Commons Sitting of 1 July 1889

QUESTIONS.

  THE SCOTCH LOBSTER FISHERY.
  MR. FRASER-MACINTOSH: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether complaints have reached him that Sir John William Powlett Campbell Orde, Baronet, the late proprietor of North Uist, has recently adopted steps tending to the virtual impossibility of the lobster fishery being pursued by the fishermen, whose means of livelihood are endangered thereby; and, whether, if full details are furnished, he will order inquiries to be made into the complaints of the fishermen with a view to their relief?
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON, Bute): I must ask the hon. Member to furnish me with more specific details on this matter. On receiving them I shall order inquiry to be made.

  EVICTIONS IN NORTH UIST.
  MR. FRASER-MACKINTOSH: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether there has been a correspondence between Sir John William Powlett Campbell Orde, Baronet, proprietor of the large and important island of North Uist, and the Heads of the Criminal Authorities in Scotland, regarding Mr. Thomas Wilson, solicitor in Lochmaddy; whether the correspondence referred to the refusal of Mr. Wilson to act as law agent for Sir John Orde, in carrying out certain evictions which Mr. Wilson deemed to be unjust; and if he will be good enough to state the import of the correspondence, or lay a copy upon the Table?
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I can find no trace of any such correspondence as is alluded to. I think it right to add that assuming such a correspondence had taken place, it would entirely depend on the subject matter, whether I should be able either to state the import or lay a copy of it on the Table.

  FAIR RENTS.
  MR. JOHN ELLIS: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the 27,311 applications for fair rent under the Land Law (Ireland) Acts, 1881 and 1887, dismissed or struck out by the Land Commission Courts up to 30th April, 1889, wore so struck out in consequence of the holdings in respect of which they were made being outside the provisions of the Land Acts in question, or what were the reasons?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The Land Commissioners state that applications for fair rent under the Land Law (Ireland) Acts, 1881 and 1887, are dismissed where the Courts decide that the holding in respect of which the application has been made is one to which the Acts do not apply They are struck out of the lists for hearing where the parties do not attend at the hearing and proceed with the application. In the latter case it is impossible to state the grounds why the parties did not proceed, or whether the holdings were within or without the Acts.

  CHINESE EMIGRATION TO AUSTRALIA.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether the negotiations with the Government of China, on the question of Chinese emigration to Australia, have been completed; and, if not, whether Her Majesty's Government will push the matter on as quickly as possible?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Baron H. de WORMS,): My right hon. Friend the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs will answer the question.
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir J. FERGUSSON,): The negotiations are not yet completed. As soon as the necessary arrangements are brought to a conclusion with the Australian Governments, Her Majesty's Government, who are most desirous of bringing matters to a happy issue, will push on the negotiations.

  IRELAND—WATCHING BY THE POLICE.
  MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, by whose orders Mr. Myles Smith, of Glascarrig, county Wexford, and a number of other people, were followed and watched by the police in Gorey, on the 22nd of this month, as reported in the papers; whether it is true that several policemen followed a man, named Patrick Greene, to the offices of Mr. Scott, solicitor, Gorey, and demanded to be admitted while Greene was in Mr. Scott's office; whether it is true that, when Mr. Scott asked for an explanation of this conduct, that the police informed him that they were acting under orders in following Greene, even into his solicitor's house; whether there is any charge against Greene, and the other men, who were followed by the police in Gorey; by what right the police entered Mr. Scott's office contrary to his desire; whether he is aware that Mr. Scott has lost clients in consequence of the police entering his house while people were there to see him on professional business; and, whether the Irish Government will take some steps to prevent the police from entering
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  private houses in Ireland without authority?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The police authorities reported that Myles Smith, Patrick Greene, and several others, banded together under the name of vigilance men, have engaged in boycotting and intimidating certain tenants who had taken evicted farms. The police were watching their movements, with a view to proceedings against them. It was not the case that several policemen followed them into the house, but two policemen did so. They, however, waited in the hall at the request of Mr. Scott. Later on Greene and another person visited the office, and Mr. Scott requested the police not to enter, a request with which they complied. The information which has been supplied to me does not sustain the allegation that Mr. Scott had lost clients thereby.
  MR. SEXTON: Have the police endeavoured arbitrarily to intrude into Mr. Scott's offices while that gentleman was engaged with the tenants, his clients? Will the right hon. Gentleman say that the police had a right to force their way into his offices?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not prepared to say that the police did force their way into Mr. Scott's office.
  MR. SEXTON: At any rate they went into his house.
  MR. W. REDMOND: May I ask why, if it is true that Mr. Scott and other persons banded themselves together for an illegal purpose, they have not been proceeded against in the ordinary course?
  MR. SPEAKER: That is a question requiring Notice.
  MR. W. REDMOND: Then I beg to give Notice that I will repeat it.

  WAR OFFICE CONTRACTS.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War, if he is satisfied that the Director of Contracts could not have placed within the United Kingdom, with due regard to the public service, the War Office contracts concluded with. foreigners during the past financial year, for £6,617 for butts and fore ends, for £3,250 for cloth and silk, for £3,688 for electric light and telephone apparatus, and for £18,078 for armour-piercing projectiles; and, particularly, if for

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  the latter implements of war, for which Sheffield has a speciality, tenders were invited from that town.
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,): These contracts could not have been placed within the United Kingdom. For the butts and fore-ends Italian walnut is required, and the English firms to whom the orders were given had to import the wood. Silk cloth is an article of foreign manufacture, but we are trying to encourage English firms to make it. As regards the electric light and telephonic apparatus, certain articles of foreign manufacture (such as Ader's telephones, &c.) were required, and they were bought where they are made. The order for armour-piercing projectiles its put up to competition in Sheffield, and firms in that town secured orders to the value of £33,650, the foreign orders amounting to £18,078.

  ADMIRALTY CONTRACTS.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty, why contracts for the supply of preserved table butter to the value of £891, and for £22,221 for salt pork, were concluded, on 6th July and 8th October respectively, with persons outside the United Kingdom; and, if he can inform the House the amount of the financial saving effected by placing abroad, instead of at home, the supply for Her Majesty's Navy of these two articles of British and Irish production?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON,): With reference to the particular supply of butter mentioned, samples were obtained from the leading Irish and foreign packers, which were submitted to analysis and the opinion of a Board of officers, quality being the prime consideration. The sample recommended was the best in quality. Danish pork was accepted in preference to Irish on the ground of economy. The quality was much about the same, but the difference in price was about 10 per cent.

  ENCOURAGEMENT OF NATIONAL INDUSTRIES.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the ordering, by the
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  Commissioners of National Education in Ireland, on the 12th February, 1889, from Abroad, of slate pencils to the value of £237 10s., the raw material for which was probably of British origin, and had been taxed upon entering the foreign country of manufacture; and, if he can represent to the Commissioners that the encouragement of national industries, whenever possible, is an essential part of national education?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Commissioners of National Education state that the supply of slate pencils in February last was ordered from Göbel, of Coburg, because his tender was the lowest of several tenders which had been received, and also because on five previous occasions he had, in carrying out his contract, given entire satisfaction. Millions of pencils are annually required by the pupils of the national schools, and it is therefore a matter of much importance to enable them to get them cheap as well as good. The Commissioners have reason to believe that when they purchased pencils from a home firm, invariably at higher prices than those now supplied by Göbel, of Coburg, the pencils were all the while German.

  LOCAL TAXATION LICENSES.
  Sir GEORGE BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, what proportion of local taxation licenses in the Metropolis is now collected by post offices; whether the whole of these licenses were formerly collected by the Inland offices; and what has been the reduction in the staff of the Inland offices in consequence of this transference of part of their duties to the post offices?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON,): The total local taxation licenses for the Metropolis amount to about £420,000 in the year. About one fifth of these in amount were taken out at post offices in the past year. No change whatever in the issue of these licenses has been made on their being surrendered to local taxation.

  IRELAND-THE SPECIAL COMMISSION.
  MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether Patrick Lavan, late of Ballyhaunis, who, it is

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  alleged, was offered, by Police Sergeant Mullen, of Ballyhaunis, a bribe, to induce him to give evidence on behalf of the Times, at the Special Commission, ever gave any secretary information to the police with reference to agrarian crime or political offences?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As I have already stated in reply to questions put in this House on the 25th and 28th of March last by the hon. Member who now repeats the inquiry, it was not in the interest of the Times that Sergeant Mullen communicated with Lavan. I cannot undertake to discuss the secret information received by the police from this man or any other source; a proceeding calculated to frustrate the ends of justice. But it is manifest that it could not have related to political offences, none such having been committed.
  MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN: Did not Sergeant Mullen in a letter to Lavan express a hope that he would not be so foolish as to refuse the offer which had been made to him?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am unable to say.

  THE BALTINGLASS UNION.
  MR. BYRNE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been called to a Report of the proceedings of the Baltinglass Union, at their meeting, held on the 15th June instant, for the purpose of accepting tenders for supplies, and other business, when a tender which was not the lowest was accepted; and, whether he will cause the Local Government Board to inquire into this misapplication of the ratepayers' money, and have the lowest tender accepted?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Clerk of Baltinglass Union reports that the contract for the supply of beef to the workhouse was given to a person whose tender was one farthing in the pound higher than the amount in the lowest tender, while the price for mutton in both tenders was the same, and that the consumption of mutton is greater than beef. The Guardians, in their advertisement inviting tenders, distinctly declined to bind themselves to accept the lowest or any of the tenders, and they considered that under the circumstances of the case they were justi-
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  fied in accepting the particular tender above referred to. The Local Government Board see no cause for their interference.

  EXTRA POLICE IN WATERFORD.
  MR. P. J. POWERI beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, how many extra police are stationed in the County Waterford, and at what cost to the ratepayers; what is the number of police allotted to the County Waterford by the Police Regulations, and has the full number allowed by such regulations been employed in the county before a tax for extra police was imposed upon the ratepayers; is it the case that in English counties there is on an average only one policeman to every 1,250 people, and whether in Irish counties, with less ordinary crime, we have one policeman to every 330 people; with the view of ascertaining why the County Waterford has been, and is, charged with extra police, will he have the attention of the Constabulary Authorities drawn to a charge delivered by Judge Waters on 3rd January, 1888, in addressing the Quarter sessions Grand Jury, in which he used the following-language:—
  "The amount of crime from the county and city investigated in this court during the year 1887 has been, I may say, insignificant. You know, I presume, that I am County Court Judge of two other counties, Cavan and Leitrim. These three counties represent a large area, inhabited by 332,616 people, and may be considered representative of the whole country. I have procured the last published statistics of the United Kingdom, and they show the number of committals in England and Wales were 13,856, which gives the rate of one committal to 1,911 people. The population of my three counties is 332,616, so that to make crime in these three counties equal to crime in England the number of committals should be 174, whereas they amount only to 114 (including Quarter Sessions and Assizes), so that our crime is only 63 per cent of the crime of England. In Scotland the committals were 2,535, which gives the proportion of one committal to every 1,473 people. In order that the proportion of our crime should equal that of Scotland the number of committals here should be 225, but they are only 114. I find the rate of convictions in England and Scotland nearly the same, 77 per cent of the committals, and, strange to say, the rate of convictions in Waterford is almost identical, differing only by an inconsiderable decimal. In Leitrim the rate of convictions is 82 per cent of the committals."
  Whether it is a fact that, at the period referred to in Judge Waters' address,

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  which was before the passing of the Coercion Act of 1887, the ratepayers were called upon to pay for extra police; and, what now justifies the employment of extra police in the County Waterford?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I must ask the hon. Gentleman to defer, the question, as I am unable at present to answer it.

  RAILWAY RATES.
  MR. BARCLAY: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade, whether the Railway Companies have yet complied with the rules made by the Board of Trade, requiring them to submit rates per truck and per train per mile; and, if not, whether the Board of Trade will insist on such rates being submitted by the Railway Companies?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF TRADE (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): No change has been made by the railway companies in the schedules submitted by them in February last. The proposals made by the railway companies as regards the particular points mentioned by the hon. Member are not satisfactory. I shall be unable to agree with the companies as to the schedules submitted unless they are altered in the direction referred to in the question. The changes, however, which it is desirable to make in them, must be dealt with as a whole.

  MOONLIGHTING.
  MR. MACARTNEY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that a party of moonlighters visited the houses of Cornelius Keily and Robert Sullivan, farmers, living near Killarney, on the 21st instant, and fired shots, and warned Keily to take his son out of the employment of John Teahan, and Sullivan to take his daughter from the service of Timothy Brosnan; whether any motive has been assigned for their attacks; and, whether adequate protection is being afforded to those men?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Constabulary Authorities report that it is the case that a party of six men, one of them armed with a revolver, one with a gun, and all disguised, entered the houses of the farmers named, and ordered them to take their son and
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  daughter respectively from their employment with the other farmers mentioned. A shot was fired in Sullivan's house to enforce the order. The motive assigned to these outrages is the fact that Teahan and Brosnan paid their rents, and did not join the Plan of Campaign on the Kenmare estate. Sullivan has withdrawn his daughter from her employment. Keily is receiving police protection.

  BOYCOTTING.
  MR. STOREY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether, after perusing the verbatim shorthand notes of the case which has been furnished him, he impugns their accuracy in any substantial point, and if so will he state in which; and whether, in the face of this evidence, he is now prepared to state that any charge was either made or proved against James Doyle, save only that he put in his window the placard "No bum-bailiffs or emergency men shod here," or that Mr. Doyle refused to desist from the course he was pursuing?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I do not impugn the accuracy of the notes referred to in any material point. These notes fully support the statement which I made to the House in reply to a former question of the hon. Member, inasmuch as it appears that it was proved on oath at Doyle's trial that the motives in question were intended and calculated to keep alive the bad feeling which had resulted in the boycotting of certain persons who were caretakers on an evicted farm situated within 200 yards of Doyle's shop, and were calculated to disturb the peace of the locality. It further appears that this was not denied by Doyle, and that when asked by the Magistrate to give an undertaking to desist from the course which he was pursuing, he refused to do so, and it was only on such refusal that the Magistrates ordered him to find sureties for good behaviour.
  MR. STOREY: Unfortunately this is a matter which involves too large a controversy to be dealt with in a mere question, but I should like to ask whether the right hon. Gentleman means to assert that against Doyle there has been alleged and proved on evidence other acts beside the act of putting up this notice?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I am not aware whether there was any other act or not.
  MR. STOREY: It is impossible for me to discuss the matter now, but I will put another question to the right hon. Gentleman to-morrow.

  THE POLICE AND THE SALVATION ARMY.
  MR. CUNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if, in the recent collision between the police and the Salvationists, any of the former were injured or assaulted in any way?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,): The only police officer assaulted was Chief Inspector Wills, who was either pushed or knocked down.
  MR. J. STUART: May I ask whether any evidence has reached the right hon. Gentleman of any serious obstruction to traffic in the City owing to the procession of members of the Salvation Army on Wednesday last?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed by the Commissioner of the City Police that the passage of the procession in question through Cheapside and Fleet Street was a serious obstruction to the general traffic, and that the growing practice of organizing similar processions, frequently accompanied by bands, is the cause not only of much public inconvenience, but also of danger to individuals in these crowded thoroughfares.
  MR. JOHNSTON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that yesterday when the congregation had assembled in Westminster Abbey a procession passed with a banner inscribed "Remember Mitchelstown"?
  The question was not answered.
  MR. J. ROWLANDS: Can the right hon. Gentleman state to the House on what previous occasions during the past ten years a peaceful procession passing along the Strand has been stopped by the police?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed by the Commissioner of Police that so far as he can ascertain there have been three occasions in the last ten years when processions have been stopped
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  from using the Strand route; but that he is unable without further inquiry to describe the occasions more particularly.
  MR. J. STUART: Is it the case that, while the City Police indicated the route most suitable for the procession of the members of the Salvation Army on Wednesday last, they facilitated the progress of the procession along that route, whereas the Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, while indicating that the procession should proseed along the Embankment, forbade its continuing, under any circumstances, to Exeter Hall; was it the case that several alternative routes were proposed to the Chief Commissioner by the leaders of the Salvation Army, and that he equally forbade by any route the continuance of the procession to Exeter Hall; and was there any serious obstruction obstruction to the traffic until the procession was broken up?
  MR. MATTHEWS: The City Police prohibited the route proposed by the members of the Salvation Army on the ground of obstruction to traffic, and prescribed a different route, which was adopted by the processionists, who consequently were not interfered with. The Commissioner of Metropolitan Police directed the processionists to proceed to Exeter Hall by the Embankment and Savoy Street, and there break up to cross the Strand. It is obvious that if a thousand persons crossed the Strand in procession the traffic from both sides must have been stopped for a considerable time, and much inconvenience must have resulted. I am informed that it is not correct that several alternative routes were proposed to the Commissioner by the loaders of the Salvation Army. It was suggested by them at the last moment that they might be allowed to go viâ Holborn; but the objection of obstruction to traffic applied to Holborn as strongly as to the Strand. There was considerable obstruction to the traffic before the procession broke up.

  MOUNTAIN GRAZING IN IRELAND.
  MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that John O'Donnell, James Corrigan, and Edward Encela, of Achill, were served with Civil Bills for mountain grazing by C. B. O. Sweeny, who is also

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  Major Richard Pike's bailiff; that Civil Bills were served after time (on 4th instead of 3rd instant, the last day), so as to prevent entry by defendants of processes; that defendants travelled 40 miles on, and same back, to Quarter Sessions at Westport, on 10th instant, in hopes to explain their case to County Court Judge Richards, and request an adjournment until Civil Bills would be served in proper time, and an opportunity of entry for defence afforded them; that, on walking up before the Judge and endeavouring to explain their case, the officer of the Court and a policeman ordered them away, and the solicitor employed on their behalf declined to address the Judge for them, stating it was a rule of Court that, as the Civil Bills were not entered, he (the solicitor) had no locus standi on their behalf; and, whether the Government intend to take any action?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that the Civil Bill processes were served on 3rd June by the Civil Bill officer referred to, who is also bailiff on Major Pike's estate. This gave the defendants time to defend, as the Quarter Sessions did not open until the 10th. The County Court Judge, after hearing evidence as to service of the processes, and being satisfied thereon, gave decrees against the defendants on 12th June. One of the defendants (O'Donnell) appeared in Court and was heard by the Judge, who saw no reason to alter his decision in the cases. The officer of the Court did not interfere with O'Donnell during the hearing of his case. When the next case was called he asked O'Donnell to stand aside, his case having been disposed of. No policeman interfered with him. The defendants' solicitor said in Court that he could not be heard as the defence in the cases was late for entry. Two of the defendants travelled about 30 miles to Westport Sessions, but did not return, as they went on to England. The third defendant did not attend at all. There does not appear to be anything in the matter calling for action on the part of the Government.

  TRAFALGAR SQUARE.
  MR. HOWELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will lay upon the Table of the House a copy of the Regulations issued by the
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  Commissioner of Police, in November, 1887, with respect to Trafalgar Square?
  MR. MATTHEWS: The Commissioner of Police issued Regulations on the 12th and 18th of November, 1887, with respect to Trafalgar Square, which were published in the press and extensively placarded, and thus became generally known. If the hon. Member thinks that under those circumstances any useful purpose can be served by laying them on the Table of the House, he can move for them as an unopposed Return.

  THE ROYAL INNISKILLING FUSILIERS.
  MR. JOHNSTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if it is a fact that, in consequence of a Roman Catholic priest refusing to take part in the ceremony of the Presentation of colours to the 5th Battalion, Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, that ceremony was ordered by the War Office to be deferred; whether the Protestant rector of the parish was perfectly willing to join in the ceremony on the 25th June, at Lifford; and if he will state the name of the priest who refused, and his reasons for so doing; and why the ceremony was ordered not to take place?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: The circumstances of the case are as stated by my honourable Friend. The Rev. Father O'Hagan is the name of the priest who refused to take part in the ceremony, on purely religious grounds. Notice of this refusal only reached the War Office the day before that fixed for the ceremony, and as there was not time to send a Roman Catholic chaplain to the Forces to Lifford to take part in the presentation of colours, it was postponed till next year.

  WATER SUPPLY.
  MR. BROADHURST: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department when the Return relating to water supply in various provincial towns, moved for by the junior Member for Dundee last Session, will be laid upon the Table?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I hope it will be possible to lay the Return on the Table in the course of a week or ten days.

  SHIPPING OF PAUPER LADS AS SEAMEN.
  MR. BROADHURST: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade

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  whether he is now in a position to make a statement as to the alleged shipping of pauper lads as seamen from the Liverpool Workhouse?
  SIR MICHAEL HICKS BEACH: The question of the hon. Member arose out of the alleged shipment of these lads on the steamship Adriatic. The whole crew of the Adriatic were inspected and passed by two experienced officers of the Emigration Department—one a sailor and the other a surgeon. Captain Shoosmith, one of these officers, reports as follows:—
  "With respect to the clearance of the steamship Adriatic, referred to in annexed minute, I beg to report that, in regard to the efficiency of the crew, I had no hesitation whatever in passing them as quite satisfactory. Every man passed myself and Dr. Spooner on his name being called from the ship's articles, and then proceeded to the boat to which he was stationed, each boat having a crew composed of seamen, firemen, and stewards. I had all the boats lifted from the chocks, and four of them swung out and lowered, each by its own crew, which was done in a very creditable manner, both as to time and ability. The chief engineer expressed himself quite satisfied as to the capability of his firemen and trimmers, and I am not aware that any paupers were among them, though for the work of the latter I presume that skilled labour is not required, and whatever a man may be, if he is good in health, and up to the average of physical strength, I am of opinion that he is equal to the task of shovelling and wheeling about coals. If from any cause I am not satisfied with the efficiency of the crew of a passenger steamer I should certainly refuse clearance."
  The other officer, Dr. Spooner, reports as follows:—
  "I beg to report that I examined the crew of the Adriatic and found their general health good. I had no occasion to reject any of them on the score of sickness or any other cause within my province."

