HC Deb 02 July 1889 vol 337 cc1331-53

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a second time."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)

* MR. STOREY (Sunderland)

I beg to move that this Bill be read a second time this day three months. In making this Motion, I do not propose to go over the grounds which I touched on in making a speech upon the rejection of the Bann Drainage Bill; but there are certain special points and figures relating to the Barrow, and certain observations of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary thereupon, which I imagine it would be orderly and pertinent to refer to at the present moment. The House is no doubt aware, although we in Great Britain learn Irish geography slowly, that the Barrow is in the South of Ireland as the Bann is in the North. Upon the Barrow we have as yet spent no money for drainage purposes; but upon the Barrow for navigation purposes we have, up to the present time, spent £239,000, of which no less a sum than £119,000 was a free gift from the Public Exchequer. With what result we have spent the money upon the Barrow navigation I am not at present concerned, although I think it will not be difficult to show that the precise effects of the proposed expenditure on the Barrow drainage will largely be to destroy whatever results have been achieved by the former expense on navigation. The present proposal of the Government is to expend no less a sum than £360,000 upon the drainage of the Upper and Lower Barrow. The area of the district drained by the river is, the Commissioners tell us, 480,000 acres, of which 46,000 acres are at the present time flooded from period to period; and their purpose is that the expense of the £360,000 should prevent either wholly, or in part, this flooding, and so beneficially to improve the district. This is so stated, and this is a purpose not unworthy of any Government and not unworthy of the attention of Parliament. But referring to the engineering aspect of this question, several curious things strike the mind of an interested and unprejudiced onlooker like myself. I find that of the total sum of £360,000, it is proposed to spend £300,000 in draining the Upper Barrow, and £60,000 to remedy the consequent evils produced in the Upper Barrow, so that of the whole sum of £360,000 to be voted by Parliament, no less a portion than one-sixth is to be spent in remedying the very evils which the expense of the larger portion of the money produces. But is it certain that the expenditure of this money for this marvellous scheme will have the effect of producing evil results in the Lower Barrow? On that point I will read two extracts from the Reports of two Commissions who have dealt with the question; because it ought not to be uninteresting to the House, and especially to Members who concern themselves with Irish affairs, to remember that two independent Commissions have reported upon this river and upon its improvement and drainage. I think I am not stating the thing too broadly when I say that, in essential particulars, the recommendations of one Commission are diametrically opposed to the recommendations of the other. But the two Commissions agreed that the inevitable result of carrying out the works in the Upper Barrow will be to create contingent evils in the Lower Barrow. What is the proposal which the Government are supporting? It is a proposal to drain the Barrow by embankments. Now, the universal practice of all peoples who have dealt in this way with the improvement and drainage of rivers and of the districts around them, is that by the natural accretion of detritus carried down the river, the bed of the river is gradually raised, the embankments have again and again to be raised; and in the course of a very limited period—longer in some cases than in others, but still limited at the best—the river is carried at a level above the surrounding country, and the consequence in many countries has been serious and extensive flooding and great destruction of property. Under these circumstances, it is not astonishing that the two Royal Commissions to which I have referred united in believing that the engineer- ing results of this wonderful scheme will be to produce evils in the Lower Barrow, while mending evils for the time in the Upper. The Commission, presided over by Lord Castle-town, and which sat in 1885, reports as follows:— The general evidence went to show that some additional flooding of lands and property on the Lower Barrow might be anticipated from the increased volume of water sent down from the upper districts, consequent on the proposed works. But this injury, if found to occur, can be obviated by removing existing obstructions and providing additional waterway where necessary. It may, however, be requisite to take down and rebuild some of the public road bridges over the river, and in such cases a portion at least of the cost should he contributed by the adjoining counties Is it not apparent that it is to be anticipated that whilst you remedy some evils in the upper districts you are going to create new and additional evils in the lower districts? The second Commission—which I will call the Allport Commission, for Sir James Allport was, if not the President, the chief member of it—reported that, on the whole, they thought there would be some augmentation of the line of flood at Athy, and that some works of improvement would be necessary in the lower reaches of the river in excess of what are now required to avoid flooding. The Commissioners said "some works," and the modest sum they put down, all of which is to be contributed by a free gift by Parliament, is £60,000. We all know of rivers where a very trifling amount of embankment is sufficient to restrain the water from flooding a considerable amount of