Commons Sitting of 12 May 1893

QUESTIONS.
The House met at Two of the clock.

FREE EDUCATION IN CATHOLIC SCHOOLS.
MR. SAMUEL SMITH: I beg to ask the Vice President of the Committee of Council on Education whether he is aware that at Ainsdale, a suburb of Southdale, where a demand has been made for free education, the Education Department has answered that there are free places in the Roman Catholic school, and that the children must go there; and whether he sees any way by which the conscientious objections of Protestant parents to send their children to Roman Catholic schools could be obviated?
THE VICE PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Mr. ACLAND,): With reference to this case, I have already stated twice in the House, on the 17th March, in reply to the hon. Member for Leicester, and again on the 21st March, in reply to the hon. Member for North Islington, that the Education Acts make no distinction between Roman Catholic and other schools so long as they are Public Elementary Schools, and that it is not possible, under the law as it stands, to compel the provision of further school accommodation in a district where the provision made by existing Public Elementary Schools is already sufficient.

GLASS ARTICLES AND THE PARCEL POST.
SIR J. SAVORY(for Sir SEYMOUR KING, Hull, Central): I beg to ask the Postmaster General why it is a regulation of the Post Office that glass articles, such as bottles, cannot be forwarded abroad by pattern post; and whether such articles are sent by foreign traders from abroad to the United Kingdom by sample post; and, if so, whether he will take steps to afford to British manufacturers and traders

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the same facilities which are enjoyed by their foreign competitors?
THE POSTMASTER GENERAL (Mr. A. MORLEY,): The postal regulations of this country exclude from transmission by ordinary post any article likely to injure the contents of the mails or the officers of the Post Office. Glass bottles come within the prohibition, because, if broken in transit, as they are liable to be, they would be likely to cause injury to letters, &c, contained in the mails, and to the officers handling the mails. I would refer the hon. Member to an answer given by Mr. Raikes on the 3rd of July, 1890, in which he states the reasons, and mentions a letter which he had written on the subject, a copy of which I will send to the hon. Member if he would care to see it.

KILMAINHAM PRISON WARDERS.
MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland will he state on what grounds the regulation is maintained that the Kilmainham Prison warders are not allowed to wear their own private clothes when off duty?
THE CHIEF SECRETARY FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. MORLEY,): I am informed that no difference whatever exists between the case of Kilmainham Prison warders and that of warders employed in other prisons in regard to their being required to wear their uniforms. Warders are permitted to wear their plain clothes when off duty provided reasonable grounds are shown for seeking the permission.

SPECIFICATIONS FOR PATENTS.
MR. SCHWANN: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Trade whether any fresh volumes of the abridgements of specifications for which patents have been granted are now ready or will soon be ready for distribution; when approximately these specifications will be completely abridged and indexed; and will the abridgements and indices be of such an accurate character as will enable the Patent Office to make a reliable search into the novelty of an invention, so far as prior patents are concerned, should such research into the
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novelty of an invention become, at some time, the duty of the Patent Office?
THE SECRETARY TO THE BOARD OP TRADE (Mr. BURT,): About 20 fresh volumes of abridgements of specifications for patents relating to the period 1877 to 1883 are now ready. The remaining volumes to complete the period (probably about 100) may be expected by October next. I trust that these volumes will facilitate a reliable search into the novelty of an invention; but whether such search will become the duty of the Patent Office is another question.

COMPLAINTS FROM THE INDIAN PUBLIC WORKS DEPARTMENT.
MR. TALBOT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether Her Majesty's Government have received complaints from members of the Indian Public Works Department of the non-fulfilment of promises made to them by former Secretaries of State; and whether any replies have been sent to such complaints?
*THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR INDIA (Mr. GEORGE RUSSELL,): Memorials from members of the Indian Public Works Department have been received, and the Secretary of State is in communication with the Government of India on the subjects to which they refer. In the meantime no formal reply has been sent to the memorialists.

THE GARVE AND ULLAPOOL RAILWAY.
MR. WILLIAM WHITELAW: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether, in view of the fact that the Garve and Ullapool Railway Scheme is the only scheme at present suggested for the development of the fishing industry on the North-West Coast of Scotland, the Scotch Office will ask the Treasury for such an annual grant as is necessary for the making and working of that line?
Dr. MACGREGOR: Before the right hon. Gentleman answers, may I ask whether he is aware that this is not the only scheme intended to develop the fisheries of the North-West Coast of Scotland, but that, on the contrary, a new line has been projected from Banavie to Mallaig by the West High-

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land Railway Company, the First Reading of which has been actually taken in this House?
*THE SECRETARY FOR SCOTLAND (Sir G. TREVELYAN,): I am aware that this is not the only line, though it is possible the hon. Member had in his mind that other lines were not in the North-West. In reply to the question on the Paper, it is not correct to state that the Garve and Ullapool Railway Scheme is the only scheme suggested for the development of the fishing industry on the North-West of Scotland. It is one of four. I am not at present prepared to ask the Treasury for an annual grant for the Garve and Ullapool Railway.

THE CLOGHER (PORTADOWN) POST OFFICE ARRANGEMENTS.
MR. MACARTNEY: I beg to ask the Postmaster General whether the postmistress at Clogher (Portadown) has been instructed that the senior assistant is no longer to be allowed to take part in the work of the office; whether he is aware that on several occasions the senior assistant, at the instance of people using the office, has complained of carelessness and irregularity at the superior offices at Enniskillen and Portadown; what are the specific charges made against the senior assistant; have any complaints been made against her by persons who use the office largely; and if he will suspend the instruction to discontinue her services until a further inquiry has been held into the complaints made by her at the instance of the public as to the incompetence and carelessness at other superior offices?
MR. A. MORLEY: The postmistress has been instructed no longer to permit her daughter, who acted as her assistant, to take any part in the work of the office, and has been called on to provide a competent person in her place. This decision has been arrived at because the daughter who, owing to her mother's age and infirmity, has assumed almost exclusive charge of the office, not only neglected the duties, but habitually acted in an insubordinate and unbecoming manner, and made use of offensive language on the telegraph wires. The case has been very carefully considered, and there
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appears to be no reason to alter the decision.
MR. MACARTNEYasked whether the right hon. Gentleman had seen any of the communications which had passed from the Chief Office at Portadown in answer to complaints made by persons who largely used that office of gross irregularity and the impertinent answers made by the clerks at the Portadown Office; and whether he would suspend for the present the instruction to the postmistress at Clogher until he had had an opportunity of considering the complaints which had been made of incivility on the part of the clerks at Portadown and Enniskillen?
An hon. MEMBER asked if the Postmaster General would ascertain whether the messages in question were sent by the daughter of the postmistress at Clogher?
MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, that, as Clogher was in his constituency, he desired to ask if the right hon. Gentleman would suspend his decision in regard to the senior assistant at the Clogher Post Office until he had fully inquired into the matter?
MR. A. MORLEYsaid, he was unable to suspend action, as the decision had been given.
MR. MACARTNEYasked whether he was to understand that the right hon. Gentleman had not seen any of the communications in which the office at Portadown had instructed the postmistress at Clogher to suspend the senior assistant, who for 12 years had carried on the work to the entire satisfaction of everyone using the office. Was he prepared to suspend all instructions until he had made further inquiries?
MR. A. MORLEYsaid, that instructions had been sent to the postmistress to suspend the senior assistant, who was her daughter. The order had been put into effect. He would ascertain whether there was any necessity for further inquiry.
*MR. T. W. RUSSELLpointed out that this suspension of the senior assistant amounted to the dismissal of the postmistress, for she could not afford to keep an assistant. [ Cries of "Order!"]
MR. MACARTNEYasked if the right hon. Gentleman would call for a copy of the correspondence between the

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Clogher and Portadown Offices, which would show that the whole of this difficulty had arisen through attention being drawn to irregularities at Portadown?
*MR. DANEasked if there was any truth in the charges as to irregularities at the Enniskillen Post Office?
MR. A. MORLEYsaid, he was not aware of any irregularities? If the hon. Gentleman would bring any specific case under his notice he would inquire into it.
MR. MACARTNEYasked if the right hon. Gentleman would inquire whether complaint had not been made to the office at Portadown that clerks at the Enniskillen Office had guessed at telegrams, with the result that persons sending goods by train had been put to unnecessary expense?
MR. A. MORLEYsaid, that as he had stated, if hon. Members would supply him with information as to irregularities, he would have them inquired into.

ARMY MEDICAL STAFF EXAMINATIONS.
DR. KENNY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is aware that the principle long in practice at examinations of the Irish Medical Licensing Bodies of having at their examinations assessors who are watchful equally of the interests of the candidates and of medical education has received the approval of the General Medical Council; whether he is aware that that body, which is the highest authority on medical education, and the recognised guardian of medical interests, has recommended its general adoption at medical examinations; whether he will recommend the Army Medical Authorities to adopt the principle at the examinations of the Army Medical Board; and whether, to give it practical effect, and at the same time to remove the feelings of apprehension, now existing in Irish and Scotch medical educational circles, of danger to the interests of their respective schools, aroused by the recent change in the system of conducting the examinations of the Army Medical Board, whereby the said examinations are entrusted entirely to four representatives of the English Colleges, he will appoint four medical assessors to assist in future at those examinations, two of whom shall be
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representatives of the Irish Colleges, and two of the Scotch Colleges?
*THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN,): I am aware both of the practice in Ireland and of the recommendation of the General Medical Council that, at the final examination for admission to the medical profession, assessors should be present, and should satisfy themselves that the education of candidates has been up to the proper standard. There is no necessity for such assessors in the examination for admission to the Army Medical Staff; for the examination is merely a competition for admission to that Service between candidates who have already fully qualified as medical men.
DR. KENNYsaid, the right hon. Gentleman had not answered the last part of the question, as to the feeling of apprehension in Ireland and Scotland.
*MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, the question turned on the appointment of assessors, and he had stated that their services were not necessary in the case of admission to the Army, though they were availed of when candidates were originally admitted to the medical profession.
DR. KENNYsaid, that the Army examination was a competitive one, and asked whether it was not desirable to have medical assessors to prevent injustice being done?
*MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMANsaid, that assessors were employed to see that examinations did not sink beneath a proper level—not to see that they were honest.
*DR. KENNY: I beg pardon, hut that is not so.

MORTALITY IN INDIA.
MR. SCHWANN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for India whether the attention of the Secretary of State has been called to the excessive mortality in recent years in the North-West Provinces and Oudh, and in the Punjab, as compared with other parts of India; and whether, and, if so, what, steps have been taken to prevent the continuance of such a high mortality?
*MR. G. RUSSELL: The figures show that, while there was a high mortality in 1890 and 1892, the death-rate in 1891 was below the average. The

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mortality of 1890 was officially attributed to climatic causes. The Sanitary Reports for 1892 have not yet been received. Sanitary improvements are being pushed on throughout India as fast as the circumstances permit. It is not to be expected that any steps which may be taken will prevent a specially unhealthy season from increasing the death-rate.

THE DUBLIN INLAND REVENUE DEPARTMENT.
DR. KENNY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he will state the constitution of the Committee which recommended the recent reorganisation of the Inland Revenue Department at Dublin; whether said reorganisation is in effect simply reverting to the arrangements which existed up to 1885; and whether he can give an assurance that Mr. MacDowell's appointment will not be made permanent, but that ultimately the Comptrollership of Stamps at Dublin will be given to some Irishman in the Service there, qualified for the post?
*THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. T. HIBBERT,): The recent reorganisation was made by the Treasury on the recommendation of the Commissioners of Inland Revenue. The answer to the second paragraph is in the affirmative. It would be contrary to precedent to give any such assurance as is asked for in the last paragraph, but the suggestion will be borne in mind.

THE CASE OF MR. R. DURNFORD.
MR. LOGAN: I beg to ask the hon. Member for Merionethshire if he is aware that Mr. R. Durnford, an Assistant Commissioner in the service of the Charity Commission, who recently presided at an inquiry concerning the alienation of 19 out of 30 acres of laud situate at Shawell, in the county of Leicester, awarded by the Court of Chancery to the use and benefit of the poor of the parish, is represented to have written to the Rector of Shawell, congratulating him on having laid "the ghost of this agitation," and trusting that it will not rise up again to cause disturbance; whether such letter was written before the Assistant Commissioner had made his Report, on which the Charity Commissioners would pro-
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bably base their decision; and if the Charity Commissioners intend to take any notice of the conduct of this official? I wish to supplement my question by asking if the hon. Member is aware that the so-called "agitation" was the efforts of the parishioners of Shawell to recover the laud and restore it to the use of the people as directed by the Chancery decree of 1668?
THE PARLIAMENTARY CHARITY COMMISSIONER (Mr. T. E. ELLIS,): The passage quoted in the question did occur in a letter from the Assistant Commissioner to the Rector, who has for many years taken much interest in the matter on behalf of the parishioners. The letter was written before the Report of the Assistant Commissioner was made, but after Mr. Coppack, the accredited representative of the parishioners, had expressed the view that the 19 acres in question were lost to the Charity. The publication of a sentence from a private letter and its distribution in a pamphlet in the parish was, he thought, unwarrantable. Regret was expressed if the words had caused any offence.

THE DUNSHAUGHLIN BOARD OF GUARDIANS.
MR. WILLIAM REDMOND: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether it has come to the knowledge of the Local Government Board that Mr. Thomas Kelly, a Poor Law Guardian for the Kilmore Division of the Dunshaughlin Union for the past 15 years, is not a ratepayer within the Union; and whether Mr. Kelly is legally entitled to sit on the Board and vote on its proceedings; and, if not, whether the Local Government Board propose to take any, and, if so, what, steps to deal with Mr. Kelly's illegal votes, and to afford the ratepayers of Kilmore Division an opportunity for electing a Guardian who would be legally qualified to represent them on the Dunshaughlin Board?
MR. J. MORLEY: The Local Government Board have been informed by the Returning Officer that Mr. Kelly's name appears on the Rate Book with a valuation of £376, and the Poor Rate Collector states he has always received the rates in Mr. Kelly's name, and that he resides on the farm. Assuming these

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statements to be true, Mr. Kelly would appear to possess the necessary rating qualification for the office of Guardian in the Union.

BOWLING SCHOOL BOARD.
MR. PARKER SMITH: I beg to ask the Secretary for Scotland whether he is aware that the hall at Bowling, built as a school and hall in 1860 by private subscribers, held by trustees for the subscribers till 1874, and then handed over by them to the School Board of the parish for educational purposes, subject to the condition that it should be available on week-day evenings for public meetings and other suitable purposes, has been for some years disused as a school and is no longer required for that purpose; whether he is aware that in 1891 a meeting of the subscribers asked the School Board to re-convey the hall to the original trustees for purposes of public meetings, and that shortly afterwards a self-convened meeting, professing to be a meeting of the inhabitants, asked the Board to convey the hall to certain other persons nominated by the meeting; will he explain why, after it had been ordered by the Education Department, as the result of an inquiry held on the spot and at which all parties were heard, that the School Board should put up the school for sale, subject to covenants to preserve its use for public meetings, within two or three days of the date fixed for the sale that order was countermanded, with the intention that the hall should be handed over to persons representing the meeting of inhabitants; and on what grounds it is proposed to pass over the trustees of the original subscribers in favour of the nominees of an irresponsible meeting?
*SIR G. TREVELYAN: I am aware of the fact stated in the first paragraph of the hon. Member's question. I am also aware of the different claims put forward with reference to the re-conveyance of the hall. The Department endeavoured to bring about a compromise between the different bodies who claimed that the hall should be re-conveyed to them, but without success. As it appeared that a small sum might be realised by the sale of the school, the Department at first sanctioned the sale of the school according to the ordinary course. But it was represented to me that the circum-
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stances of the case were special; that the hall might be more effectively secured for public uses by being conveyed to a public body specially elected by the community for the purpose; and, further, that this was the view adopted by the School Board. I have, therefore, thought it right to withdraw the sanction to the sale, and, in view of the special trusts attaching to these premises, to sanction their re-conveyance to representatives whom the Board may hold to be duly elected by a public meeting, adequate security being taken for the maintenance of the public rights. I cannot admit that the original trustees (who, 20 years ago, divested themselves entirely of the trust), or a certain number of them, have any claim now to be considered the representatives of the community.

SEWER GAS AT HAMPSTEAD.
MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether he is aware that there is a serious up flow of sewer air at Hampstead and other of the Northern heights of London; and whether, in view of the possible visitation of cholera to this country, steps will be taken to inquire into and deal with the matter?
THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. H. H. FOWLER,): The question has received, and is still receiving, the attention of the authorities. My hon. Friend will be glad to hoar that the death rate at North Hampstead of the last 10 years has been lower than in nearly every part of the parish.

PLACEMEN AND PENSIONERS IN PARLIAMENT.
MR. GIBSON BOWLES: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury when he will be able to lay upon the Table of the House the Return of placemen and pensioners now sitting and serving in the two Houses of Parliament?
THE SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Sir J. T. HIUBERT,): Returns have to be collected from various Departments, and though many haves come in they are not yet complete. I will endeavour to expedite their preparation.

THE LEE-METFORD RIFLE.
MR. WEIR: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War will he state the results of any experiments which have been made, with a view of testing the relative effects on the barrel of the Lee-Metford magazine rifle, of the cordite powder cartridge and the black powder cartridge with nickel covered bullets?
*MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I am not aware that any experiments have been made with the direct object of comparing the results upon the barrel of the Lee-Metford rifle of firing cartridges made up with the cordite and black powder respectively.
*MR. WEIR: Will the right hon. Gentleman order some experiments to be made?
*MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: I do not think it is desirable.

MEAT RATIONS FOR SOLDIERS.
MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether, in the supply of meat to troops at Home stations, separate contracts are not made for refrigerated meat and home-killed meat respectively; and, if so, why not; if he can state whether the proportion of refrigerated beef or frozen mutton issued to the troops at home stations from 1st October to 1st June is nearly 60 per cent., the maximum allowed, and what is the proportion from June to October]; if the ration is the same, three-quarters of a pound including bone, whether it consists of home-killed or refrigerated meat; how long this proportion of 60 per cent. of frozen meat has been sanctioned; and what is the amount of the saving in cost so effected?
THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. WOODALL,): Separate contracts are not made for home-killed and for refrigerated meat. In calling for tenders it is intimated that from October to June 60 per cent. of the meat supplied may be refrigerated beef or, within prescribed limits, frozen mutton, and the prices tendered are regulated accordingly. It rests with the contractor to decide in what proportion to supply home-killed meat, provided that it may not at any time be less than 40 per cent. of the whole supply, and that the whole supply, whether home-killed or not, is up to the stipulated standard of quality.
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The proportion of refrigerated or frozen meat actually supplied is not, therefore, recorded. From June to September no refrigerated beef may be issued; but the mutton issued, which may never exceed one-seventh of the whole issue, may be frozen mutton. No difference is made in the amount of the ration. The 60 per cent. of refrigerated and frozen meat has been the rule since 1890. The saving in cost must have been considerable; but various circumstances in connection with the supply render it difficult to apportion any particular amount of saving to the use of refrigerated meat.

RULES IN GOVERNMENT OFFICES.
MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the attention of the Government has been called to the fact that, while clerks of the Second Division are required to sign attendance books notifying the times of arrival and departure, no such requirement is made upon clerks of the First Division; and whether, in view of the fact that the recommendation of the recent Royal Commission laid stress upon the necessity for treating both Divisions alike in this respect, and for the First Division to set the example of punctual attendance, both Divisions of the Civil Service, who are equally required to give their whole time to their duties in order to qualify for pensions, will be placed upon a similar footing in the matter of attendance?
SIR J. T. HIBBERT: The intention of the provisions in both the Orders in Council is the same—namely, that all officers, high or low, subject to those Orders should sign an attendance book. Heads of Departments are responsible for enforcing the regulation. It is strictly enforced in the Treasury, and I am not aware of any infraction of it in other Departments.
MR. HANBURY: As the right hon. Gentleman has admitted it is the intention of the Government that the rule should have the same effect in the case of both the First and the Second Division Clerks, may I ask him whether the Order in Council will be amended so that the wording shall be similar for both Divisions?
SIR J. T. HIBBERT: I admit that the words are not the same; but until it has been shown that there has been an infrac-

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tion of the Order in different Departments I do not think that is necessary.
MR. HANBURY: Is it not a fact that First Division Clerks may refuse to sign the attendance book, and yet there will be no infraction of the Order in Council?
SIR J. T. HIBBERT: I understand that the First Division Clerks do not refuse to sign; on the contrary, the book is signed regularly.
MR. HANBURY: Will the right hon. Gentleman inquire of other Departments? I am told it is not so.
Sat J. T. HIBBERT: I am sure the hon. Gentleman would not wish me to act as a policeman in this matter in relation to other Departments.