  BOROUGH POLICE.
  MR. RANKIN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether, under the Local Government Act for England and Wales, Section 24 (i), County Councils are bound to repay to boroughs, having a separate police force, the half of the cost of the pay and clothing of such force as may have accrued from the 30th September, 1888, to the 31st March, 1889?
  MR. MATTHEWS: The answer is in the affirmative. I would refer my hon. Friend to the answers which I gave on this subject to my hon. Friends
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  the Members for the Nuneaton Division of Warwickshire (Mr. Dugdale) and the Ramsey Division of Huntingdonshire (Mr. Fellowes), on the 2nd and 4th of April last.

  THE JAMAICA GOVERNMENT RAILWAY.
  CAPTAIN PRICE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether, in the agreement for the sale of the Jamaica Government Railway, a clause has been inserted, making it clearly an advantage to the company that failure should result after completion of the line, inasmuch as in that event the Government would have to give the bondholders 3½ per cent Government stock, in lieu of bonds issued probably at 90, and earning a possible interest of 4 per cent, contingent on the profits of the railway?
  BARON H. DE WORMS: The event in which the Colonial Government would have to give the bondholders Government stock in lieu of their mortgage bonds is the winding up of the company and the forfeiture of their property to the Government. Such an event would not be advantageous to the company, however it might affect the interests of the bondholders. It is calculated that the completed line would be fully worth to the island the amount of Government stock which would have to be assigned to holders of the company's bonds, in the event of the company being wound up.
  CAPTAIN PRICE: Will the interest on the 3½per cent be payable out of the general revenue of Jamaica, or will it be contingent only on the' profits of the railway?
  BARON H. DE WORMS: I must ask for notice of the question.

  THE EDUCATION CODE.
  SIR JOHN COLOMB: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether, in the general directions to the Inspector in Article 100 (a) of the Code, the word "age" is to be construed as intending in any way to hamper or restrict the classification according to capacity enjoined in the 6th sub-section of the same part of the Article?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COMMITTEE OF COUNCIL (Sir W. HART DYKE,): No, Sir; the new Code gives complete freedom of classification, but it would be unwise altogether to ignore the general relation which is commonly recognized between age and capacity, and the retention of the word will also serve as a security against children of exceptional mental quickness being unduly pressed forward while of tender years and delicate physical organization. Inspectors must have in their minds the various items which should be taken into consideration in order to ascertain the capacity of a scholar, and one of such items must necessarily be age.

  IRELAND—CANON KELLER.
  DR. KENNY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he can state whether Canon Keller was acting within his legal rights in refusing to leave the grounds of Gurtroe Chapel, County Cork, on the 18th ultimo when ordered to do so by the police, the said grounds being his private property; whether, on his refusal to leave, the police acted legally in removing him by force; and if he can further state whether, in Ireland, it is lawful for the police to enter, without a warrant, or without swearing the proper information, on private premises, and remove therefrom the legal owners, when no illegal act is being at the time committed by the said owners on such premises?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Divisional Commissioner reports that Canon Keller was neither ordered to leave the chapel grounds nor was he removed from the grounds. The other points in the question, therefore, do nut arise.

  ENLISTING UNDER FALSE PRETENCES
  MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of Martin Murray, who, on Thursday last was convicted at the Marlborough Street Police Court of making a false statement when about to be enlisted into the Army, and was sentenced by Mr. De Rutzen to three months' imprisonment; whether this was the maximum punishment which the Magistrate could impose for the offence charged; and whether there are any mitigating circum-
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  stances in this case; and, if so, whether he will advise that a portion of the sentence should be remitted?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed by the learned Magistrate that there are no mitigating circumstances in this case. Martin Murray made two false statements in attempting to gain admission to the Army, by denying that he was a married man and that he was in the Militia; and he was practically guilty of running away from and deserting his wife and child, which is of itself an offence under the Vagrants Act. I see no ground for remitting any part of the sentence.
  MR. PICKERSGILL: Has the right hon. Gentleman inquired into the truth of the man's statement that he had been for a long time out of work and was tempted to act as he did in order to provide food for his family?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I have been informed that that statement was not true, and that he was guilty of making a false statement without the slightest justification.

  PORTUGAL AND THE DELAGOA RAILWAY.
  SIR JOHN COLOMB: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, whether, notwithstanding the representations of Her Majesty's Government, the Portuguese Government have cancelled the Delagoa Bay Railway concession; and, if so, whether Her Majesty's Government propose to take any immediate and decisive action in order to secure the due protection of British commercial interests in that part of the world.
  MR. BRYCE: May I ask if the Under Secretary can give the latest information to hand as to what has recently taken place at Delagoa Bay, seeing how much the accounts appearing in the newspapers differ?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: It is true that, notwithstanding the representations of Her Majesty's Government, the concession has been cancelled. The Portuguese Government have been told that they will be held responsible for any losses sustained in consequence of this action, by British subjects who invested their money in the railway on the faith of the concession. The legal questions raised by the most recent action of the Portuguese Government are under con-

  1159
  sideration. As to giving the latest information, I may say that the railway has been seized by the Portuguese authorities, and there was considerable alarm and apprehension created amongst the British residents, but her Majesty's Government shave taken the proper steps for the safety of these residents in any eventuality. It is hoped, however, that there will be no such question raised.
  MR. ISAACS: May I ask if the Under Secretary will say whether the Government is acting in concert with the United States Government in the matter?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I think that this is a matter upon which I must ask for specific Notice of any further question.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I wish to know if the danger at Delagoa Bay is caused by armed resistance on the part of the British residents and the railway officials to the Portuguese Government; and whether the Government have in consequence sent a vessel of war in order to coerce the Portuguese.
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I am not prepared to say to what the alarm is to be attributed.
  DR. CLARK: I wish to ask whether any representations have been made to the Portuguese Government by Her Majesty's Government regarding this matter; whether Her Majesty's Government have seen the decree which the King of Portugal has published in the Official Gazette of the Portuguese Kingdom; whether the conditions of that decree were objected to in any shape or form by Her Majesty's Government; and whether the Government have reason to believe that the company having received a concession to construct the railway, and having year after year got extentions of time to carry it out, the Portuguese Government were cancelling the concession because the conditions had not been carried out; that they were instructing their engineer to take possession——
  MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! A question of this kind, and especially on so important a subject, ought not to be put without Notice.

  IRISH FISHERIES—THE RIVER SHANNON.
  MR. SMITH BARRY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has
  1160
  been called to the report of a recent meeting of the Limerick Board of Conservators, when that Board instructed their Solicitor to take steps to obtain an injunction to restrain the Board of Works from removing the salmon-spawning beds in the River Shannon; and, whether, before proceeding further with the drainage works in connection with that river, he will order an inquiry to be made by the Inspectors of Irish Fisheries as to whether damage is being, or is likely to be, done to the fishing interests in the Shannon by these drainage works?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. W. L. JACKSON,): My attention has been called to the report of the meeting, and I am informed that the Shannon Conservators are taking counsel's opinion, but no further action appears to have been taken. I do not think it is desirable to stop the progress of the works which are now being carried out at Killaloe. The Board of Works are of opinion that no serious injury can result to the fishings by these works.

  THE IRISH LAND PURCHASE AND SETTLEMENT COMPANY.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether an association calling itself the "Irish Land Purchase and Settlement Company, Limited," and owning lands in County Galway, has recently sold a portion of its property to the tenants under the Land Purchase (Ireland) Acts; if so, whether he can state (a) the number of holdings sold; (b) the Poor Law valuation and the rental thereof; (c) the number of years' purchase paid by the tenants, and its relation to the rents previously paid by the tenants; and, whether this property was purchased chiefly by means of a Government loan; and, if so, can he state how the account stands, and who are the directors of the company?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Land Commissioners state that the Irish Land Purchase and Settlement Company (Limited), which was incorporated on the 7th of February, 1884, and which purchased, through the Land Judges' Court in the year 1885, the Killclooney estate, in the County of Galway, has

  1161
  since sold portions of the lands so purchased to the tenants under the Land Purchase (Ireland) Acts, 1885–1887. (a) Twenty-two holdings have been purchased by the tenants under the provisions of the Land Purchase Acts. (b) The total area sold was 404 acres, of which 249 acres were previously held by the tenants at rents amounting, in the aggregate, to £171. The additional 155 acres represent extra land added to the holdings of tenants purchasing, and in respect of which no rents were previously paid by them. Previous to the sale these 155 acres were let as a grazing farm to one tenant at a yearly rent of £200. The tenement valuation was not ascertained at the date of the sales. (c) The total amount of the advances in these cases was £5,583, the annuity in respect of which is £223 12s. 4d. It is not possible to compare this annuity with the previous rents paid by the purchasing tenants, on account of the additional land having been granted. There have been 23 further sales provisionally sanctioned; but the conveyances have not yet been prepared, or the money paid on these. In these cases also extra land will be added to the tenants' holdings upon purchasing. The price of the property purchased by the company was £43,300, of which sum the Irish Land Commission, with the assent of the Treasury, advanced the sum of £42,300. In the year 1887, the company being in arrear with their instalments, a receiver was appointed, at the suit of the Land Commission, by the Master of the Rolls. He is still in receipt of the rents of the unsold lauds. The arrear due at the date such proceedings were commenced has partly been paid out of the sums advanced by the Land Purchase Commissioners on the sale of the lands to the tenants, and partly out of the rents of the unsold lands by the receiver. The half-yearly instalments payable to the Land Commission on account of the advance of £42,300, are £974 5s. 6d., and there is now due on foot of same £1,915 12s. 4d.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the last part of the question.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I beg the hon. Member's pardon; I have the information, but omitted to give it. The original directors of the company, as appears from the Articles of Associa-
  1162
  tion, were:— Mr. Charles Stewart Parnell, M.P., Mr. Ernest Hart, surgeon, Mr. William Henry O'Shea, M.P., the Bishop of Raphoe, Mr. Edmund Dwyer Gray, M P., Mr. Thomas Baldwin, and Mr. William J. Doherty, C.E.
  MR. SEXTON: I wish to ask the hon. Member for South Tyrone whether he has given any notice of his intention to ask this question to the hon. Member for Cork?
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: The question has been on the Paper for some time.

  DR. TANNER.
  MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will explain why Dr. Tanner, M.P., on arriving from Tipperary Prison at Clonmel Railway Station on Wednesday last, was thrust by force and with violence into a prison van, and, having been overpowered by a number of warders and constables, was conveyed in the prison van to the Magisterial Court to attend the hearing of a charge against him; and, what has been the practice hitherto in regard to the conveyance of Members of Parliament convicted under the Criminal Law and Procedure Act?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I understand that Dr. Tanner, M.P., was not coming from Tipperary Prison to the Magistrates' Court at Clonmel. He was being conveyed in charge of Chief Warder M'Carthy under a writ of habeas corpus from Galway Prison to Clonmel Prison, accompanied by an escort of police. The prison van was in waiting at Clonmel Railway Station. Dr. Tanner refused to enter the van, and clung to the seat outside the door usually occupied by the prison warder; from this he had to be placed in the van, no more force being used than was absolutely necessary, as he resisted by every means in his power. Members of Parliament have been hitherto conveyed to gaol on the large open break supplied to the Constabulary; but the use of this has been discontinued since May 2, owing to the refusal of Messrs. John O'Connor, M.P. for South Tipperary, and T. J. Condon, M.P. for East Tipperary, to go on it when being conveyed from Tipperary Petty Sessions to Clon-

  1163
  mel Gaol under sentences passed upon them under the Act.
  MR. SEXTON: Are Members of Parliament to understand that they are in future to be expected to enter prison vans in Ireland?
  No answer being returned,
  MR. SEXTON: Unless you, Sir, are disposed to rule the question out of order I will press the question. Has it hitherto been the practice to ask Members of Parliament in Ireland to enter the prison van?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I must ask for notice of the question. I do not see that the two Members who refused to enter the open break had anything to complain of.

  THE ROYAL COMMISSION ON FISHING RIGHTS IN SCOTLAND.
  MR. BUCHANAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, when the names of the Commissioners, and the terms of Reference of the Commission, to inquire into the exercise and disposal of the Crown rights of fishing in Scotland, promised by him on the 27th of May, will be announced
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): The Commission will inquire into the exercise of the Crown rights in respect of salmon fishing. I am not able to give the hon. Gentleman the names of the Commissioners at the present time, but it will be a small Commission. Before the Session closes I hope to be able to give the House the information asked for.

  GRANTS TO THE ROYAL FAMILY.
  MR. EDMUND ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury if he intends to proceed this Session with the proposed Committee on Parliamentary Grants to Members of the Royal Family?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: The question is under consideration. I hope to be able to make a statement on Thursday.

  INTERNATIONAL INDUSTRIAL CONFERENCE
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if any decision has been arrived at with regard to the
  1164
  International Industrial Conference, which, according to the agreement Some to at Rome in 1886, was to have been held in Madrid in the course of the present year?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: No invitation to the Conference has been received from the Spanish Government, and it is believed that no date has yet been fixed for the meeting.

  THE NEW FOREST.
  MR. DARLING: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury what is the number of the persons having rights of common in the New Forest?
  MR. JACKSON: I hope by Thursday to be able to answer the question.

  ZULULAND.
  MR. THOMAS ELLIS: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will grant the Returns as to Zululand which stand on the Paper this day?
  BARON H. DE WORMS: Her Majesty's Government have no objection to giving these Returns; but it may be necessary to refer to the Colony for some of the information desired.
  MR. THOMAS ELLIS: May I ask the hon. Gentleman whether he is aware that the resident Magistrates in Zululand have at times exceeded their jurisdiction by inflicting lashes considerably in excess of the limit specified by law; whether Magistrates have customarily violated the law by causing sentences of flogging to be put into execution without previous reference to the chief magistrate; and, whether floggings have been inflicted by Magistrates without previous trial?
  BARON H. DE WORMS: The Secretary of State is not aware of anything to confirm the hon. Member's suggestions, except in one instance where an acting officer exceeded his powers as indicated in the second paragraph of his question. The Secretary of State has dealt with that case, and has directed a special circular to be addressed to all magistrates in Zululand, enjoining them to observe the law in regard to sentences of flogging in every particular.
  MR. T. ELLIS: What is the limit?
  BARON H. DE WORMS: I am unable to answer that question.

  MAIL SERVICE TO PENANG.
  MR. JOHNSTON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether it will be possible to institute a weekly mail service from London to Penang as well as to Singapore?
  A LORD OF THE TREASURY (Sir H. MAXWELL,): In the absence of my right hon. Friend, I may inform the hon. Member that there is at present a weekly mail service from London to Penang. Mails are forwarded fortnightly by the British Packets which call at Penang, and in intermediate weeks, by the French steamers from Marseilles, which, although they do not stop at Penang, carry the mails to Singapore, whence they are conveyed to Penang by local steamers.

  ARMY SERGEANTS.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War if he can give any further information as to the statement that all single sergeants going through courses at Woolwich received 4d. a day lodging money; and, if he is certain that sergeants sent home from India to qualify as master gunners receive more than 2d.?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: I should like to explain, in reference to a former answer given by me on this subject, that the War Office regulations give 4d. a day to each unmarried man stationed singly away from the headquarters of his regiment. Should, however, several unmarried men be away from headquarters they are allowed 2d. a day, as separate rooms need not be provided. The non-commissioned officers sent home from India are paid by the India Office, and it is believed that they receive 2d. a day only.

  THE SUGAR BOUNTIES BILL.
  MR. J. MORLEY: In the absence of my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone) I wish to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether the House may reckon on having the proposal of the Government to discharge the Order relating to the Sugar Bounties Bill taken as the first business of the day on Thursday next?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: It was not the intention of the Government to put
  1166
  down the Motion for the discharge of this Bill as the first Order for Thursday. No good purpose would be served by doing so. I am under the impression that it would not be in order for any debate to arise on that occasion, and that some other opportunity will be found if the right hon. Gentleman wishes to raise a debate; but I will communicate further with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian on the subject.
  MR. J. MORLEY: I think a good purpose would be served by enabling the Government to keep its engagement. We understood that the discharge of the Order would be put down first on Thursday, not with a view to a long discussion, which might perhaps be out of place, but a very moderate discussion would probably suffice. A new impression seems to have formed itself in the right hon. Gentleman's mind since he made his previous statement.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I certainly did not intend to convey the impression to the right hon. Gentleman or his friends that the discharge of the Order would be placed first on the Paper. It was my duty to ascertain whether it would be in order that a debate should arise on that occasion before making arrangements as to the course of Business. As no discussion would be in order on that occasion another opportunity must be found for it if desired.
  MR. J. MORLEY: I do not want to press the matter; but only the other night the right hon. Gentleman told us that he was willing to place the discharge of the Order as the first Order of the Day, and to allow a discussion to be taken on it.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman does not wish to make a statement which I am not prepared to accept, and I cannot accept that account of my statement as correct. If the right hon. Gentleman refers to any report that may have been made of what fell from me, he will find that I never at any time undertook, or sought to convey, the impression that I would undertake to put down this Motion as the first Order. I consented to postpone it.
  MR. J. MORLEY: Are we to understand, then, that the chance of a discussion on this question is indefinitely postponed?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am afraid it is. I also stated—and I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian is not in his place—that I would refer to the question again in that right hon. Gentleman's presence.
  MR. GLADSTONE(who subsequently entered the House): It may be for the convenience of the House if I am permitted to put a question to the Chair on the subject of the question which stood in my name to be addressed to the right hon. Gentleman opposite, and which has, I understand, been answered in my absence. My question had reference to the Motion which will have to be made in order to get rid—to use a colloquial phrase—of the Sugar Bounties Bill for this Session. That, I presume, would be the discharge of the Order; and the object of my question was to secure not that it should come on on Thursday next, but that when it did come on it should come on as the first Order. That would certainly give a convenient opportunity for a discussion, not upon the merits, but upon the postponement of that Bill. I am aware that the merits of the Bill could be discussed on the Order to discharge it; but I have respectfully to ask you, Sir, whether it will not be perfectly in order, when the Order of the Day is read that it may be discharged, to make any observations then addressed properly and strictly to the postponement of the Bill?
  MR. SPEAKER: I have already had the opportunity of stating, in reply to the right hon. Gentleman, who asked me whether it was possible to have a discussion on the withdrawal of a Bill, what I have always stated, and what I now repeat, that no Second Reading speech can be made upon the withdrawal of a Bill. The Motion not being for the second reading but for the withdrawal of the Bill, it is obvious that the same latitude of discussion could not arise as could arise on the Order for the Second Reading. Of course, the postponement from day to day, the question to what day it shall be postponed, or even the circumstances under which it is withdrawn may be gone into; but I have always pointed out that a stricter limitation would apply to a debate on the withdrawal of a Bill
  1168
  than to a debate on the Motion for the Second Reading.
  MR. GLADSTONE: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman opposite whether he is in a position to name a day upon which the withdrawal of the Order may be moved, and a convenient opportunity afforded for making observations strictly limited to the question of the withdrawal of the Bill?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am not now in a position to name a day; but I will between this and Thursday endeavour to communicate with the right hon. Gentleman, and to name some day after the Committee on the Scotch Local Government Bill is concluded.

  H.M.S DART.
  In reply to Mr. HENEAGE (Grimsby),
  LORD G. HAMILTON: The Dart is reported in this morning's papers to have arrived safely at Sydney.

  ORDER OF BUSINESS.
  MR. J. MORLEY: Will it be convenient for the right hon. Gentleman to give the House any information as to the course of public Business for the week, especially in regard to the Scotch Local Government Bill?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I had hoped that the Scotch Universities Bill would have passed through Committee before now, although I do not complain that its progress has not been more rapid; but I trust that the Bill will be disposed of at an early hour this evening. Then we propose to take the Chief Secretary for Ireland's Bills. It is proposed to take the Scotch Local Government Bill in Committee on Thursday, and to proceed with it from day to day. The other measures of the Government will only be postponed until that Bill is disposed of. We shall endeavour to complete the programme which we indicated a fortnight ago; and it is, therefore, simply a question of how long the Session will have to last to complete that programme.
  SIR J. SWINBURNE: When is it probable, approximately, that the Tithe Bill will be taken?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: The Tithe Bill will be taken immediately after the Committee on the Scotch Local Govern-

  1169
  ment Bill closes. That Bill is included in the programme of the Government.

  PUBLIC EXPENDITURE.
  Ordered—
  "Return of Public Expenditure (Exchequer Issues), Charges of Taxes, for each year from 1857–8 to 1888–9 (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper, No. 298, of Session 1888."—(Mr. Childers.)

