Commons Sitting of 15 July 1898

Preamble
MR. SPEAKERtook the Chair at Three of the clock.
PRIVATE BILL BUSINESS.
  STANDING COMMITTEE ON LAW, ETC.
  Ordered, That the Standing Committee on Law, etc., have leave to sit this day during the Sitting of the House.—(Sir James Fergusson.)
  PRIVATE BILLS. [H.L.]
  (Standing Orders not previously inquired into complied with.) Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders not previously inquired into, and which are applicable thereto, have been complied with, viz.—
CHELSEA ELECTRICITY SUPPLY BILL. [H.L.]
  GENERAL POWER DISTRIBUTING COMPANY BILL. [H.L.]
  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time.
  PROVISIONAL ORDER BILLS. [H.L.]
  (Standing Orders applicable thereto complied with.) Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following Bills, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, the Standing Orders which are applicable thereto have been complied with, viz.—
TRAMWAYS ORDERS CONFIRMATION (No. 3) BILL. [H.L.]
  WATER ORDERS CONFIRMATION BILL. [H.L.]
  Ordered, That the Bills be read a second time upon Monday next.
  CRYSTAL PALACE COMPANY BILL.
  Lords' Amendments considered, and agreed to.
  PLYMOUTH CORPORATION BILL.
  Lords' Amendments considered, and agreed to.
  TURNCHAPEL WHARVES AND WAREHOUSES BILL.
  Lords' Amendments considered, and agreed to.
  HALIFAX CORPORATION BILL. [H.L.]
  Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  STIRLING GAS BILL. [H.L.]
  Read the third time, and passed, with Amendments.
  GLASGOW AND SOUTH WESTERN RAILWAY BILL. [H.L.]
  As amended, considered; Amendments made; Bill to be read the third time.

  CLONTARF AND HILL OF HOWTH TRAMROAD BILL. [H.L.]
  On the Order for the consideration of the Clontarf and Hill of Howth Tramroad Bill [H.L.],
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I have an Amendment down which I have been forced to withdraw, owing to the objection taken by the noble Lord, who said it was against the Standing Orders. I wish to say here, however, that I have withdrawn the Amendment against the wishes of the promoters and without their assent. I think it was in the public interest that such an Amendment should be carried, and I very much regret that it was not, because it would have given the people of Clontarf and Howth a road
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  of which they are very much in need, and I trust that some time or another it may be in the power of the county council to make such a road.
  Consideration, as amended, deferred till Monday next.

  PAIGNTON IMPROVEMENT BILL.
  Ordered, That the Order of the House of 1st March, 1898, "That, in the case of Bills reported from the Committee on Police and Sanitary Regulations, three clear days shall intervene between the date when the Report of the Committee is circulated with the Votes and the Consideration of the Bill," be suspended in the case of the Paignton Improvement Bill.—(Dr. Farquharson.)
  Ordered, That, in the case of the Paignton Improvement Bill, Standing Orders 84, 214, and 239 be suspended, and that the Bill be now taken into consideration, provided amended prints shall have been previously deposited.—(Dr. Farquharson.)
  Bill, as amended, considered accordingly.
  Ordered, That Standing Orders 223 and 243 be suspended, and that the Bill be now read the third time.—(Dr. Farquharson.)
  (Prince of Wales's Consent, as Duke of Cornwall, signified.) Bill accordingly read the third time, and passed.

  METROPOLITAN ELECTRIC SUPPLY BILL. [H.L.]
  Ordered, That Standing Order 73 be suspended in the case of the Metropolitan Electric Supply Bill [H.L.], and that the Examiners have leave to sit and proceed forthwith.—(Dr. Farquharson.)

  PRIVATE BILLS. [H.L.]
  (No Standing Orders not previously inquired into applicable.) Mr. SPEAKER laid upon the Table Report from one of the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills, That, in the case of the following

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  Bill, originating in the Lords, and referred on the First Reading thereof, no Standing Orders not previously inquired into are applicable, viz.—

  METROPOLITAN ELECTRIC SUPPLY BILL. [H.L.]
  Ordered, That the Bill be read a second time.
PETITIONS.
  DOGS REGULATION BILL.
  Against, from Fulham and Regent's Park; to lie upon the Table.
  EAST INDIA (CONTAGIOUS DISEASES).
  Against State Regulation, from Clifton Down, Leeds and Glasgow; to lie upon the Table.
  HABITUAL INEBRIATES BILL.
  From Hawick, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) BILL.
  From Aberdeen, for alteration; to lie upon the Table.
  SALE OF INTOXICATING LIQUORS ON SUNDAY BILL.
  In favour, from St. Austell (3) and Radcliffe-on-Trent; to lie upon the Table.
  VEXATIOUS ACTIONS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  From Berwick, in favour; to lie upon the Table.
RETURNS, REPORTS, ETC.
  POLLING DISTRICTS (MANCHESTER).
  Copy presented of Order made by the Council of the City of Manchester, dividing into Polling Districts the several Divisions of the Parliamentary Borough of Manchester [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  VOLUNTARY SCHOOLS ACT, 1897 (ASSOCIATIONS).
  Return presented relative thereto [ordered 14th June; Mr. Carvell Williams]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 300.]
  CIVIL LIST PENSIONS.
  Copy presented of List of all Pensions granted during the year ended 20th June, 1898, and charged upon the Civil List [by Act]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 301.]
  LOCAL GOVERNMENT ACT, 1888 (KENT).
  Copy presented of Order of the County Council of Kent converting the parish of Cheriton into the Cheriton Urban District, under Section 57 of the Act as confirmed by the Local] Government Board [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  HIGHLANDS AND ISLANDS OF SCOTLAND (PUBLIC WORKS EXPENDITURE).
  Return presented relative thereto (in continuation of Parliamentary Paper No. 328 of Session 1896) [ordered 2nd May; Mr. Weir]; to lie upon the Table, and to be printed. [No. 302.]
  SHERIFFS' TENURE OF OFFICE (SCOTLAND) ACT, 1898.
  Copy presented of Order by the Secretary for Scotland for the removal from office of Dugald McKechnie, esquire. Sheriff of Argyll [by Act]; to lie upon the Table.
  TRADE REPORTS (ANNUAL SERIES).
  Copies presented of Diplomatic and Consular Reports, Annual Series, Nos. 2156 and 2157 [by Command]; to lie upon the Table.
  TERRITORIAL GUARANTEES.
  Address for "Return setting out (1) Copies of such parts of all Treaties and Conventions now existing and still obligatory as contain a specific engagement or guarantee entered into by the Government of this Country in relation to the Territory or Government of any other Power; and (2) Copies of such parts of all Treaties, Conventions, and Engagements now existing and still obligatory as contain an undertaking entered into by Her Majesty with reference to the Territory or Government of any other Power."—(Mr. Hedderwick.)
  COLONIAL LOANS FUND.
  Committee to consider of authorising the creation of a Colonial Loans Fund for the purpose of granting loans to Colonies (Queen's Recommendation signified), upon Monday next.—(Mr. Hanbury.)

  SELECTION (STANDING COMMITTEES).
  Sir JOHN MOWBRAY reported from the Committee of Selection, That they had discharged the following Member from the Standing Committee on Law, and Courts of Justice and Legal Procedure: Mr. Goulding; and had appointed, in substitution, Mr. Arthur Morton.
  Report to lie upon the Table.

  MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS.
  That they have agreed to—
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (ACTON SEWAGE) BILL,

  MUMBLES RAILWAY AND PIER BILL, BARRY RAILWAY BILL,
  with Amendments.
  Amendments to—

LISKEARD CORPORATION (WATER) BILL [H.L.]
  DUNDEE CORPORATION TRAMWAYS BILL [H.L.]
  without Amendment.
  PALATINE COURT OF DURHAM BILL. [H.L.]
  That they have passed a Bill intituled "An Act to amend the Law relating to the Court of Chancery of the County Palatine of Durham."
  VIGORS' DIVORCE BILL. [H.L.]
  That they communicate Minutes of Evidence and Proceedings taken upon the Second Reading of Vigors' Divorce Bill [H.L.], as desired by this House, with a request that the same may be returned.
NEW WRIT.
  New Writ for the Borough of Reading, in the room of Charles Townshend Murdoch, esquire, deceased.—(Sir William Walrond.)
QUESTIONS.

  WOMEN INSPECTORS OF FACTORIES.
  MR. DRAGE: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can state, with regard to the work of the women inspectors under the Home Office in 1897, how many visits to factories were made by them; in how many cases defects were notified by them to the local authorities;

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  how many prosecutions were undertaken by them; and what number of applications were made to them by women workers?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT (Sir M. WHITE RIDLEY,): The figures are subject to verification, but I am informed that the number of visits to factories was 1,496, of visits to workshops 2,191, of representations to local authorities 286, of prosecutions 158, of complaints received from all quarters 426. Of the complaints, 400 related to matters within the scope of the Factory Acts and allied Acts; and of these 400 159 come direct from work-people or their friends, 122 from various industrial organisations, 20 from public officials; 99 were anonymous.

  USE OF YELLOW PHOSPHORUS.
  MR. STEADMAN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will inform the House what steps he is taking to inquire into the deadly use of yellow phosphorus in the matchmaking trade; and, if so, will he report the result of such inquiries at the earliest opportunity?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT: The steps taken are very briefly these. Every match factory in the country has been specially visited, and reported on by the factory inspectors; many of them also, as far as the employment of women is concerned, by the lady inspectors. Inquiries are being made through the Foreign Office as to the measures adopted and results obtained in foreign countries. Further, the question is being investigated, on the scientific side, by two distinguished experts, Dr. Oliver and Dr. Thorpe, the former of whom has already visited the chief match factories in France and made a special Report; and from the dental point of view by Dr. George Cunningham, dental surgeon to the London Hospital, who has already made a preliminary Report, and whom I propose to send to France to continue
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  his inquiries in the French manufactories. I shall, as soon as possible, communicate to the House the result of these investigations.

  FOREIGNERS ON GIBRALTAR FORTIFICATION WORKS.
  MR. E. CECIL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether Spanish mule-drivers at Gibraltar are still allowed on the Upper Rock to carry up on their mules material for the construction of fortifications, although all British civilians and all foreigners are strictly excluded; and, if so, whether steps will be taken to provide that where mules are required on the Upper Rock they should be driven by British soldiers only, as otherwise it is possible to bribe the foreign mule-drivers to betray plans of the fortifications?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR WAR (Mr. ST JOHN BRODRICK,): The materials for works on the Upper Rock at Gibraltar are carried by Government pack mules or mule carts, the drivers of which belong to the Transport Establishment, and are British subjects. It is impossible to avoid the employment of native labour to some extent on the works.

  ROSCOMMON WATER WORKS LOAN.
  MR. HAYDEN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether his attention has been drawn to the refusal of the Board of Works in Ireland, on the ground of their being unable under the present regulations, to make a loan to the Roscommon Board of Guardians for the construction of waterworks subject to the repayment by the board by equal annual instalments covering both principal and interest; and whether, if the present regulations render such a system of repayment of loans for such purposes impossible, he will consider the expediency of altering them so as to permit its adoption in cases

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  in which the borrowing authority desire it, and in which it might be sanctioned without loss to the Treasury?
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. R. W. HANBURY,): The decision of the Board of Works was in accordance with a rule laid down by the Treasury. The requirement that loans of this class should be repaid by equal instalments of principal was adopted for the advantage, not only of the Local Loans Fund, but of the borrowers themselves, who, under that system, have to pay in the aggregate a much less sum for interest than they would have to pay under the alternative system of equal instalments, including both principal and interest.

  CREIVE POST OFFICE.
  MR. DALY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that the inhabitants of Creive, Ballybay, county Monaghan, have signed a memorial praying that the post office there should remain at the house of a man named Kingsberry; whether the postmaster of Monaghan, who lives 14 miles from Creive, and knows nothing about the wants of the people of the locality, has the power of removing the post office in question when he pleases, without consulting the convenience of the people of the neighbourhood; and whether he will grant the prayer of the memorial of the inhabitants of Creive, and let the post office there remain at the house of Kingsberry?
  MR. HANBURY: The Postmaster General is not aware that the inhabitants of Creive, Ballybay, have signed a memorial praying that the post office there should remain at the house of a man named Kingsberry. The postmaster of Monaghan has not the power of removing the post office; that power rests with the Postmaster General. The Postmaster General has not yet decided on the appointment, but from the reports received it seems that the house of one of the other candidates is more conveniently situated than that of Mr. Kingsberry.
  MR. DALY: Is not the post office at the present time in Kingsberry's house?
  MR. HANBURY: I cannot say. The Question only appeared on the Paper to-day.

  PURCHASE OF HORSES FOR ARMY PURPOSES.
  MR. DALY: I beg to ask the Financial Secretary to the War Office whether he can state how much it costs the Government annually for the purchase of horses reared in foreign countries for Army purposes; whether he is aware that large purchases of horses for the French Army are made in Ballybay, county Monaghan; and if his Department is aware of the advantages to be gained by visiting Ballybay when good horses are required for the English Army?
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE WAR OFFICE (Mr. J. POWELL WILLIAMS,): Horses are not usually purchased for Army purposes in foreign countries, the purchases in South America for the troops in South Africa being quite exceptional. I am aware that the French Government purchase largely all over Ireland. Ballybay district is occasionally visited by remount officers. As the honourable Member has been already informed, almost all the riding horses for the Army are purchased in Ireland.
  MR. DALY: How much is expended by the Government for the purchase of horses abroad?
  MR. POWELL WILLIAMS: I am not able to answer that at the moment.
  MR. DALY: I will put another Question on Tuesday.

  PLYMOUTH GARRISON.
  MR. MENDL: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War how many field officers there are in the Plymouth garrison?
  MR. BRODRICK: There are at present 21 field officers in the Plymouth garrison—7 lieutenant-colonels and 14 majors.

  BANDON RIVER POISONING.
  SIR J. COLOMB: On behalf of the honourable and gallant Member for Cheltenham I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if his attention has been called to the recent poisoning of a portion of the Bandon river, in county Cork, by which poisoning not only all the fish in the river were destroyed, but the lives of the cattle grazing on the banks of the river were also endangered; and whether the Government intend to take any steps to check this not uncommon form of outrage in Ireland, which produces such an injurious effect on sport and agricultural industry in that country?
  THE CHIEF SECRETARY TO THE LORD LIEUTENANT OF IRELAND (Mr. GERALD W. BALFOUR,): My attention has been directed to the occurrence referred to in the first paragraph, on which occasion a considerable number of salmon and trout were destroyed. I have no reason to doubt that the lives of cattle along the banks of the river were also endangered by the poisoning of the river. The constabulary hope to be able to bring home the offence to the perpetrators. The offence is, I regret to say, not an uncommon one in Ireland, and I am of opinion that amendments in the fishery laws, for dealing with it, might usefully be made. I cannot, however, give any pledge to deal with the matter in the immediate future.

  ENGLISH MAIL FOR BALNABRACKY.
  MR. CAREW: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that the English, mail is not delivered at Balnabracky Post Office, county Meath, until 24 hours after it is received at Killucan, about eight miles distant, where it is retained to suit a delivery arrangement made many years ago before the accelerated service was established; whether he is aware that every morning, about an hour before the passing of the limited mail carrying the English, letters through Hill of Down Railway Station, a mail car leaves Hill of Down with the Irish letters
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  for the district to Kinnegad, and then goes to Killucan to bring back in the evening the English letters to Kinnegad, four miles distant from Balnabracky, where they are kept till the next morning, so that three days is the least time that must elapse between posting a letter in England and receiving a reply; and whether he will cause the necessary changes to be made to increase the efficiency of the service?
  MR. HANBURY: It is the fact that the English mail is not delivered at Balnabracky until 24 hours after it is received at Killucan. It does not reach Killucan until some hours after the car conveying the night mails has started for Kinnegad. It is not the fact, however, that the mail car leaves Hill of Down for Kinnegad every morning, and then goes to Killucan; on the contrary, the car starts from Killucan and goes through Kinnegad to Hill of Down in the morning, and returns at night. The only way to increase the efficiency of the service, without incurring an expense which would not be warranted by the revenue of the post, would be to establish a combined night mail and day mail delivery from Hill of Down to Kinnegad and Balnabracky, reaching those two places about two hours later than at present. It is understood, however, that the people of Kinnegad object to this course.

  BIRDCAGE WALK.
  COLONEL WELBY: I beg to ask the First Commissioner of Works whether his attention has been called to the sharpness of the slope and to the narrowness of the roadway from Queen Anne's Gate to Birdcage Walk; whether he can see his way to improving the slope and widening the road sufficiently for vehicles to pass; and whether any of the property adjoining the entrance belongs to Government?
  THE FIRST COMMISSIONER OF WORKS (Mr. AKERS-DOUGLAS,): My attention has not before been called to this point, but I will look into it and see whether it is practicable to do

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  anything to meet the view of my honourable and gallant Friend. None of the houses adjoining this entrance to St. James's Park belong to the Government, but the strip of garden is within the boundaries of the park.

  ASSISTANT TEACHERS IN IRISH NATIONAL SCHOOLS.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether the average attendance in National schools necessary for the retention of assistants has yet been reduced from 70 to 60; and, if not, whether assistants will be retained and paid in schools with an average quarterly attendance of 60 pupils pending the settlement of the question?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: This matter has now been arranged, and the Treasury have agreed to provide funds for a relaxation of the present Rules, entitling a school to one or more assistants. A new scale has been settled, by which an average attendance of 40 but under 60 will secure the services of a monitor; 60 to 85, one assistant and a monitor; 85 to 95, one assistant and two monitors; 95 to 130, two assistants and two monitors; 130 to 140, two assistants and three monitors, and so on.

  FEMALE TYPISTS IN THE CIVIL SERVICE.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether, in view of the advantages granted to female typists and shorthand writers in the Civil Service by Treasury Minute of the 17th March, steps will now be taken to place male shorthand writers and typists on the permanent staff of the Civil Service, and to definitely fix their remuneration, annual and sick leave, which at present appears to be regulated on the same basis as men copyists, a class of Civil servants that has ceased to exist?
  MR. HANBURY: There is no class of "typists and shorthand writers," either male or female, in the public service.
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  The women typists to whom the Treasury Minute of 17th March, 1894, refers, obtain their status and privileges under that Minute as typists simply, and it is only in special cases that provision is made for a higher rate of pay to individual members of the class who may be employed in shorthand writing. There is no occasion for the creation of a corresponding class of men. Copying work, when not performed by women, is generally provided for by the employment of boy copyists or personal clerks, and in such cases the question of establishment does not arise. Where men, employed primarily for other duties, undertake shorthand writing in addition, they receive, extra remuneration for that service, as in the case of women typists. The few men who are engaged in the various Departments expressly as shorthand writers are paid according to the nature of their work, and their terms are more advantageous than those of the women typists.

  RICHMOND PRISON, DUBLIN.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) whether, when Richmond Prison was taken over from the Dublin Corporation by the War Department, any addition was made to the allowance in lieu of rates made to the city by Government; (2) whether since then another large (barracks has been built in Dublin, and if any addition to the rate grant has been made on that account by Government; (3) is he aware that in the last Dublin Water Act the War Department insisted on inserting a clause compelling the municipality to sell them water at a cheaper rate than they had hitherto paid, so that the Army now make a smaller contribution to the city; and (4) is any means taken to make the Government grant in lieu of rates proportionate to the values of the buildings in State occupation?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): (1) The Government has paid a contribution in lieu of rates on Richmond Prison, not only since it was

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  handed over to the War Office, but since 1878, when it was taken over from the Corporation. (2) The Marlborough Barracks, that latest built, has been valued at £3,200 per annum, on which amount a contribution in lieu of rates will be paid. (3) In connection with the last Dublin Water Act, a bargain was struck between the War Office and the Corporation as to the rate to be charged for water supplied to the barracks. Previously the War Office were being charged at a much higher rate than private consumers. (4) In 1896, at the request of the Corporation, all Government property in Dublin was re-valued, and no appeal was taken against the results. Government property there is valued as high as other property revised within the last five years, and much higher than property not so revised. In the last 10 years the valuation of Government property has risen from £33,000 to £41,000.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Can the right honourable Gentleman give us the figures as to what is paid by the Government to-day on Government property in Dublin as compared with that paid a few years ago?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: The actual payments?
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Yes.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: If the honourable Member will put down a Motion for a Return, I will get the figures.

  CHAPELIZOD GATE, PHŒNIX PARK.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if the Board of Works will be requested to make the Chapelizod Gate of the Phœnix Park practicable for ingress and egress by cyclists; whether, as the University Boat Club have now spent a large sum on the Liffey, and the Park Road commands a view of their course, the trees on the edge of the park could without injury be trimmed so as to increase public enjoyment by enabling river practice to be
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  better witnessed from the park; if it would be possible to make a road west of the cricket grounds in the park from the main road to that skirting the river, so that the steep hills by the magazine could be avoided; and if attention has been called to the constant straying of young cattle on to the park roads this summer?
  MR. HANBURY: The Chapelizod Gate is at present available for cyclists from six in the morning to 11 at night. It could not be made available during the night (as two other gates are) without posting a night watchman to prevent loss of deer and cattle. At present about half the rowing course can be viewed from suitable positions on the Park Road. In order to give a more extended view, it would be necessary not merely to trim, but to cut down, a considerable number of handsome thorns and behead many others. This could not be done without injury to the beauty of the park. The road suggested in the third paragraph would cross the ground constantly used for military exercises. No complaints have reached the board of inconvenience from the hills near the magazine, or of accidents caused by them, and they have no reason to believe that there is any general desire for such a road as is proposed. The park servants have directions to turn cattle off the roads and pathways whenever found there, but it would be impossible to prevent the occurrence altogether unless all the grass were to be fenced in, or a very large number of additional attendants employed for the purpose of keeping the roads clear. There are about 25 miles of roads and pathways in the park, and the board have received no previous complaints on the subject.

  FEMALE TELEGRAPHISTS IN CORK POST OFFICE.
  MR. J. F. X. O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, will he explain why five or six of the female telegraphists on regular duty in Cork Post Office are still classed as temporary telegraphists, though they were appointed

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  in 1892, 1893, and 1894, respectively, and have passed all the examinations, including the medical; is the principle of seniority in regard to those who hold Civil Service certificates observed in the Cork branch; and, if not, will he explain on what grounds; will he explain why preference is given to female telegraphists brought in from outside stations, notwithstanding the fact that they got their Civil Service certificates later than the local telegraphists; and whether it is in accordance with the regulations of the service that female telegraphists who have passed all examinations, and whose competency is acknowledged by the Department, should be still classed as temporary telegraphists after four, five, and six years' service?
  MR. HANBURY: The delay in the appointment of the seniors of the temporary telegraphists has partly been caused by their inability to pass the necessary educational examinations. But for this they would probably have been appointed a year or two ago. The principle of seniority is properly observed in filling appointments at Cork, and not a single female telegraphist has been transferred to Cork who had not obtained a Civil Service certificate five years or more before any of the present temporary telegraphists. It is not usual for temporary officers to remain unappointed for so long as five or six years, and the exceptionally long service of the Cork officers is attributable partly to want of success in the educational examinations and partly to scarcity of vacancies. In regard to the latter cause, it may be stated that the question of increasing the established staff at Cork is under consideration.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Do I understand the right honourable Gentleman to say that in an important office like this a fully qualified telegraphist has to waste five or six years before being appointed on the staff?
  MR. HANBURY: A good many are not qualified, and have not passed the necessary examination.

  TRALEE AND DINGLE RAILWAY.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury if he can explain the delay in the redemption of the Treasury Guarantee in the case of the Tralee and Dingle Railway; and if he can give any information as to when the scheme, now two years in hand, will be carried through?
  MR. HANBURY: The Treasury consent to redemption of the guarantee was given on the 2nd of March, 1896, and it then only remained for the company to obtain the Order in Council prescribed by the Act—a process which has occupied them for upwards of two years. The company presented their memorial to the Lord Lieutenant in August, 1896, together with a draft of the proposed Order in Council, which recited that the reduction of their capital had been sanctioned by an order of the Chancery Division of the High Court. Owing to imperfections in the draft order, which had to be cleared up by the aid of the company, its terms were not finally settled until May, 1897. It then appeared that the company had not in fact obtained the preliminary order of the Chancery Division, and they did not do so until the 9th of May in the present year. Proofs of that order having been made and registered were furnished on the 23rd ultimo, and the Order in Council was ready to be signed by the Privy Council at a meeting this week. But I understand that at the last moment a resolution has been received from the grand jury seeking an alteration of the Order, which is likely to involve further delay. As soon as the Order in Council issues, the Board of Works will apply to the National Debt Commissioners for the redemption money to be handed over. I do not see that the parties locally concerned have anyone but themselves to blame for the delay which has occurred.

  VALENCIA (COUNTY KERRY) PIER.
  SIR THOMAS ESMONDE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if he is aware that the Great Southern and Western Railway of

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  Ireland have offered to contribute half the cost of building a pier at Valencia, county Kerry, provided the Government find the other half; and if he will take steps to have the work carried out; and if he will have the pier at Dingle, county Kerry, extended, and piers built at Ventry and Drumquin, in that neighbourhood?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It is understand that the Great Southern and Western Railway Company would assist in the erection of a pier at Valencia. The Government have already contributed £85,000 towards the construction of the railway to Valencia, and have also agreed to a contribution in aid of a baronial guarantee on the same railway in respect of a capital of £70,000. In allocating the moneys voted by Parliament under the Act of 1896 a sum was set apart, not only for the building of a pier at Ventry, but for the construction of a railway from Dingle to Ventry. The scheme, however, was objected to by persons locally interested, and was in consequence abandoned, and the money then available applied to other undertakings. There are no funds available for a pier at Valencia or Dingle. The proposal for the construction of a pier at Drumquin is under the consideration of the Congested Districts Board.

  EDINBURGH TELEGRAPH STAFF.
  MR. R. WALLACE: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that certain members of the Edinburgh telegraph staff, who were recently punished for contravening the rules of the service in regard to betting, to the extent of having their increments stopped, and by reduction in their class, have been sent out on season substitute duty; and whether the staff have from time to time been informed that selection for such duty will be considered as a reward for good and efficient service; and, if so, why men of unimpeachable character and unquestionable skill as operators have not been selected?
  MR. HANBURY: Eleven members of the Edinburgh telegraph staff have been sent out on season relief duty this year,
  1210
  and of these three were concerned in betting transactions over two years ago. Since that time the character and conduct of these officers have been perfectly satisfactory in all respects, and they are fully qualified for the duties required of them. The authorities at Edinburgh considered that as the conduct of these officers had been perfectly satisfactory for more than two years, they would not be justified in allowing offences for which they had already been severely punished to deprive them of reward for the subsequent good and efficient service.
  MR. W. ALLAN: That is the answer to the second paragraph of the Question?
  MR. HANBURY: Yes, I think so.

  KHORAT RAILWAY.
  SIR CHARLES DILKE: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether it is the case that no compensation or redress has been obtained by the firm of Jardine, Matheson, and Company, for their forcible ejectment by the Siamese police from their railway works, under the Khorat Railway contract, in August, 1896; and whether the correspondence between Her Majesty's Government and the Government of Siam relating to the matter can be laid before Parliament?
  THE UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS (Mr. CURZON,): The claims of the contractor, Mr. Murray Campbell, against the Siamese Government, in connection with the construction of the Bangkok-Khorat Railway, were referred to arbitration, but the contractor, and the arbitrator nominated by him, having reason to be dissatisfied with the manner in which the case was conducted by the court, withdrew soon after the proceedings commenced. The two other arbitrators nevertheless delivered an award, which the contractor has declined to accept, and has appealed to Her Majesty's Government. Her Majesty's Government are now in correspondence with the Government of Siam on the subject, and the Papers cannot be published at present.

  EXPORT OF WORN-OUT HORSES.
  COLONEL SIR H. VINCENT: I beg to ask the President of the Board of Agriculture if he has been able to give effect to the prayer of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the framing of regulations calculated to diminish the cruelty to old and worn-out British horses conveyed from British ports to the Continent for labour or for human food; and particularly if, in conjunction with the police and the officers of the Royal Society, the inspectors of his Department and of the Board of Trade can frustrate the shipment of the lame and diseased horses unable to bear the voyage, whose condition excites such pity on the roads in Belgium and Holland, and concerning which the Governments of those countries, in conjunction with the local societies for the prevention of cruelty and the municipalities of Antwerp and Rotterdam, take such measures as are possible?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE (Mr. W. H. LONG,): Since I received the deputation from the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which waited on me in March last, I have caused a careful investigation to be made into the conditions under which the trade referred to by my honourable Friend is carried on, and I have been in communication with the society on the subject. Our experience in regard to the conveyance of animals brought by sea to this country goes to show that much more can be done at the port of landing to prevent and punish cruelty and unnecessary suffering than is possible at the port of departure, and I trust that the Belgian Government may be disposed to take action in this direction. But I think it possible that some advantage would also be gained by the issue here of regulations of a general character with regard to the equipment of the vessels in which the horses are exported, and a draft of such regulations is now in course of preparation. It is also my intention to arrange, if possible, for our inspectors to make occasional voyages on vessels in which horses are carried. With regard both to the conveyance of horses to the place of shipment, and the shipment of animals which
  1212
  it might be cruelty to convey by sea at all, it is clear that there is need for special supervision by the police and the officers of the Royal Society, and I shall, of course, be glad to afford any assistance in my power to render such supervision more effective.
  COLONEL LOCKWOOD: Has the right honourable Gentleman seen the answer of the Belgian Minister to those who interviewed him on the question, that the cases of cruelty should be dealt with at the places of embarkation?
  THE PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD OF AGRICULTURE: Yes, I saw that reply, and I am bound to say that I cannot agree, with the Belgian Minister. We have found that the only effective means of dealing with the cruelty is by action when the animals arrive. That is the only time to judge the mode of treatment.

