-morrow. [Irish MEMBERS: To-morrow! Why not to-night? Now!] I wish to point out that the facts of the case have to be carefully examined, for, however strong the indignation of hon. Members may be, it is most desirable we should proceed with care and that full examination of the facts which the circumstances seem to require. As to sitting to-night, that would be a course, I think, absolutely unprecedented. [Mr. DILLON: So is the offence.] I do not desire to place any obstacle whatever in the way, but I think that, consistently with the regulations of the House, the whole matter should be examined carefully, judicially, exhaustively, and, at the same time, immediately.
  MR. SEXTON: Will the constable be detained?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Of course the constable will be before the Committee.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: There is another question I should like to ask. The Chief Secretary has six or seven other Irish Members waiting to be arrested, and I want to know whether constables are now waiting about the Lobby for them or not? I want to know whether orders have or have not been given now, at this moment—without waiting for to-morrow—to seize these men in the Lobby, or serve summonses upon them if there is opportunity, I would ask whether those orders have been given, and, if so, by whom they have been given. We should have an answer to that question—an assurance from the Irish Secretary that he has given orders that the Irish constabulary, who are under his control, shall not to-night act against the other six Members against whom proceedings are to be taken. I also venture to suggest an alteration of the Reference to the Committee. I suggest that inquiry should be made into the circumstances attending the attempt.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: Yes, certainly.
  MR. COURTNEY: It is most desirable that this question, which is one of extreme gravity, should be approached in as judicial a manner as possible. At the same time there are circumstances that possibly ought to be inquired into without the slightest delay. There is certainly a precedent for a Committee sitting forthwith. We know it has only formal work to do of no great importance, but the Committee which is appointed to settle the address in answer to the gracious Speech from the Throne does retire immediately and reports before the sitting is over. What I would suggest as worthy of consideration is this—that the Committee which is appointed should retire forthwith, and should probably have before them the hon. Member for South Galway and the police constable, and then, after hearing the statements on both sides, it would probably be desirable they should adjourn further proceedings and consider the nature of what has been done, and what steps are proper to be taken in this House to-morrow, or at some subsequent time. But it is desirable to have the facts at once ascertained, so far as the hon. Member and the constable are concerned, and have those persons before them. For that purpose
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  it is desirable the Committee should immediately withdraw, and then the House would probably proceed with ordinary Business, leaving the matter to be brought forward, after the facts are ascertained, in that judicial temper which is becoming in a matter of great gravity.
  MR. ILLINGWORTH, who was received with cries of "Oh!" said, We are not in Ireland, and are not altogether under Castle rule yet. It would, therefore, not ill become hon. Members opposite if they did not attempt to boycott an individual Member, or to interfere indecently with the freedom of debate. I wish to remind the First Lord of the Treasury that he has given no assurance on the point put by the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton). Has the Chief Secretary instanter taken steps to prevent the repetition of this outrage? Will the right hon. Gentleman confine these proceedings to Ireland? In bygone days Irishmen had some security on this side of the water, and I want English Members to insist that there should be in England something like security from Irish methods of procedure. This is not only an insult to an individual Member, it is an insult to the dignity of this House; and I am glad the hon. Member has not lost a moment in bringing the matter before the House.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. Gentleman and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby have asked me to give some assurance that this scene shall not be repeated, and the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has dilated at length on the want of security which now exists, as he alleges, with regard to Irish Members—a want of security which did not exist a few years ago. I have already told the House—this whole scene has taken place within the last ten minutes—that I have not been able to inquire into the exact relation of the Executive Government to whoever administers the law in this matter. But I cannot conceive anything which would more tend exactly to produce that want of security of which the hon. Member complains than, without consideration of the proper limits of Executive authority, that I should state that such and such a thing should not occur again. I absolutely decline, without consideration and without consulting

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  those who are competent to give me advice, to make any statement in this House which should lay down categorically what are or are not my powers in this matter; for if I were to overstretch the limits of my powers, or were to exercise powers which it should turn out I do not possess, then, indeed, there would be that interference with private liberty of which hon. Members complain.
  SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN: I think that this affair has a slightly broader aspect. This police constable appears to have done a very crude and very brutal act, which shocks the House, and will shock everyone who reads about it. But I conceive that that is not the important question which underlies it. The important question which underlies it is whether Members of this House shall be able to go about their Parliamentary work with the security that they will not be arrested in a manner equally dangerous to their independence as Members and outrageous to the dignity of this House. Now, I cannot see any difference whatever with regard to either of those two considerations between the actual arrest of a Member within the precincts of the House and his arrest by men waiting outside the House for him the moment he leaves the doors. I think that the Chief Secretary for Ireland, or some Member of the Government, ought to reply to the appeal made from this side and from behind the Front Opposition Bench in a more full manner than the Chief Secretary for Ireland has hitherto done. This House ought not to delay this question until we have taken advantage of this great abuse of authority on the part of a subordinate—an abuse of authority, I am convinced, that was suggested to his mind by the fact that virtually the same thing was done in the earlier part of the present year, when two hon. Members were arrested at the doors of the House—this House, I say, ought not to leave this question until we have got a promise, which, I firmly believe, men on the Treasury Bench—perhaps most men on that Bench—would be only too glad to hear, that this odious question of the arrest of Members going to and from their Parliamentary duties should be put at rest for once and for ever by a declaration from the Government of
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  this country that it ought not to occur and shall not occur again.
  MR. J. LOWTHER: It seems to me that my right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary has given the House every reasonable assurance in this matter. ["Oh, oh I" and Cheers.] What do I understand the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow (Sir George Trevelyan) asks the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland to do? I understand the right hon. Gentleman to ask the Government to give an undertaking that they—the Executive Government—will step in and interfere with the action of the Courts of Law. My right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary has assured the House that he would carefully inquire as to what his responsibilities are in this matter, and what action it is in the power of the Government to take to prevent a repetition of what we all admit to be a public scandal. What more, I venture to think, can Her Majesty's Government he asked to do? If we are to set up the authority of Parliament as against the authority of the Courts of Law, the House does not require to be reminded we should be threshing out again the old question "Stockdale v. Hansard," and raising again any number of constitutional points. I hope the Government will not do any more than support the reference of this matter to a Select Committee.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: The argument of the right hon. Gentleman would be perfectly sound but for the fact that a summons cannot be taken out except on the initiative of the Attorney General for Ireland and of the Executive Government. The House had nothing to do with a Court of Law, but with the action of the Attorney General.
  MR. J. LOWTHER: I understand this action was taken under the authority of a Court of Law.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I am surprised at the ignorance of the right hon. Gentleman, whose career in Ireland should have left historic memories. The right hon. Gentleman, who once held the Office of Chief Secretary for Ireland, is so ignorant of this proceeding as not to know that the act in question is an Executive act, and had nothing to do

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  with the Courts of Law, unless, indeed, the Chief Secretary for Ireland meant us to understand that an act of the Executive and an act of a Court of Law is one and the same thing. I wish to call the attention of the House to another occurrence which has taken place this evening. The hon. Gentleman the Member for East Limerick (Mr. Finucane) was that evening, when about to enter Palace Yard, served with a summons—[An hon. MEMBER: Six summonses]—by a constable acting under the authority of the Attorney General for Ireland. We might have allowed this proceeding to pass if it had been a novel occurrence; but it is a repetition of the scandalous proceedings which took place some time ago. Irish Members, when coming down to the House, or when leaving it, were, some months ago, actually arrested. I must say that the Chief Secretary is finding that this kind of thing can go a little too far, and the sooner he gives his subordinates instructions not to outrage the dignity and privileges of this House the better it will be for him.
  MR. DILLONwas astounded when he heard it stated that the proceedings of which they complained were carried out under the authority of a Court of Law. The matter had nothing whatever to do with a Court of Law; it was an Executive proceeding with which they were well acquainted in Ireland. It was not at all an uncommon thing for the police in Ireland to hold in their hands warrants for the arrest of Irish Members for days together, and not to execute them until they were directed to do so by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. Notwithstanding this, the right hon. Gentleman now stated that he did not know whether he could control the action of the police constable in this matter or not. It was a thing which he did every day in Ireland, and if it was now stated that the matter had passed out of his hands and into the hands of the Home Secretary, he would like to point out that the right hon. Gentleman had the Home Secretary sitting next to him to consult. He thought that right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary ought, before the debate closed and before the Committee retired, to state to the House, in reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow,
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  that the Irish Members should not be insulted by the service of summonses or by arrest. It was a monstrous outrage on the proceedings of that House and on the liberty of its Members that hon. Gentlemen when leaving or entering the House should be arrested by policemen, when it was a matter of notoriety that there could be but one object in view—namely, to inflict insult on Irish Members. It was perfectly easy to serve these summonses or to arrest Members when they were not entering upon or leaving their duties. But they expected, and received, nothing else but insult from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland on every occasion. [Cries of "Oh, oh!"] It was a part of his policy that he should carry that insult to the very doors of the House of Commons. He would be a wiser statesman if he directed that such proceedings as these should take place when Irish Members were so far removed from the House that there would be no fear of that sense of dignity which induced the House to protect its Members being outraged. The right hon. Gentleman had done a foolish act for his Government, but he was not sorry that the right hon. Gentleman had been led to bring home to the minds of Englishmen in this striking way so brilliant an illustration of the methods and courses of government which he pursued in Ireland.
  MR. MOLLOYsaid, it was possible that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland was technically right when he said that he had no power to interfere, but the Attorney General for Ireland could do anything he liked in this matter, and the hon. and learned Solicitor General (Mr. Madden), who was sitting next to the Chief Secretary on the Treasury Bench, was his Parliamentary mouthpiece. Would the hon. and learned Solicitor General (Mr. Madden) give to the House that assurance which had been asked of the Chief Secretary? Another point was this. His hon. Friend (Mr. Sheehy) might be arrested on leaving the precincts of the House that night. Being arrested, they might be told that he could not appear before the Select Committee. This had been done on a former occasion. Would the Government give an assurance that his hon. Friend would not be arrested?
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, that the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland made one splendid point in the course of this debate when he said he was not sure how this thing could have occurred, because in all previous arrests and services of summonses they had been effected by the Metropolitan Police. What were they coming to, then, when a standing Army which this country kept in Ireland, and which by Statute could only act in Ireland, and which could only use their revolvers, guns, and rifles there, had taken upon itself the seizin of English soil? If these officers attacked an Irish Member in England, what was there to prevent any Englishman from being served in the same way? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had stated that he would neither acknowledge responsibility nor deny responsibility for this act, and added that he had not had time to consult his law advisers. He (Mr. T. M. Healy) thought that every Member and every Englishman was acquainted with the privileges of that House, and knew that every man in that Palace of the Queen was in the enjoyment of the Queen's peace. Every hon. Member and every Executive Member, he thought, knew that there was a right of privilege and sanctuary in that Royal Palace. It was upon that ground, and that ground alone, that this act was constituted an insult. It was upon Constitutional grounds that this was an insult to the Sovereign. It had been so regarded in times past, and yet the right hon. Gentleman now said that he did not know whether the constable was acting upon his instructions or not. Every Member was supposed to be acquainted with the doctrines and privileges upon which the whole freedom of debate in that House rested; but the right hon. Gentleman, instead of vindicating the rights of Members—because if Irish Members were attacked the turn of English Members might come next—had stated that he would consider whether this Irish policeman had his instructions before he censured him. That was not the ground to take up in that House. He rejoiced with the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) that that policeman had invaded their privileges in that way, because it showed how different was the administration on
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  the part of those who carried out the law in England and in Ireland. Here they had a vulgar Irish policeman, coming from his Irish bog, and so little respect had he for their Parliament that he outraged that House. The poorest English constable in the New Cut had learnt something of the privileges of the House of Commons, and had imbibed something of the spirit of the Constitution; and it was only because the Irish Government preferred to use instruments of that kind, and assured them that whether they shot down people at Mitchelstown, or bayonotted them as they did at Youghal and Midleton, or committed any other act of violence they would be backed up, that an incident like the present one had occurred. Jeremiah Sullivan had earned for himself not only an historical niche, but the high approval of the Irish Secretary. Lord Rosebery had said of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary that it was not a very noble thing when they had a prisoner behind bars to poke at and torture him. That policeman had succeeded in getting inside the bars to poke at and worry his victim; and no doubt his conduct met with the right hon. Gentleman's approval. They looked to the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House (Mr. W. H. Smith) to assert the rights and privileges of its Members. They looked to him also, as a courteous opponent, to see that a true view would be taken of circumstances affecting the rights of Members; but, above all, they held him to his promises. Those promises might not have been expressed, but they were certainly implied. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary was absent at the time, or perhaps they would not have been given. But the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House said on Friday that, as far as the intended arrests of Irish Members were concerned, he was not only entirely ignorant of them, but was most anxious that no infringement should be committed which would interfere with the services of hon. Members in Parliament in regard to Irish Business. One drop of oil poured on the troubled waters would do more to smooth the course of Business than all the bitterness of the Chief Secretary. The present affair might have been settled in five minutes if the right hon. Gentleman had only said—"Whoever committed this act, we

