Commons Sitting of 24 August 1889

QUESTIONS.

  IRELAND—THE QUEEN'S COLLEGES.
  MR. PINKERTON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if, in view of the serious financial loss inflicted upon certain professors of the Queen's Colleges, by the passing of the Royal University (Ireland) Act, he is prepared to make the same concession to them as is given to Medical Officers and servants in the Dublin Hospital Board Bill, which he has recently introduced?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON,): I am not prepared to admit there is any similarity between the cases referred to by the hon. Member.

  THE STATUTE OF EDWARD III.
  MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: I beg to ask the Solicitor General for Ireland whether he will lay upon the Table of the House before next Session a Return showing the cases in Ireland, since the passing of the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, where persons have been required to give bail for good conduct under the Statute of Edward III., showing the names, dates, and cause of summons, whether bail was given, and where not given what length of imprisonment was awarded?
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,): I have been able to obtain a Return. I will answer the question on Monday.

  MR. JOHN POWELL.
  MR. PATEICK JOSEPH O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, having regard to the critical state of health of Mr. John Powell—namely, suffering from congestion of the lungs and spitting of blood, he will order his immediate release from Limerick Gaol?
  MR. MADDEN: In this case also I must ask the hon. Member to repeat the question on Monday. I have not received the information necessary to enable me to answer it.

  THE DEATH OF JOHN M'GEE.
  MR. SEXTON: I wish to ask the Solicitor General for Ireland whether in regard to the case of John M'Gee he is aware that at the Coroner's inquiry the Crown Solicitor refused to produce the notes of the hospital doctor, and whether he will give an assurance that in the inquiry no facts that are relevant to the case shall be kept from the jury?
  MR. MADDEN: I am sure it is the desire of the Government that all the facts shall be properly brought before the jury, and I can undertake that they will be produced. I am not conversant with the facts of the case, but I am certain that every fact that can throw the least light upon the inquiry will be brought forward.
  MR. SEXTON: Will the hon. and learned Gentleman be good enough to give his personal attention to the matter?
  MR. MADDEN: Yes, Sir; certainly.

  OCCUPIERS' DISQUALIFICATION REMOVAL BILL.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I notice at the end of the Orders of the Day that No. 18 is the Occupiers' Disqualification Removal Bill. This Bill was on the Paper yesterday, and if Notice had been given that it would be taken to-day I should certainly have put down Amendments to enlarge the scope of the Bill. When the Motion for a Saturday Sitting was before the House yesterday I asked for a definition of what was to be regarded as Government business, but I received no satisfactory assurance. I wish to submit to you, Mr. Speaker, that Government business "can only apply to the Bills of the Government which were before the House at the time the Resolution was passed." With your concurrence, Sir, I will move that the Bill to which I have called attention, although it has an asterisk placed against it denoting that it is a Government measure, does not strictly come within the Resolution which was passed yesterday.
  MR. SPEAKER: No doubt it was within the competence of the Government to put down the Bill as a Government measure; but I must confess that very short notice indeed has been given of the intention to take up and proceed with the Bill in that character. I certainly think that some explanation is necessary.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): I have not the slightest hesitation in saying that if the Bill is objected to it will not be proceeded with. It was, however, put down in perfectly good faith.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I make no imputation whatever upon the good faith of the Government. I only wish to guard againt the repetition of a similar proceeding in future. So far as this particular Bill is concerned I propose to move a series of Amendments to it, and I have had no opportunity of putting them on the Paper.

  BECHUANALAND.
  SIR J. SWINBURNE: I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury a question of which I have given him private notice—namely, whether Her Majesty's Government
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  will defer the grant of the proposed charter conferring rights almost of sovereignty, with complete municipal and other controlling powers, over a vast tract of country in South Africa, including 200 square miles of Becbuanaland, which is now under British protection, and some 400 miles by 400 miles of Matabeleland, which is now declared under British influence, till next Session, in order that Parliament may have an opportunity of discussing the matter?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: In answer to the hon. Baronet, who rightly says that he gave me private notice of the question, although I only received it five minutes ago, I have only to say that I have no personal knowledge of the matter, nor is it possible for me to make myself acquainted with all the business which comes before the Government; but if the hon. Baronet will give notice I have no doubt information will be given to him. I am certainly not able to say whether the proposed charter merits the description he has given of it, or whether a tract of land extending over 200 miles forms a very large portion of South Africa.
  SIR J. SWINBURNE: What I said was that it forms a very large portion of that part of South Africa.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, seeing that the Colonial Office Vote was rushed through at 2 o'clock in the morning, he will undertake to defer the grant of this charter till the subject can be discussed next week?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I must decline to give any such undertaking. It is not in my power to limit the prerogative of the Crown, or at this period of the Session to interfere with the progress of business.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: Then I will avail myself of the opportunity of calling attention to this matter on the Appropriation Bill next week.

ORDERS OF TEE DAY.
  SUPPLY—REPORT.

    CIVIL SERVICE ESTIMATES.
    Resolutions [23rd August] (see pages 266–361) reported.
    First two Resolutions agreed to.
    On the Third Resolution,
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
    MR. MACNEILL: At this moment I see that there are eight right hon. Gentlemen on the Treasury Bench who have seats in the Cabinet, but I fail to see the Chief Secretary for Ireland, who is the Minister who ought to feel the greatest amount of interest in these Votes. Why is it that the right hon. Gentleman, who has charge of the Administration of Ireland, is so scrupulously absent from his post when Irish questions are brought forward? I feel called upon to avail myself of the opportunity, now that the Session is about to close, of calling attention to the manner in which the right hon. Gentleman has so frequently absented himself from the House when he ought to have been here. [Mr. A. J. Balfour here entered the House and took his seat on the Treasury Bench.] I see that the few observations I have felt it my duty to make have had even more influence than I expected, and that they have succeeded in "drawing" the right hon. Gentleman. I am very glad to see him here, and I am sure he knows that I would say nothing behind his back which I would not say to his face. Last night my hon. Friend made an exposure of Irish prison administration which will shock the public mind. A more horrible description of mean, deliberate, calculating, and overwhelming cruelty it is impossible to conceive. We have seen on other occasions how the right hon. Gentleman succeeds in getting his political opponents into prison. It would be out of order to discuss that matter on the present Vote; but I think I shall be in order if I proceed to point out what he does with his political opponents when he has put them in prison. Even the Corporation of Dublin, singular as it may appear, have felt it their duty to take some account of the systematic cruelty pursued in the Irish prisons, and to represent to the Prisons Board that there ought to be a complete and radical reform of the administration of Irish business in Parliament. Before the Prisons Act of 1887 the Dublin Corporation had a voice in the control of the Dublin prisons, and had a special means of
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    knowing what was the ordinary treatment meted out to prisoners. It was proposed, some time ago, that a deputation composed of Members of the Corporation and men of position should wait upon the Prisons Board, but the Prisons Board refused to receive any deputation of the kind. The time selected for waiting upon the Board was just after the banquet to the Chief Secretary in the ancient concert room, where were gathered together all the basest and most contemptible members of Irish society—men who were unwilling to allow their names to appear in the newspapers, but quite ready to laugh at the jocular remarks of the right hon. Gentleman when he derided the sufferings of the hon. Member for North-East Cork (Mr. W. O'Brien). That was the moment selected by the Prisons Board for refusing to receive a deputation from the Chief Municipal Authority in Ireland. I propose to enter now into some of the circumstances connected with Derry Gaol, and I believe I shall be able to show that in that gaol there has been a deliberate system of cruelty practised towards all political prisoners. On the 4th of March last I was present in Derry, and I saw one of the most pitiable sights I ever saw in my life. I saw a number of political prisoners marched through the streets of Derry on a frosty day, with the snow on the ground. Two of them were women who were very scantily clad, and the bitter north-east wind was evidently piercing through the folds of their light covering. A few days afterwards some benevolent persons sent these poor creatures gowns and hats; but the Governor of Derry Gaol, whom I shall prove, before I sit down, to have been a very monster of cruelty, refused to allow them to have the warm clothing that was offered to them. The matter was brought before this House, and either the Chief Secretary or the Solicitor General stated that the refusal of the Governor was an error of judgment. Upon that the Governor gave the women the gowns, but refused to give them the hats, and in that way they were taken 25 miles to Letterkenny to be tried. Let me contrast this with the course pursued in the case of the Belfast swindlers. It is true they were leading Liberal Unionists—one of them the Secretary of the Liberal Union Com-

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    mittee who received the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) on his visit to Belfast. Having committed a most abominable fraud they were arrested and put in Belfast Gaol, from which they were subsequently removed to the gaol at Derry. As the weather was cold, the Governor gave the prisoners one of his own overcoats, while in the case of these poor women, who were arrested without a shadow of evidence against them, they were not permitted to wear the warm clothing given to them by benevolent friends. It is absurd, then, to tell me that there is no difference in the treatment of prisoners. These fellows take their cue from the policy of Dublin Castle. They understand the significance of a nod, or a smile, or a wink. They are altogether at the beck of the Government, and they have their eyes fixed on the Treasury Bench. We find Mr. Conybeare refused permission to write an article to a scientific journal, whereas one of the Belfast swindlers is able from the centre of Derry Gaol to give a certificate of character to the Chief Secretary—or "sagacious Mr. Balfour," as he describes the right hon. Gentleman. How is it that that letter was allowed to leave the gaol, while that of Mr. Conybeare was refused the same permission? Two of the Coercion prisoners in Derry Gaol were Father Stephens and Mr. Kelly. Father Stephens was arrested because he endeavoured to give help, comfort, and consolation to his starving flock, and he and Mr. Kelly were deprived of exercise for a whole week and confined to their cells because they refused to associate with the Belfast swindlers—pets of the Chief Secretary, strolling about in silk hats. Two of the Members for Tipperary in Tullamore Gaol recently, were—possibly from some oversight—allowed to exercise together in the prison yard until the enormity was discovered, and direct and specific orders were sent down from Dublin Castle to put a stop to the indulgence. Is this kind of treatment fair or reasonable? Does it not prove overwhelmingly that the right hon. Gentleman has one rule for the administration of justice to his political enemies and another for swindlers and forgers who are his friends? I have very little doubt that the man who
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    spoke of the right hon. Gentleman as "sagacious Mr. Balfour" will not have his prison indulgences interfered with, and that he will be allowed not only to read but to write to the newspapers. Mr. Charles Bourke, the President of the Prisons Board, was appointed, I believe, when the late Lord Mayo was Secretary for Ireland. I wonder whether he remembers a passage in a speech of Lord Mayo, in which that noble Lord said that it was a degradation for political prisoners to associate with felons. The words of the noble Lord were, "I can conceive nothing more repugnant to the feelings of such prisoners than that they should be compelled to associate with criminals in a goal." It was Richard Pigott who was not to be allowed to associate with criminals. Pigott was permitted to conduct his newspaper while he was a prisoner in 1868, and yet Mr. Conybeare is refused permission to write a letter to a scientific journal. The hon. Member for North Kildare (Mr. Carew) was imprisoned for a speech delivered four months before the date of his prosecution. He was imprisoned at Kilkenny, and when a civil action was brought against him by one of the Chief Secretary's Removables, a reasonable request was made that he might be removed to some prison nearer Dublin in order that his solicitor might have a better opportunity of consulting with him. What occurred in that case? All the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General did was to make this probably clever but very unsympathetic reply, "I never heard of a gaol being brought nearer to the house of a prisoner." Although the Government refused the request of Mr. Carew's solicitor, they pursued a very different course in the cases of Delaney, McNally Tracey, and other gaol birds, at the instance of the Times, and allowed Shannon, the Times agent, to visit them at his pleasure. He was even allowed to go with a Bible in his hand and tell a deliberate lie, representing himself as a Crown official. As a matter of fact, he was allowed to enter Delaney's condemned cell, while the hon. and learned Member for North Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy) was refused permission to see Mr. William O'Brien when he entered Clonmel Gaol, although the hon. and learned Member was acting as Mr. O'Brien's legal adviser,

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    and was endeavouring to shield him against an action which had been brought against him by the Chief Secretary's friends. When the hon. Member for North Kildare was being conveyed from one gaol to another I heard personally that he was in a railway carriage at one of the stations. I went to see him, and got into the carriage, where I found him surrounded by armed policemen. The sergeant threatened to have me thrust out, but I defied him to do so, and I had the satisfaction of informing Mr. Carew that he was receiving the sympathy of the people, not only of Ireland, but of England. I did not tell Mr. Carew what I thought of the condition in which I found him, but I believed him at the time to be a dying man, and dying from want of food. A more awful indictment has never been made against a British statesman since the indictment of Warren Hastings. I come now to the Prisons Board discipline under the new régime of the Chief Secretary. I am glad that the Home Secretary is in his place, because although he is an opponent he is always fair. I would ask him to contrast the prison discipline in Ireland with that enforced in England. Is it not the fact that in this country the chaplain and the prison doctor are the protectors, comforters, and advisers of the prisoner? Both are allowed to visit the cell without an order, and are supplied with keys, which they can use at any hour of the day or night. That was the case in Ireland until the advent of the present Chief Secretary. Under the régime of the right hon. Gentleman, the doctor, instead of being the counsellor of the prisoner, is employed as a detective to find out how much suffering prisoners may be able to bear, provided always they do not die. Formerly, if a prison chaplain found anything wrong in the condition of a prisoner, it was his custom to communicate direct to the Prisons Board, his position being a perfectly independent one. Now, however, they are compelled to send complaints through the Governor of the gaol to the Prisons Board; or, in other words, complain to the very persons accused. I view with horror at this late period of the Session the position of men confined in prison under the Coercion Act, deprived of the consolation of a
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    chaplain to minister to them in their long hours of exile and loneliness, and subjected to the tender mercies of Irish officials, without the nature of their offences and treatment being exposed to public opinion. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary may be perfectly justified in putting his political opponents in prison; but he has no right to make their doctor their torturer instead of their protector, and to have them confined in places where their sight is destroyed and their mind enfeebled. What has occurred in the Irish prisons to the doctors under the régime of the right hon. Gentleman since the passing of the Coercion Act? Immediately after that Act became law the prison doctors were required henceforth to make weekly returns showing if improved diet or other indulgences has been granted to prisoners, doctors, too, have been reprimanded for giving indulgences to prisoners. What did Dr. Ridley say to the hon. Member for North-East Cork in Tullamore Gaol? He said—
    "It is monstrous and unnatural to treat you like this; but what can I do? I have a wife and children, and have to save a few halfpence."
    To Mr. Lane the same doctor said—
    "If you do not go into hospital they will starve you to death."
    Mr. Ridley also told him that he got a terrible reprimand, and further that he had orders to certify that Mr. O'Brien was fit for prison treatment. Orders from whom? From Dr. Barr no doubt. The highest medical authority in Ireland, in the spring of last year, wrote an article directing attention to the treatment to which prison doctors were being subjected and described it as disgraceful. I will not go further into Dr. Ridley's case; it is too painful. I am sorry the Home Secretary is not in his place, because I should have liked to have drawn a contrast between Irish and English prison treatment. Let me give only one instance illustrating the difference. On the 9th May, this year, Dr. Barr wrote a celebrated letter to the Times with reference to prison administration. The Home Secretary on being questioned said it was sufficient to disqualify Dr. Barr from serving in an Irish prison. But we know that that letter was revised by the Chief Secretary himself and forwarded by him to the Times. What

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    a commentary on the difference in the two systems. The eyesight of prisoners in the Irish prisons is injured. I have almost humiliated myself before the Chief Secretary in seeking to protect his prisoners against this. We have had Mr. Conybeare thus suffering. Then there has been the case of Mr. Powell, who has lost the sight of one eye, and is in danger of losing the other through sympathy. Mr. Cox, the Member for East Clare, went into the prison a bright young man, he emerged feeble and scarcely able to see. Mr. Wilfrid Blunt and Alderman; Hooper can also speak to the injury to eyesight from personal experience. Among the deaths in Derry Gaol the Chief Secretary has mentioned the death of a man from sunstroke. That man's death was due to the absence of any protection from the sun in the exercise yard. Over and over again I urged upon the right hon. Gentleman to erect a shed for the use of the prisoners, but in vain. He persistently refuses to give this shelter. I have now done. The subject is a most painful one to me. The right hon. Gentleman has many times—no doubt unintentionally—hurt me; but if I had the power he possesses—if I could treat him even as he has treated his political opponents—I would protect him from, rather than subject him to, these prison tortures. The right hon. Gentleman has these prisoners in charge, and he has no right to wear away their health and enfeeble their minds. He has no right to place them, as Mr. Conybeare has been placed, in unhealthy dens. The sufferings of the prisoners are now acknowledged to be of extreme gravity, and I can only sympathise with them under a régime of cruelty, which shows no regard for the decencies of civilisaion.
    SIR C LEWIS: I should be ashamed of myself if, after my long connection with the City of Derry—now approaching 20 years—during which period I have been personally acquainted, individually and politically, with Sir William Miller, the Medical Officer of the prison and now the Mayor of the city, I were not to say a word or two on this controversy. Sir William's name, I venture to say, cannot be mentioned in any society in Derry without eliciting tokens of the most profound respect and sympathy. He has spent a
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    lifetime in the city; he has the largest practice of any medical man there, his patients are to be found equally amongst Roman Catholics and the Protestants, and I certainly cannot allow epithets of a most unfounded and extraordinary character to be cast upon him without challenging hon. Members opposite, especially the two who belong to Derry City, to specifically contradict what I now say—that Dr. Miller is a man highly respected among all classes and all creeds, and that no one in the city of Derry would believe him capable of being party to cruelty or inhuman conduct of any description.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: I do not want to detain the House at this period of the Session, but there are one or two points to which I feel it my duty to refer before the House breaks up, and one is the increasing number of cases in which the Resident Magistrates have lately called on persons to give bail under the Act of Edward III. for their good behaviour. That seems to me to be a most remarkable departure.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! That does not relate to the Prisons Vote.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: These men are all in prison.
    MR. SPEAKER: That has nothing to do with the conduct of the prisons or with the treatment of the prisoners.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: I am asking for a Return of the number of people who are in the prisons at this moment under the Statute of Edward III.
    MR. SPEAKER: The right hon. Gentleman is complaining of the use made of the Statute of Edward III., but that has nothing to do with the treatment of prisoners in prison.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: Then I shall bring it on on the Appropriation Bill.
    MR. E. LEAMY: I am sorry the Solicitor General for Ireland is not in his place prepared to answer my inquiry why, in the case of a coroner's investigation into the death of a man immediately after his discharge from the gaol in which for several months he had been suffering from severe illness, the Crown have refused to produce before the coroner the prison books showing the treatment to which the man was subjected in the gaol. I now wish to know whether the Government will take steps to order the pro-