THE FORM OF THE VOTES.
MR. FORWOOD: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury why he has omitted from the Civil Service Estimates, Class I., Vote 8, Sub-heads K. and O. and in other Votes for Public; Buildings, the information hitherto always given of the gross amount of previous Votes and lie-Votes, opposite each building in course of construction or to be constructed; and whether, before the Votes are submitted to the House, he will have statements prepared and submitted setting out the details of the Votes in the same form as in past years; and if any other changes have been made in the forms of or particulars given in the Estimates?
SIR J. T. HIBBERT: The column headed "Gross amount of previous Votes and Re-Votes" was omitted in this year's Revenue Department Buildings Estimates—-first, in order to simplify a table which remains sufficiently complicated; and, secondly, because the figures in such column had become misleading under the present system of deducting from the total sub-head a large round sum for "possible delays in progress," or "works which may not be carried out during the year." For this reason I think it unnecessary, but I will ask the Office of Works whether they will furnish a separate Return. The summary prefixed to the Estimates has been improved, but I am not aware of any other changes of form.
MR. FORWOOD: Will the right hon. Gentleman be good enough to have the statement prepared before the Estimates come on for discussion?
SIR J. T. HIBBERT: I will see if it can be done.
MR. FORWOOD: Will it be necessary for me to repeat the question?
SIR J. T. HIBBERT: Certainly not.

THE DEPRESSION IN AGRICULTURE.
MR. BROOKFIELD: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture, in view of the fact that, in 1886, a Royal Commission reported on the depression then prevailing in certain trades and industries, including agriculture, dealing fully with no less than 15 possible causes of agricultural depression, and that other inquiries have since been held into various subjects connected with agriculture, will he explain what fresh matter it is intended to refer to the Select Committed which he proposes to appoint; and whether, in view of the strong desire in most quarters of the House that the present Session should not pass away without anything definite being attempted for the relief of agriculture, he will communicate with the late President of the Board as to the proposed terms of Reference, and the possibility of narrowing the scope?
THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. H. GARDNER,): I have examined the Report of the Royal Commission to which the hon. Member refers; but I am bound to say that I have not obtained much assistance there from. The Commission had but few definite recommendations to make, and they express the opinion that the depression in agriculture is not likely to exhibit any material improvement until the competition of soils superior to our own has worked itself out, a conclusion at which I think we should all arrive with considerable reluctance. In my opinion there is now ample room for the further inquiry we propose to institute, and I would especially refer to the desirability of obtaining more extended information as to the working of the Agricultural Holdings Acts of 1883, which have never, I believe, been made the subject of any detailed investigation. With regard to the second part of the question, I can only say that if, as a result of any communication which may take place between hon. Members opposite, the opposition of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford should be with-

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drawn, I shall be happy to consider any suggestions as to the precise terms of the Reference which may be proposed to me.

THE LEITRIM MAGISTRACY.
MR. P. A. M'HUGH: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that, although in the Petty Sessions District of Kinlough, in the County of Leitrim, 95 per cent. of the Parliamentary electors are Nationalists, not one Catholic or Nationalist holding the Commission of the Peace for the County of Leitrim resides in that district; is he aware that more than six mouths ago the Lord Chancellor of Ireland was requested, by memorial and otherwise, to appoint to the Commission of the Peace for the County of Leitrim, amongst others, Mr. Patrick Fergus, P.L.G., a Nationalist residing in Kinlough Petty Sessions District; has Mr. Fergus been yet appointed; and, if not, will he be appointed; has the Lord Chancellor of Ireland communicated with the Lord Lieutenant of the County of Leitrim in regard to the appointment of Mr. Fergus; and, if so, with -what result; did the Lord Chancellor before or since the 5th instant make any appointments to the County Magisterial Bench in Ireland without the recommendation or approval of Lords Lieutenant of counties; and, if so, how many such appointments were made, and when; and does he propose to make his statement, promised on the 1st instant, as to the whole system of the appointment of County Magistrates in Ireland, and the action which the Lord Chancellor will be prepared to take?
MR. J. MORLEY: I answered this question on a previous occasion; I suppose the hon. Member is not aware of that. There are 71 Magistrates for Leitrim, nine of whom are Roman Catholics. The Lord Lieutenant did decline to appoint Mr. Patrick Fergus, and the Lord Chancellor has not yet made up his mind whether or not to appoint him without the Lord Lieutenant's recommendation. The Lord Chancellor has made 11 appointments to Irish County Benches without recommendations from Lords Lieutenant, and he has several recommendations from other sources still under consideration.
MR. P. A. M'HUGH: The right hon. Gentleman has not answered the last paragraph of the question.
MR. J. MORLEY: If the hon. Member will postpone that till after Whitsuntide I shall then have had an opportunity of conversing with the Lord Lieutenant on the subject.
MR. MACARTNEY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Mr. Fergus has no other qualification for being made a Magistrate except that he is a Nationalist residing on the Kinlough Petty Sessional District? Can he read and write?
*MR. DANE: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Mr. Patrick Fergus is the gentleman who, at Ballyshannon Petty Sessions, in March, 1887, was three times convicted of assaults, two of which were on police constables whilst engaged in the discharge of their duty?
*MR. SPEAKER: Order, order! These are reflections on individuals, and the question had better be put when an immediate answer can be given.
MR. J. MORLEY: This, of course, is not an appointment with which I am concerned. It rests with the Lord Chancellor, who, no doubt, will make full inquiries.

THE HULL DOCK STRIKE.
MR. CHARLES DARLING: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he has been informed that a fire was discovered at Hull in the early hours of Thursday, on the premises of the Shipwright and Boat Building Company; whether there is reason to believe that such fire was purposely caused; and whether any arrests have been made in consequence of the several incendiary fires which have occurred in Hull during the continuance of the dock strike?
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Mr.. ASQUITH,): I have no official information on the subject of the question. So far as I am aware, no arrests have been made; but I have no reason to think that there has been any lack of vigilance or energy on the part of the Local Authorities.

TARGET PRACTICE SEAWARDS.
MR. MILDMAY: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for War whether he is now able to say what steps he intends to take to carry out the recommendations embodied in the Report on Target Practice Seawards?
*MR. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN: The recommendations affecting the several military districts have been referred for careful examination and report to the General Officers commanding those districts. Until their Reports are received and considered I cannot say what steps will be taken.

IRISH RESIDENT MAGISTRATES.
CAPTAIN M'CALMONT: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the Resident Magistrates are included in the provision for Civil Servants under the Government of Ireland Bill?
MR. J. MORLEY: Yes, Sir; Irish Resident Magistrates are included in the provision referred to.

PAPERS ON NATAL.
MR. WODEHOUSE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for the Colonies when the Papers relating to Responsible Government in Natal, moved for on 10th February last, will be circulated?
THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE COLONIES (Mr. S. BUXTON,): The Papers have gone to press, and will be circulated very shortly.
MR. WODEHOUSE: May I ask if the delay is duo to the documents being of exceptional bulk?
MR. S. BUXTON: No; it, is not. I very much regret the delay.

THE GOVERNMENT AMENDMENTS TO THE EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY' BILL.
SIR FRANCIS POWELL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he is prepared to give to the House the exact text of the Amendments which he proposes to introduce into the 3rd clause of the Employers' Liability Bill?
MR. ASQUITH: The text will be put down on the Paper this afternoon, and be circulated to-morrow morning.

WELSH PROBATE REGISTRIES.
MR. HERBERT LEWIS: I beg to ask the Attorney General if he will explain by what authority it is that in Probate Registries in Wales a charge is made of 3d. per folio for copying wills in the Welsh language, over and above the usual charge for copying wills written in English?
*THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir J. RIGBY,): I should be glad if my hon. Friend would postpone this question for a few days. Perhaps if he will communicate with me personally I shall be in a better position to answer his inquiry.

THE NORTH SEA FISHERIES BILL.
SIR RICHARD TEMPLE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he will put down the North Sea Fisheries Bill among the first Orders of the Day for an early date, and before 12 o'clock, in order to complete the discussion on it?
THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. W. E. GLADSTONE,): The Government will take this Order on the first opportunity that they can take it without the sacrifice of still more important business. Our present intention is to place this Order as the very next to the Order for the Government of Ireland Bill, in order that some opportunity may be found at an early date for bringing on the discussion.
THE MARQUESS OF CARMARTHEN: May I ask whether, when the Government moves to report Progress in Committee on the Government of Ireland Bill in order to take the North Sea Fisheries Bill, due notice will be given, in order that hon. Members interested in the question may be in their places?
MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: It is not in my power to say that. The Government will do everything in their power to meet the convenience of the House on a subject on which there is such a general concurrence of opinion; but they must necessarily take the first opportunity that offers.

THE SOMERSET HOUSE CHEMISTS.
MR. HANBURY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether the

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Inland Revenue chemists, or any of them, employed in the Laboratory at Somerset House, are allowed to undertake private practice as consulting or analytical chemists?
SIR J. T. HIBBERT: The staff employed in the laboratory attached to the Inland Revenue Department have the same liberty of action with regard to the employment of their leisure as the rest of the Civil Service. They would not, of course, be allowed to enter into engagements which the Board of Inland Revenue considered inconsistent with or prejudicial to a proper performance of their official duties.

THE IRISH REPUBLICAN FLAG.
MR. DARLING: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether he has any information as to the statement in to-day's papers to the effect that a ship purporting to fly the Republican flag of Ireland was saluted yesterday in New York Harbour by the American ships there assembled?
MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: Will the hon. and learned Member kindly place the question upon the Paper so that I may make inquiry? I am entirely in ignorance upon the matter.
MR. DARLING: I will put the question down for Monday.

THE AMERICAN MAILS.
MR. MACARTNEY: I wish to put to the Postmaster General a question which he may probably be able to answer without notice. It is whether the Campania, which has just arrived at Queenstown, made the fastest passage— namely, 5 days 18 hours 40 minutes, and whether in consequence American letters specially marked to be sent by her will be delivered in Dublin this evening, and in London and elsewhere to-morrow; also when the Post Office expects the mails arriving from America by the Southampton route, which will not reach here till to-morrow, will be delivered?
MR. A. MORLEY: I should like to have notice of that question.
MR. FLYNN: Do the Post Office keep a record of the times made on both the Southampton and Queenstown routes?
MR. A. MORLEY: Yes, Sir; a careful record is kept.

AGRICULTURAL DEPRESSION.
MAJOR RASCH: I beg to ask the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister whether, in view of the fact that agricultural prices are now lower, and prospects are more hopeless than they were at the time of the Queen's Speech, he will re-consider his determination not to move for a Committee to inquire into the causes of agricultural depression, even though a day might be occupied by a Debate on agriculture?
MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I am not able to re-consider that determination; at the same time, I am unwilling to meet the question of the hon. Gentleman, with whose objects I entirely sympathise, with a direct negative. I hope, however, that hon. Gentlemen opposite will use their influence with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Sleaford (Mr. Chaplin) to remove his objection; and when the main obstacle has been removed, the Government will be happy to meet hon. Members in any way they can.
MR. J. LOWTHER: I wish to put a question arising out of the answer of the right hon. Gentleman. Has it been brought to the right hon. Gentleman's notice that there is a very general disinclination on the part of representative persons connected with the agricultural community to have anything to do with this inquiry?
MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: It has not been brought under my notice, and is not in accordance with my impression. There are hon. Members on the other side of the House who desire that the inquiry shall go forward, and it is to them that I have addressed my reply.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that a knot of hon. Gentlemen sitting above the Gangway have declared their intention to forbid all Business after 12 o'clock.
[No answer was given.]

SUPPLY.
MR. W. E. GLADSTONE: I wish to give notice that it is the intention of the Government to propose that Supply should be taken on Thursday and Friday next, the last two days before the Whitsuntide Recess.

THE CLOSURE.
LORD G. HAMILTON: I wish, Mr. Speaker, to ask your ruling as to the proceedings which occurred in Committee on the Government of Ireland Bill last night in connection with the Closure. It was the impression of all of us who took a share in the discussions by which the Closure was made part of the Standing Orders of the House that the Closure could be moved by anyone without word or comment, or, if a speech were made in making the Motion, it should not be of a controversial character. Last night however, the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary moved the Closure and prefaced his Motion with a speech of a very remarkable character. He began by finding fault with the Opposition with regard to their conduct during the evening, and then the right hon. Gentleman turned to the Chairman and addressed him in the following words:—"I submit, Mr. Mellor, with all respect, that most of what we have heard to-night, including the powerful speech——"
MR. SEXTON: I rise to Order. Is this in conformity with your repeated rulings when attempts have been made to constitute you a Court of Review upon questions of Order arising in Committee?
*MR. SPEAKER: I was about to intervene on the same ground. The noble Lord told me that he was going to ask this question, and I hoped that the noble Lord would have dissociated himself from anything that took place last night. Having been asked the question, however, I think that it is my duty to interpret the Standing Order without any intention to reflect on anything or on any hon. Member with regard to the discussion of last night.
*LORD G. HAMILTON: I wish, Sir, to ask your opinion as to the manner in which the Closure can be moved not only in Committee, but when the Speaker is in the Chair, and I wish to ask whether it is in conformity with the spirit of the Standing Order for any Minister to preface his Motion for the Closure by a speech of a highly controversial character, and stating, with all the skill of an advocate, the reasons why the Closure should be applied?
*MR. SPEAKER: I take it that the question of the noble Lord is whether the Closure can be moved after a speech has been made on a general subject or after reasons given for moving it. As far as I recollect, a similar question was raised in August, 1887, when a right hon. Gentleman made a long and necessarily controversial speech, and at the end of it moved the Closure. The hon. and learned Member for Louth raised the point, and I then told the hon. and learned Member that the question had been settled by former precedents, and that it was competent for an hon. Member at the close of a speech to move the Closure. But, after an experience of many years, I am bound to say that for an hon. Member to make a controversial speech, and then to move the Closure, is scarcely in conformity with the spirit of the Rule, because such a course shuts out an answer to his speech being given. With reference to the Motion of the Closure, it would be improper and contrary to the spirit of the Rule to move the Closure and then to give reasons; and, therefore, I think it would be improper to give reasons for moving the Closure and then to move it. The question of accepting the Closure is within the discretion of the Speaker or the Chairman, and they would be guided by the circumstances under which the Closure has been moved.
MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: May I ask whether, after the Closure has been moved by a Minister and accepted by the Chair, it is in Order for hon. Members of the House, especially for right hon. Members on the Front Bench, to meet the action of the Speaker or of the Chairman by cries of "Shame, shame!" or "Scandalous, scandalous!"?
*MR. SPEAKER: I had hoped that the question would not have been revived. When I resumed the Chair at midnight last night, I stated my opinion with regard to the use of the word "shame." I think that any question which arises in Committee ought to be decided then and there. I hope that I shall not be appealed to in future with regard to what takes place in Committee.
MR. T. P. O'CONNOR: I was not referring to the incident of last night.
MR. LABOUCHERE: I wish to ask whether, when a

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Motion is put to report Progress or to adjourn the Debate, and a Division takes place and is finished after 12 o'clock, it is open after the Division for anyone to move the Closure upon the Main Question?
MR. HENEAGE: Is not this entirely a question for the discretion of the Chair?
*MR. SPEAKER: It is entirely a question for the Chairman whether he accepts the Motion. With reference to the question of the hon. Member for Northampton—if a Division on a Motion for reporting Progress or any other question is taking place before the hour for the interruption of Opposed Business, the time for the interruption of business is, so to speak, projected forward, and after the Division on the Motion under decision at the usual hour for the interruption of business it would be competent for an hon. Member to move the Closure.
MR. T. M. HEALY: Is it not the case that in the last Parliament a precedent was repeatedly set in this matter?
*MR. SPEAKER: It has been done repeatedly.

WELSH TITHE DISTURBANCES.
MR. GRIFFITH-BOSCAWEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Homo Department whether his attention has been called to a paragraph in The Daily News of 6th May, reporting a serious and riotous attack at Penbryn, Cardiganshire, upon bailiffs engaged in the collection of tithe rent-charge; and what steps are being taken to bring the rioters to punishment, and to prevent the repetition of such occurrences?
MR. S. T. EVANS: Is it not a fact that proceedings are still pending in relation to this matter?
MR. BURNIE: Will the right hon. Gentleman, when making inquiries into this matter, also inquire into the arbitrary manner in which the clerical tithe-owners are collecting their tithes?
MR. E. H. HOBHOUSEalso put a question, which was inaudible in the Gallery.
MR. ASQUITH: Yes. Two men have been arrested and brought before the Magistrates and remanded until tomorrow. Police protection will be given
792
to the bailiff whenever he requires it, and I have every reason to hope that it will prove adequate to prevent the recurrence of such an event. As to the supplementary question, I have no power to make the inquiries suggested, as they do not relate to matters with which I can interfere.

ORDERS OF THE DAY.
  GOVERNMENT OF IRELAND BILL. (No. 209.)