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  disapprove it. The rights of all Members, whether English, Irish, Scotch, or Welsh, are equally dear to us; we deplore and condemn this act. Every Member in this Royal Palace had a right of sanctuary; we shall take steps to vindicate that right, to punish those who violate it, and to defend it to the utmost of our power." The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, however, with that lordly sneer which had done so much for the pacification of Ireland, said he really thought that what they were going to hear about was one of those rencontres in the Lobby which they were so accustomed to. Was not that observation unnecessary? And whatever was uunecessary was unstatesmanlike. It would have been far better if they had seen the right hon. Gentleman even erring on the side of condemnation of the act of a policeman than attempting to hold the balance in the fine way he did for the sake of his official position. A spirit of moderation and mutuality in the relations between Member and Member would do far more in conducting the Business of that House and also in the government of Ireland than the spirit of hatred, contempt, and malevolence which the right hon. Gentleman had learnt to exhibit on every occasion.
  MR. SPEAKER: I hope I may interfere in the interests of the House, and with the fullest desire to preserve the privileges of Members of the House. I trust that the House will not in any way prejudge this case, but will allow the proposed Committee to inquire most fully into the circumstances, and do what, in their wisdom, they may think fit to guard the privileges of every Member of this House. The question immediately before the House is the appointment of a Select Committee and the terms of the reference to that Committee.
  MR. BRADLAUGH: I have risen to enter my protest against the appeals which I have heard made to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland and the Government for an assurance against further indignities in the precincts of this House. The House is able to take care of itself. If the House neglects to take care of itself, the people electing the House can pass judgment upon it. I think it will be understood outside now the fashion in which the Irish question is aggravated
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  by such proceedings as we have had tonight. I was one of those who felt the kindly way in which the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House (Mr. W. H. Smith) expressed his opinion that nothing ought to interfere with hon. Members doing their duty while the Estimates were under discussion, and I cannot believe that the responsible Law Officer for Ireland can be utterly ignorant of what is now being done in breach of that intimation; an intimation which was expressed in so gentlemanly a fashion, and with the consideration to what is due to hon. Members—however much he might differ from them, having regard not to any lawyer's trick, but to the traditions of the House—which ought to guide one in the right hon. Gentleman's position. It cannot be believed, it will not be believed, outside, that an officer of the Royal Irish Constabulary can come over here with processes to serve except with the full knowledge and under the direction of his superiors. There are other places where a judgment may soon be given stronger than any we may express, by the people of London, which has always been famous for its protection of the liberties of this House. I have only risen to ask hon. Members on my side of the House to make no other appeal. I can understand the appeal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bridgeton Division (Sir George Trevelyan)—an appeal made by a gentleman to gentlemen. That appeal has not been answered, and any further appeal would show a lack of dignity on our part.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: It is only by the leave of the House that I can say another word; but I have made inquiries how an Irish policeman and not an English one came to be concerned in this proceeding; and a great deal has been made of that point. The hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) dwelt upon it, and the hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Brad-laugh) also referred to it. Now, I find that the reason was this. Unfortunately, last year it was necessary to proceed against hon. Members of this House. The proceeding was by way of warrant—namely, to arrest. It was at their request and the earnest request of the House that proceeding by warrant was given up that involves arrest, and proceeding

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  by summons was substituted for it. Under proceeding by warrant there is a statutory method by which the warrant is served. It is served by a Metropolitan policeman. If you substitute the method by summons there is no statutory means.
  MR. LEAMY: Then why did you arrest the two Redmonds by warrant?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that a summons cannot be served by the Metropolitan police, and it has to be done by the Irish police. Therefore this thing which has been made a matter of complaint by the hon. and learned Member for North Longford is really the direct consequence of a concession which we made, and gladly made, to the feelings of hon. Members. Perhaps the House will allow me, by way of personal explanation, to repudiate entirely certain observations which fell from the hon. Member for North Longford as to my conduct in this debate, although the hon. and learned Member could not have been present when I made my speech.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I have not left the House to-night since Questions.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Then either I am very deficient in powers of expression or he is very deficient in powers of understanding, for I appeal to every hon. Member who heard me whether I did not state that this subject had burst upon me like a thunderclap in a clear sky; and, in the first place, I uttered, and uttered as strongly as it is given me to do, my profound regret that an incident of this kind had happened; and I followed that up by a pledge as clear, as specific, and as categorical as could be made, that if the direction of such an affair does rest with the Executive, no such incident will be repeated. Many hon. Members were present when I spoke, and they will bear me out that I have not exaggerated in the least. I have not in the course of the debate moved from my original position. My words were full and complete, and such as I have just described them to the House.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Heaven preserve us from the concessions of the right hon. Gentleman, for if this goes on from concession to concession, we shall find ourselves with our heads cut off by-and-bye. Why this debate has lasted is because we could not get
  220
  from the right hon. Gentleman a clear and specific assurance, not that this would not happen to-morrow or the day after to-morrow—because we will take care of that ourselves—but that similar proceedings should not happen this evening before the Committee was able to report. Well, there is an excuse for the Government. It is a dual Government. We know generally the Government cannot take any resolution without asking the noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington). Here sits the Great Llama. I have had my eye on him. He has remained in the House. He has not gone out to consult the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury behind the Speaker's chair. No, Sir; he has been here, and that is why we have been kept more than an hour and a-half, because the Government were not able to ask his permission even to give this simple pledge. Let this be another instance of the evils of the dual Government—not a public, open Government, but a secret Government, which at present exists with regard to Ireland and this country.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Committee do consist of the following Members:—Mr. Secretary Matthews, Mr. Childers, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. John Morley, The Solicitor General, Sir Charles Russell, The Solicitor General for Ireland, Mr. Parnell, and Sir Matthew White Ridley."
  Question put, and agreed to.
  MR. JOHN MORLEY: I would venture to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that the strength and character and authority of the Committee would be much greater if there were two more Irish Members upon it. I beg to move that Mr. T. M. Healy and Mr. Dillon be added to the Committee.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: There is no indisposition on the part of the Government to accept the addition of those hon. Gentlemen if they are desirous of serving; but then it will be necessary also to strengthen the Committee by the addition of two other names.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: The right hon Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury has mistaken altogether the object of the Motion of my right hon. Friend (Mr. John Morley). It is

  221
  to strengthen the Committee by a larger proportion of Irish Members. I hope this matter is not going to be regarded as one of a sectional or Party vote. It is very desirable it should not be. It appears to me that what is wanted is that the Irish Members should feel that they are having fair play—if possible, something more than fair play—in the consideration of this matter. We ought not to be too nice as to whether their representation on the Committee is exactly in proportion to their numbers in the House.
  MR. DILLON: I think it will be very desirable to have Mr. Healy on the Committee. I have already stated on a previous occasion in this House, on a very much greater issue, that I would select, or readily allow to be selected, a Committee wholly composed of English Members, provided only that the keenest partizans of the House are excluded, and on the present occasion I am perfectly content with the Committee as it stands, and I believe it will do us justice. My suggestion, however, is that it will be desirable to have an Irish barrister acquainted with the administration of the law in Ireland added to the Committee, and from that point of view I think it desirable to have Mr. T. M. Healy appointed on the Committee.
  Question proposed, "That Mr. T. M Healy be a Member of the Committee.';
  Question put, and agreed to.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: Then as the hon. and learned Member for North Longford is to be added to the Committee, I will propose that Mr. Elton be also added to the Committee. [Cries of "Hanbury!" Well, if it is wished, and as it is desirable that we should arrive at a unanimous conclusion, I have no objection to withdraw the name of Mr. Elton, and substitute that of the hon. Member for Preston (Mr. Hanbury).
  Question proposed, "That Mr. Hanbury be a Member of the Committee."
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records; that five be a quorum; to withdraw immediately."
  Question put, and agreed to.
  The following is the Entry in the Votes:—
  Complaint being made to the Committee by Mr. Sheehy, Member for South Galway, that he had been served with a Summons in the Outer Lobby, the Chairman was ordered to report Progress.

  PRIVILEGE,—SERVICE OF A SUMMONS IN THE OUTER LOBBY ON ME. SHEEHY, M.P.:—
  Ordered, That a Select Committee be appointed to consider the attempted service (together with the attendant circumstances) of a Summons upon Mr. Sheehy, Member for South Galway, made in the Outer Lobby of the House;—(Mr. William Henry Smith:)—
  MR. Secretary Matthews, Mr. Childers, Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer, Mr. John Morley, Mr. Solicitor General, Sir Charles Russell, Mr. Solicitor General for Ireland, Mr. Parnell, Sir Matthew Ridley, Mr. T. M. Healy, and Mr. Hanbury nominated Members of the Committee, with power to send for persons, papers, and records.
  Ordered, That five be the quorum; to withdraw immediately.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House will immediately resolve itself into the Committee upon the Land Purchase (Ireland) Bill."—(Mr. W. E. Smith.)
  MR. SEXTONentered a protest against this proceeding. They felt aggrieved—
  MR. W. H. SMITHhoped there would be no opposition.
  SIR WILLIAM HARCOURT: Surely the right hon. Gentleman will not go on with the Bill when he has just appointed on the Committee persons who are particularly interested in the consideration of this question. I do not think we can go on with the discussion in their absence.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he thought the right hon. Gentleman entirely misapprehended the spirit in which the Government were acting. It was of the most vital importance, at this period of the Session, that there should be no unreasonable delay. He could not believe, himself, that there was any desire on the Irish Benches to defeat the Bill.
  MR. BRADLAUGHsaid, he desired to point out that the hon. Member who moved the Amendment and the hon. Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland, besides other hon. Members,

  223
  were on the Committee. If they proceeded in their absence they would be in a ridiculous position.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, this only showed how rash it was to adopt the suggestion as to the Committee meeting to-night. He doubted whether it would be possible for the Committee just appointed to make much progress that evening. In all probability the Committee would confine their labours to appointing a Chairman, arranging the course of proceedings, and adjourning until to-morrow. To ask that they should not resume the Purchase Bill was unreasonable.
  MR. SHAW LEFEVREwished to point out that the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Mr. John Morley) had an Amendment next on the Paper, and he, therefore, suggested that Supply should be taken.
  SIR WILFRID LAWSON, as a point of Order, asked whether they could resume the Bill, having reported Progress?
  MR. SPEAKER: Certainly. It would be my duty to put the Motion that the House do resolve itself into Committee.
  MR. DILLONsaid, he thought it would be for the convenience of all parties if the House would now adjourn for an hour, instead of the usual half hour.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, he thought it would meet the difficulty if it were suggested to the distinguished Chairman of Committees that he should take a little longer for his tea.
  MR. W. H. SMITHsaid, he thought the suggestion of the hon. and learned Member for North Longford an exceedingly valuable one. He, therefore, suggested that the House should adjourn for an hour, to half-past 9. [Cries of "Say 10."] Very well; 10.
  The House suspended its Sitting at half-past Eight of the clock.
  The House resumed its Sitting at Ten of the clock.
  Resolved, That this House will immediately resolve itself into the Committee upon the Land Purchase (Ireland) Bill.—(Mr. W. H. Smith.)

  LAND PURCHASE (IRELAND) BILL.
  Bill again considered in Committee.
  Clause 1 (Increase of limit of advances by Irish Land Commission, and provision therefor).
  Amendment again proposed,
  In page 1, at the end of the Clause, to add the words "Provided that no money shall be advanced for the purchase of more than one holding in the occupation of any one tenant if such holding be of the rateable value of not less than twenty pounds per annum."—(Mr. Parnell.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  MR. MOLLOYsaid, that a question had been put to the Government, and they had had a fair opportunity of replying to it, but no answer had been given. It had been pointed out in the course of the debate that the original object of the Bill was to facilitate the establishment of a large number of peasant proprietors in Ireland, more especially of that class which were most impoverished. And again, in the course of the debate on the Motion for the second reading of the Bill, it had been pointed out, and admitted by the Government, that this as far as possible was their object, and it had also been shown that large farms had been turned into proprietary farms, but that the small farms had only been to a small extent affected by Lord Ashbourne's Act. The object was to distribute this money throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, and it was said that, by distributing it, it was intended to carry out the establishment of a peasant proprietorship. Now, that had not been done, and an Amendment had been introduced having that object in view—namely, to divide this £5,000,000 in something like equal proportions between the four Provinces of Ireland. That had been plainly put to the Government that evening, after the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had made his speech, and he (Mr. Molloy) thought the Committee were entitled to some intimation of the intention of the Government to make something in the nature of an advance in the direction of this Amendment.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman was not speaking to the Amendment before the Committee.
  MR. MOLLOYsaid, the point he was aiming at was the apportionment of the money to farms of less rateable value than £20. They had received no answer on that subject, and he said the Committee were entitled to ask the Government, who were disinclined to accept the Amendment, to point out in what manner they intended to give effect to their own intentions.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 111; Noes 154: Majority 43.—(Div. List, No. 305.)
  MR. PICTONsaid, the Amendment of which he had given Notice approached the question from a different point of view from that which had been taken up on previous Resolutions. It had been felt, at any rate on that side of the House, to be desirable to give some indication of the mode in which this money should be spent. If the additional £5,000,000 was to obtain all that hon. Members desired from its expenditure—namely, the greatest amount of good, and the allaying as far as possible the agitation among the working peasants of Ireland, and relieving the distress existing amongst them as far as they were able, he believed that one way of effecting this would be to give preference to tenants on small estates rather than those on large ones. Hitherto, as the statistics showed, preference had been given to tenants on large estates, and a very disproportionate amount of the last £5,000,000 spent had gone to tenants on very extensive estates belonging to wealthy landowners, who, if they had been so disposed, might have treated their tenants with greater leniency, and might have prevented the irritation which at present existed. The Amendment he was about to move proceeded precisely on the lines of a certain sub-section of the Land Purchase Act (Ireland) 1885, which provided that in making advances ander the Act, the Land Commissioners should prefer applications for purchase of holdings on which the tenants resided, or which were reasonable adjuncts of holdings on which such tenants resided. He had another instruction to insert, and that was that preference should be given to tenants on small rather than on large estates. He was not going to argue that the great
  226
  landlords had been faultless in their treatment of their tenants. Far from it; but a speech had been delivered last week by the noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington) in the course of which certain facts were stated with regard to the management of one very extensive set of estates in Ireland, which for his part he regarded with very great satisfaction. He thought that the public ought to be grateful to the noble Lord for the information he had given, and he was not in the least degree inclined to question the statement of facts which the noble Lord had made. Taking that statement of facts as put before the public, he found that with regard to the set of estates referred to the management had been liberal and kindly as a general rule; and the noble Lord had further shown that there was only one case in which application had been made for purchase by any of the tenants on the Duke of Devonshire's estates. This, at any rate, showed that great landlords, if they were so disposed, had the ability to make things comparatively easy for their tenants, but if they were to proceed on the lines hitherto adopted, the great landlords, who might do better for their tenants than they had done, would receive a very disproportionate amount of the money which was set aside to enable the tenants to purchase their holdings. He thought it would be found that a considerable number of the smaller landlords had purchased their estates simply for investment purposes; a considerable number of them, as he knew, had purchased under the Encumbered Estates Act, and had put their money into the land with the object of receiving from it the greatest possible revenue—that was to say, the highest amount of interest that could be got from their investment. It was not likely that these men would take the same interest in their tenants as the great hereditary landlords might be expected to do. He himself had very recently gone over certain estates in the County of Kerry, some of which had been subjected for a considerable time to the Plan of Campaign, and he found that in all of them difficulty had arisen from the fact that the landlord, being a man of comparatively small means, had bought the estate for the purpose of deriving from it an ex-

