Commons Sitting of 15 June 1891

QUESTIONS.

  THE INDIAN STAFF CORPS.
  MR. GOURLEY: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether he is aware that grave discontent exists among the officers of the Indian Staff Corps on account of the
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  slowness of their promotion to the ranks of Captain and Major; and whether he is prepared to bring the matter to the notice of the Indian Government, with a view to effecting a reduction in the existing fixed periods of service, namely, 11 and 20 years, and thus assimilate the rate of promotion somewhat nearer to that governing for some years past the British Army, and which has averaged about eight and 16 years?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Sir J. FERGUSSON,) (for Sir J. GOKST, Under Secretary of State for India): The Secretary of State is not aware that there is any grave discontent among the officers of the Indian Staff Corps on account of the slowness of their promotion to the ranks of Captain and Major; and, as at present advised, he has no intention of taking the initiative in the matter.

  PASTOR HAEGERT, OF THE BETHEL SANTHAL MISSION.
  MR. S. SMITH: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether his attention has been drawn to the Memorial from Pastor Haegert, of the Bethel Santhal Mission, to the Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, alleging that he was being dispossessed of the church, hospital, and school, in which he had laboured for 19 years, on the complaint of the Headsman of the village, who confessed in Court that he had been a Chowkidar, and was dismissed from the service for some criminal offence, and sent to gaol; whether he is aware that Pastor Haegert offered to pay for the land five times as much as it might be valued at; and whether the Government have power to order the case to be tried again by another Magistrate?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON (for Sir J. GORST): The attention of the Secretary of State has only been called to this matter by the question. The case appears to be one of title to land raised in the ordinary way in the Courts of the country, with which the Executive Government cannot interfere.

  MILITARY CONTRIBUTION BY CEYLON.
  MR. O. V. MORGAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Trea-

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  sury whether he will cause to be printed and circulated among Members of Parliament a Copy of the Memorial from the Ceylon Association in London to the Secretary of State for the Colonies on the subject of the Military contribution to be paid by Ceylon to the Imperial Government?
  *THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,)was understood to say that it would not be convenient at the present moment to print and circulate among Members of Parliament a Copy of the Memorial referred to in the question, as Her Majesty's Government had not had a full opportunity of considering it.

  POSTAL OFFENCES.
  MR. HENNIKER HEATON: I beg to ask the Postmaster General the number of complaints of postal offences and irregularities sent in by the public last year to his Department; the number of prosecutions of officials instituted by the Departmental Authorities last year, and the number of men dismissed in the same period for irregularities; and the total amount refunded to the public by the Department last year in respect of losses in transmission and overcharges?
  THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. RAIKES,): The number of Post Office servants prosecuted during the year 1890 was 95, and the total amount refunded by the Department in respect of losses in transmission during the same period was £2,058 4s. 8d. No record, as far as I know, is kept of the number of complaints addressed to the Department in the year. Nor could any purpose be served by doing so, as it would be an endless task to discriminate between those which deserve and receive consideration and those which receive but do not deserve it. The latter class is, of course, immensely in excess of the former. The number of men dismissed for all causes, independently of the London strike in July last, was 204, out of a total force of 61,000—or 3 per cent.—which I think the House will regard as a very small average of misconduct.

  EVENING SCHOOLS.
  MR. S. SMITH: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council
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  on Education whether, in view of the desirability of affording inducements to children to enter evening schools, the Government will consider the expediency of freeing evening schools from the payment of fees?
  THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Sir W. HABT DYKE,): The principle of the Bill is to render attendance at school free during the years in which compulsion may be applicable; but, as the hon. Member is aware, this does not cover the case of evening schools. The Department has lately done much to encourage evening schools, and is prepared to do more; but, looking to the advantages they confer on the lads in attendance, who are mostly themselves in receipt of wages, I do not think it too much to ask of the scholars that they should be willing to help themselves to the amount of the school fee usually charged.

  SEVERE SENTENCE.
  MR. LEAKE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been called to the case of Mary Flannagan, who was sentenced on the 1st instant, at the Salford Hundred Quarter Sessions, to seven years' penal servitude and seven years' police supervision for stealing one shilling; and whether he will take into his consideration the expediency and justice of mitigating such a severe punishment, although Flannagan is an old offender?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr. MATTHEWS,): I am now in communication with the Chairman of Quarter Sessions with regard to this case, and will inform the hon. Member of the result in due course.

  SCHOOL FEES.
  MR. SINCLAIR&c.): I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education if, in the case of schools, whether voluntary or Board schools, which consist of more than one department, the managers or School Board will have the option of dealing with each department of the school as a separate school, or dealing with the entire school as a whole; and, in the latter case, would it be permissible, under the Elementary Education

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  Bill just introduced, to equalise, where fees continue to be charged, the fees throughout the school, with the object of inducing, so far as the reduction of fees in the higher standards can do so, parents to keep their children at school to a more advanced age than at present; and, where fees charged in the lower standards may be 3d. or under, and in the higher standards above 3d., would it be permissible to continue a charge in the lower standards, thus applying the greater amount of the grant in the reduction of fees in the higher standards?
  SIR W. HART DYKE: Subject to any arrangements which it may be necessary to make in order to meet the demand for free school accommodation, managers will be at liberty to distribute the fees still chargeable as they like, provided that they do not in the aggregate amount to more than the excess of the present fee income over the proposed fee grant; but every department of a school must be treated as a separate school.

  THE BACCARAT CASE.
  MR. SUMMERS: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he has taken, or intends to take, any action with regard to the person or persons who, in the case of "Sir William Gordon-Cumming v. Wilson and others," were alleged to have broken, or to have been parties to the breach of, the Regulation of Her Majesty's Army, which provides that—
  "Every Commissioned Officer of Her Majesty's Service, whose character or conduct as an Officer and gentleman has been publicly impugned, must submit the case within a reasonable time to his Commanding Officer, or other competent Military Authority, for in-vestigation."
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. E. STANHOPE,): Any hon. Member who examines the Regulation in question will, I think, see that the person who chiefly broke it was Sir William Gordon-Cumming, who failed to submit his case to his Commanding Officer. Any offence committed by any other officers could only have consisted in advising or pressing him to take any other course. Of the three officers connected with this case, one, General Owen Williams, has retired from the Army, and is no longer subject to the Queen's Regulations. The other two are, undoubtedly, so subject.
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  The Regulation in question, No. 41, had never been specially brought to the notice of H. R. H. the Prince of Wales, but now that his attention has been called to it, and that he has also looked back upon all the circumstances of the case, H. R. H. authorises me to say on his behalf that he sees that an error of judgment was committed in not requiring Sir William Gordon-Cumming at once to submit his case to his Commanding Officer in accordance with the Queen's Regulations. In this view of the case I certainly concur, but I should like to add the expression of my personal opinion that, if any one of us had unfortunately and suddenly heard that a close friend of our own—who, moreover, had gained distinction by his services to his country—had been accused of dishonourable conduct, we should naturally have hesitated before taking any course which would bring immediate and irretrievable ruin upon his whole future career. Mr. Berkeley Levett, who is in the same position, has addressed a letter to his superior officer, expressing in very proper terms his great regret at not having acted in strict accordance with Regulations. It is not proposed to take any further action in the matter.

  LICENSED VIVISECTORS.
  MR. S. SMITH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the increase in the number of licensed vivisectors from 23 in 1876 to 87 in 1889; to the increase during the same period of licensed places from 19 to 54; to the increase in the number of experiments from 481 to 1,417; and those performed wholly or in part without anæsthetics from 164 to 814; whether he is aware that in some cases inoculation is produced by cutting into the eye of the animal and making the inoculation in the transparent part of the ball, which method, it is said, has the advantage that it enables the result to be observed day by day, and that in some cases the virus, which is presently to madden the victim, is squirted into the brain through a hole cut through the scalp and the skull, and that these animals are rarely rendered altogether insensible, even by the aid of some anæsthetic; whether his attention has been drawn to the large endowments

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  which have been made available for practical physiology of late years; and whether the Government could take steps to prevent any further increase in this practice?
  MR. MATTHEWS: There has certainly been an increase in the work of vivisection, as shown by the Inspector's Reports, but it must be borne in mind that the object of the Act is to control, and not to prevent, legitimate scientific inquiry. By the Report of the Inspector for 1889 it appears that 44 per cent. of the experiments performed were painless, and in nearly 41 per cent. they were of the nature of simple hypodermic injections, or inoculations, it being made a condition of the experiments that the animal shall be killed if pain result. I am informed by the Inspector that he only knows of one case in which the operation of inoculation in the eye has been practised in this country. In that case he reports that the change in the eye was microscopic, and that the animal appeared quite free from pain. The other operation of inoculation beneath the dura mater is practised in this country only on rabbits and as a test experiment to ascertain whether a dog which has bitten human beings or animals is really rabid or not, and whether further curative measures are necessary or not. The Inspector assures me that it has no maddening effect whatever on the rabbit inoculated with supposed virus from the dog, and the action of the virus is on the spinal cord, and not on the brain. The Inspector denies the allegation that in these cases the anæsthetic is imperfectly given. The experimenter has everything to lose and nothing to gain by neglecting the anæsthetic. It is not the duty of the Government to interfere with the progress of scientific experimentation, provided always that the conditions and restrictions imposed by law are strictly and rigorously enforced.

  HALL MARKING.
  MR. PICTON: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, with a view to correct the various anomalies of the ancient law of Hall-marking of gold and silver wares, and the trouble now given to travellers from abroad having plate in their possession, and with the further view to encourage
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  the exportation of plate manufactured in the United Kingdom to countries whose standards differ from that of this country, and who may or may not require the British hall-mark, Her Majesty's Government are prepared, when occasion may permit, to bring in a Bill to reform the Hall-marking Laws, by abolishing "compulsory" hall-marking, leaving manufacturers to make plate at their discretion, hall-marked or not hall-marked, to suit the various demands of foreign countries; and whether he will refer this question to the Standards Department of the Board of Trade for consideration and report, and will lay such Report upon the Table of the House?
  *THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD or TRADE (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): My right hon. Friend has requested me to answer this question. This matter is now under the consideration of the Standards Department of the Board of Trade; but I can make no promise as to presenting any Report on the subject, or introducing a Bill for the abolition of compulsory hall-marking. I doubt if such a measure would be at all acceptable to the trade.

  IMMIGRATION OF ALIENS.
  MR. HOWARD VINCENT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade if he can state by what number the 29,885 aliens, shown by Parliamentary paper, No. 147, to have arrived in the United Kingdom during 1890 from Continental emigrant ports, and declared not to be en route for America, have been augmented in the first five months of this year; and if, having regard to the fact that 218,116 natives of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland emigrated during the period of this influx, and that over 152,000 of these placed themselves under a Foreign flag accepting only those calculated to make useful citizens, Her Majesty's Government have considered if the period contemplated by the Select Committee, presided over by the Judge Advocate General, in 1889, has arrived, when—
  "Legislation has become necessary, in view of the crowded condition of our great towns, the extreme pressure for existence among the poorer part of the population, and the tendency of destitute Foreigners to reduce still lower the social and material condition of our poor."
  *SIR M. HICKS BEACH: We have a record of 11,609 aliens arriving up to the end of May this year, who are not stated to have been en route to America; but, of course, this number must not, any more than the 29,885 quoted by the hon. Member, be taken as the net foreign immigration for the purposes of settlement in this country, which is very much less. As compared with last year, there was an increase of arrivals at London and Hull (the only ports with which a comparison is possible) during the first four months of 1891 of 885, but for the month of May the figures show a decrease of 331, making a net increase of 554 in the five months. The extent of British and Irish emigration referred to by my hon. Friend seems to me an argument against the legislation be seems to desire. At present the laws on this subject of the United States and the Australasian Colonies are directed only against immigrants likely to become a public charge, and do not exclude such immigrants as the Russian Jews. To exclude them you would require a law basing the exclusion on the ground of poverty. If such a law were passed here and imitated by the United States and other countries to which our people go, our own emigrants would suffer from it more than those of any other country, because there are more of them.

  GALLERY OF BRITISH ART.
  DR. FARQUHARSON: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he can now state to the House the terms of the Memorial addressed to his Department by the Scientific Staff of the Science and Art Department of South Kensington with reference to the proposed appropriation of ground for a Gallery of British Art, and the action that was taken thereon?
  SIR W. HART DYKE: No, Sir; the Memorial was a Departmental document, and therefore not intended for publication.

  "GROGGING" BONDED CASKS
  MR. BIGWOOD: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware that the Excise Authorities declare that they are unable as the law now stands to preven
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  rectifiers who methy late from "grogging" bonded casks which have contained spirit for methylation; and, if so, whether any alteration in the law is proposed, to enable the authorities to deal with the practice in a satisfactory manner, and thus stop this serious leakage in revenue?
  THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON,): The facts with regard to "grogging" by rectifiers are as stated by my hon. Friend. The question of "grogging" generally is now being carefully considered by the Board of Inland Revenue and Customs.

  CUSTOMS CLERKS.
  MR. FURNESS: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether his attention has been called to the grievances of the Second Class Clerks in the Customs service at the out ports; whether, in November of last year, they placed those grievances, by way of Memorial, before the Commissioners of Her Majesty's Customs; whether he is aware that as yet no reply has been made to that Memorial; and whether he will order an inquiry to be made into their case with a view to redressing their grievances?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN, St. George's,): The Memorial to which the hon. Member refers was forwarded to the Treasury by the Commissioners of Customs on April 27, together with a Report upon the matters complained of, and proposals for meeting to a certain extent these complaints. The proposals are still under consideration, and I can assure the hon. Member that full attention shall be given to the case.

  SCHOOL BOARD FINANCES.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education if he can inform the House how many applications for School Board loans have been made since the last published Return, and at what figure the School Board debt stands at the present time?
  SIR W. HART DYKE: During the year 1890, 343 applications for loans have been sanctioned by the Education

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  Department. The School Board debt on the 29th September, 1890, stood at £18,511,491 7s. 11d.
  MR. STANLEY LEIGHTON: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether his attention has been called to Returns lately published, showing that the triennial elections of School Boards, although a large number are uncontested, cost about £50,000; that the cost of the administration of School Boards, before any portion of the rates levied under their precepts is applied to education, amounts to about £325,000 a year; that the School Board debt amounts to £21,481,772; and that the School Board rate has risen from the maximum of 3d., as estimated by Mr. Forster in 1870, to an average of more than 7d. in the School Board districts, to Is. in 300 cases, and in some to more than 2s. in the £1; and whether the Government are able to propose any means by which the ratepayers may be relieved?
  SIR W. HART DYKE: 1. The cost of the triennial elections of the School Boards slightly exceeded £50,000. 2. The cost of the administration amounted in 1890 to £375,388 2s. 3d. 3. The School Board debt on 29th September, 1890, stood at £18,511,491 7s. 11d. 4. The average School Board rate for England and Wales slightly exceeds 7d. in the £1. 5. The rate was Is. 3d. in the £1 in 223 cases; and 6. There are five cases where it reaches 2s. The Elementary Education Bill now before the House will be of substantial relief to the ratepayers in cases where a high school rate is partly due to the Board having charged a low fee; but no general reduction of the rate can be looked for except through the action of the ratepayers themselves.

  FRENCH BETTING ACT.
  MR. S. SMITH: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether his attention has been drawn to the new Betting Act in France, which prohibits anyone acting as a commission agent in the matter of bets, or as keeper of a betting office, or as tipster selling information concerning the chances of any racehorses; and whether the Government see their way to propose similar legislation for this country?
  MR. MATTHEWS: Yes, Sir; I have seen a copy of the Act in question. I am not sure that the hon. Member has accurately stated its provisions. It appears to me to be confined to cases of public betting offices open to all comers. It is now an offence under 16 and 17 Vict., c. 119, to keep a betting office in this country. I stated, in reply to a question on the 17th of March last, that, while the Government would do their best to enforce the existing law, they do not contemplate legislation on the subject.

  SALVATIONISTS AT EASTBOURNE.
  MR. J. STUART: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is aware that 15 Salvationists, including three women, were on Thursday last fined £5 each, or one month's imprisonment, for offences under the 169th clause of the Eastbourne Improvement Act of 1885, which are not offences under the ordinary law; whether he is aware that three men summoned by the police for assaulting Salvationists on Sunday were convicted on the same day, and were bound over to keep the peace; and whether, having regard to the inequality of these sentences, he will consider the question of remitting the sentences on the Salvationists?
  MR. MATTHEWS: I am informed by the Eastbourne Magistrates that 30 defendants were brought before them on the 11th inst for a breach of the Eastbourne Improvement Act, and at the close of the hearing the Chairman offered to discharge them all on their own recognisances if they would give their personal promise not to continue this breach of the law. This they all declined to do, whereupon the Bench dismissed the cases against all the defendants who were under age, and inflicted the full penalty on the remainder, 14 in number. The three men referred to in the second paragraph were summoned by the police, not by the Salvationists, who made no complaint, under the Municipal Corporations Act, for "disturbing the public peace," and were bound over in £10, which is all that the Magistrates had power to do under the 193rd section of that Act. The alleged inequality is, therefore, a consequence of

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  the different enactments under which proceedings were taken, and forms no ground for a remission of the sentences.

  DUTY ON LOST TEA.
  MR. PHILIPPS: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will direct inquiry to be made into the circumstances attending the refusal by the Board of Customs to return the duty of 4d. per pound charged on six and a half chests of tea lost in the steamship Cambria off Yarmouth; whether, seeing that the tea can never be recovered, the Board of Customs is legally entitled to refuse to return the duty; and whether, as the tea was uninsured and has been a heavy loss to a small dealer, he could see his way to advise the return of this money?
  MR. GOSCHEN: I must ask the hon. Member to postpone the question until Thursday.

  COUNTY COUNCIL ELECTIONS.
  MR. CAUSTON: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board, in the event of the Bill postponing the County Council Elections until 8th March passing into law in its present form, what will be the position of those divisions in which vacancies have occurred, and may occur, within six months prior to the 1st November next, and in which, under the existing law, vacancies would not be filled up?
  *THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,): When the Bill referred to has become law any vacancies in the office of County Councillor which have occurred, or which may occur, more than six months before the 8th of March may, under the Bill as it now stands, be filled up. I think this may cause some inconvenience, and I shall be quite prepared to consider any amendment by which vacancies will not be filled until the new election.

  ALDERSHOT.
  MR. CAUSTON: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he will state the number of soldiers quartered at Aldershot on 25th March, 1890, and on 25th March, 1891, and also the number in hospital on the same date?
  MR. E. STANHOPE: As nearly as can be stated there were on the 25th of March, 1890, 13,564 soldiers quartered at Aldershot, and at the same date in 1891 there were 12,589. Of these there were in hospital 761 in 1890, or 5·61 per cent., and 636 in 1891, or 5·05 per cent.

  SCHOOL ACCOMMODATION.
  MR. CALDWELL: I beg to ask the Lord Advocate whether the school accommodation in State-aided schools prescribed by the Code is based on the number of children in average attendance, and not on the number of children on the roll, or of school age, in the district; what is the number of children for whom accommodation is provided in Ardchattan School; what, according to the latest statistics in the possession of the Scotch Education Department, was the number of children in average attendance in that school; whether the Department had any information that the combined average attendance of said school and the Episcopal school ever exceeded the accommodation provided in Ardchattan Board School alone; and whether the Department ever complained to the School Board that the accommodation of Ardchattan School was insufficient for the wants of the district?
  *THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,): The calculation of school accommodation, as prescribed by the Code, is based on the average attendance. The number for whom accommodation is so provided in the Ardchattan Public School is 50. The average attendance in that school during the last school year for which we have statistics was 23, and according to a Return furnished by the School Board last year, the average attendance in the Episcopal school was 30. The Department have not had reason to complain to the School Board that the accommodation of Ardchattan Public School was insufficient for the wants of those children in the district who desired to attend it.

  COPYRIGHT IN THE UNITED STATES.
  MR. BRYCE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether an answer has yet been returned by the Foreign Office

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  to the inquiries which the President of the United States is understood to have addressed to Her Majesty's Government on the subject of the British Law relating to International Copyright, with a view to ascertain how far that law satisfies the conditions on which copyright in the United States can be declared to be capable of acquisition by British subjects?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: No answer has yet been returned; but I am glad to say that Her Majesty's Government are advised that the law of this country in the matter of copyright is so favourable to aliens that we may expect to satisfy the conditions of the American Law.

  MR. SAWYER'S PENSION.
  MR. MORTON: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he has inquired into the case of the pension of Mr. Sawyer; and if he can now state the result of his inquiries?
  MR. GOSCHEN: Mr. Sawyer retired from the post of Assistant Inspector of Mines in consequence of a defect of eyesight. The medical certificate upon which a pension was granted to him was signed by the distinguished oculist Dr. Critchett. It stated that this defect was likely to be permanent, that in consequence of the defect Mr. Sawyer was, in uncertain lights, unable to appreciate distances clearly, and that he would therefore be liable to meet with accidents in the discharge of his duties as Assistant Inspector of Mines. It is evident that a defect which rendered him unable to discharge the duties of the post which he held would not necessarily incapacitate him for doing work of an entirely different character.

  PORTUGUESE POSSESSIONS IN EAST AFRICA.
  MR. LYELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is true, as reported, that a Bill has been introduced in the Portuguese Legislature to empower the Government to sell their possessions on the East Coast of Africa; and, if so, whether this Bill has the sanction and support of the Portuguese Government?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: We have no official information on the subject, nor
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  do I understand that it is alleged that the Portuguese Government have moved in the direction stated.

  ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS IN WALES.
  MR. T. ELLIS: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he can state the number of children under 5, over 14, and between 5 and 14 respectively, in elementary schools in Wales and Monmouth during the year 1890?
  SIR W. HART DYKE: The numbers are respectively 34,661, 3,992, and 268,174.

  REPORT OF MR. FITCH.
  MR. SUMMERS: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he will lay upon the Table of the House the Report of Mr. Fitch, from which he quoted in his speech on Monday last?
  SIR W. HART DYKE: There will be no objection, so far as I am aware, to presenting Mr. Fitch's Report to Parliament.

  REMISSION OF SCHOOL BOARD FEES.
  MR. SUMMERS: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether it is the intention of the Government, by Clause 5 of the Elementary Education Bill, to give School Boards power to remit the fees of all children under 5 and over 14 years of age?
  SIR W. HART DYKE: School Boards will certainly have the power to remit fees in respect to such children, provided that this policy meets with the approval of the ratepayers.