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    duction of these books. We alleged that the man M'Gee should have been discharged from gaol at an earlier period. The Chief Secretary admits that M'Gee was unfit to travel on the day on which he was discharged, but he had then been five months in gaol; he had, no doubt, been seen by the doctor nearly every day. The hon. Baronet the Member for North Antrim has today defended the conduct of Sir William Miller; he has spoken of him as possessing the largest practice in the City of Derry. Then he must have been competent to deal with this man's case. Now I put it to the hon. Member whether Sir W. Miller knew of this dangerous illness of M'Gee for days and weeks before the man was discharged, or did it come on suddenly in a day? If he knew of that, the prisoner ought to have been discharged, as a prisoner in the same gaol under a sentence for rape was discharged because his health broke down. Sir W. Miller must have seen M'Gee, whose offence was defending a neighbour's house against the Sheriff, getting worse and worse, and why did he not discharge him while he had yet some strength? I put it to the hon. Member for Antrim to say what possible defence can be offered for Sir W. Miller's conduct. I also want to know why the prison books have not been produced at the inquest on M'Gee? And now I come to the case of the man Diver, who, according to a telegram we have received, is still in a critical state, and whom the District Medical Officer pronounces to have been suffering from typhoid fever. Diver also declares himself to have been badly treated from the day of his arrest. It is stated that on the night of his arrest he and some comrades were conveyed on the deck of a vessel a long journey exposed to bitter weather. Who is responsible for that inhumanity? I think we are entitled to some explanation on that point. The man further complains that on the first Sunday after his admission into Derry Prison he was struck between the shoulders by a warder with a heavy bunch of keys; that he was driven against a wall and sorely bruised; and that his sufferings prevented him resting. These are grave and serious charges, and for my part I confess I cannot understand why, if they can be disproved, the Government do not dis-
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    prove them. Now, I ask are the allegations made by Diver true or not? During the five months he was in prison he was constantly alternating between his cell and the prison hospital; and then, again, how about the sanitary condition of Derry Prison? The hon. Member for South Tyrone seems very anxious to prove that the intercepting shafts effectually prevent the sewer gas being forced into the gaol, but any man of common-sense knows that a perfect trap has not yet been invented. I desire to ask what objection there can be to the institution of a thoroughly satisfactory inquiry by a competent engineer into the sanitary conditions of gaols. I also desire to say that the case of Mr. Powell, the journalist, who is undergoing his third term of imprisonment and who has grievously suffered in his eyesight, calls for the consideration of the Chief Secretary. Why are you keeping Mr. Powell in prison? You know he will not give bail because he believes he is fighting a matter of principle; but you want to break his pride; you mean to break his spirit. Is it true or false that Mr. Powell has already lost the sight of one eye? Is it true that he is being treated for the other, the sight of which is impaired? Is it true that he is suffering from congestion of the lungs? Is it true that he is spitting blood? Are these things true or are they false? The Chief Secretary last night spoke of the humane treatment of these men; surely more humanity would have been shown if, for instance, M'Gee had been discharged before the disease had taken a fatal grip of him. The right hon. Gentleman has defended the conduct of Sir William Miller; let him justify that defence by producing at the Coroner's inquest on M'Gee the hospital books showing what was the treatment meted out to this unfortunate man.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Before the Chief Secretary replies, I wish to call attention to a statement made by the right hon. Gentleman to the effect that never for years past has any person been allowed to write from prison letters to the newspapers, unless it is in the exercising of the calling of journalist. I wish to know when that rule was made? Mr. Conybeare desired to write a letter to a mining journal, and the Chief Secretary has declared that the prison rules provided for no such case.

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    But I myself, when in Richmond Gaol, was allowed to write letters, and Mr. Davitt was allowed to write from the same gaol to the Glasgow newspapers letters condemnatory of the dynamite policy, and these letters have been used by the Attorney General before the Parnell Commission. That was in 1883, when Lord Spencer was in Office. Why, then, is Mr. Conybeare now prevented from writing to a mining journal? In 1883, when I was in prison, the Pope issued a Circular against the collection of subscriptions to the Parnell testimonial. That letter naturally excited great indignation amongst the Irish Catholics. It was known Sir George Errington had been sent out as the Emissary of Her Majesty's Government to secure the issue of this Circular by the Pope, and I considered it desirable without a moment's delay that a person in the position which I hold should make known his views. I decided to send a subscription to the testimonial at once, and I wrote a reply and sent it with a subscription to the Freeman's Journal. The reply was submitted to the Prisons Board, and the present right hon. Member for the Bridgeton Division, who was then Chief Secretary, in order to avoid delay, had the letter posted by his own secretary. If a letter traversing the policy of the Government could be thus passed by the Prisons Board, surely Mr. Conybeare could be allowed to write a technical letter on metallurgy to the Mining Journal. If the rule is that first-class misdemeanants can follow their ordinary occupations, why was the late Lord Mayor of Dublin not only not allowed to write for his paper, but not allowed even to see it? The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary then, in reply to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Central Bradford, said he could not define a political prisoner. Well, nobody knows what that is. It is like a problem in Euclid; you cannot actually describe the gentleman, but when you see him you know him. As Home Tooke said, the only way to define a poker is to take up a poker and say "that is a poker." It is not enough to call it a rod of iron; that is only an alternative name for it. In the same way, I quite agree that you cannot define a political prisoner. The fact is, a political prisoner is a man whom we
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    feel to be a political prisoner. When Richard Pigott wrote articles which the Attorney General of the day described as abominable, what did Lord Mayo do? He treated him as a political prisoner. In 1848 Lord Clarendon treated Mr. John Mitchel as one; and when John Mitchel was taken out to Bermuda, in the Scourge, he messed with the officers and had a secretary placed at his disposal. The Tories got up a great row about it; but the Liberal Government sustained the conduct of Captain Lingrove. Daniel O'Connell, who got two years' imprisonment for what the present Chief Secretary would describe as inciting to violence, was treated as a political prisoner. On one occasion, when a friend of mine was being received in gaol, I remarked to a prison official, "I suppose you will treat him handsomely," and the official replied, "You must remember Mr. Balfour is in office now, and not Lord Spencer and Mr. (now Sir G.) Trevelyan." This shows how the officials feel what the policy of the Government is. The Chief Secretary was unhappy in defending the condition of Derry Gaol by a comparison with the House of Commons, because we all suffered from the drainage of the House in spite of all experts could do until a Member of the House went into the sewers, when, at last, things were supposed to be put right. Our own experience, therefore, shows that the ventilation of sewers is one of the most difficult problems with which sanitarians have to deal. What has occurred in regard to bail prisoners? The Courts have laid down over and over again that this is not a case for punishment. What right, then, has the right hon. Gentleman to treat bail prisoners in the way he has? If a man is imprisoned simply because he refuses to give bail for his good behaviour he should not be subjected to more rigorous discipline than is compatible with keeping him in security. When I was in prison I did not regard the treatment I received as a hardship. I was able to take all the exercise I wanted in the middle of the day. I maintain that imprisonment for refusing to give bail is not intended as a punishment, and yet it is inflicted as a punishment on the top of a sentence under the Coercion Act. I give this fact as a strong argument in favour of

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    the position I assume. Let me recall to the recollection of the House the case of Michael Walsh. It appears that this man was standing in the street when a policeman went up to him, seized him by the collar, and asked him for his name. The constable says that Walsh swore at him; but the evidence of the policeman was altogether uncorroborated. Walsh himself called three witnesses, who swore that he did nothing of the kind; but, nevertheless, Colonel Longbourne sent him to prison for three months in default of bail. That in itself was a monstrous sentence; but when Walsh went to gaol how was he treated? He was clearly entitled to wear his own clothes and his hair and moustache; but the moment he entered the prison he was set upon by a warder in the prison uniform, who deprived him of his clothes and cut off his hair and moustache. The reply of the Government is that no doubt this was all wrong; but the man himself submitted to it. What was he to do? Should he have knocked down the warder? He knew nothing of the prison rules; he did not know that he was going to be brought under them; and he had, therefore, never studied them. The people of Ireland are likely to become pretty well acquainted with them by-and-by. When Mr. William O'Brien resisted the attempt of the prison officials to deprive him of his clothes, we were told that he was guilty of an irregularity and insubordination, and now we are practically told that if this kind of thing occurs in the future the best thing for prisoners to do is to give the warder "one in the eye." At the same time, we are informed that when a prisoner's beard is wrongfully cut off in a gaol it is only for the purpose of trimming. I would like to see the process applied to right hon. Gentlemen opposite and see how they would like it. If they found themselves in gaol they would probably regard it as a very nice thing to be told by the prison officials that their beards wanted trimming. I say that these things are treated by the right hon. Gentleman with a lightness and a levity altogether unbecoming the gravity of his Office. In the case I have mentioned I think he ought to make an apology to Mr. Walsh, and at any rate dismiss the warder. He tells us that Walsh can go to law. The doctrine of
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    the right hon. Gentleman is that everything in Ireland is either legal or illegal. If it is legal it is all right, and if it is illegal the advice is "go to law." But what is the use of going to law with a man who has 15s. a week? It is a monstrous doctrine to lay down that a man, in a case like this, is to have no remedy except an action at law. I respectfully submit that when a man has been wronged, as Walsh has been, the Government ought to be glad to release him, and ought to think him well off their hands. Another case which occurred in the Cork Gaol was the refusal of the Deputy Governor to allow the Visiting Justices to see a prisoner alone. The Visiting Justices called to see a prisoner who requested a private interview, but the Deputy Governor declined to allow them to see him alone. It is not to be tolerated that such acts as this are to pass unnoticed. If there is a remedy the Government refuse to apply it, and time after time they back up every act of official insolence and irregularity until it has become absolutely impossible to obtain justice. Only last night, at the very time that the Chief Secretary was working himself into a state of great indignation at the notion that the doctor of Derry Gaol had been accused of inhumanity, Sir W. Miller was refusing to give the Crown Prosecutor for Donegal the prison records so far as they affect the death of the man M'Gee. These records would show all the surrounding circumstances leading up to the death of M'Gee, and are hon. Members to be told that the entries in the books are not evidence on the question of how M'Gee met his death? The course pursued by Sir W. Miller and the Prison Authorities is the strongest commentary upon the speech of the right hon. Gentleman last night. The best defence of Sir W. Miller against the charge of inhumanity would be the production of the prison books. Sir W. Miller has entered in the hospital books a record of his treatment of John M'Gee, and he knows that it must tell either in his favour or against him. If a man is suspected of having been poisoned, and the suspected poisoner is believed to have purchased poisons day after day, would not the chemist's books be the best evidence to show what the purchases were? Would it not be most important evidence in

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    regard to the death? I happen to know something of Sir W. Miller. He is the leader of the 'Prentice boys of Derry, and was an active supporter of the hon. Baronet opposite (Sir C. Lewis) at the election which led to his seat in this House for Derry being disallowed on the ground of corruption. He is the gentleman who got on top of the Town Hall at Derry, superintending the arrangements when Lord Mayor Dawson went down to that city to deliver a lecture, and a man named O'Doherty was charged with delivering a fusillade, from which a shot found a lodgment in the eye of a boy who was looking on. O'Doherty was taken into custody, but was at once relegated to the superintendence of the doctor in the hospital. He did not die in Derry Gaol, but under the kindly treatment of Sir William Miller came out well and strong. The men who die in Derry Gaol are the suspects and convicts arrested by the right hon. Gentleman. Nobody else dies there; and now we have the damning fact that in regard to a recent death Sir William Miller is afraid to produce the hospital books. There can be no doubt that the books are purposely kept back in order to screen the Government. They would not be kept back except at the instance of Sir William Miller and the General Prisons Board, and I challenge the Chief Secretary to say whether he approves of this attempt to keep back evidence, or whether, having regard to the indignation which has been aroused in the public mind, he will not at once order the records to be produced. We know something of prison records. We know that when the Report of Dr. O'Farrell in regard to Derry Gaol was sent to the right hon. Gentleman he refused to produce it, but promised to give a revised or second edition of it, so to speak. Accordingly, the Report was sent back to Dr. O'Farrell to have the frills ironed out of it and the patches smoothed over. At any rate, we have not been allowed to see the original confidential document. We accuse the Government of keeping back information from improper motives, and we demand the fullest publicity. We ask for the full light of public opinion to be turned upon these proceedings, and we will not rest satisfied with the second edition of a cooked Report. We also demand the production of the
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    prison records which have been kept back from the Coroner's Jury. Is this a specimen of the way in which we should be treated if we resolved to go to law? A great fuss was made because some of the Land League books were not produced at the Special Commission, although every bank book and cheque was laid before the Commission, and every tailor's bill any member of the League had ever paid was gone into. I wish Sir James Hannen much joy from the perusal of them. It is this system of keeping back deeds and acts, and resorting to quips and quibbles while men are being sent to their doom, that makes the administration of the right hon. Gentleman so odious to the Irish people. Why does he not come forward in a frank and open way, and, expressing regret for his past action, show the Irish people that, while he is going to govern them with chains and batons, he will rigorously give them the length and breadth of the law? Unfortunately, that is not his policy. His whole policy is one of screening and covering over with verbiage every high-handed act of official tyranny and despotism.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I think, perhaps, it will be convenient, although the audience is not very large, that I should, without further delay, deal with matters hon. Members have brought before our attention. I understand the hon. Member for Donegal (Mr. Mac Neill), who opened this Debate, complained of my absence from the House. I regret that I should not have been present to hear his opening remarks, but I observe that he thinks it more important that I should listen to him than that he should listen to me, and if my absence was remarkable at the beginning of the sitting, his absence is not less remarkable now. Deferring for the present my observations upon the speech of the hon. Member for Donegal, I turn to the speech of the hon. Member for Longford.
    Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
    MR. A. J. BALFOURproceeded: The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Longford was very indignant at an incident that is reported in

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    this morning's newspapers, that the Crown Solicitor has objected to the production of the hospital book in the inquest upon the unfortunate man M'Gee. Of course, I have no information to give to the House on the subject. It had not been brought to my notice until I heard of it across the floor of the House; but my hon. and learned Friend the Solicitor General for Ireland has given a promise, which he has since carried out, to telegraph over to Derry the general view of the Government that everything should be done in this and every other inquiry to bring out the facts of the case. The next point referred to by the hon. and learned Gentleman relates to the clipping of a bail prisoner in Cork Gaol. That is a very regrettable mistake, and as far as I am concerned it shall not recur; but if every lapse on the part of any official is to be met with dismissal, I think the hon. and learned Gentleman will see we should be really guilty of the harshness of which we are accused. The hon. and learned Gentleman, and I think previous speakers also, have denounced me for having refused a sanitary inspection of Derry Gaol, but I think these denunciations must have been made under some misapprehension. Two days ago the hon. Member for South Tyrone suggested it would not be inexpedient to have some special advice as to the condition of the prison. In my opinion, there is no ground for believing the prison is unhealthy; therefore there is no ground for inspection, but neither is there any objection to it, and, to allay all apprehension, two days ago I communicated with the Prisons Board saying that it would be well to have an examination by an expert.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Has that been stated before?
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not know whether it was stated in the House, but, at all events, I did two days ago communicate with the Prisons Board to that effect. Then the hon. and learned Gentleman criticised my statement as to the rules governing the treatment of first-class misdemeanants. I informed the House last night what I believe to be the fact, that a first-class misdemeanant is not allowed to communicate with a newspaper unless it so happens that his
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    avocation is that of a newspaper editor. The hon. and learned Gentleman quoted his own experience, but I am not aware of the circumstances under which he was in prison.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I was committed for six months by the Queen's Bench in default of finding bail for good behaviour.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I rather gathered from a subsequent portion of his speech that the hon. and learned Member was a bail prisoner. I am not perfectly sure, but I imagine that bail prisoners are not necessarily confined under the same rules as first-class misdemeanants. I express no confident opinion. But it is not my business to justify or explain the action taken by the Prisons Board of 1883. Nor did I take any initiative in the action towards the hon. Member for Camborne in relation to communications to the Press. I stated yesterday that the Governor and the Prisons Board dealt with the hon. Member for Camborne according to the ordinary Irish practice, which I understand from the Home Secretary is also the ordinary English practice in these matters. The hon. and learned Member also mentioned the case of Mr. Stead. I dealt with that last night, but perhaps the hon. and learned Member was not then in the House? I pointed out that Mr. Stead, being the editor of a journal, was allowed under the ordinary English and Irish rules to carry on his work in prison.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: I referred to the treatment of the late Lord Mayor of Dublin.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am obliged to the hon. and learned Gentleman; that had almost escaped my memory. In reference to this case the hon. and learned Member omitted to mention some material facts. If my recollection serves me aright the ex-Lord Mayor of Dublin was allowed to edit his newspaper during the earlier part of his period of detention, but not during the latter part. This was on a very obvious and equitable principle. The hon. Member was imprisoned for the illegal publication of the reports of suppressed branches, and when the hon. Member was in prison he attempted to repeat the offence for which he had been convicted, and, consequently, the privilege