    COMMITTEE. [Progress 11th May.]
    [FIFTH NIGHT.]
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Clause 1.
    Question again proposed, "That Clause 1 stand part of the Bill."
    SIR J. GORST: I am glad that the Debate did not close last night, as I am enabled to make a few observations on the speech of the hon. and learned Gentleman the Solicitor General. That speech partook of the character of all the speeches we have heard from the Government on this occasion. It did not attempt to answer the arguments which had been raised from this side of the House, and upon which a considerable number of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen in common with myself honestly and sincerely asked the advice of the hon. and learned Gentleman. As a profession of faith in sound Constitutional doctrines the speech was admirable, but it did not tell us anything we did not know before, and it did not throw the least light in the world on the point we had raised. The whole argument of the Solicitor General was based on the assumption that this House has, irrespective of Statute, complete jurisdiction to legislate for Ireland, and that that jurisdiction can neither be interfered with nor taken away by any operation of Statute. This is exactly the point upon which doubts have been raised, and upon which the hon. and learned Gentleman was asked to state his views. I will, with the permission of the Committee, state as shortly, distinctly, and clearly as I can what it is that I wish the hon. and learned Gentleman to answer. Up to

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    the year 1719 doubts had been raised on numerous occasions in Parliament and before the Courts as to whether the Parliament of Great Britain was competent to legislate for Ireland, the affirmative being asserted in Great Britain, while in Ireland it was asserted with equal determination that this Parliament was not competent. So grave were these doubts that in 1719 a Declaratory Statute was passed (6 Geo. I., c. 6), the enacting part of which was as follows:—
    "Be it declared, &c—That the said Kingdom of Ireland hath been and is and of right ought to be subordinate unto and dependent upon the Imperial Crown of Great Britain … and that the King's Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords spiritual and temporal and the Commons of Great Britain in Parliament assembled, had, hath, and of right ought to have, full power and authority to make laws and statutes of sufficient force and validity to bind the Kingdom of Ireland."
    I think it will be conceded by the Solicitor General that a Declaratory Statute does not and cannot of itself give jurisdiction if none before existed, and therefore this simply amounted to a declaration of the opinion of the Parliament of Great Britain. Still, it was a very valuable piece of evidence that in the opinion of that Parliament jurisdiction had existed prior to 1719, and from that date onwards those who alleged jurisdiction had at least that Statute in their favour. But the position was entirely reversed by what took place in 1782, because in that year an Act (22 Geo. III., c. 53) was passed by the British Parliament to repeal the Statute of 1719, and, in repealing it, doing away with the whole of the argument which that Act furnished in favour of the jurisdiction of Great Britain, and putting those who asserted it in even a worse position than that which had been occupied before 1719, inasmuch as it was a sort of confession of error on the part of Parliament. But that is not all. In 1783 a further Act was passed by which the British Parliament absolutely repudiated all claim to jurisdiction over Ireland, and enacted a Declaratory Act in precisely a contrary direction. The Preamble sets forth that doubts had arisen under the Act of the preceding year, and enacted (23 Geo. III., c. 28)—
    " That the said right claimed by the people of Ireland to be bound only by laws enacted by His Majesty and the Parliament of that King-
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    dom in all cases whatever. shall be, and it is hereby declared to be established, and ascertained for ever, and shall at no time hereafter be questioned or questionable."
    The question really is, whether this right existed before 1719? If it did, all those Statutes are mere moonshine, and cannot take it away. I can assure the Committee that we sincerely and honestly put forward these arguments, although I know that it is the fashion among hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite to believe that every speech made by the Opposition is animated by some sinister motive. Undoubtedly after 1783, it was questionable whether the Parliament of Great Britain had power to legislate over Ireland; for by the Act of that year it had expressly disclaimed its right to do so, and from a moral, historical, or legal point of view had done everything it could to stop itself from ever raising a contention that it had a right prior to 1719 to legislate for Ireland. Under these circumstances, the Act of Union was passed, and the only authority we now have is based on that Act. If that is so, our right is based on Statute, and what Parliament has given Parliament can take away. I will ask the Solicitor General this definite question—Cannot this Parliament now pass an Act repealing the Act of Union and annihilating the whole right which the Imperial Parliament now possesses to legislate for Ireland? The hon. and learned Gentleman's argument was based on the idea that such a right could be taken away. He said, "Don't mention supremacy in this Bill at all, because a Statute cannot take it away." But if the contentions I have now been submitting to the Committee are sound, it is obvious that the greatest possible care ought to be exercised in order that the present Bill may not take away that right which the Government intends to preserve. That point was clearly put some days ago, and the Solicitor General got up to answer it, but was pulled down by the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland. I have the greatest respect for the abilities and power of the right hon. Gentleman, but upon a question like this he is no more an authority than I am. What we should like to know is, what the Solicitor General has to say on that point? The Solicitor General will admit that in his excellent speech

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    yesterday he omitted all notice of that point. There must have been some sinister motive in the hon. and learned Gentleman's mind which prevented him from answering that question, and I believe it is the same motive which colours every speech made on the Treasury Bench. Why are we not to be allowed on a very important question of this kind to show the Government the difficulties under which we labour? If the Bill is one which the Government can really recommend to the country, and which they hope will be carried into law, why should they decline upon every occasion to satisfy the reasonable curiosity of Members on this side of the House who are desirous of criticising the Bill in a friendly way?
    *THE SOLICITOR GENERAL (Sir JOHN RIGBY,): Mr. Mellor, I desire to correct my right hon. Friend the Member for the University of Cambridge on several points of fact. It must be imagination which led him to suppose that he saw me getting up to answer him when he made the appeal to me. I had not the slightest idea of getting up, because, as I said before, I do not think he has the slightest right to attempt to force me against my inclination. I am also surprised that the suggestion of a sinister motive could have occurred to him possible. At any rate, no sinister motive actuated me. I will now say in a few words all I have to say. Shortly before the right hon. Gentleman spoke I listened to the speech of the hon. and learned Member for Mid Armagh, which was nothing more nor less than an abstract of one or two of the well-known chapters of Dr. Ball's book. The right hon. Member for Cambridge University did not appear to be aware of that fact, and to him that point, which is well-known to students of that portion of history, was quite novel. There was nothing fresh about it at all; but as might be expected from a writer of Dr. Ball's accuracy, the speech, which was a mere exposition of Dr. Ball's chapters, was in itself accurate. I agree that in the last century it was one of the most vexed questions whether or not the British Parliament had an inherent right to legislate for Ireland. I also agree with what appears to be a perfectly evident proposition of the right hon. Gentleman, that no Act of the British Parliament, either in affirm-
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    ance or repudiation of the jurisdiction which it possesses, can have any binding effect. It appears to me, therefore, that in the question so raised there really is nothing relevant to the present measure, because when we go to the action of the Legislatures of Ireland and Great Britain which led to the Act of Union all doubts and difficulties are removed, and we have it under the undoubted authority of that Act that the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland has jurisdiction and authority. I am told that it is a mere Act of Parliament. But can there be a better title than an Act of Parliament? Under what title is Her Majesty's Throne held but by an Act of Parliament? There is not, and cannot be, a higher, a more perfect, and a more indisputable title than that which is given by an Act of Parliament. This is what I mean when I talk of the supremacy of Parliament—that there is no authority in existence that can question it, and that the only limit upon it is this: that it cannot by any Act of its own take away from itself that supreme authority. The right hon. Gentleman suggests that there may be a repeal of the Act of Union; but admitting it to be the case, that is not in any way contemplated by the Bill. The Constitutional question might arise whether the Parliament of the United Kingdom can destroy and annul itself; but that question is not raised now, and I prefer to leave it until the occasion arises for discussing it. That it can limit the authority of future Parliaments is denied by a concurrence of authority, which is, so far as I know, without a single exception, among jurists and writers of reputation and position.
    *MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, the Chief Secretary referred the previous night to what he described as the tactics of the Opposition. Now, whatever the right hon. Gentleman might have referred to, he must have exempted the Ulster Members, because no Ulster Member had spoken during the entire Debate on the Amendment before the Chair, although five or six of them had risen repeatedly with that view. The right hon. Gentleman also complained that the Debate upon Clause 1 had in reality been a Second Reading Debate. He should like to know what else the Debate could be? What was the principle of the Bill? The main

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    principle of the Bill was to establish an Irish Legislature, and the 1st clause was the very clause that would set up that Legislature. How could they debate the clause, therefore, without debating the principle of the Bill? The clause before the Committee was applicable to the whole of Ireland, and was applicable to a Province of Ireland against the direct vote of the majority of the Constitutional Representatives of that Province. The Committee, so far as it was able, had practically imposed a yoke upon the neck of the people of Ulster which was hateful to them, and which was imposed in face of the solemn warnings of that Province. They had imposed that yoke upon the necks of the people of Ulster against the votes of their Constitutionally-elected Representatives —not Representatives chosen by the priest, not Representatives chosen by clerical influence in any shape or form, and they had imposed it in face of the solemn protests and warnings of that Province conveyed in every Constitutional way they were capable of being conveyed. That Province had declared, in language perfectly direct and perfectly plain, that if such a Legislature were forced upon them they would not pay the taxes which the Legislature imposed, and they had, in language which could not be misunderstood, said that they would resist its authority. They knew, and he knew, that many hon. Members on the Ministerial Benches, who pretended to be so easy about the matter, knew, that if it were sought to force the Bill down the throats of the people of Ulster, they would have to enforce it by British bayonets. He asked the Committee to consider what that really meant. They had scouted the voice of the Representatives of Ulster, and they must now force this hated Legislature upon them by coercion. What was Great Britain to gain by the exchange of one form of coercion for another? For six years the Gladstonian Party had been denouncing coercion in every part of the country. That coercion he held to have been the coercion of crime and the coercion of lawlessness. But what kind of coercion will they have in Ulster? They would not have to coerce crime, or to coerce lawlessness; but they would have to coerce the majority of a Province simply because of their passionate loyalty to the
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    Empire, and because of their determination not to be thrust outside its pale, [Irish laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen laughed, but they did not represent a majority of the people of Ulster in this Parliament as they did in the last, and their representation would be worse instead of better in the next Parliament. The Prime Minister professed to be always ready to consider this question of Ulster. The right hon. Gentleman stated, in reply to a question he had addressed to him, that in 1886 the Government were ready to consider any proposition in regard to the question of North-East Ulster, as he was pleased to call it. The Prime Minister had been good enough to give him the reference to the statements on which he based that assertion; and on consulting those references, he (Mr. T. W. Russell) found that the statement which the Prime Minister made in 1886 amounted to no more than this: that whenever the representation of the North-Eastern portion of Ireland submitted a proposal to the Government it would receive the fairest consideration that the Government could give it. The right hon. Gentleman also said that in making that proposal he had the general concurrence of Mr. Parnell and the Irish Nationalist Party. On the day when the Mines (Eight Hours) Bill was discussed the right hon. Gentleman said the offer was still open, although he did not say whether this received the concurrence of the Nationalist Party. At least one prominent Member of that Party had expressly repudiated the proposal. The Government said they were ready to consider any proposal made by the Ulster Members. It was not the business of the Ulster Members to approach the Prime Minister on this matter. They did not want the Bill at all. They had told the Government so in the plainest language that men could use; and, therefore, the Government had no right to ask the Representatives of Ulster to make any proposal to exempt Ulster from the 1st clause of the Bill. Their business was to destroy the measure. It was the business of the Government to make their Bill just and safe. It was the business of the Opposition to destroy it. They had made no secret of that. They had declared plainly that that was their business.

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    The Government were prepared to "consider" anything. It seemed to him that their position all along the line was—the smallest contribution thankfully received. Speaking for the Ulster Members, he would say that they should make no proposals in relation to that Province. When the Government made them they should be considered. They should give their proposals the fairest consideration. He thought they had much better right to ask the Government to make this proposal than the Government had to ask them to make it. The Government had introduced the Bill, and they were seeking to pass it. It was not the duty of the Ulster Members to make its passage easy, and they were not going to make it easy. He said again that they would not make any proposal with regard to the promise of Ulster in this Bill. When the British people had been consulted, and when they declared in favour of Home Rule, then it would be time for the Ulster Members to act; then it would be time for them to consider whether they should dismember Ireland as well as the Empire. They had heard during the discussion a great deal about the supremacy of Parliament, and about the Irish Assembly being subordinate to the Imperial Parliament. He had been making a very interesting collection of Gladstonian candidates' speeches in Great Britain. He did not mean their election addresses, but speeches and replies to questions. They were most interesting reading, not for their merits, because they are very poor literary performances in almost every case.
    MR. MAC NEILL: Question, question!
    MR. MACARTNEY: I rise to a point of Order, Mr. Mellor. I desire to call your attention to the constant and disorderly interruption of the hon. Member for South Donegal behind me.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I can only appeal to hon. Members to assist me in keeping order. I must appeal to every hon. Member, of whatever Party he may belong, to assist me in the preservation of order.
    MR. MAC NEILL: As I have been expressly referred to, I rise now to a point of Order. All I said was "Question, question!" and I said that because
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    the hon. Member was speaking assumedly on this clause, and in reality he said he was making a collection of Gladstonian speeches—which have nothing whatever to do with the clause.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELLsaid, he would do his best to keep in Order, but he really thought hon. Members opposite ought not to be so thin-skinned. Nothing amused him more than the stickling for points of Order from Nationalist Members. As he had said, he was making a collection of the speeches made by Gladstonian candidates on the supremacy of Parliament and on the Irish Assembly being subordinate to the Imperial Parliament. Reading the speeches, it was exceedingly difficult to understand how these hon. Members had resisted the insertion in the clause of words directly bearing on the supremacy of this Parliament. The object of the Amendment, to have the word "subordinate" inserted in the clause, was to make the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament effective. He admitted that with the Bill as it stood, it mattered little whether "supremacy" was put in the Preamble or in a clause. [An hon. Member on the Irish Benches interjected a remark which did not reach the Reporters' Gallery.] He had caught the expression of his hon. Friend, and he did not think those words ought to be used in the House. He thought those who were responsible on the Treasury Bench for the order of the House ought not to allow them to be used.
    MR. VICARY GIBBS: I beg to move, Mr. Mellor, that the words just used by the hon. and learned Member for South Donegal be taken down.
    MR. MAC NEILL: What words?
    MR. VICARY GIBBS: He said, addressing the hon. Member for South Tyrone, "What the devil are you talking about?"
    THE CHAIRMAN: What hon. Member used that expression?
    MR. VICARY GIBBS: The hon. Member for South Donegal.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: "What the devil are you talking about?" It was the Member for South Donegal.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I must appeal to the hon. Member for South Donegal to say whether he used the words imputed to him.
    MR. MAC NEILL: What words?
    MR. VICARY GIBBS: "What the devil are you talking about?"
    VISCOUNT CRANBORNE: There is no doubt about it. We all heard them—"What the devil are you talking about?"
    MR. MAC NEILL: I assert, on my honour, that I never used one word of the expression imputed to me or anything like if.
    *MR. T. W. RUSSELL: I heard you.
    MR. DILLON: I was sitting by the side of the hon. Member for South Donegal, and I can state from my own knowledge that be made use of no such expression whatever.
    MR. MACARTNEY: I quite agree with what the hon. Member has said, but I called your attention, Sir, to the fact that the hon. Member for North Kerry used the words.
    MR. SEXTON: Mr. Mellor, the statement is untrue. I made use of no such words or expression of any kind whatever.
    MR. HARRINGTON: I am sitting behind the hon. Member for North Kerry, and I did not hoar him use the expression.
    THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir W. HARCOURT,): I rise, Mr. Mellor, to call attention to the fact that not only to-day, but yesterday, hon. Gentlemen have risen up to charge particular hon. Gentlemen with making particular statements, and asked for them to be taken down after those hon. Gentlemen have stated, and after those around them have stated, that no such words were used. I ask you whether hon. Gentlemen opposite should not be more cautious in getting up, as the noble Lord has just done, to make statements which an hon. Member has said upon his honour he never uttered? Hon. Gentlemen sitting around the hon. Member confirmed what he said.
    MR. MAC NEILL: Mr. Mellor, I call upon the hon. Gentleman who made the statement against me for a distinct and humble and an absolute apology.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: In reference to the observation which has fallen from the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir W. Harcourt) I do not wish to follow his example, and add any bitterness to the controversy. Though it may be true, and no doubt is
    802
    true, that a particular gentleman accused of using those words may not have uttered them, what unfortunately, Mr. Mellor, is equally certain, is that the words were used by some gentleman sitting below the Gangway, and that they were uttered in so loud a tone of voice that they were heard distinctly across the floor of the House. I would venture to suggest that the incident might close: but I hope it will result in hon. Gentle-men restraining their emotions, and not indulging in expressions unparliamentary in themselves, and which certainly do not conduce to the harmony of the proceedings or the decency of Debate.
    MR. VICARY GIBBS: The Chancellor of the Exchequer has attacked me for having charged an hon. Member with having used the expression after that hon. Member bad stated on his honour that be bad not done so. I beg to deny that any such an attack on me was justified.
    SIR W. HARCOURT: I did not say "after," but that a gentleman had made a statement with reference to an hon. Member which he declared on his honour was incorrect.
    MR. VICARY GIBBS: I wish to make a personal explanation, and I do not think I should be interrupted in the middle of it. With regard to the hon. and learned Member for South Donegal (Mr. Mae Neill), I beg to make an apology to him for having charged him with using language that was certainly blackguardly, and which I now fully believe he did not use. I am extremely sorry I was misled into denouncing him as the culprit in this matter, whereas someone in his immediate vicinity did use that blackguardly language.
    THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member who has just sat down has taken what I think is the proper course, and the only course that it was open for him to take. He has made a charge by misapprehension and mistake against an hon. and learned Member of this House, and, finding that he was wrong, he has apologised to the hon. Member and to the Committee. Now, with regard to that matter the incident must now terminate. But if language of this kind is to be used—and some language of this sort must have been used, because it has been heard in different parts of the House—I can only say that such an interruption and such

    803
    an observation is most indecent, is contrary to the Rules and practice of this House, and I must express my sincere hope that every hon. Member will assist the Chair in keeping order in what, sometimes, are somewhat difficult circumstances. If hon. Members will do that, they will refrain from using language that is not only of an improper character, but is calculated seriously to disturb the proceedings of this House.
    MR. SEXTON: I have to say, so far as I am concerned, the incident cannot terminate here. I must ask the hon. Gentleman the Member for South Antrim (Mr. Macartney) what statement he has to make with regard to his unfounded charge against me?
    MR. MACARTNEY: I endeavoured to rise several times, and I did rise immediately after the statement of the hon. Member for North Kerry (Mr. Sexton), to express my regret that I should have attributed to him words he-declared he had not used. I rose on the first occasion to add my testimony to that of the hon. Member for Mayo (Mr. Dillon) that the hon. Member for South Donegal had not been guilty, on this occasion, of uttering the expression used. I then, misled by the extraordinary similarity of two voices of hon. Members behind me, attributed to one of the two hon. Members words which I certainly believed he had been guilty of uttering. He denied it, and I accept his denial and express my sincere regret that I should have attributed to him the use of the words; I rose immediately for the purpose of saying so.
    THE CHAIRMAN: I express my regret that I did not catch the words used with regard to the hon. Member for North Kerry (Mr. Sexton). I think the hon. Member for South Antrim (Mr. Macartney) has taken the proper and only course open to him. That being the case, this matter must terminate, and I call upon Mr. Russell.
    MR. HARRINGTON: On a point of Order, I should like to ask— [Cries of "Order!"] I rise to a point of Order
    THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member for South Tyrone is in possession of the Committee.
    MR. HARRINGTON: I rise to a point of Order. I want to ask whether, in taking down words used in the House,
    804
    they should be words heard by you in the Chair, and not by Members in different parts of the House; and whether it is competent for you to take the report of a Member who has indistinctly heard the words?
    MR. VICARY GIBBS: I heard the words distinctly.
    MR. T. W. RUSSELL: So did I.
    THE CHAIRMAN: In answer to the question put to me on the point of Order, I have to say that any hon. Member can draw my attention to disorderly words, although they do not reach my ear. Any hon. Member may then move that the words be taken down. My duty then is to take the sense of the Committee whether they be taken down; and if it is the sense of the Committee that they be taken down, I should have to order them to be taken down, and leave the Chair to report to the Speaker.
    *MR. T. W. RUSSELL, resuming his speech, said, it was not very easy carrying on a Debate under these circumstances. When he was interrupted he was stating that had the Amendment moved by his hon. and learned Friend been adopted, that Amendment would have been succeeded by other Amendments designed to make it effective. As the Bill stood, it seemed to him it really did not much matter what was in the Preamble of the Bill, and for this reason: He had a strong opinion, not founded on law at all, but upon the facts, that the moment they parted with the Executive power in Ireland they parted with the supremacy of Parliament. If the first Amendment had been carried, they would have taken care to see that the Executive power was retained; but inasmuch as it was not, and the Committee had declined to insert the supremacy of Parliament in distinct terms, he did not see that a statement in the Preamble was of the slightest use in face of the fact that they had parted with the power to enforce that supremacy. Let them consider what might take place in this Irish Assembly. Consider the possibility of Irish legislation being passed, say, on the Land Question that this House might, consider to be oppressive and unjust to a class in Ireland. That was not a large assumption at all, and was a thing likely to come about. Supposing this Parliament to interfere, in that case they would have to interfere against the will of the