  ZULULAND (REVENUE.)
  Ordered—
  "Address for Return showing the Revenue of the Government of Zululand from the 14th day of May, 1887, to the 1st day of June, 1889, and the different heads under which such Revenue is collected."—(Mr. T. Ellis.)

  ZULULAND (CATTLE SEIZED).
  Ordered—
  "Address for Return showing the number of heads of Cattle levied as fines and otherwise seized by the Government of Zululand from the 14th day of May, 1887, to the 1st day of June, 1889, and the purposes to which such Cattle have been applied."—(Mr. T. Ellis.)

  INCLOSURE ACTS (RECREATION GROUNDS AND FIELD GARDENS.)
  Ordered—
  "Address for Return of Recreation Grounds and Field Gardens, set out under the Inclosure Acts, 1845 to 1878, of which the Trustees or Wardens have (1) refused or neglected to make reports to the Land Commissioners in respect of the Recreation Grounds and Field Gardens under their management, as required by Section 28 of 'The Commons Act, 1876;' or (2) applied the surplus rents of Recreation Grounds or Field Gardens to objects other than those directed by Section 27 of 'The Commons Act, 1876;' such Return to state in each case the name of the county, and the parish, in which the Recreation Ground, or Field Garden, is situate; the name of the common from which, and the dates of the Act of Parliament and Provisional Order under which, it was set out; the office (if any) in the parish held by each Trustee or Warden; and short particulars of any communication between the Land Commissioners and the Trustees or Wardens."—(Mr. Shaw-Lefevre.)

MOTION.
  IRELAND—THE ARREST OF MR. W. O'BRIEN.

    ADJOURNMENT OF THE HOUSE.
    MR. SEXTON, Member for West Belfast, rose in his place, and asked leave to move the Adjournment of the House, for the purpose of discussing a definite
    1170
    matter of urgent public importance—namely, the course pursued by the Irish Government in regard to the Proclamation of the Cork meeting, and the arrest and prosecution of Mr. William O'Brien; but the pleasure of the House not having been signified, Mr. Speaker called on those Members who supported the Motion to rise in their places, and not less than 40 Members having accordingly risen.
    MR. SEXTON: Sir, at the earliest moment I wish to challenge the Government to offer the House some explanation, some justification, if they have any, of their memorable and disgraceful proceedings in Ireland yesterday. The record of the day is notable even in the regime of this Administration of brute force. The Government, yesterday, proclaimed and prevented a public meeting duly called in Ireland for a legal and constitutional purpose, and they arrested, at a moment of dangerous excitement, a beloved and distinguished public man, a Representative of the people; they wantonly, by the hands of their agents, inflicted upon another Member of this House such serious physical injuries, that he now lies at the point of death; they wantonly batoned a peaceable crowd of men, women, and children; and at Charleville they fired upon a railway train and seriously wounded two men, one of them an official of the railway company. It will be agreed that this is the record of one day's proceedings on the part of a Government of conciliation which challenges the examination of the House. The first question I have to ask is, Why was the Cork meeting proclaimed? I have a copy of the proclamation here, and in that proclamation it is alleged that the meeting was called in furtherance of the criminal conspiracy known as the Plan of Campaign. I treat that statement in the simplest terms, and I declare it to be a lie. I challenge the information of the Government as to the facts on which the proclamation was issued. The meeting no doubt had reference to the Ponsonby estate, but the Plan of Campaign has been in operation on that estate for three years. A meeting in Cork was at a considerable distance from the estate, and whether the meeting was held or not, the holding of it, or abstaining from holding it, would not affect in one way or the other a

    1171
    Plan of Campaign which has been in operation for three years, and is likely to continue in operation until the matters with which it deals are satisfactorily settled. A meeting was held in London yesterday; thousands of people assembled in Hyde Park to support the Plan of Campaign in Ireland; but no one proclaimed that meeting, and no one batoned the people who attended it. It did not occur to the Home Secretary that it was a meeting which called for attention on his part. It was a meeting to sympathize with a Member of this House who has been condemned by one of your servile salaried officials in a Court in Ireland, and declared to be an offender against the law. The meeting in Hyde Park was allowed because Englishmen are free. The Cork meeting was convened by the Mayor and by the Public Boards of the City, and it had three objects—namely, to express sympathy with the tenants on the Ponsonby estate—400 families threatened with eviction and ruin; to protest against the treatment those tenants are receiving; and, thirdly, to evoke an expression of public opinion in favour of the Ponsonby tenants. I have said that one of the objects of the meeting was to protest against the treatment of the tenants of the Ponsonby estate. What treatment have they received? They have spent the past three years in a state of anxiety and suspense amounting to positive torture, expecting every moment to find themselves turned out of their homes. Those poor people have strained every nerve to effect a settlement with their landlord. Their landlord himself was desirous of a settlement, and asked his agent to promote one. The agent carried a settlement to the very point of completion, and at that moment when the difference between them was a mere bagatelle, the hon Gentleman opposite, the Member for South Hunts (Mr. Smith Barry) steps in to prevent that settlement and to secure the ruin of these people. [Mr. SMITH BARRY made a gesture o dissent.] The hon. Gentleman in this affair has reached a pass in which gesticulation will not excuse him. We have it on the word and on the faith of the agent of the estate that the difference was trivial, and that he hoped and expected to arrive at a settlement. Yet that was the moment when the hon. Gentleman,
    1172
    who owns estates of his own, stepped down from his high position to promote a syndicate in London, and to hand over hard-working tenants, and women and little children as well, to destruction and ruin. I say that the people of Cork had a right to protest against the treatment which the Ponsonby tenants have received. The third object of the meeting was to appeal to public opinion in favour of the tenants. Has it come to this that even in Ireland no appeal to public opinion must be made, but that men are to be struck down, and turned out of their homes without even being allowed the consolation of making a complaint. Does the right hon. gentleman with his soldiers think he can prevent us from appealing to public opinion? He is himself the creature of public opinion as this House is, and public opinion will in the long run have its way. The Cork meeting yesterday was intended to influence public opinion in Great Britain, and to fix the attention of Great Britain upon what is going on in Ireland, and the proclamation of it was as cowardly and dastardly an act as has distinguished the Chief Secretary's policy since the first day he came into office. Let me ask upon what charge has Mr. O'Brien been arrested? Mr. O'Brien made no attempt to attend the meeting in defiance of the proclamation. He accepted the proclamation; the proclaimed meeting was not held. We are given to understand he was arrested because of a speech he delivered on Sunday week to the tenantry of the hon. member for South Hunts in the county of Tipperary. As a simple matter of tactics, it was a fair thing to occupy the attention of that hon. member with the affairs of his own tenantry in Tipperary. Will any deny that the tenants of Tipperary have not a right to sympathise with their fellow tenants in the County of Cork? The hon. Gentleman (Mr. Smith Barry) has supplied the best justification of that meeting, because he has agreed to receive a deputation from the meeting who wish him to desist from the unfortunate part of interloper and Paul Pry which he has taken up in Irish affairs. I hope the issue of that deputation will be that the hon. Gentleman may be induced to see, if fact the impropriety, at least the unreasonableness

    1173
    of the course he has pursued. If such is the result, nobody will say that that was a useless meeting, still less will they say it was an illegal meeting. A few nights ago, when we were protesting against the action of the Member for South Hunts, the hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh (Col. Saunderson) said every landlord in Ireland has a personal concern in the estate of every other landlord, and is entitled to interfere in the affairs of the estate of others. The hon. and gallant Member added, "We will stand or fall together." Why may not the tenants be allowed to stand or fall together? If the landlords of Ireland have the right to combine together for the purpose of producing evictions, the tenants upon any estate have a better right to combine to save the tenants from eviction. The only reason why the hon. M ember for North-East Cork attended the recent meeting of the tenants of the hon. Member for South Hunts was to induce them to take combined action in consequence of the proceedings of their landlord in regard to the Ponsonby estate. Was my hon. Friend not entitled to advise the tenants first to bring their opinion to bear upon the hon. Member (Mr. Smith Barry) himself—and he has accepted the reference made to him—and secondly, to make his conduct in the Ponsonby estate a matter for public adjudication in the country? That is the action of my hon. Friend (Mr. O'Brien), that is the action for which he is being prosecuted. If the Government put every Irish Member into gaol to-morrow I tell them that the action of every landlord who endeavours to imitate the example of the hon. Member for South Hunts, who constitutes himself the exterminator and persecutor of the poor, will be seriously dealt with by public action in Ireland. Now, the Chief Secretary has only two modes of arresting his political opponents. He either breaks into their houses at night and alarms women and children, or else arrests them at the moment when people are crowding round them, when there is excitement, and when there is the maximum of danger in the execution of the warrants. The latter was the method pursued on this occasion. The speech for which Mr. W. O'Brien was arrested was delivered on the previous Sunday. Why was the warrant not executed
    1174
    during the week? Did the authorities hope for similar results to those which attended the arrest of Father M'Fadden? Did the Government wish to create a pretext for murder? I emphatically affirm that there was no disorder at the railway station except what was created by the police. The moment Mr. O'Brien stepped from the train an inspector came forward and executed the arrest, the police at the same time laying on with their batons and the stocks of their rifles upon men, women, and, I regret to say, children. I have received from two of my hon. Friends who were present testimony on the subject of the order maintained by the crowd. Mr. Lane telegraphs that there was neither shouting nor crushing when the police suddenly batoned the crowd. Mr. Flynn telegraphs,—
    "Great brutality of police last night at William O'Brien's arrest. No disorder whatever when the police charged meeting of people with their rifle stocks."
    [Mr. W. REDMOND: Cowards !]
    "O'Brien (North Monaghan) dangerously wounded, if not dead. No excuse possible. No provocation given to warrant these brutal attacks. Over 20 people in the infirmary."
    My hon. Friend the Member for North Monaghan (Mr. Patrick O'Brien) stepped forward to shake hands with the hon. Member for North-East Cork just after his arrest, and was beaten with batons and stocks of rifles. He received two dangerous wounds—one upon the head and another upon the forehead. The accounts received this morning describe him as lying in a condition of danger, but the doctors now think he will not be in danger unless erysipelas sets in. I want to hear some justification of that assault. Was not my hon. Friend entitled to be present and to shake hands with the hon. Member for North-East Cork? Mr. O'Brien was taken to the police station, and then two hon. Members of the House—Mr. Maurice Healy and Mr. Lane—the former being Mr. O'Brien's legal adviser, applied for admission to the station and were refused. Will the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary contend that he has a right to prevent a conference between Mr. O'Brien and his legal adviser? Bail was refused, though two bails for £1,000 were offered. If bail had been accepted the subsequent disorder of that night would have been avoided. But it is no part of the Government's policy to avoid dis-

    1175
    order. It is their policy to provoke it. On the occasion under discussion not only was the intention to provoke disorder, but by every means possible to create such a state of things in Cork as to enable the Government to pretend that they have some excuse for batoning the people, and to provide some plea for presentation to the jury at Manchester which will soon try the libel action of Mr. O'Brien against Lord Salisbury. And the nephew of Lord Salisbury is the Constitutional Minister who, by means of armed agents, tries to juggle with the law and to prejudice the trial of a case about to come before an English jury. Bail having been refused, Mr. O'Brien was taken at once to the Cork terminus, and on the journey to Dublin—at Charleville—the police fired out of the train, and inflicted dangerous wounds on two men on the platform who were not engaged in violence—one a well-known man and respectable officer of the railway company. On these facts, which speak for themselves and which are grievous and lamentable enough, the House must pass judgment; and, in any case, the country will exact reparation from the Government for their conduct in seeking to create a pretext for violence and an excuse for murder. At the earliest opportunity the country will express its condemnation of a policy more cowardly and dastardly than any I ever have read of in the history of Ireland.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That this House do now adjourn."—(Mr. Sexton.)
    THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,): I rise on behalf of the Government—["Oh, oh"]—to make a short statement with reference to some of the matters to which the right hon. Gentleman has called the attention of the House. It is obvious that the House is at a great disadvantage in discussing the alleged incidents which have been alluded to; because in the short time which has elapsed since their occurrence it is impossible for hon. Members opposite, or for Her Majesty's Government, to be in possession of the full facts. But, at the same time, certain matters are particularly clear. The right hon. Gentleman who has moved the adjourn-
    1176
    ment of the House has complained that Her Majesty's Government have on former occasions caused houses to be broken into at the dead of night for the purposes of making arrests. Now, the right hon. Gentleman complains that an arrest has been openly made in a railway station in the middle of the day. How can the two complaints be reconciled?
    MR. SEXTON: I still think that arrests should not be carried out in the dead of night, nor at a moment of popular excitement in the day, but at some time when people are not in bed and not under circumstances of excitement.
    MR. MADDEN: I am not aware that a railway station is a chronic scene of public excitement. I have some experience of Irish railway stations, and I assert that they are not such scenes of turmoil and excitement as render them unfit places in ordinary circumstances, and where no excitement is created with the object of effecting a rescue, for making an arrest. Let the House bear that consideration in mind. It has been said that certain incidents had occurred on the occasion of the arrest, and what I hope and believe are exaggerated accounts of injuries received by an hon. Member of the House have been given. Now, whatever occurred is not to be attributed to the action of the Government and the authorities in selecting the railway station for arrest, but purely attributable to the action of the crowd in their endeavour to produce a disturbance. There are other facts to be borne in mind to one of which the right hon. Gentleman has called attention. We have information that both at Mallow and at Charleville during the progress of the train serious disturbances took place, and it is a fact that revolver shots were fired out of the windows by the police. But the Lord Mayor of Dublin has not mentioned the fact that those shots were not fired until shots had first been fired at the police.
    MR. SEXTON: Can the hon. and learned Gentleman account for the fact that no mention is made of this circumstance in any of the newspaper reports?
    MR. MADDEN: No, I cannot; but, I do not think that, as a rule, the accounts

    1177
    are so full and so accurate as to render it necessary, on one side or the other, to account for the absence of any material fact. The right hon. Gentleman has challenged the Government on the cause of the arrest of the hon. Member for North-East Cork. I cannot do more than state the charge, as it would not be proper to discuss, pending the trial, the circumstances under which the charge is brought forward. If the hon. Member is not guilty of the charge, he can show his innocence. It will be for the Crown to prove this at the trial—that the hon. Member has committed the offence with which he is charged. The charge is that of taking part in, and inciting to, the Plan of Campaign. If the charge is true, no more serious charge in the present position of Irish affairs could be brought against any one. Now, with reference to the meeting at Cork. The right hon. Gentleman said that yesterday a large meeting was held in Hyde Park for the avowed purposes for which the Cork meeting was alleged to be held, and the right hon. Gentleman asked why the Irish meeting had been proclaimed while the English meeting had not. The right hon. Gentleman's explanation was that Englishmen were free, while Irishmen were not free. In making such a remark the right hon. Gentleman must have had in his mind some of the provisions of the Crimes Act of 1882, which are entirely absent from the Act of 1887, but which enabled the Executive of 1882 to largely interfere with the freedom of public meeting—a power of which they availed themselves to a very considerable extent. But at the present moment the law as regards the suppressing of public meetings is the same on one side of St. George's Channel as on the other. The Government have no more power in Ireland than in England to make a meeting illegal by proclamation. The legality or illegality of the meeting depends on the answer to one question—namely, was the meeting such as the Government, with the information before them, believed to be a meeting in support of the conspiracy known as the Plan of Campaign? If the meeting were held in support of that conspiracy, no lawyer would deny that it was an unlawful assembly properly proclaimed by the Executive. It is one of the elemen-
    1178
    tary propositions of the law with respect ot public meetings that a meeting held for an unlawful purpose, or for advancing the cause of an unlawful conspiracy or association, is ipso facto itself unlawful. The information before the Government, and which we are ready to bring to the test in a legal manner, goes to show that this meeting was intended to support the Plan of Campaign, and it was the right and the duty of the Government to suppress it. On these grounds the Executive have acted. The information before them proved the meeting to be an unlawful assembly. The charge against the Member for North-East Cork will be proceeded with in regular course; and as to the rest of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, and the incidents which followed the action of the Executive, I have stated all the information in our possession, but this information will, of course, be supplemented when we have all the facts before us.
    MR. W. REDMOND: It is almost incredible that the right hon Gentleman the Chief Secretary should sit there and refrain from answering the speech of my right hon. Friend the Lord Mayor of Dublin (Mr. Sexton). The hon. and learned Gentleman who has just resumed his seat must know very well that it is his right hon. Colleague we regard as concerned with these events in Ireland. It is the business of the Chief Secretary to answer such questions as these which have been raised; and I can only assume he must be thoroughly impressed with the badness of his case that he does not exhibit that courage he has sometimes shown in defending a bad case, and answer my right hon. Friend. Though the right hon. Gentleman slinks away and shows no inclination to meet these charges, none the less we hold him responsible for what has occurred in Ireland. The hon. Gentleman opposite too (Mr. Smith Barry), who has been charged with being the cause of these disturbances in Cork, has not the courage to rise and, in a manly way, give us his side of the case; he sits quietly under charges that would make any English gentleman and landlord spring to his feet to defend his name and honour. If the charges brought against the hon. Gentleman opposite are true, he is convicted of conduct of a very discreditable character, and I am bound to say it looks

    1179
    very much as if the hon. Gentleman had no defence to make to the charges and allegations made against him. The Solicitor General has attempted to defend the arrest of Mr. W. O'Brien at a railway station, and he has remarked upon our objections to arrest in the middle of the night. Of course, we object to these arrests being made in the middle of the night, because the breaking into a house by an armed force of the Crown in the dead of night is likely to lead to a breach of the peace and serious disturbance, and, in any case, we complain of arrests being made under circumstances likely to lead to violence and disturbance. Why will you not make these arrests quietly? Why will you choose an occasion when people are congregated together in large numbers? Time after time you have deliserately arrested representatives of the brish people, and especially those repreIentatives of the Irish people occupying seading positions like Mr. O'Brien, at lhe very moment when a crowd is astembled, and when it is almost miraculous if a disturbance does not occur. The hon. Gentleman says a railway station is a quiet and convenient place to conduct the arrest of an Irish Member of Parliament—a most extraordinary statement to make. My impression is that at a railway station there is always more or less of a crowd, and the hon. Gentleman did not tell the House that yesterday every railway station near Cork was crowded by people returning from meetings held in the county. The meeting in the city was proclaimed, but that only made a larger attendance at meetings held outside the city. The railway stations were thronged by excited people, excited by the proclamation of what they had intended should be a perfectly legal, Constitutional, and peaceful meeting; and it was at one of these stations where a large number of people had gathered that Mr. O'Brien was arrested by a force of 50 policemen, who charged through the people, without notice or warning, b atoning the people right, left, and centre. Now, what can be the motive that induces the right hon. Gentleman to make his arrests under circumstances of this kind? What motive can he possibly have except the desire for turmoil, bloodshed, and, possibly, murder in Ireland? He and
    1180
    his colleagues surely might have been expected to learn a lesson from what happened when Father M'Fadden was arrested at what, even the Chief Secretary admitted, was a signally unfortunate moment, when a crowd was just dispersing after attending church, and the unhappy result was that one of the police officers lost his life. That ought to have been a warning to the Chief Secretary for the rest of his days; but, instead of profiting by that fatal morning, we find him arresting Mr. O'Brien under circumstances well calculated to excite provocation, and the only surprise I feel is that, considering the aggravating circumstances, there was not more violence and disturbances than has been reported. The Solicitor General says it is necessary to use violence to prevent rescue, but I do not know that there was any attempt at rescue before violence was used. If the Government would do as we have advised them they would select a time when, without any risk of disturbance. the arrest could be quietly effected and without any fear of rescue. It was simply because the Government deliberately sent 50 policemen to arrest Mr. O'Brien before hundreds, perhaps thousands of his countrymen, excited as they were by the proclamation of their meeting, that there was any fear of rescue, though I do not know that there was any such attempt in this instance. I am glad the Solicitor General did not make any defence of the police for firing on an unarmed crowd. He said the police were first fired upon by the people. Well, the reports of yesterday's proceedings in to-day's newspapers are meagre; but if the people have taken to the use of firearms against the police, that is a piece of news that would certainly find its way into any English newspaper, however meagre the report, but no newspaper has a word of it. The Solicitor General now tells us a cock-and-bull story, which he probably has received from some District Inspector of Police, perhaps, to screen himself. I, for one, refuse to believe it. The police were not fired upon at Mitchelstown or at other places where we know the police, acting deliberately and wantonly, or under the orders of the Government, shot the people down. For all the violence that took place the Government are responsible, for they might have arrested Mr. O'Brien quietly

