Commons Sitting of 9 April 1891

QUESTIONS.

  MILITARY EXPEDITIONS IN NORTH WEST INDIA.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India, or the Minister who is at present representing the India Office, whether the large military expeditions to the Maranzai country, the Black Mountains, and other places on the North-West Frontier of India, in which Her Majesty's troops are now engaged and in which they have already suffered appreciable losses, are in pursuance of a policy of advance sanctioned by Her Majesty's Government in this country, or are undertaken by the Commander-in-Chief in India, with the permission of the Government of India, on his own responsibility?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS(Sir J. FER-GUSSON,: In the absence of my right hon. Friend the Under Secretary for India, I have to say that the expeditions referred to in the question are not in pursuance of a policy of advance, nor has any such policy been sanctioned by Her Majesty's Government. They are punitive and pacificatory expeditions undertaken not by the Commander-in-Chief in India on his own responsibility, but by the Government of India, subject to the sanction of the Secretary of State.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: But is it not a matter of fact that in the last two or three years there has been a great advance?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I cannot at this moment go into the general policy of the expeditions which have taken place on the North-West Frontier of India. I have answered the specific question put by the hon. Member.

  CONSUMPTION OF OPIUM IN INDIA AND BURMA.
  MR. S. SMITH: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for
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  India whether he can state what was the total consumption of opium in India in 1880, and also in Burma in the same year; and what are the figures for the latest year for which statistics have been obtained for India and for Burma?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: The consumption of opium in Madras and Bombay for 1880 cannot be given. In 1889-90 it was 1,594 chests. Excluding Madras and Bombay, but including Lower Burma, the total consumption in British India was for 1880-81 5,606 chests, and for 1889-90 4,800. In Lower Burma the consumption was for 1880-81 812 chests, and for 1889-90 784 chests. The consumption in Upper Burma is not known.
  MR. MAC NEILL: When did the consumption of opium in Upper Burma begin? How was it not forbidden by the late Government, and encouraged by the present?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I must ask for notice of that question. I believe that the consumption of opium in Upper Burma dates from a period long antecedent to our annexation.
  MR. MAC NEILL: Cannot the right hon. Gentleman say of his own knowledge that Lord Dufferin and Lord Dufferin's Council protested solemnly against it; and that, despite that protest, Lord Cross allowed licences to be issued?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: That question does not in the least arise out of the question on the Paper.
  MR. MAC NEILL (ironically): Hear, hear.

  THE DISASTER AT MANIPUR.
  SIR R. TEMPLE: I desire to put a question to the Under Secretary of State for India or the Minister representing the India Office in the absence of the Under Secretary—a question of which I have given private notice, namely, whether it is true that news has been received from Manipur that Mr. Quinton, the Commissioner at Assam, and the British officers with him, have been killed?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: A long telegram was received to-day and was sent to the evening papers for publication. A later one from the General Officer commanding in Burma is as follows:—

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  "General Officer commanding in Burma telegraphs to-day that a messenger has arrival, at Tammu reporting Grant all well at Thohed Burma. Government also report that British troops have occupied Ladantonthana from Cachar side. This is only 18 miles from Manipur. Regular troops said to be deserting Regent. Death of Quinton and those with him confirmed by letter from Head Clerk, Manipur. Agency detained by Durbar in Manipur."

  LINLITHGOW PALACE.
  MR. SINCLAIR: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether any proposals have been placed before him with a view of converting the Palace of Linlithgow into a museum for Scottish antiquities; and, if so, will due care be taken to preserve the distinctive character of one of the most interesting historic buildings now existing in Scotland?
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. PLUNKET,: I have this morning received a Memorial from the Provost, Magistrates, and Council of the Burgh of Linlithgow, suggesting that the old dismantled palace at that place should be roofed in, and that it should be made available as a Public Library and Reading Room, and that this House should vote the money necessary for those purposes. I shall confer with the Secretary for Scotland on the subject. But at the first blush it strikes one that it is one thing to take steps—if any should appear to be necessary—in order to preserve from complete destruction the interesting ruins of an old Royal Palace, but it is quite another thing to provide a Public Library and Reading Room in the town at the expense of the Exchequer.

  THE NEW SILVER COINS.
  MR. CAUSTON: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer when the new silver coins with their values denoted on them will be issued?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,: A Committee is now at work considering the whole subject of the designs of coins, consisting of the right hon. Member for London University, Sir Frederick Leighton (President of the Royal Academy), the Deputy Master of the Mint, the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, Mr.
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  John Evans (President of the Numis-matical Society), and Mr. R. B. Wade (representing the Joint Stock Bankers.)

  PORT DARWIN.
  MR. WATT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies whether any negotiations have taken place between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of South Australia with reference to Port Darwin being made a fortified station; and, if not, whether he can state if there is any prospect of this step being taken, as recommended by so many eminent authorities?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOB THE COLONIES (Baron H. de WORMS,: The question of the defence of Port Darwin has received full consideration, and it is not the opinion of the South Australian and Imperial Authorities that any fortifications should at the present time be constructed there.

  FEES FOR PATENTS.
  MR. MORTON: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether it is correct that a patentee in this country has to pay a sum of £154 for 14 years' protection, whereas in the United States of America the cost is only £7 for 17 years' protection; and, if correct, will the Government, having regard to the keen competition between this country and the United States, take steps to put British inventors in a more favourable position?
  MR. WATT: I beg also to ask the right hon. Gentleman whether, having regard to the great disadvantage at which inventors are placed by the heavy fees payable on patents in Great Britain, as compared with America, Germany, France, and all other countries, the Government will re-consider the desirability of the foregoing fees payable-on patents for the fifth and sixth years?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD or TRADE(Sir M- HICKS BEACH,: The sums stated are accurate as regards the whole period of protection, but the position is not quite fairly represented, because protection is given for periods less than 14 years for sums less than the amount set out. Protection

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  for four years, for instance, is given in an ordinary case for £4, whereas the payments required to be made within the same period in the United States amount to £6 or £7. The whole scale of fees was carefully considered in 1883 when the Act was passed, and it was held that there are reasons, from the point of view both of the public and of inventors, against encouraging a lengthened protection of patents which are not likely to be worked. It did not appear desirable that a patentee who cannot make his patent available for public use should occupy the ground for a long time, to the exclusion of others.

  SCOTCH MAILS.
  MR. LENG: I beg to ask the Postmaster General at what date it is probable that full advantage will be taken of the opening of the Forth and Tay Bridges to shorten the time occupied in forwarding and delivering letters between the large mercantile and manufacturing towns and districts in the North-East of England and the North-East of Scotland?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES,: I am happy to say that use is already made of both the bridges referred to, with the result of some substantial acceleration in the service, but I am not aware in what respect further use can be more advantageously made of them for the conveyance of mails. If the hon. Member will favour me with any specific proposal on the subject I will with pleasure give it early and careful consideration.

  BANK HOLIDAYS IN SCOTLAND.
  MR. LENG: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether he is aware that Post Office and Telegraph servants in Scotland have not yet enjoyed the Bank Holidays extended to them as in England; and whether it can be arranged to give them the Bank Holiday on Whit Monday and the subsequent Bank Holidays this year?
  MR. RAIKES: The holiday already past this year, namely, Easter Monday, is not a Bank Holiday in Scotland, neither is Whit Monday; but the Post Office servants in Scotland have a holiday on New Year's Day, which is not the
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  case in England, and it is arranged that they shall be given holidays on Fast days, or other days generally observed as holidays in Scotland, in lieu of Whit Monday and the remaining Bank Holidays which are observed in England.

  GAMING IN PUBLIC HOUSES.
  MR. BYRON REED: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the case of two publicans, called John William Rock and James Stone, who were convicted and fined at the Chesham (Bucks) Petty Sessions, on Wednesday, 4th March, for permitting gaming; whether he is aware that the principal evidence against them was given by a police constable called Gascoyne, who visited the house in disguise, and made no attempt to caution the landlords or to prevent the law being broken; whether the defendants had been previously convicted; whether he is aware that Superintendent Sar-geant, one of the witnesses, said that, the Chief Constable of the County, Captain Drake, had instructed the police to. act as they did; and whether such action is sanctioned by the Home-Department; and, if not, whether the-Department will take any steps to prevent a recurrence of it?

  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE.
  HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,: I have received a Report from the Chief Constable, who informs me that, in consequence of" rumours that gaming was being carried on in several of the public houses in. Buckinghamshire, he directed a constable in plain clothes to be detailed for the purpose of keeping a watch on, certain premises, in consequence of' which three publicans were summoned and convicted. The two named in the. question—namely, John William Rock and James Stone — had not been previously convicted. The principal witness was the constable who had been detailed as stated. He was not in disguise, but in plain clothes. I believe it is by no means unusual that officers detailed for such duty should be in plain clothes. In the Metropolis a preliminary warning would, as a rule, be given, but not necessarily, where it was known that the law was being wilfully broken, In Bucks this appears not to be the prac-

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  tice. These are matters for the discretion of the Chief Constable, and it is not for me to interfere.

  IMMIGRATION OF FOREIGNERS.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if the attention of Her Majesty's Government has been directed to the recent tables relating to the immigration of foreigners into the United Kingdom, and particularly to the fact that, although nearly 1,000,000 persons were maintained under the Poor Law in Great Britain and Ireland in 1890, 29,885 aliens arrived from the Continent at 21 British ports between May and December, and at two others in the whole year, not intending to proceed to America, while the foreign immigration into London was 4,400 higher in 1890 than in 1889, and into Hull 1,320 higher; and if, having regard to the admitted increase of the immigration of Polish Jews, many of whom were in a state of destitution, and to the confirmatory reports of the Chief Officers of Police in the Metropolis, Manchester, and Leeds, he will consider the desirability, as contemplated by the Select Committee of 1889, of legislating against the importation of pauper and destitute aliens?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: The tables referred to by my hon. Friend show that 29,885 aliens, not stated to be en route to America, arrived from the Continent at 21 British ports between May and December last, and at two others in the whole year, but the tables do not show that these immigrants intended to remain here; in fact, as stated in the Report prefixed to the tables, it is probable that a large number of the 29,885 immigrants left the United Kingdom in the course of the year. The Committee of 1889 reported that they saw great difficulties in the way of enforcing laws similar to those of the United States and certain other countries against the importation of pauper and destitute aliens, and were not prepared to recommend such legislation at present. There has been no important change in the circumstances since the Committee reported, but the current of immigration will continue to be carefully observed.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: May I ask whether the immigration into London in 1890 was not greater than it was
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  in 1889, and whether the Chief Commissioner of Police does not consider it as a serious matter?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: There has been an increase, but,it has by no means been large.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to give notice that I shall take a further opportunity of calling attention to this question.

  METROPOLITAN POLICE PENSIONERS.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he will consider the possibility of dispensing with the second certificate Metropolitan Police pensioners residing beyond the district are required to transmit as to their identity, and of accepting the single certificate of either a Magistrate, the minister of the parish, or a Superintendent or Inspector of Police, having regard to the infirm condition of many pensioners, and the difficulty not a few have in finding a signatory who knows them personally other than a Superintendent or Inspector of Police; and if the pensions of out-residents could be paid through the Post Office, as in the case of Army pensions, instead of through a bank, which may be far from their houses?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I have already sanctioned regulations which I shall be happy to show to my hon. Friend, which will, I hope, be effective in introducing the alterations which are suggested in the question, and removing the inconveniences of the old system.

  SMITHERY AT SHEERNESS.
  MR. H. T. KNATCHBULL-HUGES-SEN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether there has been a deficit or a surplus in the wages earned in the smithery at Sheer-ness on the prices fixed by the Service during the time the check system has been in operation; and whether he will grant a Return of the wages earned week by week in the smithery at Sheer-ness during that period?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Lord G. HAMILTON,: From the 1st April, 1890 (12 months) three men have been checked a total sum of 19s. 3d., two men at one fire 16s. 9d., and the man at another fire

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  2s. 6d. Both these fire parties had been short of their wages three weeks running. The two men alluded to were deficient in the three weeks 39s. 1d. the other fire with the one man in the three weeks 20s. 9d. The first two men were on check measurement daring the year 23 weeks, and they were short on the whole time 25s. The remainder of the year they were on task and job, when they earned their money easily, using the same scheme of prices, observing that during the year the entire shop have been short of their day pay on three separate weeks. No men have received more than their day pay whilst employed on check measurement.
  MR. H. T. KNATCHBULL-HUGES-SEN: The noble Lord has not answered the first part of the question—whether there has been a deficit or a surplus?
  LORD G. HAMILTON: I do not quite understand the question. There is no specific sum allotted to any trade, but on wages there is a certain scheduled list of prices upon which men work.
  MR. H. TV KNATCHBULL-HUGES-SEN: I will call attention to the subject on the Votes.

  HER MAJESTY'S COMMISSIONERS IN AFRICA.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Commissioners just appointed for West Africa, East Africa, and Northern Zambesia are to be Royal Commissioners, independent of the Niger, East Africa, and African Lakes Companies, and exercising some jurisdiction and supervision on behalf of Her Majesty, as distinguished from the jurisdiction vested in the companies?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: They are Commissioners appointed by the Crown; they are independent officers who will receive instructions from, and report to the Secretary of State. The Commissioners on the West Coast will have a district distinct from that administered by the Niger Company. As regards those on the East Coast, their position is fairly described in the question. Care will be taken that their jurisdiction will not conflict with that of the Chartered Companies. As regards the districts north of the Zambesi, administrative and judicial jurisdiction is for the present vested in the Commissioner.

  SEIZURE OF THE " COUNTESS OF CARNARVON."
  DR. CAMERON: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the Foreign Office has yet received particulars of the capture of the steamship Countess of Carnarvon by the Portuguese on the Limpopo River; and whether he is in a position to give any information on the subject to the House?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: The particulars have not yet been received in an authentic form. The reports as to the facts are so conflicting that no reliable information can be given.
  DR. CAMERON: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many weeks ago a statement on the subject was issued by the Portuguese Government— how is it that we are so far behind?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I can only say that information has been telegraphed for, but the region where the event took place is not within reach of the telegraph.
  DR. CAMERON: Is it not the fact that the Cape papers have published full details?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: I am not aware.
  DR. CAMERON: Then I will repeat the question on another day.

  EXPLOSIONS IN GLASGOW IRON WORKS.
  DR. CAMERON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether any decision has yet been come to as to the institution of a special public inquiry into all or any of those fatal explosions in iron works in the Glasgow district to which his attention was called by questions before Easter?
  MR. MATTHEWS: The matter referred to in the question of the hon. Member is being carefully inquired into by the authorities of the Scotch Office, but these inquiries are not yet quite completed. If the hon. Member will repeat his question to the Lord Advocate on Monday next, he will, I hope, obtain a definite reply.

  THE WESTMORELAND COUNTY COUNCIL.
  MR. W. LOWTHER: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether the accounts of the "Westmoreland County Council, made up to 31st March, 1890, have been received by the Local Government Board and have been audited; and, if not, when the accounts are likely to be sent in?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. LONG,: The Local Government Board have received the Financial Statement as to the accounts of the Westmoreland County Council up to the 31st March, 1890, and the audit of the accounts has been completed.

  CERTIFYING SURGEON OF FACTORIES.
  MR. JACOB BRIGHT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, seeing that he has stated that his opinion in regard to the Certifying Surgeon is based upon the best information, whether he will inform the House if he has consulted the Chief Inspector of Factories upon the subject, and also the Superintending Inspector, and the other Inspectors in the districts chiefly interested, namely, the cotton and woollen districts, as to the advisability of abolishing the Certifying Surgeon's certificate of fitness; and, if not, why not?
  MR. MATTHEWSI have, in the ordinary course, consulted the Chief Inspector of Factories on this subject, and learnt through him the views of his Department. It is hardly reasonable to suppose that in dealing with this question I should fail to take advantage of all the sources of information at my disposal.

  WAGES AND EMPLOYMENT IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
  MR. P.STANHOPE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will obtain from the Secretary of Her Britannic Majesty's Legation in Washington a Report showing the effect upon the wages and employment of the working classes in the United States of America of the M'Kinley Tariff Act?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: Inquiry shall be made through Her Majesty's Minister at Washington whether such a Report can be procured. If so, he will be requested to furnish one.

  POLICE SUPERANNUATION.
  MR. P. STANHOPE: I had intended to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether a police constable appointed under Section 19 of the Act 3 & 4 Victoria, chapter 88, is entitled to superannuation under the English Superannuation Act of 1890, in. the same manner as other county constables? But at the request of the right hon. Gentleman I beg to postpone the question until Tuesday.

  THE CENSUS IN WALES.
  MR. DAVID THOMAS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board if his attention has been called to the numerous complaints from the Principality, that at the recent Census, Welsh Schedules were refused to Welsh speaking persons, that in many cases the English forms supplied contained no language columns, and that in some instances whole rows of cottages were left without forms of any kind; and what steps. he proposes to take under these circumstances to ensure accurate and reliable Returns from Wales?
  MR. LONG: Every Registrar in Wales and in Monmouthshire was asked for a statement of the number of schedules in the Welsh language that he would probably require, and this number, with an addition for possible underestimate on his part, was sent to him, the receipt of the same being acknowledged by him. No complaint has been received at the Census Office of the supply having been insufficient. As regards the statement that in many cases English forms without the language column were supplied, it is possible that in some exceptional instances the packers may, by mistake, have put a bundle of such forms into the parcel sent to a Welsh Registrar; but the Registrar General has only received information of two cases in which such a mistake was made. No information has been received at the Census Office of " whole rows of cottages having been left without forms of any kind." In all cases where complaint has been made that

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  the enumerator has left a house or houses without schedules, the Registrar General has given immediate orders that the omission shall be ' rectified. In any case where it shall be shown that schedules without the language column have been distributed in Wales or in Monmouthshire, the Registrar General will take steps to have the necessary information collected by a fresh visitation.
  MR. S. SMITH: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that at Tryddyn, in Flintshire, Census forms, intended for England, without the 12th column to state what language is used by the persons enumerated, were distributed, and that the proper Welsh forms could not be obtained; and whether any steps will be taken to enable the inhabitants to state what language they use?
  MR. LONG: The Registrar General will cause inquiry to be made, and if the facts be as stated, will cause steps to be taken to enable the inhabitants to supplement their former schedules.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he has received any complaints with regard to the alleged tampering by the collector of the Census papers at Machynlleth, Montgomeryshire, with the language column in the returns by substituting the word " both " for the words " Welsh only "; whether he will cause inquiries to be made into this allegation; and whether any steps will be taken to ensure the accuracy of the returns?
  MR. LONG: I am informed by the Registrar General that no such complaint has been received by him; but he will make inquiry on the subject.
  MR. S. T. EVANS: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware of the fact that in many districts in Wales no Welsh Census papers have been distri-buted or delivered when they were demanded; what method was adopted for (the allocation or distribution of the papers; and with whom the blame rests for the neglect in not having a sufficient number of the papers circulated and delivered?
  MR. LONG: I must refer to the answer which I have already given to the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydvil.

  ELECTRIC LIGHTING IN LONDON.
  MR. J. SPENCER BALFOUR: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether the Board intend to grant a third Provisional Order under the Electric Lighting Acts in any district in London where there are already two Electric Lighting Companies empowered by Provisional Orders to supply electricity; and whether, if so, he will explain why it is now intended to depart from the principle laid down by the Board of Trade, after the Westminster Inquiry of 1889, that there should be only two companies, each for a different system, authorised by Provisional Orders, in one district, and also from the policy of the Board of Trade as stated by the President on the 12th May last?
  SIR M. HICKS BEACH: It is not intended to grant a third Provisional Order under the Electric Lighting Acts in any urban district where there are already two Electric Lighting Companies empowered by Provisional Orders to supply electricity, unless there are strong reasons to suppose that one of such Electric Lighting Companies will be unable to exercise its powers within a reasonable time. Where, however, this is the case, I do not think that it is desirable that the inhabitants of a district should be entirely debarred from the advantages of competition.

