MR. GIBSON BOWLESI beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether, having regard to Clause 9, Section 3, Sub-Section (e) of the Irish Government Bill, 1893, which prohibits Irish Representative Peers in the House of Lords and Members of the House of Commons for an Irish constituency from deliberating or voting on any Motion or Resolution which is incidental to any vote or appropriation of money made exclusively for some service not mentioned in the third Schedule to this Act, such Peers and Members for Irish constituencies will be debarred from either de- 196 liberating or voting on any vote or appropriation of money made for the service of the Customs or Excise Department, neither of which is mentioned in the third Schedule, or from either deliberating or voting on any Motion or Resolution fixing the rates of Customs or Excise, or on any Motion or Resolution incidental to Customs or Excise?
§ MR. W. E. GLADSTONEUndoubtedly it is the intention and desire of the framers of the Bill that Irish Members should be entitled to vote on any question that may arise in connection with the Estimates for the Customs service in Ireland, that being a tax which is levied in Ireland, and the inhibition in the Bill being directed to taxes that are not so levied. With regard to the Excise, I think the hon. Gentleman is under some misapprehension, because we have no Excise service in Ireland according to the plan of the Bill, inasmuch as the whole collection of the Excise is to be regulated under the direction of the Irish Government. As to varying the rates, no doubt, according to the terms of the Bill, it is expressly declared that the rates of Customs and Excise, as well as those of the Postal Department, are to be fixed by the Imperial Parliament, and being fixed in that way for the Irish Service, of course the Irish Members would vote upon them.