    1181
    in Dublin, and scarcely half a dozen people would have known of the occurrence at the time. But they deliberately tried to create a riot and disturbance in Cork. The hon. Member opposite (Mr. Smith Barry) is responsible also for these occurrences. He knows something of Cork, and he could have told his friends in the Executive that the attempt to make the arrest on this particular day, when so many people were gathered together, was a dangerous thing to do; but I suppose the hon. Member is so anxious that Mr. O'Brien should be imprisoned, that he gave no hint of the kind to the Chief Secretary. Why has my hon. Friend been arrested? For promoting the Plan of Campaign? Why, we hear from the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) over and over again that the Plan of Campaign has been completlely broken and smashed in Ireland. Whenever that hon. Member speaks at English election meetings, he tells his audiences that the Plan of Campaign is completely crippled and practically powerless, and other supporters of the Government go around England and Scotland proclaiming the triumph of law and order, and declaring that the Plan of Campaign, an illegal combination and all the rest of it, have been put down by the strong Government of the Chief Secretary. Which are we to believe, the Solicitor General who tells us here that the Plan of Campaign is so successful that it is necessary without hesitation to baton the people, proclaim their meetings and throw Mr. O'Brien into prison again; are we to believe his version of the vigorous life of the Plan of Campaign, or are we to give credence to the stories told by the hon. Member for South Tyrone and others who go about England lauding the Chief Secretary, and trying to befool the people into the belief that the Government have succeeded in pulling down popular combination in Ireland? Is Mr. O'Brien put in prison for promulgating the Plan of Campaign? I deny it. We will test the vigour and strength of the Chief Secretary's Government. Mr. O'Brien in this matter has not done a single thing beyond what the Archbishop of Cashel has done. His Grace has recommended the tenants of the hon. Member (Mr. Smith Barry) opposite to send a deputation to remonstrate with him against his interference
    1182
    in the Ponsonby estate, and he has expressed sympathy with the Ponsonby tenants, and made strong representations against their eviction. Let the Chief Secretary hold up his head and listen to what I am saying. His Grace the Archbishop of Cashel has written a letter on which he practically endorsed everything Mr. O'Brien has done in the matter, in which he indicated the sympathetic action of the Tipperary tenants of the hon. Member opposite, in which he said the hon. Member had gone out of his way to combine with other landlords to carry out evictions, and that the tenants had an equal right to combine to defend themselves against the conbination of the landlords. I ask the Chief Secretary why does he not order the arrest of Archbishop Croke? Why does he not send 50 policemen to Cashel to arrest the Archbishop in his Palace? So, though he boasts of firmness and impartiality in carrying out the law, his courage evaporates before the prospect of a conflict with one of the most beloved and respected men in Ireland. There are hon. Gentlemen opposite who think it a becoming thing to laugh when unfortunate people are being evicted in Ireland; but I notice the hon. Gentleman who owns many broad acres in Tipperary does not join in the hilarity; probably he begins to find that undue interference with other people's concerns is not a laughing matter at all; and unless I am very much mistaken, the deputation who will wait upon him the day after to-morrow will not meet him in better humour because Mr. O'Brien may be then in prison, because he sent the deputation over to meet him. If Irish tenants are not allowed to combine, then neither should Irish landlords be allowed to combine against their tenants. If we had anything like justice and fair play in Ireland then the meetings of the hon. Gentleman and his colleagues would be dispersed by the police, and his head would be broken by the policeman's baton in Cork, just as my hon. Friend the Member for North Monaghan suffered for sympathizing with the tenants. I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that, whether Mr. O'Brien is sent to prison or not, whether meetings of tenants are attacked or not, so long as landlords combine and carry out evictions in Ireland, so long as

    1183
    illegal combinations of landlords are allowed for the purpose of keeping up impossible rents, so long will the Irish people, acting under the advice of their leaders and their Archbishops, continue to combine, and in the end we shall have the satisfaction of teaching the hon. Member opposite that the tenantry of Ireland have at length learned the lesson of combination, and that the day has gone by when any landlord can, in an off-hand manner, help his brother landlord to evict his tenantry. I believe in my heart that the aim and object of the Government is to drive the people into acts of violence and acts of outrage not only in Cork, but in the county of Wexford, where prosecutions have been ordered against men who have spent the whole of their lives in promoting the settlement of difficulties on fair terms between landlords and tenants—the priests who have brought about a settlement on the estates of Lord Templemore and others. These priests are to be tried next Thursday. I say this system of batoning the people, breaking up their meetings, treating the representatives of the people as convicted criminals in this country are not treated, all this is part of a deliberate policy to arouse the Irish people to desperation; and though I should be sorry to see anything like such a response to these repeated acts of provocation, I say that if the Irish people at any time do retaliate in a spirit of exasperation, the Chief Secretary will be responsible for any fatal consequences that may ensue; and I hope the Government will remember then that we warned them, and I believe the English people will see that if the Irish people have not retaliated long ago, it is because they have faith in the idea that the English people do not sympathize with proceedings such as those that were carried out yesterday at Cork, under the authority of Her Majesty's present Government.
    MR. P. J. POWER: It cannot be said that any serious answer has been made by the Solicitor General to my right hon. Friend (Mr. Sexton). I should have imagined that the Government must have known that yesterday would be a day of excitement in Cork. Wherever Mr. O'Brien goes in any part of Ireland, he is received with crowds and acclamations. He has made himself popular with all our race,
    1184
    wherever they may be scattered, by his courage in standing between the evictor and the evicted, whenever the law has refused its protection. Even here in England, wherever Mr. O'Brien goes, he is received with acclamations, and crowds assemble to greet him. It is idle, then, for the Solicitor General to endeavour to persuade the House that there was no reason to apprehend a disturbance, when the Government chose a time for the execution of the warrant when the people were likely to be aroused to the highest pitch of excitement by seeing their beloved leader arrested. Surely it should be a guiding principle to execute arrests of this kind in a manner to cause the least friction, and with a general regard to the safety and peace of the community. What happened at Manchester? My hon. Friend, by the bungling of the Magistrates at Carrick-on-Suir, was allowed to leave, and managed to keep his appointment to speak at Manchester. The Manchester Police had in their hands for two or three days previously a warrant for his arrest. The Manchester Police had power to arrest my hon. Friend before he addressed the meeting, but the head of the Executive there, a strong Tory, I believe—at any rate, no sympathizer with us—considered there was a discretion vested in him, and he refused to execute the warrant until it could be done with as little excitement as possible. Mr. O'Brien was allowed to deliver his speech, and, I am happy to say, it created a great effect in Manchester. Perhaps we have evidence of that in the uncle of the right hon. Gentleman being anxious to remove a pending trial from Manchester, and I hope the Manchester people will try and prevent that. However, the head of the Executive there declined to execute the warrant until he thought the time fitting, and his explanation was that he considered a certain amount of discretion was vested in him, and that it was his duty to carry out his order with due regard to the peace of the community. What is the conduct of the Government towards them when popular excitement is running highly? The Government just take advantage of that time to execute a warrant on a beloved Irishman. I must say the people bore it with a marvellous amount of self-control, and I am surprised that greater mischief did not

    1185
    ensue as the result of the Government action. I do not think the right hon. Gentleman has succeeded in proving that the meeting proposed to be held on Sunday in the neighbourhood of Cork was criminal. It is notorious that it was not held to promote the Plan of Campaign. It was held in order to authorize a deputation to wait on the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hunts, and explain to him the opinion of the tenantry with regard to his action in connection with the Ponsonby estate. We are told that we have an equal law in Ireland; that it is meted out alike to poor and to rich, but our experience has proved to us that there is one law for the poor and another for the rich. Rich men may combine to desolate the whole of the country. It is not criminal on their part to do that; but immediately the poor men contrive to protect their homes, then it becomes a crime. These are things which, in Ireland, cause us to mistrust the law. I admit that if our country is to be prosperous, it is absolutely necessary that respect for law and order should exist in the community. But how can you expect law to be respected if you do not mete out equal justice to rich and to poor? It is not just that the Government should allow the combinations of the landlords and yet put down with a stern hand the combinations of the tenants, who seek only the protection of their own homes, which are even more dear to them than are the mansions to the rich. It really seems to me that the Government, in pursuing this policy, are anxious to bring about a conflict between the people of Ireland and the armed Forces of the Crown. We hope and believe that the people of our country will stand superior to these temptations. We hope and believe that the democracy, of this country—of your own country—hate and abhor what is being done in unhappy Ireland in the name of law and order. Whatever our belief may be, the Government may be assured of this—that in spite of their Coercion Acts, so long as they fail to protect our people, so long as efforts like those of the Archbishop of Dublin to promote peace are repudiated, so long as the motives of Irish Members are distorted, and so long as overtures which are made to the landlord—and which are genuinely made in the in-
    1186
    terests of peace—are spoken of as the results of fear and failing on our part, whatever may be the action of the Government, it will be the duty of the Irish Representatives to stand between the people and the oppressors of the people. We claim arbitration; we ask for it, and we are refused it, and therefore we are bound now by organization and combination to protect our people.
    SIR J. COLOMB: I do not want to detain the House more than one or two minutes, but there are a few points with which I should like to deal. The right hon. Gentleman who moved the Motion for the Adjournment, made a distinct statement that the meeting which was suppressed in Cork was not in support of the Plan of Campaign; and immediately afterwards he proceeded to show the House that it was, for he said that the meeting had three objects, one of which was to sympathize with the tenants on the Ponsonby estate. He will not deny, surely, that the Plan of Campaign is at work on that estate. He will not deny that the tenants there are really the "pawns" that are being played by the party of agitation in this game in Ireland, and therefore it is in support of the game of agitation, through the Plan of Campaign, that the meeting was intended to be held in Cork. And then he proceeded to say that the meeting was to protest against the treatment of the tenantry, while, finally, he spoke about the democracy supporting this view. I venture to think that the democracy are far too intelligent to be led aside by such statements, which fatally contradict one another. We hear a great deal of the homes and the roofs of the tenants on the Ponsonby estate. We are told that the tenants are to be thrown as outcasts on the charity of the world. Well, Sir, if they are, they have only the Plan of Campaign to thank for it. Undoubtedly, the meeting in Cork was to have been held in support of that Plan of Campaign, and any one who knows Ireland, knows perfectly well that that was really the whole and sole object of the meeting for one, congratulate the Government upon at once suppressing a gathering which was intended to intimidate the tenants on this estate, because it was feared that they were

    1187
    beginning to find out that they had been the dupes of agitators. It was in the interests of peace, order, and commonsense that a meeting calculated to produce great excitement and terror should not be permitted to take place. We are told a great deal about the Ponsonby estate and the serious excitement which it is causing throughout Ireland. But allow me to point out that, on the showing of hon. Members opposite, it is merely a matter of a sum of 6s. 1½d. a year which is causing all this difficulty, and that proves that if only people would abandon oratory for arithmetic, Ireland would soon be-come more prosperous. We want in Ireland to look at these matters from a businesslike and rational point of view. I will take the statements of hon. Members who support the Plan of Campaign. The number of tenants on the Ponsonby estate.
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The circumstances of the tenants are not before us. The right hon. Gentleman asked leave to move the adjournment on a matter of definite and urgent public importance, and the details of the relations between tenants and landlord on the Ponsonby estate cannot now be discussed.
    Sir J. COLOMB: I am sorry, Sir, I infringed the order of debate. What I wished to say, and what I am certainly not going to say, but may be in order in indicating, is that according to the speeches we have heard, the beginning of all this trouble was the Plan of Campaign on the Ponsonby estate. Mr. O'Brien and those who work with him produce unnecessary public excitement. It is notorious to every man who reads the newspapers that these matters are arranged from day to day by right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite. It is to their interest to secure as much theatrical effect as possible. They therefore avoid the police until such time as the arrests may be made in a manner most calculated to produce a great dramatic effect. I know this is not in the true interests of Ireland, and I, for one, protest against these great Sunday meetings got up to promote the Plan of Campaign, and which afford an excuse to numbers of men calling themselves bonâ fide travellers to get drink. I most heartily congratulate the Government on their
    1188
    firmness. The hon. Member who represents South Hunts is respected and loved by his tenantry in the South of Ireland, and I know more than that, for I say he is at the head of the only sort of movement—the Cork Defence Union—that can settle Ireland—a movement to meet combination with combination. It is only by such means that the equilibrium can be established. We must adopt in Ireland, on agrarian questions, the programme which was adopted in England on industrial questions. Trades unions were formed, and they were met by combinations of capitalists and employers. Both combinations worked lawfully, and if we are to have peace in Ireland, those who are responsible for advising the tenants ought to refrain from dragging politics into the matter. They should act within the law, and treat the question as a business one, and if both tenants and landlords respectively combine within the law, then we shall get an equilibrium which will save the time of the House, and make Ireland what she ought to be—a peaceful and prosperous country.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I rather commisserate the Chief Secretary on being compelled to listen to the defence of his policy which has just been offered by the hon. and gallant Gentleman, who could not have put our case against the Government in a more pregnant and apt form. The hon. and gallant Gentleman lays down the principle that combination must be met by combination. Sir, that is exactly the principle which we seek to establish. Our allegation is, and the hon. Member opposite has admitted the truth of it, that there is a combination of landlords to meet the combination of the tenants, and the difference between the two combinations is, that the one in which the landlords are concerned has the sanction, approval, and encouragement of the Government.
    SIR JOHN COLOMB: What I referred to was lawful combination.
    MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I will deal with that point presently. The hon. and gallant Gentleman is one of those orators who always spoils his case, the more frequently he speaks. The combination of the landlords against the tenants is sanctioned and stimulated by the Government, whereas the combina-

    1189
    tion of the tenants has to fight, not against the law, which is an abuse of terms, but against a prostitution of the law in the shape of a law especially made in the interests of landlords and administered by resident Magistrates who are the creatures and servants of a landlord government. The right hon. Gentleman, the Chief Secretary, has confined his participation in this debate to smiles of contempt and derision, and that is the style in which he is accustomed to discharge some of the most painful and serious duties ever administered in this country. What is all this talk about lawful combination? There is only one law with regard to combination in Ireland, and that is the law laid down by the Chief Secretary and his creatures, and which comes to this, that a combination by landlords in any shape or form is lawful, while a combination by the tenants is unlawful. I must express my surprise that the hon. and gallant Member should not have modestly refrained from taking part in this debate. If I had placarded the streets of London with "Colomb and no Coercion," as the hon. and gallant Member did, and had been returned to this House by means of pledges against coercion, I would at least have had the decency to remain silent instead of supporting coercion by speech. The hon. and gallant Member may think it was his lofty intellect and fascinating rhetoric that secured his election. I venture to inform him it was the promises and pledges to resist coercion which returned more than one-half of the Members on his side of the House. But I pass from the hon. and gallant Member, who is a somewhat insignificant figure in this matter, to the hon. Member for South Hunts, who wants to defeat the combination of tenants on the Ponsonby estate, not because he thinks their demands are unjust, but because he desires to wreak vengeance on them. The hon. and gallant Member opposite just now implored us not to introduce politics into this matter; yet the hon. Member for South Hunts gives political vengeance as the sole reason for his interference. The hon. Member for South Hunts is perfectly free to wreak his vengeance on the tenants upon the Ponsonby estate if he can; he is free in London to raise subscriptions for the purpose, although I do not envy him the task of collecting
    1190
    funds with which to drive Irish tenants into the workhouse; he is perfectly free to do all that, but the man who, on the other hand, tells the tenants to stand by each other, does so at the peril of his liberty and his life. Mr. O'Brien will no doubt get four or six months' imprisonment for doing on the side of the tenants what the hon. Member opposite for doing on the side of the landlords will probably get a seat in the House of Lords for. The hon. and gallant Member for North Armagh the other night favoured us with an oration in which he justified this interference on the ground that the landlords' interests in Ireland are identical; but surely if the landlords in different parts of Ireland are justified in combining for such a reason, the tenants have equal rights, for their interests are also identical. What is going on in London at the present moment? I am going this evening to a meeting of the tramway men on strike, and the hon. Member for Peckham is going there also. We are going to encourage the combination of workers against what we consider to be the extortion and exaction of their employers. In doing that we shall be within our legitimate right. How can it be said, then, that Mr. O'Brien has not a right to go down to the Ponsonby estate and defend what he regards as the just rights of the tenants? By the sixth section of the Coercion Act the Lord Lieutenant is empowered to put down an association if he is convinced that it interferes with the adminisstration of the law or disturbes the maintenance of law and order. Well, Sir, the disturber of law and order who interferes at the auspicious moment when the landlord and his tenants are about to settle their difference, and who destroys the hopes of an amicable settlement is the hon. gentleman opposite, the Member for South Hunts. It is all nonsense to talk about Mr. O'Brien interfering. He only interferes now because the negotiations have broken down, because the gentleman who represented the landlord was not permitted to consummate the peace already practically concluded. The man who interfered and introduced disorder and disturbance is, I repeat, the hon. Member for South Hunts; he is the representative of the landlord combination, and I await the action of the Lord Lieutenant in putting

    1191
    down the combination which is preventing the maintenance of law and order. We now have combination against combination, and the Government ought to stand impartial between the two parties, instead of which they take sides against the tenants and in favour of the landlords. The proceedings on the Ponsonby estate are an object-lesson to the people of England, who are thus enabled to test the assertion that the law is the same in England and Ireland and that combination is equally free in both countries. On account of the value of that object-lesson, on account of the opportunity it gives the English people of judging what the Government policy in Ireland is, I offer my sincere thanks to the Government for the brutality of their excesses in Ireland.
    MR. PIERCE MAHONY: I wish to draw the attention of the House first to the silence of the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Hunts, who has had several opportunities of rising to address the House, and then to the silence of the Chief Secretary. The charge brought against the Government on this occasion is that they deliberately provoked a riot on a platform at a railway station, and that in that riot a Member of this House was seriously injured, and the only answer to that charge comes from the Solicitor General for Ireland, who says that the Irish Members are very difficult to please because if you arrest them in the middle of the night they complain, and if you take them in broad daylight on the platform at a railway station they also complain, and that is I suppose to be considered a sufficient answer in this House to a charge of producing a riot in a public place in Ireland, and of inflicting severe injury upon a Member of this House. A grave charge has been brought against the Government, and they have dealt with it in a most flippant manner. Our objection to arrests in the middle of the night is that they disturb the other inmates of the House where the arrest takes place. We have raised no objection to arrests in the middle of the day if made in a proper manner, but our allegation is that on this occasion the arrest was purposely made in a railway station to which a large crowd had gone for the purpose of welcoming the hon. Member for North-East Cork,
    1192
    who was taken into custody in their presence most unexpectedly. Simultaneously with the arrest the police proceeded to baton the crowd, and while they were so acting an hon. Member of this House was severely injured. The Solicitor General for Ireland has pleaded the impossibility of getting any information in so short a time. That is an excuse which we have heard over and over again. When a question is asked on an important matter, the usual course of procedure is for a Member of the Government to say he has had no time to get the information, and after a short interval we see the familiar figure of the First Lord of the Treasury coming in to move the closure. It is an extraordinary fact that Members on this side of the House can get information, while Members of the Government are utterly unable o get it. I should have thought that the telegraphic system of the country would have been sufficient to have transmitted the necessary information in the course of twenty-four hours. The only information they produce about the proceedings of yesterday—is, I venture to say, discredited by internal evidence—is that the police fired shots from the railway carriage because shots were first fired at them. I have no doubt that, in due course, the bullets will be produced, and it will be proved beyond contradiction, according to the Chief Secretary, that they must have been fired into the carriage. After the experience at Mitchelstown no intelligent constable will go without a stock of bullets in his waistcoat pocket ready for any emergency. What an unlikely story this is. A number of men are drawn to the station at Charleville for the purpose of showing their sympathy with Mr. William O'Brien; and we are asked to believe that they fired into the carriage, and ran the risk of killing the hon. Member. There is no mention whatever that the people fired on the police in any of the newspaper reports. We have a right to demand from the Chief Secretary some answer to the accusation that a riot at Cork was deliberately produced, and that an hon. Member of this House suffered injury during the riot. Suppose an Irishman believes a meeting to be illegally proclaimed, what remedy has he? His only remedy is to go to the meeting, have his head broken, and then take an action for