  RETAINING FEE FOR HORSES FOR MILITARY PURPOSES.
  COLONEL SIR H. VINCENT: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War if he could state in respect of how many horses the retaining fee for military purposes was paid during the past financial year, and what was the total expenditure on this head; and if the Secretary of State will consider if the recipients of this bonus could be bound to let the horses in respect of which it is paid at reasonable rates for the training of Militia and Volunteer Field Artillery, of Yeomanry, and of Light Horse or Mounted Infantry for not exceeding one week at a time or a limited number of days per annum?
  MR. BRODRICK: The number of horses registered annually since 1889 has been 14,000, at a fee of 10s. a horse. The proposal contained in the latter portion of the Question is altogether foreign to a national emergency for which object the registration of horses was designed, and I fear it would be found impracticable in working.

  ESTATE DUTY.
  CAPTAIN PRETYMAN: I beg to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether, in view of the extreme inconvenience caused by the present uncertainty as to whether estate duty will be payable upon interests which have been alienated during lifetime, there is any probability that the hearing of the appeal in the Beach case before the House of Lords will be fixed for an early date?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Of course it does not rest with me to fix the hearing of this case. I do not suppose it is likely to be heard before the November sittings, but certainly the Crown would desire that the matter should be decided as soon as possible.
  MR. J. LOWTHER: Can the right honourable Gentleman say whether in the meantime any attempt will be made to levy the duty?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: It has already been stated that the duty will be levied in every case, but that notice will be given to those who have to pay that the duty so levied will be returned if the House of Lords decides against the Exchequer.

  TELEGRAPHIC ADDRESS FOR GOVAN.
  MR. J. WILSON: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that in sending a telegram from Barrow to Govan the word Glasgow had to be attached; and whether, seeing that a large populous burgh like Govan is a burgh independent of Glasgow, and has now a population of upwards of 70,000, he will see that this addition of the word Glasgow shall not be insisted upon?
  MR. HANBURY: No, Sir, the Postmaster General is not aware that a telegram sent from Barrow to Govan has to have the word Glasgow added to the address. The burgh has been allowed to retain the privilege which, as a country
  1214
  sub-office, it formerly possessed of having telegrams addressed to it without the addition of the post town. If the honourable Member will bring to the Postmaster General's notice any case in which the addition of the word Glasgow has been insisted upon, inquiry shall be made into it.

  BELFAST WATER COMMISSIONERS.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that the Belfast City and District Water Commissioners served notices in December, 1896, upon tenants and occupiers of land in the parishes of Oldpark and Ballyaghan, county Antrim, to compulsorily take their holdings under an Act of 1897; whether the Commissioners intend to take the lands in Oldpark and Ballyaghan; and, if so, when; whether he is aware that great hardship is suffered by some of the small occupiers in not being able to utilise their holdings owing to the delay in appointing the Government valuator; and whether he can say when the valuator will be appointed?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am informed by the Secretary of the Commissioners, to whom this question was referred, that the plans of the lands to be acquired have been prepared, and are at present in the hands of a valuator, and that on receipt of his report application will be made to the Board of Works to appoint an arbitrator to assess the compensation to be paid.

  FRIENDLY SOCIETIES AND SHOP CLUBS.
  MR. H. SAMUEL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will state the reason for the delay in the appointment of a Select Committee of the House to inquire into the grievances of the friendly societies with reference to shop clubs?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT: I had rather expected to receive some indications of opinion with reference to this, suggested Committee. I will, however, place a notice of Motion on the Paper to-night for consideration.

  KILKIT POSTAL ARRANGEMENTS.
  MR. DALY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether he is aware that the inhabitants of the townlands of Kilkit, Aghist, Mullinary, Carrickatee, Cortannell, Cortahort, etc., about four miles from Ballybay, county Monaghan, are greatly inconvenienced with regard to insufficient postal arrangements; and that in the townlands mentioned the inhabitants have to travel miles to either receive or post letters; and whether he will have the house-to-house delivery of letters immediately commenced in these thickly populated districts?
  MR. HANBURY: The attention of the Postmaster General has not previously been called to the insufficient postal arrangements at Kilkit, and the other townlands mentioned by the honourable Member. Inquiry will be made, and the Postmaster General will see that the promise of the Government is redeemed, that there shall be a house-to-house delivery of letters, but he is afraid he cannot fix a date at which such delivery shall be commenced. The extension of rural post deliveries in Ireland is proceeding as rapidly as possible, but the work of rearranging the posts is so great that the order in which the various areas are dealt with must be left somewhat to the discretion of the Irish Postal Surveying Staff.

  HAYLING BEACH COMMON.
  SIR J. BRUNNER: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty under what authority and for what purposes a piece of Hayling Beach Common, Hampshire, 100 feet square, has been enclosed by the Admi-
  1216
  ralty; whether any and, if so, how much compensation has been paid to the commoners for the extinction of their rights over the land enclosed; and whether, seeing that the local authority is opposed to the enclosure and in view of the action taken by Parliament in 1886 in preventing the proposed enclosure of portions of this common, due regard has been taken to the interests of the public by the substitution of land equal in area and value to that now enclosed, or otherwise?
  THE CIVIL LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. A. CHAMBERLAIN,): I have not yet been able to obtain this information, and must ask that the Question be postponed till Monday.

  CONVICT TIMOTHY S. JONES.
  MR. PATRICK O'BRIEN: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department whether he can explain the grounds upon which Dr. Timothy S. Jones, who was convicted at Swansea in 1896 of causing the death of a woman by performing an illegal operation and sentenced to penal servitude for life, was released on the 12th instant?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT: The prisoner has not been released. I imagine the honourable Member has been misled by an unfounded report which appears to have been circulated by a certain agency, and has since been contradicted by them.

  INTERMEDIATE EDUCATION IN IRELAND.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he is aware that great disappointment exists among Irish educationalists at the refusal to appoint experts outside the Intermediate Education Board members to sit upon the Viceregal Commission; whether the Intermediate Education Act has been administered by the present members of the Commission; whether they are expected to deliver

  1217
  judgment against the new system; and whether, under these circumstances, he will consider the advisability of enlarging the Commission by appointing gentlemen who are not members of the Intermediate Education Board?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: With reference to the first paragraph, I am aware that there has been a correspondence in the Press on the subject of the constitution of the Commission appointed to inquire into the intermediate system, but no representations appear to have been made to Government on the subject. As regards the other paragraphs of the Question I am afraid I have nothing to add to my reply to the inquiry addressed to me on Monday last by the honourable Member.
  MR. FIELD: Will the right honourable Gentleman reconsider the matter?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It does not rest with me.

  DUBLIN BANKRUPTCY COURT FEES.
  MR. FIELD: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he will agree to the Return as to fees in the Dublin Court of Bankruptcy which stands on the Paper this day?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am in communication with the judge of the Bankruptcy Division on the subject of this Return, and will ask the honourable Member to repeat the Question on Monday next.

  PATENT MEDICINE STAMPS.
  MR. MILDMAY: I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the Postmaster General will consider the advisability of giving orders that the 1½d. patent medicine stamp should be issued perforated and gummed instead of as at present?
  MR. HANBURY: This question has more than once been considered by the
  1218
  Board of Inland Revenue, but they find that there is great objection to stamps of a long narrow shape such as the medicine stamp being perforated, because they cannot be separated, except slowly and with great care, without being torn. So far as the Board are aware, those who use these stamps on any large scale prefer to cut and gum them for themselves, and in these circumstances the Board do not see their way to adopt the honourable Member's suggestion.

  TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION WITH BURNLEY.
  MR. LAMBERT: On behalf of the honourable Member for Burnley I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury, as representing the Postmaster General, whether the Postmaster General has given his attention to the complaints from time to time addressed to the Department with reference to the defective telegraphic arrangements between Burnley and London; whether he is aware that messages between those places very ordinarily occupy an hour in transmission, whereas similar messages between Manchester, Birmingham, and London average only 10 or 12 minutes?
  MR. HANBURY: It does not appear that any recent representations have been addressed to the Postmaster General in regard to the alleged defective telegraphic arrangements between Burnley and London. Burnley has good communication with London through both Liverpool and Manchester, and it is not known that the time occupied in transmission is so long as stated. Inquiry shall, however, be made into the matter.

  NAVY ESTIMATES.
  MR. E. ROBERTSON: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty when the additional Estimates for the Navy will be circulated?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY (Mr. G. J. GOSCHEN,): In reply to the

  1219
  honourable and learned Member I have to state that he is right in assuming that I shall have a supplemental programme of shipbuilding to submit to the House on Friday next, but I propose to reserve my statement as to the consequential financial arrangements for that occasion.

  NIGER CONVENTION.
  MR. HEDDERWICK: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether his attention has been called to the fact that the view has been expressed in France that the terms of the Niger Convention with France do not preclude the French from installing Government Commissioners and troops within the Enclaves which it is proposed to lease to the French upon the Lower Niger; and whether either of these steps was within the contemplation of the Foreign Office when the terms of the convention were settled; and, if not, whether care will be taken before the convention is ratified to make the intentions of Her Majesty's Government upon both points absolutely clear?
  MR. CURZON: The land which will be leased if desired to the French Government will, by section 3 of the lease, which forms Annex 4 to the convention, be subject to the laws for the time being in force in the British Protectorate of the Niger districts. It is evident that these laws will not admit of the exercise of French jurisdiction, or the stationing of French troops within the Protectorate. Neither of the steps mentioned was in contemplation, and it is unnecessary to take further action in regard to them.

  CAMILLA NICHOLLS.
  MR. PICKERSGILL: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department, with reference to the case of Camilla Nicholls, who on the 2nd May last at the Central Criminal Court was convicted of the manslaughter of her servant, Emily Jane Popejoy, and sentenced to seven years'
  1220
  penal servitude, upon what grounds was she removed on 13th May from Wormwood Scrubbs Prison to Aylesbury Prison; whether she has thus escaped the nine months' separate confinement in a local prison to which ordinary convicts are subjected; on what grounds has this exceptional favour been accorded to her; and is there any other case of a convict being removed to Aylesbury Prison within a fortnight of her conviction?
  THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR THE HOME DEPARTMENT: All female convicts are removed to Aylesbury as soon as possible after conviction, and they serve the period of separate confinement there. There has been nothing exceptional in this case. The answer to the last paragraph of the Question is in the affirmative.

  LABOURERS' COTTAGES IN THE MONAGHAN UNION.
  MR. MACALEESE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if any of the grant of £40,000 made by Parliament towards the erection of labourers' cottages in Ireland was allocated to the Monaghan Union; if so, what amount of the allocation has been availed of; and, if it has not been availed of, does it stand to the credit of the Monaghan Union; if not, how and for what purpose has it been used?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The share of the Monaghan Union in the grant referred to was £205, and this sum is still lying to the credit of the Union for the purpose mentioned. The guardians have not, however, yet provided any cottages under the Labourers Acts.

  IRISH PARLIAMENTARY REPRESENTATION.
  MR. MACALEESE: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, has he received a resolution passed by the Monaghan Town Commissioners, protesting against any attempt to

  1221
  reduce the Parliamentary representation of Ireland; and can he make any statement to allay the apprehension which prevails among Irishmen on this subject?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The honourable Member has supplied me with a copy of the resolution referred to, but I must ask him to address his second inquiry to my right honourable Friend the First Lord of the Treasury.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: Will the right honourable Gentleman suggest to the Cabinet the desirability of dealing, in the first instance, with the rotten boroughs in England?
  [No Reply.]

  ENNISKILLEN COMMISSIONERS' ELECTION.
  MR. JORDAN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether under 9 George IV., c. 82, s. 14, the chairman of the Towns Commissioners of Enniskillen is the returning officer for the election of Commissioners, and is thereby ineligible for re-election on the new board; whether he has received a resolution from the Enniskillen Commissioners requesting him to release the chairman from the disability by appointing the clerk of the Commissioners to be the returning officer; and will he cause rules to be framed for that purpose?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The Enniskillen Borough Improvement Act of 1870 does not appear to have repealed the section of the Act mentioned in the first paragraph, which provided that all the outgoing Commissioners should be eligible for re-election except the chairman, who should hold and preside at the election of Commissioners. The reply to the second paragraph is in the affirmative. Under the Local Government Board's draft rules for the election of urban district councillors it is provided that the clerk to the urban district council shall be the returning officer.

  LAND TRANSFER ACT.
  MR. H. LEWIS: I beg to ask the Attorney General in how many counties the Land Transfer Act has been put into force by Order in Council?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL (Sir R. WEBSTER,): The administrative county of London only. I shall be pleased to lay a copy of the draft Order on the Table if it is desired.

  TRAWLING IN DUNDALK BAY.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I beg to ask the Attorney General, with regard to the fact that last month the coastguards at Dunany Point took the names of seven trawlers operating in Dundalk Bay and forwarded them to Dublin for prosecution, will he explain why no action has followed; and is he aware that trawling goes on every night in this bay, to the great detriment of local fishermen?
  THE ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR IRELAND (Mr. J. ATKINSON,): The divisional officer of coastguards reported that seven trawlers were in Dundalk Bay on the 21st June, but he was unable to say that the trawlers were actually engaged in the operation of trawling, and in the absence of evidence on this point proceedings cannot be taken. It is not correct to say that trawling has been carried on every night in this bay, though trawlers have been in the waters several times during the past month.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: As this is the second time I have called attention to this matter, will the right honourable Gentleman give instructions for a stricter watch to be kept?
  [No Reply.]

  EGYPTIAN NATIONAL BANK.
  LORD CHARLES BERESFORD: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury whether it is true that a national bank has been formed in Egypt; whether the capital is to be £800,000 or £1,000,000, and whether it

  1223
  is wholly or partly guaranteed by either the Egyptian or British Government; or whether the loan advanced by this country is to provide the capital; and whether, in view of the establishment of this bank, the advance of £838,000 as a loan from this country, the construction of the barrage, and other signs of a prolonged occupation, the Government are prepared openly to declare that we intend to stop there, in view of the great sacrifices in British men and money on behalf of Egypt?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,): The answer to the first paragraph is in the affirmative. The capital is to be £1,000,000. It is not wholly or partly guaranteed either by the British or the Egyptian Government, nor is the capital to be provided by the loan advanced by this country, but it is subscribed by private individuals. Neither the establishment of the bank, nor the advance made for the purposes of the Soudan expedition, nor the construction of the barrage, which I may remind my noble and gallant Friend is to be done at the cost of the Egyptian Government, seem to call for any declarations of policy beyond those which have been already made.

  DR. J. J. LYNCH, OF WALSALL.
  MR. SYDNEY GEDGE: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Treasury, as representing the Lord Chancellor, on what ground and on whose recommendation a medical practitioner at Walsall, named John Joseph Lynch, has recently been made a magistrate of that borough, the following statement of facts respecting Dr. Lynch having been on the 5th instant admitted by the Home Secretary to be correct—namely, that Dr. Lynch, having been in the habit of certifying all deaths as from natural causes, did in December last certify that a boy named William Charles Young died from natural causes, although he had not seen the boy for a month before his death, and another doctor had attended him in his last illness; that on the inquest the jury found that the boy had died from swallowing a halfpenny, and characterised Dr. Lynch's conduct as discreditable,
  1224
  and requested the coroner to call the Registrar General's attention to it; and that, in consequence of this and of further representation made to the Registrar General officially by the town clerk of Walsall, the Registrar General directed the Superintendent Registrar there to treat all certificates given by Dr. Lynch of deaths from natural causes as equivalent to certificates of death with a view to his holding inquests in such cases; and was the Lord Chancellor aware that Dr. Lynch was under this stigma when he was selected as worthy to be placed on the judicial bench; and whether, now that his Lordship's attention has been called to the facts, he will take steps to remove Dr. Lynch from the bench?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I am informed by the Lord Chancellor that, following out the principles observed by all his predecessors, he thinks it is undesirable to state the grounds for any appointment to the bench, or the sources of information on which it is made, further than to state that he has satisfied himself as to the facts on authority in which he has entire confidence. If any facts are brought to his notice which would be primâ facie evidence of misconduct on the part of Dr. Lynch, the Lord Chancellor will, in accordance with the usual practice, inquire into them and give Dr. Lynch an opportunity of explaining.
  MR. GEDGE: But as to the last question—whether the Lord Chancellor was aware that this stigma rested upon Dr. Lynch when he was appointed, and whether the Lord Chancellor will now take steps to remove Dr. Lynch from the bench? The matter is causing very great agitation in my constituency.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I have no information as to the state of the Lord Chancellor's information when he appointed Dr. Lynch. The last question I have already answered.

  CLOGHER RATE COLLECTORSHIP.
  MR. W. JOHNSTON: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he

  1225
  is aware that the Clogher Board of Guardians have appointed as rate collector Anne Magill, whose qualifications satisfied the board; whether the Irish Local Government Board refuse to sanction this appointment solely on the ground of sex, and propose to appoint a man instead; and whether several precedents for such an appointment as that made by the Clogher Board of Guardians already exist in England?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The fact is as stated in the first paragraph. Protests on behalf of a minority of the guardians have, however, been made against the appointment of Miss Magill. My honourable Friend was good enough to postpone this Question from the 4th instant, and I have since made careful inquiry into the subject of the collection of the poor rate in England (where there are precedents for the appointment of a female collector), and the means by which the payment of the rate is enforced in both countries. In England the justices in petty sessions are empowered to issue a distress warrant for the recovery of the poor rate, and in the event of there being no goods on which to distrain there would be an order for imprisonment. In Ireland the justices have no power to imprison for default, though they have the power to issue a distress warrant. In England, moreover, the distress warrant is addressed to the constable of the parish and the overseers of the poor, whilst in Ireland it may only be addressed by the justices to the collector, who cannot act by deputy, or the collector may distrain under his own warrant of appointment. The law of distress and the statutable requirements of a lawful distress are complicated, and in many cases the failure to satisfy these requirements renders the person making the distraint a trespasser. It has been the practice of the Executive in Ireland to refuse to authorise a police escort to persons engaged in a distraining expedition, since by protecting a forcible and wrongful distress the police, who have no means of determining whether a distress is a legal one, would become co-trespassers. Notwithstanding this, however, payment of the poor rate in Ireland has very frequently to be enforced by distraint, without, of course, police
  1226
  protection, and collectors often find it necessary to go out and lie in ambush, with the view of effecting a seizure immediately after sunrise. Looking to all the circumstances of the case, I am unable to admit such an analogy between the cases of England and Ireland of the collection of the rates as would lead me to the conclusion that the office of collector in Ireland could be filled with advantage by a woman. The guardians of the Clogher Union have, therefore, been requested to proceed to the appointment of a man to the office.
  MR. W. JOHNSTON: Is the right honourable Gentleman aware that this lady has fulfilled the duties of the office for five years? Surely she might be allowed to continue in the appointment.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am aware of the fact.

  WALTHAM ABBEY POWDER MILLS.
  MR. STEADMAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether, as a result of the breakdown of the boilers at the new nitro-glycerine works, 12 workmen of good character, with four or five years' service and practical experience in the explosives department, were temporarily discharged from the Waltham Abbey Powder Mills on 24th May last; whether on 4th July a number of inexperienced men were introduced into the factory to fill the places of the men discharged; whether he is aware that these men have been placed direct in the explosives department; and whether this dangerous expedient has been resorted to in order to prevent the reentry into the service of C. Finch and other trade unionists who were discharged on 24th May?
  MR. WOODALL: Will the right honourable Gentleman say whether the old nitro-glycerine factory is not maintained in perfect equipment? Why was it necessary to suspend work?
  MR. POWELL WILLIAMS: I think the honourable Gentleman will find his

  1227
  Question answered in the reply I am about to give. Twenty-two men, who had for some time been under notice to leave, and whose average service was under three years, were discharged from the Royal Powder Factory in May last because employment could not be found for them at the time, and it was probable that a considerable period might elapse before work again became available. Except in the case of Finch, it was not known whether or not they were members of a trades union, nor did any such consideration enter into the question, the men selected for discharge being those who were lowest on the lists in respect of service. The men since taken on are men of good character, who have served in the Army, and who were seeking employment, and the superintendent has no doubt that they are quite as competent to perform the work entrusted to them as were the men formerly engaged upon it.

  ARMY CLOTHING DEPARTMENT.
  MR. STEADMAN: I beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for War whether, in the scheme for the reorganisation of the Army Clothing Department, Pimlico, any provision is being made for the abolition of the present system of classification of store-housemen and the substitution of a system of advancement by periodical increment until a maximum wage is reached?
  MR. POWELL WILLIAMS: As I have previously stated in answer to a Question, no change in the rates or system of pay in the Royal Army Clothing Department is in contemplation.

  DEPTFORD VICTUALLING YARD.
  MR. STEADMAN: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty whether coopers employed in day work at Deptford Victualling Yard receive 30s. per week wages, although the lowest wages paid by private employers to their coopers for similar work is 40s. per week; whether the piece work rates paid
  1228
  to coopers at Deptford Victualling Yard range from 30 to 40 per cent. below the rates paid by private employers for similar work; whether private firms who pay their workmen the trades union rates of wages are at the present time supplying the Admiralty at Deptford Victualling Yard with new casks at a lower price than they can be manufactured in the yard; and will he explain what is the cause of this difference in cost?
  MR. AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN: Coopers employed on day work at Deptford Victualling Yard receive 30s. for a 48 hours' week. According to my information, it is not the fact that coopers employed by private employers on similar work are paid 40s. a week. I have no information as to the piece work rates paid by private employers. In regard to paragraph 3, I believe the facts are as stated. The cause of the difference in cost is a question which is now engaging my consideration.

  LIEUTENANT-COLONELS OF MARINES.
  MR. MENDL: I beg to ask the First Lord of the Admiralty why substantive lieutenant-colonels of Marines are put on rosters on which lieutenant-colonels in the Army never serve?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE ADMIRALTY: The Question to which the honourable Member refers has not escaped the attention of the Admiralty, but on consideration it was not found advisable to change the present system by which the detailing of officers for garrison duty is left to the discretion of the general officers commanding the districts, under whom officers of the Royal Marines serve when on shore. There is, however, some distinction between lieutenant-colonels of the Royal Marines and lieutenant-colonels in the Army, which is recognised in the Queen's Regulations and Orders for the Army.

  POOR RELIEF IN KENMARE UNION.
  MR. FARRELL: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland whether he has

  1229
  received a resolution from the Kenmare Board of Guardians, asking the Government to contribute at least a portion of the money necessary to meet the outdoor relief expenses of the union; and whether, owing to the very heavy rate levied by county cess and poor rate in the union, the request of the guardians will be granted?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The resolution referred to has been received. The outdoor relief afforded under the relaxed rules in the Kenmare Union would amount to less than 1d. in the £, and the Local Government Board do not consider that any undue burden will be placed on the ratepayers having to meet the extra charge in respect of in-maintenance and outdoor relief, in consequence of the distress which prevailed last winter in certain parts of the union. The guardians of this union were on several occasions offered financial aid in relieving the poor if they would adopt a labour test, but they declined to avail themselves of the offer and preferred to afford relief without imposing any test of destitution. Their present application is not one that can be entertained.

  SECOND DIVISION CLERKS.
  CAPTAIN DONELAN: On behalf of the honourable Member for North Galway, I beg to ask the Secretary to the Treasury whether he is now in a position to give a reply to the memorandum prepared by the clerks of the second division of the Civil Service, calling the attention of the Government to the disabilities under which they suffered in consequence of the refusal of heads of Departments to exercise the powers conferred upon them by Order in Council of recommending meritorious clerks for promotion to the first division; and whether it is the intention of the Treasury to take into consideration the cases of those clerks before sanctioning the holding of further examinations for direct appointment to class I.?
  MR. HANBURY: The Order in Council leaves it to heads of Departments, in the exercise of their discretion, to recom-
  1230
  mend promotions from the second to the higher division. They are not required to make such a recommendation in the case of every "meritorious" clerk. The Ridley Commission indicated their view of the conditions which might justify promotion by using the expressions, "exceptional fitness" and "very exceptional ability, merit, and diligence." Since the issue of the Order in Council of 21st March, 1890, 14 clerks of the second division have been promoted to the higher division, strictly so called—that is, to situations normally filled by the class I. examination; 84 have been promoted to situations not coming within that description, but which would ordinarily be filled by open competitive examinations of a higher standard than that for the second division; and 269 have been appointed to staff posts carrying improved salary. And there have been 90 cases of special promotion, on the ground of exceptional merit, from the lower to the higher grade of the second division. The Treasury see no reason to alter their practice with regard to holding examinations, when required, for direct appointments to the higher division.

  SUGAR BOUNTIES CONFERENCE.
  COLONEL SIR H. VINCENT: I beg to ask the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will be so good as to undertake not to propose any Resolution for the grant of further pecuniary aid from the taxpayers of the United Kingdom to relieve the industrial distress in the West Indies until the instructions to the British delegates at the Brussels Conference on sugar bounties, and the proceedings at the conference, are in the hands of Members?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: My right honourable Friend the Colonial Secretary has asked me to answer. The Government agree with my honourable Friend that the Supplementary Estimate should not be taken until the Report of the Sugar Conference is in the hands of Members; and I believe it will be before the end of next week.

  TOURIST TRAFFIC ON THE LOWER SHANNON.
  MR. AUSTIN: I beg to ask the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland if arrangements could be made for developing the tourist traffic on the Lower Shannon, so that the steamboat employed in connection with the Listowel-Kilkee route, which reaches Tarbert at 10 a.m., and remains there nearly six hours, should proceed to Glin, thence to Foynes to meet the train from Limerick, which arrives at mid-day, and leaves at 1.55, and so make a daily connection between Limerick, the intermediate stations named, and Kilkee, the steamboat leaving Foynes at 2 o'clock, calling at Glin, and reaching Tarbert in time for the coach from Listowel at 3.45 p.m.?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The Government have no objection to the Kilrush and Tarbert steamer giving a service with Glin and Foynes. On the contrary, they are most anxious to have this extension put into operation, and have so informed all concerned. It therefore rests entirely with the railway and steamboat companies to make their own arrangements fit in therewith, so as not to unreasonably delay the flow of the through tourist traffic from Killarney and the south to Kilkee and the north.

  LAW OFFICERS' RIGHTS IN CRIMINAL TRIALS.
  MR. D. A. THOMAS: I beg to ask the Attorney General whether in criminal prosecutions, when no evidence is called on behalf of the accused, the law officers of the Crown may and do exercise a privilege not enjoyed by other counsel, however eminent, of addressing the jury after the accused or his counsel has spoken in defence; and whether he will consent that either the law officers shall forego the exercise of this privilege, or, if it is in the interest of justice that the prosecution should speak last, that the right should be made general?
  SIR R. WEBSTER: In criminal prosecutions conducted by a law officer he has
  1232
  the right of reply, whether evidence for the defence is called or not, in any case in which in his opinion it is in the interests of justice he should exercise this right. In my opinion, such a duty should only be discharged on the responsibility of a law officer, and should not be extended to prosecutions not so conducted.

  COURSE OF PUBLIC BUSINESS.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: It may be convenient to the House I should state that on Monday I propose to move to suspend the 12 o'clock rule for the remainder of the Session. It is a later date this year than last. After that we shall proceed with the Third Reading of the Irish Local Government Bill, and after that, again, my right honourable Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer will introduce in Committee the Colonial Loans Bill. I stated yesterday that that Bill would be introduced to-day, but I find it must be introduced in Committee of the whole House, and, therefore, of necessity, it must be put off till Monday. After these have been disposed of, certain Bills, which I trust are uncontroversial, will be proceeded with. On Tuesday we shall probably take the Vaccination Bill.
  MR. LOUGH: Will the right honourable Gentleman promise that the terms of the Motion will be placed on the notice Paper on Monday?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: No, Sir, I do not think that is the usual practice.
  SIR W. FOSTER: Will the Vaccination Bill be the first order on Tuesday?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: Yes, in all probability.
  MR. DAVITT: Will the right honourable Gentleman kindly say Mien the next stage of the Prisons Bill will be taken?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I understand the proceedings on that Bill are nearly terminated, but I am afraid I cannot exactly fix a day for it.
  MR. MACNEILL: When does the right honourable Gentleman propose to take the Indian Budget?
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I think some time will elapse before that is taken.