  VOLUNTEER AND MILITIA SURGEONS.
  DR. CLARK: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether Volunteer surgeons are now promoted to brigade rank; and, if so, whether it is the intention to promote to a similar rank the senior Militia surgeons, some of whom have been serving before the Volunteer force was instituted?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,: The reason why the Volunteers have this advantage is because they are organised by brigades, and the rank of brigade-surgeon is conferred in recognition of the increased responsibility attached to the principal medical officer of a brigade.

  THE GWYLWYR SETT QUARRY.
  MR. LLOYD-GEORGE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether

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  the Commissioners of Woods and Forests have yet granted a lease of the Gwylwyr Sett Quarry, Carnarvonshire; and, if so, what provision has been inserted in such lease for the effective working of the quarry.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY(Mr. JACKSON, Leeds, N): Gwylwyr Quarry has been let to the persons who were the sitting tenants when' the Crown got possession, at a minimum rent of £50 merging in royalties, with usual clauses for, the effectual working of the quarries.

  EXEMPTION OF FOREIGN AMBASSADORS FROM RATES AND TAXES.
  MR. MORTONI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether Ambassadors and Minister's representing Foreign Powers in this country are exempt from rates and taxes?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: No process of law can be instituted against any foreign Ambassador or Minister in this country for the recovery of rates and taxes. By law they are exempt from Income Tax, and it is the practice not to make any charge to them in respect of House Duty or Establishment Licence Duty. They are, at least in many cases, assessed for rates, and I believe that sometimes, when they rent houses, the rates are charged to the proprietors, and the rent is raised proportionately.

  BERLIN LABOUR CONFERENCE.
  MR. ELLIOTT LEES: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether any, and if so what, legislative action has yet , been taken by any Foreign Government to carry out any of the reccommendations of the Berlin Conference upon labour questions; and whether any system analogous to what is known as "the half-time system" exists in any foreign country?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H SMITH,: The information asked for by the hon. Member is still in course of collection, and I regret, therefore, I am not yet in a position to give him particulars. If he will kindly repeat his question in about 14 days' time, I hope to be then in possession of full information.

  THE LABOUR COMMISSION.
  MR. J. M'CARTHY: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury when he will be able to state to the House the names of those whom it is proposed to appoint on the Labour Commission?
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I am sorry thai I am not able to make my promised statement to-day, and I am not certain whether I shall be in a position to do so to-morrow. I hope to be able to make a statement on Monday.

  THE SALMON FISHERIES (IRELAND) ACTS.
  MR. MACARTNEY: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his. attention has been called to the action of the Inspectors of Fisheries in Ireland in prosecuting, under the provisions of the Salmon Fisheries (Ireland) Acts, a large number of millowners in the county Antrim; whether he is aware that very considerable employment is given to the rural population in the County Antrim in mills worked by hydraulic machinery, and that if the requirements of the Inspectors are to be enforced a large number of these mills must necessarily be closed; and whether he will instruct the Inspectors of Fisheries to give the greatest latitude possible in carrying out the exemption clauses of the Fisheries Acts when necessary for the effective working of hydraulic machines?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOE IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,: The Inspectors of Irish Fisheries report that the institution of proceedings against millowners for non-compliance with the Fishery Laws rests not with them, but with the Local Boards of Conservators. The Inspectors have in every case in which they have received complaint from a millowner that injury would arise to the working power of his mill by a strict compliance with the law, and in which they have satisfied themselves that the complaint was well founded, granted the necessary exemption, and, so far as the Inspectors are aware, there is no ground for the fear which has been represented to my hon. Friend that any mill will be closed or interfered with in its working through

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  the administration of the law by the Inspectors, whose policy, on the contrary, has always been in no way to injure the effective working power of any mill, be it ever so insignificant.
  MR. MACARTNEY: I beg to give notice that I will call attention to this question.

  ILLITERATE VOTERS IN SLIGO.
  MR. WHITMORE: I beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland if he can ascertain, for the information of the House, what was the number of votes that were polled by illiterate voters in the recent election in North Sligo?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,: I must ask the hon. Member to postpone the question until tomorrow.

  ADVANCES UNDER THE ASHBOURNE ACTS.
  MR. KEAY: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether a separate account is kept to which the issues out of the Consolidated Fund for advances made under the Ashbourne Acts have been charged, and to which the repayment made by tenant purchasers are credited; out of what account are issued the dividends payable half-yearly to the public on the loans raised under these Acts; and is there a Sinking Fund separately kept for the redemption of these loans; and if so, what is the annual percentage paid to that fund?
  MR. GOSCHEN: Issues for advances under the Ashbourne Acts are made not from the Consolidated Fund, but from the Local Loans Fund, established under 50 & 51 Vict., cap. 16. Such issues and the corresponding payments are separately entered in the annual account of the Local Loans Fund. House of Commons Paper 95 of 1891 is the latest account of that fund, with the Auditor General's Report upon it for 1889-90. The dividends on Local Loan Stock are charged to the Income Account of the Local Loans Fund; see p. 3 of the Parliamentary Paper above mentioned. That portion of the repayments by borrowers which represents principal is carried to the Capital Account of the Local Loans
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  Fund, and is either applied in making new loans from that fund, for which fresh Local Loan Stock would otherwise have to be created, or is invested until required to redeem Local Loan Stocky which cannot be paid off before 1912. In either case such repayments of principal are treated as a Sinking Fund. Under the terms of the Ashbourne Act, out of every £4 repayable by a borrower £3 2s. 6d. represents interest on the loan made to him, and 17s. 6d. is principal, as the latter sum, if received annually for 49 years and accumulated at 3 1/8 per cent., would amount to £100. The actual receipts are, however, apportioned each year between principal and interest.

  LAND PURCHASE IN IRELAND.
  MR. LEA: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, how many of the purchasers under " The Irish Church Act, 1869 " have been permitted to take advantage of Section 25 of " The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887"; what was the total number of purchasers; how many of the purchasers under the Landlord and Tenant (Ireland) Acts, 1870, 1872, and 1881, have been permitted to use Section 27 of " The Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887"; and what was the total number of purchasers under those Acts?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Irish Land Commissioners report that the total number of purchasers under the Irish Church Act, 1869, was 7,000. The total number of mortgages of Church lands outstanding in 1885 was 2,665. The total number of mortgagors or purchasers who obtained the benefit of Section 23 of the Purchase of Land (Ireland) Act, 1885, and of Section 25 of the Land Law (Ireland) Act, 1887, was 2,591. The total number of purchasers under the Land Acts of 1870 and 1872 (which are administered by the Board of Works) was, I understand, 876, and the number of these who received the benefit of Section 24 of the Act of 1887 quoted was 787. The total number of purchasers under the Land Act of 1881 was 731, and the number of these who obtained the benefit of Section 27 of the Act of 1887 was 726.

  DISTRESS IN DONEGAL.
  MR. MAC NEILL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether his attention has been directed to a series of resolutions passed at a meeting of the Raphoe clergy, held in Letterkenny on 31st March under the presidency of the Most Rev. Dr. O'Donnell, Lord Bishop of Raphoe, which resolutions describe the condition of the poor over wide areas in North Western Donegal, from Gweedore to Swilly, to be one of perilous destitution in the absence of assistance; request the authorities not to allow the distress to become more acute by the refusal of public employment; and urge on the Government the construction of a railway from Letterkenny to Gweedore, which would give employment in parishes where the potato blight of last year was exceptionally destructive; and what steps, if any, do the Government intend to take with a view of meeting the suggestions of the Raphoe clergy, and relieving this distress?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The resolutions referred to have been brought under the notice of the Government, who have also before them Reports regarding the condition of the different portions of the County Donegal to which the Resolutions relate, and the entire matter is engaging- careful attention.

  RELIEF WORKS.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland what steps, if any, have been taken to start relief -works in Ranafast, Ranomona, and Loughnanorau, in West Donegal; whether he is aware that there is much fever in these districts; and what means of subsistence there are for the 783 inhabitants from this time till June, and for the women and children from June till the return of the wage-earners from the Scotch harvest in August?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I must ask the hon. Gentleman to defer the question.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I will repeat it to-morrow.

  PIER DUES IN CORK.
  MR. PENROSE FITZGERALD: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he is aware that, in
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  1890, the secretary to the Grand Jury of the County of Cork was informed by the Secretary to the Board of Works in Dublin that the necessary bye-laws to enable that Grand Jury to collect the. dues on the various piers in the county would be issued as soon as they had received the approval of the Lord Lieutenant in Council, and that at the meeting of the Cork Grand Jury, this Spring, the secretary, on again applying, was told, under date 18th March, 1891, by the Secretary of the Board of Works—
  " That the bye-laws are before the Privy Council for approval, and will be issued as soon as possible;"
  And how long this delay will be continued?
  MR. JACKSON: I am informed that the Grand Jury has power to collect dues without the bye-laws referred to. There has been some unavoidable delay in negotiating with some of the Grand Juries with regard to the bye-laws which are intended to apply to all fishery piers and harbours round the coast, but the Board of Works are now in communication with the Privy Council Office with a view to obtaining the approval of the bye-laws by His Eminence the Lord Lieutenant, as early as possible.

  ADMIRALTY SUPPLIES IN COUNTY SLIGO.
  MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Admiralty whether his attention has been called to complaints made by the victuallers of Westport, County Mayo, that whilst it has been customary for Her Majesty's ships stationed on the west coast calling at that port to get their meat supplies by contract for shorter or longer terms, for some time past the supplies have been procured from a favoured few; whether he will be so good as to inquire into those complaints; and if they prove well founded, will he see that the benefits of the orders from Her Majesty's ships shall be fairly distributed among the victuallers of Westport?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. FORWOOD,: No complaints from victuallers at Westport have reached the Admiralty. No contract for meat has been made at Westport, as the demand does not justify one. Her Majesty's

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  ships calling there will, as a general rule, only be coastguard cruisers, requiring a few pounds at a time, and they will make their purchases in the ordinary manner.

  IRISH RAILWAYS.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether arrangements have yet been made for a station at Ballybofey, on the new Stranorlar and Glenties Line?
  MR. JACKSON: I am informed that there is to be a station situated to the east of Ballybofey, at a distance of less than half a mile., It has, therefore, not been thought necessary to incur the expense of building a separate station.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: Have not representations been received from the district to the effect that the markets will be thoroughly destroyed unless a station is erected?
  MR. JACKSON: I am not aware of any representations having been received, but I remember that when I was in the district somebody spoke to me in connection with the question to which the hon. Member refers, and I answered at the time that it might be found desirable, if possible, to make a station there.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: Will it be done?
  MR. JACKSON: I do not know whether arrangements have been made for it, but I will inquire.

  NEW MEMBERS SWORN.
  Captain George William Grice-Hutchin-son, for Borough of Aston Manor.
  Bernard Collery, esquire, for County of Sligo, North Sligo Division,

  REGIMENTAL DEBTS CONSOLIDATION BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Secretary Stanhope, Bill to consolidate and amend the Law relating to the payment of Regimental Debts, and the collection and disposal of the effects of Officers and Soldiers in cases of Death, Desertion, Insanity, and other cases, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Secretary Stanhope and Mr. Brodrick.
  Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 273.]

NOMINATION OF SELECT COMMITTEE.
Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [23rd March], " That the Committee do consist of Twenty Members."—(The Lord Advocate.)
Question again proposed.
Debate resumed.
MR. MUNRO FERGUSONmoved, as an Amendment, that—
"The Committee do consist of all the Scottish Representatives and 30 other Members to be nominated by the Committee of Selection."
The hon. Member said: Seeing that the Amendment was moved on a previous occasion, it is not necessary that 1 should trouble the House with my reasons for arriving at the opinion that the matters entrusted to this Committee should be considered by the whole of the Scotch Members. I do not propose to do anything that would prevent the main object of appointing a Committee from being carried. There is a great desire in Scotland that some measure dealing with Scottish Private Bill Legislation should be carried through this House without delay. I have, however, some reasons to give why the Committee should be composed of the whole of the Scottish Representatives, with the addition of 30 other Members nominated by the Committee of Selection. It is eminently a matter upon which the opinion of the Scottish Representatives should be taken. It is proposed to withdraw the consideration of Scotch Private Bills from the Representatives of the nation, and to hand them over to something like a bureau. I suggest that 30 English and Irish Members should be added because it is impossible for the proposals of the Government to stop at Scotland. It is almost certain that the system will be extended from Scotland to England and Ireland, and it is therefore only fair that the Committee should have the experience of English Members. My last reason is that, if my Amendment is * adopted, the time of the House will be saved, seeing that it will prevent the

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whole business from being gone through again.. I beg to move the Amendment of which I have given notice.
Amendment proposed,
To leave out the words " Twenty Members," and add the words "all the Scottish Representatives, and Thirty other Members to be nominated by the Committee of Selection."— (Mr. Munro Ferguson,)
—instead thereof.
Question proposed, " That the words ' Twenty Members ' stand part of the Question."
THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,: The hon. Gentleman can hardly expect that the Government will accept this Amendment, seeing that it is most desirable that the Bill should receive confirmation this Session, and that there should be no unnecessary delay. It is not necessary to say that the acceptance of this proposal would render that absolutely impossible. The proposition of the hon. Member for Leith (Mr. Munro Ferguson) is that the proportions of the Committee should be very widely altered—that all the Scotch Members, 70 in number, should be upon it, and that 30 English Members should act with them. The Committee has been struck in accordance with the usual practice as to the balance of Parties upon it. As regards the proportion of Scotch Members the Amendment really makes no substantial improvement as far as the adequate representation of Scotland is concerned. It gives a proportion almost exactly of 14 in 20, whilst the Government proposal is 13 in 20 of Scotch Members. The essential objection, however, is that if the Committee is so constituted, the responsibility for the measure would really pass out of the hands of the Government and of the majority of the House, and, accordingly, so far from the proceedings in the Committee being a saving of time, they would probably give rise to difficulties which would have to be rectified, if at all possible, by the action of the whole House. I may remind the House that when the subject was discussed before the Easter Recess it was intimated by the Front Bench that this matter should be discussed very briefly when it was taken up after Easter, but that the sense of the House as to the composition of the Committee should be at once taken.
DR. CLARK: No doubt the proposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Leith would give a very large Committee, but the Committee proposed by the Government is a very unsatisfactory one. It has been struck in accordance with the present method of striking Committees, but that is a method which has only been in operation for two or three years, and I think it is one which is working very badly indeed. For my own part, I very much prefer the old plan, which provided that if a Committee consisted of 20 Members, 11 should be selected from Members representing the Government side of the House and nine from the Opposition. The Committee proposed by the Lord Advocate has been struck in a very curious manner. The Liberal Whips are responsible for seven Members, and they have put down the names of seven Scotch Liberals. We are anxious that Scottish Representatives should predominate upon the Committees that are appointed for the consideration of purely Scottish questions; and two years ago, owing to the pressure that was brought to bear upon the Lord Advocate, an important Committee was nominated which comprised the whole of the Scottish Representatives. The right hon. Gentleman, however, was afraid that he had gone a little too far, and therefore he struck off his own colleague, the then Solicitor General for Scotland, and replaced him by a Scotchman who had, unfortunately, been unable to secure a Scotch seat, but represented an English constituency. Consequently, all the members of the Committee were Scotchmen, and all represented Scottish constituencies except one. Five of the Committee proposed by the Lord Advocate are Scottish Members who belong to the Conservative Party; in addition there are three English Conservatives, one Irish Conservative, two Liberal Unionists, one Irish Conservative, and two other Irish Members. Now, this is purely a Scottish matter, and I think the English and Irish Conservatives might give way to Scotch Conservatives. As to the two Liberal Unionists, I look on them as Conservatives; and as to the one London Member, I do not think his services are required at all on such an occasion. Then, again, we have one

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Irish Member who is at present some 6,000 miles away. He was in America when his name was proposed, and he has now gone 3,000 miles further West. But even among the Irish Members there are sub-divisions, because we have the Parnellites and anti-Parnellites. Judging from what has already taken place, I think the Parnellite is to be considered as a Government Member. [Cries of " No ! "] Well, in Ireland the Parnellites are the allies of the Government. [Cries of " No ! "from the Government Benches.] Personally, this Session I have had some experience in regard to the serving of Nationalist Members upon Public Committees. We were three or four weeks considering our Report, and although the matter was one which very much affected Ireland neither of the Irish Members put in an appearance.
An hon. MEMBER: What was the Committee?
DR. CLARK: I am speaking of the Colonisation Committee. As the present matter is one which wholly affects Scotland, I think we should have a very different Committee from that which has been suggested by the Government, and it must not be forgotten that in similar circumstances, not long ago, we had a Committee composed of the whole of the Scottish Representatives, with one or two English Members placed upon it in order to give advice in regard to English procedure. That was the course pursued in reference to the Scotch Police Bill, and it worked extremely well. I certainly do not think that the Committee proposed by the Lord Advocate would be a proper one for considering the question of Scottish Private Bill. Procedure, and the probability is that a great deal of time would be wasted, because the Committee would not secure the confidence of the Scotch people and the Scottish Representatives. I regret very much that the Government are not prepared to meet the Scottish Members in a more amicable spirit. The only thing, however, we can do is to protest against the composition of the Committee, and move the striking off of the names of the English and Irish Members.
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNER-MAN: My impression in regard to the question before the House is that there is a more substantial
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agreement among us than appears to be the case at the first view. The object that we on this side of the House have in view is to secure that the Select Committee to which this Bill is to be referred should be of sufficient importance to deal with the matter. We regard the subject as one of first-class importance. The proposal is to constitute a new tribunal for Scotland for the performance of a large part of the duties at present fulfilled by Parliament itself. My hon. Friend who spoke last has implied that this is so purely a Scotch question that English and Irish Members are not in their proper place on the Committee. I cannot say that I share that opinion. Undoubtedly the Bill has nothing to do with England or Ireland; but equally without doubt the same principle will in turn be applied both to England and Ireland, and it would be strange indeed if no English or Irish Members were placed on the Committee. What we want to secure is that there should be a substantial foundation of Scotch Members before we proceed to add English and Irish Members. It has been pointed out that there are 13 Scotch Representatives proposed by the Government; but I do not think that such a Committee is adequate to deal with this large question. The proposal of my hon. Friend the Member for Leith is that we should take the course which was suggested by him years ago in reference to the Local Government Bill. It was then proposed that the Committee should be composed of all the Scottish Members, with 30 Members added by the Committee of Selection. It must be admitted that this would be a very large Committee for the consideration of a subject which, although of the first importance, is much more limited in its scope than the subject of Local Government. I think the Government have been informed what it is we really want, and, even after the speech of the Lord Advocate, I would venture to appeal to the Government to meet us by increasing the size of the Committee. What we want is to have a thorough consideration of the Bill by the Scotch Members, with, at the same time, some English and Irish Members. I think that 20 Scotch Members and 10 Irish and English Members would be an adequate tribunal, and I believe that by making that concession the Government