    1193
    damages. There is where the difference between England and Ireland comes in. If we test the legality of the action of the Government, we have to go before a prejudiced Court. It is impossible to oppose the Government through the ordinary constitutional channels in Ireland. We have been bound to adopt other methods—combinations like the Plan of Campaign. We are told that Mr. O'Brien is charged with promoting the Plan of Campaign in his speech of yesterday week. I maintain that he was not, but that he was denouncing the conduct, and rightly denouncing, of the hon. Member for South Hunts—the cruel conduct of the Member for South Hunts—who prevented a settlement on the Ponsonby estate through stepping in at the moment a settlement was about to be made. The hon. Member (Mr. Smith Barry) has shaken his head several times during the course of this discussion. He has had the opportunity of rising, but he has not taken it.
    MR. JOHNSTON: He was about to rise to speak.
    MR. MAHONY: The hon. Gentleman has shaken his head several times. I watched him very carefully, and he made no effort to rise to speak. He will have another opportunity, which I hope he will take. Mr. O'Brien's speech yesterday week was for the purpose of protesting against the action of the hon. Member for South Hunts. The doctrine laid down now is that because the tenants on any estate adopt the Plan of Campaign, that is to be a reason why no one should sympathize with them. No matter how they are treated on any subsequent occasion. Supposing the right hon. Gentleman sends down a large force of police and military, and these people resist during the evictions, carried out in a perfectly unnecessary and harsh manner, and are shot down. Are these people to have no sympathy because they have joined in an illegal combination? Are the landlords in Ireland to be allowed to combine to lay waste every estate in the country which has come under the Plan of Campaign? Is that sort of combination to be perfectly legal, while no one is to be allowed even to sympathize with those who have joined the Plan of Campaign? This House, for all the people of Ireland care, may sanction what it
    1194
    pleases. We look forward to a better House at no distant date. The hon. and learned Member who spoke from that Bench seemed to look for ward to some settlement of the Irish Agrarian Question. I could not make out how it was to be brought about, but I gathered it was to be by some sort of combination on both sides. Might I remind the House, however, that on every single Plan of Campaign estate in Ireland the tenants are perfectly willing at this moment to submit their case to arbitration. That has been brought home to me in a practical manner within the last few weeks. Only within the last two or three days I have returned from taking part in an arbitration on a large estate in the West of Ireland. That estate, in past years, had a very evil name. Now, I hope it is going to change that name, as it has changed its proprietor. What was the method of procedure in that case? Arbitration was suggested, and the tenants immediately accepted it. I refer to the Pollok estate. They chose me as their representative. The son of a Galway landlord—Mr. Gregory Eyre—was chosen as the representative of the landlord. We have both made our examination of the laud, after having appointed as umpire one of the chief landlords in Galway, Mr. Christopher Redington. We shall shortly meet for the purpose of considering our award. I hope that saner, wiser, and more humane counsels may yet guide landlords; for if it were so, I believe the remaining disputes could be settled within six weeks in Ireland.
    MR. SMITH BARRY: Sir, charges have been made against me with regard to my action on the Ponsonby estate. They are the same charges as were brought against me the other night by the Member for the Rushcliffe Division, against whom I have not one word to say in respect of the manner in which he brought forward his charges. He made his statement in a straightforward and manly fashion. Everyone of the charges I answered at the time categorically and unequivocally, and I maintain I absolutely disposed of them. I am not going again to reply to those charges; but if any hon. Member wishes to have answers to them, and to ascertain the real facts, let him refer to Hansard or the columns of the public papers.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I wish to ask the Solicitor General for Ireland whether a police officer who is armed with a warrant for the arrest of any person is at liberty, after the warrant has come into his possession, to choose his own time for the arrest of the person, or whether he is not bound to execute that warrant with all despatch?
    MR. MADDEN: There is no doubt that it is the duty of a person charged with the execution of a warrant to execute that warrant with due diligence.
    MR. GILL: Since the question of the execution of the warrant has been referred to, I would point out that the Government have over and over again, in the course of the proceedings for the arrest of persons under the Crimes Act, delayed the execution of the warrants for indefinite periods of time. In the County of Wicklow recently, for weeks the police did not execute the warrants on two priests, who were daily passing under the eyes of the officers. The other night it was announced by the right hon. Gentleman that there was a warrant out for myself and one of my Colleagues, and that the warrant had been issued several days before. I have been walking about in rather an uncomfortable position, I must confess, with this warrant hanging over my head, and every moment expecting to have my liberty suspended. I suppose the opportunity will be embraced to arrest me at some railway station or public meeting at which I may be present. The Government are to be congratulated that at length the hon. Member for whom this dirty and villainous work has been carried on in Ireland has got up to say something in his own defence. I think the tenantry, against whom all this machinery of destruction is being applied, have a right to congratulate themselves on the character of the reply which the hon. Gentleman has given. In the whole course of this Parliament I do not think there has been a defence more ludicrous or grotesque than that which the hon. Gentleman had the impertinence to make. ["Order!" and "Withdraw!"] I am in order. I call it an impertinent manner of putting arguments forward in this debate to refer hon. Members to what took place another evening, and to pass over two hours' discussion to-night as unworthy of further notice. The result of the
    1196
    debate the other night was of a very different character to that which the hon. Gentleman has described. He did not dispose of any of the series of tremendous allegations made against him. On the contrary, everything said against him was proved up to the hilt. A deputation of his tenants is to wait upon the hon. Gentleman to-morrow, when I trust he will give a more satisfactory reply than he has now given, or I promise him that the reply of the tenants to him will be far more effective than that which he has given. The whole question is whether the people of Ireland have a right to live in Ireland, or a right to defend themselves against the extraordinary oppression of the landlords. We saw yesterday an enormous meeting in Hyde Park, held in perfect safety, without interference of police or troops. That meeting applauded the Plan of Campaign, and the resistance to the right hon. Gentleman's tyranny in Ireland. The strike of tramway men, which is now going on, is not merely without interference, but has the protection of the authorities. That very strike affords an exact parallel to what has been done by the tenants of the hon. Gentleman opposite, and what the Government have endeavoured to prevent in Ireland. The employés of the Tramway Company are joined in a combination. They are very well treated by the company. They were written to by one of the directors——
    MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The relations of the tramway directors and their servants has nothing whatever to do with the question.
    MR. GILL: I am endeavouring to point out that the meeting at Cork had an object exactly similar to that of the tramway employés here, yet the latter are protected in their action by the Government. But in Ireland, when the people combine in self-defence, the whole forces of the Government are put in operation against their combination, and everybody who defends their cause does so at the risk of losing his liberty, or his life, or his limbs. The simple object of the meeting addressed by the hon. Member for Cork was simply to bring public opinion to bear on the iniquitous proceedings of the hon. Gentlemen opposite, and of the Government in collusion with him, that being the only means of keeping the people of

    1197
    Ireland from rushing into the methods of desperation and crime. The Government, in putting down that meeting and in their subsequent action, have taken a course, the direct consequence of which must be the counsels of desperation, unless the people are enabled to combat the action of the Government by devices of their own. My hon. Friend has endeavoured to hold meetings in Ireland for the purpose of keeping alive public opinion, and if meetings are not allowed they must be held by strategy, even if in the middle of the night. An hon. Member, who represented the landlords, said they were going in for combination, and that it would be a question of combination against combination. Let it be so. The tenants of Ireland are well content to pit their combination against the landlords' combination. We do not question the right of the landlords to combine. Let the tenants combine. Let the Government stand aside, and let them not throw their power and force on the side of the oppressor and against the unfortunate people who are simply struggling for the right of existence in their native land.
    MR. GLADSTONE: Mr. Speaker, I do not propose to detain the House for more than two or three minutes, nor is it my intention to say anything which, so far as I myself can judge, will cause a prolongation of this discussion. It would appear to me, after having listened attentively to the whole case, that very serious allegations indeed have been made, and those allegations have not met with a reply. The hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General has observed, and not without truth and justice, that we are now discussing the occurrences of yesterday evening, and that the Government are not in a position to lay full information which, as he considers, and as I think, would be necessary for a discussion. Provided that observation be not intended, and I do not think it can be intended, as a reason against the discussion of these matters, I, for my part, am disposed to give way to him. I do not feel at the present moment in a position to enter fully or satisfactorily into the points which have been raised. But Her Majesty's Government must not be surprised if, upon another occasion, they should hear of this matter again. I need only
    1198
    enumerate a few of them. There is the question of the arrest of Mr. O'Brien at the railway station, a subject which, in my opinion, deserves and requires explanation. There is then the batoning of the people, as it is alleged, wholly without provocation. There are the injuries alleged by the Lord Mayor of Dublin to be dangerous, at any rate to be serious, and alleged by him and by others to have been inflicted apparently without any just or sufficient cause upon a Member of this House. Lastly, there is the allegation, by no means the least serious, perhaps the most serious, of all, that the police fired shots out of the windows of the railway carriages; in respect of which the Solicitor General states that he is informed that shots had been previously fired at the train by some of the persons in its neighbourhood. The Solicitor General, no doubt, attaches weight to that information. It is quite evident that there is something very strange in the fact that the firing of these shots did not attract the notice of the reporters. These are all matters which deserve the attention of the House and the Government, and upon which—as the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General for Ireland has admitted by implication—further information is necessary, and is rightly asked for.
    THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I need hardly say I have no objection to the tone of the right hon. Gentleman's remarks, and I have not much objection to the substance of them; but I do not wish the House to come to a Division at this point with the impression left on their minds, which I gather the right hon. Gentleman desires to convey—that there is a primâ facie case against the Government, which it requires further information to dispel. That is not a fact. Of course, the more time we have to obtain information the more information we shall get, and the more information we get the more fitted the House will be to discuss the matter. Bu'; let no hon. Member suppose that there is, in my opinion, at all events, the slightest primâ facie case against the police or the executive. The right hon. Gentleman, following in that the example set him below the Gangway, made his first remark in relation to the circumstances under which the arrest of Mr.

    1199
    O'Brien took place. The right hon. Gentleman appears to forget that Members sitting in that part of the House have not shown any willingness in the past to present themselves when required before Courts of Justice; neither have they rendered it easy for the police to carry out a painful though a necessary duty. But, on the contrary, in many cases—I am far from saying in all—they appear to have been actuated principally by the desire to make the work of the police as difficult as possible, and the danger attending the incidents of arrest as great as it can be made. Hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway opposite have very freely launched this accusation at the Government, that their one desire was to provoke a breach of the peace which might possibly result in the murder of a policeman or destruction of life among the assailing crowd. Sir, I can assure the House that no one has experienced greater trouble and anxiety from such scenes than myself; and if I may judge of the use hon. Members make of them I should say there are no people who are more sensible of the political and party advantages which they can extract from these scenes than hon. Members opposite. The right hon. Gentleman, in dealing with the incidents which happened at other railway stations than Cork subsequent to the arrest of Mr. O'Brien, did not appear to see the significance of those incidents. The Government are told that they ought not to have arrested Mr. O'Brien because he was at a railway station, where it might have been expected there would be a hostile crowd. Had the Government any reason to believe that there would be a hostile crowd at the other two railway stations, or that there would be a rescue attempted there? Are not the incidents which occurred at Mellor and Charlerith a sufficient indication of the difficulty of dealing with cases of this kind without running some risk of an encounter between the mob and the police? Let me further point out to the right hon. Gentleman that when he says there is no justification in the facts as we know them for the baton charge made by the police, that does not accord with the information which I have derived from official sources in Ireland. It appears
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    that the crowd at Cork was very large and very excited; that the force of police was not a very considerable one; and that it was only when the crowd began to surge forwardin a dangerous manner, and when it was apprehended that a rescue might be effected, or that it would be impossible for the police to effect the arrest—it was not till then that the police officer in charge gave the order to the police to clear away the crowd. It was when this crowd was being cleared away, as it had to be cleared away, that these incidents occurred—incidents which are, no doubt, regrettable, but for which, not the police and not the Government, but the crowd, and those who led the crowd, were primarily responsible.
    MR. SEXTON: No one led the crowd.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Then I will say the important leaders of public opinion on the spot. I did not desire to speak in this debate; but as I am on my legs I cannot allow to pass absolutely without a word of comment what, after all, has been the chief topic urged by speakers on the other side of the House. Nominally, and in the terms of the Motion, this is an attack on the Government; really and substantially it is an attack on my hon. Friend below the gangway (Mr. Smith Barry). His alleged misdoings have afforded the chief theme for the oratory we have heard to-night. And what is the substance of the accusation? It is that my hon. Friend has interfered between Mr. Ponsonby and his tenants, and this accusation is hurled against him by gentlemen whose chief occupation in life it is to interfere between other landlords and their tenants. I have been told that I interfere with combination of the tenants, and that I ought to interfere with combination of the landlords. I do not care how much tenants combine or how much landlords combine. If I were a tenant in Ireland, and I found landlords in Ireland combining against me, I would combine against the landlords. If I were a landlord in Ireland, and found the tenants combining against me, I would combine against the tenants. With all these combinations the Government have no more concern in Ireland than they have in England. It is only when the combination is illegal in its

    1201
    essence and illegal in its methods that the Government steps in and says, "You shall neither have your illegal combination, nor shall you enforce it upon the unhappy tenants by illegal methods." Then alone the Government interferes, and we should be utterly wanting in our duty if we did not do so. But let me remind the House, on the subject of this Ponsonby estate, that the terms which have been offered by the new owners of the property are terms to which it is impossible to object, and to which even the severest critics of my hon. Friend have not objected.
    MR. SEXTON: We have objected.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman has objected to a great deal that has been done by my hon. Friend; but he has not objected to these terms. I turn to the letter of the Archbishop of Cashel—not a creditable letter in my opinion—on the subject. The Archbishop does not allude to the fact that the new owners of the estate have offered the tenants to go into Court to have the rents fixed by a tribunal, established by the law of the land, that they have offered, by capitalizing the arrears and charging 3 per cent on the amount so capitalized, to deal with the arrears in a manner which will make it most convenient to the tenants to meet their obligations; and that they had further offered to make any diminution which may be made by the Land Courts in the existing rents retrospective over the whole period for which the rent is in arrear. These are terms in their essence obviously just and liberal, and my hon. Friend, who is attacked in this matter, represents in the eyes of the public, it must be recollected, the new owners of the estate. He has behaved to the tenants upon this estate with a judgment and liberality which I should like to see followed by every landlord in Ireland.
    The House divided:—Ayes 128; Noes 212.—(Div. List, No. 163.)

ORDERS OF THE DAY.

  UNIVERSITIES (SCOTLAND) BILL. (No. 137.)
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 14.
  Sir G. CAMPBELL: I beg to move the Amendment standing in my name to enlarge the powers of the Commissioners, so that it shall be competent to them "to abolish any faculty" in any University which they may find to be unnecessary. By this Amendment the Commissioners would be able to get rid of any faculty—whether theology, medicine, arts, or anything else. I merely wish to lay down the general principle, that if a faculty is unnecessary there should be power to abolish it.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 10, line 36, after "faculties," insert "to abolish any faculty."—(Sir G. Campbell.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I would ask the Lord Advocate to say whether he does not think this is already provided for in that part of the Bill which gives the Commissioners power to alter the number of faculties, and to transfer Chairs from one faculty to another? I think, if it is not provided for, the arrangement should be completed by giving this power to extinguish a faculty if it should be considered desirable.
  THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,): I do not think it is provided for in the Bill. I deprecate the suggestion of abolishing faculties. The general tone of the discussions has been that it is desirable to maintain and not to diminish or abate the teaching powers of the Universities. Moreover, I submit this is not a convenient way of raising the question or of suggesting to the Commissioners that they should have such powers as to be able to extinguish a whole faculty. I cannot conceive from what point of view the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy regards this question looking at the other Amendments on the Paper in the name of the Member for the town of Aberdeen and the Member for East Aberdeenshire. The hon. Member's proposal seems to be opposed to the views of these hon. Members. I do not think it desirable that the Motion should be passed. The hon. Member has an objection to the tests and consequently to the Faculty of Theology, and it would

  1203
  seem that he desires, by giving the Commissioners power to extinguish so great a part of the life of a University as a whole faculty, to attain his object in an oblique way.
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I do not think it would be desirable to single out the Faculty of Theology and suggest its extinction. I have given my views with regard to the tests already, but to lay it down as a principle that theology is not to be taught in any University under any circumstances would be a thing I should not be prepared to support. I should have thought, however, that to give the power contained in this Amendment would have tended to complete the whole sphere of the powers of the Commission. As the power is not likely to be exercised in the way desired it would perhaps be as well if the hon. Member withdrew the Amendment.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I do not think my Amendment is antagonistic in any way to the Faculty of Theology. It is of a clear and simple kind. I do not refer to the Faculty of Theology, but let us take the Faculty of Medicine, for instance, say at St. Andrew's. I think the time has come when the faculty should be done away with. It may be that there are institutions which may properly give degrees in medicine after examination, but much as I admire St. Andrew's, I do not see why people should have to go to a remote part of the country projecting into the North Sea, in order to take a degree in medicine. I should be the last to advocate the abolition of the Faculty of Medicine; that is not the chief end of my Amendment, but I want the Commissioners to have power to abolish any faculty if they deemed it expedient. My Amendment is general in its terms: I do not desire to exclude any particular faculty; I only want the Commissioners to have power to inquire into the matter.
  DR. FARQUHARSON: I should have had no difficulty in supporting the Motion of my hon. Friend if it had not been for the portion of his remarks which shows that he wishes to abolish the Faculty of Medicine at St. Andrew's, in the interests of Dundee. If they have not been able to do good work in medicine at St. Andrew's, it is because two more Chairs are required there.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL: Nothing could be further from my mind than to prefer Dundee at the expense of St. Andrew's. My sympathies are all in favour of the University. I only wish that the Commissioners should have power to inquire into the desirability of continuing the faculty.
  MR. BUCHANAN: I should like to point out that the object of the Amendment is not to destroy any particular faculty in any particular University, but it is to give the Commissioners full power to abolish existing faculties if after inquiry they deem that course expedient.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 96; Noes 157.—(Div. List, No. 164.)
  MR. BRYCE: I now beg to move an Amendment, the object of which is to provide that in the election of the rectors of the Universities of Glasgow and Aberdeen, the election shall be determined by a majority of the votes of all the students voting, whenever the votes of the nations shall be equally divided. I think the feeling of both the Universities is in favour of keeping the institution of the nations, and the Amendment I have proposed will retain voting by nations, but will provide that in cases where the nations are equally divided, the election shall be decided by the majority of the votes which are recorded.
  Clause 14, page 10, line 40, leave out from "the matriculated," to end of sub-section, and insert—
  "The election shall be determined by the majority of the votes of all the students voting whenever the votes of the nations shall be equally divided."
  Amendment agreed to.
  MR. HUNTER: The Amendment which comes next has for its object the provision that no fee higher than three guineas shall be charged in any class to be hereafter established and I hope that the Government will offer no objection to the introduction of the provision.
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: The hon. Gentleman, I have no doubt, rightly desires that the present low fee shall be retained in the number of classes to which access is now had by poor students; thanks to their exceeding cheapness as well as the excellence of their education. But there are other classes where a

  1205
  higher scale of fees is appropriate, and where they produce no hardship, because a larger amount of time is devoted to the course of the study.
  MR. HUNTER: Will the Government accept the Amendment, if it is modified so as to be restricted to the Arts Faculty?
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I think it would be better to leave the matter in a general sense. We had better keep the present flexible rule, and I do not think any one is likely to object to it.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN: I have an Amendment on the paper to omit Sub-section C, which empowers the Commissioners to regulate the compensation to be paid to existing professors, whose interests may be injuriously affected by ordinances made under the Act. The amount of funds available for the Universities under the Bill is very limited, and it is therefore exceedingly important that it should he utilized as far as possible. But that cannot be done if it is not in the power of the Commissioners to abolish useless Chairs, and to apply the funds thus obtained to other purposes. I trust that the Lord Advocate will be able to assure the Committee that the Government will at least on the Report stage give the Commissioners power to effect the object. I think it would be a great convenience if the Government could at once give an answer in the affirmative.
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I think it is in every way desirable that there should be a power of suppressing useless Chairs, and if there is any question as to the phraseology of the clause as it stands, enabling that to be done, I can only say I think it should be settled at once.
  SIR GEORGE TREVELYAN: That intimation modifies my views, and I will not press my Amendment, as I anticipate now that the important reform of abolishing useless Chairs will be introduced.
  Sir GEORGE CAMPBELL: I also have an Amendment on the Paper to meet Sub-section C, and my objection to the clause is that it directs compensation to be given to existing professors whose interests may be injuriously affected by the operation of this Act. I admit that something must be done for
  1206
  existing holders, but my point is that an enormous monopoly has sprung up in the case of some professors who have very large classes, which they teach by the aid of assistants, and if every man who is injuriously affected by a change in the system is to receive compensation, I think we shall perpetuate a very great abuse. I would suggest that power might be given to grant a retiring allowance, but it should not be so sweeping as that implied in the clause. I therefore beg to move my Amendment.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 11, line 11, leave out Sub-section C.
  SIR LYON PLAYFAIR: I think my hon. Friend cannot have noticed the governing part of this clause, which says that the Commissioners shall have power to do certain things. The clause does not make it compulsory on the Commissioners to give compensation, but it only enables them to do so, should they see fit. It is a mild provision, for the Commissioners themselves are to determine whether they will make changes which in some cases may require compensation to be given.
  Sir GEORGE TREVELYAN: I very much hope that my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy will not divide the Committee on this Amendment. I believe there is no Member of this House who, providing that a Chair is abolished, would hold that no compensation should be given to the holder of it. But there are a great number of Members who think that if the too large classes, which at present exist in some of our Scotch Universities, were considerably diminished by counter attractions, there would be no necessity for payment of any compensation whatsoever. I, therefore, trust my hon. Friend will withdraw his Amendment, especially as a subsequent one is calculated to attain the object which we have in view.
  SIR GEORGE CAMPBELL: I must confess I cannot look on this clause without some misgiving, but as I understand that the subsequent Amendment, which deals with the same subject, will be favourably considered, I shall be quite willing to withdraw it.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. HUNTER: The Amendment I have now to propose is to limit the effect of what seem to me dangerously wide words. The clause provides for compensation to professors whose interests may be injuriously affected. I wish Parliament to be liberal in the matter of compensation where any professor has a right to complain, and I think we may say that whether by express language or not a professor in a Scotch University has a right to be the sole authorized teacher of his subject within his University. Therefore, I think that if we appoint a new professor to work alongside the present professor, it would be legitimate ground for compensation. But when we come to the question whether a professor has an absolute right to compel students to attend his class, merely in order that he may teach them, we stand on different ground. I do not think there is anything in the history of the Scottish Universities that would justify the granting of compensation to a professor merely because by a change affecting the curriculum the number of persons attending his class might possibly be diminished. Then, I understand, compensation is to be given in advance on an estimate of what the injury may be. I doubt whether there will be a diminution in the attendance at classes. At all events, the fact cannot be ascertained until after compensation is given; therefore Commissioners would be in this difficulty—they would be giving compensation in anticipation of an evil which might not arise. If the Government accept the words I suggest, they will not narrow the power of compensation too much.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 10, line 13, Sub section (c), after "Act," insert,
  "But no compensation shall be paid merely because in consequence of new regulations affecting bursaries or degrees the number of students attending a professor's class may be diminished."—(Mr. Hunter.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: This is a somewhat important question, because it is very desirable that the Committee should remember that one of the chief impediments in the way of University reform would be aggravated
  1208
  if we told the Commissioners that every step they take up the direction of improving or modifying the curriculum is to be attended with this, that they may do immense pecuniary damage to the professors. I strongly deprecate the Committee taking such a course. The effect would be to paralyze the reforming action of the Commissioners. The endowments in the case of the classes we want chiefly to reform are infinitesimal, but the really substantial part of the income of the professors is derived from fees. A man appointed to a Chair holds his office for life, or until an egregious fault. He knows that every man who takes a particular degree, must take his Chair. Does he or does he not accept the position upon the footing that his income is to be looked to in the probable number of students who attend his class? Clearly he does, and it would be most unfair to whittle away the income upon which the professor has alone to depend. Take the possible case of a man who has given up some rich appointment in England, in order to take a Chair in a Scotch University. Would it not be grossly unfair if you were to take from this man a prize, which his learning and eminence have fitted him to obtain, and give him no compensation? Again, if you struck a Chair out of the compulsory course of study, you would have the same thing. Now, I think these men are entitled to compensation, but I do not say how much compensation, or whether it is to occur in all cases. I think the hon. Gentleman rather exaggerated the difficulty of fixing the compensation. Lawyers know that very often tribunals have to determine beforehand the compensation to be paid for the probable result of future occurrences. You do it more or less in the dark, and I firmly hope as the hon. Gentleman does that in many cases, the compensation awarded ought not to be so much, and I say will not be so much, because, in the first place, on the one hand you abstract the necessity of students resorting to a particular class, and in the other hand it is very likely the effect of your reforms generally will be such that the number of students at the classes will be kept up. Every competent arbitrator will have all that before him, and I earnestly hope the Committee will exercise great caution in