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    of editing his paper which he thus improperly exercised was withdrawn. It would have been an abuse of the privileges ordinarily given to newspaper editors if, under the circumstances, the hon. Member had been allowed to continue his conduct.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Surely the right hon. gentleman does not mean to say that my hon. Friend prepared reports of the meetings of suppressed branches of the League in his cell! The League does not meet in gaol.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that the ex-Lord Mayor was allowed during the earlier part of his confinement to edit his paper, and the hon. Member was, therefore, responsible for what appeared in the paper. When the paper continued to repeat the offence for which the editor had been imprisoned, naturally the privilege was withdrawn.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: Perhaps I may be allowed to say on this point—["Order, order!"].
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am replying to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Longford, and am quite ready to accept any relevant interruption from him, but the right hon. Gentleman must see that I could hardly continue my speech if debating interruptions in the middle of it are to be allowed. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Longford came not for the first time to the rescue of the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and put with great force the contention that while no definition of a political prisoner could be given, nevertheless it was not impossible for any practical man to draw a substantial, equitable distinction between political and non-political prisoners. "Why, then," said he, "does the Government not act on that view, and draw a distinction which would puzzle no man of ordinary common sense." Well, I do not wish to go at length into this argument; but I would point out one flaw in it, and that is that the Government of the day would be made absolutely responsible for the kind of punishment to be meted out in different cases of nominally equal sentences. If a competent Court sentenced two prisoners to six months' each, the Executive might step in (and order that one prisoner should be treated as a first-class misde-
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    meanant and the other should not, on the ground that one was a political prisoner and the other one was not. No Executive could properly undertake such a responsibility. The County Court Judges have shown that, if need be, the Crimes Act prisoners can be made first-class misdemeanants, and, in passing sentence, they have all the facts before them and all the safeguards of judicial procedure; but the hon. and learned Gentleman wants the Executive to do what the County Court Judge has, under these circumstances, refused, to do. But even if the duty were thrown on the Executive, it would be impossible for them to say that the ordinary offences of the Crimes Act prisoners were political. I do not deny that they might be performed with a political object or on high moral grounds. It is not for me to estimate any man's motives; but it is not the motive nor the object which constitutes the merit or demerit of an action. It may modify our opinion of the offender, but not our opinion of the offence. I have as authority for this statement so competent a philosopher as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby, who has delivered himself on the point with his accustomed directness and breadth of statement. The hon. Member for South Donegal has now, I think, returned to his place, and I will therefore deal very briefly with some of the observations he has put before the House. The hon. Member will forgive me for not touching on the greater part of his speech, which traversed the ground gone over yesterday, and renewed accusations which have already been replied to. I will refer only to what was comparatively new in the hon. Member's speech. The hon. Member declared that no more formidable indictment has been made against a Government since the impeachment of Warren Hastings, and thus the hon. Member instituted a modest comparison between himself and Edmund Burke which must have afforded some entertainment to the House. He went on to give us some personal experiences in relation to himself and the hon. Member for North Kildare. The hon. Member told the House that, in spite of the myrmidons of the Government, he had seen the hon. Member for North Kildare while in the clutches of

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    the Executive, and that, in spite of the objections of the police, he had assured the hon. Member for North Kildare that the country sympathised with him in his sufferings. Well, I express no opinion on his conduct upon the occasion, nor can I see what relation his conversation can have to the Vote. What is the grievance which, as the outcome of this meeting, we are assured the hon. Member for North Kildare is suffering under? It is that the hon. Member for North Kildare was put into an ill-ventilated second-class carriage. Now the Government are not responsible for the ventilation of second-class carriages, and I cannot accept the view that the hon. Member for North Kildare suffered any serious hardship from travelling second-class. In common, I suppose, with many Members of the House, I have often travelled second-class, and found no serious inconvenience from doing so; and I think the hon. Member for North Kildare would be the last person to make this a ground of complaint.
    MR. MAC NEILL: The right hon. Gentleman is somewhat misrepresenting what I said. Of course, I was not so foolish as to lay stress on the point; I simply stated the circumstances under which I saw my hon. Friend, and came to the conclusion that he was in a dying state.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Well, the conclusion of the hon. Gentleman happily turned out to be erroneous. The health of the hon. Member for North Kildare engaged the attention of the medical authorities, and, as the House is aware, the hon. Member was released before the natural termination of his sentence. The hon. Member for Donegal has indulged in denunciation of the treatment of Irish prisoners, and I think I may meet these denunciations of the Irish system by contrasting it with the treatment of English prisoners. If the prison system is wrong, reform should begin in England, rather than in Ireland. Under the English rules some 20,000 persons are in confinement, while in the Irish gaols there are only 80 Crimes Act prisoners, It is no use beginning reform in such a piecemeal fashion as to deal only with the lot of these 80 persons. The hon. Gentleman asserts that under the present rule one prisoner
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    after another has had his eyesight destroyed by whitewashed cells. In Ireland a large number of cells are not now whitewashed, and the custom is gradually obtaining of having the cells tinted. But every single cell in England is whitewashed; and therefore, if there is an error, it is an English error, and not an Irish one. The hon. Gentleman declares that the Irish prisoners are half-starved. It is well-known that the food in Irish prisons is richer and more nutritive than the food in English prisons; so here, again, reform is needed in England, if at all. The right hon. Gentleman complains of the absence of sheds for the exercise of prisoners in rainy weather. There is one prison in Ireland which possesses such a shed; but there is no prison in England which does. Again, I say, if reform is required, let it begin where it is most required. The hon. Gentleman states that the prison doctors in Ireland, especially during my tenure of office, have exercised their functions not to relieve, but to torture the prisoners. The hon. Gentleman cannot have heard the statement I made last night, that the privileges granted by the prison doctors to Crimes Act prisoners are enormously in excess of those granted to other classes of prisoners. The rate of mortality being double in the English prisons what it is in the Irish prisons points to the habit of the English doctors of detaining weakly English prisoners longer than Irish doctors detain Irish prisoners. I do not know which custom is best; but, at all events, the Irish custom is the more humane. Therefore, we are forced to the conclusion that Crimes Act prisoners are treated more leniently than ordinary prisoners in Ireland, and that ordinary prisoners in Ireland are treated more leniently than similar prisoners in England. I would remind the House of what occurred when the hon. Member for South Armagh was imprisoned in Londonderry Gaol. The hon. Member was let out before the completion of his sentence by Sir William Miller, upon whom so much undeserved abuse has been heaped; and the only gratitude evinced by the hon. Member for this act of kindness is a declaration that he had nothing at all the matter with him. This incident, at all events, shows that Sir William Miller is peculiarly sensitive

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    on the subject of the health of Crimes Act prisoners. The House has been told that I spoke last night on the Prisons Vote with very great indignation. I do not deny that I thought then, and still think, that the accusations brought against the prison officials were such as ought properly to have roused the indignation of those responsible for the defence in the House of men who are necessarily unable to defend themselves. If the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Belfast reads in cold blood the speech to which I replied last night, I think he will at least admit that my indignation was not unnatural. But if I was betrayed into any undue violence of language on that occasion, I can assure the House that I did not intend to wound the feelings of any man. My desire was to defend those whose defence is committed to me, and I did not wish to go beyond that duty; but I should be unworthy of the position I hold had I allowed those hostile criticisms to pass unchallenged. If I went beyond what was necessary I regret having done so.
    MR. SHAW LEFEVRE: I only wish to say a few words as to the point upon which I rose to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman. The late Lord Mayor of Dublin told me only yesterday that during the whole of his imprisonment he was not allowed to edit his newspaper. With the question of the treatment of political prisoners I have already dealt at length, and I will only say that the objection urged by the right hon. Gentleman to the Government having to determine which offences should be treated as distinct from ordinary crimes is a far-fetched objection. If the Government, from the earliest period when these cases first came on under the Crimes Act, had laid down a principle as to who were and who were not political prisoners, the County Court Judges and Resident Magistrates would have taken their cue from the Government. Whether a man should be treated as a first-class misdemeanant or not would not now depend on the Judge who happened to try the case. Let me take the cases of Judge Webb and Judge Kisby. Judge Webb has in two cases treated prisoners under the Act as first-class misdemeanants, but Judge Kisby has in all cases directed that they shall be treated as common
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    criminals. Mr. O'Connor Morris has in almost all the cases that have come before him directed that the prisoners shall be dealt with as first-class misdemeanants. I say, therefore, that the present system results in great inequality, which cannot be justified for a moment. But all this part of the case is immaterial to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary, because the right hon. Gentleman has to-day admitted, as he has often before admitted, that he is against treating any of these men as political offenders, and thinks they ought all to be treated as common criminals. I think I am justified in concluding from his statement that the right hon. Gentleman is responsible for the fact that the Resident Magistrates in Ireland have without exception directed that men tried under the Crimes Act shall be treated as common criminals. Men have been treated as convicts under this Act for holding Land League meetings, for publishing proceedings of suppressed branches in their papers, and for other offences; and if you are to come to the conclusion that all these ought to be treated as common criminals, you must also go to the length of saying that there are no possible cases of any kind in which people should be treated as political offenders. I say that is a policy in direct opposition to the policy of any other civilised country in the world. The right hon. Gentleman has for the first time in the history of the country introduced the principle that there should be no class of political offenders who should be treated differently from common criminals. He has given the cue to his Magistrates to treat all offenders in the same way. I can only say I regret the conclusion at which the right hon. Gentleman has arrived. I hold him and the Prime Minister entirely responsible for the great scandal that has taken place, because it is their speeches which have given the cue to the Resident Magistrates and to many of the County Court Judges. We, on our part, will never be satisfied until we have reversed the policy which they have adopted; and I shall certainly do my best, both on public platforms and in this House, to rouse the public interest on this question.
    MR. GILL: The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has

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    ingeniously assumed that we are raising a discussion upon the whole question of prison management. I do not deny that there may be very great need for prison reform in the three kingdoms at the present time, but that is not the question which we are dealing with now. The urgent question which is now before us is the method which the right hon. Gentleman has adopted of treating political prisoners in Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman, in one of the many sallies which he was good enough to indulge in at our expense, declared that we are only humanitarians by halves, and asserted that we only took an interest in 80 out of the 20,000 prisoners in the gaols of the United Kingdom. That is an assumption that there have been only 80 persons punished under this Coercion Act. As a matter of fact, I believe the number is about 2,000. The manner in which the right hon. Gentleman made that suggestion is very characteristic of the way in which he endeavours to throw dust in the eyes of the British public. The right hon. Gentleman says we ought not to throw on the Executive the duty of deciding which prisoners are to be treated as political offenders. In every other country in the world that duty is thrown on the Executive, and the reason is that the public sentiment is so distinct and emphatic upon the question of what is and what is not a political offence that there has been no necessity to place on the Statutes any definition of the kind. The right hon. Gentleman last night alluded to the case of General Boulanger. I do not know whether the French law will now allow him to be classed as a political offender, as he is charged, rightly or wrongly, with having embezzled money; but I say that the French Executive would never have a moment's hesitation in deciding whether a man is or is not a political prisoner. England was in the same position until the year 1837, and the Executive up to that date always exercised the duty without any hesitation or difficulty. When William Cobbett and Feargus O'Connor and Mr. Vincent were confined in English gaols the Executive had no Statute to relieve them from saying whether they were political prisoners or not. They decided that they were, and acted accordingly with regard to their prison treatment.
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    When a number of Irishmen were put into English gaols, and when the Executive of the day, not so generous in their treatment of them as they were in the treatment of political prisoners, who happened to be Englishmen, insisted on treating them as common criminals, the effect of public opinion, brought to bear in this House, was such that a law was actually enacted which provided a means of deciding between political prisoners and common criminals. Mr. Bruce (now Lord Aberdare), the very gentleman to whom the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) recently submitted certain questions connected with prison treatment in Ireland, was Home Secretary at the time, and he appointed a Commission to inquire into the treatment of treason-felony prisoners. Mr. Bruce said he was of opinion that in the case of these political prisoners some relaxation of the strict rules might, in accordance with the practice of both countries, be allowed. The Commission also made up its mind that they were political prisoners, and recommended that they should be treated as a separate class. That is all we want in Ireland now: The great principle we contend for is that of the segregation of these prisoners and the drawing of a distinction between them and common criminals. In carrying out the recommendations of that Commission, Parliament inserted clauses in the Prisons Act of 1877 which made a distinction between persons convicted of sedition and seditious libel, and set apart a special prison for such prisoners. One of the County Court Judges in Ireland has recently said—
    "We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that these are incidents in a great social movement which is taking place in the country. The offences of Mr. Patrick O'Brien and Mr. O'Hea are not to he classed as disgraceful crimes or infamous crimes."
    If the right hon. Gentleman would follow the guidance of that County Court Judge, he would adopt a far more wise and civilised method than he has hitherto done of carrying on the Government of Ireland. The right hon. Gentleman made very slight reference to the prisoners in Derry Gaol in reply to the many questions that have been raised, and which were brought before the House last night by my right hon. Friend the Lord Mayor of Dublin, in a speech which I

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    am quite sure deeply impressed the House, and which I am quite sure, if fully reported in the Press, would deeply impress the country at large. But the most serious charge of all the right hon. Gentleman has utterly ignored. "We had the right hon. Gentleman last night working himself into a state of passionate indignation in defence of Sir William Miller, and he repudiated as monstrous and infamous the charges made against that gentleman; but he did not take the pains to refute a single one of the numerous and specific charges which my right hon. Friend made, not in any loose hearsay manner, but from the actual official Report submitted to the House, and the evidence of eye-witnesses of the scenes described. The Chief Secretary assumed that the very gravity of the charges carried their own refutation, and that Sir William Miller is a man so far above reproach that nobody would for a moment expect the public to assent to any such charges made against him. But while this was the right hon. Gentleman's method of meeting these charges in this House, what was Sir William Miller's method of meeting the charges made in a public Court yesterday? Sir William Miller keeps an hospital book in which he is supposed to enter every variation in the treatment of a patient in the hospital, and which should contain these particulars in reference to the man who has died, and upon whom an inquest was being held. This book was asked for by the representative of the next of kin; but Sir William Miller instructed his counsel to refuse to produce it. Let Sir William Miller be all that the right hon. Gentleman represents him to be, his own method of defending himself is a stronger accusation than we can make against him. I do not want to use any stronger language, or to make any graver charge than is suggested in Sir William Miller's refusal to produce this book. So much for the worked up and simulated indignation which the right hon. Gentleman exhibited to the House last night. The right hon. Gentleman referred to another matter last night. In dealing with the cases of Irish Members, and other political prisoners under the Crimes Act, he produced a number of ingenious statistics, carefully worked out even to decimals, to prove that the Irish Mem-
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    bers and their fellow-prisoners under the Crimes Act were, in the first place, malingerers; and, in the second place, that they were accustomed to receive privileges no other prisoners were allowed to receive; and, in the third place, if either of the other two hypotheses was to be rejected, that they must be persons of extreme delicacy. This was the language of the right hon. Gentleman:—
    "Unless, which he was unwilling to believe, prisoners under the Crimes Act were guilty of deliberate malingering, either they were persons of exceptionally delicate constitutions, or they were treated with exceptional leniency by the prison officials."
    And he produced a number of statistics to support his statement. Well, he has been two years administering his Coercion Act in Ireland, imprisoning priests, Irish Members, and persons of all grades and positions, and I should think that if his experience had taught him little, one thing at least it should have taught him—respect for the courage of those he has had to deal with. The charge of cowardice and of malingering is a mean, a miserable, and a false charge to make against us as a people. We have no doubt a good many faults, and it may be demonstrable that we have committed errors in our method and action in Ireland; but surely among our faults nobody with any self-respect can accuse us of shirking any of the consequences our public action may bring upon us, or of being afraid to accept any of the dangers into which we have ventured to lead our people in the movement we are carrying on for the redress of our grievances and the accomplishment of our national aspirations. It is the part of a generous foeman to recognise when he has to deal with an adversary whose courage is worthy of respect. When General Grenfell sent home his despatch about the unfortunate Dervishes he had slaughtered he took care to remark upon the bravery as well as the misfortunes of those he had defeated. But the right hon. Gentleman is not capable, apparently, of so much generosity towards the nation he is oppressing; and, indeed, if we were to accept the hypothesis of the right hon. Gentleman that he is dealing with gangs of cowards, malingerers, or sneaks—for that is what his suggestions amount to—it says