  227
  travagant revenue, and that, even if he were inclined, he was not able to do justice to tenants. Many of these smaller landlords had as much difficulty in making both ends meet as the tenants themselves, and, not to put it too strongly, they were in very great straits, and he thought the Committee ought to have regard to this fact in the application of this further amount of money which was to be advanced on the security of British credit. If the present Bill were passed without any further instruction whatever to the Commissioners, the result would be as before, that a very considerable amount of money would be devoted to the purchase of these large estates, and the small estates would not receive sufficient consideration. He thought he should be confirmed by hon. Members who had very much greater knowledge of Ireland than he could derive from occasional visits in saying that the tenants on these small estates suffered peculiarly, and were entitled to an amount of consideration which had not hitherto been given to them. Having thus briefly stated the principle of his Amendment, he might add that, if it was not expressed as accurately or definitely as some legal-minded Members might require, he was quite willing to make any improvement in the wording that would make his object clearer to the Committee. All he would insist upon was the principle that the smaller estates, where possible, should be preferred, and that landlords holding large estates should be left until such time as that House might be disposed to vote a further sum of money.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 1, at end of Clause, to add the words "Provided that in determining the applications to be approved the Commissioners shall give preference to tenants of landlords whose estates are valued, under the Acts relating to the valuation of property in Ireland, at not more than one thousand pounds per annum."—(Mr. Picton.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR)said, he was sure the Committee would cordially agree with the hon. Member who had just sat down that the small landlords in Ireland had suffered more than any other members
  228
  of the community from the difficulties attached to agriculture in Ireland. But he was not at all sure that this was the reason for the hon. Member bringing forward his Amendment. He had never regarded the Bill as one for the relief of landlords, and therefore he was not particularly disposed to look at it from the point of view of the hon. Member. The first question he would ask the hon. Gentleman was, how wore the Commissioners to determine the amount of property which each landlord should have for the purpose of applying the Act? Supposing a landlord had an estate worth £500 a year in Kerry, another worth £500 a-year in Donegal, and another worth £500 a-year in some other county; were the Commissioners to investigate the whole of his property, and because he had £500 a-year in another part of Ireland, were his tenants in Kerry and Donegal not to be entitled to the relief given by the Bill? That seemed to be one difficulty in the way of the Amendment. Then there was the question of landlords holding smaller property. For his (Mr. A. J. Balfour's) part, he had never concealed from the House his view of landlordism in Ireland; not that he wished to get rid of landlords, but he was not at all sure that the landlord of £1,000 a-year was the man he should like to see bought out. But, after all, they had chiefly to look at the position of the tenants, and he wanted to know on what principle they were to put a disqualification upon the tenants of large landlords which they were not going to put on the tenants of the smaller landlords? It would be the grossest injustice, therefore, to adopt the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman, which was founded on no principle, based on no equity, and led, as far as he could see, to no useful public object whatever. Practically the tenant of a landlord worth £1,200 a-year would be, or might be, precluded from buying his farm, whereas the tenant of a landlord worth £900 a-year might be allowed to do so. Could it be pretended that under the Amendment there lay any principle whatever which the Committee would be ready to adopt? He thought not; and on the broad ground of equity he submitted that the Amendment was not one which ought to be pressed upon the attention of the Committee.
  MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, it was all very well for the right hon. Gentleman to say he did not consider this a landlord's Bill. They did, and they had framed their Amendments upon that basis. What was the principal reason urged against the Amendment of his hon. Friend? The right hon. Gentleman asked whether the Commissioners were to inquire if the landlord had property in any other county, and in particular in the county whore the sale was proposed? That objection might be easily met by his hon. Friend agreeing to the insertion of the words "in the county where the purchase is made." The right hon. Gentleman said there ought to be a regular hierarchy beginning with the peasant and going up to the noble Duke. Now, he was not in favour of these great proprietors, and he said they must look at the matter at the present moment in the Irish sense. Were the tenants of the great landlords in a better position than the tenants of the small landlords? Of course they were, and they always would be so in a country where there existed such a condition of things as in Ireland. In the first place, it was more easy for the tenants on the large estates to combine; it was much more easy on a great estate to carry out the Plan of Campaign, and therefore the tenants on such an estate were infinitely better off. It would be found to be the case always, in a country where the land was very much worked, that the small man was a harder landlord than the great man, because although the rents might be cut down, there yet remained some margin for the great landlord; whereas, where the estate was small and was spread amongst a few tenants, the landlord had to consider whether he or the tenants should live, and he naturally preferred to live himself instead of the tenants. The Devonshire estate had been cited, and he would take that as an instance of his meaning. That estate was very fairly managed; they had it stated that large voluntary remissions had been made, and that considerable amounts had been spent in charity and improvements. This was a large estate, but even with all those advantages it appeared that a farm had been sold under Lord Ashbourne's Act. Now most unquestionably there was no reason why the House of Commons should make a quasi-present of
  230
  £5,000,000 sterling to the people of Ireland in order that this farm should be sold. The money could have been better spent in other ways. He would be glad to see the large estates in Ireland, as well as those in England, broken up; but looking at the fact that this £5,000,000 sterling was a gift on the part of the British taxpayer to free the Irish people, and that the Government said they were not going to ask for another £5,000,000, he thought the Committee should accept the Amendment of his hon. Friend, or some smaller Amendment, in order that the money might, under the circumstances, be devoted to the best possible use.
  MR. DILLONsaid, he thought every Member of the Committee would agree that some Amendment must be framed to direct the Commissioners. While he was not at all prepared to say that the Amendment of his hon. Friend was the best conceivable one to deal with the difficulty, yet he could understand the motive with which it had been brought forward. The facts which had come out solely during the course of these debates were such as he believed affected Members on that side of the House as well as upon the other. He believed there were Members of the Conservative Party who were shocked to find the money, which they believed was being used to mitigate the tension between landlords and tenants in Ireland, and to pacify that country, had, to an immense extent, found its way into the hands of the landowners, whose boast it was that there was no tension between them and their tenants. He thought the Committee would not rest content, or vote this money, until they received an assurance that quarters and perhaps halves of millions would not find their way into the hands of great Dukes and other large proprietors. The noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington) had pointed out that the estate of the Duke of Devonshire in Ireland was managed on English principles and in a very generous way. He had not made any charge whatever against the management of this estate, and he always concluded that an estate in Ireland, of the management of which he knew nothing, must primâ facie be not badly worked, because somehow or other he always got to know something

  231
  about every badly managed estate, but the House would insist on having some security that the Act would not be used for the purposes of such an estate as he referred to. He did not think that the object of the Committee would be met if the money was used for the purchase of their farms by the tenants of the Duke of Devonshire, even if it was started on their own initiative. The estate of Earl Fitz William would absorb something like £400,000 of this money, and would it not be monstrous to tax the resources of this country and the patience of the Committee, if, after a month or two, they heard that the Earl had sold his estate in a district where there was no disturbance? He said that would be a mistake, and although the Amendment of the hon. Member might not be the best possible Amendment for meeting the difficulties, it was perfectly manifest that some words should be carried which would give an assurance that the money would be fairly apportioned out, and not misapplied in the manner he had suggested. His hon. Friend the Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) had on the Paper an Amendment which would, perhaps, cover the ground proposed by his hon. Friend more completely, and possibly the best plan would be to withdraw the present Amendment and take the discussion on that of the hon. Member for West Belfast.
  MR. PICTONsaid, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland seemed to have missed his point. He was perfectly aware that they could not meet all cases that might arise, but his feeling was that in determining the question as to which class of tenants should receive relief they ought to have regard to the fact whether they were receiving relief from the landlord or not. He knew a case of the tenants of a small landlord where it was impossible that they should get such relief, and it was therefore with the object of their obtaining the benefit of the Act that he laid his Amendment before the Committee. However, after what had been said by his hon. Friend the Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon), he would not put the Committee to the trouble of further discussion, but would ask leave to withdraw his Amendment.
  MR. ILLINGWORTHsaid that with regard to the small
  232
  estates in Ireland the difficulty was to get the landlord to sell voluntarily, and it was necessary that these small estates should be under some compulsory powers that would require encumbered landlords to part with their estates. The noble Lord the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington) was entitled to receive, and everyone would accord to him, absolute trust in the matter of the statement he had made with regard to the management of the Devonshire estates, but it must not be forgotten that there was a vast difference between the large and small estates in Ireland. He did not think that this Amendment would exactly carry out what the Committee wanted, and he was therefore willing that it should be withdrawn.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he agreed with his hon. Friend the Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) that it was absolutely indispensable that the Committee should place in the Bill some words of direction, or at least of suggestion, to the Commissioners how they should administer the Act. He thought that it was equally clear, whether judged by the light of common sense or by the experience of the working of the Act. On Thursday night he had endeavoured to introduce some words which would give security that the object, which the Government themselves declared they had in view, should be expressed in the Bill, but the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury, while he approved all the purposes which the Amendment had in view, was not able to accept the terms. He believed, however, that the right hon. Gentleman had led the Committee to believe that some words would be put on the Paper which might meet the views of hon. Members on that side, but nothing had been put on the Paper. As the Government had not placed any words upon the Paper, he found himself obliged as well as he could to endeavour to make good the default. The words he proposed to move were these—
  "Provided, that the Laud Commission, in sanctioning advances, shall have regard to the expediency of dealing with the cases of small tenants, and also to the interest of social order, and the relative urgency of applications received from the several provinces and counties of Ireland."

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  The right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) had professed himself unwilling to hamper the discretion of the Commissioners, but if the right hon. Gentleman had read the principal Act—the Act of 1885—he would know as well as anyone else that that Act, which consisted of 13 pages, was chiefly composed of directions and limitations which checked the independence and fettered the discretion of the Commissioners, and he (Mr. Sexton) thought he was well within the facts when he said that when persons were appointed that act under Acts of Parliament, one function of the Act of Parliament under which they proceeded was to chock the independence and limit the discretion of those persons. In the course of the debate that evening the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had expressed his willingness to fetter the discretion of the Commissioners by addressing a communication to them to which they could not be indifferent, having regard to his position and to theirs. And what the right hon. Gentleman had hinted, or rather declared his readiness to do, even he, with all his hardihood of denial, would hardly deny it was competent for the House to do. Instead of relying upon the casual action of any official, however eminent, what he (Mr. Sexton) would propose was that they should place within the Statute the directions it was thought wise and proper to give the Commissioners. Upon what principle did the Commissioners act? They acted on a principle fatal to the public policy which induced the House to pass Lord Ashbourne's Act. They considered each case by itself; they considered each case in relation only to itself, and not in conjunction with others. They had had the method of operation adopted by the Commissioners described to them by Mr. Commissioner Lynch, who had said—
  "The basis of our jurisdiction is the agreement of the parties. Our duty, if we are thoroughly satisfied with the security, and if the guarantee fund is provided, is to make the advance."
  The signed agreement between the landlord and the tenant was laid before them, and all they had to inquire into was whether the holdings were, or were not, security for the money proposed to be advanced by the State? If they were, the Commissioners had no option, it
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  seemed, but to advance the money. Would the House consider what that meant? An estate might altogether consist of large holdings, or there might not be one large holder on it. An estate might consist of grazing farms, and not of farms of tillage. An estate might be in a district which was as tranquil as it possibly could be, and there might be no necessity of social order to serve in making the advance. In fact, the affair might be a mere commercial transaction, and though it might have no effect in advancing the public good, the Commissioners not only advanced the money, but had no option but to do so. He maintained that, though such a kind of advance might with propriety be made under the Act, such an application should never be put in competition with applications in which social order was involved. If they looked into the working of the Act, what results did they find? The hon. Member for West Bradford (Mr. Illingworth) earlier in the evening told them that the farms bought in the Province of Munster under the Ashbourne Act were, on an average, of 60 acres in extent. Now he asked any hon. Member opposite who voted for Lord Ashbourne's Act three years ago, or who voted for this Bill last week—when he gave these votes for the purpose of alleviating need and tranquillizing the public mind in Ireland—had he in his mind the possibility of advances being made for the purchase of farms of 60 acres? No doubt, if the Act was applied to such farms when it ought to be applied to small farms the purpose of the measure was perverted. The average yearly value of all the farms bought all over Ireland, in virtue of this Act, had been £33. In 248 cases, individual tenants had received advances of from £2,000 to £4,000. Let them assume that the majority of these had received £3,000. Now, a farmer paying a rental of £10 at 7 years' purchase would require a loan of £ 170, and the inference therefore was, that for every one of these tenants who gave £3,000 each to purchase their farms, they might have created 18 small proprietors; and, of course, with the money advanced to each one of the farmers who had paid £4,000, 21 small proprietors might have been established. It seemed to him, by the policy they had allowed to grow up, the Government were creating a class of proprietors in