  1209
  not accepting one side of the account, but will very carefully scrutinize how far they are going on the solid ground of reasonable expectation in giving compensation. It is not merely the attendance of students by reason of necessity that fills a man's class. His own merits and mental vigour bring students to his class. A man for one reason or another, gets lazy, or old, and his power of attracting students fails. That, of course, will be taken into account. I hope the Committee has observed I am not anxious to raise too high the hopes of the professors, or to fix too stringently the duty of the Commissioners in regard to the Compensation Clause. They are to take into account all the circumstances of the case, both those which tend to show that injury is done to the professor, and also those which tend to show that the injury is comparatively light, or may be compensated for from other sources.
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am not able to go by any means the whole length the Lord Advocate goes on this subject. I do not feel to the full extent he does the strength of his argument from the point of view of the absolute vested interest, as it were, of the professor, but there are two considerations that weigh considerably with me in the matter. In the first place, if we provide no means of giving any compensation at all to one of these professors whose income is materially reduced by the operations of the Commissioners, then we should set that professor and his friends in diametrical opposition to the smooth working of the Act, and our object ought to be to secure that the great changes we hope will follow from this Bill will be easily and readily and smoothly accepted. There is also a danger of this, that if there is no means of compensating in cases such as we have been speaking of, the Commissioners themselves, from a delicacy of conscience and kindly feeling, may be adverse to proposing changes which otherwise they would be ready to introduce. My learned Friend proposes that no compensation at all should be granted, merely because of the reduction in the number of students, and at first sight I think that is a perfectly fair stipulation; but, at the same time, it must be remembered there are professors whose emoluments are almost en-
  1210
  tirely derived from the fees of the students, the salary itself being a small matter. Therefore the professors would be immediately brought under the operation of the considerations I have been speaking of. Under these circumstances I ask the Lord Advocate whether the words of the sub-section cannot be in some way modified so as to make the sub-section have a little less of an imperative appearance. If the Lord Advocate can in any way modify the words so as to imply those very considerations he has himself recited as certain to affect the action of the Commissioners, then that would very materially affect our view of the question, but to leave the words as they stand may open the door to an amount of greed for compensation beyond what Parliament would be disposed to allow.
  MR. HUNTER: The situation has changed considerably since the statement of the Lord Advocate, but I hope that before the Report stage he may consider whether some words may not be introduced somewhat limiting the terms, which, at present, seem to me to be rather dangerously wide. I have another reason for withdrawing the Amendment—namely, that I observed that the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer uttered the words, "hear, hear," when the Lord Advocate made his observations. This is a question in which the Chancellor of the Exchequer is chiefly concerned, and, if he takes that liberal view, I hope when we come to the question of the sum to be given to the Scottish Universities, he will remember that these Universities require money to carry the schemes into practical effect.
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I rise for the purpose of saying that I shall undertake before the Report stage to consider the question of terms. It is possible that we may find some such flexible terms as will meet the views of hon. Members, whilst at the same time adhering to the views we have expressed.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I do not think the promise that has been made is sufficient. I think the Lord Advocate still maintains the high and dry doctrine that as far as a man is injuriously affected he is entitled to receive compensation, whether his present emoluments

  1211
  are legitimate or not. I understand the case to be that in many cases a professor receives fees for classes which he cannot possibly teach, and he employs a number of curates to do the work for which he is paid. I think the Amendment of my hon. Friend is not sufficiently radical. They say dog will not eat dog, and apparently professor will not eat professor.
  Mr. FINLAY: This clause is certainly open to the criticism that the power given to regulate the compensation to be paid to existing professors seems to imply that there is a right to compensation. I would suggest that words should be added at the end of the sub-section to this effect:— "If the Commissioners think such compensation ought to be given."
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I am obliged for the suggestion, and will carefully consider it.
  DR. CLARK: I do not think the Committee should agree to the principle of the clause as it stands now, because if we do every professor will require to be compensated. Any reform will mean competition with the men who are now in some cases occupying Chairs which a dozen years ago they ought to have retired from, and the amount that would be needed for compensation would be twice as much as the Chancellor of the Exchequer intends to give us.
  MR. J. A. CAMPBELL: May I express a hope that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will give particular attention to what has been said on this subject to-day? I must say that anything that has to be paid in compensation ought to be altogether outside the annual grant given to the Universities.
  MR. CALDWELL: In connection with the Chairs of Greek and English Literature, very serious questions of compensation may arise. I would ask the Government to take care that new appointments should not be made before the passing of the Bill so as in any way to transfer the Commissioners in regard to men who have only held office for a few weeks.
  THE SOLICITOR GENERAL FOR SCOTLAND (Mr. MOIR T. STORMONTH DARLING,): Special clauses have been inserted in the commissions of all Professors appointed by the Crown for some years past. The Greek Chair-in Glasgow is not in the gift of the Crown, and therefore the Crown has no power over the appointment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. HUNTER: I now beg to move-the insertion after "degrees" of the words—
  "and the Commissioners shall provide, in respect of the degree of M.A., that due regard shall be had to modern languages and science."
  It may be said that the Amendment is superfluous as it is impossible to conceive that any 15 men of intellectual sanity would meet round a table and approve of the present restricted course of the Arts' curriculum in the Scotch, Universities. No doubt also the Commissioners would not overlook the fact that the Royal Commission of 1878 reported in favour of options in the M.A. degree. Still this is a question of such vital importance to the students that I feel bound to omit nothing that will secure the attainment of the great object I have in view. I feel that if the result of the work of: this Commission is that, as before, Greek and Latin take the place of everything else, and no regard be paid to French, or German, or chemistry, or botany, or biology, the Commission will be a disaster to the Scottish Universities. I would remind the Committee that generous founders have left large sums for the education of youth, but those who avail themselves of them are not allowed to take up subjects which are of interest or value to them, but are compelled to go through a certain hidebound curriculum, with the result that certain professors make large fees which, perhaps, otherwise they would not obtain.
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I am entirely in sympathy with the general object of the hon. and learned Gentleman, but I am bound to say that I am doubtful whether his Amendment would, not break the symmetry of the Act as far as the latitude afforded to the Commissioners is concerned. I can hardly suppose that the Commissioners would do otherwise than give due and great, regard to modern languages and science in framing the alternatives which we

  1213
  fully expect at their hands for the Arts degree. If, however, we inserted this Amendment we should say that due regard must be paid to two subjects whilst other subjects to which we also wish regard to be paid will be left out, and I am afraid this would tend to some lop-sided arrangement which would not be as rational or liberal as the arrangement they would otherwise make. It is on this ground alone that I deprecate the the introduction of the Amendment.
  MR. HUNTER: After what has been stated, I do not think I need press the Amendment to a division.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. J. A. CAMPBELL: I beg to propose after "degrees," to insert "and the institution of new degrees."
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page, 11, line 14, after "degrees" insert "and the institution of new degrees."— (Mr. J. A. Campbell.)
  Question put, and agreed to.
  MR. WALLACE: I may be under a wrong impression, but I certainly have the impression that the Amendment I am about to propose is one of considerable importance. At all events, if I may judge from the nature of the communications that have come to me from different parts of the country, I feel that in moving my Amendment I am not representing my own opinion merely, but am speaking for a large constituency. The Amendment is in these terms. After the word "degrees" I propose to insert—
  "And the terms and conditions under which, without discouraging attendance on University or recognized extra-mural teaching, such degrees may be granted to all persons resident in Scotland applying for the same, and proving themselves possessed of the requisite knowledge or skill under whatever circumstances such knowledge or skill may have been obtained."
  Now, I do venture to think that the presumption in this case is in my favour, and the burden of proof upon those who oppose my proposal. I ask in the first place why should not this be done? Why should not persons who are possessed of the necessary knowledge or skill be recognized by those authorities who have been commissioned for the very purpose of fostering and certifying learning? I think this is the natural view of the matter; that is how it strikes an unsophisticated mind.
  1214
  The early founders of Universities certainly took this view—for instance, the Bulls issued by the Pope to the two Beatons, Archbishop and Cardinal, in favour of the seat of learning they were creating at St. Andrew's contained powers expressly designed for the purpose of enabling them to recognize and grant degrees to all comers who could prove themselves of sufficient ability, character, and learning; and I believe that in many of the mediæval Universities—I will not say all—the same rule obtained. I may be told that this is a matter of 300 years ago, but I must say that seems to me rather an anile objection. The things that belong to these centuries ago are not necessarily absurd, and all average students of history know that some of the greatest reforms have simply consisted of a return to the early condition of things, in clearing away the superstructural rubbish piled up by human foolishness and stupidity, in order to get at the original foundation. In the University of Dublin, which I may, I believe, safely call a comparatively ancient University, the proposal I am now making to the Committee in connection with scotch Universities has all along been and is now recognized. Now, from mediæval Popes and ancient Universities it is no doubt a considerable step to this year's deliverance of the Convention of Scotch Royal and Parliamentary Burghs; but I am gratified that I can claim the utterances of this body as an important and impressive deliverance in my favour. I will take the liberty of referring to this deliverance of the Convention of Scotch Parliamentary Burghs and their petition to Parliament on this subject. They "regret extremely there is no recognition in the Bill of extra mural teaching as a qualification for the University degree; they consider that such a recognition would tend greatly to the advancement of education. It is really immaterial, they say, in what particular quarter knowledge is gained if it is possessed; for the academical degree only certifies the possession of this knowledge; it does not confer it." I quote this as a reliable expression of the view taken of this matter by the practical common-sense of the country and along side of this expression of opinion stands the success of such

  1215
  bodies as the Royal University of Ireland, and the University of London, which, notwithstanding its severe test—and some think it is too severe—still there were 400 graduates at its last public presentation in May, many of them, I may say the bulk of them, depending on their power to pass the test on private study, while others acquired their knowledge at seminaries of a more or less public character; all that to my mind is evidence to show that the plan I venture to propose is one that is desired and approved by people whose intelligence and opinions are entitled to respect. Then I venture to think I am justified in saying that the presumption is in my favour, and that I am entitled to ask why should this not be the case? I call on those who make objection to show their reasons. It is said, no doubt, that it is completely opposed to the Scotch conception of graduation, which is based on a prescribed system of professional teaching. Well, I am inclined for the moment, for the purpose of argument, to admit all that, but what then? If a tree is known by its fruit, I ask how does the University teaching system come out as compared with the non-teaching system? The Scotch advocate has to attend, I believe, four University sessions, to give four years of attendance at the University to his law studies. The English barrister picks up his law where he can and where he likes. But I venture to ask is the average English barrister an inferior creature to the average Scotch advocate? Is the Lord President a superior being to the Lord Chancellor? Then as to whether the general Scotch professorial system is superior to the English tutorial system, if any of my colleagues are going to maintain that the finished English University product is inferior to the same Scotch University product, I, for my part, will not take the trouble to argue with them. I will leave them to discuss the numerous gentlemen of English University education to be met in the Lobby in the course of the next division. I am asked is teaching to be abolished in connection with graduation, and I say not at all; that necessity does not arise at all, the only change will be that the locality of the teaching will be somewhat altered. The demand will always evoke the necessary supply. The English barrister
  1216
  to whom I have alluded is directed in the way to the Law degree by a person who has himself found the way to the Law degree and has taken it. I do not see how this proposal would lead in any degree to the abolition of teaching. It is argued by those in favour of our Scotch University system that it brings together the youth of the country, and by personal contact one improves the other. It is true iron sharpens iron, but that property of the metal is not confined to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen and St. Andrew's; it obtains in Inverness, Dundee, Dumfries, Perth, and anywhere else if you only give it the same chance. But I am told the teachers will not be of the best quality. I am not afraid of that consequence if you have a good examination system, and if you have not a good examination system you had better not give degrees under any circumstances. I am entitled to assume that you have such a good system, and given that, I say you will have good teachers, for the most successful teacher will be he who succeeds best in passing his men, and these teachers will be found out by those who really desire to pass. Much is made of professorial inspiration, and I do not deny its existence or value, although mainly in connection with metaphysics and ethics and the classes of speculation. I have never found professors of pure mathematics and practical chemistry to be very inspiring persons. After all the subjects can inspire as well as the professors, and departed genius as well as living mediocrity. If a man can for himself read and reproduce Plato, then I am under the impression that he is just as much obliged to Plato for any enlargement of mind that has accrued to him as he is to Professor Brown, Jones, or Robinson, who may have introduced him to the sage. I think the idea that what I may call graduating knowledge can only be got at by residence in the University has a considerable element of fetichism in it, and owes a good deal of its force to mere custom. The original University type, many of our ancient Universities, it must be remembered, were in existence long before the invention of printing, and as a necessary consequence in that period of the world's history if men wanted to learn anything they resorted in considerable bodies to the teaching of living teachers in local

  1217
  centres. But surely the invention of printing has very considerably modified the machinery of learning. Yet, notwithstanding these modifications, we still find the idea that wherever knowledge and the existence and possession of knowledge has got to be certified by means of a combination of certain alphabetical characters, then this knowledge can only be got at certain places, and from the lips of certain individuals. That idea still lives on very much in my opinion, in virtue of that same force of custom that still perpetuates the hideous and cruel anomaly of horse-hair wigs in Courts of Justice and other habitats of unreflective conservatism. But after all I am not arguing for the substitution of the London University system for the Scotch University system. My Amendment is carefully guarded by these words: "Without discouraging attendance on University or recognized extra-mural teaching." I do not propose to withdraw a single student who has any fees in him from attendance at professorial classes, or at the instruction given by that somewhat select body of extra-mural teachers whom it is in contemplation to admit to a share in the professorial monopoly; but I do plead for a large class of intellectual men who have no fees in them, who cannot afford residence at the University centres, but whom I still think, both on public and private grounds, it is undesirable to exclude from those learned avocations in which nature has fitted them to he happiest and most useful. I said before on the Second Reading of this Bill, but I ask leave to say it briefly again, that it is to me a very lamentable fact that, not only in England but in Scotland also, the learned professions with their gains and opportunities of happiness and usefulness are practically shut to the poor scholar. The profession of the law where, in virtue of those arrangements by which, for the sake of enriching a few members of a strictly exclusive Trades Union, justice, which is the right of the poor, is practically converted into the luxury of the rich, is closed to the poor student. Medicine, too, though not to the same degree, is to a considerable extent in the same position, and the only learned profession that is open to the poor, and even then only to
  1218
  the upper classes of the poor, is the Church into which accordingly many men drift, in their youth, without due reflection or warning, committing themselves to certain forms and creeds, with which, afterwards, when intelligence and information have grown within them, they discover they are not in intellectual harmony, and are face to face with the temptation to continue a career of deception in regard to subjects in which mankind have the deepest interest. In these very discussions we have seen how access to the learned professions is to be made more difficult by the increase of fees in certain classes, if not all. I desire to amend what I consider a calamitous state of things so far as access to University degree is concerned. I desire if possible to make these; which are the portals to the higher and learned callings, more accessible to the poor, and I think this can be done without trenching on the prerogative of the professoriate in respect to teaching, by the simple device of making the non-residential student wait a longer time for his degree than the residential student. This arrangement you can in a way defend by saying that the residential student may be presumed to have the highest class of teaching, and so far, therefore, may be presumed to get faster to the goal than the non-residential student, who, if you like, you can say has to depend entirely on himself or on what you may call a second or third rate system of teaching. The men to whom money is no object, or comparatively no object, will still attend the University, so that they may get their degree more quickly or get through their classes more quickly; but the men to whom money is an object, because they do not have much of it, may wait a little while in patience and study, and will only obtain the degree when they have proved themselves worthy by ability and information to receive it. That seems to me to be a just and wise arrangement in view of the interests of all classes concerned in this matter, and as such I venture to put it before the Committee.
  Amendment proposed, page 11, line 14, after "degrees" insert,
  "And the terms and conditions under which, without discouraging attendance on University or recognized extra-mural teaching, such degrees may be granted to all persons resident in Scotland applying for the same, and proving

  1219
  themselves possessed of the requisite knowledge or skill, under whatever circumstances such knowledge or skill may have been obtained."—(Mr. Wallace.)
  MR. J. B. BALFOUR: I am sure everyone present must sympathize with the object which my hon. and learned Friend desires to attain, but I must say that it does appear to me—and I speak from much familiarity with the Scotch University system, both as regards its history and its present condition—that it would be hardly possible to give effect to what my hon. and learned Friend proposes without disadvantage to the persons whom he wishes to benefit, and without detriment to these ancient and admirable institutions. I rather think that my hon. and learned Friend must himself have had some feeling of this kind, for in advocating his Amendment, he not only puts forward the proposal that the Scotch Universities should become examining bodies, but that if they become examining bodies it shall not be without respect to the functions they have so well discharged in times past. He desires to maintain the teaching along with the examining system. I do not see how it is possible to dispense with a certain amount of University or extra mural attendance as a condition of graduation. 11 you make the acquisition of the degree free and open without any such condition, the effect must inevitably be to diminish University attendance. I am sure all who have had the advantage of being educated at Scotch Universities, must allow that not the least valuable part of the University career is the mingling in the academic halls with other students, and coming under the general influences which prevail in these ancient seats of learning. It is quite impossible, I think, to turn the University into a mere examining body without decreasing attendance. My hon. and learned Friend sets himself to perform an impossibility by his Amendment. At present we invite students from all parts of the world, and there are few parts of the world from which we do not get them; but my hon. and learned Friend shows mistrust of his proposal when he limits the purely examining functions of the University dispensing with attendance, to persons resident in Scotland. He must have felt the difficulty of introducing an
  1220
  alternative foreign to the ancient character of these institutions when he hedges round his proposal with limitations and restrictions. One great question ought not to be left out of consideration. I do not want to raise a long argument, but I may mention a fact which is very clearly brought out in a work by my right hon. Friend near me (Sir Lyon Playfair)—namely, mere examining Universities have not usually been successful. They have been tried in Belgium with results the reverse of successful. Trinity College, Dublin, has not been successful as an examining body. I believe there has been a measure of success in England in the case of the London University which is not a teaching body. It does appear to me that a combination of the two systems in the manner proposed would probably damage these institutions for both purposes. My hon. and learned Friend says the presumption is in favour of his view, and if the matter were an absolutely open one, and we were begining to conceive the idea of a University without experience, I do not say that his plan might not have much to recommend it; but we are dealing with institutions hundreds of years old, and I rather think that we have found an answer to my hon. and learned Friend's presumption in the fact that these Universities are, and always have been eminently the Universities of the people, the Universities of the poor; and notwithstanding what my hon. and learned Friend has said, there is no country in the world that offers so many examples of men from the very humblest ranks having reached to the very highest positions in the service of the State through academic study which they were enabled to pursue by the aid of bursaries and other means. Surely it would be a somewhat rash proceeding while we are by this Bill giving quite enough work to the Commission in reforming the Universities of Scotland to add a proposal to turn these institutions into something entirely different from what they have hitherto been, and which I cannot help feeling would damage their teaching power and lower the educational standard throughout the country. My hon. and learned Friend says there is no monopoly of the academic spirit in