territory. There are two very curious and instructive quotations which I will make from the Report of the second Commission dealing with this particular point. At page 32 of the Commissioners' Report it is stated— Between Athy and Adamstown there are several tracts of land adjoining the river which are even now flooded, and we remarked that the owners or occupiers of these lands have not thought it worth their while to make such small banks as would be necessary to keep the floods off their lands. At page 31 of the same Report it is stated that light embankments have been formed on both sides for the next four miles, but their tops are below the average level, and they are not set back a sufficient distance. The provision, therefore, to drain the land of water is inadequate. What do I found upon these two quotations? I found this conclusion, which is borne out by the experience of gentlemen who know flood districts in other parts—that flooding in itself is not necessarily a bad thing for low lands. [Colonel NOLAN: Winter flooding.] Flooding in itself is not necessarily a bad thing for lands, and it may safely be left to the occupiers of land to judge for themselves whether it is worth while to expend the money necessary to keep out the water. What is the fact as recorded in the Commissioners' Report? It is that at the present time, without the intervention of Parliament or the expenditure of this large sum of money, it would be perfectly easy and competent for a considerable number of the occupiers of the land on the banks of the Barrow, by slight embankments, to restrain the floods and drain their lands, but they do not find it economical to do so. Now, the last time I spoke upon the drainage question I agreed that the Commissioners were men of engineering capacity and experience. A little more inquiry, however, induces me to modify the favourable opinion I then expressed. Sir J. Allport is, no doubt, a competent railway engineer; but his experience of drainage works is of a very limited kind. The criticism I make upon him I am bound to make upon the gentlemen who under him have done the practical work of surveying this river. The practical engineers, upon whose Report this scheme has been sanctioned by the Commission, and the Government, are gentlemen who have not had, either in Ireland or in any other part of the world, any considerable experience in drainage matters. I would like to add that in Ireland there are many competent engineers who have been associated with drainage works, and that in Ireland there is by no means an agreement in favour of the expediency and advantage of these particular works that one would have expected; on the contrary, a very considerable number of the practical Irish engineers who have been concerned in drainage have serious doubts as to the efficacy of these works. I have received a letter from a civil engineer of experience in Ireland, in which he says—I pass over the part where he expresses the belief that in opposing these Bills I am doing good to Ireland— If the Bills pass in their present shape they will destroy the navigation of the Rivers Barrow, Bann, and Shannon, and introduce a bad and dangerous system of drainage by embankment that will injure the agriculture of the whole districts. I trust and hope you will prevent them passing, and that anyhow the navigation of the Shannon and the Barrow will be preserved, as if it is destroyed it will do great injury to the chief traffic of the country. I read that letter not so much with reference to the traffic, with which I am not particularly concerned, as with reference to the opinion there expressed that the proposals as to the Barrow are such as are calculated to produce evil. Passing from that, I come to a portion of the inquiry that I should very much like the House to bestow some attention upon. I do not think works of this kind should be undertaken at all unless there is a prospect of their being reasonably remunerative—that is to say, unless there is a prospect of the results to the districts being such as to pay a reasonable and sufficient interest on the capital employed. If there were such a prospect I should say the works might be carried out; but if, on the other hand, it can be shown that they cannot give a remunerative return for the money invested, then, I say, they are not works which would be undertaken by private persons, and they ought not to be undertaken by the Government. On this question I would refer to a point raised by the hon. Member for Mid Lanark (Mr. Philipps), and emphasized by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Bridgeton Division of Glasgow, but left unanswered by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. The point was this: Will the Government tell us whether these works on the Barrow are going to be remunerative? If they are, the people who are going to benefit ought to pay for them, and if they are not they ought not to be undertaken. I have taken pains to extract figures bearing on this question from Government Returns, Blue Books, and other things of that sort; and I find that under the schemes of 1842 and 1847 the whole sum expended on drainage by the State was £1,827,000. The Govern- ment stated that the increased annual value of the land would be £74,500; therefore, it follows that, upon the whole of the drainage expenditure of 1842 and the following years, the Return in the shape of increased annual value was 4 per cent on the outlay. How was it in the works undertaken in 1863? On those works the total amount expended was £74,700, and the increased annual value is stated to be an amount equivalent to 5½ per cent. Now, I am not prepared to say that 4 per cent is a fair return; but I should say that 5½ is ample, and if the right hon. Gentleman opposite can show me that the works now proposed