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  Ireland who could not possibly be called peasant proprietors at all. They were devoting large sums of money to individual cases, and for every man thus really in a position of great independence, whom they put into the position of a peasant proprietor, they kept out 20 or 25 men who were in the greatest need, and whose poverty and miserable condition tended to keep the districts in which they lived in a state of turmoil and disorder. It seemed to him necessary to give a direction to their Commissioners on these points. The right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen) had conveyed, in one of his speeches the other day, that a direction of this kind would be a slur on the Judges, or that an extension of their term of office would be a slur upon them. Did an English Judge deem it a slur upon him when he was required to hold his office during life or during good behaviour? It seemed to him that they should place the Commissioners in a position of independence, so that they could not be at the mercy of the Executive. Consider the position occupied by the Commissioners? They might retire from office next year unless continued by the pleasure of the Lord Lieutenant and the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. What was going to happen in the meantime? Why, the Lord Lieutenant wanted £250,000 of the money out of the sum to be provided under the present Bill. While they denied £200 to a poor man to enable him to become the owner of his farm, they allowed a small, snug, select coterie of Dukes, Marquesses, and Earls to absorb £250,000. The Commissioners, before they retired next year, would have to consider whether or not they should give this £250,000. The average years' purchase given under Lord Ashbourne's Act was 17·4, but what did the Lord Lieutenant—this generous head of a public-spirited Administration—ask? Why, he was taking out writs against his tenants, serving ejectments, and indulging in all the tactics of terror, to compel his tenants not to give 17½ years' purchase, but 20 years' purchase of the old unredeemed rents. Before next year Mr. Lynch would have to determine, as one of the duties of his office, whether or not they were going to allow the Chief of the Executive in Ireland, who had a controlling influence
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  over their position, to get 20 years' purchase for his land, and to appropriate £250,000 of this money; and he (Mr. Sexton) therefore contended that it was indispensable that they should place those Commissioners out of the reach of the arm of the Lord Lieutenant—out of the reach of his revenge—or else that such directions should be given to them that it would be impossible for the Lord Lieutenant to revenge himself upon them. Then the Commissioners ought to have regard to the interests of social order in making the advances. Why was the Ashbourne Act passed at all; why was this Bill before the House at all? Was it simply because it was thought desirable to end commercial contracts between landlords and tenants? No; it was not. They had heard hundreds of times that the main purpose of the Bill was the tranquillizing of the public mind, and the consolidation of public order in Ireland. There were districts which were disturbed, and the Government professed to have before them the motive, by the expenditure of these £5,000,000, not only to promote quietness and peace and the consolidation of order in Ireland, but to see that the sufferings of the poorer class of tenant farmers were alleviated. Therefore he maintained that it was wrong in principle for the Commissioners to consider every application by itself, and that they ought to take all the applications together, and that whore two applications came in, each offering the same security—of course one of the main considerations in making advances should be the security offered for repayment—whore one of the applications was from a district where everything was quiet, and the relations between landlord and tenant were harmonious, and another application was from a district where there was need and disturbance and convulsion, the application from the latter district ought to be preferred. The Commissioners ought to have regard to the relative urgency of all the applications received from the several Counties and Provinces of Ireland, and by this he meant especially—and he trusted that the hon. and learned Solicitor General for Ireland would give his attention to this—that those districts in which the tenants were in manifest need of reduction of their rents, which

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  reduction might be obtained under the operation of this Act, ought to be preferred, in making advances, to the districts in which no such need existed. There were some districts in Ireland where the tenants were well off, and where they did not require the development of the present system either to release them from suffering, or to establish order in the locality; but there were other districts where the tenants were suffering, and where the state of social order was such as to lead to serious danger to life and to property; and if the Commissioners intelligently understood their functions, he thought they ought to address themselves to those districts which were so disturbed. He did not intend the directions contained in his Amendment to be mandatory. He intended them to be simply directions to be kept in view. He did not intend them to inexorably govern every action of the Commissioners, but he intended that the principle embodied in those directions should generally influence and guide the action of the Commissioners. He did not think that any one of the three points could be controverted by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. He did not think the right hon. Gentleman would controvert the advisability of having regard to the formation of small holdings. He did not think the right hon. Gentleman would controvert the desirability of the Commissioners having regard to the interests of social order, and he did not think he could controvert the necessity of looking at the relative urgency of all the applications for advances; and it certainly appeared to him (Mr. Sexton) that if the right hon. Gentleman would accept this Amendment it would have the effect of greatly facilitating the action of the Bill, and consolidating social order in Ireland.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 1, at end of Clause, to add the words "Provided, that the Land Commission, in sanctioning advances, shall have regard to the expediency of dealing with the cases of small tenants, and also to the interest of social order, and the relative urgency of applications received from the several provinces and counties of Ireland,"—(Mr. Sexton.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he could not but regret that the hon. Gentleman
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  in moving his Amendment, which no doubt he had moved in good faith, and with an earnest desire to improve the Bill, should have thought it necessary to imply that the Land Purchase Commissioners were the servants of the Executive, and would use the power conferred on them by Parliament to benefit the particular Members of the Administration or their friends.
  MR. SEXTON: I did not say so.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, the hon. Member had distinctly implied that the fact that the Land Commission had only been renewed for a year made them so far—he would not say the subjects, but the slaves of the Government, and that the mere fact that any Irish landlord was a Member of the Administration, or a friend of any Member of the Administration, or a friend of a friend of any Member of the Administration, was enough to make the Land Commissioners depart from their duty and give special favour to the landlord in question.
  MR. SEXTON: I never said at all, nor conveyed in the remotest manner, that the Land Commissioners would depart from their duty. What I said was that the Executive would endeavour to induce them to depart from their duty, which is a very different thing.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he never should have thought of taking up the time of the Committee by repudiating the hon. Member's charge had he not thought that the hon. Member impugned the independence and honour of the Commissioners. He had felt bound to defend men who in the nature of the case were incapable of defending themselves, but he accepted in the fullest sense the explanation given by the hon. Member, which was not that the Land Commission was capable of any dishonourable action, but merely that the Executive were capable of endeavouring to incite them to a dishonourable action. He would not waste the time of the Committee by repudiating that charge—such a contention he did not mean in any way to touch upon—and he now came to the substance of the Amendment which the hon. Member had placed before the Committee. He confessed that on the first blush of the thing he felt great sympathy—as he thought he had already expressed to the Committee—with the objects which the hon. Member had in view. He should

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  himself desire to see the benefits which would be conferred by the Act spread as equally as possible over the whole of Ireland, so far, at all events, as the small tenants were concerned; but he saw considerable practical difficulties in the working of the suggestion which the hon. Member had made. In the first place, let them take that part of the Amendment which dealt with social order. The hon. Member said that the Commissioners were to have regard to the question of social order in distributing this money. What was that but putting a premium on disorder? What was that but to say to the tenantry—"You, who want to buy your farms, must, as a preliminary to this bargain, disturb the social order in which you live. You must repudiate your legal engagements. You must start the Plan of Campaign, and carry out all the other incidents of the present agrarian war, which is now unhappily raging over a considerable part of Ireland." That appeared to him to be a great objection to that clause in the Amendment of the hon. Gentleman which dealt with social order. But there was another objection of even a wider description. The hon. Gentleman suggested that the Land Commissioners, in sanctioning advances, were to have regard to dealing with certain cases afterwards specified. How were the Land Commissioners, however, to be able to approach those cases? The hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) had suggested; that they should wait a few months, and at the end of a month consider all the claims which had been sent in to them, and then select the particular cases that corresponded with the category mentioned by the hon. Gentleman. But it must be clear to the Committee that that method of procedure would not suffice to fulfil the object contemplated. If the Commission were to carry out the suggestion of the hon. Member they must wait until the whole amount was applied for—it would not do to wait till the end of a month, and then select from amongst the applications given in during the course of that month, which applications should be granted; but they must wait until the whole £5,000,000 was absorbed and covered by applications, and then select the particular cases indicated in the Amendment. If they did not do that
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  they would not carry out the intention of the hon. Member.
  MR. SEXTON: Why not?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Let them suppose that the Bill began on the 1st of January. The Commissioners would refuse to entertain any applications until the 31st of that month. At the end of January they would consider all the applications which had been sent in, and would have to select certain of them for favourable treatment. But on what principle were they to select or reject? They were not to reject them on the principle that the application was one which did not give security, because they would do that in any case. They were to select from among these applications; but as the total number for January, would not in all probability, cover the whole amount of £5,000,000, it was clear that the Commissioners would not reject any of these applications.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, the Commissioners would have regard to certain directions in selecting the applications.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Certainly; but were they to reject tenants who could give perfect security, and who came under the provisions of the Bill, and would make in all respects admirable tenants? Were they to reject applications, not because they had received other applications in January, but because they possibly might receive other applications in February, March, April, or May, which they would think preferable to those particular tenants if they had to compare them? He thought the hon. Member would see the difficulty.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he did not see the difficulty. He thought that after a reasonable time had elapsed, if applications possessing the features set forth in his Amendment did not come in, then he would say they should accept such applications as they had received.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, that if the Purchase Commission were to have these millions applied for at once it would be perfectly simple and easy for them to choose £5,000,000 worth of applications which best corresponded with the category laid down in the Amendment of the hon. Member; but if they only waited for a month, as suggested by the hon. and learned Member for North Longford, or for two months, he was utterly

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  unable to see how they were to make a satisfactory selection. The point was rather a difficult one to make clear, but it lay at the root of the working of the Act, and it was the absolute impossibility of selecting amongst the possible and not actual candidates which made him disinclined to accept this Amendment. If the hon. Member could point out any means by which the difficulty he had described could be met he should be glad to consider it; but at present he was utterly unable to see how it could be dealt with.
  MR. DILLONsaid, that it seemed to him that some provision in this direction was necessary, and he thought it the duty of the Government, if they refused to accept this Amendment, to make some suggestion themselves. He did not intend to propose any Amendment to the proposition of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton), but he threw out a suggestion which occurred to him in the course of this discussion, and which he thought worthy of consideration, and it was that a certain portion of this grant should be set aside throughout every county in Ireland, and that at least for a year or two, until an opportunity had been had for observing how the Act worked, certain districts and portions of Ireland should not be allowed to absorb the whole of this money to the exclusion of other districts. He might be permitted, before he addressed himself to the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, to draw attention to the extraordinary way in which in different counties the Act would work. He would again point out to the Committee, and impress upon it the fact, that in advocating this measure, and in endeavouring to justify themselves in rushing it through the House in the extraordinary way they were doing, the Government had grounded their whole action on the plea that this was a great political measure, a measure which experience had proved to be the only effectual weapon with which to quell disorder and to satisfy certain agitators like himself (Mr. Dillon) in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman had said, and he was cheered for it by Members of his Party, that if the Committee passed a regulation to the effect that the Commissioners were to have regard to the disturbed condition of certain districts in distributing this money, they
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  would immediately place a premium upon disorder. If that were the argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Irish Members could retort by saying that the whole measure was a premium upon disorder. Could anyone say that Lord Ashbourne's Act would have had the smallest chance of passing that House if Ireland had been peaceable? He could convict the Government of inconsistency in this matter out of the mouths of their own speakers, so many of whom had declared that this Bill was the best means of restoring order and peacefulness, and putting an end to the Land League and land agitators in Ireland. It was absurd to say that the Amendment was a premium upon disorder when applied to certain districts, when they bore in mind the fact that neither England nor Scotland, which were peaceable, had had such a Bill as this prepared for them. Therefore, he maintained that the argument that any attempt to apply it to districts which were disturbed would be a premium upon disorder was most absurd. Let them examine how the money had been distributed in the past under Lord Ashbourne's Act. By the force of nature and irresistible law the money voted under Lord Ashbourne's Act, when left to find its own level without guidance of any kind, had gravitated towards the districts where it was least needed, where peace and good will as a rule characterized the relations existing between landlord and tenant. Up to the present, the county which had received by far the largest share of the money was Londonderry. He wished to ask hon. Members representing Londonderry if that was a county distinguished for turbulence and disorder? Why, they had been assured over and over again by those hon. Members that there was no part of England or Scotland more loyal and peaceful than Londonderry, and yet £770,000 of the money of the taxpayers of England had been poured into the pockets of the landowners of that county. He maintained that it was a monstrous thing that such a state of affairs should prevail. That was one of the incidents of the way in which this money was expended. Take, again, the County of Kildare. The portions of Kildare to which this money had gone were rich and prosperous—at any rate, they were well-to-do—he would