  "SPHERE OF INFLUENCE" IN AFRICA.
  SIR G. BADEN-POWELL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in defining "Sphere of Influence" in International Agreements in regard to Africa, Her Majesty's Government interprets the declaration as giving to the paramount European Power the right to bring under its authority the Native Races or States within such district, even against their will; or whether Her Majesty's Government interprets the phrase to mean that the other European Powers bind themselves

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  to abstain from attempting to set up their own authority within such district?
  SIR J. FERGUSSON: The definition of a sphere of influence by agreement between two or more Powers cannot be interpreted to mean more than the Instrument declares, and does not restrict the parties to the agreement from exercising their influence or control within their respective spheres, according to their individual discretion. Her Majesty's Government have repeatedly stated that within the spheres assumed by them they do not assume sovereignty or administration, except with the concurrence of the Native rulers. The last sentence of the question accurately defines the general position.

  THE SCOTTISH "EQUIVALENT GRANT."
  MR. BRYCE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether Her Majesty's Government, having declared that they intend to propose the application (after the present year) of a considerable part of the Scottish "Equivalent Grant" to the purposes of what is called secondary education, and having also expressed their sense of the difficulty and importance of determining the best method of promoting such education by means of public money, intend to institute any, and what, sort of inquiry into the state of secondary education in Scotland, and the best means for extending and improving it?
  *MR. J. P. B. ROBERTSON: I have been asked by my right hon. Friend to answer this question. In conformity with the recent statement made in this House it will be the duty of the Government during the ensuing year not only to weigh very carefully the claims of secondary education as one of the interests competing for a share of the additional Scotch grant, but also to prosecute further inquiries as to the means by which any grant available for that purpose might be usefully applied. Many proposals have already been submitted and considered by the Scotch Education Department, and these, as well as any suggestions which may be made, will receive further careful consideration. The Government will also endeavour to bring all necessary statistics down to
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  the latest date, so as to afford the necessary information for the solution of all branches of this difficult question.

  STAMPS AT BELFAST.
  MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is aware of the complaints made as to the insufficient number of transfer and other stamps kept in stock at Belfast; and whether he will make inquiry into the matter, and give directions to have a larger supply in stock at Belfast?
  MR. JACKSON: A complaint has been made respecting au insufficient supply of 10s. printed transfer forms at Belfast. The deficiency arose entirely through a most unusual demand for these stamps being made on the same day, but steps will be taken to prevent the stock running out again in such a manner. I may add that the stamping facilities about to be granted to Belfast will prevent any such inconvenience as arose on this occasion occurring again.

  CAVAN POST OFFICE.
  MR. KNOX: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether it is the fact that a postmistress has been appointed to take charge of the post office in Cavan; whether he is aware that until little more than a year ago a man was always in charge of the office; whether, during the term of office of the late postmistress, many larcenies were committed, for one of which a young man is undergoing 12 months' imprisonment; whether there were many and frequent complaints during the same time at the lack of organisation and control in the office; whether he is aware that the Town Commissioners, by resolution on 1st Ma, and by frequent representations through their Chairman and Vice Chairman since the office became vacant, have protested against the appointment of any woman, and have called for the appointment of an efficient male officer; whether similar representations were made to the Solicitor to the Post Office on the occasion of the recent conviction for larceny; and whether, if a woman has again been appointed, the appointment will be cancelled?
  MR. RAIKES: Speaking generally, the statements implied in the hon. Mem-

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  ber's question are correct. As regards the conclusion which appears to be drawn, however, that a woman is not capable of managing a post office efficiently, this is certainly not the experience of the Department. In Ireland alone there 29 head postmistresses, among whom there are some who in point of activity and capacity leave nothing to be desired; and, speaking for the United Kingdom generally, I am glad to say that the post offices which are presided over by women are by no means the least efficiently managed. From the special training which from her childhood she has had in the office of her father, the postmaster of Belturbet. I shall be much surprised if Miss Mahaffy, whom I have appointed to Cavan, will not discharge her duties efficiently and to the perfect satisfaction of the inhabitants.

  IRISH DISTRESS.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he will start relief works in the Unions of Tuam and Glenamaddy to supply food to the population until the new potato crop comes in?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. MADDEN,) (for Mr. A. J. BALFOUR): Careful attention is being given to the condition of the Unions named.
  MR. SEXTON: I wish to ask the Attorney General for Ireland whether he will inform the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant that the Irish Members are deeply concerned by the accounts of the widespread distress now prevailing in North-West Donegal, and hope that immediate steps will be taken to give relief?
  MR. MADDEN: I have no doubt that my right hon. Friend will receive full information on the subject, and will take whatever steps may be necessary. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will repeat the question on Thursday.
  MR. SEXTON: In the event of no satisfactory assurance being forthcoming, I will, on Thursday, draw attention to the matter.

  THE LORDLAND COMMISSION.
  MR. DICKSON: May I ask whether the Govern-
  408
  ment have taken any steps to provide for a revision of the salaries of the members of the Land Commission?
  MR. MADDEN: My right hon. Friend recognises the principle that equality of duties involve equality of remuneration. It is his intention next Session to introduce a measure embodying that principle. The provisions of the Land Department Bill of this year laid down that complete equalisation of duties would not come into practical operation for some time to come.

  COMMISSIONERS OF NATIONAL EDUCATION, IRELAND.
  MR. SEXTON: I beg to ask the Attorney General for Ireland why the clerks in the office of the Commissioners of National Education in Ireland have been treated differently from the clerks in other offices in Dublin as regards hours of attendance, Saturday half-holiday, number of days in the year on which the office is closed, and duration of annual leave, all privileges preserved to those who were in the service before the introduction of the seven hours' scheme, and safeguarded to them by Clause 8 of the Order in Council (August, 1890)?
  MR. MADDEN: The Commissioners of National Education report that the regulations observed in their office are in strict accordance with the provisions of the Queen's Order in Council of March 21, 1890, and they add that clerks of the Second Division, who under the former arrangements were allowed 28 week days' annual leave in consideration of extra attendance for special service, are still granted the same indulgence on the same conditions.

  GRANTS FOR FREE EDUCATION.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer if it is mainly on the Return 144, of 24th April, 1890, on which he has based the proportion of the relative grants for free education to England and Ireland; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that this Return 144 is in continuation of Return 36, Session 1884, on which is the note, "This Return cannot be properly quoted for purposes of comparison," this note being signed "Leonard Courtney"; and that there is on the very Return 144 a somewhat

  409
  similar note, signed "W. L. Jackson"; whether Return 144 has been made up under specific and special instructions as to how credit should be given to each country, and if these instructions result in only £5,050,000 being credited to Ireland under Excise and Customs, while in Return 92, Session 1884, as to which no instructions were given as to how the Treasury should credit each country, the Treasury returned the amount of £6,435,249 as credited under these heads to Ireland; and if the amounts under Stamps and Income Tax, in Return 144, are below the real amounts collected in Ireland, owing to the specific instructions given for the preparation of Return 144?
  *MR. GOSCHEN: In my answer to the hon. Member on Friday last I referred him to Return 144 for an indication of the manner in which the percentages 80, 11, and 9 were originally arrived at, though I did not imply that they were based on that Return, which was not then issued. In adopting the same percentages for the distribution of the Education Grant we have been guided not only by the calculations from which the original percentages were derived, but also by recent Returns, which confirm the accuracy of those figures. In particular, I may refer the hon. Member to Return 163, 1890, and I may again remind him that the whole question will shortly be examined by the Committee on Financial Relations. Return 92, Session 1884, which was moved for by the hon. and gallant Member, gives the amount of Revenue collected in Ireland. But a large amount of spirit is exported from Ireland to England, and the duty upon this amount, though collected in Ireland, is ultimately paid by the English consumer. The hon. Member will see, from a note in his own Return, that the amount to be deducted on this account was estimated at £1,030,374. In Return 144,1890 (which is a continuation of Mr. M'Laren's Return 36, 1884), the figures show, in accordance with the terms in which the Return was moved for, the amount of revenue derived from the three parts of the United Kingdom, and the Excise on spirits is apportioned in accordance with the quantity retained for consumption in England, Scotland, and Ireland. The Return 144, 1890, signed
  410
  "W. L. Jackson," is prepared on exactly the same principle as the Return 36, 1884, signed "Leonard Courtney."
  COLONEL NOLAN: Does the right hon. Gentleman intend to assign the proportions between England and Ireland, or does he mix up the two systems together, unfavourably to Ireland, as is done in Return No. 144.
  *MR. GOSCHEN: The systems are certainly not mixed up in any sense unfavourable to Ireland. The Government desire that, as far as possible, everything shall be ascertained and appear in the Return.

  SUNDAY DUTY IN POST OFFICES.
  MR. CLANCY: I beg to ask the Postmaster General with reference to his statement on the subject of additional payment for Sunday duty to the indoor officials of the Post Office, whether telegraph Inspectors, bag officers, parcel office assistants, yard officers, hall porters, and labourers are still denied such additional payment for Sunday duty; and, if so, whether the Treasury Minute of July, 1890 has been complied with, and whether, if the Treasury Minute referred to does not contemplate payment for Sunday duty to the officers mentioned, he will consider the advisability of amending it, with a view to placing them on an equality in respect of such payment with all other indoor officers?
  MR. RAIKES: In reply to the hon. Member, I would point out that there would appear to be some misapprehension on the subject to which his question refers. The Treasury Authority of July, 1890, related to an entirely different part of the organisation of the Department, and does not include the various classes of officers which the hon. Member specifies. There can, therefore, be no question of amending that authority; but I may inform the hon. Member that the point raised by him is now under the examination of the Treasury.

  CASE OF JOSEPH MULLET.
  MR. M'CARTAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenaut of Ireland whether he is aware that Joseph Mullet, who was recently transferred from Downpatrick

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  Convict Prison is in bad health, and that continued imprisonment is likely to cause his death; whether he will have inquiry made with the view of ascertaining if there is any immediate danger to his life, and whether, under the circumstances, he will without delay permit a medical examination of him to be made by an independent doctor named by the mother of the prisoner?
  MR. MADDEN: From the Report received from the General Prisons Board, it appears that the convict mentioned has been subject to asthma, but that since his transfer to Maryborough the attacks have become slight and his general state of health has improved. The medical officer of the prison further reports that the convict's life is not in danger, nor is his health likely to suffer from further imprisonment.

  A DROPPED ORDER.
  MR. BARTLEY: I wish to ask a question about the Orders of the Day. On Friday last the House went on with business until after 1 o'clock, and there was on the Paper an Order in which I was interested, and which is now marked dropped. I gave no instructions that it should be dropped; and the Standing Order seems to suggest that if an Order is not reached it will appear on the Paper at the next Sitting of the House.
  *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Gentleman has himself explained the reason why the Order was dropped. It was dropped because the hon. Gentleman had given no instructions on the subject.
  MR. BARTLEY: In the circumstances in question, the Standing Order says that the Order shall stand for the next day on which the House may sit, and I concluded, therefore, that it would stand for to-day.
  *MR. SPEAKER: Instructions should have been given, or an intimation conveyed to the Clerk at the Table. No instructions, however, were given.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
That they have agreed to,—Reformatory and Industrial School Children Bill, with an Amendment.
MOTIONS.

  BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE—GOVERNMENT BUSINESS.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. H. SMITH,): I rise to make the Motion which stands in my name with a view of giving the House an opportunity of winding up the Business of the Session within a reasonable time. On such an occasion as this it is usual to state the measures which the Government propose to proceed with, and which they propose to abandon. There is always a necessity imposed upon a Minister who stands in my place to announce the abandonment of certain measures, in themselves useful and most desirable, which yet cannot be prosecuted with any hope of being passed in a reasonable time. The Government have felt that the House has a right to expect that the Session shall close early, having regard to the fact that Parliament was called together at a much earlier period than usual. We have, therefore, a stronger reason for abandoning some measures which we deeply regret, and most of which we hope will be introduced at an earlier period next Session. The House has passed through a period of labour extremely severe and prolonged. Thirty-one days passed in the Committee and on the Report of the Land Purchase Bill account for a large portion of the time which the Government had at their disposal. But the measure is one of such great importance that I do not think the House itself will regret the labour and the time which have been bestowed in bringing it to its present stage. The course I propose to take on this occasion is to indicate the measures which the Government propose to persevere with. In the first place, there is the Education Bill, which the House is inclined to accept, and which I believe both sides of the House desire to pass into law. I will now proceed to invite the attention of the House to the Bills dealt with by the Standing Committees, or almost dealt with, which we desire to pass—the Factories and Workshops Bill, the Public Health Bill, the Penal Servitude Bill, and one or two measures of a similar character.

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  I apologise to the House for connecting' penal servitude with measures dealt with by the Standing Committees, but I think it will be admitted that the labours of the Standing Committees of this House are of a very onerous character, and if not penal servitude itself they are of such severity as to deserve acknowledgment. There are important measures, measures which have been accepted by both sides of the House and are wholly desirable in the public interest—I refer to Bills like the Factories Bill, which, although difference of opinion may exist with regard to particular provisions, or to the absence of particular provisions, the public would desire to see passed, and the Stamp Consolidation Bill—a measure for consolidating the law of stamps. It is not yet reported and is not now on the Order Paper, but the Chairman of the Committee will confirm me when I say that it is a Bill to simplify and explain the law of stamps with accuracy and intelligence, and that it is a measure which is very much desired by all persons having transactions in which stamps are used, as at present, I believe, there is great difficulty in ascertaining what the law is. [An hon. MEMBER: What about the Industrial Assurance Bill?] That is a measure accepted generally by the House. It is one of those economical and interesting measures which we should wish to pass, but which we could not press at the expense of the consumption of public time. I have referred now to the principal measures which the Government think it necessary to pass in the course of the present Session. There is one Bill not yet introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer—a Bill to authorise the expenditure of a sum of money provided in the Budget for the re-habilitation of the coinage. That is not a contentious measure, and will probably be accepted by the House. There is also a Bill which the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant has undertaken to introduce with regard to leaseholders. That also is a measure which may be carried through after 12 o'clock at night. There are also the Local Registration of Title (Ireland) Bill and a Bill to be introduced to-day by my right hon. Friend the Postmaster General with reference to the Post Office. It is a measure simply to repeal some restrictions on the Post
  414
  Office, such as the power of re-addressing letters without charge, which at the present moment inconvenience the public, and which I hope may be accepted generally. But it is not a measure which we shall press against the feeling of the House. I will now refer to measures as to which any doubt or difficulty may exist. I regret to have to admit that it is no longer possible to pass the Private Bill Procedure (Scotland) Bill. That measure stands for consideration in Committee with 10 pages of Amendments against it. We have done our best to meet the views of hon. Members opposite, and we had hoped that this was a measure which would have been accepted by the House as being strongly desired, and which ought to be passed into law; but we have failed to obtain the assistance which we had hoped from hon. Members on the other side, and, therefore, having regard to the determined opposition which is given to that measure, we do not feel that we can ask the House to expend the time at this period of the Session necessary to its being passed into law. We do regard it, however, as a measure which ought to be accepted by the House and the country, and we shall reintroduce it as early as possible next year. I am afraid also that the Fishery Board (Scotland) Bill cannot be proceeded with on the present occasion, because I find that there are indications of objection to it from different parts of the House. The next Bill is the Public Trustee Bill. We have no doubt whatever that a great necessity exists for a measure of this kind, that it is a measure which the House in principle ought to accept without hesitation. I find that it is blocked by five or six hon. Members on both sides of the House, and there is thus an indication of opposition, which will require some time to dispose of. It is a measure which undoubtedly ought to be re-introduced at the earliest possible period and passed into law. The next Bill on the Paper which we propose to abandon is the Indian Councils Act Amendment Bill, which undoubtedly requires time for consideration. I am afraid, however, that there is no chance of obtaining sufficient time in the course of the present Session, and we must therefore abandon it. There are some other measures, like the Regimental

  415
  Debts Consolidation Bill, a useful Bill, which may be postponed. The right hon. Member for Wolverhampton has placed a notice of opposition to the Statute Law Revision Bill. Measures of this kind have hitherto been proceeded with as Bills which stand apart from the arena of Party politics, and I believe that the right hon. Gentleman himself has recognised that fact. I cannot doubt, therefore, that he has some strong reason for opposing the measure which he will probably state to the House in order to justify our abandonment of that Bill. It is clear, I think, that we cannot debate in this House such a Bill with advantage, and in these circumstances I shall wait to hear what the right hon. Gentleman has to say before stating the ultimate decision of the Government, and in order to justify the House in abandoning what generally appears to be a great improvement in the simplification and codification of our law. There is another Bill as to which also I regret to hear that a considerable amount of opposition exists—that is, the Evidence Bill. I am informed with reference to that measure that lawyers of all classes, opinions, and ranks believe that this measure is a most desirable one. On the other hand, I am told that it is strenuously opposed, and if that is the case at this period of the Session the responsibility for delay in effecting a great improvement in the law—an improvement greatly desired by all who wish to exercise judicial duties and to perfect judicial functions—must rest with those who are postponing a great public improvement. I have now practically exhausted the Order Paper as it stands; but there is another Bill which I desire to hold in reserve—the Clergy Discipline Bill. It is a measure in which the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. W. E. Gladstone) takes a great personal interest. I have been in comumnication with him on the subject, and until he has returned to the House, which I hope may be on an early date, I should not be justified in making any arrangement with regard to it; but I entertain the opinion that it is a measure which ought to be passed without any delay. We propose to abandon this Session the Summary Jurisdiction (Youthful Offenders) Bill. I have heard it stated that opposition will be offered and remonstrance made with reference to
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  the proposal I now make as to Wednesdays. I draw the attention of the House to the fact that in the present state of the Order Paper there is not, in my judgment, the most remote chance of any one of the Bills which now stand for Wednesday being passed into law. They are of such a character, standing one behind the other, that it is almost impossible for any one of them to be passed. It, therefore, comes to this—that, if at the request of hon. Gentlemen I were to sacrifice Wednesdays for Private Business, no Bill belonging to a private Member could be advanced so as to pass through all its stages. I make this statement in order to anticipate some of the objections which I have no doubt will be made; but hon. Members and right hon. Members are capable of consulting the Order Paper for themselves.
  DR. CLARK: What is to be done with the Returning Officers (Scotland) Bill?
  MR. STOREY: And the County Councils Bill?
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: The Returning Officers (Scotland) Bill is not opposed, and the County Council (Elections) Bill is called for in all parts of the House.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,
  "That, for the remainder of the Session, Government Business, whether Orders of the Day or Notices of Motion, have precedence on Tuesday and Wednesday; and that the House do meet at Three o'clock on Tuesday and Friday. That Standing Order No. 11 be suspended, and that the provisions of Standing Order No. 56 be extended to the other days of the week."—(Mr. William Henry Smith.)
  MR. HENEAGE: I beg to move as an Amendment to omit Wednesdays from the Motion. My reason for doing so is that I consider it a direct violation of the understanding entered into with the Government before Whitsuntide for forwarding the Land Purchase Bill. It will be in the recollection of the House that on the 30th of April the First Lord of the Treasury moved a Resolution asking for the whole of the time of the House before Whitsuntide with the exception of one Wednesday, and he was granted the whole time of the House, including all the Wednesdays, on the distinct understanding that he recognised the rights of private Mem-

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  bers' Bills in progress after Whitsuntide. In the first speech made on that occasion by the First Lord of the Treasury the right hon. Gentlman said—
  "After Whitsuntide there are Bills of private Members which would be in Progress, and under Standing Order 12, these Bills would be entitled to precedence before any other Orders: but it would be a strong measure on my part to deprive those Bills of the position they have obtained until absolute necessity compels me to do so; it would be held to be exercising the rights of the majority rather severely upon hon. Gentlemen who had charge of other Bills; and, therefore,"—
  I call special attention to these words—
  "it is not the intention of the Government to take the first three or four Wednesdays after Whitsuntide so far as Bills in Progress are concerned. … The first three or four Wednesdays after Whitsuntide will not be given until fair progress has been made with the Bills which are in Committee."
  This was not the only declaration made upon that occasion. The right hon. Chairman of Committees also said—
  "With regard to Bills which have been considered before Whitsuntide, which have passed a Second Heading and which are set down for Progress after Whitsuntide, if the opportunity of further progress is taken away, we shall put a stop to all legislation by private Members and make such legislation before Whitsuntide a farce."
  My right hon. Friend the Member for Bury (Sir H. James) followed, and referring to the Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister and Hitting of Machinery Bills, my right hon. Friend said—
  "Those Bills having been read a second time, have vested interests, and ought to be dealt with practically by the House."
  Practically, before Whitsuntide the Government took the whole of the time of private Members, and now, after only two Wednesdays since Whitsuntide, they proposed to take the whole of the remaining time. I entirely agree with the Chairman of Committees that it is a farce for hon. Members to take the trouble to come down here and ballot for Bills; and having been successful and got Members to support them, and having secured the Second Reading of their Bills, to be told that the Committee stages cannot be taken because the Goverment want the whole time of the House. I have moved this Amendment because I object in principle to the Government taking Wednesdays. I object, moreover, to their taking Wednesdays after the distinct statement of the leader
  418
  of the House. But I wish to deal with perfect fairness with the right hon. Gentleman. I have looked at the Order Book, and I find there are only two Private Bills which have made any progress since Whitsuntide, and both these measures are almost through Committee. There is the Rating of Machinery Bill, which will not take more than another hour [Ministerial Cries of "Oh"], and there is the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, which I am quite sure will not take more than half an hour if it has fair play. [Cries of"Oh."] If precedence was given for these Bills, it would not be in the interest of half a dozen obstructionists to pursue dilatory tactics, for they would know that the measures would pass in spite of their opposition; and it would be to the interest of the Government to facilitate Progress in order that they might have more time for themselves. Under such circumstances, it would be expected that the House would not see, as was seen last Wednesday, one Minister suggesting to report Progress after he had been in the House nine minutes, and another Minister making two speeches on one Amendment, one in contradiction of the other. These two Bills would for all their stages only require some five hours in the three Wednesdays up to the 1st of July, and the Government would have the remainder of the time on those days for their own business—from 10 to 12 working hours. If they can get that time, and at the same time, by making a concession, avoid creating sore feeling, the work of the Session will proceed much more smoothly. I appeal to the Government to make some exception in favour of the two Bills I have mentioned; and if they will consent to do so, I shall be glad to withdraw the Amendment which I now move.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the words "and Wednesday."—(Mr. Heneage.)
  Question proposed, "That the words and Wednesday' stand part of the Question."
  MR. T. H. BOLTON: I do not suppose anything I can say by way of appeal to the right hon. Gentleman will have any effect on him, for he has evidently made up his mind that it is necessary that he should