will yield anything like that return, I will admit that even though the money is mainly supplied by Great Britain it will be useful to Ireland. On the amount it is now proposed to spend on the Barrow 5½ per cent would yield £20,000 a year; but the Commission appointed by the Government state that they expect the return will be £9,800 per annum. On that I challenge the right hon. Gentleman to show that he will make anything like a return of 3 per cent for the money expended; and, under the circumstances, I submit that the right hon. Gentleman cannot justify the employment of this public money. Why should we pay the large sum demanded on a scheme which, on their own showing, will do damage whilst it does good, and which cannot be reasonably remunerative? I am told that I am tight about money; but a Member of Parliament has a right to be tight about other people's money. If this will do good to Ireland, and the money were my own, were it 20 times the amount—if I had it—I would gladly give it for this purpose, but the money is not my own. I am here as the trustee of other people's money. I cannot allow myself to be guided by my sympathies, and must do my duty, even at the risk of being called hardhearted. When we are dealing with public money we have to consider what commensurate return we shall receive. Well, but whenever we have been applied to to make grants to Ireland it has always been on the ground of the poverty of the district affected, and the hard conditions under which the people live. Will you, it was said, begrudge this help to these unfortunate people. Such is the tone of the appeals made to us from time to time by Irishmen and by the Government, filled with sympathy for the woes of Ireland, which they were willing to express by grants of our money. But is this a poor congested district, this of the Barrow? On the contrary, we had it stated by the Chief Secretary that the Bann and the Barrow were not in the poorest district of Ireland. Then, I say, if the claim is not supported on the ground of the poverty of the district, on what ground does he ask this large amount of money? Remembering, too, as we must, that this money is to be expended upon works of doubtful utility and producing an in-commensurate return. The right hon. Gentleman, replying to an observation that fell from my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, who asserted that these were landlords' Bills—a statement, I confess, in which I do not altogether join with him—the right hon. Gentleman, in reply, said—"These are nothing if they are not tenants' Bills." Well, I regret that I cannot accept that statement either. I cannot accept it at all in its fullness. Let us examine this point. I have not asserted that these are landlords' Bills, meaning that they are landlords' Bills, and nothing else; but if my hon. Friend rather exceeded the facts when he made his statement, so also I think the right hon. Gentleman erred as moderately on the other side, when he said these are tenant's Bills only. There are certain lands now flooded which are to be improved, and these lands are held jointly by landlords and tenants. The rent is the first charge, and if these lands are improved in annual value by the carrying out of these works, then the security for the rent is improved also. To that extent these are landlords' Bills. I go a step further. If the letting value is improved, and the security for rent improved, then the value of the property for raising mortgages is improved, and so to that extent these are landlords' Bills. Further than that, if the lands are improved in all these particulars, then the chances of the land selling at a higher rate are increased. So, to this extent these are landlords' Bills, and this we taxpayers may discover within a year or two. Look at Clause 17 of the Bill, which the right hon. Gentle- man described, when introducing the Bill, as securing the tenant against the increased value being put upon his rent. As soon as the annuity is paid, as soon as the 40 years are up, the increased value accrues to the landlord. It is not the time to deal with these matters, as they will be dealt with in Committee; but, speaking for myself, and I think for the Irish Members—[Colonel NOLAN: No]—well, for all but one, I say, if this clause is not amended there will be more conflict over it than the right hon. Gentleman will care to sustain. When my hon. Friend called these landlords' Bills I imagine he referred to these matters. It may seem paradoxical if, arguing that these Bills are in the landlord interest, I now proceed to say they are too much tenants' Bills. I take the Barrow figures for purposes of illustration, and I say I hold that if these special tenants are to be benefited, then they should pay a reasonable return for the advantages they receive. In the light of this expression of opinion, let us examine what the tenants pay and what they get. In the case of the Bann they pay 4½ per cent principal and interest for 40 years. Now, the estimate is that the increased value of the land will be 3 per cent—a miserably insufficient return—but say it is only 3 per cent, that is £2,000 per annum. Then what are the tenants to pay? £8,000. So, inasmuch as they have to pay £8,000 and get £2,000 a year, the tenants pay 4¼ per cent. and receive 25 per cent. As guardian, with the rest of the House, of the public purse, I say this is "giving too little and taking too much." There is fair ground, I think, for the district relieving the overburdened British taxpayer. And now how is it as regards the Barrow? The estimate is that the increased value of the lands will be £10,000 a year, and the tenants are to pay £125,000. So that they pay 4½ per cent to the State, while they will receive 8 per cent.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