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    little for his prowess that with all his efforts, and with the powerful weapon, of the Coercion Act, he has been unable to get the better of those people. Will the right hon. Gentleman specify any single instance of an Irish political prisoner whom he will venture to describe as a malingerer? He once made the attempt when the hon. Member for North-East Cork was suffering his first imprisonment. The right hon. Gentleman wrote a letter to the Press suggesting that the hon. Member sought shelter under a medical certificate, pleading a weak heart and delicate lungs, to escape from prison discipline and the consequences of refusing to wear the prison dress. But the right hon. Gentleman soon had to change his tone; and now when he flings the charge of malingering against his political opponents, I challenge him, as I did when he made a disgraceful charge against the priests of Clare, to give a specific instance, and if he will not do so, then I say his conduct is unworthy of a Member of the House, let alone that of a Minister responsible for the government of a whole nation. The right hon. Gentleman speaks of malingering especially in reference to the Derry prisoners, because that was the case under notice; but surely he does not moan that M'Gee, who died two days after he left the prison, carried his malingering to that tragic extent, or that the young man Size, who entered the prison strong and powerful, and was released in such a condition that the prison doctor had to supply him with a car to carry him to the railway station, and four ounces of brandy as a viaticum, and who has since died, was a malingerer? Or does he so describe John Mandeville, now in his grave, or Larkin, who died in Kilkenny, or John Powell, the editor of the Midland Tribune, now undergoing his third term of imprisonment, who has lost the sight of one eye, and who is in the prison hospital spitting blood? If Powell is a coward and malingerer, one term of imprisonment would have been sufficient, and he would not have committed another offence by publishing in his newspaper that which he thought it his duty to publish. Men who are cowards and malingerers do not subject themselves twice and thrice to prison discipline if they wish to avoid it. What are the privileges Crimes Act prisoners have had over others? Does
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    the right hon. Gentleman count the forcible stripping off of clothes, knocking down and rendering insensible, privileges to which Irish Members under the Coercion Act are entitled to, and from which other prisoners are excluded, or the clipping of hair and beard, or bread and water for resisting those indignities? I do not know whether in his ingenious compilation of figures the right hon. Gentleman took into account the privilege of prisoners to wear their own clothes, to take separate exercise, and to be relieved, on payment of fees, from the odium of performing menial offices; but if he did so, I tell him that these were dearly bought, and that the Executive can claim no credit for them. The right hon. Gentleman thought it conclusive to say that if the hypothesis of malingering was rejected, then the constitutions of Irish Members must be peculiarly delicate. I think this was an unworthy remark to make; but since it has been made, I may be excused if I retort in that tu quoque manner which the right hon. Gentleman has himself used with skill and frequency, and ask how he supposes the treatment to which my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Cork was subjected, would affect his own physique? No doubt many hon. Members and others who have been imprisoned are not very strong; that may be said of my hon. Friends the Members for East Mayo and North-East Cork and Mr. Powell, now spitting blood in his prison hospital, but what an unworthy, unmanly, argument is this to use. I, for one, would never wish to see the right hon. Gentleman subjected to the penalties inflicted upon my hon. Friends; but if it should ever come to be his turn to endure such sufferings, I trust there would be none of us to fling against him the taunt that he must be malingering, or his constitution must be exceedingly delicate. The right hon. Gentleman has now carried on his policy for two years, and I ask him how long does he mean to continue it? Has the opportunity been afforded him of testing the chances of his success? The country has tolerated his experiment for two years; but I am sure the country will not tolerate it for 20 years. If the right hon. Gentleman has succeeded in striking terror by his method of

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    treating Irish prisoners, if by this means he has created respect for his law among the people, let him go on. But I deny that he has succeeded in terrorising the people. He has put in prison Members of Parliament, priests, editors of newspapers, public men of all kinds, and every citizen who chooses to sacrifice himself for the National cause in Ireland. Even while we are debating, the hon. Members for North-East and West Cork are being tried before a Coercion Court—
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The hon. Member is not confining himself to the Vote for the Prisons Board in Ireland.
    MR. GILL: I will not pursue the point further than to say that the treatment of prisoners in Ireland, harsh, cruel, vindictive, though it has been, has not succeeded in breaking the spirit of the people on whom it has been inflicted. The hon. Member for North-East Cork is probably about to undergo his third term of imprisonment, and the hon. Member for West Cork his second. They are not in the least degree daunted or shaken in their resolution to carry on the policy which has brought upon them these penalties. As for the people at large, among whom the right hon. Gentleman finds his victims whom he tries to stigmatise as criminals—
    MR. SPEAKER: For the second time I must remind the hon. Member that he is not discussing the policy of the Prisons Board in relation to the Vote.
    MR. GILL: I will not continue this line of discussion. I will only, in conclusion, refer to the condition to which the Chief Secretary has reduced the prison rules in Ireland, by reason of what I may describe as his own malingering. What is malingering? It is endeavouring to escape penalties under a false pretence. The right hon. Gentleman, defeated in his endeavour to carry out his prison régime, rather than frankly confess his defeat and acknowledge that rules must be applied to a class of political offenders, has made the prison rules, as at present administered, a complete farce. He will not make the distinction between political and other offenders, and so the perpetrators of the Belfast frauds, described by the Judge as the most extensive and wicked system of frauds that ever came under his notice, are allowed to go about
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    Derry Gaol in their own clothes among the other criminals, simply because the right hon. Gentleman will not admit there are political prisoners in Ireland, and has played ducks and drakes with the rules rather than accept the recommendations of Lord Aberdare1s Commission. Public opinion in Ireland and in England has been shocked by the treatment of his Coercion Act prisoners, and the public opinion of the civilised world condemns his policy. The other day the noble Lord the Member for Paddington (Lord R. Churchill) gave voice to what I believe to be the large proportion even of Conservative opinion on this subject, when he said there was disgust with the manner at which the right hon. Gentleman had been carrying on his prison policy. I say then that, after two years, the right hon. Gentleman has produced nothing but failure by his policy as far as Ireland is concerned, and nothing but discredit as far as England is concerned.
    MR. W. A. MACDONALD: I regret that I was unable, through physical exhaustion, to hear the greater part of the right hon. Gentleman's (Mr. Balfour's) speech; but I understand that he made no reply whatever to the remarkable address delivered last night by my hon. Friend the Member for the City of Cork—a speech which I think rose far above the ordinary Party discussions of this House, and which dealt with questions of permanent interest. I think that speech deserves to be answered. My hon. Friend divided prisoners in Ireland into two classes, namely, prisoners of the ordinary criminal type, and political prisoners, and in reference to both these classes he made remarks which, I think, ought to receive the most careful consideration of everybody who claims to legislate in a spirit of humanity for the most helpless class of our fellow-countrymen. The system you pursue in Ireland is to half-starve the ordinary criminals, to give them work to do of the most uninteresting character, and to prevent them having the ordinary means of exercise in the open air. The change which my hon. Friend wants to see effected is one which I think sooner or later the conscience of this country will compel statesmen to adopt. It is that you should give prisoners plenty of work of a kind which is really useful and remunerative to the

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    community, and that you should give them sufficient food to enable them to do that work. Instead of having to come to this House every year for a large sum of money for keeping up these prisons in Ireland, you should try and make them pay their expenses, and so take the burden off the general taxpayers of the country. The only objection which, as far as I can see, can be made to such a suggestion is that traders outside might possibly complain because articles produced in the prison might, by their quantity, reduce the price of such commodities. But am I to be seriously told that the interests of one or two trades are to be set in opposition to the general interests of the community? Are we to go back to the old principles of Protection once more, and to say that prices must be kept up in order to sustain those who carry on certain industries? No, Sir; if it be for the interest of the community or of the prisoners themselves that they should be employed, I do not think that argument will stand for one moment. I have one suggestion to make to men of all shades of opinion. I am afraid that most of us know very little about the actual administration of the prisons either in this country or in Ireland. I think we ought to know more about it, and that it is our business to know it; and I hope, if I am supported by the feeling of this House, to bring in a Bill next Session to enable Members of Parliament to visit prisons on the same conditions as Visiting Justices, so that we may know what goes on in them, and be able to legislate like intelligent men. The right hon. Gentleman said there were a great many more political prisoners released in proportion to their numbers than ordinary criminals, and that this might be due to the fact that political prisoners had exceptionally delicate constitutions. I wish to ask the right hon. Gentleman and the House whether no other alternative can be suggested? Did it ever occur to the mind of the right hon. Gentleman that there might be another reason—a reason which strikes at the very foundation of his method of treating political prisoners in Ireland—namely, that those prisoners do not belong to the class from which ordinary criminals are taken, that they are men who have lived lives of com-
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    parative comfort, and that, therefore, prison life tells on them in a way in which it could not tell on common criminals? I say there is not a man in this House except the right hon. Gentleman himself—and he is so callous that he will not feel these arguments—who does not see the broad distinction I have hinted at. The right hon. Gentleman has said that in the case of a large number of prisoners of a certain social position in Ireland certain degradations ought not to be inflicted on them. Their hair is not clipped, and they do not have to discharge certain menial offices. But, after all, whilst these things touch the honour and the feelings of men who have been brought up as gentlemen, far worse remains behind. If I were a prisoner I think I should complain most, with my bringing up, of the plank bed, of insufficient food, of insufficient exercise, and of an unnatural and cruel and needlessly enforced silence. These things remain, and the right hon. Gentleman has not attempted to deal with them. As long as they remain, I say there is no equality in the treatment of different classes of prisoners in Ireland, and it must be our duty to raise our voices again and again until something like humanity is introduced into the system of treating political prisoners in Ireland. Let me say, in conclusion, that I think the right hon. Gentleman would act far more wisely if he showed a little more consideration for the feelings of others. We do not feel so strongly against the right hon. Gentleman because he is opposed to us in politics, but because he does not act upon what we regard as the ordinary principles of humanity. As long as we think his administration cruel, as long as we think he does not really inquire into wrongs when they are pointed out to him, so long we shall be opposed to him in the strongest manner. We object to his proceedings, not because he is a political opponent, but because he is a man who, in our opinion, is destitute of the feelings of common humanity.
    MR. M. HEALY: I rise to call attention again to a case which has already been referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Longford (Mr. T. M. Healy), but to which the right hon. Gentleman completely gave the go-by when he was speaking. I refer to the refusal of the Deputy Governor of

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    Cork Gaol to permit certain Visiting Justices to have a private interview with a prisoner who demanded such an interview. The rule on this subject is perfectly plain and clear. It provides that Visiting Justices may from time to time, and at frequent intervals, visit any prisoners and hear any complaints made to them by the prisoners, and, if asked, shall do so privately. The Mayor of Cork and Messrs. Day and Dunn, two City Magistrates, visited Cork Gaol this month, and in the course of their visit a prisoner under the Crimes Act, named O'Brien, asked for a private interview, with the object of making a complaint to them. The Deputy Governor informed the Justices that he could not permit any statement to be made to them in private; and the Justices had to leave the prison without hearing what O'Brien's complaint was. Now, Sir, one of the few protections which prisoners in Ireland have is this right of making statements in private to the Visiting Committee. If there were not such a right prisoners would be absolutely at the mercy of every petty tyrant who happened to be Governor or Deputy Governor of a gaol. The Mayor of Cork wrote to the Prisons Board on the subject, and the Prisons Board have admitted that the Deputy Governor was wrong in refusing to allow the private interview to take place. But they have not inflicted any punishment on the Deputy Governor, nor have they even censured him. I ask whether this is the way in which the Prison Rules ought to be enforced in Ireland? Is this the way to deal with a man who was culpably ignorant of the rules he has to administer? They simply sent him a Circular drawing his attention to the rule. If a Deputy Governor is not supposed to know the Prison Rules, I do not know who is. I should hardly think he is likely to pay more attention to the Circular than he has paid to the rule itself. If this prison had been an ordinary prison, I do not suppose the Deputy Governor would have thought it his duty to interfere. If the Justices, instead of consisting of the Nationalist Mayor of Cork and two Catholic Magistrates, had consisted of the Grand Master of the Orange Lodge and some of his colleagues, the Deputy Governor would never have prohibited a private interview. But because this unfortu-
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    nate prisoner happened to have been imprisoned under the Coercion Act, and because the Visiting Justices happened to be headed by the Mayor of Cork—who, as every one knows, is a Nationalist—they are a fit mark for the ignorance of these people. The Chief Secretary, in referring to another case of the kind which occurred in Cork Gaol, said he did not desire to speak harshly of the Governor. No; all the harshness is reserved for the prisoners. But if the Governor had been guilty of leniency towards the prisoners a different fate would have waited on him. We know that warder after warder has been removed, and that some of the warders have been dismissed because the Prisons Board came to the conclusion that they were too lenient towards the prisoners. But when the mistake is in the other direction, and the warder offends on the side of rigour and not of leniency, the Prisons Board refuse to reprimand him. When the Deputy Governor is so ignorant of the rules that he is unaware that the Visiting Justices are entitled to see a prisoner in private, the Prisons Board merely send him a Circular calling his attention to the rule.
    MR. O'KEEFFE: I desire to take some little part in this discussion, inasmuch as owing to the position I hold in Ireland I happen to be ex officio Chairman of two Prisons Visiting Committees, and have had considerable experience of visiting gaols. I apprehend I have paid something like 600 visits to the city and county gaols of Limerick. As regards the statement which has been put forward in this House that Irish prisoners have occasion to complain of an inadequate dietary, I must say one of the very few complaints I have ever received from the prisoners has been that the dietary allowed in the Irish gaols is utterly insufficient for their wants. I find that in the case of every prisoner committed to gaol the first three days' confinement amounts to absolute starvation, because the quality of the food is such—bread and water, and a miserable compound called "stir-about"—that no one is able to eat it. I have frequently been told by prisoners that for the first couple of days in gaol no food whatever has passed their lips. At this late hour of the Debate I will not enter into any of the general aspects of the case. As to

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    the distinction between prisoners under the Crimes Act and prisoners convicted of ordinary crime, it is in evidence that according to the civilised ideas of every other country there should be some distinction. So long as the present relations between England and Ireland exist, political offences will be committed, and it ought to be a part of the prison economy of this country towards ours that a just and equitable and honourable provision shall be made to distinguish between political and non-political offenders. I would call attention to three specific instances which have come under my immediate notice as showing the injustice of the present method of treating political prisoners in Ireland. The first case is that of a man named Tully, which has been referred to to-day. I will not travel over the ground which has already been traversed. I am not here to make an appeal for mercy on this man's behalf, as he has almost completed his 12 months' imprisonment. I have several times put a question as to his condition in this House, and have always received an evasive answer. I say that this man has almost entirely lost his eye-sight in Limerick Gaol. His offence was a very slight one under the Coercion Act, and though I do not know him personally, as he is a stranger to Limerick—being one of what are known as the Woodford prisoners—he is well known to the two hon. Members for Galway, who declare that he has always been looked upon as a respectable man in his district. Well, this man contracted in gaol an affection of the eyes, and the complaint has been going on month by month until I have it from the members of his own family and from actual observation that in the natural course of things before very long he will be absolutely blind. There are three other prisoners in Limerick Gaol whom I think it a gross act of injustice to detain there, and those are the three men who were held as hostages for the settlement of the difficulty on the Vandeleur estate. I know these men we'll, having visited them almost daily during the six months they have been in gaol, and I am bound to say, on their behalf, that they would not care for me to make any appeal for a modification of their sentence—that, in fact, if they knew I was even mentioning their names here they would
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    reprobate my conduct. A settlement was arrived at on the Vandeleur estate on the implied basis that these men should be liberated. But though the settlement was arrived at, in violation of its terms these men are still detained in custody. I say that the effect of keeping the men in custody is really to maintain an open sore in that part of the country, and to discourage other tenants from assenting to any species of arbitration. I do not think I am violating confidence if I say that I have reason to believe, from information derived from a certain source, that these three humble peasants of County Clare would be released from custody in the morning if they would only humble to the extent of asking the Chief Secretary to give them their liberty. A newspaper I received from Clare only this morning shows that the agitation in the public mind with regard to this case is as keen as ever. I hold that in the present peaceful condition of the county it is unjust to detain these men any longer in prison. Another case I would mention is that of my hon. Friend (Mr. Finucane). He was sentenced to five months' imprisonment for taking part in what was called an "illegal conspiracy," though the "conspiracy" was evidenced by four public meetings, every one of which I attended, and over the last of which I presided, for the reason that it took place in my Division. Mr. Finucane receive five months' imprisonment, and several of my constituents were also sent to prison. During the first month he was in gaol Mr. Finucane was in the hospital. He was sentenced to a second imprisonment—four months—and of that he spent the greater part in the hospital of Tullamore Gaol. I say it is abhorrent to the feelings of every humane person that Mr. Finucane should have been kept in the prison hospital if he was not considered fit to be in the prison itself. My hon. Friend, who came across from Limerick to this country to perform his duty to his constituents in this House, is at this moment prostrate in his hotel from the effects of the treatment he received in gaol, and the Member for South Longford (Dr. Fitzgerald), who has seen my hon. Friend, declares that he will feel the effects of his imprisonment during the remainder of his life. I am glad to say that though I have visited up-