    805
    Irish Parliament; they would have to enforce their decision against the Irish Executive with no Executive of their own, because the Bill did not provide for a single Executive officer to carry out the will and decree of the Imperial Parliament. Therefore, if they gave away the Executive power, that moment they did away with the supremacy of this Parliament. He ventured to tell the Chief Secretary for Ireland again what he knew he was aware of, that in the Province of Ulster, whilst there was every desire during these proceedings to restrain the indignation of the people, whilst every effort was being made to do that by the law-abiding people of this Province, and the right hon. Gentleman was aware of it as well as any man; but while there was this desire, there was the utmost feeling of indignation in that Province against this House seeking to fasten a most hateful yoke upon the neck of her people.
    COLONEL SAUNDERSONsaid, that his right hon. Friend last night pointed out the fact that no Ulster Conservative Member had spoken on this clause; therefore he was sure his right hon. Friend the Chief Secretary for Ireland would admit that before the Debate closed upon a clause of such importance, not only to the country at large, but to that section of the Irish people with whom he acted, the right hon. Gentleman would admit he had a right to occupy the attention of the Committee for a few moments, and he would be very brief, as he could compass his remarks within a very small boundary. Their opinion was that upon the First and Second Reading of this Bill they adduced various arguments against establishing a separate Legislature and Executive in Ireland, and how were they met on those occasions? They were told that all the detailed objections which they ventured to bring forward would be encountered when they came into Committee, and now, when they came into Committee, not one objection they had offered had even been touched by the Gladstonian Party. They pointed out, in the speeches they made, several grave objections to the establishment in Ireland of a separate Legislature; they showed that the history of the immediate past pointed to the fact that it was absolutely impossible to establish a Legislature in Ireland that
    806
    would not be a Legislature of ascendency. That argument had been treated with absolute contempt. They then pointed out that the Bill as it stood primarily destroyed the supremacy of the British Parliament. How was that met? They were referred by the Prime Minister to various speeches that had been made in this House by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway which satisfied the right hon. Gentleman, but which did not satisfy them; they did not answer one of the objections they had offered in the course of their speeches on the First and Second Readings as to any real Parliamentary supremacy. The hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. J. E. Redmond) had made many speeches, and had written on the subject, and, according to that hon. Member, the supremacy of Parliament would be endured by the Party to which he belonged so long as it was absolutely inoperative and useless. Other arguments had been used on that side of the House. It was pointed out that the financial scheme of the Government was an ineffectual scheme; that to create a Parliament that would start bankrupt would not conduce to the prosperity of Ireland. That also had been treated by Her Majesty's Government, he would not say with silence, but simply with chaffing or rhetorical allusions. Other arguments had been used by the supporters of this Bill, and threats had been made. He did not know whether the House remembered those threats; but they were told, as one great argument to pass the Bill, that if they did not pass it and establish a Parliament and Executive in Ireland, that the condition of Ireland would be one from which hon. Members below the Gangway would have shrunk with horror. He did not think that was good argument. Years ago he had pointed out that Mr. Parnell had his hand on the throttle-valve of crime. He did not know who had control of the valve at present; but the argument seemed to be that if this Parliament was not terrorised into passing this Bill, the throttle-valve of crime would be turned on by somebody. The late Government, however, proved that they were able to deal with the throttle-valve of crime. Well, how had they been met in this Debate? They were as thirsty men standing in front of rows of corked bottles; they had not got the

    807
    corkscrew to pull out the cork, and the only corkscrew that would do so was in the hands of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, and they would not use it. As hon. Members below the Gangway were the persons chiefly interested in passing this Bill, he should have thought they would have had some indication why they should pass this clause, around which the mill- turned. How had hon. Members below the Gangway met them? They met them in a manner which they could not call argument, by inarticulate clamour, which was a matter with which the Chairman could more appropriately deal. No speech had been made by hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway to back up the statements made on their behalf from the Front Bench. Two remarkable speeches had been made, speeches which the House would remember for a, long time—the speech of his right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) and the speech of the Prime Minister—both, he maintained, admirable in their way; but he thought those two speeches differentiated the attitude which the Unionist Party had assumed and that which the Separatist Party had assumed. one side they had argument, on the other they had oratory. The right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister yesterday treated them to 40 minutes of what certainly to him was immense enjoyment. He did not think, since he had been a hunting man, he had ever enjoyed a 40 minutes' run more than he did the 40 minutes of vigorous oratory with which the wonderful Prime Minister—for he was a most wonderful man—entertained the Committee. But he thought that speech was eminently characteristic of the right hon. Gentleman, How did he meet the arguments of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain)? He met them first by calling him a siren; he took some 15 minutes to describe the right hon. Gentleman as a siren. Now, if he remembered anything about sirens, as a rule they did not fascinate people by argument, but by their mellifluous accents; and, therefore, the word "siren" more especially applied to the right hon. Gentleman himself. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) brought forward argument after argu-
    808
    ment, fact after fact, and the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister absolutely refused to contend with one of them. He heard the Prime Minister's speech last night, and he read that speech this morning; and he challenged any hon. Member in the House, from the beginning of the speech to the end of it, to discover one single instance in which the right hon. Gentleman dealt with a single argument brought forward by his right hon. Friend the Member for West Birmingham. He would simply allude to the question of finance. His right hon. Friend very justly pointed out that if the financial scheme of the Bill, as it stood, were carried out, a Legislature and an Executive would be created in Ireland in a bankrupt condition. How did the Prime Minister deal with that? "Oh," he said, "if it was only a matter of a deficit of £100,000 or so, that was merely a matter of manipulation;" but what they wanted to find out was who was to pay the £100,000, and he ventured to say the British electors would also ask the same question. A speech was made by the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) later in the Debate. He thought it was a very straightforward and manly speech, and it might be a speech that contained the real policy of Her Majesty's Government. The hon. Member voted for this establishment of a Legislature in Ireland because he was in favour of establishing similar Legislatures for England, Scotland, and Wales; and so full of generosity was he to Ireland that he was willing to shell out in order to place the Government they proposed to create in a solvent condition. But they expected that the Prime Minister, who was one of the greatest living authorities on finance, when he brought forward a financial scheme in his Home Rule Bill, would have done so in a statesmanlike and sober manner. It was a Gladstonian, statesmanlike, and sober effort to found the finances of Ireland upon Irish inebriety; and it turned out on examination, which the right hon. Gentleman did not himself deny, that the Irish people were a far more sober people than the right hon. Gentleman appeared to believe, and that a great deal of the whisky he imagined was drunk in Ireland was really drunk in Scotland. But the right hon. Gentleman pointed cut this fact—that the

    809
    whisky might fail, but he would not fail his Irish supporters, and that the deficit would be met some way or other, though the right hon. Gentleman did not tell them how. Then the right hon. Gentle-man went on to defend his Nationalist supporters, and was filled with wrath with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) because he ventured to inquire into the past speeches of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, and ventured to ask them if they were willing to retract here what they had said in Ireland and elsewhere. The Prime Minister said that the right hon. Gentleman was not the man to make such an attack as that, and if any man should wear a white sheet for what he had said in former times it was the right hon. Gentleman himself. He (Colonel Saunderson) could only say that if the right hon. Gentleman wished to wear a white sheet and to get one he would find plenty in the possession of the Prime Minister. What was this Bill before the Committee but a white sheet the Prime Minister was wearing to hide from view the memory of Kilmainham.! At the end of his speech the Prime Minister made a statement which he thought clearly showed the deep hatred that he felt, at any rate, of one section of the Irish people, and perhaps that explained some of the reasons for resisting Amendments to this 1st clause. He hoped his fellow-countrymen in Ire-land would remember these words of the Prime Minister—
    "Those who have been associated with the oppressors are down to this moment the first in claiming for themselves an 'unbridled licence.' What licence did they claim in Ireland? They claimed the licence of belonging to the Empire and of living under the authority of Imperial law; but they claimed no liberty for themselves which they were not willing to confer on their neighbours."
    [Laughter.] Hon. Gentlemen laughed; that was one of the inarticulate arguments they brought forward; and he should be glad if one hon. Gentleman would gat up and point out what they claimed as an "unbridled licence" for themselves which they were not willing to confer upon their neighbours. He really thought that the speech of the Prime Minister, so eloquent, so entertaining, might have been curtailed at most into five minutes. If the right hon. Gentleman had started by saying, "I do
    810
    not intend to give any information on the points raised by the Unionist Party," that would have disposed of the first part of the speech, and then he might have gone on, "If you will follow me from clause to clause without demanding explanations and confine yourself to the clause itself, then you will gradually be able to grasp my meaning in this Bill." They did not intend to follow that advice. The very just latitude which the Chairman had given them in this Debate proved that he realised the fact that this Bill differed from all other Bills this generation had ever seen, and that it was of such momentous importance to this country and to the Empire as to make it necessary that each clause should be examined in the light thrown upon it by the remainder of the Bill. They (the Opposition) had employed that indulgence in trying to prove to the House that these clauses hung together to a great extent, and that it was impossible to discuss one of these clauses before they had considered the master clause which affected all. The right hon. Gentleman, towards the end of his speech, really showed the House why the speech was made. It was a speech to gag his supporters. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham had challenged hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway to get up and say, for the information of the Government and for the information of the country, whether they were ready in that House distinctly to state what kind of supremacy they were willing to accept for this Parliament, when they created a Parliament in Ireland; but not one of them rose in his place. The cheers that greeted the right hon. Gentleman from his Irish supporters on the previous night, he thought, emphatically proved that they were in a tight place; that they felt that the right hon. Member for West Birmingham had placed them front to front with a difficulty out of which they themselves could not escape; and when the Prime Minister, with his wonderful eloquence, came to their support, that he merited the cheers which they gave him for saving the situation. Was there any wonder that hon. Members on that (the Opposition) side of the House had been anxious to have some light thrown upon this Bill by hon. Members below the Gangway who were to guide and govern

    811
    the destinies of Ireland when they had Home Rule—and England too? When they talked of the supremacy that they proposed to reserve to the British Parliament, he ventured to say it would mainly depend whether it was worth anything or nothing on the action of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway who were to form the new Government they proposed to create in Ireland. There was not one of those gentlemen who was deficient in the powers of eloquence; why, therefore, he wondered, did they all sit silent? Because it was an answer they dared not give. They were answerable in that House, no doubt, to the leadership of the right hon. Gentleman, but they were absolutely dependent upon the men on the other side of the Channel who sent them to Parliament; and if the words they used in that House conflicted with what they had stated to their constituents in Ireland, he ventured to say they would have an extremely bad time—worse oven than they had now, and that was bad enough—when they visited their constituents. He thought that accounted, at, any rate, mainly for the speech of the Prime Minister—a speech which spoke to the Radicals and directed them to keep silent, and which told hon. Members below the Gangway to perform that most difficult of operations — that was to hold their tongues. There was one point he desired to make before he sat down. They had a Government now in Office under coercion. This Home Rule Bill and this Home Rule policy was an extorted Bill and an extorted policy. He could quote speech after speech by hon. Members below the Gangway which absolutely proved to demonstration what he said. There was the hon. and learned Member for North Louth, who was very clear and distinct on the subject. Looking forward, as he did at that time, to the period when the present Government would come into Office, this was what the hon. and learned Member for North Louth said—"If the Liberal Party should fail us." This dealt directly with the Union of Hearts. The Union of Hearts was supposed to be the spontaneous action of the mutual affection between the Irish Separatists and the English Gladstonians; but he had always warned the Gladstonian Party that the Union of Hearts was a very uncertain
    812
    quantity. It was a Union of conditional amorousness. This was what the hon. and learned Member for North Louth said—
    "If the Liberal Party should fail us, then we shall be free and independent to deal with them as we were in dealing with the Tories in 1880. I am satisfied they will not fail us."
    Here was the conditional amorousness—
    "We have a hand for the grasp of friendship and another to make them quake, and they are welcome to whichever it pleases them most to take."
    Those words clearly showed that the Union of Hearts was a conditional union, otherwise a Nationalist like the hon. and learned Member for North Louth would not say they were welcome to either one or the other. If he was really in love with hon. Gentlemen opposite it would not be welcome to him if they received his hate instead of love. There was a bargain entered into between hon. Members below the Gangway and the Government; and the condition of it was that if the Government would bring in a Bill and create a Parliament and Executive in Ireland, then the hon. Member would confer his love upon the Government. There was no doubt as to the ground the Loyalists took up. They opposed this 1st clause on the highest principle which could actuate the minds of men in opposing any clause. They believed it to be absolutely destructive of freedom and liberty. They would take no part in the Assembly in Dublin, either in the Lower House or the Upper House, and any Amendment they would have to move would be not inside but outside its walls. He ventured to say that the British people, to whom the final appeal lay, were learning more and more every day the character of what was, in his opinion, the disgraceful compact entered into between the Government and their supporters below the Gangway. They had in those hon. Gentlemen a Party elected by the Roman Catholic priesthood in Ireland and subsidised by foreigners. It was a new thing in the history of this country to have a Party in that House subsidised by foreigners; and if any hon. Member would take the trouble to subscribe to and read that very flourishing paper The Freeman's Journal, he would see that 12,468 dollars had been cabled over from America to the Nationalist Party. This clause they

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    were now examining proposed to create a Legislature and Executive in Ireland, and to place it under the authority of men who were subsidised by foreigners. He did not say there was anything disgraceful to hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway in receiving those subsidies, because they looked upon England as a foreign country. But he maintained that when the British public realised, as they must—and they were realising it more and more every day—that this was a compact between the British Government and a foreign subsidised Party, they would be more and more anxious at the next Election to scout the Government and its policy into the oblivion they deserved. They (the Opposition) believed that, in opposing this clause, and in opposing this Bill as they had done, they were actuated by the highest principles that could guide the minds of men, and they were opposing a policy which would destroy their freedom as well as the freedom of Great Britain. And why had this compact been made? Why was it that the Government of this country had consented to a compact so low and so base? Simply for the honour of sitting on the Treasury Bench, for which, for the first time in the history of England, they had been satisfied to sacrifice all other honour.
    Sir EDWARD REED and Mr. A. J. BALFOURrose together; but the former gave way to the latter.
    MR. A. J. BALFOUR: I certainly shall not cut out an hon. Member who, I am sure, has a right to speak upon this question, owing to the public part which he has taken with regard to the general Home Rule policy. As far as I am concerned, at all events, I shall not do anything to unduly prolong a Debate which is now, I believe, not far from its conclusion. But, Mr. Mellor, I think that even those who have most reluctantly engaged in these Debates must have now realised that certainly no undue length of time has been taken up by this Committee in dealing with what is, after all, the central citadel of the measure. If we pass this clause, which, though brief in its terms, is pregnant in its contents, we pass the principle of the measure; and all the other 30 or 40 clauses which we shall have to discuss during the next two or three months are all designed to miti-
    814
    gate as far as possible and qualify the evils that this 1st clause, unqualified, will bring upon us. They are intended to make that which is fundamentally impossible possible, and to make that which is essentially intolerable tolerable. I do not think they will succeed; but, at all events, we have a right—surely even the right hon. Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland will admit that we have a right—before this clause is finally put to the Committee, to say one or two words both as to the merits of the clause itself, and even more as to the treatment we have received in discussing this clause of the Bill from those who are nominally in charge of it, and who in theory, at all events, are entrusted with the duty of explaining its provisions and their policy to the House. The second speech of the Solicitor General is really by itself an adequate justification of the Debate we have had. The Solicitor General—long desired and anxiously expected—got up late last night, and we listened to him with great interest and profound respect. We gathered that he was going to give us the views of the Government and his great legal authority on the question of supremacy; and what were his views? His views were that the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament was indefeasible, and that even an Act of Parliament or any proceeding to which this House could be a party would be absolutely inefficacious in divesting ourselves of powers which we must to all eternity possess. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Cambridge University (Sir John Gorst), in a brief recital of certain controversies about supremacy in the last century, pointed out that, on the showing of the Solicitor General himself, the indefeasible authority of this Parliament over Ireland rested upon Statute, and that what Statute had established Statute could destroy. At all events, it is a paradox beyond credibility to say that we could not reverse the process by which the Union with Ireland was accomplished, and could not by a series of Statutes, and possibly by other operations, bring back the condition of things which existed in the time of Grattan's Parliament. I will put one question to the Solicitor General. If the Imperial Legislature is incapable of divesting

    815
    itself of its authority, how came it that Grattan's Parliament divested itself of its authority? That was, as I understand, an Assembly of sovereign authority over Ireland; but by various Acts, in which the Irish and the English Legislatures had taken part, that sovereign authority deprived itself of its powers. Without pressing this question further, it is clear that if you went back and reversed one by one each of the steps, statutory or otherwise, by which we have reached our present condition, we should restore the condition existing before 1800—namely, a Sovereign Parliament in this country and another Sovereign Parliament in Ireland. So now we have it from the Government themselves that, so far from the authority of this Parliament being indefeasible, it can be destroyed by the same series of operations by which it was created. But it is not the Solicitor General with whom I wish to deal. After all, it is only his business to treat of the purely legal aspect of the question, and that is always the most insignificant aspect. I have to deal with the speech of the Prime Minister, whom I am sorry not to see in his place. Perhaps, if he is in the building, he will be able to return to the House, or, if not, he will not object to anything I say in his absence. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham made a brilliant and incisive speech, in which he recited, on four or five fundamental points, the arguments which we had advanced upon the 1st clause of this Bill, and pointed out the total absence of any reply given by the Prime Minister at any stage of the discussion. I will only at present take two of those points, and on those two I will test the procedure adopted by the Prime Minister. The first is the question of the retention of the Irish Members, and the attitude which the Government propose to take up some day or other, when we get to it, on Clause 9. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham said most truly that the question of the position of the Irish Members when this Bill passes has the most essential and necessary connection with the question of supremacy; that you cannot discuss supremacy until you know what that position is, and that there is not a clause in the Bill which may not require to be modified in one way or another according
    816
    to the decision at which the Government may arrive. How did the Prime Minister reply? He said—
    "Is it not a monstrous procedure that we should be asked to pin ourselves now, before we hear the arguments, to one particular solution of a problem which we know to be difficult? We mean to keep an open mind on the question. We have followed public opinion up to this time, and we mean to go on following it, and to ask us to declare beforehand that it is a question of life and death, a question of confidence, that the particular proposals in the Bill should be carried, is to demand a course of procedure which no Government has yet ever taken."
    Let us grant the grain of truth which lies at the bottom of the argument. I do not ask the Government to go to the length of vacating Office if Clause 9 does not pass exactly as it is. I do not ask them to dissolve if they are beaten on any Amendment. I leave that entirely to their discretion when the contingency arises. But I do ask them to have a policy, and, if they have a policy, to tell us what it is. I will explain exactly what I mean. The Prime Minister thinks there is no alternative between nailing your colours to the mast and the policy of throwing a clause down on the Table to be torn to pieces and modified at the sweet will of an irresponsible majority. There is not only a third course, but one that is almost universally adopted by every Government, and which has already been adopted by this Government in another connection. I ask them to do no more in defining their own proposals in Clause 9 than they have done with regard to the question of the two Chambers. I ask thorn to do no more than declare that they are going, in order to carry out their policy, to exercise the same gentle pressure which made their whole Party assent to the principle of two Chambers. I ask, then, are they going to do that? Do they think that this question is so absolutely insignificant that it is competent for a Government which professes to govern—competent for hon. Gentlemen who profess a Home Rule policy—to know so little about that policy that they will not even lay it upon the Table, and, as I say, use the ordinary machinery of legislation in this House to see that the proposals they approve of are carried into effect? No, Sir; it appears that the Government, as far as we understand their position, are going to propose a clause in this House; but, as we shrewdly conjecture, a very

    817
    moderate degree of discussion, and a very gentle amount of violence, will induce them to fall; and all we want to know is—In what direction are they going to fall? It is not too much to ask them, in discussing this matter, that we should have some slight adumbration of the line they propose to take. I pass from that illustration of the reply given by the Prime Minister to one which I think is even more characteristic and important. It dealt with the declarations, made by one of the two Parties to the bargain about Home Rule, with regard to the supremacy of Parliament after Home Rule was passed. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham read a number of extracts from the utterances of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, stating the views which they held on this subject. How was this case met by the Prime Minister? He turned round, and in the most impassioned accents asked the right hon. Member for West Birmingham whether, if he was attacking the consistency of hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, there was a more inconsistent gentleman in the House than himself? If I understood the right hon. Member for West Birmingham—and, unlike some other great orators in this House, his meaning, at all events, is usually clear—he was not reproaching hon. Members below the Gangway for inconsistency, but rather for consistency. If the right hon. Gentleman had wanted to deal with inconsistency, it is not to those Benches below the Gangway he would have turned, but to that (the Treasury) Bench, where we see put up, like specimens in a museum, every possible species of the genus pervert, from the Prime Minister, who has run through the whole gamut of political opinions in his life, down to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who has changed his opinions much less often, but who, when he does change them, changes them with such explosive and rapid violence that we hardly know how to follow the strange career which he pursues. But the questions put to hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway were not by way of criticism of their consistency or their inconsistency. They were demands for a plain answer to a plain question. And why is that plain answer not given? It was not given because
    818
    the Prime Minister, with great judgment as I thought, implored his allies below the Gangway to hold their tongues. The Prime Minister and hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway have made a kind of compact in dealing with this Bill. He is to manage this Bill by way of oratory, and they are to manage the Bill by way of interruption, and the mutual support thus given appears to be eminently satisfactory to both Parties. But I notice the right hon. Gentleman, whatever else he may do to hon. Gentlemen below the Gangway, does not trust them to defend their own case. He reminds me of the Homeric deity who came forward when some friendly hero got into trouble and involved him with clouds—in this case in a cloud of words—and carried him from the field. In this case the right hon. Gentleman's Irish allies are permitted to escape by being involved in a cloud of words, and they are carried from the field in safety. The right hon. Gentleman, in a speech of astonishing eloquence, though, perhaps, of a somewhat flimsy description, declared that hon. Members who were suffering from oppression could not be expected to say exactly what they meant. I may, however, remind the Committee that none of the quotations given by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham (Mr. J. Chamberlain) last night were of an earlier date than 1891 or 1892; while one of them was from a magazine article written since the Dissolution and since the present Government came into Office, and by that time I presume that the reign of confusing oppression had come to an end. The question put to the Irish Members yesterday by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham and which the. Irish Members were not allowed to answer was a plain one—namely, whether they were prepared or not to adhere to their reiterated declarations with regard to the freedom of the Irish Legislature from the control of the Imperial Parliament? If those hon. Members do adhere to those declarations, hon. Members opposite sitting behind the Government are living in a fools' paradise, because they have been led to become parties to a compact which is opposed to the principles which they profess. If, on the other hand, the only other possible alternative is to be accepted, then hon. Members below the