Does the hon. Member include maintenance?

* MR. STOREY

I think I could show that maintenance does not affect the question much. Though there is not so much reason to complain in the case of the Barrow as in the case of the Bann, it is worth noting this: while Ulster gets 25 per cent and pays 4½ per cent, the stiff-necked South—National South—only gets 8 per cent in return for 4½ per cent. There is another curious point I should mention. The right hon. Gentleman has told us on several occasions that he has made a new departure in this Bill. He declares that, whereas aforetime it was the fashion to give to Ireland without consulting local opinion, he has adopted the policy of calling on the district to say aye or no to the scheme proposed. I dispute altogether that he is going to call on the district to do any such thing. Really, I never have seen a more cleverly contrived plan for preventing the wish of the district being determined. I suppose it is a plan conceived by the Commission. Taking the Barrow as an illustration, the Board of Conservators is to consist of three-fourths of the people who will derive benefit from the works, and it is against human nature to suppose they will not say aye to the expenditure. The right hon. Gentleman founds his Bill on the Report of his Commission, but he has ignored the recommendations of his own Commission in several important particulars. As regards the Barrow, I admit that on a former occasion my observations in this regard went farther than the Bill actually warrants; but as regards the Bann the right hon. Gentleman has ignored the recommendations of his Commission in several essential particulars, and both as to method and use of money. If we look to page 53 of the Commissioners' Report, we find that the Commissioners recommended that the Upper and Lower Bann should be treated as one, under one Conservancy Board to carry out the works. This he does not do in his Bill. The Board of Works is to carry out the works, though the Commission and the Conservancy Board has nothing to do with the works beyond saying aye or no to the proposal. Well, in a much more important particular does he ignore the Report of his Commission. The proposal of the Government in money matters is this— £360,000 being needed, the Government recommend that £125,000 should, be given on loans; that £30,000 should be raised on the rates of the area by the cess, and that no less a sum of £215,000 should be a free gift from the State. Well, have hon. Members been curious enough to look at what the Commission recommended, because I find the Commission recommended this—that there should be a grant not of £215,000, but of £75,000. I invite the right hon. Gentleman to explain that to us. He appointed a Commission by itself, and by its subordinates considered every point and detail of that scheme. The Commission considered the money propositions of the scheme, and made the deliberate suggestion to the Government that £75,000 should be raised on the rates, that £210,000 should be provided by the land occupiers, who were to be benefited, and that £75,000 only should be granted by the State. Yet the right hon. Gentleman comes down to the House of Commons without giving in his speech one single reason for the charge.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

When I introduced the Bills I took the liberty of referring to my speech of last year, which did deal with this matter.

* MR. STOREY

I was not in the House, being engaged elsewhere, and I admit I have not referred to the right hon. Gentleman's speech. But the Commission recommended a grant of £75,000 only, whereas the Government recommend a grant from the State of £215,000, being three times nearly the amount of the Commission's proposal. Now, I think I have carried the thing so far that I have only one other point to which to direct attention. The right hon. Gentleman the other night, in referring to some observations that were made on this side of the House, questioned the propriety of the charge made on various occasions that the object of Government is not the bonâ fide of carrying out remunerative and advantageous work, but is rather the political object of making things as pleasant as they can in certain districts. I took the liberty of saying on that occasion that the noble Lord the Member for Paddington had been the projector of this new policy—a policy which has been variously described, but which I may venture to describe as the same policy that the inimitable Mr. Wackford Squeers carried out in his school in Yorkshire. When his pupils developed an inordinate appetite for good sound food he gave them a combined dish of brimstone and treacle to diminish their appetites. Now the Irish people have exhibited, and I think will continue to exhibit, a very keen appetite for the sound food of self-Government, and in order to take away their appetite the right hon. Gentleman treats them first to the brimstone of coercion and then to the treacle of Bann and Barrow Drainage Bills. But when I pressed this point upon the right hon. Gentleman and showed him how this policy had a beginning and was now having its issue, he said I ought to remember that the noble Lord who gave utterance to that remarkable exposition of policy had not modified his opinion, and that in any case he is "not one of us," meaning one of the Government. I admit that the noble Lord is not now one of the Government. To parody Walter Scott:— Old times are changed, old manners gone; His friend now fills his Lordship's throne. I admit that the noble Lord is not now a Member of the Government, and I admit that he did modify one portion of his statement. We remember, as the right hon. Gentleman reminds us, that that remarkable statement of the noble Lord when he came down to the House and announced on behalf of the Government that their policy was a policy of simultaneity in dealing with English and Irish local self-Government and on economical management of our own affairs was modified, but we remember, too, that the noble Lord never modified and never has modified his views to this day that the way to win Ireland is to buy Ireland. We, on the contrary, hold that the way to win Ireland is to do justice to Ireland. But the noble Lord has never modified his opinion on that point, and if he has on the other we remember that when he came down and announced that policy, which I assure the right hon. Gentleman had many adherents among men who are called Radicals on this side of the House—we remember, too, that so soon as the noble Lord laid down the political purple and retired into that seclusion from which, in my opinion, he too seldom emerges, that Government repudiated the policy he suggested and cast his ideas of Ministerial economy to the winds. My answer now to the right hon. Gentleman, when he says we impute to him an unworthy policy, is this—that I for one should only be too glad if he and those who sit on the Government Benches would advance a new and a better policy. Let them believe, if they can screw their courage to the sticking place, and treat Irishmen as a nation ought to be treated—that it would be on these Benches they would find a number of their staunchest supporters. But as long as he and his Government come to the House and, first, treat the Irish to doses of coercion, and then propose measures which they call ameliorative, but which, I think, I have demonstrated to be corrupt and unremunerative, I, for one, must persist in my opposition to the Bill. I, therefore, beg to move my Amendment.

Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months"—(Mr. Storey.)

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

MR. MOLLOY

I beg to second the Amendment. On the last occasion when these Bills were under discussion, I stated that they were brought forward with the object not of benefiting Ireland but of improving the political situation of the Government. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary said this accusation had no foundation, that it ought not to have been made, and that he was glad to notice it had been made only by one Member on this side. Well, Sir, within a few days afterwards the Chief Secretary addressed a large meeting at Birmingham or Manchester, or some other large centre, and in the most energetic part of his speech, after saying that the accusation made by this side against the Government was that their policy was only one of coercion, and denying that there was anything political in the measures before the House, he in a boasting spirit stated that their policy was not only one of coercion but one of conciliation, and he then introduced the whole subject of his Bann and his Barrow drainage. Now, Sir, I object to these Bills on many grounds. I will not repeat the arguments which have been used by my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey), but I may point out that the Commission was appointed without any reference to the representatives of the Irish people in this House. Former Commissions had advised that whenever schemes of this character were to be introduced the initiative should come from the population of the districts themselves. If this recommendation was not to be carried out, one would have considered that in a matter of such great importance as this, where a heavy tax was to be laid on the people of Ireland, the first thing to do would have been to consult the representatives of Ireland. No communication of any character has taken place between any Member representing Ireland and the Government. I have no hesitation in stating that my policy is, and always will be, in this House, where such treatment is meted out to the representatives of Ireland, to offer every opposition in my power to every scheme brought forward by this or any other Government. Who are the gentlemen who have taken this matter in hand under the nomination of the Government? One is Mr. Jonathan Buin, a draper in Dublin, a man of the most honourable character, but with not a fraction of experience or knowledge of anything connected with drainage. As a commercial man he stands in the first circle in Dublin, but he has not a single qualification which would render him fit to undertake such a work as this. Then we have Sir James All-port, who is no doubt a most experienced railway manager and contractor, but who as a drainage engineer has never had any experience whatever; so I might say, though perhaps in a lesser degree, of the other two Commissioners. Now, how are these schemes to be carried out? We were led to believe by the opening remarks of the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary for Ireland that the practical management of these schemes was to be carried out by those interested in them in Ireland. But although the Conservancy Board is to be retained, the whole of the schemes and everything connected with them are to be carried out by the four Commissioners, and then when the matter is concluded the Commissioners are to retire upon their laurels, and the Conservancy Board is to take the matter in hand. More than that, under the Barrow drainage scheme, all the old Boards which now have the management of such poor and miserable failures in drainage as exist there, are to be done away with, and the Conservancy Board is to take the place of those who alone are guilty of all the errors, and will have to pay all the debts contracted by the former Drainage Boards in Ireland. As to the point of my hon. Friend about this being a landlords' Bill, not only will the whole of the money be imposed on the tenants in Ireland supposed to be benefited by the schemes, but the whole maintenance of them will have to be borne by the tenants. Financially these schemes are wrong. Financially it is a bad bargain for the tenants, and a had scheme for the State. As we have not been allowed to say a single word until this Bill has been thrown at our heads, I decline to accept these measures of the Government, and will offer them every opposition in my power.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