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    wards of 100 Crimes Act prisoners I have never heard a word of complaint escape their lips. I remember in one case sympathising with a man who had received nine months' imprisonment for some paltry offence, and his reply to me was, "I don't mind it. Michael Davitt spent nine years in gaol." The Chief Secretary would be surprised at the spirit of heroism displayed by every one of these people—and I refer not only to men but to women also. In the City of Limerick there was a woman named Ryan who had been detained in prison under one sentence for contempt of Court. She is now undergoing a second term. Instances like these show the present prison system in Ireland. The only thing I fear is that when Parliament is prorogued the right hon. Gentleman will be relieved of even the thin barrier of Parliamentary revision, and that his coercive policy will break out with renewed violence. I can assure him, however, that this policy will not wean the people from the struggle they are making; but that they will continue to use every Constitutional engine to effect the purpose they have in view, which is to establish the right of the Irish people to legislate for themselves in their own Parliament.
    SIR J. SWINBURNE: Yesterday there were four specific charges made by the hon. Member for South Armagh (Mr. Blane) against the Irish prison discipline, to which no answer has been made on behalf of the Government. These charges were not made on hearsay evidence; they were made on the hon. Member's own responsibility, as the result of his own observation and experience when a prisoner in Derry Gaol. The hon. Member declared that prisoners bared their arms to show that they were suffering from a loathsome disease, such as it was declared by the Government Mr. Conybeare could not have contracted in prison. When the hon. Member had asked them why they did not go to the hospital to be cured, they replied that if they asked to see a doctor they would be ill-used; they would have their heads knocked against the wall; and that if they gave any trouble about it they would be put on bread and water and punished with solitary confinement. The hon. Member stated that prisoners
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    were knocked about, shaken, and pushed against the wall, as if the object were to provoke them into committing assaults on the warders. The hon. Member also stated that he and other prisoners were paraded and made an exhibition of before visitors to the gaol—before Sir Hervey Bruce and some of his lady friends. The hon. Member was exhibited to these people like a wild beast. These are charges so direct, specific, and circumstantial that I cannot understand their being entirely ignored by the Government. Before this Vote is passed I should like some Member of the Government to make some reply to these definite accusations against the carrying out of the prison rules in Derry Gaol; and something more ought to be said by the Government about the tenants from the Vandeleur estate, who are kept in gaol, although even the landlord has petitioned that they may be liberated, as all the disputes out of which the offences, for which they are imprisoned, arose have been amicably arranged.
    The House divided:—Ayes 67; Noes 43.—(Div. List, No. 340.)
    Resolutions 4 to 11 agreeed to.
    On the Twelfth Resolution.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
    MR. PICKERSGILL: As this important Vote was passed last night without discussion, I think I may ask the indulgence of the House for a few moments whilst I say a word or two upon it. A right hon. Gentleman on the Treasury Bench has stated that the treatment of prisoners was not challenged by hon. Members on this side of the House until their own friends had suffered from it. Well, so far as that taunt is well founded at all it is of general application, and it amounts only to this: Our penal system is a social question, and hitherto, unhappily as I think, social questions have not in this House attracted the same attention and excited the same enthusiam as questions of a political or Party character. If it means more than that, then I distinctly challenge the accuracy of the right hon. Gentleman's statement; because for years past, both in this House and outside it, there have been men of

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    the highest character and of ripe experience who, whilst admitting the great improvement—and I, for one, should be amongst the last to deny it—which have been made by the English Prisons Board, have yet complained that, on the whole, our English penal system is a failure, and that it is marked, indeed, by some circumstances of positive cruelty. I hope next year to be able to bring the subject before the House, in a comprehensive manner, in the form of a Resolution; but I cannot permit, for the present year, this opportunity, which is the only one I have, to pass without making a few observations on the subject, which I would fain hope will not be without some effect on the English Prisons Board. Looking at the matter broadly, the most salient features of our English system—the most salient defects as I regard them—are excessive centralisation in the first place, and excessive militaryism in the second. To begin at the bottom of the scale we have the warders who are in very many instances old soldiers. Then we have the Governors and Deputy Governors who control the warders and who are, with few exceptions, officers of the Army and Navy. And, over all, you have the supreme Board on which, also, the military element predominates. It is from these two causes—namely, excessive centralisation and excessive militaryism, that most of the evils arise of which I have to complain. The treatment of unconvicted prisoners, who may turn out to be as respectable persons as any Member of this House, is most unsatisfactory, and is well exemplified by a case recently tried in connection with Ipswich Gaol, where an unconvicted commercial traveller was subjected to wholly illegal treatment and to gross indignities. This prisoner, whilst still untried—and who in a recent action against the prison officials recovered £75 damages for this illegal treatment—was compelled to strip naked for purposes of examination by the prison doctor, and to wear prison clothing marked with the broad arrow. An unworthy attempt was made to throw the blame upon a warder, but in cross-examination the Governor had to admit that the warders acted in accordance with instructions received from him. But I want to fix responsibility upon the Prison Commissioners. Do they
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    approve or disapprove of the action of the Governor in this case? If they do not approve of it, why did they defend him in the action brought against him; and how do they propose to punish him? The present system in regard to the flogging of convicts is also very unsatisfactory, for this is inflicted after a secret inquiry held, in the case of convicts sentenced to penal servitude, by a single individual, generally a military man, who probably has strong views as to the effectiveness of the lash in maintaining discipline. There has been a movement in this country in favour of an extension of flogging, which has found expression even in this House, though, to do the advocates of this proposal justice, they did desire that all possible safeguards should be taken in the matter, and proposed to limit the power of sentencing to the lash to the Judges of the Superior Court. Floggings, I contend, are unnecessary in order to maintain discipline; the lash is, in fact, the resort of incompetency, just as it is said anyone can govern in a state of siege. I further contend that short term imprisonment, by reason of the severity of the régime, inflicts permanent injury upon the health of prisoners. The present system is not only inhuman, but in the highest degree impolitic, because if men are discharged with minds and bodies enfeebled by their treatment in prison, it is obvious that they are less able to obtain an honest livelihood, and more likely to become dupes of cleverer criminals than themselves. The policy of the Prisons Board has been distinguished, more especially since Sir E. Du Cane became its head, by a love of secrecy and a morbid dread of any influence from the outside world penetrating within the walls of a convict prison. But I say that the more we extend the system of the visitation of prisoners by suitable persons from the outer world the better it will be. There ought in particular to be a lady visitor to every prison where women are confined, and I am sorry to say that, although there are now 28 prisons without these visitors, only two additional visitors have been appointed during the last two years. These visitors would introduce humanising influences into prisons, where they seem now to be ignored. I understand—and I heard

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    it with pain—that nothing may be introduced into a convict prison, not even the photograph of a imp or child. But surely anything which tends to soften and humanise a man can do him no harm, even within the walls of a convict prison. On th9 contrary, I cannot but think that a wise and experienced Governor would not exclude, and would not despise, the invaluable influence which might be produced even upon a hardened criminal by the photograph of his innocent child, or any other memento of happier days. It has been said by one who ought to know, that "when a man enters an English convict prison, he has to leave every sentiment of decency, modesty, and shame outside." I, for one, protest against such a system. I believe it is possible to punish men severely and deterrently without adopting a mode of treatment which seems calculated to extinguish the last spark of self-respect.
    THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. STUART-WORTLEY,): I must protest against the language and tone in which the hon. Member has persisted in urging that on all the questions he has introduced to the notice of the House the Prisons Board has offered an unenlightened resistance to reform. The hon. Member has complained of the excessive centralisation of the system; but the Ipswich case, to which he referred, was an illustration of the evils of the want of centralisation, as in that case the Governor, in the exercise of the discretion vested in him to make certain rules, had made a rule which was in conflict with the statutory rules. Whether the costs and damages which have fallen upon the Treasury in the first instance should be borne by the Governor is a matter for grave consideration. It should be remembered that in the action against the Ipswich Governor the plaintiff's counsel and the Lord Chief Justice made it clear that the charge that was made was not against the Governor personally, but rather against the system. The hon. Gentleman has complained that the prison treatment of short-term convicts is such as permanently to injure the constitutions of persons subjected to it. Before the Committee can judge whether that is
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    true or not specific instances in which permanent injury has resulted from that treatment would have to be proved. But the hon. Member has brought forward no such cases. Dr. Gover, in a recent Report, has shown that the system is far from being so severe as is generally supposed. If it can be shown that the system produces the permanent harmful effects suggested, then undoubtedly there would be a case for reform; but until that has been shown I protest against these general charges being made. I may add that when the dietary was fixed, independent medical practitioners were called in for the purpose of giving advice upon it. With regard to the identification of prisoners for previous convictions, mistakes do no doubt occur; but in proportion to the enormous yearly number of identifications the errors are infinitesimally few. The last case was due to a practice prevalent amongst the prisoners, the reason of which I cannot explain, of exchanging the tickets they wore with the numbers of their cells upon them. Steps are being taken by identifying the men in smaller groups to prevent such an exchange taking place in future. With regard to the "star" class, I cannot remember at the moment what the exact conditions of admission to it are, but I will look into the matter. I do not think there is so much difficulty in visitors getting into a prison as the strict terms of the rules would imply. Those rules, when not dispensed with, limit the admission of strangers to persons "interested in prison discipline and management, having some useful public object in view." But with the concurrence of the Prison Authorities, I have myself occasionally allowed the strict terms of that rule to be relaxed.
    MR. T. M. HEALY: Hear, hear. Pigott.
    MR. STUART WORTLEY: I am speaking of persons who merely desire to see what the prisons are like, and for the purpose only of contending that abundant opportunity exists for independent criticism of our prison system. With regard to lady visitors, the power of nominating them lies with the Visiting Justices, and the only reason why lady visitors are not appointed to all prisons where women are placed is that none have been nominated by the Justices.

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    The Prisons Board throw no sort of obstacle in the way of such appointments; but, on the contrary, are desirous that they should be made. With regard to flogging, I think it will be admitted that it must be retained in some cases—such as violent assaults on warders or fellow prisoners. I also think any abuse is sufficiently guarded against by the doctor's certificate and the other regulations which have to be observed. I hope I have now satisfied the House that there is no ground for the charge of inhumanity which has been made.
    MR. BLANE: I think all reasonable men will admit that Members of this House ought to have access to convict prisoners. Our old friend Walter, of the Times, and his agents seem to have access to prisoners at all times. Those who got up conspiracies against Members of Parliament have the right to enter our prisons whenever they think fit. Surely Members of this House ought to have the right to enter convict prisons to ask the prisoners if they have any complaints to make and if they have to probe the matter to the bottom. I differ from those who say that our convict system should not be a reformatory system. I think it should be a reformatory system; that it should be conducted in accordance with the feelings of humanity, and that points should be strained in favour of the convicts. The prisoners are shut out from the world, Members of this House have not access to them, and they cannot make complaints themselves.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    On the Thirteenth Resolution,
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
    SIR G. CAMPBELL: It is totally impossible on this occasion to go at length into the subjects involved in this Resolution, and therefore I will confine myself to one matter which has just cropped up at Suakin. A day or two ago I asked the Under Secretary for Foreign Affairs a question as to the so-called Governor General of Suakin supplying arms and ammunition to the friendly tribes around Suakin, wherewith to make raids on the neighbouring tribes. I followed up that question by asking the Under Secretary whether
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    these raids did not involve the despatch of large contingents of Her Majesty's troops. I did not receive an answer. To-day there appears the following telegram from Suakin:—
    "In revenge for the raid on Sinkat, Mohamed Achmet, nephew of the late Mahdi, has left Tokar to punish the Hadendowas. He has with him 1,000 men, consisting of Tokar tribesmen, Jaleen, and Baggaras. Sheikh Kidr, of the Hassanabs, with 300 men, also joins him to co-operate with Mahdi Moussa's force, which fled from Sinkat on the advance of the friendlies from Suakin."
    History repeats itself. This is precisely what happened last year, I had hoped the Government had learned a lesson from what took place last year. Why cannot we try a policy of peace; that is to say, instructing the Governor General to confine himself to the town of Suakin? No one can accuse the Times of want of Jingoism, and yet I find the correspondent of the Times Says, "These raids and counter raids are unfortunate." The St. James's Gazette takes a strange view, but I will not detain the House longer. It is raids such as these which involved us in little wars with the tribes, and I hope that before separating we may get an assurance that this raiding will be stopped, as far as possible, by the Governor of Suakin. Otherwise we shall have more wars with the tribes on our hands before Parliament re-assembles.
    THE UNDER SECERTARY OF STATE FOR FOEEIGN AFFAIES (Sir J. FERGUSSON,): I have seen the telegram in the Times, and doubtless, at first, sight, it has an alarming aspect. We know, however, that these rumours are not always well-founded. The hon. Gentleman has referred to the policy lately pursued by the Egyptian Government in permitting the tribes called the Hadendowas to make reprisals for outrages and depredations committed against them by the Dervishes and their allies. The Egyptian Government have followed the policy stated in this House again and again of standing on the defensive and maintaining the frontier which was in existence when Her Majesty's Government came into power. But it is another thing when the tribes over which there is no sovereignty exercised, but who are friendly to us, are defending themselves against the attacks of organised and predatory bodies, from, which they suffered great loss and their

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    whole means of existence in flocks and herds are carried away. It is true that certain supplies of arms and ammunition were given to these friendly tribes in order that they might defend themselves and regain their property. As we prevent the importation of arms on the coast, we could hardly deny to our friends the means of defence against a formidable enemy. So far as recent operations have gone, the Government have not deviated from the policy which they have deliberately pursued all along. I hope the apprehensions of the hon. Member will not be realised.
    Resolution agreed to.

NAVY AND ARMY EXPENDITURE, 1887–8.
Resolutions [23rd August] (see pages 365–372) reported, and agreed to.

WAYS AND MEANS.
Resolution [23rd August] reported.
"That, towards making good the Supply granted to Her Majesty for the service of the year ending on the 31st day of March 1890, the sum of £18,438,592 be granted out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom."
Resolution agreed to.

MOTION.

  CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL.
  MR. JACKSON: I beg to move for leave to introduce the Consolidated Fund (Appropriation) Bill.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That leave be given to bring in a Bill to apply a sum, out of the Consolidated Fund, to the Service of the year ending on the thirty-first day of March one thousand eight hundred and ninety, and to appropriate the Supplies granted in this Session of Parliament, and that Mr. Courtney, Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Mr. Jackson, do prepare and bring it in."
  MR. T. M. HEALYwas understood to ask whether further facilities would be given for the discussion of certain Votes.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): I have stated that the Government hopes to give hon. Members an opportunity of discussing Estimates which they have not been able to discuss this year owing to the
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  fact that they were not reached till a very late period of the Session, but I must point out to the hon. and learned Gentleman that there have been 45 days devoted to Supply this Session. I think the hon. and learned Gentleman will see the extreme difficulty in which the House has been placed by the discussion of some Estimates at very great length.
  MR. A. SUTHERLAND: I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has not defended the way in which the Scotch Estimates have been dealt with. The discussion of some of them has been deferred, and one of them was taken after 1 o'clock in the morning. The way in which the Scotch Estimates have been treated is nothing short of scandalous. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will endeavour next Session to make up for the very unfair way in which they have been dealt with this Session.
  MR. SEXTON: I would submit to the right hon. Gentleman that if Supply were taken regularly during the Session from its commencement a great deal of time would be saved which is now consumed in long discussions on Votes on Account, and in troublesome Motions for Adjournment, and in other ways.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: If the right hon. Gentleman will look back upon the records of the Session he will see that Supply was started very early.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill presented, and read the first time; to be read a second time upon Monday next.