    819
    Gangway must have given up all the declarations they made in 1891 and 1892, and their magazine articles are so much waste paper; and in that case let them state that their views upon this question are altered. The only reply of the right hon. Gentleman the Prime Minister to this argument of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham was that he was content with the Parliamentary utterances of hon. Members below the Gangway, and that he had heard four very excellent speeches delivered by representative Irish Members below the Gangway, and that hon. Members below the Gangway entirely accepted the proposals of the Government, and, therefore, threw over entirely their recent declarations. It is impossible for this House to proceed with the Bill in Committee with any confidence that the measure is to be a permanent settlement whilst the silence below the Gangway remains unbroken. I must admit that even if the hon. Members below the Gangway were to make bonâ fide, as I am satisfied it would be, the statement that their declarations of 1891 and 1892 were inaccurate, my own confidence in such a statement would be very little increased. It is impossible for us to say how long such fresh convictions on the part of hon. Members below the Gangway will stand. When hon. Members make declarations not only on the part of themselves, but of the Irish people and of the Irish race all over the world, and suddenly assert that their opinions on matters in respect of which those declarations have been made have undergone a change, I do not think that any deep root of permanence can be expected to result from such declarations or from such changed opinions. If the hon. and learned Member for Waterford (Mr. J. E. Redmond) were to come down to the House and were to say—"I have recently made declarations to the effect that I would only be satisfied by the creation of an independent Parliament for Ireland; but I have changed my conviction and am now quite ready to be a party to a new bargain under which the Irish Legislature is to be a subordinate one," I ask what confidence could any hon. Member put in such a declaration on the part of the hon. Member? We should be driven to the conclusion that Parliamentary pressure had been
    820
    brought to bear upon the hon. Member under which he had been compelled to alter his views. The world has only to look at the general tenour of the utterances of the hon. and learned Member for the last few years to see that he has never denied the abstract right of the Irish people to have a supreme Parliament for themselves, and that he still maintained that right on their behalf. I think that I have, in no violent language, re-stated the argument of hon. Members below the Gangway, and I think that hon. Members sitting behind the Government will find it difficult in their hearts to refute or to ignore my statement. The only excuse that hon. Members opposite can put forward for supporting this proposal to set aside the authority of the British Parliament is that it will lead to a final settlement of the Irish Question; but if they will candidly consider the list of authorities quoted by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham, and which are not yet repudiated by the Irish Members, they will see that their hopes of a final settlement are founded upon a quicksand, and that the smallest storm or the slightest flood would bring those hopes in ruin to the ground. I put it to the hon. Members opposite that, in accepting the principle of this Bill as a final settlement, they are following men who, upon their own confessions, do not know their own minds. ["No!"] Well, perhaps they have not told us what their own minds are. We do know what their own minds were in 1892; but we do not know what they are now. They are following men who either do not know their own Bill, or, if they do, will not tell as what it is, or they are following men who do not know their own mind, or, if they do, will not tell us what that mind is. These are not conditions under which victory is possible, or under which sound legislation could be carried into effect. Therefore, I must earnestly implore hon. Members, before it is too late, to register their verdict against this fundamental and essential clause of the Bill, without which the whole of the rest of the measure must necessarily perish.
    *SIR EDWARD J. REEDsaid, he thought no reasonable person who considered the nature of this clause, and the magnitude of its effect, could complain of its having occupied a good deal of the time of the House. He had

    821
    himself no intention of speaking that day, but for the speeches of the hon. Member for South Tyrone (Mr. T. W. Russell) find the hon. and gallant Member for Armagh (Colonel Saunderson). It seemed to him (Sir Edward Reed) quite astounding that they should give away so much of their case because of the prospect of this clause passing; for, while on the Ministerial side they had no reason to complain, or at any rate to be surprised, at the length of the Debate, neither could the Opposition have any reason to be surprised at their maintaining that a great Debate was not necessary on the 1st clause, for the simple reason that every man in that House pledged in any way or degree to Home Rule for Ireland must approve of this 1st clause. With regard to the speech of the hon. Member for South Tyrone, he seemed to infer from the fact that they were disinclined to introduce the word "subordinate" into the clause that, therefore, they on the Ministerial side had abandoned the idea of Ireland possessing a subordinate Legislature, and he had taken pains for years to gather together the statements which hon. Members on the Ministerial side had made in this respect. Well, he need not take any trouble about his (Sir Edward Reed's) speeches, for he told him in the frankest mariner that he had never advocated, never thought of advocating, and never would advocate—and in the final result would not vote for—any Bill giving a Legislature for Ireland which did not provide for the full control, properly defined, of the Imperial Parliament. But he found great difficulty at that stage of the Bill to seek to give effect to this view, because it was only when they had the Bill as finally settled before them that they could determine whether the supremacy of this Imperial Parliament had been in any way interfered with. Consequently, he sat with much complacency and listened to the Debate at that stage, because he was satisfied that the introduction of the word "subordinate" into the clause, if agreed to, would have given no kind of satisfaction or security to the opponents of the Bill; and because he was quite sure that if they were to be satisfied and were to have sufficient security, that must be brought about in the manner defined by the Prime Minister by the introduction of
    822
    a special clause in the Bill, making due provision for all that was desirable. Members opposite seemed to be much disposed to cast contempt upon Members on the Ministerial side of the House, because hitherto they had been voting solidly in connection with this Bill. ["No!"] At all events, they had done their best to make the Ministerial Party vote solidly, because, in his own case, which he took as an example, no sooner did his opponents find he was engaged in a controversy with a section of his constituents than they brought out a Conservative candidate to take advantage of the situation. The effects of that transaction had been to make hon. Members on the Ministerial side of the House, who wished to exercise an independent judgment on this Bill, not, he hoped, to sacrifice in any degree the independence of their judgment, but to be very careful in the exercise of that independence. Well, he was rather astonished to hear opponents of the measure laying so much stress on the fact that Nationalist Members from Ireland had not spoken in this Debate. He was at a loss to understand why they should speak. This clause provided for the establishment of an Irish Legislature. They could not say anything in objection to that. What could they have to say in support? He would admit this to the Opposition. He attached, himself, little weight to the phrases used by some high and responsible persons on the Ministerial side, touching "the Union of Hearts," and in making appeals to the loyalty and good feeling of Irish Members; and he might say he heard with considerable pain, the other night, the Prime Minister speak of all those transactions in which hon. Gentlemen opposite (the Irish Nationalist Party) were engaged in times past, and which were universally condemned. He was sorry to hear the Prime Minister minimise their past conduct by saying there were occasions when they had stepped slightly from the straight line of perfect wisdom. Wrongful acts performed years ago remained wrongful acts still; and he found it hard, not to say impossible, to reconcile any instigation of their committal with the principle of justice and morality. But that did not alter his willingness to give Home Rule to Ireland. The language he should prefer to employ was this. He should

    823
    say—"In the past you wove in a rebellious state of mind, carrying on after a certain fashion what you yourselves regarded as rebellion and revolution: and now by this Bill—if it passes—you will be placed in a position of the greatest responsibility. You will be charged with the interests of your country; and I should hope you, under those conditions, will turn from the methods and practices by the rebellious period and do what revolutionists have done in many ages—become excellent legislators and administrators of their country." The Ministerial Party need not be frightened by those words, though they used them. Probably the House was familiar with the lines of one of the poets, in which he spoke of rebels or rebellion, and said—
    "How runny a spirit born to bless
    Hath perished 'neath that withering name,
    Whom but a day's, an hour's, success,
    Had wafted to eternal fame."
    He would strengthen himself in that position by a remark made by the late Mr. Parnell. He did not know whether it was just to Mr. Parnell's memory to relate this; but he could not avoid mentioning a matter bearing so intimately on the case before them. In conversing once with him, Mr. Parnell made this observation— "You must remember, when Home Rule is passed for Ireland, I and my friends will be the Conservative Party and the principal Party of Ireland, because the result of the past life of Ireland is such that there are many men in Ireland of an extremely troublesome character; and it will be my duty, when charged with the responsibility of government, to deal with thorn—and we shall be bound to deal with them—from a Conservative point of view." Mr. Parnell added this—"You must bear in mind that the Parliament we are to have will be but a statutory Parliament, and that the power which created it—namely, the Parliament sitting here at Westminster—can destroy it at any time; therefore it will be on its good behaviour." Perhaps he (Sir Edward Reed) might now remark on other parts of the Hill in relation to this clause. He confessed he sympathised very much with the Opposition in their desire to know more definitely and definitively what the Government intended in reference to the representation of Ire-
    824
    land in that House. It was no use in these matters or any others arguing in a circle. It was no use saying—"We must know before we pass the 1st clause what is to be the future of this Parliament"; any more than it was necessary to say—"We must know what are to be the financial conditions before we pass the 1st clause." But it was rumoured in the Press that one of the things contemplated by the Government was to retain in this Parliament the whole representation of Ireland, with freedom to vote on all subjects. All he could say was that it would be impossible for the human imagination to conceive a set of conditions more absolutely irreconcilable with those conditions under which Members on the Ministerial side first persuaded their constituents—as they had often to do—to become reconciled to their doctrines. And when this question was viewed in relation to the present state of the representation of the other parts of Great Britain, it gathered tenfold force. He had the privilege to represent 150,000 people in the House; and was he to he told that after the passage of this Home Rule Bill he should possess only one-eighth of the representative power in the House of hon. Members from Ireland? That they should have eight Members to represent 150,000 people, and that Cardiff' should have only one? Why, a Redistribution Bill, as an antecedent condition to such a state of things, would be absolutely necessary; and, in his judgment, the Government would have to take careful account of that consideration before they came to the Third Reading of the Bill; because, while there might be many things hon. Members would do to support their Party, one thing they would not do was to participate in a wholesale manifold injustice to the people they represented. While he held that view, he was not anxious on the point at present, for the reason that the Prime Minister had stated more than once that Clause 9—he had given his pledge to that as a reason why they should pass Clause 1—he had pledged himself to the effect that Clause 9 might undergo modification by the House. He was only waiting for the decision of the House on Clause 1; and if the Prime Minister were, when the time came, to use his power and authority with the Ministry in order to

    825
    force upon his supporters the expediency of a particular solution of that question, after that unlimited promise and pledge, he should regard the transaction as a breach of faith, and he should not be prepared to acquiesce in it. He did not wish to trespass on the time of the Committee. [Cries of "Go on!"] He had thought it necessary to say a, few unprepared words, for the reason that he was not able to understand why hon. Members should think their ease was gone when the clause was passed. They should bear in mind, as he had already said, that this clause must be supported by every man who sat there as a Home Killer. Such a man could not possibly vote against it. There was no language in it which would justify them in voting against it. Not to vote for it, a man must give up his Home Rule views and principles altogether. He was so anxious about the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament that he should watch with the utmost care the course the Government took in respect of it; and, more than that, he knew there were many hon. Members on the Ministerial side who would be prepared to do the same, and were regarding the course of the Government in that respect with great anxiety. He was so sensitive on the point himself that the other night he would not vote against the introduction of the word "subordinate," although he could not vote for it. But he did not wish to take any step that would seem to compromise him with his constituents, or drive him from the position he had held with them. Not on the Ministerial Bench only, but on the Liberal Benches behind it, men were to be found who had given explicit engagements to their constituents that nothing but a subordinate Parliament was contemplated. But there was another side to the question—and he would ask their opponents to regard this side of it with proper consideration and respect—that those who were really in favour of Home Rule for Ireland were anxious not to give a Home Rule that would not and could not work. They had no right to charge a body of men or a nation with the responsibility of conducting their own affairs and beset them with restrictions and engagements which would deter them from performing their duty in a proper manner. He believed that feeling existed in its full
    826
    strength in the minds of all Members on the Government side. At any rate, he might say this—that some of the younger Members who had recently come into Parliament, and were, not unnaturally, impatient with its slow process, should remember that they were dealing with a question which puzzled not only the Opposition, but the Government to do full justice to their own views and intentions. The speeches of the previous night by the right hon. Members for Cambridge University (Sir John Gorst) and East Manchester (Mr. A. J. Bal-four) showed there were difficulties in the matter for them as well as for the supporters of the Government. The assurance he (Sir Edward Reed) gave to the Committee was that he—and he believed that there were others on the Ministerial side—was anxious, on the one hand, to give the Irish Members every possible fair chance for the due performance of the obligations this Bill would cast upon them, and, on the other hand, to do nothing which would impair the authority of the Imperial Parliament.
    *MR. T. H. BOLTONsaid, he had not, had an opportunity of speaking on the Second Reading Debate; and he, therefore, asked the indulgence of the House to say a few words of a, general character on the discussion of the 1st clause of the Bill. He was one of those who came within the category mentioned by the noble Lord opposite—that was to say, a moderate Gladstonian Homo Ruler. He admitted that he was committed, like a good many hon. Members on that side, including the hon. Gentleman who last addressed the House, to a policy of Home Rule in dealing with Irish affairs; but he was also distinctly pledged to do nothing whatever which would impair the full authority of the Imperial Parliament in dealing with Irish affairs if necessary, as well as with English or Imperial affairs. As the hon. Member had indicated, in his own case, when the Bill had passed through Committee, it would be for him (Mr. Bolton) also to consider how far it met those conditions which he considered essential in connection with any measure of this kind: and if he found that it did not, to modify his attitude with reference to it. With regard to this particular clause, he had voted against certain Amendments that had

    827
    been moved, because he thought that 'the Amendments with which he sympathised had better come in another form in other parts of the Bill. He fully intended that there should be only a subordinate Legislature in Ireland; but he did not desire that, associated with the description of the Legislature in this clause, there should be terms used calculated to give offence, and which would be for any practical object inoperative. Distinguished Constitutional lawyers suggested that it was necessary to strengthen the special statement in the Preamble by adding declaratory words as to the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament in the main parts of the Bill. What harm could there be in setting forth in the measure that the Irish Legislature was a subordinate one if it really was intended that it should be subordinate? He (Mr. Bolton) had heard, with great satisfaction, the observations of the right hon. Gentleman at the head of the Government, in which he distinctly laid it down that he would be prepared to consider, and consider favourably, any practical proposal to give effect to these requirements. The right hon. and learned Gentleman the Member for Bury (Sir Henry James) had put an Amendment on the Paper to Clause 2; and he hoped the Government would very seriously consider whether they could not accept that Amendment. Possibly a clear, specific, Declaratory Clause, either at the commencement of the Bill or at the end, would have been more satisfactory even than the Proviso of the right hon. Member for Bury; but if the right hon. Gentleman was satisfied—and he was a great Constitutional lawyer—he (Mr. Bolton) would be satisfied also. The right hon. Gentleman had given a very forcible reason why an Amendment of this kind should be adopted. He stated that the Act would not be construed only by distinguished Judges sitting in high places of judicial authority, but would have to be considered by comparatively small Judges and Magistrates, in remote parts of Ireland; and it was desirable that there should be, in no unmistakable way, on the face of the Statute a clause setting forth that the Legislature created was distinctly a subordinate one. He would not labour the argument. It was sufficient, as a
    828
    friend and supporter of the Government, to urge them to consider the suggestion of the right hon. Gentleman in a sympathetic way; and he appealed to hon. Gentlemen from Ireland to give a fair and dispassionate consideration to the proposal, because they had to satisfy not their enemies but their friends and the general British public, who were somewhat anxious about this and some other points. The veto should be clear and explicit, resting in the hands of the responsible Ministers of the Crown —not the Irish Ministers, but the Ministers having the confidence of Parliament. It should not be exercised in unimportant matters, or in domestic matters which concerned especially the Irish people, and did not outrage the sense of justice of the general community. The veto should be a practical weapon which should not be needlessly or recklessly used or flourished offensively, but which should always be effective if occasion arose. With regard to the Imperial Judiciary, it was desirable that, as in the United States, it should have a visible existence throughout Ireland. It should not be mixed up with the local Irish Judiciary.
    MR. LABOUCHERErose to Order. He asked whether the hon. Gentleman was in Order on this clause in referring to the Judiciary?
    THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is, no doubt, going too much into detail.
    MR. BOLTONsaid, he admitted he was going somewhat beyond the clause; but, from circumstances which were within the knowledge of the House, he had not had an opportunity of speaking on the Second Reading. He at once accepted that intimation from the Chair. As to finance, which was a subject which would come within the control of the Irish Legislature, he could not support the observations of the hon. Member for Sunderland (Mr. Storey) that the British public were indifferent as to spending £500,000 a year to enable the Irish Legislature to carry on its business. If they supplied the Irish people with a Legislative Assembly, there was no responsibility on their part to find it, at the expense of the British public, with money to carry on its operations, and he did not believe the Irish Representatives could be so foolish