The force of the observations of the hon. Gentleman who has just sat down, is somewhat diminished in my eyes by the fact that he plainly announced to us that whether the Bills were good or bad, the fact that he had not been consulted in regard to them was a most sufficient reason for offering them his most relentless opposition. Although the hon. Gentleman professed to rest his objections to the Bill on the arguments of the hon. Member for Sunderland, he was, in one of his chief objections, in direct contradiction with his hon. Friend. Whereas the hon. Member for Sunderland objected to the Bill as being too favourable to the tenants, one of the chief objections of the hon. Member was that the Bills would be disastrous to the tenants. I think that the Mover and Seconder of the Amendment should settle their little differences before they address the House. I agree with the hon. Member for Sunderland on one point. Attention has been called to the wording of the 17th Clause, from which it appears that at the end of 40 years, when the annuity ceases to be payable, the improvements lapse to the landlord. That was not our intention in framing the Bill, and if it should turn out that the Bill bears that interpretation, as I acknowledge it seems to do, I shall certainly move an Amendment in Committee. Our intention is that this should be a tenants' Bill alone, and if, after the tenants have paid up the annuity, the improvements which they have just paid for are to go to the landlords, the intentions of the framers will not be carried out. The hon. Gentleman also declared that the Bill was a landlords' rather than a tenants' Bill. I cannot agree with the hon. Member on that point. The hon. Member asked how the Government could assert that these were tenants' Bills when according to our own showing it is our object to improve the position of the tenant, to give him a better holding, and enable him more easily to pay his rent, and therefore improve the position of the landlord. This is surely hypercriticism. If that argument is to be admitted, it is impossible to pass any measure for Ireland which should not be a landlords' Bill. Such criticism would strike at the root of every Bill, passed by any Parliament, Irish or English, which had for its object the benefit of the great mass of the tenant population of Ireland. The hon. Gentleman also criticized the alterations the Government made in the original proposals. I do not deny that there have been some alterations; but the Government have felt themselves at liberty to depart from the suggestions which have been made. The Commission has been cognizant of every altera- tion made in the Bill; and, speaking generally, they approve the course taken, and have been public-spirited enough to say that they will continue their services so long as they may be necessary for the advantage of the public service. The two points on which we have departed from the recommendations of the Commission to which attention has been called are the degree of control given to the county and the financial arrangements embodied in the measure. Under the proposals of the Commission the plans are not the plans of the locality but of the Government engineer; but the difference is one rather of form than of substance. When the Government are called upon to lend all the money we have lent, when we have given also a great deal of money, we may well insist upon having a considerable measure of control in carrying out the works thus made largely at our expense. The hon. Gentleman then pointed out that in the case of the Barrow especially, we had called upon the public to give a very much larger contribution towards the necessary expenses than the Commission recommended. I will explain that in two or three sentences to the right hon. Gentleman. The Commission, I think, did not pay sufficient attention to maintenance. They practically excluded it from their purview; and we had to take into account the very heavy expenditure imposed upon the locality, and to reconsider the financial proposals of the Commission. We thought that great caution ought to be shown in charging the non-benefited area. If the proposal of the Commissioners had been carried out the charge upon the non-benefited area would have been very much larger than it is in our proposal. We determined to limit the charge on the non-benefited area to the sum of one penny in the £including maintenance. We, therefore, find ourselves in the position of having to charge the non-benefited area less than the Commissioners proposed, and the benefited area more, because we put upon it the cost of maintenance. The Commissioners proposed, roughly speaking, to charge the benefited area up to the value of the improvement. If, therefore, we had put upon the benefited area all that we took off the non-benefited area, and also put upon it the additional charge for maintenance, we really should not have given any benefit to the particular class we desire especially to benefit. Therefore, we were compelled to ask the Treasury for a larger sum than was originally proposed by the Chancellor. I hope that explanation is tolerably clear, of the reasons which led the Government to modify the original proposal. I do care to go into the controversial questions raised by the hon. Gentleman. He really gave the House to understand that we were treating "loyal Ulster" much more favourably than we ventured to treat the "stiff-necked" South. Well, in the case of the Bann we gave £20,000, while the grant to the Barrow is not less than £215,000, so that he should not charge us with any unfairness in the financial arrangements he has asked us to accept. He has told us that to make improvements in the upper part of the Barrow at the public expense would necessitate a further public expenditure on the lower part of the Barrow, in order to do away with the flood which the works in the upper part would effect in the lower part of the channel. It is true that whenever you carry off the flood water from the upper part of any river more rapidly than it has hitherto been carried off, you will strain the power of the lower channel to dispose of the flood water. That is not peculiar to Barrow; it is true of every river. No doubt, therefore, it is a very dangerous course to improve the upper part of the river without dealing at the same time with the lower part. And that is the sole reason why we are prepared to carry out the works over the whole extent of the Barrow. We make our plan a general one, and we hope thereby to make the benefit also general. The hon. Gentleman has criticized the plan of dealing with floods by embankments rather than by deepening the bed of the river basin—a mode of criticism which has been used by several independent engineers. I would point out in the first place that the embankment is only part of the scheme, and, as a matter of fact, the deepening of the river is essentially a part of the scheme prepared by the Government engineers. The hon. Gentleman's criticism, so far as I am able to form an opinion, is based upon the embankment. He says that at the bed of the river we will require to raise the banks on either side, until at last we shall arrive at a condition of things in which the surrounding fields will be lower than the bed of the river. A river with a rapid flow like the Barrow——

* MR. STOREY

It has not a rapid flow.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

It has quite sufficient for the purpose of this improvement. And one advantage of embankments is that if the river is low you confine it to a narrower channel, and give it a greater dredging power than if it were left to meander in a wide channel. Therefore, to widen and deepen the channel, though it may have some advantages, has the accompanying disadvantage, that it diminishes the scouring power of the river when the river is either at or below its normal level. That is the belief of the eminent engineer who has had the preparation of these plans. Then the hon. Gentleman told us that the tenants liked the floods, that the floods did good to the land.

