§ MR. GEORGE MURNAGHAN (Tyrone, Mid) moved, "That this Bill be now read a Second time." He said that one of the objects of the Bill was to do away with ex officio Guardians and replace them by elective Guardians. It also proposed to assimilate the Poor Law franchise to the Parliamentary franchise, and to do away with plural voting. The latter did not give satisfaction, and led to men being placed on Boards of Guardians who took no interest in the administration of the Poor Law, and only represented some particular section of the community. It further proposed that the term during which a Poor Law Guardian held office should be extended from one year to three years, one-third of the Board retiring each year. The Bill also dealt with Poor 712 Law elections. As regarded ex officio Guardians a change was desirable. It had been found that ex officio Guardians did not attend the meetings except on certain occasions when appointments were to be made, and then the ordinary Guardian, who regularly attended the meetings, found himself outvoted one day in the year, when on ordinary days he found few associates to assist him in Poor Law work. Ex officio Guardians ought no longer to be on the Boards, and representatives of the ratepayers should take their place. He himself was a Poor Law and an ex officio Guardian, and by this Bill he proposed to abolish himself, [A laugh.] When he was an elected Guardian he realised that he had responsibility on his shoulders, and attended the meetings regularly, to guard, as far as he could, the spending of the money; but when, he ceased to be an elected Guardian, he felt he had no responsibility, and only made one attendance where before he would make ten. His own case illustrated his reasons for thinking that ex officio Guardians should be abolished. With regard to the Poor Law franchise, he thought that if a man had a vote for the election of a Member of Parliament to make laws for the whole kingdom, he ought to be qualified to vote for a Poor Law Guardian. The time had now arrived when it would be right and proper to do away with the fancy franchise of the Poor Law system, and extend it to all who possessed the Parliamentary franchise. The main features of the Bill were copied from the English Bill of 1894, and he did not see why what England and Scotland enjoyed should not be enjoyed by Ireland. The Bill was intended to shorten the time and lessen the expense connected with the operation of the Labourers' Acts. In some parts of the country they were found to work immense good, but in other parts their operation was obstructed. Something needed to be done to improve the deplorable condition of the labourers' cottages in many parts of 713 Ireland. There was nothing radical or revolutionary in this Bill. It was intended to simplify the Labourers'Acts, and make them workable where now they were practically a dead letter. The most important change in the Bill was that the Local Government Board was to be substituted for the Privy Council as the Court of Appeal for matters in dispute, and it was felt that the Local Government Board could deal with these with greater ease and less cost. He hoped the Government would not place any obstacles in the way of the Bill, but would assent to the Second Reading and then allow it to be sent to a Committee, so that it could be passed into law during the present Session.
§ MR. JOHN DILLON (Mayo, E)seconded the Motion. This, he said, was not a task which ought to have been left by the Government in the hands of a private Member. In view of the pledges they had repeatedly made in that House it was the duty of the Government, not only that Session, but long ago, to have introduced a Bill giving, in regard to the subjects dealt with in this Measure, the same rights to Irishmen as had now been conferred on Englishmen.
§ MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL (Tyrone, N.)hoped the Government would give a Second Reading to the Bill, so that there might be an opportunity for its being fully discussed either before a Standing Committee or a Select Committee. It was quite true that the provisions in the Bill were merely copied from the English Measure, and he thought the House would agree with him that it was desirable, wherever it could be done, to assimilate as far as possible the law in England and Ireland. He urged the House to give them an opportunity of having the same law adopted in Ireland as that which was already enjoyed in England.
§ COLONEL WARING (Down. S.)proposed to leave out the word "now," and at the end of the Question to add the words "upon this day six months." He said the object of the Bill was simply 714 and solely to get rid of the only representation of property which was left upon public bodies in Ireland. The accusation which was brought against the ex-officio Guardians, that they had only attended on rare occasions, was absolutely without foundation. In many unions, no doubt, there were comparatively few attendances, and in some of the unions the manner in which they were treated on the Boards was sufficient to make their attendance upon such bodies no pleasant duty. ["Hear, hear!"] But in a large number of eases the ex-officio Guardians were some of the most valuable members of the Boards. They were constant attendants at the meetings, and they were invariably the largest ratepayers on the Boards to which they belonged. Under the system by which the Irish rates were divided between landlord and tenant, the ex-officio Guardian, where he was a landlord, was necessarily the largest ratepayer. It did not at all follow, however, that because Guardians were ex-officio they were landlords—in fact, a majority of the magistrates who had been appointed in that capacity in recent years had no connection with land at all. With regard to the extension of the franchise, it appeared to be proposed by the Bill that practically every person who was on the Parliamentary Register was to have a vote in the election of Guardians. But he would point out that a great many persons who had the Parliamentary franchise paid no rate whatever directly. The rates were invariably paid by the landlords, and therefore these men cared nothing whatever whether the rates were sixpence or six shillings—it was precisely the same to them. They might be told that the rates might be considered as paid in the rent, but the limit of the Cottier rents in Ireland was practically the same on which the landlord was bound to pay, and it was impossible for him to raise the rent in proportion to the Poor Rate, no matter how much he might be inclined to do so. He regarded the Bill as one of those perpetual and constant attacks on the representation of property 715 in Ireland to which they had become accustomed, and an attempt to take out of the hands of those who paid the rates the management of the money which was raised, and to put it into the hands of the recipients of the rates which the propertied classes were obliged to contribute. The other portion of the Bill related to labourers' cottages. He had always been a supporter of the view that proper accommodation should be provided for the labourers—in fact, he was responsible for one of the most important Bills on the subject, which put it into the power of the labourers themselves to make applications to Boards of Guardians for the provision of cottages, instead of calling upon the ratepayers to do so. There were provisions by which the Local Government Board might move in this matter if the guardians had failed to do so. The Local Government Board, where there had been neglect on the part of Boards of Guardians, could send down an inspector who would conduct an inquiry, ascertain the necessity of the case, and compel the guardians to put the Act in force, if he came to the conclusion that it was requisite to do so. He would point out, in regard to what had been stated by the Mover of the Bill, that it was not the ex-officio Guardians who had resisted the building of labourers' cottages. In unions in the North of Ireland it was the elected Guardians who stood nut firmly and determinedly against building cottages where they were required. This Bill dealt with a subject which, he thought, ought to be dealt with only by a Bill drawn up, supported and brought in by the responsible Government of the country; it was not a Bill to be tinkered at by amateurs. The very provisions of the Bill which related to this question of labourers' cottages showed that it had not been drawn with that degree of consideration requisite for a Measure of this kind. Another reason why he objected to the labourers' portion of the Bill was the very point which had been made in support of it by its Mover, 716 and that was that it transferred from the Lord Lieutenant in Council to the Local Government Board the power to assent to the schemes for building labourers' cottages. He did not think it came at all within the scope of the Local Government Board to give compulsory powers to acquire land for purposes of this kind, and in many parts of the country this power had been used and had been abused in a way which did not commend itself at all to those best acquainted with the working of the Labourers' Acts in Ireland. The whole Bill required a great deal of consideration, and he was not at all prepared to assent to its Second Reading at that hour, when only about half-an-hour had been given to talk the matter over. He, therefore, moved that the Bill be read a Second time that day six months.
§ MR. R. M. DANE (Fermanagh, N.)seconded the Amendment.
MR. JAMES LOWTHER (Kent, Thanet)pointed out that there was no provision whatsoever in the Bill for the representation of the minority who were concerned in the paying of the rates, find was speaking at half-past Five o'clock, when,
§ The Debate stood adjourned.
§ Debate to be resumed To-morrow.