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  not call them prosperous, because, no doubt, they had been hit by the times. The money had gone in that district to farmers who were of a class more nearly approaching to the English farmers than those in any other part of Ireland. It was a grazing county, given up to large grazing tracts, and one of the few prosperous districts in Ireland. He found that in the whole Province of Leinster, Kildare had absorbed by far the largest amount of money distributed under the Act. He found that Kildare had absorbed £310,000, although it was a small county. The average grant per man in the county had been £800, which plainly proved that not one single individual in the county of Kildare, of that small class of proprietors which the House had been deluded into the belief had been benefited under this Act, had received any assistance. He found that the average acreage of the farms bought under the Act in the County Kildare had been 70 acres, and it therefore seemed to him that it was country gentlemen, and not peasant proprietors, that the Government had been creating under this Act. It was an extraordinary system to ask hon. Gentlemen to vote the money of the British taxpayer without making them aware of these facts, and to expect that hon. Gentlemen would go home that night under the comfortable impression that they were creating peasant proprietors in Ireland. To these two counties, Londonderry and Kildare, notwithstanding that neither of them had the smallest claim upon the grant, £1,000,000 had gone. Take another illustration to show that money, left to find its own level at its own sweet will, went to the districts where there was no trouble or disorder. In the County of Galway they found that 305 men had bought their farms, but what was the acreage of those 305 farms? Why, 1,400 acres, the average acreage of each farm being 50 acres, so that it was obvious that, although Galway was a disturbed county, and although it was in the rich and undisturbed and prosperous parts that the Act had been operating, no small proprietors had been created at all. Then, again, let them go to the County of Clare, the most disturbed of all the counties of Ireland—at any rate, the most disturbed for the
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  last year and a-half. If the contention of the Government were correct—namely, that the great argument in favour of this Bill was its efficacy in putting a stop to outrage and disorder, and putting an end to the League—there could be no county in Ireland in which it was more essential that the Act should be put into operation than Clare, as there was no county where there was more distress, and where there was more trouble and disturbance. In Clare, however, only 63 people had bought their farms, and the whole amount of the grant applied for was £31,000. He maintained that those figures utterly and absolutely condemned the Act. In the County of Leitrim, one of the poorest and most disturbed in Ireland, 168 people, most of them large farmers, had bought 4,000 acres, and £27,000 had been expended. So that the Committee would see that money, when left alone without direction, had found its way into districts where it was not needed, and, consequently, that it had not had the effect that they had heard so much about, of allaying disturbance and defeating the League. As to the people into whoso pockets the money had found its way—take the Duke of Abercorn, who had managed to sell his estates in the Counties of Tyrone and Donegal, and had raised the average of purchase to an enormous extent. In the County of Donegal the average rate was 207 years' rent, while in Tyrone the average was 19·1 years. That was a very good bargain for the Duke of Abercorn to have made, and he (Mr. Dillon) happened to know that in the eastern part of Donegal, where the greater part of the sales had taken place, the noble Duke had compelled his tenants to pay on the old unreduced rents. Many of the purchasers were leaseholders, and were preparing to go into the Land Court, when they were induced to buy at this enormous price of 20 years' purchase of the unreduced old rentals. These were all interesting and important facts, and he had no hesitation in saying that the transaction in question had enabled the Duke to get probably £50,000 more for his land than he would have got if this Act had not been passed, and if he had been obliged to sell in the open market. Now, he (Mr. Dillon)

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  wished to know was this the object for which the Act had been passed? Now, however, he came to the most serious question of all—and it was one which, let hon. Members mark, would be pressed upon the attention of Parliament again and again until some assurance with regard to it was received from the Government. He wanted to ask this—whatever their views were, and let them be as strong Party men as they liked—did hon. Gentlemen opposite consider it prudent, or wise, or even decent, for the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland to get 20 years' purchase out of these grants? The noble Marquess the Member for Rossendale (the Marquess of Hartington), speaking no longer ago than Saturday to his constituents, repudiated as a scandalous charge against him that he was personally interested in this matter, and that his father proposed to sell his estates in Ireland. The noble Marquess had said that no initiative had been taken on the Devonshire estates to sell to the tenants, and he (Mr. Dillon) was perfectly certain that neither the noble Marquess nor his father would do such a thing. He would consider it a shame to do so. In the case of the Lord Lieutenant, the Head of the Executive in Ireland, the same state of things ought to apply with ten-fold force, because the noble Marquess was not governing Ireland, but was merely an independent Member, although, no doubt, exercising a certain influence upon the decisions of the Government; but the Lord Lieutenant was the Head of the Executive, and therefore, to some extent, responsible for the granting of this money. Notwithstanding this, the Lord Lieutenant did not wait for his tenants to apply, but issued a more or less intimidating notice warning them that if they would not sign agreements for 20 years' purchase at the old unreduced rents, and abstain from going into the Land Courts, he would withdraw the reduction which he had been in the habit of allowing them. He thought that if the Head of the Executive in Ireland was a man of honour, and had a keener sense of what he owed to the Government and his Colleagues, he would not require his tenants to purchase under this Act for fear that it would be said that his hands were not clean. This nobleman, so far
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  from waiting to be asked to sell to his tenants, absolutely intimidated them into signing agreements, and hunted him (Mr. Dillon) away with his police when he went down to advise with the tenants. Surely this was not proper conduct on the part of the Head of the Irish Executive. The Committee was entitled to an assurance from the Government that if Lord Londonderry was to get £340,000 out of this £5,000,000 he should, at all events, be compelled to wait until the tenants called upon him to buy. No one had, as yet, opposed the principle for which he (Mr. Dillon) and his hon. Friends were contending. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland had admitted that the principle for which they were contending was most right and desirable, but said he could not see his way to carry it out. There was one other point upon which he wished to make a last appeal to the Government before they passed from this particular part of the Bill. Over and over again he had addressed appeals to the Irish Government on the question of the congested districts. Year after year all authorities had concurred that if there were any parts of Ireland more than others which deserved the consideration of the House they wore the congested districts. In those districts the people were suffering most intensely, and less through their own fault than the people of any other part of Ireland; and yet here was a measure proposing a grant of £5,000,000 to the distressed tenantry of Ireland, but such was the arrangement of the Bill that not 1s. of the £5,000,000 could, by any possibility, find its way into the congested districts. He contended that it would be very easy to introduce words directing the Commissioners to apply, say, £500,000 of this money to the congested districts. Belief was more easily brought to those districts than to other districts in Ireland. It was a fact, noticed by all observers, that the poorer the soil, the greater the rack-renting. He could show hundreds of acres of land in his constituency let from 10 s. 6d. to £1 per acre—land which, in this country, would be waste. By far the cruellest exhibitions of rack-renting were in the poorer districts. Why was Parliament going to vote this money? Apparently, a great deal of the money would go where it was not

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  wanted at all. No care was to be taken that even the smallest portion of it should find its way into the poorest district. Any reasonable valuator would decide hat eight or ten years' purchase should be the outside limit of any of the Mayo estates. What would be the result of purchase on those terms? They would be able, without any injustice to the landlords—on the contrary, they would probably get a great deal more than the market value—to cut down one-half of the entire rent of the farms in the congested districts, and at the same time get rid of all arrears, and in that way enable these unhappy people to start again. On what ground did the Government defend their conduct in this matter? After the discussions which had taken place in the Committee, it would be very difficult to get any more millions out of the British taxpayer, and, therefore, he most earnestly urged the Government to utilize at least £500,000 of this last grant of £5,000,000 for the relief of the congested districts.
  SIR ROPER LETHBRIDGEsaid, that hon. Members opposite talked a great deal about their care for the pockets of the British taxpayer, and about the security on which the money should be lent, but surely this Amendment was proposed utterly regardless of the interests of the British taxpayer, and utterly regardless of the security under which the money should be advanced. [Cries of "Not at all."] Yes; the Amendment seemed to him to disqualify from the benefits of this Bill all those tenants who resided in the quiet and more prosperous districts of Ireland. If they disqualified the tenants in the most prosperous parts of the country from coming in at all under the Bill, and threw the whole of this money into those parts where the tenants were less prosperous, that would greatly injure the security upon which the money was advanced. He objected to the disqualification of any tenants in Ireland. He was most unwilling to disqualify even the tenants of the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, about whom they had heard so much that evening. Why should those men, because they happened to be the tenants of a great nobleman like the Lord Lieutenant, be disqualified? He objected strongly to
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  this Amendment, and hoped that the Committee would not assent to it.
  MR. MOLLOYsaid, it was a pity hon. Gentlemen opposite did not take the trouble to study the Amendments which were proposed. He utterly failed to understand how a man of the hon. Gentleman's (Sir Roper Lethbridge's) intelligence could have listened to the speech of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton), and then get up and make the speech he had just made. The hon. Gentleman spoke of giving, in certain cases, a preference to a certain class of tenants. [Sir ROPER LETHBRIDGE: Hear, hear!] The hon. Gentleman picked out one little point of the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for West Belfast, and thought that was sufficient ground for the rejection of the Amendment. The hon. Member for West Belfast distinctly contended that in every case the security should be the first consideration. If the security was not sufficient—if the Commissioners wore not satisfied as to the security—then no preference was asked for anyone. It would be absurd and ridiculous for anyone to get up and ask that, for some outside reason, bad security should be accepted. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had a knack of assuring them that he was in entire sympathy with most of their Amendments. The right hon. Gentleman had gone further that night, for he had said that this Amendment was a very good one. The right hon. Gentleman thought the object of the Amendment was an exceedingly good one, and yet, although he was in charge of the Bill, and had all the legal staff at his disposal, he asked them to frame the Amendment in such a way that it might be accepted. Was it not time that the Government did something to put the Amendment in such legal terms that it could be accepted? It was not the business of hon. Members to construct Acts of Parliament; it was their business to criticize them. They were not the draftsmen of Amendments, or of Bills. The Government were bound to make some effort to put into such words as could be accepted the Amendment of his hon. Friend. The speech of the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) had given double effect to the observations of the hon. Member the Mover of

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  the Amendment. His hon. Friend had pointed out the absolute failure of the object of this Bill. He (Mr. Molloy) went a step further, and asserted that, as the Ashbourne Act had been carried out, it was a fraud upon the English taxpayer. The Act was passed for the purpose of relieving small and impoverished and disturbed tenants in Ireland, but the money granted had gone into the pockets of the rich tenants and the rich landlords in that portion of Ireland which was not disturbed, and which did not require the money.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, it struck him, while listening to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, that the only one obstacle in the way of the acceptance of the Amendment was that if the Commissioners were considering applications on a certain date they would be obliged to put aside certain applications in the hope that some other applications would be made subsequently. He (Mr. Sexton) thought that the Commissioners might examine all the applications periodically, and be at liberty to dispose of all the applications then on hand. He thought, for instance, that the Commissioners might proceed to consider applications at the end of each period of three months after the passing of the Act.
  MR. LEAsaid, that the hon. Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) began his speech by finding great fault with the working of the Act, because so much of the money had been appropriated to the county of Londonderry. There were two points which made the County of Londonderry pre-eminently fitted for the establishment of a system of occupying proprietors. The large London Companies owned a great part of the County of Derry, and if there was any sort of landlord they wished to disestablish it was the absentee landlord. Anyone examining the Return would see that the average price that the tenant farmers paid for their holdings in Derry was £15 a-year. That, to his mind, was a sum at which an occupying proprietorship might well be established. On less than that a man could hardly live. The hon. Member for East Mayo thought Clare was the most disturbed county in Ireland, and that there the Act had been the least used. The hon. Gentleman also went on to say that in
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  that county they were the most powerful—that was to say, the National League. He put it to the hon. Gentleman whether the reason why the Act had not worked in County Clare was that the hon. Gentleman and his Friends never advised the tenants in County Clare to buy? Reference had been made to the congested districts. They could not safely work this Act in congested districts. For instance, in West Donegal, on Captain Hill's estate, there were about 760 tenants, paying £720 a-year in the shape of rent, or less than £1 per head. Was it possible there could be any good security given by a tenant paying less than £1 a-year?
  MR. ATHERLEY-JONESsaid, he thought that, as an English Member, he was entitled, in common with his brother English Members, to have some clear definition as to the principle on which this money was to be applied. Personally, he was absolutely opposed to the pledging of English credit for the purpose of buying out the Irish landlords. This Act of Parliament he understood was aimed at relieving the agitation and the friction which unhappily existed in Ireland between the landlords and the tenants by destroying dual ownerships. That he understood to be the scope and purpose of this Bill; but he found there were two main and radical objections against the Bill. One was that it was unfair in its application, because they had not arrived at a sound basis on which the tenants were to buy; and the other was that the Act had not been equitably administered. When he said they had not equitably administered the Act, he meant that tenants had been assisted to purchase whose position did not render it necessary that they should purchase. He had gone very carefully through the statistics, and through the evidence which had been given before the Royal Commissioners, and he found two pieces of evidence which he, with great respect, asked the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary to explain. There was an estate in the county of Roscommon which was known as the Taaffe estate. That was a very large estate, and it was almost exclusively owned by poor tenants. He did not take the evidence from any source which the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary would regard as tainted. It was the evidence