* MR. STOREY

What I said was that it should be left to the tenants to decide whether the floods did good, or whether it was was worth while to prevent them.

MR. A. J. BALFOUR

I concur that if the tenants are really of opinion that the floods do no harm, all they have to do is to reject this Bill by exercise of the power which it gives them, and to reject the benefit which the Government proposes to confer upon them. There is one other criticism, and I think it is the most serious the hon. Gentleman has made. He asked whether any reasonable return was to be expected for the large outlay we are asking the House to sanction. I frankly admit that the return in the shape of an improvement of the land is not such as to give a large interest on the outlay. If it were, national intervention in this matter would not be called for. It is just because the benefit to the Barrow is not of a magnitude which will give a large commercial profit that I think it really proper for the Government to intervene. But nobody, I think, can judge fairly of whether the intervention is proper or not if they confine their attention to the flooded land alone. We think that any consideration of the flooded land alone will justify this outlay, but we entirely deny that the benefits are confined to the special area. If the hon. Gentleman has read, as I have not the least doubt he has read, with attention, the Report of the Commissioners, he will see that they attach very great importance to climatic improvement, and to the general improvement of the country. You must, in dealing with these great undertakings, consider something more than the mere commercial return; and in laying down that principle, do not let the hon. Gentleman suppose we are departing from the traditions of our predecessors. The right hon. Gentleman (Sir G. Trevelyan), whom the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Storey) quoted with approval to-night, himself' committed the Government, of which he was a Member, to a proposal of a similar kind. We do not profess to have started upon a new policy. What we do profess to have done, is to have laid before the country a large scheme, dealing with a large part of Ireland, thought out in considerable detail. We do believe that, if the House consent to the large expenditure which we undoubtedly ask the taxpayer of this country to incur, you will be conferring an enormous boon upon our Irish fellow countrymen; and, whether or not it evokes their gratitude to a political Party or political system, will, at all events, result in the permanent improvement of a country which, I am sure, we all desire sincerely to benefit.

* SIR G. TREVELYAN (Bridgeton, Glasgow)

I am quite certain, Sir, that any one who has listened to the right hon. Gentleman to-night, or who heard his speech on the previous occasion, will give him credit for the absolute sin- cerity of the last words which ho has used. No one can doubt that in the proposals of which this forms a part, the object is to benefit Ireland. I am glad to think that he has cleared out of our way the only question which aroused, and justly aroused, suspicion. The argument on the 17th clause of the hon. Member for King's County—namely, that the cost of maintenance would be on the tenants, while the profits under the clause would go to the landlords, certainly appeared to be unanswerable I am very glad that the right hon. Gentleman has relieved our minds on that point. I do not intend to argue this question as a landlords' or a tenants' Bill; I am going to argue it entirely as a taxpayers' Bill. The right hon. Gentleman quoted the precedent of a previous Government, to which I was Irish Secretary. It is quite true I was of opinion, in company with all my colleagues, that Ireland should be exceptionally dealt with. But we looked very carefully to the methods by which the assistance of the Treasury was given to Ireland, and we tried to see that that benefit should be given in a shape which would benefit Ireland in proportion as it called for sacrifices on the part of the general Treasury. I think the right hon. Gentleman can only point to two classes of concessions. First of all, these light railways, which he has supplemented and extended; and secondly, the grant of a large sum of money (though if I recollect aright, it did not come out of the Treasury, but out of the Irish Church surplus) to the tenant on account of arrears, but we never gave anything so far as I can remember to drainage.

MR. BALFOUR

You proposed it.