EXPIRING LAWS CONTINUANCE BILL (No. 376.)
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Schedule 1.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this be the First Schedule of the Bill."
MR. LEA: I feel bound to refer to the Sale of Liquors on Sunday (Ireland) Act, which is proposed to be continued by means of this Bill. I have tried to obtain other opportunities of dealing with the question, but have not been successful. The Act

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has been renewed in the Expiring Laws Continuance Acts year after year for six or eight years. It is highly objectionable that such a measure should be so treated. The fact was recognised long ago, and in 1883 and 1884 Bills were brought in to make the law permanent. The year before last the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary admitted that it was most undesirable to renew the Act in this way, and a Select Committee was promised to inquire into the subject. The Committee sat last year, and, after a full investigation, recommended that the Act should be made permanent. At the beginning of last February a deputation waited upon the Chief Secretary in Dublin. I believe that such a deputation had never visited the Chief Secretary's Lodge before, and I think he was impressed with it. He made certain promises with regard to legislation in connection with the Act, and we believed that, as a result of these promises, the subject would not again be dealt with in the Expiring Laws Continuance Act. We were promised the Government would either bring in a Bill of their own or assist some private Member to carry a measure through the House. The Government have not brought in a Bill this Session, nor have they done the next best thing in giving aid to any private Member in bringing in a Bill. I do not blame the Chief Secretary; I believe he has done his best, and that he fully recognises the strong feeling there is in Ireland in favour of a measure of this kind. The Government, however, have failed to carry out the promises they made, nor have they even made an effort to carry them out; they have not devoted five minutes' discussion to the subject or walked once through the Division Lobby.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Sir, I rise to a point of order. I wish to ask you whether, upon the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill, which is the subject of our Debate now, it is in order for an hon. Member to raise a discussion upon another Bill which is, I understand, in the charge of the hon. Member for South Londonderry, and upon the facilities that may have been afforded for the discussion on that Bill? Is that in order?
MR. M. HEALY: On the point of order, Sir, I would ask you whether it is not perfectly competent to discuss
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the question whether a particular Bill should be included in this Continuance Bill, or whether it is of such a character that it should not be so included?
THE CHAIRMAN: It is competent for an hon. Member to discuss the proposition to include any Bill in the schedule. It is not competent for him for him to discuss another Bill of the same character to that which it is proposed shall take its place in the schedule. But I understand the hon. Member was making his observations for the purpose of showing that it would be necessary to insert this in the schedule.
MR. LEA: That was my intention; but I will not refer to the other Bill further. I will only say this—that the people of Ireland have a very strong feeling that this Act should not remain in the schedule of the Continuance Act, but should take its place as a permanent measure. We had promises from the Government early in the Session, and we believed that these promises would be fulfilled. The great majority of the people of Ireland are wishful that this Act should not remain a temporary Act. It is a well-known fact that every Unionist Member is in favour of a permanent Sunday Closing Act. But I do not think that affords sufficient justification for legislation of this kind; but I think I may add that such a Bill has the support of the majority of Members below the Gangway.
THE CHAIRMAN: I do not think the hon. Member is now confining himself to the discussion of the particular Act in the schedule. The only question is whether that Act shall remain in the schedule or not for another year. The question of its permanent character is not one that can now be entered upon.
MR. LEA: Under the circumstances, Sir, perhaps I had better obtain some other occasion. I thought that I should find my opportunity now.
MR. M. HEALY: Do I understand your ruling to be that under no circumstances is it competent for an hon. Member to discuss the merits of an Act that is included in the Expiring Laws Continuance Bill?
THE CHAIRMAN: I gave no such ruling. The question now for discussion is whether the particular Act is one that should be included in the schedule or not.
MR. M. HEALY: I wish to say a few words as to the character of the Act it is proposed to include, and I begin by saying that it is one that should not be included. It is a measure which, from whatever point of view we regard it, should not be dealt with in this way in an Expiring Laws Bill. That, I think, is a proposition which will be accepted both by the supporters and the opponents of the measure. Two years ago this question was raised at the instance of the Lord Mayor of Dublin, and there was a general protest against the Act being included in a Continuance Bill, and we submitted to the House that if the measure were carried out at all it should be settled finally in an ordinary Act of Parliament. I do not intend to address the Committee at any length, but I say the Government in this matter have been guilty of what, in my opinion, is a discreditable breach of faith. At the beginning of the Session they promised that this year they would settle the question by a definite measure, and permanently. Throughout the whole Session they have been holding out hopes to the supporters of the measure that they would so dispose of it. Both the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chief Secretary have expressed themselves publicly in that sense, and thus they have lulled the supporters of this legislation into a sleep from which they are now finally roused to find that the measure is still to keep its temporary character in this Expiring Laws Bill. I do not agree that the Chief Secretary has done his best; he distinctly promised on the part of the Government that a portion of the time of this Session should be given to this subject, and that promise has been broken without any reason whatever, and I consider that a deliberate breach of faith.
MR. SEXTON: Generally speaking, I should agree that a social measure of this kind, touching as it does the daily life of the people, should be considered in a definite measure by itself, and not as a part of this Bill. But I do not feel called upon, standing in what I may call an impartial position, on the 24th August to go into the question as between friends and opponents of such legislation. The only question before us now is whether we shall continue the Act for another year or allow it to drop. The time may come when we may discuss the subject
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in a permanent measure, and the only possible result of striking the Act from the schedule now will be that for the next year there will be no Sunday closing in Ireland at all.
MR. BIGGAR: That is not quite the point that is raised. The hon. Member for South Londonderry does not propose to leave out the Act; he simply discusses the propriety of continually renewing it in this Continuance Bill. I think it would be better for all parties if, instead of putting it among the Acts to be continued, it were made a permanent Act by itself. Of course, I will not attempt to discuss it now. Considering that the subject has been carefully examined by a Committee, that much evidence has been taken, and that the Committee have made a recommendation upon which a suitable Bill may be framed, I think that the time has arrived when the Government might undertake legislation on the subject. I certainly understood the Government to hold out hopes that this subject would have a final settlement this Session. I cannot say that I know that of my own knowledge, for, of course, I did not form one of the Unionist deputation to the Castle. It may be that the Government have been influenced by the signs of opposition to the Bill. Upon this I will only say that the publicans in Ireland are a very strong organisation, and, of course, nothing is more easy for members of an organisation than to communicate with Members of Parliament and to urge them to take a particular course. The great mass of the people not having a money interest in the subject are not so exigent, and do not make such representations to Members of Parliament, and so these notices of opposition do not represent the popular feeling of the localities in regard to Sunday closing. In my own constituency, before I was Member, the locality had practically settled the question for itself in the direction of Sunday closing.
THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is not in order in discussing these matters. They are not relevant to the question whether this Act should remain in the schedule or not.
MR. BIGGAR: I do not wish to pursue the subject further. Really, I have said all that I wished to say, only I will add that I hope that when we come

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to this day next Session we shall not be discussing the propriety of including this Act in the Continuance Bill.
MR. O'NEILL: I only rise to express the deep disappointment which is felt in the North of Ireland at the failure of the Government to carry a permanent Bill this Session; the feeling in favour of that course is very strong among all classes. Of course, I do not wish to have the Act omitted now; I wish to press the Government to give the subject a fair hearing in the early part of next Session.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill reported without Amendment.
Read the third time, and passed.

PUBLIC WORKS LOANS BILL (No. 365.)
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Clause 1.
MR. T. M. HEALY: I wish now to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer for the redemption of his promise, or, at any rate, for some assurance in regard to this question of interest on loans, which we raised some time ago. This Bill proposes a reduction to Irish landlords of the drainage charges, and I do not object to that reduction; only I do not see why the only reduction should be made in favour of this class. It is quite right that the Chancellor of the Exchequer should make the reduction; it is the natural corollary of the financial measures of last year for the reduction of interest on the National Debt, but I think that we might fairly expect that a reduction made to the richest class in Ireland should also be extended to labourers. I understand that for this to be done it is not necessary to have a Bill at all, and I think now we may expect some assurance on this point. I understand that the money borrowed for artisans' dwellings is obtained at a lower rate of interest than labourers can get it for the erection of their cottages, and I think the least we can expect is that these classes of loans should be put upon an equality. The Chancellor of the Exchequer may raise an objection on the ground of the difference in time of repayment, but I think something may be urged for the humbler and more necessitous class. I would point out, too, that the reduction to labourers
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would also mean a benefit to landlords, because landlords pay rates on rents under £4, and half over £4. Still, I know the substantial reduction would be for the advantage of the labourers.
MR. A. SUTHERLAND: I should like to ask what is the explanation of the difference proposed in the money to be given to the Scotch Fishery Board this year from the amount last year?
SIR J. SWINBURNE: I really do not see why the Irish landlords should have the interest on the loans they have obtained from the Crown reduced when, they did not reduce their rents in proportion to the depression in agriculture.
THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order!
MR. MURPHY: On the Second Reading of the Bill we raised the question of loans for labourers' cottages, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer said he would have to consider this question in connection with loans for artisans' dwellings and other loans. I have since ascertained that loans for artisans' dwellings in England are made at 3⅜ per cent, but in Ireland for loans of the same class the rate exacted is 4 per cent.
MR. SEXTON: The interest exacted by the Irish Board of Works has had a very prejudicial effect on the erection of houses for National School teachers in Ireland. There are 9,000 of these National School teachers in Ireland, but as yet only about 600 dwellings have been erected. It is sad to see that men, and women too, have to walk in all weathers a distance of four miles or more twice a day between their homes and the school. A reduction of interest on loans for the erection of these buildings would greatly stimulate the work, and there is no class which more deserves all facilities that could be extended to them.
MR. JORDAN: I think it is only fair that in Ireland we should have at least as advantageous terms as those extended for artisans' dwellings. Surely these advances for healthy, clean cottages for labourers are in the nature of loans for sanitary purposes. If the Secretary to the Treasury will consider the question, I think he will come to the conclusion that these loans might very well be made at a lower rate than 4 per cent. I think we ought to get them at 3 per cent. We should be able to get the money for this purpose at the lowest

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possible rate so as to cover the Treasury from loss; and considering the rate at which the Government obtain money and the security offered, I think 3 per cent would do that.
THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,): Several points have been raised, not all, I think, relevant to the clause before us; but there is one point which has scarcely been noticed fey hon. Gentlemen, and that is that in lending money the Government must look to the security as well as to the needs of the borrowers. It does not follow that poorer classes should pay a lower interest unless they can give a better security.
An hon. MEMBER: They want less money.
MR. GOSCHEN: But the question of security is not affected by less money being required. I do not urge this as against Ireland particularly; but it would, I think, be impossible to reduce the rate to any considerable extent without serious prospect of loss. I hope we shall avoid controversy on the point as regards Ireland particularly. The proposal in the Bill does not rest on the reduction of the rate of interest on the National Debt, but on the fact that we think, in this matter, some concession is due to the landlords whose rents have been largely reduced by the action of the State. The landlords have a special claim, and I am glad that hon. Members from Ireland do not, at least strongly, object to that claim. In dealing with the labourers' claims they ought not to be compared with the landlords' claims, but with the cases of loans for similar objects elsewhere than in Ireland. Since the question was last raised, I have been engaged in examining the Artisans' Dwellings Act and other Acts of the kind to see what could be done with regard to advances for labourers' cottages in Ireland. But a problem of this kind cannot be settled in a day or two—busy days, too, as they have been since the point was raised. Each concession raises a number of claims for other concessions, and therefore it is necessary to consider the proposal in its bearing on other proposals, to which, if adopted, it might give rise. It is not necessary to have a clause in this Bill to effect the object hon. Members have in view, as
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the Treasury have power to reduce the interest on the loans for labourers' cottages. With regard to artisans' dwellings loans, the interest is 3⅓ per cent only when the money is repaid in 20 years. The interest is 3¼ or 3½ per cent for a longer period. It is true that in the ease of loans for labourers' dwellings there is the security of the rates, but in the English Act it must be remembered that you have the security of the houses themselves as well as the rates. It is on that account that the Royal Commissioners recommend that the reduction should be made. I wish to approach this subject in a benevolent spirit, and if I can see my way, without injustice, to make some reduction, I shall be glad to give the matter my most favourable consideration. I cannot, however, make a promise in the matter offhand. I hope what I have said will be, in the main, satisfactory to hon. Members. I do not see that any reduction that is made should go straight into the pockets of the labourers. There are other people equally deserving of consideration; but, as I have said, I will undertake to consider the matter.
MR. MURPHY: The right hon. Gentleman has not touched on the point I raised, namely, the disparity between the rate of interest on loans for the erection of artisans' dwellings in England and for a similar purpose in Ireland. In England the rate is 3⅜ per cent, whilst in Ireland it is 4 per cent. I do not want any pledge from the right hon. Gentleman at this moment, but I ask him to look into this disparity. It should be borne in mind that not one single shilling has ever been lost in connection with these loans in Ireland.
MR. GOSCHEN: I will undertake to make inquiries on the point, and if there really is a grievance I will see whether it admits of remedy.
MR. A. SUTHERLAND: I would point out that in a former year the Fishery Board in Scotland granted £11,000 in loans to fishermen. The loans for next year are, however, estimated at £25,000. I wish to know what is the reason of this increase?
THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON,): I may explain that power will be given under the Bill to grant loans up to £25,000. The sum need not be expended unless circumstances re-

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quire that the power should be exercised. Because £11,000 has only been spent in one year it does not follow that more may not be required in another.
Clause agreed to.
Clause 2 agreed to.
Clause 3.
SIR J. SWINBURNE: I think there is ground for complaint that in the case of English landlords the rate of interest charged on loans is not to be reduced. The argument of the Government is that the rate should be reduced for Irish landlords because their rents have been reduced judicially. But English landlords have reduced their rents voluntarily to an equal, if not greater, extent. Because of their' own motion they have done what is fair and just no favour is shown to them. Land in England is quite as good security as land in Ireland. [Crits of "Order!"] English landlords have reduced their rents by 20 per cent, yet the interest paid by them is not to be lowered. [Cries of "Question."]
THE CHAIRMAN: I must point out that the hon. Member cannot discuss the question of the rate of interest charged to English landlords, as the clause refers exclusively to the case of Ireland.
SIR J. SWINBURNE: The clause does not appear to apply altogether to Ireland.
THE CHAIRMAN: It refers to landed proprietors in Ireland alone.
MR. PENROSE FITZGERALD: I desire to point out that I think it is somewhat hard that landlords who have borrowed money after the year 1881 should be excluded from the proposed benefits of the Bill. Immediately after the passing of the Land Act of 1881 hundreds of landlords in Ireland borrowed money in times of great distress with the object of doing the best they could for their small tenants and labourers. So far as I can see, you exclude those landlords. If this class of borrowers are not permitted to share the benefits to be conferred by the measure, I think great injustice will be done to a body of men who deserve better treatment. I would ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the words of the clause are or are not intended to exclude a class of loans of a
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particular kind? If they are not, I shall raise no further objection.
MR. JACKSON: The hon. Gentleman is right in assuming that the clause is intended to limit the Bill to loans not which were made before 1881, but which were sanctioned before December 31, 1881. The Bill will, therefore, apply practically to the cases of loans granted during the next two or three years, because, as the hon. Member no doubt is aware, loans are sanctioned some considerable time before they are granted.
Clause agreed to.
Clause 4 agreed to.
MR. GOSCHEN: I move to omit Clause 5, in order that it may be re-cast and made to apply to future loans only. It has happened that loans made to tenants upon their personal security only have been lost. This has happened when tenants have been evicted, or have left their holdings, the State having no right to redress from the landlords. The object of the Government is to attach liability to the landlord in such cases. The principle of the clause when enacted will be that the State shall not fall between two stools.
Motion made, and Question proposed "That Clause 5 stand part of the Bill."
MR. MAURICE HEALY: I do not understand the distinction the Chancellor of the Exchequer draws between existing loans and future loans. In the case of a future loan, as I understand it, it will be competent for the tenant without any privity on the landlord's part to give up the property, and, therefore, the landlord may or may not become liable for the loan. I do not think there is any difference in principle between the past and the present in this matter; The Chancellor of the Exchequer says that in future the landlord shall have notice of a loan before it is made to a tenant. I presume he does not mean that the landlord shall have the power to veto a loan.
MR. PENROSE EITZGERALD: I hold that it would not be fair to saddle the holder in fee with an obligation that may have been contracted by a tenant without the landlord's sanction or knowledge. The clause as it stands is an attempt to reverse a decision of the Court of Appeal in Ireland, and I am