ORDER OF THE DAY.

  SUPPLY [16TH ALLOTTED DAY]
  Considered in Committee.
  MR. J. W. LOWTHERin the Chair.
  (In the Committee.)

CIVIL SERVICES ESTIMATES, 1898–9.

  CLASS IV.
  "£626,734 to complete the sum for Public Education (Ireland)."
  MR. DILLON: There are several matters connected with this Vote to which I desire to direct the attention of the Committee. First of all, there is the extraordinary position in which the question of the arrears of the free grant due to the Irish teachers now stands. It is not necessary for me to go over the whole question, but in one or two sentences I might remind the Committee of what has occurred. When the Irish Education Act was passed the Irish Members pressed for the application of the fee grant in Ireland to be on the same principle as it was in Great Britain—that is, on a capitation grant of so much per head—and the Treasury in these days absolutely refused to accede to the request of the Irish Members, and insisted that the principle of proportionate grants should be put in force as regards the fee grant, and accordingly it was decided that the grant should be given to Ireland in a certain proportion to the grant in England. It was then discovered after some years
  1234
  that in calculating that proportion, whether knowingly or unknowingly, because that does not touch the argument, the Treasury had held back from Ireland a very considerable sum of money which ought to have come to them on the principle which the Treasury itself had insisted upon, and that a considerable sum of arrears had accumulated and become due to the Irish teachers by this mistake on the part of the Treasury. When this matter was brought under the notice of the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, after some considerable debate, he admitted the wrong, and consented, from the year before that in which the matter was debated, to set it right, and that this sum in future should be fairly calculated and paid in its proportion to the Irish teachers. Since that time the system of making a fee grant has been changed, but a considerable sum of money was due by way of arrears, extending over, I think, three years, during which—and this is an admitted fact on which there is no controversy—a sum amounting to £90,000 became due to the Irish teachers. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself admits £75,000, so that I am within the mark in saying that a very large sum due to the teachers of Ireland has been withheld from them owing to a mistake in calculation by the Treasury, although it was legally due. If it was legally due, about which I do not think there is any contention, then it ought to be paid. In order to make that perfectly clear, I will refer to what occurred when this question was discussed on the 2nd July last year. I said—
  "The Chancellor of the Exchequer had said that the arrears of the fee grant ought to have been paid to the teachers.
  "The Chancellor of the Exchequer: I never admitted that.
  "Mr. Dillon: You admitted that an injustice was done.
  "The Chancellor of the Exchequer: I admitted that there was a debt to Irish education on that account, but not to individual teachers."
  That is the position taken up by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It is a position which I cannot admit, because nobody can deny that, even if the calculation has been correctly made, the

  1235
  money would have gone for education—and the Chancellor of the Exchequer takes up that position now—that inasmuch as the Treasury did make this mistake, and this money ought to have gone, according to law, into the pockets of the Irish teachers during these three years, because certain of these teachers had disappeared, or there was a certain difficulty in identifying those who ought to have got the money, that the debt was no longer to the individual teacher, but he admitted it was a debt to Irish education. I cannot admit that at all. I think that the argument, that it might be impossible in some infinitesimal cases to ascertain who are the men entitled to these arrears, is a very weak argument indeed, because numbers of them about whose claim any doubt could arise must have been infinitesimally small, and I shall show in a few moments that that view has recommended itself to the Treasury. That is a very clear position. The Chancellor of the Exchequer himself admits that the debt is due to Irish education. We say that it is due to individual teachers by the English Treasury, according to the law, and that it is the duty of the English Treasury to find out who these men are who claim the money as being due, and to instantly pay them that which they ought to obtain. Now, Sir, a most extraordinary development has come into this question since the Debate of last year. In that Debate, I maintained, and other Irish Members who spoke also maintained, that this question had no possible connection with the totally different question of the new pension. A dispute had gone on for a considerable time between Irish teachers and the Treasury in regard to the position of the pension fund, and on that question I shall have a few words to say in a moment. But there is no connection between the debt due to the teachers in respect of the arrears of the fee grant and the question of the solvency or insolvency of the pension fund and the new pension rules which have been issued by the Department, and if the question of the solvency or insolvency of the pension fund had never arisen, this debt in respect of the arrears of the fee grant would have been equally due, and it would have been an unanswerable claim on the part of the Irish teachers to get this money paid over to
  1236
  them if no question had ever arisen as to the solvency or insolvency of the pension fund; and, on the other hand, if the question of the fee grant had never arisen, and the Treasury had never made the mistake which gave rise to the arrears in the fee grant, then the question of the pension fund and the dispute between the Treasury and the Irish teachers as regards the new pension rules would stand on its own basis. Therefore, there was no connection between the objects. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the Debate last year, finding himself very hard pressed on both questions, and finding that in the Debate the claims of the Irish teachers were pressed not only from these benches, but also by strong supporters of his own, including the honourable Member for Belfast, whom I see now in his place, and also the Member for the University of Dublin and other leading supporters of the Government, he sent for the Irish teachers——
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER (Sir M. HICKS BEACH,): No I did not.
  MR. DILLON: Well, we will hear about that later on. What I have said is, according to the information placed in my hands, the Chancellor of the Exchequer sent for the Irish teachers and desired an interview with them, and, according to the statement which has been placed in my hands, he stated to them that the question of their right to obtain individually the sums due to them in respect of the free grant would be favourably considered if they agreed to the new scale of stoppages in respect to the pension fund. Now, that is a most extraordinary line to take, and we must, in order to fully appreciate its extraordinary character, remember that in the course of the Debate on the 2nd July last year it was strictly argued, and very influential legal opinion was given on the subject, that the demand to increase the stoppages in respect of the pension fund was perfectly illegal, and that the Government had no power to enforce that demand. That is the decision of the legal Members of the Bar in Dublin who have been consulted in the matter. The Chancellor of the Exchequer says he is wrong, and then he warns the teachers that they

  1237
  have not a shadow of a chance of getting any of the money due to them in respect of the arrears of free grants unless they surrender with regard to the pension rules. If what I state be a correct, or even an approximately correct, view of what took place between the teachers and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, I say that that transaction is entirely unworthy of a great officer of the State. These two questions ought to be dealt with separately on their merits, and it is unworthy of a man in the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer in this country to enter into a bargain, and bring pressure to bear upon poor men in the position of the Irish National teachers. I am informed that the teachers, having for a considerable time resisted this pressure, finally referred the matter to the executive committee in Dublin, who, fearing that if they held out any longer, they would lose their chance of the free grant, and then be compelled to accept the pension fund scheme, because at that time they were not convinced that they had so strong a legal position as they have now, surrendered. The executive committee surrendered, and sent a letter to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, saying that they would be willing to agree to the Government proposals in respect of the pension fund, on condition that they got their arrears of fee grant. That is the position up to last autumn. What happened then? The Chancellor of the Exchequer having succeeded——
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: No, no!
  MR. DILLON: Well, I am stating the case as it was stated to me, and we shall hear in the course of the Debate whether the Chancellor of the Exchequer can correct my statement in any particular. The Chancellor of the Exchequer having succeeded in driving this bargain, which appears to me to be a hard bargain, and one which it was entirely outside the proper sphere of action of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, issues directions to the Department in Dublin to do that very thing which it was said to be impossible to do, to find the amount due to each individual teacher in Ireland in respect of the arrears of the fee grant, and, as I am informed, this calculation has been
  1238
  made. I put a question last week to the Secretary to the Treasury, and he informed me that the calculation referred to cost about £650; so that, if I am correctly informed, at the present moment, in the Education Office in Dublin there is a list elaborately calculated giving the amount of money due to each, individual teacher in Ireland in respect of the fee grant, and that calculation cost a sum of £650. What happens then? While the calculation was being made, or nearly finished—indeed, I am not sure that it was not actually finished—the Teachers' Congress met in Dublin. Great agitation had arisen in the country about these questions, and the congress repudiated the action of their executive committee, and stated that the executive committee had been guilty of an act of weakness in yielding to the pressure of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and they entirely refused to yield, and decided to stand on their rights. I must confess that they were fairly entitled to stand on their rights. It is a serious step to stand fact to face with so inflexible a Department as the Treasury Department. But, whether for good or for evil, they decided to stand on their rights and to withdraw the letter sent to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. And now what an extraordinary position we are in! It is not denied that at an expense of £650 a calculation has been made, and that it is now complete, showing exactly how much is due to each individual teacher in respect of the free grant. The Chancellor of the Exchequer takes up this position: I will not pay these men the amount due to them unless they will surrender their rights in respect of the pension fund. Let us turn for a moment to the question of the pension fund. I do not desire to go fully into that, because I maintain that the two questions are separate, and ought to have been kept separate, and it is the Chancellor of the Exchequer who mixed them up.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: No!
  MR. DILLON: At all events, I say that the two questions ought to be kept distinct and separate. Let us see what the pension fund is. It is a fund which was started in 1879 by an Act called the Irish Teachers' Act, and it was originated

  1239
  by the appropriation of a million of money from the Irish Church Fund. Small grants have been made by the Treasury since, and when that fund was set apart in the Act there was a proviso that the Lord Lieutenant, with the sanction of the Treasury, could make rules from time to time, and also alter these rules, setting forth the schedule of the deductions from the teachers' salaries as contributions towards the fund, on the faith of which deduction the teachers were to get certain pensions. That rule was made, and a large majority of the teachers came in and agreed to the deductions. This Went on for several years. It was said by an expert who examined the fund that it was insolvent, and not only insolvent, but insolvent to a considerable extent. It appeared from the calculations that it was not more than half of what it ought to be. The Government then proposed, under a certain provision in the Act, to alter the rules, and they altered the rules to such an extent as in some instances to double the deductions from the teachers' salaries, and also to considerably reduce the amount of pension. The teachers very naturally resented this proposal and took up the position that, having entered into a contract as regards the present teachers who had come in under the pension rules, the implied contract existed, and that they—the teachers—were not responsible, at all events, for any mistakes made by the actuaries of the Treasury. They had carried out their part of the contract, and the Treasury had practically contracted on certain conditions to find them the pensions set forth in the rules. This question has been largely debated, but I am informed that the right honourable Gentleman the Member for Trinity College, the honourable Member for St. Stephen's Green Division, and The Mac-Dermott, who was the Attorney General in the late Government, and also, it is stated, in Dublin, Chief Baron Palles, one of the greatest lawyers on the Irish Bench, all agree in this, that they have no doubt that the teachers are: legally right in their contention, and that the Treasury and Castle in Dublin have no legal power either to increase the deductions or to reduce the pension set forth in the rules; and their interpretation of the Act is this, that whatever may be the
  1240
  position as regards future teachers who come in after the date of the altered rules, there is no legal power to make what they hold to be an implied contract between the Treasury and the teachers who had come in before the change was made. I understand that that has not been brought to a legal test, but a very curious thing happened in the House the other day. I asked the Chief Secretary whether he would consent to make public those remarks of the Education Commissioners in Ireland which had reference to this matter since the publication of the new rules, and he refused to do so. His answer was that the record would be imperfect without giving, in addition to the minutes, the official correspondence which had passed between the Castle and the teachers and the Board of Education on this subject. I fail to appreciate the necessity for having the correspondence, although we should be very glad to have that also. I see no reason why the holding back of that correspondence should make it impossible for the Government to give way on this question. The reason I ask for these minutes is that they are more or less contradictory. It has been asserted that the Board of Education themselves have taken legal opinion—the highest legal authorities they could find in Dublin—and their opinion is that they are acting illegally in attempting to enforce the new pension rules. Now, I ask, when we are called upon to vote a sum like this, are we, is the House of Commons, not entitled to have information to set us right upon the rumours, if rumours they be, which I have mentioned? I do not undertake to say whether they are true or false, but if statements have been made in reference to a matter about which, so far as the public are informed, the weight of legal authority is against the contention of the Treasury; if it is rumoured that the Board of Education, having submitted a case to experienced counsel, have been advised that their action is legal, I say that we are entitled to know whether that is true or not, and we are entitled to know whether we are called upon to pass this vote, while the Board of Education is under the coercion of the Treasury. I very much doubt whether the Board of Education would be hostile to the claims of the teachers, and we are

  1241
  entitled to know whether the Board of Education is endeavouring to enforce the claims against the teachers which are illegal. I think it has been said that the teachers do not challenge the legality of this question. Very great difficulties surround the matter, but even if there is grave doubt as to whether the Treasury were treating their servants illegally and unfairly, I think they ought to be inclined to treat them properly, and not enforce against them the strict letter of the law; and where they have an opinion from the highest legal authorities that the claims of the teachers are legally right, then I think that the teachers ought to receive the benefit of that opinion. The Department responsible for these rules took legal advice, and have received a formal opinion that their proceedings were illegal, that they were quite against the principle of the law, and I think that they certainly ought not to come to this House and ask for this money. Let me say that these sums ought to be divided one from the other; they ought to be entirely separated. Let the House remember what our contention is. It appears to me that the position taken up by the Treasury in this matter is extreme and unworthy of responsible Ministers of the Crown. If there is any real power in that Department to enforce the new pension rules, then what is the use of paying upon the basis of the old claims? Cannot you have power to enforce those rules which you think you are justly entitled to enforce, although we may not think so? Why not make it a Departmental question, and deal with it quite apart from the other? I think it is a wrong thing to bring here, and that it will arouse suspicion in the public mind, because people will naturally say, "If the Department is right, and are dealing legally in this matter, why do they not deal with their other servants in the same way?" They have a strong moral claim, even if they have no legal claim. Separate the two questions entirely, and deal with the question of the fee grant upon its merits; dismiss from your mind the whole controversy of the new pension rules. For my part, I think it would be more worthy of the Government, and would be a very much, more satisfactory thing, if the question of the
  1242
  teachers' claims to the fee grant were treated upon its merits, and then, having dealt with that, for the Government to deal with their protest upon the subject of the new pensions rules. Now, there are just one or two matters that I wish to mention, one of which is, I wish to ask the right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary what is the attitude which the Government proposes to adopt with regard to the model schools? We have raised that question year after year; there is a Committee sitting upon the subject of the model schools, and we are told that nothing can be done until they have reported. I do not know whether the Committee have reported yet, and I should like the right honourable Gentleman to tell us what course he means to pursue. There is another question with, regard to the Committee which has been sitting upon the subject of technical education; the right honourable Gentleman has not yet had time to consider the Report of the Committee, but if he has any statement to make it would be a matter of great interest to us. I have no doubt that he will direct his attention to it at the earliest possible moment.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXQUER: It appears to me, from the statement of the honourable Gentleman, that his remarks are due to a complete misconception both of the facts and of the law. The honourable Member complains that I have attempted to mix up the questions of the solvency of the Irish teachers' pension fund and the arrears of the fee grant. As a matter of fact, it is absolutely impossible to separate these two questions, which were mixed up, not by me, but by a very much greater authority than myself—namely, by Parliament, with the complete acquiescence of the Commissioners of National Education of Ireland. Two and a half years ago, as the honourable Member has said, this question of the arrears of fee grant occupied the attention of this House, and complaints were made on behalf of the teachers of Ireland as to what were considered to be arrears which were due to Ireland in regard to education, on account of the impossible basis upon which the fee grant had been calculated for Ireland in connection with England.
  MR. DILLON: That arrangement was forced upon us.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I know. The arrangement which was in existence I found to be unworkable, and I altered that arrangement under the advice of the law officers of the Crown, and made an arrangement for the future, which I think I may say met with the general acquiescence of everyone concerned—namely, that in the three countries the same amount, 10s., per child should be paid as the fee grant to the schools or teachers, as the case might be, and in order that that should be done I proposed a Vote very early in 1897 of £108,000, to provide for what are called arrears in this matter. Now, in what manner was the Vote dealt with? £12,600 of it went to the convent schools—not to the teachers, but to the schools themselves—because the teachers in those schools were in no way entitled to pension; the rest was devoted to the pension fund, with the complete acquiescence and approval of those honourable Members who had taken an active interest in the matter of the claims of Ireland to this particular grant, and the Commissioners of National Education, who accepted that arrangement as one which satisfactorily met the claims of their board with regard to the pension fund and fee grant. It was necessary that the pension fund should be added to in order to make it solvent, and in order that it might fulfil its objects. The honourable Member has, I think, suggested that the idea of the insolvency of the teachers' pension fund is a delusion; that reminds me of what often happens in the early days of a rotten friendly society or village club: the members being ignorant people, are surprised at the rapid accumulation of large funds, and they little know that in 30 years the whole thing will be gone.
  MR. DILLON: I did not make that suggestion, but it has not been a profitable concern from the beginning, and if it is so rotten it is the fault of the Treasury officials.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: No, it is not the Treasury's fault. I think I can show what took place. In 1877 I was Chief Secretary
  1244
  for Ireland, and I had a great deal to do with the drafting of the Teachers' Pensions Act, which afterwards became law. I know what was intended, and I know what that Act provided, and I know that it imposed no permanent liability on the Treasury whatsoever in connection with this fund. What happened was this: £1,300,000 was set aside from the Irish Church surplus as a pension fund for teachers, to be supplemented, so far as it was required, by the contributions of the teachers; the amount that was to be paid out of the Irish Church surplus was to be paid as soon as might be by the Church Temporalities Commissioners to the Irish teachers' pension fund. That was a fixed amount chargeable under the Act; and the only provision under which the extraordinary suggestion has been made that the Act imposed a liability upon the Treasury, is a clause under which the Commissioners of the National Debt are authorised to make temporary advances from time to time to that pension fund, pending the paying in of the £1,300,000, and the Treasury has to make good such advances if necessary. The words are these—
  "If the pension fund shall be insufficient for the repayment of such advances, the Treasury shall issue the amount of such deficiency out of the Consolidated Fund."
  And upon that misconception is based this idea, that the Treasury is to make good for all time any deficiency in the pension fund. There is no basis whatever for such a contention. It was clearly intended that this pension fund should be kept solvent by contributions from the teachers themselves, for the payment from the Irish Church surplus was a fixed payment, while the Act itself provided in a schedule the payments which the teacher should make, and laid down in so many words that the rules by which these were fixed might be varied from time to time by the Lord Lieutenant, if he saw fit, with the assent of the Treasury; and therefore, when it is contended, as it has been contended, that the alteration of the premiums or pensions to existing teachers is illegal, I can only say that in the course we have taken we have followed the advice of the law officers of the Crown, and the contention of honourable Members is

  1245
  absolutely baseless. This Act commenced in 1879, and in 1885 a valuation was taken by an actuary appointed by the Treasury. As a result of that valuation, alterations were made in the benefits and the premiums—rather more in the benefits than in the premiums—under which teachers received more than they had received before. The premiums and benefits which were laid down in the schedule of the Act were varied by the Lord Lieutenant with the consent of the Treasury in favour of the teachers. Well, if it is legal to do that, to vary these things one way, of course it is also legal—I am speaking technically—to vary it the other way.
  MR. DILLON: you have got consent in one case, and you have not got it in the other.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: There was no consent at all asked or given in 1885; and there is no ground for the claim that the Act gave the teachers a perpetual right to certain benefits on certain conditions. The Act distinctly provides that the benefits and premiums named in the schedule might be varied from time to time by the Lord Lieutenant. Well, that is what occurred. In 890 or 891 a fresh valuation took place and the fund showed a large deficit. That was a very serious matter. At the instance of the late Government the matter was fully examined by two of the leading actuaries in the United Kingdom in consultation with the actuary who had been already consulted. They found that the deficit was something near £1,200,000. Of that deficiency as much as £200,000 was calculated to be due to the past contributions of teachers having been insufficient. It was perfectly obvious that this must be remedied in some way. The honourable Member seems to think that the whole of that deficiency should have been borne by the Treasury. On what grounds? The Act intended that the contribution by the teachers should be varied from time to time. What we have done is this: we have acted in accordance with the statement that was made by the Chief Secretary of the day, who, when he introduced the Act of Parliament in 1879, stated that the intention was that the contribution of the
  1246
  teachers should be one-fourth of the costs of the benefit, and that the remaining three-fourths should be borne by the Fund. That was the intention, and we are carrying it out, by supplementing the £1,300,000 year by year by grants from the Treasury. Considering that the teachers have largely benefited in the past by the fact that their contributions were far too small, it is a little strong that complaints should be made now that it is not only illegal, but inequitable, that those contributions should be somewhat increased. Well, what is the increase? The increase is intended to provide some £10,000 a year. But how many teachers are there? There are 11,000 teachers in Ireland, and the average rate of increased contribution required from the teachers of which so much has been made is less than £1 per head. Since 1879, when the Act was passed, the average income of the Irish teacher has been increased by Parliament by at least £20 a year, and since 1895, when we came into office, no less a sum than £21,000 a year more than they had before has been granted by way of fee grant. Therefore I contend that it is perfectly legal and perfectly equitable that the teachers' contribution should be increased, and that they are perfectly able to bear it. The honourable Gentleman referred to the National Board of Education. With regard to this matter the National Board of Education has, of course, acted on the advice of the law officers of the Crown; and acting on the advice of the law officers of the Crown—and they themselves are men perfectly capable of judging of this matter—they have accepted these new rates of contributions and benefits, and are enforcing them. We have said that if there be any belief that this action is illegal, we are perfectly willing to give whatever opportunity we can for the matter being fully tested in court, but the law officers advise that it is legal. Therefore we have acted in this matter as we intend continuously to act. Now the honourable Gentleman has gone on not only to charge me with acting as if I doubted the legality of the course which has been pursued, but with attempting to bring pressure to bear on the teachers, in order to induce them to accept it. Sir, I have never done anything of the kind. What

  1247
  happened was this: after the matter had been debated last year, a deputation from the organisation of Irish National teachers—which, I believe, represents about half the teachers—came to London, and asked for an interview with me. Some of them I had known years ago when I was Chief Secretary for Ireland. They had sent me a memorial stating their views as to these arrears, and they expressed a strong wish to place these views before me. I complied with their request and they stated to me their arguments. They said the principal teachers alone were entitled to the fee grant, and yet assistant teachers also would benefit by the Pension Fund, that the amount of the fee grant depended on the average attendance, while the amount of the pension depended upon the classification of the teacher, so that a low classed principal teacher of a large school would be entitled to much more proportionately out of the fee grant than he would get out of the Pension Fund. They gave other reasons why in their opinion this matter should be reconsidered. I pointed out, in reply, the absolute necessity of providing against the bankruptcy of the Pension Fund. As to the legality and equity of the course we intended to pursue, I think I convinced them, as far as they were individually concerned, that it was right that further contributions should be required from the teachers. Afterwards they wrote to me a letter stating that if I would reconsider this question of the fee grant, they would undertake that a part of any further payment made to them on account of it should go to make up the deficiency in the premiums paid by them since 1885, and as to the future, that the teachers should bear the cost of the pensions according to the proposals of the Departmental Committee under the new rules. I said I was perfectly willing to examine the arguments they had placed before me, and endeavoured to arrive at a fair conclusion. Parliament had already voted this grant to the Pension Fund with the assent of the National Board of Education, and with the assent of some of the honourable Members who are now sitting on these benches. But I was anxious, as I always have been anxious, that the Irish National teachers should feel, at any rate, that if the Government was unable to
  1248
  accede to their views, the matter had been fairly re-examined by the Commissioners of National Education, acting in concert with the Government of the day. The matter was re-examined, and it was found impossible to carry out the particular proposal made by the teachers, because the change which had been made in 1885 was rather an increase of benefit than a reduction of premiums. The teachers, therefore, withdrew their letter. I do not complain of that; but it seemed to me to leave me no course except to drop all further proceedings. I am willing now to reconsider the matter if honourable Members from Ireland feel that a grievance exists that deserves a remedy. But to this we must adhere. This pension fund was founded by Parliament in a certain way and under certain conditions. We have accepted a great liability for the Treasury—a liability which Parliament has not yet accepted in regard to other teachers in the United Kingdom—for providing in future three-fourths of the pensions required by the National teachers in Ireland. I contend that it is equitable and right that they should in return bear the moderate increased contribution which the new rules provide. We are unable to accept the view of honourable Members opposite that there is illegality in this; but if there is anything unfair to the teachers, anything of which the teachers can complain on the question of the fee grant, I am perfectly willing, as I have said, to consider that.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: Sir, I think the right honourable Gentleman must admit that there are two sides to the question. I am not going to argue the strictly legal point of view, but I am going to make a few suggestions upon the Statute itself and the surrounding circumstances. The right honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has said that the Irish teachers were placed in a better position than any other body of teachers in the country; but, how? In the teeth of the promise of Mr. Gladstone that the Irish Church Fund should not be used for educational purposes, the Irish Members assented that a sum of £1,300,000, which they might fairly have argued should be provided from Imperial sources, should be obtained out of a strictly Irish fund. It

  1249
  must be remembered that the State claimed in Ireland to educate children from the British and Imperial point of view, and deprived us of the chance of influencing the upgrowth of the youth of the country. But why did the Irish Members assent to this sum of £1,300,000 being dealt with in this way? Anybody who reads the "Hansard Debates" of that date will see that the opinion expressed when this fund was established was that there would be sufficient money for the purpose of providing teachers with a pension according to the scale in the schedule. But, Sir, the right honourable Gentleman said that a delusion has been generated by a misconstruction of clause 7. I quite agree with his construction of the clause. I quite agree that no lawyer would draw from it any other arguments than that of the right honourable Gentleman, although perhaps a layman, in reading it without due consideration, might hurriedly come to a different conclusion. But I do not think the teachers will found much of their case on that clause. Well, Sir, having abandoned that portion of the case—and I think it is always wise to abandon the weaker portion—I turn to section 11 of the Act, which, from the Treasury point of view, is the strongest part of the case. Section 11 provides that the schedule of the Act shall be considered to have the effect of part of the Act, and that the rules in the schedule may from time to time be varied by the Treasury. Now, Sir, the rules and the schedule are perfectly different. The rules may be varied by the Treasury, but the schedule cannot be varied; and what Parliament intended to open for alteration were not the actual figures upon which teachers were asked to pay, but the rules under which from time to time the teachers of different classes were to pay similar amounts. The belief under which Irish teachers accepted the arrangement was that by paying into a certain fund—and, after all, we cannot expect them to be lawyers—they would get certain results. And now, Sir, the right honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer has made some comparison between a rotten village club and the pension fund being put on a sound basis. Is not that an unhappy
  1250
  comparison for a Chancellor of the Exchequer to make in regard to a Measure framed by the Treasury? Sir, I should be very sorry indeed to compare the Treasury in that way, nor should I like to compare it to a welsher on a racecourse or any person of that kind with whom you deposited your money in the faith that your winner would be forthcoming. But, Sir, the position of the right honourable Gentleman, instead of being either of these, rather resembles, I think, the new system of betting under which, I understand, anybody who invests on any horse gets something out of the pool, whether his horse wins or not. But, Sir, would it not be an unfortunate thing if by a miscalculation it was found at the end of the day's racing there was not enough in the pool to go all round? Well, take another illustration. Suppose in the month of August I join a Christmas goose club, and in order that I may be entitled to a goose on Christmas Day, I pay a certain amount of money during the autumn. Would it not, to say the least of it, be a very unfortunate thing if, after the regular payment of my contributions to the club, I found myself "plucked" as the result of my investment? These are not my comparisons; they are the comparisons of the right honourable Gentleman at the head of Her Majesty's Government. But is it fair that a fund which was founded by Statute on a Treasury actuarial basis should be compared by the right honourable Gentleman to the case of a rotten village benefit club? Well, that, I think, may be regarded as the effect of his argument on behalf of the Treasury. It appears to me that if there is something to be said from the point of view of the Treasury, there is much more to be said from the point of view of Ireland. Sir, the right honourable Gentleman has suggested that it is rather ungrateful of existing teachers to now repudiate the obligation that their contribution should be increased; but allow me to point this out. The existing teachers have got no benefit whatever from the pension fund, and the men who ought to pay are the men under pension. I can well understand the Government saying to men drawing their pensions, "You are getting too much, having regard to the depleted position of the fund; you have been