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would quicken the progress of the Bill. There is but very little difference between US. We are all agreed, in the main, as to the principle of the Bill which the right hon. Gentleman has described as being the principle of local inquiry. There is no difference of opinion on that point, and I think the Government might, with advantage to the progress of business, accept the proposal I have made. We have no object in the matter except to assist the Government in passing such a measure as shall carry out the wishes of the Scotch people in this matter.
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,: I think the right hon. Gentleman will see that the proportion of Scotch Members will be the same if his suggestion were adopted as in the proposal of the Government, and that he would get no addition of Scotch Members. It is the desire of the Government that the Bill should not only be considered, but passed as the result of the deliberations of the Committee; and, therefore, I submit to the right hon. Gentleman whether it would not be better to have a small Committee than a Committee consisting of a large number of Members? I think the right hon. Gentleman is mistaken in supposing that at any time the Government accepted the proposal he has made. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman has no desire to do otherwise than find some method by which the two sides of the House, and particularly the Scotch Members, can arrive at a decision, and I trust the right hon. Gentleman will be satisfied with the Committee as guaranteeing the adequate consideration of the Bill.
SIR G. TREVELYAN: Dealing with the question from a practical point of view, I think I can bring a strong instance to prove that my right hon. Friend has more justice on his side than the right hon. Gentleman opposite. There is the case of the Police Superannuation (Scotland) Bill, which was referred to a Committee, the majority of which were Scotch Members, and they devised a scheme which was accepted with great satisfaction by Scotch Members, and which in the course of the Debates on the English Bill was regarded with great envy by many English Members. The success of that Committee was due to the fact
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that it was composed of Scotch Members who were interested in the question and who could bring energy, knowledge, and industry to bear on it. I earnestly wish the right hon. Gentleman would follow the example set by his own Government on that occasion, and grant a Committee to deal with Private Bill procedure as the Committee last Session dealt with police superannuation in Scotland.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: This Bill is a bad Bill, and it ought to be referred to a large Committee, something like a Grand Committee. I may, perhaps, be permitted to protest against the idea that in their absence the Independent Members for Scotland are to be bound by whatever the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton may say about the time the discussions will occupy. I think the right hon. Gentleman went a little too far in stating that the discussion of this subject would only occupy an hour and a half.
MR. H. H. FOWLER: After the personal attack my hon. Friend (Sir G-Campbell) has made upon me, I must tell him that he has certainly read a very inaccurate account of what took place. I made no attempt whatever to give an undertaking on behalf of the Scotch Members. In fact, the Scotch Members were represented not only by my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone), but by my right hon. Friend the Member for Bridge-ton (Sir G. Trevelyan). What took place was this: A Scotch Member complained that the matter had not been taken on a Friday night before the Easter Recess, saying that it would not have occupied more than an hour and a half. The First Lord of the Treasury, as he had a right to do, adopted the statement, and assumed that if an hour and a half was sufficient then it would be sufficient on a subsequent occasion.
SIR G. CAMPBELL: What I read was a statement quoted by the right hon. Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury from the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, as reported in the Times.
MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I may be permitted to say that there was no attempt to bind the Scotch Members,

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and we are aware that in the case of my ton. Friend behind me (Sir G. Campbell) such an attempt would have been entirely ineffectual. The right hon. Gentleman opposite, if I understood him rightly, bases his argument in support of resistance to the present proposal solely on one ground. He says the Bill would get much more quickly through a small than through a large Committee. That may be so or not, but I am disposed, for the sake of argument, to concede it. But permit me to say that is not the only or the main question. The main question is, with what amount of authority will the Bill come back from the Committee? The object of referring Bills to Committees of this kind is to save the House the trouble of labouring through the clauses. This is the ground on which the Scotch Members are in favour of the Amendment before the House. I must say I think there is great force in that consideration, and that it applies especially to a case of this kind. The question is by no means an easy one; and if it were not an easy one, 1 think the Government would do wisely in obtaining all the assistance they could and the sanction of as large a portion of Scotch opinion as represented in this House as they could. On these grounds I think it would have been wiser to accede to the proposition before the House.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,: I should like to point out that this is not a proposal, as the right hon. Gentleman suggests, to refer this Bill to a Grand Committee; it is a proposal of a wholly different character. A Grand Committee is a Committee that takes the place of a Committee of the whole House. It is not proposed by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Leith to refer this Bill to a Committee constituted on that principle at all, but to a Committee of 100 Members, before whom the discussion would be of a very lengthy character. Our desire is, firstly, that this Bill should be thoroughly considered upstairs; and, secondly, that it should afterwards be passed. We believe it would pass by referring it, first of all, to' a Committee of reasonable dimensions, and for this reason: We admit the measure contains novel principles, and we believe those
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novel principles will best be discussed by a small Committee than by a Committee composed of so many Members as 100. We think our proposal is the better one in the interest of the Bill itself, and we claim the support of all those who desire to see the Bill passed into law during the present Session.
MR.HUNTER: The right hon. Gentleman has altogether missed the point of this Amendment. The point is not whether the Committee is to consist of 20 or 100 persons, but whether it is to be a Committee representing Scotch and Liberal opinion, or English and Tory opinion. According to the suggestion of the Lord Advocate the Committee will be so constituted that the voice of the Scotch Members may be entirely overpowered, and a Bill brought out of the Committee which may be at variance with Scotch opinion, although it may not even be in conformity with English opinion. Hon. Members ought not to deceive themselves by irrelevant questions as to the numbers of the Committee. The question is, whether Scotchmen are to have their own way or not. I am persuaded it will be said in Scotland, "Here is a measure exclusively Scotch, and yet the Government say that the Scotch people shall not have their affairs managed according to their own ideas, but according to English ideas."
(4.48.)The House divided:—Ayes 189; Foes 136.—(Div. List, No. 119.)
Main Question again proposed.
MR.E.ROBERTSON: Before the Main Question is disposed of, I wish to say it is not my intention to move the Amendment of which I have given notice, substituting for the name of the hon. Member for Leeds that of the hon. Member for Aberdeenshire. Of course, it is hardly necessary to add that my Amendment was in no sense directed against the hon. Member for Leeds personally, but intended simply to carry out the wishes of a great many Members on this side of the House who come from Scotland, that the Committee should be largely, if 'not entirely, Scotch. I am not particularly sorry that the Amendment of the hon. Member for Leith has been defeated, and I do not desire to renew the discussion upon it. But, as allusion has been made to the feeling

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which is said to exist in Scotland in favour of the main principle of this Bill, perhaps I may be permitted to say a few words upon that point. I admit there is a strong and general sentiment in Scotland in favour of some kind of local inquiry in connection with Private Bill legislation relating to Scotland; but I deny entirely that there is any feeling in favour of the particular method the Government have adopted for solving the question. The great objection to the Bill is that the Government are interpolating into the proceedings of the House an alien and extraneous body, to whom they are giving a power unknown in the House. If the Government will refrain from tying the hands of the House in disposing of its own business; if they will not give to any official or judicial persons the right of amending a Bill in its progress through this House, or the right to stop a Bill, I venture to say all difficulties will be removed. I do not know whether I am quite in order in making this suggestion now, but I should be glad to have an assurance from the right hon. Gentleman on the subject.
MR. W. H. SMITH: I am afraid I should be out of order if I proceeded to enter into a discussion of this matter now. On the part of the Government, I can only say that we are anxious that the Committee should have a free hand, and I believe it would be in the power of the Committee to consider the suggestion made by the hon. Member.
MR. D. CRAWFORD: The alternative suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Stirling Burghs, that the Committee should consist of 30 Members, is one that meets with the approval of Scotch Members generally; and as my right hon. Friend stated at length the reasons upon which that alternative proposal recommended I will now limit myself to the Motion that 30 be substituted for 20.
MR. SPEAKER: It is incompetent for the hon. Member to do that, the House having decided that 20 shall stand part of the Question. The Question now is, " That the Committee do consist of 20 Members."
DR. CLARK: Am I to understand that the Government are not willing to yield in the slightest degree,
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and are determined to have this Committee constituted as they propose? Now, the predecessors of the present Government, when they had an important Scotch Bill before the House, admitted after the Second Reading the principle of Scottish Home Rule, and referred the Bill to a Committee of 25, upon which Committee there were no Irish Members and only a few English Members, and these last were included because of their special knowledge of the working of the Public Health Act in England, and so in the arrangement of a Public Health Act for Scotland the experience of these gentlemen was of value. So the principle, that a Bill bearing exclusively upon Scotland should have its details determined by a Committee of Scottish Members, was admitted by the predecessors of the present Government.
MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member would be out of Order in discussing the Bill or the number of Members now.
DR. CLARK: I am arguing Sir, in favour of the omission of the names of English Members.
MR. SPEAKER: That will come afterwards on a Motion to substitute one name for another. The Question now is, "That the Committee do consist of 20 Members."
Question put, and agreed to.
Ordered, That the Committee do consist of 20 Members.
Mr. Gerald Balfour, Dr. Cameron, Mr. James Campbell, Mr. Campbell-Banner-man, Dr. Clark, Mr. Arthur Elliot, Sir Archibald Orr Ewing nominated Members of the Committee.
Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Flynn be one other Member of the Committee."—(The Lord Advocate.)
DR. CLARK: I should like to ask who is responsible for the nomination of Mr. Flynn, and if Mr. Flynn is willing to serve. As I am going to make an objection to another name for the reasons I have mentioned, so also I will take a Division against this name of a gentleman against whom there is no other objection, and who is one of our allies on this side of the House. The late Lord Advocate conceded the principle that an exclusively Scotch Bill should be con-

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sidered by a Committee of Scotchmen, and even the present Government carried the concession further with the last Scotch Bill referred to a Select Committee. All the Members proposed for that Committee were Scotch Members, though when the Solicitor General was promoted to a Judgeship, they appointed an English Member to replace him on the Committee. Eighteen of the nine--teen Members of the Committee on the Police Superannuation (Scotland) Bill last Session were Scotch, and the nineteenth was an old Scotch Member, and, probably, did good service on the Committee as such. But the Government are now going back from the principle they then conceded, because, I suppose, they think that the Home Rule idea is dying out, and they can oppose it with greater success. But in that they are mistaken, as later on they will discover. I object to the name of Mr. Flynn, simply because I think this Committee should be composed entirely of Scotchmen.
SIR G. TREVELYAN: I think my hon. Friend would do well to withdraw his objection. We hope this Committee will prove a practical success, and it will probably set a precedent of the greatest importance for other parts of the Kingdom. There is no personal objection to Mr. Flynn, there is not the objection to him that there is to another gentleman nominated, that he is at the moment thousands of miles away. I am informed that Mr. Flynn will be in regular attendance probably during the whole time the Committee is sitting. I think myself it is most unfortunate that several extremely valuable Scotch Members are not included in the Committee, but the proposition being what it is, I doubt whether we shall improve the composition of the Committee by displacing one of the Members from Ireland whose attendance on the Com-anittee will be possible.
Question put, and agreed to.
Sir Julian Goldsmid, Sir Edward Harland, Mr. Hunter, Mr. Leng, Mr. M'Ewan, Colonel Malcolm, Sir Stafford Northcote, nominated Members of the Committee.
Motion made, and Question proposed, " That Mr. O'Kelly be one other Mem
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ber of the Committee." — {The Lord Advocate.)
DR. CLARK: I must object to the name of Mr. O'Kelly, who is at this moment some 6,000 miles away.
(5.14.)The House divided:—Ayes 213; Noes 124.—(Div. List, No. 120.)
COLONEL NOLAN: With reference to the last Divison, I may be allowed to say that if any hon. Member had communicated with me to the effect that there would be an objection raised to the name of my hon. Friend the Member for Roscommon, I should have been most happy to have met the objection and the wishes of the minority by submitting another name to the House.
Mr. Charles Parker, Mr. Secretary Stanhope, Mr. Mark Stewart, and the Lord Advocate nominated other Members of the Committee.
Ordered, That the Committee have power to send for persons, papers, and records.
Ordered, That Five be the quorum.
MR. SPEAKER: Three notices of Motion for Instructions to the Committee stand on the Paper. The first of these stands in the name of the hon. Member for West Edinburgh (Mr. Buchanan) instructing the Committee that they have—
" Power to insert Clauses in the Bill to provide that Railway and other Companies desiring to obtain Parliamentary powers to close, enter upon, or interfere with a right of way shall serve notices upon the council or councils of the district within which such right of way extends."
That refers to a preliminary procedure which is now subject to, and under the jurisdiction of the Examiners, and governed by Standing Orders in relation to Private Bills. True it is, that under a section of the Bill, County Councils and Town Councils may make reports upon a Bill; but that is after the Bill has taken its formal and definite shape. This proposal would alter the preliminary procedure previous to the Bill being presented to Parliament, and is, therefore, outside the scope of the present Bill, and contemplates an alteration in Private Bill procedure previous to the Bill being put into the form in which the House is asked to adopt it. This Instruction, there

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fore,cannot be moved. The next Instruction is in the name of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton (Mr. H. H. Fowler), that the Committee shall—
"Have power to make provision for the simplification of the procedure and the reduction of the cost of Provisional Orders."
The right hon. Gentleman will be in Order in moving that. The third Instruction in the name of the hon. Member for the St. Rollox Division (Mr. Caldwell) is to give the Committee—
" Power to substitute a Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament for the Commission as set forth in the Bill, and that the Joint Committee or Commission, as the case may he, he empowered to dispense with local inquiry."
This would be quite out of Order. It is a proposal to substitute an entirely new tribunal for that proposed in the Bill, and it will be in the recollection of the House that in the Debate upon the Second Reading the House rejected an Amendment embodying a similar proposal.
MR. CALDWELL: May I ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, after this ruling, and if local inquiry is the essential principle of the Bill, the Government intend to proceed with a Bill involving so great a constitutional change as the exclusion of this consideration from Committee of both Houses of Parliament?
MR. W. H. SMITH: I do not know whether I shall be in order in answering that question now, but I think I have answered it repeatedly, and we adhere to our proposals.
MR. H. H. FOWLER: I gave an undertaking before we separated for the Easter Recess, that I would not make a speech on moving my Instruction, and to that undertaking I adhere. My simple desire is that the Committee should not have a mandatory, but an optional, Instruction, and may, if they think fit, deal with the question of simplification of the procedure and reduction in the cost of Provisional Orders. In this, I believe, may be found a remedy for the great cost and delay in Private Bill Legislation —in an extension of the Provisional Order System in Scotland. I have it on the authority of the President of the Board of Trade that 37 Provisional Orders were granted last year without opposition, and at comparatively small
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cost, and I think it is desirable that the Committee should have the option of considering the question as regards-Scotland. So I formally move the Instruction with no desire to initiate a-Debate now or fetter the action of the Committee.
Motion made, and Question proposed,
" That it he an Instruction to the Committee that they have power to make provision for the simplification of the procedure and the reduction of the cost of Provisional Orders."—(Mr. H. K. Fouler.)
MR. A. SUTHERLAND: I will only say a few words in support of this Motion. There are cases in Scotland at the present time in relation to-which a reduction in the cost of Provisional Orders would be highly beneficial. The Government have intimated an intention of granting money for piers and harbours, and this is highly appreciated by the localities. The best way of managing such harbours would be to constitute Harbour Trusts, and, I think, in this respect, it is of the highest importance that the Government should accept the Instruction of the right hon.. Gentleman.
MR. W. H. SMITH: I at once acknowledge the spirit in which the-right hon. Gentleman the Member for-Wolverhampton (Mr. H. Fowler) has acted up to the understanding at which we arrived before the holidays; but the Government find themselves in this position. They are passing an Order, relating not to Provisional Orders, but to Bills. They are desirous that the Committee stage in both Houses of Parliament should be undertaken by a Commission or Committee sitting on a Bill. That is a totally distinct kind of procedure from that respecting Provisional Orders. We are prepared to consider the question of Provisional Orders, and, if necessary, to appoint a Committee to inquire into it.
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNER-MAN: I cannot quite follow some of the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman. He says the Bill has nothing to do with Provisional Orders; but, as a matter of fact, it does deal with Provisional Orders, in as much as private legislation is necessary to confirm Provisional Orders. Then he says, if any change is made with regard to the procedure as to Provisional Orders it ought to be

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simultaneously proposed for England, Ireland, and Scotland; but that observation would apply to all the private business of this House with quite as much force. A very slight inquiry into the condition of the feeling in Scotland on. the subject, as disclosed before the Committee which sat a few years ago, will show that the greatest complaints were made by the Scotch witnesses with reference to the very class of business dealt with in Provisional Orders. The complaints as to the cost and the cumbrous nature of the present system were addressed much more to the want of greater freedom with regard to Provisional Orders or larger powers on the part of Local Authorities than to any alteration of the system of Bill procedure. The right hon. Gentleman says the Government will consent to the appointment of a Committee to inquire how the system of Provisional Orders may be extended and facilitated. If we are to understand that as a deliberate proposal made by the Government, I think my right hon. Friend might very well withdraw his Instruction. I should be glad, however, to have a distinct understanding on the matter.
MR. E. STANHOPE: I do not think there is really any great difference of opinion between the two sides of the House. The Committee which is to consider this Bill will receive evidence from Scotland, and undoubtedly it will receive representations with regard to the working of Provisional Orders in that country. It will be perfectly competent to the Committee, when they have dealt with the Bills before them, to make a Special Report to the House on the subject of Provisional Orders. That being done, the House can instruct the same Committee or appoint a fresh Committee to go into the question of Provisional Orders.
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I presume, then, that no Instruction is necessary to enable the Committee to inquire into the question of the Provisional Orders.
MR. E. STANHOPE: Subject to your ruling, Sir, I should think it would be open to the Committee to consider the subject of the Provisional Order Bills.
DR. CLARK: I hope the Government will reconsider this point, because one of the things we want to
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avoid is to have double fight. Undoubtedly if a Provisional Order is unopposed, it is a cheap and easy means of obtaining Parliamentary sanction to a scheme, but if it is opposed a double fight becomes necessary. As the Secretary for War has indicated that it is only a question of procedure, I trust measures will be taken to prevent double fights taking place.
MR. MARJORIBANKS: Mr. Speaker, I should like to put a question to you upon this point. —whether in your judgment it would be competent for the Committee to go into the question of Provisional Orders without an Instruction?
MR. SPEAKER: I think it would be much safer to adopt an Instruction. If the Committee were not empowered to deal with the question of Provisional Orders they could' not embody recommendations respecting them in the Bill, although they could make a Special Report.
DR. CAMERON: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will see his way to adopt the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton. It must be obvious that what we wish to do is to simplify and cheapen the process of obtaining Private Bill Legislation on Scottish matters. The Secretary of State for War has admitted that the best course to adopt would be to consider the two modes of procedure together. The right hon. Gentleman let slip that expression. If we do not do that—if, before deciding what we are about to do in the matter of Provisional Orders, we proceed to settle our machinery for Private Bill legislation —it seems to me we shall be putting the cart before the horse. The first thing to do is to see how we can simplify the existing system, and then we want to see what we can do in the way of improving the present system of Parliamentary inquiry in regard to Private Bills by investigation on the spot. There is another point of order that suggests itself. You, Sir, have held that the Instruction proposed to be given by my hon. Friend and Colleague the Member for the St. Rollox Division of Glasgow is out of order as contrary to the principle of the Bill, as affirmed on its Second Reading. The First Lord of the Treasury, when speaking of the proposition of the

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Government on this matter told us that the principle was local inquiry by a Commission or a Committee. My hon. Friend proposes to give the Committee on the Bill the option of choosing between these bodies. You, Sir, have told us that an Instruction giving that option to the Committee would be contrary to the principle of the Bill; and I should, therefore, like to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he adheres to his statement that the Government are prepared, if not to accept, at all events to consider a suggestion for the substitution of a Joint Committee of this House and the other House of Parliament in lieu of the Commission proposed in the Bill? The right hon. Gentleman, from his description of the principle of the Bill as a local inquiry by a Commission or Committee, appears still to entertain the idea mooted in his correspondence with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Burghs. I wish to ask if it would be competent for the House to give effect to that idea after your ruling, Sir?
MR. SPEAKER: The Commission will have power to hold local inquiries.
DR. CAMERON: Yes; but I am referring to an alternative proposal that there should be a Joint Committee of the two Houses of Parliament, which was seriously put forward by the First Lord of the Treasury in his correspondence with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Stirling Burghs.
MR. W. H. SMITH: I am anxious that there shall be no mistake in this matter. The correspondence the hon. Member refers to was definite in its character. The body which is to conduct the local inquiry is to consist of two Commissioners and Representatives of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. That is a modification which we undertook to accept in Committee. As to Provisional Orders, the Bill itself includes all Bills for the confirmation of Provisional Orders. The Government have no objection to the principle of the recommendation of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton; on the contrary, they desire to lessen the cost of, and to simplify the process of, Provisional Orders. But they desire that this Bill shall be passed this Session, and they do not, therefore, want to load
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it with words that may imperil its passing.
MR. CAMPBELL-BANNER-MAN: I understand that the proposal now is that the Committee shall first examine the Bill before it, and that then it will be open to them to proceed to the simplification, and the modification of the expense, of Provisional Orders. That will satisfy hon. Members on this side of the House, if Mr. Speaker is of opinion that it can be done.
MR. W. H. SMITH: On that understanding, I consent to the Instruction.
MR. SPEAKER: The Instruction is "to make provision for" and not "to inquire into." If the House thinks that the distinction is immaterial, I will put the question as it is on the Paper.
MR. H. H. FOWLER: I would suggest that it would be better that the words of the Instruction should be "To inquire into and make provision for."
MR. W. H. SMITH: It is desirable that the two inquiries should be distinct, because it may happen that when the Committee has considered this Bill, they may desire to have an addition to their numbers from amongst the English and Irish Members, with a view to the consideration of the Provisional Order system as a system.
Question put, as amended,
" That it be an Instruction to the Select Committee on the Private Bill Procedure (Scotland) Bill, that they have power to inquire into and make provision for the simplification of the procedure and the reduction of the cost of Provisional Orders,"
—(Mr. H. H. Fowler,1)
—and agreed to.