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  have Wednesdays for Government Business during the remainder of the Session. I cannot, however, help protesting against the course he is pursuing. I cordially echo the observations of the right hon. Gentleman who has just spoken, that the proposal of the First Lord of the Treasury involves a breach of faith to private Members. The right hon. Gentleman certainly did promise private Members three or four Wednesdays after the Whitsuntide holidays. One of those Wednesdays has been sacrificed by the hon. Members who prefer horse-racing to legislating. It is true the right hon. Gentleman did not vote in the Division, which resulted in that Wednesday being sacrificed, but those who brought forward the Motion on that occasion were supported by nearly all the Members of the Government. I think, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman who has moved the Amendment on the present occasion was perfectly justified in excluding that Wednesday from the "three or four" which were promised to private Members by the First Lord of the Treasury. Of the "three" Wednesdays there is still one to come, namely, next Wednesday; and I had even hoped that we should get a fourth, so that all important private Members' business might have been disposed of. I am in charge of the Conveyancing and Law of Property Amendment Bill, a measure which is supported on both sides of the House, and which has practically the first place next Wednesday. I am in a position to state that those hon. Members who have put down Amendments have no desire to defeat the Bill. It is quite possible, therefore, to pass this Bill, which is, in reality, a Bill to give additional security to leaseholds, and which affects many millions of pounds' worth of property in London, and, therefore, the statement of the right hon. Gentleman that if any more Wednesdays were left to private Members it would be impossible for them to pass their Bills does not apply in this case. And there is no reason why the Rating of Machinery Bill, and possibly the Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, should not be passed. But there is a much larger question behind this. If Wednesdays after Whitsuntide are always to be taken by Government, private
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  Members' legislation becomes a farce, and one of the greatest inducements to practical men to enter the House is removed. Some come here with the idea of being able to do a little practical legislation. [Laughter.] Yes; and before the 12 o'clock Rule was adopted it was possible to do it. I myself succeeded one year in passing a Bill dealing with the difficult subject of tithes owing to there being no 12 o'clock Rule. Under the existing Rules, however, it seems impossible for a private Member to do anything in the shape of legislation. Well, if it is to be understood that there is to be no legislation proceeding from private Members, a very serious injury will be inflicted on the ability of Parliament to attend to the requirements of the people. It is a matter of great importance to private Members that their right to Wednesdays shall be preserved to them, and I therefore hope the Amendment will be pressed to a Division.
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM: I desire to say a few words in support of the Amendment; but not because I am in any way interested in these two Bills. I am a supporter of the Marriage with a Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, and a violent opponent of the other measure, which, in my opinion, has been introduced to exempt machinery from rating. The reason I rise is to make my protest—I know it will be a vain one, but the House will admit that much of the legislation which has been passed in this House has been pushed on by private Members, whom I may describe as Quixotes—against the time of the House being taken before there has been an opportunity of considering the one great question which occupies the minds of the working classes to-day. While all Parties profess a desire to relieve labour of some of its burdens, it remains that such important Bills as that referring to an eight hours' day in mines and that promoted by the Trade Union Congress are not to be discussed at all. Having regard to the demonstrations in favour of an eight hours' day which have been held in every civilised country, it is monstrous that it is impossible to obtain a discussion in the House of Commons on the only question which interests the working classes in the smallest degree. How

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  can the Tithes Bill, the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, and the thousand and one petty measures referred to by the right hon. Gentleman interest men who have to bring up wives and families on "sixteen bob" a week? I hope some of the Labour Representatives in the House will support me in protesting against the Session being brought to a close without a discussion on the Eight Hours' Bill. The working classes will have the idea that we interest ourselves here with matters above their comprehension, ane do not care to deal with questions of interest to them. In France, in Germany, and even in reactionary Spain, there has been legislation in favour of the working classes, and yet there is not a single item in the programme of the Government which will lighten the lot of the working man. The Government have even neglected to push forward their Employers' Liability Bill.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Whenever this Motion is made—as it generally is made towards the end of the Session—every Member desires that his own pet lamb shall be spared. I am aware that private Members do not get a sufficient number of days, but I do not see why an exception should be made in favour of one private Member more than another. The last speaker suggested that the Government have failed in their duty because they have not brought forward measures with respect to labour. No doubt the Government have failed in their duty, but Members on this side of the House are in a minority, and although they may propose Resolutions they will certainly be voted down. While I agree with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby that it is desirable to pass the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill this year, I doubt very much whether we could do so, as many hon. Gentlemen opposite are as fanatically opposed to that measure as they are to Home Rule. ["Hear, hear!"] There is a proof of it. The First Lord of the Treasury has made an appeal ad misericordiam. The right hon. Gentleman recognises that he has made a great muddle of Public Business, and now he implores the House to get him out of the mess. Now, if this were the right hon. Gentleman's first fault I should take a friendly view of the
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  matter; but this has occurred every single Session the right hon. Gentleman has been leader of the House. Every Session we have had the Estimates put off until the end of the Session, although a promise has always been made to the House at the beginning of the Session that full time would be given for the discussion of the Estimates. The right hon. Gentleman seemed to imply that it was to a certain extent our fault—our having been 31 days in Committee and Report on the Land Bill. But the right hon. Gentleman surely remembers that 54 days were expended on the part of the Conservative Party when in Opposition on the Land Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian. What has occurred during the present Session? We met in November and passed the Second Reading of the Tithes Bill and the Land Bill. We were under the impression that the Land Bill was the important Bill, and that the Tithes Bill stood second to it, yet we were first called upon to deal with the Tithes Bill, and it was not until the 14th April that any real attempt was made to deal with the principal Bill of the Session. I cannot help thinking that the right hon. Gentleman is not sufficiently firm with his Colleagues, and does not put his foot down enough in the Cabinet. There seems to be no one in the Cabinet who can stop any Minister of the Crown who wants to push forward his own particular Bill. That is at the bottom of the difficulty which the right hon. Gentleman has got into. There is, however, something more than mere stupidity and muddling. As Dr. Johnson once said, "This sort of stupidity is not natural." My own opinion is that Ministers are determined that, as far as they can prevent it, the House shall have no control over the public Estimates. And the reason for that is not so much that they know a large number of questions may be raised on the Estimates, as the tenderness they feel for their Liberal-Unionist friends, who might be compelled to vote against them if the questions were raised. For three years the Estimates have been put off; for three years the House has had no control over the public Expenditure. Hence my first impulse is to oppose the Motion of the right hen. Gentleman. But I cannot help thinking that the right hon

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  Gentleman and his friends want a loophole through which to escape from passing the Education Bill this Session. They want to put it off till next Session, for many among them hope that then it would never re-appear. I do not think we ought to help them. We ought rather to make sacrifices in order not to give them the slightest chance of delaying the measure. No doubt it is bitter enough to many supporters of the Government to have to swallow their election pledges, especially when they find from the recent bye - elections that they have gained no votes by their sacrifice of principle. Members on the Opposition side have always desired free education, and have always urged it. Now we have forced it upon the Government. And I think we ought not to let the opportunity go. Although I feel I am making a great sacrifice, I personally shall not oppose the proposal of the First Lord of the Treasury, on the understanding that the Education Bill is to be pushed forward de die in diem, and that, come what may, Parliament shall not be prorogued till the Bill has passed through this House. Under these circumstances I shall vote for the Motion of the right hon. Gentleman.
  MR. W. BOWEN ROWLANDS: I think I am one of the Members who have a special right to complain that the measure of which I was in charge will be prevented from passing during this Session. The fault certainly has not been mine. That Bill was the Local Veto Bill for Wales, a most important measure for Wales, ardently desired by the people of that country. It was to have boon taken first on Wednesday after Whitsuntide, and if a large majority of the supporters and Members of the Government had not voted for the unnecessary adjournment over the Derby Day, I believe that Bill would have passed successfully through Committee. The present proposal comes with a bad grace from the Government, many Members of which went into the Lobby in favour of the Derby Day adjournment, and although I fear that my protest will be unavailing, I desire to make it as distinct and as emphatic as possible.
  *MR. H. S. WRIGHT: I wish to draw the atten-424
  tion of the Government to the Rating of Machinery Bill. I admit it would be quite impossible to pass the Rating of Machinery Bill this Session unless the Government take it in hand. In that event, I think it might be got through in about an hour, because our opponents constitute a very small minority. The Government, by taking the course I suggest, would earn the gratitude of a large body of the electors.
  MR. R. T. REID&c.): I shall certainly support the Amendment of my right hon. Friend. I do not share the apprehension of my hon. Friend the Member for Northampton as to the passing of the Free Education Bill, because the First Lord has put it in the foremost position, and if there were the utmost desire to delay it, I think it would be absolutely impossible for the Government to avoid passing it this Session. But I want to point out that, if the Government take all the Wednesdays after Whitsuntide, there will' be and absolute end to private Members' enterprise in regard to legislation. The Deceased Wife's Sister Bill is a perfectly exceptional case. The majorities were enormously large on Wednesday last, and the Amendments proposed were frivolous in the extreme, and supported by arguments equally frivolous and self-contradictory. Moreover, a Debate was got up among the opponents of the measure, while its supporters remained comparatively silent.
  MR. A. STAVELEY HILL: With regard to the Rating of Machinery Bill I wish to remind ray hon. Friend the Member for South Nottingham that the second reading was only obtained by stealing a march upon the House. The consideration of the Bill will, I fear, take a very considerable time—much more than the half-hour he suggests.
  SIR W. HARCOURT: I suppose that what the House has now to consider is what are we to do under existing circumstances. If we inquire into the cause of the present state of things there will be a good deal to be said. No doubt as things stand at present a great sacrifice is required, not only of Government measures, but also of many valuable measures that are in the hands of private Members. I cannot recollect a Session in which there were

  425
  more valuable measures in the bands of private Members. For instance, the consideration of labour questions like the Eight Hours Bill is shut out by the demand of the Government. In my opinion the Session has been wrecked by the Tithes Bill. That measure was put forward and everything was sacrificed to it at the commencement of the Session. I think the Local Veto Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiganshire would have been a more valuable gift to Wales, but that has been sacrificed to the Tithes Bill and the Derby Bay. These are things very much to be regretted. But in the situation in which we are placed we have to determine what we are to do, and the first thing we are determined, I think, not to do, is ever again to have a November Session. We are also determined not to extend the present Session inordinately. The Government propose to take all the time of private Members, and I suppose that cannot now be helped, however much it may be regretted. The Government have also mentioned what they intend to do. First and foremost, there is the Education Bill. There again, I think, the House has been placed in a position in which it ought not to have been placed. We ought not to have been called upon in the middle of June for the first time to consider that important measure. Why was not the question of free education given at least as good a position as tithe in Wales? Why was it not introduced earlier in the Session? If it had been there might have been no need to demand these sacrifices from private Members. The measure might already have been passed, and the House would not have been called upon to postpone Supply. It does not seem as if we shall get into Supply before July, and that is a situation which nobody can defend. I have never looked upon Supply as having for its principal object the cutting down of the figures of the Estimates, but the great importance of Supply is that it affords the only opportunity the House of Commons has of exercising its control over the Executive Government of the country. That is the legitimate and proper object of Supply, and to delay the period at which discussion can take place upon it is to withdraw from the House of Commons one of its principal functions; yet we are forced into this
  426
  position by the propounding of the Education Bill in the middle of June. There is not time now to deal both with Supply and with a measure like the Education Bill, and in the circumstances I do not see that we can do otherwise than comply with the demand made upon us. In order that there may be no misunderstanding, I wish just to mention what I gather to be the declaration of the right hon. Gentleman. I understand him to say that he will proceed only with the Customs and Inland Revenue Bill, and the Public Health (London) Bill, the Penal Servitude Bill, the County Councils Bill, the Factory and Workshops Bill, the Local Registration (Ireland) Bill, the Consolidated Stamps Bill, the Industrial Assurances Bill, the Gold Coinage Bill, and, of course, the Education Bill. I wish to understand whether that is a correct catalogue, and that no other Bills, originating either in this House or in the House of Lords, can be added to it.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I reply to the appeal made to me. I may say that the right hon. Gentleman has given a correct catalogue, with this reservation—that, as I have previously stated, there is a Clergy Discipline Bill, in regard to which I have been in communication with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, who takes a great interest in it. I will, however, refer to that on a later clay. The right hon. Gentleman will also be aware that occasionally there are purely departmental Bills which it may be necessary to pass, but there is no intention whatever on the part of the Government of pressing any measure to which objection is taken beyond the Bills stated by the right hon. Gentleman. The right hon. Gentleman has just made a speech which seems to me an accurate review of the course taken by the late Government in 1883–84–85. I quite agree that Supply is a very important function, and one to which serious attention ought to be given. Already a considerable amount of time has been given to Supply. I think we have given about 30 days to it. I do not mean to say that that is a sufficient appropriation of time, but it is the best arrangement I can make. Even now I believe that Supply will be dealt with at a much earlier period in this Session than in any Session during the

  427
  last 10 years. The right hon. Gentleman has referred to the sacrifice of the valuable measures in charge of private Members. No doubt there are many valuable measures in the hands of private Members that will have to be sacrificed, but there are also valuable measures of the Government that will have to go. It would be a singular mistake to say that no private Members' Bills have been passed in the present Session. Many have been passed with the assistance of the Government, quite as many as in any Session of the present Parliament, and that is saying a good deal.
  MR. R. T. REID: Unopposed Bills.
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: Not exactly unopposed Bills, but Bills which the Government thought right to assist, and which I hope will not on that account be considered less valuable. As the right hon. Gentleman has fairly stated, there is an objection to the inclusion of Wednesdays in the Motion. On the Paper for next Wednesday the Possession of Game Bill stands first. Probably, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby will take as much interest in that Bill as he did in the Hares Bill, on which Bill he spoke for nearly three-quarters of an hour. I am quite sure that neither the Possession of Game Bill nor the Conveyance and Law of Property Bill, which stands second on the Paper, nor the Bating of Machinery Bill, which stands third, will have any chance of getting through Committee next Wednesday; and that unfortunate bantling which is opposed by the Member for Labouchere—I beg pardon if I am out of order, although, perhaps, I have correctly described the hon. Member—is in the same position. I refer to the measure permitting men to marry the sisters of deceased wives. I ask the House whether, in these circumstances, there is the least chance of that Bill being reached on Wednesday? On June 24 there is the Hares Bill, in which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Derby takes so much interest. I am sure the right hon. Gentleman will be equal to the task he performed last year, and, therefore, that Bill will probably not pass through Committee. If that is so, what will become of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill, which will stand fifth in order? There is no chance that any
  428
  of these Bills will pass, and it would simply be a waste of public time to attempt to deal with them. The proper duty of the House is to devote the time which remains to the consideration of Supply and to the Government measures to which I have alluded. I hope the House will consider that in making these proposals the Government have no desire to do any violence to the interests of private Members. I have shown that those interests are not affected by the Motion, and that it is to the advantage of the House that public business shall be discharged. I therefore invite the House to accept the proposal.
  MR. H. H. FOWLER: As the right hon. Gentleman made a personal allusion to my action on one particular measure, I wish to assure him and the House that there is nothing of a Party or an obstructive character in my opposition to the Statute Law Revision Bill. So long as these Bills were confined to Statutes which are obsolete no one in the House more cordially supported such legislation than I did; but the Statute Law Revision Committee are now embarking upon a new branch of procedure, and are proposing to repeal portions of living law which they think to be unnecessary. Before a measure of that sort is passed, the House should have an opportunity of knowing, in the course of a Second Reading Debate, what it proposes, and my object in putting down an Amendment is to explain why I object to this class of legislation. A great deal of admirable work has been done by the Committee, but some of its work is not admirable, for they have ventured to repeal portions of the Act of Settlement, the Reform, and other historic Acts, which if the House had known what they were doing would have objected to. In support of my attitude, I may quote the words of the Prime Minister in a recent speech referring to the unfortunate difficulty between this country and the Newfoundland Legislature. Lord Salisbury, in that speech, said—
  "I do not know what the noble Lord (Lord Thring) has been told, bat, as far as report reaches us, it goes to support the law, in which the noble and learned Lord on the Woolsack agrees, that Treaty obligation, old or new, is no part of the municipal law of the land. That is the difficulty under which we are, and under

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  which we have been for a long time, placed, There were two Acts in existence giving that power; one of them, unfortunately, was dropped—the Act of 1834; and the other was swept away in one of those Statutes of revision of the law which the noble and learned Lord himself (Lord Thring) has showered upon parliament; and it is largely owing to that that the difficulty into which we have fallen has arisen."
  That is my justification for opposing the Second Reading' of this Bill.
  MR. BRYCE: The speech just delivered by my right hon. Friend makes it necessary for me to reply, as I am the only member of the Statute Law Revision Committee who sits in this House. I wish to correct the statement repeated by him from Lord Salisbury. It was made in complete ignorance of the facts, and was corrected by Lord Thring in a letter to the Times a day or two after Lord Salisbury's speech was delivered. The Statutes, or parts of Statutes, with which this Statute Law Revision Bill deals are wholly obsolete; that is to say, they are enactments which under no circumstances can now take effect. They are not portions of the living law. The Bill has come from the House of Lords, where it has been approved by all our highest legal authorities. In this House, in accordance with an arrangement which was arrived at last year, with the approval of my right hon. Friend, it would have been referred to a Select Committee, which was to include, besides the hon. Member for one of the divisions of London, at whose instance the enterprise of re-publishing the Statutes in a cheap form has been entered upon, such eminent lawyers as the hon. Member for East Fife, the hon. Member for North Longford, and the hon. and learned Members for Harrow and Somerset, while the chair was to be taken by the Solicitor General. That Committee last year examined a similar Bill with the most minute care, and the House unanimously adopted its recommendations. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wolverhampton might have been put on this Select Committee, but, as he has not chosen to accept a place on it, he ought not to come here and express distrust of what the Committee has done. It is very much to be regretted that a Member, however eminent, who stands alone, having,
  430
  so far as I know, no support in any quarter of the House, should take the course of stopping the whole progress of a most important and useful scheme of legal reform, which has been going on for a number of years with general approval. I assume that my right hon. Friend, with his very great ability and high conscientiousness, has good reason for his conduct, but I have failed to discover what the reason is.
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I do not rise to take part in the interesting discussion which has arisen on this Bench. I rise to say that after the very clear statement of the First Lord of the Treasury, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that I cannot support the Amendment. My right hon. Friend's purpose has been sufficiently answered by the discussion, and he might withdraw the Amendment. At the same time, I want to point out that the position of the Government is really a triumph for obstruction, and a stimulus to the obstruction of private Members' Bills. If this is to be done without protest, private Members may take it for granted that in future they will not have the least chance of getting a contested Bill through the House. I thought it was the intention of the House, in giving precedence to private Members' Bills in the order of the stages at which they had arrived, that the opinion of the House should be taken upon those Bills. That is exactly what the promoters of the Deceased Wife's Sister Bill have been unable to get. There is a large majority in favour of the Bill, while those who oppose it are a very small minority. The opposition to the Bill is undoubtedly obstruction of a most flagrant kind, and I am afraid we must confess it has been triumphant. I hope, however, that some means will be devised for carrying out the intentions of the House, and giving some advantage to those private Members who get Bills through Second Reading in the early part of the Session.
  COLONEL MAKINS: I should like to occupy a moment in describing why I support the Motion of the First Lord of the Treasury. I do so because I have no sympathy with the ambitious private Member, and especially one who attacks a

  431
  great social and religious question, and by making it the subject of a Private Bill reduces it to the level of an Ancient Monuments Bill, a Hares and Rabbits, or even an Artificial Manures Bill. I hold that if the question of marriage with a deceased wife's sister is to be considered at all, it ought to be dealt with as part of a general marriage law in a Bill introduced by the Government, and not in a fragmentary Bill brought forward by a private Member. Such a Bill ought certainly not to be forced through by an unwarrantable use of the Closure, such as was witnessed last Wednesday.
  MR. BARRAN: I rise to order, Sir. I wish to ask whether the language of the hon. Member is in order?
  *MR. SPEAKER: To speak of the unwarrantable use of the Closure is, I think, out of order. The hon. Member must recollect that the Closure is applied by the action of the House.
  *COLONEL MAKINS: I intended, Sir, to refer only to the act of moving the Closure, but I beg to withdraw the expression, which was not meant to be disrespectful. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimbsy is only one of many who have been disappointed in connection with this question; many others have taken it up, found public feeling so strong that they have been compelled reluctantly to abandon their efforts to pass the Bill.
  MR. MORTON: I do not think hon. Gentlemen opposite ought to complain about the Closure considering how it has been used by his side during the last two years. I did not, however, rise to speak about the Closure. My object is to protest against the attempt to take away our Wednesdays. I am very anxious to see the Education Bill passed this Session, and I am quite willing to stop here as long as may be necessary for the purpose of passing it. At the same time, as a protest against depriving the private Members of their rights and privileges, I shall vote for the Amendment. I quite agree with the hon. Member for Lanarkshire that the eight hours question ought to be considered, because that question can never be properly settled until it is debated, inside as well as outside this House. I have to complain of
  432
  the way in which the Government have conducted business during the present Session. I say distinctly that if they had conducted their own business properly there would have been no occasion to take Wednesdays away from private Members. It will be remembered that one of the Irish Members (Mr. Sexton) proposed that there should be no Whitsuntide Holidays, and that the House should sit on the four days devoted to those holidays, in order to finish the Irish Bill. The Government refused to accept that proposal, although Members on this side of the House were willing to continue at work. Then the Government connived at taking away the Derby Day from those who wished to work. I do not say they wanted to go to the Derby, and I do not think they went—or more than one or two of them—but they did not want the Temperance Question to be considered, although they knew the people of this country wished to have it considered. The right hon. Gentleman has told us that the Land Bill up to the present time has taken 31 days. Three of those days were wasted by the Government on an Amendment brought in by a private Member and adopted by the Government, but afterwards so altered as to make it useless for years to come. I say that a Government that has so wasted the time ought not to take away our Wednesdays. It has been rumoured that the Government has been doing this purposely, first, because they do not want to have the Education Bill passed, and next, because they want to put off Supply till the last moment for the purpose of delaying discussion. I read last week a paragraph in one of the Government papers stating that the Government wished to put off Supply till the last moment to prevent Mr. Morton and others discussing it. I tell the right hon. Gentleman that we shall consider Supply whether he likes it or not. This is one of our first and most important duties as Representatives. He cannot use the Closure in Committee of Supply as he does on other occasions. He will do so at his peril if he endeavours by, that means to prevent us considering those questions which ought to be considered. [Cries of "Divide!"] I desire to ask the right hon. Gentleman if he will be good enough to tell us when he proposes to take Supply—