* SIR G. TREVELYAN

We proposed it? I do not remember it, though I am willing to stand corrected if I am in the wrong. But what I say is, that if he did so it was only under a most strange hallucination as to what was to promote the interests of the two countries. I am willing that every word I now say shall be used against my action in this matter at any future time, and what I do say is, that we are now asked to give £215,000 of the public money on the recommendation of a Commission which, I have no doubt, is endeavouring to do its duty, but which, on the showing of the right hon. Gentleman, has made a most grievous slip in their calculations, for he has clearly shown that when the Royal Commission only recommended that £75,000 should be given for the Barrow scheme it was found necessary by the Government to give £215,000. The main cause of this tremendous difference was that the Commissioners left out of sight the fact that £3,300 a year would have to be spent in maintenance, over and above the expenditure to be made when the advance is given. In the next place we find that £360,000 is to be spent in draining the Barrow, while it is only claimed that the improvement to the land will be £9,000 a year. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the improvement of the climate of Ireland that will rise from the drainage of 46,000 acres, and he was cheered by the hon. and gallant Gentleman (Colonel Nolan), who is seated near the Ser-jeant-at-Arms; but I am afraid that even my hon. Friend with his magnificent views of what is due to Ireland would, I think, shrink from the sacrifices he would have to demand of the Treasury before he could improve the climate of Ireland by the drainage of blocks of 46,000 acres at a cost of £360,000 per block. I would ask the right hon. Gentleman opposite, he being a country gentleman, what would he think of a man of his own class who proposed to spend £36,000 in drainage, with a possible increase to his rental of £900 a year? If that would be madness on the part of a private gentleman, why is it not madness on the part of a Government? Now, the Commissioners say in their Report that one or two witnesses feared that in the present state of agriculture no expenditure on the land could be expected to be profitable. There is no one at all cognizant of land who does not know that the agents advise landlords with money that this is not the time to spend it in drainage; and this being so, I say, what madness it is for the Government to propose on a great scale to do that which no sane man would do on his own account. The next point I desire to refer to is the fact that the district is not poor. It is no poorer than ordinary districts in rural England and in many parts of Scotland, and yet the Government propose to spend £215,000 in addition to a loan which will he a loss if the scheme is not a success, because if it is not a success we shall not be able to get even the interest from the people—we should not have the heart to exact it. And yet you are going to spend this large amount of public money on 46,000 acres of land in a prosperous part of Ireland. The Commissioners recommend in their Report that there should be 30 Conservancy Districts in Ireland, including the tributaries of the Shannon, so that there are to be 28 other districts, every one of which has a right to be treated in the same way as the Barrow and the Bann district, while some of them, being poorer districts, have much more right. I do not know that I have anything more to say on this subject. All my objections to this Bill are contained in what I have already placed before the House. I would, however, remind the House that we are in the habit of spending 30, 40, or 50 nights every Session in revising and trying to cut down the Estimates, and that the result is that in the course of the last 10 years we have only cut down about £50,000, whereas we are now asked at one stroke, and after a brief debate, to throw away £215,000, and to lend £150,000 more, in order that a possible advantage of 2½ per cent may be obtained. I would very much prefer to give a certain sum down to the Irish tenants; but I feel that in passing this Bill the House would be doing that for which no defence has been offered by the Government, and the only recommendation of which is the evident goodwill that has prompted it.

MR. PHILIPPS (Lanark, Mid)

The right hon. Gentleman opposite has said that the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) complained that the Bill was too favourable to the tenants, while the hon. Gentleman the hon. Member for King's County (Mr. Molloy) complained that it was unfavourable, but I do not see any discrepancy here, or that the two arguments clashed in any way, because the hon. Member for Sunderland's contention was that the Bill was unduly favourable to the tenants in contrast with the taxpayers, on whom it was unduly unfair. We have to-night obtained an important admission from the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. In the debate on the Bann Drainage Bill the Chief Secretary repudiated the allegation that it was possible for the landowners to get anything under these Bills; and said they could benefit no one but the tenant. To-night, however, he says that while the tenants will benefit, the landlords will benefit with them, as it is impossible to benefit the tenant without also benefitting the landlords. The right hon. Gentleman was careful not to answer one question—namely, whether the proposed expenditure will be remunerative or not. He merely said it was not supposed that the expenditure would pay a very large commercial profit. But a large commercial profit might be 20 per cent, and none of us can imagine that any such return as that is in contemplation. I will, however, put it to the right hon. Gentleman again—is the expenditure to be remunerative? I hope the right hon. Gentleman will give me an answer, even if it only be a nod or shake of the head. Is every £100 that will be spent in the Barrow drainage expected to increase the value of the land to the same extent? The right hon. Gentleman is silent, and I suppose we are to understand that the expenditure is not to be remunerative. [Several hon. MEMBERS: "Divide, Divide."] We have only been debating this proposal, involving a gift of £215,000 and a loan of £145,000, for an hour and a quarter, and hon. Members call out "divide."

It being midnight, the debate stood adjourned.

Debate to be resumed upon Thursday.