PURCHASE OF LAND AND CONGESTED DISTRICTS (IRELAND) [ADVANCES, &c]
Resolutions reported;
1. " That it is expedient to authorise—
(a.) the temporary advance out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of any sums that may be required for making good any deficiency in the Land Purchase Account for the payment of dividends on guaranteed Land Stock and payments to the Sinking Fund;
(b.) an annual Exchequer contribution of £40,000 out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom to the Guarantee Fund;
(c.) the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of the salaries of the Land Commissioners."
2." That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of the salaries, remuneration, and administrative expenses of the Congested Districts Board, in pursuance of any Act of the present Session relating to the Purchase of Land in Ireland, the Land Commission, and the Congested Districts in Ireland."
First Resolution read a second time.
MR. H. H. FOWLEE: I beg to move, in line 8, to leave out " the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom," and insert " moneys to be provided by Parliament." I wish to explain that I move now, instead of having done so when the Resolution was considered in Committee, because the Resolution was only proposed at the last hour of the autumn Session without sufficient notice. Only one day's previous notice was given that this Resolution would be on the Paper, and although the hon. and learned Member for Longford objected to its being passed, it was taken, as the First Lord of the Treasury said at the time, as a formal procedure. I think, therefore, that we are now entitled to discuss it so far as it introduces—as I think I shall be able to show it does introduce—a serious change in procedure in reference to our administration of public money. The Resolution says—
" Resolved, That it is expedient to authorise the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of the salaries of the Land Commissioners."
I propose to leave out the words " the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom," in order to insert the words I have mentioned. This Amendment raises two questions of grave importance; first, the responsibility to Parliament of one of the executive Departments of the Government; and, secondly, the supreme and sole control of the House of Commons over all public expenditure. The three Land Commissioners were constituted by the Land Act of 1881. There is a Judicial Commissioner, and there are two—as I may call them for the purposes of my argument—lay Commissioners. The Judicial Commissioner is to rank as one of the Judges of the Supreme Court, and to hold office on the same tenure and at the same salary; therefore, he is to be paid out of the Consolidated Fund, and is only removable on an address being presented to Her Majesty by both Houses of Parliament.
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The two lay Commissioners, under the Act of 1881, are paid £3,000 a year each out of moneys to be provided by Parliament. In 1885, under the Ashbourne Act, two additional Commissioners were added to the Land Commission at £2,000 a year for three years only, holding office on the same tenure in all respects as the lay Commissioners under the Act of 1881. At first sight it may seem that there is very little difference between taking the payment of a man's salary out of the Consolidated Fund and taking it out of the moneys to be provided by Parliament, because, practically, the Consolidated Fund is provided by Parliament out of the annual taxation of the year. When we hear the Budget next week, or the week after, we shall find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will divide his expenditure for the year into three branches. He will tell us what is the charge for the debt, he will tell us what is the charge for the payment out of the Consolidated Fund, and he will tell us what he estimates to be the Supply Services for the year, which will have to be voted in the usual way in Committee of Supply. Payments out of the Consolidated Fund are distinct from the Supply Services. They include the Civil List, certain annuities and pensions and salaries to high Officers of State. All these payments are taken out of the jurisdiction of Parliament. Then, the Consolidated Fund provides for the salaries payable to the Judges. I have no doubt I shall be told, when I am replied to, that the reason for putting the salaries mentioned in the Resolution on the Consolidated Fund is that they are something akin to payments in respect of the Courts of Justice. There are obvious reasons why the Judges should be practically independent of Parliament. This House has never in any sense renounced its control over the Judiciary. I think it a sound Constitutional principle that this House has the right to inquire into the administration of justice in every Court of the land, and it has from time to time exerted that power. But it would not be seemly that the salaries of the Judges should be annually voted in this House and made subject to a certain class of criticism. I think it unfortunate that the County Court Judges have been placed on this footing. It would have

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been desirable if their salaries had been left to be annually voted by the House, and if that had been done we should not have witnessed the scandals which have been disclosed in a recent Return presented to the House, nearly half the County Court Judges of England being shown to have sat less than 150 days last year. But none of the officials I have mentioned have anything to do with the administration of the funds of the State. The whole of the rest of the Civil Service, including the Diplomai c and Consular Services, have their salaries paid out of moneys to be provided by Parliament. That is, the House has only the right and duty thrown upon it of voting their payment. It is totally irrespective of their appointments. I am not proposing this Amendment with reference to their tenure of office. The tenure of a Civil servant has always been, and I hope will always be, dependent on good behaviour. I do not believe there is a single instance in which the House has interfered, save in the interests of economy. It has never, so to speak, visited its displeasure upon any Department of the Civil Service, or dealt individually with a Civil servant. The gist of the whole arrangement is this, that these officers are responsible to the House of Commons, and the very fact of that knowledge existing, I am sure prevents any misconduct. I will take the House through a certain number of semi-judicial officers of the Civil Service. There are all the Inspectors of the Local Government Board. There are the Lunacy Commissioners, who perform most important judicial functions. Upon their fiat depends incarceration for life, or a certain number of years, of a considerable class of the community. The Vote for the Lunacy Commissioners is submitted annually to the House. Then the Charity Commissioners of England and Wales exercise not only most important administrative, but most important judicial, duties with respect to a large class of property. Yet their decisions are subject to the criticism * of the House of Commons on the occasion of the Vote for their salaries. Take the Railway Commissioners. The head of that Commission is a Judge of the Supreme Court whose salary is on the Consolidated Fund, but the salaries of the two
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lay Commissioners are voted by this House. But there is this difference between the Railway and Land Commissioners. The Lord Chancellor can remove the lay Commissioners for misconduct. There is no provision for the removal of the Land Commissioners. I will come down to Ireland. No doubt the Chief Secretary is aware that the two Irish Judges of Bankruptcy cannot be removed except by an address from both Houses, yet that their salaries are voted by this House. Then there are the Commissioners of Woods and Forests, and the recently appointed Scotch Crofters' Commissioners. Throughout the whole length and breadth of the Civil Service the policy has been, whether right or wrong, that there should be effective Parliamentary control over every part of the Public Service, by placing the salaries of the officials upon the Estimates. This is not only of advantage to the Public Service, but it is of great value to the officials themselves. If they are subject to Parliamentary control, they have also the confidence and approval of Parliament; and they feel a moral strength in the discharge of their duties which they would not otherwise possess. Why does the Chief Secretary propose this change? What mischief has arisen in the administration of Ireland between the year 1881 and the year 1890 from the fact of the salaries of the Land Commissioners being voted precisely as the salaries of other officials are voted? I do not think their duties are of a very judicial character. They adjudicate as between landlord and tenant, but I do not think that adjudication is strictly a judicial decision so much as a calculation made for the purpose of arbitration. Besides, their task is coming to an end. They have disposed of 300,000 tenants, which represents about three-fourths of their work. And under the new Act their duties will be purely administrative, and will consist in advancing money to the Irish tenants to enable them to purchase the estates of their landlords. I cannot conceive a case of stronger necessity for Parliamentary control. Look at the mischief which might be done if you had a Land Commission absolutely irresponsible to the Chief Secretary and the Lord Lieutenant, and put upon the footing of the Judges, who are removable only by an

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Address from both Houses. You would have no Parliamentary responsibility; you would at once introduce political influence. Having got men placed there through political influence, they may make ducks and drakes of our money: -they may play the fool all round, and this House will have to pay the money, and will have no power to stop the men who are spending our money. There can be no duties which these Commissioners have to perform which can approach the duties performed by Sir Reginald Welby or Sir Algernon West, of the Treasury and Inland Revenue, and whose salaries are voted by Parliament. Perhaps the Chancellor of the Exchequer will explain the reason of this strange suggestion, namely, that the House of Commons is to cease to be the sole and final authority for the control of the expenditure of the State. Remember, when you place a payment on the Consolidated Fund, you have no further control over it, except with the consent of the House of Lords. While that is a right principle with regard to the Judges of the land and certain great Officers of State, these administrators of public money cannot for a moment be placed on the same footing. I move this Amendment on the ground of policy, on the ground of precedent, and on the ground of principle. It is an unwise policy to remove a Department which is going to have the control of £40,000,000 or .£50,000,000 from the control of the House of Commons. I trust the House will not make any change in our constitutional procedure, for which no justification has been offered, which would involve a great many mischiefs in the future, and which I think is a source of?danger to the administration of the Land Law of Ireland and destructive of the control of this House over the expenditure of the country.
Amendment proposed, in line 8, to leave out the words " the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom," and insert the words " moneys to be provided by Parliament,"—(Mr. Henry H. Fowler,) —instead thereof.
Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Resolution."
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,: The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton has raised with great clearness and ability a point which the House will have to determine with regard to the salaries of the principal officers connected with the Land Commission in Ireland. With the general principle which the right hon. Gentleman has laid down, that the Civil servants should be responsible, not merely to Parliamentary control, to the control of the House of Commons, but that that responsibility should be brought home to them by the fact that their salaries were annually voted,.I need,not say I do not quarrel at all. The Government do not differ from the right hon. Gentleman upon any question of general principle which appears to regulate the Civil Service, but we hold that these Land Commissioners ought to be regarded as belonging to the more limited category of public officials whose salaries are placed on the Consolidated Fund. Whether that is so or not is the plain issue before the House. The Government have deliberately adopted the view that the salaries of these officials ought not to be voted by Parliament, but ought to be placed, as the salaries of other Judges are, upon the Consolidated Fund. It will be agreed that there is justification for withdrawing from the arena of Party conflict in this House the salaries of those who are called upon to exercise anything in the nature of judicial functions, so that they may exercise them independently without any fear of pecuniary loss. The right hon. Gentleman says he does not propose to interfere with the tenure of the office. The tenure of an office may be made as absolute as you will, but if the salary has to be voted by the House of Commons it would be futile to describe the tenure as permanent. No office can be described as permanent if the salary attached to it depends upon an annual Vote. It is true there are two Judges in Ireland who hold office by a permanent tenure, and whose salaries are, nevertheless, voted by the House of Commons. Those are the two bankruptcy Judges. But this position is anomalous and unjustiable, and if the question should be

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raised whether they ought not to be placed in the same position as other Judges, there is no general principle on which the existing irrational exception can be defended. If those bankruptcy Judges chose to claim that their salaries should be placed on the Consolidated Fund it would be impossible to resist that claim. The principle being accepted that the salaries of Judges should be placed upon the Consolidated Fund, because if they have to be annually voted by this House the Judges would be brought under the control of a majority necessarily swayed by Party and political motives — the question arises whether the principle is applicable to the particular cases of these Commissioners. I maintain that it is applicable to a degree to which it is not in the cases of some other judicial functionaries. Of course, when the arrangement was made that judicial salaries should be withdrawn from the discretion of Parliament, it was intended that the Judges should be made independent of Court and other influence, and that object is fully attained. But are not the questions which these Commissioners would have to determine the very questions which divide parties and classes in Ireland, and about which controversies have raged? Of all functionaries, are not these Commissioners officials who ought to be protected from the pressure of Party majorities and Party leaders? We have only to look back to the discussions that have taken place upon the Estimates for this Commission, to see the kind of pressure that Members of the House have tried to exert. The Commission has been denounced as having served the interests of the landlords or of the tenants in the decisions they have given, and such denunciations are sure to be heard in the future. In that way pressure would be placed upon these officials by those who represented the majority of occupiers. The right hon. Gentleman appears to be under the impression that the business of the Land Commission is nearly over, but he forgets that rents are fixed for no longer than 15 years, and that on the expiration of that time tenants may come to the Court again. Further, a promise to lower the rents has been habitually held out by Nationalist politicians as a reason for returning
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them to power. The facts furnish as strong an argument as ever was; urged in the 17th century for making English Judges independent of the chance of a Parliamentary majority and the storm and stress of Party discussion. The duties these Commissioners have to perform are judicial duties in the most important sense of the term. They have to decide questions of property affecting every man in Ireland—whether masses of property shall or shall not be transferred from one-class to another; they have to decide between landlord and tenant, and it is idle to say that, if these men are made the slaves of the Government of the-day—if you place them under the control of the House, as Sir Reginald Welby was under the control of the Chancellor of the Exchequer—their position could command, as it ought to command, the respect of any class in Ireland. In that case they would always be regarded as the slaves of the Party in office, as the tools of the Executive, and either tenants or landlords, owners or occupiers, would have a sense of injustice and grievance. Parliament has passed an Act unparalleled, perhaps, in any country in the world, which handed over to half a dozen men the control of all the landed-property of the country, and it ought not to refuse to those men the independence which would enable them to discharge their trust to the best of their-judgment, with perfect safety to their own position. For these reasons I hope the House will see that the question of tenure is one of vital importance, and will support the Government in making that tenure independent of the action of" the House.
MR. R. T. REID: I have listened with a good deal of interest to the remarks of the right hon. Gentleman, who has founded his opposition to the Amendment on his desire to free the Land Commissioners from Government or Parliamentary control, and I must say that I am at a loss to imagine how, after what he has said, he will be able to-defend the positions of the removable Magistrates of Ireland, who are not merely judicial officers, but who are also executive officers, in strict subordination to himself. My object in rising, however, is to offer a few words with regard

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to another part of the right hon. Gentleman's observations. He has compared the control of the House at the present time to the control exercised by the Crown in the 17th Century, and pointed out that as the Judges were removed at that time from the influence of the Crown, it would be a matter of public benefit that these officers should be removed from the influence of the House of Commons in the present century on similar grounds. The fact is that the proposal to place the salaries of these Commissioners on the Consolidated Fund is not a proposal to remove them from the control of Parliament; but rather to remove them from the control of the House of Commons, while leaving them to the control of the House of Lords. When the right hon. Gentleman says he desires the removal of the Commissioners from the hostile criticism of this House because of the judicial duties they have to discharge, I would point out that they do not discharge what can fairly be termed judicial duties. The duties they discharge are, on the contrary, administrative or executive duties relating to the application of enormous sums of money. Those duties the right hon. Gentleman desires to place outside the control of this House, but, in my opinion, we ought to have some means of watching over them, so that we may see how those gentlemen dispose of the funds placed under their control. For my part, I am in thorough agreement with the right hon. Gentleman who has moved the Amendment to the Resolution and I will go even a step further. I hold that none except the very highest Officers of the State ought to be relieved of the liability of having their salaries annually reviewed by this House. The County Court Judges derive their salaries from the Consolidated Fund, but they are in a different position from the Land Commissioners, because they are removable by the Lord Chancellor. The Superior Judges are also paid from the Consolidated Fund, but they discharge duties of a totally different character to those of the Land Commissioners. I shall give my vote most heartily to the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, because it seems to me that the real vice of the Government proposal lies somewhat deeper than the
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issue raised by the Chief Secretary. It consists in this: that the object of the-Government in this Bill is to set up a financial scheme which is to permit the expenditure during a period of from 20 to 30 years of a sum amounting to something like 30,000,000 of money, and it is proposed that the expenditure of this vast sum is to be made outside the control of the House of Commons. The proposal to place the salaries of these Commissioners beyond the control of this House is, I think, contrary to the practice of the Constitution. Indeed, I think that nothing could be more contrary to the practice of the Constitution than the object with which this proposal is made, namely, to enable Her Majesty's-Govemment to deprive this House for some 20 years or more of any control over the growing annual and constant expenditure of an enormous amount of national money.
MR. T. M. HEALY: The right hon. Gentleman in the speech he has just delivered has stated that it was very desirable that the Land Commissioners should not be treated in the same way as Civil servants, but 1 would ask is it not the fact that there is a proverbial stinginess on the part of the Treasury in proposing first to put the salaries of these gentlemen on the Consolidated Fund, and then in taking precautions in the matter of their pensions that they are to be placed on the footing of Civil servants? When a Judge, whose period of service has only lasted for half an hour, becomes incapacitated for the performance of his duties, whether by ill-health or by any other cause, he is entitled to-a pension; but a Civil servant is bound to serve a period of 10 years before he can have the right to any pension at all.We contend that it is inconsistent to raise these gentlemen beyond the position of Civil servants, but at the same time to say that they shall be put upon that footing in regard to the payment of their pensions. That is the first observation I have to make on this matter. I now come to my second point. There are two Bills before the House: one is-a Land Department Bill and the other a Land Commission Bill. This Resolution deals, as I take it, with the Land Commission. What is the Land Commission? Are we to have a Land Commission and a Land Department? The