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therefore in favour of leaving it out of the Bill.
MR. T. M. HEALY: It seems to me that we have got into very shallow water. A wide question has been opened up by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I examined the Paper this morning to see if there was any proposal on it by the Government for the alteration of the Bill. There was none; but now it seems the landlords are to be able by evicting the tenants to grab all their improvements. ["No, no!"] Yes, that is so. My suggestion is this—the loan is granted in the dual interest of the landlord and tenant. ["No, no!"] Well, assume that the tenant is granted a loan on his own security. The State think that they should have the security of the landlord, too. Now it is proposed that if the landlord evicts his tenant, the State is to be at an entire loss and the landlord at an entire gain.
MR. GOSCHEN: The omission of the clause will leave the law precisely as it stood before.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Yes, but that is the very thing we object to. The tenant borrows, say, £500, and builds a house with it; the tenant is evicted; the landlord becomes the owner of a house for which he has never paid a farthing, and the State loses its money. This is a defect in the law which this clause has been proposed to remedy, and I cannot conceive that it is inequitable to say that if the landlord takes over the property, he should also take over the liability to pay for it. The decision the hon. Member opposite has referred to is not material—it is the principle which is material. The point is that at present the landlords, by evicting the tenants, thereby become possessed of the property which has been created by State money, and that without the State having any lien upon it. The Chancellor of the Exchequer admits that, and he admits that there should be some change in the law which will make a distinction between what he calls present and future contracts. He says that the principle of this clause should only apply to future loans. I say that that is a distinction which cannot be defended. Why should the provisions of this clause apply to future loans, and not to past loans? Future loans as well as past loans will be made solely to
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tenants; they will, therefore, be made without the landlord's privity and consent. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says they will only be made after notice to the landlord; but what is the good of notice to a landlord if the State cannot interfere? Does the right hon. Gentleman say that in the future no loan shall be granted to a tenant without first giving notice to the landlord, and giving him a veto in the matter?
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,): The enactment of this clause would not confer the slightest benefit on the tenants in Ireland, nor would its omission have the effect which hon. Gentlemen opposite anticipate. If it is omitted, the law will simply be left as it is. The objection to the clause is that it would interfere with existing contracts in such a way that when the attention of my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was called to it he saw at once that it would be unfair to persons who were not parties to the original transaction.
MR. T. M. HEALY: The hon. and learned Gentleman's remarks remind one of the famous direction once given to a Solicitor General for Ireland, to speak for a quarter of an hour and say nothing. The hon. and learned Gentleman cannot defend the proposition of the Government. In the past landlords have been able to steal the improvements of the tenants and the money of the State, and the proposal now made is that they shall be allowed to remain in possession of their plunder. The Solicitor General for Ireland says the omission of the clause will leave the law as it is and will do no harm to the tenant. Does it not give the landlord a temptation to evict? Is it not an invitation to evict? I am surprised that without notice to anybody this attempt should be made to drop the clause, especially as the Second Reading of the Bill was practically passed sub silentio, the only speech delivered on it being one by myself. We will not stand by and see the State swindled in the interests of the landlords and see an additional incitement given to the landlords to evict. I am amazed that such a proposal should have emanated from the Government.
MR. SEXTON: I must say that this affair has an exceedingly ugly aspect. Whilst, on the one hand, the Government have stimulated evictions, in Ireland, on the other, if this clause be omitted, the landlord will be tempted to proceed with evictions because he will not be liable to repay to the State the advances expended in improving the holding. It appears to me quite clear that there is a conspiracy in progress. I never in my experience heard such a proposal made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is supposed to be the guardian of the interests of the State. The whole proceeding has been exceedingly furtive. It was only by chance that the nature of this proposal was discovered, and I say this clause must remain in the Bill. If the State lends money to be spent on a holding and the tenant is evicted, the land should be liable for the repayment of the taxpayers' money which has been expended. I protest against this proposal, and, to begin with, I move, Sir, that you report Progress.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Sexton.)
MR. GOSCHEN: Really, I think hon. Gentlemen opposite are making a mountain out of a mole-hill. If the clause be omitted, the whole matter will remain open for future legislation. The only objection I take to the section is that it is retrospective, and therefore it will be unfair. There is really nothing surreptitious in withdrawing a clause which is contrary to a principle which is generally accepted in this House, namely, that measures should not be of a retrospective character. I trust that hon. Members will not think that any bargain has been made between the Government and anybody else in the matter.
MR. T. M. HEALY: It is useless arguing with us. We will not give in on this point. I regard the proposal as one of the most monstrous that has ever been made. I say the tenants will suffer.
THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! The hon. Member cannot discuss the merits of the clause on the Motion to report Progress.
MR. T. M. HEALY: I recognise that, Sir John Gorst, and, therefore, will not do so. Certainly, if ever a Motion was justified, it is a Motion to report Progress to enable the Government to bring forward alternative proposals. We have been kept here very late for several days. The Speaker has been kept here very late, and the officials of the House and everybody concerned are practically in a state of exhaustion. Under these circumstances, we have sprung upon us a proposal which we regard as striking a death-blow at the tenant's interests. I shall oppose it to the uttermost. I was going to leave for Ireland to-night, but I will stop here and give up my engagements in Ireland for next week rather than see the clause struck out of the Bill.
MR. GOSCHEN: If we can remedy the retrospective character of the clause that is all we desire. We will consent to report Progress, and I will endeavour on Monday to see whether we can deprive the section of its retrospective character.
Question put, and agreed to.
Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

INFECTIOUS DISEASES NOTIFICATION BILL (No. 293)
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Clause 1.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause stand part of the Bill."
MR. SEXTON: We have been here through a most fatiguing week. We were here till nearly 3 o'clock this morning, and the present Sitting has lasted more than seven hours. Does the Government think that there is no limit to the physical endurance of Members? I, for my part, cannot consent to going on with this Bill. The important business of this Sitting has already been transacted.
MR. HALLEY STEWAET: There are five pages of Amendments down—
THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member has not moved anything.
THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. Ritchie,): I would point out that this Bill was read a second time with the universal assent of the House. It has a most important bearing on the public health, and it is extremely desirable that it should pass into law as soon as possible. The Amendments are practically limited to three points, and the great majority of them hang one upon another. The first point is whether or not the Bill should be made compulsory; the second is whether the medical men should make the notification, and the third is whether the measure should apply to Ireland. At the request of the right hon. Gentleman the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Mr. Sexton) the Government considered the question of applying it to Ireland, and, with the view of meeting his wishes, they have put an Amendment on the Paper. If he does not desire it, the Government have not the slightest desire to press that Amendment. We propose to accept an Amendment which will make the Bill generally compulsory, and the whole matter is therefore reduced practically to the question whether or not medical men should have the obligation cast on them to send in a certificate. In view of the fact that the Bill has met with the approval of Members in all quarters of the House, I trust we shall not lose another year but that we shall be permitted to go on with it.
MR. HALLEY STEWART: There is not, I believe, a single medical man in the House now, and they are all most deeply interested in this question. The hon. Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark), the hon. Member for Hackney (Sir W. Guyer Hunter), and others were anxious to take part in the discussion, and none of them are present. I move to report Progress, in order that the measure may be discussed at a reasonable hour.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Halley Stewart.)
MR. W. H. SMITH: I trust the Committee will allow the Bill to proceed.
MR. SEXTON: It will take too much time.
MR. W. H. SMITH: If it is approached in a reasonable manner it is not likely to take up much time. It is a matter of great importance to the health of the country, and there is already abundance of business for transaction on Monday. We cannot postpone the Bill till Monday without running great risk of losing the chance of passing it.
MR. MURPHY: The Irish Members are unanimously desirous that the Bill should be extended to Ireland as a permissive Bill; but I understand the Government are going to accept the proposal to make it compulsory. Personally I see no objection to that; but I know there is a difference of opinion on the subject on this side of the House.
MR. RITCHIE: I understand that there are circumstances in connection with Ireland which would make a permissive Bill more acceptable there than in England or Scotland, and I would therefore suggest that Ireland should not be included in this Bill, but that a Bill on permissive lines should be brought forward with reference to Ireland next year.
MR. SEXTON: If we bring forward an optional Bill will the Government facilitate it?
MR. RITCHIE: I am not able to say without having seen the Bill; but certainly any Bill which proposed to reenact the provisions of this Bill in regard to Ireland in a permissive form would, I have no doubt, receive the support of the Government.
MR. SEXTON: What does the First Lord of the Treasury say?
MR. W. H. SMITH: I am willing to meet the right hon. Gentleman in any way, but I must be very guarded about giving a positive pledge.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman opposite can hardly expect us to consent to his proposal without having time for consideration, but I will give it full consideration. A Bill in the form of that now before the Committee would certainly be considered.
MR. T. M. HEALY: The time has arrived when we certainly ought to drop business. There is a long list of Orders on the Paper. Are we going to sit here till past midnight? The Government, of course, will say they have been here as long as we have, but they are Cabinet Ministers, and they have all the honour and glory of it. It is only reasonable to ask that the Motion to report Progress should be agreed to.
MR. W. H. SMITH: Surely the hon. and learned Gentleman can be reasonable. It is not the Government and English Members who have been occupying the time of the House today. A large body of English gentlemen who take a great interest in this Bill have been waiting here for seven hours in order to discuss it. Is it unreasonable, under these circumstances, that the Bill should be proceeded with? There is nothing on the Paper after this Order that will occupy any time.
MR. SEXTON: This Bill will not occupy any time, because Members of the House who take the deepest interest in it are absent, and will have been taken by surprise. Most of the Amendments on the Paper stand in the names of Mr. W. McLaren, Mr. Hastings, Mr. Llewellyn, and Sir W. Foster, and they are all absent.
MR. RITOHIE: We are prepared to accept most of their Amendments.
MR. HALLEY STEWART: I have been requested to put all Mr. McLaren's Amendments down for the Report stage, as he is unable to be here.
MR. TOMLINSON: There are a great many Members who take an interest in this Bill, and who have not put down Amendments because they are content with it in its present form.
MR. M. HEALY: The reasons which have been given for proceeding with the Bill to-night are equally an argument in favour of postponing it till Monday. If it is merely a formality it can be dealt with on Monday just as well as now.
The Committee divided:—Ayes 18; Noes 54.—(Div. List, No. 341.)
Question again proposed, "That Clause 1 stand part of the Bill."
Whereupon Mr. T. M. Healy moved, "That the Chairman do now leave the Chair;" but the Chairman, being of opinion that the Motion was an abuse of the Rules of the House, declined to propose the Question thereupon to the House.
Question put, "That Clause 1 stand part of the Bill."
The Committee divided:—Ayes 54 Noes 18.—(Div. List, No. 342.)
MR. M. HEALY: I wish, Sir, to move the first Amendment standing in the name of Mr. Walter McLaren. The Bill proposes to make the most absurd distinction between London and the rest of England. It proposes that in London the measure shall be compulsory after two months from the date when it becomes law, whereas in the rest of the country it will only come into force upon its adoption by a Sanitary Authority.
Amendment proposed, Clause 2, page 1, lines 8 and 9, to leave out Sub-section, (a).—(Mr. M. Healy.)
Question proposed, "That Subsection (a) stand part of the Clause."
MR. RITCHIE: This Amendment is unnecessary, inasmuch as we propose later on to accept an Amendment which will make the measure uniformly compulsory.
MR. MURPHY: I think it would be better to leave the Bill as it is than to make it compulsory throughout the country.
MR. HALLEY STEWART: When the Bill was read a second time it was not a compulsory but a permissive Bill, and that was the whole argument used in the House.
MR. RITCHIE: The real state of the case is that there has been an unanimous expression of opinion that the Bill ought not to be permissive in any part of the country. The difficulty of an optional Bill would arise in the case of overlapping areas, and the result might be that one Local Authority

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might adopt compulsion, whereas the next Local Authority might not. It was in response to an almost unanimous expression of opinion that the Government have consented to accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Somersetshire. But they do not wish to make the Bill compulsory against the desire of the House.
MR. SEXTON: The present situation is an illustration of the difficulty of proceeding with the Bill in the absence of the hon. Member who has placed Amendments on the Paper. In the absence of the hon. Member we are not able to say whether or not the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman will be satisfactory.
MR. RITCHIE: I think that the hon. Gentleman who has moved the Amendment has misapprehended the scope of the Bill as it stands. It proposes to make the Act compulsory in London and partly so throughout the country. The reason why it is proposed to make it compulsory in London is obvious. There are 20 or 30 different Central Authorities, and if one Authority adopts the Act and another does not the Act itself would become absolutely useless in the district in which it was adopted. If the hon. Member who has moved the Amendment desires to strike out the compulsion in London and make it optional we must leave it to the House to decide what shall be done.
MR. SEXTON: I should like to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if, in these circumstances, it is possible to go through the Amendment Paper at this time? The same difficulty will arise on every Amendment, and it will, therefore, become our duty to divide the Committee.
MR. M. HEALY: This clause as it stands draws a distinction between London and the rest of the country. It proposes that in London the Act shall be made compulsory, and that it shall come into operation within two months
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from its passing, whereas in the rest of the country it is only to come into operation when it is adopted by the Local Sanitary Authority, at whatever date that may be. I think it is most unfortunate that we should take into consideration an Amendment of that kind under existing circumstances; and in the absence of hon. Members most interested, I do not see any reason why there should be one law for London and another for the rest of the country. I do not apprehend that any serious difficulty would arise from the conflict of jurisdiction, and if there is to be a reform in London why should there not be also a similar reform throughout the country? If necessary, why not entrust the London County Council with the power of enforcing the Act? I should not myself like to make such a proposal to the House, as I am not sufficiently acquainted with the needs of London. But I should like the President of the Local Government Board to explain to the House what Amendments are to be accepted, as I have not had time to master the Amendment Paper.
MR. RITCHIE: There are two points which have been raised: one is the attitude of the London Members as to the position which London occupied in regard to this Bill when it was being debated on the Motion for Second Reading. Now, with regard to that, I am aware that one or two hon. Gentlemen recommended at that time that London should be treated in the same manner as the rest of the country. But they have since withdrawn their opposition, and have informed me that they are prepared to assent to London being dealt with as proposed in this Bill. The Amendments in the name of the hon. Member for Somersetshire (Mr. Llewellyn) the Government, if so desired, will accept, and they will make the Bill apply equally throughout the country.
MR. MURPHY: I do not think the Government are justified in making the Bill compulsory in face of the opposi-

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tion of hon. Members present, and in view of the fact that none of those hon. Members who have Amendments on the Paper in that direction are not here to propose them. If the right hon. Gentleman will leave the Bill as it was originally introduced, leaving it optional to the Local Authority to adopt the Act, I do not think he will meet with any considerable objections.
MR. SEXTON: This clause obviously raises the whole question whether the Bill shall or shall not be compulsory. As the Government have expressed their willingness to act in accordance with the wishes of the Committee, I think the time has now arrived when hon. Gentlemen should give an indication of what their opinion is. So far as my Colleagues are concerned the Representatives from Ireland desire to have an optional Bill.
MR. RITCHIE: The Government look upon the Bill as of such importance that they desire it to become law without delay; and if the right hon. Gentleman who last spoke is prepared to say that he and his friends will accept the Bill as it stands, the Government are so impressed with the great importance of the measure that they will be willing to make terms with them, on the condition that the Bill is allowed to pass.
MR. SEXTON: Then all I can say is that if the Local Authorities are given the option of enforcing the Bill, my hon. Friends will withdraw from further opposition.
ME. SUTHERLAND: With regard to the effect of the Bill in Scotland, I wish to point out that provisions of a similar nature are already in operation in that country.
MR. J. BRYN ROBERTS; After the declaration we have received, I think it is hardly right in the absence of hon. Members who are interested in the measure, and understood that it was to be compulsory, for the Government to turn round and make it optional.
MR. TOMLINSON: The feeling of hon. Members on this side of the House is that the Bill is so important that it ought to be passed, either as a compromise, or as a permanent measure. It ought to be passed in some form or other.
MR. MURPHY: I have no objection to make to the passing of the Bill in the form in which it was introduced by the right hon. Gentleman, and I would suggest that the operation of the Act in this form might be tried for a short time as a tentative measure, and if it was found not to be working satisfactory, why then a short Act might be passed next year making the Bill compulsory, which I would then willingly support.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause 2 agreed to.
On Clause 3,
MR. HALLEY STEWART: I desire to propose an Amendment to this clause, providing that the notice shall be given by the nearest "adult" relative. If the word "adult" is not inserted, I think the responsibility may in some cases be thrown on persons on whom it should not fall.
Amendment proposed, Clause 3, Subsection 1, before "relative" insert "adult."
MR. RITCHIE: I am afraid I cannot accept that Amendment. It must be perfectly obvious to the hon. Gentleman that there may be brothers or sisters under age in law, but still of a sufficient age to be capable of giving the notice, and I think it would be extremely disastrous to relieve persons of that age of the responsibility.
MR. HALLEY STEWART: But surely you will not throw the responsibility on a person under age and impose a penalty of 40s. in such cases. I do suggest that the Amendment I have proposed would not materially interfere with the effectiveness of the Bill.
Amendment put, and negatived.
MR. HALLEY STEWART: I have another Amendment which I wish to