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  ["Divide!"]—and especially when he proposes to take the remainder of the Army Votes. ["Divide!"] I regret that on an important question like this—["Divide!"]—when the proposal is to deprive us of the remainder of our rights as private Members during this Session, there should be this disturbance. How it is occasioned I do not know; but I can say this, that it would not be allowed in the smallest Vestry in the country.
  (5.37.) Question put, "That 'and Wednesday' stand part of the Resolution."
  The House divided:—Ayes 214; Noes 143.—(Div. List, No. 294.)
  Main Question again proposed.
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM: I beg to move to insert, after "Wednesday," in line 3, the words "except the Wednesday for which the Eight Hours Bill is down, and for that Wednesday only."
  *MR. SPEAKER: The Eight Hours Bill is not down for Wednesday.
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM: The Eight Hours General Bill, Sir. I put it down for Wednesday.
  *MR. SPEAKER: The Eight Hours Bill is down for Monday, the 22nd of June.
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM: I am sorry that is so; I put it down for Wednesday. Am I, then, out of order, Sir?
  MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member can move a general proviso.
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM: Then I beg to move the Amendment as a general proviso.
  Amendment proposed, at the end of the Question, to add the words "Provided that the Eight Hours Bill be excepted from this Order."—(Mr. Cunninghame Graham.)
  Question proposed, "That those words be there added."
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: That is a very impracticable way of endeavouring to deal with the questions. The two Bills stand for Monday, the 22nd of June. The Government have possession of Monday, the 22nd of June, without any Order of the House. There will, however, be an opportunity at the end of the Session of discussing the matter.
  MR. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM: I have several times in the course of the Session asked for time to discuss this question, and it is only now at the eleventh hour that the right hon. Gentleman has held out any hope that we shall be enabled to discuss it. Had he held out that hope earlier I should not have pushed this proviso to a Division; but I intend to do so now.
  (5.52.) The House divided:—Ayes 88; Noes 233.—(Div. List, No. 295.)
  Main Question again proposed.
  MR. PICTON: I should be glad if the First Lord could add to the information he has already given us in regard to the Clergy Discipline Bill by informing us whether it is intended to proceed with the Lichfield Cathedral Bill and the Archdeaconry of Cornwall Bill? If it is intended to push them forward I should really like to know on what principle it is proposed to afford them facilities.
  *MR. T. H. BOLTON: I rather doubt whether the Bill which stands first for next Wednesday will be proceeded with, and, therefore, substantially the Bill of which I have charge will be the only business for that day. I refer to the Conveyance and Law of Property (Amendment) Bill, in which a largo number of people take a very great interest. I beg to move that, after the word "Wednesday "——
  *MR. SPEAKER: The House has already passed the word "Wednesday."
  *MR. T. H. BOLTON: Then, Sir, I will adopt the course you suggested to my hon. Friend (Mr. Graham), and move a proviso that the Bill be excepted from the Motion.
  *MR. SPEAKER: As the Bill is down for Wednesday, and the Resolution has been agreed to with regard to that day, the hon. Member is stopped from moving the proviso.
  MR. MACNEILL: I would make a further appeal to the right hon. Gentleman not to drop the Indian Councils Bill. I am sure the First Lord will remember that he gave pledge after pledge to the late Mr. Bradlaugh that the Bill should be discussed at the earliest possible moment, and he defended the late introduction of the Indian Budget Bill on the ground that it would give the promoters of the Indian Councils

  435
  Bill a full opportunity for discussion. That Bill was unfortunately dropped last Session, but it was introduced at the earliest possible moment in the next Session in the House of Lords. I certainly consider, and I think my view is shared by every person interested in the matter, that the Government are under an absolute pledge to give us an opportunity for discussing our Bill. It is the first attempt to touch the Government of India, and it is sad to think that there are 250,000,000 of people who are attentively watching the action of this House.
  MR. THORBURN: As a Scotch Member I rise to express my deep regret that the Government have decided to withdraw the "Private Bill Procedure Bill." The people in Scotland will receive the announcement not only with regret and disappointment, but with a considerable amount of resentment. In a speech delivered by the Chancellor of the Exchequer in Dundee, in October last, he gave great prominence to this Bill, and certainly led the people of Scotland to believe that the Government meant to pass it this Session. If I mistake not, this is the third time this Bill has been before the House during this Parliament. And this Session it has been exhaustively considered by a Select Committee of this House. I do not profess to like the Bill as amended in Committee, but I would rather see it passed as it is than not at all, for in another Session it could be improved. Mr. Speaker, I desire to make my most emphatic protest, not only against the withdrawal of this Bill, but against the general treatment which Scotch business receives in this House.
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: The effect of my hon. Friend's protest is destroyed by the admission he has made that he does not like the Bill in its present form. He and the Lord Advocate must know that what has really wrecked this Bill is simply the proposal of the Government to place the management of the business to be done under it in the hands of the Court of Session. If the Lord Advocate, or the Government, merely want a local inquiry in regard to Scotch private legislation, they know that they can get that in this House in half a day; but if they insist on intruding into the management of the business
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  under the Bill the officials of the Court of Session, they know they will not be able to accomplish their object until much time has been spent over the measure. I am glad my hon. Friend (Mr. Thorburn) has taken a position on this subject which will enable us to include him among the opponents of the Bill in its present form.
  MR. A. O'CONNOR: There is one aspect of this question which I think; should be borne in mind, namely, that the system of procedure adopted by the Government, not only during this Session, but during the whole of the present Parliament, is very different from what prevailed 20 or 30 years ago, when private Members, having obtained the opportunity of discussing the measures they introduced, were enabled to mature the questions with which they dealt until the Government found they were fit to be taken up and dealt with in Government Bills. Although not many private Members' Bills have passed into law as such, the system formerly adopted enabled better legislation to be carried than we have seen of late years. But in recent years the Government have taken most of the time of private Members, and I would urge that if they insist on usurping the whole time of the House—and this Session they have taken more time than was ever taken in any previous Session by any other Government—they are bound to bring in measures dealing with the questions which they deprive private Members of the opportunity of discussing. This, however, is what the Government have not done. Take the question of the Employers' Liability Bill. That matter was dealt with years ago by a Committee, which reported at considerable length, with recommendations which they thought ought to be embodied in the law. What happened? The Government adopted the Committee's Report, and based a Bill upon it, with this result: that while private Members were thereby deterred from bringing in Bills of their own on the subject, and hon. Members who are here to represent the working classes have on the Paper this Session measures intended to deal with the matter, those hon. Members have not proceeded with their proposals because the Home Secretary has told them the Government in-

  437
  tend to bring forward the question. I, for one, think it would be well worth the time they are taking away if the Government would introduce and press forward their measure on this subject; but, as it is, it seems to me that hon. Members have been misled and the working classes betrayed by the action of the Government, who neglect to bring in a measure which they have declared to be necessary as dealing with questions affecting the lives and the labour of enormous masses of the people. Nevertheless, they can find time to pass a Bill about the Archdeaconry of Cornwall. Who knows, or who cares, anything about the Archdeaconry of Cornwall? Surely it is monstrous to place in the Government list of Orders of the Day measures such as these, and at the same time for the Government to declare their inability to promote important measures that have been practically agreed upon years ago. I ask any candid friend of the Government whether the fact that in dealing with 24 of their own Bills on the 15th June, the Government find they have to dispose of half of them by withdrawal, is not a proof of the absurdity of the system under which the Business of the Government is administered in this House? If the Government would be content with bringing forward three or four well-considered measures on important questions that are ripe for settlement they might make the House of Commons a really useful legislative machine; but if they persist in introducing 20 or 30 Bills, each crushing for space and rendering the rest more difficult to pass, we shall have to witness very often what we have seen this afternoon. The House has certainly not gained by departing from the old practice, and what has just happened is a convincing illustration of that fact.
  SIR J. PEASE: An hon. Member on this side of the House has made an appeal to Her Majesty's Government with respect to the Indian Councils Bill. I think that anyone looking at the Orders of the Day will at once see that if Parliament is only to sit for the usual period, they can have no chance of passing that Bill; but that being so, I would appeal to the Government whether they will not endeavour
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  to bring forward their Indian Budget Statement a little earlier than usual this Session?
  MR. SINCLAIRetc.): I should like to remind the Government that amongst bankers and merchants in Ireland there is much opposition to the Registration of Assurances (Ireland) Bill, and they would be glad to know that the Bill is not to be proceeded with during the present Session.
  MR. S. T. EVANS: Although I think it would obviously be an abuse of the time of the House for private Members to move exceptions to all the Private Bills in which they are interested, I must, at the same time, enter my protest against the refusal to proceed with a Bill such as that which I introduced for the purpose of enfranchising Nonconformist places of worship, and which was read a second time not long ago in this House by a majority of something like two to one. It can hardly be said to be impossible to carry through a Bill of that kind this Session when so strong a desire was evinced for its passage from all parts of the House. If private Members are to be allowed to introduce Bills they ought to have the right to see them through at proper opportunities until the end of the Session. It is evident that the House will grant the Government the time they ask for, and all the private Members who protest against their action can do is to hope they will use the period at their disposal for the passage of useful measures such as are demanded by the country. In the list of measures given by the First Lord of the Treasury as those that will be proceeded with are the Penal Servitude Bill, the Stamp Consolidation Bill, the Gold Coinage Bill, and BE forth, and I think the Representatives of working men's constituencies have a right to ask the Government not to trifle with them by passing such measures and refusing to pass the Employers' Liability Bill. That is a Bill dealing with the lives of the colliers and other working men, and I hope the First Lord of the Treasury will yet see his way to proceeding with it. On another point, it seems to me utterly absurd that we should be asked to pass the Clergy Discipline Bill, and that the Employers' Liability Bill should be neglected.
  *MR. MORTON: Will the right hon. Gentleman say what business is proposed to be taken on Wednesday, and will he say when it is intended to go on with Supply, and especially the remainder of the Army Votes?
  MR. SEXTON: I desire to ask some information from the Chief Secretary in regard to matters in which Irish Members feel an interest, and which were not dealt with in the speech of the First Lord of the Treasury. First of all, in regard to Irish Supply, some of which has especial importance this year, from reasons the right hon. Gentleman will appreciate; will Irish Supply be taken in its order, or will it be put off until other Votes are finished? Then, as regards the Education grant, we are left in considerable doubt as to the course the right hon. Gentleman proposes to follow in regard to the Irish share. The English Bill is before the House, but the Irish question has not been put into any Parliamentary form. The right hon. Gentleman dropped a hint or suggestion that the money should be devoted this year to creating a nucleus of the Reserve Fund for purposes of Land Purchase, but when and in what form does he propose to put his proposal before the House? There is considerable anxiety felt in Ireland among teachers and others, and I beg the right hon. Gentleman to make his purpose known. We have heard, and are thankful for, the information that the Long Leaseholders' Bill is to be introduced and proceeded with, and we should like to know how soon it will be introduced. I had hoped we should have seen the Bill before now; the clauses, we know, are in type. There is another Bill as to which we have continually sought information—the Bill dealing with Training Colleges in Ireland. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman will now say if that Bill is to be introduced and proceeded with. There are three other Bills I have to mention. First, the Parks Regulation Bill for Ireland, of which I may say it is a sort of minor Coercion Bill directed against the right of public meeting, and I have to inform the right hon. Gentleman that, on the part of my friends, this Bill will meet with stern resistance. The Registration of Assurances (Ireland) Bill is strongly objected to in the commercial com-
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  munity in Ireland. Perhaps the Chief Secretary might be able to inform us that the Bill will not be proceeded with. Then there is an important Bill on the Order Book commonly referred to as the Sunday Closing Bill, but which extends Sunday closing for Ireland, and restricts the hours of sale of intoxicating liquors on Saturday. This Bill is a highly contentious measure; it was supported and opposed in about equal numbers by Irish Members on the Second Reading. I understand we are now giving the Government time to proceed with Public Bills; but if the Government have any intention to devote any of the time to this Bill, I have to inform the Government that any such attempt will be resisted. I shall be thankful for information on the points I have mentioned.
  MR. H. T. KNATCHBULL-HUGESSEN: I hope the right hon. Gentleman will not postpone the Navy Estimates, as was done last year, to the last days of the Session.
  *MR. LEA: There was one remark of the hon. Member for West Belfast to which I must take exception. The hon. Member said that the Irish Sunday Closing Bill is a highly contentious measure, opposed by nearly half the Irish Members, but I may mention that usually the Bill has had double the number of Irish Members in its support.
  MR. SEXTON: The actual numbers on Division were 21 and 25.
  MR. LEA: The lowest number voting for the Bill on the last Debate was 28, and usually the number of Irish Members supporting the Bill has been as two to one, while something like nine-tenths of the people of Ireland are in its favour. The Government have said on former occasions that it is a Bill which ought to be passed, and, though it is in the hands of a private Member, it is really a public measure, which the Government have assisted, and it finds its place in the Annual Continuance Bill. Its failure to pass this year will cause deep disappointment. If Wednesdays are taken from us now, I think we shall have to consider whether it really is worth while for private Members to introduce Bills at all. It is a most absurd thing that for six months in the year we

  441
  should be introducing Bills and endeavouring to get them through the Second Reading only to find that those Bills which pass Second Reading cannot proceed further if opposed by a dozen Members. We might just as well give up the farce of our Second Reading Debates on private Members' Bills on Wednesdays. I hope the House will allow the Bill to go before the Committee on Law, and see whether it can be put into a shape which can be accepted. No reasonable Amendment will be refused, rather than have the question hung up for another year.
  MR. JOHNSTON: I join the Member for South Derry in pressing on the Government in the strongest possible manner the necessity of dealing with this question. The Chief Secretary will remember the influential deputation he received on this subject, and the almost absolute promise given that the Government would themselves introduce such a Bill, or give facilities for its passage. I know the right hon. Gentleman does not require to be appealed to; I know he is thoroughly in accord with us, and I trust the exertions used on behalf of the Bill will not now be thrown away.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): I will answer the questions raised as to Irish matters before my right hon. Friend makes his general reply. In the first place, I may say that the Irish Votes in Supply will be taken in their regular place. Of course, I am unable to say when that period will be reached, but there will be no attempt to defer Irish Votes unreasonably or bring them on prematurely. With regard to Ireland's share of the £2,000,000 for education, I am in consultation with the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the matter, so far as regards this year, should be dealt with by vote of the House or by Bill. I will let the hon. Gentleman know the conclusion at which we arrive as soon as possible. The Long Leaseholders' Bill is in print, and will be introduced almost immediately, and the same remark applies to the Bill dealing with Training Colleges. The Registration of Assurances Bill will not be proceeded with this year against the resistance it meets with on the part of certain important
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  interests. The Parks Regulation Bill will not be proceeded with. It is not, as the right hon. Gentleman suggests, introduced in the interest of stopping public meetings, but in the interest of the public, whose enjoyment of Phoenix Park is now interfered with. I would like to see the Bill passed, but it will be withdrawn for this year. I do not know that I have anything to add to what I have said already as to the Sunday Closing Bill. The present position of the question is discreditable in the highest degree, and I wish that something were done to settle the question finally in the direction in the main of the Bill before the House. My hon. Friend has pointed out that it is almost impossible for private Members to carry Bills of this kind. If it had been in the Government programme, it would have had to be sacrificed for precisely the same reasons, and share the fate of very important measures which we have had reluctantly to drop. I earnestly trust that the Bill will meet with better fortune next year.
  MR. W. H. SMITH: I will shortly reply to the various questions addressed to me. The hon. Gentleman opposite desires that we should take a discussion upon the Second Reading of the Indian Councils Bill, but, under the circumstances, we cannot alter the determination we have come to. The hon. Baronet opposite (Sir J. Pease) has mentioned the Indian Budget, and I can only say I hope it will be possible to deal with it somewhat earlier this Session. The business next Wednesday will be some of the minor Bills and the Navy Estimates.
  MR. PICTON: The right hon. Gentleman has not referred to the Ecclesiastical Bills.
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: I had forgotten for the moment the importance the hon. Gentleman attaches to these. As the Archdeaconry of Cornwall Bill and other Ecclesiastical Bills are threatened with such violent opposition, they will be withdrawn for the present Session.
  DR. CLARK: Is it the intention to take Irish Votes in their order? In the first section of Votes those for Ireland were postponed.
  *MR. W. H. SMITH: As has been already stated by my right hon. Friend, they will be taken in regular order.

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  (6.46.) The House divided:—Ayes 232; Noes 76.—(Div. List, No. 296.)
  Resolved, That, for the remainder of the Session, Government Business, whether Orders of the Day or Notices of Motion, have precedence on Tuesday and "Wednesday; and that the House do meet at Three o'clock on Tuesday and Friday. That Standing Order No. 11 be suspended, and that the provisions of Standing Order No. 56 be extended to the other days of the week.—(Mr. William Henry Smith.)

  POST OFFICE ACTS AMENDMENT BILL.
  On Motion of Mr. Raikes, Bill to amend the Post Office Acts, and to make provision for the service of the Post Office, ordered to be brought in by Mr. Raikes and Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 336.]

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  RUSSIAN DUTCH LOAN BILL.—(No. 354.)

    COMMITTEE.
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clause 1 agreed to.
    Clause 2.
    MR. A. O'CONNOR: Will the Secretary to the Treasury inform the Committee what is the exact amount to be paid during the present year to Messrs. Hope, of Amsterdam?
    THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. JACKSON,): The amount payable under the Bill by June 30, 1892, is £44,480.
    MR. A. O'CONNOR: Do I understand that whereas there would have been in the ordinary course paid out of the Consolidated Fund £41,000, there will, under this Bill, be paid a sum of about ten times that amount?
    MR. JACKSON: I do not think that is a correct conclusion. The Consolidated Fund will be charged only with re-payment of the advance.
    MR. CREMER: Has the interest been calculated at the rate of 5 per cent.?
    MR. JACKSON: The interest for which we are liable is 5 per cent., and that rate has been paid since the date when the original loan was contracted.
    Bill reported without amendment; to be read the third time to-morrow.

PURCHASE OF LAND AND CONGESTED DISTRICTS (IRELAND) BILL.—(No. 363.)

  THIRD READING.
  Order for Third Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed,. "That the Bill be now read the third time."—(Mr. A. J. Balfour.)
  *MR. J. MORLEY: I am sure that the House may be congratulated upon having at length arrived at the final stage of this great and important measure. Whether we approve of the Bill, or disapprove of it, it must be agreed that it deserves the epithet "important," and I think that is the answer to those who contend—as as it has been contended occasionally in this House, and more frequently out of doors by important Ministerial speakers—that an excessive amount of time has been spent upon it. I do not believe that the Chief Secretary (Mr. A. J. Balfour) himself will say—fair allowance being made for that surplusage which must invariably arise during the progress of a Bill of this character—that a very excessive amount of time has been spent on a measure which goes to the very root of social life in Ireland, and which, besides that, establishes very delicate and important relations between Great Britain and Ireland for a period of no less than 49 or more years. I did not vote against the Second Reading of this Bill. It was my hope that the Chief Secretary, possibly upon pressure from some of his friends sitting on this side of the House, might see his way to accept alterations which I thought would be improvements, especially one I myself pressed upon the attention of the House. Well, the Bill has now taken its final shape, and we see all we have to expect from the Chief Secretary. I confess I do not think there is much to complain of in the attitude which the Chief Secretary has taken, considering that it is an article of his policy not to consult Irish Members as to Irish measures, and considering that—as we were surprised to find—he had not made up his mind as to some of the most important provisions of the measure when it was introduced by him. I do not intend to go further into any personal remarks on the attitude of the Chief Secretary. Everybody admits the dialectic skill with which he has defended the

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  positions he has taken up. But I would ask, has anything been done to meet one of the objections which we on this side of the House put forward through the mouth of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian (Mr. Gladstone)? I think we may say on the whole not one of them has been met. I am not for a moment going to re-argue the questions which have been so fully argued during the course of these Debates, but I think it will not be useless if I shortly recapitulate the objections which we took. The first was that the Probate Duty Grant was appropriated for a certain purpose without Irish consent. The second was that certain local resources were hypothecated without the consent or sanction or voice, in any shape or form, of any Irish Local Authority. The third was that the notion of withholding money voted by Parliament for education or other purposes was impracticable and essentially unjust. The fourth objection was that eviction was your only remedy in the case of non-payment of purchase annuities, and that this eviction on a largo scale was a remedy practically intolerable. The fifth objection was that the scheme of the Bill offered no safeguard against pressure being put by ill-disposed landlords on their tenants in the shape of arrears. The sixth was that outside of each purchase transaction all sorts of ulterior liabilities were left untouched, which would be disclosed after the purchase transaction was finished, and that all sorts of covenants might have been entered into which would be in effect destructive of the policy of the Bill. The seventh objection was that inside the purchase transaction, the security is the entire holding—the tenant's interest plus the landlord's interest—and as the Bill stands we are apparently again going to do what was done in the well-meant but most disastrous measure of 1848, the Encumbered Estates Act—namely, sell the tenant's improvements over his own head. The eighth objection, one of the most important of all, springs from the danger we have pointed out of creating by law so great an inequality, so immense a disparity, between two sections of tenants—on the one hand, those whose landlords are willing to sell to them, and on the other those whose landlords are not willing to sell—
  446
  so that you will have two classes of tenants, a privileged class, paying the reduced annuity, and those outside the Bill, who are paying a rent appreciably higher, and who, therefore, will be proportionately discontented. These are the main objections which we took, and of these not one has been met. I have always said that I gave my consent to land purchase conditionally upon three things—first, that it is part of a general political settlement, because I think that without that you cannot make these enormous advances; secondly, that you ought not on any account to bring the State into the direct relation of creditor to the great multitude of tenants; and, thirdly, with a view to legislation which is undoubtedly in front of us, I hold that no great advance or resort to Imperial credit on such a scale is wise or politic, or even permissible, unless you reserve to some public authority the perpetual advantage from the use of such credit. I wish now to make a few remarks on the Bill as it now stands, and as it will stand, apart from these different objections. I do not know whether any hon. Gentleman has taken the trouble to enumerate to himself the extraordinary multiplicity and complexity of accounts which will exist under this Bill. I think that if the Chief Secretary were to go to any great firm of accountants in the City, and ask them to frame a scheme for these accounts, telling them the conditions under which the accounts have to be kept, they would be filled with nothing short of absolute despair. You will have the transfer and re-transfer of all sorts of sums in connection with the Guarantee Fund; it will be almost impossible to earmark the different fractions of payments to this fund. Then there is the marshalling of assets in the contingent portion of the Guarantee Fund, the tracing and earmarking of an immense number of fractional payments, and elaborate calculations made, not all at once, but from time to time, of how much is payable for the construction of labourers' cottages. Then there are the accounts with the Consolidated Fund. Though the record of grants will be easy, the repayment of these grants will be made by small sums, which will make the accounts very complicated. As to the accounts with tenants, there will be a vast number of