  1251
  paid too much all along, and you must bear a share in this loss." But that is not what the Government say. These pensioners are undoubtedly the men who have had the benefit of this fund. Some of them are dead and gone, but there are a number still drawing their pensions, and they ought to contribute; for it is the state of their pensions in proportion to their contributions which has brought about the actuarial insolvency of the fund. Why is this contribution to be borne solely by existing teachers, and not by those who have really got the benefit from it? It must be confessed by everybody that the existing teachers who are now in the service of the country have gained no benefit from the fund, and what is now asked of these existing teachers is that they should pay for the blunders of the Treasury, and to provide pensions for those who are drawing them very quietly, while the others who remain in the service have to provide the fund. In other words, if a teacher left the service in 1898 that teacher gets the full benefit of his pension, whereas another teacher who has still 10 years to serve will have to pay, in order to get the same benefit, a much larger class of contribution, although, in fact, his position is actually the same as in the other. I myself regret that the teachers did not push this matter to a conclusion in the courts when the Government made their offer; but, as the right honourable Gentleman the Member for East Mayo has said, they are a body of men who do not represent the entire teachers of Ireland, and therefore they would be fighting the battle for a number of teachers who had not provided, the funds for the fight, and who do not belong to the association. Then, of course, if they were successful, the prestige of the Treasury would take it to the House of Lords for trial, and that is more than can be expected from men like the National teachers of Ireland. I think that on the Whole the teachers would have done better for themselves, and it would have been better for us in presenting their case in this House, if they had endeavoured to test it in the law courts. Now, the right honourable Gentleman has complained, not unduly, perhaps, of the action of the body of teachers representing their organisation. I feel, however,
  1252
  that any body of teachers who, on behalf of the teachers' organisation, offer to fight the case, have a very difficult battle, and I think their fellows in the organisation should show them perhaps a little more consideration than they actually receive. I think, if they made a mistake, they made it in the best interests of their organisation, and when you send representatives to do your duty, it is really better to stick to those whom you appoint than to criticise them afterwards without knowing the whole of the difficulties in which they were placed. The right honourable Gentleman has made, however, what I consider to be a further suggestion in the matter, and he has again thrown it upon the Irish authorities, that they should again look into the matter, with a view to its further consideration. The Irish Members are in as great a difficulty on this question as the teachers were last year when they met the right honourable Gentleman. We are prepared to strike a bargain in the matter, although the teachers, who do not understand the manner in which these questions are settled in the House of Commons, may think their rights are higher than they really are, and the teachers might have no hesitation in turning round on us for making a compromise, which they, from their stronger feelings, would feel that perhaps they were wrong in making. The right honourable Gentleman has not, as I understood him, taken up an absolute non possumus attitude in the matter.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: Hear, hear!
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I am pleased to hear that sign of approval. If he would tell us what he has in his mind by way of a compromise, I do not think he would find that there is any hostile spirit amongst Irish Members or on the other side of the House, because Conservative Members are just as much entitled to be in favour of this as we are. It is not a matter for Nationalists specially, or for Nationalist teachers alone, nor is it a political question from any point of view. We are striving to do our best for a body of public servants, no matter of what religion they may be, and this is

  1253
  a matter on which they are entitled to have their views respected. I should be glad to hear from the Government that, having regard to the circumstances of the case, they will not take up the strong position which the right honourable Gentleman now assumes. When you look at the matter from the point of view of high and dry Treasury law, it may be found that the Treasury may turn out to be right or wrong. But when you are dealing with a body of men, some 2,000 or 3,000 strong, it is not wise that they should get into their heads what the ordinary man does get into his head, that he belonged to a goose club or a building society which turned out insolvent, where he found that in the end he had been paying contributions in an insurance society or pension fund, and his hopes were not realised, although he had planked his money down on the faith of the promises in the prospectus. We are living, Sir, in an age of bogus prospectuses and bogus companies. Here is a British Statute passed by a British Minister, and really some higher validity ought to be given to it, and it ought to be construed in a somewhat different spirit than if it was an ordinary society or pension fund. In consequence of the construction of that Act of Parliament, Irish teachers have no power, and everything connected with it is moulded by the Treasury. They paid into that fund started by the Treasury, on the faith that if they did so they would be insured for all time, and that their contributions would, at the end of their long, laborious and irksome careers, secure them a substantial pension. God knows, the teaching of children is the most irksome task that any body of men can be given, and I think that they are entitled to something more than the strict measure of the law. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer might wind up the Session—which has not been wholly unpleasant to the Irish Members in their relations with the Government—creditably and amicably in agreement with all parties by settling this matter, and thus give satisfaction to a large and deserving body of men.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I am not unwilling to respond to the appeal of the honour-
  1254
  able and learned Member, though I do not regard the matter as one for bargaining. I have looked at it with a view of trying to arrive at a termination of this question on what appears to me to be a basis that will be generous. I should like to settle the matter on a basis akin to that suggested in the letter sent to me by the representatives of the National teachers. I should like to ask Parliament to vote a sum of £95,000 and devote it to paying to the teachers the fees to which they can make claim under the calculations that have been made by the Commissioners of National Education, subject to a deduction which shall not exceed 25 per cent. for the insufficiency of past contributions. I think the teachers will get out of that between £70,000 and £76,000, and the rest will go to the pension fund. I throw that suggestion out without prejudice, as the lawyers say.
  MR. E. GRAY: The statement made to the House by the Chancellor of the Exchequer has removed from my mind many misconceptions with regard to the teachers' complaint. The pension fund was insolvent not so much through the insufficiency of the actuarial payments, but in consequence of the large number of teachers who withdrew, professedly broken down in health, before they reached the pension age. That, I have always understood, has been a source of weakness to the pension fund, and has gradually reduced it to a condition of insolvency. I am not pleading or suggesting that any duty rests upon the Treasury to add to the fund, for I do not think that that is hardly the point at all. It may be that the Treasury was thoroughly justified in requiring from the teachers either increased contributions or else decreasing the benefits, but the difficulty I have is one that the Chancellor of the Exchequer did not clear up, and that is the question of the use of the fee grant for the purpose of strengthening the pension fund. Admitting that it ought to be made solvent, it appears to me that it was not right to take up the arrears of fee grant which were due to the teachers as part of their salary, and appropriate that for the pension fund. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, I notice, did touch upon it with

  1255
  one or two phrases, and had shown that he had appreciated the discontent of the teachers with regard to this one feature of their case. I understand that the fee-grant, after certain charges have been made, ought to be paid to the Irish teachers in proportion to the average attendance in the schools. Some of the schools could, therefore, look forward to receiving a fairly large sum from the fee-grant. They have never received that sum, for it was taken and used for strengthening the pension fund, and they will not reap from the pension fund the benefits equal in amount to that which they would have received had they taken this fee grant. I understand it is admitted by the Treasury that in the calculation for three years there was an error, and that error was made good by Parliament voting for this purpose a round sum of money. The teachers, I think, in justice, after the error was discovered, contended that they were entitled to receive that money, in addition to their present salaries, and they ought to have received it. No doubt there is a desire to strengthen the pension fund. But it ought to be done in another manner. Certainly this money which they can claim as part of their salaries, and within their fee grant, ought not to have been diverted into the pension fund, because between man and man it is a subject which creates great irritation. While one man will take a large amount in fee grant, another man will receive a small amount. So that one man will lose, and another will gain. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer will consider the position, I cannot help thinking that he will see the justice of the case can only be met by asking Parliament to make a further grant equal in calculation to a grant of three years, and make that in addition to the current salaries of the Irish teachers. I quite agree that it is most essential that a teacher at the end of his days should have some provision to fall back upon. It is a false policy altogether to allow the fund to become insolvent. The contributions must be increased. At the present moment they have an idea, and it is well founded, that the fund was insolvent, and might be improved; but the proper method of improving it was not adopted. It was no reply to the argument to say that the
  1256
  pension of one person should be increased to the loss of somebody else. I cannot see how the grievance can be redressed except by a grant to Ireland of a sum necessary to meet the claim under the fee grant. I know myself from a number of individuals that teachers in the north of Ireland have to some extent been unjustly treated. They hold this opinion, rightly or wrongly. If they are holding the opinion rightly, then let us redress their grievance at once. It is all in the direction which tends to bring about the good relationship which ought to be between Great Britain and Ireland. It is in the power of the Committee, and I hope they will see to it, to remove the feeling of discontent which is shared by every teacher from the north of Ireland to the south; and the feeling is intensified with the teachers of the National schools that the share of the aid grant due to the monastic schools has been paid over, not to the teachers, but to the representatives of those schools. There again the National teachers say they have been hardly dealt with. If the convent schools have had their way as to the aid grant, the National teachers should have had meted out to them the same treatment. I am not prepared to argue as to the grievance relating to the Pension Act. My own belief is that the words of the Act are sufficiently clear. If the contributions do not meet the necessities of the case, the contributions must be increased; and if it be indispensable that the teachers themselves must bear a portion of the contributions, they must do so. The lesson has got to be learned, but I think the difficulty is gradually being grasped, and the subsequent strengthening of the fund is fully realised by the Irish teachers. If British statesmanship and British friendship can now take a step to redress this wrong and pay over to them the share of the fee grant for these three years, I repeat the Treasury and British Government will secure the gratitude of the teachers who are able to secure for the Unionist Government the esteem of the children committed to their charge.
  MR. VESEY KNOX: The Chancellor of the Exchequer, as I understand it, Sir, has made two offers, and one seems to me to be of more importance than the other. In the first

  1257
  place, the Chancellor of the Exchequer offers to guarantee, or he will make good to the extent of three-fourths, all demands made upon the teachers' pension fund. That is an offer of great importance, and one which I think we ought to have fully defined. For instance, by these rules which have just been made by the Treasury, the pensions are cut down. It is not merely the contributions of the teachers, but the pensions are, in many cases, cut down. It is not any guarantee of certain sums being realised that you are able to cut them down when you please; and I think you ought to understand, if the Treasury is to give this guarantee, it must be a guarantee that the pensions will be paid from time to time in accordance with the contracts with the teachers. Otherwise the contracts are of no use. If I might make myself a little plainer: men might be paying for their contributions year after year, expecting to get the maximum pension, and be under the impression that it could not be altered. That has been the actual impression which has been conveyed in the letters which have been exchanged between them and the Department when they first contracted. But suddenly these men find they will never get the maximum pension, and that the so-called maximum, when they do get it, is something less than that mentioned in the contract. If I understand the Chancellor of the Exchequer rightly, the proposal is to cut down the amount of pension to be paid to the teachers. If that is so, where does the benefit come in?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: It is within the power of the Lord Lieutenant and Treasury to alter the rules.
  MR. VESEY KNOX: That is where the difficulty comes in. From my point of view I think it is a most extraordinary thing that the teachers should have the full assurance that after a certain age they will have this provision, and then not get it because there is no doubt that in teaching work men get past it at a certain age, and are not able to go on. I do not think there is any employment in any country so uncertain in regard to superannuation as that of the British
  1258
  teacher. We find that all the Chancellor of the Exchequer says is that they guarantee three-fourths of a certain payment; but the Lord Lieutenant has power to cut it down, with the consent of the Treasury. If this guarantee is to be put on a satisfactory basis, we must have an Amendment of the Act. Looking at the Act itself, I do not think the teachers have a legal remedy. But I have never been willing to take that view. I think on the letters exchanged between the Board and the teachers there might be a case sufficient to constitute a contract. Because, I take it, that it might be possible under the Act for the teachers to render themselves liable to provide certain sums, even although the rule might be changed from time to time.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUERwas understood to say that by his proposal there would be a considerable Vote every year.
  MR. VESEY KNOX: But it still leaves the matter very uncertain. We ought to let these men know for the future that if they have to pay their fixed proportion, of one-fourth, the Treasury will pay the other three-fourths. If we get that assurance, we shall be satisfied. I venture to hope, Sir, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer will be able to give us his assistance to put this business, once and for all, on a satisfactory footing. But I would like to see legislation which would fix the liability of the Treasury to contribute three-fourths to that pension fund. That, I understand, is really what the Chancellor of the Exchequer means to do, and if that is his intention I think it ought to be made so clear that there could not be any dispute in the future. The Chancellor of the Exchequer has not quite fully stated the payments into the pension fund. In the year 1891 a sum of £90,000 would have gone to the Irish teacher if the equivalent amount in England had been applied to Ireland under the pension fund, and this would have gone a long way towards the £200,000 which the Chancellor of the Exchequer said the teachers had underpaid to the fund; it would have left less than £20,000 short. There is another point of view that I never exactly understood, and that is what would be the extra amount which

  1259
  would go into the exchequer of the teachers if the scale of contributions had not been raised, and I think it would be most desirable before this question is settled that we should know what sum would really be necessary in order to secure these pensions to existing teachers on a sound basis. I always thought it would be quite fair to raise the rate again to what it was before 1895. If we take it on that basis, when the rate of contributions was as prescribed by the Act itself, I think we ought to have further information, not only for ourselves but for the information of the teachers, to enable a final decision to be come to. It would be a much smaller amount than the sum of £1,300,000 mentioned by the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Then there is another thing: I understand there is going to be the superannuation of teachers in England and Scotland in some form or another—a Bill has even been promised this Session. Well, I suppose that means a contribution from the Treasury to the teachers of England and Scotland, and before we know whether we are making a good bargain for Ireland or not we ought to know what England and Scotland are going to get. If we knew that it would be a means to bring about a final conclusion. I think the Chancellor of the Exchequer will see that on that point he has the advantage of us, because he knows something which we cannot possibly know. The general position is this: there is not the slightest doubt that there has been a Treasury muddle; it is an unkind thing, perhaps, to say, but the Treasury made calculations upon which an Act was passed. The Treasury has always kept control of the Office of National Debt Commissioners, where this actuarial estimate was made, but, as a matter of fact, the Commissioners of National Education, if they want to know anything of the pension fund, send over to the office in Dublin under Treasury control, and they have not been able to get information. The two departments are distinct, and the pension fund is kept under the control of those who have nothing to do with the National Board, and they have now got into a mess which would not do credit to a friendly society. That being so, I think we have even a legal and substantial political claim against
  1260
  the Treasury. One thing we expect from the Treasury is arithmetic, and in that they have been deficient. I think there is a strong case made out on general grounds for paying back these arrears to the teachers, as we suggested. I do not think there is any use in heckling over this £20,000 in order to put the pension fund on such a basis that we cannot have a repetition of these mistakes.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: I am sure it would be a very great convenience to us in forming our opinions if the right honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer would, before the Debate closes, formulate even more precisely than he has done the precise way in which this money shall be given out. With regard to the Treasury guarantee of three-fourths, I quite appreciate the point of the honourable Member for Deny, and I think it is impossible; neither do I think the right honourable Gentleman is quite accurate. But nobody has the slightest ground for doubt that, the contract having been entered into between Parliament and the individual, the pensions will be granted in full. Some undertaking should be given to the teachers, and supplying three-fourths of the pension which the right honourable Gentleman contemplates receiving will be a guarantee by the Treasury. It is a very great point. A further point is this: I think I understand the Chancellor of the Exchequer to suggest that a further sum of £90,000 might be asked for from this House. Now he spoke of the calculations of the Treasury—
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: By the National Education Board.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: And he said that these contemplations are practically complete. Is it contemplated that a sum will be paid to the teachers who would not receive the fee grant, or is it to be confined to the fund for the benefit of the insured?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I calculated, on the basis I suggested, between £70,000 and £76,000 would be paid in cash to the teachers who are entitled to it by the

  1261
  calculation of the National Board; the remainder would go to increase the pension fund.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: That being so, it would be well if this payment would be paid out early. Although it seems a small matter to the Treasury, I think it is a very important matter to the interested parties, and I can assure the right honourable Gentleman from what I know of it that if a decision could be come to and action taken early that he would very much enhance the value of the concession.
  MR. FLYNN: I do not desire to offer any lengthened observation, but, Sir, I was struck by one observation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. He said, or gave it to be understood, that the teachers under a scheme of this kind could hardly be said to have a legal claim; but surely the National teachers are invited to enter into this pension scheme, but they have no power in the selection of the appointments. You have the Treasury and the National Commissioners coming together and inviting the teachers to subscribe to the fund; they get a sum of £1,300,000 to start the fund, and surely if the teachers have not a legal claim they have at any rate a moral claim. With regard to this whole matter I have taken the trouble to read the report of the Committee appointed last year, and from it I find that the teachers apparently have even a stronger claim than the Chancellor of the Exchequer will allow; It was the intention of the Act of 1879, but was not indeed stated expressly therein. But if the National teachers' executive should see their way in the future to get legal advice, and to test this matter, as has been suggested by the honourable and learned Member for North Louth, in a court of law, I fancy that these words certainly will strengthen them very much, because here we have experts, reporting on the whole matter, who lay it down that the intention of the Act of 1879 was a contribution of one-fourth, but that it was not stated expressly therein. I think that is a very remarkable point for the teachers, and that it strengthens the case for the teachers very much. But there is another point
  1262
  on which they feel very much. They say under these new rules they are to contribute one-fourth; but, Sir, simultaneously with that the amount of pension to which they are entitled is to be considerably reduced, because we find that a man who, after 40 years of service, now, under the old system, would be entitled to a pension of £88, cannot under the new rules receive more than £60; a female; who would receive £63 under the former rules, finds the sum she is entitled to receive is now reduced to £47. You have two things in operation. You have, first of all, the increased contribution from the teachers; and, secondly, you have the pensions very considerably reduced. Now, under circumstances of that kind, Mr. Lowther, it is not unnatural to expect that these teachers should feel very considerable dissatisfaction at the whole arrangement, and that they should ask the Irish Members to express that dissatisfaction as forcibly as they possibly can. Now, Mr. Lowther, it is not for me to say whether the proposal made by the Chancellor of the Exchequer would be favourable to the Irish teachers or not, but, as the honourable Member for Londonderry pointed out, no offer can be satisfactory which does not carry finality. Are the teachers under the new scheme—even though the Chancellor of the Exchequer makes this offer—are the teachers in the future liable, to the same risk, to have the contributions still further increased, and have the amount to which they are entitled still further reduced? Because there has been no guarantee given by the right honourable Gentleman so far. And, if a mistake was made in 1879 with regard to the scheme, if the mistake was stereotyped and continued in 1885, only 13 years ago, what guarantee have these men that the mistake will not be continued, and that still further demands may not be made upon them? I think, Mr. Lowther, there is another element of injustice in the whole matter. It is this. If the new rules applied to the new teachers entering the service, and were part of the new system, it could not be said to be unfair; but the new rules are to be applied to the men who, rightly or wrongly, thought they were entitled to other conditions, who have been for many years in the service, and who

  1263
  thought the deficiency was to be made good from a fund to which they thought they were entitled. Suppose there were no pension fund in existence at all, would, or would not, the teachers be entitled to this £95,000? Of course they would. It is the equivalent grant. And, Mr. Lowther, I would ask the attention of the right honourable Gentleman to another point. He complained at the very opening of his remarks of the impossible and extraordinary arrangement made a few years ago, in 1890–91, with regard to the equivalent grant. He proposes to substitute for it the grant of 10s. a child for average attendance. Yes, but, Mr. Lowther, here is the strange thing. The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the right honourable Gentleman of to-day; a few years ago it was the right honourable Gentleman the First Lord of the Admiralty, but the Treasury to the Irish National teacher is the Treasury of the time. It is the same entity, the same thing. If the Treasury in 1892 comes down and makes an equivalent grant, and then comes down four, five, or six years later, and says, "No, it is an impossible arrangement, we will now have a basis of 10s. a child for average attendance," I say all these things naturally cause anxiety, give rise to suspicion and distrust in the minds of the teachers in Ireland, and therefore it is not to be wondered at that they should have expressed their dissatisfaction in Ireland, and by deputations to the House, so persistently as they have done. It is not for me to pronounce upon the offer which has been made by the right honourable Gentleman, or rather indicated; but I am persuaded that if the offer could be made, an offer that could be said to carry with it the elements of finality, then the teachers would be in a much better position to say whether they would be agreeable to subscribe to the new rules. There is one other matter to which I wish to ask the attention of the Chief Secretary himself, and that is with regard to the system, of assistant teachers. As the right honourable Gentleman knows, I have made it my duty on several occasions to question with regard to the negotiations between the Commissioners of National Education and the Treasury with regard to this question of the
  1264
  assistant teachers. I questioned him a few days ago. He was not able to give a final answer, but trusted in a short time the matter would be arranged satisfactorily. The right honourable Gentleman has already been Chief Secretary long enough to know that, unfortunately, owing to the diminishing population, school attendance in Ireland is not increasing as it is elsewhere in Great Britain; and it is very difficult in many schools in Ireland, especially in the rural districts, to secure an average attendance of 70, which justifies the appointment and payment of an assistant teacher. The Commissioners have over and over again proposed that the average attendance to qualify for the appointment of an assistant teacher should be reduced to 60.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: It has been done.
  MR. FLYNN: It has been done! I am very glad to hear that. There is one other point with regard to assistant teachers, and it is this, that they seem to be tied up in a set of cast-iron rules by the Commissioners of National Education, and certainly do not receive in other respects that fair treatment to which, as instructors, they are entitled. I believe they amount to more than one-fourth—taking men and women—more than one-fourth of the entire teaching staff of Ireland. But, Sir, I understand that with regard to promotion they have very grave cause indeed for dissatisfaction. No matter how severe an examination they pass, they are not entitled to the superior classification which they reach, but are kept for many years—no matter how brilliant or clever they may be—they are kept for many years on the old low scale of remuneration, and are often unable to obtain the increased remuneration which they ought in equity to receive. And I understand that it very frequently happens that class monitors and young people are actually brought from training schools and made principals of schools over the heads of assistant teachers who have proved themselves fully qualified, and who have, of course, very much greater experience than the others. I am sure the teachers would be grateful if the right honourable

  1265
  Gentleman the Chief Secretary would represent this view of the case of the assistant teachers to the Commissioners of National Education with the hope that their position may be improved, their cause for dissatisfaction removed altogether, and that an incentive may be opened to them that by intelligence, by study and attention to their duties they may expect that reward which all those who serve the State—and none in more admirable way than those who instruct the young—should receive for work properly and efficiently done.
  MR. DALY: Sir, I wish to draw attention to the unanimity that exists among Members who sit upon both sides of the House upon this question. This matter, Mr. Lowther, has been discussed for the past two and a half years, and to my mind I think it is time that the Treasury paid over the money, which it cannot be denied the Irish teachers are deserving of. Suppose a man in the country owed the Government a debt, and some accountants in the Government offices neglected to bring forward that debt at the proper time, and afterwards the Government found it out, is there any man so foolish as to think that the Government would not sue the man who escaped at the first for the amount which was found to be justly due? This is, to my mind, what the Government are doing. They gave an excuse for the last two years, that there was some mistake with regard to the clerks in the offices; and for that reason the Irish teachers are to be done out of a sum of £95,000. Well, if this is the case, which I think it is, Mr. Lowther, it is very mean on the part of the Government to endeavour to defraud a class that is highly deserving of this money, who earned it, and who to my mind should get it. The Irish Members, while they come here and put forward the case for the Irish teachers, are not begging at all for this money. This is Irish money, Mr. Lowther, and it cannot be denied. Even the right honourable Gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer stated that this pension fund was formed in the first instance from money taken from the Irish Church Fund. We in Ireland scarcely ever get a penny from this House except it has been taken from some Irish source.
  1266
  The right honourable Gentleman objects to that, but at the same time, to my mind, I am quite clear that not a penny of money ever goes to Ireland except it is extracted from some body or some individuals in Ireland. Now, it is quite true that the Government on this occasion have taken the large sum of £95,000 from the Irish Teachers' Fund. Some of the Irish teachers joined 30 or 40 years ago, and those teachers joined under certain terms, and almost when they were on the eve of retiring the Government steps in and savs, "You must agree to certain other rules." Now, take it that a man insured his life in his early days, and as long as he was young and had a good life the insurance company kept him on their books without any objection, but the moment it came up to the time he was leaving this world the insurance office stepped in and said, "Oh, you are becoming dangerous; you must pay a greater sum to keep the office safe." This is the attitude the Government have taken, and I think it is rather a petty, miserable attitude for the Government to take. It is admitted upon both sides of this House—whether among Nationalist or Unionist Members—that this sum of money is due to the Irish teachers. On other occasions the Government have got on by saying that the Irish Members were not united on the subject; and as long as they had them separated they had always a peg to hang their argument on and not to give the money. On this occasion, Mr. Lowther, the Members on both sides of the House think that the Irish people should get this money that has been justly earned, and that the young men who have not joined the service should not get the benefit of what has been earned by men who have been years and years in the service; because, after all, paying over this money and transferring it to a pension fund means that men who have not yet joined the service are going to benefit from the men who have got old in the service of the National teachers in Ireland. With regard to the assistant teachers, it is a most remarkable thing how assistant teachers are treated in Ireland. No matter how well a young man studies, or supposing he gets a first class, so long as he is teaching under

  1267
  another teacher, he only gets third-class pay. I want to show how the Government treat model schools in Ireland compared with how National schools are treated. The model schools are for a select few, and for that reason the Government treat the teachers in model schools differently from the teachers in National schools. The assistant teachers in National schools have to do the same work as those in model schools, who get higher salaries. It may astonish the House when I say that assistant teachers in model schools get £80 a year, whilst in National schools they only get £35 a year. Now, Mr. Lowther, I do not see how any Government can say that they are acting fairly, when they give to assistant teachers in model schools, simply because they have the pleasure of teaching a select few, higher salaries than those who teach the many, and the majority of the Irish people, who are to be cut off with less than half the salaries of teachers in the model schools. Mr. Lowther, there is scarcely a branch connected with the National teachers in Ireland who are so badly treated as these teachers are. The National teachers in any other Government department are supplied with paper, and ink, and pens, and almost everything else they want; but it is not so with regard to the Irish National teachers, because in a great many instances, when maps, and blackboard, and other utensils of the school are worn out, the teacher has, out of his own money, to take and replace those utensils and necessaries that are needed for the teaching of the young people. And, Sir, if that teacher, at any time afterwards, wished to retire, it is a most remarkable thing that the teacher could not take those articles of furniture that he has supplied to the school. There is another matter I wish to impress upon the right honourable Gentleman, and I ask that he would pay attention to it, and it is this: when a teacher gets unwell, and wants leave of absence, what I consider is very bad in this case is that the school is not kept open, because another teacher is not got to keep the school going, and the result is that while the teacher gets his month off the children are allowed to roam where they like during that time. For the difference of a very small sum I think that the
  1268
  Government should always keep a school open, and in a great many instances the teacher has to resume his teaching when he is not in a fit state. I would ask the right honourable Gentleman to consider this matter, because it is a very serious thing that children should be rambling about for a whole month while the school is closed because the rich Government of England refuses to supply substitutes during the time these unfortunate teachers are laid up. I would ask the right honourable Gentleman to consider these few matters which I have put before him, and I hope he will have no difficulty in handing over to the Irish teachers the money which has been so well earned by them and which is so justly their due. Irish Members are anxious that these teachers should have this money which they have earned, and it should not be handed over for the benefit of those who have not yet joined the schools.
  MR. DILLON: This is probably the last occasion on which we shall be able to discuss this question for, perhaps, nearly a year. The Chancellor of the Exchequer made rather an important statement on this question in dispute between the Treasury and the teachers. It was, however, very vague, and it is extremely desirable that Ireland should know what really is in the mind of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I understood him to say that his mind ran towards settling the question on the lines of the original letter addressed to him by the teachers in November, 1897, since which a further correspondence took place between the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the teachers, in which some misunderstanding arose, and in which the teachers' terms, whether rightly or wrongly, were altered for the worse against them. In the letter from Dublin dated 12th of January, 1898, they break off further correspondence, on the ground, as alleged in that letter, that the terms referred to in the letter of the 29th of July were changed for the worse. Now, Sir, I still adhere to the view that the £95,000 ought to be paid to the teachers, and that the whole question of the pension grant ought to be referred for settlement as a separate matter. That is a view which I strongly

  1269
  take in regard to this matter, and the first thing to be settled is whether or not this money should be paid and the pension matter referred to a future date. I would suggest to the Chancellor of the Exchequer that he would do well to take some means of letting the public know definitely what are his ideas on this matter.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I have expressed that over and over again, and I can do no more.
  MR. DILLON: But there is not a single Member on these benches who understands the present position, or knows what the right honourable Gentleman means. I think every Member of the House will agree that it is a very unsatisfactory way to leave a thing in the condition in which he has left it to-day, and what I will venture to suggest is that we should have some definite statement of what the Government are prepared to do. What I desire to have is some definite statement of the terms alluded to in the second speech made by the right honourable Gentleman, so that we and the teachers for whom we speak would be in a position to consider the matter.
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: I have endeavoured to explain myself as clearly as I can, and if honourable Members do not understand me it must be my fault. What I have said is, that throughout, from the very commencement of the pension scheme, and, indeed, in the communications which took place between myself and the teachers before the Act was drafted, it was understood that the basis should be a contribution of one-fourth by the teachers and three-fourths from some other source. At the origin of the fund those three-fourths were intended to be taken from the £1,300,000 from the Church Surplus Fund; but, that having proved insufficient, the teachers must find one-fourth of the necessary amount, and I undertake, on behalf of the Government, that the remaining three-fourths shall be made up by the Treasury and the existing pension fund.
  MR. DILLON: On the old scale or the new?
  THE CHANCELLOR OF THE EXCHEQUER: On the scale under the new rules. Then, with regard to what is called the arrears grant, I have suggested that I should be willing for the whole matter to be settled by a Vote by Parliament of a sum of £95,400, of which from £70,000 to £76,000 should be paid by the National Board of Education to the teachers, on the basis of calculation they have made; and that the balance, which should not exceed 25 per cent. of the total sum found to be due by that calculation, should be devoted to the further augmentation of the pension fund. Those are the two proposals. They are perfectly clear. If they are accepted, I will carry them out; if they are not accepted, I shall remain where I am, without any intention of taking steps to make any further proposals.
  SIR T. ESMONDE: My honourable Friend has spoken about the teachers' pension fund, and also about the case of the assistant teachers, and I do not think that anything can be added to what has been said on the matter, and so I propose to raise a new point. I may be permitted to express my satisfaction that the Chief Secretary has been able to reduce the average attendance in National Schools, and to enable an assistant teacher to be employed where a school can show an average attendance of 60 children. That is an important point, both as regards the teachers and the well-being of the schools. Now, Mr. Lowther, I have a complaint to make about the arrangements of the votes for the Science and Art Department. There are several matters contained in the question of education in Ireland which are not put down under the Irish Education Vote, and I am glad that the honourable Baronet who represents the Science and Art Department is present. I hope that he will reply to the complaint I am about to make. I think that all matters relating to education in Ireland ought to be under one head, so that when. Irish Members come to discuss Irish education they can deal with the matter all at once. Under the new Rules of the House relative to Supply, we have one Vote put down one day and another Vote put down another day,