    829
    as to imagine that they would get an endowment from the British people in connection with their legislative affairs. They only wanted, so they said, and he believed, to have fair treatment. He also hoped there would be some provision to adjust as between this Parliament and the Legislature to be created other questions, such as the Laud Question, so that they might know before the Bill left the House whether the Imperial Parliament was to deal with that question within three yearn, or whether it was to be left to the Irish Legislature, and, if so, upon what terms. He should also like to refer to another matter—namely, the question of Ulster. He agreed with the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham (Mr. Chamberlain) that the Ulster Members had made a great mistake, as they believed that they would be injuriously affected by the Bill in not proposing that they should be excluded from its operations. It was almost impossible for Members like himself, who desired to do full justice to the claims of Ulster, to overcome the difficulty the Ulster people put them in. What they said amounted to this— "We don't want Home Rule for ourselves, and, therefore, we won't let the rest of Ireland have it." That was almost a dog-in-the-manger policy, and placed those who desired to give fair and just consideration to the claims and representations of Ulster in a position of great difficulty. He believed they would find that by adopting a policy of that kind they would lose the sympathy of the British public. The Prime Minister had committed himself to giving Ulster separate treatment if Ulster desired it. If Ulster was not to be excluded from the Bill, having regard to recent events there, they must consider what guarantees and securities should be put in the Bill with the view of satisfying the anxieties of the people of that Province and of reconciling them to the policy of the measure. He could not conceal from himself that this measure was really a large experiment. He did not regard the Bill with the feeling of absolute confidence that prevailed in some parts of the House. They had tried several modes of governing Ireland, and, coercion having failed, it was generally admitted that sooner or later a great measure of local self-government would have to be given to Ireland
    830
    by one Party or the other and on the lines of the present Bill — reduced in its scope and character. Certain it was that if the Party opposite came into power they would have to introduce a measure of local government for Ireland. Therefore, he asked himself—and he asked hon. Gentlemen opposite—whether it was not better, instead of ungenerously criticising the Bill as a whole, to endeavour to make it a practical measure acceptable to all parties. If they would do that he promised them they would have the support, if not of many Members, at any rate of some men on the Liberal side. This Bill was, he said, a great experiment. He knew there were Members prepared to vote for anything and everything at the bidding of their Party Leaders; but there was a certain amount of independence in certain quarters of the House, and there were Members who wore prepared to say what they thought about the Bill, who were not afraid to make suggestions and state objections—not offensively, but with the determination of having them fairly and reasonably considered. This Bill, he repeated, was a large experiment, which he looked upon with hope rather than with confidence or certainty. But he believed if the Bill was brought within the practical lines and the scope of an enlarged measure of Local Government, such as the Prime Minister had, in his speech introducing the Bill, in one place referred to it, it would be acceptable to the country, and ultimately become law. He admitted that they ought to go as far as they could towards satisfying the wishes and requirements of Irishmen; but they were not bound to grant everything that was asked. While we wore willing to advance towards the hopes and desires of Irishmen they, in their turn, must be willing to consider the doubts and anxieties that existed in the minds of our people in this country. There ought to be no objection to reasonable safeguards in the provisions of the Bill, and the supremacy of the Imperial Parliament ought to be placed beyond doubt. While he would give the Government a general support in dealing with the Bill, he would reserve to himself the right of voting independently upon such Amendments as would bring the Bill within the lines he had indicated.
    MR. MACARTNEYrose—
    Mr. John Morley rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put."
    Question put, "That the Question be now put."
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 308; Noes 260.—(Division List, No. 80.)
    Question put accordingly, "That Clause 1 stand part of the Bill."
    The Committee divided:—Ayes 309; Noes 267.—(Division List, No. 81.)
    Clause 2 (Powers of Irish Legislature).
    MR. CAVENDISHsaid, he wished to move to omit the words, "with the exceptions, and subject to the restrictions in this Act mentioned." He must, in the first place, ask the Committee to afford him that indulgence which, he believed, was generally accorded to a Member rising for the first time to address the House, his object being to make clear the subordinate character of the Irish Legislature by defining what powers it should be permitted to exercise. The Amendment would raise a discussion upon the principle upon which the powers to be conferred upon the Irish Legislature should be given. Obviously there were two methods, and the Prime Minister had indicated the two courses when introducing the Home Rule Bill of 1886, the two courses being the endowment of the new Legislative Body with special and specific powers, or the conferring of general powers with special exceptions. The course he (Mr. Cavendish) was advocating had, therefore, the support of authority; but it was a course open for a Government to adopt. He hoped he would not be accused of raising debate with no distinctive Amendment, because it was the first formal Amendment which would be necessary if the Committee should deem it desirable to depart from the principles embodied in the clause, that of giving general powers to a Legislative Body with the exclusion of certain subjects in favour of the principle he advocated, that of enumerating particular and specific powers which the new Legislature should exorcise. Of course, it might be urged that he did not fully bear the responsibilities which attached to such a proposal, inasmuch as
    832
    he did not proceed to a definition of those powers; but an argument of that kind would have less force when he said his object was simply, in the first place, to invite a decision as between the two principles of delegation and exclusion. If this Amendment were carried, then, of course, consequential Amendments would have to be filled in; but if the Committee refused to adopt the principle of delegation, of course enumeration of subjects would be unnecessary. Only after the acceptance of the Amendment would it be necessary to enter upon the consideration of what the specific subjects should be. It would he presumptuous in a young Member of the House to take upon himself the grave and severe duty of suggesting the course the Government should follow but it was for the Government to indicate—whatever principle was adopted—what in their opinion the powers of the new Legislature should be. He preferred—though he was prepared to state his views of what the delegated powers should be—to leave that part of the subject to those more qualified by experience to lead opinion. He did not shrink from the duty as an impossible one, and in the British North America Act of 1867 there was a precedent, for in Section 92 certain subjects were named which were allowed by the House to be dealt with by the local Legislatures, and by those alone. Not only was that Act a precedent for the case he was now putting before the Committee, hut also in the enumeration of subjects there was a list which with slight alterations might fairly be applied to Ireland. In pointing out the reasons in favour of granting specific powers to a subordinate Parliament as preferable to the principle embodied in the Bill, there was this to be said—that the latter was vague and shadowy, and, as had been pointed out, the restrictions could, with the exercise of a little ingenuity, be evaded. As impressing his views on the Committee, he would quote the opinion of a distinguished jurist, a learned Judge of Ontario cited in Dodd's Parliamentary Government for the Colonies. It was there stated that the Sovereign power had created several Governments, one of which was made superior and all the others were subordinate, and that certain definite subjects were to be dealt with by the subordinate Governments, but that all powers which were necessary

    833
    for the peace, order, and good government of Canada were reserved to the superior Government of the Dominion. That arrangement would be equally applicable in the case of Ireland. Although Her Majesty's Government had confessed that this Assembly they proposed to establish was subordinate to the Imperial Parliament, they refused to embody that in terms in their Bill, and now he asked the Government to take a step which would make that Legislative Body truly and really a subordinate one. By the reception of this proposal they would show more clearly and precisely what the relationship between the two Parliaments would be. The present proposal was indefinite, vague, and shadowy, and perhaps hon. Members had a belief in their power to override the intention of the Act; but whether that would be possible or not, certainly it would be more satisfactory to know exactly the power the subordinate Parliament would have. In all cases where the House had delegated or conferred any power on any subordinate Body he believed the House had stated precisely and exactly what those powers should be, and that they should not be enlarged. There would be this difficulty in Ireland—that an Act of the Joint Legislature, outside its powers as an Enacting Body, would not have the force of the law; and, therefore, it might happen that the humblest Magistrate, sitting at Petty Sessions, might be called upon to decide, in relation to proceedings before him, whether the Irish Legislature had exceeded its powers. From either point of view, from the point of view of those who wished to see the Act in operation, and those who did not, there must be the wish that any Act passed by the Irish Legislature should have no doubt of its validity attaching to it. By accepting the principle of naming certain powers as within the provisions of the Legislature the difficulties would be to a large extent removed; but, as the Bill now stood, it would be necessary for the highest tribunal to say whether the Acts passed were as such as were within the powers of the subordinate Legislature. He expected no support from those who did not desire a subordinate Parliament; but he turned with some confidence to those who on platforms throughout the country had declared the intention of giving Ireland a local Parliament:
    834
    for the management of local affairs, and nothing more. It was to be presumed that when hon. Members made these statements they had some idea what was meant by local affairs. Indeed, he believed there were some supporters of the Government who had gone very far in definition of powers for the new Parliament. He avoided mention of names, but there was a considerable section of supporters of the Government who somewhat approved of the policy now known as the gas and water principle of Home Rule. If the Government were unable to specify the subjects with which the Irish Legislature was to deal they might embody clauses in their Bill. Much had been said of the old language being abandoned, and he was willing to accept the retractations; but still he contended it would be wiser and more statesmanlike to confer first limited powers on the now body, and then upon the result and in course of time further powers might be conferred. This was an experiment, and too much caution could not be exercised. Under the happy Constitution they enjoyed the powers of Parliament had grown slowly from small beginnings, and undoubtedly in undertaking great constitutional changes they would do wisely to proceed slowly among the stumbling blocks that often attended the attempt at a too rapid rate of progress. Undoubtedly in Ireland and in England there were grave fears as to the result of the operation of such an Act as this, and he could not say that a too rapid rate of progress, if adopted, would remove those apprehensions. At any rate, they would be somewhat allayed if the power of the Legislature were strictly and clearly defined. It was no matter for surprise that doubts were expressed of the result of conferring extensive and general powers; and though he might be accused of ungenerous mistrust, and told that he should give the Irish Parliament everything, yet still be insisted that in such matters of deep importance it was wiser to adopt the safer and surer way.
    Amendment proposed, in page 1, line 14, to leave out all the words from the beginning of the Clause to the word "there," in line 15.—(Mr. Cavendish.)
    Question proposed, "That the words 'with the exceptions' stand part of the Clause."
    MR. MACARTNEY MR. MACARTNEY moved to report Progress, for the purpose of calling attention to the conduct of the Government in moving the Closure on the last clause. [."Order, order!"]
    THE CHAIRMAN: The Closure being the act of the Committee, it cannot be called in question.
    MR. MACARTNEYwould only then express a hope that in the future conduct of Debates on this Bill the Chief Secretary—[Loud cries of "Order!"]
    THE CHAIRMAN: The hon. Member is indirectly doing that which I have informed him would not be in Order.
    MR. MACARTNEYagain rose.
    It being ten minutes to Seven of the clock, the Chairman left the Chair to mate his report to the House.
    Committee report Progress; to sit again upon Monday next.

    ELECTRIC LIGHTING PROVISIONAL ORDERS (No. 1) BILL.—(No. 319.)
    Read a second time, and committed.
    MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
    That they have agreed to—Municipal Corporations Act (1882) Amendment Bill; Reformatory Schools (Scotland) Bill, with Amendments.

    ROYAL ASSENT.
    Message to attend the Lords Commissioners;—
    The House went;—and, being returned;—
    Mr. SPEAKER reported the Royal Assent to—

    1. Customs and Inland Revenue Act, 1893.

    2. Local Authorities Loans (Scotland) Act (1891) Amendment Act, 1893.

    3. Police Disabilities Removal Act, 1893.

    4. Post Office (Sites) Act, 1893.

    5. Suffolk Joint Committee (Borrowing Powers) Act, 1893.

    6. Local Government Board (Ireland Provisional Order Confirmation (No. 1) Act, 1893.

    EARLY CLOSING BILL.
    On Motion of Sir John Lubbock, Bill to provide for the Earlier Closing of Shops, ordered to be brought in by Sir John Lubbock, Mr. Chamberlain, Mr. Barry, Colonel Bridgeman, Mr. Cameron Corbett, Mr. Fenwick, and Mr. Mather.
    Bill presented, and read, first time. [Bill 357.]

    CROFTERS' HOLDINGS (SCOTLAND) ACTS EXTENSION BILL.
    On Motion of Sir William Wedderburn, Bill to extend to the counties of Banff, Aberdeen, Kincardine, Elgin, and Nairn certain provisions of "The Crofters' Holdings (Scotland) Act, 1886," and any Acts amending the same, ordered to be brought in by Sir William Wedderburn, Dr. Farquharson, Mr. Buchanan, Mr. Crombie, and Mr. Seymour Keay.
    Bill presented, and read first time. [Bill 358.]

    PRISON OFFICERS (SUPERANNUATION).
    Considered in Committee.
    (In the Committee.)
    Resolved, That it is expedient to amend certain provisions of "The Prison Act, 1887," with respect to the grant, out of moneys provided by Parliament, of Superannuation Allowances to Prison Officers.
    Resolution to be reported upon Monday next.

    SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
    SIR JOHN R. MOWBRAYreported from the Committee of Selection; That they had discharged the following Members from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice, and Legal Procedure:—Mr. Herbert Gardner and Mr. Bryn Roberts; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Fenwick and Mr. Mather.
    SIR JOHN R. MOWBRAYfurther reported from the Committee; That they had discharged from the Standing Committee on Trade (including Agriculture and Fishing), Shipping, and Manufactures, the following Member:—Mr. Fenwick; and had appointed in substitution: Mr. Herbert Gardner.
    Reports to lie upon the Table.

    PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES.
    Report from the Select Committee, with Minutes of Evidence, brought up, and read.
    Report to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 213.]

EVENING SITTING.
  ORDERS OF THE DAY.

    SUPPLY.—COMMITTEE.
    Order for Committee read.
    Motion made, and Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."

COMPULSORY VACCINATION.

  RESOLUTION.
  *MR. HOPWOODrose to call attention to the law making vaccination compulsory, and to move—
  "That the law compelling vaccination of infants and young persons is unjustifiable, and ought to be repealed."
  The hon. Member said that, in proposing this. Resolution, he had undertaken a duty which he knew to be an important one, and he hoped that it would not fail because of the in competency of the advocate. He stood there as the mouthpiece, on this question, of the country, whose voice with regard to it had not for many years found due expression in that House. The House of Commons in past times had been induced by promises expressed by medical opinion which were unfulfilled, and by assertions the truth of which had never been established by proper evidence, to pass a Compulsory Vaccination Act. His first proposition was that it was monstrous to enforce upon the people of the country compliance with a medical rite which was utterly useless as a safeguard against small-pox. During the last century inoculation was just as much favoured and supported by the medical profession as vaccination was in this century. Small-pox was introduced into the system by inoculation under the notion that it prevented further attacks of small-pox. They were surprised when Irishmen made "bulls." When Irishmen said something of an ingenuous kind—something that was paradoxical—they were inclined to laugh. Just see what inoculation meant as an Irishman would put it— "Sure the boy may be liable to an attack of small-pox, and sure the surest way is for me to give it to him straight." In the last century, in order that a man might escape the chance of small-pox, they gave him small-pox. It was the
  838
  same way with vaccination in this century. In order that a child might escape the chance of a disease they gave it a disease. Generation after generation they put disease into the arms of successive infants—infants that were going to be the fathers and mothers of future families; and they added to the sum and reserve of the diseases of the world an added quantity, of which they knew not the range, the effect, or the result. Vaccination was introduced by Dr. Jenner. He advised anyone who was curious to note how from small beginnings and little shams great things arose in this world to read the history of Dr. Jenner and his system. He would not dwell upon that, but would only say that when vaccination was first propounded to the House of Commons it secured for its fortunate discoverer, or so-called discoverer, £10,000, and a little later a further sum of £20,000, the pretence then being that vaccination afforded a complete and entire safety against small-pox. But why should vaccination be compulsory? He contended that all the evidence was against compulsion. Lord Henry Petty, speaking in 1806, said—
  "I have not the smallest inclination to propose any compulsory measures, being well convinced that, whatever may be our view of any subject of science, this House ought to pause very long indeed, before they prescribe any law to individuals upon matters which relate to their own health, and even on which the very existence of their children may depend. These, indeed, are topics upon which private individuals in society are to be allowed to be the most competent judges."
  And two years later no less a person than George Canning spoke words of weight in the same sense—
  "Although I consider the discovery of vaccination to be of the very greatest importance, yet I cannot imagine any circumstances whatever that would induce me to follow up the most favourable report of its infallibility with any measure for its compulsory infliction."
  He would now quote one who was still amongst them—one who was, perhaps, the greatest of all that had gone before or come since—the present First Lord of the Treasury—
  "I regard compulsion and penal provisions such as those of the Vaccination Acts," said the right hon. Gentleman, "with mistrust and misgiving; and were I engaged on an inquiry, I should require very clear proof of their necessity before giving them my approval."
  John Bright had also declared that the law was "monstrous," and ought to be

  839
  repealed. He need not remind the House of the expressions used by Jenner himself. It might be answered with some show of plausibility that these were but the too sanguine views of an inventor— these promises which were contained in the original "Inquiry," that—
  "What renders the cow-pox so extremely singular is that the person who has been thus affected is for ever after secure from the infection of the small-pox; neither exposure to the variolous effluvia, nor the insertion of the matter into the skin, producing this distemper."
  These promises were renewed five years later in Further Observations on the Cow-pox, in which Jenner wrote—
  "The human frame, when once it has felt the influence of the genuine cow-pox in the way that has been described, is never afterwards, at any period of its existence, assailable by the small-pox."
  That was false. It was now admitted on all hands in the medical profession that that statement was false. Yet it was backed up until late times by the Local Government Board. The Vaccination Department of the Local Government Board was an expensive institution. In that Department they had a body of men who were bound over by their education, by their tendencies, by their interests, to maintain vaccination.
  *SIR B. WALTER FOSTER: No, no!
  *MR. HOPWOODsaid, the Department got £9,000 for this purpose, and they had no other purpose. He did not mean to say that their views were intentionally wicked, but he submitted that if men were to be engaged to investigate a matter of controversy, the tendency was to choose men who were not committed one way or the other; and he thought that if vaccination was to be enforced, the Medical Authority of the Local Government Board was not an authority that the House should be exclusively guided by. He should have taken but little note of these expressions of opinion he had quoted were it not that he found them echoed in the words of one who more than all others was instrumental in the enactment and maintenance of our present laws in this matter. He meant the words of Sir John Simon, when he said, in 1857—
  "On the conclusion of this artificial disorder, neither renewed vaccination, nor inoculation with the small-pox, nor the closest, contact nor cohabitation with small-pox patients, will cause him to betray any remnant of susceptibility to infection"
  840
  That, too, had been given up. Sir John Simon was examined before a recent Commission, when he was obliged to say that a great deal of this language was rhetorical, and when he was pressed whether he still maintained his assertion, he gave it up, and every sensible man must give it up. The promise of Sir John Simon had already been anticipated in almost identical terms in the speech in which, in 1853, the Second Reading of the first compulsory Vaccination Bill was moved in that House by Lord Lyttelton, when he declared, on April 12, 1853—
  "It is unnecessary for me to speak of the certainty of vaccination as a preventive of small pox, that being a point on which the whole medical profession have arrived at complete unanimity."
  Of course, he might be reminded, not without some show of justice, that these claims had now been virtually abandoned in favour of a more moderate position. That more moderate position he was prepared to consider on its merits; but he had at once two things to reply to the objection—first, that the claim could not be truly described as abandoned so long as The Times and Lancet repeatedly declared, as they declared in their leader columns, that "no one need have small-pox unless he or she pleases." That statement was false and misleading— editors of journals, whether political or medical, ought not to propound such statements, which were indefensible. And, secondly, he should repeat with all possible emphasis that it was all very well to now withdraw the claim that vaccination gave an absolute freedom from small-pox, and say now—"It is true that primary vaccination may be of no use, but you must re-vaccinate." There was no obligation, under the law which they were discussing, that a person should be re-vaccinated. All that they were discussing was, whether infants should continue to be destroyed by this horrible Moloch of the medical profession. He called it Moloch, because its victims could be counted by the hundreds—indeed, he was entitled to say, the thousands. This he would prove by the evidence of the Registrar General. Five hundred and odd deaths of infants from vaccination pure and simple had occurred between 1870 and 1880. What did his hon. Friend say to that?
  *SIR B. WALTER FOSTER: What are you quoting from?
  *MR. HOPWOOD: You can see for yourself, sir, if you do not know. I told you it was the Registrar General. I am ready to-morrow or next day to give you the distinct reference; but if it is not in the hands of your Department, your Department is more incompetent than it should be. But was that the whole total of those who were sacrificed by vaccination? He doubted it. He knew it was very difficult to get a man who had done a fellow-creature to death, either by accident or misadventure under his hands, to state the truth, and they had it from a prominent medical officer that he himself often put into a death certificate that which was not the true cause of death "in order to save vaccination from reproach." "Convulsions" was a convenient cause to assign in registering the deaths of infants who died from the effects of vaccination. Erysipelas was one of the most painful forms of death, and it was a most common sequel of vaccination. There was no disease which brought an anguish more acute. As a rule 14 days at least of this suffering had to be endured before death was merciful, and set the little patient free. It was terrible! It was a responsibility which the House took upon itself every year it insisted on compulsory vaccination. The whole world united in testimony in refutation of that dogma—that vaccination was a sure protection from small-pox. The deaths from small-pox in the confessedly vaccinated were counted by tens, by hundreds of thousands. The Lancet itself calculated, in its issue for July 15, 1871, that in England and Wales, in the course of the one epidemic then raging, more than 122,000 vaccinated persons had suffered from smallpox. In 1881 the Highgate Hospital had 96 per cent. of its patients vaccinated, and this at a time when the highest estimate of the vaccinated in London did not exceed 90 per cent. So that the proportion of vaccinated patients to total patients inside the hospital was even greater than the proportion of vaccinated population to total population outside the hospital. In an outbreak of small-pox in Sunderland, in 1884, reported in the current Lancet of that date, there wore again 96 vaccinated out of a total of exactly 100 cases. In 1881 there was an outbreak at Bromley of 43 cases, and every one of them
  842
  was a vaccinated case. It was stated before the Royal Commission, on the authority of the Metropolitan Asylums Board, that 41,000 cases occurred of persons admittedly vaccinated between 1870 and 1886. This applied to London alone, and there could be found no other place, either here or abroad, in regard to which the same tale could be told. In the Highgate Hospital, in 1884, there were 474 cases; 447 were vaccinated, and of these 43 died, all vaccinated cases. To quote from the Highgate Hospital again, in 1885 there were 567 cases; of this number 532 were vaccinated, and of that number 82 died. The Metropolitan Asylums Board small-pox hospital ships had in 1890 22 cases, 21 vaccinated, 2 re-vaccinated, and 5 unvaccinated. The only two that died were the two re-vaccinated. In 1891 there were 63 cases, of whom 7died; 53 vaccinated, of whom 2 died; 8 re-vaccinated, of whom 1 died; 10 unvaccinated, of whom 3 died, and 1 death was doubtful. In Prussia, held up in 1871 to a Committee of that House as an example of how a country ought to be vaccinated, the great epidemic of that year attacked 2,240 vaccinated children under 10 years of age, and killed 736 of them. That was a sufficient answer, surely, to those who held that complete security against small-pox could be obtained by a re-vaccination at the age of 12. Dr. Gayton, of the Homerton Small-pox Hospital, who spoke with the experience of more than 10,000 cases of small-pox before the Royal Commission, said—
  "I think primary vaccination is a very fleeting protection indeed. As to the time that primary vaccination lasts I do not know, but I think it is a very short time."
  In another answer he said—
  "Primary vaccination would not ward off an epidemic."
  And, in reply to a further question, he said—
  "Post-vaccinal small-pox is of constant occurrence, and brings by far the larger proportion of inmates to the small-pox hospitals."
  That was the evidence of a man who was in favour of vaccination, and who described his experience as extending over 10,000—he (Mr. Hopwood) believed it extended to as many as 13,000 cases; but, not being quite sure, he took it at 10,000. An hon. Friend reminded him