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  of the O'Conor Don given before the Royal Commission. The O'Conor Don said—
  "The landlords have, with the mortgagees, offered to sell all the holdings on the Taaffe estate for 30 years' purchase."
  The Commissioners under Lord Ashbourne's Act wrote declining the advance, and the grounds of their refusal were that the bulk of the holdings were occupied by a large and poor population. A reply was sent to the Commissioners under Lord Ashbourne's Act, pointing out that if the purchase were sanctioned there would be a margin of £1,000 per annum between the judicial rent and the rent which would be fixed under the Purchase Clauses of the Act. Now, he desired to know why, under these circumstances, the purchase was not sanctioned? The second matter to which he wished to draw attention was a written Report of Mr. Adair. Mr. Adair was a gentleman who had been for many years connected with the sale of landed property in Ireland under various Acts of Parliament, and he said—
  "The first year of the working of the Ashbourne Act shows that the entire number of loans over all Ireland was only 2,426, of which no less than 1,175, or nearly half, were for property in the county of Londonderry. The loans so sanctioned for application to the county of Londonderry are chiefly for the estates of the London Companies, with clear unencumbered title, managed at all times with great liberality, and the sale of which in no way affects individual receipts."
  Mr. Adair observed, in conclusion—
  "These estates in all Ireland less require State subvention."
  He (Mr. Atherley-Jones) had endeavoured to the best of his ability to understand the basis of the principle on which this Land Act had been applied, and he was driven to the conclusion that they were relieving tenants who were on perfectly good relations with their landlords, and were doing nothing at all to mitigate the volume of agitation which existed in Ireland. From whatever side of the House any scheme of land purchase came under the sanction of English security it would meet with his opposition. At the same time, since the Government had a moribund majority which would undoubtedly carry this Bill, the Opposition must do the very best they could in order to render the Bill what it was in its principle
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  intended to be—namely, a destruction of dual ownership in cases where tenants were suffering from the exactions of their landlords.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELLsaid, he did not object to dual ownership per se. He did not think that it was altogether a failure, any more than he thought marriage was a failure; but what was possible was, that when the parties did not get on well together it was desirable to resort to the system of purchase. If Ulster stood alone in this matter, they would not have entered upon a heroic measure giving the money of the British taxpayer in order to separate proprietors and tenants. In Ulster proprietors and tenants had got on tolerably well together. In Ulster, where they were not specially wanted, very nice small proprietors had been set up. In other parts of Ireland, wherever they bad created the new ownership, most of the money went to those who were not peasant proprietors, but large farmers. That was a state of things which required some remedy. He could not understand why the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, looking at this Amendment so favourably as he did, had not accepted it, or suggested something of his own in its place. It was not desired by the Amendment to tie the hands of the Commissioners. All they wanted to do was to provide that the money should be spent where there was most need of its being spent, and where it would do the most good.
  MR. FLYNNsaid, he thought that they ought to press the Front Bench a little more upon this point. An hour ago the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary expressed sympathy with the Amendment of the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton). Surely the right hon. Gentleman could find some practical way of giving effect to that sympathy. He (Mr. Flynn) protested against the tone the right hon. Gentleman had adopted when he defended the Lord Lieutenant and the Duke of Abercorn and other large proprietors who had sold their estates, or were going to sell them. The attacks made on these gentlemen were not made because the gentlemen were Members of the Executive, or connected with the Executive, or friends of the friends of the Executive. It was abuses which were attacked, and if the very ugly cap

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  fitted the Lord Lieutenant and the Duke of Abercorn so much the worse for those gentlemen. The most extraordinary argument was brought forward that, because the London Companies had got on very well with their tenants in regard to prices, they were all the more entitled to the benefit of the Act. Was it a fact that the money under the former Act, which was passed by the Committee, was for the benefit of estates of that kind? The Committee would find that in Londonderry the landlords had received £740,000, whereas in Donegal, which required the benefit of the Act to a much larger extent, only £224,000, or nearly a third less, was advanced, so that not alone did this argument apply to Clare and portions of Connaught, but also to Ulster itself. His hon. Friends the Members for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) and East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) had waited in the hope that the Committee would receive an intimation from the Government that they would do something to meet the object in view; but, although they had expressed some sympathy with the object, they had given no proof of any sympathy with the Amendment. He wanted hon. Gentlemen opposite to consider that the Amendment stipulated that the Commissioners should, as the very first condition of an advance, be quite satisfied as to the security for the money. It did not mean that the money should be advanced to tenants who would be unable to repay it; it would be advanced to the tenants, but the Amendment carried with it the condition that the number of years' purchase would be considerably less, and, therefore, the amount of rent would be less than they had found it possible to pay up to the present. The condition of the tenants would be materially benefited by this, and they would be able to carry on the instalments with as much case as tenants in any other part of the country. It was not the congested state of the districts which produced all the turmoil in Ireland. It was a fact that the landlords recognized that the land was so poor, that rents must go down to a greater extent than they had done, and that they were not anxious to adopt the initiative under the Act, because, if they did, the Land Commissioners would not sanction the transaction. If some Amendment like the present were not accepted, the Act
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  would aggravate the existing danger in a double sense. In the first place, a large portion of the money would be spent in the pnrchase of estates on which there existed little or no difficulty between the landlord and the tenants, and the result would be that the Commissioners being unable to advance the money on bad security, there would be a continual temptation to the rack-renting landlords to keep on the screw as long as possible, and to refuse the benefit of the Act to the unfortunate tenants. For these reasons he repeated that, unless some such Amendment as that proposed by the hon. Member for West Belfast were accepted, the entire money would be expended with a minimum amount of good to the tenants, and of security to the British taxpayers.
  MR. EDWARD HARRINGTONsaid, he desired to impress on the Government that they should give the Commissioners a chance of carrying out their desire of pacifying Ireland. He believed that in Kerry the Act would be largely availed of, and would be the means of introducing peace to that county; that the small proprietors would purchase under the Act, and that after a certain number of years tranquillity would prevail in the district. In Londonderry he found that the tenement valuation and the rents were on a par, and that purchases had been made at 17·5 years, and that in Kerry purchases had been made at 15·6 years. But if hon. Members looked at the adjacent column they would find that by dividing the purchase money by the valuation, 26 and 27 years' purchase had been sanctioned in the County of Kerry, and it must be remembered with regard to Kerry that the loan was to be made on improvements effected by the tenants themselves, whereas in other counties it was upon the improvements and expenditure of the landlord. It was this difficulty which the Government could remove by adopting the Amendment. Of course, it would be preposterous to argue that they should wait until a district was disturbed before the grant was made, and he was sure that the Commissioners would not be so foolish as so to interpret their powers. Hon. Members on those Benches had shown that they were sincerely desirous of doing everything which would conduce to the peace of the disturbed districts,

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  and the hon. Gentleman opposite had indulged in a very small point a little while ago when he said there was no security in those districts, because the prime element to be taken into account by the Commissioners was that there should be security. And, again, when it was said that there was no more reason for giving the money to the poor farmers than to the wealthy farmers, the answer to that argument was that the Bill might as well be applied to the whole of England. He believed in all sincerity that the Government, by adopting this Amendment and making this suggestion to the Commissioners, would be doing a great amount of good.
  MR. ILLINGWORTHsaid, it was of no use to cry over spilt milk; £5,000,000 had gone in an experiment which, had the House foreseen the result, he believed would not have been sanctioned. If, however, the Amendment were carried, there was some hope that, at any rate, the second experiment might he successful. The right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the House (Mr. W. H. Smith) and the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Goschen) had over and over again declared that it was the object of the Government to meet the distress or mitigate the pressure of agrarian life in Ireland, and to make the Bill in reality an antidote to the mischief occasioned by the National League in that country. If the right hon. Gentleman did not see his way that evening to adopt the Amendment, he (Mr. Illingworth) hoped that before the Bill left the Committee, the right hon. Gentleman would consider the matter, in order that the House of Commons might not be utterly deluded as to where this £5,000,000 would go.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, it seemed to him that those who were seemingly most anxious to protect the ratepayers' money were in reality anxious that it should go into districts where there was most danger of it being advanced on bad security—districts in which they maintained that the people could not live if they had the land for nothing.
  MR. DILLONsaid, the hon. Member went down and took part with the crowbar brigade in places where the tenants would not continue to pay high rents for land which, as he said, was worth
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  nothing. He had told the British taxpayer what he thought his security was, and he thought they were justified in taking the Government at their own word, who said they wanted the money in order to bring peace and contentment to the poverty-stricken districts of Ireland. Now they had the champion of loyal Ulster wanting to do what those loyal gentlemen had always done—nanely, to bury their arms elbow-deep in the money of the British taxpayer. [Laughter.] It was perfectly true that the Loyalists of Ulster were always ready to take the lion's share in what those who represented the South had run risks for and won; they ran no risk, but they came down and proclaimed loudly that the Ulster tenants must have the largest share of money voted by Parliament. He was perfectly sure that if the taxpayers had understood the use to which the money would be applied not 1s. would have been voted.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, that the tenants of the districts he had lately visited were very much better off than those in many parts of Ulster, and their rents wore a great deal lower.
  DR. FITZGERALDsaid, he was a British taxpayer, and also a taxpayer in Ireland, and had certainly no desire to rob the British taxpayer. He and his hon. Friends had objected to the Vote altogether, because they knew it would be used for favouring a few Irish landlords and a few Irish tenants. In listening to the discussions of that evening he had been very much surprised by an hon. Gentleman on that side mentioning that the money now asked for was to be spent in buying land for men in Ireland who possessed more land there than he did himself. It had been stated by the hon. Gentleman that a man who would obtain an advance under the Act held about 1,000 acres, which he had purchased under Lord Ashbourne's Act. He thought he had never heard a more demoralizing speech delivered on any platform than that which the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord Randolph Churchill) delivered on a recent occasion. The noble Lord said he was the trustee of the British taxpayer, but a few moments afterwards the noble Lord the First Lord of the Admiralty (Lord George Hamilton) came down and told the House that the money now asked

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  for was not the money of the British taxpayer at all. As one of the British taxpayers, all he would say, with regard to the declaration of the noble Lord who claimed to be his trustee, was that the sooner some court stepped in and discharged him from his trust the better he should like it.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, he must remind the hon. Gentleman that there was an Amendment before the Committee, and that the observations he had to make should be in connection with it.
  DR. FITZGERALDsaid, he wanted to be sure that this money would go to the disturbed districts and not to the wealthy landlords and tenants in Ireland. That was the question immediately before the Committee, and he thought the noble Lord would have to account for his trust if the money now voted should be wasted in the interest of the rich landlords and not spent in improving the condition of the poorer tenants in Ireland.
  MR. SHEEHYsaid, there appeared to be some doubt on the opposite Benches as to whether something ought not to be done by way of concession to this Amendment; but on the other hand the Government said there should be no concession. He and his hon. Colleagues simply wanted this money to be divided equally; they did not want to deprive Ulster of its fair share, but they protested against what appeared to be the offer of a bribe. If the land in Ulster was of such a class as that indicated by the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell), his hon. Friends were willing that it should be relieved just as well as the congested districts in any other part of Ireland. But the experience of the hon. Gentleman extended only to evicted districts, where he said the land was as good as any in Ulster, and he did not tell the Committee that the land had been manufactured by the tenants and by them alone.
  THE CHAIRMANsaid, he must point out to the hon. Gentleman that he was not speaking to the Amendment before the Committee.
  MR. SHEEHYsaid, he was trying to point out that Members on those Benches wanted the money to go to the relief of the congested districts and not be squandered in places where it was not required. They contended not that
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  Ulster should not have its fair share, but that the majority of the money should not go there. If the right hon. Gentleman objected to the Amendment only because it was not well drafted, he hoped some Member of the Government would rise and say that they would embody the principle which it contained in some other form.
  MR. J. M. MACLEANsaid, he rose to say a few words only, because hon. Gentlemen opposite persisted in confusing the present Bill with some general scheme for the relief of tenants in Ireland. He had understood the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer last week to say that the Bill was entirely distinct from any scheme for that purpose which the Government might introduce at a future time. This was a measure for advancing money of the State on good security, and naturally those persons who were able to give such security knew that they were making a good bargain by going to their landlords and arranging to purchase their holdings. He should of course be unwilling to see any money of the State advanced on what was not good security. Hon. Members below the Gangway opposite had asked that part of this money should be given to the congested districts. Well, would that be expending the money on good security, when they had it from hon. Members themselves that any money invested in those districts would be a bad investment? They had heard the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Mayo (Mr. Dillon) utter the ominous word "repudiation." The hon. Member for East Mayo had made many sinister prophecies, and had always had the advantage of being able to watch over the fulfilment of his own predictions. If money were granted to tenants in the congested districts of Ireland who had no tenant right worthy of the name, and who, if they got their land for nothing, would hardly be able to live on it, what would be the result? The hon. Member said he had told the tenants that they must either fight for their land or pay for it, but there was a more excellent way. The tenants could either come to this House from time to time to get their arrears wiped off or they could come and purchase under a Bill of this kind, and then, if they thought it inconvenient to pay