  1271
  and the result of this new Rule is that a great number of very important Votes never are discussed at all. There is a Vote of enormous importance to Ireland—that is, the Vote for the Science and Art Department—and that Vote, under the existing Rules, cannot be discussed at this stage. Now, Sir, if the Committee will look at the Scottish Estimates, they will see that there is some justification for my complaint, because on page 378 of these Votes, there are set down the Science and Art expenses in Scotland, but there is no similar item set down in the Irish Votes, and the result of that is that we are unable to discuss the Science and Art grants in the case of Ireland, unless we do it upon a rather incomprehensible item on page 388 of these Votes—namely, that of the teachers of music in model schools, or the teachers of drawing in model schools in Ireland. These particular portions of the salaries of these teachers come under the Science and Art Votes, and, Sir, I do hope that what I have said may induce the Government to consider this matter and to allow the Science and Art items for Ireland to be put down in the Votes for Irish education. So that they may be discussed upon them. Otherwise, Sir, I do not see a way out of the difficulty, except you give us a separate grant for science and art, which shall be independent of the Science and Art Institution at South Kensington. I do not think there is the least use in Irish Members coming here and endeavouring to discuss Irish Estimates, and ventilate Irish grievances, when we are precluded by the regulations of the House from efficiently discharging those duties. Sir, there is another item in this education of Ireland. Therefore, in view of to the Committee the peculiar position in which we are placed. We cannot discuss the science and art question under this Vote, but we can discuss the question of technical education. Why should we not be able to discuss them both together? I propose to say something upon the question of technical education in Ireland. To all intents and purposes the only form of technical education in Ireland is agricultural education. The Commissioners of National Education in Ireland are also entrusted with the super-
  1272
  vision of certain other forms of technical education, but only to a very limited extent. Sir, I say practically the only technical education that we have in Ireland is agricultural education, and of that we have not education enough. We have only a limited number of model schools in Ireland which cater for the agricultural education of the Irish people, and that number is notoriously insufficient. We ought to have in every Irish county a technical school, and that technical school ought to teach agriculture, as well as other forms of technical education. The position of Ireland in this respect is most extraordinary. Ireland is an agricultural country, and if we had an Irish Parliament, the first thing it would do would be to provide for the people a proper system of technical education; but the present Government, which is opposed to Home Rule, is bound by its professional to take the place of a Home Rule Parliament, and in this connection is bound to see that the Irish people are technically instructed. Take the case of Denmark. Denmark is not a rich country, but a few years ago the Danish Government took the trouble to teach the Danish people the most improved methods of farming, with the result that to-day Denmark is one of the first countries in Europe in this particular industry, whereas Ireland—a country far better qualified naturally—is the last. Sir, the amount of money expended in Ireland in technical education is ludicrously insufficient. I hold in my hand an instructive map, which shows the relative amounts of money spent in various portions of the United Kingdom in connection with technical education, and the Committee will perhaps allow me to give one or two of the figures. I will take the case of Scotland first, because not long since I heard a Scotch Member declare, in the course of a Debate, that Scotland received no grants for technical education. Well, Sir, I find that in the Orkney Islands there is 2d. per head of the population paid for technical education. I find, coming down to Aberdeenshire, that there is 5d. per head of the population; in Perthshire there is 7½d.; in Berwickshire 8d.; and in Dumfries 7d. So much for Scotland. Coming to England, I find in Westmoreland there is 9d. per head of the popu-

  1273
  lation; in Lancashire, 7½d.; Yorkshire, 6½d.; Cheshire, 8d.; Derbyshire, 9d.; Shropshire, 8d.; Warwickshire, 8½d.; Norfolk, 8d.; Huntingdon, 10d.; Herefordshire, 9½d.; Buckinghamshire, 10d.; Kent, 7½d.; Hampshire, 9d.; Dorsetshire, 8½d.; Somersetshire, 9d.; Wiltshire, 10½d.; Carnarvonshire, 7½d.; Monmouthshire, 5d.; Glamorgan 7d.; Radnorshire, 5½d. Now I turn to the case of Ireland. In Ireland I find that the county which has the highest amount is Dublin, which gets 6d. per head. The next highest is the county of Cork, which gets 2½d. per head; Waterford gets 1d., Kerry ¼d., Roscommon one-twenty-fourth of a penny, Donegal one-fortieth of a penny; and there are a number of other counties getting nothing at all. That shows how we are treated in comparison with England and Wales in this matter. Now, Sir, the Chief Secretary asked me whether there was any contribution made to the grant for technical education by the local authorities in England and Scotland. Yes, there is. As in Ireland, a contribution is made by the Imperial Exchequer equal to the amount which is given by the local authorities. But the people of Donegal, Kerry, Clare, and the other poor counties in Ireland, cannot contribute out of their rates in competition with Middlesex, Wiltshire, Aberdeenshire, and other rich counties in England and Wales; it is absolutely beyond their power. The idea of asking a county or an urban district in the west of Ireland which has to pay county taxes, and which has to contribute towards the relief of distress, to compete with the ratepayers of Middlesex, Wiltshire, Glamorganshire, Carnarvonshire, or similar districts, is perfectly ludicrous. It is beyond their capacity to do so.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The grants to which the right honourable Gentleman refers are in almost every case derived from local sources. Where the money comes originally from the Treasury the local authorities are allowed to spend it in any way they like.
  SIR T. ESMONDE: I have no doubt that that is so, but the Committee must not forget that £750,000 in round numbers is granted every year from the Treasury to local authorities in England from the beer duties, while no corres-
  1274
  ponding grant is made to Ireland. I hope that next year we shall be in a position to congratulate the right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland on having met our wishes in this direction, without putting the House to the necessity of a long Debate. There is one other point to which I wish to refer in connection with technical education in Ireland. The evening schools in Ireland are, I fancy, to a considerable extent, under the control of the Commissioners of National Education, because the Commissioners of National Education make rules for the guidance of the teachers. Now, Sir, there is one rule to which I should like to call the attention of the Chief Secretary. Rule 198 provides that the teacher's salary shall be £1 for each month during which the school is open, and there must be an average monthly attendance of not less than 25 bonâ fide evening school pupils, which, of course, does not mean day school pupils. It is further provided that the results paid for are reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, book-keeping, and the ordinary branches of education only; that not more than two extra branches will be taught by the teachers and that when the payment is made for these two extra branches no fees will be paid for the ordinary branches, in respect of the same pupil. Now, Mr. Lowther, that does seem to me to be a very injurious regulation. It seems to me that if evening schools are to be encouraged some modifications should be made. I have heard enough from the right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary to lead me to hope that he will take up this matter as early as possible. I am not able to raise the question of science and art upon this Vote, and have only been able to refer to it by, as it were, a side wind; but now the right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary has leisure, I hope that he will be able to devote his energies to considering the question of science and art. I am sure that if he will endeavour to make this branch of local education an Irish Department, regulated by rules and regulations to suit the true requirements of the Irish people, he will have the assistance of all Irishmen of every shade of opinion in bringing such a policy to a satisfactory conclusion.
  MR. DAVITT: I am very glad my honourable Friend has drawn attention to the very paltry provision made in the interests of manual instruction in Ireland. It is a great and growing evil that this instruction should be stunted in this way. I sincerely hope that the right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary will give the matter his sympathetic consideration between this and next Session. The right honourable Gentleman has suggested a possible explanation of the small extent of technical education in Ireland in the fact that the local resources in Ireland are not tapped for this purpose as is the case in Great Britain. Well, it is our misfortune and not our fault if we have a rich class of landlords in Ireland, who will not follow the example of their brethren in England, and will not help out of their great resources to improve the technical education of the people of Ireland. Apart from this, I complain that out of the annual Vote granted for the purpose of elementary education in Ireland there is much too small a sum devoted to what I may call the interests of agricultural education in the country. For instance, the sum set aside for the teaching of agriculture is, I think, £12,000 a year, and most of that goes for the upkeep of a few model farms. Now, this is a very small sum out of the £1,250,000 which is expended in Ireland upon primary education, because it is well for the Committee to recollect that agriculture is the main source of employment for fully seven-tenths of the population of Ireland. Therefore, in view of that fact, I contend that there ought to be a larger sum given out of the annual Education Vote for manual instruction in agriculture than the sum to which I have referred. It is a common saying, when Ireland is mentioned in this respect, that its agriculture is much behind that of England and many Continental countries. Well, of course, that is true, but the explanation, I think, is—and it is a sufficient explanation of the facts and figures that have been adduced by my honourable Friend—that there ought to be a great deal more attention paid to the importance of agricultural subjects in training colleges at the present time. I am sure the system of training was planned with the intention of making
  1276
  these colleges as serviceable as possible, but I think that the position of these colleges requires that there should be constant attention given to the main industry of the country. I would also like to see more encouragement given to school managers and teachers to teach our boys and girls in the elementary schools more than they are now taught with reference to the industry which they are expected to follow when they leave school. I am sorry to say—and it is a custom which has very disastrous results to the interests of the country—that when our boys and girls leave school they are also anxious to leave Ireland. Now, I. think that might be prevented if more inducements were given to school managers and school teachers, who teach in Irish schools, to make the subjects relating to the agricultural industries more attractive to the children in their classes. This is a matter that has attracted a good deal of attention in Germany and other countries, where it is held that the elementary instruction given in the schools of the country is too mental and not sufficiently manual and technical, that the children of tenant farmers are educated above the calling of their parents. I do not find fault with the mental education of the Irish schools. I think our teachers fulfil their duty in that respect, but I would like to see the elementary teaching in Ireland made more practical in connection with the main industry of the country; so that when our boys and girls are educated there will be an inducement held out to them to improve the agriculture of Ireland, instead of their going away to other lands and giving them the fruits of the education which Ireland has been put to the expense of giving to them. I hope this matter, which is of a non-party character, will receive the attention and careful consideration of the right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and I am sure I am only expressing what is in the minds of many honourable Gentlemen when I say that if more of the general taxation were used in making more practical and more technical the education of Ireland it would not be begrudged by this House of Commons.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The discussion which has taken place has turned mainly upon the educational question, but other subjects have been touched upon. The honourable Member for East Mayo asked me what was my intention with regard to the model schools. As I daresay the honourable Member knows, the Committee of the National Education has the whole subject of the model schools under consideration. There are a good many other Members also connected with the Committee of Education, and they have not been able to report upon the question of model schools. Until they report, it is impossible for the Commissioners to make up their minds as to the line they will adopt. You have to consider the conclusions which have been arrived at by the National Board of Education. As to the Commission upon technical education, that has reported, but it has not yet been considered by the National Board, and I myself have not given the matter the attention which I am sure it deserves. I am glad to be able to repeat again that which I stated the first time to-day in answer to a question put to me—namely, that the proposal of the Commissioners that average attendances required entitling a school to assistance has been reduced to 60. We have had a great deal of correspondence upon this subject between the Education Commissioners, the Treasury, and the Irish Government, and I think it is now regarded as satisfactory by all parties. Now, some matters of comparatively small importance were touched upon by some speakers, such as the salary of the teachers and the closing of the school when the teacher is ill. I might remind the Committee, with regard to those matters, I have no control whatever. The position with regard to elementary education in Ireland is somewhat peculiar; I have no such power. I cannot exercise any authority over the National Commissioners of Education; all I can do is to suggest for their consideration the various points that may be raised by honourable Members in this House. I am quite ready to bring before them the various points raised to-day, but it is not really in my power to enforce my views upon the subject. All I can do is to bring it before the Commissioners for
  1278
  consideration. The important subjects of science and art and technical education in Ireland were raised by the honourable Baronet the Member for Kerry and the honourable Member for South Mayo. Broadly speaking, I sympathise to a large extent with the views expressed by those honourable Gentlemen. I am not in a position to give a pledge, but I may say that last year it was my intention to direct my attention to the questions of science and art and technical education in Ireland. Circumstances intervened which rendered it impossible for me to carry out the policy which I had in my mind then, but I earnestly trust that I may be able to take up this subject again, and bring the policy I have in view to a successful issue in the course of the next Session. It will give me the greatest satisfaction if I am able to carry out, on lines satisfactory to the House of Commons, a policy developing agriculture and promoting agricultural education, which has only been postponed by the higher claims of local government.
  MR. DILLON: Will the right honourable Gentleman allow me to remind him of the National cry? An urgent application has been made that the grant of £753 for teaching cookery may be increased to £1,200. That is a branch of education still wanted in many parts of Ireland, and I desire and I would ask the right honourable Gentleman to direct the Commissioners' attention to this particular department.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I assure honourable Gentlemen that the Government have very little power except to bring the matter before the Commissioners of Education.
  SIR J. GORST: It is impossible to put all the Votes relating to Irish education together, because the science and art department is responsible for science and art teaching in Ireland, the expenses of which must be included in the Vote. It would be impossible to separate it. The responsibility for science and art has been taken over by the Scotch Office, so far as Scotland is concerned, and it is no longer under the Council of Education, and therefore is taken in the Scotch Educational Votes, but no change could be made so far as

  1279
  Ireland is concerned until the Irish Office takes over the science and art department in the same way as the Scotch Office has done.
  Vote agreed to.

  CLASS III.
  "£79,341, to complete the sum for Irish Land Commission."
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I rise to move the reduction of this Vote by a sum of £5,000, in order to call the attention of the Committee to the action of the Land Commissioners in Ireland. I need hardly remind the Committee that ever since the year 1881, when the Land Bill was passed, and the Land Commission was created, various strong opinions have found expression in this House in connection with this matter. Naturally the landlord party give their opinions to those who represent them in this House, and draw attention to the action of the Land Commission in Ireland in making a too great reduction in the rents. On the other hand, representatives of the tenants in this House find fault with the action of these gentlemen upon the ground that they did not reduce the rents sufficiently. That was the effect of it all along, and naturally this House felt very great difficulty in coming to a conclusion as to which was right of these two parties, and which of these statements really could be borne out by evidence. I think the House, in order to arrive at a just estimate of the effect of the administration of land in Ireland and the working of that Commission, took the only course which was available to find out the real truth of the question. They appointed last year a Commission to inquire into this, and had it not been for the fact that this Commission has reported I do not think I should upon the present occasion have taken up the time of the House, because I feel very naturally that, as one of the landlord party, my mind may be a little biased against these reductions of rent, which, of course, all landlords object to. I have never heard of a landlord, or seen one, who approved of his rents being lowered, or who, when they were lowered, did not think they were lowered too much.
  MR. DILLON: I have met many.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I never have, and I think those gentlemen must have had most philanthropic minds. Upon the other hand, I have never met a tenant who did not think, however much the rent was reduced, that it was not reduced enough. All we want is an unbiased opinion of the action of the Land Commissioners of Ireland. I am not going to approach that subject at all upon the question of reduction of rent. I say I move this reduction because I look upon the administration of the land in Ireland by the Land Commissioners as unsatisfactory. I object to the machinery—I am not touching the question as to whether the rent is too much lowered or not—I want to point out that, according to the Report of the Commission which this House appointed to investigate this matter, it is conclusively proved, if you believe in the ability and integrity of the gentlemen who formed the Commission, that the machinery by which this land legislation is carried on is absolutely unsatisfactory. The terms of reference cover the whole ground, and I think that this Report is also of considerable advantage in this way: it is absolutely impossible for the Scotch, Welsh, and English Members to wade through the Land Act to find out the position of the landlord in Ireland, and if they did read it they would not be much wiser; but if anybody of common understanding reads the Report of the Fry Commission he will see it at a glance. He will know what it means to be an Irish landlord or tenant; he will find that it is fair to the one and unfair to the other. First, let us see how that Commission is made up—the Committee must remember that these Commissioners carry out a most difficult and most invidious task, and in carrying out a task of that kind, I think you require that the men who carry it out should be above suspicion. This is the constitution of the 1881 Land Commission of Ireland. It is on page 9. There are 81 lay Assistant Commissioners, consisting of three classes—30 permanent officials of the Civil Service, 48 hold warrants which terminate upon the 31st of December, and are renewable from year to year, so long as work remains to be done, and there are three so-called supernumeraries appointed from year to year, and receiving £3 3s. a day for every

  1281
  day's work that they perform. With regard to the 30 permanent officials who do the work in Ireland, I say they are the class of men and the persons whom we should like to see deal with the land. They are permanent officials in the Civil Service, and do not run any danger of being turned out of their position if the work ceases. Those men do not depend upon the amount of work to be done, they are not removable. That is the word which carries what I mean. I do not believe that other men are actuated by dishonourable motives, but it is impossible to conceive that a man who gets a considerable salary is not more influenced by the fact that if he does not do the work he will not get paid. With regard to the £3 3s. a day man, upon my word, I cannot conceive how it ever entered the head of a responsible Government to pay men £3 3s. a day for every day's work they do, and then let them go scouting around the country, allowing them to rake up their £3 3s. out of the landlords and tenants of Ireland. That is an inconceivable proposition, but so it is. I want to show the Committee for the moment how the difference between the landlord and the tenant arises. A landlord and a tenant decide together to have a judicial rent—I am sorry to weary the Committee with these details, but they are absolutely necessary to understand the matter—there are two courses open to them in which they may arrive at that rent: they can either go to the Civil Bill Court, in which case there is always an appeal, or they can elect to go into the Land Commission Court. What is the verdict of the Fry Commission on the Civil Bill Court? The procedure in any ordinary court of justice is for the judge to hear the evidence first, and then give his judgment. That is not the course which is taken in the Civil Bill Court in Ireland. What the Fry Commission says with regard to the Civil Bill Court is this—it is on page 9—
  "Some of the judges endeavour to form an independent opinion as to the sum proper to be fixed, but the majority of them feel themselves incapable of so doing, and in the absence of any mistake they do nothing but adopt and register the finding of their valuer, whom they have sent, before the trial began, to report to the county court what the fair rent of the farm should be."
  1282
  He sits there as a sort of effigy for the benefit of fattening Irish lawyers and solicitors. These lawyers and solicitors call witnesses, and there is hard swearing on both sides. Naturally the tenant and the landlord spend a considerable amount of money in listening to these eloquent gentlemen who exist by fleecing them. What happens? The county court judge solemnly gives out the result, at which he had arrived before the trial ever commenced, and which he had received from the valuer, whom he sent before the trial. I want to know, can anyone conceive in any civilised country a method such as that, to establish what is called a fair rent, and to do justice between landlord and tenant? I cannot. If the parties do not go into the Civil Bill Court, they go before the Land Commissioners. The Land Commissioners hear the case, and if they are not satisfied they have a right to re-hear it all over again. The same decision is arrived at; and that is the method of doing justice to the Irish tenant and the Irish landlord. Now, the Fry Commission found out this fact, that it was a fatal thing to the good working of this Bill, as satisfying the requirements of the Irish tenants and landlords, to have commissioners and court valuers arriving at these decisions, who
  "hold office for short periods, and are paid by the day; they are suspected of lowering the rents so as to keep the machine at work."
  Those are the words of the Fry Commission. I do not wonder at it. Then the Fry Commissioners go on to say, dealing with the question of the fixing of the rents before the Sub-Commissioners—
  "they should be placed in a position of independence, and should as far as possible, be lifted above the suspicions which surround them."
  That shows that that is not the case at the present moment. If the landlord does not like the decision of the Sub-Commissioners, or of the Civil Bill Court, he has this Court of Appeal to which he can address himself. The Fry Commission deals clearly with that tribunal, and absolutely condemns as unjust the machinery and the working of it before the Sub-Commissioners. Then they go on to the head commissioners. They are raised over all the other

  1283
  commissioners; they get about five times the pay, and that is, of course, a great advantage. Of all men in Ireland who work for money, these commissioners have done the least work.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The honourable Member is not entitled to criticise the action of the Land Commissioners, because their salaries are not borne by this Vote—they are expressly put on the Consolidated Fund, so that no criticism should take place upon them or their decisions.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: Only one of the Land Commissioners is a judicial commissioner, and I submit that one is perfectly in order in criticising the conduct of Mr. Commissioner Fitzgerald and the other commissioners who are not judicial commissioners.
  THE CHAIRMAN: The salaries of the judicial commissioners and the other commissioners are not borne by this Vote in order that they should be exempt from criticism. That is the reason why they were placed on the Consolidated Fund.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I was simply going to read to you from the Report of the Fry Commission on the subject of the machinery by which the rents are fixed in Ireland. I do not see how I can go on without that. I suppose I may be in order in criticising the valuers sent down by the commissioners. They were sent down by the commissioners themselves, and what the Fry Commission says about this court is not in the least uncomplimentary to the chief commissioners. But these are the facts of the case, and it is absolutely necessary that this House should know them in order to understand the position of affairs in Ireland—
  "The decisions of the Land Commission in a very great number of cases do little more than register the decision of the court valuer. Moreover, the business is disposed of with a rapidity and with a silence as to the grounds of the decisions which create dissatisfaction in the minds of the litigants whose property is at stake. Points of importance are often raised and discussed, and the judgment adjourned, and when delivered it is a mere statement of the figure at which the rent is fixed."
  1284
  That is what the Fry Commission says with regard to the Court of Appeal. Well, what happens? How do they arrive at their decisions in the Court of Appeal? They go to the valuer, who is sent down to value the land, and there is a curious thing about it. I do not blame the valuers and the sub-commissioners. I supose they get fairly well paid for it, and most men like to earn money. The valuer goes down, and I suppose he wanders round the farm and takes a look at the hedges. I do not suppose anybody heard of his having up a drain or anything of that kind. The result achieved is extremely simple. It is an extremely pleasant way of having a tour round Ireland and earning money. This is what the Fry Commissioner says—
  "He generally considered himself bound by the decision of the Sub-Commission as to what improvements were to be allowed for; he admittedly accepted much on the strength of the pink schedule under appeal, and he was left at liberty to determine for himself what is a substantial difference from the previous findings."
  This is what happens—
  "A striking illustration of the danger of this course of practice has recently occurred. In thirty-one cases on one estate the amounts allowed for drainage in the pink schedules were considerably in excess of the amounts proved by the tenants at the hearing before the Sub-Commission; the cases were re-heard, and in every case the reports of the court valuers agreed, as to the amount of drains, with the findings of the Sub-Commission; and yet it was shown to the Land Commission that in every one of the cases the figure was wrong; for the evidence had been given in terms of the Irish perch, and the pink schedules and the reports were drawn in terms of the English perch; and in every case the change from Irish into English measure had been made on the ratio not of lineal but of square measure. Such slavish copying of a blunder is very cogent evidence of the want of independence in the operations of the court valuers. The present practice does not, in our opinion, satisfactorily secure a real re-hearing of the whole matter under discussion."
  Now, you have the landowning class in Ireland, who are sometimes painted in very lurid colours by honourable Gentlemen opposite, without any shadow of redress, and at the mercy of these itinerant gentry, who go about the country and refrain from taking any real evidence.
  MR. DILLON: Who appointed them?
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: One Government is just as bad as another. The position of the landlord is this. He may be an encumbered landlord, as many of them are. It does not touch him in that way. There are many encumbered landlords, encumbered not through their own fault, but inherited from their ancestry. Whether such a landlord has to be ruined and expatriated depends upon the action of these peripatetic three-guinea a day men, who go down and decide whether that landlord, owing to his unhappy position, is to be beggared or not. By taking away a very small part of his income you leave him without anything at all. He has no redress. What can he do? The only persons who gain are the lawyers. Every motion made in this court involves a large expenditure upon that interesting class of persons. As for the tenant and the landlord, you leave them without any shadow of redress, and at the mercy of these irresponsible persons. It would be very different, I say, if the course advised by the Fry Commissioners were adopted. If you, for the purposes of the State, to secure the fertility of Ireland and the strength of Great Britain, bring in a law of this kind, you ought to spare no money to get the best men, pay them well, and put them above that position of subservience and dependence which the Fry Commission describe. It is a disgrace to the British Parliament that permits such a thing to continue. I certainly appeal to the Government to take this into very serious consideration. It is as much in favour of fair play to the tenants as to the landlords. I am not backing up one side or the other. I say that if these courts in Ireland, which administer the land laws, are not to be a mockery and a scandal and a disgrace to civilisation, some action ought to be taken to carry out the advice given to the British House of Commons by this Commission. As to the landlords, I think I can say that 17 years has borne out what Mr. Gladstone said on the matter. Mr. Gladstone said, in a celebrated speech, that they had been put to a crucial test, that they had stood the strain, and come out of it with honour. One of the most satisfactory things has been this, that the only speci-
  1286
  men that has ever been drawn up the floor of the House to show what a terrible creature the Irish landlord was was Lord Clanricarde. He was cited as a specimen of the bad landlord. I am grateful to Lord Clanricarde for having been the stalking-horse drawn out to show what the Irish landlords were. I have nothing to say in his favour, but the curious part of it is that his property is notoriously low rented. He demands his pound of flesh unmercifully, no doubt. No other specimen but Lord Clanricarde is given, and I submit that no other specimen is to be found. Of course, in the past there have been bad landlords; but I submit that honourable Gentlemen opposite have failed to show that the Irish landlords as a whole are the tyrannical and bloodthirsty class who are described as hungering for the farms of their tenants. The Irish landlords, through my voice, speak in the House of Commons, and point to the Report of the Fry Commission. I say they have the right to ask the House of Commons simply for fair play and justice. I have not spoken to-day on the reduction of rents, but what I have spoken on, and laid principles down on, is this, that if any dispassionate man will read the Report of the Fry Commission through he is bound to come to the decision that in no civilised country in the world has any class ever been placed in a position of such utter insufferable degradation as the Irish landlords under these irresponsible men.
  MR. ARNOLD-FORSTER: This House is engaged in discussing a very serious question. I think it is lamentable that the matters dealt with in that Report have not received more attention from the House of Commons. I do not think one person in 100, even in this House, realises what is really implied in the Report of the Fry Commission. That Report is a definite announcement by an impartial body upon the working of the Land Acts. No one has ever suggested that the Fry Commission has not pronounced a perfectly independent judgment. They were selected from men who had no interest whatever in the inquiry, who were in no way involved in Irish quarrels or differences. What is the Report? It is a fact that at this moment in the United

  1287
  Kingdom there is a miscarriage of justice, so great and so palpable, that if such a thing were to occur in connection with a county court, or a sessions court, in Great Britain, there would be something like a revolution. I do not exaggerate. I do not want to go outside the brief I hold in my hand, which is a very small portion of the statement of these grave commissioners. What has been said by the Fry Commissioners has been said over and over again in this House, and it has not been listened to—it has been flouted. Why? Because it has been said that all these were the interested statements of men who were concerned in the decisions one way or another. There is not an atom of the statement of these commissioners that has not been said over and over again. If honourable Members go so far as to read that Report for themselves, I would ask them to go a little further, and regard the evidence on which that Report is based. If they only do that, they will come to the very conclusion I have come to, that that Report is studiously moderate, that the desire of the commissioners was to understate the case rather than to exaggerate it, and that the evidence justified a far stronger indictment than the commissioners have thought it their duty to put in the Report now issued. I do not intend to go into many of the details, which those more familiar with Irish procedure than I am can do. I want to go simply to a broad matter of justice on which there is a common sentiment among civilised nations. What are the facts which appear on the face of this Report? In the first place, here are judges charged with a function unknown to judges in any part of the world—that of fixing, for good or for ill, the fortunes of their fellow-countrymen. These men are charged with the work of practically ruining, or allowing to exist, a large number of Her Majesty's subjects. We are told that these judges, upon whom is imposed this tremendous responsibility, have in some cases no practical acquaintance with the subject-matters with which they deal; they have no practical acquaintance with the value of land. If I were to ask for something more sweeping, I do not think I could find it. It is suggested in the Report that the lay assistant commissioners should be called
  1288
  upon to pass an examination in the subject with which they have to deal. It is next stated that they are not selected on any intelligible principle. The commissioners say that they ought to be appointed from a list to be approved by the judicial commissioners, with the concurrence of at least two other commissioners. In every other system of jurisprudence with which I am acquainted the judges are brought to the surface of their profession by the strongest competition which any profession produces. There is a perfect professional estimate of their qualifications. But here there is nothing of the kind. These men have never served an apprenticeship, they have never been tested by any examination, and they have suddenly come into being with no past, and are entrusted with this enormous and dangerous responsibility. We are told that the methods by which they work cannot be ascertained, nor can their decisions be checked. One of the elementary principles of justice is that the methods by which justice works, and the decisions at which it arrives, should be intelligible to the people—that people should know the way in which their interests are to be dealt with, and should understand the principles. The Fry Commissioners say that the methods on which they work cannot be ascertained nor their conclusions checked. The next item is the most horrible of all. They say, what has been said in this House over and over again, that some of these judges are temporary, and that they are removable. It is here laid down that you cannot expect men to have the confidence of those who are under this judicial authority if those men are merely temporarily holding their appointments, and must go back to the very class who are greatly interested in the subject-matter with which they are called upon to deal. I say, Sir, it is a misfortune, it is a calamity that these Irish commissioners should even now be temporarily appointed. You are aware that the right honourable Gentleman has done all he could to reduce the number of temporary commissioners. I notice that this is one of the matters of the indictment of the Fry Commission. Then, Sir, what is the next statement contained in the Report? It states that these men are under no one recognized