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House has been led into a position of embarrassment because, first of all, there is to be a Ways and Means Resolution for the payment out of the Consolidated Fund of the United Kingdom of the salaries of the Land Commissioners, who, as I understand, will be three—-Mr. M'Carthy, Mr. Lynch, and the Judicial Commissioner, Mr. Justice Bewley; and secondly, we are to have a Bill to deal with Mr. Wrench, Mr. Fitzgerald, and the whole number of Sub-Commissioners. It is most inconvenient to treat these two Bodies in two Bills, one of which may not come on this Session at all.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The intention, and I believe the effect, of Section 10 of the Bill now before the House is. to make permanent the judicial tenure of the lay Commissioners.
MR. T. M. HEALY: I looked into that point before I rose, and—I speak with great submission—I arrived at the contrary conclusion. There is no section in the first Bill defining what a Land Commissioner is, and in the second Bill you say there shall be constituted a Land Department for Ireland consisting, in the first instance, of these Land Commissioners, one or more of whom shall be styled Judicial Land Commissioners. In the first Resolution you provide for the salaries of the Land Commissioners, and that means the Land Purchase Commissioners; and by the second Resolution, which may never be reached, you deal with the Land Department. It is clear I am right, because you deal twice over in two separate Resolutions with the Land Commissioners. Why do yon do it? The contention of the Chief Secretary amounts to an absurdity. I think I have established my proposition that you have no very great desire to proceed with the Land Department Bill this Session. I presume you intend to use it next year as an excuse for not giving us local government; you will accept the dictum of the Member for West Birmingham that you must deal with the land before local government. It must be remembered that we have been sitting here since November, and that the idea is that we are to rise in May or June—I do not know exactly "which month it is. Last year on the Land Commission Bill, and this Session in the Debate on the Second Reading of this Bill, I raised the very question
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now under consideration. The matter is much more serious than the Chief Secretary imagines. The right hon. Gentleman referred to the case of the Bankrupcty Judges in Ireland. Ever since the Bankruptcy Acts were passed these Judges have been quite comfortable, drawing their salaries through the annual Estimates. The Bankruptcy Judges are not Judges of the Superior Court, neither are the Land Commissioners. What is the first requisite of a Judge of the Superior Court? He must have at least 10 years' experience at the Bar. Mr. Lynch is a layman and Mr. M'Carthy is a solicitor. Am I to be told that such gentlemen are to be elevated to the rank of Judges? There are two Bankruptcy Judges. They must be persons—I was going to say in modern phraseology " of whose legal knowledge the Lord Lieutenant is satisfied." They must be gentlemen of standing at the Bar: men who require to have 10 years' experience at the Bar are placed on the ordinary Estimates of the year, while laymen, forsooth, are to be raised to the position of Judges of the Superior Court, and their salaries placed on the Consolidated Fund. There is another and still stronger argument. We have not only the precedent of the Bankruptcy Judges, but we have the precedent of the Land Commission. The Land Commission has been 10 years in existence. I should like to have heard the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian with the howling wolves—but the expression is consecrated—with the tumultuous Tories facing him, propose that the salaries of the Commissioners who were to cut down the rents of the Tory landlords should be placed on the Consolidated Fund. What did the present First Lord of the Treasury (Mr. W. H. Smith) do? So jealous were the Tory Party of the new departure that the present First Lord of the Treasury proposed at that time that the Lord Lieutenant should issue a Royal Commission at the end of seven years to wind up the whole affair. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian was on the point of accepting that proposition, when I intervened. It is now proposed, when the burden and the heat of the Commissioners' labours are over, and when, instead of fixing rents, which may be sup-

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posed—though I could never understand it—to be a judicial function, when they will only have to ladle out the sovereigns after an agreement arrived at between landlord and tenant, to place them on the Consolidated Fund. I have here some mouldy records, which I made at the time, of the way in which the Marquess of Salisbury spoke of the Land Commissioners. He called Mr. John George M'Carthy—one of the very gentlemen who is now to be placed on the Consolidated Fund—one of the fiercest of the Sub-Commissioners. That shows the jealousy with which those appointments were at that time regarded, when they were made for the cutting down of rents. How much more cause now exists for jealousy, when it is intended, so to speak, to give the landlords permanent annuities. Sub-Commissioner Meek was described by Lord Salisbury as one of the most violent persecutors of the landlords. I understand that the gentleman, having turned Liberal Unionist, has since then got a little job from Her Majesty's Government. Nor can we forget the name by which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Thanet (Mr. J. Lowther) dubbed the Submmissioners—" sub-confiscators." I have myself heard denunciations in the House of Lords of these appointments by Peers like the Earl of Donoughmore, the Marquess of Lansdowne, the Earl of Kilmorey, Earl Cairns, and the Marquess of Waterford, but I will not trouble the House by repeating them. Why take from this House the power of reviewing these appointments, and of reviewing the way in which the holders of them act, while allowing it to remain in the Chamber across the Lobby? The Land Act had not been in operation six months when Lord Salisbury, in another place, moved for a Committee to inquire into the character of the Commissioners and into their conduct; but if this proposal were adopted, and a Liberal Administration came into Office in the morning, we should be powerless. This is a matter vital to the case of the tenants. If Parliament puts the salaries of these Commissioners on the Consolidated Fund it will destroy the only means at the disposition of the Representatives of the people f keeping that jealous eye upon them which is absolutely essential, while the House of
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Lords, the permanent landlord barracks, will be left with the amplest opportunities for criticism. You never dreamt of making this proposal until you had rigged the Land Commission with Tory appointments. Ton wish to have the benefit of two systems—removables and irremovables. The removables, of course, you only require while you are in Office, and you know they will be dismissed when your successors come into power. But long after you have passed away —which we trust will be soon—this £30,000,000 sterling will have to be spent, and you are taking care that the gentlemen who are to spend it shall have Office for the time of their natural lives. I do not object to the sum you propose to spend—the larger the merrier. But I object to giving such a large amount to spend, and at the same time withdrawing the spendees of the money from all Parliamentary control — a control which the House of Commons enjoyed when only £5,000,000 were involved. I therefore say that this is exactly the Bill in which this course ought not to have been taken. £30,000,000 is a very large sum to spend, and at least the salaries of its administrators ought to remain upon the annual Public Estimates. Throughout my remarks I have not referred to the question of the fixing of fair rents, because I assume that that will be brought up under the second Resolution; but I wish to ask the Government whether they propose by their construction that the words " Land Commissioner " should include Sub-Commissioner?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No.
MR. T. M. HEALY: The right hon. Gentleman says " No." Well, I have not the Land Act of 1881 just now in my hands, but I venture to say that it will entirely depend on the construction of the Act whether it is so or not. The Treasury Clerks who have to administer this matter may take an entirely different view of the law, and that is another reason why this House should not allow any loophole capable of inducing action contrary to the received intention and purpose of Parliament. I trust that the Government will even yet allow wisdom and prudence to prevail. This is a Resolution which requires to pass through two stages, as the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolver-

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hampton pointed out when it came on on the 9th December last. I objected, but as at that moment our minds were burthened with other considerations we did not care to fight the matter to any considerable extent. The Government, therefore, got the stage without discussion, and I do think they should have been now prepared to meet us in a conciliatory spirit. On the grounds I have stated I shall give to the Resolution the strongest opposition possible, and I beseech the Government if they wish to give confidence to the Irish tenant farmers, who will be so largely interested in this matter, to allow at least free Parliamentary discussion on the question of the salaries to be paid to the Commissioners.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: It is not often that I find myself in entire agreement with the hon. Member for North Longford, but in this matter I hold exactly the same opinion as he does. What is the position the House is in tonight? The question is: Are these Commissioners to be independent not only of landlords and tenants, but also of Parliament; or are they to be subject to the control of the House of Commons? The Chief Secretary has stated clearly that they not only perform judicial functions, but that the functions entrusted to them are vastly more important than most of the judicial functions that are performed in Ireland. That is practically his contention, and I should agree with the Chief Secretary in the contention that the salaries of the Commissioners should be removed from the control and criticism of Parliament if the Commissioners were of the same stamp as the Judges of the Supreme Court, and if they were men of the same standing and position. But what is the proposal in reality? It is simply to put men like Mr. M'Carthy, Mr. Wrench, and Mr. Fitzgerald in the position of Judges of the Supreme Court. I hope, however, the Government will not persist in any determination of that kind. In one sense it is almost ridiculous to make such a proposal to Parliament; and if the matter goes to a Division, the Government will find that there are many hon. Members who do not so entirely approve of the Land Commission as to let go altogether the small control the House now has over it. The question is one which does not
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need much speaking, and I think the Government would be well advised to let well alone, and to continue in these matters on the same lines on which they have proceeded for the last 10 years. I am perfectly certain that, if such a proposal had been brought forward in 1881, the present Chief Secretary would have been one of the strongest opponents of it. In the circumstances, I shall vote for the Amendment of the right hon.. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton, and I trust that the Government will refrain at the last moment from persisting in a policy which will certainly be resented in Ulster and in every other part of Ireland, and which cannot possibly bring them any credit.
MR. J. MORLEY: There was one part of the speech of the Chief Secretary to which I listened with amazement—that in which he implied that attacks 'were constantly being made in this House during the discussion of the Estimates upon the action of the Land Commissioners. Now, so far as I know, no such attacks are made. During the eight years I have been in the House—and I have been as assiduous an attendant as the-right hon. Gentleman himself when the Irish Estimates have been on—I have-found that the Land Commissioners have-been extraordinarily exempt from attacks -of this kind, and, therefore, the assertion of the right hon. Gentleman is entirely erroneous. I do not admit the existence of the mischiefs to which the right hon. Gentleman referred. I agree with the hon. Member for South Tyrone that this is not a question that requires a long Debate, for the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton has placed his Amendment before the House with such lucidity that no hon. Member can possibly mistake the principle on which we are going to vote. It is impossible to doubt that if this proposal is assented to, a very mischievous blow will be struck at one of the soundest political principles? that have hitherto guided Parliament.. The Chief Secretary said it was important that the Land Commissioners should be removed from being supposed to be actuated by fear of pecuniary loss, and also from the operation, of political motives. But does not a similar argument apply to gentlemen like the Secretary to the Treasury and the Chairman of

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the Inland Revenue Board? The Chief Secretary has actually strengthened the case made out by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton. It seems to me that there are two principles upon which this proposition ought to be resisted. The first is, that legal and judicial duties should only be intrusted to judicial persons. As the Member for North Longford has pointed out, you are going to trust these particular duties to laymen, for I believe every Member of the Commission, excepting Mr. Fitzgerald, is a layman. Mr. M'Carthy is a solicitor, but not a barrister. The second reason for resisting is, that we have already in the Judges of the Exchequer and Queen's Bench Divisions an ample force for discharging all the duties that are necessary. I do not know whether any communication has been made to the right hon. Gentleman by the Judges, but, at all events, it is notorious that the Judges of the higher Courts have expressed their readiness to undertake the judicial duties in connection with the Land Department. On those grounds, and also because the proposal is an unconstitutional one, I hope that considerable support will be given to the Amendment, for it cannot be denied, after the remarks made by the hon. Member for South Tyrone, that the Government are again going to do what they have often done before in Irish legislation—force proposals upon their own supporters against the judgment of all shades of opinion in Ireland.
MR. LABOUCHERE: I am surprised at the sanguine character of the right hon. Gentleman in supposing that by talking of principle he will induce anyone on the other side of the House to vote with him. It is not a question of principle, so far as regards the majority of this House; it is simply carrying out a plan which the Government have conceived. They know perfectly well that they will be defeated at the next General Election, and their main object at present is to bridle what they are pleased to call the democracy. In the other branch of the Legislature the Tory Party have a permanent majority, and, therefore, they are anxious to place matters in such a position that nothing which they do now can be undone, because they will be able
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to prevent it in the other House. Take, for instance, their Naval Defence policy. We shall be obliged—unless we obtain the consent of the House of Lords, and that we cannot hope for—to continue that policy, although the majority of the people object to paying the money. The Government have put their own henchmen into the Land Commission, and they are now endeavouring to safeguard these gentlemen from the possibility of disturbance by the Liberal Party when that Party obtain a majority. If we want to review their conduct, and perhaps to refuse their salaries, we shall be unable to do so. The object of the Chief Secretary is to take this power out of the hands of the majority. I am one of those who think that a majority should be paramount in the country, yet this you are preventing. Hon. Gentlemen opposite not only want to give effect to their votes now, but they desire to prevent us giving effect to our votes which in the future we have a chance of giving.
MR. KNOX: I rise for the purpose of giving right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Government Bench an opportunity of being courteous to the House. On this point, which is one of enormous importance to the future of the land system in Ireland, there has been unusual agreement against the proposal of the Government amongst persons who are not usually agreed in opposing Ministerial measures, and yet it has come to this: that no one on the Ministerial Benches rises to answer or deigns to notice even the hon. Member for South Tyrone. That hon. Member has visited the constituency of nearly every hon. Gentleman opposite, and yet they all treat him with contempt. Surely the hon. Member, if he is a humble and modest man, will some day, like the worm, turn—unless, indeed, the hon. Member told the Government beforehand not to mind what he said, as his' words were only intended for his constituents —that he was addressing the Gallery and not the House; but if the hon. Member is serious, he must resent the insult offered to him in the silence of Her Majesty's Government. The result of the proposal will be to fix on the Land Commission permanently men who are bitterly hostile to the Irish tenants. Every single member of the Land Commission appointed by the present Go

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vernment is bitterly opposed to the tenants. Mr. Wrench and Mr. Fitzgerald are both landlords' men, and so, too, is Justice Bewley. So strong a landlord's man is the last-named that when an hon. Friend of mine was appointed a joint arbitrator on a Plan of Campaign estate, and he offered the names of 12 gentlemen (one of them an hon. Member opposite) from whom the umpire should be selected, the landlord rejected them all, and would only put forward Justice Bewley. And this is the sort of man it is proposed to fix permanently in office, without the possibility of removal except with the concurrence of the House of Lords. Hon. Members opposite know how constantly the farmers of the North protest against the constitution of the Land Commission. Only the other day the Newtownards Board of Guardians recorded such a protest. But how is it that the Sub-Commissioners, by?whom the real work is done, are not to be made permanent at the same time? Surely, if the Sub-Commissioners are to remain under the control of the House of Commons, the head Commissioners, whose work is mainly departmental, ought also to be under the same control. The fact is, the Chief Secretary, who thinks he may condemn the Irish farmer with impunity, wishes to deceive the British taxpayer. He does not tell him that these Land Commissioners will control the expenditure of £30,000,000. Now, there can be no closer parallel to the Land Commission than the Railway Commission, and yet the salaries of the Railway Commissioners are voted by Parliament year after year, and the Government do not propose to make any change in this system. The Government's proposal amounts to an endowment of Mr. Wrench, the evil genius who advises the Government on their land policy in Ireland. We know that Mr. Wrench has earned the hatred of the farmers in both the North and South of Ireland, and I believe that if the Government persist in this proposal they will have to pay the penalty by losing several seats in the North of Ireland at the next election.
MR. T. LEA: The hon. Member for North Longford said that a constituent of mine who was appointed a Sub-Commissioner by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for
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Mid Lothian had been re-appointed by the present Government. I wish to-state that is not the case. With regard to the Main Question, I should also like to add my opinion that the Government are making a mistake in this matter. Their proposal sets a very bad precedent, for which there is no occasion; and I hope that they will withdraw from the position which they have taken up.
MR. J. STUART: I think it is evident from the attitude of the Government that they are determined to impress their Irish policy on the future of this country, after the country has determined to be-done with their Irish policy. They are carrying out exactly the same policy as-they adopted in regard to the Navy, and also in respect of their Coercion Act, which they made permanent. They are, in fact, hopeless of their Irish policy being permanently approved by the country, and are endeavouring to make it permanent in spite of what the country may do.
MR.SINCLAIR: I do not agree with the hon. Member who has just spoken, in the opinion that the country is opposed to the tenour of the Irish policy of the Government, but I must say that I think this proposal is a mistake. As I understand the proposal, it is to make the salaries of the Judges payable from the Consolidated Fund. It has lately been my good fortune to see a great number of people from the North of Ireland, and as an old North of Ireland Member I take a great interest in this subject, and I may say I have not met one person who agrees in the proposal that the salaries of the Commissioners should be removed from the control of Parliament. Throughout the length and breadth of Ireland, so far as I know, the impression is strong that Parliament should retain this control, and that being my own view I am prepared to support the Amendment moved by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton.
MR. MACARTNEY: I also have just returned from the North of Ireland, and have been in my own Division, and I must say that I have not met anybody who has expressed himself in accord-

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ance with the view the hon. Member has just expressed. My impression is that the farmers in the North of Ireland—-I do not speak for others— are anxious that the Commissioners should be removed from criticism as much as possible. ["Hear, hear ! "] Yes, from that sort of criticism that would induce them to alter their action one way or the other. Though some hon. Gentlemen think this a laughable matter, I am perfectly certain that if they were conversant with these views in the North of Ireland they would agree with me that if there is one thing which is deprecated by the farmers in the North of Ireland, tenants and everybody else interested in the work of the Land Commission, it is that criticism in this or the other House should be supposed to have any effect on Commissioners small or great. I am bound to say I have never yet heard, and I have heard the Bill discussed in three or four counties in conversation by both Conservatives and Radicals—I have never yet heard those objections raised against the Government proposal which have been urged to-night. I hope sincerely that the Government will stick to the course they have proposed.
(7.35.)The House divided:—Ayes 180; Noes 142.—(Div. List, No. 121.)
MR. T. M. HEALY: In order to make the matter clear, and that arguments may not be repeated on duplicate Resolutions moved from the Treasury Bench, I move to insert in Clause "C" of the Resolution after "land," the word " purchase." That will confine the Resolution to the Land Purchase Commissioners. The Government contend that their second Resolution has a meaning distinct and separate from the first one. The Chief Secretary gave me an answer a while ago, and I do not say for a moment that answer was not correct, but if it be so then the second Resolution must be inaccurate, they cannot both be correct. The second Resolution is to authorise the payment of salaries and allowances to Commissioners of the Land Department. Now is the House going to vote these two things?—
MR. E. ROBERTSON: I rise to order, Sir. It is perfectly impossible for us to know what the hon. and learned Member is talking about, for we have not a copy
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of the Resolutions before us. My point " of order is, ought we not to have the Resolutions on the Order Paper of the Day?
MR. T. M. HEALY: I may say that I have had to go back to the Votes for December 9 to find the Resolutions.
MR. SPEAKER: The Resolutions, have been printed according to the usual' practice.
MR. T. M. HEALY: It is necessary to go back to our record of proceedings on December 9 to understand these Resolutions, such is the charming arrangement of our proceedings. In the second Resolution, which is not on the Paper of to-day,and which has not yet gone through Committee, it is proposed to ask the House to vote a second time salaries for the Land Department, having already voted a sum for the purpose under the Resolution now before us. Now, if the-Chief Secretary is correct in the answer he has given me, he is asking the House to stultify itself, for, according to the right hon. Gentleman, we have provided for the salaries of the whole of the Land Commissioners, and yet we are to be asked by. Order No. 4 to vote them a second time. I ask the House to consider the absurdity of the position. I declare it is inexpedient and absurd. Having some knowledge of the way in which officers of the Treasury draft Resolutions, I have come to be not unnaturally suspicious of the practices of the Treasury when they are trying to get money Resolutions through the House. It cannot be contended that I am not right on this point, that you are twice providing for the salaries of the Commissioners. That is not denied. What then underlies the second Resolution? I call the attention of the House to the? drafting of the Resolution. First you provide under this article now under consideration, payment of the salaries of the Commissioners out of the Consolidated Fund. Are there to be pensions? for the Commissioners to come out of some other fund? Are the salaries to come out of the Consolidated Fund and pensions to appear on the Estimates year by year? Mark the distinction of ' language in the two Resolutions. The first Resolution in no way deals with pensions, in no way deals with allowances,, it makes no provision except for salaries,