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  these if the right hon. Gentleman's expectations are fulfilled. There will be some 200,000 accounts, each of which will be complicated with the Insurance Fund for the first five years; and then there will be another variation in payment at the end of 18 years. This difficulty has not received much consideration in the Bill, and great administrative confusion is the almost inevitable result. The object of this Bill, as the right hon. Gentleman has told us, is to restore social order in Ireland. This Bill is a substitute for the policy with which we were connected in 1886, and by which there was to be a political and agrarian settlement at the same time. The right hon. Gentleman professes that the Bill is to be a settlement of the land question, and therefore indirectly the principal solution of all Irish problems. But there is one question I must ask, which goes to the root of the contention. What reason is there for thinking that purchase will go on any more rapidly under this Bill than under the Ashbourne Acts? We know how rapidly or how little rapidly purchase proceeds under those Acts. This year the amount sanctioned was just over £1,000,000, and not more than £1,500,000 has ever been sanctioned in one year. Why should this Bill accelerate purchase? To my mind there are many reasons for believing that instead of accelerating the process of purchase, this Bill will diminish its rapidity. The checks and devices of the Bill will be so many impediments in the way of purchase. There is the provision, to which I moved an Amendment in Committee, for providing a Tenants' Insurance Fund, which illustrates the manner in which the Bill will operate as an impediment. By this provision every buyer, whatever be the rate of purchase he agrees to pay, will for five years have to pay as though he bought at 20 years' purchase. See the effects in the districts where it is most important, from the right hon. Gentleman's point of view, that the peasants should be converted into owners. Take a case where the rent is 610 and the price agreed upon is 15 years' purchase. There will be here a normal annuity of £6; but under this provision for five years the annuity will be £8. To an Irish tenant five years is an eternity, and I cannot conceive of a better device for
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  checkmating the policy of purchase than this clause. You say "Oh, he will get the ownership." There is a good deal of misconception as to the desire of the tenants for ownership. They have already had an interest hardly second to that of ownership ever since the Act of 1881, and, therefore, this consideration will not have much weight with their minds. There is another aspect of this clause which is still more important in showing how it operates to retard purchase. What happens now constantly is a transaction of this kind? The average price agreed upon between a landlord and tenant for a £50 holding is a 17 years' purchase, making a normal annuity of £34. The Land Commissioners have frequently said that there is not security for £34, but that they would not object to advancing the equivalent of a normal annuity of £28—that is, £700. The landlord has then come to terms on that basis, and has taken £700 instead of £850. Now, under this Bill, however willing and anxious the landlord may be to sell at the reduced sum, it will be of no use. If the Land Commissioners find that £34 is a normal annuity which the holding cannot bear, they will find £40 much more so; and for five years, in the case I have supposed, the Land Commissioners will not be able to take less than £40. I cannot see any answer to this contention, and I should be glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman whether he knows of an answer. If this be so, all these numerous cases will be excluded from purchase, and the landlord will now say that this is patch-working his estate in the worst sense of that process, by leaving him with all the small and bad holdings on his hands, and he will not sell at all. Then I come to the allocation clause, dividing the holdings above and below £50 valuation. I have the misfortune on this subject not to be entirely in accord with my hon. and right hon. Friends near me. When the right hon. Gentleman first made this proposal, I said that I feared it would certainly impair his own policy, because it would indispose landlords to patchwork their estates. Gentlemen from Ireland, in both camps, nearly all disapproved of this limitation. The hon. Member for West Belfast said that the effect of this difference between

  449
  the holdings above £50 and below £50 would be to divide the peasantry of Ireland into two opposite camps, having different objects and interests. Then from the other camp of the Irish Party the argument is urged that it is not worth while for the sake of the tenants so few in number as those above the £50 line to draw this division. I agree with Irish Members that the effect will be bad; but whether in the way anticipated or not, whatever other effect it will have, it will tend to check sales. There is only one other consideration that I desire to bring before the House. We are within a measurable distance of a General Election. At that General Election, if my right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham will allow me to say so, the issue of Home Rule will undoubtedly be raised——
  MR. J. CHAMBERLAIN: I am very glad to hear it.
  MR. J. MORLEY: My right hon. Friend knew it, and knows it, well enough; therefore I do not see why he should feel any now emotion. Undoubtedly that issue—whether Ireland is to be intrusted with a large measure of self-government or not—will be raised. Whether right hon. Gentlemen opposite will carry the country with them, or whether we shall carry the country with us, what will be the effect? What will be the effect of a verdict for or against Home Rule? What will be the effect upon the policy of the right hon. Gentleman and upon this Bill? Supposing that Gentleman opposite win the day and that right hon. Gentlemen opposite remain where they are for another five or six years; it requires very little knowledge of Ireland to be perfectly confident that the effect of the verdict—the effect of the Chief Secretary remaining in Dublin Castle—a prospect that he will naturally look to with exultation—the effect of right hon. Gentlemen opposite remaining in power in Ireland will be that landlords will think that they have a perpetual Coercion Act behind them at a pinch, and so they will raise their terms, and many of them will be less inclined to sell, most of all those whom it is most desirable to get rid of—that is, the very heavily encumbered landlords. On that point I should like to know why the right hon. Gentleman did not insert the clause
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  which was in his Land Purchase Bill for dealing with encumbered estates. I am astonished that clause did not find its way into this Bill out of the other. Well, the effect of a verdict in favour of hon. Gentlemen opposite would be to check the process of land purchase rather than to encourage it. But take the other verdict. I do not want to predict, and I will only make this remark, that I should not be surprised if one effect of such a verdict would be not to increase the willingness of the tenants to buy, but the exact contrary. On the one hand, then, the verdict will indispose landlords to sell, while, on the other hand, it may possibly indispose tenants to buy. I do not see my way to supporting the Bill, for I do not see that anything can come of it, except an increase of discontent, and a mass of administrative confusion within the next four or five years which will load with embarrassment the Irish Government of that day.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I am afraid I am not quite so much at one with my right hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle on the subject of land purchase by means of Imperial credit as on many other subjects. As I gather, my right hon. Friend is in favour of the general principle of land purchase by means of Imperial credit, but he objects to the mode in which by the Bill the principle is carried out. My right hon. Friend stated at first eight, important objections to the Bill, and then went on to state a great many more. I counted 16, and then gave it up. I can perfectly understand that my right hon. Friend will not support the Bill. It seems to me that everyone of those objections is sufficiently grave and important to induce my right hon. Friend to do his best, by voting against the Third Reading, to prevent the Government from carrying out even a sound principle in so pernicious a way. I have put down a notice to move that the Bill be read this day three months, to give hon. Members who are opposed to the measure an opportunity of registering a final protest against it. What is this Bill? It is really to place in the hands of the Executive a sum of £30,000,000 to buy a number of estates that cannot find any purchaser, and a great many of which

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  have no economic value whatever. Having expended this large sum in cash they are then to sell these estates, but they buy on cash terms and sell on credit terms, and they sell on exceedingly long credit, 49 years, during which the present occupier to whom the sale is made will have to pay 4 per cent. on the purchase price, 2¾ going to repayment, ¼ per cent. in minor ways, and 1 per cent. to the Sinking Fund. Then, not content with risking these £30,000,000 once, the Government propose to re-lend the money as it comes in. Now, it has never been explained to the House on what ground this Bill for this system of purchase is passed. We have heard it stated that there is an objection to dual ownership in Ireland, but with this system the tenant has fixity of tenure and fair rent; and you propose to convert the man in this fortunate position into a freeholder at the end of 49 years. Meantime you do not abolish that system of dual ownership which you condemn; you substitute a dual ownership between the State of Great Britain and the tenant for that between the landlord and the tenant with fixity of tenure and fair rent. At the end of 49 years the tenant becomes owner; but will you then put an end to dual owner-ship? The man to whom you have sold the land may let it, and in all probability will, or he may sell it, and thus, having risked many millions of the Exchequer, you revert to the state of things now existing. I cannot conceive anything more ridiculous. We are not loved in Ireland; landlords are not loved in Ireland; and you think that by uniting the positions of English Government and Irish landlord you will have a better position. The fact is, we shall be disliked more than ever. There is a vague general notion that this scheme of purchase will do away with all agrarian difficulties, but to me it seems perfectly obvious that it will increase the agrarian difficulties in Ireland. I could understand the argument if you were going to buy out every landlord in Ireland. But when it is said that the main difference between this Bill and that of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian is £100,000,000, there comes from hon. Members behind me the expression of the conviction that you will have to buy out every Irish landlord.
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  But until that view is carried out, do you imagine that you will remove agrarian difficulties by creating two classes of tenants; the one a privileged class, paying a lower rent, with the prospect of becoming owners of their farms at the end of 49 years, and the other class paying a higher rent with no such prospect in view? If this Bill does satisfy a number of tenants whom it will benefit, it will cause anger, irritation, and disaffection among the large majority of tenant farmers. Now, from the point of view of the English taxpayer, is this money safe? The value of land has gone down in the last 20 years, and may go lower in the next 20 years, and if it does you cannot exact the rent you now deem fair. If the occupier can show that paying such rent he cannot live and thrive, then according to the principle laid down on this side of the House, you will be bound to reduce that rent, and so it is evident the whole calculation of the right hon. Gentleman opposite will be upset. The idea of a general strike against repayments is scouted I know, but it will be an exceedingly tempting thing, for we know perfectly well you could not evict all these tenants. You have their good-will only to secure repayment; they know you could not evict them, and whether that is a safe, solid, and valid security from a business point of view I very much doubt. The possibility of a general strike, the possibility of not getting the 4 per cent., is admitted in the Bill itself, for a cover to meet that contingency is provided. But what is that cover? It is an insult to our understanding. We may turn loose the lunatics, we may refuse the blessings of education, we may starve the schoolmasters, and we may adopt other means of punishment if tenants refuse to pay their debts. But we could do nothing of the kind. It is like the threat of an African Chief who enforces obedience by telling his followers he will let loose among them wild animals he keeps encaged. We certainly are not going to turn loose lunatics, starve paupers, and scrimp the salaries of under-paid village schoolmasters. It is a rotten security for our money, and I defy you to get from any financial house in the City a loan on any such security, setting Imperial credit aside. But even

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  admitting, for the sake of argument, that this is the very best Bill that could be framed, and that the very best thing we could do for Ireland is to introduce this system of purchase of estates on State credit, I maintain that this Parliament has no right to pass this Bill in view of what occurred at the last General Election. At that time the question was clearly submitted to the electors. With the exception of my right hon. Friends the Members for Newcastle-upon-Tyne and West Birmingham, I do not recollect a single Member on either side of the House who did not declare himself opposed to land purchase in Ireland.
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. CHAPLIN,): I did not.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: The right hon. Gentleman opposite says he never made such a declaration. No; but the Ministry, of which the right hon. Gentleman is a Member, were collectively bound even more than their followers, to oppose the principle of land purchase. Why are not my right hon. Friends sitting on the other side of the House? Because the Conservative Party, as a Party, declared themselves strongly against land purchase in Ireland, and urged the electors to vote against Liberals because it was humanly possible that, if the latter had a majority, the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian might again bring in what I take the liberty to call his pernicious Land Bill. I make no secret of my opinion. I opposed that Bill then as I oppose this Bill now. The electors, whether Liberals or Conservatives, with one voice agreed that they would not have any species of land purchase through the use of Imperial credit. Right hon. Gentlemen opposite have since changed their minds, and they have a right to do so.
  MR. CHAPLIN: They have not "hanged their minds.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I am afraid the right hon. Gentleman does not know their minds.
  An hon. MEMBER: Their policy.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: They have changed their policy, and I thought their policy represented their minds. I am justified in saying they have changed their policy.
  MR. CHAPLIN: I did not oppose the Bill.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: Did not the right hon. Gentleman with other eminent Members of his Party career about the country denouncing the Bill?
  MR. CHAPLIN: Certainly not.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: I do not understand how the right hon. Gentleman got into office if he alone among his Party was in favour of land purchase. The right hon. Gentleman says he did not oppose the Bill; he was perhaps too wary for that, and wanted to see how the cat would jump in the new Parliament. But I give credit at all events to the hon. Gentlemen sitting behind him who did oppose land purchase, and I want to know why they have changed their policy at the present time. The pledges of Members on this side were to oppose land purchase, and consequently we are fulfilling our duty in voting against this Bill. Ministers and Members on the other side may be careless of their pledges; we never give pledges without intending to carry them out. It is really very curious what are the claims of the right hon. Gentleman to be a Minister of the Conservative Party. During the time the proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian was before the country, hon. Gentlemen opposite at meetings throughout the country declared that the safety of Ireland lay in the presence of the landlord class, but now they propose to sweep away this safeguard, substituting one great alien landlord—the English Government. We have done our best to resist the raids of the Government on the property of the taxpayers. In some cases we have succeeded. In regard to the Sugar Duties we succeeded, against the Van and Wheel Tax proposal we succeeded, against the proposed indemnity to publicans we succeeded. I am sorry to say that we have failed in the present instance, but we have a conscientious feeling that we have done our duty. We prefer failure like this to success like that. In conclusion, I will only say that I thank Heaven that the duration of Parliament is at least limited to seven years, as I believe that if the Government were to remain in power for a sufficiently long time every farthing belonging to the masses would go into the pockets of the classes. I move that the Bill be read a third time this day three months.
  Amendment proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day three months."—(Mr. Labouchere.)
  Question proposed, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  DR. CLARK: I have great pleasure in seconding the Motion, as I am thoroughly opposed to the principle of the Bill. I took no part in the discussion of matters of detail. I had no desire to improve the Bill. I was content to let it pass in as bad a form as framed, because there would be the more necessity for the incoming Liberal Government to amend it. I find encouragement in the words of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle, who opposes the Bill on the principle that it is wrong to take the public money and devote it to the benefit of one particular class. He stated that if the Government had proposed to use the public money for the benefit of the public as a whole, if by the Bill a portion of the rent—I suppose he means the economic rent—were retained for the community, then he might have viewed the Bill favourably. This Bill changes the basis of the present tenure, which is that those who hold the land do, or ought to do, service for it. During the Commonwealth, Acts imposing a Land Tax on the then holders of the land were passed. That tax was abolished at the Restoration, and the landlords have since retained possession of the land without performing the duties they ought to perform. At present the landlords in England, Scotland, and Wales pay a land tax, but the Irish landlords are exempted from the payment of such a tax, so that when the new owners take over the land they will not have to pay Land Tax, and therefore they will be required to give a less price for the land. I am glad the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle referred to what is sometimes called the economic rent—that is, the price paid for superior soil and the more desirable sites. It is quite as unjust to give such values to the tenants as it is for the landlord to retain them. I am not prepared to support any measure which will take a monopoly from one class and hand it over to another class. It is impossible, in consequence of the way in which the Bill is drafted, to secure to the community as a whole the benefit of the economic rent
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  and the minerals. I think Ireland has; more mineral wealth than it is generally supposed to have. The hon. Member for Cork (Mr. Parnell) has spent a great-deal of money in trying to develop the mineral resources of Ireland, and I know that in many cases iron is worth working at the present time. I do not think the tenants ought to have a right to the minerals under the ground; all they can ask for is some right to the soil. I am opposed to the creation of a new class of owners as proposed by this Bill In course of time land for which they paid 15s. an acre they will re-let at £5 an acre; there will be rack-renting, which cannot be corrected by the present system of fair-rent valuation; and it will be realised that the Irish agrarian question has not been solved. I protest against the creation of a new privileged class. The tenure in Ireland is one of the best in the world if it is properly carried out, and there is no need to" change it; but the fixing of fair rents, has been frustrated by tenants being, improperly forced to pay rent for their own improvements, and that has led to the continuance of agitation. I do not want to see private property go altogether; I want to see it placed on a basis on which it can be defended. Such a basis is that those who create wealth shall get it, and that all the present indirect methods of robbing them of it shall cease. On these grounds I support the Motion that the Bill be read a third time this day three months. (8.15.)
  MR. MORTON: I wish to say a few words in opposition to the Third Reading of this Bill, because I strongly object to it altogether. One of my chief reasons for objecting to it is that nearly all the Members of this House were pledged at the last General Election, against the passing of a Land Purchase Bill; and even if the Bill were a good one, I should think that pledge ought to be respected. I cannot give my assent, to such a measure until the people of this country, whose money and credit are to be pledged, have had an opportunity at a General Election of expressing theirs opinions on it. Although we have been told that this Bill is introduced for the purpose of benefitting the tenants, I do not think that assertion has been proved, because if it were intended simply to benefit the tenants and get them out of

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  their difficulties, I do not think it would have been found necessary to make proposals by which those tenants will be sacrificed. As far as I can understand it, the Bill has been really introduced by the Government solely for the purpose of benefitting the landlords. The Government see plainly enough that within a few months or years Home Rule, or local control, must be granted to the Irish people, and they want to com pensate their Irish friends, and give them the opportunity to skedaddle out of the country before the Irish people are allowed to have the management of their own affairs. This, in my opinion, is the true reason for the introduction of this Bill. There may, however, be another reason, which I equally object to, namely, that it is thought advisable to bribe the tenants into giving up their demand for Home Rule. It is a well-known historical fact that it has been a common practice for the British Government, when they have found all other means fail, either to bribe individuals, or to make public grants to Ireland, with a view of thus getting over their difficulties. It may be that this is the idea which now animates Her Majesty's Government. At any rate, it looks like it, as may have been noticed from the remark made by the Chief Secretary the other evening when he spoke of this measure as one of charity to the Irish people, and, therefore, to some extent, a kind of bribe. I should have been glad if the Irish Representatives had stood out against this measure, and stood out against this bribe like the Corporation of London, who refused to have funds granted to them because they preferred to retain the control of their own affairs. Indeed, in distant times the Corporation of London used to take the opposite course, for they are said to have bribed both Governments and Monarchs for the purpose of retaining their own system of local control. I should have been glad, therefore, if the Irish Members and the Irish people had done what the Corporation of London have done, and said, "We refuse to be bribed by British money, because we prefer to have an independent control of our own affairs. When we have got that we will borrow money, if necessary, and deal with it in a business-like and public-spirited manner." I should like to ask whether a Tory Government would do anything willingly
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  for the tenants of Ireland—a Tory Government that has always assisted the landlords as against the tenants. Landlordism is written all over the Bill. I do not think the Tories of this day are likely to do anything for the tenants of Ireland, save they hope to get something out of it. All the alterations made in this Bill have been in favour of the landlord and against the tenant. Some few matters may have been conceded, but mainly the benefit has been for the landlord, and the landlord only. In fact, the Bill now is so little like what it was when introduced that it would appear that it had been simply thrown together anyhow in the belief and expectation that the House would take care of the interests of the landlords. During the last three years Irish tenants have been called criminal conspirators; thousands have been put in prison; some have been murdered by the policy of the Government. Is it not, therefore, all the more extraordinary that this Bill should be introduced for the benefit of the tenants by the present Government—that they should especially offer plenty of land and cheap money to these so-called conspirators? Why should they offer these advantages to Irishmen, and exclude Englishmen, Scotchmen, and Welshmen? One bad lesson the Government has endeavoured to inculcate, that the way to get these benefits is by what they call criminal agitation. What I want is that all classes in the United' Kingdom should be treated alike, and that if these advantages are to be conferred there should be no distinction between one part and another of the United Kingdom, but that the whole country should in a business spirit be treated on terms of equality. It is well-known that the guarantees under the Bill are absolutely worthless if the land is not of the value given for it.
  Notice taken, that 40 Members were-not present; House counted, and 40 Members being found present,
  *MR. MORTON: I consider that these guarantees are worthless, so far as we-shall be able to make any use of them. They consist of the salaries of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses, of the expenses of the officers of public health, and of the maintenances of pauper lunatics and District Asylums in Ireland. Now, all these funds are Imperial, and,

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  therefore, it amounts to this, that we are guaranteeing ourselves. It would be absurd to suppose we could take any of these sums away from the Irish people; we could not possibly interfere with any of the good objects to which they are applied on the ground that some of the purchasers under this Irish Land Bill have made default in their payments. Then, again, why should the benefits of this Bill be confined to agriculturists? There are many other people in Ireland who have an equal right to borrow money at a cheap rate by using Imperial credit. Further than that, I think that the advancing of the money ought not to be under the management of the Imperial Government. I think the Municipal Authorities ought to have the control of the matter, and that there ought to be some kind of Home Rule. Until you have created some sort of Local Authority in Ireland to deal with the matter, I say the great danger and difficulty we have to apprehend is, that too much money will be given for the land, with the result that, after a few years, the tenant will say—and honestly so—that he cannot keep up his payments, and then the liability will fall on the British taxpayer. Under this Bill it is not compulsory on the landlords to sell, and so they will only see the bad land, from which they find it impossible to get their rents. Then they will use the power of the law to compel the poor tenants to give a great deal more money for the land than it is worth, knowing that even if they lose the landlord's deposit they will be better off than they are at the present moment. Therefore, instead of an Imperial Authority representing the Irish landlords, we ought to have a Local Authority representing the people to take care that in these dealings with public money the interests of the tenant and of the State shall be properly safeguarded. I do not think that the Government have acted fairly in this matter. They have pretended to bring in the Bill in the interests of the Irish tenant, but they have taken no trouble to protect him against having to pay more than the money is worth. At the ame time, they have taken the control over the matter out of the hands of Parliament by placing the salaries of the Commissioners on the Consolidated Fund. I know that their tendency
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  during the last few years has been to follow the policy of putting all kinds of expenditure on the public funds; but if they carry it too far, it may become dangerous, and the people may see no remedy but a revolution. I object to the proposal to allow the repayments to be re-lent without Parliament being consulted on the subject; and I protest against the evident intention of the Government to entrust the work to Commissioners who will use all their influence to pay the landlords a higher price than, in my opinion, the land is worth. We have heard of jury-packing in Ireland; it seems we are now to have packed Commissioners, and in due time I suppose we shall get packed judgeships. I wish that the Representatives of the Irish people in this House had refused this bribe of British money, and declined to have had anything to do with it until Home Rule had been conceded. I wish that even now they would take up that position, and so preserve their independence. But at present the landlords and the landlord friends of the Government have got it all their own way. Yet I am not very despondent. I know there is a good time coming, that before many months we shall have a General Election. Then we shall hear what this country has to say upon the matter, and I believe it will not be too late for us to change this bad and unfortunate policy of the Tory Government.
  COLONEL NOLAN: I am glad to hear from the hon. Member for Peterborough that there is a good time coming; but I very much fear the Irish tenants will have to wait a long time for it, unless they accept this Bill. We have been invited by the hon. Member to spurn this bribe as, so he told us, the Corporation of London did. I do not know much about the action of the City Corporation; but this I do know: that the City Companies received as bribes large grants of land in Ireland in order to induce them to take an interest in the settlement of Ulster, and they have drawn the rents ever since. If they will only refund what they have drawn during the past six years we shall be very grateful. Now we absolutely and totally deny that what we are getting under this Bill is of the nature of charity. In the first place, we believe that not one penny will fall on the British taxpayer.