  843
  that in June, 1883, he had the honour of standing before the House upon a similar duty he was performing to-night. He stood there under the leadership of as astute a Radical—he would not dwell on the name of Radical, but would say as astute a friend to liberty as ever adorned that House—Mr. Peter Taylor. On that occasion, Dr. Playfair, now Lord Playfair, spoke. He had previously declared that in Scotland they ordered things so that vaccination had stamped out small-pox. The words were hardly out of his mouth when a terrible epidemic ran its course in Scotland, and Dundee and Glasgow answered the speech of Dr. Playfair by a painful refrain. He knew that in Scotland they ordered things very roughly; their notion of the law did not square with his; they carried out the law without much listening to those who had to submit to it. But they had not succeeded in stamping out small-pox, and he would ask the hon. Gentleman who represented Glasgow whether the authorities were not at this moment under considerable tribulation? At this moment they had vaccinated up to 95 or 96 per cent., and yet the small-pox hospitals were filled with vaccinated cases. ["No, no!"] Anyone who said. "No" in face of the facts brought forward it was useless to consider, as there was no hope of converting him, because he had been brought up in the belief that if a man died from small-pox after vaccination he was wrong in so doing, and had offended against the medical body. The usual resource in the case of death from smallpox was to say the patient had not been sufficiently vaccinated. He would like the House to listen to the way in which a witty friend of his illustrated the assertion of that belief in vaccination. His favourite assertion was that his children were washed with Pears' soap. They had not had measles because they had been protected against it by Pears' soap. If they had it slightly the slight-ness was due to Pears' soap; if they had it badly, then it was said—"Oh, yes; but if it had not been for Pears' soap they would have died." If they died they had this reflection—that they had done their duty as parents, but had not used enough of Pears' soap. That was practically the way in which the medical profession had defended this practice of vaccination and supported the compul-
  844
  sory law. Look where they would they found maintained a tradition of ill-success which commenced with the commencement of the practice itself, an ill-success which could no longer be denied or explained away when Lord Robert Grosvenor, vaccinated in 1801 by Jenner himself, in 1811 barely escaped with his life from an attack of confluent small-pox. Jenner was put to his wits' end; when the child got through he said—"The boy would have surely died but for having been vaccinated." The boy's friends said—"But you covenanted to protect him against the infection; have you succeeded?" "No," said Dr. Jenner, "but you ought to be grateful to me, for he would have died if he had not been vaccinated." So it was by the bedside of one of the most conspicuous of Jenner's failures that there was started the now fashionable doctrine of the vaccinal mitigation of small-pox. It had been enshrined in medical books as a fact not to be disputed; but there were many medical men who did dispute it, though to do so was to doom themselves to ostracism, to blight their future fortunes, to have every road to advancement in their profession stopped against them. There were many such, and nobly and well had they spoken out on behalf of those who had been called fanatics. He did not know why he should be called a fanatic; but he knew that those who started this war against vaccination were not the wealthy, the wise, and the educated—they were the poor who suffered from the use of the vaccinator's implement a use without care, without inquiry, and recklessly practised—and who suffered, as men and women must suffer, acutely in seeing the loss of their offspring. They had talked of mitigation and protection, but was the profession agreed? He thought it would be admitted that this claim of absolute protection had never, from the beginning, been true in fact. But more than that, he submitted, never could be true in theory. The theory had been that vaccinia—cow-pox—and small-pox were really identical diseases; that to vaccinate people was really only to carry them through the small-pox in a new way; that, in the words of Mr. Simon, "the vaccinated are safe against smallpox because they, in fact, have had it." But this theory was unsound at its very foundation. The differences between the two diseases had now been so fully set forth by Dr. Creighton and Professor Crook-

  845
  shank, and so convincingly laid before the Royal Commission, that few would now care to maintain the identity of the two diseases. Dr. Creighton himself pointed out the fact that, when he gave evidence on this point, no cross-examination of him was attempted. The Commission let him alone; they knew that he knew more than they did, and therefore they did not venture to handle him. Dr. Creighton on this topic said the two were not identical; and if that were so, what was the case for enforcing vaccination? He had just a word to say about the Royal Commission. It was sot up by the late Government four years ago, and it would take another year before it arrived at a conclusion. He would tell them why they should not accept with implicit submission all they said. The contrary, because there was not a single avowed anti-vaccinator put upon it, though the people whose fears were to be allayed, and whose claims were to be heard, were those who had remonstrated on the ground of their disbelief in vaccination. He knew they added Mr. Charles Bradlaugh; but he was not an anti-vaccinator, though what he might have become afterwards he did not know, as he believed that what he saw and heard had a very great effect upon him. The names of several anti-vaccinators wore put before Mr. Ritchie; but, acting on the advice of his Medical Department, he declined to place any of them on the Commission. Why should that be—were they afraid of the truth? On the question of efficacy he would quote Professor Crookshank, who thus concluded his work on the History and Pathology of Cow-pox—
  "Unfortunately, a belief in the efficacy of vaccination has been so enforced in the education of the medical practitioner that it is hardly probable that the futility of the practice will be generally acknowledged in our generation, though nothing would more redound to the credit of the profession and give evidence of the advance made in pathology and sanitary science. It is more probable that when, by means of notification and isolation, small-pox is kept under control, vaccination will disappear from practice, and will retain only an historical interest."
  Could they tell him a name that stood higher than Professor Crookshank's, or ask him to assign any evidence more weighty? The practice of vaccination varied; they might vaccinate in any number of marks they pleased, from a single one advocated by Dr. Lee to the
  846
  four which were recommended by our Local Government Board. In the Estimates that were passed every year, there was a considerable sum included as premiums paid by the Local Government Board to the medical profession not for care shown in the vaccination of unhappy infants, but for the cruel scars or "stars" produced on their arms; as to the lymph, they might try humanised lymph—arm to arm vaccination it was called—and in that way it was admitted that the ghastly risk of receiving disease was incurred. For long years the medical profession had denied the possibility of disease being inoculated by vaccination. This testimonial to the benignant nature of the operation was not merely general; it condescended to particulars. They were assured that the communication of syphilis by vaccination was not merely unknown, but impossible. Who could endorse that premise now? He should like to show the House what was the attitude maintained by the Local Government Board in this matter. He held in his hand a pamphlet, entitled, Facts for Heads of Families, and stated on its title page to be "Revised by the Local Government Board, and issued with their sanction," and in it I read—
  "The fear that a foul disease may be implanted by vaccination is an unfounded one. Such mischief could only happen through the most gross and culpable carelessness on the part of the vaccinator; and as all medical men now receive special training in vaccination, no risk of this kind need be at all apprehended. Of course, vaccination, like everything else, requires a reasonable amount of care in its performance. The alleged injury arising from vaccination is. indeed, disproved by all medical experience."
  There were several gross misrepresentations in this pamphlet; they had been brought to the attention of the Local Government Board, and he should like to know why such monstrous falsehoods continued to be conveyed to the public. He invited his right hon. Friend who was at the head of the Department, and who was not accustomed to this sort of official behaviour in reference to the public, to read this publication and set the matter right. To say that "The fear that foul disease may be implanted by vaccination is an unfounded one" was a direct falsehood. It was known beyond doubt that disease had been conveyed by vaccination over and over again. Why, then, was this statement allowed to be flaunted before the people of England as

  847
  being issued with the authority of the Local Government Board? They were told that
  "Such mischief could only happen through the most gross and culpable carelessness on the part of the vaccinator, and as all medical men now receive special training in vaccination no risk of the kind need be at all apprehended … The alleged injury arising from vaccination is, indeed, disproved by all medical experience."
  Was that true? Had the Local Government Board a right to say that? If they had not it was a falsehood, and that, too, by a Department on which they ought to he able to rely implicitly. First of all, it was stated that mischief could only happen through gross carelessness. He could show them how Mr. Hutchinson, the great surgeon and syphilographer, expressed himself on this matter. In his work, Archives of Surgery, Mr. Hutchinson said—
  "It is absurd to assert that inherited syphilis is always to be detected, and it is a cruel injustice to imply that all accidents have been the result of carelessness."
  What was the course pursued by the Local Government Board in this matter? They had appointed a gentleman named Mr. Albert Bridges Farn to examine all the lymph on behalf of the Local Government Board—that was to say, all the supplies that were sent up from the public vaccinators all over the country before being reissued. Mr. Farn was examined before the Royal Commission, and he was asked about the investigation he made. He stated that he had to examine all the supplies of lymph on behalf of the Local Government Board from all the public vaccinators. What did he say? He said that his examination of the lymph was mainly directed to the detection of blood corpuscles, though he did not say that blood was more likely to be the vehicle of disease than any other of the contents of the body; that he could not call it possible to distinguish between lymph which was syphilitic and lymph which was not. nor between that which was inflammatory and that which was not; and that no power he could bring to bear would be capable of detecting any of the bacteria of disease, even if they were present. And, finally, when he was at last asked whether he had ever guaranteed any lymph as pure, he replied that he had not. Here were,
  848
  the words of Mr. Farn in his examination before the Royal Commission—
  "Question 4173. Having regard to what you have told us, do you think it would be possible, from the microscopical examination you made, to guarantee that any lymph was pure? — No; I should not undertake to say whether it would be a guarantee that the lymph was pure. I do not know that you could do it."
  It was insisted upon that every child should be vaccinated, or that the parent should be subjected to the loss of goods or sent to gaol or treated as a felon. Yet here it was admitted on the highest authority that there were no means of telling when there was true lymph or spurious lymph, which might contain the germs of disease. He begged the House to believe that if he left his case at that stage unfinished, it was but a fragment of that which he could place before them. But it was almost impossible, before what he would be excused for calling an uneducated audience in these matters, to compress into an hour and a quarter's speech all the evidence and the knowledge which had been accumulated in the course of 10 or 12 years. He was content to leave it to the House under these circumstances. Meantime, this system he had condemned went on; its martyrs were renewed from year to year; and he asked the House, in defence of these little ones, and in defence of the best interests of medical science, which concerned them all, to release the medical profession from the trammels of a law which stereotyped a remedy which was no remedy, which forbade future investigation, which bound hundreds and thousands of that profession in the bonds of self-interest to be content with that which had fallen to their lot, and muzzled or dulled their capacity for investigation. He begged to move the Resolution which stood in his name.
  MR. ARTHUR O'CONNORbegged to second the Motion, and remarked that after the somewhat exhaustive exposition which had been placed before the House, he felt that the best thing he could do was to make his remarks as condensed and as abbreviated as possible. When his hon. and learned Friend paid him the compliment of asking him to second the Motion, as he shared his hon. Friend's views to the full, he did not feel that he could refuse. But had his hon. and learned Friend consulted him before putting his notice on the Paper, he would have ven-

  849
  tured to submit to his judgment whether it was opportune, seeing that a Royal Commission was sitting inquiring into the whole question, that that Commission, so far at least, had not moved in what his hon. Friend would consider a wrong direction, because the Government itself had so far manifested a complete readiness to fall in with the recommendations of that Commission, and, finally, because he could quite understand the House of Commons itself would be unwilling to anticipate by a vote one way or another the ultimate decision at which that Commission was likely to arrive. For the same reason he would suggest that it would scarcely be advisable for his hon. and learned Friend to force his Motion to a Division. At the same time, he should be glad, personally, if there was any real prospect of securing an overwhelming and decisive majority in favour of the Resolution which he ventured to second. It seemed to him there was a great deal to be said for this Resolution, and there was very little to be said for the existing law. The law appeared to him to be unreasonable, unequal, cruel, and, therefore, unjust and inexpedient. It was unreasonable, because at the best it was founded on mere presumption, and on presumption the more it was examined the weaker it appeared to be. On the one hand, it must be admitted that vaccination, apart from its supposed influence on small-pox, was an evil, and a cruel evil, to a reluctant parent. It was often a very cruel and very loathsome injury to the health of a child, and against this assured evil they had only the presumption of defence against a disease which attacked only a very small portion of mankind, and which the overwhelming majority of mankind escaped. This presumption of defence against a disease was, as he had said, getting weaker and weaker the more it was examined. The claims which were put forward on behalf of vaccination in the time of Dr. Jenner were of the extremes character. It was declared that vaccination was a complete and permanent protection and preventive of small-pox. After a while that position had to be abandoned, until now they found its advocates scarcely venturing to say more than that it was a possible, a temporary, and an occasional mitigant of the evils of small-pox. In view of the fact that even 'among the advocates of vaccination them-
  850
  selves there was an absence of any fixed or definite view, it was an unreasonable thing to make this medical rite compulsory upon a reluctant population. Some medical men contended that the danger from vaccination was small, others that it was great. One medical authority said that vaccination once was enough; another that the operation of vaccination ought, to be repeated every 10 years; another every seven years, and others stated that to be really secure one ought to get vaccinated every year. Again, one medical man was of opinion that one mark was sufficient, another required two, and others from three to six, and even 12, whilst one medical man declared that the more marks there were the better, and the more frequent vaccination took place the better. It was something like those patent pills of which the advertiser said that the more you took of them the better. With regard to the lymph itself, there were contradictions and disagreements. One medical man considered that calf lymph alone should he used, and another wanted it to be humanised. Until medical men were agreed on all these points the lay population might be excused if they revolted against the proposal as to vaccination for the future. He protested against medical men setting themselves up as exclusive judges in this matter. There was absolutely nothing in the subject which required any scientific knowledge, and medical men themselves at last were driven back into statistics, and precious statistics some of them were! If they examined the statistics which had been recently compiled, and looked upon them fairly, he ventured to put forward the opinion that they made not in favour of vaccination, hut against it. He thought the House would observe that statistics on this question told against vaccination rather than in favour of it. Unless a person started on their consideration with a preconceived opinion he would be absolutely driven to that conviction. He had no hesitation in committing himself to the opinion that, in the midst of a small-pox epidemic, an unvaccinated person was at least just as safe as one who had been vaccinated. Figures compiled by a Gorman medical man showed that, in the small-pox epidemic in Germany in 1872–3, among a largo number of cases that came under the observation of himself and his staff,

  851
  a much larger number of vaccinated cases proved fatal than of unvaccinated cases. It was apparent, too, the law was unequal as well as unreasonable. It was unequal not only as between the rich and the poor, but as between different unions in the same county. And how was the law observed? In Gloucester 79 per cent. of the population were defaulters under the Vaccination Laws, in Oldham 71 per cent., in Luton 64, in Northampton 63, in Halifax 60, in Eastbourne 54, and in Banbury 46 per cent. A great deal more than half the children in these towns were not vaccinated; and, though he could not say that these towns were entirely free from small-pox, yet he could say that they were more free than any other towns of similar size in the country. What was the case with regard to London, where 90 per cent. of the population were vaccinated? In the epidemic of 1871, of the number of patients admitted to hospital, 91 per cent. were vaccinated; and in 1881 96 per cent. There had been three epidemics of smallpox during the last 30 or 40 years. In that which prevailed from 1857 to 1859 there were 14,000 deaths; in that of 1863–64–65 there were 20,000 deaths. While the population had increased 7 per cent., the deaths from small-pox had increased by 50 per cent. In the epidemic of 1870–71–72 the number of deaths, again, increased by 12 per cent. He held in his hand statistics derived from Indian and German sources which established the proposition that vaccination afforded no real protection against small-pox. He merely rose to second the Motion and not to detain the House, but he could not help drawing attention to these important facts. The Reports to which he referred proved conclusively that there was no protection. He asked the Government to bear in mind the Report, for instance, of Dr. Keller—a Report which contained very interesting figures. The law as it stood upon this subject was founded upon a mere presumption. The fact that so many persons were vaccinated was a proof of the weakness of human nature and the proneness of people to follow their leaders rather than an indication of a real belief in the efficacy of vaccination. But, even if they took the opposite view, and said the community had a right to protect itself, he had to say that there was no justification for forcing vaccina-
  852
  tion on those who did not believe in its efficacy and who resented its being practised upon them. He was perfectly well aware that numbers who were opposed to vaccination obeyed the law by having their children vaccinated. That, however, was a poor argument. He believed that before many years they would see that vaccination was not adequate to cope with the evil of smallpox, and he thought they would look back with amazement at the time when this system was resorted to by a people like theirs. He had pleasure in seconding the Motion of his hon. and learned Friend.
  Amendment proposed,
  To leave out from the word "That," to the end of the Question, in order to add the words "the Law compelling vaccination of infants and young persons is unjustifiable, and ought to be repealed,"—(Mr. Hopwood,)
  —instead thereof.
  Question proposed, "That the words proposed to be left out stand part of the Question."
  *THE SECRETARY TO THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Sir B. WALTER FOSTER,): From 35 years' experience as a practising physician, I have long been aware that the most difficult person to convince is the amateur doctor, and I am afraid the observation applies to other professions. I am sorry that the hon. and learned Gentleman who introduced the Motion has imputed interested motives in this matter to Government officials and to the medical profession. It must be manifest that the medical profession has much more to gain by epidemics of small-pox than by the small fees from vaccination, and the Medical Officers of the Local Government Board could certainly earn more in practice than they received for their official work. I must warn the House against accepting some of the statistics brought forward by the Seconder of the Motion. The figures of one authority (Dr. Keller) were thoroughly exposed in 1887 by Herr Korosi, who found that Dr. Keller had falsified the Returns in favour of the anti-vaccination side. Figures were discovered to have been altered, such as 68 to 38; and a Medical Committee,