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but your second Resolution covers both heads. Why is this? I propose to move an Amendment which will introduce a definite meaning, though, perhaps, it may not be technically correct, for I have had to do it hurriedly. Land Purchase Commissioners may not be the statutory language, but? we may make it clear in the language of the Bill. I move that the Resolution shall deal only with the the Land Purchase Commissioners, and my object is plain. I wish afterwards to shut out from this Resolution all questions affecting the Land Commission proper. Observe that in the original drafting of the Act of 1885 a clause provided that those gentlemen who were Land Commissioners and Land Purchase Commissioners were to be one and the same thing, but we took exception to that, for we had not that confidence then and still less have we confidence now in the appointments made by the Government, and we moved an Amendment to Section 15 of the Act of 1885 to the effect that the additional members of the Land Commission appointed under the Act should specially attend to the business imposed on the Commission by that Act. Accordingly we had specialised Land Commissioners quoad purchase, Mr. J. G. M'Carthy and Mr. Stanislaus Lynch dealing with the purchase of land. Then in 1887 you appointed a Judicial Commissioner and gave him special powers in regard to the Act, so now you have two lay Commissioners and Mr. Justice Bewley, and you propose to consolidate the five into a Land Department. Now you proceed to provide in this piecemeal manner for the Commissioners of the Land Department, but there is no such thing in existence yet as a Land Department. Why, if the contention of the Chief Secretary is correct, is there any need for any money Resolution dealing with the Land Department? Mr. Justice Monroe is to be a member, and he is already provided for. Mr. Justice Bewley is provided for out of the Consolidated Fund; Mr. Fitzgerald and Mr. Wrench are provided for. What, then, is the meaning of your two Resolutions?
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,: For the additional salaries under the second Bill.
MR. T. M. HEALY: You are proceeding according to this strange Parliamentary method with two Resolutions relating to the salaries of the Land Commissioners. One relates to their salaries of £2,500 as members of the Court for fixing fair rent; the other to the salaries to be given to them of £500 in respect of their duties as members of the Land Department, which the Government propose to constitute. The Land Department Bill, however, may not pass. It cannot be pretended that I, taking only a critical interest in this matter, have given that study to it that the draftsman of these Resolutions has; but it is not at all unreasonable that we should ask for more light on this second Resolution, and why it is that we have these two stages on each, and four discussions in the House of Commons. It comes to this, that according to the law and logic of the right hon. Gentleman we shall be in order in discussing the whole thing over again on the second Resolution, as if we had never had the matter before us before. I do not think that is a procedure a great Department like the Treasury should adopt. We pressed a moment or two ago for an answer to the question put forward by the hon. Member for South Tyrone and we have not had an answer. I presume the Chancellor of the Exchequer is ashamed of the entire transaction, and certainly a more clumsy and slovenly way of transacting financial business I have never heard of. We shall certainly have the Debate all over again, because this business is not conducted in a workmanlike way, and the thing is left in a most unsatisfactory state. The right hon. Gentleman will have an opportunity of speaking again on my Amendment, which I hope the House will accept. I have not had the opportunity of referring to the Act of 1881; but I should not be surprised if it should turn out that the Treasury so construe it that the case of the Sub-Commissioners is met by the Resolution. The construction to be put on this Resolution it will be for the Treasury to determine, and I hold that we should not leave the matter in the loose way in which it stands at present.
Amendment proposed, in line 9, after the word " land," to insert the word " purchase."—?
Question proposed, " That the word 'purchase ' be there inserted."
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I think I can clear up the difficulty in the mind of the hon. and learned Gentleman. I agree with the hon. Member that the procedure is a cumbrous one, but it is necessary according to the Rules of the House.
MR. T. M. HEALY: That is not the point I made at all.
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I appreciate the hon. Member's point. In Clause 10?of the first Bill certain money is thrown on the Consolidated Fund, but this cannot be done without a Resolution of the House. Accordingly, we proposed a Resolution. In Bill No. 2 we also deal with salaries by throwing them on the Consolidated Fund; therefore, we have to pass another Resolution. It is not our fault, but that of the Rules of the House. It would be contrary to the Rules and Regulations of the House to have one set of Resolutions for two Bills.
MR. T. M. HEALY: What is the second Resolution for?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Each of the Hills deals with the salaries of the Land Commissioners, though in different ways, and therefore two Resolutions are required, one for each Bill. To have obviated this it would have been necessary to alter the whole structure of the measure. But this matter of the Resolutions is a mere matter of procedure. The Resolutions are necessary in order to found the Bills upon them, but the Bills alone are operative.
MR. T. M. HEALY: If this second Resolution is not passed, what will be the position of these gentlemen in regard to their salaries?
MR. A. J. BALFOUR: They will have the same salaries that they receive now. Bill No. 2 is to equalise the salaries, and the hon. Member will see "that if we are to carry out the policy of the Bill we have no choice but to do what we are doing. The hon. Member need have no fear of the action of the Treasury Clerks, because what will bind the Treasury will not be the Resolution "but the Bill, and the Bill only.
MR. T. M. HEALY: As there are two Bills which deal with finance, the two Resolutions are necessary, but what the right hon. Gentleman has not explained is, why Clause 10, which makes the Resolution necessary, should have been introduced at all. The right hon. Gentleman has only got out of one absurdity by getting into another. He says two Resolutions are necessary, because there are two Bills before the House, each of which deals with the salaries of the Land Commissioners in a different way. Is that not in itself absurd? Why should we have two proposals? I say the proper place for Clause 10 of this Bill is in the second measure. If we are to have proposals regulating the salaries and tenure of office of the Land Purchase Commissioners, the proper place for them is in the Bill dealing with the Land Purchase Department, and we should have some explanation of the extraordinary anomaly presented by this Resolution.
MR. KNOX: I beg to support the Amendment more on the merits than on the technical point. I object to the Resolution, because it endows Mr. Wrench. The Opposition during last Session spent a considerable amount of time in preventing the passage through the House of a measure which was described as the Publicans' Endowment Bill. Well, I venture to say that if the opinions of the Irish people had been taken by plebiscite it would have been found that for every one opposed to the endowment of the publicans there would have been 10 opposed to the endowment of Mr. Wrench. Go where you will amongst the farmers of Ireland you will find the name of Mr. Wrench the name to conjure with if you want to defame the present Government, and why should the Government, when they are as we hope nearing the end of their tenure of Office, propose to leave Mr. Wrench as a permanent legacy to their successors? The object of the Amendment is to impose a check on the constitution of the Land Commission. The Bill is supposed to be a Land Purchase Bill. The Government have brought into it a provision that has nothing todo with Land Purchase, but which

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only concerns the fair rent portion of the Land Commission. We object to that; and hold that it is irrelevant to the Bill, and altogether unjustifiable. I am told that Mr. Wrench was frequently consulted in the preparation of this Bill, and it seems to me that in Clause 10 we have strong internal evidence of the fact, for we find that Mr. Wrench has provided for the permanent endowment of himself out of the Consolidated Fund. In every other part of the Bill we find that the Land Commissioners referred to are those acting under the Act of 1885, that is to say Mr. Lynch and Mr. M'Carthy; but when we come to this 10th section we find that, though this is a Land Purchase Bill solely, there are others who are to have a finger in the pie. The object of the Government is not so much to endow Mr. Lynch and Mr. M'Carthy— and we know they do not love them too Well—but, loving their own creation, they desire to endow Mr. Wrench, Mr. Fitzgerald, and Mr. Justice Bewley— creatures after the Chief Secretary's own heart, whom the Irish farmers abhor. These men, friends of the landlord party, are to be established for the term of their natural lives as Land Commissioners for the fixing of fair rents. They are to be made irremovable unless a landlord House of Lords agrees in demanding their removal. I ask, could there be any worse system imagined? In a short time the work of fixing fair rents will begin—the 15 years for which they have been fixed will have expired— and such men as Mr. Wrench, Mr. Fitzgerald, and Mr. Justice Bewley will be called upon to discharge the functions of the men whose qualifications were thoroughly canvassed in 1881, when the Land Act was passed. Though it may be unusual to fight the merits of the question upon a money Resolution, yet where the Government are trying to carry out so iniquitous a proposal as this before the House, it is the duty of the Representatives of Irish tenant farmers to fight them line by line and word by word. I strongly support the Amendment, because I think that in connection with the Land Purchase Bill we should deal solely with land purchase, and that men who have nothing to do with land purchase should not be endowed, as it were, by a side
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wind. The proposal of the Government is a huge landlord job, and we, therefore, intend to look ahead. I would suggest to the Chief Secretary that he should drop the Land Department Bill, which will be fought line by line if persisted in. In this way he would greatly facilitate the passage of the Land Purchase Bill through the House. (8.16.)
COLONEL NOLAN: As I understand the Resolution before the House it is merely to give power to-deal with certain money questions. These preparatory Resolutions do not bind the House, or the Government, or anybody to anything of a restrictive character. It does not limit discussion of the Bill, and only allows the Land Purchase Commissioners, instead of the Land Commissioners generally, to be paid out of the Consolidated Fund. Anyone who opposes the preparatory Resolution must, on the whole, be generally opposed to the Bill. I am not opposed to the Bill generally, and it might be put into good shape in going through Committee. If I disliked the Bill I should be inclined to oppose these preparatory Resolutions; but as it may turn out a good Bill, I do not see the slightest use in opposing the Resolutions. I am not at all inclined to pursue the policy of fighting the battle on these preparatory Resolutions, and I hope that the people of Ireland will know that they do not bind anyone to anything. They simply enable the Government to lay their proposals on the Table. As to the general policy of putting salaries on the Consolidated Fund, I am rather in favour of it. I think it a good thing for Irish officers, particularly, to be paid out of the Consolidated, rather than any other Fund. Ireland contributes double what it ought to the Consolidated Fund, and she gets extremely little from it. At any rate, I think the Government ought to be permitted to state their proposals in the Bill, and it is merely preventing further discussion of a Bill which might be made useful if we debate these preparatory Resolutions, which in the case of all money Bills, are usually passed as a matter of course.
(9.0.)The House divided:—Ayes 81; Noes 134.—(Div. List, No. 122.)
Motion made, and Question proposed, " That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
MR. T. M. HEALY: I acknowledge the strange metamorphosis that has taken place in the House since the Member for Wolverhampton moved his Amendment. Within two or three hours the Government have had support from the Member for South Tyrone and from the hon. Member the Parnellite Whip on the very question which they opposed in the earlier part of the evening. That exactly shows what I have contended all along, namely, the anxiety of the landlord party in this House so to rig the Land Commission that it shall be enthroned for the next 15 years, when the judicial rents will again commence, and when they will have to deal with the purchase of land. The House and the country should understand this matter. Here are two Bills, and the Government have proposed two Resolutions, one proposing to place certain Gentlemen on the Consolidated Fund who have nothing under heaven to do with the original Bill, because it is a Purchase Bill. Therefore, the Member for South Tyrone, and the hon. and gallant Member for Galway, on behalf of his Party, have supported the Government in introducing into this Land Purchase Bill a proposal to make permanent the fair rent Commissioners, Messrs. Wrench, Fitzgerald, and Bewley, who are to have the fixing of fair rents for the next 15 years. But what does this Resolution do? It provides that the salaries of Messrs. M'Carthy and Lynch shall be placed on the Consolidated Fund, but it does not do what the Government originally intended—govern the salaries of Messrs. Fitzgerald, Wrench, and Bewley. The Government say they want to equalise the position of the Fair Rent Commissioners and the Land Purchase Commissioners, but this Resolution leaves the salaries of the latter untouched. Yon have these gentlemen opposing the proposal that the salaries of the Land Purchase Commissioners shall be placed on the Consolidated Fund, and you have them voting against the Amendment which, at any rate, ought to confine the mischief to the Purchase
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Department. That shows the genuineness of the opposition offered to the Government by the hon. Member for South Tyrone; and we may judge fairly of his earlier declaration that he was opposed to the salaries of the Land Commissioners being taken off the Estimates. When I move my Amendment, which, at any rate, excludes the Fair Rent Commissioners from the purview of the clause, the hon. Member votes in the very opposite direction. That clearly shows, to use the American phrase, that he was only talking bunkum—that he was only talking to his constituents. Much as 1 mistrust Mr. Wrench in his dealing with the fair rent question, I shall mistrust him more if he is to be imported into the Purchase Department; and if that importation is to proceed, I ask that you shall have a levelling down, and that Mr. M'Carthy and Mr. Lynch shall have equal powers in connection with the fair rent department. But will this be done? Certainly not, because, as I understand it, the power which was given to the Land Commission by the Land Purchase Act of 1835 still remains intact, as defined by Section 17, which confers it, and can only be exercised for the sole purpose of purchase by the two gentlemen who are there nominated. This, in my judgment, is a very serious consideration. You are driven to pass this Resolution by the framing of your Bill, because it would be absolutely unnecessary except for Clause 10; and even with Clause 10 it does not equalise the position of the Land Commissioners, as it leaves then-salaries unequal and their purchasing powers unequal. This position of affairs is due to tricky draftsmanship, which is a procedure that always defeats itself, because the moment you begin to trick in draftsmanship, the House begins to be suspicious, and you will find that, in this instance, the trick will not help you in expediting your measure. The House requires explanations on this subject; and the moment explanations are needed, the Government are exposed to criticism which would have been saved had this trickiness been avoided. Members of Parliament are, as a rule, plain, blunt men, who begin to take exception the moment they find the Government acting in this manner. A

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more irregular proceeding was never foisted on Parliament than that of dealing with these Commissioners' salaries in two pieces and requiring special Resolutions for the purpose. I say it is a thing hitherto unheard of. If you deny this I ask you to quote precedents for it, if any there be. I say that to deal with this matter by means of two Resolutions is a revolutionary procedure utterly opposed to constitutional practice. We know what it has sprung from. Last year you bad only one Bill; you now have two, and you have transferred to the first of those Bills everything that is objectionable to the tenants and favourable to the landlords. In addition to this, you put Mr. Wrench on the pig's back; for you do not care what happens to him by placing him in the first Bill, while the others are placed in the second. I say that this is a most unfair and unconstitutional way of treating the House. Mr. Wrench is entitled to no better treatment than Mr. Lynch or Mr. M'Carthy. Both these men have held their appointments for a considerable period; they have done good work, and up to the present no fault has been found with them. You say you are -anxious to equalise their salaries with those of Mr. Wrench and Mr. Fitzgerald. If so, why have you not put them in the first Bill? The reason is clear. It is because you do not intend to equalise their salaries. The first Bill has no more to do with fair rent than with the opium traffic. It has as little to do with the Land Commission of 1885 as it has to do with the Drainage Act. And yet you propose to make Mr. Wrench and Mr. Fitzgerald permanent officials under the circumstances I have put before the House. I say it is a monstrous and scandalous way of treating the House of Commons. And how do you do it? You do not do it in a draftsmanlike manner nor even in a crafty manner.You do it in a way that would not puzzle a schoolboy; and this is the way in which you, who complain of the time of the House of Commons being wasted, compel the waste of that time by the necessity of exposing an unconstitutional trick. Mr. Wrench may have thought it a clever -thing to have drafted into the first Bill, which has nothing to do with his position as a fair rent Commissioner, a Resolution
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making that position permanent and taking his salary off the Estimates, in order to put it on the Consolidated Fund. But to have been clever, it ought to have been done frankly, boldly, and outspokenly, and this is exactly what has not been done. In his speech on the Second Reading of the two measures the Chief Secretary declared his anxiety that everyone should stand in the same position as to salary and powers and tenure of office. Will that be so? No; because the second Resolution is not intended to be passed, and, therefore, the only man who is to be a gainer under the Bill is the very man whose position we take exception to. We object to Mr. Wrench having his salary taken off the Estimates and placed on the Consolidated Fund, and that objection is strengthened tenfold when we find gentlemen like the hon. and gallant Member for North Galway (Colonel Nolan) supporting, on behalf of a Party which largely consists of landlords, and aided by the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell), this nefarious transaction on the part of the Government; for I do not hesitate to say it is a nefarious transaction. Moreover, it is a scandal that men representing the tenants' interests in this House should support the Tory Party in backing up the landlord members of the Land Commission. We are not surprised that the hon. Member for South Tyrone, who so eloquently denounced the Government not long ago, should now give them his support; but we are surprised to see the hon. and gallant Gentleman who represents the tenants of North Galway taking a similar course, especially when wo know that the Government do not intend to carry out their proposal in a manly, straightforward manner, but rather under cover of a draftsman's trick. I denounce this as unconstitutional, absurd, and unnecessary, and I say with regard to the clause on which it is pretended to be based that it has no business in the Bill at all. When you split the Bill of last year into two the proper course would have been to have omitted this clause from Bill No. 1 and have dealt with it in Bill No. 2. You may reply that the second Bill deals with a separate matter. Granted that it does; still, if there are any matters that

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ought not to be separated from each other, they are such matters as the salary, tenure, and position of the Land Commissioners. We know already what friction prevails in the Land Purchase Department, and when you propose to empower Mr. Wrench to sit side by side with Mr. M'Carthy and Mr. Lynch
MR. SPEAKER: I must ask the hon. Member to confine his attention to the Question before the House. I warn him that during the last quarter of an hour he has been repeating the same thing over and over again, although in a slightly varied form of words.
MR. T. M. HEALY: I thought that on a subject of this kind it was necessary to give illustrations, but of course I bow to your decision. It should be remembered, however, that throughout this Debate we have had no word of explanation from the Government. This Resolution was originally passed without discussion, and it is only at this stage that we can require from the Government suitable explanations. If they refuse to make them it is only fair that they should be pressed to do so if necessary over and over again. Still, Sir, I accept your ruling; and as I shall have another opportunity when the clause itself comes to be dealt with, I will reserve what I have further to say on this point. But I do ask the Government to give us some explanation on this subject.
(9.30.) COLONEL NOLAN: I only rise because the hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Longford has alluded to me in his usual manner. He makes the most reckless statements, and never evinces the slightest wish to ascertain the truth of them.
MR. SPEAKER: Order, order ! The hon. and gallant Gentleman is using language which is scarcely Parliamentary.
COLONEL NOLAN: I will merely say the hon. and learned Gentleman is so gifted in the sense of hearing that he professes to know what I said when he was out of the House. The hon. and learned Gentleman has totally misinterpreted the views which I gave expression to earlier in the evening. I stated clearly that I spoke only for myself as a Member of
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Parliament, though to a certain extent, of course, I always speak for Galway. I maintain that it is to the interest of every tenant in Galway that the Government should be enabled to lay before the House the whole of their propositions regarding the advance of the purchase money. The question as to who gets the appointment is of very little importance to the tenants of Ireland, and may be described as a mere " bar " question. The passing of these Resolutions is a mere matter of form, and consequently I said, a short time ago, I would not offer the Resolutions any opposition. I did not support them. I have given neither support or opposition to the Resolutions, because they bind us to nothing. The hon. and learned Gentleman has attacked me simply because I am opposed to him in Irish politics, and because I disapprove of his making one speech one week and a diametrically opposite speech another week. If he takes the trouble to inquire he will learn that I made a very moderate speech. I threw over no one. I am anxious to hear the Government proposals, and I have bound myself to nothing. But I will give the hon. and learned Gentleman my opinion of the Bill in general. I do not say it is a good or a bad Bill, but I think it may be moulded into a good or a bad Bill. [" Hear ! "] If hon. Members agree with me they ought to allow the Bill to be considered in Committee.
MR. CHANCE: I am afraid the hon. and gallant Member has fallen into error. The statement he has addressed to the House would lead one to suppose that the observations he made some 30 minutes ago were addressed to the Main Question. The hon. and gallant Member's previous observations were not addressed to the Main Question before the House, but to the small point as to whether the Land Purchase Commissioners alone should be made permanent officials and freed from Parliamentary control, or whether such freedom of control should be extended to Messrs. Wrench and Fitzgerald and Bewley. In his opinion it would be beneficial to the people of Ireland that these three gentlemen should be freed in every respect