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  The hon. Member for Peterborough has made light of the guarantees, and he said it would be impossible to stop the schools working. But there is about £500,000 sterling now paid to the Poor Law Authorities which could be stopped at once without affecting the schools, and as 150 of the 160 Unions in Ireland are perfectly solvent, that stoppage would mean the imposition of an extra sixpenny or shilling rate. We are only getting that which we claim as a right. Part of the National Debt has been raised on Irish credit, Irish finance. Irish finance represents about one - eighth of the whole Imperial Revenue; and as the £800,000,000 or £900,000,000 have been borrowed in the past for purposes of Imperial defence, it follows that one-eighth has been raised on Irish credit. Ireland had no great national purpose to be served by providing funds for the War of Independence in America, the war against Napoleon, or even the Crimean War; yet you pledged her credit as you pledged the credit of the whole Empire. You have also made a lavish use of her credit for purposes of Imperial defence, in which Ireland has but a secondary interest, for protecting your immense trade, and for defending your colonies; and as you have done that, surely it is only fair you should enable us, by lending us your credit, to borrow money for land purchase at a lower rate of interest than we could otherwise obtain it at. It will be advantageous to you, for it will reduce the injustice now prevailing in Ireland, and save you a large sum in administrative expenses. The hon. Member for Peterborough says that the tenants of Ireland do not care for this Bill, and that it is not in their interests. I tell him he is mistaken, and if he went to any part of the country he would find they would be very sore if they had not the option of purchasing under the Act. I venture to say that if this Bill is not passed in a year or so the funds provided under the Ashbourne Acts will be exhausted, and the process of land purchase stopped, perhaps, for years. We know that the late John Bright, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bradford, and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian have supported the principle of land purchase. The right hon. Gentleman brought in a Bill which involved an expenditure of £150,000,000.
  MR. CONYBEARE: No, no!
  COLONEL NOLAN: A Bill ostensibly to devote £150,000,000 to the operation, and I am sorry to notice that he has to some extent lately withdrawn from the position he then took up. I am very glad that the hon. Member for Cork has supported the Bill from the beginning. I myself adopted a neutral attitude towards it at first; but when I heard the hon. Member for Northampton and his friends declare that not a penny of English money should be pledged for land purchase in Ireland, my opinion changed. I admit the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian did not go quite as far as that; he said he must first have a mandate from the constituencies. Although we are anxious for Home Rule, I must say I have not been convinced of its immediate proximity by the speech of the hon. Member for Peterborough. He referred to it as local control, and that certainly would not satisfy the Irish people, although the Members of the Irish Party in this House are by all their traditions and proclivities inclined towards the Liberal Party. I think that any independent Irish Party would be very foolish if it rejected a boon like this offered in the Bill merely because it comes from the Conservative Party. Therefore, I say the hon. Member for the City of Cork has shown great wisdom by declaring from the outset in favour of this Bill. The hon. Member for Elgin has proposed certain Amendments in the interests of the British taxpayer. No doubt he has honestly believed he is right. I think, however, he has been utterly mistaken, and we were bound to oppose his proposals as they were prejudicial to the interests of Ireland. I agree that other parts of the United Kingdom have claims for benefits similar to those conferred in this Bill. I would willingly support a Bill giving the crofters of Scotland and the labourers of England similar advantages; but we should not be justified in postponing the Irish Bill until that had been done.
  SIR J. PEASE: In the few remarks I propose to address to the House on this Bill, I do not intend to follow the example of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle in going into details of the measure; my observations

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  will relate rather to the principle of the Bill. I look upon it as an honest effort on the part of Her Majesty's Government to try and meet a grave and difficult Irish question. At the same time, I have taken no part in dealing with it in Committee, because I have felt that whatever was done there my objection with regard to principle could hardly be removed. Let the House consider for a moment what is the country, and what are the evils, to which this legislative remedy is to be applied. It is an agricultural country. It contains some 660,000 holdings. Of these 218,000 are under £4, 415,000 are under £10, and 492,845 under £15, and 538,392 under £20. That is to say, one-third of the holdings are under £4, two-thirds under £10, and five-sixths under £20. Now, it is to these small holdings mainly that you propose to apply English credit. I do not agree with the hon. and gallant Member for Galway (Colonel Nolan) in his view on this point. I hold that English credit means English money, and you have no right to give the credit unless you are prepared to find the money. That is one of the first things taught in trade, and I hope it is an axiom that the House will never forget—that credit means money. Let us look at the state of Ireland. According to a Return published the other day, we find that in 1841 the population numbered 8,196,527. According to the Census just completed, it is only 4,706,162, or a decrease in half a century of 3,490,365. In the last 20 years the population has decreased by 706,251. Again, while the paupers of England have decreased in number since 1875, by 28,042, and in Scotland by 10,673, the population of England has risen by 5,362,264 and of Scotland by 605,803. In Ireland the number of paupers has increased by 26,781, and the population has fallen by 572,467. Take the case of the cereal crops. Since 1875 the acreage devoted to them has been reduced by 401,791 acres; the acreage of green crops has also fallen by 155,690 acres, while the number of cattle and sheep has also fallen off considerably. It is to remedy this condition of things that this Bill has been brought in. In the meantime, we are told by one of the greatest authorities on Irish land who gave evidence before Lord Cowper's Commission, that one-half of Ireland at
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  least is mortgaged at 4½ per cent. What measures have the Government introduced to deal with this discreditable and discouraging state of things? I find, on looking to the Returns, that there have been grants of potatoes and seed, grants for fisheries and light railways and relief works, but, with the exception of the light railways, every relief given has been of a temporary character. Now, the present measure is a great effort to put these things straight. I know there is a consensus of opinion on both sides of the House that some great advantage is to be obtained by turning the Irish peasant proprietor into a peasant freeholder. But I am not convinced on that point in the slightest degree. I say that we are only increasing the number of probable Irish landlords, and it seems to me that this scheme is framed in violation of all the-rules of political economy, for it involves the use of State credit to perform an-operation which, if it is commercially successful, would have been carried out on its own merits. The experience of the last few years has proved that it is dangerous for the State to interfere with transactions which should be left to ordinary dealings of mankind. We have interfered in the past no doubt; the question is, are we to go on interfering, and in a large degree? Should we not rather hold our hands and try some other remedy? There is nothing immoral in the ordinary relations between landlord and tenant. It is just the reverse. Take the case of house, or mining, or any other property. It is to the advantage of the tenant that the landlord should find capital for him at a lower rate of interest than he can employ his own capital at in the occupation he-carries on within the hired premises. In England and Scotland the landlord is practically finding capital for the tenant at 2½ per cent. or 3 per cent., while the tenant is employing his own capital at various rates, according to his skill in the markets with which he has to deal. If you attempt to destroy the relations which have been found by the long experience of mankind to be beneficial, then I say there is a primâ facie case against your Bill. I shall be told, and rightly so, that in Ireland these-relations are of a most complicated character. I think they have existed

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  under laws, under circumstances, and undercustoms which have been decidedly-detrimental to the best interests of the State. Both parties, it seems to me—my right hon. Friend the Member for Mid Lothian equally with the present Government—have endeavoured to get out of the Irish land difficulty without fully considering the further difficulties which their new departure may involve. I hold in my hand a long list of the right hon. and hon. Members who were at one time exactly of this opinion. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Great Grimsby in 1886 said—
  "He was anxious to do justice to Ireland, and he was also anxious for many legislative reforms which were required in this country, but he did not believe that either the one or the other would be promoted by the Bills introduced by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, and in consequence of the rejection of which Parliament had been prematurely dissolved."
  The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham said—
  "I object to these proposals because they will lay an unprecedented liability on the British taxpayer, not for the benefit of the Irish tenants, but in order to purchase the compliance of the landlords. I trust you will be unwilling that an Act of separation should be procured by the most gigantic bribe ever offered to the opponents of any legislation."
  Similar views were expressed by the hon. Members for the Appleby Division, for the Penrith Division, for Chester, Durham, and Sleaford. They were all opposed to the granting of English credit and English money for the purpose of making an arrangement between the landlords and tenants of Ireland. What would be the effect if similar principles to those embodied in this Bill were applied to labour disputes in this country? There was a strike some months ago in some of the collieries in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Was the proper remedy for the Government to find money to enable the workmen to purchase the collieries, and to take security over the collieries for the purchase money? Ought the Government in the recent omnibus strike in London to have enabled the men to buy up all the vehicles by an advance of cash? If not, then why, because an Irish tenant is dissatisfied with the rent he has to pay, should English money be found to enable him to purchase his holding? Another grave argument against this Bill is that it will aggravate
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  the evil of non-residence. Ireland is suffering materially from non-resident landlords, and yet, by every transaction under this Bill, you ensure that for at least 40 years the money now paid as rent, and much of it spent in Ireland among the tenantry, will then be sent over to this country as interest and redemption of purchase. I see that there is in the papers a proposal of the late Lord Lieutenant of Ireland dealing with his Down tenantry. I presume it is in the interests of the tenantry that his Lordship should spend a portion of his time among them, yet they must not expect that if he sells his estate. I know what a loss it would be in my own county if he disposed of his Durham estates, and if the money he received from them were all spent elsewhere, whilst the tenants had to use their capital at 2½ per cent. in the purchase. Again, this Act is permissive; you have no security that those who ought to sell will sell. In my humble opinion, those who ought not to sell are the very parties who will sell. If you look at the list of noblemen who have taken money under the Ashbourne Act, you will find they have been some of the very best landlords in Ireland. The worst continue sticking to their estates, and are likely to do so. I do not see how it is possible to work any scheme successfully which leaves tenants farming under exactly the same conditions paying different rents. Side by side you will have two men: one paying a fair rent, the other paying an annuity less by 20 per cent. than that fair rent, and with the prospect of owning the farm in 40 years' time. It seems to me that this must breed discontent. The right hon. Gentleman has stated that he does not intend that more than a certain amount of money shall be advanced, but the very Bill itself implies that more will have to be found or you will promote discontent by adding to the disparity which will be created under the Bill. It seems to me, too, you will do enormous damage to the smaller class of landlords. In too many cases their estates are mortgaged up to the hilt, and if you compel them to sell you reduce them to penury. The more I have talked with Irish landlords on the subject the more dissatisfaction with this Bill have I found to exist. I am afraid that in bad seasons a great number of the small tenants will come to

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  grief. One-third of them, as I have already stated, are under £4; in bad times in the past they have not been able to pay their way, nor will they be able to do so in the future. They will have to ask for credit, and you must give it them or drive them into the hands of the money-lender. There is nothing in your Bill to prevent the aggregation after 40 years of the small holdings which will be bought under this scheme, so that in the end you may have a worse state of things than now exists. I may be asked, and fairly so, if I would leave all the small tenants alone. My answer is, that we have not done so in the past, and the point is upon what principle should we proceed? John Stuart Mill, in his Principles of Political Economy, says—
  "Rent paid by a capitalist who farms for a profit and not for bread may safely be abandoned to competition. Rent paid by labourers cannot, unless the labourers were in a state of civilisation and improvement which labourers have nowhere yet reached and cannot easily reach under such a tenure, peasant rents ought never to be arbitrary, never at the discretion of the landlord either by custom or law. It is imperatively necessary that they should be fixed, and when no mutually advantageous custom such as the Metayer system of Tuscany has established itself, reason and experience recommend that they should be fixed by authority."
  You adopted that principle in 1881, by authoritatively fixing fair rents for 15 years, but you have not carried it far enough. You have refused to act on the recommendation of the Cowper Commission, that rents should be revised more frequently. I never could see why they should wait even five years for revision; you might allow it to be done at any time on 12 months' notice being given fair rents would soon settle themselves. I object to this Bill on principle, because it deals with that which cannot properly be so dealt with, because it is likely to create more evils than it redresses, and because it will ultimately lead to a state of affairs worse than that which at present exist. It is not statesmanlike to rush out of one difficulty into another in order to avoid the existing state of things. The House ought not to deal with English money in order to buy out Irish tenants, without taking under its wing the smaller class who are only half sheltered by previous legislation. I declined to vote for the Home Rule, coupled with land purchase, Bill of
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  the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian in 1886 because I entertained similar objections to his land proposals, and it was not till his Land Bill was dead that I could support Home Rule. I think the present measure is equally dangerous to English credit and to Irish prosperity, and with these views I shall vote for the Amendment.
  MR. FORREST FULTON: The hon. Member for Northampton (Mr. Labouchere) has always ended the many speeches he has delivered on this question with a general charge against hon. Members sitting on this side of the House, namely, that in 1886 we over and over again denounced the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, and yet are found voting in favour of the present Bill. I have risen simply for the purpose of showing that the statement of the hon. Gentleman is entirely inaccurate. So far, at any rate, as I am concerned, there is not the slightest shadow of foundation for the statement.
  MR. LABOUCHERE: On a previous occasion I brought down in my pocket the addresses of 68 Members, with the object of reading them to the House, but hon. Gentlemen opposite were not anxious to hear them.
  *MR. FORREST FULTON: Had the hon. Gentleman read the 68 addresses, I am sure mine would not have been amongst the number. It is quite true I did denounce the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, and denounced it in general terms and in particular terms as a Bill which, in my opinion, would have had a most disastrous effect upon the interests of the taxpayers of this country. But I did not denounce the general principle of land purchase in Ireland, and I believe that if the hon. Member had quoted the addresses of the 68 Members, it would have been found that the 68 gentlemen took up the position I took up, namely, that the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian was a dangerous Bill, because in that measure there was absolutely no security whatsoever offered to the British taxpayer, and, further, that the Bill was a necessary corollary to a system the right hon. Gentleman proposed to introduce for the better government of Ireland, giving to a Home Rule Parliament control of the

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  Executive Government of the country. I remember that the noble Lord the Member for South Paddington (Lord R. Churchill) made a very humorous speech with regard to the supposed security offered in that Bill. The supposed security was the revenue derived from the Customs and Excise in Ireland. The noble Lord pointed out that such security was absolutely worthless, because, as it was also proposed to hand over to an Irish Parliament the control of the Executive Authority, all that was necessary was to present to the Receiver General a first class ticket from Kingstown to Holyhead, see him on board the steamer, and politely wish him "good day;" and thus all the monies he had collected, and which remained in the office of the Receiver General, would have ceased to be an available asset for the British taxpayer. Another reason why I denounced the scheme of 1886 was that I believed it to be distinctly immoral in its conception. It was intended as a bribe to the Irish landlords to induce them to support the Home Rule Bill. It was notorious that the amount—20 years' purchase—which the right hon. Gentleman offered was largely in excess of the value of many estates. Though I was not a Member of the House at the time, do I not remember the speech of the right hon. Gentleman in which he warned the Irish landlords that "the sands were running in the hour glass?" Why did he warn them of that except that he hoped the Irish landlords would be base enough—I am thankful to say they were not—to accept the bribe offered to them by him on that occasion to support the Bill for the better government of Ireland which he had introduced, and upon which he had staked his reputation.
  MR. J. MORLEY: The expression as to the sands running in the hour glass was used long after the Home Rule Bill was rejected, and when we were out of office.
  *MR. FORREST FULTON: I think that, on referring to Hansard, the right hon. Gentleman will find he is entirely mistaken. I have a distinct recollection of all the circumstances. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian proposed to advance, without any security, £50,000,000 in the first instance, and in the long run possibly £200,000,000. The present Bill is,
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  no doubt, complicated, but it appears to me that under it there is absolutely no risk to the British taxpayer. I have listened with great attention to the many speeches delivered by the hon. Member for West Belfast (Mr. Sexton), and I do not think they have been too many. The hon. Member has exhibited an acquaintance with the details of this measure which has filled me with admiration; but the hon. Gentleman has pointed out over and over again that the money which is being now advanced is not the money of Great Britain at all, but Irish money, which they are to receive as the result of the re-arrangement of Imperial finance introduced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer.
  MR. SEXTON: I think the hon. Gentleman misapprehends my argument, which was that Ireland, as contributor of more than her share to Imperial taxation, is entitled to her share in the Imperial credit for carrying out an Imperial policy.
  *MR. FORREST FULTON: I also understood the hon. Member to say that the amount of money under the Bill was such as Ireland was entitled in any event to receive, and, that being so, it matters not, so far as the British taxpayer is concerned, whether it goes in relief of local taxation as in England and Scotland, or for converting tenants into owners in Ireland.
  MR. SEXTON: On the contrary, my view is that Ireland is entitled to annual payments from Imperial revenue, and that you have no right to divert those payments.
  *MR. FORREST FULTON: That is an entirely different point. I quite follow the hon. Gentleman's argument that the money should not be allocated to any particular purpose without the consent of an Irish Local Authority. I am addressing myself to the argument of the hon. Member for Northampton, who has charged Members with being false to their pledges in opposing the Bill of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Mid Lothian, and yet supporting this Bill. I opposed the first-mentioned Bill because under it there would have been no security; I support the present Bill because there appears to be absolutely no risk whatever to the British taxpayer. When Members on this side are charged with not opening their mouths,

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  my anwer is that we do not get the opportunity. Having the opportunity, I state the reasons why I contend I am perfectly consistent in supporting this Bill, although I opposed the Bill of the right hon. Member for Mid Lothian.
  MR. WALLACE: I have taken no sort of part in the discussions on previous stages of the Bill, but before it passes its Third Reading I desire to make my general protest against it, because I think it is important that an expression of opinion should come from all sections of the Liberal Party. Many of my reasons for opposing the Bill have been mentioned, and these I will not repeat. I am against this Bill because it is opposed to the decision of the people of this country as declared at the General Election five years ago, a decision which they have never recalled and from which they have never varied. Gentlemen opposite cannot get out of the false position of setting themselves against the spirit of the mandate which placed them in power, except by resorting to a series of quibbles which would not impose upon a County Court office-boy of six weeks' standing. This is an extension of the Ashbourne Act, and that Act was professedly introduced with the view of stimulating a stagnant land market—in other words, for the purpose of enabling Irish landlords to get their land sold at a price which they would not have obtained in any other circumstances. The Government foresee the coming of Irish Home Rule, and knowing that in that case the price of land under the action of ordinary economic forces will certainly go down to the natural price of the Irish land market, they desire to forestall that contingency and to enable their friends to make hay while the sun shines. The people of this country, however, object to be made the cat's-paw of the Irish landlords, to whom they trace a large portion of the Irish difficulty, which they are now determined no longer to tolerate. If the poorer portion of the Irish tenantry are to receive some temporary and doubtful benefit, the people of this country object that they should receive it at their present risk and ultimate expense. They object that a limited portion of the population of these islands should be chosen out to be the exclusive
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  beneficiaries of British credit. They see no solution of the Irish difficulty in this measure. I further object to it because it seems to be only the beginning of a necessary series of measures of the same kind. Anybody can see that the three-fourths of the favoured class left out in the cold will be certain to clamour for an equal share, and that it will be impossible to argue them down. The Irish Members see that clearly and proclaim it loudly and unequivocally. The Chief Secretary says that this will be the last grant of the kind, but he will find that he is by no means the first who has broached the doctrine of finality, and has found out that the logic of events is an inexorable tyrant from whom it is impossible to escape. If the Chief Secretary said that this must be the last grant because his guarantees are exhausted, I would remind the light hon. Gentleman that he might fall back upon the police and military grants, which in the tranquillised Ireland to which he looks forward will be more open to diversion from their specific purposes. In any case the statesman who has the courage to face the possibility of letting loose the lunatics—and Irish lunatics too—upon the land of their nativity, ought not to shrink from the temporary necessity of dispensing with the services of a few policemen. I object further to the passing of this Bill because I feel morally certain that within 18 months we shall have Home Rule proposals definitely laid upon the Table of the House, and that the establishment of an Irish Legislature is within measurable distance and is really within the horizon of practical politics. It will not be just to Great Britain that it should be left entangled and burdened with the complications, difficulties, and responsibilities that are proposed to be created by this measure, and it would only be just to an Irish Legislature that it should receive this Irish problem undamaged and unprejudiced by the action of the British Parliament. In spite of the right hon. Member for West Birmingham Home Rule is alive, and alive with increasing vitality in the minds of the people of this country, and this I know from my personal experience of elections in both Scotland and England. The people have made up their