  1289
  head. That is the view of the Commission. It is an undoubted fact that men who sat and acted as valuers have been asked to pronounce a decision in these cases. Then, Sir, we are told that the landlords are not to be told the grounds or the reason on which these decisions are to be given against them. Why, that is a privilege accorded to the meanest subject of the Crown. Another point which has been mentioned is that of the legal Commissioners, and I do not know that there is an unknown principle of law applied to it. We are told that actually the legal Commissioners are occasionally overruled by the lay Commissioners, and that they occasionally do sit and give decisions sitting alone. All these things may perhaps in themselves seem small, but taken collectively they constitute, in my opinion, a tremendous indictment against the administration of justice in regard to this matter. In this matter I do not bring any indictment for a moment against the right honourable Gentleman or any of his predecessors who have been called upon to make these appointments. I do not myself agree with the taunt that has been thrown out that these appointments were made by the present Chief Secretary, but my point is that the problem is not to be solved in this manner. My contention is that it is a problem which no jurisdiction and no legislature or Minister has ever yet solved, and that is, after all, the opinion of the Commissioners themselves. They sum up the progress which is being made under the whole of these operations, and they point to the fact which I and others have alluded to, that, notwithstanding the multiplication of these officials, we are absolutely making no progress whatever in the direction we have always desired. It does seem to me that the language of common sense contained in the Report of the Commission ought to commend itself to every Member of this House. We may perhaps differ as to the exact measure of respect which ought to be accorded to these tribunals, but we have already heard quotations on this subject from the honourable and gallant Member for North Armagh which bear out the contention that even in the opinion of the Commission these tribunals do not command respect. Now, I cannot conceive any earthly reason why they should com-
  1290
  mand respect, and when we find that blunders can be committed such as the blunders referred to by the honourable and gallant Member for North Armagh, without the possibility of adequate review, I confess that it is almost enough to make them despair of any relief ever coming to Ireland from tribunals of this kind. I think the demand that has been made by honour able Members to-night is one which the Government may very fairly give ear to. I do not at all assume that they take a hostile view with regard to the attitude which has been pursued by the honourable and gallant Member for North Armagh, and which I venture respectfully to support. I do not assume either for a moment that the Government are unwilling to give the relief which seems to me to be so urgently demanded by this Report. I hope they will, and if they do I say that it is desirable that they should act at once, and that they should emphatically remove all grounds for a recurrence of what seems to me to be a scandal recorded in the Report. I go further and say that year after year we are asked to vote money for the Assistant Commissioners to the Irish Land Commission, and we ought to receive some assurance from the Government that by annually pouring out these sums of money, and by all this litigation which takes place, we are getting somewhere nearer some finality. There is every day, I believe, clearer recognition of the fact coming forward that there is only one real solution for this difficulty, and that is by accelerating the question of purchase. This litigation in the land courts is putting off that day almost indefinitely, and the latest legislation of the Government is, I believe, in some respects anything but a boon to the people of Ireland. I hope, Sir, that the Chief Secretary will assure us that these matters will receive his early attention. He will no doubt deal with them seriatim. He may be inclined to suggest that some of these points are small matters in themselves, but I do not regard them as small matters. Take them altogether, and take them in view of the evidence upon which they are supported, they seem to me to constitute a very strong case for immediate action. But even when that has been

  1291
  done I think we shall still have the old problem to face. I admit that when we vote this money now for this army of land commission officials in Ireland we are doing so in order that we may recognise de novo from this year work started in 1881; and in the year of grace 1898, so far from being one inch nearer a solution, the whole business is putting a burden on Ireland almost too great to be borne, and all will have to be done over again. For that reason I desire to support the Motion of the honourable and gallant Member for North Armagh; and, if I could only believe that this matter might for once be got a little out of the rut of purely Irish discussion and be looked upon dispassionately by Members of Parliament for other parts of the United Kingdom, I should feel a little more sanguine about the future. These things have been done in Ireland for years, and protest after protest has been made. English Members think, "Oh, well, Ireland; what does it matter? We cannot pretend to understand what is going on there." If these things had occurred in England there would have been such a feeling on the subject in this House that no Government could stand against it; and, that being so, I do think that a little investigation upon the part of each Member of this House of what is being done under cover and under the name of justice, and under the semblance of law in Ireland, will not be time thrown away.
  MR. M. DAVITT: The honourable Member began his speech by saying that he knew of no parallel to a tribunal like the Irish Land Commission existing in any other parts of the civilised world. Well, the honourable Member is usually well informed on subjects upon which he speaks in this House, but in this instance I have to inform him that he is mistaken. In almost each one of the Australian Colonies they have a Land Commission modelled almost upon the Land Commission of Ireland. I remember, when in Queensland a few years ago, travelling with one of those land valuers who have been referred to in connection with Ireland by the honourable and gallant Member for North Armagh in vicious terms this evening, and the information which I derived from this official made me wish, and I reiterate the
  1292
  wish here to-night, that we could exchange the Land Commission of Ireland for the Land Commission of Queensland. I was informed that the rents derived by the Government of Queensland from the whole of the land of that Colony—a Colony larger in area than Great Britain, Ireland, France, and Germany combined—amounted to only about one-twenty-fifth of the amount of the rent paid every year for the land in Ireland. Therefore I wish sincerely that we could send the Land Commission of Ireland, which has been denounced so much, on a tour to Queensland and obtain in return the services of the Queensland Land Commission for the refixing of the rents in Ireland. Now, with reference to the Fry Commission and its Report, permit me to say, Mr. Lowther, that this tribunal has not in any way excited the confidence of the people of Ireland. We have looked upon it as one of the most partisan tribunals that were ever appointed to inquire into the working of the land system in Ireland; and, whether its decisions are satisfactory to the honourable and gallant Member for North Armagh or not, I feel sure that, so far as the Irish tenant farmers are concerned, they will pay no serious attention to the decisions. The honourable and gallant Member for North Armagh is, as we all know, a very able and courageous representative of his class, but he is not always as wise, if I may say so without being considered uncivil, as he is courageous. If he were wise in the interests of the class he represents he would not be too eager to bring the Irish landlord system under the criticism of public opinion in this country. I have not yet studied the Report of the Commission, but I can say this with accuracy, Mr. Lowther, that no tribunal has been appointed, as far as I can recollect, by this Parliament to inquire into the land system of Ireland from the days of the Devon Commission down to the present time, which has not in some way or other condemned the Irish landlords for the way in which they administer their property. The honourable and gallant Member speaks of this Commission as if he represented a class of ill-used, downtrodden people in Ireland. Well, Sir, that is not how we view the average landlord. We consider that there is not to be found in any country in the world

  1293
  a class for whom the Government of the country has done so much as has been performed by the English Governments for the landlords of Ireland. Why, Sir, they have almost everything that human beings can aspire to and desire. They have estates which bring them in, on the whole, very satisfactory revenues. Some of them—I do not say this in any spirit of envy—can charter handsome yachts and sail up the Mediterranean, and they can probably say that emperors are their friends and acquaintances. Then, again, in return for this revenue they are not called upon to do anything for those who earn their incomes similar to what is performed for the tenants in England and the land of England by the landlords of this country. In fact, I do not know, as I have said already, any class of individuals—certainly not in this country, or in any country with which I am acquainted—that ought to be more satisfied with their influence, and with their power, and with their revenue, than the class represented by the honourable and gallant Member. Of course, it is quite natural that he should complain, in behalf of his class, that the rents are being cut down to some extent. That is a human feeling. Probably, if I was a landlord myself—I am happy to say I am not—if I had been born in the purple, like the honourable and gallant Member, I might be found making a complaint with reference to the decisions of the Irish Land Commission. But in reply to his complaint in this connection about the way in which the Land Act of 1881, and the Land Commission, have treated the interests of his class, I would like to remind him of what the late Lord Derby said when the Act which created the Land Commission was passing through the House of Lords. He called it the lifeboat for the Irish landlord. And so it was, because were it not for the Land Act of 1881 and for the work that has been done under it by the Land Commission, I maintain that the Irish Land League movement would have knocked the Irish landlord system into smithereens. The fact is that under the Land Act, and through the Land Commission, the tenants of Ireland have been given something like a valuable interest in their holdings, and in order to preserve that
  1294
  interest they have made, and are making to-day, great sacrifices in order to pay rents which, I maintain, in spite of what the honourable and gallant Member has said, are far higher than they ought to be fixed, taking into account the economic conditions of Ireland, and what reductions have been given voluntarily by landlords in Great Britain. Sir, I contend that if the Irish Land Commission had only followed the lines laid down for them in the voluntary action of the English landlords, if they had only given equivalent abatements in the land courts of Ireland that were given without compulsion in this country, then the honourable and gallant Member would have more cause to complain about the reduction of rents in that country. The fact is, as has been admitted in this House more than once, the rents in England, where there is no Land Commission, have been reduced 20 or 30 per cent. more than they have been reduced in Ireland through the operation of the Land Commission, notwithstanding the fact that tenant farmers' interests in this country must be more valuable than in Ireland. Therefore, Sir, I say, in conclusion, that whatever fault the honourable and gallant Member may find in the machinery of the Irish Land Commission, I contend that, were it not for the labours of that Commission, and were it not for the way in which this Land Commission has safeguarded in every possible way the interests of the landlords of Ireland, the Irish tenant farmers would have received an abatement of 20 or 30 per cent. more than the reductions complained of.
  SIR J. COLOMB: I do not propose to enter into this question at any length. I must, however, say that I do not think the Land Commission has given satisfaction to anybody. As regards the general law and practice of the Land Commission, I have never heard the whole case so well put as by the chairman of the Land Commission in the west of Ireland at the initiation of the machinery. A rather hot-headed solicitor, thinking he was not getting all he ought to for his client, said—
  "If this is your Land Commission and its methods there is no justice to be got from it."

  1295
  The chairman replied—
  "You ought not to say that, because this land court is established, and I am here to do justice between landlord and tenant, and more particularly to the tenant."
  That, I think, sums up the whole case. But if you had a Land Commission of arch-angels the adminstration of the Land Act would not produce satisfaction all round. Well, I will merely take up one point which I do not think can be really said to be a purely landlords' point, a point which is of interest and importance to both landlord and tenant and to the country at large, and that is the effect of the operation of this Act upon the cultivation and development of the natural resources of the land of Ireland. I do think that, looking at it from what I say is the proper point of view—the nation's welfare—and not from the point of view of any one class, the question of deterioration is the most important of all. Now, Mr. Lowther, it has been observed that when tenants become purchasers they immediately change their character and conduct of improving their land. I quite admit that in some parts of Ireland—not in all parts of Ireland—there are brilliant exceptions, but, as far as my own personal observation and experience will enable me to judge, the effect of transferring ownership through the process of the Land Purchase Act to the tenant, does not to any considerable extent change the habits and the character of the occupier. I think it may, however, in time. But taking the question of the operation of the Land Act with regard to deterioration, I think no one can read the Report of the Fry Commission with reference to deterioration without seeing that it is a matter that must be dealt with urgently if the land of Ireland is not to go back. I can give an instance from my own personal knowledge of the effect of the operation of the Act of 1881 within a year of it passing into law. As far as the value of land goes, the incident happened in the wealthiest part of Ireland. I know every tenant on the property, and there were no small tenements at all. Every year regularly, as far as I could trace back, previous to this Act coming into force, the tenant regularly cleared the watercourses and kept the land free from
  1296
  water. Within a year of the passing of the Act, whilst talking to one of the chief tenants, who had risen from practically a labourer, I asked him why he had not cleared the watercourses as usual. He replied—
  "Under the Act it will really pay better to have rushes than to have the water taken off the land."
  As a matter of fact, I found on inquiry afterwards that not one of the tenants cleared his watercourses as hitherto, and for the salvation of the property a staff of men were sent to clear those watercourses—
  MR. T. M. HEALY: That is just the same story we were told two years ago.
  SIR J. COLOMB: It may be, but the honourable Member must listen to my experience. Well, Sir, I think that anything that tends to make a man neglect to do the very best he can to develop his holding is an injury to the people at large, and a bad thing for the nation. Therefore, my chief object in intruding in this Debate is to draw the very serious attention of the House to that part of the Fry Commission Report dealing with deterioration. It says there—
  "The evidence leads us to conclude that there is a prevalent notion amongst the tenants that it is for their interest that, when the land is inspected by the Assistant Commissioners or the court valuer, it should not be in high condition, and that in consequence they frequently abstain from treating the land as well as they would otherwise have done, and sometimes allow the land seriously to deteriorate with a view of obtaining a lower rent."
  That is the finding of an impartial tribunal, composed of some of the most experienced men of the country, and I do not think this is a matter which any Government ought to neglect, because they say further—
  "This notion of the tenants is not, in our opinion, entirely without foundation,"
  while, a little lower down, they add—
  "It appeared to have been held by the Land Commission many years ago that deterioration is not a ground for refusing to entertain the tenants' claim to have a rent fixed."
  The deterioration of land is, therefore, a question that ought to receive the atten-

  1297
  tion of Parliament and of the country, in order that something may be done to prevent a continuance of the existing condition of things. At the end of that portion of the Report—and I will be as brief as I can—I see it is stated—
  THE CHAIRMAN: The honourable and gallant Member must confine himself to anything that has to do with the action of the Land Commissioners.
  SIR J. COLOMB: I bow to your ruling, but, with all due respect, I would venture to suggest that existing legislation contains special provision for protection against abuses of deterioration, and under that legislation the Land Commission has the power to deal with the whole matter, though no machinery has been established to carry out the intentions of the Act. That is my point, Sir. At the present moment I maintain that, under the Acts of 1870 and 1881, there are clauses which are intended to prevent the misuse of land such as I have mentioned, and my complaint, as far as the present Land Commission is concerned, is that they do not seem to use these powers. I entreat the Government, not in the interests of the landlord but in the interests of Irish land and of the Irish people, to so improve the machinery of the land courts that this question of deterioration shall have more attention than it has ever received before. You will see that at the close of their Report the Commissioners say—
  "We are therefore of opinion that an express authority ought to be given to the court"
  —they do not say that legislation ought to be asked—
  "in cases of deterioration to postpone the hearing of the application till the land has been again brought into good condition."
  Now, Sir, the point is that this suggestion should be clearly enforced. The fact that the Land Commission has gone on its way uninterfered with so long has rather encouraged the existing misapprehension, but the sooner all the tenants of Ireland know that the Land Commission are going to use some of the powers of legislation already in existence the better. At all events, I hope I shall not
  1298
  on a future occasion find it necessary to trouble the House with any further remarks, on this particular point.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: We have heard a good deal this evening as to how the Land Commission discharge their duties. I submit that the landlord party have very little to complain of. The landlords do not know where they are at present. Never since the Act of 1881 was passed have there been such landlord tribunals in Ireland. Do they know that since the Fry Commission was appointed the Irish Court of Appeal has not given one single decision in favour of a tenant? Do they know that of the 80 or 90 Commissioners appointed to try fair rents, one or two Catholics only have been appointed, and every one of those men is, without exception, a landlords' man? Is it at this time, when the Irish Land Commission court is charged with fury against the tenant, and when every nerve is being strained to do a landlord service, that their representatives come forward to attack the Land Commission? If you draft Sub-Commissioners from one single class, what can be got from it except decisions against the tenants' interest? The landlords do not know what is going on, and this period of repose is filling them with new ideas, so that they think they can by trenching on the rights of the tenants bring them back to the old stage of serfdom. I acknowledge myself to be a partisan—I do not pretend to be anything else—but I sometimes hope I may be able to take a review of the situation as it exists. I have often thought it would be better if, instead of engaging in these conflicts in the courts and in the House, and attacking the Land Commission, the landlords and the tenants, or their representatives, could come together, and the landlords were to ask for their three per cents., and also to be converted into some position which would give them that security of income which they say they cannot enjoy under the Land Commission. I believe that if the landlords of Ireland would come forward with some sensible proposition of that kind, the tenants would be glad to come to some composition with the landlord party, so that they might be bought out

  1299
  under fair terms. This is a specially suitable moment. The tenants cannot afford to deteriorate their land. They have not enough of it to deteriorate. The constant system of bringing landlords and tenants into court is not a good one. In 1881 I advocated Griffith's valuation without appeal on either side, but this was not adopted, with the result that the landlords fared very much worse. Them Mr. Gladstone offered them 20 years' purchase in 1886, and they refused it with scorn. Mr. Parnell offered them 20 years' purchase. In the original draft, which was to have been printed in the Freeman's Journal, Mr. Parnell was going to offer them 23 years' purchase, but I took out the three and put in a nought.
  MR. DAVITT: And I objected to the 20.
  MR. T. M. HEALY: All these offers were refused. But, be the Irish differences what they may, you will never disband the solid army of the tenant class in Ireland until the descendants of the old clansmen succeed in getting back the patrimony which the landlords' forefathers confiscated. Irish landlords have no fault to find with the present Government. It is the most landlord Government that has been in office since Mr. Gladstone's Government in 1880. And yet we witness the spectacle of honourable Members opposite girding at the Chief Secretary and the Attorney General! The Sub-Commissioners are of the landlords' way of thinking, and the complaint which the House has heard from honourable Members opposite is most absurd. If the landlord party cannot come to some composition, the result will be that we shall have the old disorders again. Prices will not yield the rents at the present time; it is absurd talking about it. Honourable Gentlemen opposite are trying, like the man in Genesis, to put back the sun and make the earth go the other way. It is absurd to come to the House with pettifogging pretences about deterioration.
  On the return of the Chairman after the usual interval,
  Mr. WHARTON: Mr. Lowther, the honourable and gallant Member for North Armagh has
  1300
  quoted the Report of the Fry Commission, and a very remarkable document it is. The result, to my mind, of that Report is that some change in the constitution of the Land Commission is desirable in the interest of landlords and tenants alike. I have no love for one side more than the other. What I desire is that the land system in Ireland shall be such as will tend to the mutual benefit of both, and to a large extent do away with the enormous cost which the present system entails on the litigants. Well, Sir, there are one or two matters which were alluded to by the honourable and gallant Member to which I should like to draw attention. First, with regard to the Civil Bill Court, which, it is suggested, so far as the land is concerned, should cease to exist; and, secondly, the matter alluded to on page 15 of the Fry Commission Report, namely, the very serious question of re-hearing. Now, Sir, I think what most of us are inclined to judge the efficiency of a court by is whether the decisions of that court are accepted by the suitors who come before it. With regard to the Land Courts, I find that, instead of their decisions being generally accepted by those who come before them, the total number of appeals from the Sub-Commissioners to the Land Commission from 1881 to November 29th, 1897, was 51,668. This is to me a very lamentable fact, because it means an enormous amount of expenditure to both sides. I am quite as anxious for the tenant as for the landlord. I want to see the expenditure as little as possible for all concerned. When there is an enormous number of appeals there must be something wrong. I do not say that the court is in any instance wrong. I am told on good authority that its decisions are very slightly altered. If that is the case, therefore it would very much appear as if one good court would be sufficient. Then, again, on page 15 of the Fry Commission Report the Commissioners say:—
  "A few cases have been brought to our attention in which the opinion of the legal assistant Commissioner on a legal point has been overruled by his two lay colleagues; and this, according to the present constitution of the Sub-Commissioners, appears to be possible; but, in our opinion, it ought not to be allowed to occur."

  1301
  It appears to me on the whole, Sir, having read the Report of the Fry Commission—and I do not wish to go through the recommendations seriatim—that the Commissioners appointed under the Act have done their best. The enormous number of cases and the enormous amount of work they have had to deal with undoubtedly resulted in the very large number of gentlemen being appointed, and it may even be that under those circumstances some of these gentlemen were not so fitted to deal with these cases as a more mature-minded set of men. I can only hope in the future that as the number of cases becomes reduced the work will become more rapid. The number of Sub-Commissioners can then be reduced and the work can be done by thoroughly skilled and capable men. My only hope in saying these few words is that the system may be recognised as being more trustworthy in the future than it appears to have been in the past; that some of the stumbling-blocks in the system may be removed; that there may be a better understanding with regard to the administration of the land system in future; and that the Report of Lord Justice Fry and his Commissioners may have good results.
  MR. GILHOOLY: I happened to be in the Commission Court in Bantry on 20th January, when there was a case heard. The landlord's solicitor argued that the tenant was a labourer because he paid a portion of his rent in labour and a portion in cash. The local Commissioner there and then decided—I was present in the court myself—that the tenant was entitled to have a fair rent, pursuant to section 55 of the Land Act of 1881, and subsequently he sent a lay Commissioner to value the land. Well, I put a question to the right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary for Ireland, and his information was that there was no decision given. I repeat here from my place in the House that I was present when the decision was given, and that the landlord, after the decision was given, instructed his solicitor to apply to the Court of Appeal. What confidence can tenants in Ireland have in the administration of the law when such a thing can take place, and when we ask a question about it in the House—about an event of which I have personal know-
  1302
  ledge myself, having been present in the court—we are told there was no decision given? There was, Sir, a decision given. I was present; and the landlord instructed his solicitor to appeal from the decision. The lay Commissioner went and examined the tenant's improvements, and on the 8th of May he got notice that his case was dismissed. I have been told by the right honourable Gentleman that it is open to appeal. This man being partly a labourer and partly a farmer, living 70 miles from Cork, has no power and no money to appeal, and then we are told no explanation can be given, because the case may be sub judice. That would be quite correct if the tenant had the means to appeal; but I say, Sir, in this case it is the duty of the right honourable Gentleman to require an explanation from Mr. Cream.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I have absolutely no power to do that, to demand an explanation.
  MR. GILHOOLY: No power to do so? Well, you may remonstrate with the Land Commission.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: No, Sir.
  MR. GILHOOLY: At all events, Sir, it is my duty to state the case to the House and let the public know how the tenants are treated since the Report of the Fry Commission. Prior to that Report Mr. Cream was considered one of the fairest Commissioners in the administration of the Land Act, but it appears that he and other Commissioners have been intimidated by the Fry Commission, and no justice since that Report has been given to the tenants. There was another case in the court on the same day, and the lay Commissioner gave evidence as to the tenant's improvements, and he valued them at £50. This tenant had borrowed £120 for those improvements, and yet the lay Commissioner put only a value of £50 upon them. What can tenants expect when the Land Act is exercised in that way? A competent engineer valued these improvements at £120, and certified for them to the Board of Works, and yet the lay Commissioner only valued these works, which had recently been done, at £50. I hope the right honourable Gentleman will use his influence with the Land Commissioners when he

  1303
  has appointments to make, and will not appoint men of the landlord class. This is what leads people to doubt whether there is any wish to give them fair play in Ireland. There was never such dissatisfaction, I allege, given or expressed since the Land Act of 1881 was instituted as there has been since the Report of the Fry Commission.
  CAPTAIN PHILLPOTTS: I think this is not only a landlords' question in Ireland, it is one that affects the whole country, because where there is a serious failure of justice—and that, as I contend, is clearly made out by the Report of the Fry Commission—it must tend to injure the credit and drive capital out of the country, or, at all events, keep capital from flowing into the country. We all know perfectly well that in many trust deeds there is a clause absolutely prohibiting the investment of trust funds in real property in Ireland. Why is that? Because people in this country have not confidence in the administration of justice in Ireland. I contend that that is a very great evil—
  MR. DAVITT: We do not want your money at all.
  CAPTAIN PHILLPOTTS: One honourable Member says, "We do not want your money."
  MR. DAVITT: No!
  CAPTAIN PHILLPOTTS: Well, that is very strange. You come here night after night—
  MR. DAVITT: That is for our own money.
  CAPTAIN PHILLPOTTS: Well, if the honourable Member does not want it, there are plenty in Ireland who do.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: The landlords will take any amount of it.
  CAPTAIN PHILLPOTTS: Well, I am quite aware what the honourable Member's opinions are. He has never concealed them; and I contend that he and those who think with him are the greatest enemies Ireland has got, and that the Irish race has got.
  MR. SWIFT MACNEILL: We take that as a compliment.
  CAPTAIN PHILLPOTTS: For my own part I fully believe that if there were greater confidence in the just administration of the law in Ireland capital would flow into that country, and that there would be a vast improvement; that the country would be opened up, that British tourists would go there much more than they do now, and that an era of prosperity would dawn upon Ireland, just as it has already on other parts of the kingdom, where I believe there is more confidence in the administration of the law.
  MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL: I can assure the honourable Member for Devon that we on this side of the House, at least the Irish Members and myself, do not consider it to be any great advantage to have land purchased in Ireland by absentee landlords.
  CAPTAIN PHILLPOTTS: Pardon me, I did hot mention that.
  MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL: Of course, I accept what the honourable and gallant Gentleman says. We have suffered already from absenteeism, which has been for two centuries at least one of the great curses of Ireland, one of the means by which Ireland has been reduced to its present condition. But I will pass away from that, because I think it is quite natural that, as an English Member, he should hold the opinions, honestly I have no doubt, to which he has given expression; but if he had had the experience that I have had of Ireland, if he had known, as I have known, the relations between landlord and tenant over a great number of years, and been able to form a just and accurate opinion as to their relative merits, he probably would modify very much his opinions. Now, I am not saying a word against the Irish landlords personally. I feel that they were themselves placed in an unfortunate position from circumstances over which they themselves had no control; because it is a matter of history, which Englishmen should study and lay up in their hearts and memories, that up to the initiation of what I call the new Land Code by Mr. Gladstone there had been centuries of legislation altogether

  1305
  in favour of the landlord and against the interests of the tenant in Ireland. That difficulty had to be met, and there was also from the peculiar position of Ireland during the whole of the 18th century up to the Union—
  THE CHAIRMAN: Order, order! This is not a proper moment for discussing the whole of the Land Acts. The only subject which is really open to discussion is the action or non-action of certain assistant Land Commissioners.
  MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL: I will endeavour, Mr. Lowther, of course, to keep to your ruling, but I confess that I think I am quite legitimate in saying this, that I am not one of those who are at all enamoured of the Fry Commission. That has been criticised and discussed on both sides of the House, and I believe, Mr. Lowther, I am in order in referring to it. I confess that that Commission did not disappoint me, because I had no great expectations from it from its start. The President of that Commission, for whom personally I entertain great respect, was a man wholly unacquainted with Ireland, wholly out of touch with the peculiarities of the Irish tenant and the position of the Irish landlords; and in a very early stage of the Commission he indicated that, because he put the question to some witness who said that he could not possibly hold on to the land at a certain rent—he said naively, and I am sure it was natural enough for an Englishman wholly ignorant of the situation to say, "Why, then, not give up the land?" That was the key to the whole state of mind of that eminent judge—a Chancery judge and a Chancery jurist, who never had any opportunity at all of knowing the peculiar relations that subsisted between landlord and tenant in Ireland. Two other members composing that Commission were experts; one of them was a well-known advocate of the landlord class, and the other was a gentleman who certainly had had a great deal of experience in land business, but could not in any way be regarded as a partisan on one side or the other. Constituted as it was, that Commission, in the conclusions at which it arrived, completely ignored what had been going on in Ireland ever since, at all events, the year 1870. Now, Mr. Lowther, with some of the observations of the
  1306
  honourable and gallant Member for Armagh I fully concur. I think there is one great difficulty in the Land Commission with which we are now dealing. I think, no matter what it costs the English Government, that persons who have to administer such law should be permanent officers, and not removable. It is impossible to expect men who can be removed at the pleasure of whatever may happen to be the Government of the day to approach the discharge of their duties with that amount of independence, and without fear of all consequences, that naturally would come to them if they held permanent positions. Let me not for a moment be misunderstood. I believe that they are all honourable men, and I believe that they endeavour conscientiously to discharge their duties; but I say, Sir, having regard to average human nature, it is more than can be expected that there should not be an impression that they are more or less perpetually feeling that the sword is hanging over their heads, that at any time they may be dismissed from their offices. I speak, of course, of that section of the Commission who are only temporary. But we must judge of matters by results. Unquestionably, since the Report of that Commission was published, for some reason or other the reduction of rents which had previously more or less prevailed suddenly has come to a stop. It is impossible to shut one's eyes to that fact. You have only to take up the morning papers in which the results of the various Commissions are reported, and you will find that, more especially on appeals. I cannot help thinking that the unfortunate Report of the Fry Commission has had something to do with this. I cannot help thinking that the power and influence possessed by the landlords at the present time have had some operation upon the minds of those who are administering the law. Now, what is the fact? It has been stated in this House, and stated truly, that if the Land Code of Mr. Gladstone had never existed the rents in Ireland, by economical causes, would have been reduced more than they have been reduced under the operation of those land laws. We had only to listen to the Debates on the Agricultural Rates Bill two years ago, and the statements made by honourable Members representing