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from the control of Parliament. He knows that in the next five years these gentlemen, when placed on the pedestal of Judges of the Superior Court, will have the fixing of his rents and those of every landlord in Ireland. This is no mere " bar " question. The Resolution deals with the supply of money to make good deficiencies which may arise in a certain fund, and it takes away permanently from the control of Parliament all questions relating to the administration of that fund. It should be established as a certainty that an honest and uncorrupted tribunal will be created, not only for the fixing of the purchase money, but for the fixing of fair rents.
MR. LABOUCHERE: The hon. and learned Member for Longford has said this is an endowment Resolution for Messrs. "Wrench, Fitzgerald, and others. I have a still stronger reason for voting against the Resolution. Your attention, Sir, was called to the fact that the Resolution does not appear on the Orders of the Day. You said, in reply, that that was usual on the Report stage. Of course that is perfectly correct; but still, I submit that a Resolution of this importance ought to appear on the Orders of the Day, because the House is now being asked to pass a Resolution of which many hon. Members do not know the wording. The Resolution says that it is " expedient to authorise " a temporary advance from the Consolidated Fund of any sums that may be required, and practically empowers the Committee on the Land Purchase Bill to deal with the moneys. I do not consider it to be expedient to authorise the Committee to do anything of the kind. I object to any species of Imperial guarantee being given in order to make purchases of estates in Ireland, and I shall meet the Resolution with a negative.
MR. E. ROBERTSON: I am glad the hon. Member for Northampton has alluded to the extraordinary circumstances under which this Resolution is now before the House. The Government have said nothing at all for the last two or three hours, but I hope they will feel it due to the House to explain how it is that the Resolution has been brought forward under such extraordinary circumstances. The ruling
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which you, Sir, gave on the point of Order which I raised earlier in the evening by no means removes from the Government the serious responsibility they have incurred of asking the House to discuss a Resolution of which hon. Members have no means of obtaining a copy. Through the action or inaction of the Government in failing to provide the House with proper information we have been discussing for four or five hours a Resolution of which nobody knows the terms, and I hope the ountry will take notice of the fact. I do not think the Government are treating the House or the country with proper respect.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I trust the House will permit me to make one or two observations in reply to what has fallen from the hon. and learned Member for Longford. It is quite true I supported the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton and opposed the Amendment of the hon. Member for Longford. I fail to see any inconsistency in that course. The House having rejected the Amendment of the right hon. Gentleman I decline to follow the hon. Member for Longford in any guerilla warfare designed to delay the Land Bill going into Committee. That is what the present proceedings mean, and I wish this country and Ireland to distinctly understand it. I shall be no party to it, and I distinctly decline to assist the hon. Member for Longford in any plan or scheme for delaying what I consider to be a great and beneficent measure for Ireland.
MR. J. E. ELLIS: The hon. Member for South Tyrone is entirely mistaken in supposing that the object of those of us who support the position taken up by the hon. Member for Longford is to delay the Land Bill.
MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I have never mentioned the hon. Member for the Rushcliffe Division.
MR. J. E. ELLIS: In my opinion, the point involved in this Resolution is one which might fairly claim the attention of the House of Commons for the whole evening. I must convey my thanks to the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wolverhampton for having raised this

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question. No reply has been given by the Chief Secretary (Mr. A. J. Balfour) to my right hon. Friend's luminous speech. The whole sum and substance of the Chief Secretary's speech was practically this: That the state of Ireland in relation to the land question, after the present Government have been in power for several years, is such that a course has to be pursued in regard to the Land Commission which is pursued in no other Department of the State. The right hon. Gentleman (Mr. Balfour) could not cite a single precedent for the course he is taking. Immediately on the Land Bill being read a second time I placed on the Paper an Amendment similar to that which the right hon. Gentleman has moved, and I can promise the Chief Secretary that the Government will not escape from the necessity of a thorough examination of this whole matter when we come to the Bill itself. I think the course pursued by the Government has been somewhat extraordinary. Beyond the rather airy speech, a few minutes in length, of the Chief Secretary, not a word has been said by the Government in defence of the principle involved in this Resolution: The only support from the Benches opposite has come from the hon. Member for Armagh. If a discussion of this kind had taken place at the time when the Chief Secretary was sitting on this side of the House, the Adjournment of the Debate would have been moved long before this if the Government had sat silent. The Land Bill of 1881 had been in this House 43 nights when the present First Lord of the Treasury moved its re-committal, in order to make it obligatory that at the end of six years the position of the Land Commission should be inquired into. Speaking after much time spent in investigating the matter, I do not hesitate to say that, so far from that Commission being a body that should be withdrawn from the control of Parliament, it is one of the first bodies that should come within the scope of Parliamentary control, and should have its proceedings strictly investigated. The Reports of the Auditor and Controller General for the years 1887-8-9 and 1890 bear out what I am saying, and show that the proceedings of the Land Commission ought to be overhauled by a Com-
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mittee or a Royal Commission from top to bottom.
MR. M. HEALY: The hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) has endeavoured to justify his inconsistency on this question by charging us with endeavouring to delay the Purchase Bill. If there is anyone responsible for the delay which has taken place it is those who have drafted the Bill. We have asked in vain for some explanation of the final form which these Bills have taken. Last year the Government embodied their Irish land policy in one Bill; this year they have two Bills, and they have placed themselves in their present ridiculous position by making different sets of proposals dealing with the Commissioners. We have asked for some explanation of this extraordinary proceeding, but in vain, although our question is a natural and reasonable one. It has been said that the Resolution before the House is a mere matter of form, but I deny this, because this Resolution is really the root of Clause 10 of the Bill. Moreover, a very sinister distinction is involved in this matter between the two sets of Commissioners. It is plain that the object of the Government is this: not intending to go on with the second Bill, they have imported into the first one the only proposal relating to the status and pay of the Commissioners and giving them fixity of tenure. The other portion of the proposal, which places Mr. M'Carthy and Mr. Lynch on an equal footing, has been embodied in a Bill which we have come to the conclusion the Government do not seriously mean to proceed with, but that is a point I do not wish to labour now. But I do say the Government have not met us fairly in this matter. We have asked a reasonable question and we get no reply, and if there has been any such delay as that the hon. Member for South Tyrone speaks of, then the responsibility for that must be placed on the shoulders of those who countenance this tricky species of draftsmanship embodied in this Bill and these Resolutions.
(10.5.)The House divided:—Ayes 175; Noes 116.—(Div. List, No. 123.)
Resolution 2,
" That it is expedient to authorise the payment, out of moneys to be provided by Parliament, of the salaries, remuneration, and administrative expenses of the Congested Districts Board, in pursuance of any Act of the present Session relating to the Purchase of Land in Ireland, the Land Commission, and the Congested Districts in Ireland,''
read a second time.
Motion made, and Question proposed, " That this House doth agree with the Committee in the said Resolution."
MR. CONYBEARE: The complaint which I have to make in respect to this Resolution has, I daresay, been made in reference to the other Resolution which has occupied the attention of the House this evening, that no intimation of the Resolution appears on the Notice Paper. I think it is rather discreditable to Her Majesty's Government that when important Resolutions of this character are brought before the House of Commons we should have absolutely no notice of them. How in the world are Members of Parliament to do their duty in the House unless they have timely notice, and can come down to the House prepared to deal with the important points of a complex measure? But apart from this, which may be, perhaps, considered an unimportant matter of procedure, I object to the Resolution in its entirety and on its merits. I do not consider it is expedient to authorise the payment of moneys for the purpose mentioned in the Resolution, and I think it is our duty not to allow this Resolution to pass without examining it from every point of view, and, if necessary, taking the sense of the House upon it. My principle object in rising is to try and extract an assurance from the Chief Secretary that when this Resolution is passed the Government will not, in the course of this or a following Session, pass a sort of omnibus Bill saddling the country with these payments in perpetuity. What is wanted is that Parliament should have the control and constant supervision over the expenses under this abominable, this atrocious Bill. I do not know that I should be in order in proposing an Amendment.
MR. SPEAKER: It is too late for the hon. Member to do that now.
MR. CONYBEARE: I have no intention of proposing any Amendment; but I think we have a right to know from the Government whether they propose, acting under this Resolution in any Bill they may pass later, to follow the precedent they set in the Naval Construction. Act, and in which they themselves then copied Prince Bismarck, of getting voted a large sum for a particular purpose for a series of years. Such a practice, until this revolutionary Government came into-Office, was foreign to the Constitution of this country. We want an assurance that the Government will not follow this bad precedent, but that payments under the proposed Bill shall be subject to annual Parliamentary control. In view of the magnitude of the operations contemplated under this Bill, in view of the magnitude of the losses the country is almost certain to suffer in the future, our duty, as guardians of the interests of our constituents, is to scan minutely every proposal connected with the scheme, and to do what we can to minimise the evil-We are asked to pass a Resolution authorising the payment of salaries to a Congested Districts Board, but we do not know what that Board is or what it, is likely to be. The constitution of the Board is only dealt with at the tail-end. of this long and complicated measure, and I object to having our hands tied from the outset by the passing of this Resolution, and the Government given control of this large sum of money for a Board not yet constituted, which is yet in limbo. We have a right to know much more about this Board, and these Congested Districts, for we have our suspicions that these proposals cover a new system of jobbery, and for the distribution of patronage among the-fledglings of the Irish Bar or the half-starved hangers-on to a rotten system of administration.
(10.27.) The House divided:—Ayes. 192; Noes 121.—(Div. List, No. 124.)

PURCHASE OF LAND AND CONGESTED DISTRICTS (IRELAND) BILL.—(No. 111.)
(In the Committee.)
Clause 2.
Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

PURCHASE OF LAND AND CONGESTED DISTRICTS (IRELAND) BILL.—(No. 111.)

  COMMITTEE.
  Considered in Committee. (In the Committee.),
  Clause 1.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The Amendment which stands in the name of the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. B. Robertson) would leave the clause without meaning. The Amendment could not be inserted, except as part of a series of Amendments.
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: Yes, Sir, I had that in view, and I will give by-and-bye the words I propose to substitute. The first sub-section runs thus:—
  "Every advance under the Land Purchase Acts after the commencement of this Act, except for the purpose of such prior proceedings as hereinafter mentioned, shall be made by the issue of a sum of Guaranteed Stock equal in nominal amount to the advance."
  The Land Purchase Acts here referred to consist of eight separate statutes, which are, I believe, unknown to the vast majority of the Members of the House. The right hon. Gentleman promised before the Easter Recess that copies of those Acts should be provided for the use of Members. The copies have not been provided, and consequently the Committee has to consider this Bill as much in the dark as the House was when it considered the Resolutions which have now been carried. My objection to this sub-section is that the proposed advance is not a straightforward, honest grant of the money. The object of the Bill is said to be to provide further funds for the purchase of land in Ireland. I invite the attention of the Committee to the remarkable absence of straightforwardness in the manner in which the thing is done. I do not see whore the grant comes in. Sub-section 1 says that every advance under the Land Purchase Acts shall be made by the issue of Stock. That is to say that, instead of money as authorised by the Ashbourne Acts, we are going to have a new Stock. Not a single farthing of money is granted by Sub-section 1. Sub-section 2 of Section 6 does, I suppose it will be contended, enlarge the limits of the Ashbourne Acts, which, as they stand, authorise the advance of £10,000,000, and not more. Subsection 2 of Section 6 runs thus:—
  " The advances under this Act for the purchase of holdings in any county shall not, except in so far as is hereafter provided, exceed 25 times the share of the county in the Guarantee Fund."
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  That is, no doubt, a county limit, the-maintenance of which would be perfectly consistent with the retention of the Ashbourne limit of £10,000,000. My contention is that with these words-we could not, even when this Bill passes, grant in any county more than 25 times the capital value of the share of the county in the Guaranteed Stock, and further we could not grant more than the £10,000,000 sanctioned by the Ashbourne Acts. There is only one other part of the Bill which bears on this-question at all, as far as I can find out, and that is Sub-section 1 of Section 7-That sub-section says—
  " The Guaranteed Land Stock shall from time to time, as required for the purposes of this Act, be created by the Treasury."
  That, no doubt, is a grant of power to-the Treasury to create Guaranteed Stock for the purposes of this Act; but I maintain that there is nothing there which expunges the aggregate limit of £10,000,000 fixed by the Ashbourne Acts of 1888. I do not pretend to say that legal ingenuity or judicial astuteness may not interpret these clauses, taken together, as equivalent to a new grant to the limit specified in Clause 6.. But even if that interpretation can be put upon the clauses as they stand, I maintain that that is not an honest, straightforward, direct, or respectful way of asking Parliament to advance this enormous sum of money out of the Public Funds. I propose, therefore, to-ask the Committee to revert to the more-honest, direct, and straightforward proposal which was made by the Government about a year ago, and to substitute for Sub-section 1 of Clause 1 of the present Bill the proposal of the Bill of last year, which is that if the landlord and tenant of a holding in Ireland make an agreement for the sale of the holding to the tenant, and such agreement provides for an application to the Land Department to make an advance for the payment of the purchase, the Land Department
  " May make an order for carrying the same-into effect, and may, in manner provided by this Act, make the said advance."
  The other enacting words in Sub-section 1 of Section 4 of the Bill of 1890
  " The Land Department shall make an-advance under this Act for the purchase of a

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  holding by issuing out of Stock placed at their disposal, in pursuance of this Act, an amount of Stock equal in nominal amount to such advance."
  Now, what I propose is to substitute in place of Sub-section 1 of this Bill the words in the Bill of 1890, to which I have referred. I ask the Attorney General to give attention to the legal aspect of the Bill as now drafted, and I ask him whether ho has any objection to the words in the Bill of last year, which I have read? Last year we were asked, in terms, to authorise the Government Department to make an advance, and to make it by issuing Guarantee Stock. We are not asked, now, to do anything of the kind. The whole thing is done indirectly, and by allusion and reference to Acts that are not before the House, and by a tortuous construction of the clauses of the Bill. Very hard things have been said below the Gangway to-night about the draftsmanship of the Resolutions that have engaged attention so long this evening. I cannot say the same with regard to the present Bill; but one thing which it occurs to me to say about the measure is this: that it seems to me that the learned Attorney General for Ireland, in doing his best for the Government, has thought it the safest thing to do to draft the Bill on the lines of the least resistance. It seems to me that the 40 clauses which, in honest, bad English, were supposed to carry out the desire of the Government last year have been reduced to 10, and that the effect of that is doubly shown in the 1st sub-section of that clause.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 1, line 7, to leave out all the words to the word "by," in line 9, and insert the words "If the landlord and tenant of a holding in Ireland make an agreement for the sale of the holding to the tenant, and such agreement provides for an application to the Land Department to carry the sale into effect under this Act, and to make an advance to the amount specified in the agreement, the Land Department may make the advance."—(Mr. Edmund Robertson.)
  Question proposed, " That the words ' every advance' stand part of the Clause."
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The hon. and learned Gentleman who has
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  just sat down has moved an Amendment which, if I may judge it from the hon. and learned Gentleman's speech, is of a purely drafting character. He accused the Government of having in the framework of the Bill pursued a tortuous and deceptive policy, and endeavoured to conceal from the House the true character of the Bill. [Opposition cheers.] If hon. Gentlemen who cheer had listened to my remarks in introducing the Bill they would have observed that there has been no change in the proposals which the Government submitted to the House last year. I brought forward this Bill as precisely identical with that of last year, and the reason I alleged for the change in form was that I thought it would more easily pass in its new than in its old form. That appears to me to be common sense. It certainly is a very open policy. There was no concealment in the beginning of it, and there is no concealment now. What we have done in this Bill and what we did not do in the Bill of 1890 is to draft a new grant of money on to the machinery of the Ashbourne Acts, and by so doing we save the House the trouble and the time that would be expended in considering and quarrelling over any new machinery that might be proposed. I cannot conceive a course more straightforward, more open, more consistent with common sense. I hope the hon. and learned Gentleman will not press an Amendment which does not alter the substance of the Bill, but runs counter to the whole framework and the whole system on which the Bill as now proposed is founded. As a drafting Amendment, it is no improvement in the form of the Bill, which indeed speaks in almost" every clause of the Bill of 1885. I trust the hon. and learned Member will not waste the time of the Committee in discussing an Amendment which by his own confession is purely a drafting Amendment.
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: I never said so.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: By his own speech, then. No argument of substance has been urged against the sub-section. The Amendment deteriorates the form of the Bill, and I hope the hon. and learned Member will not ask the Committee to discuss phraseology which

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  is not in harmony with the general tenour of the Bill, or with the measures of 1885 and 1888. Ought he not to allow words to stand which, as a lawyer, he will not deny carry out the intentions of the framers of the Bill?
  MR. J. MORLEY: I agree with the right hon. Gentleman in thinking that it is laudable on the part of a Minister to try and pass a Bill, but it is equally laudable on the part of the House of Commons to satisfy itself what kind of a Bill it is before passing it. The right hon. Gentleman says that my hon. and learned Friend has moved an Amendment merely on a drafting point. Drafting may be, and often is, a matter of great importance indeed. When this Bill has to be construed by the Courts, they will not look at the speeches, but at that which the right hon. Gentleman makes so light of—the drafting of the clauses. My hon. and learned Friend read the clause in the Bill of 1890, and shewed that it differed materially from the present clause, but the right hon. Gentleman has not explained why the change has been made.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I beg the right hon. Gentleman's pardon. I have done so. I distinctly said that last year certain machinery was created, and in order to pass this Bill more easily and to shorten it, the existing machinery has been adopted.
  MR. J. MORLEY: I cannot agree that this Bill answers to the description which has been given, that old machinery is being used for the purposes of a new grant of money, and before this Bill is got rid of the right hon. Gentleman will have many opportunities of justifying that description if he can. The right hon. Gentleman should tell the Committee by what clause in the Bill as it now stands there is power given to the Treasury to advance one shilling beyond the £10,000,000 granted. The Act of 1888, no doubt, sanctioned the advance of £10,000,000 for the purposes of Land Purchase, but where can the Committee find in the present Bill a clause specifying an extension from £10,000,000 to £33,000,000 or £40,000,000? What clause gives that power? The right hon. Gentleman will, no doubt, refer us to the third Sub-section of Clause 6, but that only specifies a sub-limit and is perfectly
  206
  consistent with the aggregate amount advanced being limited to the sums specified in the Act of 1888. I think my hon. and learned Friend is perfectly justified in pressing this matter. I hope he will insist on a Division, and that the Committee will appreciate the full force of his point.
  MR. MADDEN: I think I can answer the question put by the hon. and learned Member for Dundee. Both he and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle have asked under what legal authority will advances be made of the guaranteed sum. Advances will be made under the machinery provided by the Act of 1885, with this difference, that the limit of advance is prescribed by the Bill now before the Committee. The hon. and learned Member asks what is the difference between the Bill of last year and the present measure. The difference is this: the Bill of last year contained a code complete in itself dealing with Land Purchase, beginning with the agreement, the sanction of the agreement, and the advance. Rightly or wrongly, the Bill of the present year proceeds on a different basis altogether It engrafts new financial provisions with a new financial limit on the Act of 1885. The Land Purchase Acts, of course, include the Act of 1885, and every future advance under any Land Purchase Act is to be made by the issue of Guaranteed Stock. Under the Bill of last year the advance was to be made not under the Acts of 1885 and 1888, but under the Bill of last year itself. That Bill was a code in itself, and therein lay the difference between it and the present Bill. There is no necessity for a separate provision in the present Bill authorising the advances, because the machinery of the existing Acts is brought into operation.
  SIR H. DAVEY: My hon. and learned Friend who moved the Amendment put a pointed question to the Government—namely, Where in the Bill is there to be found the power to increase by a single shilling the advances authorised by existing Acts? No answer has been given, and, indeed, no such power in the present Bill exists. It gives no authority to advance anything; the only advancing power is to be found in the Land Purchase Acts. Under the Ashbourne Acts the advances