  853
  which also investigated the figures of Dr. Keller for the International Medical Congress held at Washington in 1887, arrived at the conclusion that they had been "falsified in such a manner as to raise the mortality from small-pox amongst the vaccinated, while that of the unvaccinated was lessened."
  *MR. HOPWOODwished to know whether the hon. Gentleman was aware that Korosi had himself been shown up?
  MR. A. O'CONNORsaid, he was not aware of any alleged exposure of Dr. Keller.
  *SIR W. FOSTER: I fear that when doctors disagree charges are sometimes hurled back from one to another. I regard the Motion as inopportune, inconvenient, and injudicious. The late Government appointed a Royal Commission, on which they placed the ablest men they could obtain, to investigate this question. That Commission has displayed, during the four years it has been sitting, the greatest patience. It has devoted two years to hearing the anti-vaccination side, and has now approached within measurable distance of the time when it may report. At such a time a Resolution which directly attacks one of the main References of the Commission is inopportune, as it is evidently premature to express an opinion before there is an opportunity of considering the Evidence and the Report of the Commissioners. It is inconvenient, because many Members are pledged to await the Report of the Royal Commission. It is also injudicious, because whatever the hon. and learned Gentleman gets from the Resolution will do him very little good in the face of the Report of the Commission. He has entered on an unprofitable task, and it is injudicious on his part to challenge the vote of the House at the present time. Another point is that the Government are acting in perfect good faith in the matter, for they recognise and promise to act on the Report of the Commission as regards repeated penalties. Well, Sir, I think my hon. Friend will be better advised if he waits for the final Report of the Royal Commission. I do not myself believe in unwise compulsion. There is no heresy so foolish that it cannot be made important by persecution. In the present case a few martyrs to repeated penalties are sufficient to keep going the agitation against vaccination.
  854
  I do not accept the hon. Member's conclusions in reference to the usefulness of this particular remedy. I regard it as useful in the prevention of disease, and I am bound on three or four grounds to defend the action of the Department I represent in reference to it. In the first place, I defend vaccination because I believe it is a great means of saving life. I would ask the attention of the House to a few figures in connection with this contention. We have means of obtaining a fair and approximate knowledge of the ravages of small-pox before vaccination was invented and practised. It is calculated that before the use of vaccine smallpox killed in London about 3,000 per 1,000,000 of living people. [Cries of "Oh!"] That is the estimate of statisticians who have no interest to serve by misrepresentation, and it is similar to estimates made in foreign countries.
  MR. PICTON: Will the hon. Gentleman tell us on what he bases these figures?
  *SIR W. FOSTER: They are based on the estimated population of London and on the bills of mortality. The hon. Gentleman can, of course, say this is only an estimate; but I will give other figures which cannot be questioned in the same manner. Well, 3,000 per 1,000,000 was the estimated death-rate from small-pox in London before the use of vaccination, and the rate had fallen between 1872 and 1890 to 178 per l,000,000. That is an enormous decrease. In England generally, putting the estimate much lower than many statisticians put it, it is calculated that the deaths from small-pox were 2,000 per 1,000,000 before the days of vaccination, whilst between 1872 to 1890 they had fallen to 90 per 1,000,000. These comparisons are open to the objection that the death-rate before 1838, when the registration of deaths was taken up, may be wrong. I will, therefore, go to a country where there has been registration of deaths both before and after vaccination came into use—namely, Sweden. If Englishmen are liable to small-pox, Swedes may be supposed to be not less liable. Registration has been in force in Sweden since 1774. In the pre-vaccination days the Swedish death-rate from small-pox was 2,008 per 1,000,000 of living persons, whilst, since vaccination, the average during the last 70 years has been 173 per 1,000,000. In Copenhagen, where

  855
  they have known the number of the population and the deaths from smallpox since 1750, the death-rate from small-pox was 3,567 per 1,000,000 before vaccination was used, whilst during the last 73 years it has been, on the average, 130 per 1,000,000. You may read these figures in another fashion. In London 1 person dies now for every 17 who died before the use of vaccination; in England 1 dies for every 22 who died formerly, in Sweden 1 for every 12, and in Copenhagen 1 for every 27. The figures I have, also refer to epidemics of small-pox at different periods. Epidemics have been defined by a very high medical authority as a condition of things in which 10 per cent. of all the deaths are due to a particular disease. Taking that as the definition, during 48 years of the 17th century there were 10 such epidemics; in the 18th century there were 32 such epidemics, whilst in the 19th century there has not been one. I think that is a complete answer to the allegations respecting the epidemic diffusion of small-pox in the present day. The decline in the death-rate has had a curious relation to the progress of vaccination. The more completely vaccination has been enforced, the greater has been the decline in the death-rate. According to the Registrar General's Returns during the years 1847–53, when vaccination was merely permissive, the total number of deaths in England from small-pox was 305 per 1,000,000 of living persons. During the next series of years, from 1854 to 1871, when vaccination was compulsory but not enforced by penalties, the death-rate fell to 223 per 1,000,000. Between 1871 and 1891, when the compulsory system was enforced by penalties, the death-rate fell to 89 per 1,000,000. Thus, as I have said, there is a progressive decline of small-pox as vaccination is more and more enforced. That decline has occurred in spite of conditions which are above all likely to make a disease like small-pox more and more fatal. Smallpox most probably spreads through the atmosphere, and is certainly communicated by persons being brought into close proximity with those who suffer from it. We have gathered together in this city at the present time such a mass of people as the world has never seen gathered together in a single spot before, whilst the communication that takes place between them is vastly greater than was
  856
  the case in olden times. Therefore, if the same condition of things existed, we might expect an infinitely greater mortality from small-pox now than we had in pre-vaccination years. It may be said that sanitation has improved, and I admit that it has; but I say that sanitation has had nothing whatever, or comparatively little, to do with the matter. [Cries of "Oh!"] If hon. Gentlemen will be patient I will give them figures which, I think, will show that such is the case. Before, however, I pass away from the present point, I want to point out that the mortality has decreased amongst certain portions of the population more than amongst others. The Motion deals specially with infants and young persons. Amongst infants under five years old the decline is no less than 89 per cent., whilst amongst children between the ages of five and 10 it is no less than 72 per cent. The decrease of deaths, therefore, is greatest amongst those who have been most recently vaccinated, although, before the days of vaccination, according to calculations based on nearly 250,000 cases, 90 per cent. of the total number of deaths from small-pox were those of children under five years of age. There is another point I must deal with. In very recent times we have had an experience of a serious epidemic of smallpox in the town of Sheffield. I admit that that was a great epidemic in a vaccinated population. A great many figures have been brought out this evening showing the number of people who were vaccinated and yet suffered from smallpox. But, of course, if you have 95 or 98 per cent. of your people vaccinated, and there is an epidemic, the larger number of those who take the disease must be vaccinated persons. Well, I find that in Sheffield, if the vaccinated children under ten had died at the same, rate as the unvaccinated, judging by the behaviour of unvaccinated under 10, there would have been, instead of nine deaths of vaccinated children, no fewer than 4,400 such deaths. In other words, the unvaccinated children under 10 in Sheffield had a death-rate 480 times greater than the vaccinated children.
  *MR. HOPWOOD: Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to ask him whether the gentleman from whom he gets these figures admitted before the Commission that there was a defect in his calculation?

  857
  Had he not taken the Vaccination Census nearly a year afterwards, and after a considerable amount of vaccination had taken place?
  COLONEL HOWARD VINCENT: Before the hon. Gentleman answers, may I ask him whether it is not a fact that no re-vaccinated person in Sheffield died during the epidemic?
  *SIR W. FOSTER: I am not quite sure about the point put to me by the hon. Member for Sheffield, and I hope my hon. Friend (Mr. Hopwood) will excuse me if I do not answer his question, as I do not recollect whether any such admission was made. I have every confidence, however, that the gentleman referred to took every care in the preparation of his statistics. I know the statement is not absolutely true in the form in which my hon. Friend puts it.
  *MR. HOPWOOD: I assure you it is.
  *SIR W. FOSTER: It may be partly true. However, if my hon. Friend objects to these figures, there are others which are sufficiently conclusive. We may put Sheffield aside for a moment, and take England and Wales during the years between 1872 and 1891. If we examine the figures respecting the vaccinated and the unvaccinated while compulsory vaccination was in force, and compare them during a period when permissive vaccination was in force, we find that there has been an enormous saving of life. If between 1872 and 1891 people of all ages had died of smallpox at the same rate as they died of that disease between 1847 and 1853 (when there was no compulsory vaccination) there would have occurred annually 7,940 deaths from small-pox instead of 2,316. In other words, over 5,600 lives have been saved, on the average, every year. If between 1872 and 1891 children under five years of age had died of small-pox at the same rate as they died of the disease in 1847–53, when there was no compulsory vaccination, there would have occurred annually 5,400 small-pox deaths amongst these children, instead of 591. Thus every year the enormous number of over 4,800 young lives have been saved from this disease. I do not want to dwell longer than I can help on this particular portion of the case. I think the figures I have given show that there is a considerable saving of life by vaccination in
  858
  connection with small-pox. Next, I say that small-pox is lessened in severity by the use of vaccination. Small-pox occurs in different forms. I will not use the scientific terms, but will simply speak of mild and severe attacks. In the Sheffield epidemic of 1887–8 I find that 17·2 per cent. of the eases were severe amongst the vaccinated persons, whilst amongst the unvaccinated persons the percentage of severe cases was 81: the chances of a bad attack amongst the unvaccinated as compared with the vaccinated being nearly 5 to 1. Amongst children under 10 years of age the percentage of severe cases was 9 in the vaccinated and 78 in the unvaccinated, the chances of a bad attack being thus 8 to I amongst the unvaccinated as compared with the vaccinated. In Leicester, which is a town in which the anti-vaccination movement Nourishes, they recently had 146 cases of small-pox, and I congratulate Leicester on having escaped so lightly and on the rigour with which the authorities carried out their isolation hospital system. I have always watched their method with the greatest interest, because I should be glad of having two methods instead of one of stamping out small-pox. Eighty-nine adults were attacked, 82 of whom were vaccinated. Of the 82 cases, only 6, or 7 per cent. of the whole, were severe. Seven unvaccinated adults were attacked, and all the cases, or 100 per cent., were severe. Of the children attacked, 50 were unvaccinated, as against 7 who were vaccinated; 44, or 88 per cent., of the unvaccinated had severe attacks, while all the 7 vaccinated children had mild attacks, 5 of the cases being absolutely abortive, the patients only having a few pocks. A similar state of things is witnessed at the present time in Manchester. There have been over 500 cases altogether; 21 per cent. of those who are vaccinated have been severely attacked, and 68 per cent. of the unvaccinated; while 5½ per cent. of the vaccinated, and 19 per cent. of the unvaccinated, have died. There is another interesting way of showing the, influence of vaccination in lessening the severity of attacks. Some years ago an inquiry was made respecting children in Board and other schools in London, and over 53,000 children were examined. The examination was made with the view of finding out how many of them were

  859
  pitted with small-pox, pitting indicating a comparatively severe attack. It was found that 360 per 1,000 of the children who were unvaccinated were pitted; that seven per 1,000 of those with defective marks, showing bad vaccination, were pitted, and that two per 1,000 of those with good marks were pitted. These are very remarkable figures as showing how the fair skins and faces of these little ones are saved from disfigurement and mutilation by this beneficent method of treatment. I now pass to the question of the use of vaccination in protecting people from attacks of smallpox. The protective qualities of vaccination are, I think, undoubted. We do not for a moment deny that small-pox will attack a vaccinated person, or that a single vaccination is not protective during the whole of a life. I find that the percentage of children under five years of age who die from smallpox now, as compared with the times when vaccination was not enforced, has declined 89 per cent., whilst in the case of children under 10 years of age it has declined 72 per cent. I think these figures show that, at all events, the protection extends over 10 years. A special investigation was made at Sheffield on this point. A certain number of houses were taken in which small-pox occurred among some of the inhabitants, and it was found that between 18,000 and 19,000 persons lived in such houses. Of these persons 18,020 were vaccinated, and 736 unvaccinated. They were all living under the same sanitary conditions. Of the 18,020 vaccinated persons, 4,151, or 23 per cent., caught the disease, whilst of the 736 unvaccinated persons, 502, or 75 per cent., caught it. Thus the unvaccinated were attacked more than three times as frequently as the vaccinated. Taking the whole of Sheffield, which has 98 per cent. of its population vaccinated, I find that 1½ per cent. of the vaccinated of all ages, and 9·7 per cent. of the unvaccinated, were attacked by the disease. There was a six-fold immunity from attack on the part of the vaccinated of all ages, and a 20-fold immunity amongst children under 10. I do not think you can have figures that are more conclusive.
  MR. PICTON: They are disputed.
  *SIR W. FOSTER: Well, a very good test on this point is afforded by the case of those who spend more or less of their
  860
  time in small-pox hospitals—I mean the nurses and attendants. The figures I can give with regard to them are exceedingly interesting, and I do not think hon. Members will be inclined to dispute them as they dispute the last I have given. I find that of 734 nurses and attendants at the Metropolitan Asylums Board Hospitals, 79 had had small-pox. Of the remaining 655, 645 had been re-vaccinated, and of these not one contracted small-pox, whilst every one of the remaining 10 have been attacked by it. The 10 performed the same duties and were under exactly the same sanitary conditions as the 645. I think these figures are conclusive as regards the preventive properties of vaccination, and also as regards the sanitation argument. There are more striking figures still. At Newcastle-upon-Tyne 14 nurses were in attendance on cases of typhus fever; nine were attacked with typhus and two died. Sanitation did not seem to help them much. The nurses attending the small-pox hospital were all re-vaccinated, except one, who had recently had smallpox. Not one of them contracted smallpox, but one did contract typhus. Thus in two hospitals with two sets of nurses under the same sanitary conditions, the one set suffered badly from typhus, while the other escaped small-pox by aid of vaccination. At Leicester, at the present time, the same kind of thing is going on: 22 of the attendants were either re-vaccinated or protected by having had small-pox, and Dot one of them has been attacked; six refused to be re-vaccinated, and of these four have been attacked and one has lied. I think, therefore, the figures show very closely and conclusively that vaccination, at all events, has a protective power. I could give other figures that are almost equally conclusive. In the case of a small-pox ship, where possibly contact is even closer than in a London hospital, 90 nurses and attendants were employed, and they all escaped except one housemaid, who had refused to be re-vaccinated. The Epidemiological Society have reported that, out of 1,500 hospital nurses and attendants, 43 caught small-pox, and not one of them had been re-vaccinated. There are other indications of the protective power of vaccination. Taking some figures given by Dr. Gayton, we find that the protection afforded varies with the effectiveness of the vaccination.

  861
  Amongst children under five there were no deaths in cases where the vaccination marks were good, whilst the death per 100 were 56·5 where the children were not vaccinated. Amongst children of between five and 10 the deaths were 0·9 per 100 attacks where the marks were good, and 35 per 100 where there were no marks; whilst amongst children of between 10 and 15 the deaths were 1·1 per 100 where the marks were good, and 23 per 100 where there were no marks. I agree with every word my hon. Friend has said about the horror of the communication of foul diseases through vaccination. If that argument were to any extent based upon truth, I admit that it would be terrible and conclusive. If the communication of disease is at all common, a case is at once made out, not only for inquiry, but for an alteration of the law. My hon. Friend said a certain number of cases of that kind occurred. The figures on the point are more or less interesting and meet the apprehensions he has expressed. The disease that is specially dreaded as a consequence of vaccination is syphilis. What are the facts? I find that in Scotland, where children are not vaccinated till they are six months old, 65 per cent. of the deaths from syphilis take place before the age of vaccination, and in the second half of the first year of life they fall to 11·6, less than one-fifth of the pre-vaccination half year. In England, where children are vaccinated at the age of three mouths and upwards the same figures hold good. In both cases some 65 per cent. of the deaths occur before the age of vaccination. The increase shown in recent years in the prevalence of infantile syphilis is a matter, we think, of improved diagnosis. At Leicester infantile vaccination has been for a long time in abeyance; and if syphilis and vaccination were at all associated, we should expect to find in that town a lower syphilitic death-rate among children than in other towns; but, as a matter of fact, we find that in England and Wales generally the syphilitic death-rate has gone up in the last 20 years in England and Wales some 25 per cent., but has gone up still more in Leicester.
  MR. PICTON: Is that on a comparison with the town population or with the whole population of the country?
  SIR W. FOSTER: It is on a comparison with the population of the
  862
  whole of England and Wales— not with the urban population. Mr. Hutchinson's experience in that respect is entirely confirmatory of that of the Local Government Board, and it remains true to this day that, although 750,000 children are annually vaccinated, no case of unquestionable communication of the disease has come under the observation of the Board. Another disease which is said to be communicated by vaccination is erysipelas. What do we find in reference to that disease? Why, that in the last eight years the infantile mortality from erysipelas of infants has gone down by 17 per cent.; but in Leicester, where there is no infantile vaccination, the disease has increased in infants 41 per cent. It is calculated, as regards deaths, that only 1 death from primary vaccination occurred in 14,159 operations. What is the alternative? If compulsory vaccination is done away with, 4 out of 5 children under 5 years of age in houses invaded by small-pox— according to the Sheffield statistics —will catch small-pox, and 2 out of the 5 of them will die. On account of a dread of the communication of disease, a dread which may be lessened by the introduction of improved methods, we ought not, in my opinion, to relax our faith in the use of this great preventive of small-pox. With reference to the interference with the liberty of the subject, I do not think it necessary to say much; but this I will say, that I believe that in the complexity of our social conditions we are bound to do more and more in that direction, when it is for the good of others. The only justification for interfering with the liberty of the subject is when it is for the good of others. Thus we vaccinate children to protect the population amongst whom we live. Personal experience is another test, and from my own personal experience of three severe epidemics of small-pox I can assure the House that it is the greatest possible relief, when in charge of a small-pox hospital, to see the vaccination marks well-defined. We know then that there is a hope of sawing the life of the patient. Dr. Russell, of Glasgow, has written words corroborating this. Finally, let me say that the care of the public health is the highest duty of the State, and with the advance of civilisation and the increased complexity of our social con-

  863
  ditions, the care of health is less and less within the control of the individual, and he must rely more and more upon State guidance and State aid. Holding these views, we must try to exercise them for the greatest good of the greatest number. To accede to the Motion would he hurtful to the public health, retrograde in policy, and injurious by multiplying enormously the baleful and fatal influences of a disease which is at once loathsome, disfiguring, and destructive.
  *MR. HUDSONsaid, he was in Canada in 1885, in the October and November of that year, when a very severe small-pox epidemic occurred, and where no fewer than 2,800 died from the disease. The death rate amongst the English part of the population amounted to only 13 per cent., and after the French took to being vaccinated the number of deaths among them greatly diminished. Had either the Mover or Seconder of the Resolution they were debating been in Montreal at that time, he believed that in the first week they would have rushed to a medical man to be re-vaccinated. In many cases a great deal of harm had been done with human lymph, and he thought the Government ought to adopt the American plan of keeping a farm, where medical men could always rely on obtaining fresh lymph from the cows. There was in The Times of that day a letter from the highest authority in England, the Royal College of Surgeons, in which they advocated the great benefits derived from vaccination. He was connected with the management of two hospitals, and he had often asked the staff's of those hospitals their opinion on the subject, and they always maintained that vaccination was of the greatest possible use. Statistics had been laid before them as to the number of vaccinated persons who had been attacked by small-pox, but his reply was that no one suggested that the effects of one vaccination lasted a lifetime. In his opinion, vaccination ought to take place every seven years. He should vote against the Motion.
  DR. CLARKsaid, that while listening to his hon. Friend the Secretary to the Local Government Board, he came to the conclusion that nothing was more misleading than statistics. He ventured to suggest that the figures quoted on each side were equally
  864
  unreliable. It was often impossible to tell whether or not a man or a child had been vaccinated, yet every doubtful case was returned as unvaccinated. He should vote for the Motion, because he thought it was just as reasonable for the State to compel the baptism of a child as to compel its vaccination. He was prepared to say from experience that vaccination did modify small-pox; but if they wanted to be logical, at all events they should compel vaccination every seven years. Towards the end of the '60's Professor Cowan was examiner to a large Insurance Company, and one man who wanted to insure for £2,000 was told that he must be re-vaccinated. He submitted to the process, and eight months afterwards died from small-pox. In Leicester, as the law was not enforced, the town was badly vaccinated, yet there had been no smallpox epidemic there; although Sheffield was one of the best vaccinated towns, the people had almost been decimated by the disease. Let them draw their own conclusions from that. He could only say he believed that when the Report of the Royal Commission was issued the Motion of his hon. Friend would receive much more support.
  Mr. Hopwood rose in his place, and claimed to move, "That the Question be now put;" but Mr. Speaker withheld his assent, and declined then to put that Question.
  Debate resumed.
  DR. FARQUHARSONsaid, he should very much prefer re-vaccination. As a medical man he had given considerable attention to the question, and he was perfectly satisfied with the speech of the Secretary to the Local Government Board, who had put the case with clearness, fairness, and unanswerable truth.
  Question put.
  The House divided:—Ayes 136; Noes 70.—(Division List, No. 82.)
  Main Question proposed, "That Mr. Speaker do now leave the Chair."
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  Supply—Committee upon Monday next.
  House adjourned at a quarter after Twelve o'clock till Monday next.