  1221
  those centres where the Universities are seated, that it exists at Inverness, Perth, Dumfries, and elsewhere. True, and if we were now going to set up a University system we should fully recognize this, but here are the ancient University Seats with all the equipments attaching to them; and without going into a long discussion that would be inappropriate at this stage, I do submit that to introduce this very serious change would endanger the success that we hope may attend the legislation upon which we are now engaged.
  SIR W. FOSTER: The Amendment moved by my hon. Friend—
  Notice taken that 40 Members were not present; House counted, and 40 Members being present,
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: The Amendment moved by my hon. Friend contains words which give it a somewhat narrow limit, and I confess that I should have liked it better without the limitation. It is always difficult to define what domicile is, and it might be that, as in the case of marriage, a definition would be made in which a 24 hours' residence would constitute domicile. But I wish to say that I regard this Amendment as conceived in a broad and liberal spirit, and I am sorry that so broad and liberal a spirit is not generally infused into the University system, as I think the Universities would do much better were they to display that spirit in their mode of conferring degrees. I am sorry that any right hon. Gentleman sitting on the front Opposition Bench should have employed, as the right hon. Gentleman the member for Clackmannan (Mr. J. B. Balfour) has done, what I cannot but regard as the narrowest academical arguments against the proposed extension of privilege here sought to be conferred; and it is to me a matter of all the more surprise that such arguments should have been used by one who sits there as a leader of Scotch radicals. I hope it will not turn out that we shall see, as we did in the last Parliament, the right hon. and learned Gentleman entering into a treaty with the learned Lord Advocate in regard to this Bill in the same way as the Lord Advocate entered into one with him in relation to the Crofters' Act. I trust that we shall witness no repetition of
  1222
  that sort of alliance, because it would be one that would not be at all satisfactory to the Liberal party. With reference to this Amendment, the great argument used by my right hon. Friend on the front Opposition Bench was that the danger of this Amendment would consist in the effect it would have on the influence of the Universities on the students—that is to say that what the students obtain after a certain number of years' curriculum, would be lost to many of them if this Amendment were passed, and the Universities would be converted into mere examining Boards. Now, there is no necessity for their being converted into mere examining Boards, for if the right hon. Gentleman has any faith in his own principle he ought to believe that the University principle will live of itself. If University residence be a good thing, it will surely survive any alteration or widening of the regulations for the conferring of degrees. I may point out that in the Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen Universities there is nothing to compare with what is seen at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge in the shape of residential discipline. All that the students get at Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen—I will not venture to include St. Andrew's here—they can equally obtain in any properly conducted college in the United Kingdom; and if they can also ensure what they require in the way of information, I do not see why they should be debarred from graduating at the Universities which now have a monopoly of giving degrees. The Universities are very good in their influence, and the diffusion of their degrees is an object we are all desirous of obtaining. The degrees need not be lowered in any way, because more go up to receive them; they can be kept at the same high standard as at present, while their diffusion would have a wonderful influence on the general diffusion of education among the people. There are thousands of persons who now leave both public and private schools who have no incentive to go on with their studies because they have no object of ambition before them, such as would be attainable if the principle of this Amendment were conceded. I hold that these Scotch Universities ought to be looked at, not merely from a narrow point of view as Scottish institutions; but rather from a broader

  1223
  point of view as national institutions; because, as they are supported out of the national funds, the whole kingdom ought to have the right of access to their examining Boards and degrees. Taking one particular faculty, that of medicine, with which I myself am more familiar, what is the operation of the present system in the Scotch Universities? They have what is a monopoly in comparison with the provincial colleges in the granting of degrees, and they receive a public grant, which hitherto the English provincial colleges have not received, and thus they are enabled to provide a curriculum with which England cannot compete. They thereby withdraw English students from this country, they turn round and exclude our students from access to the degrees they give to their own students. It will hardly be believed that at the present moment if any one in England—say a member of this House—were to send his son for education in medicine to the best institution in London, in which men of the greatest eminence are maintained on the hospital staff—such, for example, as St. Bartholomew's, where, probably, the staff hold a higher scientific position than the staff of any similar institution in this country—the very fact that he selects the best institution debars his son from the right of obtaining a degree at St. Andrew's, because the curriculum is not recognised there, and yet the University of St. Andrew's, which grants degrees in medicine, is unable to completely educate a single doctor, and has not the means of so doing. That University, which confers degrees in medicine, will not admit men educated at the best medical school in London, unless they reside in a Scotch University.
  An Hon. MEMRER: There are ten admitted each year.
  Sir W. FOSTER: I am aware of that. I have not been sending students from my own class for the last 30 years, and writing certificates for them year after year, without knowing what I am talking about. There are ten admitted every year; but if ten can be admitted every year, why not 100, or why not—should there be a sufficient number of candidates—one thousand? If a degree be a good thing for the medical profession, why should the number be limited to ten per annum? The reason for this limitation is that years ago St. Andrew's
  1224
  abused its privilege and admitted shiploads of candidates to the degree of Doctor of Medicine. But these ten men are admitted only after they have been a certain number of years in practice; and because they want to get a little social distinction which they have not been able to obtain as plain "misters." This is not the sort of inducement that should be held out for men to go up for their degrees. The incentive should be something more in the nature of scientific ambition, and that love of learning which young men should be encouraged to develop. If a young man has the requisite knowledge, he ought to be admitted as well as men of 40 or 45 years of age, whose only virtue in the eyes of the University is that they have been so long in practice. On these grounds, I think, the privilege now yielded by the St. Andrew's University, ought to be extended so that we might have hundreds going up for degrees instead of only ten every year; or, at any rate, a very much larger number than at present. If this result were brought about, it would be a good thing, both for the University itself, and for the people generally. The Amendment before the Committee is directed principally against what is a local monopoly. Men can obtain the necessary learning fitting them for medical degrees as well in Dundee as in St. Andrew's—as well at Stornoway or in the Western Islands as at Edinburgh or Glasgow. What is wanted is not to interfere with the teaching excellence of the Universities. The adoption of this Amendment would open the doors of the Universities as widely as possible, and it would be found that they would still draw to their classes the same sort of students as now, by virtue of the excellence of their teaching, while the desire for instruction elsewhere would be largely stimulated by the widening of the access. The professors, also, would be incited to extra exertions; they would endeavour to make their lectures more attractive, instead of relying on a monopoly to force a certain number of students into their classes. Another point I should like to touch upon is this: I think the Amendment of my hon. Friend might be improved if he would allow words to be introduced, which, I hope, the Lord Advocate will accept, indicating that those who are admitted to degrees, irre-

  1225
  spective of residence, should in some cases, be obliged to go through some curriculum in a recognised teaching institution. I should be glad to see the Bill so modified, while the liberalizing Amendment of my hon. Friend the Member for Edinburgh (Mr. Wallace) is adopted in the widest sense. By the incorporation in this Bill of a wide extension of the powers of the Universities to confer degrees, those institutions can, I am convinced, be not only strengthened in their position of usefulness, but a great and lasting impulse be given to higher education throughout the United Kingdom.
  MR. CALDWELL: I regret that I am not able to support this Amendment, nor do I take this position on the grounds stated by the right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Clackmannan. The right hon. and learned Gentleman seemed to think there was some kind of virtue in the fact of students being connected with the Universities, and that degrees should only be granted to those who have gone through the full curriculum at one or other of the Universities. I quite agree with what has been said by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh, as to the necessity and advantage in Scotland of having teachers in various parts of the country whose teaching should be recognized by the granting of degrees. I also concur in what was said by the last speaker (Sir W. Foster) as to why the Scotch Universities should go the length of recognizing efficient teaching of schools in England for the purpose of granting degrees, but I would point out that all this is provided for in the Bill, because in the concluding portion of sub-section 8 of this Clause, which has already passed the Committee it is provided that the Commissioners may
  "if they think proper, determine the extent to which, and the conditions under which University Courts may grant recognition to the teaching of any college or individual teacher for the purposes of graduation."
  Therefore almost all that has been contended for is contained here, though not entirely. However, it is not, and will not be necessary that the students should attend any one of the four Universities in order to obtain their degrees. This is the important point in the Bill, that practically, for the first time, power is given to the Com-
  1226
  missioners and the University Court to authorize the recognition of teaching outside the Universities for the purpose of graduation. I admit that this does not go as far as the Amendment of the hon. Member for Edinburgh (Mr.. Wallace), but I think we ought to be satisfied to get the recognition of extramural teaching. The conferring of a University degree is not merely a mark of possession of knowledge; it is a recognition of the fact that that knowledge has been obtained in a particular way, and under a certain kind of training, it being the University training which enters materially into the elements of a degree. We have abolished the disqualifications which formerly existed against men being allowed to obtain employment as medical officers in the Army or Navy by passing a certain examination, and without being obliged to obtain a degree; the object of a degree being that it shall be evidence not only of the requisite knowledge, but that that knowledge was obtained at a University, I trust that the extension of extra-mural teaching will be promoted by this Bill, and that we may obtain in all parts of Scotland teachers qualified. in one or another department of education to diffuse some sound knowledge throughout the different portions of the community.
  Dr. FARQUHARSON: I am sorry I cannot support the Amendment, because I fear it would greatly injure, and perhaps ruin, the Scotch Universities. I feel bound to say that the most effective criticism of the Amendment came from the hon. Gentleman who seconded it, and who in the first instance entirely threw over the limitation of the advantage derived exclusively by the inhabitants of Edinburgh; and, secondly, made out a strong claim, in which I entirely concur, for the establishment of a regular curriculum for the study of medicine. But the proposal of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh amounts to this—that anyone sitting at home and studying certain text books, or attending certain lectures in any school he may think proper, may, if he desire it, come up for examination, and, if he has had a grinder clever enough, be passed through for his degree. The system of grinding has been so developed that almost any qualified grinder can put a student

  1227
  through almost any examination within a certain period; but the knowledge which a young man so obtains is as quickly lost as it is acquired. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Clackmannan has been severely animadverted on for the remarks he has offered on the subject of the Scotch Universities. I may say that I was brought up in the University of Edinburgh, where I obtained my degree. and I look back with affection and regard to the influences brought to bear on me by University life, carried on as it is even in the Scotch Universities, which are not so well regulated as the Universities of England. I cannot forget the friendships and acquaintanceships derived from sitting with the same students on the same benches, in the different classes, year after year listening to the same professors; nor can I but appreciate the loyalty of feeling and honourable pride which were stimulated by the association then begun with so many eminent men. No such advantages can be obtained from attendance at the smaller and less elaborately regulated places of instruction. For the reasons I have given I cannot support the Amendment.
  SIR LYON PLAYFAIR: This Amendment mixes up two subjects, one of which I sympathize with, while I am unable to sympathize with the other. I would say, in the first place, that I sympathize with the encouragement of extra-mural teaching as a part of the curriculum for a degree, and I would point out that this is recognised by the Universities in regard to medical degrees. There is always a certain amount of attendance required for obtaining the degree, but the other portion of the curriculum may be followed in schools outside the Universities. If the hon. Gentleman the Member for Edinburgh had meant that recognition of extra-mural teaching should be allowed in regard to arts as well as medicine I should have sympathized with that, but the Commissioners have already the necessary powers under the Bill. I attach much value to a certain residence of one or two years at a University. This gives an academic spirit and infuses a love for the Alma Mater.
  MR. FIRTH: If a degree be taken by a man it is the signification of the possession of certain know-
  1228
  ledge, which, I apprehend, is the true definition of it. Whether that knowledge is given inter or extra-mural is surely not a matter of serious importance. Now. I speak with considerable knowledge of a University where extra-mural teaching does qualify for degrees—namely, in the University of London, and in that case the results have been abundantly successful. I think that by giving a University degree to a poor man on the lines proposed in the Amendment, you are enabling him to take the fullest advantage of the talent he possesses. As to insisting on a certain curriculum, I have great reverence for curriculums, but, after all, what does it matter as to the method by which you arrive at a given result: if you can attain it by reading one book in preference to another, what is the objection to doing so? After all, the result is what you have to look to, and as to the suggestion regarding what has occurred in Belgium, I can only say that the examiners there must be of a very different type to those we have in Scotland. I hope the Amendment of my hon. Friend will receive support.
  Dr. CLARK: There is one aspect of this question which has not been laid before the House, and that is, the injury done to the teachers under the present system in Scotland. I am not prepared exactly to support the Amendment of my hon. Friend, because it is contrary to the existing law. But while teachers possessing a University degree get 10s. per head for all passes, other teachers only get 4s. per head. I think this is an injustice to poor teachers in Scotland which ought to be abolished. There is the old story that St. Andrew's got rich by certain degrees. I do not think that any University would attempt to do that now. Indeed I believe that no examiners for any degrees would pass men now, unless they were thoroughly qualified, and I am sure that the examining Board of St. Andrew's is equal, if not superior, to any examining board of the other three Universities. There is less favouritism and a man has a better chance of passing on his own merits. This argument applies equally to Germany. German degrees at one time were got very cheaply, but no one would dare to say that within the last 20 years a German degree could be obtained by any other

  1229
  method than hard work. In regard to the Faculty of Divinity, I think we want a change; we want something more liberal, and therefore I have put down my Amendment in the hope that the Government will see their way to agree to some modification. Are they prepared to concede anything to free teaching where there is no compulsion in regard to the curriculum?
  MR. WALLACE: I must say I am rather disappointed to find that, although I endeavoured to make it plain that my great object was to secure the privilege of University distinction for those who, through poverty, are unable to achieve it at the present moment, without doing any injury to the existing system, that object has been overlooked by the whole body of my critics who have come from this side of the House, and have kindly spared the Lord Advocate the trouble of taking notice of my observations. Now, the objection to my Amendment is to the insertion of the words, "resident in Scotland," and in regard to that I must say that I simply put them in for the sake of the timid Conservatism with which I have to deal. I have no particular faith in them, but I thought it not unworthy to cultivate the wisdom of the serpent to that extent in order to secure support for the Amendment. I am, however, now willing to drop anything serpentine in my proposal. I think that the observations which have come from the hon. Member for Caithness and from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds with respect to the question of the curriculum arise entirely from their not having done me the honour to look at the terms of my Amendment. There is nothing in my Amendment hostile to the laying down of a regular curriculum in any branch of study. I have great respect for the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Leeds in his didactic but not in his prophetic capacity. I have done all I can to show that not the slighest injury will he done to the existing constitution and system of the Scottish Universities, and I must complain that my right hon. Friends have taken no notice whatever of the place I have suggested. As to non-residential students, on the roll of Edinburgh University appears the name of Thomas Carlyle, who passed through the University as a non-residential student, and I would
  1230
  ask can it be contended if Carlyle's opinions had taken a different direction that his moral teaching would have been any the worse for his having been a non-residential student? I do not believe in the danger of the grinder which is insisted on by the hon. Member for the St. Rollox Division of Glasgow. The grinder is quite as active with his pupils who attend University classes as he can possibly be with students outside. The right hon Gentleman has spoken of the love of Alma Mater. I am the last man who would oppose the development of filial instincts, but I think the right hon. Gentleman gave way to unnecessary emotion, for I do not see how his remarks bore on the deeply practical question before the House.
  MR. J. MACDONALD CAMERON,: I believe the crammer is a very important factor in University examiners, and I am of opinion that University classes furnish many students for the crammers than are furnished by outside teachers. Before an examination comes on the crammer examiners look over the examination papers of preceding years in order to find out the particular fads of the professors; having done that, they coach their pupils accordingly. Now, I would press the Lord Advocate to accept this Amendment; I do not think its acceptance would give rise to the slightest difficulty.
  DR. CAMERON: I think that before we go to a Division we ought to have some expression of opinion on the general question to which this Amendment relates. When I read the Amendment I came to the conclusion that there could not be a question about supporting it, but when my hon. Friend behind me had exhausted his arguments in support of it, I found it a more difficult matter to vote for the proposal. I am entirely in favour of a University degree being considered as a certificate of so much knowledge, no matter how obtained. I do not care whether a man has been resident in Scotland or not, as my hon. Friend, in the superfluity of the guile of the serpent, wishes to propose. I do not wish a poor man to be kept back because of his poverty from an University degree, to be placed in a position of still further disadvantage to the student

  1231
  who can pay to attend the professional classes. The word curriculum, as far as I understand it, means the payment of so many fees. You have to take out so many course of lectures at so many guineas per course, so many more at so many more guineas, and so many more at so many more guineas. I cannot see how that makes a man a better scholar than if he acquired his knowledge in any other fashion. I understand that fees are necessary in an University, and we need not fear that they will be overthrown by this Amendment. The Universities will go on being fee-extracting institutions if you engraft the University of London system on to the Scotch University system, and I do not think there will be any deterioration in the quality of the degrees, for you may be sure that the examiners, if they are connected with the Universities, will take care that those who do not pay fees do not pass unless their knowledge is up to the standard of those who do. I hope the Government will give us some indication of the general principle to which they intend to adhere in this matter.
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I think the general sense of the Committee is in favour of terminating the discussion. While the debate has been extremely interesting, I must say that if we are to have any regard to proportion and the number of questions which remain to be considered, we ought to come to a decision. The Committee will remember that it has already made most liberal provisions for extra-mural teaching for individuals as well as bodies. All that the Government propose to do is to resist an Amendment which will have the effect of introducing a system entirely at variance with that of the Scotch Universities, and of turning them into mere examining bodies. We have abstained hitherto from taking part in the discussion, not from any disrespect for the ability of those who have brought forward the subject, but rather because the ground has been so completely traversed by previous speakers.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 67; Noes 140.—(Div. List, No. 165.)
  DR. CLARK: Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order. The Tellers left the door of the Aye Lobby before all the
  1232
  Members had passed through the door, and several Members were uncounted.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member should have called attention to it before the Tellers left the Table.
  MR. MACDONALD CAMERON: I beg to move the insertion after "degrees" of the words—
  "Provided always, that they shall make ordinances and regulations for granting degrees in natural science."
  I believe that in the Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow arrangements have been made for the granting of such degrees, but that in the other two Scottish Universities no such arrangements at present exist. I desire that it should be made compulsory for the Commissioners to make such orders and regulations as may be necessary to ensure the establishment of such degrees. I think myself that the tendency even in modern times to ignore the teaching of science is too great. Here we are in the age of steam and telegraphy, and the development of natural science in almost every branch, and yet facilities have not been granted by the Universities for the acquiring of degrees by men of equal standing to those who acquire knowledge in kindred branches of science.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 11, line 14, after "degrees" insert—
  "Provided always, that they shall make ordinances and regulations for granting degrees in natural science."
  Question proposed, "That those words be there inserted."
  MR. MOIR T. STORMONTH DARLING: It seems rather unnecessary to give specific directions to the Commissioners of this sort, particularly when we have regard to the fact that it is now a long time since degrees in natural science were instituted at Edinburgh, Glasgow, and St. Andrew's Universities. I am not at this moment aware whether the same course has been taken at Aberdeen, but even if that is not so, the Commissioners have ample powers in the matter. I think we may very well leave this to the Commissioners.
  Question put, and negatived.
  MR. J. A. CAMPBELL: The object of the Amendment I have now to move is that, so far as is practicable

  1233
  there shall be uniformity in the four Universities as to the manner of examination, and the conditions under which degrees are conferred. I am not sure it is absolutely necessary to have a provision of this kind, but the words I propose to insert are taken from the Act of 1858. It may appear there is less desire for uniformity if we do not insert these words.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 11, line 18, after "examinations," insert—
  "Provided always, that, in so far as it shall be practicable, and, in the opinion of the Commissioners, conducive to the well-being of the Universities, and to the advancement of learning, the course of study, the manner of examination, and the conditions under which degrees are to be conferred, shall be uniform in all the Universities of Scotland."—(Mr. J. A. Campbell.)
  Question proposed, "That these words be inserted."
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I am sorry that I cannot accept the Amendment of my hon. Friend. I entirely agree there is a necessity that the action of the University should to a large extent bear reference to and be in harmony with the development of others, but there are already provisions in the Bill to secure that object. I am, moreover, prepared to accept a subsequent Amendment of the right hon. Member for Leeds (Sir L. Playfair), for the establishment of a general University Court of the four Universities to review the general interests of the Universities, especially in regard to degrees and examinations.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendments made.
  Clause 14, page 11, line 19, leave out "any," and insert "each." —(Dr. Clark.)
  Clause 14, page 11, line 19, leave out "that may find it expedient."—(Dr. Clark.)
  Clause 14, page 11, line 22, after "professors," insert "lecturers."—(Mr. Buchanan.)
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 11, line 26, after "new," insert, "and subject to compensation as herein provided to abolish existing." — (Mr. Hunter.)
  Question proposed, "That these words be there inserted."
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I think the hon. Gentleman will find his primary object in this Amendment can be more easily accomplished at another part of the Bill. He wants to abolish professorships, and as I said in answer to the right hon. Gentleman (Sir L. Playfair) a short time ago, I am quite prepared to be a party to carrying that out, but I think the better plan would be upon Report to insert in page 10, line 32, the words "to abolish offices including professorships." Then I do not think the words "subject to compensation" are required, because the general rule as to compensation is stated in the part of the Bill which we have been recently considering, and that has universal application to all offices.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 11, line 27, leave out all after "desirable" to "otherwise" in line 29. —(Mr. Hunter.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: We do not exact endowment in the case of all the establishments here referred to. The words are "endowment and support." It is necessary the Commissioners should have regard to the element of durability in the institutions they found.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  DR. CLARK: The object of the next Amendment is to make it compulsory on the Commissioners to enable the Universities to have extra-mural teaching. This is a matter upon which we should speak with no uncertain sound, indeed the Act will be worthless for all practical purposes unless there is a system of extra-mural teaching.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 11, line 32, leave out "if they think it expedient."—(Dr. Clark.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: The hon. Gentleman has very fairly discussed his Amendment as it appear on the Paper,