  207
  are absolutely limited to a sum of £10,000,000. The explanation of the Government is that they are adopting existing machinery and that the advances under this Act are to be in the form of Guaranteed Stock; but the Committee will at once perceive that in merely altering the mode in which the advance is to be made, the Government do not enlarge the authority for advances. That authority is still limited to a given amount. The hon. and learned Gentleman told us that the limit was contained in Section 7 of this Bill. What does that say?
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order ! It is premature to examine that question now. It is not raised by the Amendment before the Committee.
  SIR H. DAVEY: I am trying to point out that the object of the Amendment is to bring clearly before the House the power which it is intended under the Bill to give to the Treasury, and what, if any, are the limits of that power. I must say I was disappointed with the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary. If arguments which have been adduced from the Opposition side of the House in perfect good faith are to be met in the perfunctory and off-hand manner which has been displayed by the Government this evening, the time spent in discussing the Bill will be considerably extended. But, Sir, you have ruled out of order the observations I proposed to make on Section 7, and I will therefore resume my seat, only saying that in my humble judgment my hon. and learned Friend's point has not been answered. I will also take the responsibility of saying that if I were asked to advise the Treasury as to its power under this clause, I should find it extremely difficult to say that any advance would be legal beyond the amount authorised by the Acts of 1885 and 1888.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: There are two separate and distinct points raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman who moved the Amendment. The principal point is connected with the machinery of the Bill. The hon. and learned Gentleman objected to the Government using the machinery of the Acts of 1885 and 1888, and to this objection I have replied that the Go-
  208
  vernment believe the course they have adopted to be the most convenient on the whole. The view of the hon. and learned Gentleman who last spoke does not agree with that taken by my right hon. Friend the Attorney General for Ireland, but however that may be this is not the time to discuss the question. If there can be any doubt on the point the Government are willing to introduce words that are necessary to clear it up. But meanwhile I do not think we ought to waste time in discussing the point now. As the Bill ha3 been drafted on the theory I have explained, it would be a great waste of time to endeavour to reconstruct it on a different principle.
  MR. SEYMOUR KEAY: This is nothing but a legal Debate, and I have no intention of taking any part in it. I simply rise to make one remark, and to put one question to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. That one remark is with regard to the charges made, and in my judgment fairly made, by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundee. He said there is a tortuous character in the drafting of the Bill in respect to the hiding away of the extent to which borrowing powers may be exercised. In reply to that what did the right hon. Gentleman say? If he will kindly give me his attention I think he will save the time of the Committee. His reply was that there is no ground for the charge of tortuous policy or concealment because the machinery of the Ashbourne Acts of 1885 and 1886 have been used and that the Ashbourne Acts are plainly alluded to in almost every clause in this Bill. Now I want to show the Committee how little the right hon. Gentleman knows of the Bill for which he is responsible, and I will therefore, ask him to be so good as to-point out any clause in the Bill in which the Ashbourne Acts of 1885 and 1888 are even named, except one clause and one clause only, which actually forbids any further advance being made under these Acts.
  MR. CHANCE: I will submit to the Committee that we are now considering the question of what is the meaning of the words " further advance-under the Land Purchase Acts." If the-

  209
  Committee are asked to pass these words surely it is only reasonable that they should be informed as to the meaning. The right hon. Gentlemen the Chief Secretary for Ireland says it is merely a matter of form; but I submit that it is not so, and for this reason, that the words distinctly limit the amount of money to be advanced, and, therefore, when the supply of money provided under the Ashbourne Acts is exhausted, it will be impossible to make any further advance and the Bill will cease to act by reason of the lack of ammunition.
  SIR G. CAMPBELL: It now appears that the right hon. Gentleman has had this Bill drafted in an obscure manner. We are able to gather that the intention of the Government is to apply a sum of £30,000,000 or £40,000,000 belonging to the people of this country for the purposes of this Bill, and the more we study the measure the more puzzling does it become. I think we are entitled to further consideration of this extremely obscure Bill. It is impossible at this time of night that we should understand it, and in order that we may have a fair opportunity of realising what it is, I think the best plan would be for me to move to report Progress. I therefore beg to do that.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! I cannot receive that Motion, because I regard it as an abuse of the Rules of the House.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: The further this discussion proceeds, the clearer does it become that these are the governing words of the whole Bill; and I think we are perfectly entitled to raise the question as to the extent of the advances to be made under the Bill. As my hon. and learned Friend has pointed out, a blunder has confessedly been made in the drafting of the measure, and the right hon. Gentleman does not deny that.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The accusation against the Government was that it had pursued a tortuous policy in regard to the Bill; and this is what I do deny.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I do not intend to impute to the right hon. Gentleman anything in the nature of a tortuous policy. But I think, after the candid
  210
  statements we have heard from him and from the Attorney General for Ireland, that it has been made abundantly clear that if this Bill were to pass to-morrow unamended, no lawyer would advise the Treasury to advance one single sixpence over and above the £10,000,000 already authorised to be lent under the Ashbourne Acts. That I take to be the clear effect of Section 6.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order ! The right hon. Gentleman is not entitled to discuss that point. It is anticipating the interpretation to be placed upon a subsequent clause. The Amendment before the House does not raise that question.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: Of course, Sir, I see the force of your ruling; and I will not ask as to the meaning of these words in advance. But I may inquire do the words " other advances " apply to the £10,000,000 already authorised?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: No.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: Then I hope the right hon. Gentleman will tell us to what they do apply, and, when we reach a later stage of the Bill, will make the whole matter clear to us.
  MR. MADDEN: I am clearly of opinion that the new limitation contained in this Bill is substituted for, and repeals by implication, the limitation contained in the existing financial provisions. Those provisions have been altogether superseded by the different financial arrangements of the present Bill. But if any hon. Member feels any doubt on this point I do not think we should be justified in taking up the time of the House in arguing this, especially as the introduction of a few words at the proper time would obviate all necessity for a Debate. When Section 6 of the Bill is reached, words will be introduced which will put the matter about which hon. Members opposite feel difficulty beyond the reach of doubt. It would be ex tremely unsafe to accept the Amendment before the Committee, as it would dislo cate the framework of the Bill which has been deliberately adopted. I can only repeat that the point of difference is this, the Bill of last year embodied a complete Code in itself, whereas this Bill engrafts the machinery of the Act of 1885.
  MR. J. MORLEY: The right hon. and learned Gentleman opposite used a rather extraordinary expression. He used the word "implied."
  MR. MADDEN: Repeal by implication is a phrase well understood among lawyers.
  MR. J. MORLEY: Well, I venture to say that when this House is dealing with an immense loan of money mere implication is not sufficient. Now I ask the Government will they state plainly what words they are prepared to introduce in order to carry out their avowed intention. If they do that, then my hon. and learned Friend may be well advised in withdrawing his Amendment. But we must know exactly what words the Government will put into the clause in order to carry out their intention. Another point to which I wish to draw attention is this—in the Bill of 1890 it was laid down that the Land Commission should only begin operating where agreements had been arrived at between landlord and tenant, but this preliminary condition is not mentioned in the present measure. Ought it not to be specified in the clause; or is it merely left out for drafting purposes? This preliminary agreement is to my mind an important part of the whole operation.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: As far as I can gather the views of hon. Members opposite will be met, if the first portion of Sub-section 2 of Clause 6 is amended so as to read as follows:—
  " The advances under this Act for the purchase of holdings in any county may he made to the amount of, hut shall not exceed, except in so far as is hereafter provided, 25 times the share of the county in the Guarantee Fund."
  I think that will leave no doubt as to what the intentions of the Government are.
  MR. KEAY: The right hon. Gentleman has quoted words which he says will, if added to Clause 6, define the limit of advances. But I want to ask him how the alteration of that clause will make it possible.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order,order! It is quite irregular to discuss in advance what would be the effect of the alteration of the clause. We are now concerned "With an Amendment to the 1st clause.
  MR. KEAY: The right hon. Gentleman says that advances to the extent of £30,000,000 may be made under the Ashbourne Acts. I say that will be impossible.
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order !
  MR. KEAY: Very well, Sir, I will not discuss that matter any further. So much has been said as to the possibility of defining the amount in this Bill that I may point out to the right hon. Gentleman that he will have a very difficult task in framing words which will secure the end we desire. The right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary has not answered one question I put to him. He has defended the Government against the charge of having pursued a tortuous policy in regard to this Bill, solely by alleging that the Ashbourne Acts are named in every clause of it; but he has not pointed out any single clause in which the Act of 1885 and l888 are mentioned, except that in which their operation is terminated.
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: The right hon. Gentleman very courteously said he did not suppose that I intended to obstruct the Bill. That is true, and as I have succeeded in gaining my point, I will withdraw the Amendment. In the words suggested by the right hon. Gentleman, there are, I think, possibilities of great dangers similar to those I have pointed out to the Committee; and, therefore, the words ought to be carefully considered. The right hon. Member for Newcastle has mentioned an important point, which I omitted to notice, and that is that the Bill of last year required a preliminary agreement between landlord and tenant, which preliminary agreement has disappeared from this Bill. My object is to force upon the Committee the duty of facing this grant in direct words, to which they can say " Yes " or " No," and it will not be contended that there are any such words in the Bill as it stands.
  Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I do not think my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dundee has done good service, because he has awakened hon. Members to the precipice over which they were rushing. I wish to absolve myself from any charge of obstruction,

  213
  and I propose that you should at once pass every clause of the Bill without Amendment. I gather that the result would he we should pass a Bill which would be absolutely worthless for the objects for which it was framed, to which objects I strongly object. If this course were adopted we might read the Bill a third time to-morrow.
  MR. CONYBEARE: I have now to move an Amendment, the effect of which would be to limit the risk of loss to advances under this Bill. If hon. Members will refer to the definition clauses under the Bill they will find that the expression " Land Purchase Act" is given a very wide interpretation indeed, for it includes Acts passed in 1870, 1872, 1881, 1883, 1885, 1888 and 1889. I regard the whole proposal under this Bill as essentially objectionable, and I desire to limit its operation as far as possible and to reduce the mischief and risk of loss to the ratepayers of this country to the lowest possible limit. I therefore propose that no previous Acts shall be brought within the purview of this Bill, and that its operation shall be strictly limited to loans granted under it. I am not going to trouble the Committee at this moment with any further remarks in support of the Amendment. I shall be happy to hear what answer the right hon. Gentleman has to make to the Amendment, and if necessary—if I am forced to do so by the perfunctory character of his reply—I will take leave to address myself again to the Committee.
  Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 7, to leave out the words "the Land Purchase Acts after the commencement of."—(Mr. Conybeare.')
  Question proposed, " That the words ' the Land Purchase Acts' stand part of the Clause."
  MR. T. M. HEALY: There is no reason why the ,£500,000 remaining unadvanced under the Ashbourne Acts should be clogged by the very objectionable proposals imported for the first time into this Act. Let me point out to the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary what the Amendment of the hon. Member for Camborne involves. You have on two occasions advanced £5,000,000. The first amount
  214
  was in 1885 and the second in 1888. Nine millions of that money has been already spent. Are you now going by the rejection of this Amendment to declare that that money has been misspent, or that it has been advanced without proper checks and safeguards, which it has taken you all these years to discover? Why, I ask, do the Government seek to go back upon the grant which Parliament has already made, and made so long as six years ago in one case and three years in the other? Are you now going to say that your whole Ashbourne policy was a mistake, and that your disbursements under the 1885 and 1888 Acts were made without proper precautions? Have you suddenly discovered that the whole principle on which you acted in this matter was wrong? If you have not, then why do you adopt this cheeseparing and niggardly way of dealing with the question? I think that, bearing in mind the fact that the Land Purchase Commission is a new body, and also not forgetting the view of the hon. and gallant Member for Galway, that the tenants with but few exceptions will pay their instalments without being coerced by the crowbar into doing so, that this is a case in which the Government might fairly yield. I think they would act sensibly in doing so.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Government cannot accept the Amendment of the hon. Member for Camborne, as it would cut this Bill off from the parent Act of 1888. The hon. Member who has just sat down raised quite a distinct point—a point which I have considered a great deal, and on which I think there is a good deal to be said on both sides. There is a small balance of £900,000 still remaining under the Act of 1888, and the question is whether that sum should be administered under this Bill, or be used up under the Acts of 1885 and 1888.' On the whole, the Government think it would be simpler to have only one system of land purchase. If the hon. and learned Member opposite wishes this balance to be spent under the old Act I have no objection to that; but the proper way to do it will not be by omitting the words the hon. Member for Camborne proposes to omit, but by introducing words which will modify

  215
  a subsequent section of the Bill. That can be done by introducing in their proper place the words "for the purpose of such prior proceedings."
  It being Midnight, the Chairman left the Chair to make his Report to the House.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow, at Two of the clock.

  TAXES (REGULATION OF REMUNERATION) BILL (changed from "ASSESSMENT OF TAXES (REGULATION OF REMUNERATION) BILL"—(No. 221.)
  As amended, considered.
  Amendments made.
  Amendment proposed,
  In Clause 2, page 1, leave out "other than in relation to Land Tax," and insert " in the due execution of the Acts relating to the Land Tax and Inhabited House Duties." — [Mr. Jackson.)
  MR. CONYBEARE: I do not find that anyone understands this Bill, and I beg to move the Adjournment.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON,: The object of the Bill is simply to provide for payment of officials by salary instead of by poundage.
  MR. CONYBEARE: I am not at all convinced in my own mind of the propriety of such a change, and I must protest against the very objectionable practice on the part of the Government of moving important Amendments without a single word of explanation.
  Amendment agreed to.
  Bill to be read the third time tomorrow, at Two of the clock.

  PRESUMPTION OF LIFE LIMITATION (SCOTLAND) BILL- (No. 248.)
  Considered in Committee.

  SUPPLY [6th APRIL] REPORT.
  Order read, for resuming Adjourned Debate on Question [7th April],
  " That this House doth agree with the Committee in the Sixth Resolution, ' That a sum not exceeding £28,461, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March 1892, for Expenditure in respect of Art and Science Buildings, Great Britain.' "
  Question put, and agreed to.
  7."That a sum, not exceeding £41,758, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 3lst day of March, 1892, for Expenditure in respect of Diplomatic and Consular Buildings, and for the maintenance of certain Cemeteries Abroad."
  8." That a sum, not exceeding £281,350, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1892, for the Customs, Inland Revenue, Post Office, and Post Office Telegraph Buildings in Great Britain, including Furniture, Fuel, and sundry Miscellaneous Services."
  9." That a sum, not exceeding £147,450, be granted to Her Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1892, in respect of sundry Public Buildings in Great Britain, not provided for on other Votes."
  Resolutions agreed to.

MIDDLESEX REGISTRY BILL.—(No. 265.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (MR.JACKSON, LLEEDS,N.): This is a one clause Bill. Owing to the death of lord Truro, it has become necessary to appoint somebody to discharge the duties performed by him under statue. It is proposed to transfer the duties to the Middlex Registry Department. The saving will be between 5,000. It is necessary that the bill should be passed without delay , and I hope the House will welcome the oppurtunity of effecting so substainal an economy.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the bill be now read a second time."
  MR. T. M. HEALY:will the right hon. Gentleman who is to get the job?
  MR. JACKSON: No new officer will be appointed; there will simply be a transference of the duties which have been discharged by, or been under the care of, Lord Truro to an existing officer. [" Who is he?"] The Land Registrar, whoever he may be.
  MR. CONYBEARE: That involves the consideration, what are the duties, and whether the Registrar is capable of discharging them?
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: I hope my hon. Friends will not persist in opposing this Bill. There are many reasons why the Bill should be passed with the least possible delay, if the House of Commons wishes to save this £5,000 a year. It is not intended to create any new office. At present there is only an assistant Registrar. He has no politics; he is a member of the Civil Service. This is really a question whether the House of Commons wishes to put an end to a sinecure with £5,000 a year.
  MR. CHANCE: Can the Assistant Registrar gain anything by change of status?
  MR. JACKSON: Nothing whatever.
  MR. S. T. EVANS: In whose favour will the economy be effected? The registry is one for the County of Middlesex alone, and I should like to know whether it is a fact that money obligations which rest on one county will be transferred to the country generally.
  MR. JACKSON: The fees hitherto paid have gone into the pocket of Lord Truro. In future the fees will go into the Exchequer.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read a second time, and committed for to-morrow, at Two of the clock.

  DRAINAGE AND IMPROVEMENT OF LAND (IRELAND) BILL.—(No. 66.)
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow.

  STATUTORY RULES PROCEDURE BILL. (No. 260.)
  Bill read a second time, and committed for Thursday, 23rd April.
  CHARITIES RECOVERY BILL.—(NO. 247.)
  Considered in Committee, and reported; as amended, to be considered upon Monday next.

  HARES BILL.—(No. 10.)
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee).
  Clause 1.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Wednesday, 24th June.

  SMALL HOLDINGS BILL.-(No. 7.)
  Committee deferred till Thursday' 23rd April.

  COMMON LAW ACTIONS.
  Address for—
  "Return showing the number of Common Law Actions tried in the Superior Courts during the five years succeeding the 1st day of November, 1885, and the amounts recovered, in the form of, and continuation of, Parliamentary Paper, Ho. 20, of Session 1882; totals to be shown."—[Mr. Henry H. Fowler.)

  PARLIAMENTARY ELECTIONS (ILLITERATE VOTERS).
  Address for—
  "Return showing the number of Persons who voted as Illiterates at Elections in the United Kingdom from the 7th day of March, 1890, to the 9th day of April, 1891."*—{Mr. Webster).

  HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE (ASSIZES).
  Address for—
  "Return of the time occupied by the Judges of the High Court in Holding Courts at the Assizes held in the year 1890, in the following form:—

  Name of Judge.

  Assize Town.

  Number of days on which Judge sat in Courts Civil and Criminal.

  Totals

  —(Mr.Henry H.Fowler)

  PRISONERS (DETENTION BEFORE TRIAL).
  Address for—
  "Return, for the year 1890, of the following information concerning the period during which Prisoners were detained while awaiting Trial at Courts of Quarter Sessions and Assizes in England and Wales, showing (1) the time of detention in Prison before Trial of all Prisoners tried at Assizes and Quarter Sessions in England and Wales during the year 1890:—

  Courts (Assize and Quarter sessions)

  Total number of Prisoners tried.

  Number of Prisoners detained in Prison between Committal for Trial and Trial for—

  2 to 4weeks.*

  4 to 6 weeks.

  6 to 8 weeks.

  8 to 10weeks.

  10 to 12weeks.

  Over 12weeks.

  * Time to be reckoned from date of Committal for Trial to actual day on which Trial commenced.

  "And (2) the number of Prisoners awaiting Trial in Prison at the time of the holding of Assizes during the year 1890, and tried subsequently at Quarter Sessions, in the following form:—

  Place and date of Assizes.

  Number of Prisoners in Prison on the first day of the Assizes who had been committed for Trial at Quarter sessions.

  Place and date of Quarter Sessions at which such Prisoners were subsequently tried.

  Number of Prisoners in Column 2 tried at such Sessions.

  Interval between first day of Assizes and first day of Sessions.

  Days.

  —(Sir William Harcourt.)

  House adjourned at half after Twelve o'clock.