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  minds that Home Rule is to be granted, and they are determined that it shall be a generous measure on Constitutional lines. I know no other interpretation to what the voice of elections is saying. I know that hon. Members declare that recent elections have not turned on this question, that they have been decided on other questions, on labour questions, or the one man one vote doctrine, and other questions, little stress being laid on Home Rule, but I am prepared to deny that.
  *MR. SPEAKER: I do not think that these remarks are pertinent to the question that the Bill be read a third time.
  *MR. WALLACE: I had thought of that, Sir, and——
  *MR. SPEAKER: The hon. Member must not pursue that line of argument.
  *MR. WALLACE: What I wished to say was that the probability of Home Rule coming is the minor premiss of my argument, which I am logically entitled to prove by relevant considerations, but of you decide otherwise I submit to your authority.
  MR. T. W. RUSSELL: Before the Bill is read a third time and passes to another place, desire to say a few words. I confess I lave listened to a great part of this Debate with something like astonishment. I heard the hon. Members for Peterborough and East Edinburgh declare that this is a landlord's Bill, and he hon. Member for Peterborough said, that landlordism was written in every line of it."
  *MR. MORTON: No, I did not say "every line." I said "all over it."
  *MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I accept the hon. Member's correction, but it does not amount to much. Now, there are two considerations I submit to the hon. Member. I do not expect they will change his mind, but at least they are worthy of his attention. When the Division is called to-night he will find every Irish Member in this House, without exception, whether he represents landlords' or tenants' interests, walking into the Lobby in support of this Bill. I submit that in face of a fact like that, even the hon. Member for Peterborough might pause before denouncing this as a landlords' Bill. In the second place, I would like the hon.
  474
  Member to explain how this can be a landlords' Bill, when it gives to the purchasing tenant an immediate reduction of 20 per cent. and a contingent reduction of 15 per cent. How can the landlords be the gainers by that? One speaker seemed to me to imagine that landlordism is a divine institution, but it is not so in the opinion of Irish Members. We look upon landlordism as having been in the main a ghastly failure. The English people and Government are responsible for it, and it will be one of the meanest things in English history, after having planted a land system which has worked such evil, for England to cooly turn round and say she will do nothing to help Ireland to get rid of it. Then it is said the Bill would produce a new race of landlords and sub-division of holdings in the future. That cannot take place for 49 years. But let me point out to my hon. Friend this. What caused sub-division in the past? The causes of sub-division in the past have been density of population and want of manufactures, but now, at all events, population is diminishing, and the reasons for sub-division are disappearing. It is said that if difficulty arose with the colliers in the north of England the Government would have to buy up the collieries. It might be so if the working colliers owned one-half the collieries. The difficulty had arisen in Ireland because landlord and tenant are dual owners; the system is intolerable, and one of the partners has to go; the tenant cannot go and therefore the landlord must. It is said this is a complicated measure which will involve administrative difficulties, but the complications will not affect the purchasing tenant who will have nothing to do with the difficulties of the Land Department. It is asked whether the demand for land will increase in the future. Personally, I believe it will. There is great anxiety on the part of occupiers to own their holdings, and not less in Ulster than elsewhere. It is a notorious fact that tenants have been kept back from purchasing because they were told to expect better terms. On the passing of this Bill the terms will be fixed, and tenants will be very likely to go in for purchase on a large scale With his anxiety to be the owner of land, why should the tenant restrain his ambition when he can gratify it on the

  475
  terms offered by this Bill? I am certain that the rate of purchase will increase, although the Insurance Fund may to some extent operate as a deterrent. The real question is whether that fund is necessary or not, and I believe that it is. I do not like the clause altogether as it stands, but the broad fact remains that the tenant-purchaser gets 20 per cent. reduction at once, and the money he lodges for insurance is banked for him, while the prospect of future ownership is steadily staring him in the face. I will admit that this is not a perfect, nor so good, a Bill as that of last Session or the Ashbourne Act, and those who opposed the Bill of last year are responsible for the Irish tenant getting a worse Bill this year. We have been told this is a final settlement, but I do not believe it. I do not believe that this is the last grant that will be made, and the history of land legislation for the last 13 years should cause us to doubt that this is the last grant for the purpose. Irish Members know that this is not the last word OH the subject, and they make no secret of their belief. The English Government are responsible for the present land system in Ireland. You tore up the old Irish land system by the roots, and you planted in its place a system which has been a curse in our midst, and you are responsible, therefore, for all the trouble that has arisen. I hold that the Irish people will be within their right in making you pay to the last farthing what you owe to them in this respect. I should like to ask what you have lost by the advances you have made up to the present? What have you lost by the Bright purchasers, by the purchasers under the Land Act of 1881, and by the purchasers under the Ashbourne Acts? You have scarcely lost anything. I say the Irish tenants will meet their engagements under this Act, and you will have no cause for refusing to complete the undertaking into which you have entered. I say this is not a final Bill. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Bridgeton (Sir G. Trevelyan) said the other night that it was a Bill which was noble in conception. That is perfectly true, and I think it has been nobly carried through this House. I believe it will result in the good of Ireland, and be a great pacificator of Ireland. I thank the Government for introducing it, and the Chief Secretary
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  for carrying it through, and I believe that in doing so I am speaking for the section of the Irish people whom I represent, and for the Province from which I come.
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. A. J. BALFOUE,): I suppose it is necessary for me to take part in this Debate on the final stage of this long - protracted Bill, though it does not appear to me that anything has been said in the course of he Debate by the opponents of the Bill which either sheds a new light on the measure or requires an answer from me of a different kind from that I have given to the House on more than one occasion to objections coming from the same quarter. The hon. Member who moved the Amendment on which we are going to vote was not weary of again asking us whether we were going to destroy the very bases of society by attaching the contingent portion of the Guarantee Fund. He appeared to think that society had never existed until Imperial contributions for pauper lunatics and so forth came in to existence. If he will study the history of his country, he will see that society die exist before these Imperial contributions were made, and there is no ground for believing that society will dissolve in to its constituent atoms if these contributions be withdrawn. The hon. Member, from his great knowledge of financial matters, was prepared to give us an assurance that no financial house in the City would advance this money on the security of Irish land unless there were behind it the guarantee of the Imperial credit. I have already replied to that argument. I will repeat my reply. I believe that any commercial house, if you brought into their coffers the Guarantee Fund under this Bill, would be perfectly prepared to advance at the ordinary rate of interest the money corresponding to the Guarantee Fund. I do not think it necessary to pursue the hon. Member through the rest of his speech, or to deal with his taunts that the Conservative Party have abandoned their pledges. So far as I am concerned, and the speeches of any hon. Friends of mine which I have had the opportunity of studying are concerned, nothing has been adduced which goes beyond saying that the kind of security which was promised us by the right hon. Member for

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  Mid Lothian in the Bill of 1886, was not a kind of security which they would admit as being adequate. With that opinion, loudly expressed from Conservative quarters, loudly echoed by the Radical section of the House, I entirely agree. Merely from the point of view of security—I say nothing of the 20 years' purchase or other difficulties—the whole scheme of the right hon. Gentleman, based as it was upon Home Rule, intimately associated as it was with Home Rule, was a scheme perfectly impossible of acceptance. The speech of the hon. Member for Caithness (Dr. Clark), which followed, was an attempt to put a new complexion on the Debate. The hon. Member began with the feudal system, described tenure by service, gave us a long disquisition on the Land Tax, and ended his discourse by dealing with the doctrines of Mr. Henry George. His speech was a contribution of considerable aovelty to the Debate; but I doubt whether it had any relevance at all to he issue before the House. I believe; he hon. Member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Wallace) also intended to give us a new contribution—at least he told us that none of the arguments which we had heard from hon. Gentlemen below; the Gangway would be repeated by him—but, as he never was allowed to get beyond his minor premiss, I do not offer any opinion upon the value of his disquisition. The right hon. Member for Newcastle (Mr. J. Morley) gave us a brief summary of the objections taken to the Bill in its earlier stages by himself and his Friends, and he thought it desirable to point out that the main objections had not been met by any Amendments accepted by the Government. I must frankly admit that I think that is true. I think if the objections urged last year and this year to the second reading of the Bill had any weight, their weight has not been diminished by any of the proceedings in Committee or on the Report stage of this Bill. But as he was content merely to enumerate the main grounds of objection, he will not think me wanting in any respect to him if I do not repeat at length the arguments which, not once nor twice, but many times, I have put forward to express my own view as to the way those objections should be met. The right hon. Gentleman said that the
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  administrative difficulties which would arise in working so complicated a scheme would cause embarrassment to any Government that had to work it. I think that argument is exaggerated. I admit the Bill is complex, but I ask anybody who criticises it to consider the difficulties it had to meet. If you have to open a very complicated lock you require a key with very complicated wards to it. There is nothing in the world more complicated than the existing Irish land system. It lies in a series of geological strata representing varying efforts of different Parliaments, Irish and English, to deal with it, and the result is that in attempting to solve problems that meet us, we find ourselves face to face with a state of things so complicated and difficult, that to say that a scheme intended to meet it is a simple scheme is to condemn it straight off. The Ashbourne scheme was a simple scheme, but it did not deal with two difficulties that meet any Government which tries to make a larger and more permanent settlement. It did not attempt to meet the question of security; it did not attempt to meet the difficulty of eviction. Now, hon. Gentlemen have met this scheme with a criticism which is applicable to every conceivable land scheme, but is less applicable to this scheme than to any other ever proposed to this House. It is said the non-payment of the annuities must be met by eviction or by some process analogous to eviction. That is true of this as of every other scheme I have ever heard of. Certainly the clauses in the Acts of 1870 and 1881, the abortive scheme of the right hon. Member for Bridgeton (Sir G. Trevelyan) the Ashbourne Acts of 1885 and 1888, and the scheme associated with the Home Rule measure of 1886, did not attempt to meet this difficulty, that if by any unforeseen misfortune or agricultural calamity the non-payment of the annuities became an impossibility, the purchasing tenant would have to be evicted. I say that any scheme which does not attempt to do that, brings this House face to face with the problem of eviction in the most difficult possible manner. This scheme, and this scheme alone, does attempt to meet it, and in attempting to meet it undoubtedly various complexities have been introduced. Is the House disposed to regret them? For my own part, I say these

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  complexities afford one of the strongest arguments in favour of this scheme as compared with any other scheme with which we have any means of comparing it. The other point is the question of security. Under the Ashbourne Act, if the holding was not ample security, there was nothing behind it except the landlord's fifth. It was alleged by every right hon. Gentleman sitting on these Benches that never again would they consent to another 6d. of public money being advanced on that security. What was the result? The result was that a Government determined, as we were determined, to do something in this question, were compelled to devise a scheme by which some other security was produced, and that fact goes a long way to explain the necessary complexities of the scheme. As to the objection raised on the subject of accounts, I do not believe that they will overburden the strength of any Department. They are nothing like in complexity the accounts of any scheme of taxation; certainly not any scheme of taxation which involves ad valorem duties or protection in every State in Europe, almost in the world. In comparison with these the complexities of the Land Department accounts will be found to be easily worked in practice; and although it is true that the more purchasers you have the more accounts you will have to keep, I do not believe the number of accounts will ever be such as to make the Land Department incapable of dealing with them. There is one other point which I think ought to be dealt with, and which was raised by the right hon. Member for Newcastle. He said—"What ground have you for supposing that land purchase will go on at a quicker rate than it has done under the Ashbourne Acts?" I think that several reasons may be alleged why it will go on at a faster rate. In the first place, I think there was a distinct set made against land purchase by many gentlemen in whose opinion the Irish tenants over a great part of Ireland had great confidence. I have no ground for believing that that set will continue. I have some ground for hoping the reverse. In the second place, I believe that one reason why purchase under the Ashbourne Acts did not go on in a rapidly increasing ratio, was because the tenants were waiting to see
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  what terms were to be given under this Bill; and until they knew what those terms were to be they did not come forward, as they otherwise would have done, to take advantage of the Ashbourne Acts. But the right hon. Gentleman's argument on this head was not quite consistent with what fell from him in the earlier part of the speech. He borrowed an argument much in favour with the right hon. Member for Derby during our Debates last year; and he stated that in his opinion land purchase, so far from conducing to the tranquillity of the country, will conduce to its disturbance, owing to the fact that those who had not purchased would be discontented at finding they had not received the same reduction in their rents as their neighbours had from their annuities. How is that state of discontent which is anticipated, to be reconciled with the non-desire to purchase? If there be no desire to purchase there will be no discontent; if there be no discontent there can be no desire to purchase. Hon. Gentlemen cannot stand on both sides of the argument; they must choose on which side they will stand. There is one other point which I ought to answer. The right hon. Gentleman in dealing with the Tenants' Insurance Fund reminded us that under the existing Ashbourne Acts it happened several times that an arrangement had been come to between landlord and tenant, and that this arrangement had been brought for sanction to the Land Commission, who said—
  "We cannot advance so much on this holding; we cannot make an advance which will correspond to a reduction of 30 per cent.; we are prepared to make a reduction corresponding to 40 per cent. of rent."
  Then, he said, the parties went back to an advance which would correspond to £ reduction of 40 per cent. How, says the right hon. Gentleman, can you expect any sales to take place on estates of that kind, when you insist upon 80 per cent. during the first five years? It is true that on those estates the Bill insists that there should be a reduction of 20 per cent., that 80 per cent. of the old rental should be paid for 49 years; and it is true the Land Commission would not sanction the advance. This 80 per cent, does not represent a payment of 80 per cent. to the State, but 60 per cent. to the State and 20 per cent. to

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  the Insurance Fund, which is additional security to the tenant, and the reason I apprehend why the Land Commission would not sanction the reduction of 30 per cent., but would have sanctioned a reduction of 40 per cent., was because in their opinion, though the tenant might pay 30 per cent. for a certain number of years, a bad year would occasionally come and he would only be able to pay at the rate of a reduction of 40 per cent. But that contingency is provided for by the Bill, and by the Insurance Fund, and by paying 80 per cent. in good years the tenant is able to meet a bad year. I think the right hon. Gentleman will see that this 80 per cent., though it may, and will prevent a certain number of sales in the sense that it will diminish the anxiety of a certain number of tenants to buy, will not prevent this by compelling the Land Commission to refuse advances where otherwise they would make them. On the contrary, I believe the Land Commission, if they have behind them the payment of the annuities, this Tenants' Insurance Fund, will be more ready to make advances to small holdings and poor tenants than could possibly take place under the Ashbourne Acts.
  *MR. J. MORLEY: I think the right hon. Gentleman scarcely sees the force of the argument he is answering. My point is this. If the Land Commission refused to sanction an advance because the holding will probably not be able to pay a certain annuity, are they more likely to sanction the advance, or less likely, because for five whole years the annuity is greater?
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The Land Commission refuses now to make an advance corresponding to a reduction of 20 per cent. for 49 years. Is there any argument to be based on that for supposing that it will refuse to make an advance corresponding to 20 per cent. when a large amount of money has accumulated for the Insurance Fund? The large annuity is only asked for for five years. In the second place, it is asked for to serve as an Insurance Fund, and it appears to me that, so far from discouraging the Land Commission from making the advance on indifferent holdings, they will feel that the tenant, owing to his insurance, will be far more capable of meeting the occasional stress of a bad year during the period of 49
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  years than by any possibility could have been found under the Ashbourne system. I leave these relatively small objections in order to deal briefly with what has been the staple of Radical speeches on this subject. They have objected to land purchase as a whole; their objection is not to this Bill or that, but to any Bill. That is not the attitude of the right hon. Gentleman opposite; and I venture to say that it is not the attitude of any true friend of Ireland. Hon. Members have used Ireland as their stalking-horse on every platform in the country. They have talked about justice and generosity to Ireland; but I observe, when I see their professions translated into practice in this House, that by generosity they did not mean the giving of anything to Ireland, and by justice to Ireland they mean injustice to the Irish landlords. They are not animated by love of the Irish tenants. No, Sir, the motive of their action is hatred of the Irish landlords. I am not going to discuss the merits or demerits of the Irish landlords. I want the hon. Members who make these loud professions about Ireland to consider the position of the Irish tenants, and I say that men who consider the position of the Irish tenants at the present time, and the agrarian evils which have been brought on the whole of Irish society, will desire and struggle for any scheme that is likely to put an end to those difficulties. Hon. Members having discovered that the only alternative for the system of dual ownership is a system of land purchase, have suddenly become enamoured of the system of dual ownership. I have not heard any one in this House defend dual ownership except as a painful necessity. But now it appears that dual ownership presents itself to hon. Members as theoretically the most perfect scheme. There are two objections I will mention. The first is that you cannot have dual ownership without a landlord, and I ask any man who has followed these Debates on the Irish question, extending over many years, whether they think that a system that depends on a landlord is a good or a bad one for Ireland. It was said by the hon. Member for West Belfast the other day that the Fair Rent Commissioners lived in an atmosphere of conflict. Well, Sir, it is inevitable that a Court that interposes between the interest of the landlord and the

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  interest of the tenant must live in an atmosphere of conflict. My second objection is that dual ownership is not accepted by those very persons who support it in this House. What does dual ownership mean? It means this: that when the Court has decided upon a fair rent, that fair rent shall be exacted. ["Hear, hear!"] I hear one hon. Gentleman opposite say "Hear hear!" and I only hear one—the hon. Member for Kirkcaldy—whoso experiences are Indian and not Irish. Have these Debates convinced hon. Gentlemen that that preliminary condition is rejected by both the Radical and the Nationalist Parties? If a landlord has a fair rent fixed, he is amply justified by every conceivable canon of public and private morality in exacting that rent. He is as much justified in exacting that rent as if it was an ordinary financial debt or an ordinary bill of exchange, or some negotiable security of that kind. But if the landlord does attempt to exact that rent, and it is not paid, and he adopts the only remedy in his power—namely, eviction—his action is described as that of confiscating the property of the tenant. Over and over again, in almost every speech from the other side of the House, have I heard it stated that the landlord so acting has unjustly made himself the owner of that which really is the property of some one else. I do not say that these canons of morality are right. I do not say whether the landlord is justified or not in having resort to eviction, and I do not say he is or is not justified in exacting the debt due to him; but if these things are not justifiable, then dual ownership falls to the ground, and either this House must declare that the landlord is justified in exacting his rent, judicial or otherwise, hon. Members opposite must either cease from declaring that in evicting the landlord is taking the property of the tenant, or they must admit that the system of dual ownership is a failure, and that the sooner we substitute a more rational tenure the better for everybody concerned. I am merely putting this forward as showing why, in my opinion, the system of dual ownership in Ireland is unsound and that it has practically failed. There is one more question, Sir, I should like to touch upon. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Newcastle talked a good deal about
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  the result of the next General Election. He did not at all prophesy what the result of the election would be, but he considered two possible alternatives, that either the Unionist Party would be returned to power or that the Separatist Party would be returned to power. ["No, no."] Well, either that the present Government would return to power or that he would return to power. "If," he said, "the Government at present in Office return to power the Irish landlords will probably raise their terms. They will be very disinclined to sell, and land purchase will be affected in that way." I do not know whether that is true or whether it is not, but it is to the other alternative referred to by the right hon. Gentleman to which I wish to call the attention of the House, He said that if gentlemen sitting now on that Bench were to sit after the next General Election on this Bench he would venture to prophesy——
  *MR. J. MORLEY: I expressly said I would not venture to prophesy. All that I threw out was what the right hon. Gentleman would call a philosophic doubt.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: The right hon. Gentleman, as I understood him, said that if right hon. Gentlemen who now sit on the left of the Chair sat upon the right of the Chair after the next General Election the probability was that the Irish tenants would be much less inclined to purchase.
  *MR. J. MORLEY: No, no—I said 11 might be.
  MR. A. J. BALFOUR: Well, Sir, I do not wish to quarrel with the right hon Gentleman's own version of his own speech, but it seems to me that when he threw out that philosophic doubt he thought there was some possibility, at all events, of a disinclination on the part of the tenants to purchase. [Mr. J. MORLEY: Certainly.] I am curious to know, Sir why the Irish tenant should be lea anxious to buy if the right hon. Gentle man returns to Office. I think the suggestion might be made the basis of an interesting speculation. In another part of his speech the right hon. Gentle man said that the poorer Irish tenant never looked beyond five years, which were to them an eternity, and he led us to infer that the poorer Irish tenant is animated in all his actions in connection with the land by the thought of the immediate

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  prosperity which such or such a policy can produce. The only conclusion that I can come to, if the view of the right hon. Gentleman is correct, is that the Irish tenant, if the Party of the right hon. Gentleman should come into power, would be likely to think that he would make a great deal more money by declining to pay his rent than by undertaking to pay an annuity. If this state of things should come to pass, there is a pleasing prospect both for the right hon. Gentleman and the Irish landlord, for the latter will get no rent, and what the right hon. Gentleman is to do with regard to the enforcement of the payment of rent he does not say, and I do not know. It almost makes me desire, for the gratification of a mere philosophical curiosity, to see the right hon. Gentleman occupying the interesting and responsible position which I now hold. There is one more observation which I have to make with reference to this looked-for return of a Home Rule Government to power. We have heard a great deal about the present scheme not being a final scheme. I have not the same gift of prophecy which is given to right hon. Gentlemen opposite, and I do not wish to make any confident predictions, and I am quite ready to admit that if, when the £30,000,000 is exhausted, and when this experiment has been a long time in operation, all the expectations we have formed are proved to have been correct, it may please the united Parliament to make some further advance for the completion of the scheme of land purchase. I think that not altogether outside the bounds of political possibility. Obviously it will rest entirely with the statesmen of the day, and with the English public, with the ample fund of experience which they then will have, to determine what course shall be pursued. It is a political possibility. But what is not a political possibility, what no man off a platform would venture to assert, is that a British Parliament would ever advance to an Irish Parliament any money at all for the purpose of carrying out a land purchase scheme or any other scheme. The idea is an obvious and absolute absurdity, and, although I do not venture to prophecy what the future of the plan of land purchase may be, I will venture, with the utmost confidence, upon this negative prophecy, at all events—
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  that by a British Parliament to an Irish Parliament no sixpence of money would ever be granted. I have now dealt with much that has been said in the course of these Debates. Let me now say a word on what has not been said. In all these Debates, as far as they have been conducted by English Radical Members, not one single word has been uttered with respect to the congested districts portion of the Bill, a part of the measure which possibly may be more fruitful of good in the poorer districts of Ireland than any other provisions of the Bill. This, at all events, I claim for it, and I think the claim will not be denied by the bitterest opponents of the measure. It is the first organised legislative attempt to deal with a most difficult and anxious problem. I am no believer in the indiscriminate squandering of money. I think it might be without paradox maintained that the West of Ireland has suffered almost more than it has gained by half the money which has been expended upon it by British charity. I do not believe that by simply announcing yourself as a philanthropist, begging money of your friends, and starting an industry in the West of Ireland, you are likely to regenerate the country. Nor do I believe that by merely building harbours and piers whenever they are demanded by the inhabitants you will be able to create a great fishing industry, even though nature may have been most bountiful in the production of the staple article. If the Congested Districts Board is to do any good at all, it must, in the first place, know how to resist successfully mere begging demands for money; and it must, in the second place, do its best not only to provide the machinery of production, but, at the same time, to teach the people how that machinery is to be used. Hon. Members opposite have urged me not to consider emigration to be the one solution of the congested districts problem. I do not even consider it to be the chief solution, but I do think that there are parts of the west coast where emigration is a necessity. What the Board has to do is to consider in its whole scope and bearings the question of the great poverty and misery in the west, and whilst it encourages emigration in some districts, in others it should do its best to provide technical education which may really be useful, and to provide the