  1307
  Essex and other agricultural districts in England, to be satisfied that a great number of the farms in England were actually going out of cultivation and out of occupation because tenants could not be induced to take them at any rents. Therefore I think that, so far from deploring the Land Code, the landlords of Ireland have reason to be grateful to that great statesman and patriot, Mr. Gladstone, for I am satisfied that they would have been in a worse position than they are to-day if those Acts had not been passed. Now, Sir, I confess I was surprised to hear the observations of the honourable and gallant Member for Great Yarmouth. As I understood, his case was that, if the Land Commission were to find a farm overrun with rushes and deteriorated, they were to put a higher rent upon that deteriorated and waste land, though the tenant was still in occupation. Does it ever occur to English Members what the position of yearly tenants in Ireland is?
  SIR J. COLOMB: Can you define what a yearly tenant is?
  MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL: A yearly tenant? I imagine the honourable and gallant Gentleman does not require any instruction of that sort. He must have seen many an evicted farm in Kerry in his experience, and many a roof-tree pulled down, and a house which had been previously occupied by a poor yearly tenant of that county laid bare.
  SIR J. COLOMB: May I interrupt the right honourable and learned Gentleman? I think the vast majority of tenants in Ireland, the judicial tenants, are not under any such tenancy at all.
  MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL: I know, as a matter of fact, there are hundreds and thousands of tenants who never have yet gone into the court, though they may at some future time do so. It is quite a mistake to imagine otherwise. Perhaps I have not made what is passing in my mind clear to the honourable and gallant Gentleman. I ask the honourable Member for Devon and the right honourable and learned Gentleman, whose speech I have not had the advantage myself of hearing, have they ever realised, or could they realise, the position of the
  1308
  yearly tenant before the Act of 1881? They had no analogy, or anything like it, in England. There is no such thing in England known in practice as an agricultural and pastoral yearly tenant. Can they forget, or were they ever aware of, the fact that the yearly tenant in Ireland, before his rent was fixed, and he acquired a certain fixity of tenure through the Gladstone Code, had no alternative but to cling on to the land at any rent, no matter how exorbitant, or else to see himself and his wife and children thrown out on the roadside, and ultimately make his choice between the workhouse and the emigrant ship? That was the state of things when this Land Code was initiated. That was the state of things which it became necessary to correct in the course of legislation. For 150 years previously, even up to the Land Act of 1860, the whole current of legislation was in favour of the landlord, and not of the tenant. Then this scant measure of justice was for the first time given by an English Act of Parliament under the guidance and at the suggestion of Mr. Gladstone. And now an attempt is made through this Fry Commission, or resting upon the name of the President of that Commission, as an eminent English judge, to undo as far as possible—as far as this House can undo—the beneficial effects which have been brought about by the Act of 1881, and by what I admit goes to the credit of the right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary and his colleagues, the supplement to that Act, of 1896. I trust, therefore, that this House will not imagine that any case has been made out by the honourable and gallant Member for Great Yarmouth, and those who follow him, for in any way initiating any fresh legislation on the lines of the Fry Commission Report. The suggestions of that Commission are wholly without value, as it appears to me. It does point out certain evils, but those evils are only to be remedied in one way, by making the Sub-Commissioners permanent officers, by increasing their number if they are not adequate to meet the demands made upon their time, and by also taking care that cases shall be heard without reference to the time which those cases may occupy. But after the honourable and gallant Member had closed his address I did not

  1309
  really know exactly what he was driving at. He suggested, I think, as I understood it, that the Sub-Commissioners were inclined to lower the rents in order to keep the court going. I think that was an unworthy suggestion; I say it with all respect. I do not think anything has occurred which would lead one to suppose that the Sub-Commissioners lowered the rents with that view; and it is rather a strong conclusion to come to respecting men, most of whom have been appointed by Administrations which the honourable and gallant Member supports—because you must recollect that since 1881, when Mr. Gladstone's first Land Act was passed, the Conservatives have been nine or ten years in office, and that during that term of office they must have had ampler opportunities than the opposite party of replenishing the staff of the Sub-Commission. I do not at all see that the landlords of Ireland have anything to complain of. My own impression is that they are just as well off as they were before that Land Act, because, though rents may have been somewhat reduced, and properly reduced, they have been paid with much more punctuality, much more precision, and with much less trouble on the part of the landlord. The idea of a competition rent being any test of the value of land in Ireland is perfectly absurd, and yet that is the idea which more or less underlies the whole of the Report of the Fry Commission. I, therefore, do trust that the right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary, if he learns any lesson from this Debate, will learn the lesson of being more particular than ever as to what Sub-Commissioners he shall appoint; that he will also take care that the determination of rents against the tenants and in favour of the landlords, or vice versâ, shall not be allowed to go to the arbitrament of a single sub-commissioner. In that I agree with the honourable and gallant Member for Armagh. I know that for months and months there was only one Commissioner trying questions in the North of Ireland, where such questions are more difficult and more subtle, and require more care and attention than in the south. I have known also instances where the round peg has been put into the square hole, and where men without any knowledge of the Ulster Tenant Right, or knowledge of the peculiar relations existing with
  1310
  reference to land in the North of Ireland—which is as different as the poles asunder from the nature of land and the condition of land on farms in the south and west—were sent out almost as if their utter ignorance of the prevailing conditions and the state of agriculture in a particular locality might be employed in guiding the Commission in coming to a conclusion. Nothing can be easier and simpler than the fixing of a fair rent. You have only to see what the surroundings of the farm are; you have only to see what the nature of the soil is; you have only then to take those elements into consideration, and deducting as the law insists—and I suppose even the landlords of Ireland cannot say they are beyond and above the law—all rent attributable to the tenant's improvements; you have then, not to take into account competition rent, not to suppose when a man is starving for want of occupation and willing to offer any rent, that the rent which he might offer is to be the test, but taking the surrounding circumstances into account you are to arrive, as an honest man, with a certain amount of agricultural skill and experience, at what would be a fair rent to pay for that farm. I trust that the Chief Secretary will give some assurance that this Report of the Fry Commission will be consigned to the pigeon-holes of the Irish Office, never to be acted on in legislation, and that he will also give a pledge to take care that the men, as far as he can ascertain, shall be fitted to fill the important position of Sub-Commissioners.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: The right honourable Gentleman who has just spoken ended his remarks by expressing the opinion that the fixing of a fair rent was a very easy matter. I am afraid that there are a good many persons attached to the Land Commission, at all events who have not found it very easy to satisfy both parties. If the fixing of a fair rent is easy, all I can say is, that practice has proved that it is by no means easy to satisfy both landlord and tenant at the same time that it is a fair rent. My honourable and gallant Friend the Member for Armagh remarked very truly that in all questions relating to the land Ireland was divided into two camps, in both of which there was a remarkable unanimity of opinion. In one of these

  1311
  camps there was a unanimous belief that the rents were fixed fairly, in the other camp the same unanimity that they were fixed unfairly. My honourable and gallant Friend said that the Fry Commission was appointed in order that it might express an unbiased opinion upon these knotty questions, and he proceeded to discuss the tribunal; and I certainly thought that after the exordium of his speech he would take into consideration the conclusion of the Commission as to whether on the whole rents in Ireland had been fixed too high or too low. But when it came to that point, my honourable and gallant Friend swerved away. He declined to discuss that question, and, instead of doing so, he proceeded to criticise the machinery of the Land Commission. A great many criticisms have been made against many of the methods of the Land Commission, but if we are to discuss the Report of the Fry Commissioners I think it is only fair that reference should be made to the general conclusions at which the Commission arrived on some of the principal points which were submitted to their judgment. One of those points was undoubtedly in connection with the general fixing of fair rent. It was urged by those whom my honourable Friend represents on this side of the House that the Assistant Land Commissioners had been engaged in a reckless and unjustifiable reduction of rents, and that they were still engaged in the same process.
  COLONEL SAUNDERSON: I did not say that.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am sorry my honourable and gallant Friend was not present when I made my remarks, because I was saying that although he might say that the Fry Commission was appointed to decide this question as to whether these rents were too high or too low, he did not proceed to discuss certain conclusions arrived at by the Fry Commission upon the proceedings of the Land Commission. What was the conclusion of the Fry Commission as to the general consequences of the work of the Commissioners and the results at which they arrived? I refer the Committee to page 12 of the Report. I take the following passage from a para-
  1312
  graph rather more than half way down page 12—
  "As already mentioned, the work of the lay Assistant Commissioners and court valuers has in a few cases been reviewed by the expert members of the Commission; but without any attempt to investigate the drainage by digging. With one exception, hereafter to be mentioned, they found no reason, so far as their investigations went, to differ from the figures fixed by the lay Assistant Commissioners and court valuers. Of the holdings visited, the fair rent of one was fixed in the year 1894; the fair rents of five were fixed in the year 1895, two in the year 1896, and two in the year 1897. Of these, nine were first-term applications and one a second-term application. But the number of farms visited was so small that, although we think it right to state the facts, we do not wish to draw from them any general conclusion. We believe that, as a whole, the Assistant Commissioners and the court valuers have striven honestly, and to the best of their ability, to discharge the difficult duties cast upon them, and it is plain that their work is now done with more care and deliberation than in the early days of the Land Commission. Nevertheless it gives opportunity for dissatisfaction, and leaves much room for improvement."
  I think the Committee will see that the wholesale denunciations of the Land Commissioners indulged in not only by my honourable and gallant Friend the Member for Armagh, but by my honourable Friend the Member for Belfast, are hardly justified by anything to be found in the Report of the Fry Commission. I refer the Committee to another passage even more extraordinary than that I have just read. It is page 25, commencing a few lines from the bottom of the page—
  "The question of the justice or injustice with which fair rents have been fixed has been forced on our attention by reason of the arguments to which we have referred; and it is perhaps right that we should not part with it without a few more observations. We have said that it was urged upon us on the one side that the fair rents were fixed so low as to compel the conclusion that the machinery worked unjustly towards the landlords, and on the other hand, that they were fixed so high as to prove that it worked unjustly towards the tenants. We believe, as already stated,"
  —and I call the attention of the honourable and gallant Member to this—
  "that in the early years of the Land Commission rents were fixed higher than they would have been if the Commission had been endowed with the gift of prophecy; but the facts that tenant-right generally continues to fetch high prices, that no land is derelict, that farmers

  1313
  generally prosper, that the bank deposits of 1896 are higher than ever; and the increase of the volume of farming stock in Ireland forbids the notion of a widespread injustice towards the tenants in the fixing of fair rents. On the other hand, cases have been produced before us in which it is difficult to reconcile the very high prices paid for tenant-right where the tenant had no improvements, with the notion that the fair rent was adequate; these cases are sufficient to make it plain that individual cases of miscarriage have occurred, and to confirm us in the opinion that in some instances an occupation interest has been allowed for. For the reasons already given, we find it impossible to form any certain judgment as to the extent to which this allowance has been made; but so far forth as it has ultimately acted in lowering the amount fixed for fair rent, it has obviously worked an injustice towards the landlords. We recognise that rents in Ireland have been greatly reduced; but it is notorious that causes of a general character have operated to depress the rentals of all parts of the United Kingdom; and to unravel the distinct operation of these several causes, and thus to isolate the effect of an allowance for occupation interest, passes our ability. We thus feel ourselves unable to conclude that the machinery of the Land Statutes has been uniformly worked with injustice towards landlords. The recent Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture shows that in the period since 1881 a great fall has taken place in Great Britain in rents, and in the value of agricultural property. They report that over a considerable part of Great Britain rent, which is a payment for the original powers of the land, 'has entirely vanished; since the owners are not receiving the ordinary interest upon the sums which it would cost to erect buildings, fences, etc., as good as those now existing.' We are convinced, as we have already shown, that the settlement of fair rents has been effected in an unsatisfactory manner—with diversity of opinion and practice, sometimes with carelessness, and sometimes with that bias towards one side or the other which exists in many honest minds; but we are also convinced that the administration of justice has not been poisoned by any systematic endeavour on the part of the Commissioners or of the Assistant Commissioners to benefit either side at the expense of the other."
  I have read these extracts, which I admit are rather long, because I think it is important that the Committee should know what was the general conclusion arrived at by the Fry Commission. I venture to think that anybody who remembers the type of language used before the appointment of the Fry Commission with regard to the results arrived at by the Assistant Commissioners, and then compares it with the conclusion arrived at by the Fry Commission, must come to the conclusion that, while
  1314
  there is much to blame and much to criticise, the result of that Commission is, on the whole, to acquit them of bias or any charge of that sort. So much for general conclusions arrived at by the Fry Commissioners. I now come to some special criticisms. These criticisms are very numerous. If the recommendations made by the Commissioners were carried out some of them would have to be carried out by legislation, others by the Administrative Act of the Land Commissioners themselves, and others again by the Land Commissioners, with the consent of the Government and of the Treasury. As regards the first class of recommendations after the experience of this House during the last 15 years or more I do not think there is any party in this House which would like to see a fresh attempt made to reopen the question of Irish land legislation. I cannot help observing one thing. My honourable and gallant Friend called attention to the position of the county court judge who, he said, is not giving justice in all cases, and merely gives way to the opinions of the valuers whom he employs. In the Bill of 1896 we proposed to abolish the jurisdiction of the county court judge in the fixing of fair rents, which is also one of the very recommendations made by the Fry Commission. That suggestion received no countenance from either side of the House or from my right honourable Friend. The Fry Commission ends its Report by suggesting that one of the best ways out of the difficulties which Irish land legislation has created would be the establishment of a court of bankruptcy for the fixing of rents. In 1896 I devoted how much time I cannot say to the elaboration of such a clause, but again the system which I had elaborated with so much labour received no approval from either that side of the House or from this side. I only mention these facts in order to bring home to the Committee the difficulties in which we should certainly find ourselves if we once again reopened the question of Irish land legislation. With regard to the other proposals of the Fry Commission, I think they are most worthy of careful consideration. The point to which my honourable and gallant Friend attached most importance was the question of the permanence of

  1315
  tenure of those engaged in fixing fair rents, and on this matter the right honourable Gentleman opposite, though he did not agree with the honourable and gallant gentleman in many things, did agree with him in this. But he also said that the Report of the Fry Commission was absolutely valueless, and then immediately afterwards he said that the proper thing to do was to make the appointment of these Commissioners permanent. That is a matter to which he attached the utmost importance, and it was also the most important recommendation of the Fry Commission. With regard to this point I must express my opinion that more weight has been attached to it than can fairly be attached to the question of permanence of tenure. I do not for a moment admit that, simply because of an Assistant Commissioner's appointment being of a limited duration he is therefore under a temptation to increase the rents in order to create work.
  MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL: He should be as far above suspicion as Cæsar's wife.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I do not think he is under the slightest temptation to increase or lower the rents, nor do I think that experience shows that those Commissioners who hold their appointments for a year are necessarily, or generally, for that reason less to be trusted than those who are permanent officers of the Commission. My own belief is that it is rather the other way; so far as these motives operate on these gentlemen they operate in this way—that they are more careful and more anxious to do their work well than those who are permanently appointed, and who are therefore secure in their position. That is my own private belief, but I quite admit that there seems to be an almost universal suspicion, both among landlords and tenants, that the effect of temporary tenure is to impair the independence and the fairness of the Assistant Land Commissioners, and, if that is so, it is a strong argument for lifting—as my honourable and gallant Friend has said—these gentlemen above the atmosphere of suspicion; but I do
  1316
  not think my honourable and gallant Friend has realised the enormous difficulties in the way. It is practically impossible to make all these gentlemen permanent officers. Just let me state to the Committee the fluctuations since 1881 in the numbers of the Assistant Commissioners. In 1881 24 lay Assistant Commissioners were employed in fair rent work. This number was in creased up to 1883, when 68 were employed, and that was in consequence of the amount of work that was necessary to be performed. In the following year the number was reduced to 20, and then they were again increased to 86, but then the work decreasing it went down to 8. From that year the number was augmented gradually up to 1889, when it reached 64, and then for the period 1892–95 it fell to 18, since which date the number has again gradually risen above high-water mark, namely, 81; so that the Committee will see that since 1881 the fluctuations have ranged between 8 and 81. Now I put it to the Committee—is it possible for any Chief Secretary, under these circumstances, to defend the appointment of 81 permanent Assistant Commissioners on the ground that for a short time, perhaps for a year or a year and a half, 81 members are required, and for the next three years only eight are required? The thing is preposterous, and it is absolutely impossible to accept such a suggestion as that. Throughout the Session of 1896, when land legislation was under discussion in this House, I earnestly requested my honourable Friends not to complicate the work of the Land Commission more than was absolutely necessary, because the inevitable difficulty would be the appointment of a larger number of Commissioners, and if you have a larger number of Commissioners you get a lower average upon it. My honourable Friends never listened to my advice—they insisted upon burdening the Commissioners, and the consequence is that the number of Commissioners is higher than it has ever been before, because two Commissioners are always to be present at the first inspection of the holding, and if it be necessary to increase that number it is to be increased. I mention these difficulties, not because we are not prepared to go as far as possible in the

  1317
  direction of making the tenure of these Assistant Commissioners more permanent than it is at present, but in order that the Committee may see that what is asked for—namely, that the whole number of the Commissioners should be permanent Commissioners, entitled to pensions—is absolutely impossible. I have gone so fully into that question because it is a question on which so much stress has been laid on both sides of the House this evening. I should like to refer to another point made by my honourable friend the Member for Great Yarmouth. He referred to the question of deterioration. I agree with him that one of the evils of this system of fixing fair rents now established in Ireland is that towards the end of a tenancy there is a tendency on the part of the tenant to deteriorate the land, whereby, perhaps, a lower rent might be fixed upon it, but upon this point the Land Commission are perfectly prepared to move in the direction indicated in the Report of the Fry Commission, and I am able to inform my honourable and gallant Friend that a comparatively short time ago the Land Commission absolutely refused to fix a fair rent, because the land had been deteriorated.
  MR. DILLON: Was that a legal act?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: Yes, it was under the ninth section of the Act of 1881.
  MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL: Was there an appeal from the Land Commission to the Court of Appeal because that was a question of law?
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: I am not aware that there was.
  MR. SERJEANT HEMPHILL: Then there ought to be one.
  MR. GERALD BALFOUR: At all events, the Land Commissioners, so far as they can, are perfectly willing to fall in with any of those suggestions of the Fry Commission that are here set out, and which appear to be reasonable. With regard to the fixity of tenure, that is a matter with which the Land Commissioners cannot deal without the consent
  1318
  of the Government and the Treasury. I can only say on that point that while, in consequence of the burden imposed upon me owing to the Irish Local Government Bill, I have not been able to go into the matters raised by the Fry Commission, it is my intention to do so at a future date, and I trust that, so far as those recommendations are concerned which can be carried out, and are reasonable, we shall certainly not fail to give them effect.
  MR. YOUNG: The honourable and gallant Member has had a great deal to say about the working of the Land Act, but he has offered no substitution, it appears to me, for the present state of things. I am an owner of lands in the county which he represents, and I consider that the Land Act to me has been a great advantage, because my rents are certainly better paid than they were before the tenants were placed under the Land Act, and I consider it is a great advantage indeed to the landlords of Ireland that Mr. Gladstone carried an Act which brought with it so many blessings to the landlords and also to the tenants. Before the Land Act of 1881 the people in Ireland were driven off their land as birds off a field. Since that time they have had a local habitation and a name. That legislation has encouraged industry, and has been of immense benefit to the people and the landlords of Ireland. It has been a benefit to the landlords because they now get their rents paid more regularly, and justice has been done to them and to the people over whom they used to domineer. I did not rise for the purpose of inflicting a speech on the House upon a matter so threadbare as this, but merely to express the hope that the Government will encourage the tenants to live and thrive. The landlords have had their day, and I think it is time that the people who have improved the soil, who have laboured diligently for their families and homes, should have that position in the country to which they are entitled.
  MR. MCCARTAN: A great deal has been said about deterioration, but I do not consider that the Report of the Fry Commission in any way upholds

  1319
  the view that deterioration to any considerable extent has taken place. The Land Commission was constituted of an English judge; the landlords of Ireland were represented by one of the most extreme landlords of Ireland; there was no representation whatever of the tenants; and surely when they came to the conclusion that no injustice had been done to the landlords by way of deterioration, that ought to be satisfactory. But the great complaint made by the landlords was still the question of deterioration. I must say that I have had great experience of the land courts, and I have never yet heard any evidence of deterioration given in any court, that satisfied the Sub-Commissioners that there was any ground for it. Every person knows that all the improvements made on the land in Ireland were made by the tenants—at least, scarcely any are ever made by the landlords. That is how the Irish land question differs from the English, because here the landlords do everything and equip the farm for enjoyment. In Ireland it is different, where, as I have said, the whole of the improvements are made by the tenants. I remember well that, before a small Committee which was appointed to inquire into this matter, the honourable Member for Southampton asked an official,
  "Would there be any fear of the tenant allowing his farm to fall into a state of deterioration towards the end of fifteen years?"
  The official replied that it would be easy enough if the tenant could put the rocks back into the holes from which he had dug them. To my mind, that reply crystallises the actual state of the case. The tenants of Ireland have everything to gain by improving the land, and the landlord has nothing now to gain. Amy deterioration which takes place takes place upon farms from which the tenants have been evicted. These farms fall into the hands of the landlords, who allow them to go to waste and to deteriorate; but the land occupied by the tenant farmer is day by day progressing from one state of improvement to another state of improvement, and there is no ground for the landlords making that complaint. There was a serious complaint, I know, made in Ulster with reference to the Fry Commission, and this
  1320
  is very relevant to the question of the Special Commissioners. It was said that they took no evidence whatever with reference to the Ulster custom., The Ulster custom was a question which ought to be taken into consideration in fixing a fair rent, because the Ulster custom is an equivalent interest. There is a Report which is to be found in a book written by one of the most learned of lawyers—I think the right honourable Gentleman will admit that that is so—Isaac Butt. In this book it was said with reference to the Ulster custom that where improved land was to to be found it was worth about seven years' purchase. That is not now taken into consideration as part of the property of the tenant in fixing the fair rent. All the improvements are taken into consideration, but in addition to that there is the rent charged on the land. That has never been allowed to the tenants at present. No doubt some of the Sub-Commissioners write across the paper that this land has been improved subject to the Ulster custom, but no allowance has been made in respect thereof. That is an injustice of which the tenants have a right to complain, and I do hope it will be put right. There are two classes of Commissioners. There is one class that see a place and fix a fair rent; but there is another class—a far more dangerous class—known as court valuers. Their duties are in connection with the Court of Appeal. They are sent out after appeals are lodged by the landlord for a revision of the rents fixed by the other Sub-Commissioners who have heard the case and listened to all the evidence. But all these court valuers see are the pink papers. This, to my mind, is one of the greatest evils at present in connection with the administration of the land laws in Ireland, and I believe that that can be only properly dealt with by further legislation, and I hope that the Chief Secretary will take into consideration what ought to be done with these court valuers. I have known myself of a court valuer who was sent by the Chief Commissioner to inspect lands and to revise the rents fixed by the Sub-Commissioners, who was the very Sub-Commissioner who at the time of the Land Act was one of the two laymen fixing fair rents. He was naturally a bit

  1321
  jealous on finding those fair rents fixed for the first term reduced by the Commissioners fixing them for the second term. The opinion of the farmers was that he entered into the investigation with a considerable bias in favour of the fair rents fixed for the first term by himself, and I daresay that what has taken place in this county has taken place in other counties. I have heard of landlords who always allow cases of the fixing of fair rents to go by default, and afterwards to, lodge appeals, and that is done for the express purpose of putting the tenants to expense; and then it happens that oases go before the Chief Commissioner which have never been before the Sub-Commissioner, and I do think that that sort of practice ought to be in some way modified because it is a very great grievance throughout all Ireland at the present moment. There was one case which came before the Fry Commission in which a landlord said that since the passing of the 1896 Act he had never appeared before the Sub-Commissioner at all; he relied upon the Chief Commissioner, whom I say the landlords look upon as a friendly Commissioner for them.
  MR. FLYNN: I have listened to this Debate in Committee for some time, and I want to know what was the object of the honourable and gallant Gentleman in bringing forward these criticisms of the Land Commission, and that train of thought is naturally somewhat strengthened by the present state of the opposite benches—not a single Irish landlord has been here for a considerable time, and their absence is a striking proof of the utter hollowness of the attack that has been made this evening upon the Land Commission, and it is a proof of the absence of all reality of the criticisms which have come from the other side. This action to-night on behalf of the Irish landlord representatives is, I take it, part of the system indulged in during the last 12 months of organised intimidation of the Commissioners, and
  1322
  the Assistant Commissioners more especially, with a view to the second term of official rents—there can be no doubt about it. They get a tip from a noble lord that they should agitate. Hence this Commission was appointed, and they have been hoist with their own petard; for, in all the salient features of this land question the Commissioners—partial though they were, and undoubtedly appointed as they were in the landlord interest—have reported in the main features against the landlords' action. It is very sad to think that the landlords, who seem to be very well content with the legislation which is being given for the benefit of the tenants, should have embarked again on this dangerous and selfish agitation, because it calls to my mind that, shortly after the passing of the Act of 1881, the same class of gentlemen—not in this Chamber, but in the other House—promoted an agitation against the Sub-Commissioners. Debates were held, censure was passed upon the operation of the Land Act, with the result, of course, that the Commissioners of that day were intimidated, and most unfair rents were fixed upon the tenants, as is proved to be the case by the evidence of anybody whose experience is worth listening to. It is very dreadful for the landlords in these days of universal and widespread depression to embark on an agitation of this kind and to seek to put that pressure by means of the Fry Commission and by other means upon these people who are engaged upon, very difficult and delicate work. I myself have always refrained from passing any strictures on the Commissioners because I know and recognise how truly difficult their work is. But I do say this, that unless you give these Commissioners an independence it is thoroughly impossible for them to be independent and to stand firm and impartial between landlord and tenant. From a Return I find that of the 75 Assistant Commissioners, including the legal Commissioners, 51 are temporary; and I believe, if I am not misinformed,

  1323
  that the bulk of these 51 are appointed to terminate on the 31st December, 1898; and whether they will be reappointed or not will of course depend upon the Land Commission, and upon the advice of the Chief Secretary. After all, when attacks are made upon their impartiality, it must be remembered that they are but men, and that they are liable to be swayed by the impulses that sway ordinary men, and by motives of a personal character. Considerations of a personal character are bound to operate upon the minds of these men, and when they are conscious of the fact that at the end of the present year their tenure of office will cease, unless they be reappointed, they are bound to look at the matter from a personal point of view and to bring what influence they have to bear upon those who have the giving away of these appointments. Who can doubt, with all the traditions and all the surroundings of Dublin Castle, landlord influence is overwhelming in the appointment of the Commissioners in Ireland? It is not new, it is well known to the tenant, and could not well be otherwise. From the very day of the passing of the Act in 1881, owing to the traditions and surroundings and associations in Ireland, that dominant influence proceeds from the landlord party and their friends, and it has followed as a natural consequence that the bulk of these Commissioners, unintentionally no doubt, have a leaning towards the landlord side. I think, under the circumstances, it is little short of impertinence on the part of the landlords to come forward here with their complaints of the Commissioners and the Land Act. We have heard to-night of the contention as to improvements. I think it is accepted as an element of Irish agricultural life that the whole of the improvements that have been made on Irish land have been made by the tenants. I do not know whether the House remembers that remark made by a well-known nobleman, who was neither a Home Ruler nor a tenant, nor in any way interested—I mean Lord Cowper, who, in defending the find-
  1324
  ing of his own Commission, made a remarkable statement to the House of Lords. He said it had been estimated that, taking the average of the land, rich and poor, fertile and unfertile, throughout Ireland at 10s. 6d. or 11s. an acre, the 6d. an acre would represent the landlords' improvements. In the face of a statement like that, in the face of common knowledge, we have these gentlemen coming forward and talking about deterioration, and ignoring altogether the cardinal fact that the improvements are made by the tenants, and that in so far as our rents are fixed by Commissioners or anybody else upon those improvements, a very great injustice and a legalised robbery is perpetrated against the tenants. Deterioration, as my honourable Friend said a moment ago, is well known, in Ireland; but if the tenant fixes the tenure, and his improvements are respected, you hear very little about deterioration. What is the cause of deterioration? It is this: when a tenant goes to court and finds that upon his improvements the Commissioners fix the rent, then I say it has a paralysing influence upon improvements, and is a distinct deterrent to the proper cultivation and improvement of the soil. If there is a system which paralyses the energies of the tenant it is the system of compelling him to pay rent upon improvements which he himself has made. If it be true that towards the conclusion of a statutory term there is a tendency upon the part of a tenant to allow his improvements to run out, and the farm to become deteriorated, it is entirely due to the fact that the Commissioners do not take into account and value properly the improvements made by the tenant upon the soil. This is a very important question of policy. Now, the honourable Gentleman who spoke a moment ago gave us some very important information as to these Civil Bill Courts. I ask the right honourable Gentleman, is there any other court of justice—we must call them that I suppose, the courts of fair rent—is there any other court in the three kingdoms where an appeal

  1325
  arises where a case goes to appeal before it goes to the court of first instance? Is there any other court in the world in which an appeal can be heard where one of the suitors has not been to the court below? It is a contradiction in terms. I cast my eye over a morning paper about a month ago, or a couple of months ago, and I noticed that there was an appeal in the county of Limerick—appeals are very numerous on a question of fair rent, and the reductions or increases are very small. There was one case where there was an old rent of £42, it was reduced to £32, the landlord appealed, and it was raised to £35; in that case the Commissioners never saw the land. In another case the old rent was £16, that was reduced to £13 7s., and raised on appeal to £14 8s. Now, is it comprehensible that these Commissioners can judge the value of land to 21s.? They raised the rent by 21s. Then there are cases I see where rent has been raised 5s. or 10s. on rents of £10 or £15, and the expense to the unfortunate tenants in those cases would swallow up the result of five years reduction of rent. It is to be hoped that if the Government cannot deal with any other portion of the Commission it will deal with this question of appeal, because, to be an appeal at all, it should be an appeal upon law or upon fact, and there should not be an appeal allowed where the landlord and tenant have not put in an appearance before the subsidiary Commission. There were some strictures passed upon the county court judges, as I understand, by one honourable Gentleman, but there are some cases where the county court judges give substantial reductions in rent, but in those places the landlords take their cases away from the county courts to the subsidiary Commissioners, where they know they have rights and the tenants have none. That is to be regretted, because the county court is a court of experience, and a court where a case can be heard rapidly, and where the judge is more or less conversant with the value of the land in his district, and it is a poor man's court where the tenant could get a fair rent impartially fixed without undue expense.
  MR. CLANCY: I heard the speech of the right honourable Gentleman the Chief Secretary to-night, and the honourable Member for West Belfast, and I could not help, as I heard his exordium, recollecting a speech of one of the most responsible Members of the Irish Party that ever sat in this House. The honourable Member commenced by launching a fearful indictment in general terms against the Land Commission, but when he came to particularising he dwelt on the most trivial matters imaginable. One land Commissioner went and inspected land when it was under water. Another man went and inspected land without giving the landlord notice, and so forth. The most trivial cases. If he could have proved those cases were numerous there would have been something in his complaint. If all the land Commissioners inspected the land when it was under water it would have been an extremely ridiculous proceeding, and would have been condemned in any court in the world. But it was only in one instance, and even in that instance the explanation that was given did away with the statement altogether. I do not hold a brief for the Land Commission, but all I can say is that if all that can be alleged against the Land Commission is that which is advanced by the evidence given before the Fry Commission, which the honourable Member for West Belfast read to-night, the Land Commission is thoroughly vindicated. For my own part, I am not surprised that the landlords, although they commenced this discussion, are not present here to-night. In point of fact their attack has developed into a sham battle, because the only fact of any importance whatever, in my opinion, in the Fry. Commission is that, notwithstanding the mistakes made by the Commissioners, and notwithstanding the fact that they had done wrong, the Fry Commission reports that no injustice was done to the landlords in fixing the rents; and not only that, they go further, and they endorse the statements we have made here for years, that the rents fixed by the old Commission were fixed too high.