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submit, and I think it will make the clause more clear.
Amendment proposed, Clause 3, line 24, after "becomes aware," to insert "as soon as he reasonably can."
MR. RITCHIE: I can assure the hon. Gentleman that these words are quite unnecessary. Any person not giving notice until he becomes aware will, of course, be amply protected. The efficiency of the Act depends on the promptitude with which notice is given.
MR. MURPHY: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman that the Amendment is quite unnecessary, and I hope it will not be pressed.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
MR. J. KELLY: There is an Amendment to this clause, in my name, which I wish to press, although I fear that it has not much chance of being accepted. I think it will be admitted that the Bill, if carried, will effect a great reform, and be of considerable advantage. It provides that certain notices shall be given to the authorities when disease breaks out, and I desire that in such cases notice shall also be given to the head master or mistress of any elementary or higher school which is attended by a child belonging to the family in which the disease has broken out.
Amendment moved, Clause 5, insert—
"Also of the head master or mistress of any elementary or other school, whether or not in the receipt of a Government grant, at which such patient or any person residing in the same building may he in attendance."—(Mr. J. Kelly.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
MR. RITCHIE: I assure my hon. Friend that these words are not at all necessary. The details are provided for by other regulations which are not inserted in the Bill. The towns which adopt the provisions of the Act will have power to make rules and regulations which will cover all these cases.
MR. KELLY: I think it is of the utmost importance that this provision
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should be inserted in the Bill, and I should like to give the Committee one illustration of the importance of giving this notice. In a Grammar School with which I am acquainted a boy attended as usual after fever had broken out in his home, and in two days no less than 11 of the scholars were attacked, and death resulted in one case. Surely it would be the most simple thing in the world when a person is sending a notice to the Local Authorities to write and send a duplicate to the schools which his children are in the habit of attending. It would not do to leave it to the medical attendant, for he might not be aware of what schools the children attended.
Amendment put, and negatived.
MR. HALLEY STEWART: I beg to move, in Clause 3, page 2, to leave out from "applies" to end of line 10, and insert the words—
"Give a certificate to the head of the family or other person who appears to him to be primarily liable to give notice under the Act, stating the name of the patient and the infectious disease from which, in the opinion of such medical practitioner, the patient is suffering."
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
MR. RITCHIE: This Amendment raises the question of a dual notification. The question is, shall the notice be given by the medical attendant, or by the head of the family, or by both? If it be true that the head of the family will make the proper notification then surely there can be no difficulty in laying the duty also on the medical attendant; but if, on the other hand, the head of the family would not, then surely if the Bill is to be effective it would only be right to insist that the notice shall be given by the medical attendant.
Mr. HALLEY STEWART: I feel I am labouring at an enormous disadvantage to-night owing to the absence of my hon. Friend the Member

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for Ilkestone, but I should like to point out that the casting of this duty on the medical attendant might create suspicion between him and the head of the household in cases where great commercial interests are at stake. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that he has opinions in favour of the duty falling on medical men from those engaged in he profession in all parts of the country; but may I suggest that those opinions come from Medical Officers of Health, and not from private practitioners, who, as a rule, are opposed to this proposal. The case which I put before the Committee is this: The disadvantage which attach to the dual system of notification is that you call in a medical man to advise in cases of illness, and immediately, instead of his being the private attendant in the domestic interests, he is called upon to notify formally to the public Authority the existence of infectious disease. Having studied the statistics which have been prepared by an eminent medical authority, I have come to the conclusion, although I am in favour of the Bill, that there is no distinct advantage gained by the dual system, so far as the diminution of disease is concerned, in those towns where the system has been tried. If the dual system be of the advantage the right hon. Gentleman contends it is, there would certainly appear in the towns where it has been tried, not only a corresponding improvement, but a special improvement. But it is distinctly otherwise; the diminution of disease in those towns is actually less than it is in towns where the single notification system exists, and actually less than in towns where no notification at all exists.
MR. RITCHIE: I have seen the figures, and they seem to me to be for all practical purposes of comparison absolutely worthless. To have figures which are of value we must have parallel conditions, and there are no parallel conditions between the various towns.
MR. H. STEWAET: I understand it is beyond dispute that the Government do not intend to make this Bill compulsory, and that being the case it will be open to any Local Authority to refuse to accept it. I will, therefore, not press the point further.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Other Amendments made.
Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

MERCHANT SHIPPING (PILOTAGE) BILL (No. 312.)
As amended, further considered.
MR. MURPHY: In the absence of my hon. Friend (Mr. Flynn) may I ask the President of the Board of Trade if he is prepared to accept the Amendment standing in my hon. Friend's name—namely, to leave out from "pilotage," in lines 29 and 30, to end of section?
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOAED OF TEADE (Sir MICHAEL HICKS BEACH,): I have been in communication with the hon. Member (Mr. Flynn), and I informed him I could not accept the Amendment; but I was willing to leave out the subsection altogether. I have been informed that the hon. Member and his Friends preferred to leave the subsection as it stands.
Amendments made.
Bill read the third time, and passed.

INTERPRETATION BILL [LORDS] (No. 364.)
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Clause 4.
THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir EDWARD CLARKE,): I beg to move the omission of this clause. A number of Amendments are down on the Paper with regard to it. It is the only clause which has given rise to any controversy, and I have agreed to strike it out, and to accept Amendments which

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will carry out to the full the desires expressed by hon. Members from Wales.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Clause 4 stand part of the Bill."
MR. BRYN ROBERTS: Are the Government willing to accept my Amendment, that the expression "Wales" shall include the County of Monmouth?
SIR E. CLARKE: I cannot accept that. It would only be necessary in the event of this clause standing part of the Bill.
Question put, and negatived.
Several Amendments agreed to.
Clause 13.
MR. AMBROSE: I beg to propose to leave out the words from "whether" to "of." At present the clause makes the Act retrospective as to other Acts; that would be a very bad form of legislation, and extremely dangerous.
SIR E. CLARKE: I am sorry my hon. and learned Friend did not mention this to me before moving it. The matter has been very carefully considered indeed, and if he will look at the sub-section he will find that his objection does not really apply.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Other Amendments made.
Clause 27.
Amendment proposed, page 11, line 15, after "jury," insert—
"In Ireland the expression 'returned for trial' shall include, for the purposes of the Criminal Law and Procedure (Ireland) Act, section 1, sub-section (1), a hearing before a Court of Summary Jurisdiction."—(Mr. Sexton, on behalf of Mr. T. M. Healy.)
SIR E. CLARKE: I cannot accept this Amendment. It refers to a particular Act of 1887, and deals with a sub-section only, and cannot be accepted as the interpretation of a phrase generally used. It is the alteration of the law in relation to a particular section in a particular Act. It cannot properly find a place in an Interpretation Act intended for the pur-
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pose of defining the meanings of certain expressions.
MR. SEXTON: It would be a good interpretation of the law, but I withdraw the Amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Clause agreed to.
Clause 33.
Amendment proposed, line 20, after "prosecuted," insert "before Judge and Jury."—(Mr. Sexton, for Mr. T. M. Healy.)
SIR EDWARD CLARKE: I think, if the hon. and learned Member in whose name the Amendment stands were present, I should convince him that the effect of this would really not be that which he supposes, and that it should not find a place in this Act.
Amendment put, and negatived.
Clause agreed to.
Remaining clauses agreed to.
New Clause (Meaning of Irish Valuation Acts,)—(Mr. Sexton, for Mr. T. M. Healy,)—brought up, and read the first and second time, and added to the Bill.
New Clause (Meaning of "be it enacted,")—(Mr. Sexton, for Mr. T. M. Healy,)—brought up, and read the first time.
SIR EDWARD CLARKE: I hope the hon. Member will not think it necessary to press this. These words occupy a very small space; they are a time-honoured form, and really I do not see why we should not keep them.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Schedule agreed to.
Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

EDUCATION GRANTS (CAITHNESS AND SUTHERLAND) BILL (No. 390.)
Read a second time, and committed for Monday next.
UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) BILL (No. 387.)
Lords' Amendments considered, and agreed to.
COURT OF SESSION AND BILL CHAMBER (SCOTLAND) CLERKS BILL (No. 388.)
Lords' Amendments considered, and agreed to.

DUBLIN HOSPITAL BOARD BILL (No. 389.)
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."
MR. SEXTON: I find that the constitution of the Board differs in some respects from the Board proposed by the Royal Commission, the recommendations of which Commission this Bill is supposed to carry out. The Commissioners proposed a Board of 12, of which five would be Catholics, and this Bill increases the number to 13, of which five will be Catholics. I would suggest that the Lord Mayor and High Sheriff of Dublin should be made ex officio members of the Board. Although the Catholics would still be in a minority, there would be something more like an equation. I object to saddling the Board with responsibility in regard to compensation without limiting their liability. Under the present proposal the sum intended for purely hospital uses would be eaten into by claims for compensation. I think the Treasury should themselves undertake this matter of compensation, and leave the hands of the Board free.
MR. MURPHY: In the negotiations which led up to the introduction of this Bill, it was understood, and in fact promised, that the Treasury would undertake the compensation of officials. The amount reaches a large sum, though I do not mean to raise any question of its being excessive, and I certainly think it is a question the Treasury should deal with, and not leave the compensation as a charge upon the reduced annual grant, which might thus be whittled down indefinitely.
MR. JACKSON: I should be very glad to carry the Bill through this Session, but I am afraid there is not
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much prospect of that. As to the question of the constitution of the Board, I hope we may be able to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion; but upon the question of finance, so far as I am concerned, I have never understood that as regards compensations or pensions there should be any alterations in the present position, but that the total grants under this Bill should take the place of the grants now annually made. It would have been unreasonable for the Treasury to have taken from the proposed Dublin Board the assessment of the compensations. It was only reasonable and natural that if the Board were to be charged with them they should have a voice in the matter. However, I understand now there is no objection to the Second Reading, and between this and Monday, when the Bill will come before Committee, I will consider the two questions raised by the right hon. Gentleman.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read a second time, and committed for Monday next.

MERCHANT SHIPPING (COLOURS) BILL (No. 238.)
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Clause 1 agreed to.
Clause 2.
Amendment moved, Clause 2, page 1, line 14, after "port," insert "and, if 50 tons gross tonnage or upwards, shall also on entering or leaving any British port."—(Lord George Hamilton.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
MR. MURPHY: No word of explanation regarding this Bill has ever been given in any of its stages. It appears to me to be quite meaningless and uncalled for to require every vessel entering or leaving a port to hoist a particular flag. This Bill is only calculated to send enterprising or officious naval officers in chase of every unfortunate barge that goes out of the Thames

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or elsewhere round the coast and offends against this new regulation. I myself was some time ago the victim of a raid made by order of an officious gentleman of this kind, who sent his lieutenant and crew in a steam launch after a small yacht of mine, which they boarded, and hauled down and captured a flag, which somehow had offended the susceptibilities of the gallant captain, though he had no legal authority whatever for his action. I now beg to move the Amendment to the noble Lord's Amendment standing on the Paper in the name of Sir Charles Palmer.
Amendment proposed, to the proposed Amendment, to leave out "fifty," and insert "one hundred."—(Mr. Murphy.)
Question proposed, "That 'fifty' stand part of the proposed Amendment."
THE FIEST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord GEORGE HAMILTON,): It is true that there has been no long discussion on the Bill, but this Amendment has been before the Chamber of Shipping for the last two years, and the President of the Chamber has expressed his approval of it. I have been in communication with Members connected with shipping, and in consequence of the discussions we have had they have withdrawn their objections to the Amendments. We have come to the conclusion that 100 is too high and that 50 would be a sufficient limit to adopt.
MR. MURPHY: Evidently the shipping Members of this House are the representatives of the larger classes of shipping and have not been in touch with the owners of small vessels. It is easy for large ships to comply with these requirements, as they always have on board plenty of colours and plenty of men to hoist them, but that is not the case with small vessels, which have very few hands and very slender appliances.
LORD G. HAMILTON: We will take care that the Bill is not made a harassing one to small craft, as the hon. Member seems to fear it will be.
MR. MURPHY: I am afraid that the instructions which are issued will be of a very ephemeral character, whereas the Act of Parliament is permanent. But I do not wish to press the Amendment.
Amendment to the Amendment withdrawn.
Original Amendment agreed to.
MR. MURPHY: I now beg to move the Amendment standing in my own name. It is necessary, I think, in order to protect small pleasure yachts. The absence of some such provision is likely to give rise to considerable annoyance.
Amendment moved, Clause 2, page 1, line 15, after "colours," add—
"Provided that this section shall not apply to any yacht or boat used wholly or partly for pleasure."—(Mr. Murphy.)
Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
LORD G. HAMILTON: It would be impossible to accept these words. Every yacht of under 50 tons burthen will be exempted, but there are pleasure yachts of 60 tons and 100 tons, and I think the hon. Gentleman will see the necessity of including them. I may say I should not have brought this Bill forward at the end of the Session if there had not been practical agreement between myself and the fishing and yachting interest on the matter.
MR. MURPHY: Would the noble Lord accept the Amendment if applied to yachts and pleasure boats if not exceeding 100 tons?
LORD G. HAMILTON: I am afraid that would make an invidious distinction between pleasure boats and boats used for purposes of trade.
MR. MURPHY: I understand the noble Lord means to make an exemption in the case of fishing boats. The Amendment I propose would be no more invidious than his own proposal.
LORD G. HAMILTON: Fishing boats are registered as letters of marque under the Act of Parliament and pleasure boats are not.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Other Amendments agreed to.
Bill reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

STEAM TRAWLING (IRELAND) (RE-COMMITTED) BILL (No. 335.)
Considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Clause 1.
MR. P. J. POWER: Seeing that there is considerable difference of opinion with regard to this Bill in Ireland, I think it would only be reasonable to our constituents and ourselves if it were not taken to-day. I beg to move that the Chairman report Progress.
MR. MURPHY: Before that Motion is put I would point out to my hon. Friend that the effect of his proposal, if adopted, would be to kill the Bill for the Session. For my own part I do not desire to kill it but only to move Amendments to it. I would rather see it pass in its amended shape than see it dropped altogether.
MR. MADDEN: The Bill will go sufficiently far in the direction of stopping steam trawling without the Amendments. Half a loaf is better than no bread; therefore, I trust that the Bill may be allowed to go on. The Fishery Inspectors will have power to stop steam trawling where they think it should be stopped. I may say that the reason the Bill is introduced is that the effect of the Scotch measure may be to send the steam trawlers over to Ireland from those parts of the Scotch coast where steam trawling is prohibited, and it is deemed desirable to be prepared for their coming. The Bill will enable the Fishery Inspectors to stop steam trawling as distinguished from other trawling. If the Bill is
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not gone on with now it will be impossible to pass it this Session. I believe it will be a useful Bill so far as it goes.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."
MR. BIGGAR: It seems to me that there will have to be some discussion on the details of this Bill.
MR. MADDEN: As there is considerable difference of opinion with regard to the measure, perhaps the best course would be to agree to the Motion for reporting Progress.
Question put, and agreed to.
Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

COUNCIL OF INDIA BILL (No. 281.)
Order for Consideration read.
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Sir JOHN GORST,): If the hon. Member opposite (Sir G. Campbell), who has an Amendment down, objects, I will not go on with this Bill to-night.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: Several Members on the opposite side of the House have Amendments on the Paper.
SIR J. GORST: They have withdrawn them. The Bill has only one clause.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: Yes; but I do not want it.
SIR J. GORST: I think we should go on with the Bill.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: I will only again repeat my objection to the Bill. I do not think there is any real necessity for it, its object being to reduce the number of the Council of India, and alter the constitution of that Council.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member cannot deal with the general question now.
Notice taken, that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
SIR G. CAMPBELL: If I am to understand that Gentlemen who have Amendments down have withdrawn those Amendments, and that it is with their consent that the Bill is now proceeded with, I will not attempt to delay its progress.
Bill considered in Committee.
(In the Committee.)
Clause 1.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: I do not know whether the Amendment on the Paper standing in the name of the hon. Member for North Kensington (Sir R. Lethbridge) will receive greater favour from the Government than that which I have placed on the Paper. I think it should not be left to the Secretary of State to reduce the number of the Council. I beg to move the Amendment standing in the name of the hon. Member for North Kensington.
Amendment proposed, Clause 1, page 1, line 5, leave out from "may" to "fit" inclusive, and insert "shall on the occasion of every alternate vacancy in the Council of India."—(Sir G. Campbell.)
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Bill."
SIR JOHN GORST: This would, if agreed to, compel the Secretary of State to make an appointment on the occurrence of a vacancy. The Bill leaves him a discretionary power, which, I think, is preferable.
Question put, and agreed to.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: I beg to propose, in line 7, to leave out "ten" and insert "twelve." We have been told that the question has often been discussed whether the Council should consist of 7 or 10 or 12, or 15 or 24, but the wisdom of Parliament in 1858, after a long discussion, settled the number at 15. I cannot see why it should now be reduced to 12.
Amendment proposed, Clause 1, page 2, line 7, to leave out "ten" and insert "twelve."
Question proposed, "That the word 'ten' stand part of the Question."
SIR J. GORST: The reason why 10 was selected was that the Council was in favour of reducing the number to 10. If 10 is sufficient for the Council we have no right to impose on the Revenues of India any additional salaries.
Question put, and agreed to.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: I beg to propose the new clauses I have placed on the Paper. I shall not press them, but I wish to have the proposal put on record.
Bill reported, without Amendment.
SIR J. GORST: I beg to move that the Bill be read a third time.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be read a third time."—(Sir J. Gorst.)
SIR G. CAMPBELL: I have allowed the Bill to go through, because the Government have the power to force it through; but I enter my protest against it.
Question put, and agreed to.
Bill read the third time, and passed.

PUBLIC HEALTH (CHOLERA PREVENTION) BILL (No. 373.)
Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; Bill read the third time, and passed.

POOR LAW BILL (No. 383.)
Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.
Whereupon, in pursuance of the Order of the House this day, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.
House adjourned at half after Nine o'clock till Monday next.