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  harbours and boats required for the fishing industry, and, above all, it must bear in mind that agriculture is, and must be, the main staple of industry in Ireland. Do what you will to make them fishermen or anything else, the great majority of Irishmen still remain agriculturists, and it will be the duty of the Board to induce them to cultivate their lands to the best advantage, to teach them how to get out of their lands all that can be got out of them, to use the means which are provided even on the west coast for the sustenance of mankind. To use those means to the best advantage is the way, and the main way, by which they may extricate themselves from their present position of poverty and penury. If the Congested Districts Board will set themselves to work on these problems, and not expect too early fruits from their labours, be content to wait and to work, and not merely to produce sensational reports of expenditure and sensational schemes of vast novelty, I believe the good the Board may do to the West of Ireland is absolutely incalculable. It is in that hope I have seen with pleasure that, while hon. Gentlemen above the Gangway accept this part of the Bill with pleasure, gentlemen below the Gangway have accepted it with gratitude. [Mr. MAC NEILL: No, no!] All excepting the Member for Donegal, who represents a county, though he does not live in it—a county in which congestion is so little known, and from which so few attempts to afford charity have ever come. He may well affect to treat with contempt, the great act of charity which this House is now conferring on Ireland. As we have now reached the end of these prolonged Debates, I desire to say on my own behalf that, though it is impossible to say of this Bill, as, indeed, it is impossible to say of any large Bill of which I have had any experience in this House, that no unnecessary speeches have been made, no unnecessary repetition of argument has occurred, yet, in my judgment, the Debates have been of a businesslike character. There has been very little surplusage, and the acuteness, the knowledge of a most complicated and difficult measure shown by some hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway has been such as to extort the admiration of every man really acquainted with the measure. We have had many a long
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  and difficult fight over this Bill. I have not been able in every respect, perhaps in the most important respects, to meet the wishes they have expressed upon various Amendments, but I think they will do me the justice to say I have always attempted to meet them fairly in argument. I have not relied simply upon a Government majority, but have endeavoured, with or without success, to meet point by point the objections brought against the measure. On the other hand, I gladly recognise that so far as they are concerned they have argued the Bill with perfect fairness, with great knowledge, and with conspicuous ability. I think it the more necessary to make this public statement from the fact that the difficult, and I had almost said the repulsive, dryness of the subject has driven from within these walls the great majority of Members, who have not been able to follow our Debates, and that nobody is qualified to judge what has taken place who has not followed from day to day and almost from hour to hour the progress of our discussions. I cannot hope—it would be presumption to expect that the measure as it has come out from the Committee meets the wishes of the Irish gentlemen who sit below the Gangway; but I think that even those—I again except the Member for Donegal—who have argued with most ability and most perseverance against it, will admit that, even if in every respect it does not come up to their wishes, it is at all events a well-considered, a large, and a not ungenerous measure passed by this Parliament for the benefit of the great class of tenant farmers in Ireland.
  Mr. ROBY and Mr. KEAYrose together, but, in deference to loud cries of "Keay," Mr. Roby gave way.
  *MR. KEAY'Sopening sentences could not be heard, in consequence of loud cries of "Divide!" and "Sit down." The hon. Gentleman was understood to say: The closing remarks of the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary were meant to discourage any Member from getting up to succeed him. [Loud cries of "Divide!" and interruption.] I am determined not to be discouraged. I consider it to be my duty to record a last protest against many of the points in this very objectionable

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  Bill. [Interruption, during which for over five minutes the hon. Member vainly endeavoured to make himself heard.] The first objection I take to the Bill is its absolute unfairness to the tenantry of Ireland. [Loud cries of "Divide!"]
  Mr. PAULTONrose in his place and claimed to move "That the Question be now put."
  *MR. SPEAKER: I can understand the reason for proposing that Motion, but I would appeal to the hon. Member for Elgin to consult the general feeling of the House.
  MR. KEAY: I feel it my duty to snake my final protest against this Bill, which has been framed to an unblushing extent for the benefit of the landlords. It is an utter delusion as a tenants' Bill. Look at the alteration which has been made in the landlord's guarantee deposit. His deposit is only to be used to the extent of one-half in case of default, while the other half is to be saved to him at the expense of the public revenue. Further than that, this Bill has been deliberately passed without any limit as to the amount to be spent under it. It is entirely wrong to call it a £30,000,000 Bill. I asked the Government why they had not put a maximum into it, and the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his reply plainly admitted that there was no precedent for sanctioning in a Bill issues of Stock without fixing a limit to the amount. The intention, and most unjustifiable intention, of the Government is to tell the country that this is a £30,000,000 Bill, whereas it really involves the expenditure of a much larger sum of money. [Loud cries of "Time!" and "Divide!"]
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order!
  *MR. KEAYresumed his seat.
  *MR. SPEAKER: The Question is, "That the Bill be now read the third time." Since which an Amendment has been proposed, to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question, to add the words "upon this day three months." The Question is, "That the word 'now' stand part of the Question."
  Division challenged.
  *MR. KEAY,who spoke seated and with his hat on, said:—Mr. Speaker, I ask your ruling. I sat down because I
  490
  thought that you, Sir, were rising to a point of order——
  *MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! The reason why I rose was that I thought the noise in the House was becoming so great as not to be creditable to the House at large, and I felt sure that the hon. Gentleman would acquiesce in putting a stop to it.
  Question put.
  (11.40.) The House divided:—Ayes 225; Noes 96.—(Div. List, No. 297.)
  Main Question put, and agreed to.
  Bill read the third time, and passed.

CUSTOMS AND INLAND REVENUE BILL.—(No. 297.)

  COMMITTEE.
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 2.
  Amendment proposed,
  At the end of the Clause, to add the words "Provided always, that for the purposes of the exemptions and allowances in the said Acts contained, the expression charitable purpose" 'shall mean and include any purposes which are purposes of a charity as defined by The Charitable Trusts Act, 1853,' section sixty-six."—(Mr. Roby.)
  Question put, "That those words be there added."
  (11.55.) The Committee divided:—Ayes 90; Noes 193.—(Div. List, No. 298.)
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 3.
  DR. TANNER: I beg to move that yon, Sir, do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Chairman do report Progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Dr. Tanner.)
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Mr. GOSCHEN,): I hope the Committee will go forward with the Bill. There is very little contested matter.
  Question put, and negatived.
  Clause agreed to.
  Clause 4 agreed to.
  New Clause—
  "(1) Sub-section 2 of Section 26 of the Customs and Inland Revenue Act of 1890 is hereby amended by the substitution of the words

  491
  'where the annual value of each dwelling shall not amount to £20,' for the words, for persons at rents not exceeding for each dwelling the rate of 7s. 6d. a week, and occupied only by persons paying such rents.' (2) In the case of any house originally built or adapted by additions or alterations, and used, so far as the same is used as a dwelling-house, for the sole purpose of providing separate dwellings at an annual value not exceeding £40 for each dwelling, the Commissioners, acting in the execution of the Acts relating to inhabited house duties, shall, upon production of such a certificate as is mentioned in the said subsection, grant relief by confining the assessment to the annual value of the house, exclusive of every dwelling therein of an annual value below £20, if any, and by reducing the rate of duty to 3d. (3) The provisions in the said sub-section in relation to a certificate shall apply to a certificate to be produced under this section,"—(Mr. Chancellor of the Exchequer,)
  —brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  MR. KELLY: I should like to raise the question whether this new clause fulfils the requirements of the case. The Committee will remember that last year for the first time the Chancellor of the Exchequer fully intended to do that which unquestionably would have been an enormous advantage to the poor of London, and which, as I believe, would have been one earnest step in bringing about in course of time a better system for the housing of our working classes. I pointed out last year that while in country districts a house under £20 valuation was exempted from Inhabited House Duty, practically in London there was no exemption. Up to last year exemption was given to tenement dwellings in the industrial blocks. There can be no doubt that the poor of London as a body have the greatest possible objection to living in the large blocks. There can also be no doubt that for many reasons they are helpless. There are tenements in which no light can ever penetrate, in which there can be no proper circulation of air; and the great majority of the working classes in London unquestionably, and as I believe rightly, prefer to live in what are known as tenement dwellings. I believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer intended that there was to be no sort of benefit to anything in the form of a rookery or slum. He was most anxious that what-
  492
  ever was done in the way of exemption from Inhabited House Duty no advantage should be given to those who were interested in maintaining dwellings for the poor which were neither sound, nor sanitary, nor right. The interpretation put on the clause of last year's Bill had led to a remarkable result. At the present moment it is held that if on the ground floor there is a shop which lets for more than 7s. 6d. a week, the floors above are thereby deprived of any exemption from Inhabited House Duty. That is owing to the refusal to treat the tenement as a separate dwelling. The authorities have taken away all advantage which we hoped the Chancellor of the Exchequer would give, and which we believe he intended to give in these cases. There is, of course, an alteration in the section proposed by the right hon. Gentleman, and I am glad to think he does not intend to confine his great; boon to what are known as the industrial buildings, as contradistinguished from what I may call the tenement houses. My difficulty is that in the first part of the new clause all that is done is to take a different basis—that is to say, £20 a year instead of 7s. 6d. a week. In the second part of the clause all that is done is to say that a house not exceeding £40 a year shall be subject to a lower rate. We wish the right hon. Gentleman to put an end to the system under which, because in one case in a building the rent is a little over 7s. 6d., the other tenements suffer. If the right hon. Gentleman has done that, he has conferred an immense benefit on the London poor.
  MR. GOSCHEN: The first part of the clause substitutes £20 a year for 7s. 6d. a week, so that there will be no difference in the exemption from al House Duty between tenement dwellings and ordinary houses. The clause meets the point raised by the hon. and learned Gentleman. The view originally taken of the interpretation of the Act was that, in consequence of the use to the word "solely," if there were some tenements higher than 7s. 6d. a week in a block, say tenements let at between £20 and £40, all the dwellings in that block including those let at 7s. 6d. a week would be subject to House Duty. That was not my intention, and I remedy is by the second sub-section of this clause which confines the assessment to the annual value of a house, exclusive

  493
  of every dwelling therein of an annual value of less than £20. If there is a block of dwellings which contains a certain number of tenements rated below £20, and a certain number rated below £40, the former will be charged no duty at all, and the latter will be charged 3d. By this clause I wish to meet the whole of the objections which have been raised.
  MR. STOREY: I must say I think the right hon. Gentleman has very fairly met the objections raised. I would, however, take the liberty of drawing his attention to one point. He still maintains the system under which it is necessary for the sanitary officer to report before he grants an exemption. It would ill become me to take objection to that in itself, but I would venture to point out to such a purist as the right hon. Gentleman that the object of laying a tax upon people is to get as much money as can fairly be obtained by means of it. I think there is some little unfairness in the present system. Take three workmen, whom we will call A, B, and C. A lives in a single storey cottage of under £20, and, as a matter of right, gets rid of the tax. Next door to him lives B and C, who are living, not in a cottage, but in tenements, built one over the other. B and C have to go to the sanitary officer and get him to visit the house. They have to take the trouble of getting his certificate, and then they have to go to the Inland Revenue Officer to beg for exemption from the duty. The right hon. Gentleman will no doubt say we ought not to exempt large tenements unless they are of a sanitary character. In the North of England the cases of houses with large numbers of tenants are few, whilst the houses where there are two tenants, one above the other, are numbered by thousands. The right hon. Gentleman got far more money from the Inhabited House Duty last year in Sunderland than he had any righteous claim to, for this reason: that the sum not being very large in each case, the workmen have not taken the trouble, or incurred the loss of time involved in going to the sanitary officer, and the additional trouble of going to the Inland Revenue Commissioner. As the right hon. Gentleman has made such a very substantial concession to the objections which have
  494
  been taken, I do not intend to be hypercritical; but I put it to him that he has no right to adopt this differential treatment.
  SIR W. GUTER HUNTER: I would like to point out that much friction has been caused by the refusal of sanitary officers to grant certificates in many cases and by the lax way in which it has been given in others. The interpretation put on the words "due provision" in the Customs and Inland Revenue Act, Section 26, has caused all the friction that has arisen, and I would ask the right hon. Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer to issue some special instructions to medical officers with reference to the meaning of that term.
  SIR C. RUSSELL: Owing to the absence of any proper definition in the Act of 1890 respecting sanitary requirements, the question is left to the discretion of the particular medical officers in particular districts, and the result is that in some districts the medical officers have declined to give any certificates at all, because certain things they consider would be desirable in the way of sanitary arrangements do not exist. I would ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether it would not be possible to restrict the certificates to the requirements of the law to be defined by regulations, instead of leaving it to the varying judgments of particular medical officers.
  VISCOUNT LTMINGTON: I have on the Paper another clause on this subject, but the right hon. Gentleman's proposal entirely meets all my points, and therefore I shall not move my clause. I do not agree with the hon. Member for Sunderland respecting the requirement of a Sanitary Report, because I think that, at all events in London, it is very important that it should be possible to bring some pressure to bear upon companies to induce them to make proper sanitary provision in their buildings.
  MR. GOSCHEN: With reference to the observations of the hon. Member for Sunderland, I wish to tell the House the precise theory on this matter. It is that a house should be charged as a whole where it is not divided into separate tenements structurally severed. The owners are quite as much interested in this matter

  495
  as, or perhaps even more so than, the tenants, and owners can more cheaply provide tenements which are not properly separated one from another than tenements which have properly constructed separate arrangements for each family. The Committee will, I am sure, be thoroughly at one with the Government in wishing that there shall be as much structural separation as is possible in these cases. We are not prepared to allow exemption in those cases where the tenements are not separately constructed as houses for the working classes. Otherwise the different families would come within the category of lodgers. In regard to the certificates of medical officers, it is difficult to lay down a definition of "due provision;" but it means, at all events, that there shall not be two families dwelling in the same tenement. I will consult with my right hon. Friend the President of the Local Government Board and see whether any further and more distinct instructions can be given to the medical officers. The different blocks of buildings are, of course, very differently constructed, but we will endeavour to secure as much uniformity in practice as possible.
  MR. LAWSON: I would suggest that to secure uniformity in the administration of sanitary rules it might be well if the medical officer for the County of London drew up a set of regulations to which medical officers in each division might agree to conform.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Clause added.
  MR. PARKER SMITH: I beg to move a new clause cognate to that which was moved by the hon. Member for Eccles, and summarily disposed of half an hour ago, and I cannot help expressing some surprise that there was no reply from the right hon. Gentleman to that Amendment. My object is to extend the exemption from Corporation duty to certain societies which do not come within the four corners of Section 11 of the Act of 1885, but which are equally deserving of exemption with the societies to which that section applies. Bodies like the Trades Incorporations of Glasgow ought certainly to be exempted. As an example, I take the Tailors' Incorporation of Glasgow. The income of this
  496
  society is derived from fines paid by persons joining, and from the interst on capital. It is spent almost entirely in aiding aged members and in educating the children of members. The funds cannot be used for any purposes than are not charitable. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has acknowledged to deputations that these societies are hardly dealt with, and I trust that the right hon. Gentleman will now consent to grant them exemption.
  New Clause—
  (Amendment of Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1885, s. 11 (48 and 49 Vie. c. 51.)
  "The duty granted by The Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1885," section eleven, shall, in addition to the exemption from such duty in favour of property of the descriptions therein set forth, be also subject to exemption in favour of property of the description following (that is to say):—
  Property which, or the income or profits whereof, shall be legally appropriated and applied to the maintenance or relief of poor or necessitous persons who are members, or the widows or children of members, of any corporation, fraternity, or society instituted mainly for the relief or maintenance of poor or necessitous persons,"—(Mr. Parker Smith,)
  —brought up, and read the first time.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause be read a second time."
  MR. GOSCHEN: I can assure the hon. Member and the Committee that no discourtesy was intended towards the hon. Member opposite, but, as I explained the other evening, the matter is one that had better be left for full consideration until we know the actual state of the law on the authoritative declaration of the House of Lords on the case now pending. I fully admit there are cases of hardship, and the matter has engaged my attention. But upon a difficult matter of this kind the utmost care is required lest we in the attempt to remove some ambiguities create others. I hope that the decision of the House of Lords in a case which resembles, though it is not quite analogous to, that which the hon. Member has cited, will be more or less a guide to what charitable institutions are. I hop the hon. Member will be content to leave the matter now to careful examination in which the words he suggests shall have consideration.
  Motion and Clause, by leave, with drawn.
  Bill reported; as amended, to be considered To-morrow.

  PARKS REGULATION (IRELAND) BILL. (No. 270.)
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  FISHERY BOARD (SCOTLAND) BILL. [Lords.]—(No. 259.)

    SECOND READING.
    Order for Second Reading read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Order be discharged and the Bill withdrawn."—(Mr. Jackson.)
    MR. MARJORIBANKS: I take the opportunity of expressing my extreme disgust and disappointment, and that of all interested in the subject, at the manner in which the Government have dealt with this Bill. At the suggestion of Lord Lothian I introduced a Bill giving effect to the recommendations of the Committee on this subject; but this Bill the Government opposed, and introduced a Bill of cheir own, identical in principle with mine, though differing in details. There was certainly not that opposition to the Government Bill which should necessitate its withdrawal; but I certainly said there were points of difference in the two Bills which required discussion, and I made the offer that the two Bills should be referred to one Select Committee. This the Government refused on the ground that it would simply delay the measure, though I am sure we should have advanced further than this Motion for withdrawal. Even now I hope the Government may consent to have the Bills referred to a Select Committee, with, the hope that the inquiry may facilitate the passing of a satisfactory measure early next Session. If the offer is not accepted, the blame for the delay must attach to the Government.
    THE LORD ADVOCATE (Mr. J. P. B. ROBERTSON,): The suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman is a hopeless one—that on June 15 we should send these two Bills to a Select Committee with the expectation that they will return for the House to dispose of them this Session. The delay with the present Bill arises from the determination expressed by the right hon. Gentleman to meet it with persistent opposition unless we agreed to read his Bill a second time, and send the two to that
    498
    bourne from which so few Bills return at this period of the Session.
    Question put, and agreed to.
    Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
    Bill withdrawn.

  PRIVATE BILL PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) (RE-COMMITTED) BILL. (No. 114.)
  Order for Committee read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  PUBLIC TRUSTEE (No. 2) BILL. (No. 228.)
  Order for Second Reading road, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

INDIAN COUNCILS ACT (1861) AMENDMENT (No. 2) BILL.—(Notitle 171.)

  SECOND READING.
  Order for Second Reading read.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Order be discharged, and the Bill withdrawn."—(Mr. Jackson.)
  MR. BRYCE: I much regret that the Government propose to withdraw this Bill. It is a Bill of considerable value, though we do not regard it as completely satisfactory, and it certainly would require some little time for discussion, perhaps three or four hours. But after that I think there would be every disposition to further the progress of the Bill. The desire which I know the Secretary of State has to further this matter is fully reciprocated in this House, and I believe also the present Viceroy is anxious to have the opportunity of introducing those reforms which this Bill would enable him to introduce. Under the circumstances, it is impossible, I suppose, to ask the Government to re-consider their determination; but what we can ask is that they will give the Bill a better chance next year by introducing it at the beginning of the Session, and giving us a reasonable time to discuss it. If that is done, I believe there is a general disposition on this side of the House to assist in passing this measure of reform.
  Question put, and agreed to.
  Order for Second Reading discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  REGISTRATION OF ASSURANCES (IRELAND) BILL.—(No. 190.)
  Order for Committee read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  PRIVATE BILL PROCEDURE (SCOTLAND) [SALARIES, &c.].
  Order for Committee thereupon read, and discharged.

  REGIMENTAL DEBTS CONSOLIDATION BILL.—(No. 273.)
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  INTERPRETATION (IRELAND) BILL.— (No. 191.)
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  SUMMARY JURISDICTION (YOUTHFUL OFFENDERS) BILL.—(No. 194.)
  Order for Committee read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  ARCHDEACONRY OF CORNWALL BILL [Lords].—(No. 177.)
  Order for Committee read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  LICHFIELD CATHEDRAL BILL [Lords] (No. 225.)
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  MARKETS AND FAIRS (WEIGHING OF CATTLE) BILL.—(No. 353.)
  Considered in Committee, and reported, without Amendment; to be read the third time to-morrow.

  SCOTCH EDUCATION CODE, 1891.
  Order for resuming Adjourned Debate on Motion for an Address [16th March] read, and discharged.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

  ALLOTMENTS RATING EXEMPTION BILL.—(No. 334.)
  Considered in Committee.
  (In the Committee.)
  Clause 1.
  Amendment proposed,
  In page 1, line 25, after "woodlands," insert * Provided that nothing in this yet shall apply
  500
  to any rate made under either of the said sections on or before the first day of October one thousand eight hundred and ninety-one."—(Mr. Cust.)
  Amendment agreed to.
  Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Clause, as amended, stand part of the Bill."
  DR. TANNER: As a matter of fact, few Members have made themselves acquainted with the contents of the Bill, and I think the hon. Member should not attempt to make further progress with it now.
  MR. CUST: I think there is no opposition to anything in the Bill or to the other Amendment I have to propose.
  *THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. RITCHIE,): The whole of the Bill is simply to provide that allotments shall be treated as other agricultural land for local rating purposes.
  MR. CONYBEARE: If the right hon. Gentleman expects us to listen to appeals on behalf of hon. Members opposite, it must be understood that we expect a quid pro quo in the shape of consideration for Bills in which we are interested.
  Committee report Progress; to sit again to-morrow.

  CORN SALES BILL.—(No. 131.)
  Order for Committee read, and discharged.
  Bill withdrawn.

  MARRIAGE ACTS AMENDMENT BILL [Lords].—(No. 349.)
  Order for Second Reading read.
  MR. WOODALL: This is one of several attempts to deal piecemeal with a very large question, and I wish to give notice that I shall take an early opportunity of asking the Government what steps they propose in regard to the general question of the Marriage Laws on which, I understand, there is some desire there should be a Select Committee.
  It being One of the clock, Mr. Speaker adjourned the House without Question put.
  House adjourned at One o'clock till To-morrow.