  1327
  It is nonsense to say, especially after the report of this Commission, that no case has been made out for any fresh legislation on this subject. Some of the minor suggestions of the Commission I do not hesitate to say I would adopt myself; but what I regret is the want of permanence in the tenure of office of those Sub-Commissioners; and as to that, I really do not see the enormous difficulty in the way of the Chief Secretary, to which he alluded to-night, as to the appointment of fresh Commissioners. No doubt the work will decrease after a few years, and no doubt there may be some of those gentlemen without employment. Is that so great an evil? Are there men to administer justice in a court of this kind who can be suspected, whether rightly or wrongly, of not being the best and most efficient judges. I do not care, if he puts a permanent staff on the Land Commission, how much it costs the Treasury. I do admit from his point of view there is a difficulty in adding, without absolute necessity, a number of permanent officials. At the same time, I say there is much difference between adding to the number of permanent officials and appointing men who, I have no hesitation in saying, because they are not permanent, are not trusted by the people. He says that instead of their being distrusted they ought to be more trusted, because they do their work better. Well, now, I really thought that a man of the acute judgment and intelligence of the right honourable Gentleman would not have indulged in an argument of that kind. That argument would apply to judges of the land. There are judges who have to decide questions of law and not questions of fact, just as the judges of the High Court of Justice. To say that they would be more likely to be trusted because they would do their work better, not being permanent, is a reversal of the constitutional principle which has been enforced in this country for the last hundred years, and which it would have cost any Minister his place to try to reverse. Another suggestion of the
  1328
  Fry Commission was that there should be some approach, at all events, to establish an automatic system of fixing the rents. Of course everybody would like that if it could be accomplished; but the right honourable Gentleman was quite right in saying that when he proposed an automatic system a few years ago he got no support on the other side of the House; and if he proposes it again I for my part would oppose it again, for I believe it is better to satisfy the people that they have justice done to them than by a short and ready method to accomplish the same ends. The fact is that in Ireland, and perhaps, I fancy, in most countries as well, people like to have their cases threshed out in public—they like to have a run for their money. When they employ counsel or a solicitor they like to have the thing fought out to the bitter end; and if they are defeated, if they don't get as good a reduction of rent on the one hand, or if, on the other, the landlord does not succeed as well as he hoped, each party, if feeling perfect confidence, would under those circumstances go home more contented than he would under the most ingenious automatic system which even the right honourable Gentleman could imagine. The question of appeals was referred to; but I do not want to express for myself a deterrent opinion upon the question of appeals. But there is one case in which appeals, in my opinion, ought not to be allowed in the future. I do not know whether the thing can be accomplished without fresh legislation, but if it can be the Government ought to act on the recommendation of the Fry Commission Report or, at all events, upon the cases referred to in that Report—the passage in the Report in which mention is made of a practical command to some agent and some landlord not to appeal at all in the court below, for the express purpose of being able to go to the Court of Appeal. I think it is too bad that you should forego your opportunities of taking your case to the lower and cheaper tribunal; it is too bad to put upon the

  1329
  successful litigant the expense, trouble, inconvenience, and delay that are caused by an appeal. I suppose it cannot be accomplished by rule; but if it can be accomplished by rule, I say that the facts mentioned in the Fry Commission Report would be sufficient justification for any action that might be taken by the Government in the direction I have indicated. If no injustice has been done to the landlords in the fixing of the rents, as is made perfectly plain by the Report of the Commission, I do not admit for my part that any injustice has been done to the tenant; and I would draw the attention of the Committee to one circumstance, of which I will give proof, which came before the Fry Commission itself. The question of deterioration has been referred to to-night, and I do not want to allude to the matter. I imagine that, whatever may have been done in the past in respect to it, what is going on now proves that the tenant will not in the future get any advantage from deteriorating his holding or allowing his holding to get into a deteriorated state for the purpose of getting a low rent fixed. There is another side of the question in connection with this matter. In connection with this matter, it is notorious that rents have been fixed in Ireland without any regard to the rent paid previously by the tenant. Now, the House will be interested in one case, the figures of which I will give. In the year 1797 the rent of the farm was £76 15s. The lease expired in 1825, when the rent was raised to £90 2s. 7d. In 1846 there was a slight reduction of rent, the rent being £87 19s. 5d. The famine intervened between 1846 and 1848. The rent in 1846 accordingly was reduced to £65 19s. 6d. The notorious exterminator, John George Adair, purchased the estate in 1886, and he raised the rent from £65 19s. 6d. to £182 0s. 4d. It was evident from the raising of the rent that the farm was of more value. Who made it of more value? The tenants had made the improvements, and this man, John George Adair, in a letter to one of his
  1330
  tenants said that he could not have better tenants. Thus the improvements of those persons whose rents have been raised are confiscated. When the case came before the Land Commission, what did they do? The rent was fixed in the year 1881 at £125, that is to say, £35 higher than it had been in the best time of Irish agriculture, namely, the era of the Napoleonic wars. It is quite evident that the Land Commission made a very inadequate reduction, although the rent had been previously so high. Although the rent had been raised from £65 to £182, they had not the moral courage to cut it down. When the rent came to be fixed they fixed it at £109, or £30 higher than it was in 1825. The inference I draw from this is that the rents in such cases were fixed without regard to the increase of rent that had been made, and that the judges of the Commission exhibited in those cases—I will not say malice prepense—but a want of moral courage to cut it down; because, if they gave an adequate reduction some landlord in this House would ask a question about it, and the tenure of office would be cut very short. Well, the Fry Commission have made certain recommendations. I do not intend to dwell upon the minor recommendations of the Fry Commission. But there is one very important recommendation to which I trust the Chief Secretary will not pay any attention for his own sake and the sake of the peace of Ireland. The Fry Commission pointed out that there were two kinds of evidence offered, or possible to be offered, before tribunals for fixing rents—popular evidence, consisting of surrounding circumstances, such as the want of employment for people in the district, the scarcity of land for small tenants, and the other circumstances which have created the land hunger in Ireland and many other countries; and, on the other hand, technical evidence, namely, the evidence as to the value of the farm, its taxable capacity, and things of that kind. They pointed out that since the Act of 1886 the tendency has

  1331
  been to pay more attention to the latter kind of evidence, namely, the technical evidence. I for one rejoice at that fact. The bulk of the Commission thought that a change should be made in the law; at all events, they assumed that it could be done without a change in the law, and that rules should be made by which more attention would be given to the popular evidence. The Land Commission should make rules, making the rent of a farm dependent upon such circumstances. To introduce this popular evidence into these cases would really be going back to the system of competition rents, which we all thought was abolished by the Land Act of 1881. I maintain to do that is really to overturn the law of 1881, and all the Acts which have been passed since then. I believe the result of a change like that would be to bring about disturbances in Ireland such as gave birth to the Land League. I fancy that the Government would take a long time to deliberate before they endorsed such a change. I cannot but express the indignation that I feel that a man like Sir Edward Fry, who, one would think, was able to construe an Act like this, a distinguished jurist and a distinguished judge, should have come to the conclusion and put it on paper that within the four corners of legislation of the year 1881 it was possible to introduce a system of competition which we all thought had been abolished by the Act of 1881. I do not feel much anxiety myself, but I warn the House that if the thing is ever done they will regret it.
  MR. DILLON: My honourable and gallant friend the Member for North Armagh attacked in the most lurid and ferocious manner the working of the Land Act in Ireland. He drew a picture in which he gave the impression to anyone not acquainted with the ways of the honourable and gallant Member that the state of things was worse than in the Fiji Islands. He then returned to the terrace to smoke or have a cup of coffee, doubtless regarding the thing as a huge joke. The present display to-night is a
  1332
  demonstration of force for fear they might not get fair play in the constitution of the machinery. But who appointed the Commission and who made the machinery? Why the men whom he supports in this House, The honourable and gallant Member used extravagant and outrageous language in describing the condition of Ireland. He said it was a condition that could not exist in any other country in the world. He described it as a condition intolerable to the landlords, saying that no other civilised community of men had had similar experiences. One would have supposed that one was listening to the speech of a Home Ruler. Did he forget that all the legislation and this machinery was the product of the best wisdom of this great House? If this is all the Union can do for the honourable and gallant Member, the sooner he becomes a Home Ruler the better, and attempt to improve this abominable state of things. He said Irish landlords were placed at the mercy of itinerant or peripatetic three-guinea-a-day men. Who appointed them, and to whom are they responsible? We don't like these itinerant three-guinea-a-day men any more than the honourable and gallant Gentleman. That is one point which has emerged from this discussion on which we all agree. These men are responsible for the rents to the Government the landlords are supporting-There was no reality whatever in the absurd and high-falutin' complaint made by the honourable and gallant Member to-day. I turn to the Report of the Fry Commission. I must say that, in my opinion, some of the honourable Members who have spoken to-day on behalf of the tenants have greatly minimised the importance of that Report. I regard it as a very important Report. I think that a more dangerous or mischievous document has not been launched since the Act of 1881. Why was the Fry Commission appointed? I recollect that we were kept up in this House night after night in an outrageous attempt to drive through the House of Commons in the

  1333
  small hours the Land Bill of 1896, which has been described as the worst-drafted and most unintelligible Measure ever passed through the House. I remember we were solaced by the consolation that this was going to finally settle the Irish land question. We have often heard that before; but on this occasion we were assured that if we only sat up till five o'clock in the morning every night for a week or ten days we would get rid of the Irish question, and that it would not trouble us any more. The ink was hardly dry, the Measure had only been in operation six months, when the landlords came clamouring to Lord Salisbury, and under the advice of Lord Salisbury they instituted an agitation which resulted in the appointment of the Commission; so that before a year was over we were launched again on the old familiar question of the Irish land. The Irish land question was opened up again, and it ripped up some of the most contentious matters in the question, as the right honourable Gentleman will find before he is very much older. I was greatly struck the other day in reading the Morning Post, a newspaper that speaks for a large class of the supporters of the right honourable Gentleman. The Morning Post said that the Fry Commission had achieved one of its main objects already, because it had frightened the irresponsible men who had been going about Ireland keeping down the rents of Irish land to an intolerable extent. That is a perfectly true and just comment on the action of the Fry Commission. There is not the slightest doubt that the opinion of that Commission has been apparent in the Land Commission. Since then the nation and the tenants have been treated in a very different way from what they were before the document was issued. I believe that was one of the objects for which the Fry Commission was appointed. It was sop thrown to the landlords, and to some extent to buy off their clamour; and another object was to intimidate the itinerant three-guinea-a-day Sub-Com-
  1334
  missioners. It is curious to note the extraordinary difference in the comments of the English Press from time to time. I am not going to go into this Commission at great length, but I desire to say I differ from some men on these benches in treating the Report as a document of little or no importance. I think it is a most mischievous document. We never recognised the Fry Commission as an impartial or independent tribunal. It was presided over by a man eminent in the knowledge of the law and of high character. But a man more unfit to investigate the problem of Irish land tenure I could not possibly conceive. He was a man of great and acute intellect and of the highest possible character, but a man steeped to the lips in the knowledge and traditions and prejudices of English equity law, and he went to Ireland prejudiced most violently against all the obligations of the Land Commission and the whole system on which it was based. He was the author, I believe, of a great and classical treatise on contracts; and he was sent over, forsooth, as the judge. I could see from the moment he took his seat in court that his whole attitude was as if he had been sent out to investigate the systems of the Fiji Islanders. His whole manner was one of ill-concealed disgust at the system which he was going to investigate. If he had taken tea on the Terrace with the honourable and gallant Member he would have joined him in denouncing the system of Ireland. I say that without desiring to utter anything disrespectful or uncivil to Mr. Justice Fry, for whom I retain a very great respect in some regards. I say that he showed at the outset of these proceedings, so long as I was present in the court, a marked bias against the tenants, both by the questions he put and by his treatment of the witnesses. He refused to recognise it as a fair or impartial tribunal. There were only two points that were before that Commission to which I will call attention. First of all I will take the point about fair rents, to which the honourable Member for North

  1335
  Dublin has alluded. One of the most important paragraphs in that Report deals with the question of the valuation of fair rents. They say that an early decision of Mr. Justice O'Hagan excluded from evidence on the fixing of fair rent the letting value or judicial rent of other buildings. That early decision of Mr. Justice O'Hagan was the corner-stone of settling fair rents in Ireland. They deliberately go on to say that the decision should be set aside and neglected, and that in future the question of rents for land should be admitted in evidence. If that recommendation of the Commission is carried out—and it can be carried out, because the present practice is based, not upon a rule of the court, but on the decision of Mr. Justice O'Hagan—if that decision and that practice be reversed, then I say the whole country will be in a state of chaos, confusion, and disorder on the part of the tenants. This Report goes on at great length to define what a fair rent is—a very dangerous undertaking, because they state in the Report that in the 18 years during which this Commission has been sitting in Ireland fixing judicial rents no judicial person has ever attempted to give a judicial definition of a fair rent. But Mr. Justice Fry, running in where angels fear to tread, has undertaken in this document to define a fair rent; and I say that by his definition, if attempted to be carried into effect, the Land Act of 1881, as we have understood it for the last 18 years in Ireland, will be practically repealed, and the whole thing will be thrown into the melting-pot again and will have to be settled again. There is one other point which has not been alluded to. At the end of the Report are some paragraphs dealing with purchase which are an outrage upon the tenant. This Commission deliberately recognises that where the landlord and tenant agree on a price, no matter what that price may be—it may be 40 years' purchase or it may be 50 years' purchase—the State is bound to advance that sum without reference to the char-
  1336
  acter of the security. A more monstrous proposal was never heard of. It is in the interests of the present beau-ideal scheme of the Irish landlords. If the landlord put his son into occupation and agreed to sell the farm at four times its value the State would advance the money. All that would be necessary would be to have a collusive arrangement with relatives and make the application, and the State would shut its eyes to the arrangement. Then the next paragraph is quite as bad—
  "We are further of opinion that, where the purchase is made within a fixed period, say five years from the fixing of a fair rent, and the purchase-money does not exceed, say, eighteen years' purchase of the fair rent, that price ought to be accepted by the Purchase Department as the sum to be advanced by the State, without inspection, except to the extent of ascertaining that the purchasers are the actual occupants."
  That is to say, this precious Commission desires to take away a right which always existed—of inspecting the holding and seeing whether there is a proper security for the advance to be made. That is a very fair specimen of the character of the proposals of the Commission and the general attitude of mind in which this Commission approached the consideration of the question. The landlords of Ireland have undoubtedly got a very strong Government behind them, and it has rewarded them; they have got the Irish Party considerably weakened by divisions and splits; they have got quiet and peace in the country; and now they are not content with the enormous advantage they have reaped under these peculiar circumstances. They are prepared to take still further advantage of their strong position. They may or they may not succeed. To some extent they may succeed. They have succeeded during the winter in modifying to a considerable extent the action of the Commission. But, Sir, this kind of proceeding always provokes a reaction; and I hope the time will come, and that before very long, when the Chief Secretary and the landlords will forget the Fry Commission ever was appointed.
  MR. DALY: I would rather never hear anything in this House about the Chief Secretary having to make any appointments of Sub-Commissioners. To my mind this war and struggle in Ireland will never be settled except by selling the land to the tenants of Ireland. That, Mr. Lowther, is the solution of the land question; and I would like to see the right honourable Gentleman the First Lord of the Treasury taking up this matter and endeavouring to place the tenants of Ireland in the holdings they have earned by their industry and sweat and labour. There never will be peace or contentment in Ireland so long as there are landlords, and tenants in Ireland. I would like the right honourable Gentleman to take this into his favourable consideration and settle the vexed question between landlord and tenant once for all. I believe the landlords would be very glad at the present moment to get rid of their estates. If you believe my honourable Friend below the Gangway, he is simply a martyr in Ireland. The experience of the Commission in Ireland has not been such as to afford an inducement to appeal. The right honourable Gentleman the Member for the Ripon Division of Yorkshire was quite at a loss to know why there was such a number of appeals in Ireland. This is an illustration of how honourable Gentlemen who represent English constituencies intervene occasionally in Irish Debates, knowing absolutely nothing about the circumstances of which they are talking. I could at once have told him the solution. The solution is that the landlords succeed so well before the Commission that it is no wonder there is such a large number of appeals with heavy costs against the tenant. I was very sorry, after the Chief Secretary had tried to hold the scales pretty equally between both parties, that he should have made the statement as to deterioration. Now, anybody who knows anything about holdings in Ireland must think it simply absurd that for a paltry reduction of perhaps 2s. per acre a farmer would deteriorate his land. That statement, coming from the right honourable Gentleman who represents this Government in Ireland, was hardly one we should expect
  1338
  from him. I would expect that he would know more about the circumstances of the farmers and how injurious it would be for a farmer to allow his holding to deteriorate for the paltry sum of 2s. per acre, which is about the average reduction that is given by the Commission at the present moment. I heard the honourable and gallant Gentleman sneer at the fixing of fair rents by the county court method; he scoffed at the idea of the valuation of a county court judge. It is a wonderful change when we find the honourable and gallant Gentleman beginning to scoff at the chairman of the quarter sessions. I am beginning to hope that he will soon be a Home Ruler. When we on this side attacked the county court judges in Ireland we had the honourable and gallant Gentleman defending them. It is an extraordinary thing to see him denouncing his friends of former days. I do not stand here for the purpose of defending county court judges; I leave them to settle the affair between them. The honourable and gallant Member has quoted the Fry Commission. Does he forget that Dr. Trail was one of those who demanded a Royal Commission for the purpose of doing justice to the clan that the honourable and gallant Member belongs to? And Dr. Trail is one of the gentlemen who are expected to bring in an impartial Report after impartially considering the case of the tenant farmers of Ireland. I say that the Fry Commission paid no respect whatever to the claims of the tenant farmers of Ireland; and even if the Fry Commission had brought in a Report recommending the Government to bundle the tenant farmers, bag and baggage, out of the country, not the smallest attention would have been paid to it by the tenant farmers. From first to last they believed that that was a packed Commission instituted for the purpose of bringing in rules which would counteract and cripple the Land Act passed in 1896. We were kept here till five or six in the morning, sometimes till nine in the morning, for the purpose of passing that Act in the year 1896. The honourable Member for South Tyrone stated in Tyrone recently that the Land Act was not being carried out as was intended by the Legislature,

  1339
  and that the tenants were being deprived of the benefits that Parliament intended them to have. That speaks volumes for the way in which the Land Act is administered. The Land Act of last year was intended for the improvement of the tenant farmers of Ireland, but it has turned out to be not of the slightest use. Any benefits conferred on the tenant farmers by the Act of 1896 or the Act of last year have been entirely nullified by the Royal Commission. I believe that the Fry Commission has done a great deal of harm to the tenant farmers with regard to the fixing of their rents; and nothing will convince me but that a peasant proprietary is the only solution of this unfortunate land question. The endeavour to fix fair rents has cost an enormous amount of money, and even now the landlords do not seem to be satisfied and the tenants are not satisfied. I would again appeal to the First Lord of the Treasury that he would endeavour to bring in some legislation which will enable the tenant farmers of Ireland to become the owners of their holdings. I know that it is a very big order; but after what we have been of the right honourable Gentleman during the passage of the Local Government Bill I have considerable confidence in him—a great deal more than I have in the Chief Secretary for Ireland—and I think if there is any right honourable Gentleman who would be capable of settling this long outstanding and much-vexed question between the landlord and the tenant it is the right honourable Gentleman himself.
  Vote agreed to.

  CLASS VII.
  "£13,792, to complete the sum for salaries and expenses of temporary commissioners, committees, and special inquiries."
  Vote agreed to.
  "£50,000, including grants in aid, in connection with the relief of distress in Ireland."
  MR. DAVITT: I rise, not with the intention of discussing this Vote at this late hour, having regard to the exhausted state in which the Committee
  1340
  must find itself after an almost continuous sitting for the last 48 hours, but I should like to find some opportunity of raising the question in a non-party spirit in order to discuss the subject of some permanent remedy for this recurring evil. I believe the opinions on these benches differ very little from the opinions held on the other side of the House with regard to this matter. We all agree that if a remedy can be found for this chronic distress it should be at once applied. I know that the right honourable Gentleman—and this is not the first time the observation has been made from these benches—has always shown a very keen and earnest sympathy with the condition of the people in the west of Ireland. If he will give us two or three hours on some available occasion before the Appropriation Bill comes up for discussion we will now allow this Vote to go. I sincerely hope that he will give a favourable response to this request. I would remind him, in this connection, that last year Irish Supply was discussed during four days, whereas during this Session we have only had three. Therefore I am not making, I hope, an unreasonable request when I suggest that in order to discuss this matter the right honourable Gentleman should give us two or three hours upon some convenient day.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I quite appreciate the spirit in which the honourable Member has made the observations to the Committee which have just fallen from him. It is perfectly true, as he has said, that last year Ireland had four days for Supply, and that this is only the end of the third day which has been allotted to the Irish Estimates during the Session. He is as well acquainted as I am, I think, with the present position of Supply, and he probably, therefore, knows that I cannot give any pledges with regard to further time for the Estimates other than those that I have already made to the House as to matters requiring general discussion; but I am not without hope that there may be some opportunity found for further discussion, and I confess that if we have a discussion for two or three hours in a purely non-party spirit upon so important

  1341
  and interesting a subject as the application of a permanent remedy to the evil of distress in the West of Ireland I myself should regard that time as well spent.
  Mr. FLYNN: It would have been perfectly easy for us to have raised this matter in another form. We might have raised a discussion upon the Vote for the Congested Districts Board. I hope the right honourable Gentleman will see his way to give us some little more definite information as to the Congested Districts Board Vote being brought on at a time which will allow of ample discussion. I think, considering the way the other Votes have been allowed to pass, this is not an unreasonable request. If the right honourable Gentleman will give us some definite undertaking that before very long we shall have this opportunity it would give great satisfaction on this side of the House. Nothing has been more painful for us in connection with this distress than to have to make these appeals, whether in the form of questions or in Debate upon the Chief Secretary's salary. I hope the right honourable Gentleman will see his way to give some reasonable time for a general discussion.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: I do not know that I can go beyond what I have already said—that I will endeavour, if I possibly can, to find an opportunity for the discussion.
  Vote agreed to.

  CLASS II.
  "£2,835, to complete the sum for salaries and expenses of the Lord Lieutenant's household."
  Motion made, and Question proposed—
  "That a sum, not exceeding £27,932, be granted to Her Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1899, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Offices of the Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant in Dublin and London, and subordinate Departments."
  MR. DILLON: There are some very important questions that we desire to raise
  1342
  on this Vote; and I beg to move to report Progress.
  THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY: It is not worth while putting the Motion. We will withdraw this Vote and take it next week.
  Motion, by leave, withdrawn.
  "£1,261, to complete the sum for Charitable Donations and Bequests Office, Ireland."
  "£3,940, to complete the sum for Public Record Office, Ireland."
  "£10,596, to complete the sum for Registrar General's Office, Ireland."
  "£7,100, to complete the sum for Valuation and Boundary Survey, Ireland."
  Resolutions to be reported.

  CLASS III.
  Motion made, and Question proposed—
  "That a sum, not exceeding £77,151, be granted to Her Majesty to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in, course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1899, for the salaries, allowances, expenses, and pensions of various County Court Officers, of Commissioners, and of Magistrates in Ireland, and the expenses of revision."
  Motion made, and Question put—
  "That the Chairman do report progress, and ask leave to sit again."—(Mr. Dillon.)
  Agreed to.

BILLS ADVANCED.
  VEXATIOUS ACTIONS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  As amended (by the Standing Committee), considered; Read the third time, and passed.

  MUSSEL FISHERIES (IRELAND) BILL.
  (Considered in Committee.)
  An Amendment made.
  Bill reported as amended.
  Bill read third time and passed.

  METROPOLITAN COMMONS BILL.
  Considered in Committee, and reported without Amendment; Bill read the third time, and passed.

  TRUSTS (SCOTLAND) BILL.
  Order for Committee read.
  (Considered in Committee.)
  Amendments proposed—

  CLAUSE 2.
  "Page 1, line 12, leave out 'expression,' and insert 'expressions "local authority," and.'"
  "Page 1, line 13, leave out 'has,' and insert 'have respectively.'"
  "Page 1, line 13, leave out 'meaning,' and insert 'meanings.'"
  "Page 1, line 21, leave out from 'any' to 'in,' in line 22, and insert 'local authority.'"
  "Page 1, line 25, leave out from 'by' to 'in,' and insert 'any local authority.'"
  "Page 2, line 2, leave out 'county council,' and insert 'local authority.'"
  "Page 2, lines 2 and 3, leave out 'the county council,' and insert 'such local authority.'"—(Mr. Caldwell.)
  Amendments agreed to.
  Bill reported as amended.

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT (IRELAND) BILL.
  On the Motion for the Adjournment of the House,
  MR. T. M. HEALY: I would like to ask whether it would be possible to reprint the Local Government (Ireland) Bill before it comes on for Third Reading? It would be very convenient for honourable Members to be able to follow exactly the Amendments that have been made.
  THE FINANCIAL SECRETARY TO THE TREASURY (Mr. HANBURY): It would be impossible to print the Bill in time; but the Bill will of course be reprinted before it goes to the Lords.

BILLS WITHDRAWN.
  FACTORIES AND WORKSHOPS (EMERGENCY PROCESSES) BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged; Bill withdrawn.

  DOGS REGULATION BILL.
  Order for Second Reading read, and discharged; Bill withdrawn.
  House adjourned at 12.15.