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  their instalments, they could repudiate their bargain. Who would buy the land of these tenants supposing they did not pay their instalments and the land was put up for sale? Why, it had been very pertinently pointed out by one of the Irish Members only recently that he should be very sorry for the man who bought under such circumstances. There would soon be another combination of the kind they had heard so much about lately established for the purpose of preventing people buying. As an English Member he was opposed to the advance of a single shilling on such security as this. Such a Bill could only properly be carried out for a purely benevolent purpose, but in the present instance the objects in view were not solely benevolent, because it was maintained that the Bill merely contemplated the advance of money upon good security. It was only by a benevolent Bill that they could hope to carry out their purpose of settling the Irish Land Question, and such a proposal was not now before the House. He doubted if there was any real economical justification for the present measure. An hon. Member below the Gangway opposite had said very fairly to-night, why should this money be advanced to the thriving and prosperous tenants in Ireland unless they were prepared to do the same in England? As a matter of fact, the Government were building up a precedent which might be used against them when they came to deal with the enfranchisement of leaseholders in England.
  THE CHAIRMANpointed out that the hon. Gentleman was now going into a wide question, which was outside the limits of the Amendment before the Committee.
  MR. J. M. MACLEANsaid, that in deference to the Chairman's ruling, he would abstain from enlarging on the point. He would say, in conclusion, that whatever might be argued for or against a Bill of this kind, it could not be made a part of such a general project as Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite would wish to see carried out.
  COLONEL NOLANsaid, the hon. Gentleman had repudiated all benevolence on the part of the Conservative Party, but he did not think that that repudiation was necessary, as it was pretty well understood now that the whole origin of this Bill was to
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  enable London Companies and large landed proprietors to clear out of Ireland. No doubt the Bill was a good thing for the London Companies interested in land in Ireland, because formerly those Companies had to spend a great deal of money on the improvement of their properties, and were thus unable to spend so much on dinners in London, and now that they were relieved from this necessity of incurring expense on the improvement of their estates, they could devote the whole of their incomes to dinners. He did not, however, attribute any bad motives to the London Companies, because, seeing that the money was going begging, they no doubt had a perfect right to get as much of it as they could. He looked upon the way in which this Bill was being conducted through the House as a very good sample of their whole method of governing Ireland. In the days of Liberal Governments, even when those Governments contained a large number of Unionists, it was always considered to the interest of the Administration when money was about to be expended on schemes of this kind—on drainage and tramway schemes—to ask the Irish Members their opinion as to how the money should be distributed. But the present Government, with the present Bill in hand, did not think of asking the Irish Members for their opinion. The Government ought to say, "We intend to get so much money and then we will take the advice of the Irish Members how the greatest amount of good can be done with it without incurring the danger of bad security and without entailing any further expenditure." No doubt the Government could make this £5,000,000 do a great deal of good in Ireland if they properly distributed it, but he thought it would require a very powerful microscope to see the good which was being done at present by Lord Ashbourne's Act. No doubt that Act had done good to individuals, but he would defy anyone to point out a single instance where it had improved the social condition and done good to the community at large. If, however, the Government accepted the Amendment, an Instruction would be given to the Commissioners to take a little trouble in order to see that the money was expended in a way that would do some good to the localities. No one would expect

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  that a number of small tenants would get as good terms as one large tenant, and if the Committee did not accept this Amendment, or something like it, it would be an inducement to the Purchase Commissioners to act in regard to these purchases in the future as they had done in the past.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, he thought that the hon. Member opposite (Mr. Maclean) had fundamentally misapprehended the case so far as this Amendment was concerned. The matter of security was not at all in question on the Amendment. His contention was that the Commissioners would not lend one penny in any case unless the security was ample. The hon. Gentleman was unwilling to lend upon anything but a binding security, and he (Mr. Sexton) was also unwilling to do so, but he asked, not only that the Commissioners should see that the security was abundant, but that they should give preference in granting applications to those which gave promise of bringing advantage to the class of small tenants for whom that Act was intended, and to those cases where social order would be promoted and in which dangerous pressure upon the tenants would be relieved. He hoped, therefore, that the hon. Member would see that the supporters of this Amendment had no intention of risking the interest of the British or Irish taxpayer. The Chief Secretary for Ireland admitted that the object of the Amendment was good and that he wished to see it carried out, but did not see his way to effect that object himself. He (Mr. Sexton) had suggested to the right hon. Gentleman that there should be a periodical examination of the applications, but to that suggestion the right hon. Gentleman did not deign a reply, and he was afraid, having regard to the policy of the Government, which was first a policy of impotence, and secondly a policy of silence, it was no use prolonging the debate, and they might therefore come to a Division.
  Question put.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 118; Noes 180: Majority 62.—(Div. List, No. 306.)
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Clause 1 stand part of the Bill."
  COLONEL NOLANsaid, he would now ask the Government to agree to report
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  Progress. He appealed particularly to the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer upon this ground. The right hon. Gentleman must know that it was an old custom in years gone by never to vote money after 12 o'clock at night. Well, they were now going to vote £5,000,000 of the money of the country at 1 o'clock in the morning. He did not at this moment say that the Government should not vote this money, but his contention was that if they did it should be done at a reasonable time. It should be remembered, also, that when the House was in the habit of meeting at 4 o'clock Members usually got very tired by midnight, but now the House commenced business at 3 o'clock, so that Members got even more tired than formerly. Besides, they had had a very exciting night, and, besides, the Members recorded on the last Division showed that the Government were utterly wearied out and could not put forward their full strength. He submitted that they should not force the Bill through at this hour and weary still further a drowsy Committee. He begged to move that the Chairman report Progress and ask leave to sit again.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Colonel Nolan.)
  MR. A. J. BALFOURwished to point out that early in the sitting they had passed a Resolution that proceedings on the Land Purchase Bill should be continued after 12 o'clock at night. He was bound to say that his experience of the way in which money was voted in the House of Commons did not agree with that of the hon. and gallant Member, because, to the best of his recollection, most of the money was always voted after 1 o'clock. He thought the Committee might proceed a little further with this Bill.
  MR. JOHN MORLEYsaid, he thought the Government might be very well allowed to finish Clause 1, and then the new Clause which he (Mr. John Morley) intended to bring forward could be disposed of and settled. He did not think it would take long to deal with his new Clause.
  MR. T. M. HEALYhoped the Motion for reporting Progress would not be pressed. In justice, however,

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  to the Attorney General, who had to be at an important inquiry at 10 o'clock in the morning, he trusted that they would not continue the Sitting very much longer.
  COLONEL NOLANsaid, that in deference to all the arguments which had been addressed to him from both sides of the House, he would withdraw his Motion.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause agreed to.
  MR. JOHN MORLEYsaid, that at this late hour (1.5) he would not detain the Committee more than a moment or two in moving the Clause which stood in his name. The Clause was in itself, as he hoped the Government were prepared to admit, a perfectly reasonable and fair one, and the only argument it was necessary to advance on its behalf was to be found in the course in which the debate had taken. The whole course of the debate had been impeded and fettered by want of information on the part of Members of the House as to the actual facts connected with the operation of the Ashbourne Act. They had had to debate the Bill on the strength of scraps of information flung across the Table from time to time by the Representatives of the Irish Government, and he thought it was felt in every part of the House that such a method of procuring information was not a proper one. Moreover, they had been told constantly by the Government that the Bill was of the nature of an experiment. The particulars he had enumerated in his new Clause were the only means, so far as he could tell, of testing the success, the value, and the bearings of this experiment. If the operation of the Bill was experimental, the House ought to have from time to time, and he thought the interval of three months was not too long, the means of judging how the Bill was working. First of all they ought to know what kind of security the Government took for its very large advances, and in the second place they ought to know what was perhaps more important—namely, what was the distribution and allocation of the funds provided by the Bill. He need not go through the particulars. The justice of the principle of the particulars was admitted by the Chief Secretary, and the right hon. Gentleman
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  had stated that he hoped the Land Commissioners would be able, in reference to the expenditure of the first £5,000,000, to supply the House with the information. He trusted, therefore, that the Chief Secretary would see no difficulty in the way of complying with this request.
  New Clause:—
  (Quarterly Return.)
  "The Land Commissioners shall once in every throe months make a report to the Lord Lieutenant, and every such report shall be laid before Parliament, stating how many holdings within each period of three months have been purchased under the provisions of this Act of an annual valuation under ten pounds, how many over ten pounds and not exceeding thirty pounds, over thirty pounds and not exceeding fifty pounds, over fifty pounds and not exceeding one hundred pounds, and how many over one hundred pounds; also the average number of years purchase of the net rental paid under each of the above divisions; the sum advanced in each division; the sum advanced in each county; the number of cases in which the sum advanced was between two thousand pounds and four thousand pounds; the number of cases in which the advance exceeded four thousand pounds; the number of applications in which advances were refused; the names of the vendors in cases where advances were sanctioned, and the amounts of the advance; and the number of sales in the case of each such vendor."—(Mr. John Morley.)
  —brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had complained of the want of information. Allow him to point out that the Act had been in operation three years, and that there had been an Annual Report by the Commissioners in regard to the working of the Act. If during the three years any Member of the House had felt the want of information he had only to move for a Return in order to get the information. He presumed that the want of information had never been felt until the time came for the discussion of this Bill. There was really no reason for asking for this information, because the information had not to do with the sum now required. ["Oh, oh!"] At all events he did not wish to make that a controversial point. He did not think it was convenient; it certainly was not the usual course to introduce a Clause of this kind in a Bill. The proper and usual course was to move for a

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  periodical Return giving the information required. If the right hon. Gentleman chose to move for a Return he (Mr. Balfour) would certainly support him in obtaining it. He would have, however, before the right hon. Gentleman moved for the Return, to get a report from the Land Commissioners as to any clerical or other difficulties in the way. If the right hon. Gentleman thought that course unsatisfactory, if he still adhered in spite of any opposition, if there was any opposition on the part of the Committee, to the particulars in the shape he desired, he (Mr. A. J. Balfour) would support him in moving that those particulars should be given. He hoped this assurance, this pledge, which he gave on behalf of the Government, would suffice to meet the view of the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. JOHN MORLEYsaid, he was very much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman, but he would like to understand whether the Chief Secretary meant that this was to be a recurrent Return which he (Mr. John Morley) or some other Member was from time to time to move for?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: That is my idea.
  MR. JOHN MORLEYconfessed that he did not think that was nearly so satisfactory as the automatic production of the Return by the Commissioners themselves. He would not press the condition that the Return should be quarterly. He did not at all mind making it half-yearly, but he thought it would be more reasonable that the Land Commissioners, without any intervention on the part of any Member, should produce the information.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, that in each of the two preceding Sessions of Parliament this suggestion had been made. In each case it was struggled against by the Government, but in each case it was carried. In the Criminal Law and Procedure Act of last year it was provided that there should be published quarterly in The Dublin Gazette a Return of the inquiries held during the preceding quarter and of other matters. In the Peace Preservation Act of 1886 it was provided that there should be published monthly a Return of the Counties Proclaimed and other particulars. Could anything be more absurd than the opposition of the Government
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  to grant the Return suggested by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle. The attempt to carry a Bill without Amendment, in order to avoid the Report stage, always produced disastrous consequences. It was always better for the Government to accept reasonable Amendments; personally he would be no party to delaying the Bill on the Report stage; indeed, if the Government would accept reasonable Amendments in Committee, he would undertake not to have any Amendment on the Report stage. He appealed to the Government to accept this proposal. It was admitted they had not sufficient information, and he blamed the Front Opposition Bench for not insisting on having the Blue Book before they considered the Bill. Why did not the Leaders of the Opposition demand the presentation of the Blue Book? In 1881, when the Irish Nationalist Party were a small party, and they did not get a Return from Mr. Forster, they kept the right hon. Gentleman up for three nights. He certainly thought they had been very generous to the Government in allowing them to have this Bill without any information. They did not know yet whether the Duke of Abercorn had got £300,000; whether he had got it under the last Act or was going to get it under this Act. He appealed to the Government to act reasonably in this matter, and give Parliament the information desired.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURthought the most convenient course would be that he should move for a quarterly Return, if it be a quarterly Return that was decided upon. He would like, however, to consult the Land Commissioners as to the form of the Return. The Return could be made a recurrent one, such as the right hon. Gentleman desired.
  MR. ILLINGWORTHsaid, it occurred to him that the carrying out of the arrangement suggested by the Chief Secretary would be a reflection on the Commissioners. It would imply a suspicion that something was going on which was not right. Many of them would not forget the House of Lords interfering with the jurisdiction of the Land Commission at a certain critical moment. It undoubtedly would be more respectful to the Land Commission that this clause should appear in the Bill. The precedents