  1235
  but in order to appreciate the full force and stringency of the provision he has suggested I will ask the Committee to remember that the hon. Member proposes to delete the words "if they think it expedient," and the effect would be to compel the commission to increase extra-mural teaching. But the Committee have already decided that the matter of teaching power should be left to the Commission, and it is for the Commission to find the best method of dealing with it. Let the hon. Member be assured that by the provisions in the Bill the Commissioners are in no way discouraged, but are encouraged to greater recognition of extra-mural teaching; but I must strongly deprecate this method of inviting the Commission to increase this particular branch of teaching, irrespective of the teaching power inside the University.
  DR. CLARK: I intend to take a Division on this point. Two things this Bill can do. It can make the Scotch Universities useful by abolishing them as close corporations, and especially the monopoly of the teachers, and the other thing is to give them a sum of money to enable them to still further develop their system. Now, under the present system the University professors have practically the monopoly of teaching, and not only that, they have the monopoly of examining. Now, I can speak from half a dozen years of University experience, and I will tell the Committee my experience in Glasgow and in Edinburgh. I had the honour of being a student under a very distinguished man at Glasgow University, who is now dead. He was a very able man in his day, and had distinguished himself in the high position he occupied. I was compelled to attend his lectures, and, because I was compelled to do so, I continued to attend these lectures, although, sitting on the front bench, I could not hear a word the learned professor uttered. I went there fully prepared to get all the advantage I could from the lectures. I had no objection to paying for the course, but I had to attend lectures where a man was always talking to himself, and not a single student heard a word he said. I could not attend any extra-mural teaching in Glasgow, because extra-mural teaching was not recognized at Glasgow Uni-
  1236
  versity. In my opinion, the reason why Edinburgh cuts out Glasgow as a medical school is because of the extra-mural teaching being recognized in the latter University. At Edinburgh I had experience under a professor of medicine, a splendid orator, with whom from the first I was delighted. I thought his first lectures charming. But I found, when the course was finished, that although I had heard most eloquent discourses on almost every subject under heaven, there was nothing of any practical advantage to the student of medicine. I can say this of the professor at Glasgow that he gave me the highest honours in physiology, though I never heard a word of his lectures thereon. My brother, who had passed through the class before me with a similar experience to mine, told me the professor gave honours to those who wrote essays carrying out his ideas. I knew his special theories, and adopted them, and so I obtained what as a test was practically worthless. Now, I say we want competition in teaching, and we want no favours in examination, not having the professor as examiner with his friend as assistant. The first means of attaining this end is by extramural lectures in all the faculties. The Government should not leave this as merely a permissive point to be determined by the Commissioners. It is a case in which we should give our decision.
  SIR WALTER FOSTER: I can confirm, to a large extent, the argument of my hon. Friend. The fact that in the most renowned University of Edinburgh the system of extramural teaching is encouraged more than elsewhere, supports the statement that the principle of competition is of greatest value in University matters. If you have competition between a number of colleges as at Oxford and Cambridge, you do not need any other competition, but in Scotland you have not that collegiate competition. To do away with the close corporation character of the teaching, and create competition between the teachers would give an incentive to excellence that would, I am sure, be to the advantage of the Scotch Universities.
  SIR G. TREVELYAN: The subject on which we are now engaged is considered, by many, to be the very heart and core of the Bill. This proposal is one

  1237
  that is supported by those whose disinterested desire it is to open out the teaching of the University. So far as I can gather among those who have been foremost in promoting this legislation there is great dissatisfaction with the working of this present system, and they think that this clause is exceedingly lax and wants stiffening. I have looked at the Amendment of my hon. Friend, and I have compared them with my own which would come in on the next sentence, and I cannot say that I see any distinction in principle between them and the method in which we endeavour to carry it into action. There may be in one of the Universities an excess of teaching power as compared with the number of students, but I do not think that some slight inconvenience to St. Andrew's should be a reason for setting at nought this demand. My own opinion is the Lord Advocate would do well to consider his duty in regard to this point, for by making a concession he will gratify that great body of men, who, more than others, have the reform of the Universities at heart.
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: It must be remembered that the part of the clause is correlative with the powers of the University Court, and I may say that in regard to those powers I did my best to meet the views of the right hon. Gentleman opposite. I took his own words. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that the proposal is not merely to strike out the words if they think expedient, but by the series of Amendments it will be incumbent on the Commissioners to strengthen the University, if it requires to be strengthened, by extra-mural teaching, and by extra-mural teaching alone. In the case of what has been called "bloated professorships," any considerations of the kind submitted to us formerly to the effect that the emoluments may be divided among an increased staff, would have to be disregarded, and the Commissioners would have recourse to extra-mural teaching—a preposterous proposal, but that which would be the result of such an imperious restriction. We are anxious to encourage extra-mural teaching, but we have considered this matter most carefully and closely, and must adhere to the words the hon. Member proposes to omit.
  DR. CLARK: The Amendment, I might say, was suggested to me by Dr. Watson, Chairman of the Council of the Edinburgh University Association, and it should be observed that I still leave the power optional with the Commissioners, inasmuch as I leave the words "or otherwise."
  MR. BUCHANAN: I with many other Members would like to know if the right hon. Gentleman proposes to admit any qualification to the subsequent part of the clause, which would meet the views of the General Council of Edinburgh University?
  Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I may say here that I am quite prepared to accept both Amendments of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bridgeton, which are in complete harmony with what was settled the other night in relation to the powers of the University Court.
  The Committee divided:—Ayes 202; Noes 73.—(Div. List, No. 166.)
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 11, line 34, leave out if they think proper."—(Sir George Trevelyan.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 11, line 34, leave out from "determine," to "conditions," in line 35, inclusive, and insert "make regulations."—(Sir George Trevelyan.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  SIR G. TREVELYAN: The Committee are aware that there are three classes of professors to be dealt with, namely, the old professors, appointed before 1882, those who have been appointed since then, and those who will be appointed after the passing of the Act. The first class are out of the purview of the Bill. Their position, I take it, is fixed and cannot be altered. With regard to those who have been appointed since April 6th, 1882, the Commissioners will have to lay down conditions under which they will be entitled to pensions. As to those who are appointed in the future I hope the Committee will think twice before giving them a statutory right to a pension. It has been a very serious thing in the past and has very seriously hampered the Universities, to have the pensions always thrown in their teeth when they wished to make new professorships, but it will be a much

  1239
  more serious thing in the future when all pensions will have to come out of the limited fund from which the other requirements of the Universities will have to be met. The Amendment I have to propose does not ask that in future it shall be forbidden to grant pensions, but that it should be left to the Commissioners to say whether they will grant them or not. The Amendment will make it quite plain that the professors appointed in the future will not have a statutory claim to pensions. It leaves the Commission with a perfectly free hand, and I must say I think that in the financial and in some respects the educational interests of the Universities it will be well to adopt it.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 11, line 40, leave out from "and," to the first "and," in line 42, inclusive.—(Sir G. Trevelyan.)
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,): There is great force in the right hon. Gentleman's observations, and this question of pensions in the future requires to be treated with very great care indeed. I do not know that there are any words in this clause which absolutely declare that pensions are to be given in the future to the professors. I think the clause would leave it open to the Commissioners to act in the way they think expedient after considering the circumstances of the case. I do not think the words proposed to be inserted by the right hon. Gentleman will exactly suit, because you can hardly apply the word "abolish" to pensions not yet granted. Perhaps it would meet the case if the Lord Advocate would consider the matter before Report, and would introduce words which would guard against laying down an absolute principle that professors are to have pensions.
  SIR G. TREVELYAN: Perhaps that would be the best way to deal with this complicated question.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: The Amendment which stands in my name is intended to provide an alternative to the rigid rule of compensation. I hate the
  1240
  word compensation, but I think it quite reasonable that power should be given to grant pensions to those whose appointments are abolished or whose resignations may be accepted in consequence of alterations made pursuant to this Act.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 11, line 41, after "Act," add—
  "Or whose appointments may be abolished, or whose resignations may be accepted in consequence of changes made in pursuance of this Act."—(Sir G. Campbell.)
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: The question whether compensation should be awarded is necessarily affected by the rights of the professor on the expiry of his office. I do not think the hon. Gentleman will find, however, that there will be really any obstacle to carrying out his view by leaving the words in this clause as they stand.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  The following Amendments were agreed to:—
  Clause 14, page 12, line 11, after "Academicus," insert "and the General Council."—(Sir G. Trevelyan.)
  Clause 14, page 12, line 11, leave out "its, "and insert "their."—(Sir G. Trevelyan.)
  SIR LYON PLAYFAIR: The Amendment I have to propose differs from the recommendations of the Commissions of 1878. That Commission recommended that the general University Court should be an executive body, and my Amendment recommends that the Court should be an advising body.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 14, page 12, line 26, insert the following sub-section:—
  "To establish after the first day of January One thousand eight hundred and ninety two, a General University Court of the four Universities, with a view of taking in review the general interest of the Universities, especially in regard to degrees and examinations, and with the duty of reporting to Her Majesty on new ordinances, or changes in existing ordinances, affecting all or any of the Universities, and with power to report to the Secretary for Scotland on matters connected with the Universities upon which they may deem it to be of importance to represent their views, or upon subjects which may be specially referred to them by the Secretary for Scotland."—(Sir Lyon Playfair.)
  Question, "That this sub-section be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
  The following Amendments were also agreed to:—
  Clause 15, page 12, lines 33 and 34, leave out "and after the expiry of their powers, the University Court."—(The Lord Advocate.)
  Clause 15, page 12, line 35, after "them," insert "and after the expiration of their powers, the University may make similar ordinances."—(The Lord Advocate.)
  MR. BAIRD: I beg to move after "parties" the insertion of the words, "Provided that such consent shall not be unreasonably withheld. "I think some power should be given to see that the objections taken are, at all events, reasonable.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 15, page 12, line 40, after "parties," insert "Provided that such consent shall not be unreasonably withheld." — (Mr. Baird.)
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I am afraid that these words would be entirely inoperative. They would be merely an exhortation to the University Court, and not a prohibition as to anything the Court might do. Therefore, while sympathizing with the object of my hon. Friend, I do not think we ought to encumber the Act with the words.
  MR. CALDWELL: There is a great deal in what the right hon. Gentleman says, but I think it is only right that provision should be made that a college should not be deprived of the advantages of affiliation by the University Court without appeal. I hope, therefore, that before Report the right hon. Gentleman will consider the advisability of establishing some power of review on the part of the Universities' Commission in this respect.
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I shall be inclined to consider that case. I am bound to say, however, I am not very hopeful on the subject, as the question of affiliation is treated in the Bill as being a question of consent on one side and the other. It will be difficult to apply compulsion to one Party and not to the other. On the other hand, I am so fully convinced of the desirability of having some control in the matter that I will look into it.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Clause 15 agreed to.
  Clause 16.
  MR. J. B. BALFOUR: I have to move an Amendment giving the Commissioners power to incorporate the Colleges of St. Andrew's into one body. There are two colleges in St. Andrew's University. The Universities Commission which reported in 1868 recommended that power should be given almost in terms of this Motion to incorporate the two colleges into one University. It is not an obligation, but a power. It was introduced into successive Bills, and, if I mistake not, was in the Government Bill of last year and passed the House of Lords. It seems to be a proper provision, and it is in accordance with the history of St. Andrew's and other bodies that such steps should be taken in the course of University Reform. Now that the University Court will have the duty of looking after the property and revenues of the College, these colleges will really have no corporate work to do, and accordingly the so-called Divinity College will practically be a Faculty of Divinity. These processes of incorporation wherever they have been tried have been attended with the best results, and experience has proved that where there has been friction between such collegiate bodies while they existed as separate institutions, it has been brought to an end when the process of amalgamation has taken place.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 16, page 14, after line 3, insert—
  "(1) As regards the University and Colleges of St. Andrew's, if they shall see fit, after investigation and hearing all parties interested, to incorporate them into one body under the name of the University of St. Andrew's, under such conditions as shall seem just, having due regard to vested interests.''(Mr. J. B. Balfour.)
  Sir G. CAMPBELL: I hope the Government will not accept the Amendment, which seems to me to be entirely inconsistent with the affiliation scheme. I hope and trust that this system of affiliating colleges will be much more extended, and that we shall have affiliated colleges in Dundee, in Kirkcaldy, and in other places. I do not think that one college ought to be incorporated into the University whilst others have a separate existence.
  MR. MOIR T. STORMONTH DARLING: I am happy to say we are in entire agreement with the hon. Member who has just spoken. In the Bill of the late Government, as well as in the Bill of last year, there was a proposal of the kind now suggested, but the feeling now is all in favour of the multiplication of colleges, and not of their fusion, and really there is no practical good to be gained by the incorporation of the two colleges which have existed for centuries at St. Andrews.
  MR. BUCHANAN: This clause was in the Bill of 1883, in all the Bills of the late Government, and in the Bills of last year. It was also all the Bill of the late Government, and recommended by the Commission of 1876. After all, it is merely an enabling clause. I was rather surprised at my hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy taking up the line he did, because earlier in the evening I voted with him in favour of giving the Commissioners power to abolish theological faculties in the University of St. Andrew's, and one of these colleges is really nothing more or less than a theological faculty. Surely no adequate reason has been given why that which has been so often recommended in the past should be dropped out of the Bill of this year.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. J. B. BALFOUR: I now beg to move an Amendment giving the Commissioners power to declare that a Chair located in Dundee shall be a Chair of the University of St. Andrew's. It would, however, by no means make incorporation compulsory on any body.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 16, page 14, line 8, leave out from "having" to "trust," in line 10, inclusive, and insert—
  "And also to declare that a Chair located in Dundee shall be a Chair of the University of St. Andrew's."—(Mr. J. B. Balfour.)
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: The language of the clause was carefully considered and adjusted in another place last year, and I should certainly scruple to strike out words which had the sanction of both parties at that time.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. J. B. BALFOUR: I now move that the words "or any Chair or Chairs
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  thereof" should be inserted in line 4 of the clause after the word "college." It is conceivable that some of these Chairs might desire to be allied to the University of St. Andrew's, while others might not, and I think it would be well that there should be as much latitude and flexibility about the arrangement as possible by giving power to deal with particular Chairs of a college.
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I am afraid I cannot accept this Amendment. In order to affiliate a college you must have some regular organism, and I fail to see how you can say you will affiliate not a particular body but particular part of it—a Chair here and a Chair there. It seems to me that that would not, in the true sense, be a process of affiliation at all. And I would further point out that it is quite within the power of the Commissioners to make such arrangements in the terms of affiliation as would attach to a University those Chairs which are properly germane to the University.
  MR. J. B. BALFOUR: I do not press the Amendment after what the right hon. and learned Gentleman has stated.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  DR. FARQUHARSON: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman accept the next Amendment which is in my name?
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: Yes; I have no objection to it.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 16, page 14, line 7, after the word "equipped," insert the word "conjoint."
  Question, "That this word be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
  MR. J. B. BALFOUR: I now have to move my next Amendment—namely, to leave out of this clause from lines 8 to 10 the words from "having" to "trust" in order to insert these words:
  "And also to declare that a Chair located in Dundee shall be a Chair in the University of St. Andrew's."
  I am told it is probable that the munificence of persons belonging to the large and wealthy city of Dundee may desire to find expression by associating their names with the foundation of particular Chairs, without making them Chairs of the University College, Dundee. For instance, there may be some who would

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  wish to provide a Chair of Clinical Surgery, or practical Anatomy in connection with the Hospital at Dundee, associating his own name with it, and it would be desirable upon such a Chair being established, it should be within the competency of the Commissioners to declare it to be a Chair of the University of St. Andrew's, if this was desired by the parties interested.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 16, page 14, line 8, leave out from "having," to "trust" in line 10, inclusive, and insert—
  "And also to declare that a Chair located in Dundee shall be a Chair of the University of St. Andrew's."
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: Either it is in the power of the Commissioners to do what is proposed, or it is not, and if not, the matter is one that ought to be dealt with by a general enactment enabling the Commissioners to accept the foundation of a Chair on condition that it be locally situated in a different place from the University. I should rather deprecate the selection of Dundee.
  MR. J. B. BALFOUR: Under the circumstances I will not press the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  DR. FARQUHARSON: I have now to move an Amendment, which I think will be very useful in strengthening the principle of development at St. Andrew's.
  Amendment proposed, Clause 16, page 14, after Sub-section (1), insert the following sub-section:—
  "To found Chairs of Anatomy and Botany at St. Andrew's, so as to enable the University of St. Andrew's to give two anni medici, the period of residence required by the Scottish Universities for medical graduation."
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I hope the hon. Gentleman will not persist in this Amendment. If we were to accept it we should step into the province of the Commissioners, and be pointing out to them specific changes which we desire to make; whereas in all other cases we leave them entirely unfettered. I ought to point out that there is a general power which would completely justify the Commissioners in founding these Chairs.
  DR. FARQUHARSON: I will not press the Amendment after what has been stated by the right hon. and learned Gentleman.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  The following Amendments were agreed to: Clause 16, page 14, line 12, after the first "to," insert "and made to form part of clause 16, page 14, line 17, leave out after "affiliation" to end of clause, and insert—
  "And, in the event of such affiliation not taking place within such time after the passing of this Act as the Commissioners shall consider reasonable, they may regulate the time, place, and manner of such election as seems to them best"
  Clause 16, as amended, agreed to.
  Clause 17.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I propose to omit all reference to the Theological Board by leaving out all the words after "various" to "without the," and the clause would read—
  "That the Commissioners have power to call before them and examine the principals and professors of the Universities and such other witnesses as they think proper."
  Is it intended that the Commissioners shall hold inquiries into doctrinal matters such as the attitude of the Holy Ghost, or things of that kind. I move, in Clause 17, page 14, line 21, to leave out all after "various," to "without the," in line 22, inclusive.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Clause."
  MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I think it is very desirable that the Commissioners should deal with all the various interests, and I am not quite sure whether the hon. Gentleman might not have gone further. I have taken into consideration whether his object would not be better served by making the clause run thus—''The Commissioners shall have power to take such evidence as they think proper."
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I accept the Amendment.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  Amendment proposed, to insert one word, "That the Commissioners shall have power to take such evidence as

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  they think proper."—(The Lord Advocate.)
  Question, "That those words be there inserted," put, and agreed to.
  Question proposed, "That Clause 17, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: We have now reached an important point. My hon. Friend (Mr. Bryce) will raise an important debate on this clause, which he proposes to omit, and I hope we need not commence the debate so near the time of adjournment.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I agree with the view of the right hon. Gentleman. I think it is a reasonable one. No doubt the question to be discussed is a very important one, but I hope the discussion to-morrow will be brought to a close at an early hour. The Government are desirous of meeting hon. Gentlemen as far as they possibly can, and they have made this measure not a Party one in any sense whatever, but one for the improvement of the Universities. I hope the discussion will be over to-morrow at an early hour, and that we shall be able to report the Bill to the House without further delay.
  MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I think I fairly interpret the views of my hon. Friend when I say that the discussion will not take a very long time, so that the wishes of the right hon. Gentleman will probably be realized.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow.

  NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY BILL (No. 279.)
  The FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. PLUNKET,): I beg to move the Second Reading of this Bill, the object of which is to make available for the purpose of the National Gallery the piece of ground now lying vacant next to the National Gallery, and facing St. Martin's Church and the Charing Cross Road. By the National Gallery Extension Acts of 1865 and 1866, a piece of ground, of which the vacant piece forms a portion, was dedicated to the National Gallery or to such other purposes of general utility as might be approved by Parliament. Therefore the sanction of Parliament has to be obtained. Since
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  the Acts passed, the National Gallery has been extended, and in case further extension become necessary space will be found in the barrack yard lying behind. Therefore, the trustees of the National Gallery are perfectly satisfied that the vacant land should be occupied, and the trustees of the National Portrait Gallery think that the proposed site for their building leaves nothing to be desired. I beg to move the Second Reading of the Bill.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for to-morrow.

  COURT OF SESSION AND BILL CHAMBER (SCOTLAND) CLERKS' BILL. (No. 214.)
  Order for consideration, as amended, read.
  Question proposed, "That the Bill be now considered."
  Debate arising.
  Debate adjourned till Thursday.

  WINCHESTER BURGESSES (DISQUALIFICATION REMOVAL) BILL, (No. 223.)
  Bill read a second time, and committed for this day.
MOTION.

  VOLUNTEER FIRE BRIGADES (EXEMPTION FROM JURIES) BILL.
  On Motion of Viscount Curzon, Bill to exempt certain members of Volunteer Fire Brigades from service on Juries, ordered to be brought in by Viscount Curzon, Sir Edward Birkbeck, Mr. Dixon-Hartland, Mr. Sexton, Mr. Francis Maclean, Mr. Gully, Mr. Baird, and Sir Albert Rollit.
  Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 299.]

  REGISTRATION OF VOTERS (METROPOLIS) BILL. (No. 46.)
  Order for Second Reading upon Wednesday read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.
  House adjourned at ten minutes after Twelve o'clock.