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  quoted by the hon. and learned Member for North Longford ought surely to satisfy the Government as to the justice of the clause.
  MR. JOHN MORLEYsaid, he did not see what difference it would make to the Commissioners whether they produced the Return of their own accord, or rather by the order of the Statute, or produced it on the Motion or by the direction of the right hon. Gentleman. So far as the Commissioners and the House of Commons were concerned, the result would be precisely the same. The Commissioners would produce the Return, and the House would have the benefit of it. Why, therefore, should it not be done in a regular and orderly way, by a direction in the Statute ordering the Commissioners to produce the Return? He failed to see what was gained by making the production of the Return dependent upon the occasional action of the Chief Secretary, instead of on the natural and spontaneous action of the Commissioners themselves.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he had two reasons for preferring the course he bad suggested to the right hon. Gentleman. His first reason was that his course was the more usual one. There were any number of Returns presented by the Local Government Board and other Boards—monthly, quarterly, half-yearly, and annual Returns, not imposed by Statute, but granted in the manner he proposed to grant this. It was not wise to overload the Statute Book by regulations of this kind. Besides, the course he proposed possessed the additional convenience that they could alter the form of the Return without altering the Statute. His second reason was of a somewhat less general character, and it was that, before assenting to the particular form of the Return, he should be glad if both the right hon. Gentleman and he could have some opportunity of hearing what the Land Commissioners had to say upon the matter. He had distinctly committed himself that if right hon. Gentlemen offered any objection to that, he would abide by the right hon. Gentleman's Return, and would, as far as he could, overrule the Commissioners. He was persuaded the Committee would feel he had dealt in the most open manner with the right hon. Gentleman, and that there could be no valid reason for rejecting the course he had suggested.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, he found it was provided by the 55th section of the Land Act of 1881, that the Land Commissioners should once in every year make a Report to the Lord Lieutenant as to their proceedings under the Act, and that every such Report should be presented to Parliament, and clearly it had been the practice to put into all these Acts stringent provisions as to the making of Reports. Information would certainly be required when Mr. Wrench was put in a position to average the price of the land. They must have some bit in the mouth of Mr. Wrench. That gentleman was boasting at the Kildare Street Club that he was going to be the boss of the Land Commissioners; he was an Englishman, and naturally he was going to set Irishmen right. The Chief Secretary proposed that he should move for the Return; but the right hon. Gentleman might be out of Office any day. He might be promoted to a higher position, and then they would have his successor to face, who, he (Mr. T. M. Healy) understood, was to be the present Naval Lord of the Admiralty. The new Chief Secretary might not feel bound by the declarations of his Predecessor, and might ask them why they did not get directions as to the Return inserted in the Act. Therefore, they might reasonably require that the Act should provide that a general Report should be presented. The form of the Report could be made matter of future arrangement.
  MR. SEXTONthought it must be generally agreed that the argument of the Chief Secretary was unfounded. The right hon. Gentleman said that the course he suggested was the most usual and the most convenient. It was neither the one nor the other. Three cases had been cited in which in Acts relating to Ireland provisions had been inserted as to the making of Reports to Parliament. So far as his memory served him, whenever powers were confided to any bodies or boards, provision was put in the Act directing the persons to inform Parliament from time to time of the manner in which their powers were exercised. If the clause of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne were adopted, the Land Commissioners would be directed as to what they had to do every three months. If what the Chief Secretary ventured to call the more convenient course were

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  adopted, the result would be that at the end of every three months a Motion would have to be made in the House for a Return. That would be all very well for the six months when the House was sitting, but during the six months of Recess who was to move for a quarterly Return? What was the reason for delay? The right hon. Gentleman wished to consult, first the right hon. Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and then the Land Commissioners. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne had said what he thought about the matter, and, therefore, there was no use consulting him any more about it. Then, why should the Land Commissioners be consulted? Did the House know what they wanted, or did they not? They were the Representatives of the people, and the Land Commissioners were their paid servants. The course was most unusual and inconvenient, and the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman was one, in his opinion, which was neither respectful to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne nor to the House of Commons.
  MR. CONYBEAREsaid, he had the strongest possible objection to bargains made across the Table of the House, which were not respectful to Gentlemen below the Gangway; and if there were no other objection, he should object to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, with his usual wiliness, trying to thrust this bargain on the Front Opposition Bench. If hon. Gentlemen on those Benches were to be asked, he should refuse for one moment to be bound by any such pledge as that offered, by the Chief Secretary for Ireland. As to the refusal to accept the Amendment on the ground of consulting the Commissioners, these gentlemen, as the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) had said, were their paid servants, and to consult them in this matter would be similar to Mr. Speaker consulting the Clerks at the Table, which, of course, they know he never did. He had a strong conviction that the Government, which was very squeezable, only wanted time to allow them to make this concession; and, probably, when they were able to withdraw their attention from the contest at Holborn, they would consult the wishes of the House, and accept the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle-upon-Tyne.
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  He was most desirous of facilitating the measure; and, therefore, with the object of lubricating the machinery, he would move that Progress be reported.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do now report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Conybeare.)
  MR. JOHN MORLEYhoped the hon. Member would not persist with his Motion.
  Question put, and negatived.
  Original Question again proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  MR. JOHN MORLEYsaid, he did not wish, as the hon. Member had suggested, to rely upon the squeezableness of the Government; he preferred to appeal to their reasonableness. If the right hon. Gentleman could see his way to accept the clause of the Act of 1881 enjoining the Commissioners to make a Return—every six months, as he would prefer—he could not help thinking that would be the best way out of the difficulty.
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, the right hon. Gentleman referred to the Annual Return of the Commissioners as if they were working under the Act of 1881. He thought the Committee would feel it to be superfluous to overload the Commissioners with a power which they were already in the habit of using, and that hon. Members would see that he had offered the right hon. Gentleman everything he asked for in the form in which it was most usually granted. The hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton) said that because the Commissioners were the paid servants of the House—which, by the way, they were not—they should be required to make a certain Return without considering the propriety or the cost of so doing. He did not want to seem obstinate, but he thought it desirable that the Government should have an oppportunity of hearing what the Commissioners had to say on the subject.
  MR. JOHN MORLEYsaid, he did not want to appear obstinate either; but, at the same time, he thought that nearly every one of the particulars he asked for had been already under the consideration of the Commissioners. Certainly to every one of them the attention of the Commissioners had been

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  called. He would remind the Committee that he had asked for particulars in the form of a Return the other day, and the Commissioners had reported that they could not have them ready for several weeks, on the ground, he believed, that their preparation would distract their officers from the ordinary course of their work. That being the case, he thought he had a right to be suspicious and firm in insisting that this important information should be given to Parliament and the country. If the right hon. Gentleman would accept this clause in its present form, he was sure it would be most conformable to precedent, and be the moans of giving information without which the country would have no knowledge of the work done.
  DR. CLARKsaid, he had asked for a Return with regard to the Crofters' Commission, and was told that if he wanted special information he could get it in the ordinary way. He had been trying for the last 14 days to get from the Lord Advocate a Return of the number of cases heard in the last 12 months, which information could have been obtained if the Commissioners had made a quarterly Return. At the present time it was not known how many applications were waiting, they did not know what work had been done, and the Scotch Office refused to give any information. He hoped, therefore, that hon. Members would press for the Return now asked for, because when they were told that information was to be got in the ordinary way, they found, on application, that it was always refused.
  MR. SEXTONsaid, the right hon. Gentleman was shifting his position very uneasily, and he now pleaded that he did not want to overload the Bill—a Bill of one clause. He also quibbled on the point as to whether the Commissioners were the servants of the House; but the House paid their salaries, and they had a perfect right to dictate their course of action; and again, he asked even if it were advisable was it practicable to produce the Return, and would it be too costly? But would the right hon. Gentleman read the Amendment and say that the information required was such that the House of Commons was not entitled to ask for? This information, which the right hon. Gentleman did not venture
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  to say was unadvisable, could be extracted by one clerk. It had been suggested that the Government were refusing all Amendments because they wished to avoid the Report stage of the Bill; but the stage was prescribed by constitutional usage, and yet, in order to avoid it, they refused Amendments which they themselves were obliged to admit were reasonable. He would add another speculation and say that he was under the impression that the confederacy of those on the Treasury Bench, and persons outside who wanted to dip their hands into the public purse, was so close that the Government wore under an engagement to pass the Bill in the form in which it had been introduced.
  MR. T. P. O'CONNORsaid, he understood that personally the Chief Secretary for Ireland did not object to the demands made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle (Mr. John Morley); on the contrary, that he was ready to back them up even in opposition to the opinion of the Commissioners. He had not objected to the Report being made quarterly, or that it should state the details mentioned in the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman. His one objection appeared to be that the Commissioners might find the particular form of Return demanded inconvenient. With regard to the question of cost he (Mr. T. P. O'Connor) ventured to think that this was a matter for the House and not the Commissioners to decide. On the question of form he saw no difficulty in the right hon. Gentleman communicating with the Commissioners between that and the Report stage of the Bill, and if he would undertake to accept the Amendment, putting it in such a form as his right hon. Friend and the Commissioner could agree to, he did not think his right hon. Friend would persevere with his present Motion. Hon. Members wanted to insist that this should be a statutable regulation. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary had been gradually dislodged from the position he had taken up—namely, that the demand the Opposition were making was an unprecedented and unusual one. As a matter of fact, what the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle demanded was that this Bill should be in consonance with all previous agrarian Bills. He (Mr. T. P.

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  O'Connor) thought they were not unreasonable, in the face of all the Returns which had been given to them, in demanding that this matter should be put beyond the caprice of any Chief Secretary or Commissioner, and that a distinct instruction should be contained in the Act of Parliament. He thought he had suggested a very fair compromise.
  MR. T. M. HEALYsaid, it occurred to him that the Gentleman who proposed the 50th Section of the Act of 1881 was no less a person than Lord Ashbourne himself. ["No, no!"] Yes, he was satisfied it was moved from the Front Opposition Bench, and that it was inserted in deference to the demand of the Tories. If they were addressing an Irish Chief Secretary he did not believe that he would for a moment refuse the application made for information. The Amendment was only rejected by the right hon. Gentleman because of his entire want of sympathy with Ireland and its Representatives. It surely was not advisable to refuse information. The Government were not wise in refusing it. Why should they not take the noble Marquess the Member for Rossendale into their counsel? Surely he must be most anxious that a proposal of this kind should be accepted by the Government. The Government said that if they were assured of the passage of the Bill, and after Mr. Wrench had been appointed as the President of the Triumvirate, they would give the House all the information it wanted; but the promises and the performances of the Government were very different things. But with the thing in the Statute itself, to which they could nail the Commissioners, then not even the Gentleman whom it was proposed to put in charge of the two Commissioners could evade the Statute. He thought the Opposition were asking a reasonable thing. If the Government maintained that the proposal as framed would be inconvenient then they would not insist on more than the provision contained in the Act of 1881. The Government did not want to have a quarterly Report produced, because in all probability the last day of the quarter might be the day on which such an election as that in Holborn was taking place, and then it would be seen that they were giving £250,000 to a certain Duke or to a London Company. Moreover, if the House had a forecast of the results of
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  its action it might be reluctant to fall in with the schemes of the Government; for instance, if it had been known that as a result of the Conversion Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, which had fallen four in the course of a few months, probably the measure would not have been passed as it was without opposition. If the Government rejected this proposition when Members of the Opposition made a point against them at any public meeting, and said the Government had refused to give them information, the Government would reply—"Oh, we promised them everything and have given it to them, the dispute between us being as to what we promised. "They might say," We did not promise to give the names of the owners who had sold their estates." When he (Mr. T. M. Healy) asked the Solicitor General for Ireland whether he intended to give the names, the right hon. Gentleman replied, "No, we never have given them." Surely it was most unreasonable for the Government, when pressed for official information, to refuse to give it, although they had every opportunity of doing so. In conclusion, he would appeal to hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite to support the Motion for this Return. He was sure that if they were appealed to privately they would give the Irish Members their support and sympathy.
  MR. CONYBEAREsaid, he really thought that they had tolerated this sort of conduct on the part of the Government too long, and therefore—
  MR. Arthur Balfour rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
  Question put, "That the Question be now put."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 174; Noes 99: Majority 75.—(Div. List, No. 308.)
  Question put accordingly, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 108; Noes 166: Majority 58.—(Div. List, No. 309.)
  MR. A. J. BALFOURsaid, he gathered from certain cries that hon. Gentlemen thought the Committee should now finish its labours for the night, and he was not disposed to differ from that view. He would, however, remind the

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  Committee that the substance of the Bill was finished, that it was but a continuance Bill, and that the question of extending the existing Act to an extent of £5,000,000 had been very fully discussed. It should not require very much more time to dispose of the few points hon. Members might desire to raise, and with the expression of that hope he assented to Progress being reported.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again To-morrow.

  EMPLOYEES' LIABILITY FOR INJURIES TO WORKMEN BILL.
  (Mr. Secretary Matthews, Mr. Attorney General, Mr. Ritchie, Mr. Forwood.)
  EMPLOYEES' LIABILITY FOR INJURIES TO WORKMEN BILL.

    [BILL 145.] CONSIDERATION.
    Bill, as amended, considered.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be deferred till Thursday."—(Mr. Matthews.)
    MR. BURTasked if there was really an intention to consider the Bill on Thursday?
    THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS)said, that entirely depended upon the progress made with the Land Purchase Bill. He hoped the latter Bill would be disposed of at the next sitting.
    MR. FENWICKasked, was it not proposed to take the Excise Duties (Local Purposes) Bill on the Thursday? If so, there was no hope of the Employers' Liability Bill being reached on that day. Could it not be set down for Friday or Monday?
    MR. MATTHEWSsaid, no doubt the Excise Bill would have precedence, but the Bill had better be set down pro forma for Thursday.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Consideration, as amended, deferred till Thursday.

    PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS DISTRIBUTION.
    Select Committee appointed, "to assist Mr. Speaker in superintending the form and regulating the Distribution of Parliamentary Papers:"—Mr. Walter James, Mr. Causton, Mr. Hartley, Mr. Arthur Acland, Mr. James Maclean, Mr. Arthur Elliot, Mr. Gill, and Sir Herbert Maxwell nominated Members of the said Committee.
    Ordered, That Three be the quorum.
    House adjourned at twenty-five minutes after two o'clock.